‘You know things will hot up from today?’ Elsa warned. ‘The holiday crowds start streaming in on Boxing Day, and they do really dumb things.’
‘Like falling down holes.’
‘Like falling down holes,’ she agreed. ‘Though the guys have hiked back up to where you fell and fenced off that whole area, with huge warning signs saying death and destruction for all who enter here. It’s a pity we can’t do that for every peril on the island. Like the sun. What’s the betting you’ll have half a dozen cases of sunstroke by this time tomorrow? Our work practically quadruples in the holiday period.’
He thought about that. Today had been relatively quiet—no dramas, a simple clinic and stable inpatients. Still, by the end of the day he’d have worked reasonably hard.
If it quadrupled...
‘How do you cope?’
‘I have Grandpa.’
‘You won’t have your grandpa for a few weeks. He’s going to need decent rehab. Seriously.’
‘Which is why I’ll rest up before I come home. I know I need to stay. If I leave Grandpa here he’ll be on the next plane after me. But Marc, I’m worrying about you coping.’
‘I’ll read up on sunstroke before I go to bed tonight.’
‘It won’t just be sunstroke. You don’t have... I don’t know...a friend who could help? Maybe your Kayla? Is she another doctor?’
‘She is,’ he told her. ‘But she’s not my Kayla and there’s not a snowball’s chance in a bushfire she’ll cut her holiday short to come here.’
‘Another colleague then?’ She was clutching at straws. ‘If I stay here for two full weeks you will need help.’
‘And you’ll need help long-term,’ he told her. ‘At his age and after two heart attacks, it’s time for Robert to think of retiring.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
‘So you need to think about hiring a full-time partner.’
‘Like that’s going to happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not viable,’ she said shortly. ‘An island with a population of seven hundred provides a meagre income. The six islands have far too much medical need for me to handle alone, but they’re too far apart to service. In an ideal world, with more doctors and a fast ferry service, we could set up a central medical centre on Gannet. But a ferry service requires money the islanders don’t have and, even if there was one, no island doctor could make the kind of money I bet you’re making in Sydney. Why would anyone come here by choice?’
She caught herself, and he heard her pause and regroup. ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for. The money thing’s minor but I am facing the problem that without Grandpa’s help...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Without his help maybe you need to leave the island?’ he said gently. ‘It seems harsh but someone else will take your place.’
‘I couldn’t think of leaving.’
‘You need to think about it. With your grandpa’s medical needs he’d be much safer on the mainland. And you... You’ve already said you feel constricted here.’
‘But it’s my island,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘My home. You don’t get that?’
‘There are lots of other places in the world.’
‘Like St Moritz. No, that was mean. But where could I work? In a city clinic so Grandpa could be within cooee of specialist help? We’d both hate that. Or a country practice where my problems would be the same—and I wouldn’t be surrounded by family.’
‘You’d have Robert.’
‘He’s only one small part of my family. My family’s the whole island. It’s home. You must see, Marc...’ She broke off and sighed. ‘Enough. My future’s not your problem and you have your own problems. Acne to sort. A leg that needs resting.’
‘The acne’s sorted and my leg’s resting as we speak.’
‘Then rest some more,’ she told him. ‘I’ll return as soon as possible.’
‘As soon as the doctors say it’s safe for your grandfather to be here?’ He hesitated but it had to be said. ‘Elsa, there’ll always be underlying medical problems. It seems harsh to say it, but I won’t be here to help next time.’
She faltered at that, but then gathered herself again. ‘That has to be okay. We’ve managed to cope without you before. Go rest that leg, Marc. Goodbye.’
* * *
She abandoned her phone and walked out onto the balcony. The apartments designed for hospital relatives were spartan but the views were fantastic. At least they were fantastic if she stood at the very far end and leaned out. She could even see the Opera House and the harbour bridge, only her angle was a bit precarious.
She stopped leaning and stood and watched the traffic below. So much traffic. She could see the sea if she craned her neck, but she couldn’t smell it. All she could smell was traffic fumes.
She was so homesick...
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she liked visiting Sydney. She liked the shopping, the restaurants, the anonymity. It was only the fear of the last twenty-four hours that was making her feel bereft.
But it was also the thought of her conversation with Marc. The difficulties of continuing on the island as her grandpa grew older.
She thought of Robert’s heart, the risks of returning long-term to the island, the difficulty of coping as the island’s only doctor. Even if he wanted to, Robert could hardly continue—she knew that. She’d be on her own.
And with that came a wash of despair so profound that she found she was shaking.
‘Oh, cut it out.’ She said it out loud, scolding herself. ‘You won’t be on your own. You’ll have all the islanders. And if things get really desperate you can always marry Tony and have a tribe of kids and never feel lonely again.’
Except...loneliness wasn’t always about a lack of people. Loneliness was being without a person.
One special person.
Marc?
‘Well, you can cut that out too,’ she said, even louder. ‘You’ve known the man for what, four days, and here you are fantasising about him...
‘I kind of like fantasising about him.’ She was arguing with herself now. ‘If I moved to Sydney I might...we might...
‘And ditto for that thought, too.’ Her own two-way conversation was getting heated. ‘He’s a high-flying doctor with high-flying friends. If I moved to Sydney I’d be lucky to get a job in some outer suburban clinic, somewhere cheap enough for us to live, with an increasingly dependent grandpa. There’s not the slightest chance there’d be anything between me and Marc.
‘But he kissed me.’ There it was, a solid fact. She tried to hug it to herself as a promise—and failed.
‘So he’s a good kisser,’ her sane self argued. ‘He only kissed me to make me feel better. It’s probably quicker and easier for a guy like that to give a decent kiss than to say “I hope you feel better soon”.’
Luckily her sense of humour stepped in there to make her grin at the suddenly ridiculous vision of Marc doing ward rounds, kissing everyone as he went.
Like he’d kissed her?
Her fingers moved almost involuntarily to her mouth, as if she could still feel the pressure of his lips. His warmth, his strength, his solid, comforting, sexy, amazing self.
Marc...
‘You’re behaving like a teenager with a crush,’ she told herself harshly, and stared down at the traffic again. ‘Me and Marc? You’re dreaming. Like me and Grandpa moving to Sydney. No and no and no.’
The thought of Robert dragged her out of her pointless conversation with herself, back to reality. She needed to head back to Intensive Care to see him. He’d be nervous about the upcoming surgery—no, he’d be terrified. She’d need every resource she possessed to calm him.
‘So stop thinking about Marc and think about Grandpa.’
‘I am thinking about Grandpa,’ she said out loud again. ‘A
nd I’m thinking about me and the island and a heart specialist with a broken leg who’s so far out of my league that I need my head read to be thinking about him. I need to get Grandpa better and then go home. Maybe even to Tony.
‘Are you out of your mind? Tony? No!
‘Yeah, but five little Tonys might make you happy.
‘Buy yourself five dogs,’ she snapped to herself. ‘Dogs are a much safer bet than people any day.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TWELVE DAYS LATER Elsa and Robert flew back to the island on the normal passenger flight. Elsa had told Marc they were coming. He’d had every intention of meeting the plane, but where medicine was concerned plans were made to be broken.
He’d been inundated with minor issues since Boxing Day—sunburn, sunstroke, lacerations, stomach upsets, a couple of kids with alcohol poisoning after drinking their father’s high shelf spirits on New Year’s Eve. The works.
When Elsa and Robert’s plane touched down he was in Theatre, sewing up a lacerated thigh. Bob Cruikshank, the local realtor, had hired tradesmen to construct a cluster of holiday cottages, and progress was slow. In an attempt to hurry things up over the holiday period he’d bought himself a chainsaw to cut planking, with the aim of building the decks himself. It wasn’t his brightest idea. That he hadn’t bled to death was pure luck. A neighbour had heard his yell and knew enough to apply pressure while calling for help.
‘I guess you need training to operate those things,’ Bob had said feebly, as Macka’s police van-cum-ambulance had brought him in.
‘I imagine chainsaw operation doesn’t get included in most realtor training manuals,’ Marc agreed. The cut was deep and filthy. He was incredibly lucky he hadn’t cut nerves.
Marc would have preferred to use local anaesthetic but Bob was deeply shocked and agitated. It had to be a general anaesthetic, using Maggie to monitor breathing.
It wasn’t optimal but it was the only choice. Then, halfway through the procedure, Elsa walked in. ‘Hi, guys,’ she said as she stood in the doorway. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
‘Oh, thank heaven,’ Maggie said vehemently.
Marc had his forceps on a sliver of wood that was dangerously close to the artery. He couldn’t afford to look up. It didn’t stop him reacting, though. Elsa was back. Maggie’s ‘thank heaven’ didn’t begin to describe the sensation he felt hearing her voice.
His reaction was disproportionate. Undeniable.
‘Hooray, you’re back,’ Maggie was saying. ‘Can you take over here? Doc Pierce has been talking me through it, but we’re worried about his oxygen levels.’ Then she amended the statement. ‘No, Dr Pierce is worried about Bob’s oxygen levels. My job’s just to tell him what the monitors are saying and doing what he tells me.’
‘They told me out front what’s been happening,’ Elsa said briefly. ‘I’ve already scrubbed.’
‘Then I’m back to being nurse assistant.’ Maggie handed over to Elsa, and Marc’s stress level dropped about tenfold. He’d been operating at the same time as watching and instructing Maggie. Bob was a big man with background health issues, and the anaesthetic was as fraught as the surgery itself.
The question slammed back, as it had hit him over and over for the past few days. How the hell could Elsa work here alone?
The splinter of wood finally came free. He gave a grunt of satisfaction and glanced up.
‘Welcome back,’ he said, and smiled. She looked strained, he thought, but she still looked great. Fantastic. Something deep in his gut seemed to clench. It was all he could do not to abandon Bob and go hug her.
‘Thank you,’ she said primly. ‘How’s the needlework?’
‘Basic.’ Somehow he made his voice prosaic. Professional. As if she was a colleague and nothing else. ‘If I’d realised how grubby this injury was internally, I’d have had him evacuated. I’m just lucky we didn’t try this under local.’
‘Bob would never had cooperated under local,’ she told him. ‘He’d have been demanding to take pictures for his Facebook page and probably fainting in the process.’ She hesitated. ‘You know he has emphysema?’
‘I read his file.’ He was starting a final clear and swab before stitching. ‘That’s why we’ve gone for the lightest anaesthesia possible. How’s your grandpa?’
‘Okay. Resting.’
‘He should have stayed another week.’
‘You try telling him that. He’s pig-stubborn.’
‘Too pig-stubborn to accept he needs to back right off, workwise?’
‘I guess...’ She sighed. ‘He accepts that.’
‘Excellent.’ And then he threw out the question which had become a constant drumming in his head as the load of tourist patients had escalated. ‘Elsa, how the hell are you going to manage here on your own?’
There was a moment’s silence. Too long a silence.
‘I’ll manage,’ she said at last. ‘Did I tell you I spent a year’s surgery rotation before I came back to the island?’ She sounded as if she was struggling for lightness.
‘Yeah, but I didn’t do a year’s anaesthetic training.’ That was Maggie, entering the conversation with force. She handed Marc a threaded needle and glanced at Elsa with concern. ‘Marc’s been great, talking me through anaesthetising while he worked, but it’s given us both heebie-jeebies. Is Robert going to be well enough to keep this up?’
‘I guess. If...if that’s all he does.’
‘That’s not viable and you know it,’ Marc growled, thinking of the massive mix of human needs he’d been called on to fill over the past days. ‘And you know I’m not just talking about this incident. Elsa, you need help.’
‘No other doctor will want to work here with what we can offer.’ She said it lightly, as if it didn’t matter so much, but he knew it did. ‘I need a full-time income, and there’s not enough work during non-holiday periods to support two full-time doctors. Not unless we could somehow join the outer islands to form a bigger service, and where would we get the money to do that? We’ve approached the government before and it’s not possible.’
‘Then you need to leave,’ he said bluntly. ‘Maybe offer the job to a couple who might be happy to work here as one and a half doctors.’
‘And where would that leave Grandpa and me?’ She tilted her chin and met his look head-on. ‘It’s not your problem, Dr Pierce, so butt out. Right... Are you ready for reverse? You won’t want to keep him under for any longer than you need to.’
‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ Marc said, casting her a smile but seeing the strain behind her eyes.
‘Sorry... Doctor,’ she muttered.
‘That’s quite all right... Doctor,’ he said and tried for another smile. ‘And of course you’re right to advise me. If you’ve done a year’s surgery rotation and you know the patient you’re equipped to give me advice.’
‘I’m not sure what I’m equipped for any more,’ she said heavily. ‘But I suspect I’m about to find out.’
* * *
With surgery finished, and with Bob surfacing to hear his wife informing him she’d tossed his chainsaw off a cliff and if he ever lifted so much as a pair of scissors from now on she’d do the same with them, Marc was left with a gap until afternoon clinic. He escaped the escalating row in Bob’s room—‘Geez, Marjorie, do you know how much that chainsaw cost?’—and limped out to the hospital veranda. He needed to think.
The raised voices of the Cruikshanks followed him. There was little escape on this island, he thought, and then wondered how could Elsa stand it. But she’d been bred into it, he thought. She’d been inculcated with a sense of obligation to the islanders since she was seven. Plus she had her obligation to her grandfather.
But she loved her grandfather. Of course she did. He knew that, but he was on shaky ground here. There wasn’t a lot of emotion in his background.
He di
dn’t get the love thing, but somehow that was where his thoughts were heading. The sensation that had overwhelmed him when she’d walked into Theatre had almost blown him away. Was that love? It didn’t make sense, and Marc Pierce was a man who liked to make sense of his world.
So make sense of the quandary Elsa has found herself in, he told himself. It was the least he could do.
The least he could do...
Elsa McCrae.
The two collections of words didn’t seem to go together.
Elsa was a colleague. She’d saved his life. It made sense to feel gratitude, admiration, obligation. But none of those sentiments accounted for the wave of sensation he’d felt when she’d walked into the theatre just now, and that was troubling him. The way he’d felt then... The way he still felt...
‘It’s nonsense.’ He said the words out loud and Ryan, who tended the hospital garden in between acting as an orderly, raised his head from where he’d been cutting back ferns and looked a query.
‘What makes no sense, Doc?’
This dratted island! Was nowhere private? He hadn’t realised Ryan was there. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts.
So say nothing, he told himself. This was his business, not the business of the whole island. Tell Ryan to mind his own.
What came out instead was, ‘It makes no sense how two weeks can change your life.’
Ryan rose and scratched filthy fingers on his hat. ‘Mate, you can drop dead in two weeks,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Hey, you might have starved to death in that cave and that wouldn’t have even taken two weeks. That would have changed your life and then some.’
‘I meant emotionally.’ For heaven’s sake, what was he doing? He was confessing all to a guy he hardly knew?
But Ryan seemed unperturbed—and also, to Marc’s bewilderment, he seemed completely understanding. ‘I’m guessing you’ve fallen for Doc Elsa,’ he said simply, as though it was no big deal. ‘Well, good luck with that, mate. Every young buck on the island seems to do it at some time. You’ll get over it. They all do.’
Mistletoe Kiss with the Heart Doctor Page 13
