A Forever Family for the Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  She paused, watching for any hint of a reaction, but Mac’s attention was on the delicate job of inserting a catheter into the wound he’d created.

  That done, he looked up at her, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above her head so she couldn’t read any reaction in them.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, but so shortly, so abruptly she guessed he’d rather poke a needle in his eye. ‘We’ll start a drip, and make sure there’s saline, swabs and dressings available on the chopper. I’ll look at his leg on the way.’

  She went off to check, returning in time for Mac to give the order to return the patient to the chopper. However, a grim set to the new doctor’s face made her wonder just what horrors he had seen in the helicopters that were used to ferry casualties in war zones.

  A wailing ambulance siren recalled her to the other casualties coming in. Megan, the most experienced of the two paramedics, had given up her place in the helicopter for Mac and stayed at the hospital to help with the incoming patients.

  There were three, none too serious, but two needing limbs set and the other slightly concussed. Izzy and Megan began the initial assessment, GCS and ECG, palpated skulls for signs of injury, set up drips with analgesia. One by one they were wheeled through to the radiography room for X-rays, and for the concussion patient a CT scan, Izzy blessing the radiography course she’d completed.

  It was painstaking work, but needed to be completed swiftly in case some major problem showed up, so time passed without them realising that dawn was breaking outside the hospital, the sun rising majestically out of the ocean.

  They were studying the films of the second of the limb injuries, a compound fracture of the ankle, when they heard the helicopter returning.

  ‘That’s your lift home,’ Izzy told Megan. ‘And I think you should take Mr Anderson back to Braxton with you. That ankle will need pins and plating, and you’ve got an orthopod on tap up there.’

  ‘Good idea. Of course we’ll take him. I’ll get Marty and Pete in to give a hand loading him.’

  Izzy started on the paperwork for admitting the other two patients, one for observation, the other to have further X-rays then a temporary cast fitted on his leg, which would keep the bone stable until the swelling went down and a firmer cast could be used.

  ‘And now we’re all done, here comes the cavalry.’ Megan nodded to the door where Roger Grey had appeared, accompanied by two of the day-shift nurses.

  ‘Big night, do you need a hug?’ Roger said, heading for Izzy with every intention of providing one.

  She ducked away. Not that there was anything remotely sexual or untoward in Roger’s hugs—he was just a touchy-feely kind of man, and there were often times when a member of the staff appreciated a quick hug.

  But ducking away had her backing into someone else—someone who’d come in through the patient entrance, someone with a rock-solid body who steadied her with his hands, holding her in such a way she could see those dark silky hairs...

  Moving hurriedly—escaping, really—she made the introductions, gave Roger a brief précis of what they’d already done for the two new patients, explained the third would go to Braxton, then, as exhaustion suddenly struck her, she turned towards the cloakroom. There’d be a bikini, shirt, shoes and socks in her locker. She would run off the tension of the night, then swim, before heading home to sleep.

  She peeled off the scrubs she’d been wearing since the ambulances had come in and threw them into the bin by the door—the opening door.

  Mac’s head poked around it.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, though in bra and pants she was quite respectable. ‘I wondered if you were going for a run. It’s definitely what I need and we’d look silly running separately along the path.’

  She’d have liked to say she was taking the path south but that would sound petty; besides, she wanted to collect the sleeping bag.

  So she nodded, in spite of knowing that she was making a rash decision.

  ‘I imagine you’ll have to go home and change. I’ll wait by your gate.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’LL WAIT BY your gate!

  How stupid could she be?

  This man, Mac, was causing her enough problems without her agreeing to go jogging with him—actually making arrangements to be with him instead of as far away from him as possible, which would have been the really sensible decision.

  Although they’d be colleagues so she couldn’t escape him forever.

  She began some routine stretching so she wouldn’t have to think about him—well, not as much...

  He emerged in shorts and a faded T-shirt, his hair loose and tangled again, hanging just long enough to hide his ears.

  Her body reacted with the little flutters and zings, but she was getting used to them now.

  Nearly!

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, and sorry to barge in on your run as well, but there were things I wanted to know.’

  He brushed against her as he shut the gate, and, yes, the hairs were just as silky as they looked, and, no, she was not going to touch them...

  ‘Such as?’ she said instead.

  ‘If your brother was on duty last night, shouldn’t he have been in Braxton where the helicopter is based?’

  They were walking briskly through the town and fortunately it was too early for many of the locals to be around.

  ‘He has his own—his own helicopter, I mean. He can be back in Braxton as quickly as if he’d driven from his house there to the hospital. The paramedics load any extras he might need while his crewmate checks the machine. All he really does is get in and fly the thing, although he was a trained paramedic as well as the pilot.’

  She paused, wanting to ask her own question about helicopters, but realised it was probably far too personal.

  So she stuck with Marty.

  ‘Even when he was young he had a passion for them. Pop made him a little model one that had some string around the rotor stem and you wound it up then pulled and the helicopter took off. But most of the time he just ran around with it in the air, making helicopter noises, diving, and rising, and chasing the rest of us.’

  They’d reached the track and set out in a slow jog.

  ‘You were a happy family, then?’ he asked, turning to look at her as he asked the question, his eyes studying her face.

  Looking for a lie?

  ‘Very,’ she said firmly. ‘Oh, we had our fights like any family and there were always kids who found it hard to fit in.’

  She faltered, paused, looked out to sea before adding, ‘Some of them had been so traumatised, so badly abused, they hated being happy, I guess.’

  Mac nodded. You couldn’t get through training as a doctor without seeing the horrific things people could do to one another—could do to children. At least, that was what he’d thought until he’d gone to war.

  ‘Hallie and Pop must be remarkable people,’ he said, forcing his mind back to the present as they resumed their jog, speeding up slightly.

  ‘They are,’ Izzy agreed, and the simple confirmation, the love in her voice, told him far more than the words.

  They jogged in silence, and he breathed in the sea air and marvelled at the might of the waves crashing against the cliffs, the beauty in the scraggly, wind-twisted trees along the path, the little cove...their porpoise cove?

  ‘The helicopter bothered you last night?’

  He’d been so lost in his contemplation of the scene—concentrating on the details of the beauty around him to avoid his reactions to the woman beside him—that the question startled him.

  He didn’t have to answer it, he decided, but within a minute realised his companion—colleague, as he should be thinking of her—wasn’t so easily silenced.

  ‘Just the sound of it coming in made you go pale, yet you agreed
to accompany the patient to the city.’

  She was stating a fact, not asking a question, so now he didn’t have to...

  Except...

  Except he wanted to!

  For some reason, in this beautiful place, with this woman he barely knew by his side, he did want to talk about it.

  ‘It wasn’t fear so much as memory,’ he said, stopping to look out to sea while he found the words.

  Not the words for the unimaginable horror—no words could cover that—but enough words to explain, to her and to himself.

  ‘On my last tour one crashed—not a medical evac chopper but a big Chinook, carrying troops. One guy died and the others were badly injured. Getting them out of there was surreal, like living a nightmare. We weren’t in much danger, weren’t under direct attack, but putting men who’d been through what they’d been through into another bird, well, some of them just couldn’t handle it.’

  A hand slid into his and small fingers squeezed his.

  ‘Were you able to sedate them?’

  He nodded, then admitted, ‘Only some.’

  She removed her hand, stepped away to look more closely at him, folded her arms—to stop her hand straying again?—and shook her head.

  ‘Well, I think given that experience, plus all the other things you’ve seen, you were remarkably brave going off last night.’

  He had to smile at her fierce defence of him, a man she barely knew, but smiling at her brought a smile to her face, too, and the dimple peeped from her cheek.

  And there was no way he couldn’t touch it—just reach out and brush his forefinger against it.

  She lifted her hand. To smack his away? But, no, all she did was brush her fingers across his forearm, then she beckoned with her head so once again they began to jog.

  But the touches, unexpected yet somehow intimate, had changed something between them. It was acknowledgement certainly, but was it also acceptance of the attraction that had inexplicably sprung up between them, right back when they’d first met?

  Or was he being fanciful?

  Did she feel it or was her touch nothing more than a casual gesture?

  Did it matter when he’d decided he didn’t do attraction any more?

  And he certainly didn’t dally with colleagues...

  He shook his head—he didn’t do fanciful thinking either. Somewhere along the coast path to Wetherby he’d lost his common sense.

  But glancing towards her, her strides lengthening now, the golden limbs moving with such grace, he felt a tightening in his gut, and in his groin if he was honest—

  Tricky when they worked together.

  Especially tricky when he knew the danger of physical attraction...

  He lengthened his own stride, catching up and keeping pace with her, but they were beyond casual conversation now; it was a sprint, an unspoken challenge, and when she muttered, ‘To the she-oak,’ in laboured tones, he understood the challenge.

  They sprinted, and male pride made sure he won, although she wasn’t far behind, collapsing against the rough bark of the tree, fighting for her breath, while he was bent, hands on knees, dragging air into his depleted lungs.

  ‘Well, if that doesn’t help us sleep, nothing will,’ Izzy finally had breath enough to say.

  Mac, still bent, turned his head towards her.

  ‘That was torture. I’m a walker, not a runner.’

  But he was smiling as he spoke, and Izzy knew for certain she was lost. It had been bad enough when he’d touched her cheek and she’d reacted by feeling those silky hairs, but bent over, smiling up at her—a teasing smile—she understood that whatever it was she was feeling it was mutual.

  And dangerous!

  Especially now, when getting involved with a man was the last thing she needed—well, wanted...

  And as for attraction, that was just a fleeting thing, and too easily confused with love, and love would be downright impossible just now.

  Ignoring it seemed the best option, so she stood up straight, pulled off her shirt, kicked off her runners, and headed for the beach.

  ‘It’s a safe swimming spot if you don’t go out too far, where there could be rips and undertows.’

  Mac had straightened up and now he looked around.

  ‘Isn’t this our beach?’

  Dear heaven, surely they weren’t going to have an ‘our’ beach! Not yet, not already—this was moving far too fast and she wasn’t even sure what ‘this’ was...

  Although she knew for sure she didn’t want it.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘The porpoise cove—’ no our beach from her! ‘—was the last one we passed, and someone had already removed your sleeping bag.’

  But he’d stripped the T-shirt off his chest, and the sight of his upper body, a six-pack, no less, left her too breathless to say more.

  She raced down the beach and dived beneath the first wave, the cold water providing a cooling balm to her overheated body.

  Not that he was going to let it go, she realised as he, too, dived in and emerged beside her.

  ‘A cold swim is as good as a cold shower, I guess,’ he said, smiling down at her, and while she was deciding that the man was just a flirt who went for any woman within reach and she should steer very clear of him, he tucked a strand of hair back behind her ears, then licked his fingers.

  ‘Mmm...salty,’ he murmured, before diving beneath the water again.

  Well, that was weird, but didn’t it prove that he was definitely a flirt who went for any woman within reach, and she definitely should steer clear of him?

  More chilled by her thoughts than the water, she headed for the beach, crossed the rocks that guarded it, then pulled on her shirt. She’d carry her runners back to the fresh-water tap and clean her feet of sand before putting them on.

  Mac was still in the water, swimming strongly back and forth across the little cove, but heeding her warning not to go too far out.

  * * *

  Realising he couldn’t stay there for ever, Mac reluctantly left the water, walked up the beach, and along the path to join Izzy at the tap. That touch on her errant curl had been a mistake, and given that he was attracted to the woman, such touches were to be avoided in the future.

  They barely knew each other, and he really should be putting all his efforts into getting this, his first civilian job, sorted. He’d managed the emergency situation the previous evening satisfactorily—even managed the helicopter flight—but responding to an emergency was automatic. It was the rest of the job he had to get on top of, things like who did what, and when, and where.

  There’d be rosters and staff duty statements and daily, weekly and monthly targets—all the bumf so beloved of bureaucrats everywhere, not only those in the army.

  He eyed the woman standing waiting for him. It was a wonder she hadn’t jogged away, but as she hadn’t...

  Keep your distance? suggested his sensible self. But surely the thought in his head would count as sensible!

  ‘I don’t officially start work until tomorrow, but you obviously know your way around the hospital, so I wondered if, after we’ve both had a sleep, you’d mind showing me around and telling me how things work and who’s who, and how the GPs fit in and—’

  ‘Who’s good and who isn’t, who’s lazy and who’s great?’

  ‘No, no, I’m sure they’re all great but it’s more about—I don’t know. I’ve an appointment with the hospital manager tomorrow morning but I have a feeling that will be all facts and figures and paperwork, not patients and staff and—’

  He halted suddenly, mainly because those brown-gold eyes were fixed on his face.

  Studying him or drinking in every silly word he was muttering?

  ‘More to get a feel for the place,’ she offered politely, and he laug
hed, not so much at the mock politeness but that she’d picked up on what he’d been trying to ask.

  Not that she’d said yes...

  ‘Four o’clock?’ she suggested, and he felt a surge of pleasure—well, he was pretty sure it was just pleasure.

  ‘Great! Maybe we could even have dinner afterwards—you can show me the best places to eat in town.’

  Had he gone too far? She hesitated.

  She had a daughter.

  A partner as well?

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but I can’t be late home. Nikki goes back to school tomorrow and she can twist Hallie and Pop around her little finger and they’ll let her stay up as late as she likes.’

  She paused then added, with a smile, ‘They never let us stay up late before a school day!’

  And in spite of the complaint, Mac read the love for the people who’d brought her up in her voice and saw it shining in her eyes.

  * * *

  Was she out of her mind?

  Her body was already attracted to this man, so what would happen if she got to know him better?

  Did he read her hesitation in her agreement that he asked, ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Well, at the risk of sounding embarrassingly ridiculous, I’d like you to understand it’s just dinner, not a date.’

  His eyes twinkled—and her stomach churned.

  ‘I don’t date, you see,’ she added, hoping to stop the churning with practicality. ‘Well, not at the moment.’

  ‘So dinner, not a date, that’s okay.’ A smile playing around the words only added to the stomach churning!

  ‘Although at the risk of my sounding ridiculous, why don’t you date? Not that I expected it to be. A date, you know—’

  Of course he wouldn’t—a guy who looked like him could have any woman he wanted, so why waste time with a scrawny redhead, especially one encumbered with a daughter?

  So she’d made a complete fool of herself even mentioning dates.

  And had a question to answer!

  She looked at him and sighed.

  ‘Long story but I’ll definitely take you over the hospital this afternoon.’