A Forever Family for the Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  Hallie saved the day this time. She set the roasted leg of lamb on the table and handed Pop the carving knife and fork, Lila brought over dishes filled with crisply roasted potatoes and sticky baked pumpkin, while Izzy did her bit, taking the jugs of gravy from the warming drawer in the big oven and setting them on the table.

  ‘Right!’ Hallie said. ‘Guest of honour—that’s you, Mac—at the head of the table. Izzy, you’ll be working with him so you might as well get to know a bit about him. You sit on one side and Lila on the other, and no descriptions of operations of any sort, please, Lila. Pop, you sit next to Lila, and then Nikki, and on the other side Marty and Cindy, and I’ll sit at the end because—’

  ‘Because you have to get up and down to get things,’ the family chorused, and Izzy began to relax.

  This was home, this was family, this was where she was safe, so who cared if her body found Mac whoever he was—did he have a last name?—attractive? Of course she’d felt attraction before—although not for quite a while, now she thought about it.

  ‘Are you going to sit?’

  Heat crept up her neck and with her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head, the wretched man would see it! How was she to know he’d hold her chair for her?

  She thumped down in the seat, too quickly for him to guide it into place, pulled it in herself and turned to offer a brusque thank you. She met the blue of his eyes and felt herself drowning.

  This wasn’t attraction, this was madness.

  ‘So, why Wetherby?’

  Lila saved her again, asking the question that had been in Izzy’s mind, only hers had been phrased more as ‘Why the hell Wetherby?’.

  Now he was smiling at Lila—well, what man didn’t smile at Lila?—and the kind of dark voice she remembered from the beach was explaining in short, fairly innocuous sound bites: army doctor, Middle East on and off over the last few years—

  ‘—so when I decided to get out of the service I looked for somewhere green, and close to the surf, yet small enough to be peaceful.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly that—I’m guessing a month here and you’ll be bored to tears,’ Cindy told him.

  ‘Hey, Cindy, this is my home!’ Marty protested.

  ‘And this is only the second time you’ve been here, Cindy, and then only for a night,’ Nikki pointed out.

  ‘Are all small-town people as defensive as Wetherbyans?’ Mac murmured to Izzy, who felt the heat of his body radiating towards her and the breath of his words brush against her skin so all she could do was look blankly at him.

  ‘Of course,’ Lila said briskly, and although she’d once again saved the day, she was also studying Izzy closely. Probably trying to work out what was happening.

  As if I know, Izzy thought desperately, passing the potatoes to their guest, while Lila piled slices of meat from the platter Pop had filled onto Mac’s plate.

  Mac took the offerings of vegetables as they arrived and passed them on, poured gravy on his meat, and when his hostess picked up her knife and fork, he began to eat.

  He tried to make sense of this family—anything to forget the woman by his side and the effect she was having on him. But how big, blond, blue-eyed Marty could be related to the beautiful Lila, let alone the petite redhead by his side, was beyond him.

  ‘We’re foster kids.’

  He wasn’t sure whether he was more surprised by Izzy speaking to him or the fact that she’d read his thoughts.

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and there’s heaps more of us. It was a nunnery, you see, and Pop bought it for a song when he and Hallie married, and they intended filling it with their own kids, but that didn’t happen so they went out and found the strays that careless parents leave behind, or kids whose parents died, in Lila’s case. And they gave us all unquestioning love, and stability, and the confidence to be anything we wanted to be. But more than that, they gave us the security of a home, a family.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Lila said, nodding from his other side.

  ‘And it’s been the best thing that happened in all of our lives,’ Marty put in, although Hallie was telling them to hush, it was nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.

  But for some reason Mac’s thoughts had stopped earlier in the conversation so although he’d heard the rest, and been impressed, the question that came out was, ‘A nunnery?’

  How could these beautiful women be living in a nunnery? Except it wasn’t a nunnery, of course it wasn’t, it was just that his brain wasn’t working too well. There was nothing immodest about the sprite’s clothing, but from where he was sitting he could see the tops of the soft roundness of her breasts, and blood that should have been feeding his brain was elsewhere.

  ‘It was cheap,’ the man they all called Pop offered. ‘And not that hard to knock two or three of the little cells together into decent-sized bedrooms.’

  ‘You’re a carpenter? Builder?’

  Pop smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Truckie—mainly long haul. I’ve taught all the kids to drive trucks.’

  ‘I’m learning now,’ Nikki announced, adding, rather to Mac’s relief, ‘Though only in the paddocks behind the house at the moment.’

  The talk turned to the animals kept in the paddocks—did Mac ride? That was Nikki. Hallie mentioned the vegetable garden—‘Feel free to help yourself to any vegetable...we always have far too many!’—and with the simple, delicious meal, and the general chat, Mac found himself relaxing in the midst of this strange family.

  ‘You’ve family yourself, Mac?’ Pop asked.

  ‘Parents, of course,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t see much of them. The army, you know—you never know from one day to the next where you’ll be.’

  He didn’t add that their regular divorces and remarriages had dulled any filial emotion he’d ever felt for them.

  ‘Married?’

  This time the question came from the beautiful Lila and he didn’t miss the wink she sent to Izzy.

  Best to get that sorted once and for all, and quickly.

  ‘Was once,’ he replied, forcing himself to speak normally, although what felt like a very unsubtle third degree had his temper rising.

  ‘And once was more than enough,’ he added, to underline the point.

  He glanced at Izzy, who was blushing furiously, and realised the questions weren’t so much for him but to tease her.

  Marty put a stop to it.

  ‘Enough!’ he said, directing the word at Lila. ‘Pop asked a normal, everyday question, but all you’re doing, Lila, is teasing Izzy.’

  He turned to Mac.

  ‘Izzy had an unfortunate experience with a doctor we had here a few years ago and it’s become a bit of a family joke.’

  The shrill tone of a mobile phone broke up the conversation, and it was Marty who pulled one from his pocket, glancing at it and moving away.

  ‘Work. I’ll probably have to go,’ he explained as he moved into a small room off the kitchen.

  ‘Marty’s a pilot on the rescue helicopter,’ Lila explained, as the whole family turned anxious eyes towards the small room.

  He returned briskly, grabbing a jacket from the back of his chair.

  ‘Got to go! Cindy, you coming or staying? If you’re coming there’s no time to get your stuff.’

  Cindy, too, pushed back her chair.

  ‘Coming,’ she said.

  The pair had barely left the room when another mobile sounded, and, having been free of its tyranny for three weeks, it took Mac a moment to realise it was his.

  He glanced at the message on the screen before he, too, stood up.

  ‘Looks like I’m starting work early. I’m sorry, Mrs Halliday. The meal, what I managed to eat of it, was wonderful.’

  ‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ t
he sprite announced.

  ‘I know the way.’

  He didn’t really snap, it just came out a bit sharp, images of the tops of her soft breasts still lingering in his head.

  ‘Sure, but you only arrived in town this morning so I doubt you know your way around the hospital. Hallie might have given you the basic tour, but if it’s an emergency—and it will be if Marty’s flying someone in—then you need the best help you can get, and that’s me.’

  She paused, then added with a teasing smile, ‘So, lucky you!’

  She couldn’t possibly have known what he was thinking—not possibly, but it was obvious she intended coming with him as she rushed around the table kissing Hallie, Pop, Nikki and Lila, before linking her arm through his and practically dragging him out the door.

  Escaping?

  It certainly seemed that way as she led him headlong down the hill to the small hospital.

  ‘But aren’t you just off night duty?’

  Good, he’d not only remembered something she’d said this morning, but had also managed a question, so his brain must be back in gear.

  ‘Yes, but in case you didn’t notice there was a certain amount of conspiracy stuff going on around that table tonight.’

  ‘Conspiracy?’

  He didn’t want to admit he’d been more than slightly distracted by his neighbour at the table.

  ‘Never mind,’ Izzy said. ‘Silly family stuff! I was just glad to get away.’

  She moved a little further from him now she had him out of the house.

  Sitting next to him, conscious of every movement of his body, had been torture, especially since she’d noticed the silky hairs on his forearms.

  Dark, silky hairs...

  Mesmerising dark silky hairs...

  She shook her head, glad of the darkness so he didn’t see her shaking loose her thoughts.

  They were going to work and this was actually a good opportunity to see if she could detach herself from the idiotic attraction and concentrate solely on whatever they had to get done.

  Never in her twenty-six years with the Hallidays had she been diverted from the sheer gluttonous enjoyment of one of Hallie’s roast dinners, yet there she’d been, her fork toying with a piece of pumpkin as she’d wondered if his arms would feel as silky as they looked.

  ‘But you have just come off night duty?’ Mac asked, successfully getting her mind off silky hairs—though only just...

  ‘Yes, but I’ve had a good sleep today. It’s why I jog. The steady pace seems to get rid of any leftover work tension and I can sleep like a baby.’

  ‘Some babies don’t sleep all that well,’ Mac muttered.

  What babies did he know?

  Not that it mattered...

  ‘We can go in this way,’ she told him, leading him to the kitchen door at the rear of the building. ‘We’ve only eleven patients at the moment with another seven in the nursing home at the back, so there’ll be two registered nurses and two aides on duty in the main hospital, with another RN on call. Actually, there should be one of the local GPs on call, but there’s a wedding...’

  She led him down a short corridor, waving to a woman sitting at a curved desk in a room to the left.

  ‘That’s Abby,’ she told him. ‘Abby, Mac, Mac, Abby.’

  ‘Good thing you had your phone on,’ Abby told him. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to find you otherwise. I know you haven’t officially started work but there’s been an RTA on the highway, helicopter will bring in one patient for stabilisation and onward transport, and there are two ambulances also on the way.’

  A patient requiring stabilisation was a tough introduction, but Mac was intrigued.

  ‘And how do you get this information? Know to be prepared?’

  He’d asked the question into the air between her and Abby, so Izzy answered him.

  ‘First on scene is almost always police. They radio for ambulance support, a paramedic with the ambulance team assesses the injured and organises everything until the patients are safely removed.’

  ‘He can order a helicopter?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Providing one can land,’ Izzy responded. ‘And Marty can land just about anywhere. Roads are great if they’re flat and straight, but around here it’s been dairy country since for ever, and there are fields close to the roads even in the hills.’

  Izzy was leading him towards the large room that was their ‘emergency department’, as she explained. The room had a desk, curtains that could be drawn to allow privacy for patients and on the far side, three small rooms.

  ‘The first one is the resus room,’ Izzy told him. ‘Next to it is a quiet room for mental health patients who sometimes find other people disconcerting, then a kind of all-purpose room, used for everything from resus to upset kids, to talking quietly to relatives when necessary.’

  Mac heard a hitch in her voice and knew that talking to relatives—usually with grim news—wasn’t one of her favourite things. In a small town, a death would probably be someone she knew...

  He wanted to touch her shoulder, say he was sorry, but why?

  An excuse to touch her?

  To feel that golden skin?

  Fortunately, while totally irrational and unmedical thoughts flashed through his mind he heard the whup, whup, whup of the helicopter.

  Not a big army helicopter carrying injured troops—a smaller chopper, light, one patient. He was fine, but as sweat broke out on his forehead he wondered why he hadn’t considered rescue helicopters when he’d chosen Wetherby.

  Because he’d thought it was too small?

  Or because he’d doubted the noise of the little dragonfly helicopters he’d encounter in civilian life would affect him?

  ‘You okay?’

  He shook his head, then realised she’d probably take it as a negative reply, so he said, ‘Of course,’ far too loudly and followed her out the door, presumably to meet their patient.

  The rotors were still moving when a crewman ducked out to open the door wider so they could access the stretcher. Marty appeared from the front cabin to help and Mac was left to follow behind as his patient was rushed with admirable efficiency into the hospital.

  Following behind, in the lights that surrounded the landing circle, he could see the patient was in a neck brace and secured onto a long spine board, with padded red supports preventing any head movement. One arm was in a temporary splint, and a tourniquet controlled blood loss from a messy wound on his left leg.

  Mac’s mind was on procedure, automatically listing what had to be done before the patient was transferred on to a major trauma centre.

  ‘No obvious skull fracture,’ the paramedic reported, ‘but the GCS was three.’

  So, some brain damage! A subdural haematoma with blood collecting inside the skull and causing pressure on the brain?

  A CT scan would assess head injury, but would moving him for the scan cause more complications?

  This was a patient with spine and head secured and moving on to a major hospital.

  Leave the CT scan to them!

  Intubation?

  Definitely!

  A young woman, presumably the paramedic, was using a manual resuscitator to help his breathing.

  ‘The paramedic is intubation trained,’ Izzy explained, somehow picking up on his thoughts once again, ‘and I know the literature is divided about whether or not to intubate at the scene, but if we’re doing the main stabilisation here, the paramedics tend not to intubate as that way they get the patients to us faster.’

  Mac nodded. The patient’s worst enemy, with severe trauma, was time. The sooner he or she had specialised help, the better the outcome.

  So, intubation first, Izzy already checking for any obstruction in the mouth, before passing Mac what he needed for ra
pid sequence intubation. While he checked the tube was in place, she attached it to the ventilator.

  The medical personnel from the helicopter were assisting, one taking blood for testing, the other setting up for an ECG.

  ‘We coordinate our rosters,’ Izzy explained as she set up the portable X-ray machine. ‘Ambulance, helicopter and hospital, so we always have emergency-trained personnel to assist in a crisis. These two both work at Braxton Hospital when they’re not rostered on ambulance or helicopter duty. The helicopter is based at Braxton, an hour and a half away, but the patient was brought here for stabilisation because we’re closer.’

  Mac wanted to ask why the helicopter pilot was in Wetherby if he was on call, but the screen was in place, the picture showing a shadow that suggested a subdural haematoma and, anyway, he had other things to worry about.

  Do a CT scan to be sure?

  It meant moving the patient to the radiography room, maybe doing further damage to his spine—

  No time!

  Mac had already decided he’d have to drill a small hole into the patient’s skull and insert a catheter to drain off some blood to relieve the pressure before he could be sent on.

  Apparently Izzy had also read the situation correctly and had already shaved and prepped the area of scalp the shadow indicated.

  The two paramedics—Mac had decided that’s what they must be—had been making notes of all the findings, although all the information would also go directly into the computer. Mac knew the notes would travel with the patient in case of computer glitches.

  ‘Are you okay in helicopters? Did Hallie ask you that?’ The gold-flecked eyes were fixed on his face as Izzy asked the questions.

  ‘Practically never out of one,’ he told her as he carefully drilled through the patient’s skull. ‘Why?’

  He sounded confident but Izzy was sure he’d gone pale and sweaty when the helicopter had come in.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘another statistic shows better outcomes for serious trauma patients if a physician travels with them. I can stay here and Roger—have you even met our other resident doctor, Roger Grey?—he’ll come if I need him. Would you be okay with going along?’