‘But if they came to you earlier—’ he tried to sound positive ‘—is the treatment straightforward?’
Bridget shook her head, her eyes slamming into his. As if they were doing more than simply discussing her medical cases. As if they were connecting.
‘Actually, not really. The drugs are expensive to start with, but they need to be kept between two and eight degrees at all times, which is obviously a challenge out here.’
‘Today was forty degrees in the shade,’ he agreed.
‘Right. And the treatment is usually anything from two weeks to over a month of intravenous or intramuscular injections on either a daily or once every two days basis. On top of all that, the drugs can have serious side effects.’
‘It just gets better,’ he commented dryly, as Bridget pulled a face.
‘Doesn’t it just. As if they don’t have enough to deal with. And that’s without the contraindications of different treatments the patient might need for the other diseases I mentioned. Or, if they’re anaemic, the need for blood transfusion.’
For a moment they didn’t speak, but it didn’t feel awkward. It was an oddly comfortable, companionable silence as they pondered the situation, both acutely aware that they got to walk away in a few months. A luxury not afforded to the people forced to live in the region.
‘Good evening, Bridget.’ Bridget jumped at the sound of her project manager’s voice. ‘Major.’
‘Hayden,’ Hayden corrected with his trademark smile.
And good grief...was that Mandy actually giggling like a schoolgirl?
‘Hayden.’ She smiled broadly. ‘Lovely name, my dear.’
Bridget blinked in shock. She knew Hayden was a charmer, but a bold, forbidding, often matronly woman like Mandy? From one single word?
‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ Mandy looked from one to the other.
‘Not at all,’ they both said in unison. Which hardly made their case.
Mandy, known for missing very little, eyed them with mounting interest.
‘Do you two already know each other?’
‘I used to work with Mattie.’ Bridget didn’t know why she panicked to explain herself. ‘That is, Major Mathilda Brigham, Hayd’s sister...’
‘We’ve been introduced before.’ Hayden cut across her simply. Not unkindly.
She cast him a grateful glance.
‘I see.’ Mandy peered at them a little closer, and Bridget was sure she could see the wheels spinning in the older woman’s head. ‘Well, that make things easier in terms of working together.’
Bridget’s heart kicked up at the idea, though she struggled to rein it back.
‘I didn’t think we would be working that closely,’ she tried to say airily, though she wasn’t entirely sure that she succeeded.
‘It wasn’t the original brief,’ Mandy acknowledged. ‘But Jukrem is such a new camp we didn’t know what to expect in terms of footfall or types of cases. The longer we’ve been in the area, the better idea I think we’re getting.’
‘Did you have a particular project change in mind?’ Hayden asked, getting straight to the heart of the issue.
By Mandy’s expression, Bridget could tell the older woman liked his directness.
‘Your right-hand man—Dean, is it?—was good enough to pass on the copies of the satellite images of the area that you guys brought out with you, as well as the geographical aerial surveys your team took today with their drones, looking for any riverbeds, wells or reservoirs. So thank you for that.’
‘My pleasure.’ Hayden smiled again, his charm not dipping for an instant, and even Bridget felt herself reacting. Again.
‘I’m super-excited about the potential water sources, of course, and I know you’ve been tasked to focus on building infrastructure north of here up to the main camp of Rejupe, but I wondered if you were up for making a little detour?’
‘How little is little, Mandy?’ Hayden teased good-naturedly.