Awakening the Shy Nurse Read online

  As her taxi pulled away she noticed that that kiss was finally over and the leggy blonde was—reluctantly—getting back into her taxi. As Lisa pulled the long handle out of her suitcase the man lifted his hand in a farewell wave and then turned, his gaze locking onto Lisa’s a heartbeat later. He had to know that she’d seen what he’d just been doing but he didn’t seem remotely bothered. If anything, that quirk of his eyebrow seemed like nothing more than a flirtatious invitation. Perhaps she might like to find out how good at kissing he was?

  Lisa could feel colour flooding her cheeks as she snapped the handle of her suitcase into place and then tipped it so she could start dragging it behind her. She’d already had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t just the sightseeing and unlimited food and drink people took cruises for and that had just been confirmed. Some people clearly found a cruise an opportunity for unlimited sexual adventures as well. A “what happens on board stays on board” kind of thing.

  ‘Can I be of some assistance?’

  Oh...dear Lord... The man’s voice was just as gorgeous as the rest of him. Deep and sexy and with a hint of laughter that went with his whole, laidback look. It had to be the overly warm air she was dragging into her lungs that was adding to the heat Lisa could feel in her cheeks. And in the pit of her stomach, come to that. A rebellious corner of her brain was melting in that heat as well. Otherwise, why would it come up with the absurd idea that maybe she would rather like to find out how good this man was at kissing?

  ‘No,’ she said firmly, without looking up, so he wouldn’t notice her fiery cheeks. ‘Thank you, but I’m fine. It’s not heavy and I’m perfectly capable of managing by myself.’

  ‘No problem.’ That hint of laughter was more pronounced now. ‘Enjoy your cruise.’

  A group of women, in flowing maxi dresses and floppy sunhats were coming towards them. Amidst the giggles, a call came that sounded more like a command.

  ‘Hugh... You must see these photos we took at the beach today. Wait until you see Scout’s new bikini.’

  He’d already slowed his pace so it took only seconds for Lisa to leave him behind with the young women. Fellow passengers from the same ship, she decided. Hopefully not hers. She quickened her own pace, heading towards the first ship that was towering over her more and more as she got closer. There was a covered gangway sloping up to a door on the side of the hull and a desk shaded by a canopy at the bottom, staffed by uniformed people who might well be able to help her. If this wasn’t her ship, they could no doubt point her in the right direction.

  * * *

  Well, well, well... So there were still women in the world who blushed?

  Hugh Patterson was intrigued, he had to admit, as he strolled along the marina, having finally extricated himself from the group of overexcited young women that he really didn’t have the energy for after a long lunch with his Spanish friend, Carlotta. Well acquainted with the tourist circuit of the Mediterranean for a couple of years now, Hugh had friends in many of the popular cruise ship destinations.

  It wasn’t just sailors that had a girl in every port these days, he mused. Ships’ doctors could be just as privileged and if you were that way inclined, it was the easiest sex life ever because anybody involved knew that it was never going to be anything serious. It was just intermittent fun. Living life for the moment and enjoying every minute of it.

  That young woman he’d made blush at the taxi rank had looked as if she needed to learn to let herself enjoy the moment. Fancy being so uptight you wouldn’t even let someone help with your suitcase? Or even make eye contact with them when they offered? Maybe it was actually irritating rather than intriguing? Being dismissed like that was not something he was used to.

  ‘Hi, Hugh. Had a good day?’

  One of the team welcoming people back on board the ship after their shore excursions saw him heading for the gangway.

  ‘Fabulous, thanks, Simon. I love Barcelona. I had a picnic with a friend in Parc Guell.’

  ‘Oh...lucky you, not having to work today. I don’t get a day off on shore until Santorini this time. Or it might be Mykonos. One of the Greek islands, anyway.’

  ‘I know... I’m lucky. We only need one doctor on board at all times when we’re in port so, with two of us, we can take turns.’

  He did feel lucky. What other doctors got to do their work in what could seem like an endless holiday but still got to practise enough real medicine that it didn’t get boring and it was also possible to keep one’s skills honed? Okay, he’d probably want to settle down sometime in the future but not yet. Maybe never, in fact. He’d almost done that once and look what a disaster that had turned out to be.

  ‘I’m about to go and take over from Peter now, though,’ he added, heading towards the gangway. ‘That way he can at least get out and stretch his legs on land.’

  Hugh took the stairs rather than the elevator to get to the lobby atrium of the ship, which was one of the most impressive areas on board with its marble floors, glittering chandeliers, huge potted palm trees, and the grand piano that was always providing some background music for the crowds taking advantage of the boutique shops and bars that circled the lobby on several levels.

  Except old Harry wasn’t playing his usual repertoire of popular classics. He wasn’t playing anything at all but standing beside his piano stool, looking down at a knot of people at the base of one of several staircases that curved gracefully between the atrium levels.

  What was going on? Hugh’s pace increased as he got close enough to see that someone was on the floor in the middle of the group. An elderly woman, who, despite what had to be well over thirty-degree heat today, was wearing quite thick stockings. One of her shoes had come off and was lying beside someone that was crouched at the woman’s head.

  ‘Let me through, please,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m a doctor. What’s happened here?’

  The crouching person looked up and Hugh was momentarily startled to see that it was the blushing girl from the taxi rank. Right now, however, she was supporting an elderly woman’s head in a manner that suggested she knew what she was doing to protect and assess a potential cervical spine injury.

  ‘She fell,’ he was told. ‘From about halfway down these stairs. Her neck seems to be okay, though.’

  ‘Did you see it happen?’

  ‘Yes... I was almost beside her going up the stairs.’

  ‘Please...’ the victim of the fall raised her hands. ‘Just help me up. I’m fine... I really don’t want to cause such a fuss.’

  ‘We need to make sure you’re okay first,’ Hugh told her. ‘My name’s Hugh and I’m a doctor and this is...’ He raised his eyebrows at the young woman who had, he couldn’t help noticing, rather extraordinary eyes—a golden hazel shade but the edge of the iris had a dark rim around it, as if nature had been determined to accentuate the design.

  ‘Lisa,’ she supplied. ‘My name’s Lisa and I’m a nurse.’

  No wonder she was giving the impression of competence, Hugh thought, as he focused on his patient. ‘What’s your name, love?’ he asked.

  ‘Mabel...’

  ‘Is anything hurting, Mabel?’

  ‘I... I’m not sure... I don’t think so, dear.’

  ‘Can you take a deep breath? Does that hurt?’

  ‘No...’

  ‘Is someone with you?’

  ‘Frank...my husband...he’s coming shoon. We need to shee about our...our...’

  Hugh frowned. Mabel might look to be well into her eighties but that didn’t mean she might not have been having a drink or two this afternoon. But slurred speech could very well be an indication of something more serious as well—like hypoglycaemia from a diabetic emergency or a head injury, which was not unlikely given the hard marble flooring beneath her.

  ‘Was she knocked out?’ he asked Lisa.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think
so but, if she was, it would have only been for a moment because I was beside her by the time she got to the bottom of the stairs. I tried to catch her but I was just a split second too slow, unfortunately.’

  This Lisa might be small but Hugh could imagine her leaping into action to try and help someone. She was still clearly determined to help.

  ‘She didn’t just fall,’ Lisa added. ‘She looked dizzy. She was already holding the railing but she let go and...’ Lisa was watching the elderly woman carefully. ‘Mabel? Do you remember that?’

  ‘No...pleashe...let me up...’

  Hugh was holding Mabel’s wrist, finding her pulse rapid but very pronounced, so her blood pressure couldn’t be low enough to explain any dizziness.

  ‘Move back, folks.’ Old Harry, the pianist, had come down from the stage and was trying to move people further away. ‘Let’s give them some space.’ He caught Hugh’s gaze. ‘I’ll go to the infirmary, shall I? And get some help?’

  Hugh nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Mabel pulled away from his hand and moved as if she was making an effort to sit up.

  ‘Don’t move, Mabel,’ Lisa said. ‘Let us look after you for a minute, okay?’

  But Mabel tried to roll and then cried out with pain.

  ‘What’s hurting?’ Hugh asked.

  ‘Look...’ Lisa tilted her head to indicate what she had noticed. ‘That looks like some rotation and shortening of her left leg, don’t you think? A NOF?’

  Fracturing a neck of femur was a definite possibility given the mechanism of injury and they were often not that painful until the patient tried to move, but Hugh was impressed that Lisa had picked up on it with no more than a glance.

  ‘Try and keep still, Mabel.’ Lisa leaned down so that Mabel could hear her reassurance. ‘It’s okay...we’re going to take care of you...’

  The warmth and confidence in her voice was as distinctive as her eye colouring. She sounded absolutely genuine—as if she was well used to taking care of people and doing it extremely well. If Hugh were unwell or injured, he would certainly feel better hearing that voice. Mabel was trying to respond but seemed to be having trouble getting any words out and that was when Hugh noticed the droop that was now obvious on one side of her face. Lisa’s observations that it had appeared to be a medical event that had caused the fall rather than a simple trip and the other symptoms like the slurred speech now were coming together to make it urgent to get this patient into hospital.

  It was a relief to see the other ship’s doctor, his colleague Peter, coming into the lobby, with the emergency kit in his arms. One of their nurses was following and she carried a pillow and a blanket under one arm and an oxygen cylinder under the other. Hugh had another flash of relief that they were currently docked in the port of a major city. They might be very well equipped to deal with emergencies on board but someone who was potentially having a stroke and had fractured their hip in a fall would have needed evacuation to a land hospital as quickly as possible. At least they wouldn’t need to call in a helicopter this time.

  ‘We need an ambulance,’ he told Peter. ‘Not just for the NOF. We’ve got signs that the fall might be the result of a CVA.’

  ‘We’ll get them on the way.’ the older doctor nodded.

  ‘Mabs?’ An elderly man was pushing his way through the concerned spectators. ‘Oh, no...what’s happened?’

  He crouched down beside Lisa, who moved to let him get closer to his wife. Hugh turned to reach into the emergency kit as Peter opened it. They needed to get some oxygen on for their patient, check her blood glucose level, get an IV line in and some pain medication on board and to splint her hip. They needed to talk to Mabel’s husband, too, and find out about her past medical history and what kind of medications she might be taking. It was only when he looked back to start talking to Frank that he realised that Lisa had disappeared. Did she think she might be in the way now that the rest of the ship’s medical staff were on scene?

  It was a shame she’d gone, anyway. He would have liked to have thanked her. And to tell her how helpful she had been.

  * * *

  Lisa should probably have introduced herself to the ship’s doctor and the nurse who’d come in with him and she should have offered to keep helping, but after she’d moved to let Mabel’s husband get close enough to comfort his wife, the nurse had moved in front of her and it just hadn’t been the right time to say anything that might interrupt the focus on their patient so Lisa had let herself slip into the background to let them do their work. She would have expected that good-looking passenger who also happened to be a doctor to stand back and let the people in uniform take over but it almost looked as if he was still in charge of the scene.

  Moving further back brought Lisa to the bottom of the staircase and she took a few steps and then paused to watch what was happening. She might be doing this herself very soon, dressed in pale green scrubs with a stethoscope hanging round her neck like the nurse who was currently taking Mabel’s blood pressure. The doctor, in a crisp, white uniform with epaulettes on the shoulders of his shirt, was attaching electrodes to monitor Mabel’s heart and the extra doctor... Hugh...was sorting something from what looked like a well-stocked kit. IV supplies, perhaps?

  She could only see Hugh’s profile but she’d been much closer to him only a minute or two ago and she’d been aware from the instant he’d appeared that this was a very different man from the one who might have been flirting with her near the taxi rank earlier.

  It wasn’t that he was any less good looking, of course. Or even that that relaxed grace that came from an easy enjoyment of his life had vanished. It was more that there was a focus that made it obvious this man was intelligent and he knew what he was doing. Lisa could respect that. She could forgive him for being some kind of playboy, in fact. After all, doctors were just like any other professional people and there were no laws that prevented them going on holiday and letting their hair down occasionally, were there?

  Onlookers were being asked to leave the area and make space as a team of paramedics arrived with a stretcher. Lisa found herself in a flow of people that took her to the next level of the atrium but she knew she needed to find an elevator or internal stairway. Not that there was any point in finding the ship’s medical centre to introduce herself when she knew the staff were busy here for the moment, but her suitcase would have been delivered to her cabin by now so it would be a good time to find out where that was and freshen up before she went to meet her new colleagues.

  She did know she had to go down rather than up. Crew members didn’t get cabins with balconies. They were possibly right in the middle of the ship and might not even have any portholes. Lisa had to hope that she wasn’t prone to seasickness. Either that, or that the Mediterranean was a very calm sea.

  * * *

  An hour or so later, Lisa was heading for the middle of Deck Two, where a helpful steward had told her the medical centre and infirmary were located. She had showered, swapped her jeans for a more formal skirt and brushed her short waves of auburn hair into a semblance of order. A large red cross painted on a steel door told her that she had found her destination and a sign below that gave the hours the medical facility was open and phone numbers for the nurse on duty for out of hours. So, it was a nurse rather than a doctor that made the first response to any calls?

  Lisa’s heart skipped a beat as she went into an empty waiting room. She was going to be one of those nurses for the next two weeks, with possibly more responsibility than she’d ever had before if she was going to be the first responder to something major like a cardiac arrest or severe trauma. This time she knew that that internal flutter was definitely excitement. She was stepping well out of her comfort zone here, and...well...she couldn’t wait...

  ‘Hello?’

  The desk at one side of the waiting room was empty. Lisa peered around a corner and walked a short distance down t
he corridor. There were consulting rooms, a room labelled as a laboratory where she could see benches covered with equipment that looked like specialised blood or specimen testing machines and a closed door that had a sign saying it was the pharmacy. An open door on the other side of the corridor showed Lisa what looked like a small operating theatre. Surprised, she stepped into it. There was a theatre light above the narrow bed in the centre of the room, a portable X-ray machine, cardiac monitor and ventilator nearby and glass-fronted cupboards lining the walls that looked to be stocked with a huge amount of medical supplies.

  A movement in her peripheral vision as she entered the narrow corridor again made Lisa turn, to see the back view of the white pants and shirt of the ship’s doctor’s uniform as he stood at the desk in the waiting room.

  ‘Hello...’ she said again, walking towards him. ‘I was starting to wonder if I was all alone here.’

  The doctor turned and Lisa could actually feel her jaw dropping. If she’d thought this man was good looking when she’d seen him kissing his girlfriend, it was nothing to how attractive he looked in uniform. Especially this uniform, with the snowy, white fabric accentuating his tanned skin and making those brown eyes look remarkably like melted chocolate. He also looked as startled as Lisa was feeling. They both spoke at precisely the same time.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lisa’s voice was embarrassingly squeaky.

  ‘It’s you...’ His tone was more than welcoming. It was almost delighted.

  They both stopped speaking then and simply stared at each other. Lisa was confused. Why was Hugh wearing the same uniform as the ship’s doctor? And, now that they were nowhere near someone who needed medical attention, why was it that the first thought that came into her head as she looked at him was the image of him kissing that woman so very thoroughly? To her dismay she could feel heat creeping into her cheeks.