ED Director next. She was standing at the whiteboard behind the triage desk, updating the list. ‘Brenda, have you got anyone urgent for me or can I take Bailey Evans?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got his brother having X-rays taken and I think they’d like to be together while they wait for their mother.’
Brenda scanned the board quickly before she nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said as she added a note on the board beside Bailey’s name. ‘According to the ambos he’s got a head laceration that might need stitching. Your call, once you’ve cleaned him up.’
Maia introduced herself to Bailey as she pushed his wheelchair into the cubicle beside Adam’s. They could talk to each other through the curtain while she cleaned Bailey’s cuts—she didn’t think Adam needed to watch that—but once they were both taken care of she could pull back the curtain and they could wait together.
Maia gently lifted the dressing on Bailey’s head. It was soaked in blood from a nasty cut that ran along his hairline. The paramedics had been right; the gash would probably need a few stitches. She re-covered the wound with fresh padding and called for a doctor. The wound would need to be cleaned but she knew the doctor would administer a local anaesthetic and she preferred to wait for that before she started cleaning. She would make a start on his other more straightforward injuries while she waited. She could see several cuts on his hands and knees as well as on his face and head.
‘How did you get all of these cuts?’ she asked him.
‘Some of the windows in the bus exploded when the bus rolled over.’
‘The bus rolled over?’ Maia hadn’t been aware of that part.
Bailey nodded his head.
‘The bus driver swerved so hard to miss the landslide that the bus crashed through the rail on the side of the road and rolled down the hill.’ Adam’s voice came through the curtain, explaining the sequence of events.
‘You didn’t tell me that part before, Adam.’
‘That wasn’t the bit where I hurt my knee,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘The window next to me smashed,’ Bailey added. ‘And then some of us had to break the emergency window and crawl out that way. That’s how I cut my hands and knees.’
Maia picked fragments of glass out of his wounds, disinfected them and bandaged them before she tackled his face and head. She cleaned the cuts and scratches on his face before she carefully unwrapped the dressing on his head.
The curtain rustled on its tracking, flicking open to admit Henry. ‘This is Bailey, Adam’s brother,’ Maia told him. ‘He’s got a laceration on his head that needs cleaning and suturing.’
She removed the dressing again for Henry to take a look. He nodded, agreeing with her assessment.
Maia handed him the local anaesthetic, pre-empting his request, and then prepared a suture kit while they waited for the anaesthetic to kick in. They worked smoothly together, their moves practised as Henry chatted to Bailey about cricket and rugby. Maia loved rugby but didn’t really understand the attraction of cricket and she wasn’t interested in listening to them discuss their favourite teams and players. She was busy thinking about other things. She was standing beside Henry’s right shoulder, snipping the thread each time he finished a stitch. She didn’t need to focus; her mind was free to wander and she let it drift as she watched his fingers pinch and move as he deftly sewed up Bailey’s head wound.
He looked like he was conducting a mini-orchestra. His hands moved to their own silent beat. His fingers were long and slender, his forearms were strong. He was wearing a short-sleeved surgical top, a dark blue one that made his eyes look even darker than usual, and his olive skin was lightly tanned, even though he’d just returned from a Northern Hemisphere winter. She wondered what colour the skin under his clothes was.
That was a dangerous direction for her thoughts to take. She quickly tried to think about something else. She breathed deeply as she tried to refocus her mind. But all that happened was she breathed in Henry. She was standing so close to him that all she could smell was the scent of clean laundry and that citrus-and-cedar aftershave, and every breath she took filled her senses.
‘Henry?’
Brenda stuck her head around the curtain and Maia jumped. She felt a guilty flush steal across her cheeks even though she was guilty of nothing more than wayward thoughts. But Brenda’s appearance was enough to break the spell. Maia took a small step back, putting a little bit of distance between Henry and her.
‘Adam’s X-rays are back.’
‘Okay. Can you put the dressing on?’ Henry asked as Maia cut the final thread. ‘I’ll follow up on Adam.’
Henry swapped cubicles and Maia breathed out. She hadn’t realised that she’d been holding her breath but it must have been protective tendencies. If she couldn’t smell Henry, she could think. It was good that he was gone. She needed a bit of distance. Despite telling herself that Henry’s return didn’t matter and that it wasn’t going to affect her, she knew that was a lie. She hoped he’d spend a lot of time in Theatre and on the wards—anywhere away from Emergency. She didn’t know how she could be expected to function normally if she had to work closely with him.
She put a new dressing on Bailey’s head and pulled the curtain back so the boys could see each other. Henry had his back to her as he studied Adam’s X-rays. He held them up to the light and Maia was about to leave him to it when she heard Carrie’s voice on the other side of the curtain, and another stranger came into the cubicle. Another woman. But this time Maia knew immediately who she was. The boys’ mother. It wasn’t that she looked particularly like them but Maia could tell by the way she rushed in and ignored the adults in the room completely as she sought out her children. Maia might as well have been invisible. The woman hesitated for just a fraction as if trying to choose which of her sons to hug first but chose Bailey. He was closer.
Henry turned around at the sound of a new voice and Maia noted the woman’s double-take when she saw Henry. As concerned as she was for her children, part of her, possibly just her female hormones, still couldn’t help reacting to Henry. It seemed he wasn’t quite as invisible as Maia was. Not that Maia could blame her. There weren’t many people, men or women, who were immune to Henry’s looks. He was a strikingly handsome man. Maia’s glance went instinctively to the woman’s left hand to see if she was single. Not that it was any of her business. She tried not to care but she didn’t want other people noticing Henry. Although she knew that was impossible.
‘Mrs Evans?’ Henry queried as the woman kissed Bailey and then moved over to hug Adam. ‘I’m Dr Henry Cavanaugh,’ he went on when she nodded. ‘I’m an emergency specialist at the hospital and Maia and I have been treating your sons. They are both fine. They’ve sustained relatively minor injuries but, all things considered, they’ve been very lucky. Bailey has a few small cuts that have been cleaned and dressed but he also had one larger gash on his head which required ten stitches—just here.’ Henry touched his own head just at his hairline. ‘He’ll need to get those out in a week. Your GP might be happy to do it or you can bring him in here.
‘Adam has a fractured knee cap,’ Henry continued as he slid one of the X-rays into the light box on the wall. This X-ray showed a lateral view and Maia could see the dark line indicating the break running across the middle of Adam’s patella. Henry traced his finger over the line. His fingers were slender and capable, his hands smooth and hairless. Maia forced her attention back to the matter at hand and listened as Henry told Mrs Evans what had happened. She needed to pay attention;
