Loe raamatut: «Scandal In Sydney»

CHAPTER ONE

LUKE WILLIAMS had been operating since dawn. All he wanted was bed. Instead he was coping with stinking tallow, teenage hysteria and the director of surgery and the representative of the founders of this hospital thinking pistols at dawn.

‘You said multiple burns. Four children. I’ve spent most of the night with a kid with a collapsed lung, and you wake me for this …’

Luke’s boss, Finn Kennedy, the taciturn head of surgery at Sydney Harbour Hospital, was practically rigid with fury, but Dr Evie Lockheart, emergency physician, was giving it right back.

‘I was told four children fell into a vat of boiling tallow from the meatworks. You think that’s not worth getting you and Luke down here? I wanted the best.’

‘Luke has other things to do as well. Like sleeping. And boiling? It must have been barely warm. You should have checked.’

‘And waste precious time? Pull your head in, Kennedy.’

Luke sucked his breath in at that. These guys were powerhouses in this hospital. Evie Lockheart, of Endowing-the-Hospital-with-Serious-Money Lockheart fame, and Finn Kennedy, the Do-Not-Cross Director of Surgery, had personalities to match their egos. Powerful intellects, serious commitment, serious … conflict. Conflict getting worse.

Could he back away?

No.

School holidays. A meat-processing operation out in the suburbs, with inadequate security. Four teenaged boys, fifteen or sixteen, egging each other to walk the plank—on rollerblades!—over a two-thousand-gallon vat of tallow being rendered down.

They were lucky the heat had only just been turned on. They’d fallen into the equivalent of a bath that was a bit too hot.

Through the office window, the kids and their frightened parents looked a pool of misery. The stench was unbelievable, but it could have been much worse. A pert little blonde nurse was swabbing tallow from one kid’s legs, exposing only minor scalding.

He couldn’t leave, he decided, not until things had calmed down. Meanwhile he had a choice. Join in the fight. Look at the kids. Look at the nurse.

This was a no-brainer.

The woman was cute, he thought, even in her ER scrubs. Her blonde curls were wisping from under her cap. As he watched, she tucked them back in, and then glanced through the window.

He caught her gaze and saw laughter, quickly suppressed.

She’d be seeing the conflict, he thought, even if she couldn’t hear it. Was she laughing at these two? Not a good idea, he told her silently. Laughter would be really unwise right now, even for him, and he’d been working here for nearly ten years. He fought—quite hard—the urge to smile back.

He also fought the urge to hold his nose. This stink was permeating the whole floor.

‘The gastro outbreak has given us nursing shortages through the whole hospital,’ Evie was snapping. ‘I didn’t have the nursing staff to clean and check each of these boys before calling you. Possible burns, possible major trauma, it’s my job to call for back-up.’

‘They’re not traumatised,’ Finn snapped back.

But they were, Luke conceded, looking through at the very-sorry-for-themselves kids. It looked to him like their parents had initially been terrified and then expressed shock in the form of anger. He’d seen it time and time again in this job, fright finding vent in fury.

A couple of the kids had been crying. Tough teenage boys, scalded and scared … They should do a bit of reassuring.

But first he needed to defuse the battle of the Titans. How to stop World War III without accidentally escalating it?

‘You think your power gives you the right …’ Finn Williams was growling to the Lockheart heiress.

Luke gave an inward groan and thought, Here we go.

The little blonde nurse had disappeared into the storeroom. Good idea, he thought. Could he follow?

Not so much. Finn was his direct boss. Evie was the granddaughter of the founder of this place.

If he valued his job he needed to stick around while these power-mongers tore each other’s throats out.

In truth he wasn’t so worried about his job. As head of the plastic surgery team at the Harbour his credentials made him pretty much unsackable. But as well as being his boss, Finn was also his friend, or as much of a friend as either of them wanted. The last few weeks, he’d watched Finn’s perennially short fuse grow even shorter.

Finn and Evie had sparked off each other from the moment they’d met. As a junior doctor, Evie had dared query one of Finn’s decisions. She’d been wrong, she’d apologised, but Finn had mocked her family’s right to power, and their relationship had been … interesting ever since. But now, even for Finn, his anger was over the top.

It was messing with staff morale. It was also worrying, and Luke didn’t like being worried. Luke Williams was a man who held himself apart. He didn’t get close to people.

He was worrying now about his friend.

And through the window …

He hadn’t seen this nurse before.

Pretty. Great eyes. They were a blue that made you feel like diving into clear, sunlit water on a hot day. It must be her first night on the job, he decided. He would have noticed those eyes.

Where was she?

Maybe she’d gone to get a hose.

‘There may well be second- or third-degree burns under that mess,’ Evie was saying, almost hissing her anger.

‘There’s no sign of shock. All they need is a good wash.’

‘And then assessment,’ Evie snapped. ‘So then I’ll call you back?’

‘You won’t need to call us back. I’m guessing first-degree burns at worst.’

‘Could we find out?

It was Blue Eyes, out of the storeroom, popping into their private war with her arms full of plastic. ‘Sorry,’ she said, blithely, as if she hadn’t noticed any anger. ‘I know it’s not my place but I’ve spent the last couple of years working in a country hospital where all staff step in at need. I’m thinking we have four kids here, and four medics if you count me. How about we all put on protective gear, get each of these guys in a shower cubicle and do an individual check for any burn that needs attention? Split up the work from there.’

Whoa. Luke’s jaw practically hit his ankles. Did she know who she had here? Only three of Sydney Harbour Hospital’s most influential doctors. Head of Surgery. Head of Plastics. Member of the Lockheart family.

She wasn’t wearing the Harbour uniform. She was an agency nurse?

She was holding out the protective gear as if she was expecting them to take it.

But … What choice did they have? There were no nurses spare. The gastro outbreak had badly affected the hospital, plus there’d been a brawl early in the night; he’d seen it on his way off duty. Drunk casualties. That meant intensive nursing, guys who’d been stitched up but who were still affected by alcohol.

So Evie had been left with one lone nurse and four filthy kids with possible burns. An emergency department full of hysterical patients, parents and stink. No wonder she’d called for help, even if she’d called for help a bit high up the food chain.

Maybe the nurse was right, this was the fastest solution. And, besides, those eyes …

‘I’ll take the beefy one with the scowl,’ he said, taking a set of waterproof gear.

Evie gazed at him, speechless. ‘You …’

‘You called me,’ he said mildly. ‘I assume you need me.’ He grabbed another waterproof set and tossed it to Finn. ‘It’ll do us good,’ he said. ‘Bit of stress release. You want to take the little guy with freckles?’

Finn caught the waterproofs. Looked flabbergasted.

‘I’ll do the skinny one,’ Blue Eyes said, and handed the last set of overalls to Evie.

There was a moment’s pregnant pause. Very pregnant.

Blue Eyes calmly hauled on her waterproofs, then bent and started putting on boots.

She had wispy blonde curls on the back of her neck, Luke thought. Cute. Really cute.

Was that the reason he hauled on boots as well?

No. This was sensible. He didn’t succumb to testosterone when it came to cute, not any more, but this place was clogged with stinking kids. They all needed checking, there were no nurses free and this way … Blue Eyes had it right, in the time they spent arguing they could get them checked and out of here.

‘I’ll ring the cleaning staff and tell them we need this place cleared while we’re showering,’ Blue Eyes said, now clad all in waterproofs. She tugged open the door, allowing contact between doctors and patients. Before she even had Finn’s okay.

‘Ross, you go with Dr Williams, Robbie, you’re with Dr Lockheart, Craig, you’re with Mr Kennedy and, Jason, you’re with me,’ she said. She turned to the parents. ‘Could you leave the kids with us? They’re in the best of hands; we have the most senior doctors in the hospital working with them. We’ll clean them, check there are no problem burns and then get them back to you. Maybe you could find an all-night supermarket and pick up some loose clothes. Is that okay with everyone?’

But before they could answer they were interrupted. ‘Excuse me …’ The night receptionist edged into the emergency area like a scared rabbit. Of course she was nervous, Luke thought. Everyone in this hospital was nervous around Finn Kennedy, and for good reason. ‘The police are here,’ she ventured, and before she could say more two cops pushed past her.

Uh-oh. They hadn’t realised, Luke thought with grim humour, that they’d just entered Finn Kennedy territory. Facing gun-toting drug dealers might be safer.

‘These youths are facing charges of breaking and entering,’ the older policeman said, looking at the boys as if they were truly bad smells. ‘The orderly outside said they don’t seem badly injured. Can we get the paperwork out of the way so we can get on with our night’s work?’

Uh-oh, indeed. Luke held his breath. Finn’s fuse, already short, was suddenly down to the core explosive, and he had a target.

‘Breaking and entering?’ His voice was icy.

‘That’s right, sir.’ The cop still didn’t see the danger—but here it came.

‘These kids have fallen into exposed hot fat,’ Finn snarled. ‘A life-threatening hazard to anyone who comes near it. An unsecured environment. Unlocked windows. You know as well as I do that a simple padlock on a closed door doesn’t begin to cover such a risk. Breaking and entering … You can tell whoever’s thinking of pressing charges that he can go back to whatever stinking worm-hole he crawled from and expect a visit from Occupational Health and Safety, with lawyers following. These children are traumatised enough, and you’re adding more. Now get out of this hospital before I phone someone with enough clout to have you thrown out.’

Then, as the cops backed out with astonishing speed, he turned to Luke. ‘What are you waiting for? Get those waterproofs on and get these kids clean. Do what the nurse says. Now.’

The really good thing about being a nobody was that it didn’t matter whose toes you stood on. You were still just a nobody.

These guys were all big-wigs. Lily knew it, but she’d watched the outburst of sound and fury with dispassion, not really fussed if the anger turned on her. What was the worst that could happen? She’d move on.

There were other hospitals. Her credentials were good. She could go somewhere else and be anonymous all over again.

The feeling was extraordinary. She felt like she was floating, light and free. She’d escaped.

She’d return eventually to Lighthouse Cove, the tiny community that judged her mother and who judged her. She knew deep down that this was a momentary escape. A promise was a promise. But right now her mother was in the middle of a dizzying affair with the local parish vicar, the whole town was on fire with gossip and Lily was staying right here, in nice, anonymous Sydney.

She was a bank nurse, employed by an agency. She was sent where she was needed, so if she stood on toes, if she wasn’t needed, if these Very Important Doctors decided they wished to dispense with her services, then so be it.

She practically chuckled as she led Jason into a shower cubicle and along the line of cubicles three Very Important Doctors followed her lead.

Two of them looked grim. The other … not so much. He was the head of plastic surgery, she gathered. Luke Williams looked lean and ripped, hovering above six feet, with sun-bleached brown hair and deep green eyes that glinted with repressed laughter. Very repressed, though. She caught his gaze and she could have sworn he was laughing, but he averted his eyes fast. It wouldn’t do to laugh out loud.

There wasn’t enough laughter in her life, she thought, and she needed it. But she’d taken the first step, and it had felt good to exchange her first attempt at laughter in her new job with a doctor as hunky as Luke Williams.

There’s an inappropriate thought, she chided herself, but she was still smiling inwardly.

‘Will this hurt?’ Jason quavered, and she gave him a reassuring smile.

‘I suspect mostly just your pride. We need to get those clothes off. Are you hurting?’

‘Stinging,’ he admitted. ‘A bit.’

The meatworks proprietor should have washed them straight away, Lily thought, growing serious. If the tallow had been really hot, they’d have been facing a nightmare. The owner of the meatworks hadn’t checked. He’d simply threatened them with police and they’d fled. Their parents had brought them straight here, with hot tallow still intact. If it had been boiling it would have kept right on burning.

They’d been so lucky. Apparently the vat had only just started warming. The boys had climbed in through a high window, seen huge planks laid across to skim off impurities and dared each other to rollerblade across. The stupidity left Lily breathless. She’d heard the outline. One kid falling, clutching his mate as he fell, both grabbing the planking, which had come loose, tumbling their mates in after them.

Lily turned the shower to soft pressure, skin temperature. She put Jason’s hands on the rails and produced scissors.

‘Just to my knickers,’ Jason whimpered.

‘There’s nothing I haven’t seen,’ Lily told him. ‘If you’ve burned anything personal, you’ll need it fixed.’

Another whimper.

‘There’s nothing to this,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘These jeans are going to stink for ever so we might as well cut ‘em off. So … rollerblading over steaming tallow. Quite a trick. How long have you been blading?’

‘A … a year.’ The water was streaming over the kid; his clothes were falling away and so was the muck that was covering him.

‘You any good?’

‘Y-yeah.’

‘So of the four of you, who does the neatest tricks?’

Luke was in the next cubicle. He was scissoring clothes from his own kid. Ross had been blustering when Luke had first seen him, whinging to his parents that it wasn’t his fault, that his ‘expletive’ mates had pressured him to do it, Craig had pushed him, his dad should sue.

Under the water, with Luke scissoring off his clothes, he calmed down. His legs were scalded. They were only first-degree burns, though, Luke thought, little worse than sunburn. He’d sting for a week but there’d be little long-term damage.

He’d been swearing as Luke had propelled him under the shower, but when Luke had attacked with scissors … the boy had shut up. ‘We need to check down south,’ Luke had told him. ‘Check everything’s still in working order. Steamed balls aren’t exactly healthy …’ Luke wasn’t reassuring him just yet. He liked him quiet, and, besides, with him quiet he could hear the conversation in the next cubicle.

‘I’ve been blading since I was twelve,’ Blue Eyes was saying.

‘Girls can’t blade.’ That was her kid—Jason.

‘You’re kidding me, right? I suspect you’ll need to come back in a week or so to make sure these scalds have healed. You bring your blades; I’ll organise time off and I’ll meet you in the hospital car park. Then we’ll see who can’t blade.’

Luke blinked. An assignation …

‘What, you can blade fast?’ Jason had been shakily terrified but Blue Eyes had him distracted. He sounded scornful.

‘Fast?’ Blue Eyes chuckled, and it was a gorgeous chuckle. ‘I do more than fast. I do barrel rolls, grapevines, heel toes, flips, you name it. I’m no gumbie, kiddo.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Would I kid about something like blading? My skates were the most important thing in my life for a long, long time.’ Blue Eyes suddenly sounded serious. ‘It took my mind off other things and I loved it. I can’t say I ever bladed over tallow, though.’

‘I bet you could.’ There was suddenly belief—and admiration—in the kid’s voice and Luke found himself agreeing. If this slip of a girl could get Evie and Finn to don waterproofs and wash off tallow, she might be capable of a whole lot more.

He wanted, quite badly, to explore the idea.

Bad idea.

She was an agency nurse. Her uniform told him that. She was one of the casual nurses employed to fill gaps at need in any hospital in the city.

After tonight he might never see her again.

But … she’d made an assignation with Jason in a week. That might mean the agency had positioned her here for more than a night.

She had a great chuckle.

No. Beware of chuckles. And blue eyes. And twinkles.

He thought of Hannah.

He always thought of Hannah. Of course he did. Her memory no longer evoked the searing pain it once had, but instead was a basic part of him, a knowledge that he’d messed with the most precious thing a man could be given. The emotions that went with the sort of involvement he was briefly considering with Blue Eyes were gone. They were left behind in a bleak cemetery with what was left of his wife and his little son.

‘Me balls …’ Ross whimpered. ‘They gunna be okay?’

‘They’re gunna be fine,’ he told the kid he was treating. ‘They’re a bit pink but they’ll live to father sons.’

‘I don’t want to father kids!’ The thought was obviously worse than hot tallow.

‘No,’ Luke said soothingly. ‘I guess you don’t, but one day you might. Meanwhile everything’s in working order for when you want them to do what they’re meant to do. For when your chance in life happens.’

Ross and Jason were sent home. Robbie and Craig were admitted. They’d been in the centre of the vat. It had taken them longer to get out, which meant they had patches of second-degree burning. No full-thickness burns, though. Evie took them in charge, patching them up before admitting them. Luke somehow found himself doing the paperwork while Lily gave Ross and Jason’s parents instructions on how to deal with minor scalds.

She then headed off to fill in a police report. Finn might have moved on, but Luke heard Blue Eyes asking questions, getting the boys to sign statements, and he knew because of her the open vats would be covered and there’d be no prosecutions of kids who were just being … kids.

Lily was some nurse.

She wasn’t your normal agency nurse. Most agency nurses were looking for a quiet life. They were mums with small kids who worked when they could find someone to care for their children. They were overseas nurses, funding the next adventure. They were older women who worked when grandkids and aching legs permitted, or they wanted funds for a few retirement treats.

Lily, though, didn’t seem to fit any of these categories. She was in her late twenties, he decided, nicely mature. Competent. She had the air of a nurse who’d run her own ward, and who didn’t suffer fools gladly. And the way she’d talked to Jason … She didn’t sound like a young mum, wearily getting the job done.

He badly needed to get to bed. He had a full list in the morning. He shouldn’t be awake now, but first … First he finished the paperwork and casually dropped by Admin. And while he did he just happened to retrieve the fact sheet that had been faxed through with the notification that Blue Eyes had been allocated to work at the Harbour.

Blue Eyes.

Lily Maureen Ellis. Twenty-six years old. Trained at Adelaide. Well trained. He flicked through her list of credentials and blinked—hey, she had plastics experience. She was trained to assist in plastic surgery.

Plus the rest. Intensive care. Paediatrics. Midwifery. He knew the hospital she’d trained in. This woman must be good.

According to the sheet, she’d left Adelaide two years back to run the bush nursing hospital at Lighthouse Cove. He knew Lighthouse Cove. It was a tiny, picturesque town less than an hour’s drive from Adelaide.

Fishing, tourists, pubs and not a lot else.

So what had driven Lily Maureen Ellis to pack up and leave Lighthouse Cove and put her name down as an agency nurse in Sydney?

Maybe she was following a man.

Maybe he needed to get some sleep.

‘Why the hell aren’t you in bed?’ It was Finn, scaring the daylights out of him—as normal. The Harbour’s Director of Surgery had the tread of a panther—and night sight. Word in the hospital was that there was nothing Finn didn’t know. He knew it before it happened.

‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ Luke managed back, mildly. ‘Have you been giving Evie more grief?’

‘I haven’t …’

‘Yeah, you have,’ he said evenly. ‘You’re tetchy, and you’re especially tetchy round Evie. What’s eating you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Headaches? Sore arm?’

‘Why would I have headaches?’

‘Beats me,’ Luke said mildly. ‘But you keep rubbing your head and shoulder, and if anyone puts a foot wrong …’

‘Dr Lockheart had no business waking us up,’ Finn growled.

‘She had four potentially serious burns and one agency nurse. Cut her some slack.’

‘She drives me nuts,’ Finn said, taking the fact sheet. ‘So this is the girl handing out waterproofs.’

‘She’s got guts.’

‘I’m sick of guts,’ Finn said. ‘Give me a good pliable woman any day. So why are we reading her CV?’ He raised an eyebrow in sudden interest. ‘Well, well. It’s about time …’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Hannah’s been gone for four years now,’ Finn said, gentling. ‘A man can’t mourn for ever.’

‘Says the whole hospital,’ Luke said grimly. ‘It’s driving me nuts.’

‘So have an affair.’ He motioned to the CV. ‘Excellent idea. Get them off your back. Get a life.’

‘Hannah didn’t get a life.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘So whose fault was it?’ he demanded, explosively. ‘Fourteen weeks and I didn’t even know she was pregnant.’

‘You were working seventy hours a week and fronting for exams. Hannah knew the pressures. She was also a nurse and she knew her way around her body. To lock herself in her bedroom and suffer in silence at fourteen weeks pregnant … She was fed up that you were caught up in Theatre. It still smacks of playing the martyr.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Speak ill of the dead? I say it like it is. If one stupid act of martyrdom stops you from getting on with your life …’

‘I don’t see you getting on with your life.’

Finn stiffened. Finn was his boss, Luke conceded, but their relationship went deeper. He knew as much of Finn’s background as anyone did. Finn had a brother who’d been killed in combat. He’d been wounded himself. There’d been a messy relationship with his brother’s wife, then a series of forget-the-moment flings.

Was he about to throw those in his boss’s face? Maybe not. Not at two in the morning, when they were both sleep deprived—and when a cute little blonde nurse had suddenly appeared in the background behind Finn. Waiting for an opportunity to break in.

‘Don’t make this about me,’ Finn snapped. ‘Meanwhile, you …’ Finn waved the folder. ‘An agency nurse, ripe for the picking. That’s what you need. A casual affair and then move on.’

The blue eyes widened.

Luke stifled a groan.

‘Excuse me, doctors,’ the Agency-Ripe-For-The-Picking nurse said, in a carefully neutral voice. ‘The paging system doesn’t appear to be working down here. Dr Lockheart has asked me to find you, Dr Williams. Not you, Mr Kennedy. Dr Lockheart’s words were, “Keep that man out of my department at all costs”. But a child’s been admitted with facial injuries from dog bites. Dr Lockheart says to tell you, Dr Williams, that this is serious and could you please come now.’