Hijacked Honeymoon

by Marion Lennox

  Abbey winced. ‘Janet, that’s crazy. He’s not… he’s not my Ryan.’

  ‘No? That fiancée of his has left him to go back to America. He doesn’t seem to be pining one bit, and the way he looks at you… Abbey, has he asked you to marry him?’

  And, at the look on Abbey’s face, Janet’s frown deepened.

  ‘He has,’ she announced softly in a voice of discovery. ‘And you’ve told him no. I can see it in your face. Abbey, for heaven’s sake, why did you say no? It’s almost two years since John died. If I, as John’s mother, think it’s time you got a new life for yourself then surely you should too.’ Her eyes perused Abbey’s face with care. ‘Abbey, you love Ryan Henry,’ she said slowly. ‘You love him. So why refuse to marry him?’

  Abbey shook her head, but Janet’s eyes didn’t leave her face. She stood, waiting for an answer, and Abbey had to find one.

  ‘Janet, I must refuse him,’ Abbey said at last. ‘What choice do I have?’ She dug her hands deep into the pockets of her white coat, as though her doctor’s uniform were some sort of security. ‘Janet, Ryan wants me to be a New York consultant’s wife. How on earth can I be that?’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m a doctor in my own right. I fought hard to be what I am.’

  ‘You’ll be what you are if you’re here or if you’re on the other side of the world,’ Janet said brusquely. ‘You’ll be just the same Abbey. Only you’ll be with Ryan.’

  ‘No.’ Abbey shook her head. ‘I won’t be. Janet, Ryan doesn’t even know whether I can get registration. He doesn’t know if I can work. And he doesn’t see… he doesn’t see that it’s important.’

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘You know it is.’ Abbey crossed to the window and stared out over the headland to the sea beyond. ‘Janet, this hospital… I fought so hard for it. We need it. Sapphire Cove needs it. I can’t just walk away.’

  ‘Not even with Ryan?’

  Abbey shook her head.

  ‘I love Ryan, but that’s not all there is in the world,’ she said. ‘Just like my medicine’s important but it’s not everything. Jack… My little Jack would have to wear shoes. He’d lose his people.’ She flung herself around so she was facing Janet again. ‘Ryan says you could come with us. Would you want to come?’

  ‘What-me in New York?’ Janet’s face sagged in astonishment. ’You have to be joking. I was born in Sapphire Cove and I’ll die in Sapphire Cove, thank you very much. The thought of big cities fills me with the heebie-jeebies.’

  ‘Same here,’ Abbey told her, and tried to smile. ‘So, you see? It’s impossible. Crazy.’

  ‘And yet you’re breaking your heart to go with him.’

  ‘It broke my heart when John died,’ Abbey said bleakly. ‘And yet here I am two years later, discussing marrying someone else. Life goes on. I’ll live.’ She stirred herself and crossed to hold the door open for Janet. ‘Enough talk. Let’s get you out to the race and get you walking. When all else fails, Janet Wittner, there’s always work.’

  There was more than that, Abbey thought as she and Eileen took Janet carefully through her exercises. More than just work in her life. There was this place, a wonderful nursing staff, her little son, Janet…

  So why did life still seem so bleak?

  ‘You’re in love with Abbey Wittner!’

  Sam Henry had one sock on and one sock off. Now he paused in his attempts to dress himself and fixed his son with a glare.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I, boy? You’re in love with our Abbey.’

  ‘Dad, if you want me to take you out to see where these turtle eggs are incubating then let’s keep the talk impersonal. Otherwise I might cut and run.’

  ‘Like you and your mother did twenty years ago?’

  ‘Dad…’

  ‘Your mother didn’t like getting involved,’ Sam said darkly. ‘That’s why she hated it here. Hated Sapphire Cove. She should never have agreed to marry me in the first place.’ Sam hauled his shoes on and gave his hand to his son to help him up. Although Sam was recovering well, he was still weak at the knees and breathless. In a few days he’d go home, but this was a first. An outing with Ryan, and then back to hospital at the end of it.

  ‘You thinking of marrying her?’ he demanded bluntly.

  ‘Dad…’

  ‘There’s no use telling me to mind my own business,’ Sam told him. ‘You’re my son-remember? So tell me. Your fiancée’s sloped off back to New York and you’re carrying a ring around with no one to give it to-right? So you’re thinking of marrying our Abbey.’ He steadied on his feet but he didn’t relinquish his grip on his son. ‘You could do worse, Ryan. Abbey’s a damned fine girl.’

  ‘I know she is,’ Ryan said heavily. And then he shrugged. Talking to his father about his personal life was new to him, but he liked the sensation. It was just, well, hard to get used to.

  And it was uncomfortable, talking about Abbey.

  ‘Dad, I have asked her to marry me,’ he confessed.

  Sam stared. ‘Yeah?’ His whole face lightened. ‘You and Abbey… Well, well.’

  ‘She’s refused.’

  Sam frowned.

  ‘Why on earth? Ryan, Janet tells me she’s nuts about You.’

  ‘Janet says… Dad, have you and Janet been talking about us?’

  ‘You have to do something in this dratted hospital if you’re not to go stir-crazy,’ Sam retorted. ‘Between bedpans and library trolleys and people making you do a damned stupid set of exercises, talking to Janet’s been a lifeline. And she’s worried about that girl of hers. Says she’s breaking her heart over you.’

  ‘Not so you’d notice,’ Ryan said morosely. ‘She won’t marry me.’

  ‘Hell, why not?’ Sam’s face was still eager. ‘Maybe it’s just she needs time to get used to the idea. Ryan, it’d be great.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Tell you what. If it’ll help, I’ll buy a little place down closer to the beach and let you kids have the homestead. It’s too big for me and it’d be a great place to bring up kids. That is…’ he was watching Ryan’s bleak face ‘… if you want more kids.’

  But Ryan shook his head. ‘Dad, that’s more than generous, but you must see… Even if Abbey marries me we couldn’t live here.’

  Silence.

  ‘Why not?’ Sam asked at last, but the light had faded from his face as if it had never been.

  ‘Because my life is in New York,’ Ryan said explosively. ‘Hell, Dad, I have a career.’

  ‘And Abbey doesn’t?’

  ‘Well, yes, but what sort of career? It pays peanuts and you know it.’

  ‘Maybe Abbey’s content with peanuts,’ Sam said sadly.

  ‘How can she be?’ Ryan demanded, and it was as if he was talking to himself. ‘She works herself into the ground for nothing. But the lifestyle I’m offering her… I could look after her. Take her away from all this.’

  ‘But Abbey loves “all this”.’ Sam’s face softened. ‘And, Ryan, so should you. You were born here. This is your heritage too.’

  Ryan stared at him in astonishment. ‘Dad, are you seriously suggesting that I should stay here?’

  ‘If you want Abbey.’

  ‘If Abbey loves me then she’ll come with me.’

  ‘No.’ Sam shook his head. ‘Abbey’s not that selfish.’

  ‘Selfish?’

  ‘Abbey could go with you tomorrow-Janet tells me that-and be content. Heck, Ryan, Abbey’s been your other half since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. The two of you are meant for each other. But she won’t abandon her responsibilities, and you can’t ask her to.’

  ‘It’s not like Sapphire Cove owns her.’

  ‘No,’ Sam said sadly. ‘It’s not. But you don’t either and you never will.’

  ‘I don’t want to own her.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Sam shook his head. ‘By taking Abbey away from Sapphire Cove, what would she have but you? She’d be totally dependent on you for her happiness. And you? Would it be the same for you? Will you be dependent on her?
I don’t think so. I’ll just bet you don’t intend to drop your work commitments by one bit.’

  ‘I can’t. Dad-’

  ‘So you won’t change your lifestyle and you’ll expect Abbey to fit in around the edges of your existing life?’ Sam demanded harshly.

  ‘Other women marry men like me.’

  ‘Other women aren’t Abbey,’ Sam said roughly, and he sat heavily on the bed. ‘If you want “other women” go marry “other women”. If you want Abbey I suggest you marry her for what she is. A woman with a heart too big to ever think of leaving us.’

  He looked up at his son and his eyes were full of pain.

  ‘I’m feeling too tired to go look for turtle eggs,’ he said sadly. ‘You go by yourself. Stare out to sea and think about whether poverty really means peanuts! Or whether you really know what love means at all.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE following few days were some of the bleakest of Abbey’s life.

  She should have been cheerful. So many of her problems were solved.

  Janet’s walking went from strength to strength. At the end of the following week Janet could walk, unaided, from one end of the corridor to the other, and was agitating to go home. Only the knowledge that she’d refuse to take things easy when she did go home made Abbey keep her in hospital for a few days longer.

  Sam was home already. Ryan had taken him out to the farm and Abbey hardly saw either of them.

  ‘If there were problems we’d have heard,’ Steve Pryor told her at the end of the following Friday. ‘But, if you’re worried, why don’t you take off early and drop in and see him?’

  ‘No.’

  Abbey and Steve had been sharing the workload for the previous week and had found they worked well together. With two doctors working together, everything was well under control. The hospital was quiet and there was no reason Abbey shouldn’t leave early. But to drop in on Sam meant dropping in on Ryan.

  No and no and no.

  ‘Are you busy tomorrow?’ Steve asked, and Abbey hauled her thoughts back to work.

  ‘No. I’m not busy and my babysitter’s available if you want me to work.’

  ‘Could you run the morning clinic?’ Steve asked. Then he turned pink. ‘I… Caroline and I…’

  Caroline. The pretty young night sister.

  Abbey smiled. ‘You’d like to do something together?’

  ‘Just spend the day at the beach,’ Steve confessed. His blush deepened. ‘I don’t usually swim but Caroline…’

  Caroline was hauling this young man from his academic pursuits with the strength of a bulldozer, Abbey thought Steve only had a week more to work in Sapphire Cove but if Caroline had her way…

  Her thoughts flew off at a tangent. Maybe Steve could be persuaded to work here. Then she could leave…

  No, she couldn’t. There was still Janet. There were still her debts. There was still her little son who should be brought up in the place his father loved.

  ‘What’s wrong, Abbey?’ Steve asked gently. ‘You look sad.’

  ‘Do I?’ Abbey managed a smile. ‘Nope. I was just reminiscing about young love. Far be it from me to put my oar between the pair of you. Certainly have the day off with Caroline. You can work Sunday.’

  ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ Steve leaned over and kissed her on the nose. As working companions they’d achieved almost instant rapport and Abbey was growing fonder of this owlish young man by the minute. ‘And I wouldn’t get too nostalgic about young love just yet, Dr Wittner. You’re not exactly grey-haired and matronly.’

  ‘I’m a widow, Steve.’

  ‘And Ryan Henry’s just lost a fiancée.’

  ‘Steve…’

  ‘I know.’ Steve held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You’re just good friends. And I’m the monkey’s uncle.’

  He laughed and left her, walking down the hospital corridor with his stethoscope swinging jauntily and a bounce in his step.

  Steve was in love and he wanted the world to be in love with him. Well, Abbey was in love, but…

  But there was no happy ending for her love. It didn’t put a bounce in her step.

  A week from today Ryan was due to go back to New York, and life was due to go right back to where she’d left off three weeks ago.

  There was no real need for her to even say goodbye, she thought bleakly. Ryan could leave next week without her seeing him again.

  It didn’t happen, of course.

  Later that night Ryan telephoned her and asked if he could see her.

  Abbey closed her eyes in pain, told him she was busy and put the phone down on its cradle before she broke down and wept.

  She stayed awake all night and stared into the darkness. Thought about the impossibility of what Ryan was asking her to do. Thought about the impossibility of not doing what he wanted. Thought about life without Ryan.

  Impossible.

  On Saturday morning she rose and dressed, and the shadows on her face were darker than ever. She performed morning surgery like an automaton, and by the end of the morning there wasn’t a patient she’d seen who didn’t know there was something seriously amiss with Sapphire Cove’s Dr Wittner.

  And most of them figured what it was.

  There were telephone calls going from one end of the community to the other. But the last telephone call of the morning was the worst. Abbey was in Sister’s station when it came though.

  It was Rod at the surf club, and his voice was shaking as he tried to speak.

  ‘Dr Wittner, you’d better get over here fast. Some idiot’s driven a jet ski straight through the stinger net and into the swimmers. We’ve got two children and Dr Pryor injured here-and they’re all in a bad way.’

  A jet ski.

  Abbey stood motionless for two seconds while she took this on board and there was no comfort in her thoughts. Jet skis were like powerful motorbikes on water. They were totally banned from the swimming beach. Dear heaven… The injuries could be horrific.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ she snapped. ‘Pressure on bleeding wounds, Rod. You know. You can cope until I get there.’

  She slammed down the phone and turned to Eileen. Eileen had been pushing a medication trolley down the corridor but had stopped dead. She’d seen Abbey’s face.

  ‘Eileen, take over the phone,’ Abbey told her, her mind racing. ‘Tell the ambulance to get to the surf club fast A jet ski’s hit swimmers and there are three casualties. Rod sounds horrified and he doesn’t scare easily. I’m going ahead now. Tell the boys to bring as much plasma as they can find. If you can find someone to cover for you here then you come too. Ring the air ambulance from Cairns and get a helicopter here fast. And, Eileen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Abbey took a deep breath. ‘Ring Dr Henry. If he’s still in Sapphire Cove we need him. I have a feeling we need everyone we can get.’

  For the five minutes it took Abbey to reach the beach she prayed she was overreacting. Surely calling the air ambulance was unnecessary. Surely notifying Ryan was stupid.

  She wasn’t overreacting at all.

  Abbey’s car flew over the last hill and one look at the beach told her she was in dire trouble.

  No one was in the water, and for a hot Saturday that was almost unheard-of. Instead, there were scores of people milling around the beach in horrified clusters.

  There were three main groups. Two children had been injured, Rob had said, and Dr Pryor. Steve…

  Dear heaven.

  Abbey pushed her little car as far over the beach as she dared, then grabbed her bag and ran the rest of the way. Her bruised knee was forgotten.

  There were people everywhere!

  ‘Abbey!’ It was Rod, seeing her and calling through the crowd, and his voice was urgent. ‘Abbey, I need you here. Now!’

  Not yet. First she should check all casualties and sort out priorities. Triage… Abbey gave a helpless look around. There seemed to be blood and people everywhere. Many of the swimmers were bloodstained. At a guess, ma
ny had carried the injured from the water.

  There was mass shock, mass distress and tears, and the sobbing of frightened children.

  Caroline, the nurse who’d come to the beach with Steve, was bending over a child, and she seemed to be working frantically. But Rod’s voice was just as frantic and Abbey finally abandoned triage as an impossibility. She trusted Rod enough to be led. Two seconds later she was at Rod’s side and she knew there could be no higher priority than the one facing her.

  Steve.

  Steve Pryor’s leg was slashed to the bone and bright red arterial blood was spurting upwards.

  ‘I can’t stop it,’ Rod gasped. ‘Abbey, help.’ He was searching desperately for a pressure point and getting nowhere. The wound was massive.

  ‘Get me towels!’ Abbey snatched the first towel she could see from one of the limp and appalled bystanders. She shoved it into a pad over Steve’s leg and pressed as hard as she could. She used every muscle she had, and a few she didn’t know she possessed, as she pressed downward.

  ‘OK, Rod, wind another towel around the top of his leg. Fast. You’ll have to burrow under the leg as I can’t take the pressure off here. And, Don… ’ She looked up and directed her gaze at a middle-aged man with a beer gut. The local publican.

  ‘Don, I need your help. Get everyone’s towels, beachbags-anything you can lay your hands on-and shove them under Steve from his waist to his feet. Work under me. Put them under his hips, use them to shore up sand and build a pile. I want Steve’s legs to be above his heart from waist to ankles.’

  The publican looked a sickly shade of green.

  ‘Abbey, I can’t…’

  ‘Don’t give me can’t!’ Abbey snapped. ‘Steve’ll die if you can’t. Just do it!’

  As the publican moved to do her bidding Abbey glanced up as another car roared across the beach and stopped in a shower of sand, its tyres spinning.

  Ryan, too, had beaten the ambulance.

  Ryan… She wasn’t alone.