Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ they lifted him up between them, swung him over the water, and finally Penny felt herself calm, the heat fading from her face, her racing heart slowing, and then Jasmine asked her again what she thought of Ethan.

      ‘He thinks that he’s God’s gift.’

      ‘So do a few other people,’ Jasmine pointed out, because since Ethan had arrived, a couple of hearts had already been broken. ‘He is funny, though.’ Jasmine grinned.

      ‘I don’t think he’s funny at all,’ Penny said, but then again she didn’t sit in the little huddles at the nurses’ station, neither did she wait for the latest breaking news to be announced in the staffroom. Penny loathed gossip and refused to partake in it, though, given it was Jasmine, there was one thing she did divulge. ‘He seems to think that he got the job over me.’ Penny gave a little smirk. ‘He has no idea that I declined to take it.’

      ‘He doesn’t know?’

      ‘God, no!’ Penny said. ‘I would assume he knows that Jed turned it down to take the position at Melbourne Central, but it would be a bit much for him to know that he was actually the third choice.’

      ‘Wouldn’t Mr Dean have told him?’

      ‘Mr Dean wouldn’t discuss the other applicants with him—you know what he’s like.’ Penny rolled her eyes. Mr Dean had put her through the wringer over the years—he was incredibly chauvinistic and had been reluctant to promote Penny to senior registrar. Penny was quite sure it was because she was a woman—she’d heard Mr Dean comment a few times how you trained women up only for them to get pregnant. Still, Penny had long since proven herself and, though Ethan might think otherwise, the consultant’s position had been Penny’s. She had chosen not to take it, deciding it would be too much on top of going through IVF, and more and more she was glad she had made that decision.

      ‘Ethan’s gorgeous.’ Jasmine nudged her. ‘He’s so sexy.’

      ‘Jasmine!’

      ‘What? Just because I’m married I’m not supposed to notice just how stunning he is?’

      Penny conceded with a shrug. Yes, Ethan Lewis was stunning. He had thick silky black hair that seemed always to be just a day away from needing a good cut and had unusual hazel eyes. He was very tall and broad shouldered and so naturally he stood out. He was also a bit chauvinistic, not that the women seemed to mind.

      ‘The trouble with Ethan,’ Penny said, ‘is that he knows how gorgeous he is and he uses it unwisely. Someone should stamp “not the settling-down type” on his forehead. It might have helped warn the nurse in CCU who keeps coming down to the department to try and speak to him, and also that physiotherapist.’

      Penny frowned as she tried to think of the young woman’s name, but gave up. ‘And that’s just two that I’ve seen and heard about, and given that I’m the last person to know anything, I’m quite sure there must be a few more.’

      ‘Well, at least he doesn’t pretend he’s interested in anything more serious,’ Jasmine said. ‘I was talking to him the other day and I apologised for going on too much about Simon and he just laughed and said he enjoyed hearing it, as it’s the closest he’ll ever get to having one of his own. He’s lovely,’ Jasmine sighed. ‘You should have a fling with him.’

      Jasmine would so love to see her very uptight sister unbend just a little. ‘She should, shouldn’t she, Simon?’ Jasmine said as she picked up her little boy, who was finally starting to tire.

      ‘Don’t bring Simon into this.’ Penny smiled fondly at her nephew. ‘And don’t you listen to your mother.’

      Simon smiled back. He adored his aunt and he held out his hands for Penny to hold him, which she did. ‘You’re the cause of all this,’ Penny teased, because seeing her sister pregnant and later as a mum had stirred already jumbled feelings in Penny and she desperately wanted a baby of her own.

      ‘You tell Aunty Penny that she should listen to me and have some fun before she’s ankle deep in nappies and exhausted from lack of sleep.’ Jasmine smiled at her son and then turned to her sister. ‘Just one last wild fling before you get pregnant!’

      ‘I’ve never had a wild fling in my life and I’m certainly not about to start now. You’ve never had IVF, have you?’ Penny’s voice was wry. ‘Believe me, Ethan Lewis and sex and wild flings are the very last thing on my mind right now.’ Penny did suddenly laugh, though. ‘Could you imagine if I did and then twelve weeks later announced that I’m pregnant?’

      ‘Oh, I would just love to see that.’ Jasmine was laughing too at the thought of the confirmed bachelor Ethan Lewis thinking for a moment that he was about to become a father. ‘It would kill him!’

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘WHERE THE HELL is X-ray?’ Penny snapped at Jasmine the next afternoon, just as she would to anyone—they weren’t sisters here and no feelings were spared.

      They were struggling to stabilise a patient in congestive heart failure who wasn’t responding to the usual treatment regimes. John Douglas had presented to the department struggling to breathe, his heart beating dangerously fast and his lungs overloaded with fluid. It was a common emergency that Penny was more than used to dealing with, but what was compounding the problem was that John was also a renal patient and undergoing regular dialysis at a major city hospital so Penny was trying to sort out the far higher drug doses that were needed in his case.

      ‘I’m just going to lean you forward, John,’ Penny said, and listened again to her patient’s chest. The oxygen saturation machine was bleeping its alarm. Vanessa, another nurse, returned with John’s blood-gas results and it was confirmed to Penny that things were really grim. She had already paged the medics to come down urgently and was now considering putting out a crash call, because even though he hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest he was very close.

      ‘Give him another forty milligrams,’ Penny called out to Jasmine, though she wasn’t cross when Jasmine hesitated. ‘He’s a renal patient,’ Penny explained, ‘so he’ll need massive doses of diuretics.’

      Still, Penny was concerned about the amount of medication she was having to give and was carefully checking the drug guide, wishing the medics would hurry up and get there. She had just decided to put out a crash call when Ethan approached.

      ‘Problem?’ Ethan asked, and Penny quickly brought him up to speed.

      ‘He’s not responding,’ Penny said. ‘And neither are the medics to their fast page. I’m going to call the crash team.’

      ‘Hold off for just a moment.’ Ethan scanned the drug sheet to see what had been given. He had just come from working a rotation in the major renal unit in a city hospital, so he was familiar with the drug doses required in a case like this and he quickly examined the patient. ‘He needs a large bolus.’

      Ethan saw Penny’s face go bright red as he took over the patient’s care. ‘Penny, where I worked before …’ He didn’t really have time to explain things and he wasn’t about to compromise patient care by pandering to Penny’s fragile ego—she was spitting with rage, Ethan could see it. In fact, he was tempted to lick his finger and put it onto her flaming cheek just so that he could hear the hiss.

      ‘Go СКАЧАТЬ