‘I know what you mean,’ Parminder said. ‘Mine drive me crazy, sometimes, but it’s good to know they’re all close by.’
Ryan, Georgie thought, hadn’t mentioned having family close by, even though he’d said he’d trained in Edinburgh. Though asking would be intrusive, and she didn’t want to gossip about him.
Thankfully the class started then, and there wasn’t time to chat any more.
On Thursday, Georgie had another case that puzzled her and led her to seek Ryan’s advice.
‘Run me through it,’ he said.
‘Ben’s three. He has a fever, a rash and a swollen gland in his neck; the whites of his eyes are red and swollen, and he’s got a sore throat. His mum says the family’s new kitten scratched him on the face a few days ago and she thinks the scratch might be infected.’
‘What do you think?’ Ryan asked.
‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with the scratch.’ She frowned. ‘The rash makes me think it could be scarlet fever, measles or possibly lupus. The swollen glands hint at glandular fever, or it might be the beginning of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.’
‘But?’
She grimaced. ‘I’ve admitted him and put him on antibiotics. But his urine sample and white blood count don’t show anything out of the ordinary, he’s not responding to the usual treatment and his fever’s spiking. I’m missing something. Would you have a look at him for me, please?’
‘Of course.’
Georgie introduced Ryan to Ben and his mum. ‘Ryan’s going to take a second look at Ben for me, because Ben’s test results aren’t showing what I was expecting,’ she said with a smile.
Ryan gently examined Ben, getting him to stick his tongue out. ‘See how red his tongue is?’ he said to Georgie and Ben’s mum. ‘And there are vertical cracks on his lips. The skin on his palms is a bit red, too. I think he has Kawasaki disease.’
‘I’ve never heard of that,’ Ben’s mum said.
‘It’s quite rare,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s also called mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome. Basically it’s a disease where the blood vessels are inflamed, and we don’t know what causes it—it might be an infection—but it’s not contagious, and we can treat it.’
‘With aspirin,’ Georgie said, ‘and immunoglobulin.’
‘I thought you weren’t supposed to give aspirin to children under the age of ten?’ Ben’s mum asked.
‘Sixteen,’ Ben said. ‘You’re right, because it can cause Reye’s syndrome, but this is one of the very few medical cases where the best treatment for an under-sixteen is aspirin.’
‘You might find the skin on Ben’s hands peels a bit, over the next few days,’ Georgie said, ‘but it’s nothing to worry about.’ But she ordered an ECG and an echo to check Ben’s heart, because she knew that one of the complications of Kawasaki disease was swollen and inflamed coronary arteries. To her relief, the tests showed that Ben was fine; and, the next day, his fever had broken.
That evening, there was a team night out of bowling and pizza. And how good it was to feel part of them, Georgie thought. Everyone seemed to see her for who she was: the London doctor who really wasn’t into football or rugby, but who made good brownies. Best of all, nobody saw her as ‘Poor Georgie’. They teased her about her accent and she was pretty sure there was a competition between her colleagues as to who’d be the first to flummox her with a new dialect word every day, but she felt that they’d accepted her. Including Ryan.
Though it didn’t help that Ryan was on her bowling team, and she was sitting right next to him. There wasn’t much room on the benches by their alley, so her thigh was pressed very closely against his. Despite the fact they were both wearing jeans, she was very aware of the warmth of his body. And, a couple of times when she glanced at him, he was looking at her, too. She thought back to that moment at Doune when he’d held her, when they’d been so close to kissing, and her heart skipped a beat. She was pretty sure he felt the same attraction that she did; but what were they going to do about it?
And if they did end up kissing, what then? She didn’t want to make another mistake like she’d made with Charlie. And if she got this wrong, things could be very awkward between them at work and at the cottage. Maybe it was better to play safe. So she made sure she was sitting at the opposite end of the table when it came to the pizza part of the evening.
On the Monday evening, Georgie practically bounced into the cottage after her late shift; she’d been quiet for the last few days, so Ryan had been trying to work out how to ask her if he’d upset her. Maybe it hadn’t been him at all; maybe it was something to do with her late husband.
‘Hi. I’ll just heat your stew through,’ Ryan said. ‘And there’s a jacket potato.’
‘Thank you. That’s wonderful.’
‘You look pleased,’ he said.
‘I am. Ben’s definitely on the mend,’ she said, accepting the bowlful of stew gratefully. ‘And there are clear skies tonight.’
‘That’s great to hear about Ben, but I don’t get what the fuss is about a clear sky tonight.’ Ryan said.
‘There’s a meteor shower tonight, and it’ll be amazing because out here it’s practically pitch black skies.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘Come and watch them with me when I’ve finished dinner.’
Standing with her under the stars.
Part of Ryan thought this was a dangerous move: he was already finding himself thinking about her at odd moments of the day. But part of him couldn’t resist the idea of being close to her—even if she was only offering friendship. ‘OK.’
After her meal, they went out to the garden.
‘I love the stars out here,’ she said. ‘I never get to see them so well in
