The Doctor Claims His Bride. Fiona Lowe

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      ‘So we can see your heartbeat on the screen.’ Mia pointed to the ECG machine. ‘It’s pretty cool to watch.’

      ‘Will you help me?’ Jimmy asked Mia.

      ‘Of course I will.’ Mia smiled down at him.

      ‘But it hurts to move.’

      The plaintive wail tore at Flynn. ‘I know, mate, and as soon as I’ve examined you I can give you something for the pain. You just have to be brave for a bit longer, OK?’

      Jimmy’s brown curls bobbed sadly as he nodded his acquiescence.

      ‘You steady his hips and protect the spear while I fix the dots,’ Flynn instructed.

      Mia nodded and quickly placed her hands into position. ‘Ready when you are.’

      Flynn tore the backing paper off the dots in preparation. ‘One, two, three.’

      Mia eased Jimmy into position with a smooth movement and a worried frown. A frown which carved three horizontal lines across the bridge of her nose, giving her a pixie look that clashed with her competent ‘in-charge’ persona. Nothing about this woman matched up or made sense.

      Nothing about your reaction to her makes sense either.

      With speed borne of experience, it only took Flynn a minute to have Jimmy connected to the ECG. ‘And roll him back.’ He didn’t look at Mia, he wasn’t risking any more crazy lust-fuelled reactions. Instead, he stared at the ECG and the ever-increasing pulse rate.

      ‘Well done, Jimmy.’ Mia stroked his head. ‘You’re doing so well.’

      ‘Where’s my dad?’

      ‘I’m here.’ Walter rushed through the door, quickly followed by Jimmy’s mother, Ruby.

      ‘Good timing, Walter.’ Flynn tilted his head toward Jimmy. ‘Ruby, you get up near Jimmy’s head and stay with him. He needs his mum.’

      Ruby didn’t speak, she just moved quietly beside her son, her hand gripping his.

      Walter immediately backed out of the room to wait outside.

      Flynn pulled the stethoscope from his ears, having just taken Jimmy’s blood pressure again. ‘His pressure’s still dropping slowly.’ He turned up the drip rate on the IV.

      ‘Do you want plasma expander?’ Mia quickly wrote the current IV bolus on the fluid balance chart.

      The thought had crossed his mind a moment before she’d spoken. She certainly knew her emergency medicine. ‘I’ll keep it as an option. I’ll do the ultrasound and then reassess.’

      ‘Pethidine first?’ Mia half turned toward the drug box.

      He raised his brows. ‘Mind-reading again?’

      She nodded slowly. ‘It’s what I do.’

      Her deadpan expression made him want to laugh. He realised she had a knack of being right without being dogmatic. ‘Ruby, any idea how much Jimmy weighs?’

      The worried mother silently shook her head.

      ‘We just done that at school for maths. I was forty-five kilograms.’ Jimmy’s voice sounded muffled against the trolley mattress.

      ‘Good going, mate. Thanks.’ He gave Jimmy a reassuring pat before turning back to Mia, who was priming the pump. ‘Given we’re not sure what is bleeding or not, it’s best to be cautious. We don’t need him going into respiratory distress as well.’

      ‘So…zero point two five per kilogram rather than zero point five?’ She flicked back some stray hair from her face and then slowly brought the back of her hand under her chin in a caress of concentration as she worked out the dose.

      The action mesmerised him and he was horrified to find he was staring. ‘Yes, I’ll draw it up.’ He seized the proffered needle and syringe and concentrated on opening the ampoule, drawing up the solution, crosschecking the dose with Mia and injecting it into a small bag of saline.

      Concentrating on the job rather than speculating on the intriguing nurse working next to him who wasn’t fitting at all into the power-hungry, bossy role he’d assigned her at the start of the emergency. ‘Jimmy, you might start to feel a bit sleepy.’

      The pulsometer pinged loudly and Mia rechecked Jimmy’s blood pressure. ‘It’s steadied but still too low.’ She turned on the oxygen and carefully placed the prongs in Jimmy’s nostrils. ‘You just breathe normally, Jimmy, OK?’

      The lad silently accepted the elastic being put around his head and gripped his mother’s hand more tightly.

      ‘How’s that spear hurt him?’ Ruby spoke for the first time.

      Flynn pulled the ultrasound machine into place and squirted gel onto Jimmy’s back. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

      The black and white swirl of the ultrasound slowly morphed from a snowstorm into clear vision. Flynn’s eyes adjusted to the images on the screen.

      ‘It always looks like fuzz to me.’ Mia gave a self-deprecating chuckle from the other side of the trolley.

      Her candour startled him. He wasn’t used to people publicly admitting what they didn’t know. He tilted the screen so she could see it and pointed to a white shape surrounded by black. ‘Recognise that?’

      She peered toward the screen. ‘Is that the spear? I thought it would show up as black.’

      ‘It’s solid so it reflects a greater amount of sound or echo and it gives out a more intense signal which shows up as white.’ A familiar surge of satisfaction welled inside him—he’d always enjoyed teaching staff when he’d been down south.

      ‘That makes sense. Thanks for explaining it.’ Smile lines curved around her mouth for a moment before fading.

      She’s open to learning.

      He ignored the unwanted voice of reason. Holding up his fingers ten centimetres apart, he spoke to Ruby. ‘It’s gone inside Jimmy that much.’

      Ruby silently absorbed the information, her eyes glued to the screen.

      He slowly explored the peritoneum, heart, diaphragm, the liver, spleen, kidneys and bowel, looking for signs of black and grey, which would indicate fresh bleeding. ‘It’s torn a small hole in the liver.’

      ‘Would that account for his BP?’

      Flynn rubbed his chin, enjoying having such an interested colleague. ‘Perhaps, but it’s not a big hole and a haematoma’s already forming.’

      ‘I need to pee.’ Jimmy started to wriggle.

      Mia quickly grabbed a urinal and a privacy sheet, and helped the boy get into position to void.

      ‘Test it, Mia.’

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