The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marion Lennox, Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy

  ‘Wednesday.’

  ‘Have you mentioned me?’

  ‘Not yet. We should have talked about this before, I suppose.’

  ‘There’s too much to talk about, all of it sensitive. It’s fine. I think it was the right decision not to tell them yet.’

  ‘I’m making all my decisions on the run, it feels. And I haven’t told them that he’s not speaking. They’re … pretty fragile right now, especially my mother. My aunt is staying with them, helping them through, which is what gives me the freedom to take things slowly with Rowdy.’

  ‘So what do they think? Why do they think you’re in Crocodile Creek?’

  ‘I told them I took the bus to the coast so we could fly out from a bigger airport.’ She gave a self-mocking shudder. ‘Which is not so far from the truth, because I am not a big fan of outback mail-hop flights!’

  He laughed and asked, ‘Have you travelled much?’

  ‘Been out of Australia twice. Once to New Zealand, once to Bali. I’m not exactly an intrepid world explorer.’

  ‘Some people would consider practising medicine in a place like Darwin to be intrepid enough.’

  ‘There are some challenges,’ she agreed.

  They talked like this until Rowdy woke up. Lazy and easy, punctuated with gulps of iced water from the day pack they’d brought, no mention of last night. He could see that she was thinking about it sometimes, though, the way he was. Just the way she moved a shoulder, or looked away. A self-consciousness in her smile, and a sudden bloom of colour in her cheeks.

  He wanted to tell her, It’s OK. We’re OK.

  But he didn’t know if it was true. Maybe something delicate and precious had been ruined.

  Rowdy was thirsty after he’d stretched and blinked and rubbed his eyes. He took a long drink from his water bottle, and then Luke suggested, ‘How about one of those nature trails? I’d be interested to see more of the island, the damage and what’s still intact. It’s only three o’clock.’

  ‘Do we want to take the boat that leaves at five?’ Janey asked.

  ‘There are only two more after that, on the hour at six and seven, and those both seem a bit late.’

  ‘Suit you, Rowdy? A bit of an explore, and then the five o’clock boat?’

  He nodded and scrambled to his feet, while Luke and Janey put T-shirts and shorts back on over their swimsuits. He was a pretty impressive hiker, it turned out. By the time they passed the helipad and then the extensively damaged aviary and animal enclosures he was a good fifty metres ahead of them. He covered the ground like an eager puppy, running until he was almost out of sight, then he stopped to examine something that had caught his interest, and circled back to hold out a shiny dead beetle for their inspection.

  The beetle was iridescent and beautiful, all greeny gold like shot silk, and Janey exclaimed over it with sincere interest, earning his rare grin. ‘Want to keep it and bring it home to show Max and CJ?’

  He nodded, and she wrapped it in a clean tissue and put it in the side pocket of their day pack.

  ‘No sign of any animals or birds in these enclosures,’ Janey said when he’d run off ahead again.

  ‘They must have lost a few, especially the birds.’ Luke peered into the damaged aviary. ‘But I heard one of the staff in the gift shop say that they’ve got temporary accommodation set up somewhere for the survivors. Their animal collection can’t have been that extensive, just a few cute marsupials for the overseas tourists. I think the birds were the main focus.’

  Beyond the aviary, the island quickly lost its resort flavour and became a wilderness of hoop pine, eucalyptus trees and lush pockets of thick rainforest. Their hiking trail meandered in the cool shade, skirting the surprisingly steep heights of the interior. They passed a couple of families on their way back to the resort, but otherwise the trail remained quiet and peaceful.

  ‘I don’t like it when we lose sight of him,’ Janey said.

  ‘I’m sure he feels very safe here. He’s used to country much wilder than this.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he is safe.’

  ‘Janey, I understand why you’re nervous—’

  ‘I know. I’m being over-protective. But he’s still only five. He’s been through so much.’

  This time Luke didn’t argue, just put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her, kissed the top of her head. She smelt the hot cotton of his shirt and just wanted to lay her head against him and surrender all control.

  What’s happening?

  They were so comfortable together, even with all those unanswered questions about last night. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so trusting and so on edge at the same time. He let her go without holding the moment of contact, but the pull between them lingered in the air like a delectable scent, and she knew she wanted much more.

  She wanted them to make love again. He did, too, she was sure. The awareness and the complexity made her dizzy. Giddy with wanting. Woozy from the vertigo brought on but so many unanswered questions.

  The rational part of her mind couldn’t trust that what she felt was anything more than the relief of having his rock-like support and knowing he felt the same as she did about Rowdy.

  Yes, the rational part, but, oh, the intuition …!

  The thing was, she’d never trusted intuition. That particular rug could get pulled from under your feet so fast that your self-esteem ended up flat on the floor. She wouldn’t give in to it again. Not with so much still unresolved. Not when this was Alice’s ex.

  Setting her jaw, she eased away from him on the path. It was wide enough. They didn’t need to walk this close together. Behind them, she heard thudding footsteps and two boys darted through the space she’d just opened up between herself and Luke. They ran and laughed, jostling each other, fighting a bit. They looked like brothers, one around eleven and the other a couple of years younger.

  The younger one’s laughter turned to a whine as he struggled to keep up. ‘Wait, Sam! I said it wasn’t a race.’ His big brother elbowed him, playful but too rough, pushing him against the bushes at the side of the path. ‘I’ll tell Mum you’re being mean,’ he whined again.

  ‘Oh, come on, Josh, don’t be a baby …’

  They disappeared around a bend in the trail. It must have been less than a minute later that Janey and Luke heard a boy’s voice again, but this time it sounded very different.

  Urgent.

  Angry.

  And several years younger.

  ‘Back away! Leave it alone or it’ll go for you! It’s hurt. Stay quiet and steady and back away! Back away!’

  ‘That’s not those two kids who just went past,’ Luke said slowly. ‘Whose is that voice?’

  He moved at once into a loping run and Janey followed just behind him. He wore rubber-soled athletic shoes while she had on flat sandals, which she cursed as she struggled to keep up and got dirt scuffed in through the open toes. They rounded the bend almost sprinting and there was Rowdy.

  Yelling.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘IT’LL kick! Back away!’ Rowdy yelled.

  Fifty metres ahead stood the two brothers and in front of them, right on the trail, was a cassowary nearly two metres tall. It was a beautiful creature, a powerfully built, flightless bird with coarse, heavy feathers in a gorgeous, shimmering arrangement of purple and dark blue, offset by a drape of orange-red around the neck like a scarf, and a dark, keel-shaped crest on the top of its head.

  ‘It’s hurt!’ Rowdy yelled. His face was red and screwed up tight in his frustration. He bent low and loped forward as he spoke, as if believing that he needed to be closer to get his urgent message across. He was trying to yell and keep his voice to a whisper at the same time, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, so that he didn’t aggravate the cassowary even more. ‘Can’t you see? It’ll go for you!’

  It did.

  The boys had ignored all Rowdy’s frantic warnings. Was the older one trying to protect his younger brother? Did they
both think that it was safe to taunt the creature? Or were they simply too frozen in fear to make any response at all? Janey and Luke had no time to tell, and they were still too far away to help. Luke bent down, grabbed a stick and ran, but it was no use.

  When a cassowary felt threatened, it attacked.

  The bird darted forward heavily, limping from its wound and yet still powerful on its strong legs. It kicked at the older boy.

  Once.

  Twice.

  And again.

  Fast, frightening, incredibly vicious thrusts.

  The boy was on the ground, screaming. Even from this distance Janey could see the blood. Arterial blood. There was no mistaking that dark spurting from high on his inner thigh. Luke had charged at the bird, yelling at the top of his lungs and waving the stick, and whether it was the noise or his size or the fact that the beautiful creature had given itself a fresh burst of pain with those kicks from its wounded leg, it was enough.

  The cassowary fled into the bush, and Janey was amazed at how silently it managed to move through the dense undergrowth, and how quickly it was lost to sight. Within seconds, it had disappeared.

  Janey reached Rowdy and gave him a quick, fierce hug, feeling that awful, guilty wash of relief that her child was safe, even though someone else’s wasn’t. She’d seen it in parents in hospital emergency rooms, and now she understood. ‘Oh, sweetheart!’

  He was sobbing. ‘I told them to back away. I told them to stay quiet and back away, but they wouldn’t listen.’

  Oh, lord, he was talking! He was talking!

  ‘Sam, are you OK? Sam! Sam!’ Josh, the younger brother, was sobbing, too.

  Luke had dropped to the ground beside the boy. ‘The bird’s gone, Sam, it’s OK,’ he said, sounding clear and calm and strong. If anyone could give an injured child confidence, it would be Luke. ‘It’s over now.’ He threw another couple of words over his shoulder to Janey. ‘He’s hurt.’

  Badly, she knew from his tone. She already knew it from the bleeding, although neither of them had wanted to say it in front of the three kids. And they had no equipment with them.

  ‘Femoral artery,’ Luke finished.

  Arriving beside him, she saw that he’d already rolled Sam into a better position and thrust his hand against the wound to stop the bleeding, which would prove fatal within minutes if it wasn’t checked. There were already frightening amounts of blood on the ground, soaking Sam’s clothing and splotched on Josh as well. Sam’s shorts and T-shirt were both badly torn.

  ‘I’ll check airway and breathing.’ She knew Luke would have to keep his hand where it was for at least ten minutes, and that his muscles would be screaming and stiff from the awkward action by the end of it. She could see the uncomfortable posture he’d had to take up.

  They couldn’t even think of moving Sam or going for help yet. ‘Sam, Josh, I’m a doctor,’ she told the boys, ‘and so is Luke here, so you’re going to be OK. We know exactly what to do so, Sam, sweetheart, try and answer my questions. Can you do that?’

  He must have been terrified. Must still be terrified at the sight of so much of his own blood staining the dirt, ebbing away. They had to keep him calm and reassured if they possibly could, and Rowdy and Josh, too. The two younger boys had moved to sit slump-shouldered in the shade of a bush at the side of the path, silently watching.

  And Rowdy had spoken.

  Luke looked in his son’s direction and swore harshly under his breath, before muttering to Janey, ‘I want so damn much to find out—’ He stopped.

  ‘I know. But we can’t. This is more urgent.’

  ‘I know that. Hell, I do, but …’

  Their eyes met, reflecting shared anguish and frustration, and she felt the same intense relief and rightness as she’d felt last night beside the pool at the fact that the two of them were there together, that this was Luke, not anyone else in the world. The past didn’t matter any more. The fact that he’d been Alice’s husband. The fact that he didn’t remember their long-ago kiss. The fact that they’d spent half the night in each other’s arms. There was only now.

  ‘Sam, first, are you having any trouble breathing?’ she asked the boy. ‘Show me a nice deep breath.’

  He drew one in, but stopped before he’d filled his lungs, and said thinly, ‘It hurts.’

  She caught Luke’s glance again, and knew he’d be running through the same possibilities that she was. If one of those shockingly forceful thrusts had broken some ribs which had punctured his lungs. How would they cope with pneumothorax and respiratory arrest here?

  Janey laid her hands on his chest, and said, ‘Keep breathing, Sam, just normally.’

  ‘You’re doing great,’ Luke came in. ‘I’ve stopped the bleeding in your leg now, but I’ll have to keep my hand here for a while longer, OK?’

  ‘OK …’

  ‘Boys, we need to do a bit of work on him before we get him back to the resort and ready for airlifting to hospital, so you must help by sitting patiently. Rowdy, have some of your water, and see if Josh wants some.’ Rowdy nodded and began unzipping the day pack.

  ‘Josh, are you guys with your parents? Are you staying on the island?’

  ‘They’re in our cabin,’ Josh said. ‘Having a rest.’

  ‘OK, we’ll talk to them as soon as we can, but for now stay with us, all right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Can’t feel anything broken,’ Janey told Luke.

  ‘Rising equally on both sides?’

  ‘From what I can feel.’ Which was good, as far as it went, but she would have liked a greater degree of certainty. ‘If we had a stethoscope …’

  ‘We can’t move him yet. Where does it hurt, Sam?’

  ‘Everywhere. My leg, my stomach …’ His voice was shaky but clear, which meant his airway was clear, too. That was a plus.

  ‘I’m going to take a look at you now,’ Janey said. ‘I’m going to lift up your shirt. How about you close your eyes and just rest?’

  She had to clamp her mouth shut over a hiss of breath when she saw the claw marks across Sam’s body. There was a big, red, bruising welt at the top left of his abdomen, just nudging his lower ribs, and then a gash raking down and getting deeper until its final disastrous hook into the top of the thigh.

  A couple of shallower gashes crossed the deeper one at a slight angle, and there was another nasty wound lower on his thigh, from which blood still trickled slowly. She palpated his abdomen and he whimpered and moved his hands defensively when she got to that upper left quadrant, beneath the blotchy welt.

  ‘That’s where it hurts most?’

  ‘Yes. Badly.’

  Luke looked at her again, and they were both thinking about injury to the spleen. Sam was white as a ghost, almost green. She took his pulse at the neck, and found the rapid rhythm she’d expected—about 120 beats a minute.

  ‘Can you find a radial pulse?’ Luke muttered.

  She moved her fingers to Sam’s wrist, and reported after several seconds, ‘Yes, just. It’s faint.’

  ‘We need to get him to the medical centre. They have one. I saw a blue and white cross on that map.’

  Kids were different to adults. They compensated well for blood loss initially, and then crashed catastrophically later on, if you didn’t get in fast with oxygen and fluids.

  ‘We need to make a pressure bandage,’ she answered, not a retort but a recognition there was more to be done before they could move him. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, thankful that she still had Georgie’s swimsuit on beneath it. She began to fold the fabric into a pad.

  Luke flicked his gaze away from the sight of the valley between her breasts, and she felt the heat of their shared awareness and emotion once more, before it fled in the face of the urgency of what they had to do. He asked Sam, ‘Can you wiggle your fingers and toes? Any pins and needles?’ Could that gash to the thigh have gone deep enough to compromise movement and nerves?

  Sam’s answers were the ones they wanted t
o hear, but his voice sounded much weaker.

  ‘I can’t move my hand away yet,’ Luke said. ‘Can you rip up my shirt while I’m wearing it, Janey, without moving us around too much?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Use your teeth, if you need to.’

  She did need to. The woven cotton fabric was new and strongly stitched. Kneeling beside him, she lifted the lower edge of the shirt away from his body and bent to grit her teeth against it, near the side seam, aware of his hot, tanned skin just inches away.

  She smelt sunscreen and salt, and saw the stretch and knot of his muscles. In any other situation she would have wanted to press her lips to his body and taste him, run her fingers all over him, the way she had last night. She couldn’t remember ever wanting a man this much before—this simply, this physically. It felt as natural as breathing, as solid as gravity, some kind of chemical shift in her that related in a weird way to all the old irritation.

  Maybe it hadn’t been pure irritation, eight years ago, at all …

  They’d kissed on Wednesday night, they’d made love in Luke’s dark bedroom with Rowdy just down the corridor, and now they were working together like two pieces of well-oiled machinery, and all of it just felt so inevitable she didn’t even have a name for it.

  The fabric ripped up the side as she pulled, then she had to use her teeth again to get it to rip parallel to the hem, her knuckles and cheeks bumping against his smooth, strong back several times as she worked. ‘Sorry about this, Luke.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Gritted teeth. His arm must be knotting from the unrelenting pressure he had to keep against Sam’s thigh.

  Janey ended up with three bands of fabric, each about ten centimetres wide, while Luke wore half a shirt. ‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘Let’s do this now.’

  They pressed her folded shirt into the wound and bound it tightly with the strips of Luke’s shirt. He pulled the remnant of the garment from his body, his muscles and smooth tan on show, and deftly ripped some final pieces to fasten the pressure bandage more securely.

  Sam was way too quiet. Whimpering faintly. Eyes closed. Sweaty and still that deathly greenish-white. He’d lost a lot of blood before Luke had been able to act to stop it and he could be bleeding internally. They needed to get oxygen and fluid replacement in place urgently now, because despite the reassurances they’d given him—and had been right to give, because the worst thing you could do was let someone know how serious their injuries were—if he went into irreversible shock, he would die.