Gift of a Family

‘Thirty-nine point five.’

Josh nodded. ‘Let’s get a line in and then calculate her weight and give her 1 milligram dantrolene per kilogram IV.’

Kat slipped out of Resus and went to find the friends. There were two of them, one dark and one blonde, and they were huddled in Reception, looking the worse for wear. Kat looked at Paula. ‘Where can I talk to a couple of teenagers?’

‘Take them into the relatives’ room,’ Paula said immediately, handing her a key. ‘Back through the door and first on your left. Let me know if you need tea.’

Kat smiled her thanks but she had a feeling that it wasn’t tea the teenagers needed, it was a good shake.

She walked over to them. ‘Are you with Holly?’

The dark-haired girl gave a sheepish nod. ‘Is she OK?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Kat said coolly. ‘I need some information. Do you mind coming with me, please?’

They exchanged wary looks but followed her without argument, each of the girls dressed in the traditional teenage ‘uniform’ of strappy tops, hipster jeans and big belts, and wearing the obligatory bored expression.

‘All right.’ Kat closed the door and turned to look at them. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that Holly’s very ill.’

The blonde girl was chewing gum. She glanced at the other and then gave what was supposed to be a casual shrug, but Kat caught the fear in her eyes. ‘She just had too much to drink and she isn’t used to it.’ She transferred her gum to the other side of her mouth. ‘It’s no big deal.’

Kat kept her tone neutral. ‘What was she drinking?’

‘I dunno.’ The girl shrugged again, her expression sulky. ‘Alcopops mostly. It was a pretty wild party. Whatever was going. I wasn’t really watching.’

In other words, she’d been drinking herself. For a moment Kat tried to remind herself that these were young kids, just beginning to push at the traces, test the limits. Was she being too hard on them? Then she remembered the girl lying in Resus and the grim look on Josh’s face.

They needed to know that pushing at the traces had consequences. ‘Who arranged the party?’

The blonde girl rolled her eyes. ‘Like we’re going to tell you that! I don’t think so!’

Kat kept her voice steady. ‘If you want to help Holly, you’ll tell me. I’m not the enemy here.’

The girls exchanged looks again and the one chewing gum gave a careless shrug. ‘Some guy we met in one of the pubs. He throws parties all the time on the beach.’

‘And was he offering drugs as well as alcohol?’

There was a sulky silence but Katy saw the panic in the dark-haired girl’s eyes and decided that she was the one with a conscience. ‘Holly is really ill,’ she said quietly, ‘and we need to know everything we can if we’re going to make her better. We need your help. Anything you can tell us might help. Anything.’

‘If?’ The girl stopped chewing and looked at her in alarm. Smudges of the previous night’s make-up darkened her eyes and her face was alarmingly pale. She looked tired and very much the worse for wear. ‘What do you mean, if? She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’

Kat shrugged, unable to give the reassurance the girl was looking for. ‘I have no idea, but if she’s taken drugs and you know anything about it, now is the time to tell me.’

The girl swallowed, her breathing rapid, indecision flickering over her white features. ‘She took E,’ she blurted out suddenly, ‘but it couldn’t be that. She’s taken it before and she’s always been fine.’

Ecstasy.

So Josh had been right in his initial assessment, Kat thought. He was obviously smart as well as good-looking. Or maybe drug-taking on the beach was a common occurrence in this part of Cornwall? She had no idea, and made a mental note to ask him about it at the first opportunity.

The other girl closed her eyes and gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Tina.’

‘Well, what was I supposed to do?’ Tina turned on her defensively, her make-up smudging as the tears started to fall. ‘I’m not going to stand around here while Holly dies, am I? I don’t want that on my conscience, thanks very much.’ She gave a little sob and wrapped her arms around herself, looking more like a child than a teenager.

‘Oh, get a life. She is so not going to die,’ the other girl said in a derisive tone, and Kat shot her a cold look.

‘She could do. Have you any idea how dangerous drugs are?’

The girl rolled her eyes defiantly. ‘She’s just drunk, that’s all…’

‘How many did she take? Do you know?’ Realising that she stood more chance with Tina, Kat directed her questioning towards the other girl. ‘If you know, please tell me. It’s really important.’

Tina stared at the floor. ‘One,’ she mumbled, not looking at her friend, ‘just the one. Then she just keeled over. We all just thought she was drunk. She’s taken them before and she was OK.’

Kat let out a long breath but gave Tina a smile. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth, that was very brave of you. Why don’t you go back out to Reception and get yourselves some water from the machine? It might make you feel better. We’ll let you know how she is as soon as there’s some news.’ She walked towards the door and opened it, pausing in the entrance. ‘Oh, one other thing. Do you have the phone number of her parents? We’re going to need to call them.’

Tina blanched and the other girl shook her head, her jaw lifted in a stubborn tilt. ‘You’re joking, right?’ Her tone was nothing short of rude and confrontational. ‘No way are you phoning her parents. You can forget it!’

Kat resisted the temptation to shake the girl. ‘They need to know that their daughter is in hospital—’

‘But we can’t! We’re not even supposed to be here,’ Tina blurted out, panic flitting across her face, her voice choked with tears. ‘Our parents think we’re having a sleepover with a girl in our class. They don’t even know we’re in Cornwall.’

Kat sighed and ran a hand over the back of her neck. What a mess. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently, ‘but we need to inform her parents. I’m sure if you give it some thought, you’ll understand that.’

Tina burst into tears and the other girl sat down on a chair with a plop, her face suddenly white.

‘My dad’ll kill me,’ she muttered, lifting her head and glaring at Tina. ‘This is your bloody fault! You never should have given her the stuff. You were so out of order!’

‘I didn’t give it to her,’ Tina choked, tears streaming down her face, and Kat took a deep breath, deciding that she had no choice but to intervene.

‘Look, it’s important that I tell the team that she’s taken ecstasy, so I’m going to do that now, and when I come back I want the phone number of her parents, OK?’

One glance at their ashen, sulky faces told her that it clearly wasn’t OK at all, but she decided that she didn’t have time for them at the moment. Holly was the priority.

‘Paula…’ She stuck her head into Reception. ‘Can someone keep half an eye on those two for a moment, please? I need to go back to Resus and speak to Josh.’

‘No problem. I’ll do it myself.’ Paula stood up and Kat gave her a grateful smile then walked briskly back to Resus.

It was a hive of activity, with Josh delivering instructions in cool, calm tones that kept everyone focused.

‘Kat?’ He glanced in her direction and raised a dark eyebrow. ‘Tell me you’ve got news for me.’

‘Ecstasy,’ she said immediately, and he gave a nod, a flicker of respect in his eyes as he looked at her. Clearly he’d anticipated that she’d have trouble extracting the information from the teenagers.

‘Anything else?’

‘Alcopops. It appears she lost consciousness quite early on in the evening, but they all assumed she was drunk.’

‘Presumably they were all too drunk to notice the difference,’ Josh said wearily. ‘Remind me to have a word with Doug, our community policeman. They need to keep a closer eye on the beach in the evenings. OK, folks, let’s give her that sodium bicarb.’

There was a flurry of activity and one of the nurses glanced at the machine with a frown. ‘She has severe tachycardia, Josh.’

Kat looked at the machine and noticed that the girl’s heart rate was incredibly fast.

‘Let’s give her 5 milligrams of metoprolol IV,’ Josh instructed calmly, his blue gaze flickering first to the machine and then back to the girl on the trolley. ‘Her blood pressure is going up, too. Let’s try some nifedipine and then we need to get a CT scan before we transfer her to Intensive Care. My guess is she’ll show cerebral oedema.’

‘Kat?’ Paula popped her head round the door at that moment and held out a piece of paper. ‘There’s the number you were after.’

‘You’re a genius!’ Kat took the paper and smiled at the woman. ‘How did you do it?’

Paula gave a modest shrug. ‘Appealed to the conscience of the little dark-haired one. She’s not such a tough nut as the other one.’

Kat read the number on the paper and gave a sigh. ‘I suppose I’d better phone and tell them where their daughter is.’

‘Is that the parents?’ Josh checked the ECG reading and then glanced across at her. ‘If so, you definitely need to call them. They need to get down here. After the CT scan we’re transferring her to Intensive Care. She’s going to need ventilating. Do you want me to ring the parents or are you OK with that?’

Kat shook her head. ‘I can do it.’

Just about the worst job in the A and E department, she reflected, but she could do it.

She called the parents, gave them the barest information but tried not to worry them, and then returned to Resus to find that they were preparing Holly for a CT scan of her brain.

The girl was unconscious now and something about her pale face tugged at Kat’s heart.

She turned to Josh. ‘Will she be OK, do you think?’

He gave a shrug. ‘Who knows?’ His voice was hard. ‘Drugs aren’t to be messed with.’

‘Weird really…’ Kat frowned. ‘This place is so far away from the streets of London and yet you have the same problems as a big city.’

‘In some ways we have more problems.’ Josh scanned a blood result that someone handed him. ‘That looks a bit better. Where were we?’ He glanced at her, momentarily distracted from their conversation. ‘Oh, yes, the problems of living in a seaside town. Unfortunately, because we have such good surfing beaches, inevitably we attract a pretty lively crowd. A young crowd. Generally it’s all pretty harmless but not always, and there are always unscrupulous individuals out to make money from the unwary. The main problem is usually alcohol. Teenagers come down here to surf and party and they over-indulge. Saturday nights are the worst.’

Kat gave a rueful smile. ‘I can imagine.’

He looked at her. ‘It won’t be anything you haven’t seen before. Teenagers behave like teenagers. It’s just the setting that’s different. Are the parents coming?’

‘They’re on their way,’ Kat told him. ‘They live about two hours away. They didn’t even know Holly was here. The girls said they were having an extended sleepover with a friend at home and then caught the train down here.’

Josh winced. ‘Ouch. Well, they always say that your sins will find you out.’

Finally the patient was transferred, but that seemed to be a signal for the whole of Cornwall to have accidents and the rest of the day was frantically busy.

By the end of her shift Kat’s feet were aching, her head was throbbing and her stomach was rumbling from lack of food.

And she’d thought London was busy…

Josh let out a long breath and glanced at the clock. ‘Long day. I’m conscious that we didn’t have a chance to talk at all. Or eat. Why don’t we go for a drink? There’s a lovely pub a very short drive from here. Sells great food. I can answer all those questions you haven’t even had time to ask.’

Kat stiffened, immediately on the defensive. Was he asking her out? ‘I don’t think so. I don’t—’ She broke off and he lifted an eyebrow in that slightly mocking, sexy way designed to test the resolve of the strongest female.

‘You don’t what?’ His voice was soft. ‘You don’t drink? You don’t drink with colleagues? Or you don’t drink with me? Which is it, Dr O’Brien?’

Her mind went completely blank. She wasn’t used to playing games with men and she had a feeling he was playing games. ‘I have to get home.’

‘And is there someone at home waiting for you, Kat?’ His eyes scanned her face and she felt something shift in her stomach. An awareness that she instantly dismissed.

‘Archie.’ She said the name firmly as if to remind herself as much as him. ‘Archie is waiting for me. Thanks for today, Dr Sullivan.’

Even though they hadn’t had time for a conversation, she’d learned a great deal just from watching him work. She’d seen enough to know that, whatever else he might be, Josh Sullivan was an excellent doctor. He used instinct as well as experience and training, and those instincts were obviously good.

‘Call me Josh.’ He smiled, and there was more than a hint of the pirate in that smile. ‘We’re very informal here, but I’m sure you already know that.’

She did know that, but somehow calling him Josh implied an intimacy that she didn’t want.

There was no way she was becoming intimate with Josh Sullivan.

* * *

Prickly, Josh thought as he walked towards his office to make a start on the mountain of paperwork that awaited him. If he had to find one word to describe Kat O’Brien, it would be ‘prickly’. Like a thorn bush, it was impossible to get too close without risking physical injury.

He sprawled in the chair and narrowed his eyes as he mentally examined the facts.

She was fine from a professional point of view. More than fine. She’d handled those teenagers extremely well and, from what he’d seen so far, her clinical skills were excellent—but the minute they moved from the subject of work the barriers had come up and she’d frozen him out.

Was that because of Archie?

Josh leaned forward and flicked on the computer. The fact that she was obviously involved with someone disappointed him more than he would have anticipated.

She wasn’t available, he told himself firmly, pushing away memories of her body in the black wetsuit. All right, so she had legs to die for and curves designed to drive a man out of his mind, but she was already taken, so as far as Josh was concerned that was the end of it. He didn’t poach.

Katriona O’Brien was a colleague, nothing more, and that was the way she was going to stay.

CHAPTER THREE

KAT paid the babysitter and then tiptoed upstairs and peeped round the door of the bedroom.

‘You can come in,’ a sleepy voice said from the bed. ‘I’m not asleep.’

She slid inside and sat on the bed, wincing as she sat on a plastic boat. ‘Well you should be asleep, young man!’ She moved the boat and added it to the pile of toys in the box by the bed. ‘It’s really late.’

‘I wanted to stay awake until you came home.’

She winced, wrestling with the guilt that went hand in hand with single motherhood and the need to earn a living. ‘I got held up at the hospital.’

‘Lots of people having accidents.’ He nodded wisely. ‘Did you fix them?’

She smiled at the question. ‘I did my best. How was your day at summer camp? Did you meet anyone nice?’

Because it was the summer holidays she’d been forced to find Archie somewhere to go during the week, and fortunately she’d found a wonderful children’s ‘camp’ run by a team of teachers from the local primary school. Given that Archie would be attending the same school from September, it had seemed like an ideal solution.

‘I did magic.’

‘What sort of magic?’ Unable to resist touching him, she smoothed his hair gently, thinking that in the dark like this, snuggled in pyjamas covered in boats, he still seemed like her baby. But she knew he was growing up very fast and she was making the most of every single moment. ‘How did you get to be six? Tell me that. Last time I looked you were still a baby.’

‘Magic.’ Archie looked at her, his eyes huge. ‘Did you know that I can make myself invisible whenever I want to?’

‘Really?’ Kat looked impressed. ‘Wow, I bet that’s really useful.’

He nodded. ‘I did it today in camp. Twice.’

She lifted a hand to free her hair and it tumbled in waves over her shoulders. There was a frown in her eyes as she listened to him. ‘Are you having problems making friends, sweetheart?’ She’d worried like mad about uprooting him but Archie was such a friendly child she’d assured herself that he’d soon settle in. ‘Who did you eat lunch with?’

‘A boy called Thomas.’ Archie sighed. ‘He turned me into a chatterbox.’

Knowing that her son never stopped talking, Kat hid the smile. ‘How did he do that?’

‘Well, he kept talking to me so I had to talk back instead of listening to the captain.’

Kat smiled. The summer camp was run along the lines of a ship with a ‘captain’ and ‘mates’. They were obviously very creative.

‘And did the “captain” tell you off?’

Archie shook her head. ‘Not once I explained I’m not normally a chatterbox. Anyway…’ he stifled a yawn ‘…camp is different to school. No one tells you off. It’s cool.’

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