A Nightingale Christmas Wish Read Online Free PDF

.’
    ‘How very kind of you, Nurse Willard.’
    Helen swung round. Two men stood behind them. One was a giant of a man, with a thick black beard and shaggy dark curls. The other was tall but of slighter build, with a sharp-featured face and keen brown eyes.
    ‘You’ll notice, Dr McKay, that Nurse Willard referred to me as utterly adorable, but the best she could come up for you was “clever”?’ the big man went on, his black eyes twinkling. ‘What does that say about you, do you think?’
    ‘I think it probably says more about you than it does about me,’ Dr McKay replied dryly. Hearing that well-spoken Scottish voice again filled Helen with fresh mortification.
    She was even more mortified that she’d been caught drinking tea and gossiping with the other nurses. Another black mark against her, she thought.
    But Nurse Willard seemed oblivious to any undercurrents. ‘Oh, you!’ She batted Dr Adler playfully on the arm. ‘Have you met our new Sister Cas? Sister, these are the two I was telling you about, Dr Adler and Dr McKay.’
    ‘How do you do, Sister?’ Dr McKay’s professional smile and firm handshake gave away none of his true feelings.
    ‘I suppose Nurse Willard has been telling you all our secrets?’ Dr Adler grinned. ‘How will we ever gain your respect, I wonder?’
    ‘I think it’s
your
respect I have to gain,’ Helen said, shooting a sideways look at Dr McKay.
    If he noticed her barb he didn’t react. ‘Should we get these doors open, so we can start seeing some patients?’ he said. ‘That is what we’re here for, after all.’

Chapter Five
    NO SOONER HAD he said it than the telephone rang, shattering the silence. Nurse Willard pounced on it.
    ‘That’s the emergency telephone,’ Dr Adler explained to Helen in a low voice. ‘It rings when there’s an ambulance on its way.’
    Helen listened carefully, trying to piece together what Willard was saying.
    ‘Right, yes. A car and a motorcycle, you say? Three casualties, I see. And how bad is the head injury?’ She scribbled notes on the pad in front of her.
    ‘What do we have?’ Dr McKay asked, when she’d put the receiver down.
    ‘Traffic accident. A car went into a motorcycle on Mile End Road. The motorcyclist got away with cuts and bruises and possible concussion, but the car driver is unconscious with possible spinal injury, and the passenger has a deep cut to his thigh and an injury to his wrist.’
    All eyes turned to Dr McKay. ‘We’ll send the spinal injury straight to Theatre,’ he said. ‘Dr Adler, you can look after the motorcyclist, and I’ll take care of the leg.’
    ‘Right you are,’ Dr Adler said. ‘Sister, perhaps you could assist me?’
    ‘No, she’ll be assisting me,’ Dr McKay interrupted him.
    Helen caught his sharp brown-eyed stare and realised this was a test for her. The first of many, she was sure.
    ‘As you wish, sir.’ She turned to the student nurses, who were waiting keenly for their instructions. ‘Perkins, telephone Theatre and let them know there is a head and possible spinal injury on the way down. Organise a dresser to be sent up here, too. French, get some blood ordered – Type O, since we don’t know what group our patient might be.’
    ‘Forget the blood,’ Dr McKay snapped. ‘We won’t need it.’
    ‘But with a deep cut . . .’
    ‘The ambulance men didn’t say he was bleeding to death, did they?’
    ‘No, but—’
    ‘Then we won’t be needing the blood.’
    He strutted off before she could reply. A shocked, embarrassed silence followed. Even Dr Adler looked a little shaken as he hurried off to his consulting room to prepare for his patient.
    Helen pulled herself together quickly and turned to the students. ‘I will be acting as scrub nurse for Dr McKay,’ she told them briskly. ‘Kowalski, I want you to help me. And French, please order that blood,’ she added as an afterthought.
    ‘But Dr McKay said—’
    ‘Please,’ Helen interrupted her. ‘To be on the