Fiona Lowe - The Playboy Doctor's Marriage Proposal

The drowsy man didn’t respond.

Linton rolled the blanket off Ben. ‘Emily, any other injuries besides the arm?’

‘Amazingly enough, I don’t think so. I did a quick in-the-field check and his pelvis and chest seem to be fine.’

‘We’ll get him X-rayed just to confirm that. Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with here.’ He removed the gauze from Ben’s arm. Despite all his experience in trauma medicine, he involuntarily flinched and his gut recoiled. The young man’s arm hung by a thread at mid upper arm. His shoulder was completely intact as was his hand but everything in between was a crushed and mangled mess.

‘Exactly what happened here?’ Linton forced his voice to sound matter-of-fact.

Ben shuddered. ‘I was driving to the game down Ferguson Street.’ His voice trailed off.

Emily finished his sentence. ‘Ben had the window down and his elbow resting on the car door. A truck tried to squeeze between his car and a parked car.’ Her luminous eyes shone with compassion.

‘You have to save my arm, Linton.’ The words flowed out as a desperate plea. ‘I need two arms to play rugby.’

I can’t save your arm . Linton caught Emily’s concerned gaze as her pearly white teeth tugged anxiously at her bottom lip. Concern for Ben—she knew it looked impossible.

Concern for Linton—somehow she knew how tough he found it to end a young man’s dream with five small words.

‘BP sixty-five on forty, respirations twenty-eight and pulse one hundred and thirty.’ Patti’s voice interrupted, calling out the worrying numbers.

‘The blood bank’s sending up three units of packed cells and X-Ray is on its way.’ Emily spoke and immediately snapped back to the brisk, in-control nurse she was known to be. ‘Jason, go and get more ice so we can repack the arm.’

Linton knew Ben’s body had been compensating for half an hour, pumping his limited blood supply to his vital organs. Now they were entering a real danger zone. ‘What’s his urine output like?’

Emily checked the collection bag that she’d attached to the catheter. ‘Extremely low.’ Her words held no comfort and were code for ‘major risk of kidney failure’.

He immediately prioritised. ‘Increase his oxygen. Emily, you take the blood gases and I’ll insert a central line.’ He flicked the Haemaccel onto full bore, the straw-coloured liquid yellow against the clear plastic tubing. ‘Patti, ring the blood bank and tell them to hurry up.’

His pager beeped and he read the message. ‘Jeremy’s arrived in Theatre so as soon as the central line’s in place, we’ll transfer Ben upstairs.’

Emily ripped open a syringe and quickly attached the needle. The sharp, clean odour of the alcohol swab dominated the room as she prepared to insert the needle into Ben’s groin and his femoral artery. ‘Ben, mate, I just have to—’

Suddenly Ben’s eyes rolled back in his head and the monitor started blaring.

‘He’s arrested.’ Emily grabbed the bag and mask and thrust them at Patti. ‘Hold his chin up and start bagging. I’ll do compressions.’ She scrambled up onto the trolley, her small hands compressing the broad chest of a man in his athletic prime. A man whose heart quivered, desperate for blood to pump.

‘I’m in.’ Linton checked the position in the jugular vein with the portable ultrasound then skilfully connected the central line to another bag of plasma expander. ‘Now he’s getting some circulating volume, let’s hope his heart is happier. Stand clear.’

Emily jumped down off the trolley.

The moment her feet hit the floor and her hands went up in the air showing a space between her and the trolley, he pressed the button on the emergency defibrillator. A power surge discharged into Ben’s body, along with a surge of hope. It was tragic enough, Ben losing an arm. He didn’t need to lose his life as well.

Four sets of eyes fixed on the monitor, intently watching the green flat line slowly start to morph into a wobbly rhythm.

‘Adrenaline?’ Emily pulled open the drug drawer of the crash cart.

‘Draw it up in case we need it but he’s in sinus rhythm for the moment. Patti, put the oxygen mask back on. We’re moving him up to Theatre now . That tourniquet is doing its job but there’s a bleeder in there that needs to be tied off.’ Linton flicked up the locks on the trolley wheels.

‘I’ve got the ice and the blood.’ Jason rushed back into the room.

‘Take it with you and summon the lift to Theatre. We’re right behind you.’ He turned to Emily to give her instructions, but they died on his lips.

She’d already placed the portable defibrillator on the trolley and positioned herself behind Ben’s head, the emergency mask and bag in her hand. Small furrows of concentration formed a line of mini-Vs on the bridge on her nose as she caught his gaze. ‘Ready?’

It was uncanny how she could pre-empt him. She was on his wavelength every step of the way. ‘Ready.’

As they rounded the corner he heard the lift ping. Jason held the doors open as they pushed the trolley inside. The silver-coloured doors slid closed, sealing them into a type of no-man’s-land.

Heavy silence pervaded the lift. The medical students watched everything in wide-eyed awe. Emily’s gaze stayed welded to the monitor as her fine fingers caressed Ben’s hair in an almost unconscious manner.

A stab of something indefinable caught Linton in the solar plexus. He shifted his weight and breathed in deeply. Emily Tippett, with hair that changed colour weekly, her button nose with its smattering of freckles that some might describe as cute, her baggy clothing, which he assumed hid a nondescript figure, and her diminutive height, was so far removed from his image of an ideal woman that it would be almost laughable to find her attractive. He exhaled the unwelcome feeling.

But she’s a damn good nurse . The doctor in him could only applaud that attribute.

The lift doors slid open. ‘Let’s roll.’ Linton manoeuvred the stretcher out into the corridor. He spoke to the drowsy Ben, not totally sure the young man could hear him. ‘Ben, you’re going into Theatre now, mate, and Jeremy Fallon’s going to do his best for you. You’re in good hands.’

The young man nodded. His expression was hidden behind the oxygen mask but his eyes glowed with fear.

Emily squeezed Ben’s left hand and then stepped back from the trolley as the theatre staff took over. A minute later the theatre doors slid shut, locking them on the outside.

‘What do you think will happen?’ Jason spoke the words no one had been prepared to voice in front of Ben.

‘High upper arm amputation.’

They spoke at the same time, Emily’s words rolling over his, her voice husky and soft.

An image of a late-night, smoky bar with a curvaceous singer draped in a long, silk dress, its folds clinging to every delicious curve, suddenly branded itself to his brain. He’d never noticed what an incredibly sexy voice she had. It was at odds with the rest of her.

He shook his head, removing the image, and focused squarely on his medical student. Warragurra was a teaching hospital and he had teaching responsibilities. ‘The X-ray will determine if the arm can be reattached but due to the violence of the impact it’s very unlikely. The humerus, radius and ulna will be pulp rather than bone.’

‘So what’s next?’ For the very first time Jason showed some enthusiasm.

‘Cleaning up.’ Emily turned and pressed the lift call button.

‘Cleaning up?’ Jason sounded horrified. ‘Don’t the nurses do that?’

Linton suppressed a smile and silently counted down from five, anticipating the explosion. Every medical student made the same gaffe, the sensible ones only once.

Emily whirled around so fast she was a blur of pink. ‘Actually, it’s the nurses who supervise the medical students doing the cleaning. How else do you learn what is required in a resus room? How else do you learn where everything is kept so you can find it in an emergency?’ She folded her arms. ‘And if you’re really lucky, if you manage to clean and tidy in a timely manner, you might just be allowed near a patient and graduate from running boy.’

Jason’s pale face flushed bright red to the tips of his ears as his mulish expression battled with embarrassment.

Linton started to laugh. A great rolling laugh he couldn’t hold in. His eyes watered and his body ached. Emily was fantastic. Just the sort of nurse he’d welcome with open arms on his staff. Just the sort of nurse you need .

He ushered everyone into the lift and this time the silence was contemplative rather than anxiety charged. If Emily came to work in A and E, so many of his problems would be solved. He could go back to worrying about medicine rather than staff politics because she’d organise everyone and everything. She’d always done that during his rotations with the Flying Doctors. With the resident he’d arranged arriving soon, and with Emily on board, he might even get some time away from work. His fifty-two-year-old father, who had just jetted out after one of his unexpected visits, had accused him of being boring!

Yes, this plan would free him up so he could retrieve his badly missed social life.

Emily in charge would make life very easy.

He started to hum. For the first time in two tension-filled weeks he felt almost carefree. She might say no .

He instantly dismissed the traitorous thought. When it came to getting what he wanted he usually achieved it with a smile and some charm. The doors opened onto the ground floor. ‘Right, you two,’ he spoke to the medical students. ‘You make a start clearing up the resus room.’

Emily started to follow them.

‘Em, got a minute?’ His hand automatically reached out to detain her, his fingers suddenly feeling hot as they brushed the surprisingly soft skin close to her elbow.

She spun round, breaking the contact, her expression questioning as she glanced at her watch. ‘About one minute. Why?’

He leaned against the wall. ‘Still the same Em, always in a hurry.’ He smiled. ‘I just wanted to say thank you.’

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger in an almost embarrassed action before flicking her gaze straight at him with her friendly smile. ‘Hey, no problem. It was a fun way to spend my day off.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh and shrugged. ‘I could hardly walk away and leave you with Jason and Patti, now, could I?’

He spoke sincerely. ‘I would have been in deep trouble if you had. You headed off a potential nightmare.’

‘Thanks.’ He caught a ripple of tiny movement as her shoulders rolled back slightly and her chin tilted a fraction higher as she absorbed his praise.

He flashed her a wide, cheeky smile. ‘You said you had fun and we make a great team so how about you come and do it again, say, five days a week?’

The constant motion he associated with Emily suddenly stalled. For one brief and disconcerting moment, every part of her stilled.

Then she laughed, her eyes darkening to the colour of polished iron ore. ‘You’re such a tease, Linton. Back in February, you spent two weeks bragging to me about your “fabulous team”. Where are they now?’

He sighed. ‘Love, marriage, babies—the full catastrophe.’ The words were supposed to have come out light and ironic. Instead, bitterness cloaked them.

Emily rolled back and forth on the heels of her tan cowboy boots, her brow creased in thought. ‘So you’re serious?’

He caught the interest reflected in her eyes. He almost had her. ‘Absolutely. I’m offering you a twelve-month position of Unit Manager, aka Charge Nurse of A and E.’