In Dr Darling's Care

Harry thought about that and bit on his imaginary bullet some more. ‘That’s why you applied to be my locum?’

‘That’s right.’

Now what? She had the splint in place now. The leg was fixed as rigidly as she could manage. The morphine would be working as well as it could.

It was time to move.

‘You’re sure no one’s likely to come along this road?’ she asked, and he grunted into the mud.

‘Nope. We’re on our own. It’s time to turn me over and check my face hasn’t fallen off.’

‘Does it feel as if it has?’

‘Nope, but this mud pack has done me all the good that it’s going to do me. Let’s go.’

Lizzie was very worried. If she had an ambulance here she’d have him moved immobile onto a fixed stretcher until she’d thoroughly checked that neck and spine. She couldn’t leave him lying in the mud on the side of the road, though. For a start, if he lost consciousness again he could even drown. It was still raining, a steady drizzle that was making her cold to the bone. They’d both have hypothermia if she didn’t move.

So, feeling as anxious as she’d ever felt in her entire medical career, she moved to his shoulders and put her face down in the mud again, nose to nose.

‘I’m going to roll you over now,’ she told him. ‘Don’t try to help me.’

‘If I don’t try to help you then you’ll never do it,’ he muttered. ‘How tall are you?’

‘I’m tall.’

‘You don’t sound tall.’

‘I have a short voice.’

‘I can see you sideways. You look really short.’

‘From where you are I must look eight feet or so.’ She put her hands under his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry but your leg’s going to hurt when I do this. But I want to roll you keeping your back and neck as rigid as possible.’

He forgot about the short bit. She could see him brace.

‘OK. Let’s give it a shot.’

In the end he rolled with ease. There couldn’t be major damage, she decided with relief. He could use his still strong hips to roll himself as she supported his shoulders and neck.

‘Slow,’ she said urgently. ‘Keep it slow.’

A minute later he was lying on his back, practising deep breathing as his leg settled. She took three deep breaths herself and met his gaze. Done. He was still breathing and breathing well. His hands were still moving. There clearly wasn’t an unstable break in the vertebrae.

He was staring up at her with the bluest eyes…

They really were the most extraordinary eyes, she thought, stunned. Or maybe it was just the situation and the relief of having him look up at her with eyes that were lucid.

No. It wasn’t just that. They really were the most extraordinary eyes. His face was mud-stained and etched with strain, the bruise on the side of his forehead was raw and ugly, but she could see laughter lines around his eyes. A wide generous mouth looked as if it was meant for smiling.

He was trying to smile now.

‘S-see,’ he said. ‘No problem.’ After a short pause he added, ‘Maybe you could give me that extra five milligrams of morphine.’

‘You’ve already had it.’ She was checking his chest now, his shoulders, everything she could see of him. ‘I’m sorry but that’s all I can give you.’

‘Damned managing woman.’

‘That’s what I’m famous for. Is it only your leg that hurts?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘I guess it is.’

‘Tell me again why I employed you?’

‘So you can get married.’ She looked uneasily at the car. She was going to have to get him in there. Somehow.

‘You can’t lift me.’

‘No.’

‘But you can’t leave me sprawled in the road for some other dingbat city doctor to run down.’

‘How many dingbat city doctors do you have around here?’

‘Ha,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘You admit it. Dingbat city doctor. That’s an admission of guilt if ever I heard one. Where are witnesses when you need them?’

‘There’s always Phoebe.’

‘Phoebe?’

‘My basset.’

‘Right. Your mother-to-be.’

‘You know, if you just shut up for a minute I might be able to think of a plan.’

‘Yeah?’

He was mocking her. ‘Yeah,’ she said, temporarily distracted. ‘I might.’

‘It’s a hard call. You help me haul myself into your car or…or what?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Fine. Let’s get me into the car first.’

‘And if you’ve broken your back?’

‘I haven’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s my back. I’d know.’

‘Like you’ve got an X-ray machine.’ Her panic must have shown through, because suddenly the roles changed. He reached out and grasped her hand.

‘Lizzie, I don’t have a broken back,’ he told her in a voice that was suddenly stronger than hers was. ‘You’ve splinted my leg. I have nerve endings tingling all over the place, which tells me I’m fine. But bruised. I’m feeling sleepy already, which will be the morphine taking effect. If you wait any longer the morphine is going to put me to sleep and there’s no way a runt of a little thing like you can drag me unconscious into the car.’

‘I’m not a runt of a thing.’ She was running her spare hand along the side of his neck, checking, checking…

But he was staring up into her face, and he was still gripping her hand, and she was suddenly absurdly aware of how close they were. Which was ridiculous. She was a doctor. He was a patient.

‘Lizzie…’ His voice was starting to slur a little and his other hand came up and grasped her fingers. Which made her even more aware of his closeness. His maleness.

His…need?

‘You can’t do any more for me here in the mud,’ he said softly. ‘This is going to hurt me more than it is you.’

‘I know. That’s why—’

‘Let’s just do it and talk about it later.’

It was a nightmare. Her car was way too small. She reversed it so her rear car door was right beside him but every movement must have sent shards of pain shooting down his injured leg.

She saw his agony but there was nothing she could do about it. Somehow they managed to haul him up into a sitting position on the end of the back seat. Then she supported the leg as best she could while he dragged himself backwards right in. By the time he was safely in, his face was so drained of colour she was afraid he’d pass out.

‘Just don’t let the dog near me,’ he muttered as she hauled the seat belt around him. Phoebe was in the front passenger seat, her great nose drooping over the back support as if she was incredibly concerned with all that was going on. And shocked. And sad.

That just about summed Phoebe up, Lizzie thought bitterly. Concerned, shocked and sad. That’s what her eyes said, but in reality what was going on was a deep internal pondering as to when dinner could be expected to appear. As this deep pondering started approximately two seconds after she’d finished last night’s dinner, it didn’t leave much brain room for anything else.

‘Phoebe won’t jump on you,’ Lizzie told him. ‘She doesn’t do jumping. I don’t think she knows what it is. Are you OK?’

‘No. I have a broken leg. Can I have some more morphine?’

‘You know very well you can’t.’ She cast him a really worried glance. ‘It must really hurt.’

‘You’re not supposed to say that,’ he said faintly, and there was that amazing trace of laughter in those amazing eyes. ‘It should be, “Come on, lad, pull yourself together. You’ll be right by morning. Take an aspirin and have a nice lie-down and give me a call…” Are you sure I can’t have any more morphine?’

‘I’ll get you to hospital and get you settled first.’

‘So if I go into cardiac arrest you can resuscitate me.’

‘That’s the ticket.’

‘Maybe I could just cardiac arrest for the next few minutes so I could pass out on the way.’

‘I’m sure you don’t mean that.’ The seat belt clicked into place, but she was still leaning across him, staring worriedly into his face. ‘I’ll drive really, really carefully.’ She took a deep breath and straightened away from him. ‘Besides, you can’t go into cardiac arrest. Don’t you have a wedding to go to?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Emily will have kittens.’

‘Emily being your fiancée?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Well, she can have kittens and Phoebe will have puppies and they’ll all live happily ever after. Meanwhile…I’m sorry, Dr McKay, but there’s no easy way to do this. Let’s get you to hospital.’

CHAPTER TWO

Memo:

I will not scream.

I will not panic.

I will not tell this crazy woman and her crazy dog to get out of my town this minute.

I will remember that I might just need them…

BY THE time they reached the tiny township hospital Harry was grey. His face was etched with pain and he was holding himself rigid. Lizzie steered her car into the entrance of the tiny emergency department, switched off the engine and put her hand on the hooter.

‘Don’t do that,’ he told her. ‘They’ll think I’m an emergency.’

‘You are an emergency.’

‘I’m fine.’

Ha! She was past arguing. ‘You might be fine, but I’m not,’ she told him. ‘I’m wrecked. Is the duty doctor here now or will he or she have to be called in?’

‘Duty doctor?’

‘Duty doctor.’ She was suffering from reaction here. Why didn’t a whole medical team burst from the doors, ready to take over?

‘There’s no duty doctor. There’s only me, and I’m decidedly off duty.’ Harry’s voice was strained to breaking point and Lizzie stared at him in horror.

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘You mean…’ She caught her breath, appalled. ‘You mean this is a one-horse town?’

‘A one-doctor town. Yes. That’s why I need a locum.’

‘They didn’t tell me it was a one-doctor town.’ The doors were finally opening now, and a uniformed nurse was hurrying toward them. The nurse was eye-catchingly lovely, in her early thirties maybe, trim, and elegant and…well, just plain beautiful. Her long black hair was braided into a severe rope hanging over her shoulder almost to her waist. Her hair would be gorgeous unbraided, Lizzie thought inconsequentially. More gorgeous. The woman herself would be even more gorgeous if she didn’t look so worried.

She wasn’t the only one worrying. Lizzie was distracted enough not to be worrying about someone else’s worry. She should be worried about the man on the back seat—she was—but she was also appalled at the thought of not having help.

‘The people at the locum agency told me one of the doctors was getting married and needed a fill-in,’ she said slowly, thinking it through. ‘One of the doctors. Implying several.’

Harry closed his eyes, an unmistakable wash of pain sweeping through. ‘If they said one of the doctors then they lied.’

‘But… I would never have come if…’ Her voice rose in panic. ‘I don’t do this. Not alone. I can’t.’

‘Welcome to Birrini, Dr Darling,’ Harry muttered, his face grim. ‘I think you’ll find you can. It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice.’ Then, as the nurse reached the car and pulled open the back door, he managed a strained smile. ‘Hello, Emily. This is Dr Darling. Our locum. She’s here to replace me. It was to be while you and I got married, but maybe now it’s while she mends my broken leg.’

She couldn’t worry about her lone status now. Like Harry said, she had no choice.

Once in the relative security of the hospital she turned on her autopilot. Never mind that she was soaked to the skin. Harry needed her more than she needed to take care of herself.

Medicine first, she told herself, and tried to stop the tremors sweeping through her body. Her spare clothes were back at the holiday cottage. She’d worn a smart little business suit into town to meet the medical community. The smart little business suit was now a bedraggled mess, with the jacket wrapped around Harry’s splint. Lizzie’s mass of bright blonde curls had been hauled into a neat businesslike knot when she’d set out that morning but that was a thing of the past, too. Her curls were now hanging in soaked tendrils around her face, mud-matted and coldly dripping.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

At least Harry was being warmed. She could examine him now with considerably more care than her roadside check, and she did so as she and Emily stripped him and dried him and gently manoeuvred him into a hospital gown.

‘I’m not wearing a hospital gown,’ he muttered.

‘Harry, stop being silly.’ Emily’s voice was laced with tears and Lizzie gave her a sharp glance. There wasn’t a lot of professional detachment here—though maybe she was being unfair.

If someone brought my fiancé into town, squashed, maybe I’d be a bit tearful too, she told herself.

Maybe. She thought about Edward for a fraction of a second and grimaced. Come to think about it, there was a lot to be said for squashed fiancés.

‘My pyjamas are just through in my quarters,’ Harry was murmuring sleepily, and she forgot thinking about Edward and dredged up a smile.

‘I can’t get at you as easily in your pyjamas.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

Amazingly he was laughing. He was drifting in and out of sleep, on the edge of pain, but he could still smile. She wished he’d go completely to sleep. Indignity was the last thing he should be thinking of.

He did fade back into sleep as she and Emily prepared him for X-ray. She was grateful. Once again she had to move the leg slightly, straightening it a little more while she had the chance. The last thing she needed now was for that blood vessel to kink and block again.

The woman, Emily, worked by her side, but she worked in silence, her mouth a tight, grim line. Her tears had receded, but she still looked sick.

‘He’ll be OK,’ Lizzie said gently, and Emily gave her a fierce, angry glance.

‘You don’t understand.’

No. She didn’t. She couldn’t understand anything but what was before her. She should probe, but she was too shocked and cold and numb herself to take it further.

Finally, with the analgesia working well, she took the X-rays she wanted. By this stage Harry’s head wound was worrying her more than the leg. He’d lost consciousness back on the road. He was sleeping now. If he was bleeding internally…

‘My headache’s eased,’ he muttered as she took the last film, and her eyes flew wide. She’d thought that he was asleep, and here he was reading her thoughts.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I don’t have a cracked skull.’

‘I’m checking anyway, if you don’t mind,’ she told him, and he nodded and seemed to drift off again.

Good. The man made her nervous just by…just by being. And so did this silent nurse, hovering over her like a terrified parent.

Wasn’t there anyone else in this hospital?

She couldn’t mind. She just had to ignore them both and do what she thought right. Though she’d quite like someone to notice, a, that she was filthy and (more urgently), b, that she was freezing.

No one did, so neither did she. Or rather, she did notice. She just didn’t turn into an ice cube and melt right there on the floor of the X-ray department. She didn’t have time.

Finally someone noticed. Harry.

After his initial protest Harry had seemed content to leave everything in her hands, and Emily was still working on autopilot. But with the X-rays finished, Lizzie grasped the head of the trolley to push him back through to the ward and his hands reached out and grasped hers. He’d woken properly this time, and his hands had a strength she hadn’t believed possible.

‘You’re still dripping.’ He stared up at her in concern, his face right under hers. ‘Lizzie, it’s time you were warm and dry,’ he managed, his words only slightly slurred. ‘Emily, look after her.’

‘We’ll look after you first,’ Emily told him. The woman seemed almost more shocked than Harry.

‘Can I help?’

And here was the cavalry, in the form of a freckle-faced senior nurse standing in the doorway. She stared from Emily to Harry and then to Lizzie, and her eyes were wide with shock. ‘Joe said there’d been an accident. Dr McKay!’

‘Dr McKay’s broken his leg,’ Emily snapped, and the woman’s eyes widened even further.

‘Right. Goodness. I’ve just come on duty. What needs doing?’

‘Emily will take me through to the ward,’ Harry said strongly. ‘May, can you look after Lizzie? Dr Darling.’

‘Dr Darling?’

‘That’s me,’ Lizzie said wearily. ‘Lizzie Darling. The locum.’ Locum? Even the word sounded wrong. She didn’t feel like a locum. She was tired of being doctor in charge. If she didn’t drop her bundle soon she’d fall straight over.

And the woman had the sense to see it. She focused and her eyes narrowed in concern.

‘You’re the basset hound’s mum?’

‘I’m the basset hound’s mum.’

‘This gets better and better.’ The woman smiled a greeting and held out her hand. ‘And our new doctor?’

‘Mmm.’ She was starting to shake uncontrollably and May felt it through their linked hands. She looked uncertainly at Emily. ‘Dr Darling’s making a puddle on our nice clean floor,’ she told her. ‘Can I take her away and dry her off?’

‘Do that,’ Emily told her, distracted. ‘Fine.’

‘I’ll show you where you can shower, Doctor, and if you like I’ll find you some dry clothes.’ May left no one room for a change of mind. She had Lizzie’s arm and was leading her to the door. ‘Or do you have some dry clothes in your car? Jim, our orderly, is looking after your dog. He found her in your car and took her out before she ripped the upholstery to shreds. I’ll ask Jim to fetch your luggage, shall I?’

‘My luggage is at a holiday cottage five miles south of here, but even a hospital gown’s preferable to what I’m wearing now,’ Lizzie managed, thankful all the same for the tiny realisation that she wasn’t completely alone. Someone cared. But she wasn’t ready to drop her bundle yet. Not completely. ‘I’ll check these X-rays first.’

‘The X-rays will be fine,’ Harry muttered from the trolley, and Lizzie nodded.

‘Oh, right. Of course they will be. No break at all. And here I was imagining the bend in your leg.’

‘Just stick a cast on it.’

He had no idea. Had he heard what she’d told him about fractures and circulation? About how close he’d been to losing the leg?

‘You’re going to look really odd tomorrow wearing a cast,’ Emily whispered to him. She was practically wringing her hands and had been no help at all while the X-rays had been taken. It was all very well being shocked, Lizzie thought, but maybe she could be shocked later when she was no longer needed.

Lizzie intended being shocked later. Maybe now?

What had Emily said? You’re going to look really odd tomorrow wearing a cast.

She was talking about their wedding as if it was still going to happen, Lizzie thought incredulously. But now wasn’t the time to enlighten her. It wasn’t the time to talk about weddings. Harry desperately needed to sleep, to let the painkillers take over. She needed to check his X-rays and then get her own head in order.

It wasn’t the place for anything but making sure this man didn’t have a cerebral bleed—and making herself stop this awful shivering.

‘Can you take Dr McKay through to a ward and settle him?’ she asked wearily. ‘Harry, you need to sleep. I’ll talk you through the results of the X-rays when you wake.’

But he was looking at her and there was real concern showing through the pain and weariness etched onto his face. ‘Only if you promise to look after yourself,’ he told her.

‘I will.’ She touched his hand, staring down at him and suddenly fighting a stupid urge to weep. ‘Of course I will. Looking after me is what I’m principally good at. Now sleep.’

His head was fine. Lizzie checked the X-rays from every angle and could see no damage at all. It must have been a fair bang to make him lose consciousness but there was little to show for it now. She’d watch him carefully for signs of internal bleeding, but every sign was that he’d been lucky.

Not so the leg. Lizzie held the X-ray up to the screen and May whistled.

May had introduced herself with cheer. ‘I’m May. I’m general dogsbody round here. Basic nurse training twenty years ago. All care and no responsibility. Emily’s our nurse administrator but I guess with Emily in a flap I’m it.’

She was a welcome it. The freckle-faced forty-something woman exuded a warmth that Lizzie was in sore need of. Now she’d checked Harry’s head she could concentrate on that hot shower and dry clothes.

‘He’s not going to be walking down any aisle tomorrow, is he?’ May asked shrewdly, and Lizzie shook her head.

‘No.’ She looked again at the X-rays. She’d been very lucky to get the leg back into a position where the blood vessels weren’t blocked. Very lucky.

‘It’ll need pinning?’

‘It’s a corkscrew break right through, with breaks in both tibia and fibula. He can do six weeks in traction and possibly end up with a really bad result or he can get it pinned. Plus, there are slivers of bone that need fixing or removing.’

‘Can you pin it here?’ May asked, and Lizzie shook her head.

‘Heck, no. Pin this leg? Our Dr McKay needs an orthopaedic surgeon and an anaesthetist. Maybe I could do the anaesthetic but… How good are you at joining broken bits of bone together?’

May grinned and shook her head. ‘Carpentry’s never been my strong point.’

‘Then we ship him out to someone who can.’

The nurse turned back to the screen and screwed up her nose. ‘So the wedding’s off?’

‘Absolutely. I’d like him evacuated as soon as possible. Soon. His head looks good but he did lose consciousness for a bit. If there’s the slightest chance of him having an intracranial bleed, he needs to have it somewhere near a neurosurgeon. He can go to Melbourne, see out his danger period in a nice city hospital with all the facilities, get his leg pinned and plated and then come back here and recuperate.’

‘With you looking after him?’

Lizzie let her breath out in a long slow sigh. ‘I guess.’

This wasn’t the locum position she’d planned. Absolutely not. Once upon a time she’d been a family doctor—for two short years after she’d graduated. Now—after one awful day she hated even to think about—she was a nine-to-five doctor. She looked after the emergency department of a city hospital. She did her absolute best for everyone while she was on duty and then she walked away.

She closed shop.

And here, a tiny fishing village with its only doctor incapacitated… This place could suck her in, she thought fearfully. She should drive out of here right now. She could go back to the locum agency and tell them they were liars.

She’d get another job. There were always jobs for locums. But…

‘We’ll be in a mess without you,’ May told her, and she winced.

‘I’m like you,’ she muttered. ‘I’m all care, no responsibility.’

‘Unless you’re stuck,’ May said shrewdly. ‘And you are stuck. There’s no one else. If Harry’s away and you don’t stay we’ll have to close the hospital until he gets back. All those people…’

‘How many?’ Lizzie demanded, startled, and May gave an apologetic shrug.

‘Well, five. Five in acute care. But there’s a nursing home, too.’

‘That wouldn’t have to shut.’

‘No, but the hospital would.’

Lizzie tried to get her tired mind to think. This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. ‘Um… I only agreed to come last Tuesday. This wedding’s obviously been planned for months.’

‘We had another locum booked,’ May told her. ‘Only he realised how remote it was and pulled out.’

So that’s why they’d lied to her. Lizzie’s heart hardened. ‘Then I can—’

‘No, you can’t,’ May told her. ‘You’re nice.’

‘I’m not nice.’

‘Yeah, you are. I’ve seen your dog. Anyone who didn’t get a dog like that put down at first sight has to be more than nice.’

‘You mean really, really stupid,’ Lizzie said, and May grinned.

‘You said it, Dr Darling, not me. But if the cap fits…’