His Runaway Nurse

  “I had to go,” she said yet again

  “So you keep on telling me. Yet you’ve come back. You came to buy the house. Why?”

  Majella hesitated. “I want somewhere for myself and Grace—a place of our own. Somewhere I can begin to build a life for us.”

  She turned toward him, but any words he might have said were lost when he saw her face lifted to his—skin pale and luminous as a perfect pearl in the silvery moonlight, features haloed by her dark hair.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, repeating the words she’d used about the town.

  She met his kiss with a heat as unexpected as it was erotic. Fierce desire coursed through him, blanking out his mind, concentrating all his being on the physical delights of touching her, holding her, feeling her skin…the scent of her filling his nostrils….

  “Flynn.”

  His name fluttered off her lips and onto his, but he wasn’t ready to release her yet and end this kiss that had shifted his world off its axis.

  Dear Reader,

  It’s strange the way stories come together in my head and possibly the heads of other writers. In the case of this book, I read a snippet in a newspaper about an alternative music festival held in a small town each year, swelling the local population from about six hundred to three thousand. My immediate thought was How must the doctor feel?

  Then there are the signs we’ve found along Australian country roads. My husband and I travel a lot, driving to faraway places with our little camper van tagging along behind us, and we are always passing these signs that give a phone number to ring if you find an injured native animal. Who is at the other end of the phone line? Is this purely voluntary or do they get support?

  I was finally intrigued enough to look into it and was fascinated by what these people, all volunteers, achieve.

  Two pieces joined together and I had a background for my story, which then only needed the apprehensive doctor—not festival weekend again!—and a woman returning to the small town in search of a place to bring up her daughter.

  The wombat came in because he’s my favorite native animal, so slow and dopey yet so lovable. Back when I first began writing, I gave a talk at a library in a town where National Parks and Wildlife have bought land and built fences around it to protect a nearly extinct breed of wombat—the great northern hairy-nosed wombat. I was given a small toy wombat, who has lived on my desk ever since, so once I got into native animals it was only natural a wombat would be featured.

  Wind farms and wombats—this was a fun book to write, so happy reading.

  All the best,

  Meredith Webber

  His Runaway Nurse

  Meredith Webber

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘THE downside of doctoring in a small country town!’ Dr Flynn Sinclair muttered to himself as he pulled up behind the cluster of cars at the accident site. ‘It’s invariably someone you know!’

  He ignored the foreboding that always gripped his gut, nodded to the policeman directing traffic around the accident, and peered at the wrecked cars, macabrely lit by the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles. Neither the big four-wheel-drive nor the mangled utility were immediately recognisable but that was hardly surprising. These days both city and country folk drove four-wheel-drives while most of the young men in town considered a ‘ute’ with a shiny paint job as essential to their image as gelled hair and low-riding jeans.

  ‘Flynn, over here!’

  Julie, one of the local ambulance officers, waved to him from the grassy verge.

  ‘You took your time,’ she added as he drew closer.

  ‘Twenty minutes since the call, ten to finish delivering a baby, and ten to get here,’ Flynn explained, kneeling down beside the patient, young, blonde, pretty—or she was when throwing balls through hoops, not lying by the roadside covered in blood.

  His heart scrunched with pain—for Becky, her parents, her entire family. Lives in turmoil.

  ‘Becky Wainwright,’ he said softly.

  ‘I don’t know her,’ Julie said, ‘but she’s in a bad way. Single driver in the vehicle—he’s fine, barely injured. Doug, my partner, is dealing with the driver of the utility. He’s conscious but needs to be cut from the cabin. He had three others with him—maybe riding in the back—although they did better than Becky when he crashed.’

  ‘Riding in the back of a ute?’

  ‘Yeah. Stupid, isn’t it? But you can’t tell teenagers anything. Immortal, all of them,’ Julie confirmed sadly. ‘The good thing is the other three are all OK. Minor injuries—one mild concussion. Doug’s got him in the ambulance already.’

  Arc lights had been set up and Flynn’s eyes were studying the injured girl while Julie gave her brief explanation of the other injuries then recited Becky’s stats—blood pressure, respiration rate, both far too fast, fluid input, oxygen flow rate.

  ‘We haven’t dared move her while she’s so unstable. I think she must have been thrown out of the ute—the passenger door had flung open and if she wasn’t wearing a seat belt…’

  Julie didn’t need to point out the consequences, but continued, ‘Possible head injuries and an open chest wound—must have landed on something sticking up from the ground.’

  ‘Who did this?’ Flynn demanded, seeing the folded material taped to Becky’s chest with ordinary sticky tape.

  ‘There was a woman here—she was in one of the first vehicles on the scene—army nurse or some such. Beads in her hair. She’d done this before we arrived and was giving mouth to mouth until we got here, and were able to hook the girl up to oxygen. I think she’s seeing to the others now, or helping Doug with the driver—the army woman.’

  Talking to Becky now, but eliciting no response, Flynn examined the makeshift dressing, carefully taped on three sides so on inhalation the fabric was sucked against the chest wall, sealing the wound and preventing more air entering the area around the lungs. But the woman had known enough not to tape the fourth side, which would have caused a tension pneumothorax. The dressing as it was, though makeshift and probably not sterile, acted as a flutter valve—exactly what was needed.

  ‘She’s done a good job,’ Flynn admitted, adding, ‘Is whatever caused the wound still in the chest?’

  He glanced at Julie, who was squeezing an ambubag to assist Becky’s breathing.

  ‘The woman with the beads said she broke it off from the ground and to leave it there as moving it could cause more damage.’

  ‘The woman with the beads was spot on,’ Flynn said, lifting Becky’s eyelids to check her eyes, frowning at the ovoid dilation of her right pupil, his mind racing through diagnoses, none of them good for a girl whose passion was netball, whose ambition had been to make the Aussie team.

  The second ambulance officer came over.

  ‘Can we move her?’ he asked. ‘There’s another ambulance coming from Bendigo, ETA seven minutes. It can take the driver when the fire service blokes have disentangled him. Or if the young girl needs the city hospital it could take her and we’ll wait for the driver.’

  Would Becky have a better chance of survival in the regional city an hour’s drive away, or even in Melbourne? Or would sending her away simply mean she’d die without her family beside her bed? The question haunted Flynn as he knelt beside the teenager, his hand clasping her wrist, feeling the pulse that raced then faltered then raced again. His probing fingers had found a d
epressed fracture of her skull, and whatever had pierced her chest could be causing internal bleeding. It had been thirty-five minutes since the accident—twenty-five minutes of the magic hour remaining.

  Not long enough—although…

  A clattering noise above them heralded the arrival of a helicopter.

  ‘Did you call in a rescue flight?’ Flynn asked Julie.

  She shook her head. ‘Must have been Doug, or the police.’

  Or the woman with beads in her hair? She’d done everything else!

  They heard the helicopter land on the emergency pad not far down the narrow winding road—a pad built because of the heavy traffic on the road during the holiday season.

  ‘We’ll send Becky down to Melbourne in the chopper,’ he decided, knowing he had to give her whatever chance of survival he could, and that the helicopter would make a huge difference. Apart from the shorter trip to a major hospital, it would have emergency personnel and equipment on board which could give her better support than he could offer. ‘We’ll load her into your ambulance and you can transfer her to the helicopter. We won’t cancel the Bendigo ambulance until we know how the driver is. If he needs to go to a regional hospital, they can take him and you can ferry the others back to Parragulla. I’ll phone Becky’s parents and let them know.’

  Doug called to one of the policemen and the four of them lifted Becky gently onto the wheeled trolley.

  ‘We’ll carry her to the ambulance,’ Flynn decreed. ‘Less jolting than wheeling her over the verge. Julie, how about you go ahead and get the other passenger out? He can come to Parragulla on the next trip.’

  He and Doug were slotting the trolley into position in the back of the ambulance when he heard a cry, then feet thudding along the road. He glanced around to see Ben Wainwright arguing with one of the policemen, gesticulating towards the accident—towards Flynn—a female figure racing ahead of him. There were good things about small towns as well—word got around quickly and the Wainwrights would see their daughter before she left for the city.

  ‘How bad?’

  Ben asked the question as he reached Flynn’s side, his wife, Ellie, who’d run ahead, already in the ambulance, kneeling by the trolley, clasping her daughter’s hand, reassuring and berating her at the same time. Then, when she got no response, reassuring only, telling her she’d be all right, promising…

  ‘Pretty bad, Ben,’ Flynn told the older man, slipping his arm around Ben’s shoulders in case human contact might offer comfort. ‘She must have been thrown out of the vehicle, struck her head and hit something that pierced her chest.’

  ‘I’ll kill that little turd she’s been running around with. I tell you, Flynn, I’ll kill him.’

  ‘Not till you’ve seen Becky and Ellie through this, eh?’ Flynn said gently.

  Ben nodded grimly.

  ‘There’s a helicopter just down the road. I’m sending her to Melbourne,’ Flynn continued. ‘I don’t think the rescue flight will take a passenger.’ He didn’t add that what they might do to Becky on the way wasn’t good for a parent to be watching. ‘Will you and Ellie follow in your car? Are you OK to drive? What about your other kids? Can I contact someone to look after them?’

  Small-town doctor thoughts!

  ‘I phoned Mum before we left,’ Ben replied. ‘She was heading over right away to stay with the young ones. She’ll feed the dogs and do what has to be done. Dad’ll get there when he can—he’s on nightshift at the moment. Ellie’s mother will probably come to Melbourne to be there for Ellie.’

  ‘We’re ready to move,’ Julie called, and Ben turned to touch his wife’s knee.

  ‘I’ll follow the ambulance down to the helicopter. They mightn’t let you travel with her, love, but we’ll drive down and be there for her when they get her settled.’

  Ellie gripped his hand and nodded, and Flynn wondered at the amazing fortitude these people had summoned up, and at the strength they were apparently drawing from the love they shared. He’d seen it before, in emergency situations, yet it always struck him anew when he witnessed it.

  Struck him anew and made him wonder if he would ever draw such strength from a woman.

  Not so far, that was for sure!

  Not that he wanted to, certain such dependence would make him vulnerable—weaken him in some way.

  He, who prided himself on his strength and self-reliance, a stand he’d taken at the age of six…

  Flynn asked one of the policemen to see Ben back to his car and clear the way past the accident for him, then he crossed to where a terrible shriek of metal suggested the fire department’s rescue squad was getting closer to freeing the driver from the ute.

  ‘Patrick Webster, eighteen, both legs trapped, here’re the ambo’s papers on him and what’s been done. The other fellow—the one with concussion who was in the ambulance—is lying in the back of one of the police cars, and the other two passengers, a young girl and her brother, are in another police car.’

  One of the young local constables was standing by the wrecked ute and it was he who filled Flynn in on the situation.

  ‘I’ll check them in a minute,’ Flynn said, taking the sheaf of papers Doug had left with the policeman and bending to peer into the compressed and totally destroyed cabin of the smaller vehicle.

  There was someone else in there—because he could see a small hand clasped against Patrick’s left leg.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked the policeman, pointing at the hand, which was all he could see of the second person.

  ‘Army medic—first on the scene—says he’s bleeding and she needs to keep pressure on his leg. She crawled through from the other side when the rescue squad cut away the door on that side.’

  Flynn looked at the tangled metal and wondered how anyone—even a small person—could possibly have got into the convoluted space. But if Patrick’s thigh was bleeding—femoral artery?—he needed help fast.

  Streamers of silk left when the ambos had cut away the airbags dangled around Flynn’s hands and face as he leaned in to speak to Patrick and examine the trapped youth. He had a cervical collar around his neck and a small backboard supporting his spine, an oxygen mask was strapped to his face, though there was no sign of a portable tank—removed in the interests of safety while the rescue team cut away the metal—and a fluid line was taped to his right hand.

  Flynn felt the lad’s neck, seeking the carotid pulse, feeling the weak but steady beat. That was reassuring but Patrick’s lack of response to questions was worrying.

  ‘He was talking to us earlier,’ a quiet voice said—presumably that of the army woman—the owner of the hand.

  Another protesting scream of metal, and the bulk of the obstacle was finally cleared, revealing the owner of the small hand, crouched in the torn footwell on the passenger side. Face shadowed so he couldn’t see the colour of her eyes or the freckles he knew were sprinkled across her nose—fairy dust old Bill had told her once when she’d complained about them…

  ‘Majella?’

  ‘Flynn?’

  Had her name on his lips sounded as disbelieving as his had on hers?

  Probably, but, with Patrick in dire trouble, this was hardly the time to be comparing levels of disbelief.

  But still he stared at her, unable to believe that, after he’d searched for her for eleven months, they could meet again like this. Noticing a small scar running from the corner of her left eye, into the hairline at her temple.

  Not a new scar, yet it hurt him to see this slight imperfection on her beautiful face.

  ‘I’ve been putting pressure on the wound,’ she said, reminding him of duty and the need for haste.

  ‘Femoral artery?’ he asked, looking at the bloody pad she held pressed against Patrick’s leg.

  ‘With luck, it’s a vein,’ she answered. ‘There’s an open fracture of his femur, and the broken bone has punctured something. I thought the best thing I could do was wrap a not-too-tight tourniquet around the leg and keep pressure on the woun
d while Doug handled everything else. Horrible situation. Did the chopper take the young girl?’

  ‘Yes. She’s on her way to Melbourne.’

  Could he possibly be having this conversation with Majella?

  Or had tiredness—Lalla Camilleri had had a very long labour—removed him to a dream state where anything was possible?

  ‘Can you bind a new pressure pad in place so we can move him, now his feet are free?’

  Surely a dream Majella wouldn’t ask such a practical question.

  Flynn shook his head, ridding it of the seconds of confusion, focussing on the present and the patient who needed his attention.

  ‘You’ve got a clean pressure pad, Doug?’ he asked the ambo, who had returned from the run to the helicopter.

  Doug handed him what he needed, and Flynn slid his hand towards Majella’s, asking her to lift the pad she held so he could see the blood flow from the injured vessel.

  ‘It’s not spurting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the artery, leaking more inside than it is outside,’ he said, almost to himself, as he looked at the slow pulse of leaking blood.

  Flynn put the fresh pad into place and held it, glancing at their patient’s face, asking Doug for the latest obs, trying to gauge the amount of blood Patrick had already lost and whether, with fluid running into him through a large-bore catheter, he would make the trip to the regional hospital at Bendigo, or if he’d need surgery on the torn vessel right here in Parragulla before he could be sent somewhere else.

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ he asked Majella, thinking he might be able to handle the operation if he had another doctor on hand.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Advanced paramedic training in the army, nursing skills, some emergency surgical stuff I’ve picked up over the years, and I can handle simple anaesthesia but if you’re asking if I can repair a torn artery or vein, then no, I doubt it, although in an absolutely dire emergency I might have a go.’

  Majella in the army? The Princess of Parragulla a grunt?

  Disbelief flickered in the back of his mind while his medical self considered Patrick’s predicament.