Katrina looked ruefully at her. ‘Sorry, hon. I’d love to be there, but I’m working on Christmas Day.’
‘Early or late shift?’
‘Early.’
‘Good, that makes it a bit easier. Then this is how we’ll do it,’ Madison said. ‘I’ll invite Aunt Babs and Uncle Danny up for the day, too, so they get to meet Theo and his family before the wedding, and they can see you on Christmas Day instead of making do with a phone call—and you can come round to our place straight after your shift.’
‘Don’t hold Christmas dinner up for me,’ Katrina said. ‘I’ll grab something on the ward. Just save me some turkey and salad for a sandwich and a big bit of Christmas cake.’
Madison laughed. ‘Stop worrying. Theo’s cooking, not me—and, actually, I was hoping you’d make us your special chocolate Christmas cake.’
‘Course I will. But I mean it. Don’t wait for me to get there before you have lunch. I’ll join in when I get there.’
Madison coughed. ‘Actually, the invitation was for “you” as in plural. I meant Rhys as well. Unless he’s going back to Wales?’
‘I’m not sure.’ They hadn’t discussed it. ‘I’ll check and let you know,’ Katrina promised.
‘Good. Because this is going to be the best Christmas ever,’ Madison said.
Rhys could hear the screams from the other end of the ward. Quickly, he reassured his patient and his mum that he’d be back in a second, and headed straight for the sound. Katrina clearly had the same idea, because she arrived in the cubicle at the same time.
Denise—a four-year-old who’d been patched up in Theatre following a car accident and had been brought to the ward from the recovery room thirty minutes previously—was thrashing on the bed and screaming.
‘All right, sweetheart. It’s going to be OK,’ he soothed, holding the little girl’s hand.
Lynne was in the doorway. ‘What happened? I did her obs five minutes ago and she was asleep.’
‘My guess is she just woke up to find herself in a strange place and she’s scared and she wants her mum,’ Katrina said. ‘Plus there was the trauma of the accident—it might just have hit her. Does anyone know the situation with her parents?’
‘I’m on it. Back in a tick,’ Lynne said.
‘Check her notes,’ Rhys said. ‘Could be pain, too.’
Katrina flicked swiftly to the drug chart. ‘According to this, they gave her pain relief in the recovery room. So if she’s hurting…’
She didn’t need to say the rest of it. They both knew that it meant Denise’s injuries could be more severe than the emergency and surgical teams had thought and the little girl needed to go back into Theatre.
‘Can you tell me where it hurts, bach?’ Rhys asked.
But Denise was still wailing too much to listen to him.
‘Let me give her a cuddle,’ Katrina said. ‘I’ll tell her a story, and if I can calm her down a bit she might be able to tell us what’s wrong.’
Rhys had seen how children responded to Katrina—how she’d calmed nervous and upset children on the ward before. There was something about her that made the ward feel like a still, calm place when the world was raging and spinning outside.
And that was how she made him feel, too.
So he let Katrina take his place at the little girl’s bedside and lingered a while to watch her as she cuddled the little girl and started talking to her about fairies and princesses and a magic star that could guide everyone home. Gradually, the little girl’s screams subsided to noisy tears, and finally to the odd hiccuping sob as she listened to Katrina’s quiet, soothing voice. Katrina rocked the little girl gently, stroking her hair and calming her.
Seeing her like that, Rhys suddenly realised the unthinkable.
He loved her.
Really loved her.
Being around Katrina was like being bathed in spring sunshine. And his world had been a much, much brighter place since she’d been in it.
Oh, lord.
This was seriously scary.
He’d never felt like this before. He didn’t know how to tell Katrina—where to start, even. Though he knew that in the middle of the ward when they were looking after a distressed child definitely wasn’t the right time or place.
‘So can you tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart?’ Katrina asked. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Want my mummy,’ the little girl hiccuped, her lower lip wobbling.
Katrina glanced up at Rhys, her eyes full of questions.
He knew exactly what she needed to know. Whether Denise’s mum was out of Theatre and when she’d be able to visit. He nodded. ‘I’ll go and find Lynne and see what’s going on.’