Best Friend to Perfect Bride (Contemporary Medical Romance) by Jennifer Taylor Page B

I do?’ Helen asked uncertainly. ‘Should I try to reduce the dislocation and pop the humerus back into its socket or what? I’ve not dealt with a case where the humerus is fractured as well.’
    ‘It would be far too painful for Emily if we did it here. Plus there’s the problem of the fracture, which complicates matters,’ he explained. He always enjoyed helping the younger doctors and, unlike a lot of his peers, never considered it to be a waste of his time. The more everyone knew, the easier it was for the rest of the team, he reasoned.
    ‘Phone Theatre and book her in ASAP. They’ll take care of the lot and that way Emily won’t know a thing about it. You just need to get her parents’ permission for the operation to go ahead, so see if they’ve arrived yet and if not get the police to contact them. Tell them it’s urgent.’ He grinned at her. ‘We don’t want to waste any time so lay it on thick. It’s the one time you’re allowed to lie to the police!’
    ‘Will do!’ Helen was laughing as she hurried out of Resus to set the wheels turning.
    Mac smiled as he went back to his patient. From what he had seen so far, Helen had the makings of a really good doctor. She would learn a lot from working here too. It made him suddenly glad that he had agreed to cover the paediatric A&E unit until their own registrar returned to work. Oh, he’d had his doubts when he had found out that Bella was working here. After everything that Tim had told him, it was only natural, although now he could see that he had been a little too hasty. OK, so maybe there had been a few teething problems but he and Bella seemed to be getting on remarkably well, all things considered.
    The radiographer interrupted his thoughts just then to tell him the films were ready and he turned towards the monitor. There would be time enough to think about his relationship with Bella later.
    Mac’s heart skipped a beat. When had it turned into a relationship? It definitely hadn’t been that before last night, had it? At the very most, he would have classed it as friendship—he and Bella were friends and that was it. However, deep down he knew it wasn’t that any longer. At least not
only
that. Friendship had been hiked up to another level, to the point of becoming a relationship. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but he was powerless to do anything about it.
    He took a deep breath as he stared at the screen. He and Bella had a relationship. Pick the bones out of that!
    * * *
    Bella squared her shoulders as she watched the taxi drive away from the hospital. She would collect her keys from Mac and head straight home. The sooner she was back in her apartment, the sooner she would be able to rid herself of the ridiculous notion of asking him if she could spend another night on the boat. Maybe it had helped to stay there last night, but she had to stand on her own two feet. She couldn’t expect Mac to
mollycoddle
her.
    She went straight to Reception, only to come to a halt when she saw all the children milling around in the waiting area. It didn’t take a genius to work out that something major must have happened so she made her way to the nursing station. Trish Baxter was adding more names to the whiteboard, squeezing them in around the edges. She grimaced when she saw Bella.
    ‘We’re fast running out of space. I’ll have to resort to taping up a bit of paper soon!’
    ‘What’s happened?’ Bella demanded, glancing at the list. From what she could see, there were fifteen children waiting to be seen, plus another six receiving treatment: three in cubicles, one in the treatment room, plus two more in Resus.
    ‘A lorry ran into the bus taking the kids to the high school,’ Trish explained. She put the cap back on the pen and placed it in the tray. ‘To say it’s been a tad chaotic in here this morning is an understatement.’
    ‘I can imagine,’ Bella agreed, shrugging off her jacket. ‘Right, who’s next on the list?