'Is there any possibility that you could be pregnant, Mrs Blythe?' Zach asked quietly, and the woman shook her head vigorously.
'No!' She gave a whimper and clutched her stomach again. 'Ow, it hurts!'
Zach was watching her closely. 'And when was your last period?'
'I don't know.' She avoided his eyes. 'I'm never regular.'
'Can you give me a rough date?'
Keely stepped forward and gave the frightened woman a gentle smile. 'Don't be scared, Mrs Blythe. We have to ask these questions to find out what's wrong with you. Everything you say to us is confidential.'
The woman started to sob. 'I don't know what's wrong. I haven't had a period for eight weeks, but I can't be pregnant.'
'All right.' Zach's blue eyes narrowed slightly. 'I'm just going to examine your stomach, Mrs Blythe. Try and relax for me. What method of contraception do you use?'
'The eoil,' she answered, and Keely watched while Zach examined her and then glanced at Nicky, his expression calm.
'Get me two large cannulae—12 or 14 gauge—get her cross-matched for six units of blood and request rhesus status. Nicky, I want a pregnancy test, please, and fast-bleep the gynae team.'
Keely listened to his list of instructions, her eyes fixed on his calm features. Despite his totally cool manner, he was obviously worried. Very worried. He was getting ready to resuscitate a potentially shocked patient—he obviously thought that Mrs Blythe was seriously ill.
Nicky and one of the staff nurses swung into action while Keely gave the woman some oxygen and prepared to take some bloods.
Suzy Blythe stared at them with frightened eyes. 'What's wrong with me?'
'You have a ruptured ectopic pregnancy,' Zach said gently, 'which basically means that the fertilised egg has implanted somewhere other than your uterus—usually one of the tubes that carry it to the uterus. That's what's causing the pain, and that's why you fainted.'
Keely stared at him.
How did he know that? There was no doubt or uncertainty in his voice at all. He was completely confident in his diagnosis.
'I can't be pregnant!'
Zach's gaze rested on the young woman's frightened face. 'Why?'
'Because my husband's been away for the last six months,' she sobbed, her whole body trembling. 'I can't be pregnant. I just can't be.'
Keely held her breath. Was Zach wrong?
'Suzy...' Zach took a deep breath and his voice was incredibly patient. 'Believe me, we're not here to judge you. We just want to make you well. You have a very serious condition, which I'm sure is an ectopic pregnancy.'
Suzy's cried harder. 'I don't know what to do.'
Zach's voice was gentle. 'But you could be pregnant?'
There was a long silence, broken only by Suzy's sobs. 'Yes. It was just the once,' she admitted jerkily, her tear-stained face contorting as another pain hit her. 'Oh, heavens, what am I going to do? What will Rob say?'
'Don't worry about that now.' Keely gave her shoulder a squeeze, feeling desperately sorry for her.
Zach quickly finished his physical examination. 'Have you had any vaginal bleeding, Suzy?'
'No. Nothing.'
'The pregnancy test is positive, Mr Jordan,' the staff nurse said quietly, her eyes fixed adoringly on Zach's face.
Keely gritted her teeth and felt a powerful surge of jealousy, which shocked her. Why should she be jealous? She had no right to be jealous. He wasn't hers. And she could hardly blame the nurse for drooling over him. If she found the man irresistible, why shouldn't everyone else?
'Keely, take bloods for FBC, U and Es, blood sugar and G and S,' Zach ordered, 'and call the gynae team and tell them she's going to need to go to Theatre.'