‘Going to sleep now,’ Malu whispered, his speech already slurred.
‘And you,’ he told Maddie. He wanted to hug her again but she’d already turned and gathered her baby into her arms, transforming again into a mother. With baby. A brand-new family—of which he was no part.
He tugged an air bed to the far side of the shaft. ‘Here,’ he said, roughly because emotion was threatening to do his head in. ‘Keanu’s sent down sheets. Settle. I’ll cover you all. You and Malu and Lea. And then you sleep.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Maddie said, still wobbly, and it was too much for Josh. He did gather her into his arms, but not to hold her as he wanted to hold her. Yes, his arm was weak. No, he shouldn’t be doing any such thing, but he lifted her anyway, carrying her bodily across to the air bed, setting her down, making sure she and her baby were safe.
He covered them both with the sheet.
‘I need to turn the torch off now,’ he told her. Keanu had sent down more batteries but they were both aware that the line into their cavern was fragile and the time until rescue was unknown. They had to conserve everything. ‘I’ll lie beside Malu so I can feel if anything changes.’
‘You’re a wonderful doctor, Dr Campbell,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’
Him? A wonderful doctor... He stared down at her, speechless. But she closed her eyes and slept and he was left saying nothing at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NIGHT CREPT ON, inch by pitch-black inch. It was a relief that Malu needed checking. Every few minutes Josh flicked on the torch and checked the underwater seal, checked Malu’s vital signs, checked there was nothing wrong with his patient—and then he checked Maddie.
He never shone the light directly at her. There was no way he was risking waking her. She slept the sleep of the truly exhausted.
Her baby lay in the crook of her arm as she slept. He’d suggested they use his air bed, setting tiny Lea up in a separate space, but the look she’d cast him had been one of disbelief.
‘When the roof of the cave could come down any minute? She stays right by me.’
The baby care ‘experts’ would have a field day, he thought. Mothers in the same bed as their newborn? He’d heard a lecture once by a dragon of a professor...
How easy would it be for mother to roll onto her child?
It wouldn’t happen. Every ounce of Maddie’s being was in protective mode.
She was instinctively caring.
She was holding her daughter.
And all at once he was hit by a wave of longing so great it threatened to overwhelm him. Family...
He couldn’t do family. Families hurt.
He flicked the torch off and settled back on his air bed. Not to sleep, though. Malu’s obs were vital.
But things were okay. They were as safe as he could get them. He’d done what he could.
But suddenly things weren’t okay. Things were very much not okay.
He was shaking—not just his arm this time, but his whole body.
Why? He was fighting to suppress what was going on, fighting to make sense of it.
He was exhausted—he knew he was. He’d been working on adrenaline for almost twenty-four hours. He was injured. His arm throbbed.
He’d helped his ex-wife deliver her baby. It made sense that it’d affect him. If he could put it into logic, then he could control it.
He’d had to stand back and watch while Maddie had operated. He’d been helpless. He’d lost control.
Think it through logically, he told himself. Keep it analytical. Stop the shaking...
He couldn’t.
There was no sound, no movement, and yet he felt like the walls were caving in. His head felt like it was exploding. Sensation after sensation was coursing through him. Black fear... Maddie with rocks raining down around her. Lea with the cord round her neck. Malu gasping for breath...
And more. The past. A dying baby. Maddie lying in hospital, sobbing her eyes out. Looking down at the tiny scrap who could have been his son. A child who was his son.
And Holly, his little sister, lying still and cold in the mortuary. A little sister he’d protected and protected and protected.
Until he’d failed.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.
This is a panic attack, he told himself, fiercely, but he couldn’t listen. The doctor part of him, the part that had been his all for so long, the Josh who was a crucial member of Cairns Air Sea Rescue was no longer here.
He was a kid lying in the dark, alone and terrified, during the time he and Holly had been separated in two different foster homes. Where was she? What was happening to her? How could he keep her safe when they were apart?
And then...he was a guy bereft, looking down at the body of his tiny son. Seeing Maddie’s anguish. Trying to figure how to hide his own anguish so he could help her.
And then Holly’s death. Maddie trying to hold him. The cold, hard knowledge that he’d failed. He’d failed everyone.
He must have made some sound. Surely he hadn’t cried out, but he couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t...
And suddenly Maddie was there, kneeling on his air bed. Tugging his rigid body close so his head was on her breast. Holding him, despite the rigid shaking, despite the fact that he didn’t know why, he didn’t know what...
‘Josh...Josh, love, it’s okay. Josh, we’re safe.’
Her words made no sense. The sensation of losing control was terrifying.
Her words faded but her arms tightened.
She held, and there was nothing he could do but be held, to take strength from her.
For the first time ever?
It couldn’t matter. He was so far out of control that to pull back was unthinkable. There was no strength left in him.
And gradually the tremors eased. She was kneeling on the air bed, holding him against her, running her fingers through his hair and crooning a little. And as the tremors eased, the crooning turned into words.
‘Sweetheart, it’s okay. We’re safe. The nice men with the digging machines will get us out. This might not be the Ritz but we have comfy beds and Keanu’s saying the pulley system’s even good enough for hot coffee in the morning. Maybe that’s what this is, love, lack of caffeine. You always were hopeless without coffee. But it’s okay, Josh. We’re all safe. Thanks to you, love, we’re fine and we’ll stay fine.’
And then she added a tiny rider, a whisper so soft he could hardly hear it.
‘I love you.’
And the world settled on its axis, just like that. The tremors stopped. He was a man again. He was Dr Josh Campbell, being held by...his wife.
Needing comfort?
He didn’t...need. How could he?
How could he not? It was like he was being torn in two.
He broke away, tugging back, just a little but enough to break the contact. She turned and flicked on the torch, not shining it directly at him but giving enough light to turn blackness into shadows.
She touched his face—and he felt himself flinch.
He raked his hair and then thought he shouldn’t have done that. The feel of her fingers in his hair was still with him. He wanted it forever.
He couldn’t have it.
To lose control... To stand at the edge of the precipice and feel himself falling...
‘Maddie, I’m sorry. I’m...’
‘What is it, love?’
Don’t call me love. Somehow he stayed silent but he wanted to shout it. Why?
Because he wanted those barriers up. He was in control. He had to be. He knew no other way.
‘Maddie, I don’t know what happened.’ He did, but there was no way he could open the floodgates, explain terror he hardly understood himself.
‘This is scary.’ She said it prosaically, stating the obvious for the idiot who didn’t get it. ‘You’ve spent the day being a warrior, but armour can only hold you up for so long.’
‘Yeah.’ Like that made sense.
What was he doing, being this feeble? Shame swept over him, a shame so deep it threatened to overwhelm him.
‘Sorry.’ He spoke more harshly than he intended and he forced his voice to moderate. ‘Nightmare or something—who knows? I’m over it. I don’t need—’
‘Me?’
Yes, he wanted to say. It would be so easy to sink against her again, to take comfort. But beyond that... How could he survive if he needed her?
He couldn’t.
‘I guess I needed a hug,’ he admitted.
‘Of course you needed a hug. You’re human, Josh. Giving works both ways.’
‘But I don’t need anything more.’
It was the wrong thing to say. He saw her flinch. ‘Of course you don’t.’ She was watching him, with the expression of a woman who knew everything she needed to know about her man, and it made her sad.
‘That’s why we could never make it,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve never let me share your nightmares. You’ve never let me close.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I know you can’t,’ she whispered with desperate sadness, and then Lea stirred and whimpered behind her and she turned away.
‘Try and sleep,’ she told Josh as she lifted her baby to her breast. ‘We’ll leave the torch on. I need it to feed and you need it to keep the nightmares at bay.’
‘I don’t need—’
‘And maybe you never will and that’s a tragedy,’ she snapped. ‘Think about it.’
Lea settled. Maddie gently rocked and crooned and loved.
And he lay there in the dark and he felt more lonely than he’d ever felt in his life.
He’d loved loving Maddie. He’d loved holding her, making her laugh, helping her, comforting her.
Wasn’t it enough?
But as he watched Maddie’s face, as he saw the peace settle over her as her tiny baby settled, he felt like a prism had opened into a world he hardly knew.
Cradling her baby helped. Cradling Lea brought Maddie peace.
She’d wanted to comfort him. The night Holly had died... He remembered coming out of the mortuary and Maddie had been there, white and shocked. She’d walked straight at him, gathered him into her arms and held.
And he’d pulled away. ‘Go home, Maddie. There’s no use for us both to suffer.’
To do anything else... To have let Maddie comfort him as she’d tried then...
It was still a precipice, and all he knew was to back away.
CHAPTER NINE
THE EXPERTS CHANGED their minds again. They didn’t bore down from the top or the side; rather they cautiously picked their way through the existing shaft, inch by cautious inch, shoring as they came.
For those trapped, the wait seemed interminable, but they had what they most needed. Malu had stabilised and even improved. He slept.
Bugsy seemed resigned. He pinched half of Josh’s air mattress. Josh used him as a pillow and he didn’t mind. There was something comforting about using a golden retriever as a pillow. Josh slept fitfully while they waited, never for more than an hour at a time, keeping watch, but there seemed no drama. Maddie slept, too, waking only to feed and get to know her new daughter. If there wasn’t the risk, Josh could almost imagine she was where she wanted to be. He watched the expression on her face as Lea’s tiny mouth found the breast and suckled. He watched as Maddie’s arms curved around her with love—and he was almost jealous.
Almost. He had himself back under control.
In the time he wasn’t dozing, or attending to his little hospital’s needs, he worked, and that was a relief. They now had netting above them, a sort of tent. He’d assembled it with care from materials sent in via the bags, small piece by small piece. It was made of wire mesh, and was supported by a series of triangular, snap-together poles. In the event of a full-scale collapse it’d be useless, but smaller loose stones were now less of a threat.
And the rescuers were on their way. Finally they could hear the miners through the rock.
‘We reckon we’re within six feet,’ Keanu told him on one of their brief calls. Their supply of phone batteries was bearing up. The bag system could pull in more but the slightest rock slip could end their supply. Apart from that first indulgent baby parcel, only the barest essentials were coming in.
Malu was still drowsy but as the miners got closer Maddie stayed awake. Even Bugsy seemed restless. They all knew the last few feet were the most dangerous.
The more Josh thought about how he’d managed to get in here, the more he knew he’d been incredibly lucky—and maybe also incredibly stupid.
If Maddie hadn’t been here...
Or not. Beth often told him he was crazy, that he had no fear, and maybe he didn’t.
If there was an overturned car at the bottom of a cliff it’d be Josh who abseiled down to attend to an injured driver. He’d swung in a harness over a churning sea. He’d taken risks more times than he could remember.
Why not? It didn’t matter if anything happened to him.
But now it mattered. He thought of the people dependent on Maddie and Malu. There were people outside who loved them.
‘Do you have anyone back in Cairns you can hug when this is over?’ Maddie asked into the silence, and he wondered if she’d been mind-reading.
‘I... No.’
‘No girlfriend?’
He thought about it before answering. He and Karen dated when it suited them. She was an adrenaline junkie, just like him, and for her birthday last month he’d taken her skydiving.
He remembered their dinner afterwards. She’d spent the night messaging about her awesome adventure to her mates.
No, he thought. She wasn’t even his girlfriend.
‘Earth to Josh...’
‘Bachelorhood suits me.’
‘That’s fear talking.’
‘Since when did you do psychology?’
‘I had years to analyse you.’
‘So why haven’t you remarried?’ he growled, and she snuggled down a little farther in her makeshift bed. Despite the earplugs they used during the worst of the drilling, the constant chipping of tools on rock was challenging.
Bugsy had abandoned Josh’s air bed and was pressed hard against one side of Maddie, maybe sensing the increasing tension as the sounds of rescue grew closer. Lea was cradled in her arms. It was like she had a small posse of protection and he was on the outside.
‘I tried marriage once.’ She was speaking lightly, trying for humour, he thought. ‘I don’t have the courage to try it again.’
‘So you’ll raise your daughter on your own?’
‘No.’
It was said sharply, and her words hung. For a moment he thought she wouldn’t continue, but when she finally spoke her voice was reflective again.
‘That’s why I finally figured I could try again to have a baby,’ she told him. ‘When I realised I wasn’t on my own. I guess...when I started working on Wildfire I was pretty much at rock bottom. I needed a job. The Australian government helps fund the medical services by supplying FIFOs. The pay’s excellent and I was determined to keep Mum where she is. And, no, Josh, there was no way I was accepting help from you. But I hadn’t been here for six months before I realised what a special place Wildfire is. The people are amazing, and the staff who are attracted to work here seem just as good. I guess all of us outsiders are running away from stuff, saving money, hiding, changing tracks... But the islanders welcome us all. Saying this place is like family sounds a cliché, but it’s not.’
‘That’s why you ran into
a collapsing mine?’
‘Malu’s wife is my friend. So, yes, in a way...’
‘They’re not your family.’ He spoke more harshly than he’d intended. ‘You’re their doctor and colleague. They need you.’
‘It works both ways. I need them.’
‘How can you need them?’
‘They accept me for what I am,’ she said simply. ‘When I ache, they ache. Last year Mum had another stroke. I went back to Cairns and had to stay for a month. When I came back, my tiny villa was a sea of flowers. Kalifa met me off the plane. Kalifa was one of the tribal elders, and he and his wife have practically been grandparents to me.’
She paused then and he knew she was thinking of the eldery man, of a needless death, and of who knew what else waited for them on the surface.
That’s what happened when you got attached, he thought. It was like slicing a part of you out.
He didn’t have that many parts left.
‘I think Kalifa organised it,’ she said softly. ‘Or maybe it was his wife, Nani, or Pearl, Malu’s wife, or Hettie or any one of so many... Anyway, all along the path to my villa were hibiscus, and I think I was hugged by every single Wildfire resident that night. And you know what? That was the night I made the decision to have a baby. Because I’m part of a family. I’m loved and I can love back.’
The last few words were said almost defiantly. As if she expected him to reject them.
And then there was a sound of rubble, falling stones that made them both hold their breath. There was an oath from the far side of the rock and then the steady chipping restarted.
‘I can’t cope...with them putting their lives on the line for me,’ Josh muttered.
‘They’re putting their lives on the line for all of us,’ Maddie said, gentleness fading to asperity. ‘You don’t have a monopoly on heroism, Josh.’
‘I don’t—’
‘No, that was mean.’ She took a deep breath and winced again and he thought she was hurting. She’d given birth not twenty-four hours before. She’d already been bruised in the rockfall. Of course she was hurting. But she took a deep breath and kept on going. ‘You know what I’ve figured?’ she said, evenly again. ‘I’ve figured that it’s a whole lot easier to be the hero than the one dangling by her fingertips from the cliff.’
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