Wish Upon a Star (6 page)

Determined not to let him get to her, she quickly donned the clothing that she needed and walked back to the trolley.

Her hands were shaking and her heart was banging against her ribs. She’d done this before, she reminded herself firmly. Many times.

Alessandro was listening to the patient’s chest, his face blank of expression as he concentrated. When he was satisfied,
he looped the stethoscope round his neck and turned to the circulation doctor, a pretty blonde girl who was examining the patient’s femur. ‘Blood loss?’

‘I’m keeping pressure on that wound and it’s under control.’

‘OK, I want two peripheral lines in and take some blood for cross-matching, full blood count, U and Es, and let’s get an arterial sample. I want blood gas and pH analysis. What’s his blood pressure doing? I need an ECG here.’ His instructions were smooth and seamless and swiftly Christy took over from one of the other nurses, who was clearly struggling and whom she presumed to be Donna.

Instinctively her eyes flicked to the monitor as she reached for the adhesive electrode pads and attached the patient to the ECG monitor. ‘It’s dropping. Ninety over fifty.’

Suddenly her hands weren’t shaking any more. Her movements were smooth, confident and almost automatic. She knew what she was doing and it was as if she’d never been away.

‘We’ll start with a litre of Hartmann’s,’ Alessandro said immediately, and Christy busied herself with her patient while he made a rapid assessment of brain and spinal-cord function.

‘Put your tongue out for me,’ he instructed the patient. ‘Wiggle your toes.’

‘His blood pressure is still dropping,’ Christy said quietly, and Alessandro’s gaze flickered to hers.

‘Increase the flow rate and let’s give him some analgesia.’

‘First line is in,’ the blonde doctor said as she slid a wide-bore cannula into a vein and Christy pulled the IV stand towards her so that she could attach the giving set and start the infusion.

‘Get that second line in straight away, Katya,’ Alessandro
instructed, and the blonde doctor reached for the second cannula and moved round the trolley to the other side of the patient.

The man gave a groan of pain and Alessandro immediately switched his attention back to his patient. ‘We’re going to give you something for the pain now, Derek,’ he said calmly and Christy reached for the drugs that she knew would be on the trolley. ‘Morphine and cyclizine?’

With speed and efficiency she drew up the drug and handed it to Alessandro, along with the ampoule to check. Then she moved closer to the trolley and closed her hand over the patient’s, offering comfort.

‘We’ll soon have you more comfortable, Derek,’ she said quietly, and felt the man’s fingers tighten over hers.

This was the bit that the doctors often forgot or ignored, she thought to herself as she felt the man’s grip. They forgot the importance of touch. They forgot that as well as being injured, the patient was anxious and scared.

It was another thing that she’d always admired about Alessandro. No matter how tense the situation, he never forgot his patient. He wasn’t a touchy-feely doctor, but he understood the importance of communication in lowering stress levels.

Her eyes flickered to the machines next to her. ‘His blood pressure is stable,’ she said quietly, and Alessandro gave a nod.

‘Good. He’s still in pain so I’m going to give him a femoral nerve block before we splint and X-ray.’

Immediately Christy reached for the needle she knew he was going to need and an ampoule of lignocaine.

Alessandro felt for the femoral artery and cleaned the skin. Then he held out his hand for the local anaesthetic that Christy had prepared.

She watched while he inserted the needle perpendicular to the skin and then aspirated to check for blood. ‘That’s fine,’ he murmured, moving the needle up and down as he injected the local anaesthetic.

Katya moved forward, standing close to Alessandro. ‘What happens if you puncture the artery?’

‘I resign.’ Sounding impossibly Spanish, Alessandro dropped the syringe back on the tray that Christy was holding and gave a brief smile. ‘But before I resign, I compress it for five to ten minutes or until the bleeding stops. Then I carry on with the femoral nerve block.’ He turned his attention back to his patient. ‘That should give you some relief very quickly, Derek.’

Katya turned away but not before Christy had seen the flirtatious glance.

She wanted Alessandro.

Christy’s stomach lurched and she swallowed hard.

She was used to women staring at Alessandro. It had always happened and perhaps it always would because he was a man who inevitably attracted the attention of the female sex. But this was the first time she’d seen it happen when their marriage was in trouble.

Had he done something about it?

She bit her lip. Katya was very pretty. Alessandro was a hot-blooded Spaniard with a high sex drive, she knew that better than anyone. With their marriage in its current state, it was hard not to worry.

Had something happened between them?

The man closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘We were on our way to a school—delivering presents.’

‘Don’t worry about that now.’ Pushing aside disturbing thoughts of Katya with her arms wrapped around Alessandro,
Christy gave a reassuring smile as the man gripped her hand tightly.

‘Will you get someone to phone the school and explain? These kids believe in Father Christmas. What will they think if I don’t turn up?’

Alessandro looked taken aback but Christy squeezed the man’s hand. ‘I’ll talk to one of the nurses outside see if one of your elves can make a call.’

Alessandro looked at her blankly and she just smiled and turned to Donna, who was hovering nervously. ‘Can you speak to Nicky?’ she said quietly. ‘Ask her to talk to one of the elves and call the school.’

Visibly relieved to be given an excuse to leave, Donna backed out of the room.

Alessandro watched her go with an ominous frown in his dark eyes. ‘She’s nervous.’

‘She’s learning and you can be scary,’ Christy said calmly. ‘Do you want to immobilise the limb now?’

He looked at her. ‘I’m scary?’

‘Not everyone is born with your confidence. Derek, we’re going to splint this leg of yours and for that I need to take some measurements on your uninjured leg.’ Having offered an explanation, Christy moved the blanket and measured the uppermost part of the patient’s thigh.

Donna slipped back by her side. ‘It’s done,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They’ve phoned the school and everyone is fine.’

‘Good. Well done.’ Christy smiled at her patient. ‘You can stop worrying. Even Father Christmas is allowed to be held up when he’s delivering presents.’

He smiled weakly. ‘You probably think I’m mad, worrying about that while I’m lying here with a broken leg, but I
don’t want to disappoint the children. I think the pain is getting easier.’

‘The splint will help the pain, too,’ Christy explained, and then turned to Donna and handed her the measurements she’d taken. ‘We’re going to use a Thomas splint. Can you go and fetch me one, please? You’d better get the size above and below, just in case. It will save you making another journey.’

Working as a team, they prepared to fit the splint and Christy applied the adhesive tape and then wrapped the leg from ankle to mid-thigh with gauze bandage, talking Donna through what she was doing.

The girl lost her nervous appearance and moved closer to the trolley, her expression keen and interested.

Alessandro applied traction to the leg, gently pulling the ankle with one hand and supporting the knee with the other.

Katya stood closer to him than was strictly necessary and Christy tried not to mind and concentrated instead on helping Donna.

‘You can see that he’s correcting the abduction and the external rotation,’ she explained as she helped manoeuvre the splint onto the leg until it was in the right position.

She and Alessandro worked together smoothly, closely observed by both Katya and Donna.

Once the cords were tied and twisted, Christy put wool roll padding under the thigh. ‘Now we just need to bandage the whole splint from thigh to lower calf,’ she said to Donna, ‘lift and support the leg on a pillow and check the distal pulses.’

‘Great.’ Alessandro turned to Katya. ‘Can you arrange for X-rays and then we’ll refer him to the orthopaedic team? I want X-rays of the pelvis, hip and knee.’

Katya gave a feline smile. ‘Of course, Alessandro.’

Donna shot a questioning glance at Christy, who dragged
her gaze away from her scrutiny of Katya and volunteered the information she knew was needed.

‘For the femoral shaft to fracture, there must have been a violent high-energy impact and that is associated with other injures.’
He wouldn’t be sleeping with Katya
, she told herself firmly.
Alessandro wouldn’t do that.
He might be the archetypal alpha male, but he was an honourable man with strong principles. ‘So when we’re X-raying, it’s important to check pelvis, hip and knee.’

But if he considered their marriage to be over, would he do that?

CHAPTER THREE

C
HRISTY
started to clear up some of the debris that had accumulated while Katya and Donna arranged the X-rays. She knew how important it was to keep Resus tidy and well stocked, and she thought that the comfort of routine might relieve the sick feeling building in her stomach.

Forcing herself to be rational and mature, she hung a fresh bag of IV fluid from the drip stand and then started to replenish the drugs that they’d used.

Eventually the patient was transferred to Theatre and she was left alone in the room. She picked up a laryngoscope from the intubation tray and snapped it open, testing that the bulb worked. She stared down at the curved, silver blade in her hand and didn’t hear the door open behind her.

‘So—working in A and E is obviously like riding a bike.’ Alessandro’s deep, masculine drawl came from directly behind her and she turned, her stomach jumping. There was no reason to feel nervous, she told herself firmly. They’d worked together as a smooth, efficient team. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

‘It came back to me.’

‘Obviously.’ His dark eyes lingered on her face. ‘You’ve missed it, haven’t you?’

She caught her breath. It had been years since she’d stopped working in A and E and yet that was the first time he’d ever asked her that question. ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘I missed it terribly.’

Something flickered in his eyes. ‘You never said.’

‘You never asked.’

Their eyes met and held and Christy felt the heat flicker and stir in her pelvis.

Why did she have to find him so completely irresistible? The attraction between them was so powerful that it blinded her to every other aspect of their relationship, which was probably the reason they hadn’t sorted their problems out earlier.

‘We should talk more,’ he said roughly, and she gave a wan smile.

‘You’re not always that easy to talk to, Alessandro.’

‘Am I really scary?’ There was a frown in his eyes and she realised that her earlier comment had genuinely bothered him.

‘You can be intimidating,’ she said honestly. ‘But that’s partly because of your skills and experience. You can’t expect a newly qualified nurse to respond to an emergency situation with your confidence.’

‘If she can’t cope with the situation, she shouldn’t be in Resus,’ Alessandro growled, and Christy sighed.

‘You’re so hard on people. In an ideal world, I suppose you’re right. But we don’t live or work in an ideal world. And the best way to learn is by the patient’s bedside, gaining hands-on experience with the appropriate supervision.’ She scanned the trolley, checking that she’d replaced all the drugs they’d used. ‘All the studying in the world doesn’t prepare you for
the pressure and demands of Resus when a patient is bleeding before your eyes.’

Alessandro looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You were good with her,’ he conceded. ‘The nurse, I mean.’

It was so unlike him to offer praise that she blinked in astonishment and then felt the warmth spread inside her.

‘Thank you.’

‘Do I scare
you
?’ His direct question made her catch her breath.

She wondered whether she ought to admit that the only thing that scared her was the thought of losing him.

She opened her mouth to tell him, but pride trapped the words in her throat before she could utter them.
She was sleeping in the spare room
, she reminded herself.
He hadn’t come after her.

It was the wrong time to be honest about her feelings when she was so unsure about his.

‘No,’ she said finally, her voice quiet. ‘You don’t scare me, but you can be difficult to reach and sometimes I just give up rather than keep trying.’

He muttered something in Spanish and ran a hand over his jaw, a jaw that was already showing signs of stubble. Then he reached out and slid a hand behind her head and pulled her face to within inches of his in a gesture that was both male and possessive. ‘I
don’t
want a divorce, Christy. Be clear about that.’

She stared up at him, hypnotised by the look in his dark, brooding eyes. They were the words she’d waited to hear for two long months and he’d chosen to say them in Resus under harsh, fluorescent lights with the likelihood that they’d be disturbed at any moment. She wanted to ask why he’d let her go. She wanted to ask about Katya. Suddenly, she wanted to
know how he’d spent the last six weeks. ‘And what if I want a divorce?’

She said the words to goad him and remembered too late that goading Alessandro, with his volatile, Latin temperament, was not a good idea.

‘You don’t.’ He slid his other arm and around her and jerked her against him in a decisive gesture that was so much a part of him.

She felt the strength and power of his body and the breath trapped in her throat. ‘Alessandro…’ she couldn’t concentrate on anything when he was this close. Couldn’t think…

‘Need me to prove it to you?’ He breathed the words against her mouth, his tone silky smooth and dangerous, and she gave a whimper, knowing what was coming and willing herself to reject him. ‘Need me to prove that you still want me?’