Maybe not. It had been Georgia who’d spotted them and waved. Kate had seemed intent on putting her gear back into the car and checking her watch. Of course she would be making sure she was going to be on time for the next task—that was so like Kate. Responsible and reliable. And she was taking this contest seriously, as she did everything she became involved with.
It looked as though she was going to get in the car and simply drive off, but then she paused and looked straight at him and there was a smile to go with her wave.
Luke let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding as he raised his hand in response. A sigh of something like relief as something clicked back into place. The connection of their friendship, perhaps, where he didn’t have to worry about how his actions might be interpreted. A place he could relax in and simply be himself.
‘Be nice to have an idea of what we’re heading into,’ he said. ‘They weren’t giving away any clues, were they?’
‘And neither should they,’ Matteo said sternly. ‘That would be dishonest.’
‘Not exactly.’ Matteo liked to have his English improved. ‘Dishonesty is when you fail to tell the truth. Breaking the rules of the competition to give someone else an advantage would be dishonourable rather than dishonest.’
‘Hmm...’ Matteo absorbed the correction. ‘They are both unacceptable.’
‘Too right they are,’ Luke agreed.
The first scenario was initially confusing but, as soon as they discovered that the party was a red herring, the two men worked well on their paediatric resuscitation. In the next task, they found a man who’d summoned an ambulance because of sudden back pain and nausea. Diagnosing a case of kidney stones was easy but there was a twist in the case because the man had an anaphylactic allergic reaction to the morphine they administered for pain relief.
The twist was unexpected but Matteo spotted the first symptoms within seconds and they both reacted swiftly, attaching a bag of fluids to the IV line already in place and drawing up and administering drugs to counteract the reaction. Then they had to answer questions from one of the judges about which of the available hospitals they would be transferring their patient to.
‘Hospital A,’ Luke told them. ‘They have an internal medicine department and an intensive care unit and they are the closest.’
‘And what is the most important information to pass on about your patient?’
‘That he has a previously undiscovered allergy to morphine. We will write it on his notes and make sure the information is received by everyone we speak to. We will also advise the patient that it would be a good idea to wear a medic alert bracelet from now on.’
‘That was good.’ Matteo slapped Luke on the back as they left the house. ‘I might not have thought of recommending the bracelet.’
‘I was too slow to spot the change in our patient’s condition. Well done, you.’
Matteo grinned at him. ‘We make a good team.’
‘We’ve got a break now, haven’t we? About an hour?’
‘We should use it to do the driving test.’
‘Okay.’ The driving test was something they could do at any point of the day. A gravelled area beside the river that ran through this village had been cordoned off. A line of orange road cones marked the test area. They could see an ambulance completing the test as they arrived, clouds of dust billowing as it snaked around the cones at high speed and then came to a sudden halt between the cones marking the end of the course.
Another car was waiting for its turn.
The car with the Scottish flags.
‘Cute.’ Matteo grinned. ‘I didn’t notice that before.’
Luke raised his eyebrows. ‘You mean Georgia? Or Kate?’ He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Matteo being attracted to Kate. Then he shook the reaction off. Why not? Matteo was a great guy and the best friend he’d had since Kate had vanished from his life. He’d make some lucky woman an ideal husband and father for her children and, if Kate felt the same way, he should do his best to make it happen.
But Matteo was laughing. ‘Oh, the girls are both cute but that wasn’t what I was looking at. Have you seen what is tied to the front of their car?’
No. Because Luke had been looking at Kate who was standing beside the car, talking to Georgia who was in the driver’s seat. He glanced at the stuffed toy bear that was wearing a kilt and holding a set of bagpipes.
Matteo rolled down his window and pointed to the toy. ‘He is going to get dirty, I think.’
‘All part of the fun,’ Georgia called back. ‘Which one of you is going to do the driving? You’re only allowed one person in the vehicle.’
Georgia was clearly the one doing the test for their team. Luke glanced at Matteo and unclipped his seat belt.
‘You do it,’ he said. ‘You’ve got far more experience with emergency driving skills than I have. I’ll wait with Kate.’
‘Cool.’ Matteo was already focussed on what Georgia was doing to see what his turn would involve.
Luke walked over to where Kate was standing, well away from where the dust clouds would drift.
‘How’s it all going?’ he asked.
‘Great.’ Kate’s expression was animated and she opened her mouth again as if she couldn’t wait to tell him about something but then it snapped shut and the excitement faded into disappointment. ‘But we can’t talk about it yet.’
‘No.’ It was a moment longer before Luke turned away from watching her face. Did she have any idea how much of what she was thinking was revealed in how quickly her expressions could change? He’d forgotten that about conversations with Kate. Forgotten how entertaining it was.
They both watched Georgia as she careened through the serpentine, knocking over a couple of cones.
‘She’s a bit wild.’
‘Enthusiastic,’ Kate conceded. ‘But she’ll get another go. The team before us had three goes.’
So they had a few minutes, then. And nothing to talk about?
‘Where did you say that you’re working in Glasgow? At the Western?’
‘No. The Eastern. We’re a specialised maternity and paediatric hospital. Best PICU in Scotland.’
Luke nodded. ‘Yes...some of our surgical cases have been transferred there. Are you based in PICU?’
‘No. I’m on the wards as a senior paediatric registrar. I do the occasional shift in Emergency as well.’
‘Are you happy?’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘With the job? Of course. I’ve always loved working with kids.’
Luke wanted to know what that flicker in her eyes suggested. That she wasn’t happy with her life away from work?
‘I remember,’ was all he said. ‘You had a rapport with small people right from the start. How come you haven’t got some of your own now? You never said last night...’
‘Huh? Some of my own what?’
‘Kids.’
‘No.’ Kate’s gaze slid away from his to watch Georgia’s second attempt at the course. ‘I will, though. One day. It’s certainly still part of the grand plan.’
There was a wistful note in