English Rose in the Outback

by Lucy Clark

  ‘How did she get here? Did someone bring her in?’ Oscar removed the gauze pad and took a look at the head wound.

  ‘I did. I found her lying in the dirt.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for your help. If you’d like to take a look in the waiting room, someone will see you as soon as—’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ The British woman turned her back to him and started rubbing anti-bacterial gel into her hands. ‘This woman is my patient and I’ll treat her.’ Her smooth but clipped words were enunciated perfectly. Oscar stopped for a split second, the chaos and franticness of the hospital around them disappearing. He looked at the woman opposite him, realising that although she looked worn out, she was also clearly determined.

  She was quite tall and he could see she wasn’t wearing high heels. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight chignon and any make-up she might have worn had been sweated away. She looked sticky and uncomfortable yet still she persisted. As she reached for a disposable gown to cover her clothes Oscar frowned.

  ‘Listen, darl. Just because you brought the patient in, doesn’t mean you can help me treat her. If you have a problem, go and sit in the waiting room and I’ll be with you—’

  ‘For a start, I am not your “darl”,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m Dr Forsythe-York.’

  ‘Dr Forysthe-York? But you’re not due until tomorrow.’

  Dr Forsythe-York fixed him with a glare before opening and closing the cupboards, finding the equipment she needed. ‘Well, perhaps you’d like me to come back tomorrow because it looks as though you have things completely under control.’ Even though her words were filled with a dry sarcasm, she still made them sound incredibly polite. He also had the feeling that she was extremely annoyed with him, or perhaps she was always this clipped and curt.

  ‘I can deal with this patient,’ she continued, ‘as long as you leave me a nurse to assist.’ When he opened his mouth to protest, she fixed him with a stern glare. ‘This is hardly the time to be arguing semantics.’

  ‘Are you dismissing me?’

  ‘Yes. You know my credentials—we covered them during my online interviews. Now will you let me get to work?’ The patient’s eyes had opened and Dr Forsythe-York all but elbowed him aside, then spoke gently to the woman before performing the basic neurological observations. ‘I’m going to give you a local anaesthetic because I’ll need to debride your wound.’

  ‘Will I need to stay overnight?’ the woman asked. Dr Forsythe-York glanced over her shoulder at Oscar. ‘Dr Price will evaluate you and decide but I would prefer it. Injuries to the head need to be monitored for at least twenty-four hours. Your cognitive function is good, though, which shows promise for a full recovery.’

  Oscar was still stunned at the way she was just taking over but, then again, hadn’t he just been whinging that he wished the new doctor was starting now rather than tomorrow? His brisk British buddy was right. Now was not the time to be arguing.

  When Tori entered the cubicle, Oscar quickly introduced them, wishing he could remember Dr Forsythe-York’s first name, but a lot had happened since he’d interviewed the woman online and read her impressive résumé. Plus, on the day they’d had the interview, he hadn’t been able to get a visual image of her on his computer so, although she’d been able to see him, he hadn’t been able to see her, just hear her.

  ‘Right. Well. I’ll get back to it.’ With that, he left his new colleague in treatment room one to deal with the patient she’d brought in. No sooner had he stepped through the curtain than people were calling out to him.

  ‘Oscar. Oscar, can you look at this?’

  ‘Oscar? I need you over here.’

  ‘Oscar, am I going to live? Break it to me gently.’

  Oscar took a breath and tried to deal with each patient in turn. Two steady hours later and he’d lost complete track of his new colleague’s whereabouts. He had no idea how she’d miraculously arrived at the hospital right when they’d needed her most but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  As the sun started to go down, bringing relief from the constant summer heat, Oscar and the rest of the staff at Meeraji Lake District Hospital were able to finally slow down, the emergency situation now under control.

  ‘And many thanks to the Meeraji Lake retirees who were an amazing volunteer force in our time of need,’ Oscar stated as many of the staff gathered in the small nurses’ station. Some sat on chairs, other sat on desks. ‘And while I have everyone’s attention, I’d like to introduce you all to Dr Forsythe-York who will be working here for the next six months and who was an absolute godsend today.’ He started clapping and everyone joined in, showing their appreciation.

  ‘Dr Forsythe-York, would you like to say a few words?’ Oscar knew she’d been trying to blend in, to stay at the back of the crowd, but now that everyone was looking at her she squared her shoulders and stepped forward.

  ‘Thank you.’ She waited for the applause to die down and wiped a hand across her brow. Although the air conditioners were on, Dr Forsythe-York appeared to be perspiring quite a bit. Then again, coming from an English winter to an Australian summer, especially dressed as she was in long trousers and a white shirt with embroidered flowers around the collar, it was little wonder she was hot. Thank goodness she’d had the presence of mind to take off her suit jacket.

  ‘First of all, I’d like for you all to call me Daisy. Dr Forsythe-York does tend to be a bit of a mouthful.’ She smiled and a few people laughed. Oscar, however, wasn’t smiling back. Even though the smile was a polite one, it seemed to…soften her a little. She didn’t appear as brisk or as starched. It made him wonder whether she used all that pomp and ceremony as armour. He knew from her résumé that she’d been in the army, working in a combat zone last year. She held a degree in emergency medicine and minor surgical procedures although, as she’d assured him in the interview, she was also quite proficient at adaptive medicine, too. In fact, Daisy Forsythe-York was almost too qualified for this job and could easily have taken up a position in one of England’s leading hospitals. So why had she decided to come to the Australian outback?

  ‘And Dr Price…I mean Oscar…did tell me in my interview that you were all very informal here.’

  ‘Gotta be, love,’ one of the volunteer retirees said. ‘The outback is no place for fancy airs and graces. Just plain speaking.’

  Oscar continued to watch as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her forehead. She acknowledge the comment and continued to say a few more words but he didn’t hear any of them—instead he started looking at her as a doctor looked at a patient. Her face was quite pink but her lips were dry, even a little cracked. She swayed, a little unsteady, but shifted her feet in order to counterbalance herself.

  He’d seen enough symptoms of heatstroke to easily recognise them. When Daisy swayed on her feet again, bringing her hand up to dab at her forehead, he noticed she was shaking. He stepped forward and placed a hand on her elbow to steady her.

  ‘Tori,’ he stated quickly to the nurse. ‘Container, please. I think she’s going to be sick.’

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Daisy demanded in her haughty tone, turning crazed eyes in Oscar’s direction, but the swift movement caused her to wretch and within another moment Tori was by her side with the container as Daisy was ill. No sooner had she emptied the contents of her stomach than she looked at Oscar with what could only be described as a death glare.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ she growled before passing out and landing neatly in his arms.

  ‘Let’s find a camp bed for her as all the other beds are occupied,’ he said, scooping her more securely into his arms and sitting down in a nearby chair. How was all of this his fault? ‘Set it up in my office.’

  ‘Poor doc. What a welcome,’ someone else muttered as everyone started to disperse.

  ‘Get an intravenous drip organised,’ Tori instructed one
of her nurses as someone else retrieved a cold pack from the freezer and placed it onto Daisy’s forehead.

  ‘Obs?’ Oscar asked Tori, who was quickly gathering the different things she needed. The sister checked Daisy’s temperature.

  ‘Just under forty degrees Celsius,’ Tori stated a moment later.

  ‘Hopefully now that she’s been ill, her temperature will start to decrease, but let’s give her some paracetamol once the IV is set up.’

  Tori continued to take Daisy’s observations and, although Oscar was listening to the nursing sister, he was also well aware of how fragile Daisy Forsythe-York seemed to be in his arms. Poor woman. She’d come to a foreign country to help out and now she was sick. She was showing all the signs of heat exhaustion and if they didn’t get her temperature under control as soon as possible, then her symptoms would get worse. He knew from her résumé that she was well trained and had an abundance of experience but what he didn’t know was what sort of patient she would make. Usually, doctors made the worst patients, which was definitely true of himself. Would it be true of Daisy?

  Soon, the camp bed was set up in his office and, like a hero at the end of a movie, Oscar stood and carried Daisy to her new, and temporary, abode. Although the doctors’ residence was just two doors down from the hospital, until her temperature had broken she needed to be as close to treatment as possible. ‘Can we get another fan in here, too, as well as a few bags of ice and a water-sprayer? We need to get her temperature down, stat.’

  ‘Why don’t you get that organised while I get her out of those heavy clothes and into a cotton hospital gown?’ Tori stated. ‘Go do a quick ward round as well.’

  ‘But I shouldn’t really leave—’

  ‘I’ll stay with her,’ Tori promised before shooing him out of his own office.

  Oscar shook his head, knowing his colleague was right, but while he did his jobs and assessed the plethora of patients who were almost causing the small thirty-bed hospital to burst at the seams he couldn’t stop worrying about Daisy. Why had she blamed him? What had he done wrong? It would be terrible if the two of them couldn’t get along as it would make the next six months almost unbearable, especially given the small population of the town. The best thing he could do for her now was to provide her with the best treatment and care.

  *

  It was close to two hours later when he was finally able to return to check on Daisy, pleased to hear from Tori that their patient’s temperature had indeed dropped but was still a little high.

  ‘Has she regained consciousness?’

  ‘Yes. She was a little bewildered and extremely embarrassed about what had happened but I told her there was nothing she could do except to rest. I think she believed me because when she tried to get out of bed, she was astonished at how weak she was.’

  ‘Has she been sick again?’ Oscar asked as he listened to Daisy’s chest, pleased her breathing was now more steady as she slept.

  ‘No. I’ve given her paracetamol as well as a sponge bath.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Oscar waved goodnight to Tori before sitting in the chair behind his desk, watching as his new colleague slept the sleep of exhaustion.

  Oscar sat and absorbed the peace and quiet, listening to the steady rhythm of Daisy Forsythe-York’s breathing. What a mouthful. Forsythe-York, and yet it suited her straight shoulders, her firm gait, her aristocratic nose. However, her Christian name suited her even better. Daisy. He smiled and stood, walking over to sit beside her.

  He picked up the cloth from the bowl of fresh water Tori had replenished, and squeezed it out before placing it on Daisy’s forehead. She was still hot but the drip and the paracetamol were definitely doing their job. With any hope, she’d be up and about in a few days, restored to full health.

  ‘We’ll take care of you, Daisy,’ he told her, sponging her down with a cool cloth. Now that it was just the two of them, he couldn’t help but notice how flawless her skin was. Apart from still being red and hot, there wasn’t a blemish on her face. He brushed back a few wisps of hair and sponged around the back of her neck and shoulders. It was then he saw the small tattoo, a little daisy flower with white petals and a yellow centre. ‘Huh. I hadn’t pegged you as being the type of woman to have a tat,’ he murmured.

  He had the impression there were many different layers to his new colleague. He grinned as he realised he was quite intrigued to discover them all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DAISY SLOWLY OPENED her eyes, not surprised she felt a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was but stayed calm and tried to think of the last thing she remembered. She was in a room, lying in a bed. A low bed, like the camp beds in the huts…but this was not a hut. She was at the base hospital. That made sense and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her deployment would soon be at an end and she could return to England and resign her commission.

  As her eyes began to focus a bit more, she frowned. This didn’t look anything like the army base hospital. There was no thatched roof, no mosquito net around her, no chirping of the birds outside. Lying still, she tried to gather a bit more information before she would give herself permission to panic. Listening closely, she could hear the sounds of someone else breathing, someone who was nearby.

  Who was in the room with her, the room that appeared to be some sort of office? She could see a desk, bookshelves and a ceiling fan above her, whirring around softly. Well, that definitely meant she wasn’t in the combat zone.

  She thought hard, trying to grasp her last memory. She moaned as a plethora of images flooded her mind. Flying to the middle of the Australian outback. Of no one meeting her at the airstrip. Of picking up her suitcase and beginning the trek into town in the scorching heat wearing the wrong sort of clothing, which was stuck to her like glue. She remembered coming across a woman who had been lying in the middle of the dirt footpath, slowly regaining consciousness. Daisy had pulled out the small first-aid kit from her hand luggage and applied a bandage to the woman’s forehead in order to try and stem the bleeding. Then the two women had staggered arm in arm towards the hospital, Daisy still pulling her suitcase behind her. As far as initiations into a new culture went, this one had been pretty horrid.

  If that hadn’t been enough for her to handle, when they’d arrived at the hospital, it had been to find it in the grip of an emergency, which at least provided her with a possible explanation as to why no one had been there to meet her plane. Where she’d found the strength to push on, to offer her assistance, she had no clue but once the emergency had been brought under control, she’d started feeling incredibly dizzy. She’d started to perspire again, even though the hospital was air-conditioned. Then, to her absolute horror, her new colleague, the annoying Oscar, had singled her out and introduced her. That was when the shaking had started, her body protesting that she was asking even more from it…and then…and then…

  ‘Oh, no.’ She tried to speak but the words simply came out gurgled and it was then she realised her mouth was excessively dry. She needed water. She should get up and get herself a drink but the instant she tried to move, she felt shooting pains pierce her skull, causing it to pound with an excruciating pain.

  ‘It’s OK. Just lie still.’ A deep, soothing voice washed over her and a moment later she felt a cool cloth placed on her forehead. ‘Good to see you’re awake, Dr Forsythe-York.’

  ‘Why—?’ Her words dried in her throat as she tried to look around the room. She saw the drip, the tube going down into her arm. There were also several pedestal fans whirring around her, cooling the air almost to the point of freezing—yet she didn’t feel at all cold. In fact, she still felt incredibly hot. She tried to swallow but her mouth remained dry. Thankfully, her new colleague was beside her in an instant, holding out a spoonful of ice chips.

  ‘Here. This will help.’

  Feeling utterly humiliated that she had to accept his help, especially as he had to feed her, she sucked on the ice chips, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to look at
him. Her first impressions of Oscar Price weren’t at all flattering and she knew that if someone had met her at the airstrip then she wouldn’t be lying here in this bed being fed ice chips.

  ‘Why do I have a drip?’ Her tone sounded haughty and ungrateful.

  ‘You got heatstroke,’ Oscar stated. There was no humour in his tone, merely concern. Well, she didn’t want his concern. She just wanted to go to her new residence, have a shower and sleep.

  ‘If you’re in pain,’ he continued, ‘let me know and I’ll give you some more paracetamol.’

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ she tried to argue, tried to open her eyes, but the instant she raised her voice just a touch the pounding in her head became worse.

  ‘Good thing it’s not about what you want but rather what analgesics your admitting doctor prescribes, so shush. You’re not a doctor at the moment, you’re a patient—my patient.’

  He didn’t sound smug, as she’d thought he might, given that he most definitely had the upper hand in this situation, but instead he seemed to be genuinely concerned about her. How sick had she been?

  ‘What’s my temperature?’ Her words were soft but she was pleased that her vocal cords seemed to be working properly again.

  ‘Finally back down to normal. It was bordering on forty.’ She could hear him moving around and realised that he was adding the liquid paracetamol to the drip.

  ‘Celsius? That’s—’

  ‘Well over one hundred in Fahrenheit,’ he finished. ‘It broke only a few hours ago, so you’ll need to take it easy for the next few days, give yourself some time to recover.’

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘But you will.’ This time there was a firmness to his tone that brooked no argument. ‘I was wondering what sort of patient you would make.’

  ‘And?’ She risked opening one eye and found that at least the room wasn’t spinning any more.