David ffrench stepped back into the shadow of the stairwell with a frown.
‘What on earth is Leah Dawson doing here at this time of night?’ he muttered into the darkness, his eyes following her swiftly moving figure as she made her way to the lifts. She’d obviously been home since the end of her shift because she’d changed from her neatly tailored trousers into a pair of decidedly disreputable jeans, jeans that revealed a figure every bit as neat and slender as he’d imagined.
And that smile! It was the first one he’d seen that didn’t look as if it had been forced out of her by well-drilled manners, and it had instantly intrigued him.
What had she been doing in his office at this time of night…? Well, it would be his office when he took it over on Monday morning. His frown deepened as he considered the possibilities. She must be in her late twenties or early thirties, so far too old for juvenile pranks such as whoopee cushions, and he hoped that she was far too professional to do something as stupid as to mess about with patient files.
‘As if I’d be able to tell,’ he groaned softly, remembering the chaos littering every surface. ‘As it is, it’s going to take me a month of Sundays just to get things organised. How I’m going to be able to run the department at the same time…’
He couldn’t imagine what the patients must think when they were shown into the room for the first time. It certainly wasn’t confidence-inspiring, and the frustration was that he couldn’t do anything about the situation until he officially started work.
‘Unless…’ he mused as he turned and made his way back down the stairs, then shook his head. The possibility of enlisting Leah in some overtime to sort through the mess had briefly flashed through his mind, but it wasn’t a good idea.
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve got enough to do in the next twenty-four hours with organising my living space. And I really don’t need to get off on the wrong foot with Leah before we’ve even started to work together.’
As he left, he smiled absently at the security guard who’d earlier verified his identity before admitting him to the building, then lengthened his stride as he set off towards the nearby block of flats, wondering why the woman seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside his head when he’d only met her this morning.
‘The last thing I need is getting tangled up with some woman,’ he said aloud, startling an elderly gentleman taking his equally elderly dog out for its late-night constitutional. ‘Been there, done that,’ he muttered more quietly. ‘I’ve got the scars to prove it.’
‘THAT looks better!’ Leah exclaimed aloud as she clambered down from her perch on the window-sill and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
In the distance, she heard the chimes of the church clock striking two, a reassuring sound that couldn’t be heard at all when the department was busy during the day, but now only served to remind her of just how late it was.
‘If I’m going to be awake enough to work a full shift, I’d better get home to bed,’ she muttered. ‘I wouldn’t want to oversleep and miss out on seeing his reaction.’
She’d already deposited the decorating equipment in a nearby storage cupboard, as arranged with the helpful maintenance man. Now that she’d hung the curtains, she was going to leave the window open for the rest of the night to help to dispel the last of the paint fumes.
‘Now I’m the messiest thing in the room,’ she said with a grimace for her paint-splattered clothing, but the results were certainly well worthwhile.
In spite of her need to get home, get cleaned up and get some sleep, she couldn’t help pausing by the door for a little gloat at all she’d achieved.
She’d barely had time to rejoice over the improvement—the calm, professional appearance of the ‘business’ end of the room, with not a stray piece of paper to be seen, compared to the softer, more welcoming area where prospective parents would be invited to sit—when her pager shrilled its imperative summons, startling her out of her wits.
‘I hope it’s a misdialled code,’ she muttered even as she was reaching for the receiver to answer the call.
‘Leah? How long will it take you to get here?’ demanded the familiar voice of one of the midwives.
‘Is there a problem?’ Leah made a sound of disgust. ‘Ignore the stupid question, Sally. Blame it on the time of night and change it to “What’s the problem?’”
‘Major, major problem,’ she said grimly. ‘An IVF patient in advanced labour, multiple birth, malpresentation.’
Already Leah’s head was reeling with the staccato presentation of facts. One part of her brain was sifting through ‘their’ patients, but she couldn’t think of any of the sets of twins who were anywhere near due yet.
‘Which one? Is she miscarrying?’ Unfortunately, there was a high rate of loss and all its attendant heart-aches in their vulnerable group of patients.
‘Not one of ours,’ Sally reassured her succinctly. ‘She’s in a bad way. How soon can you get here? I think the only way we’re going to save any of them is an emergency Caesarean, pronto, and Chas is already fully occupied.’
For just a fleeting second she wondered if she was about to bite off more than she could chew. This would be her first really complicated case since Donald had died, and although he hadn’t delivered a baby for several years, there had been a certain sense of security in knowing that such an experienced man had been nearby.
‘How long will it take you to get her into Theatre?’ She glanced across at the clock on the wall above the filing cabinets to confirm the time while she contemplated her course of action. ‘I’ll go straight there and start to scrub.’
‘Ten minutes, tops. I’ve already warned Theatre to get ready,’ Sally informed her, then added, ‘Leah, make it as fast as you can, please. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one.’
The butterflies in Leah’s stomach became helicopters with those parting words. Sally was an experienced midwife not prone to panicking at the slightest hitch. If she was worried, then there was something to worry about and even though she could have taken the case on herself, Leah knew what she had to do. With mother and babies’ lives at stake, this was no time for egos or hospital politics.
‘Hello, Switchboard, I need to contact one of the consultants urgently, and I don’t have his home number,’ she announced briskly, her fingers crossed that the computer had already been updated ready for David ffrench’s commencement today at a more civilised time. It only briefly crossed her mind that his insurance cover might not start until he was officially on duty. ‘It’s David ffrench…two f’s. He’s the new appointment to Obs and Gyn.’
It took several more precious minutes to persuade the person on the other end that if they made the connection to the outside line, they wouldn’t actually be breaking his right to confidentiality.
‘H’lo?’ said a husky voice right in her ear, and every nerve quivered with the knowledge that she’d just woken him up, that he was probably lying in his bed—totally naked?—with his dark hair all rumpled and…
‘Mr ffrench?’ she squeaked, and had to clear her throat before she could continue, gabbling in her embarrassment at her unruly imagination. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you when you haven’t officially begun working here, but could you possibly come over to the hospital? There’s an emergency Caesarean…multiple birth…And I think I’m going to need you. Oh, this is Leah Dawson.’
‘Foetal distress?’ he demanded, already obviously firing on all cylinders, much to Leah’s envy. She still hated being woken in the middle of the night, even after all these years in the