Wish Upon a Star Read Free

abdominal pain. We need to undress you so that we can do a proper examination, head to toe, and find out exactly what is going on. Nicky?’
    Nicky was already removing clothes, fingers and scissors moving swiftly as Alessandro started his examination.
    ‘Where’s her husband?’ He was checking the body methodically, on the alert for anything life-threatening. ‘Was he injured?’
    ‘He’s fine,’ Billy muttered as he successfully put the second line in and taped it in place. ‘Waiting in the relatives’ room. Nicky put him there.’
    ‘She has a nasty laceration of her shoulder.’ Nicky reached for a sterile pad while Alessandro examined it swiftly.
    ‘That’s going to need stitching but it can wait,’ he murmured, his gaze sliding to the monitor again. ‘Her pressure is still dropping. I want to know why. And I want to know now. Did someone bleep the gynae team?’
    ‘On their way,’ a staff nurse reported and Alessandro’s eyes narrowed.
    He didn’t like the look of his patient.
    ‘Oh…’ Nicky finished cutting off the woman’s clothes and her face reflected shock before she quickly masked it. ‘We have some blood loss here, Alessandro.’
    One glance was all it took for him to measure the degree of the understatement. ‘Fast-bleep Jake Blackwell,’ he ordered in a calm voice. ‘Cross-match six units of blood and get her rhesus status. We may need to give her anti-D. And someone get a blanket on her before she gets hypothermia.’
    Jake Blackwell, the consultant obstetrician, strode into the room minutes later. ‘You need my advice, Garcia? Struggling?’ His eyes mocked but Alessandro was too worried about his patient to take the bait.
    ‘I need you to do some work for a change,’ he drawled, but although his tone was casual and relaxed, his eyes were sharp and alert and his handover to his colleague was so succinct that Billy threw him a look of admiration.
    Jake listened, examined the woman swiftly and then nodded, all traces of humour gone. ‘Megan, it looks as though you might have an ectopic pregnancy—that means that the egg has implanted somewhere other than your uterus and, in your case, it seems that it may have done somedamage that we need to put right with an operation.’ He lifted his eyes to Alessandro. ‘She’s going to need surgery. We’ll take her straight to Theatre. Damn. I’m supposed to be somewhere else. I need to make a couple of calls—speak to the anaesthetist, juggle my list.’
    Alessandro leaned across and increased the flow of both the oxygen and the IV himself. ‘Just so long as you juggle it quickly. We’ll transfer her to Theatre while you do what you need to do. Her husband is in our relatives’ room if you want to tackle the issue of consent.’
    ‘Great.’ Jake walked to the phone and punched in a number while Alessandro monitored his patient.
    ‘Phone down and get that blood sent up to Theatre as soon as it’s available,’ he ordered, and Nicky hurried to the nearest phone to do as he’d instructed.
    Minutes later the woman was on her way to Theatre and Jake disappeared to talk to her husband.
    He reappeared in the department hours later, after Alessandro had dealt with what felt like a million road accidents, intermingled with a significant number of people with flu.
    ‘Why don’t people stay in bed when they have flu?’ he grumbled as Jake appeared in the doorway of his office. ‘For a start, if they can get out of bed then it isn’t flu and it certainly isn’t an accident or an emergency. Why come to a hospital and spread it around?’
    ‘Because they’re generous?’ Jake strolled into the office and dropped onto the nearest chair without even bothering to move the pile of files that were covering it. ‘Hell, I’m knackered. I’ve spent the whole day in Theatre saving lives. One drama after another. You don’t know you’re born, working down here.’
    Alessandro thought of the two major RTAs, the heart attack and the