Free The Legendary Playboy Surgeon by Alison Roberts Page A

wasn’t rubbing his arm any more. Instead, he had a hand pressed to the centre of his chest.
    Kate was by his side in seconds. ‘You’ve got chest pain, haven’t you?’
    Lewis nodded.
    ‘Radiation?’
    ‘Left arm. And jaw.’ It sounded as if it was hard for Lewis to say anything. As if he was in excruciating pain. He was sweating, too. He had all the classic symptoms of someone who was suffering a heart attack.
    ‘Run,’ she ordered a young technician. ‘Find the nearest wheelchair or trolley. I’ve got to get Dr Blackman up to the emergency department. Try Medical Records.’
    Wheelchairs were often abandoned outside the medical-record department after someone had delivered a heavy load of notes. If she could transport Lewis herself, Kate knew it would be a lot faster than waiting for an orderly. And time mattered if Lewis was having a heart attack. With every passing minute more of his heart muscle could be being destroyed.
    Her registrar was clearing an area near one of the microscopes she had been using with her students, clearly preparing to finish the bone-biopsy examination. Mark was fairly new to the department and the specialty but he was competent enough. Nonetheless, Kate should sign the diagnosis off herself but...
    But Lewis could be dying here. He was her boss. Her mentor. A dear friend.
    And the technician had just rushed back into the lab with a wheelchair.
    ‘I’ll be back as soon as possible,’ Kate told Mark. ‘Carry on. If there’s any doubt at all about the diagnosis, wait for me.’
    * * *
    It didn’t take very long to deliver Lewis to the emergency department.
    He was rushed straight into a resus area. An oxygen mask and electrodes were on him within seconds. A registrar was gaining IV access to administer pain relief and a nurse produced GTN spray and an aspirin tablet for Lewis to chew and swallow.
    ‘We’re onto it,’ the staff assured Kate, as she stood watching.
    ‘Go,’ Lewis urged. ‘You’re needed downstairs.’
    ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Kate promised. ‘Hang in there.’
    By the time she got back to the basement of St Pat’s, the results for Theatre Three had just been phoned through.
    ‘What was it?’
    ‘Oesteosarcoma,’ Mark told her grimly. ‘Classic. Late stage.’
    ‘ What? But the X-ray...’ Kate cleared her stunned reaction with a single, sharp shake of her head. ‘Show me.’
    Sure enough, the microscopic evidence was clearly that of an aggressive, malignant tumour.
    That poor kid, Kate thought. Thirteen years old and she was probably going to lose her leg. Or would they wait and give her a course of chemo before operating again?
    They?
    It would be Connor holding the scalpel up there. He was a specialist in paediatric bone cancer. The best. At least the girl had the chance of having her life saved, if not her leg.
    She still couldn’t believe it. She pulled the slide free from its clips, wanting to see another one. To gather more evidence. It was then that she noticed something that made her blood run cold.
    A tiny dot on the corner of the slide. A marker. The kind she always used on the slides she kept for her teaching.
    Time seemed to stop and yet Kate’s brain—and her hands—were moving at the speed of light. It took only seconds to confirm the worst. Somehow, one of her teaching slides had become mixed up with the new sample from Theatre.
    The thirteen-year-old girl didn’t have a highly aggressive cancer at all. The tumour was benign and could be easily treated.
    Kate ran to the phone and dialled the Theatre extension. The phone rang. And rang. What was keeping someone from answering? Were they all too busy? Doing an unnecessary amputation?
    Kate shoved the phone at the nearest technician. ‘Wait till someone answers,’ she snapped. ‘Tell them to stop. They’ve got the wrong diagnosis.’
    She couldn’t just wait. Kate ran for the door, unbuttoning her coat as she went so that she could move faster.
    She was fit. Four