He accompanied her back to the table and on the surface he still didn’t seem particularly ruffled. ‘Hmm, maintaining a budget is always going to be difficult in a small establishment.’
As if here at Riverbank they didn’t try! Cate narrowed her eyes as she set her cup and plate carefully on the table. ‘But less important than actually continuing the service.’ She paused to let her words sink in. ‘Personally, I don’t give a hoot for your budget. My concern is maintaining the standard of care the people of this valley deserve—without having to leave the area to get it—and the sooner money is put in its proper perspective, the better.’
His face remained expressionless and she marked another point against him. The guy probably didn’t have emotions—just numbers running around inside his computer brain. And she knew he’d been a doctor before he’d taken up administration, which didn’t make any sense to her.
He waited until Cate was seated and then sat down. At least he had manners, she grudgingly acknowledged.
Noah set his cup down. ‘Unfortunately budgets are a fact of life.’
‘Or you’d be out of a job,’ she muttered. He turned his head to look at her fully and his eyes flared briefly at her comment. She became sidetracked by the realisation that his chocolate brown eyes could freeze to almost coal black when he was annoyed. The air temperature dropped about ten degrees. She blinked. ‘I’m sorry. You were saying?’
For a moment he looked to be inclined to follow up her previous comment but then, with only a brief cryogenic glare, decided against it and reverted to business mode. ‘I was saying that budgets are a fact of life and while it’s your job to maintain patient services, it’s my job to streamline the process cost effectively. The money should go where the needs are greatest. Perhaps we could agree to the necessity for the other person’s job.’
The deep timbre of his voice sent an unwelcome shiver across Cate’s shoulders. He could be persuasive and she could just see him at a boardroom table, smiling winningly at weaker individuals. She wasn’t fooled, though.
In fact, she wasn’t temperamentally suited to this conversation. She was more of an action person. Let the official party chat with him. There was no way she could carry on a rational conversation with this guy and not get indigestion. Cate pushed aside the second half of her sandwich and took a last sip of her coffee.
There were still the orders to show him around. ‘Is there any area in particular you’d like to see while I have a spare moment, Dr Masters?’
A tiny crease appeared above his right eyebrow at the title. ‘If you’ve finished…’ He glanced down at the meagre lunch left on her plate and then away. ‘I’d like to see the maternity ward.’
Grimly Cate rose and carried her crockery back to the dish trolley. ‘Do you have a special interest in Maternity, Dr Masters?’
Noah winced again at her calling him ‘Doctor’. He wished she wouldn’t do that. He was never going back to practising medicine. Then he considered the question. Despite the fact that it was the least offensive thing she’d said to him, he knew the question was loaded. He couldn’t believe this woman. He’d met people who’d disliked him before, not often, but none as aggressively against him as she was. And she did aggression well. He’d had to struggle with his temper twice already and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He’d been controlled like a machine since Donna had died.
He chose his words carefully. ‘I believe Maternity can be the showcase of the hospital. Front-line public relations are an important facet of any hospital’s success.’ And the most common area of overspending. But he didn’t say it.
Public relations led back to the dollar again, Cate correctly deduced, and shrugged.
When they walked into Maternity two of the room buzzer lights were on and the nursery was lined with bassinets in which most of the tiny occupants were crying. Mothers with their babies in their arms, crowded around the sink as they waited for weighings and baths.
Noah frowned. ‘Where are all the staff?’
Cate almost snorted. ‘Both midwives are doing fifty things at once.’ She felt like saying, Can you see anywhere to save money here? But she didn’t. Well done. What control, Cate. She patted herself on the back then moved away from him to punch some numbers into the phone.
‘Hi. It’s Cate Forrest here. Can you send Trudy over to Maternity to help in the nursery for an hour, please? Yes, they’re snowed under.’ She smiled into the phone and he realised he hadn’t seen her smile before. It lit her face with a sweetness that warmed the ice around his heart. She had a smile that reached the corners of the room and shone up the walls. Noah wondered what it would feel like to have that wattage directed solely at him. It would be a smile worth waiting for. He blinked and refocused on the ward around him.
‘Thanks,’ she said to whoever was on the phone. ‘I owe you one.’
One of the midwives came out of the birthing unit and grinned at Cate. ‘Two new admissions, both in established labour, right on bathtime, and four babies are waiting for discharge weighings.’
‘Trudy is coming over for the nursery. Have you guys had lunch?’
Noah nodded at the mothers who walked past as Cate rearranged staff. He listened to her acknowledge the good job the midwives were doing with the workload and then she proceeded to address several of the mothers by their first names and enquire about their other children. She seemed to know and have one of those smiles for everyone. Except him.
But, then, he guessed she was a people person. He wondered if he still had that knack after two years in administration. Had he lost the knack of emergency surgery, too? Noah squashed that last thought down ruthlessly, and the guilt that rose with it.
Cate caught him studying her and excused herself from the mother she was speaking to. She moved across to his side with the light of battle in her eye. ‘Do you advocate breastfeeding, Dr Masters?’
Under attack, Noah looked around at the mothers watching him. ‘If at all possible, of course I do,’ he said cautiously.
‘So you’d agree it’s important that first-time mums in particular have access to help for at least the first few days after the baby is born to establish lactation? Especially if you believe that breastfeeding is best for babies.’
A glimmer of light appeared and Noah narrowed his eyes. Before he could ask if this had to do with his suggestion to shorten postnatal stays, she continued.
‘Were you aware that, unlike larger hospitals, Riverbank clients don’t have access to early discharge follow-up by midwives? Only overworked early childhood nurses?’
Her blue eyes bored into his and he had to admire her passion, if not her subtlety.
‘No, I wasn’t aware of that.’ He was going to continue but Cate cut him off.
‘Or that we have some of the best long-term breastfeeding rates in New South Wales?’ She looked justifiably proud about that.
She was like a steamroller and from one steamroller to another he couldn’t help admiring her—but a public hallway was unfair. ‘No. I wasn’t aware of that either, Sister Forrest,’ he replied sardonically. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t more annoyed with her. Perhaps it was the obvious undeniable passion she had for her work.
‘Pity!’ She’d scored her point and was ready to change the subject. ‘Seen enough?’
Before he could answer, her pager went off and she was thinking of something else. ‘I’m off to Accident and Emergency, Dr Masters.’
He knew she wanted to get rid of him but he wasn’t going to be shaken off that easily. ‘I’ll tag along,