‘It hurts now.’ His eyes widened as she stepped nearer. ‘Don’t touch it. Please, don’t.’
She smiled at the boy. ‘I could leave it so you can gross out all your mates with the pus that’ll appear over the next day or so, but that’ll hurt an awful lot more in the long run. Trust me, it’ll hurt a lot less and heal much faster if you let me clean it properly now. What I’ll do is numb the area first so you won’t feel any pain.’
His eyes widened. ‘You mean, you’re going to stick a needle into me?’ He dragged in a shaky breath. ‘But they—they hurt!’
‘He had a bit of a bad time when the nurse at the surgery gave him his tetanus jab,’ Sam’s mother explained.
‘Poor you,’ Lisa said sympathetically. ‘But I’m really good at this. I bet you won’t even notice.’
‘I will,’ Sam said, and this time the tears came.
Oh, Lord. The poor kid really must be in pain: boys that age, in her experience, tried to tough it out as much as they could and hated to be treated as a baby. She had to do something—and fast.
‘Hey.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I know injections can be scary. But I promise you, it won’t hurt. And then all this pain in your arm will stop hurting, too. And did you know I have a special bravery certificate for boys who are being very, very brave like you are right now?’
‘I want to go home,’ he said, hiccuping through his sobs.
‘Give him a cuddle,’ she said softly to Sam’s mother, ‘and I’ll be back in a tick.’ She needed someone who was good at distracting—and that included the mum as well as the little boy. Lisa could understand the woman’s exasperation, because she’d obviously told her son time and time again to be careful on his bike and he hadn’t listened, but right now in her view Sam needed a cuddle more than a lecture. There would be time enough for telling him off later, when he’d stopped hurting.
Lisa twitched back the curtain, and nearly walked straight into Joel. She put both hands up in a gesture of apology. ‘Whoops! Sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ Though she was very, very aware of his physical presence. Tall and strong and reliable.
‘No worries. Everything all right?’
This was a very straightforward case and she really shouldn’t be asking a registrar for help with it, but Joel was good at the Sir Galahad bit. And if he did coastguard rescues, he’d probably dealt with a lot of really frightened children—boys around Sam’s age who went out on an inflatable full of bravado but then got trapped by the tide and ended up in tears.
And she’d just bet he’d be able to charm Sam’s mum. No woman would be immune to a smile from a man this gorgeous.
She screwed up her nose. ‘Have you got a minute, Joel?’
‘What’s up?’
She closed the curtain behind her and lowered her voice so her patient and his mother wouldn’t hear. ‘I’ve got a young lad who’s fallen off his bike. His arm’s a bit of a mess—and I’m not sure if he’s broken or dislocated something. He’s a bit chary about letting me look at it, and he’s scared stiff of needles. I need something to distract him so I can get a proper look and work out if he needs an X-ray. And I could really do with getting the mum to stop nagging him.’ She didn’t dare tell Joel she wanted him to use his sex appeal on the mum—because that would be a dead giveaway that she found him sexy. She’d concentrate on the little boy’s needs. ‘Are you good with kids, by any chance?’
Joel gave her an unreadable glance. ‘You could say that.’ Then the odd expression on his face vanished, and he smiled at her. ‘Want me to come and talk him into letting us have a look?’
Oh, yes. That smile would definitely work on Sam’s mum. It had just made her own knees go weak. She nodded. ‘Please.’
‘OK. I’ll distract him and you sort out the business end of the needle—assuming you’re comfortable with that?’
‘Sure. I’ll use a fine needle—and I’ll warm the local an-aesthetic and buffer it.’ That would help to make the injection less painful, and if Joel could keep Sam distracted she could inject the anaesthetic really slowly, which made it easier for children to tolerate. The last thing she wanted to do was make the little boy’s fear of needles worse.
Joel followed her back into the cubicle and allowed her to introduce him to Sam and his mother.
Within seconds Joel had Sam laughing at a stream of silly jokes and had drawn him into talking about his favourite football team. Lisa prepared a syringe, waited for Joel’s signal and swiftly eased the needle into place.
Sam was so busy telling Joel about the last football match he’d gone to with his dad he barely noticed what Lisa was doing. Gently she removed the needle and nodded to Joel.
‘Right, then, Super Sam. Going to let us look at that arm now?’ Joel asked.
‘I…’ The little boy went white. ‘You’re not going to put a needle in me now, are you?’
‘No. Because I’ve already done it,’ Lisa said quietly.
He stared at her, clearly surprised. ‘But…but I didn’t feel a thing!’
‘Told you I was good at this.’ She winked at him. ‘I’m a doctor. I don’t tell fibs. Any second now your arm’s going to stop hurting.’
Sam’s mother smiled in relief. Now Sam had stopped making a fuss, she seemed to have calmed down, too. Or maybe—as Lisa suspected—she’d been so stunned by how good-looking Joel was that she’d forgotten to be angry with her son. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘That’s what we’re here for. Now, let’s have a look at that arm.’ Gently, Joel examined the boy and Lisa noted the way he was checking Sam’s pulse and hand for any circulatory or neural problems. The discoloration of Sam’s skin, the swelling and the odd angle of his arm made Lisa think the little boy had a fracture. Joel clearly thought so too because he said, ‘I’m pretty sure you’ve broken your arm, so I’m going to send you for an X-ray to see what’s happened.’
‘Will it mean I have to have a plaster?’ Sam asked.
‘Yup. Though what sort of plaster depends on the type of fracture,’ Joel said. ‘And I need to know what sort of fracture it is before we can make it better. Do you know what an X-ray is?’
‘Yes, we did it at school. It’s like a camera and it shows your bones.’
‘That’s right. And the best thing is, it doesn’t hurt,’ Joel said with a smile.
‘I’ll get you booked in and clean up your arm while we’re waiting for a free slot on the X-ray machines,’ Lisa said.
‘All right,’ Sam said, perking up.
The local anaesthetic was working, she thought. Clearly the pain had eased, and Sam had turned from a sullen child into a chatty, interested little boy.
‘Can I see my X-ray?’ he asked.
‘Of course you can. Do you think you might want to be a doctor when you grow up?’
‘And have a white coat and stethoscope like yours? Mmm. I think I’d like to make people better. But not if someone’s sick over me.’ Sam pulled a face. ‘It smells disgusting when someone throws up at school. The classroom stinks for ages afterwards. And it always looks like chopped carrots. Gross!’
Lisa laughed. ‘I’m afraid we get quite a bit of that in here.’ Particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, when people tended to overdo things in the pubs and clubs.
Sam looked disappointed. ‘Oh. Maybe I won’t be a doctor, then.’
‘I’ll