Resisting Her Rebel Doc (8 page)

She went from the vet’s surgery straight to the hospital, keen to get started on her day’s work. Luckily, she wasn’t late, so she wouldn’t feel guilty later at taking a break to go and look in on her mother.

‘We’ve admitted an infant, three months old,’ the staff nurse told her when she went over to the desk. ‘He’s feverish, with a swollen jaw and bouts of irritability and crying. I’ve spoken to the mother, and she’s obviously distressed, so I’m going to get her a cuppa, calm her down and talk to her in the privacy of the waiting room.’

‘That’s great, thanks, Cathy. I’ll go and take a look at him now.’ It wasn’t surprising that the mother was upset. Babies couldn’t tell you what was wrong with them and it was heart-breaking to see such tiny little things miserable and in pain.

Caitlin held the baby in her arms and rocked him gently, trying to comfort him, and gradually he seemed to settle. ‘I’ll give him a quick examination—listen to his chest, check his ears and so on,’ she told the nurse who was assisting her. ‘But I’m going to need to do blood tests and get an X-ray to make a proper diagnosis.’

She worked as quickly and efficiently as she could, holding the child once more when she had finished, soothing him. ‘I’ll send these samples off to the lab,’ she said. ‘We should get the results back fairly soon.’

After that, she looked in on all her small patients, checking their progress and making sure they were comfortable and cheerful. Youngsters were resilient, she found, and recovery could come about sooner than expected. Four-year-old Jason, suffering from pneumonia, was sitting up in bed watching a DVD. She smiled, pleased he’d found the strength to take an interest.

‘You should go and take a break,’ Brodie said, coming over to her at the desk mid-afternoon. ‘You haven’t stopped since you got here.’

‘I wanted to make sure I pulled everything in,’ she told him. ‘Working part-time gives me room to manoeuvre, but I worry about fitting it all in. The wards are at full capacity right now. We’re very busy.’

‘You’re not on your own here,’ he said. ‘Don’t try so hard. You’re doing great.’

‘I hope so.’

He nodded. ‘Is there any news from the vet?’

She nodded. ‘He rang to say I can pick Daisy up on my way home. She’s a lot better in herself now—still a bit lethargic, but at least she’s taking a little food and responding to people.’

He smiled. ‘That’s good. I’ll look in on her later, back home, if that’s okay with you?’

‘Of course it is.’ She glanced at him, a little anxious, uncertain how they would go on together. He’d made no mention of what had happened between them at the weekend but that kiss was seared on her memory for ever... The feel of his hands on her body was imprinted on her consciousness for all time.

He placed a file in a tray on the desk and she looked at those hands—strong, capable, yet at the same time gentle, seeking, magical...

‘I...um...I’ll grab a sandwich and go and find out how Mum’s doing,’ she said hurriedly, needing to distract herself. ‘She seemed to have some kind of lung problem coming on this morning, so I’m hoping they’ve managed to sort it out.’

‘Uh-huh.’ His glance moved over her, slowly, considering, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Had he been able to read her thoughts? Surely not? Her cheeks flushed with heat. She was in enough of a quandary already, with her emotions all over the place.

Then he said softly, ‘Maybe we’ll find some time to talk things over...sort things out between us...? I care about you, Caity— I always have done—more than I can say.’ He pulled in a sharp breath. ‘Things were super-charged for you on Saturday—I knew that—and I should have taken heed. I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand. It was my fault. But maybe we can move on from there?’

‘Maybe.’ The word came out as a whisper, but immediately she was filled with self-doubt. What was she doing even contemplating getting together with him? ‘I don’t know... I don’t know what I was thinking...’ She’d been hurt before—she wasn’t about to put herself through that heartache all over again, was she? In the cold light of day it seemed like sheer folly to go from a broken relationship straight into Brodie’s arms. What was she, some kind of masochist? ‘I should go...’

She hurried along to her mother’s ward and sat with her for a while, calming herself down, slowing the churning in her stomach by eating one of the sandwiches from the pack she’d bought.

‘You seem stressed,’ her mother said, watching her from her bedside chair. ‘Is...everything all...right?’ She reached for a paper hanky. She sounded as though she was out of breath and Caitlin’s head went back a little in alarm.

‘I’m fine.’ She frowned. ‘Mum, what is it? Are you...?’ She stood up quickly as her mother began to cough and small flecks of blood appeared on the tissue.

Swiftly, Caitlin drew the curtains around the bed and called for a nurse. ‘My mother’s not well,’ she told her as soon as she hurried forward. She quickly explained what had happened. ‘I’m concerned this is a new development. Will you ask the consultant to look in on her, please? I understand he’s still here in the department.’

The girl nodded. ‘He ordered scans—they were done earlier this afternoon. I’ll page him right away. He’s on the next ward, doing a round of his patients.’

‘Thanks.’ Caitlin turned back to her mother, doing her best to make her comfortable. ‘It could be a chest infection,’ she told her, though she thought that unlikely with all the antibiotics she’d been given for her hip problem. A stronger possibility was that a blood clot had formed in her thigh because of her mother’s enforced lack of regular activity. That clot could have broken up and spread to her lungs, where an embolus would cause a blockage. That could be very bad news, depending on how large it was.

The consultant appeared at her mother’s bedside within a few minutes. ‘I was going to look in on you very shortly, Mrs Braemar,’ he said, ‘but it looks like things are taking a bit of a turn. We’ll get you started on some supplemental oxygen right away.’ He indicated to the nurse to set that up then continued, ‘I’ve had a look at your scans and I’m afraid there are a few small blood clots in your lungs. That’s what’s causing the pain in your chest and it’s why you’re having difficulty breathing.’

‘Is it bad?’ Her mother took short, gasping breaths, clearly worried.

‘Not at the moment, my dear—not as bad as it might have been. The clots are small, you see, so we can start you on medication rather than having to do any more surgery.’

‘Tablets, you mean?’

‘Well, we’ll give you intravenous heparin to start with, because that acts quickly. It will stop the clots from getting any bigger and will prevent any more from forming. At the same time I want to start you on warfarin tablets. They take two or three days to work and once they’ve kicked in we can stop the heparin.’

‘So the clots won’t get any...bigger but they’ll...stay in my lungs?’ Her mother looked bewildered and Caitlin hurried to explain.

‘Your body will dissolve the clots gradually,’ she said. ‘You should start to feel better soon.’

The consultant patted her mother’s hand. ‘At least your hip infection is clearing up,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘That’s one blessing.’

‘True.’ She made a weak smile. ‘Bring on the rest.’

Caitlin stayed with her while the medication was started but left a little later when she saw her mother needed to sleep. The consultant had put a light slant on things but it was one more thing that Caitlin would worry about. Her mother had always been so active and healthy prior to these setbacks. It was upsetting to see her like this.

She was subdued as she went back to the children’s unit. Her mother would be all right, she told herself; the clots weren’t huge and although she was uncomfortable she was in no immediate life-threatening danger.

Brodie was tending a small patient with feeding difficulties when she went to check up on the lab results for the baby she’d seen earlier. He was in a nearby bay, setting up a drip feed so that the infant would receive nourishment after an abdominal operation. The baby cooed gently, enjoying the attention as Brodie made funny faces and wiggled his fingers.

Caitlin watched them for a moment or two, her heart full. He was a natural with children. Why, oh why, did he make her care for him so much?

He, in turn, glanced at her; he must have sensed that something was wrong because his expression was quizzical.

‘Something wrong with your mother?’ he asked.

She nodded, not wanting to talk about it right now. She needed to keep a firm grip of herself so that she could do her job properly. Instead of saying anything more, she turned away and went to look through the lab reports.

‘How is your little fellow doing?’ Brodie asked later on as she went to check on the baby she’d seen earlier. He looked down at the crying infant in the cot and held out a hand to him. The baby grabbed one of his fingers and pulled, wriggling his legs. Brodie smiled.

‘He’s not too happy right now,’ she answered. ‘He’s been on indomethacin to alleviate the pain and try to reduce the swelling in his jaw but I think I’ll add a corticosteroid to get things working a bit better.’

‘Sounds good. Have you had the test results back yet?’

She nodded. ‘They showed an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and raised alkaline phosphatase among other things. After seeing the X-ray films, I think we’re dealing with Caffey’s disease.’ She grimaced faintly. ‘There are changes in the bones of his jaw and his thigh bones are wider than you would expect.’

‘That was well spotted, Caitlin.’ He looked at her with renewed respect. ‘From what I know of it, it’s a rare, not very well-understood disease—with a genetic basis, I believe?’

She nodded. ‘It may be passed down through a parent, or it could be through a gene mutation. Of course, it may be rare simply because a lot of cases go undiagnosed in infancy.’

‘Yes—they tend to resolve themselves in early childhood.’

‘True. At least I can tell his parents that the disease is generally self-limiting and the bones should remodel themselves in a few months.’

She organised the new drug regime and then checked her watch. Her shift was coming to an end and she needed to go and collect Daisy and get her settled at home. She would need to buy tins of dog meat, kibble and maybe supplements to sustain the pregnant dog—hopefully the vet would be able to advise her on what to get. A comfy, padded base for the dog bed would come in handy too.

‘You’re off home?’ Brodie walked with her to the exit doors.

‘Yes, in a few minutes. I have to drop these lab forms off in pathology first. I thought I would take a shortcut through the quadrangle.’

He walked with her, stopping by the bench seat in the dappled shade of a silver birch. ‘I’m due a break,’ he said. ‘Do you have time to sit for a minute and tell me what’s going on with your mother? I’ve been to see her, but she always says she’s fine, and I know she isn’t.’

‘Oh...of course, I’m sorry. You must be worried about her too. I keep forgetting how close you were back when...’ Her voice trailed away. He wouldn’t want to keep being reminded of the time when his life had taken a nosedive. ‘She has some pulmonary emboli that are causing her problems—they’re not too large, and the consultant’s starting her on anti-coagulation therapy, so that should help things to get better.’ They sat down beside one another on the bench.

‘I’m sorry, Caity.’ He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I could see you were upset when you came back down to the unit. If there’s anything I can do to help you, tell me—it must be a shock, everything that’s happening.’

She nodded wearily. ‘Things seem to be going from bad to worse. I thought I’d have her at home by now, Brodie.’ She gazed up at him in despair. ‘She was always so active, into everything; it feels so strange, seeing her the way she is now.’

‘Her consultant’s a good man. I’m sure he’ll soon have her on the mend.’ He ran his palm down her back in a comforting gesture. ‘She’ll be back home with you before too long, you’ll see. She’s a fighter, your mum. Things will soon be back to how they were.’ He smiled. ‘You were always such a loving family unit—you, your mum and your dad.’

‘Yes, we were.’

He sighed. ‘I’m almost ashamed to say I envied you back then—you seemed to have everything I was missing out on.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘There was always something not quite right between me and my dad.’ He shrugged. ‘I think your mother recognised that and that’s why she took me under her wing—David too, of course, after Mum died, though somehow he seemed to cope a bit better than I did. Yet your mother must have gone through agonies when your dad passed away.’

‘Yes, it was bad. It was very sudden, a heart attack that took him before we could realise what was happening. But she managed to hold things together. I think she felt she had to, for my sake...and yours. David’s too.’ She glanced at him. ‘My father’s death helped bring you and I closer together, didn’t it? It gave us a stronger bond...and my mother sensed that. I think she was pleased that we talked a lot because she knew we could be good for each other. She knew you were deeply troubled—not just about your mother—and she wanted to help.’

‘We needed all the support we could get. She’s a lovely woman. She was like a mother to me after my mum passed away. I always felt I could talk to her. She listened—she didn’t always offer advice, but she was there for me whenever I was wound up, wanting to hit out, needing to offload because of some new quarrel with my dad. She usually managed to calm me down somehow.’

Caitlin frowned. ‘What did you argue about, you and your dad? I never understood it. You were the oldest child, the firstborn—I’d have expected things to be very different. But, like you said, you and your father never seemed to get on.’

His mouth flattened. ‘No, we didn’t. I was never sure why, but nothing I did was ever good enough for him. The one, constant feeling he showed towards me was...irritation. In the end I learned to be guarded around him, I suppose. I tried to toe the line...until, one day, we had a terrible argument and everything came to a head and boiled over. I’d had enough at that point and I decided I wasn’t going to put up with his hassle any more.’