SURGEON ON CALL

By Alison Roberts

Brilliant surgeonbaffled dad!

Joe Petersen is a skilled surgeon, unfortunately, when it comes to being a dad, he's a complete amateur. Fliss Munroe, consultant, quickly finds Joe and little Sam creeping into her heartexcept she starts to think that Joe is looking more for a nanny than a wife!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harlequin Medical Romance
• Release date: Feb 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781460376393

Alison Roberts

New Zealander Alison Roberts has written more than eighty romance novels for Harlequin Mills and Boon.  She has also worked as a primary school teacher, a cardiology research technician and a paramedic.  Currently, she is living her dream of living - and writing - in a gorgeous village in the south of France.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

SEVEN-THIRTY a.m.

Far too early to be starting work. A job like this might be OK in summer but below zero temperatures weren’t much fun. Not when the first rays of sunshine only made up for their lack of warmth by the uncomfortably blinding glare they could produce. Jeff Simms shaded his eyes from the glare with his hand. He could see the group of men congregating around the prefabricated shed that served as headquarters for the building site. He could also see his mate, Lou, climbing out of Tommo’s truck just ahead of him.

At least they’d made it to work on time today. The boss should be looking a lot happier than he appeared to be. Maybe he hadn’t had his coffee yet. The thought of coffee was enticing. Jeff and Lou had downed quite a few beers during their session at the pub last night.

‘Hey!’

‘How’s it going, mate?’ Jeff grinned at Lou.

‘Have you spoken to the boss yet?’

‘No. I just got here. Bloody cold, eh?’ Jeff blew on his knuckles and rubbed his hands together vigorously.

‘Tommo reckons you’re in trouble, mate.’

‘What for?’ Jeff caught Lou’s eye. Maybe they shouldn’t have taken off to the pub yesterday with such alacrity.

‘Boss couldn’t find his skill saw last night,’ Tommo reported gloomily. ‘He reckons you’d been using it.’

‘I was,’ Jeff admitted. ‘I had to go up and tidy that framing on the second floor.’

‘Where’d you put the saw, then?’

Jeff’s gaze roamed the scaffolding on the apartment block. He traced the route on the corner that he’d used to climb down from the wooden planks, trying to remember just what he had been carrying. The oath that escaped his lips was enough to impress even Tommo.

‘It’s still up there.’

Tommo unleashed an even better oath. ‘It’ll be frozen solid. Man, are you in trouble!’

‘It’ll still be dry. I put it under a tarpaulin. That’s why I forgot about it. I’ll go and get it now.’

‘You can’t.’ Lou shook his head. ‘Scaffolding’s out of bounds until it thaws. The boss’ll go mental if he sees you.’

‘He won’t see me. It’s on the road side. I’ll be quick.’

‘You’d better be careful, mate.’ Lou sounded doubtful. ‘It’s solid ice up there.’

* * *

Seven thirty-five a.m.

It was just as well he’d set off this early. Joe Petersen drummed his fingers on the steering-wheel as he waited in the line of traffic for the lights to change. He needed to get right across town and it was going to take a long time at this rate. He’d promised to be there at 8 a.m. to help get the kids off to school and then take Samantha to kindergarten for the morning. Dayna wouldn’t be very impressed if he arrived late, and he wasn’t about to give her any new ammunition regarding his lack of elementary parenting skills.

Joe glanced sideways to give his eyes a rest from the glare of the rising sun. The building site to his left was impressively large. This part of Christchurch city had changed beyond recognition since he’d last driven past but that was hardly surprising. It had been nearly five years since he’d had a visit lasting more than a few days. The trend seemed to be towards building these large inner-city apartment blocks now and this one looked fairly upmarket. Joe’s idle gaze roamed the side of the well-formed building. He could see the ice coating the scaffolding. Cold job, being a builder at this time of year. He wondered idly what the young chap was doing, scrambling up the side of the steel skeleton. He seemed to be in rather a hurry.

The toot from behind indicated that Joe’s attention should be back on the traffic. He slid the car back into gear but the movement he caught in his peripheral vision jerked his gaze back to the left. Had the lad’s foot slipped on that wooden platform? He’d managed to catch hold of one of the steel pipes but the grip held only momentarily. Joe watched the fall with horror. He could almost feel the impact as the victim’s back contacted the next steel bar several feet below before the graceful arc that completed the fall.

The sensation of horror was dismissed instantly and replaced with a clinical detachment. The impact mid-fall had been enough to cause a lumbar spinal injury. The distraction to the cervical vertebrae which the impact of landing on his head might have caused was even more serious. Joe pulled his steering-wheel decisively and put his foot down on the accelerator to gain just enough momentum for the wheels to mount the kerb. He pushed the hazard light control on the dashboard.

* * *

Seven thirty-eight a.m.

Felicity Munroe shaded her eyes from the glare of the sun. It was hard to see what was going on ahead but the traffic appeared to be even slower than normal for this time of day. At least she wasn’t too far from the hospital now. With a bit of luck she could still make the 8 a.m. meeting with members of the cardiology department. The interface between Cardiology and Emergency needed some urgent attention. Only yesterday they’d had a patient with a major heart attack taking an unacceptable length of time to clear the emergency department.

Her scrutiny revealed the cause of the hold-up. A car had pulled off the road onto the footpath but was still creating enough of an obstacle to cause problems. The vehicle’s hazard lights were flashing and a man was attempting to get out on the driver’s side. Passing traffic was making this difficult, however, and the man was being subjected to irate blasts of car horns as he tried to open his door.

Traffic ground to a complete halt again with one car close enough to provide an impassable barrier to the man in the stalled vehicle. Felicity could see him moving to exit from the passenger side with some urgency. Her own car was still well away from the disruption, level with the entrance to a building site on her left. Felicity glanced sideways briefly, hoping to distract herself from a mounting irritation with the delay. She’d been watching the huge apartment block take shape for months now and the site looked busy again this morning. Extraordinarily busy, in fact. There were people running from all directions. Felicity’s casual glance focused on the scene sharply. On the supine figure that the men were running towards.

The wisdom gleaned from years of experience was not needed to let Felicity know that a significant incident had occurred. It took only a second to ease her vehicle from the line of traffic and cruise onto the building site. A few seconds more and she was at the side of the victim. She could see that the young man was conscious and breathing. She picked up his wrist to check the radial pulse as she crouched down beside him.

‘Can anyone tell me what’s happened?’

‘Don’t touch that man! Stand back!’

The command was vehement enough to distract Felicity from her visual examination of her patient. The sharp tone made the man crouching beside her stand up hurriedly, stunning him into silence, though he had barely begun to answer Felicity’s query.

‘I’m sure you all have the best intentions,’ the man told the group. ‘But people who don’t know what they’re doing can actually do more harm than good in a situation like this. I’m a doctor,’ he continued. ‘And I witnessed the accident.’ He glared at Felicity, his gaze flicking over her well-dressed slight figure dismissively. ‘You haven’t tried to move him, have you?’

‘Of course not.’ Felicity might not have witnessed the accident at first hand but it didn’t take much common sense to realise that someone lying motionless beneath scaffolding could well have suffered a significant fall. And it didn’t take anything like her training to suggest that such a fall carried a high index of suspicion of a spinal injury. Felicity opened her mouth to inform this man that as an emergency department consultant she was hardly likely to risk an exacerbation of such an injury by moving an unstabilised patient. She was also tempted to say something snappy regarding the assumptions this man had clearly made based on what she looked like. What did he think she did for a job? Work as a beauty therapist perhaps? Not that she was given a chance to say anything at all.

‘Move over here.’ The stranger draped the stethoscope he was holding around his neck with a casual movement that suggested long familiarity. ‘You can do something useful and hold this chap’s head still. It’s very important that he doesn’t move his neck.’

Felicity surprised herself by doing as she was asked. Or, rather, told. There was something about this man’s attitude that indicated it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interests to get in his way right now and it certainly wasn’t an appropriate time to voice her resentment at the way he was treating her. Felicity took a mental step backwards. She would only intervene if she needed to and so far she had no complaints.

The doctor had gently moved the young man’s head and neck into a neutral position. As soon as Felicity’s hands took over providing support he conducted a rapid examination of the head and neck. Felicity relaxed a little as she noted that his movements appeared to indicate that he knew what he was doing. From the gentle palpation of the front of the neck he was clearly checking for tracheal deviation. As he carefully felt the back of the victim’s neck, the young man groaned and Felicity watched the doctor’s face register a focused concern.

‘I need some sandbags,’ he stated. ‘Or cushions. Or some rolled-up clothing. Anything. We need to pad the neck to protect it. And someone call an ambulance.’ He leaned over his patient, seemingly oblivious to how close this brought his face to Felicity’s. ‘What’s your name?’ he queried briskly.

‘Jeff.’

‘I’m Joe. Joe Petersen. I’m a neurosurgeon.’

Felicity blinked. Perhaps the stranger was more qualified to deal with a spinal injury than she was. The fact that she’d never heard the name associated with the specialised spinal injuries unit on the other side of town didn’t mean he wasn’t an expert. He could be visiting from overseas. His deep voice did have the hint of an unusual accent.

‘I can’t feel my legs.’ Jeff’s words held an edge of panic. ‘Am I going to be paralysed?’

‘Are you having any trouble breathing?’

‘No.’

Felicity tightened her grip at the attempt to shake his head. ‘Keep very still, Jeff,’ she told him. ‘It’s important.’

‘He hasn’t told me.’ Jeff caught Felicity’s gaze. ‘I want to know how bad this is.’

‘We don’t know yet.’ Joe placed the earpieces of his stethoscope into position. He pulled up the thick jersey Jeff was wearing. ‘I’m just going to listen to your chest.’

Felicity could feel the slower than normal heart rate under her fingertips. She considered suggesting that neurogenic shock could be producing a bradycardia as she watched Joe conduct a rapid assessment of Jeff’s chest, abdomen and pelvic area. He pressed his hands on each side of Jeff’s hips to check the stability of the pelvis. Glancing up, he noticed Felicity’s studied gaze.

‘I’m looking for what we call ‘‘silent’’ lesions,’ he informed her. ‘Injuries, that is.’

Felicity kept her face neutral. She was perfectly well aware what lesions were. It was quite interesting, being treated as a layperson. Or it would have been if this man’s tone didn’t suggest that her level of intelligence might not be up to scratch. She decided not to raise the subject of neurogenic shock.

‘If there’s a significant level of paralysis then injuries could be hidden.’ Joe was palpating Jeff’s abdomen with obvious skill. ‘That means they won’t be causing any pain. I’m particularly concerned with a chest injury that might affect breathing or something that could cause internal bleeding. Can you feel me touching you, Jeff?’

‘No, I can’t feel anything. Have I broken my back?’

‘You’ve certainly injured your spine.’ The assessment for major associated injuries had taken less than a minute. Joe moved swiftly into a neurological check that Felicity could also make no complaints about.

‘Can you move your hands, Jeff?’

‘I think so.’ Jeff’s fingers wiggled weakly. ‘They feel weird, though.’

‘What sort of weird?’

‘Kind of pins and needles.’

‘Can you feel me touching them?’ Joe went from a light touch to a distinct pinch before Jeff responded.

‘Kind of.’

‘Which finger am I touching?’ Joe was pinching Jeff’s thumb.

‘I’m not sure. The middle one?’

Felicity saw the frown of concentration as Joe assimilated the information of lowered sensation. He took hold of Jeff’s hands. ‘Squeeze my hands,’ he ordered. ‘As hard as you can.’

The pulses on both wrists were checked and then Joe moved to check Jeff’s legs. As he elicited the assistance of Jeff’s friend, Lou, to remove the laces of the steel-capped boots and ease the heavy footwear clear, Felicity found she was still focused on Joe Petersen’s face. It was a very intelligent face with rugged features and dark brown