Reunited With Her Surgeon Prince

But now Josef’s investigator had given Marc the low-down on Borrawong as well. ‘Population six hundred. Bush nursing hospital, currently staffed with one doctor and four nurses, servicing an extended farming district.’

To be the only doctor in such a remote community, to have returned to Borrawong... What was Ellie doing?

Had her mother died? Why had he never asked?

Because he had no right to know?

He landed in Sydney, then drove for five hours, heading across vast fog-shrouded fields obviously used for cropping. It was mid-afternoon when he arrived, and midwinter. The time difference made him feel weird. The main street of Borrawong—such as it was—seemed deserted. The general store had a sign: ‘Closed’ pinned to the door. The town seemed deserted.

Then he turned off the main street towards the hospital—and this was where everybody was.

The tiny brick hospital was surrounded by a sea of cars. There were people milling by the entrance. People were hugging each other, sobbing. Two groups were involved in a yelling match, screaming abuse.

What the...?

He pulled up in the far reaches of the car park and made his way through the mass of people. By the time he reached the hospital entrance, he had the gist. A train had crashed into two carloads of kids.

How many casualties?

The reception area was packed. Here, though, people were quieter. This would be mum and dad territory, the place where the closest relatives waited for news.

He made his way towards the desk and a burly farming type guy blocked his path.

‘Can’t go any further, mate,’ the man told him. ‘Doc Ellie says no one goes past this point.’

Ellie. So she was here. Coping with this alone?

‘I’m a doctor,’ he told him.

The man’s shoulders sagged. ‘You’re kidding me, right? Mate, you’re welcome.’ He turned back to his huddled wife. ‘See, Claire, I told you help’d come.’

He was the help?

There was no one at the reception desk, but double doors led to the room beyond.

A child was sitting across the doors. He was small, maybe nine or ten years old.

He was in a wheelchair but he didn’t look like a patient. He was seated as if he was a guard. He had his back to the doors and he held a pair of crutches across his chest. Anyone wanting to get past clearly had to negotiate the crutches, and the kid was holding them as if he knew how to use them.

Right now he seemed the only person with any official role.

‘I’m here to see Dr Carson,’ Marc told him. The kid’s expression was mulish, belligerent. The crutches were raised to chest height, held widthways across the doors. ‘I understand there’s been an accident,’ Marc said hurriedly. ‘I might be able to help.’

‘No one goes in,’ the kid told him. ‘Unless you’re Doc Brandon from Cowrang, or from the air ambulance. But you’re not.’

‘I’m a doctor.’

‘You’re not a relative? They all want to go in.’

‘I’m not family. I’m a doctor,’ he repeated. ‘And I might be able to help.’

‘A real doctor?’

‘Yes. I’m a surgeon.’

‘You have a funny accent.’

‘I’m a surgeon with a funny accent, yes, but I do know how to treat people after car accidents. I knew Dr Carson back when we were both training. When she was at university. Believe me, if she needs help then she’ll be pleased to see me.’

Pleased? That was stretching it, he thought grimly, but right now didn’t seem the time for niceties.

The crutches were still raised. The kid was taking a couple of moments to think about it. He eyed him up and down, assessing, and for a moment Marc took the time to assess back.

And then...

Then he almost forgot to breathe.

The kid was small and skinny, freckled, with dark hair that spiked into an odd little cowlick. He was dressed in jogging pants and an oversized red and black football jumper. One foot was encased in a worn and filthy trainer. The other foot was hidden by a cast, starting at the thigh.

He could be anyone’s kid.

His hair was jet-black, his brows were thick and black as well, and his eyes...they were almost black too.

And those freckles! He’d seen those freckles before, and the boy’s chin jutted upward in a way Marc remembered.

He looked like Ellie. But Ellie had glossy auburn hair that curled into a riot. Ellie had green eyes.

The kid had Marc’s hair and Marc’s eyes.

Surely not.

And then, from the other side of the door, someone screamed. It was a scream Marc recognised from years of working as a trauma surgeon. It spoke of unbearable pain. It spoke of a medical team without the resources to prevent such pain.

Shock or not, now wasn’t the time to be looking at a kid with dark eyes and asking questions.

‘You need to let me in,’ he told the boy, urgently now, as he pulled himself together. ‘Ask Dr Carson if she needs help.’

‘You really are a proper doctor?’ The boy’s voice was incredulous.

‘I am.’

‘Then go on in.’ There was suddenly no hesitation. He peeped a grin at Marc and there was that jolt again. He knew that grin! ‘But you’re either in or out,’ he warned. ‘If another doctor ever walks into this town Mum says we’ll set up roadblocks to stop them leaving. That’s me. I’m the roadblock. No one gets past these crutches.’

* * *

‘Ellie!’

Chris was Ellie’s best trained nurse. While Ellie was treating the kid with a suspected pneumothorax she’d put Chris in charge of the girl with the smashed elbow. Lisa Harley had smashed a few other things as well, but it was her elbow that was Ellie’s greatest concern. The fracture was compound. She’d found a pulse on the other side of the break but it was faint. The blood supply was compromised.

But the kid with the pneumothorax had taken priority.

‘I’ve lost the pulse,’ Chris called urgently. ‘And I’m worrying about her blood pressure. Ellie...’

She couldn’t go. She had to release pressure in the chest of the kid under her hands. One lung had collapsed—she was sure of it. Any more pressure and she’d lose him.

A life or a hand...

‘Five minutes,’ she called back to Chris. Could she close this in time? No matter. She had to focus on what she was doing.

The door swung open.

It was too soon to expect the air ambulance from Sydney. It was too soon to expect the doctor from the neighbouring town, but Felix wouldn’t have let anyone in unless they could help. Unless they were a doctor.

So she looked up with hope—and then felt herself freeze.

Marc.

He was older. There was a trace of silver in his jet-black hair. He looked taller, broader...more distinguished.

But he was still Marc.

Marc, here!

Her world seemed to wobble. If she’d had time she would have found a chair and sat down hard.

The boy she was treating needed all her attention. A smashed rib piercing the lung meant air was going in and not getting out. The pressure would be building. The second lung could collapse at any minute. She needed to insert a tube to drain the air compressing the lung and she needed to do it fast.

Marc was here.

‘Where can I help?’ he asked and somehow she forced her world back into focus. No matter why he was here; the one thing she knew was that he was a skilled doctor. A surgeon. Every complication that had suddenly hit her world had to give way to imperative.

‘Chris needs help,’ she told him, gesturing towards the nurse. ‘Lisa Harley, seventeen, smashed elbow—I’m sure it’s comminuted. There must be fragments of bone cutting the circulation. Feeble pulse in her fingers until a moment ago, but now nothing. Chris says blood pressure’s dropping too, but I haven’t had time to figure out why. I’ve given her morphine, ten milligrams. She probably also has alcohol on board.’

Marc’s attention switched instantly to Lisa, lying wanly on the trolley. The morphine had kicked in but the kid looked pallid.

‘I’m on it,’ Marc said, in his perfect English with that French-plus-something-exotic accent that had made Ellie’s toes curl all those years ago. He crossed to Lisa and touched her fingers. He’d be feeling for the pulse, Ellie knew. Even though it was Marc, she could only feel relief.

‘You’re right,’ he said calmly, smiling down at Lisa in a way that would be medicine all by itself. ‘Hi, Lisa. I’m Dr Falken. We need to get your arm sorted, but it’s your lucky day. I treat hurt elbows all the time.’ He checked her blood pressure and frowned. ‘We might also check your tummy and see if there’s anything else going on.’ He flicked a glance back to Ellie. ‘Lisa’s priority one?’

‘I’m coping with a pneumothorax but I have it under control,’ she told him. She hoped. ‘We also have a severe facial injury but I’ve intubated and she seems stable. Nothing else seems life-threatening. Chris, can you assist Marc? Everyone, this is Dr Marc Falken. He’s...he’s an old friend from university and he’s good. Give him all the assistance he needs. Marc, sorry, but you’re on your own.’

* * *

There was no time for shock or questions. There was only time to work.

With Chris’s help he did a fast X-ray. The elbow was a jigsaw of shattered bone fragments.

It wasn’t the greatest of her problems, though. Lisa’s blood pressure continued to drop. Chris helped him set up an ultrasound and that confirmed his fears.

Ruptured spleen. She’d have internal bleeding. This was life or death.

Ellie had far more than she could cope with already. This was his call.

He’d like a full theatre of trained staff. He had Chris.

But, even though Chris looked as if she could be anyone’s mum, the nurse was cool, efficient and exactly what he needed.

‘I can give an anaesthetic,’ she told him. ‘I’ve done it before when Ellie’s been in trouble. We can take Lisa into Theatre and go for it if that’s what you want.’

He’d worked on battlefields with less help than this. ‘That’s what I want.’

From the next cubicle, Ellie must have heard. She was focusing on the kid with the punctured lung but she must have the whole room under broader surveillance.

‘You can’t just straighten for the time being?’ she called.

Marc moved so he could talk without being overheard. The last thing Lisa needed to hear was a fearful diagnosis. ‘There are bone fragments everywhere,’ Marc told her. ‘I can re-establish blood supply but if something moves it’ll block again. It’s not safe to transfer her without surgery. But priority’s the ruptured spleen. I’ll need to go in to check for sure but her blood pressure’s dropping fast and the symptoms fit.’

She swore. ‘You can do it?’

‘I can.’ His gaze swept the room, seeing the mass of trouble she was facing. ‘You have enough on your hands.’ More than enough.

‘I can’t help,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘Then do it. Chris, give him all the help he needs.’

And Chris was already wheeling Lisa’s trolley through the doors marked Theatre.

He had no choice but to follow.

* * *

The cavalry arrived two hours later. Helicopters with skilled paramedics. The doctor from the neighbouring town. Everyone and everything she needed was suddenly there, and Ellie was able to step back and catch her breath.

The door to Theatre was still closed. There hadn’t been time to investigate. She’d had to trust that Marc knew what he was doing.

Now, though, as paramedics fired questions at her, as each of these kids got the attention they needed, she was able to think of what—and who—was behind those doors.

‘I have a kid with a shattered elbow and possible ruptured spleen,’ she told the senior paramedic. ‘A visiting surgeon was on hand. He’s in Theatre now.’

‘Here?’ the guy said incredulously, and Ellie thought again of the mixed emotions his arrival meant for her.

Marc was behind those doors. Her old life was a life of secrets. A life that now had to be faced.

She took a deep breath and opened the door to Theatre.

Chris was at the head of the table. She smiled and gave Ellie a swift thumbs-up, then went back to monitor-gazing.

Chris was magnificent, Ellie thought, not for the first time. Ellie had needed to talk her charge nurse through an anaesthetic more times than she could count and she’d coped magnificently every time. She should be a doctor herself. She practically was.

But her attention wasn’t on Chris.

Masked and gowned, Marc could be any surgeon in any theatre anywhere in the world. He was totally focused on the job at hand.

‘Nearly closed,’ he growled and his voice was a shock all by itself.

She’d never thought she’d hear it again.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘We’ve stabilised the elbow, removing bone fragments that could shift. The circulation should hold until she receives specialist orthopaedic attention. The worst risk was the spleen. It was a mess. There was no choice but removal. Sorry, Ellie, to leave you with everything else. I had Chris slip out and tell Joe to call if there was any priority you couldn’t cope with, but then we went for it.’

‘He’s done the whole thing,’ Chris breathed. ‘He’s removed the spleen but he’s done so much more. He’s stopped the internal bleeding completely. Blood pressure’s already rising. And the elbow! Look at the X-rays, Ellie. To get the circulation back. He’s saved her life and he’s saved her arm. Oh, Ellie, I can’t tell you...’

‘Thanks to Chris,’ Marc growled, still focused. ‘You have a gem of a nurse, Ellie.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ she said a trifle unsteadily.

This was surgery way beyond her field of expertise. Maybe she could have diagnosed and removed the spleen but the pneumothorax had been just as urgent. She would have lost one of the two kids, and how appalling a choice would that have been? But the elbow... She glanced at the X-ray, saw the mess, and knew without a doubt that Lisa would be facing amputation if Marc hadn’t been here.

Marc’s battlefield training had come to the fore. She never could have done this alone.

A bullet had been dodged. Or multiple bullets. She wanted to sit down. Badly.

It wasn’t going to happen.

‘I’m just applying an external fixator and then I’m done,’ Marc told her. ‘Ten minutes? I gather the air ambulance is here. I’d like Lisa transferred to Sydney as soon as possible. The elbow will need attention from a specialist. I’m not an orthopod.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Chris muttered, and Ellie looked at Marc and thought, What good fairy brought you here today?

And then she thought of the repercussions of him being here and she stopped thinking of good fairies.

She didn’t have time to go there. She had to face the relatives.

But there was no longer any urgency. She had room for thought.

Marc was here.

Good fairies? She didn’t think so.

* * *

The first chopper took the most seriously injured, including Lisa, but the boy with the pneumothorax left by road. Air travel wasn’t recommended when lungs were compromised. The road ambulance also took the driver of one of the cars and his girlfriend. The pair had suffered lacerations; the girl had a minor fracture. They could have stayed, but feelings were running high in the town and a driver with only minor injuries could well turn into a scapegoat.

The second chopper, a big one, had places to spare and the battered train crew chose to leave on it. They, too, could have been cared for here, but their homes, their families, were in Sydney. Borrawong Hospital was suddenly almost deserted.

But Marc was still inside and, as Ellie watched the second chopper disappear, that fact seemed more terrifying than a room full of casualties.

‘You can get through this.’ She said it to herself, but she was suddenly thinking of all the times she’d said it before. During the trauma of being the kid of a defiant, erratic single mum with cystic fibrosis. The roller coaster of a childhood living with her mother’s illness. The relief of her mother’s first lung transplant and then the despair when it had failed.

And then the moment the doors had closed at Sydney Airport and Marc was gone for ever. The moment she’d looked at the lines on the pregnancy testing kit. The moment she’d seen her baby’s ultrasound.

The day she’d made the decision to keep her baby, to stay here, to cope alone.

But it was no use thinking of that now.

The sun was sinking behind the town’s wheat silos, casting shadows that almost reached the hospital. Somewhere a dog was barking. This was Borrawong’s nightlife. Marc was about to see Borrawong at its best.

Why was he here?

‘You can get through this,’ she said again but heaven only knew the effort it cost her to turn and re-enter the hospital.

Felix was still in the waiting room. He’d pushed his wheelchair behind the reception desk and was engrossed in a computer game but he looked up as she entered and grinned.

‘Got rid of them all?’

‘We have. Felix, you were wonderful.’

‘I know,’ he said, his grin broadening. ‘I kept ’em all out. Except the doctor with the funny accent. He’s still in there now, helping clean up. Joe says if we have a doctor who cleans we should lock the doors and keep him. He said he’s your friend?’

‘I...yes. He’s someone I knew a long time ago. When I was at university.’

And Felix’s face changed.

Uh oh.

Felix was smart. He was also right at the age where he was asking questions, and the questions had been getting harder.

‘So you met my dad when you were at uni. Why won’t you tell me his name? The kids at school reckon he must have been married to someone else. Or he was a scumbag. Otherwise you’d tell me. Why can’t I meet him?’

And now Felix had met a strange doctor three hours ago while he’d been bored and had time to think—a guy who’d appeared from the past, a man his mum had never talked about.

A man with hair and eyes exactly the same as his.

‘Is he my father?’ Felix demanded and Ellie closed her eyes.

And when she opened them Marc was in the doorway.

He’d ditched his theatre gear. He was wearing casual chinos and a white open-necked shirt.

His dark hair, wavy just like her son’s, was rumpled. He’d raked it, she thought. He always raked his hair.

Felix looked like him. Felix was Marc in miniature—except for the freckles. And the wheelchair.

But there was no use denying it. Felix’s face was bristling with suspicion, but also with something else. Hope, perhaps? He wanted a father.

How wrong had it been not to tell Marc what she’d done?

She glanced at Marc again. His face was impassive. Shuttered.

She thought of the first time she’d met him. She’d been nineteen, a second-year university student, working her butt off to put herself through medicine. Marc had been twenty-four, just completed training, headed to Australia for a gap year before he started surgical training.

He’d intended working his way around Australia’s coastline, but in his first week in Sydney there’d been an international conference on vascular surgery. He’d cadged an invitation because, gap year or not, he was interested.

She’d been there as a waitress. On the edges. Soaking up knowledge any way she could. She’d been working the crowd, carrying drinks.

An eminent vascular surgeon had been holding forth to a small group of similarly esteemed professionals, talking of the latest cardiovascular techniques. She’d paused to listen, intrigued by the discussion of a technique she’d never heard of.

And then one of the group had caught her eye, maybe suspecting she was eavesdropping. Uh oh. If she lost this job it’d be a disaster. She’d spun away fast—and crashed into Marc.

Her tray had been loaded with red and white wine and orange juice. The whole lot had spilled down his front. Glasses smashed on the floor. The attention of the whole room had suddenly been on her, and she’d stood, appalled, expecting to be sacked.

But Marc had moved with a decisiveness that had taken her breath away. He’d stopped people moving onto the broken glass, and he’d talked to her boss before she could say a word.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he’d said in his lovely broken English. ‘So stupid. I was caught by something Professor Kramer was discussing, and it seemed important to catch it. So I turned suddenly and I hit your waitress hard. Mam’selle, are you hurt? A thousand apologies. Sir, may I make recompense? The cost of the glasses? The wine? Something extra for your work? And, mam’selle, I will pay the cost of your cleaning...’

He’d charmed her right back into her job—and that night, when she’d finished work, he’d been waiting for her at the staff entrance.

‘I messed with your night,’ he said simply. ‘The least I can do is take you to supper.’

‘It was my fault.’

‘The fault is immaterial. It was my body you crashed into. Therefore my body will propel you to supper.’

He’d been irresistible. His looks, his accent, his smile... His kindness.

She’d fallen in love right there and then and, amazingly, he’d seemed to feel the same.

And now he was here.

‘Ellie?’ he said gently, but there was no smile.

He was waiting for an answer.

Felix was waiting for an answer.

She looked from one to the other. Her son. Her ex-husband. The man she’d loved with all her heart.

Once. Not now.

Is he my father?

There was nowhere to go.

‘Felix, this is Marc Falken,’ she managed and was amazed at the way her voice sounded. It was almost steady. ‘He’s from Falkenstein, near Austria, in Europe. Marc’s a doctor. He and I met at university and for a few short months we were married. But then there was a war in Marc’s country, a disaster that lasted for years. He was needed. I’d imagine he’s still needed. But, for whatever reason, he’s here now, and yes, Felix, Marc is your father.’

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER THAT, THE NIGHT seemed to pass out of her control. Felix was excited and full of questions. Marc seemed calm, courteous and kind.

She could stay silent—and she did.

Between Marc and Felix, they sorted that Marc would have dinner with them. The hospital cook was making bulk fish and chips, so they ended up at the kitchen table in Ellie’s hospital apartment with a mound of fish and chips in front of them.

Ellie simply went along with it. She didn’t have the strength for anything else.

She ate her fish and chips in silence and was vaguely grateful for them—how long since she’d eaten?

There was a bottle of wine in the fridge. She offered it to Marc but he refused. ‘Jet lag,’ he told her and she nodded and reflected that that was how she herself was feeling. She was pretty much ready to fall over now.

And Marc? He must be shocked to the core, but he was being kind.

For Felix was hammering him with questions. One part of Ellie was numb, but there was still a part of her that was taking in Marc’s responses.

‘Are you really a surgeon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you work in a big hospital?’

‘I travel a lot, Felix. I’m in charge of the country’s health system. I do operate when I’m needed, but a lot of my time’s spent checking our remote hospitals are up to standard.’

‘What’s remote? Like the Outback here?’

‘We don’t have deserts,’ he told him. ‘But we do have mountains. Lots of mountains and many of our tiny hospitals are cut off in bad weather. Like your mum’s hospital here, they’re a long way from anywhere and it’s my job to see they’re not cut off completely.’

‘But you still operate.’

‘I love my job so yes, I operate, whenever I can. I have an apartment in one of the city hospitals and I operate there when I’m needed.’

‘Like this afternoon.’

‘Like this afternoon.’

And then the questions got personal.

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’ He glanced at Ellie and Ellie concentrated fiercely on her pile of chips.