‘What does that mean?’
‘Why are you a doctor, Josh?’ she asked, gently again. ‘No, don’t answer, because I know. It’s because in medicine you can help. Add to that your search and rescue job and you can be the hero in every single situation. But when it comes to being rescued yourself, you can’t handle it. That’s what killed our marriage and it’s killing you now.’
Silence. He watched her close her eyes and then saw her wince and put a hand to her neck.
Maybe there was something he could do.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Hero again?’ she asked wryly, and she even managed a smile.
‘Maddie, what is it?’
‘I must have ricked my neck in the rockfall,’ she confessed. ‘I haven’t had time to think about it.’
‘Would a massage help?’
She thought about it. She looked at him for a long time in the shadowy light and then slowly she nodded.
‘It might,’ she said at last. ‘But that’d mean accepting—again—that I need help.’
‘You do need help. Maddie, being a single mother... You know it’ll be hard. You still have your mother. You’ll be doing a full-time job and trying to care for a baby, as well.’ And then, because the sounds of rescue were growing closer and maybe there wouldn’t be time to say it again, he said what he most wanted to say.
‘Maddie, our marriage was good. The chemistry’s still there. Maybe we can make it work again. Maybe we should try.’
‘You’d be a father to Lea?’
‘She needs a dad.’
‘Need’s no basis for a marriage. You must be the first one to tell me that.’
‘But you need—’
‘Josh, I don’t need—at least, not from you. I have the community. I have my colleagues and my friends. Believe it or not, I even have my mum. She still loves me, even though she’s so badly damaged, and her love supports me. I have everything I need. Marriage is something else. Marriage is for loving, not for dependency. It’s for sharing and I don’t think you ever will. I’m sorry, Josh, but I can’t let you hurt me again.’
‘I never would.’
‘You don’t understand how not to.’ Then she smiled again, trying desperately for lightness, trying desperately to put things back on a footing to go forward. ‘But in terms of need... Okay, Josh, more than anything else, I would love a head and shoulders massage. You do the best and I’ve missed them. That’s what I need from you, Josh Campbell, and nothing more.’
* * *
Why couldn’t she give in to him?
She was giving in to him, she decided as his fingers started their magic. If this was the last massage he ever gave her, she’d enjoy every second.
She’d pretend he was hers?
The first time he’d done this to her had been just after she’d started work. He’d been waiting for her at the nurses’ station. She’d been supposedly watching an operation but the surgeon had thought hands-on training was best. The surgeon had stood and watched every step of the way at what should have been a routine appendectomy.
Except it hadn’t been routine. The patient had been a young mum with no history of medical problems, nothing to suggest the sudden, catastrophic heart failure that had killed her.
They’d had a cardiac team there in seconds, they’d fought with everything they’d had, but there’d been no happy ending. Maddie had walked blindly out of Theatre and Josh had been there. He’d gathered her into his arms and held.
He was good at caring was Josh. He was amazing.
They’d been supposed to be going out with friends. Instead, Maddie had found herself on a picnic rug on the beach, eating fish and chips, surprising herself by eating while Josh had let her be, just watched. And waited.
And then he’d moved behind her and started his massage.
It had started as gentleness itself, a bare touching, hands placed softly on her shoulders, resting, as if seeking permission to continue.
She hadn’t moved then. She didn’t move now.
Permission granted.
And now his fingers started their magic.
First they stroked over the entire area he wanted to massage, her head, her shoulders, her back, her arms and her hands. She was resting against him but as his fingers moved she slumped forward a little, so he could touch her back.
Skin against skin.
How could he do this with an injured arm?
She couldn’t ask. Maybe she couldn’t even care?
Then his fingers deepened the pressure and she forgot what the question was.
He was kneading the tight muscles on either side of her neck, kneading upward, firm now, pressing into what seemed knots of tension. He worked methodically, focussing first one side then the other. His fingers kneaded, never so hard it hurt, never so hard she felt out of control, but firm enough to make the tension ooze upward and outward and away.
And then to her scalp. Her hair must be full of grit and sweat, a tangled mess, but right now she didn’t care. Josh was stroking his thumbs upward, as if releasing the tension that had been sent up there by his wonder fingers. He was teasing her hair, tugging lightly, running his fingers through and through...
She was floating. She was higher than any drug could have made her. Lea was nestled beside her, Bugsy was at her other side, and Josh was turning her cavern of hell into one of bliss.
She heard herself moan with pleasure. She was melting into him, disappearing into a puddle of sensual ecstasy... His fingers... His hands...
Josh.
She drifted and he massaged and she floated, every single threat, every single worry placed at bay.
She loved... She loved...
And yet, as his fingers left her scalp and drifted down, beginning their delicious movements at her shoulder blades, an argument drifted back with them.
A long-ago conversation. After that night. They’d ended up in bed—of course. She’d slept through the night, enfolded by Josh’s strong arms, and in the morning she’d woken to her beautiful man bringing her tea and toast.
‘Where did you learn...?’
‘One of my foster-mothers,’ he told her. ‘She used to have me do it for her after work.’
‘Have you ever had anyone do it to you?’
‘No,’ he’d said shortly, and she’d set down her tea, looped her arms around his neck and drawn him to her.
‘Well, I’m going to learn,’ she’d declared. ‘We’ll massage each other every time we’re stressed. Or even when we’re not stressed. In fact, with massages like that, we need never be stressed again.’
He’d smiled and kissed her but then he’d drawn away. ‘There’s no need. I don’t need a massage. Any time you want one, though...’
‘So if I learn you won’t let me practise?’
‘As I said, sweetheart, there’s no need.’
And there was that word again. It was like a brick wall, a solid divider that kept Josh on one side and the world on another. If he admitted need, then what? He’d fall apart?
She thought he’d crack. She thought if she loved him enough...
She was wrong.
He was stroking down her head now, across both her shoulders. There was grit on her shoulders and the remains of sweat and grime, but it made little difference. The finest oils couldn’t have made her feel any more at peace than she was right now.
He was applying gentle pressure, running his fingers down her arms, using both hands, from shoulders to the tips of her fingers. She was totally subsumed by the sensation. If he wanted to make love with her right then...
Right... Less than two days after birth, in a collapsed gold mine, with her daughter, with an injured miner, with a dog...
The whole thing was fantasy. Her hea
d was filled with a desire that could never be fulfilled.
His hands were stroking down her neck and shoulders, down her arms, breaking contact at her fingertips, over and over, but each stroke slower, slower, until finally his fingers trailed away from hers and held still.
Then a feather-light touch on her shoulders, a signal that it was finished.
Silence.
The end.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to turn and hold him. She wanted to take him into her arms. She wanted him to be her...family?
She did none of those things. You couldn’t hug a man with armour, she thought, no matter how much you might want to.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered into the shadows. ‘Thank you, Josh, for everything.’ And she gathered Lea back into her arms and held, not because Lea needed her—the baby was deeply asleep—but because she needed Lea.
‘You need to sleep,’ Josh said, and he held her shoulders while he moved sideways, so he wasn’t right behind her, so she was free to settle back onto the air bed with her baby.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Is there anything you need?’
‘Nothing.’
Liar.
But it couldn’t be a lie, she thought. She’d made her decision.
Or he’d made his decision years ago and nothing had changed.
And then a puff of dust surged out from the rocks above them and the dust had come from the gap Josh had used to get in, that they’d been using to haul bags back and forth.
‘Anyone home?’ There’d been scraping at the rocks that had grown so constant they’d hardly been listening—or maybe it was that they’d been just a bit distracted?
‘Hey!’ Josh called back, and his voice still sounded distracted. Maybe he was just as discombobulated as she was, Maddie thought, and was uncharitable enough to think, Good!
‘I can see chinks of your light,’ the voice called. ‘You’re eight feet away, no more. We’ve reinforced up to here. Another hour should do it. You guys almost ready to emerge?’
‘You’d better believe it,’ Josh said, but once again Maddie heard that trace of uncertainty.
It was as if they’d both be grateful to be aboveground, but neither of them was quite sure what they’d be leaving behind.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS MORE like three hours before the final breakthrough came, because no one was taking chances. By that time, however, there was a solid channel, a shored-up shaft that was deemed safe enough to risk moving them out.
They wasted no time. Safe was relative and any moment the ground could move again, so the move happened with speed. There was the moment’s relief when a blackened face appeared, grinning and taking a second to give them a thumbs-up. Then there was skilled shoring work to make the entrance secure before a grimy rescuer was in the shaft with them and Maddie was being told she was to be strapped to a cradle stretcher, whether she willed it or not.
She didn’t will it. ‘Take Malu first.’ She spoke it as an order, in her most imperious tone—a doctor directing traffic in the worst emergency couldn’t have sounded more authoritative—and she couldn’t believe it when she was overruled.
‘Sorry, ma’am, orders are you’re first,’ the man said, and Josh touched her face, a light reassurance, but his touch was an order, too.
‘They get two for the price of one with you,’ he told her. ‘You and your Lea. Lea’s a priority, even if you’re not. Off you go, the two of you.’
And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her, hard and fast, and it was an acknowledgment that being hauled out through the fast-made tunnel had major risks.
As if to emphasise it, another cloud of dust spat down on them.
‘On the stretcher,’ the man ordered, and Maddie had the sense to submit and then to stay passive, holding tight to Lea as what looked like a cradle was erected over her—the same shape as an MRI machine and just as claustrophobic. Once she was enclosed, the head of the stretcher was hauled up to the guy waiting, and she was lifted and pulled into the mouth of the shaft.
And then along. She didn’t know how they did it. These guys were experts but she knew from their silence that they were working far closer to the limits of safety that they’d done before. And all she could do was lie still and hold Lea—and think of Josh left behind...
Josh, who didn’t need anyone. Who’d be caring for Malu. Caring and never letting anyone care for him.
And then, amazingly, she was out of the darkness. The light was almost blinding and Lea was being lifted from her. She was being gathered into Hettie’s arms and hugged and held, and Caroline was holding Lea and sobbing, and Keanu was there, giving her one fast hug, and she even saw tears in his eyes before he returned to his role as doctor.
They’d rigged up some sort of makeshift hospital tent. ‘Let’s get you inside,’ he said roughly, trying to hide emotion. ‘We need to assess—’
‘I’m staying out here until the others are out,’ she told him, and this time she managed to make them agree.
So Hettie organised washbasins and someone rigged up a sheet for a little privacy, and Hettie and Caroline did their midwife thing, as well as a preliminary assessment of scrapes and bruises, yet she could still see the mouth of the mine.
‘She’s perfect,’ Caroline breathed, as she carefully washed Lea in one of the washbasins and inspected every part of her before wrapping her and handing her back to her mother. ‘She’s adorable, Maddie. Oh, well done, you.’
Surely Maddie should have beamed with maternal pride—and she sort of did but it was a pretty wobbly beam. She hugged her precious baby back to her, but still she looked at the mine entrance.
Malu’s stretcher emerged next.
Keanu was ready to receive him, as was Beth. Hettie moved back to Keanu’s side as well, so there was a receiving posse of medics moving straight into ER mode.
And, of course, Pearl was there. Pearl had greeted Maddie as she’d emerged, but even as she’d been hugging her, like Maddie, her eyes hadn’t left the mouth of the mine.
As soon as the miners set Malu’s stretcher down, Pearl was on the grass beside him, not saying a word, just touching his face, seemingly fearful of the drips, the oxygen mask, the medical paraphernalia Maddie and Josh had organised, but still...just touching.
And it was up to Malu to speak.
‘Hey, girl,’ he said, holding his wife any way he could. He spoke softly yet every person in the clearing could hear him. ‘God help me, girl, I’ve needed you so much...’ His voice broke on a sob and then, tubes or not, mask or not, everything was irrelevant, he was gathering Pearl into his arms and holding.
And Maddie couldn’t help herself. Tears were coursing down her face. Happiness tears? There were matching tears on the faces of almost everyone around her, tears of relief, tears of joy, but mixed with that?
What sort of tears?
Jealous tears? To be loved like Pearl was. To be needed.
And then Josh was out, with Bugsy bursting out behind him. Josh had obviously refused the stretcher. He was bruised and battered. His arm needed urgent attention. She knew he’d lost strength so there was a chance of nerve damage, but he wasn’t thinking of himself now. When was he ever? He stood blinking in the sunlight, gathering himself, and even as he did so Maddie saw him regroup, turn back into the professional, the doctor he’d become so he could help.
So he could hide?
But only she could see that. He saw her, half-hidden by sheets, lying in the shade, holding her baby. Their eyes locked for one long moment, a moment of recognition of all that was between them—and a moment of farewell?
And then he turned to Keanu.
‘I’m fine,’ he said roughly. ‘We’ve got them out, now what else needs doing? Beth, what’s the pri
ority? What’s the need?’
* * *
For once, however, Dr Joshua Campbell did not get things his own way.
Beth turned bossy. On his own turf he could have overruled her, but backed up by the island medical team of Keanu, Caroline and Hettie he’d met his match.
‘No one needs you, Dr Campbell. In fact, for the duration you don’t even consider yourself a doctor.’ Hettie, the island’s nurse administrator, was doing the organising. She looked to be in her late thirties and was obviously a woman to be reckoned with. Keanu was testing his arm, making him flex, testing each of his fingers. Together they gave him no choice.
They propelled him into the temporary hospital tent, whether he willed it or not. Malu was on the next stretcher.
Maddie was still outside.
Another of the nurses was at the door of the tent—Caroline Lockhart. She stood, looking a little unsure.
‘Caroline?’ Keanu said.
‘The plane’s due to land in twenty minutes,’ Caroline told him. ‘I’ve been talking to Beth. There’s another doctor coming from Cairns to fly back with the patients. Beth says there’ll be room for her and for two patients, but Pearl’s desperate to go with Malu. She has a sister in Cairns she can stay with, and another sister here, who’ll look after the kids. But a tropical storm’s closing in over Cairns and they say this could be the last trip for a few days. If we need to send Josh then Pearl can’t go.’
‘I’m fine,’ Josh growled. What were they doing, sending another doctor? Tending to patients during transport was what he did. ‘You don’t need another doctor from Cairns. I can care for Malu.’
‘The doctor’s already on his way,’ Caroline said, ignoring his protest, talking to Keanu, not to him. ‘And our little hospital’s packed. Which leaves these two...these three, if you count Maddie’s baby...’
‘I’m fine,’ Josh growled again, but no one was listening.
‘Maddie wants to stay here,’ Hettie said, still excluding him. ‘She’s looking good—there’s no medical reason to evacuate her.’
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