The Doctor's Rebel Knight

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Sergeant Hawke,’ she said, unable to kept the chill from her tone even though her body felt blisteringly hot.

  ‘Nice day for a walk,’ he said, reaching down to toss the stick for Rufus again.

  Fran couldn’t help noticing the way his biceps bulged as he threw the stick. He was in perfect physical condition, muscular and toned with not a gram of non-functional flesh—as Caro would call it—on his frame. His skin was a deep olive, covered now with a glistening layer of perspiration from hard physical exercise. His shoulders were broad, his waist and hips lean, so lean she could see every contour of his external oblique muscle above his hips. Stop staring at his groin, she chided herself, and quickly brought her eyes up to his.

  She suddenly realised it was her turn to say something. ‘Um…yes…Rufus likes a lot of exercise.’

  Jacob Hawke gave her his first smile. Well, strictly speaking, it was really more of a half-smile but Fran still found herself staring at him as if he had zapped her with a stun gun. Her breath hitched in her throat, her stomach gave a little flip turn and her legs—even her good one—threatened to fold beneath her.

  Fran hadn’t realised she had even stumbled until his hand shot out and steadied her. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, frowning at her in concern.

  She looked down at his long tanned fingers almost over-lapping on her forearm and gave a little shiver. Her skin was a light golden honey colour from her days on the beach but nowhere near the darkness of his. Her arm was smooth and hairless while his was liberally covered with springy masculine hair, right down his arms to the backs of his hands and along each of his long fingers.

  ‘Dr Nin?’

  Fran brought her eyes back to his. ‘Sorry…’ She swept her tongue out over her lips. ‘I’m still not all that steady on sand. It’s supposed to be good physio for me…you know, walking with bare feet.’

  Jacob dropped his hand from her arm, his fingers still tingling slightly even when he took the stick Rufus was poking against his thigh and threw it towards the rolling waves. ‘How’d it happen?’ he asked, turning back to look at her.

  Something moved in her eyes, like a stagehand quickly re-arranging something on the set before the audience could notice. ‘Skiing,’ she said, looking away into the distance. ‘In New Zealand.’

  Jacob let a little silence pass.

  ‘So, how long are you staying in town?’ he asked.

  ‘About three months or so,’ she answered, trying to capture Rufus’s collar as he came back with the stick. ‘We should let you get on with your run.’

  ‘I’m done,’ Jacob said. ‘I was going to head into the surf to cool off. Have you been in the water yet?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ she said, reaching for the dog again.

  Rufus darted out of her reach and, barking madly, raced off after a seagull.

  ‘I’ll get him,’ Jacob said and, putting two fingers to his mouth, gave a whistle that would have stopped a train. Rufus skidded to a halt and turned and ran back, his ears flopping and his tail wagging.

  ‘I’ll hold him while you clip on his lead,’ Jacob offered.

  Fran couldn’t believe how uncooperative her fingers were in performing such a simple task but somehow Jacob Hawke’s fingers brushing against hers as he held Rufus in place sent jolts of electricity up and down her spine. Finally the dog was back on the lead and she straightened. ‘Thank you,’ she said, looping the lead twice around her wrist for insurance. ‘Enjoy your swim.’

  She began to walk back the way she had come but Rufus proved reluctant to leave. He kept looking back at the tall figure behind, who when Fran took a covert glance was now carving his way through the surf in long easy strokes. His running shoes and socks were on the beach, along with his shorts. Fran didn’t want to think too much about what he was swimming in. Male underwear was very similar to male swimwear but she didn’t want to be around to make up her mind which he was wearing, if anything. She gave Rufus’s lead another firm tug and headed up the path to Caro’s house.

  ‘Fran, oh, thank God you’re back,’ Caro said as soon as she came in the door. ‘I think I need to go to hospital. I’m bleeding.’

  Fran pushed aside her feelings of panic and did her best to get into doctor mode but she felt helplessly inadequate, more so because it was her sister and she couldn’t summon up even a millimetre of clinical distance. ‘How much blood?’ she asked. ‘Just a show or a steady stream?’

  ‘A show at first and then I got a few cramps and now it’s getting heavier,’ Caro said, swallowing in anguish. ‘I’ve called Nick. He’s on his way.’ There was the sound of a car pulling into the drive. ‘Oh, thank God, that’s him now.’

  Fran called an ambulance first and then, after making her sister comfortable and doing her best to reassure her brother-in-law, she quickly packed a bag for Caro to take with her to hospital.

  ‘I won’t lose the babies, will I?’ Caro asked as she was loaded in the back of the ambulance a short time later, her face still white with distress.

  ‘No, of course not, Caro—the placenta may have lifted a little, that’s all. Just keep calm and relaxed and wait for a full obstetric assessment in hospital. The doctors will do everything possible to keep you all safe,’ Fran said. ‘Don’t worry about things here. I’ll look after Rufus and I’ll call Mum and Dad once I know how things are going with you.’

  She turned to Nick, whose face looked the colour of ash.

  ‘Try not to panic, Nick. An early delivery is very common with twins. Caro will be much safer being monitored in hospital at this stage.’ Especially as I am practically useless at managing a sore throat, let alone something like this, Fran thought in distress.

  ‘Thanks, Fran,’ Nick said, his throat sounding tight. ‘We’ll call you once we know what the go is.’

  It was only after the ambulance had gone that Fran found it hard to keep from spiralling into a full-blown panic attack. She tried to keep busy, but the house seemed so empty without her sister’s cheerful voice sounding out from whichever room she happened to be in.

  Rufus looked downcast, his ears down, a low whining sound coming from his throat as he followed Fran about forlornly.

  The telephone rang three hours later with Nick informing her he was the proud father of twin boys. Although in the neonatal unit, they were doing very well, all things considered, but would be in hospital for some weeks. There was some suggestion one of the babies might have to be transferred to one of the larger teaching hospitals in Sydney for further monitoring. Nick had decided he would stay in Wollongong in a serviced apartment and had already contacted the education department about finding a replacement teacher. He wanted to be with Caro and the boys until they could come home as a family.

  ‘How is Caro?’ Fran asked, trying not to cry.

  ‘She’s great,’ Nick said. ‘She wants to speak to you. I’ll hand her over.’

  ‘Fran, you won’t believe how tiny they are,’ Caro gushed with maternal pride. ‘I can’t wait until you see them. Nick’s going to send you some photos via his phone. We haven’t decided on names yet. We can’t quite make up our minds—silly, isn’t it? We’ve been arguing about it for the last ten minutes. We’ve called Mum and Dad, they’re in Italy right now, Florence, I think, or maybe it was Venice. Oh, Frannie, I’m so happy.’

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ Fran said, trying to ignore the tiny pang of envy that trickled through her. Caro was only two years older than her and here she was happily married with two gorgeous babies while she had nothing but a career she was too frightened to return to and no man in her life to love her the way she longed to be loved. She chided herself for being so bitter. Stuff happened in life, and it wasn’t always the white picket fence and roses spilling over stuff. It was hard stuff, challenging stuff, stuff that changed everything in the rapid rise and fall of an eyelid.

  When the photos of the babies came through a few minutes later, Fran allowed herself a few self-indulgent tears. She had so rarely given in to tears. Her trai
ning had toughened her up, perhaps too much, or so her mother thought, and her gruff show-no-emotion father, too, when it came to that. But now alone in a big seaside house with just a ragamuffin dog for company, Fran sobbed for her lost life, for the carefree girl she had once been and might never be again.

  She didn’t hear the doorbell at first, but then Rufus began to bark and scratch at the door. The doorbell was ringing continuously, as if someone was repeatedly stabbing at the button. Then someone was thumping on the door. Annoyed at the intrusion, Fran blew her nose, stuffed the tissue into her bra, and cautiously opened the heavy front door.

  One of Caro and Nick’s neighbours from two doors away practically fell into the hallway, his face marble white, his body shaking. ‘Dr Nin? Caro told me you’re a doctor. Quickly—come on, you’ve got to save her. My daughter…‘ He started to cry, great heaving sobs, each one sounding as if it was shredding his chest. ‘My d-daughter, Ella, my baby fell into the pool. She’s not breathing.’

  Fran pushed Rufus back indoors, stepped onto the verandah and shut the door. ‘Who is with your daughter now?’ she asked, her heart thudding as adrenalin kicked in.

  ‘My wife,’ he said, choking back another sob. ‘She’s done first aid but nothing’s working. You’ve got to help us. Please, quickly. Come on.’

  ‘Have you called an ambulance?’ she asked as she hurried after the distressed man into the neighbouring property, her stomach knotting with dread at what she might find.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, but they won’t get here till it’s too late. They’re way out of town, on some other call. Jane thought of you. You’ve got to help us, please, please, come on!’

  ‘It’s all right…Joe, isn’t it?’ Fran said, recalling his name. Caro had said what a lovely family the Pelleris were, new to the town but fitting in well with everyone. Joe was a mechanic at the local service station, Jane a stay-at-home mum with three children—a toddler and two boys.

  It was only a hundred metres to the Pelleris’ house but Fran felt her heart rate escalating with sickening speed. A brain without oxygen couldn’t survive for long. Children might last a bit longer, but even if revived, it might only be the heart and lungs that functioned. The brain could be damaged or even worse—the child might be dead. The child some parents brought into the hospital was not always the child they took home.

  Every second was vital.

  Every second counted.

  Every second hammered at Fran’s chest as she pushed through the garden gate towards the house.

  Jane Pelleri was trying her best to do CPR on the baby in the family room just off the pool area, with the two little boys distressed and crying in the background.

  ‘Jane, I’ll take over now,’ Fran said in a calm, doctor-in-control tone, even though her stomach was roiling with doubts and fears that she wouldn’t be up to the task. This was no well-equipped A and E department. This was a family’s home with baby and toddler photographs on the walls, not lifesaving resuscitation gear. Fear gripped at Fran’s heart with cruel claws. What if she couldn’t do this? What if she failed? Her stomach churned with nausea, her skin broke out in a sheen of perspiration and her hands shook almost uncontrollably as she tried to assess the situation.

  The child was on the very springy sofa, which had made the mother’s efforts at cardiac compression largely ineffective. Fran placed the infant, who looked about eighteen months old, onto her back on the carpeted floor, and tilted her head slightly back to open the airway. There seemed to be the remains of a biscuit in the child’s mouth, which Fran swept out with her finger. The child was clearly not breathing and appeared cyanosed. Supporting Ella’s head, Fran covered the nose and mouth with her mouth and gave five puffs, then felt for a pulse over the inner arm, then the neck.

  Either there was none, or her lack of recent clinical experience was letting her down and she just wasn’t sensitive enough to feel it, she thought as another pang of doubt stung her. She had to assume the child’s heart had stopped. Using two fingers, Fran gently compressed the child’s chest over the lower sternum, twenty rapid compressions for each couple of breaths.

  Was that the right ratio? she thought in panic. It was higher in adults, lower in children and lower in infants. Oh, God, what was the ratio? Had her skills and training been punched out of her along with her confidence in A and E that day? Her brain became foggy with fear, dread and doubts. She couldn’t do this. She was failing. She was not going to be able to save this child. How would she face the parents? What about those two little boys? Oh, God, even the photos on the walls seemed to be staring down at her in accusation. You are a failure. You are no good at this. Look at what you have done.

  Fran vaguely registered a siren sounding and it seemed mere seconds before Jacob Hawke was kneeling beside her, talking to her, but it was as if it was in a vacuum. She couldn’t hear him; she saw his lips moving but it was as if the sound had been muffled by her fear.

  ‘For God’s sake, Dr Nin,’ Jacob bit out roughly, finally shaking her out of her stasis. ‘Help me here. Keep her steady while I do the mouth-to-mouth.’

  Fran blinked herself into action and held the child in position, watching in numb silence as Jacob determinedly worked at the breaths and compressions for what seemed like hours, made worse by the howling boys and now hysterical mother. Had the child’s colour improved, or was it Fran’s imagination?

  Unexpectedly, the infant coughed, then seemed to convulse. She vomited up some water, coughed again, and then started wailing, the colour of her face turning from lavender to cherry red.

  In the distance another wailing sound could be heard, this one the reassuring whine of the ambulance approaching at speed.

  ‘Mummy-y!’ the toddler croaked over another cough.

  ‘Keep her on her side,’ Jacob directed the child’s mother. ‘She’ll be fine but she needs to go to hospital for a proper check of her airways and lungs.’

  Fran sat back on her heels, her breathing hurting her chest as cautious relief flooded through her. Ella was alive. Ella was breathing. Ella was alive…

  Jacob met her eyes, something in his ice-cold gaze ripping through her like shards of ice. ‘Everything all right, Dr Nin?’ he asked in a tone as arctic as his eyes.

  ‘F-fine,’ she said, using a nearby chair to pull herself to her feet. ‘I…I lost concentration for a moment…that was all.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it only takes a moment and it’s too late,’ he muttered in an undertone, well out of hearing of the distressed family.

  Fran wanted to be angry at him but her nerves were still shredded. She felt as if her whole body was hanging in pieces, none of them connected to each other. She could barely get her legs to move. Her head was spinning so much she thought she might be sick, but somehow she pulled herself together for the family’s sake.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Jane was still sobbing as she cradled her daughter. ‘I don’t know how she got out to the pool. The gate was closed, I’m sure it was. I’m always so careful.’

  ‘It’s hard to watch kids all the time,’ Fran said, glancing at the two boys who were still looking shocked, huddled together in the corner of the room.

  Once the ambulance officers arrived Fran filled them in with what had happened. The officers were not trained paramedics, just volunteers, but the older man called Jack seemed very competent and experienced as he handled the little patient.

  Within a few minutes, both mother and child were in the back of the ambulance, heading for Wollongong Hospital for proper assessment and observation of Ella.

  Another police car pulled into the driveway almost as soon as the ambulance had pulled out, and Joe gave Fran a worried look. ‘What are more cops doing here?’ he asked, placing an arm around each of his boys.

  ‘It’s pretty standard procedure in cases like this,’ Fran said, although personally she questioned the timing of it. The traumatised father and his young sons were obviously desperate to get in the car and follow the ambulance to hosp
ital, but she understood from other cases she had dealt with the importance of ruling out any suspicious circumstances.

  Jacob went over to the police vehicle and spoke to the officer on duty. The car backed out of the driveway a few moments later and Jacob came back up the path to where Joe and his boys were waiting with Fran.

  Jacob exchanged a brief unreadable glance with Fran before he reached for Joe’s hand. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I’m Sergeant Jacob Hawke.’ He smiled down at the boys. ‘Hi, guys.’ He bent down to their level. ‘What are your names?’

  ‘I—I’m Joey and he’s Romeo,’ the older of the boys said.

  ‘Those are great names—Italian, right?’ Jacob asked, glancing at the father for verification.

  Joe nodded, his throat rising and falling over a tight swallow. ‘Sergeant, I think it would be best if we talk in private. I don’t want the boys to be upset any further.’

  Fran stepped forward. ‘I’d be happy to fix the boys a juice or something,’ she said, and turned to them.

  ‘How about it, Romeo and Joey? Can you show me where Mummy keeps everything?’

  The little boys led the way to the kitchen where Fran poured them both orange juice and gave them two chocolate-chip cookies apiece. After a while their dark brown eyes began to lose their haunted, hollow look and they even started to chat about their favourite toys and games.

  After half an hour the boys’ father came in, followed by Jacob. ‘Thank you again, Dr Nin, and you too, Sergeant,’ Joe said. ‘I know Jane already thanked you both but you really did save our little girl today. If there’s anything, and I mean anything, we can ever do for you, just let me know. It goes without saying you won’t be charged a cent if you need your car serviced at my workshop, Dr Nin. Just book it in any time.’

  ‘Thank you, Joe,’ Fran said, feeling every type of fraud. She hadn’t saved Ella, that had been Jacob, and both of them knew it. The family had been too upset to notice and had just assumed as she was a doctor that she was responsible for the miracle of bringing their precious daughter back to them. ‘That’s very kind of you but I was only doing my…er…‘ she flushed and hated herself for it ‘…what I’ve been trained to do.’