The Italian's New-Year Marriage Wish Read Online Free Page B

earlier he’d been braced for a fight. All the hardness had gone from his tone and there was no trace of the anger that had been simmering inside him. Instead, he was kind and approachable, his smooth, confident movements removing the panic from the situation.
    He’d always been amazing with children , Amy thought numbly as she handed him the oxygen mask. They found his strength reassuring and responded to his gentleness. Strength and gentleness . A killer combination. When she’d first met him he’d been working as a paediatrician and his skills in that field were very much in evidence as he assessed the little girl.
    To someone who didn’t know better it might have looked as though he was simply comforting the child and putting her at ease, but Amy watched the movement of his fingers and the direction of his gaze and knew that in that short space of time he’d checked the little girl’s respirations, her pulse rate and the degree of wheezing.
    Carol cuddled the child and looked at him helplessly. ‘She ate a tiny bit of breakfast and then she was sick everywhere. After that she was just too breathless to eat. I’ve never seen her this bad.’
    The teenager slumped against the wall and rolled her eyes. ‘For goodness’ sake Mum, stop panicking.’ She broke off and coughed a few times. ‘You make everything into such a drama.’
    â€˜Don’t you tell me to stop panicking, Lizzie,’ Carol snapped angrily. ‘You were giving her breakfast! You should have noticed sooner that she wasn’t breathing properly!’
    â€˜Well, I’m not a bloody doctor, am I?!’ The tone was moody and defiant, but Amy saw the worry in the teenager’s eyes and remembered that this was Carol’s second marriage. Presumably Lizzie was her child from her previous marriage.
    Clearly things weren’t altogether harmonious in the household.
    â€˜She is here now and that is what is important.’ Swiftly but calmly, Marco reached for the hand-held pulse oximeter, attached the probe to the child’s finger. ‘I want her as quiet as possible so that I can examine her properly. You will have a nice cuddle with your mama, Michelle. I’m going to help you with your breathing, tesoro .’
    Tesoro.
    Trying not to remember that he’d called her the same thing in happier times, Amy looked at the pulse oximeter.
    â€˜That’s a neat device.’ It was typical of Marco to have all the latest technology to hand, she mused silently. Oxygen, spacer, pulse oximeter. He may have chosen to move from paediatrics to general practice but he still insisted on having all the latest equipment.
    â€˜It’s a very fast and reliable method of obtaining a reading.’ He glanced at Carol, absolutely offering an explanation. ‘It tells me how much oxygen is in her blood. I’d like the level to be higher than it is. I’m going to give her something that will help her breathing.’
    Carol’s face was white and strained. ‘Is it her asthma again?’
    â€˜ Sì , it seems that way. She has had a virus and that can some times be a trigger.’ He connected a face mask to the mouthpiece of a spacer.
    â€˜Michelle, I’m going to put this mask over your nose and mouth and I want you to just breathe normally.’ He settled the mask gently over the child’s face and actuated the inhaler. ‘Just breathe for me now. Good girl. We’ll start with this and see if this improves things.’
    Michelle stared up at him in terror, her breath coming in rapid, rasping gasps.
    Equally terrified, Carol rubbed her back gently. ‘It’s all right, darling. Dr Avanti is going to make you better. He always does, you know he does.’
    The little girl clawed at her face, trying to remove the mask, and Marco gently took her hand and squatted down so that he was level with the child. ‘Don’t pull it off, cucciola mia