The Boy Who Made Them Love Again
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Luke groaned. ‘This is turning into a bad TV show. What on earth is David Fairgreaves doing here?’
‘You mean in this backwater place?’ She couldn’t help the sarcasm that crept into her voice. Then, seeing the expression on his face, Abby sneaked her hand around his waist and gave him a quick hug. Luke’s stress levels seemed to be going through the roof. The warmth of his body immediately poured through her skin. She raised her head up towards his and smiled. ‘Fishing.’
‘What?’ Luke looked totally bewildered.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He’s got a fishing boat in Pelican Cove, and now he’s retired he spends half the year here. We have an informal arrangement together that I can call him out for any obstetric emergencies and he loves it.’
Luke studied the man in the rumpled clothes sitting in the chair in front of him. ‘He looks about a hundred and ten,’ he whispered.
‘Well, he’s not quite that old,’ she whispered back, ‘and he’s as sharp as a tack so don’t annoy him.’
Luke looked as if he could spontaneously combust at any second. Abby pulled her arm from his waist and turned to face him, taking both his hands in hers.
‘Look on the bright side, Luke. If someone had asked you to pick any doctor in the world to deliver the President’s pre-term baby, who would you have picked?’
She watched as the significance of her words began to sink in. The deep wrinkles in Luke’s forehead began to soften. ‘I guess you’re right,’ he said.
‘You know I am.’ She lifted herself up on her tip toes and kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Now, go and deal with your MI. I’ll come and find you if there’s any problems.’
He nodded, still lost in thought, before taking a deep breath and pulling his hands from hers. ‘Okay,’ he murmured as he turned and started to head off down the corridor.
Abby watched for a second. Her lips felt as if they were on fire. A thousand little pins were prickling them, leaving them alive with sensation after touching his skin.
‘Dr Tyler?’
Abby started at the deep voice behind her.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m James Turner.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘I’m in charge of the protective detail for the First Lady.’
Abby nodded silently. The craggy-faced man from earlier. He was a large, imposing fellow with a small scar that snaked across the bridge of his nose. Her mind exploded with a thousand possibilities as to how it had got there, before his intense gaze jerked her back into focus. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Turner?’
‘This is your department?’ It didn’t sound like a question coming from his lips, more like a statement.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well, sorry, ma’am, but I need to close your emergency department down.’
‘What?’ Abby’s screech of disbelief echoed around the building. ‘You most certainly will not. I won’t let you. You don’t have the authority to do that…’
He silenced her by holding his hand up directly in front of her face.
‘I do have the authority. As of now, your department is closed. I also need access to all your personnel files.’
‘What?’ This was just going from bad to worse. He wanted to close her department and then spend the day looking at files?
‘I need to have access to everyone’s history. We need to run security checks on everyone in the building.’
‘You want to do what? No! You can’t do that!’
‘Yes, yes, I can. And I will.’ His broad hand had caught her arm to stop her gesticulating wildly. ‘Nothing is more important than the safety and security of the First Lady.’
Abby took a deep breath. ‘Look, Mr Turner, while I appreciate you have a job to do—so do I. This is a small community.’ She waved her arm around the department. ‘I know every single member of staff here. None of them are a risk to the First Lady’s safety or security. I can personally vouch for them all.’
‘That’s very nice, Dr Tyler.’ He shot her a white-toothed, crooked grin. ‘But it’s not going to cut it. We’ll run our own checks on everyone here.’ He glanced around the bustling department. ‘And we’re going to have to restrict the number of staff.’
Abby shook her head. ‘This is a community hospital, Mr Turner. We serve a widespread population that doesn’t have easy access to emergency facilities. If you close us down, the nearest emergency unit is 50 miles away. If there’s an accident at one of the nearby saw mills, or at the harbour, that travel time could cost the life of a patient. We also have links with a special-needs school near here—Parkside. We often have children brought in with breathing or feeding difficulties—taking them somewhere else would cause immense difficulties.’
She glanced towards the white board, which only showed three patients in the department at the moment—two of whom were with James Turner. ‘We’re not normally this quiet.’ Her mind was spinning with endless possibilities. ‘I know this isn’t an ideal situation but the most realistic solution is to move Jennifer Taylor to one of the ward areas once Dr Fairgreaves has examined her. If she’s out of the emergency department, do you really have to close us down?’ Abby couldn’t keep the pleading sound out of her voice. She just couldn’t turn patients away, not when they needed her. ‘I’ll let you see the personnel records if you want—just let me check with the hospital administrator. You’re not going to find anything anyway, but please don’t close down the emergency department.’
‘Do you have floor plans for the hospital?’
He hadn’t moved a muscle. Abby was sure he hadn’t even blinked.
‘What? Yes…yes, I think so.’ She pointed over his shoulder. ‘They’ll be in the hospital administrator’s office.’
‘I’ll get back to you, Dr Tyler.’ He turned swiftly on his heel and stalked off in the direction of the nearby office.
Abby leaned back against the nearby wall and breathed a huge sigh of relief. There was only one other patient in the department right now. Dr Fairgreaves was dealing with Jennifer Taylor. She’d need to wait and see what his recommendations would be. She glanced at her watch and stared up the corridor. She could almost feel the invisible pull. Luke was up there. Probably performing an angioplasty. It had been years since she’d seen him at work. Maybe it was time to go and offer some moral support?
* * *
Luke’s head was spinning. He pushed open the door to the changing room with unexpected venom and started as it thumped off the wall. The First Lady was going to have her baby. Her obstetrician had had an MI. The new obstetrician looked like a tramp but had the credentials of a king. And they were stuck in some backwater part of Mendocino Valley. Stuck with Abby Tyler. He couldn’t have made this up.
He tugged at his red tie and undid the buttons on his shirt, stuffing them in a nearby empty locker. Behind him he found a variety of sizes of theatre scrubs and pulled the familiar clothing over his head.