A Nurse to Trust Read online

  ‘Trust you to try making a dramatic exit, Cath,’ he said with a reassuring grin as he felt her pulse. He nodded in a satisfied way and looked across at Clare. ‘Strong, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Bet it surprised you. But, then, Cath’s full of surprises.’ He squeezed the old lady’s hand. ‘A puzzle for modern medicine. Thanks for the explicit report when you phoned—wish all our emergency calls were as clear.’

  ‘Well, I am a professional,’ Clare said dryly. ‘And I’ve worked in A and E, so a little blood’s not likely to make me go to pieces.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Of course,’ he agreed. There was an expression in his eyes that she couldn’t read. ‘Always the professional, even out of uniform.’

  ‘Do you think with help from Clare and me, old thing, you can get up and sit on a chair?’ he asked Cath. ‘So that I can put a few stitches into this tough old head of yours?’

  ‘Not so much of the old, if you please, Doctor.’ Cath was already struggling to get up. ‘Have some respect for your elders and betters.’

  Incredible, thought Clare, half an hour ago she seemed almost at death’s door.

  Dan caught Clare’s eye. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  She nodded. Together, each with an arm linked beneath Cath’s and their other arms supporting her back and legs, they lifted her up onto a chair.

  Arthur, trying not to look at the blood spattered around, hovered about, making a fuss of her, until Cath said sharply, ‘Why don’t you make yourself useful, Arthur, and make a pot of tea?’

  Dan began to do some neat stitching on Cath’s cut, and naturally Clare assisted him. But to her dismay, as they worked a gradual sense of discomfort started to creep over her, growing from a queasy feeling in her stomach. Her head began to feel cold and clammy. Could it be a delayed reaction to the accident? Ridiculous! She’d worked on far worse injuries than this. But what was happening to her? She saw Dan give her a quick sideways glance of concern. He must have seen something was wrong. She felt ashamed. For the first time she was truly working with him as she might in the mobile surgery and she was losing control.

  With a tremendous effort she steadied her nerves and saw it through. But as soon as he’d put in the last stitch and she’d snipped it off, Clare made her escape.

  ‘I must go and get changed,’ she said quickly by way of an excuse. ‘Don’t worry, Cath. I’ll look in again later.’

  Leaving Dan to accept Arthur’s and Cath’s sincere thanks and traditional cup of tea, Clare made her way round to her own cottage on unsteady legs. Only when she was inside her own garden gate did she pause to take several deep breaths of fresh air and then bend her head over her knees.

  Gradually the feeling of sickness subsided. What had caused it she had no idea. Perhaps it hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought. Maybe it was simply a moment’s nausea followed by the thought of losing control in front of Dan which had fuelled her panic. Yes, that must have been it. Well, she told herself firmly, she wouldn’t let that happen again!

  As Clare straightened up she noticed the front of her skirt and T-shirt properly for the first time. There was blood everywhere. She must look ghastly. She really did need to get changed.

  She stepped into her tiny kitchen and paused. Its quarry-tile floor and polished surfaces were easy enough to clean, but she didn’t want to risk trailing her bloody garments through the house any further than necessary.

  Clare kicked off her sandals in case any blood had got onto the soles, then, moving gingerly, pulled out a plastic bowl from the under-sink cupboard. She half filled it with cold water, then added half a cup of washing powder. Carefully she stripped off her gory skirt and T-shirt and dunked them into the foamy mix. If she gave them a long soak, followed by a hot wash, there was a chance of saving them. They weren’t her best clothes by any means, but they were comfortable, and she hated to throw anything away while it still had plenty of wear left. It was a practical lesson in thrift she had learnt from her mother.

  She set the bowl to one side of the worktop and turned towards the hall—just as Dan stepped in through the still open garden door.

  ‘I was worried that you were—’ he was saying, but choked off as he caught sight of her.

  They both froze in surprise and mutual embarrassment.

  Just for a split second his eyes flickered over her slim form, barely concealed by a lacy bra and skimpy panties. Smudges of blood which had soaked through her outer garments marked her otherwise pale clear skin. Then with an abrupt ‘Sorry!’ he turned on his heel and strode quickly back out into the garden.

  Clare joined him five minutes later, still slightly damp from a hasty flannel-wash, now decently clad in jeans and a fresh top.

  ‘Look, I really am dreadfully sorry to have caught you like that,’ Dan said before she could speak. ‘You’d been several minutes and I just assumed you’d changed by then. I didn’t think that—’

  ‘Really, it’s all right,’ Clare said, trying to sound offhand and unflustered. ‘I know you didn’t do it deliberately. It was an accident. They happen sometimes.’

  ‘It’s just that I thought you went a little pale while we were seeing to Cath,’ Dan continued. ‘I wanted to see if you were all right.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said as lightly as she could while avoiding giving a direct answer. ‘But it was kind of you to take the trouble,’ she added warmly.

  He gave her a searching look which she faced down as innocently as she could manage. He must have been checking up on her but she couldn’t let him suspect she’d been so unprofessional. After a moment he seemed to give a slight shrug.

  ‘I was also going to reassure you that Cath’s going to be fine,’ he said. ‘They’re really a tough old couple. People of their age have to be to have survived perilous childhoods with diphtheria, scarlet fever and all the infant diseases without antibiotics. Still, Cath would have suffered a bigger shock today without your help, and shock is perhaps more of a killer than we appreciate.’

  ‘As the coroner said about Aunt Marjory,’ Clare said without thinking.

  Dan’s shoulders seemed to sag slightly.

  Oh, no! she thought in dismay. He might still blame himself for not doing more for her. Can’t I say anything right?

  Before she could open her mouth Dan glanced at his watch.

  ‘Well, I must be getting back to my rounds.’ He sounded brisk and professional once again. And also, she couldn’t help noticing, more distant. The friendly camaraderie that had begun to form during the dry run of the mobile surgery seemed a long way off now.

  He started off down the path but paused at her garden gate and turned back to her again. ‘Is tomorrow night still on?’

  ‘Of course,’ Clare said as cheerfully as she could manage. ‘See you some time after seven. And I’ll be down at the centre tomorrow, checking over the alterations to the surgery.’

  ‘So you will,’ he said. He didn’t sound very enthusiastic about the prospect. ‘Well, see you then.’

  Left alone in her garden once more, Clare muttered some choice swear words under her breath which her mother wouldn’t have approved of. She hadn’t even started her job properly and already she was screwing up any chance of a proper working relationship with the man who was effectively her boss.

  Embarrassment and Dr Dan Davis seemed to have become inseparable companions.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CLARE did not sleep well that night.

  The events of the previous day kept cycling around in her mind. Why had she felt so odd while treating Cath Hopkinson? And why, oh, why, did Dan Davis have to notice it?

  The next morning she woke later than normal, feeling as though she’d hardly slept at all. It took an alternately hot then cold shower to bring her back to being even halfway alert. She was still swathed in her bathrobe, hunched over her second cup of coffee, when the phone rang.

  She knew who it was before she picked up the receiver.

  ‘Sorry, I seem to be making a habit of ringing you up,’ Dan
said. His tone was carefully neutral.

  Clare replied in the same noncommittal manner. ‘That’s all right. What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’re going to be short-staffed this afternoon for the postnatal clinic. I know it’s short notice and it isn’t really on your job description, but we can’t find anybody else to fill in. Could you help out?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ Clare said firmly, a sudden surge of adrenaline washing away her weariness. ‘I’ll check over the mobile surgery this morning, then come back for duty after lunch.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. It’s no problem at all.’

  Clare put the phone down feeling quite elated. She had a chance to put the problems of yesterday behind her. A sudden thought struck her. Was there really a staff shortage, or was he testing her out? It would be irregular but it made sense. Making sure her ‘wobble’ yesterday wasn’t going to occur again. Well, either way she was going to be the most efficient nurse he had ever seen.

  The afternoon clinic was a big one and kept Dan busy. But whenever he had a free moment he found himself thinking of Clare. Try as he might, he couldn’t dismiss her from his mind, in spite of years of training and discipline which normally enabled him to divide the personal from the professional.

  They had interviewed a lot of people for the post of mobile surgery nurse, many of them with CVs as good as Clare’s. Yet he had been drawn to her immediately, although he wasn’t sure why.

  True, she had looked cool and attractive, but in an understated way. The blue suit she had worn had exactly matched her eyes, and had been just right for an interview, the skirt coming just below her knees and revealing shapely calves. She looked, in fact, exactly what she was—a well-dressed, but not over-dressed woman in her early thirties.

  Automatically he finished tapping in some information about the patient he had just seen. He grinned to himself. Clare hadn’t been exactly well dressed yesterday as she had knelt, blood-spattered, beside Cath. But despite everything she had still looked stunning, with her short, corn-gold hair gleaming in the sunshine streaming through the sitting-room window. An angel of mercy, he thought fancifully.

  And then her physical qualities had been so unexpectedly confirmed shortly afterwards when he had caught her half-dressed in her kitchen. A vision of her mature, nicely rounded, creamy breasts almost popping out of her minuscule bra came into his mind once again and he let out a gusty sigh. They were beautiful. He could just imagine…

  NO! He brought his lascivious thoughts skidding to a halt. He couldn’t allow himself to imagine. That was forbidden territory. Something he hadn’t let himself do since—

  There was a knock at the door and Clare pushed it open and peeped round. ‘Ready for Mrs Alsop and offspring?’ she asked.

  Dan shook his head. ‘No, give me a moment,’ he replied.

  She closed the door and he crossed the room to the wash-basin, splashed cold water over his face, then furiously rubbed it dry, as if to rub away his thoughts. He ran his fingers through his hair as he stared at himself in the mirror.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Davis,’ he muttered. ‘This is purely a physical thing because it’s been so long. She may look like an angel, but she won’t be any different to any other woman. Don’t get hurt again. Steer clear of her except for work.’

  Except that he was seeing her for supper tonight.

  Why shouldn’t he enjoy a meal with a beautiful woman if he felt like it? Other men did it every day, it was no big deal. A pleasant meal and pleasant conversation—surely he could cope with that without letting his thoughts go wild.

  A mixture of excitement and trepidation welled up in him. He felt like a raw youth going on a first date.

  He took another deep breath, got his see-sawing thoughts under control and went to the door and called in his next patient.

  Mrs Alsop sailed into his room, swinging a baby car cot by its straps. In the cot lay a tiny baby girl with wispy blonde hair.

  ‘This is Rosy,’ Mrs Alsop announced. ‘And if she could, I know that she would like to say thank you for looking after her so well before she was born. That goes for me, too, Doctor. We’re both bouncing with health and feeling wonderful.’

  Dan laughed. ‘So I’m de trop, am I?’ he said. ‘Neither of you seem to need my services.’

  Mrs Alsop laughed, too, displaying large white teeth. She was a large woman altogether, tall and elegant in a casual way. It was always a pleasure to see her in the surgery. She was one of the patients who gave a lift to the day.

  ‘Well, I don’t think there’s any need, but we’ve come for our twenty-thousand-mile check-up or whatever. The midwife told me to come when I’d started my periods again, and I have, so here I am. Now, what do you want me to do—hop up on here?’

  Dan found himself smiling again. ‘Why not? I usually ask questions first and examine afterwards, but it’s not a rule set in stone.’

  He did an internal vaginal examination, and found everything as it should be. She hadn’t needed stitches to the tiny tear in the perineum and it had healed perfectly on its own. After the internal, he examined her abdomen externally and pronounced himself pleased with the way her muscles were firming up.

  ‘I’m doing my perineal floor exercises several times a day. I don’t want to end up like my mum with a prolapsed uterus, so I started my exercises the day after Rosy was born.’

  ‘That was brave of you. Surely you must have been too sore?’ Dan’s voice was full of genuine admiration. Most of his postnatal mums needed a lot of persuading by the physiotherapists to start their exercises even days after giving birth. He didn’t blame them one bit. If roles had been reversed, he felt, men would have opted out of populating the world long ago.

  Although most pregnant patients chose to go into hospital to have their babies, he still supervised several home births a year, and was constantly amazed by the women’s stamina. Generally he found it a worthwhile experience.

  ‘Now, let’s have a look at Rosy,’ he suggested.

  The proud mother took the pretty little girl out of her car cot and handed her to Dan. He accepted the baby with practised hands and held her firmly across his knees. She looked up at him with wide blue eyes and burped, her mouth turning up at the corners in what seemed to be a smile. A little curdled milk dribbled out of her mouth and Dan wiped it away with a tissue.

  He repeated all the tests that the paediatrician had carried out in the hospital, and pronounced her a hundred per cent fit.

  As Mrs Alsop was tucking Rosy back into the car cot, she asked, ‘Is it true that you are going to be working in the mobile surgery now? Does that mean that we won’t be seeing you here at all?’

  ‘Not at all. I’ll still be holding clinics when the mobile surgery is only out for half a day. And I’ll definitely be continuing with the ante- and postnatal clinics. You can tell that to anybody else who’s worried,’ he assured her.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll book you in for the next little Alsop. I think that I’ll have it at home if you’re going to be around.’ And with a wave of her hand she disappeared into the corridor.

  The rest of the clinic was fairly straightforward. Most of the mums and babies were doing well, being supervised on a daily basis by the midwives visiting them at home. But toward the end of the clinic, Clare showed in a woman by the name of Susan Kemp.

  Mrs Kemp hadn’t brought her baby—a little boy, Dan saw from her notes—with her. His birth weight had been low and the birth itself had been a difficult and long one. Mother and baby had been kept in hospital for a week. Someone had scribbled in the notes, ‘Should have been longer but husband objected.’ There were three other children in the family, all girls.

  Clare was holding the woman’s arm as she steered her to the chair. ‘Mrs Kemp’s feeling a bit wobbly,’ she said by way of explanation, meanwhile looking hard at Dan, obviously trying to convey the fact that all was not well. ‘It’s her first time out since she had her baby eight
weeks ago.’

  Dan got to his feet at once and helped the patient to sit down. He frowned. He didn’t remember seeing this woman before.

  ‘Mrs Kemp, did you come to our antenatal classes before you had your baby?’

  Tiredly, the patient shook her head. ‘No, we only moved here just before he was born. He was premature and I went straight into hospital.’

  Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and she covered her face with her hands. ‘I felt so ill for months, not a bit like I’d been with the girls. But the doctor I was with said there was nothing wrong, and my husband thought that I was exaggerating and told me to pull myself together, and the girls…’ Her voice trailed away.

  Clare put her arm round the woman’s shoulders and offered her a bunch of tissues.

  So, an unhelpful GP, an unsympathetic husband and girls, of what age? Perhaps influenced by the father, they weren’t sympathetic either. Dan seated himself at his desk.

  ‘How old are your daughters, Mrs Kemp?’ he asked, his sympathy evident in his voice.

  ‘Six, ten and sixteen.’

  ‘And are they pleased about the baby?’

  Tears brimmed in her eyes again. ‘They were, until somebody told them that their noses would be put out of joint because it’s a boy, and he would be getting all the attention.’

  Was that somebody the husband? wondered Dan. Or an unthinking relative or friend?

  ‘And your husband, is he pleased about the baby?’

  ‘Oh, he’s over the moon. He’s got the son he wanted at last and I’ve done my duty.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘And as soon as the baby’s weaned, I’ll be on the scrap heap.’

  ‘And thereby hangs a tale, don’t you think?’ said Dan to Clare later.

  Mrs Kemp, looking a little less fraught, had left the clinic armed with a prescription for antidepressants and vitamin supplements and instructions to come in the day after next with the baby. She had been much reassured by their help and advice.

  ‘You’ve no idea what it feels like to be told you’re imagining feeling ill,’ she’d said as she’d left, managing a small smile. ‘Thanks for taking me seriously and giving me so much time.’