‘Higher than I thought it was, thanks to the contents of a bottle of champagne.’ The young man shifted on the trolley, the pain making him wince. ‘Must have been about four metres, I suppose. I feel as though my entire body has snapped in half.’
‘Hopefully it won’t be that bad—’ Lara’s smile was sympathetic ‘—but we will need to take some X-rays. I’ll ask a doctor to come and see you now.’
She stepped towards the door just as Christian entered. ‘Did I hear you mention the fact that you need a doctor?’
Lara felt her heart rate double and quickly turned away from him. It was becoming harder and harder to work with him and act normally.
Flaws, she reminded herself. She needed to fall out of love with him and the only way to do that was to find his flaws.
‘Lara?’ His soft prompt brought her back from fantasyland to reality.
‘This is Eddie,’ she said, tucking her pen back into her pocket and trying to concentrate on her job. ‘He jumped off a wall.’
‘We were coming out of a restaurant after our Christmas lunch,’ Eddie groaned, lifting his hand to his head. ‘I’m in a lot of pain. I thought alcohol was supposed to numb the senses.’
‘We’ll give you something for that right now,’ Lara said, reaching for an X-ray form and swiftly filling in the blank spaces while Christian examined his patient.
‘Don’t move me around too much, my head is spinning. Why are you looking at my spine?’ Eddie grumbled as he followed Christian’s smooth instructions and moved on the trolley to facilitate a fuller examination. ‘It’s my feet that are killing me.’
Lara wandered back to the trolley. ‘If you land on both heels you can damage more than your feet,’ she explained. She turned to Christian. ‘Do you want him on his front so that you can examine his Achilles tendon?’
‘In a minute. I’ll just look at his ankles and feet first.’ He examined the man’s heels and Lara noticed the swelling and obvious bruising.
‘Ow, that hurts!’ Eddie flinched backwards and Christian murmured an apology.
‘You’ve very tender over the calcaneum.’
‘I don’t know my calcaneum from my cranium but I do know that I’m in bloody agony and I’m never drinking again. If I hadn’t had so much champagne I would have known that the wall was too high. It’s just that I thought I could fly.’
Lara caught Christian’s eye and tried not to laugh.
‘I need you to lie on your front, Eddie,’ he said, ‘so that I can examine your Achilles tendon.’
Lara helped Eddie manoeuvre onto his front. ‘Wriggle down a bit so that your feet dangle over the end. That’s it. Perfect.’
Christian gently squeezed the mid-calf, looking for normal plantar flexion of the ankle. ‘That’s fine. If you can turn over again, Eddie. I’m just going to send you for some X-rays. Can I have a form, Lara?’
Lara handed him the form that she’d already completed. ‘Sign on the dotted line.’ She grinned at him. ‘Calcaneal X-rays—both feet. Is there anything I’ve missed?’
‘I doubt it.’ He scanned the form and signed, a trace of humour in his eyes as he glanced at her. ‘You don’t usually miss anything, do you? I’m starting to think you’re a mind-reader, Staff Nurse King.’
‘It’s called anticipation and it just means that I’ve worked here for too long. If I hang around any longer I’ll be able to treat the patients before they’ve even had the accident.’ Lara took the signed form from him and put the side up on the trolley. ‘I’m locking you in, Eddie, just in case you get any more bright ideas about jumping and flying. Hold on tight. You and I are going to take a trip down to X-Ray.’
She left Eddie with the radiographer and went in search of Jane, who was checking the controlled drugs. ‘Emergency meeting needed.’
‘Not when I’m counting ampoules of morphine.’ Jane finished the task, dismissed the staff nurse who had been helping her and turned to Lara. ‘Well?’
‘I need a new flaw.’
‘What’s wrong with the old one?’ Jane locked the drug cupboard. ‘The man has two demanding children. I thought we agreed that they are enormous flaws.’
‘We did. But they’re not.’ Lara slumped against the wall. ‘I love them.’
‘You love his kids?’ Jane pinned the keys into her pocket. ‘Lara, you’re in trouble.’
‘I know, I know. But they’re so sweet. To be honest, it would be impossible not to love them.’
‘That’s because they’re still on their best behaviour and they don’t know you have dishonourable designs on their father. Once they work it out, they’ll turn into horribly, snivelling flaws,’ Jane predicted in a dark tone, but Lara shook her head.