fell into step beside her. ‘What do you mean?’
She paused in the corridor, looking him up and down. ‘You’re too good to be true. Which means alarm bells are ringing in my head. What’s with the nice-boy act?’
She pulled up the laptop from the nurses’ station and started to input some of Mrs Kelly’s details.
‘Who says it’s an act?’
Her eyes swept down the corridor. The case-note trolley had been pulled to the end of the corridor. Two other doctors in white coats were standing, talking over some notes. She looked at her watch—not even eight o’clock. ‘And who are they?’
Brad smiled. ‘That’s the other registrars. Luca is from Italy, and Franco is from Hungary. They must have wanted to get a head start on the ward round.’ He gave her a brazen wink. ‘I guess they heard the Dragon Lady was on duty today.’
She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I go on secondment for three months, come back and I’ve got the poster boy for Surfers’ Paradise making tea and toast for patients and two other registrars in the ward before eight a.m. Am I still dreaming? Have I woken up yet?’
‘Why?’ As quick as a flash he’d moved around beside her. ‘Am I the kind of guy you dream about?’
‘Get lost, flyboy.’ She pushed Mrs Kelly’s case notes back into his hands. ‘You’ve got a patient’s daughter in Australia to go and phone. Make yourself useful while I go and find out what kind of support system she has at home.’
He paused for a second, his eyes narrowing. ‘She’s not even heated up the bed yet and you’re planning on throwing her back out?’
Cassidy frowned. ‘It’s the basic principle of the receiving unit. Our first duty is to find out what systems are in place for our patients. Believe it or not, most of them don’t like staying here. And if we plan ahead it means there’s less chance of a delayed discharge. Sometimes it can take a few days to set up support systems to get someone home again.’ She raised her hand to the whiteboard with patient names. ‘In theory, we’re planning for their discharge as soon as they enter A and E.’
The look on his face softened. ‘In that case, I’ll let you off.’ He nodded towards his fellow doctors. ‘Maybe they got the same alarm call that I did. Beware the Dragon!’ He headed towards the doctors’ office to make his call.
Dragon Lady was much more interesting than he’d been led to believe. He’d expected a sixty-year-old, grey-haired schoolmarm. Instead he’d got a young woman with a slim, curvy figure, chestnut curls and deep brown eyes. And she was feisty. He liked that.
Cassidy Rae could be fun. There it was, that strange, almost unfamiliar feeling. That first glimmer of interest in a woman. That tiny little thought that something could spark between them given half a chance. It had been so long since he’d felt it that he almost didn’t know what to do about it.
He’d been here a few months, and while his colleagues were friendly, they weren’t his ‘friends’. And he didn’t want to hang around with the female junior doctors currently batting their eyelids at him. Experience had taught him it was more trouble than it was worth.
Distraction. The word echoed around his head again as he leaned against the cold concrete wall.
Exactly what he needed. Something to keep his mind from other things—like another Christmas Day currently looming on the horizon with a huge black storm-cloud hovering over it. He’d even tried to juggle the schedules so he could be working on Christmas Day. But no such luck. His Italian colleague had beat him to it, and right now he couldn’t bear the thought of an empty Christmas Day in strange surroundings with no real friends or family.
Another Christmas spent wondering where his little girl was, if she was enjoying her joint birthday and Christmas Day celebrations. Wondering if she even remembered he existed.
He had no idea what she’d been told about him. The fact he’d spent the last eighteen months trying to track down his daughter at great time and expense killed him—especially in the run-up to her birthday. Everyone else around him was always full of festive spirit and fun, and no matter how hard he tried not to be the local misery guts, something inside him just felt dead.
Christmas was about families and children. And the one thing he wanted to do was sit his little girl on his knee and get her the biggest birthday and Christmas present in the world. If only he knew where she was …
There was that fist again, hovering around his stomach, tightly clenched. Every time he thought of his daughter, Melody, the visions of her mother, Alison, a junior doctor he’d worked with, appeared in his head. Alison, the woman who only liked things her way or no way at all. No negotiation. No compromise.
More importantly, no communication.
The woman who’d left a bitter taste in his mouth for the last eighteen months. Blighting every other relationship he’d tried to have. The woman who’d wrangled over every custody arrangement, telling him he was impinging on her life. Then one day that had been it. Nothing. He’d gone to pick up two-year-old Melody as planned and had turned up at an empty house. No forwarding address. Nothing.
The colleagues at the hospital where Alison had worked said she’d thought about going to America—apparently she’d fallen head over heels in love with some American doctor. But no one knew where. And he’d spent the last few years getting his solicitor to chase false leads halfway around the world. It had taken over his whole world. Every second of every day had revolved around finding his daughter. Until he’d finally cracked and some good friends had sat him down firmly and spoken to him.
It had only been in the last few months, since moving to Scotland, that he’d finally started to feel like himself again. His laid-back manner had returned, and he’d finally started to relax and be comfortable in his own skin again.
While he would still do everything in his power to find his daughter, he had to realise his limitations. He had to accept the fact he hadn’t done anything wrong and he still deserved to live a life.
And while the gaggle of nurses and female junior doctors didn’t appeal to him, Cassidy Rae did. She was a different kettle of fish altogether. A fierce, sassy woman who could help him make some sparks fly. A smile crept over his face. Now there was just the small matter of the duty room to break to her. How would she react to that?
Cassidy went back to Mrs Kelly and finished her admission paperwork, rechecked her obs and helped her wash and change into a clean nightdress. By the time she’d finished, Mrs Kelly was clearly out of breath again. Even the slightest exertion seemed to fatigue her.
Cassidy hung the IV antibiotics from the drip stand and connected up the IV. ‘These will take half an hour to go through. The doctor has changed the type of antibiotic that you’re on so hopefully they’ll be more effective than the ones you were taking at home.’
Mrs Kelly nodded. ‘Thanks, love. He’s a nice one, isn’t he?’ There was a little pause. ‘And he’s single. Told me so himself.’
‘Who?’ Cassidy had started to tidy up around about her, putting away the toilet bag and basin.
‘That handsome young doctor. Reminds of that guy on TV. You know, the one from the soap opera.’
Cassidy shook her head. ‘I don’t watch soap operas.
