Juan had quite a reputation, and even just writing his name down would have a few staff scurrying off to check their make-up and hair.
Cate refused to.
Washing her hands before heading back out to the patients, she saw her reflection in the mirror. Yes, her shoulder-length hair could do with being re-tied and her serious hazel eyes might look better with a slick of mascara, but she simply refused to make that effort for Juan.
She wasn’t about to play with fire.
With three older brothers who had all been wild, to say the least, not a lot shocked the rather sensible Cate, but Juan managed to at times—either with his daredevil sports or with the endless women he briefly bedded. He raised more than a few eyebrows when he happily regaled his colleagues with tales of his trip around Australia, but what shocked Cate most was the internal fight she was having to put up to not simply give in to that sensual smile and dive headfirst into his bed.
They had hit the ground flirting but then Cate had backed off—soon realising that Juan and his rather reprobate ways were far more than she could handle.
Cate had returned from two weeks’ annual leave, newly single after breaking up with her boyfriend of more than two years, and her stomach had turned over at the very sight of Juan. She’d never had such a violent reaction to anyone and, foolishly, she had told herself she was just testing out her flirting wings on the sexy locum, just indulging in a little play flirt the first time they had met.
Cate had never really thought he’d ask her to join him for a drink that night, though his eyes had said bed.
She still burnt at the memory of their first meeting—the rush that had come as she’d met his grey eyes, the desire to say yes, to hell with it all, for once to give in and choose to be reckless. Instead, she had refused his offer politely and, in the few times she’d seen him since then, Cate had played things down—denied the attraction that sizzled between them and tried her best to keep things strictly about work.
‘Juan is a very good doctor, though,’ Cate reminded Harry, because even if Juan was a bit of a rake, there was no disputing that fact.
‘Yes, but his talent’s wasted,’ Harry said, but then sighed. ‘Maybe I’m just envious.’
‘I’ve never met a more talented emergency doctor than you,’ Cate said, and she meant it. Harry was a fantastic emergency doctor as well as a highly renowned hand surgeon, only it wasn’t Juan’s medical talent that Harry was referring to.
‘I meant maybe I’m envious of Juan’s freedom, his take-it-or-leave-it attitude. He actually doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks. It would be lovely just to work one or two shifts a week and spend the rest of the time kicking back!’ Harry gave a wry smile. ‘But, then, Juan doesn’t have four-year-old twins to worry about. Make that, Juan doesn’t have anything to worry about.’
‘Are things not getting any better?’ Cate asked. She liked Harry a lot and had been devastated for him when his wife had been brought in last year after a car crash. Jill had died two weeks later in ICU, leaving Harry a single father to his young twins, Charlotte and Adam.
‘The nanny just handed in her notice,’ Harry said. ‘Another one!’
Cate gave a sympathetic groan but Harry just rolled his eyes and headed back out to deal with the patients. ‘It will sort itself out,’ Harry said.
‘Ooh!’ Kelly smiled when she saw Juan’s name up on the board. ‘That just brightened up my afternoon! With a bit of luck Juan will come out for drinks with us tonight after work.’ Kelly winked.
‘I’m sure that he will,’ Cate said. ‘I can’t make it, though.’
‘Come on, Cate,’ Kelly pushed. ‘You said that you would. It’s Friday night, you can’t sit around moping about Paul…’
‘I’m not moping about Paul. When I said that I’d come out, I didn’t realise that I was working in the morning,’ Cate lied.
‘But you said that you’d drive,’ Kelly reminded her. ‘It’s still a week till payday.’
Yes, Cate thought, she had said she’d drive but that had been before she had known Juan would be working into the evening—he wasn’t exactly known for turning down a night out.
Juan worked to live rather than lived to work—that had been his explanation when he had irked Harry by turning down his job offer. Juan had told Harry that he would prefer to work casual shifts at various Mel-bourne hospitals rather than be tied to one place. And, given he only worked one or two shifts a week, it had been thanks but, no, thanks from Juan. Cate had been surprised that Harry had even offered him the role.
He was, though, an amazing doctor.
He was amazing, Cate conceded to herself as she went to help Kelly make up some fresh gurneys and do a quick tidy of the cubicles.
Juan was also the last complication she needed.
Still, she put his impending arrival out of her mind, just glad to have the doctor shortage under control for now.
‘Where’s Christine?’ Cate asked as she stripped a gurney and gave it a wipe down before making it up with fresh linen.
‘Guess,’ Kelly answered. ‘She’s hiding in her office. If you do get the job, please don’t let that ever be you!’
Cate was soon to be interviewed for the role of nurse unit manager and it was fairly certain that the position would be hers. Lillian, the director of acute nursing, had practically told her so. Cate was already more hands on with the patients than most of the associate nurse unit managers, and if she did get the role she had no intention of hiding herself away in the office or going over the stock orders to try and save a bean. It had also been heavily hinted that, after Christine’s haphazard brand of leadership, the powers that be wanted a lot more order in Emergency—and it had been none-too-subtly pointed out that the nurses were not there to babysit Harry’s twins.
If she did get the job, Cate knew there was going to be a lot to deal with.
‘Is this cubicle ready?’ Abby, who was doing triage, popped her head in. ‘I’ve got a gentleman that needs to be seen.’
‘Bring him in,’ Cate said. ‘Kelly, if you could carry on sorting out any empty cubicles, that would be great.’
Kelly nodded and headed off and Cate took the handover as they helped the painfully thin gentleman move from the wheelchair to the gurney. His wife watched anxiously.
‘This is Reece Anderson,’ Abby introduced. ‘He’s thirty-four years old and has recently completed a course of chemotherapy for a melanoma on his left thigh. Reece has had increasing nausea since this morning as well as abdominal pain.’
‘He didn’t tell me he was in pain till lunchtime.’ There was an edge to his wife’s voice. ‘I thought the vomiting was the after effects of the chemo.’
‘Okay, Reece.’ Cate introduced herself. ‘I’m going to help you to get into a gown and take some observations and then we shall get you seen just as soon as we can.’ Reece was clearly very uncomfortable as well as dehydrated, and there was also considerable tension between him and his wife.
‘The heat has made this last round of treatment unbearable,’ his wife said. ‘We don’t have air-conditioning.’ She looked more tense than the patient. ‘I’m Amanda, by the way.’
‘Hi, Amanda. Yes, I’m sure the heat isn’t helping,’ Cate said as she looked at Reece’s dry lips and felt his skin turgor. ‘We’ll get a drip started soon.’
Melbourne was in the grip of a prolonged heat wave and more patients than usual were presenting as dehydrated. Cate had been moaning about the heat and lack of sleep herself, but to imagine being unwell and going through chemotherapy made her rethink her grumbles.
‘Why don’t you go home?’ Reece suggested to his wife as, between retches,