trauma unit had been old school. Very old school. She wouldn’t say it had been entirely his fault she’d had her...blip...but he most certainly hadn’t helped.
Theo put the tube over a tiny metal rod. “Most hospitals are using the pigtail catheter now. Far less painful for the patient.”
She looked for the sneer, listened for the patronizing tone, and heard neither. Just a doctor explaining the steps he was going to take. But better. A doctor saying his patient’s comfort was of paramount importance to him.
And then it was back to business. Cailey gave the region around the fourth and fifth intercostal space of the girl’s ribcage a final swipe of cleansing solution and then stood back as Theo expertly inserted the needle into the pleural space, his fingertip holding just above the gauge for a second. Their eyes connected as he smiled.
“Ha. Got it. I can feel the air releasing.” He turned to his patient and gave her a gentle smile. “Hang in there, love. We’re almost there.” He attached a syringe to the needle. “I’ll just do a quick aspiration to make sure we get all that extra trapped air out.”
Once he was satisfied, he expertly went about inserting the thin wire and tube as if he had done it a thousand times. Within seconds the tube was in, the wire was pulled out and Cailey had attached the tube to a chest drainage system.
“Right, Artie. We’ll just leave you here to rest up for a bit and then see about moving you somewhere a bit more peaceful where we can check out that arm, all right?”
He pulled off his gloves, smiled at Cailey and tipped his head toward the main trauma area. “Ready for the next one?”
She was impressed. For a man who professed to be a humble country doctor, he knew his stuff.
“Did you study trauma medicine?” She couldn’t help but ask the question after pulling the curtains round Artemis and watching Theo give notes to the nurse who, he’d explained, was in charge of moving patients out of the trauma area.
He nodded. “I thought if I was going to be running this place on my own sometimes I’d better be prepared.”
“You’re here alone ?”
“Well, not alone, alone. There are interns who come in from Athens to have a spell, but they usually get bored with island life eventually and want to get back to the mainland. And the lads come back on and off at certain times of the year in a sort of unofficial rotation; they’re just not here at the moment.”
She nodded. He must mean Chris, Deakin and Ares—the other Mopaxeni malakas he’d set up the clinic with. She wasn’t so sure malakas was the right word for them anymore. Miracle workers, more like. This place was a far cry from the crumbling old clinic she’d gone to as a girl. And Theo was completely different from the elitist snob she’d been expecting.
“Right.” He rubbed his hands together as if preparing for a fantastic adventure. “How are you with broken bones?”
* * *
Broken bones. Fractures. Lacerations. Internal bruising. Heart palpations. A massive blood clot... The list went on.
And no matter what he threw at her Cailey stayed bright, attentive and, much to his surprise, willing to learn. There were holes in her knowledge—as to be expected for someone whose specialty wasn’t trauma—but she seemed capable of everything short of reading his mind, and even that was sometimes questionable.
Whatever he needed—a particular gauge of needle, a certain type of suture thread, the correct scalpel—she already had it ready before he could ask for it.
As he opened the curtain for their next patient he stopped. Ah. Marina Serkos. They’d gone to school together until his father had deemed the local primary unfit for purpose and shipped him off to boarding school.
“Looks like someone’s due soon.”
This was his one bugbear. The baby checks. He knew he should be happy for others. Share in the joy of a new innocent life being brought into the world. But all he could think each time he saw a pregnant patient was, Good luck. You’ll need it.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for “happy families”. But happy families hadn’t been the remit in the Nikolaides household. Appearances were everything. No one outside the family knew he wasn’t his father’s success story. Nor did they know he was adopted. And no one—not even his sister—would ever know his silent vow never to bring a child into this world.
Pawns. That was what he and his sister had been. Pawns in a game that hadn’t seemed to have any rules.
“Theo?” Cailey had helped Marina up onto the exam table and was wheeling a sonogram machine into place. “Do you want to do the exam?”
Both women were looking at him a bit oddly. If they’d been exchanging information he hadn’t a clue.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and forced a smile. “Apologies, Marina. It’s been a long day.”
“Marina’s worried about her baby,” Cailey explained in a confident voice.
Ah! Of course. This was her terrain. He nodded for her to continue. It was a relief not to have to ooh and ah each time a fist curled, or a hiccough came halfway through an exam. In his darker moments he sometimes wondered if the only thing his fellow islanders could think to do during the slow winter months was procreate.
“She’s not experienced any blunt trauma, thank goodness, but when the quake struck she was taking a much-needed nap, I presume...”
Both women smiled at Marina’s large bump. She was probably near full term by now.
“Are you at seven months, Marina?”
“Eight,” she answered, her brow creasing with worry. “The baby used to kick all the time, but when the bed collapsed, I just—Ooooh...” She blew out a steadying breath as tears popped into her eyes. “I haven’t really felt the little one move since.”
“Well, then.” Cailey pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. “I guess we’d better take a look at the little one.”
Her tone was bright, efficient, and exactly what a worried mum needed to hear at a time like this.
She held out the scanning wand to Theo. “No, no, you go ahead. This is your terrain,” he said.
“You’re a maternity doctor?” Marina asked, her eyes brightening.
A flash of something crossed Cailey’s eyes before she answered. Frustration? Sadness? But when she turned back to Marina it was as if he’d imagined it.
“No, no. I’m a nurse working on a neonatal ward in a London hospital.”
“No chance you want to stay here, I suppose?” Marina asked, then threw an apologetic glance at Theo. “Apologies, Dr. Nikolaides, but sometimes it’s nice to have a woman to speak with about...you know...”
He nodded. He knew. But they were a small, charitable clinic running on a limited budget on an island few doctors wished to call home all year round. He’d tried to get female obstetricians to come in at least once a month, but with weather, budget constraints, people’s busy schedules—things didn’t always pan out.
He didn’t blame them, those doctors who refused his invitations to take a massive pay-cut and cope with small-town life complete with an unlimited supply of Mythelios Olive Oil.
Big-city hospitals, well-funded research clinics...those were the places that drew talent. Look at Cailey—she’d gone to London and stayed there. And his best friends had left. Add to that an earthquake, and... Oh, well. No need to go down that rabbit hole again.
Obstinacy—or something like it—was the only reason he stayed. Whether it was a relentless showdown or a twisted truce he and his father were engaged in...
He shook his head and forced himself to tune in to