Bachelor Dad, Girl Next Door. Sharon Archer

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      CHAPTER THREE

      TERRI met the ambulance at the door, desperately trying to look as professional as possible. Her uncle lay still and pale, his beloved face slightly distorted beneath the oxygen mask. A large white dressing was taped to his forehead. Seeing him like this made her heart twist but she pushed the feeling away. He needed her competence now, not her love.

      Frank began his handover as they wheeled the trolley through to the treatment room. She was aware of Dianne and the police sergeant following them.

      Between them, they transferred him to the hospital gurney.

      Frank stepped back and continued his report. ‘There was a smashed bottle of beer on the floor. Looks like he’d slipped in it and hit his head on the corner of the sink. I’ve dressed the laceration on his forehead. It hadn’t bled much,’ he said. ‘We found him sitting against the kitchen cupboard. After we got the go-ahead to scoop and run, all the fight went out of him. He’s been as quiet as a lamb.’

      ‘Okay, thanks, Frank.’ Terri leaned over her patient, her hand on his shoulder as she tried to rouse him. ‘Uncle Mick? Open your eyes if you can hear me.’

      The lashes flicked up and his dry lips stretched into a smile that was more of a grimace. He fumbled with the mask and Terri helped him pull it away, noting the sweetish, ketotic odour of his breath.

      ‘Tee.’ He used his nickname for her and for some reason that gave her an instant of misgiving. Should she have stayed with Jessie, handed this case over to Luke as he’d offered? ‘What’re you doing here, love?’

      She shook off the doubt. Responsibility for the emergency department was hers tonight. Luke being here was a bonus, not an opportunity to get him to deal with her family. ‘Do you remember what happened, Uncle Mick?’

      But his eyes closed again and he mumbled an indistinct response.

      ‘BP is ninety over sixty,’ said Dianne.

      ‘Right.’ Terri slipped her stethoscope on and listened to the irregular rhythm of his heartbeat. ‘Let’s get an ECG going, please, Dianne.’

      As the nurse snipped off his T-shirt and began attaching the leads, Terri slipped a tourniquet on Mick’s arm and bent over his hand. After a moment, she moved on to his wrist and then quickly to his elbow. Beneath her fingertips she could feel the tell-tale springiness of a small vein. Good enough to establish an intravenous line? She hoped so. It would be so much quicker and less complicated than putting in a central line. The sooner Mick started rehydrating, the sooner they could get him stabilised. ‘I’m going to put a needle in your arm, Uncle Mick.’

      She slipped the cannula into place and released the tourniquet, permitting herself a moment of relief as she taped it securely. She carefully drew off a syringe of blood. ‘How’s that ECG looking?’

      ‘Typical hypokalaemic changes,’ replied a deep voice.

      Luke.

      Terri took a breath, willing her heart to settle. Surely Jessie hadn’t been picked up already.

      ‘Nina’s specialling Jessie,’ he said as though he’d read her mind. ‘She’ll call me if she needs me. The transfer chopper is still half an hour away.’

      She glanced over to where he examined the ECG strip. He tilted the readout so she could see the flattened T peaks. ‘Thanks. It’s what I expected. Let’s get him started on normal saline IV with thirty millimoles of potassium.’

      ‘I’m on it.’ Dianne pivoted away to the bench.

      Luke held out his hand for the syringe. ‘The lab tech’s in. You’ll want a priority on the electrolytes and glucose. When they can for the CBC, urea and creatinine?’

      ‘Yes, please. Thanks.’

      She’d just opened her mouth to add a request when he said, ‘I’ll organise a strip reading for the blood glucose so you can set the insulin infusion.’

      ‘Right.’ There it was again—that intuitive understanding of her work rhythm. It was fantastic and a little unnerving. With anyone else, she was sure she’d have revelled in the experience. But because it was Luke, there seemed to be a level of intimacy associated with it that she badly needed to deny. But what could she say? Stop reading my mind—stop doing such a great job? Terri shrugged mentally and settled for ‘Thanks.’

      She turned back to her patient and flicked on her pen torch. ‘I’m going to shine a light in your eyes, Uncle Mick.’

      She lifted each eyelid and watched as the pupils in the deep brown irises expanded and contracted readily. Equal and reactive. At least it looked like he didn’t have a head injury to complicate things further.

      ‘Blood sugar, twenty-three,’ said Luke.

      ‘Okay.’

      Dianne appeared beside her. The nurse reeled off the potassium level in the saline bag then held it so Terri could check the label.

      ‘Correct,’ Terri said.

      She walked around to the other side of the gurney so she could more easily examine the wound on his forehead. ‘I want to have a look at your cut, Uncle Mick.’

      ‘Fluids set, Terri,’ said Dianne.

      ‘Thanks.’

      A jagged flap of skin had curled back from the triangular laceration but the area looked quite clean. A simple irrigation and suturing job.

      ‘No! No!’ Her quiescent patient erupted into unexpected action. So quick. One moment she was lifting the dressing and the next she was flying across the room. In slow motion she watched the horror on Frank and Dianne’s faces from the other side of the gurney, their hands uselessly reaching towards her. She saw the sergeant step forward, his mouth tight as he restrained her flailing patient.

      Any moment now she was going to hit the floor. Paradoxical that she had so much time to notice everyone’s expressions but none to organise her limbs to save herself from the inevitable painful sprawl.

      But it didn’t happen.

      Hands reached her, catching her from behind, cradling her against a hard, warm body. Her uncle lay back down in the milliseconds in which she struggled to understand СКАЧАТЬ