Beneath Still Waters. Alex Archer

      CHAPTER TWO

      LEONIE DIDN’T HAVE a car. She cycled to work each day through the centre of the beautiful old market town with its gracious Victorian buildings and famous spa that people came to from far and wide to take of its healing waters.

      Once the town was left behind she pedalled into open country for a short distance until she came to the hospital, built from the same local stone as the rest of the buildings in Heatherdale.

      It was Monday morning and she had arrived earlier than usual with a feeling that was a mixture of expectation and unease. She was worried about Callum’s reaction when he realised that they would be close colleagues.

      She’d often heard his name spoken since coming to join the staff at the hospital as ward sister in the orthopaedic unit, but had taken little notice as she hadn’t known the man. He’d gone to America before she’d started there and therefore was of little interest, but after Saturday’s happenings all that had changed. He’d probably think her crazy for not mentioning at some time that she was a nurse at the Heatherdale Children’s Hospital, where he was head of Orthopaedics.

      Yet there’d been nothing to stop him asking what branch of nursing she was involved in when she’d told him what her occupation was as they’d knelt beside the injured youth, but he’d been too high and mighty to ask such questions and probably wouldn’t have been interested if she’d told him, which meant that today he might have cause to regret asking her out in the evening when he’d arrived back from Manchester.

      Prodded by a sense of duty, he had sought her out and amazed her by asking her to join him for a meal, an invitation that she’d refused with little graciousness.

      Soon, very soon, when she’d fastened her bike up securely and taken off her outdoor clothes, they were going to be in each other’s company again, and considering that he’d been in her thoughts ever since Saturday night she supposed she ought to be relieved that the uncomfortable meeting would soon be over and then the less she saw of Callum Warrender the better. Though how she was going to manage that when they’d be required to work closely together, she didn’t know.

      * * *

      ‘Good morning everyone,’ Callum announced as he strolled into the two-ward complex that was the hospital’s orthopaedic centre. He was greeted by happy voices while Leonie, in a uniform that was a darker blue than the rest, bent over the bed of a fretful toddler and kept her head down.

      As his keen gaze swept over those present, Callum asked crisply, ‘Where’s Janet?’

      ‘She’s taken early retirement to look after her mother,’ one of the nurses told him with a glance in Leonie’s direction.

      Well, there was no avoiding it now. Leonie straightened up and looked Callum in the eye.

      ‘I have been appointed ward sister in her place, Dr Warrender. I’m afraid that the opportunity to mention that didn’t present itself on Saturday when we met unexpectedly.’

      Callum was dumbstruck. She had told him she was a nurse but he’d been too busy running the show to ask anything further. Two surprises on his first morning back he could do without.

      Used to working with Janet Fairfax as sister-in-charge, he was sorry he hadn’t been there when she’d left. She’d been totally reliable, even though she had family commitments that had kept her on the go. Leonie had a lot to live up to.

      He gave a grim smile. He had actually thought he wasn’t likely to meet up with her again. So much for forward thinking.

      ‘Carry on, everyone,’ he said briskly He turned to address Leonie directly.

      ‘In a moment, Sister, can you spare a few moments to update me about our current patients?’

      She was still soothing the fractious infant but nodded her agreement.

      ‘Then I will see you in my office in ten minutes, Sister...er, I’m afraid I don’t know your surname.’

      ‘It is Mitchell,’ she said levelly. Returning to her work, she placed the now pacified infant back in his cot and went to speak to parents. They’d been there all night beside their baby, who had been born with a deformation of one of its feet and been operated on the previous day to correct the problem.

      All had gone satisfactorily and the relief surgeon who had been filling in for Callum had been pleased with the result of what had been his last task before moving to a Manchester hospital for a spell.

      ‘We are so relieved that our baby’s feet are now normal,’ the mother said. ‘We were going to wait for Dr Warrender to come back, but the chance came and we couldn’t let it pass by. We have an older child who was born with the same problem and he operated on her, so it would seem that the fault might be genetic.’

      ‘And if it is, we aren’t having any more,’ the baby’s father said grimly.

      When Leonie finished her chat, Callum was at the door of the ward office, waiting for her, and after saying goodbye to the parents she moved towards him and was watched with interest by other staff members.

      ‘Take a seat, please, Sister,’ he said, pointing to a nearby chair as she closed the office door behind her. He sat down behind his desk. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me that you were a nurse employed in my unit when we were involved in the catastrophe up on the moors road?’

      ‘It was hardly the moment to start giving you my life history,’ she replied. ‘I told you I was a nurse to reassure you that I was capable of assisting you, which I did. I wouldn’t have expected you to want to know anything else at that moment, and in any case there was nothing to stop you from asking me in which area of nursing I was employed. I came to this hospital a couple of months after you went to America when my predecessor left at short notice because of her mother’s health.’

      ‘Where did you work before?’

      ‘At a large hospital in London. This position became vacant just as I’d decided that I needed a change And so I made the move up here.’

      ‘Right,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Now that’s cleared up, we’ll do a ward round so I can familiarise myself with our patients.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, and led the way to the first bed, where a ten-year-old boy was engrossed in the tablet that he was holding.

      ‘This is Daniel,’ she said. ‘He ran across the road when the lights were red, was knocked down by a car and has two broken legs. He is due to go home tomorrow on crutches.’

      ‘So maybe next time he will wait for the green man,’ Callum said as he read the notes that were clipped to the end of the bed. When he’d done that he lifted the bed covers to observe heavy bruising in parts that were not covered by a plaster cast. He turned to Leonie. ‘I shall want to see X-rays of his fractures, and when he is discharged make sure he’s given an early appointment