Date with a Surgeon Prince(21)

So, mentally, she made her list.

For going along with Gaz—Ghazi—on this betrothal thing was that she would be doing him a favour, and it was never a bad thing to have a favour owed.

Besides, Nelson had said he’d been a nice little boy who’d been very kind to her at a time when she’d been desperately alone and confused, so maybe she owed him one.

Then there was Pop, who’d be delighted, and by the time the betrothal ended, however they were to manage that, he’d be over the operation so could handle the news without too much of a problem.

And…

She couldn’t think of an and!

Well, she could, but she’d already decided he probably wouldn’t seduce her while they were betrothed.

Against—well, that was easy. The disruption in her life for a start, the hassle of whatever the betrothal would entail in the way of public appearances, the interruption to her work, having to get new clothes—

She smiled to herself and wondered if that should go on the ‘for’ list…

Then there was Gaz.

Was he a for or against?

A bit of both really, because as Gaz she liked him and more than liked his kisses, but as Ghazi, wasn’t there something wrong with kissing him if their betrothal was only pretend?

Fayyad would be wondering what had become of her, but still she sat, looking down at her watch as she tried to work out what time it would be at home.

If she phoned Nelson, she could ask him what he thought, ask him what she should do, as she’d always asked him what to do, relying on his common sense and good judgement.

But Nelson had enough on his plate right now, looking after Pop, so she was on her own.

She stood up, grabbed her suitcase and made her way down to the foyer and out to the door, where Fayyad waited patiently in the car, climbing out when he saw her to open the back door for her.

‘I need to stop at the hospital to see a patient,’ she told him, feeling guilty because with all the ‘will I, won’t I’ that had gone on in her head about attending the citizens’ meeting she hadn’t seen Safi for two days. ‘I’ll be half an hour, maybe a little more. Do you have to wait in the car, or can you go into the canteen and have a cool drink or a coffee?’

Fayyad smiled at her then lifted a Thermos and a book to show her.

‘I am never bored while waiting,’ he said, ‘but thank you for your consideration.’

His English was so good she wanted to ask where he’d learned it but remembered that personal conversations seemed not actually forbidden but perhaps impolite. She must ask Gaz.

Ask Gaz?

Just because he’d kissed her it didn’t mean…

Didn’t mean what?

And surely the kisses hadn’t made her feel more at ease with him than she did with Jawa, for instance?

Totally muddled, she watched as Fayyad pulled up in front of the hospital.

‘I will be watching for you,’ he said, as he opened the door for her, making her feel a total fool. She thanked him and hurried inside, hoping none of the nurses she knew had seen her stately arrival. But the staff entrance was around the back so she should be safe.

These niggling worries hung around her like a cloud of summer midges as she walked towards Safi’s room, but vanished as soon as she entered. She’d vaguely been aware of intense activity in one of the rooms she’d passed, and a lot of scurrying further down the passageway, but surely whatever was going on, someone would have checked on Safi recently.

His face was pale but red spots of fever burned in his cheeks and his thin fingers plucked at the dressing on his lip while his body turned and twisted on the bed.

‘Safi!’ she said, coming to take the hand that worried at his dressing, feeling the heat of it.

She found the bell and pressed it, then grabbed a towel and ran water over it in the little attached bathroom, wringing it out then bringing it back to sponge his face and chest, his arms and legs, desperate to cool him down before the spike in his temperature could cause a seizure.

No one had answered the bell.

She pressed it again, talking soothingly to the little boy, careful not to touch the dressing as his wound was obviously causing him discomfort, or more likely, pain.

He was staring up at her, wide-eyed, panic and pain in equal measure in his face.

‘It will be all right,’ she said, and although she knew he wouldn’t understand her words she hoped her voice would soothe him. Her voice and the cool, wet towel…

Wrapping the towel around his head like a turban so it pressed on his temples and the back of his neck and could cool surface blood vessels in both places, she grabbed his chart. Thankfully all charts were written in English because of the imported staff, and although she couldn’t read exactly what he’d been given at the last check, she could tell that it had been at ten in the morning.