Healed by Her Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  Angus hoped so.

  If he wanted to find out what had gone on in her life to change her so much, then he needed to get close to her.

  And was figuring out her life over the past three years the only reason he wanted to be close to her?

  Honesty forced him to admit it wasn’t.

  Since the seemingly endless hours they’d spent together, keeping the resort guests safe and relaxed—not to mention the night in the only dry bed on the island after the cyclone had passed—Kate had regularly sneaked into his thoughts.

  Try as he might to forget her, an image of her would suddenly appear in his head, and at times she’d filled his daydreams and haunted his nights.

  Even on that last traumatic posting in South-East Asia, where he’d been treating refugees, men, women and children, fleeing their country, their homes blazing behind them, and their attackers shooting at them as they fled to the nearest border to escape. Even there he’d thought of Kate far more than he’d thought of Michelle.

  And his fiancée had undoubtedly picked up on this to have broken off their engagement within days of his return.

  Although telling her about Kate—about that one night of intimacy—had probably had something to do with it as well...

  And now, even through the layers of clothing they both wore, he could feel the warmth of Kate’s body at his side—feel a rightness in it—as if they belonged.

  Kate...

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CLUSTER OF strobing lights from the emergency vehicles told them they were close, although inside the cabin of the chopper all they could see were the blue and red flashes.

  They put down outside the circle of light and, each grabbing a backpack, jogged closer to the scene.

  ‘We’re still cutting the vehicle free,’ a policeman told them. ‘The road train driver’s been removed. He’s in that ambulance over there.’ He pointed, before adding, ‘You might take a look at him. He’s in a bad way.’

  Blake nodded to Kate, who headed for the ambulance, disconcerted but somehow not surprised when Angus followed her.

  An ambo was using a bag mask ventilator on the driver, while his fellow attendant stuck ECG leads to the man.

  ‘GCS?’ Kate asked, referring to the Glasgow Coma Scale that measured how responsive their patient was.

  ‘Fourteen when we got here, but he’s in and out of consciousness.’

  ‘Coupcontrecoup injury,’ Kate murmured to herself as her mind pictured the scenario. The powerful rig powering through the night, then the car right there. The driver would have slammed on his brakes, and his body, held in place by a seat belt, would have stopped abruptly. But his head?

  She knelt and spoke to the patient, glad to hear a response. She introduced herself and Angus, learning the patient’s name was Mike.

  All good so far.

  ‘Can you remember what happened, Mike?’ she asked.

  ‘The car came flying towards the crossing, I tried to stop.’

  Kate nodded, but wondered just how quickly he had stopped and whether the deceleration had caused his brain to jolt forward into the front of the skull then virtually bounce back to hit the rear.

  The action could result in a serious brain injury but scanning it here would be a waste of time when it would have to be done more precisely at the hospital—and as soon as possible.

  ‘Are you in any pain?’

  ‘Gut hurts, and headache. The guys gave me something.’

  Which probably explained why he was woozy.

  ‘His blood pressure is dropping,’ the paramedic said, nodding towards the monitor.

  Kate checked the fluid line already feeding into a vein in the man’s hand, then took in the abrasions to his neck and chest.

  ‘Seat-belt syndrome,’ she said to Angus, pointing out how deep the indentations were. ‘With a shoulder-lap seat belt the shoulder strap took the brunt of the force. That could cause damage to the carotid. Could you check his distal pulse?’

  She studied the monitor for a moment. Blood oximetry was fine, and when Angus felt a pulse in Mike’s wrist, she was reassured that any loss of blood was not life-threatening.

  Yet.

  She examined his chest, and felt the ribs under the seat belt, but there was no palpable damage.

  ‘Would the big rig slow for the crossing, do you know?’ she asked the ambos.

  They both shook their heads, but one said, ‘I wouldn’t think so. The place is usually deserted at night.’

  ‘So a high-speed collision, rapid deceleration, possible internal injuries including damage to carotid artery.’ She checked the fluid line again then poked her head outside the ambulance.

  Paul was standing nearby.

  ‘Possible internal bleeding from damage to the carotid. Can we lift him immediately?’ she asked.

  Blake, who was over to one side, watching as the car was extricated, came across, took in the information the monitor was now offering and hesitated.

  ‘It’s unlikely anyone in the car survived, but if they did, he or she will be seriously injured and will need immediate transport. We can work on them on the flight. Can you hold him a little longer?’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘We’ll need to keep up the fluids and open up a bigger port in case he needs a rapid infusion,’ she said to Angus as Blake hurried away.

  ‘IO?’ Angus suggested, but Kate already had the intraosseus pack in her hand and was holding the drill that would insert a needle into the bone marrow, while the ambo, who’d kept up with the exchange, was cutting their patient’s shirt and opening it up.

  ‘Here, let me,’ Angus said, taking the drill from her as she used a sterile wipe to clean the site on the man’s unaffected shoulder, at the head of the humerus. ‘We use this more often than not in field situations,’ Angus assured her, ‘and I promise I’ve never once drilled right through the bone.’

  Kate had to smile. It was always a worry, although the devices they used now for IO infusion were very sophisticated. With this access, they could deliver anticoagulant drugs to ward off a possible stroke and add high-volume drugs should the patient go into cardiac arrest.

  Kate administered a local anaesthetic and watched as Angus drilled, then inserted a wide-bore cannula.

  Working together, they set up a fluid line to keep the port open, and, while Angus watched for any change in their patient’s condition, Kate continued her examination. The seat belt had left abrasions across the driver’s chest and lap, and the depth and severity of them told her how violent the impact had been. Once in hospital, there’d be scans that would show the extent of the damage to the chest and abdomen.

  Yet, even with possibly serious injuries, he was luckier than the people in the car. It had been dislodged from under the prime mover, and the damage told a grim story even before the firies started cutting out the bodies. Two people, driver and passenger, and neither had survived, which dampened the spirits of the SDR crew as they flew home with the rig driver.

  Kate did the handover in one of the resus rooms in the ED, hoping they’d got the man to the hospital quickly enough to be saved, although she couldn’t help wondering whether, if they’d flown him out earlier, his chances would have been better.

  ‘You only do what you can,’ came a voice from behind her as she left the hospital.

  She knew before she turned that it was Angus.

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said, and because she was tired, not to mention doubtful about the outcome for her patient, she was hardly gracious.

  ‘It’s two blocks and broad daylight, I don’t need to be walked home.’

  ‘Ah, but my hotel is just across the road from your apartment building, and I might have been suggesting it because I needed to be walked home, only asking you to walk me home might have seemed a bit unmanly.’

  Worried a
s she was, Kate had to smile. She turned to face him, taking in his height and breadth, and the aura of strength that hung around him, contrasting sharply with the gentleness in his dark eyes.

  ‘Unmanly?’ she echoed. ‘That’s not an assumption many people would make!’

  He held out his arm, crooked at the elbow.

  ‘So, shall we walk each other home?’ he said, and somewhere deep inside a little bit of the Kate she used to be began to unfurl, like the petal on a tight rosebud. She slipped her hand inside his arm, telling herself it was just a friendly gesture, except that he cheated and turned his hand to grasp hers, linking them even closer together.

  She should protest.

  Move away!

  But walking like this with Angus was warming places that had been cold for a very long time. Was it so very wrong to be enjoying it?

  Well, probably, yes, given the secret she held so tightly in her heart.

  But he’d be gone tomorrow, back to his own life, and she’d be back at work in Theatre and studying after hours, with exams drawing closer, so how could this little bit of closeness hurt?

  He gave her hand a squeeze and because this was just for now, she squeezed back.

  She pulled away from him as they reached the apartment block, intending to say a cool goodbye, but he caught her hand again, turning so he was facing her.

  ‘Can I see you again?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  He looked puzzled so, although he hadn’t asked why not, she added, ‘You’re married, aren’t you? You and Michelle? After all, that was what you went to island for—checking it out for a honeymoon.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I’d forgotten that’s why I’d gone to the island—well, I hadn’t thought about it for a while. No, we didn’t marry.’

  She waited, not wanting to ask why but aware he had more to say.

  ‘She broke it off. I’d been away, came back changed, she said. And she was probably right. I felt different, less certain of things, not only between us but about life in general.’

  Because of what had happened between us? Kate wondered, guilt biting deep inside her.

  But before she could say anything, Angus was speaking again.

  ‘And it didn’t help telling her about you—about what had happened on the island.’

  ‘You told her about the island? About the night we spent together? Oh, Angus, why on earth would you do that? It was one night. We were in another world—we knew it didn’t mean anything but relief, or celebration, or something. I can’t—’ She looked up into his face as she said it, and saw that he still disagreed.

  And understood.

  His integrity would have insisted he tell, while she, Kate, had held onto her own secret, although it hadn’t really been a secret until Angus had reappeared in her life.

  And telling now? Wouldn’t he feel the pain she’d felt? Those endless, sleepless nights and empty aching arms? Did he deserve that?

  She shook away the thoughts and tried to ignore the cold, hard lump inside her.

  ‘I need some sleep,’ she said, and turned away from him, although she knew sleep would be impossible.

  She made her way up to the apartment in a daze, ate some cereal—soggy—and toast—cold—and tried to pretend it had been just another callout.

  ‘I’m sorry about the breakfast but I always get it ready when I hear the helicopter land,’ Alice was explaining. ‘Did you have a lot to do when you got back that you were late?’

  Kate shook her head. The driver of the road train would have had a battery of tests and was probably getting appropriate treatment right now.

  And the two young people, their lives cut short, were being taken by road transport to the nearest hospital.

  ‘Bad, was it?’ Alice asked, guessing from her silence that things hadn’t gone well.

  ‘Just about as bad as it gets,’ Kate said, and then, knowing Alice would see or hear a report on a news broadcast, she added, ‘It was a road train against a small car and the two young people in the car were killed.’

  ‘That’s shocking,’ Alice said. ‘So dreadful for their families.’

  She paused, then added, ‘But surely we should always take something from these terrible things—from such waste of life. Shouldn’t it make us think about our own lives?’

  Kate looked at the woman who had taken her in when she’d been at her lowest ebb and had coaxed her slowly back to at least a semblance of normal life.

  ‘Do you have regrets about your life? Wish you’d done things differently?’

  Alice smiled and shook her head.

  ‘I’m talking about you, my dear. I know you’re busy with your studies but life is meant to be lived, Kate. You should get out more, meet people away from your work. Those two had their lives taken from them, you still have yours and for their sakes, if nothing more, you should make the most of it.’

  ‘And being the best surgeon I possibly can be isn’t making the most of it?’ Kate retorted.

  Alice just shook her head and began to clear the table.

  But Alice’s words, perhaps because she so rarely talked about personal things and this was twice in two days, remained with Kate as she headed to her bedroom. And a hot shower failed to wash them away, so they lingered in her head, preventing any possibility of sleep. She heard the front door of the apartment open and shut and knew Alice had gone to help out at the charity shop down the road—Animal Welfare on Fridays. Alice’s life was nothing if not predictable.

  Giving up on sleep, Kate pulled on shorts and a light singlet. She’d go for a run, head out along the coastal path towards Coogee. Exercise and fresh, salty air would surely make her sleepy.

  She enjoyed running, and today was even more special as the sun sparkled on the ocean while a gentle breeze kept her cool, and concentrating on where she put her feet and dodging walkers on the path kept her mind off both Angus’s revelation and Alice’s lecture.

  She’d moved to the side of the path to allow a young woman jogging with a toddler in a stroller to pass in the opposite direction when she noticed the tall, upright figure striding—marching?—along the path in front of her.

  Her heart flipped, and confusion fogged her mind—secrets, he’s not married, another secret, her secret, and living life before it was too late all jumbled in her head.

  And if she kept running she’d have to pass him.

  Just run past?

  Could she do that?

  Not really!

  Turn around and go back?

  She usually ran as far as the huge cemetery, where sloping grounds gave such a wide view of the ocean, and to turn before that—well, it was hardly a run at all...

  The memory of the young lives cut short sent her forward, slowing as she reached the marching man.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ she said, slowing to a jog beside him. ‘I couldn’t either, but running always helps.’

  He turned his head and looked at her for a moment, not breaking stride.

  ‘The team should have had a debrief after an incident like that—after every incident, in fact.’

  ‘We do, although today, because Blake went with the bodies to the nearest hospital, we’ll have it later. Probably this evening. Mabel will let us know.’

  ‘Jogging is bad for your knees and ankles,’ he muttered, in an even more critical tone.

  ‘I don’t usually jog, I run,’ she told him, curt to the point just short of rudeness because the man was causing so many strange reactions in her body. ‘I’m jogging out of politeness to keep up with you, although you obviously don’t want company, so I’ll keep running.’

  And she ran on, building up speed until she was running almost flat out by the time she reached her goal.

  But even at full speed she cou
ldn’t outrun her awareness of Angus, stoically marching along the track behind her.

  She settled on a grassy patch in the middle of the cemetery, beside a carved marble statue of a cherub that presided over the grave of a small boy who’d died back in 1892. His name had been Joshua and she’d been drawn to him although he’d lived for seven months, while her child, also a boy, had not lived at all.

  And although her occasional chats with Joshua usually comforted her, today her thoughts were with her baby—Jasper she’d called him—and the way he’d felt in her arms as she’d held him that one time—

  Had she been so lost in memories of that terrible day that she hadn’t seen Angus approaching?

  ‘Sorry I was grumpy,’ he said, hovering above her. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  He squatted down to read Joshua’s memorial.

  ‘I suppose parents in those days were aware their kids could die young,’ he added, settling himself comfortably on the grass beside her as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be sharing this particular patch of grass.

  Her patch of grass!

  Hers and Jasper’s...

  ‘Do you think that would have lessened their grief?’ she asked, handing him the water bottle she’d pulled from her small backpack, while certain she knew the answer to the question.

  Nothing lessens grief like that...

  He tipped his head back to drink and she saw the strong column of his neck, the slight bump of his Adam’s apple, and added the images to others that she had of Angus, stored away safely in the back of her mind, only taken out to study on very rare occasions.

  ‘No,’ he said, startling her out of her dreams as he returned the bottle, his fingers brushing hers, confusing her body with the intimacy of a single touch.

  ‘It could never be easy. I keep thinking of the families of those young people today. I’ve seen too many young people die, Kate, and the more I see, the more I think we owe them something. Owe it to them not to waste our own lives—to make the most of whatever time we have—not solely in pursuit of pleasure but both in work and play.’

  Kate was silent for a moment, then admitted, ‘Alice was saying much the same thing to me this morning. It was why I couldn’t sleep.’