The Australian's Desire: Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

‘Code black?’ Alistair queried.

‘The big one. Major external threat. I’d rather go,’ Georgie said.

‘Not going to happen,’ Cal snapped. ‘Not with that face. Charles wants you here, Georg—apart from him, you’ll be the most senior doctor staying put if I have everyone else I want. Alistair, can we count on your help?’

‘Of course,’ Alistair said, as if it was a no-brainer.

‘Then the reception’s off for now,’ Cal said ruefully. ‘Every able-bodied man, woman and child in this town has a job to do right now. A cyclone with a crashed bus thrown in for good measure …’

‘Oh …’ It was a wail from Sophia Poulos, mother of the bridegroom. She’d been standing open-mouthed as Charles had explained to people at his end of the room what was happening. But Sophia’s wail caught them all. ‘Oh … This is bad.’

But the mother of the groom was nothing if not resolute. She took a deep breath, gazed fondly at the bride and groom and nodded. ‘But of course you need my boy,’ she said. ‘And our Emily. Who else can look after these people? Emily, let me find you something else to wear.’ Another deep breath. ‘All this food,’ she said, and she clucked. ‘All this lamb. I’ll tell the chef to start making sandwiches.’

At least she didn’t have time to think of Max. Or Alistair. Though even that thought meant that she was thinking of them both. Back at the hospital they were in full crisis mode. The back-up generators meant they had power, and they needed it. Every available person was set to work, securing anything that could be an obstacle. Boarding up the windows was the first line of defence, but it was assumed that they might break open and nothing in the wards was to be loose to become a flying threat.

A receiving ward was set up fast. Any patients not on the critical list were sent home if their homes were deemed secure, or moved to a safe haven—the local civic hall—if they weren’t. Of the remaining patients, those in the wards with the largest windows were shifted to the south side, out of the direct blast and hopefully more secure. The storerooms in the centre of the buildings that had no windows at all became the wards for the most seriously ill—the patients who, if the worst came to the worst, couldn’t get out of bed and run for cover.

The theatres were windowless but Charles wasn’t giving them over for ward use.

‘Even if there are no injuries from this bus crash, if this turns into a full-blown cyclone we’ll have trauma enough. I want additional linen, stores and pharmacy supplies in Emergency, Intensive Care and both theatres. Move.’

A big storeroom at the back of the doctors’ house was used for back-up medical supplies. Charles wanted everything brought into the main building. Everything.

‘I don’t want to run out of bandages and not be able to get at more,’ he growled. There were six elderly people in the nursing-home section of the hospital. Charles had them sorting and stacking as if they were forty instead of ninety, promising them they could rest at the civic hall when they’d finished.

Amazingly they rose to the occasion. Everyone did. Including Alistair. Georgie was supervising storage, making sure she knew where everything was so it could be easily reached. Alistair was one of those doing the ferrying of gear from the doctors’ house. He was using a car to travel the short distance but even so he was soaked to the skin. Every time she saw him his clothes were soggier. His beautiful suit would be ruined.

They passed each other without speaking. There was no time for speaking. The threat was rising with every howl of the wind.

She couldn’t locate the oxygen cylinders. Where were they? The normal storeroom was now a ward, housing Lizzie and her four children. Megan’s cot had been wheeled in there as well, and Georgie paused in her search to check on her little patient.

She was still sleeping but she was looking great. A quick check on the notes at the end of the cot indicated she’d woken up and had a drink and smiled at her mother. Fantastic. Thanks to Alistair.

But there were problems. Lizzie was sitting bolt upright in bed, looking terrified. ‘Georgie, is the jail secure?’

‘You’re worried about Smiley?’

‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ Lizzie muttered, and Georgie abandoned her task and crossed to the bed to hug her. She included Davy and Dottie in her hug.

‘Of course you don’t,’ she said, understanding. ‘Smiley’s the kids’ dad. He’s been your husband. Of course you’re worried.’

‘I don’t hate him enough to want him killed.’

‘We checked.’ Help was suddenly there from an unexpected source. Alistair was standing in the doorway, dripping wetly onto the linoleum. ‘Charles has had people contact everyone this side of the creek, letting them know what’s happening, making sure they’re safe. Harry told him the holding cell’s a prefabricated makeshift building and he’s worried about it. So he’s let Smiley out for the duration. Harry has the feeling Smiley thinks he might skip town, but he’s not too worried—there’s no way out of here until this is over.’

‘But—’ Lizzie said, and Georgie answered her fears.

‘Don’t worry,’ she told her. ‘Look where we put you. Smiley would have to walk through two wards to reach you, and the whole town knows his story. He’ll be too busy saving his own skin to worry you now.’

‘Do you care about him?’ Alistair asked, and Lizzie flashed him a look of astonishment.

‘Of course I care. He’s the kids’ father.’

‘And you don’t want to waste your time worrying about him,’ Georgie said, understanding the young woman’s fear. ‘Which you would if you knew he was in danger. So now you can put him aside.’

‘So where’s your Max?’ Lizzie asked.

Georgie froze. She’d been watching Alistair in the doorway. Looking at the way his shirt clung wetly to his chest. Just looking. But her thoughts were dragged sideways to her little brother.

‘One of the nurses said Max was in trouble,’ Lizzie said shyly. ‘It’s only … Davy got into a fight at school last year and Max stood up for him. I hate to think of him out there in this.’

‘He’s not out there.’

‘No, but the nurse said you didn’t know where he was.’

‘He’s with his father.’

‘And his father’s on the run? Oh, Georg …’

‘We do get ourselves into trouble,’ Georgie said, and gave her another hug. ‘Who needs men? What a shame Max and Davy and Thomas will grow into the species.’

‘They’ll be nice,’ Lizzie said stoutly. ‘My Davy and my Thomas will be nice, caring men. I won’t let Smiley turn them into thugs. And I bet your Max will be great, too.’

‘He will be,’ Georgie said.

‘Georg, where do you want the extra stretchers?’ Alistair asked, and if his voice sounded strained she was going to ignore it. Back to work.

‘In the corridors. We’ll stack them near the entrance so they can be grabbed easily by whoever needs them.’

‘You think it’s going to be big?’ Lizzie asked.

Georgie shrugged. ‘I hope not. We should miss the brunt of it.’

‘But you think—’

‘I think we have to be prepared. Do you need help with the stretchers, Dr Carmichael?’

‘No.’ He looked at her for a long, hard moment. ‘I’m fine by myself.’

He disappeared the way he’d come.

‘He’s sweet on you,’ Lizzie said, and Georgie felt herself change colour.

‘No.’

‘He is.’

‘It’s no matter whether he is or not,’ she snapped. ‘Like you, I always fall for losers. So if he’s falling for me, he’s a loser by definition.’

And then the casualties from the bus came in.

This was no minor accident. The driver was dead. The first grim-faced paramedics told them that, and told them also to expect more deaths and more life-threatening injuries.

It seemed they had a major disaster on their hands before the cyclone even hit.

The first ambulance brought in a woman with multiple fractures and major blood loss and an elderly man who was drifting in and out of consciousness and showed signs of deep shock. Query internal bleeding? X-rays, fast.

X-Ray was in huge demand. Mitchell Caine, their radiologist, was supposedly on holidays, but his locum had been delayed by bad weather. Mitch had been dragged in that morning to assess Megan’s scans, and now he was back again.

‘I shouldn’t be doing this, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said as he worked his way through the queue of patients needing urgent assessment. ‘I’m so tired I’m not dependable. Just double-check any results I give you before you operate. If I say right leg, check I’m not talking about an arm.’

But his X-rays and reports were solid and dependable. Nothing like a code black to make a man forget about holidays.

Hell, this situation was impossible, Alistair thought. One overworked radiologist and no one else for three hundred miles?

‘No one’s going to sue here,’ Georgie told him as they worked on. ‘Everyone does what they have to do.’

Which was why twenty minutes later Alistair, a neurologist, was in Theatre, trying to set a fractured leg well enough to stabilise blood supply to the foot. With Georgie, an obstetrician, backing him up.

There was no time to question what they were doing. They just did it.

With the blood flow established—Alistair had worked swiftly and efficiently and their patient could now wait safely until a full orthopaedic team was available to fix the leg properly—they returned to the receiving ward to more patients.

The second ambulance was there now, and a third, and there was a battered four-wheel-drive pulling in behind it.

There were patients everywhere, some walking wounded, suffering only bruising and lacerations, but others serious.

For all the chaos, the place was working like a well-oiled machine. Maximum efficiency. Minimal panic. Charles had divided his workforce into teams, but the teams were fluid, doctors and nurses moving in and out of teams as an individual needed specific skills.

Every medic in Croc Creek was on duty by now, including a nurse heavily pregnant with twins.

‘Don’t mind my bump,’ she said cheerfully as they worked around her. She was cleaning and stitching lacerations with skill. ‘Yeah, I’m ready to drop but I’ve told them to be sensible and stay aboard until this is over. Just hand me the stuff that can be done sitting down.’

There was more than enough work to hand over.

This was emergency medicine at its worst. Or at its best.

‘You know, if this had happened in my big teaching hospital back in the US, I doubt if we’d do it any better,’ Alistair muttered as they worked through more patients, and Georgie felt it was almost a pat on the back.

For all of them, she said hastily to herself, but it didn’t stop a small glow …

She was carefully fitting a collar to a man who’d been playing it hardy. ‘I’m fine, girl,’ he’d said. He’d come in sitting in the front of one of the cars but now he was white-faced and silent. Georgie had noted him sitting quietly in a corner and had moved in. Pain in the neck and shoulders. Query fracture? Collar and X-rays now, whether he wanted them or not.

There was a flurry of activity at the door and Cal was striding through at the head of a stretcher. ‘Alistair, can we swap duties?’ he called across the room, and Georgie intercepted the silent message that crossed the room with his words.

Uh-oh. Alistair was a neurosurgeon. If Cal wanted him, it’d be bad.

It was.

‘Head injury,’ he said briefly. ‘We had to intubate and stabilise her before bringing her in. Mitch has already run her through X-Ray. His notes and slides are here. Georgie …’ She was near enough for him not to have to call her. ‘Can you assist here?’

‘Mr Crest needs X-rays.’

‘I’ll take that over,’ Charles called. He’d just finished a dressing and he wheeled over to take Georgie’s place. He glanced across at Cal’s patient and saw what they all saw. A laceration to the side of her face. Deeply unconscious. ‘Jill,’ he said to their chief nurse, ‘you work with this one, too. That’s all I can spare. Do your best.’

‘She’ll need you all if she’s to pull through,’ Cal said gravely. ‘The notes are there, guys.’

Jill was already wheeling the trolley swiftly into a side examination cubicle where they could assess the patient in relative privacy. Alistair was working as the trolley moved, while Georgie skimmed through Mitch’s notes.

The woman—young, blonde, casually dressed but neat and smart by the look of it—was limp on the trolley, lying in the unnaturally formal pose that told its own story. Her breathing was the forced, rasping sound of intubation. Such breathing always sounded threatening, Georgie thought as she read. As it should. It meant the patient wasn’t breathing on her own.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.