At any other time Brianna would have savoured the praise from the portly consultant, who never gave anyone any, but not today, not when she saw Connor’s left eyebrow rise.
‘So, you’ve been living here in Cornwall for the last two years, have you, Sister Flannigan?’ he said with deliberate emphasis, and Brianna clasped the file in her hands even tighter.
Don’t, she wanted to say. Please, don’t. Not here, not in front of everyone. But she couldn’t say anything, not with her boss listening, not with Rita’s eyes darting avidly between her and Connor, her mind clearly already whirring away with speculation.
‘Yes, I’ve been here for two years,’ she muttered, ‘and now if you’ll excuse me…’
‘Oh, absolutely not,’ Connor declared, his voice ice-cold and implacable. ‘In fact, I insist you stay.’
Had he always been quite so tall, so intimidating? she wondered as she involuntarily took a step back. Of course he had. He couldn’t possibly have grown since she’d last seen him, and he’d always possessed an air of authority and power, and yet she felt transported back in time to the little country mouse she’d once been, and she hated feeling that way.
‘I’m afraid you really will have to excuse me,’ she said, putting as much defiance into her voice as she could muster. ‘I have babies to attend to, and I also need to talk to the mother of one of our patients. Her daughter has just undergone major surgery—’
‘From which we are hopeful she will make a full recovery,’ Mr Brooke interrupted. ‘Of course, the next few days will be critical, as I will explain to Mrs Renwick myself.’
Which is exactly what I don’t want you to do, Brianna thought unhappily. Of course, all operations carried risks, but not for nothing had the nursing staff in NICU nicknamed their consultant ‘Babbling’ Brooke. Brilliant surgeon though he might be, he would persist in constantly—and at great length—giving parents the worst-case scenario possible, terrifying them witless in the process. Megan would have handled Naomi Renwick so much better, but Megan wasn’t here.
‘It would be no trouble for me to talk to Mrs Renwick, Mr Brooke,’ she said desperately. ‘I could go now—’
‘Not running away from me, are you, Sister Flannigan?’ Connor said, and she bit her lip savagely.
Had she been the only one in the unit who had heard the unspoken word again in his comment? She hoped she was, she prayed she was.
‘Of course not,’ she replied. ‘I just…I know Mrs Renwick very well…I’m her daughter’s primary carer—’
‘And I’m her daughter’s surgeon, and head of this department, so I will speak to her,’ Mr Brooke interrupted with a finality that told Brianna there was no point in arguing. ‘Now, Connor, I’m sure our ward clerk will be only too happy to let you examine more of our files—’
‘Which I’m sure would be absolutely fascinating,’ Connor interrupted, ‘but I’m only going to be in St Piran’s for the next six weeks so what I’d like to do in NICU, over the next few days, is interview all of your staff individually. Form an idea from them of how they think they fit into this unit, what their duties are, gain the bigger picture, if you like.’
Six weeks? Brianna thought, glancing from Connor to Mr Brooke with ill-disguised horror. Connor was going to be in the hospital for six weeks? Even if he only spent a few days in NICU, it was going to be a few days too many and Mr Brooke clearly thought the same.
‘I really don’t see why there’s any need for you to interview my staff when I can give you the bigger picture immediately,’ he said. ‘Sick babies come in here, my nursing staff and I attempt to make them better. End of story.’ Brianna could have kissed the consultant, but Connor merely smiled the smile of a man who had no intention of having his intentions thwarted.
‘I still want to speak to your staff,’ he insisted evenly. ‘My interviews will take no longer than half an hour, and after that I will simply be a silent observer. In fact, I doubt you’ll even notice I’m here.’
I’ll notice, Brianna thought, desperately praying their consultant would feel the same but, to her dismay, he had clearly become bored with the conversation and simply shrugged.
‘Fine—whatever,’ he said. ‘Just don’t get in my way, or the way of my staff. So, who do you want to interview first?’
Connor made a show of glancing over the assembled nurses, but Brianna knew who he was going to choose, just as she knew Connor knew it, too.
‘I’m sure Sister Flannigan and I will find a lot to talk about,’ he declared with a smile that didn’t even remotely suggest it would ever reach his eyes. ‘Mr Brooke, do you have an office or room I could use as a base while I’m here at the hospital?’
He wanted to use NICU as his base? Even when he was assessing other departments he would keep returning to NICU as his base? No, Brianna thought desperately, dear heavens, no.
‘I’ll get Maintenance to clear out the nurse unit manager’s office for you,’ the consultant replied vaguely. ‘It’s not in use at the moment, but there are confidential files in it that will have to be secured, so in the meantime you could use the nurses’ staffroom if you want.’
Connor nodded.
‘Sounds good to me,’ he said.
It didn’t sound good to Brianna, and neither did the way Connor shadowed her all the way out of the ward and down the corridor as though he was convinced she might bolt. And she would have bolted, she thought, if she hadn’t known that a pair of five-foot-two-inch legs could never have outrun the six-foot-one-inch legs of the man at her side.
‘Would you like some tea, coffee? ‘ she said, walking quickly over to the kettle as soon as they entered the staffroom, desperate to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. ‘There’s some herbal tea here, too, though I can’t vouch for it being drinkable, and hot chocolate—’
‘So, is it still Brianna Flannigan,’ he interrupted, ‘or did you change your Christian name as well as your surname?’
She stared at the cork board which one of the nurses had affixed to the wall above the kettle and cups. Postcards from far-away places were pinned to it, along with old birthday cards and congratulation cards, and there was also a whole array of cartoons that should have been funny but she had never felt less like laughing.
‘I…I kept my Christian name,’ she muttered, mechanically switching on the kettle and spooning some coffee into a cup, though she didn’t really want anything. ‘Flannigan was my mother’s maiden name.’
‘But not yours,’ he said. ‘You do realise I could get you fired for working at this hospital under a false name?’
He could, she knew he could, but suddenly she didn’t care. Suddenly she felt cornered, and defeated, and wearily she turned to face him.
‘OK, get me fired,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want to do, then go ahead and do it.’
‘Of course that’s not what I want!’ he exclaimed, tossing his laptop onto the nearest seat. ‘What do you take me for?’
I don’t know, she thought as she gazed up into his cold, rigid face. I don’t know because I feel like I don’t know you any more, and I’m wondering now if I ever did.
‘Look, can we sit down?’ she said. ‘You standing there—looming over me like some spectre of doom—isn’t helping.’
With a muttered oath he sat down, and, after a moment’s hesitation she abandoned the kettle and took the seat opposite him.
‘You