A Mother for His Son

Book 2: Medical Romances

by Gill Sanderson

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance; Medical Romance; Workplace Romance

Synopsis

A heartwarming medical romance by best-selling author Gill Sanderson GP Cat Fraser left London to seek peace after the death of her nephew. It hadn't been her fault but the  guilt bit deeply into her. Medicine in a small Lake District hospital was  vastly different from what she had been accustomed to. She came to love the surroundings and the community feeling. She found them comforting. Also comforting and uncomfortable was her relationship with Dr Ross McCain and  his four-year-old son Stephen. What was she to do? Both Cat and Ross were wary. Both had been hurt, were unwilling to risk further pain. They started a love affair - but agreed it was  only a fling. It took a near fatal accident to persuade them that risks were worth taking.

Release date: August 13, 2015

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 131

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

So this was going to be the new start to her life, thought Dr Cat Fraser. Working in a cottage hospital in the Lake District, miles from her beloved London. And in a rainstorm too. Well, the previous attempts at therapy hadn’t worked. Perhaps this new-start idea would work, though she doubted it.

She’d just had a quick tour of Rosewood Cottage Hospital, tiny in comparison with the great London hospital she had left. She had been invited to go to the doctors’ lounge to make herself a coffee, but as she started up the polished wooden staircase she saw a movement through the glass of the entrance doors. A man walked into the sheltered porch, head hunched in his hooded jacket. He took off the jacket, shook it, then walked through the swing doors into the centre of the foyer. He was limping—badly. As Cat watched he bent to rub the side of his leg. She wondered... old injury or new? Physiotherapy or A and E?

He looked around, finally fixed on her. Apparently unsure of where to go. Well, she had only been here an hour herself, but perhaps she could direct him. She went over to him, smiled. ‘May I help?’

‘Perhaps. Help is always good. And you are?’

Not the answer that she had expected. Still. ‘I’m... I’m... Dr Fraser.’ No need to explain that she wasn’t a doctor on the staff. Well, not yet anyway.

Now she was closer to him she could see him better. Her first impression had been of a well-built man, with broad shoulders. She’d seen plenty of them in her time. But was this man different? A few droplets of silver rain had fallen from the jacket hood and they sparkled in his hair. He lifted his head to look at her and she felt a shock thrill through her as she saw his face. A weather-beaten face. Not a pretty face but a face that fitted this iron-boned land. It was tough, there were harsh lines round his mouth.

Long afterwards, she wondered if she had fallen in love with those eyes the minute she had seen them. But now she was confused—and irritated.

She shook herself, realised that she had been silent for too long, just looking at him. But he had been silent too. He stood there, impassive, those blue eyes fixed on her with a faint quizzical expression.

‘Which department do you want?’ She couldn’t help it, her question sounded abrupt, irritated.

He didn’t seem to mind. ‘Well, Doctor, I’m going to the A and E department.’

Perhaps she could make up for her apparent rudeness. ‘It’s that way. Would you like me to go with you?’

‘If you would be so kind.’ His voice was low, musical, with a faint note of mockery, as if he found life a joke.

She said nothing more but took him down to A and E. ‘You can sit here a moment,’ she said, pointing to a bench. ‘I’ll get someone to come to see to you.’ But when she had pushed her way through the swing doors she found, to her annoyance, that he had followed her. ‘Please, wait outside,’ she said in her best clinical voice. ‘We’ll have someone with you as quickly as—’

Jenny Carson, an A and E nurse Cat had been introduced to a few minutes before, came into the room.

‘Oh, Dr McCain...’

‘It’s Dr Fraser,’ Cat said, assuming Jenny was addressing her. ‘My name is Fraser.’

There was silence for a moment and she was aware of being looked at, of being misunderstood. The nurse looked baffled. When Cat glanced sideways she saw a slight smile on the man’s face. And then she remembered. McCain! ‘Dr McCain? You’re not a patient, you’re a partner in the practice I’m joining!’

‘I am. And you thought I was a patient with an injured leg. Doctors shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Dr Fraser. We get enough patients coming to find us, we don’t need to go out and look for them.’

Cat saw the nurse smile, before she turned to rearrange the dressings on an already perfectly tidy trolley.

It hadn’t been said unkindly but Dr McCain didn’t intend to hide his amusement. The slight smile said it all. And what was worse, she knew that he was entirely correct. It cost her, but she said, ‘You’re quite right. Doctors shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I’ll do better next time.’

Her answer appeared to please him. He looked at her speculatively a moment, then said, ‘I’m sure you will. Don’t take it to heart, Dr Fraser, we all make mistakes sometimes. And yours was a tiny one. And motivated by kindness too.’

Dr McCain turned to the nurse and asked, ‘So what have you got for me this afternoon, Jenny? Frank Lyle again?’

‘Frank Lyle again.’ The nurse’s voice was resigned. ‘I’ve got him resting now. I’ve given him glucose, got his blood sugar up again. I’ve put temporary dressings on his injuries but I’d like you to have a look at him rather than just bandage him up.’

‘Fine. I’ll go and get something dry on and then we’ll see to Frank.’ He turned to Cat. ‘We weren’t really expecting you till this evening, Dr Fraser. For a general introduction to the practice and so on.’

She felt uncomfortable again. ‘I’ll be there for the introduction, of course. It’s just that...I arrived here in Benthwaite a bit early and...I saw the sign that said Rosewood Cottage Hospital. In his letter Dr Matthews said I’d be doing a lot of my work here... so I thought I might just drop in.’

Even as she said it, it sounded a bit weak, but Dr McCain didn’t seem to see it that way. ‘Good idea. Now, are you willing to help with this case? I might need an assistant.’

Cat blinked. This was the last thing she had expected. ‘Of course I’d like to. But am I insured and so on? Officially I’ve not joined you yet.’

‘You’ll be insured. Harry Matthews and our practice manager are demons at paperwork. Jenny here will take you to find you some scrubs and we’ll meet here again in ten minutes.’

Compared to the steely efficiency she was used to, it all seemed a bit casual to Cat. ‘Aren’t you going to ask to look at my papers or something, see I am who I claim to be? I’ve got papers in the car and...’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll know if you’re a doctor or not in five minutes.’

It was casual and Cat felt a bit uncomfortable. This would never happen in a London hospital.

‘If you’re talking about being a doctor,’ Jenny put in, ‘it strikes me that a doctor ought to know enough not to go out and get wet through. Give me that coat and I’ll hang it in the drying room. Anyway, what were you doing out walking in this weather?’

‘I needed the exercise,’ he said. ‘I was supposed to be off this afternoon.’

It was said lightly, but Cat caught an exchange of glances between the two and felt some undercurrent that she didn’t quite understand. Why did he need the exercise? Still, it was none of her business.

Jenny took her to a changing room, found her a set of scrubs and told her that she could scrub up in the A and E department. Cat wanted to know a little more before she went back to meet Dr McCain. She felt at a disadvantage, that things were moving too fast for comfort.

‘I don’t quite understand. If Dr McCain was supposed to be off this afternoon, why did you ask him to come in?’

‘It’s the way we work here. Technically, the hospital is independent of the practice. There’s no doctor on duty in the hospital A and E department, it’s supposed to be staffed by us nurses. The rule is, if we need help we make a formal request to the surgery. In fact, we just phone whoever we think is available and who will be most use. Harry Matthews is the senior partner, he’ll turn out for anything. Finn Cavendish used to be a surgeon, we send for him when there’s awkward suturing or anything like that to be done. Ross McCain is our star A and E man. And he’s treated Frank Lyle before.’

‘He seems very casual about it all.’

‘“Seems” is the right word. Don’t let his attitude fool you.’

‘He was limping when he came in. I thought he was a patient, that he’d injured his leg.’

Jenny didn’t answer straight away. Then she said, ‘It’s an old injury. Don’t ask him about it, he’ll tell you when he’s ready.’

‘Of course I won’t ask him,’ said Cat. It struck her that medicine here was going to be greatly different from that back in London. Things seemed far too informal and she wasn’t sure if she liked it.

Jenny accompanied her back to the A and E department and she found herself scrubbing up next to Dr McCain. She noticed that the shapeless scrubs that he now wore hinted at a fit body beneath. His bare forearms were muscular, tapering to broad strong hands.

Why should she care what he looked like? She was still annoyed at him for not telling her he was a doctor. He could have told her! No one liked to be made to look a fool.

He spoke to her, still in the same light, casual tone. ‘Dr Fraser, what is your first name? As I remember, it’s Catherine. Do you go with all of that? Or are you Kate, or Cathy, or Katie?’

‘Does it really matter?’ She hadn’t meant to be snappy, it just came out that way. It was the second time she’d been brusque with this man. She didn’t know why because it wasn’t like her. Perhaps she was tired. He didn’t appear to mind her shortness but answered thoughtfully. ‘We’re a team here, we tend to address each other by our first names. I’m Ross. We’ll call you whatever you’d like to be called.’ He smiled at her, his usual half-mocking smile. ‘Even Dr Fraser, if you wish.’

‘No, I don’t wish,’ she said after a while. ‘In fact, I’m usually called Cat.’

‘Cat?’ He turned, looked at her carefully. ‘Yes. You know, I think that’s very suitable. Have you heard the theory that a people grow into their names? Call a boy George and he’ll not be the same person he would have been if he’d been called Maurice.’

‘I’ve heard the idea. But I don’t feel like a cat.’

She didn’t want to talk about her name or how it affected her personality. She felt vulnerable. But the idea interested her. ‘So you’re a Ross. What is a Ross like?’

He thought a minute. ‘Ross means from a peninsula. Surrounded by water on three sides.’

This was odd. ‘Almost cut off, in fact? Are you almost cut off?’

‘Possibly. All doctors have to be, to a certain extent. But I am connected to the mainland on one side.’

‘Just as well. As you said, the name I was christened with was Catherine. It’s Greek, it means pure.’

‘Is that right?’ he said easily, and she sighed with relief. There had been so many men in her life who had felt compelled to make some witty remark when she had told them that—but this man didn’t. She liked him for it. And she liked him for the odd subject he’d picked to talk about. He seemed an interesting man.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. They seemed to have been talking for hours but it had only been two or three minutes.

‘Time to work,’ he said. ‘We’ll go and meet our friend Frank Lyle. But first...’ he picked up a folder and handed it to her, ‘...have a quick look through this. If it’s possible I always like to look at a patient’s case notes before I see him or her. But not in front of them. It makes them feel that you’ve taken some trouble, that you know what you’re talking about.’

‘It’s a good idea.’ But not a common one. In London she had seen far too many consultants arrive at the side of a bed, ignore the patient and just stand there, reading the notes. Of course, life was faster there.

She did as he’d suggested, had a quick flick through the notes. ‘Tell me what you think,’ he said after a while.

Common medical teaching practice. Ask a junior doctor to glance through notes, come up with a tentative diagnosis. Not a proper, serious diagnosis, of course, not one you could use to suggest treatment. But just to see that you could extract the most important facts from a thick sheaf of papers.

‘Young man, Francis Lyle, aged twenty-five,’ she said. ‘Diagnosed as insulin-dependent diabetic, the usual treatment—insulin, diet control. Seems to respond well to treatment.’ She flipped through the notes. ‘But... treated here four times in the last three years for assorted accidents—three falls, one RTA.’

‘Suggesting what, Cat?’

‘If he does respond well to treatment, takes his insulin—well, it’s just a guess. I’d need more proof, but I’d say that he gets over-confident, misses a meal or two, his blood sugar drops till he’s hypoglycaemic and then he endangers himself. All these accidents look as if they were his fault.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Check to make sure I’m right,’ she said. ‘Then...well, it’s a social problem rather than a medical one. Persuade him to take his medication regularly and remind him that he has to eat regularly for it to work properly.’

‘Too true. Now, let’s go and look at the man in question.’

Frank Lyle was lying in a small side ward, temporary dressings on the side of his head and on his chest. He looked up at Ross, his expression plaintive.

Ross didn’t speak at once, just looked at the figure on the bed. Then he shook his head and said, ‘Frank, you know I’m wasting my time coming here. I’ve got better things to do. Why can’t you carry on with your injections, keep an eye on your food? Everyone else I know manages it. And we’ve been through what you have to do often enough.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr McCain. It’s just that I...’ The voice trailed away.

‘It’s just that you get a bit carried away. Forget about what you’ve got to do. Frank, it’s not good enough! You know what could happen?’

‘Well, yes. I suppose so.’

‘Don’t just suppose. Tell me.’

‘I could go into a coma,’ Frank muttered. ‘And then I could...’

‘You could die,’ Ross said. ‘And what would your mother think then?’

Rather to Cat’s surprise, he didn’t give Frank enough time to answer, but went on, ‘Anyway, how’s she doing i. . .