‘Don’t make this about me,’ Finn snapped. ‘Meanwhile, you …’ Finn waved the folder. ‘An agency nurse, ripe for the picking. That’s what you need. A casual affair and then move on.’
The blue eyes widened.
Luke stifled a groan.
‘Excuse me, doctors,’ the Agency-Ripe-For-The-Picking nurse said, in a carefully neutral voice. ‘The paging system doesn’t appear to be working down here. Dr Lockheart has asked me to find you, Dr Williams. Not you, Mr Kennedy. Dr Lockheart’s words were, “Keep that man out of my department at all costs”. But a child’s been admitted with facial injuries from dog bites. Dr Lockheart says to tell you, Dr Williams, that this is serious and could you please come now.’
JESSIE BLANDON was headed for Theatre—if he made it that far.
He was four years old. He’d woken in the middle of the night, needing his mother, the bathroom, something. He’d stumbled through the living room. His mother’s boyfriend’s Rottweiler had been on the couch.
As far as Lily could see, he’d lost half his face. Or not completely lost; it was hanging by a flap. How he’d not bled to death, she didn’t know.
Lily didn’t have time to think about what she’d just overheard. She flew back to Emergency with Luke.
‘Tell me,’ he snapped as they strode down the corridor at a pace practised by most emergency medics. Never run in a hospital. Walk—exceedingly fast.
She outlined what she’d seen and Luke’s face grew grim.
‘Dogs and kids,’ he muttered. ‘No matter how trustworthy … Hell.’
It was hell. Lily had seen the mother and her boyfriend as the ambulance had wheeled the little boy in. They looked shattered. This would be a great goofy dog, she guessed, normally quiet, startled from sleep into doing what dogs were bred to do. Attack and defend.
How good was this man beside her?
She was about to find out.
She’d not dealt with a case like this at Lighthouse Cove. For the last two years, in her tiny hospital, any serious case had been transferred to Adelaide. Still, she had the training to back her up. Those long years, travelling back and forth from Lighthouse Cove to Adelaide Central, struggling to do her training yet still support her mother, they’d been hard but they’d provided her with skills, so that when Luke Williams said, ‘You’ve done plastics, you trained with Professor Blythe? You’ll work with us on this?’ she could nod.
But she wasn’t nodding with confidence that they’d save the little boy. He was desperately injured. She was only confident that she could back up this man’s skills.
If he had the skills.
He did.
To say she was impressed with Luke William’s professionalism was an understatement. This was a life-and-death emergency. Every minute they wasted meant this little boy had a smaller chance at life, yet Luke exuded calm from the moment he saw him.
First and foremost he made sure Jessie was feeling no pain. He had an anesthetist there in moments and Jessie was placed swiftly into an induced coma. He assessed what needed to be done. He gave curt, incisive directions with not a word wasted. He even found a moment to talk to the couple outside.
‘Things are grim,’ he told them. ‘There’s no way I can assure you your little boy will be okay. I don’t know. No one knows. But he’s in the best of hands, and we’ll do everything we humanly can to save him. Meanwhile, I want you to ring a reliable friend and ask them to bring in Jessie’s favourite things, a bear maybe, his blanket from his bed? Reassuring stuff. The paramedics will have informed the police. Tell your friend not to go near the house until he’s sure the police have the dog under control.’
‘The dog’s a pussy cat,’ the man said, brokenly.
‘No,’ Luke said grimly. ‘He’s a dog. And your son …’ He closed his eyes for a fraction of a moment and when he opened them Lily saw something behind his eyes that looked like pain. ‘Jessie,’ he said. ‘It’s up to us now to see if we can save your Jessie.’
She’d come on duty tonight as an unknown nurse, expecting to be treated as very junior. In fact, she’d kind of wanted to be junior. Anonymous. Working steadily in the background, a tiny cog in a big wheel, disappearing as soon as she was off duty, coming on duty tomorrow on another ward, knowing no one, no one knowing her. Bliss.
What she hadn’t expected was to be part of a close-knit, highly skilled team, working desperately to save one little life.
That weird conversation she’d overheard in Admin was put aside. For some reason Luke had been checking her credentials. Whether the conversation between Finn and Luke should have the pair of them up before the medical board for sexual discrimination was immaterial right now. What was important was that Luke knew she was up to the job in hand and he let the rest of the team know it. The hospital was desperately short-staffed, so she was no doormat, standing in the background. She was scrub nurse, working with every ounce of her knowledge and skill.
They all were.
The child’s face had been torn from chin to forehead. A vast flap of skin and flesh was hanging from his cheek. Among the blood and mess, they could see bone.
His eye socket, his nose, the side of his mouth … Unspeakable damage …
But the flesh hadn’t been ripped away entirely. If Luke had the skills he might … he must …
The alternative was unthinkable. If the flap couldn’t be replaced, this little boy would be facing years of grafts, even a face transplant. A life of immuno-suppressant drugs. If he lived.
The alternative was that Luke sorted this mangled mess and teased it all back into place. That he keep the flap alive, re-establish blood supply, leave nerves undamaged …
A miracle?
No. Pure skill.
Her initial impressions of the man were that he was … okay, a womaniser. He’d been laughing with her. Eyeing her appreciatively. Talking with the director of surgery about her in that way …
Now every speck of concentration was on what he was doing. Jessie’s face was an intricate jigsaw puzzle that had to be fitted together before the blood supply was compromised. Every tiny torn piece had to be sorted, cleaned, put into careful, cautious position.
The nursing team of the hospital might have been hit by gastro but there was no hint of understaffing now. This was priority one, a child’s life. Luke was assisted by a surgical registrar, a paediatric anaesthetist, two scrub nurses and two junior nurses. All were totally focused.
And in their hands was a little boy called Jessie. Redheaded. Freckled on the tiny part of his face that wasn’t damaged. He was intubated, heavily anaesthetised. He’d been lucky he hadn’t drowned in his own blood.
Every person in the room was totally tuned to what they were doing. This was the most important job in the world, saving a child’s life … piece by piece …
Lily thought briefly of a case she’d worked on three years back. A professor in Adelaide, trying to save a man’s lips. Problems with drainage afterwards. Like Luke, the professor’s total attention had been caught in what he was doing, but afterwards he’d talked through what might have helped.
She turned to the closest junior nurse.
‘Slip out and find Dr Lockheart,’ she said. ‘Tell her we may need medical leeches. Tell her priority one.’
‘I don’t