A Nightingale Christmas Wish by Donna Douglas Read Free Book Online

you reminded me.’ Sister Blake looked troubled. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t very good news, Nurse. Unfortunately, Mr Webster sustained a serious head injury during the crash. The doctors have had to operate to relieve some of the pressure inside his skull, but he’s still unconscious. And there is some doubt as to whether he has severed his spinal cord, too.’
    ‘Will he live, Sister?’
    ‘I don’t know, Nurse,’ Sister Blake admitted heavily. ‘The doctors have done all they can. He’s recovering on Holmes ward.’
    ‘I see. Thank you, Sister.’ Effie paused, taking it in. ‘Poor Mr Campbell.’
    Sister Blake looked up at her with a quizzical smile. ‘Don’t you mean poor Mr Webster?’ she asked.
    Effie blushed. ‘Yes, of course, Sister. I just meant – Mr Campbell seemed so worried.’
    ‘It does you credit to be so concerned about him,’ Sister Blake said. Then she added, ‘But don’t get too concerned about him, will you?’
    ‘No, Sister.’
    On her way back down the ward, Effie was waylaid by her elder sister Bridget, a senior staff nurse on Blake.
    ‘What did Sister want with you?’ she demanded. Unlike smiling Sister Blake, Bridget never missed the excuse to bully her. ‘I hope you’re not in trouble again?’
    ‘If you must know, Sister was telling me what a good job I did with the new patient in bed one,’ Effie preened.
    ‘Hmm. I noticed you were with him a long time.’ Bridget’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hope you weren’t flirting with him?’
    Effie’s mouth fell open. She might have known it would kill her sister to spare her a kind word or a bit of praise. ‘Honest to God, Bridget, what makes you say that?’
    ‘I’ve seen you with the patients, especially the young and good-looking ones. You’re often over-familiar with them. And you must call me Staff while we’re on the ward,’ Bridget reminded her haughtily.
    ‘I can’t help it if I’m naturally friendly –
Staff
.’ Effie emphasised the word. ‘Besides, I’d have to be as desperate as you to flirt with someone unconscious!’
    Bridget sent her a narrow look. They looked alike, with their dark colouring, blue eyes and willowy height, but there the similarity ended. Bridget had turned into a bitter old spinster before she was thirty, and Effie had no intention of ending up like her.
    ‘I’ve a good mind to send you to Matron for your cheek,’ her sister snapped. ‘Now go and make yourself useful. It’s almost time for the tea round.’
    As Effie’s luck would have it, her middle sister Katie was in the kitchen. After passing her State Finals, she had chosen to join Male Orthopaedic as a junior staff nurse. Effie couldn’t imagine why she would willingly choose to work alongside their bossy elder sister.
    As they prepared the tea trolley, Effie complained to Katie about what Bridget had said.
    ‘She’s just jealous because the patients like me more than they like her,’ she fumed as she set out the teacups on the saucers.
    ‘You weren’t flirting, then?’ Katie asked. She was as dark-haired as her sisters, but smaller and plumper.
    ‘Not you, too!’
    Katie shrugged. ‘Bridget’s right, you are over-familiar with the patients. You’re here to look after them, not to find a boyfriend,’ she said primly.
    Effie stared at her. Katie used to be man mad, but since she’d got engaged to her boyfriend Tom she’d turned as priggish as Bridget.
    ‘If I wanted to find a boyfriend, I certainly wouldn’t be looking at Adam Campbell, believe me!’ said Effie with feeling.
    ‘All the same, you should watch it.’ As usual, Katie had to have the last word.
    Effie ignored her and shoved the trolley through the kitchen doors. She loved the patients on Blake ward, and Sister Blake was an angel. But thanks to Katie and Bridget, she couldn’t wait for her three-month stint there to end.

Chapter Seven
    FRIDAY MORNING WAS the Ear, Nose and Throat Outpatients’ clinic, run by Mr Prentiss.
    Patrick Prentiss was a