you can’t keep me?’
‘I imagine A and E will have a whole load of patients waiting for you. Why did you come up here anyway? Was it to steal our chocolates?’ She nodded towards the nursing station. The medical receiving unit was never short of chocolates, and it wasn’t unknown for the doctors from other departments to sneak past and steal some.
He shook his head, the smile still stuck on his face. He held out his hand towards her. ‘I forgot to introduce myself earlier. I’m one of yours—though I dread to think what nickname you’ll give me. Brad Donovan, medical registrar.’
Cassidy felt herself jerk backwards in surprise. He looked too young to be a medical registrar. Maybe it was the scruffy hair? Or the Australian tan? Or maybe it was that earring glinting in his ear, along with the super-white teeth? He didn’t look like any registrar she’d ever met before.
Something twisted inside her gut. No, that wasn’t quite true. Bobby. For a tiny second he reminded her of Bobby. But Bobby’s hair had been dark, not blond, and he’d worn it in a similar scruffy style and had the same glistening white teeth. She pushed all thoughts away. She hadn’t thought about him in months. Where had that come from?
She focused her mind. This was a work colleague—albeit a cheeky one. She shook his hand firmly. ‘Well, Dr Donovan, if you’re one of mine then maybe I should tell you the rules in my ward.’
His eyebrows rose, an amused expression on his face. ‘You really are the Dragon Lady, aren’t you?’
She ignored him. ‘When you finally manage to put some clothes on, no silly ties. In fact, no ties at all and no long sleeves. They’re an infection-control hazard.’ She ran her eyes up and down his crumpled scrubs, ‘Though from the look of you, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Always use the gel outside the patients’ rooms before you touch them. And pay attention to what my nurses tell you—they spend most of their day with the patients and will generally know the patients ten times better than you will.’
His blue eyes fixed on hers. Quite unnerving for this time in the morning. His gaze was straight and didn’t falter. The guy was completely unfazed by her. He seemed confident, self-assured. She would have to wait and see if his clinical competence matched his demeanour.
‘I have been working here for the last two months without your rulebook. I’m sure your staff will give me a good report.’ She resisted the temptation to reply. Of course her staff would give him a good report. He was like a poster boy for Surfers’ Central. She could put money on it that he’d spent the last two months charming her staff with his lazy accent, straight white teeth and twinkling eyes. He handed her Mrs Kelly’s case notes and prescription chart.
‘I’ve written Mrs Kelly up for some IV antibiotics, some oral steroids and some bronchodilators. She had her arterial blood gases done in A and E and I’ll check them again in a few hours. I’d like her on four-hourly obs in the meantime.’ He glanced at the oxygen supply, currently running at four litres. ‘Make sure she stays on the twenty-eight per cent venturi mask. One of the students in A and E didn’t understand the complications of COPD and put her on ten litres of straight oxygen.’
Cassidy’s mouth fell open. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
He shook his head. The effects could have been devastating. ‘Her intentions were good. Mrs Kelly’s lips were blue from lack of oxygen when she was admitted. The student just did what seemed natural. Luckily one of the other staff spotted her mistake quickly.’
Cassidy looked over at the frail, elderly lady on the bed, her oxygen mask currently dangling around her neck as she munched the toast from the plate in front of her. The blue tinge had obviously disappeared from her lips, but even eating the toast was adding to her breathlessness. She turned back to face Brad. ‘Any relatives?’
He shook his head. ‘Her husband died a few years ago and her daughter emigrated to my neck of the woods ten years before that.’ He pointed to a phone number in the records. ‘Do you want me to phone her, or do you want to do that?’
Cassidy felt a little pang. This poor woman must be lonely. She’d lost her husband, and her daughter lived thousands of miles away. Who did she speak to every day? One of the last elderly patients admitted to her ward had disclosed that often he went for days without a single person to speak to. Loneliness could be a terrible burden.
The doctor passed in front of her vision again, trying to catch her attention, and she pushed the uncomfortable thoughts from her head. This one was definitely too good to be true. Bringing up a patient, making tea and toast, and offering to phone relatives?
Her internal radar started to ping. She turned to Mrs Kelly. ‘I’ll let you finish your tea and come back in a few minutes.
‘What are you up to?’ She headed out the door towards the nursing station.
He 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