Yet she wanted him.
Elsie, when Annika had discussed it with her, had huffed and puffed that it should be Ross who asked her out, Ross who should take her out dancing. But things were different now, Annika had pointed out, and she’d already said no to him once.
‘Ask him,’ Cecil had said when she had taken him in his evening drink. He had a nip of brandy each night, and always asked for another one. ‘You lot say you want equal rights, but only when it suits you. Why should he risk his job?’
‘Risk his job?’
‘For harassing you?’ Cecil said stoutly. ‘He’s already asked you and you said no—if you’ve changed your mind, then bloody well ask him. Stop playing games.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Annika had demanded, and then gone straight to Elsie’s room. ‘That was a secret.’
‘I’ve got dementia.’ Elsie huffed. ‘You can’t expect me to keep a secret.’
‘You cunning witch!’ Annika said, and Elsie laughed.
She hadn’t just told Cecil either!
Half of the residents were asking for updates, and then sulking when Annika reported that there were none.
So, when Ross had asked her to bring Hannah up to the treatment room to have her IV bung replaced, even though Cassie had offered to do it for her, Annika had bitten the bullet. Now she was trying to talk to her patient.
‘The cream we have put on your arm means that you won’t feel it.’
‘I just don’t like it.’
‘I know,’ Annika said, ‘but once it is done you can go back to bed and have a nice rest and you won’t be worrying about it any more. Dr Ross is very gentle.’
‘I am.’
She hadn’t heard him come in, and she gave him a small smile as she turned around to greet him.
‘Hannah’s nervous.’
‘I bet you are,’ Ross said to his patient. ‘You had a tough time of it in Emergency, didn’t you? Hannah was too sick to wait for the anaesthetic cream to work,’ he explained to Annika, but really for the little girl’s benefit, ‘and she was also so ill that her veins were hard to find, so the doctor had to have a few goes.’
‘It hurt,’ Hannah gulped.
‘I know it did.’ Ross was checking the trolley and making sure everything was set up before he commenced. Hannah was lying down, but she looked as if at any moment she might jump off the treatment bed. ‘But the doctor in Emergency wasn’t a children’s doctor …’ Ross winked to Hannah, ‘I’m used to little veins, and you’re not as sick now, so they’re going to be a lot easier to find and because of the cream you won’t be able to feel it …’
‘No!’
She was starting to really cry now, pulling her arm away as Ross slipped on a tourniquet. The panic that had been building was coming to the fore. He did his best to calm her, but she wasn’t having it. She needed this IV; she had already missed her six a.m. medication, and she was vomiting and not able to hold down any fluids.
‘Hannah, you need this,’ Ross said, and as she had done for several patients now, Annika leant over her, keeping her little body as still as she could as Ross tried to reassure her.
‘Don’t look,’ Annika said, holding the little girl’s frightened gaze. ‘You won’t feel anything.’
‘Just because I can’t see it, I still know that you’re hurting me!’ came the pained little voice, and something inside Annika twisted. She felt so hopeless; she truly didn’t know what to say, or how to comfort the girl.
‘Watch, then,’ Ross said. ‘Let her go.’
He smiled to Annika and she did so, sure that the little girl would jump down from the treatment bed and run, but instead she lay there, staring suspiciously up at Ross.
‘I know you’ve been hurt,’ he said, ‘and I know that in Emergency it would have been painful because the doctor had to have a few goes to get the needle in, but I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘What if you can’t get the needle in, like last time?’
‘I’m quite sure I can,’ Ross said, pressing on a rather nice vein with his olive-skinned finger. ‘But if, for whatever reason, I can’t, then we’ll put some cream elsewhere—you’re not as sick now, and we can wait …’
His voice was completely serious; he wasn’t doing the smiling, reassuring thing that Annika rather poorly attempted.
‘I am going to do everything I can not to hurt you. If for some reason there’s ever a procedure that will hurt, I will tell you, and we’ll work it out, but this one,’ Ross said, ‘isn’t going to hurt.’
He tightened the tourniquet and Hannah watched. He swabbed the vein a couple of times and then got out the needle, and she didn’t cry or move away, she just watched.
‘Even I’m nervous now.’ Ross grinned, and so too did Annika, that tiny pause lifting the mood in the room. Even Hannah managed a little smile. She stared as the needle went in, and flinched, but only because she was expecting pain. When it didn’t come, when the needle was in and Ross was taping it securely in place, her grin grew much wider when Ross told her she had been very brave.
‘Very brave!’ Annika said, like a parrot, because she could never be as at ease with children as he was. She was attaching the IV and Ross was looking through his drug book, working out the new medication regime that he wanted Hannah on.
Brighter now it was all over, Hannah looked up at Annika.
‘You’re pretty.’
‘Thank you.’ She hated this. It was okay when Elsie said it, or one of the oldies, but children were so probing. Annika was still trying to attach the bung, but the little hard bit of plastic proved fiddly, and the last thing she wanted was to mess up the IV access. She almost did when Hannah spoke next.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘No.’ Her cheeks were on fire, and she could feel Ross looking at her, though she was so not going to look at him.
‘I thought you did, Annika.’ He spoke then to Hannah. ‘He’s a very nice guy, apparently.’
‘It’s very early days.’ The drip was attached, and now she had to strap it in place.
‘I like a boy in my class,’ Hannah said, with a confidence Annika would never possess. ‘He sent me a card, and he wrote that he’s coming to visit me once I’m allowed visitors that aren’t my mum.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘So, where does your boyfriend take you?’ Hannah probed.
‘I’m more a stay-at-home person …’ Annika blew at her fringe and pressed in the numbers. Ross was beside her, checking that the dosage was correct and signing off on the sheet. She could feel that he was laughing, knew he was enjoying her discomfort—and there and then she decided to be brave.
Exceptionally brave—and if it didn’t work she’d blame Cecil and Elsie.
‘I was thinking of asking him over for dinner on Saturday.’ Annika swallowed. She knew her face was on fire, she was cringing and burning, and yet she was also excited.
‘That sounds nice. I’m sure he’d love it,’ was all Ross said.
She got Hannah back to bed, and then, as