A Very Precious Gift Page 10

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, but she was halfway out of the car and didn’t answer. He tried to release his own door, found it was jammed and eased over to the passenger side to get out that way.

  A woman knelt beside the car, her arms around a little boy who was yelling lustily. Phoebe was squatting beside the pair, soothing both the panicky mother and the youngster.

  ‘He’s not hurt. You swerved in time to miss him,’ she said, apparently sensing his presence and looking up with a radiant smile. ‘Are the people in the other car all right?’

  Nick blinked away the effect of that smile and turned to where the driver of the other vehicle was emerging. The flush on his face suggested he either suffered very high blood pressure or was in a towering rage. Perhaps both.

  ‘What do you think you were doing?’ he bellowed at Nick. ‘Look at my car! See the damage you’ve done? What are you—drunk or something?’

  ‘Probably something,’ Nick said, leaving Phoebe with the cause of the accident and walking towards the man to head him off before he vented his anger on the already overwrought mother. ‘I’m sorry about your car. I’ll give you my insurance details. I swerved to avoid a child and you were unlucky enough to be in the way.’

  ‘Where? What child?’ the man demanded, and at that moment Phoebe stood up, the little boy in her arms, the mother busy picking up things she’d dropped from her bag as she darted into the street.

  ‘That child,’ Nick said, pointing towards the scene.

  ‘But that’s Jamie. That’s my grandchild. We were to meet them at the beach. Who’s that woman holding him? Where’s my daughter?’

  Nick shook his head. He saw no reason to keep answering the man’s demanding questions, especially as a police car had now pulled up and he’d be asked far more pertinent ones by them.

  ‘Perhaps you should go to your daughter,’ Nick told the man. ‘She’s had a shock.’

  The stranger shot him one more angry glare then bustled away, and Nick could hear his voice berating his daughter before he even reached her.

  Then something he’d said earlier replayed itself in Nick’s head. ‘We’ were meeting them at the beach. Who was we?

  He glanced towards the car, and saw a woman slumped back in the passenger seat. Concerned onlookers had opened the door and were peering anxiously in, but, no doubt aware of the advice to not move people before assessing injuries, no one had lifted her out.

  Nick nodded to the policeman who was approaching purposefully, then waved his hand towards the second car.

  ‘I’ll answer all your questions in a moment,’ he said, ‘but first I’d like to check the passenger over there. I’m a doctor,’ he added, then moved through the parting crowd, the policeman at his heels.

  The woman was in her late fifties or early sixties, dressed for the beach in a long blue shift.

  Her lips were almost as blue as the dress and Nick knew she hadn’t painted them that colour.

  ‘Heart attack by the look of things,’ Nick said to the policeman. ‘Could you call an ambulance, and tell them they’ll need resuscitation equipment?’

  He bent over and breathed into the woman’s mouth, pumping air from his lungs into hers. She needed cardiac massage as well and, having given her six breaths, he directed the policeman to help as he lifted her out of the car and laid her on the ground.

  ‘There’s no time to worry about exacerbating other injuries,’ he explained. ‘I’ll do the CPR while you keep the crowd back. Make sure there’s a clear path for the ambulance.’

  He could hear the siren approaching and hoped it would arrive in time to revive the woman before too much damage had been done. Intent on his task, he counted, pumped and breathed, stopping only when an ambulance attendant pushed him aside.

  ‘We’ll take care of her now, sir,’ the man said, then he did a classic double take and added, ‘Dr David! Didn’t recognise you. How long’s she been like this?’

  Nick gave his best estimation while the two attendants set up the electric current which, hopefully, would shock the woman’s heart back into action. Then he looked around, wondering where the woman’s husband was. Surely he’d noticed his wife’s condition, and even if he hadn’t, he must by now have seen the emergency services’ activity around his car.

  He caught a glimpse of the angry man on the far footpath, the little boy on one arm and his free hand waving in the air as he obviously continued to berate his daughter.

  A flash of white told Nick Phoebe was also there. Trust her to stick by the woman as moral support.

  ‘Heart’s beating,’ one of the attendants said. ‘We’ll load her now. Do we know who she is? Has she someone with her?’

  ‘There’s a chap who’s probably her husband. I’ll get him,’ Nick volunteered, and he made his way around the smashed cars and the greedily assembling tow trucks to the footpath opposite.

  He saw the relief in Phoebe’s eyes as he approached and smiled at her. Then frowned. She was as white as her clothes and a trickle of bright blood lay like a scar across her right temple.

  He curbed the instinctive need to hold her and examine her injuries—and yell at her for not sitting down and taking care of herself—and turned to the man.

  ‘They’re loading your passenger into the ambulance. The hospital will need details,’ he said.

  The young woman wailed ‘Mum!’ then dashed away, but the man wasn’t going to show such weakness.

  ‘What do you mean, loading her into an ambulance? Why does she need an ambulance? Nothing wrong with her.’

  He made it sound as if only he—or perhaps men—had the right to emergency services, but Nick ignored his peeve and explained.

  ‘I think she’s had a heart attack. If you want to travel to the hospital with her, the police can contact you there if they need to speak to you.’

  The man’s face grew even more flushed and he thrust the child back into Phoebe’s arms and stepped aggressively towards Nick.

  ‘The police won’t want to speak to me!’ he roared, spluttering with rage. ‘It was your fault, this accident. All your fault.’

  Fortunately, the young woman returned, grabbed her child and turned towards her father.

  ‘They’re taking Mum to the Southern Cross. If you want a lift you’ll have to come now. Leave your name and address with this man and he can give it to the tow truck people and the police.’

  The man stared at his daughter as if she’d suddenly turned into an alien.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ she said, her voice gentler now. ‘Mum needs you at the hospital.’

  ‘Never needed me in her life,’ the man blustered, but he did dig into his hip pocket and produce a wallet. Still muttering to himself, he took out a card and handed it to Nick.

  ‘If I lose my no-claim bonus over this you’ll have to pay it,’ he warned, then he let his daughter lead him away.

  ‘Charming fellow,’ Phoebe murmured, then, as Nick turned towards her, she gave a little sigh and slid gracefully to the footpath.

  She’d recovered almost before she reached the ground, enough to protest volubly when he tried to make her lie down.

  ‘No way!’ she said. ‘I’m OK now. It must have been the shock. Truly, Nick, I’m fine.’

  She shook off his restraining hand and sat up on the kerb, propping her head in her hands and breathing deeply.

  ‘How stupid!’ she muttered crossly, more to herself than to him. ‘Swooning like some eighteenth-century virgin!’

  Then, as the words hung in the air between them, he caught a mounting tide of pink sweeping into her cheeks, and as she glanced up to see if he’d heard he read confusion and something else—embarrassment, possibly?—in her eyes.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said, his voice gruff with an emotion he didn’t want to analyse.

  ‘No way!’ she said, repeating her earlier refusal. ‘We’re here to do a Beach Watch. I know I look a bit grubby but I don’t think anyone will notice.’

  Then she pointed to his
car. ‘Not that you’ll be taking anyone anywhere in that, I shouldn’t think.’

  She reached up to touch her temple, reminding Nick to check the wound.

  ‘Is there blood?’ she asked him. ‘Could you mop it up? And when the TV people arrive, you’d better be the one on camera. Seeing a battered Beach Watch doctor might make people wonder exactly what goes on in the programme.’

  She smiled at him, apparently over her earlier confusion, but the smile made his reactions worse. He produced his handkerchief and dabbed at the graze, his fingers trembling as he realised how close she’d come to being more seriously hurt.

  The urge to hold her in his arms and protect her—possibly for ever—was so strong he was shaken by the awesome implications of such feelings. Was it time to reconsider his priorities? Time to—

  ‘Hey, guys! Sorry you couldn’t make it last night, but at least you’re here to show us what you do on this Beach Watch thing.’

  Phoebe struggled to her feet as Brad Moss and Bill Cotter appeared beside them, dead-heating with the policeman who obviously had a few questions to ask Nick.

  ‘I’ll take the visitors down to the beach,’ she told Nick, knowing he’d be unable to stop her under the circumstances.

  He’d been standing frowning out towards the ocean, but when she spoke he turned to face her, blinking as if trying to remember who she was.

  ‘You shouldn’t go,’ he told her, before turning to Bill to add, ‘Keep an eye on her, would you? We’ve had a slight accident and Phoebe hit her head. She shouldn’t be here at all, but who can tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do?’

  He frowned at Phoebe in case she’d missed his disapproval of her intransigence, then turned to the impatient policeman.

  Bill seemed to feel ‘keeping an eye on her’ included taking her arm and staying close by her side. Having already been impolite enough to miss the dinner with the visitors, Phoebe felt she couldn’t protest and let herself be led across the road to the beach.

  ‘I guess we should wait for the camera crew,’ she said. ‘Nick and I had hoped to do a sweep of the beach before they arrived but, what with running into cars and women having heart attacks, there really isn’t time.’

  She detached herself from Bill’s clasp to dig into her shoulder-bag.

  ‘These are the leaflets we hand out,’ she said, producing the brightly printed sheets which not only warned of the dangers of UV rays but gave the exposure level at different numbers on the UV index.

  ‘Our local news broadcasts on radio and TV always include the UV index number in their weather reports, and see the flashing number over there…’

  She pointed towards the lifesavers’ watch tower where the number six was flashing.

  ‘That’s today’s UV index, which indicates a moderate exposure level. Our other warning to people is to not stay out in the sun between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, when the UV radiation is at its highest.’

  ‘We have similar warnings in our coastal towns, but in landlocked areas it’s more difficult to get the message across,’ Brad told her. ‘Folk tend to connect skin cancer with the beach. Telling a farmer he should wear sunglasses and cover up isn’t so easy. Telling him not to work between ten and two would be downright impossible.’

  Phoebe nodded.

  ‘Same here, and long-distance truck drivers are another problem. Try convincing them to wear a long-sleeved shirt when their “truckies’ uniform” consists of shorts and a black singlet! When a man comes in with significant sun damage to his right arm, we know he’s spent a lifetime on the road.’

  ‘It’s concise enough, yet with information like the index thing which people might want to keep.’ Bill was reading through the leaflet. ‘Less likely to exacerbate the litter problem.’

  ‘We had that argument with the local council when we first began handing them out. Now we ask people if they want to keep it or if they would just like to read it while we check their skin. That way, if they don’t want it they can give it back. I think most Australians are litter conscious now, so it hasn’t been a major problem.’

  ‘Yet!’

  Nick’s voice startled Phoebe and she turned to see him smiling down at her, while behind him a tow truck carried his damaged vehicle away.

  ‘You couldn’t drive it?’ she said, although she’d guessed as much when she’d seen the extent of the damage.

  ‘Only because the front panel and bumper bar had been pushed in and were scrunched up against the wheel. We tried to free it but even if we had, the wheels were likely to be out of alignment. Best to get it fixed.’

  He was speaking of such an ordinary matter—the after-math of the accident—but his voice had developed a power to physically affect her, so mundane words like ‘wheel’ and ‘alignment’ caused a fluttery sensation in her skin. She turned towards the ocean, staring out at its vastness, with its rolling lines of surf, as she tried to regain control of her body.

  Perhaps if she put the virginity thing right out of her mind, life would return to normal.

  ‘Do you want the cameras to catch that blank expression?’ Nick asked.

  She swung back to face him, then looked beyond him to the approaching cameraman.

  ‘I was thinking. That was a pensive look!’ she retorted. ‘And I’ve already told you. No cameras. Look at me. I’m filthy. You do the talking, Dr David. After all, you’re the boss.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said, his smile now causing more problems than his voice. ‘Though you only seem to remember that when it’s convenient.’

  She drew in breath to argue but fortunately Brad intervened.

  ‘How about you and Bill do the leaflet distribution, Phoebe, while Nick and I do the interview.’

  He winked at Nick and added, ‘I think Bill would like to get to know your colleague a whole lot better.’

  And although she didn’t really want to walk along the beach with Bill attached to her arm like an unnecessary accessory, it was a good excuse to escape Nick’s immediate vicinity and the problems it caused.

  She smiled at Bill, let him take her arm to steady her while she slipped off her sandals and dropped them into her bag, then she walked with him down the steps and onto the warm golden sands—resisting the urge to look back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NICK watched them depart then turned a false smile in the direction of the cameraman who was lugging his gear along the footpath. It had been a long time since the local press had run a story on the Beach Watch programme, and with the advent of summer the exposure would be timely.

  So he had to forget how seeing Phoebe with Bill made him feel and push the sun-safe message to the media, and through them to the general public.

  ‘I insisted they give me the job when I learnt the hunky boss himself was going to be present. Who’s your friend?’

  Nick grinned at the reporter, who’d appeared from a different direction. Linda Wilson was a one-time date of his, one of his ‘window-dressing’ blondes.

  ‘Brad Moss, meet Linda Wilson.’

  He introduced the pair, smiling more broadly when the American’s courtly manners sparked Linda’s interest.

  ‘Tell me why you’re out here,’ Linda said to the visitor. ‘Surely the USA has extensive sun-safe programmes.’

  ‘We do,’ Brad agreed. ‘But Queensland leads the world in research, as well as preventative initiatives, so it’s a logical place for skin cancer specialists to visit.’

  ‘Leads the world in the occurrence of skin cancer as well,’ Nick reminded him. ‘Look at those people sunbathing. Recent research tells us that two in five adults admit to lying around in the sun, in spite of all the warnings they’ve been given. And while nine out of ten parents say they don’t let their children outside without sunscreen, only six out of ten apply it to their own skin when they go outdoors.’

  ‘Are these the latest figures?’ Linda asked, and Nick nodded, although his attention was on a white-clad figure strolling along the beach, arm i
n arm with a tall, blond, good-looking American male.

  ‘I’ll fax you the survey,’ he added, telling himself the squelchy feeling in his gut couldn’t possibly be jealousy. More likely to be concern for a colleague who’d recently fainted.

  ‘Do these figures correspond with your research?’ Linda turned her attention back to Brad, who rattled off some statistics from his university’s cancer research centre.

  ‘What about prevention?’ she asked him. ‘Here we hand out hats, sunscreen and easy-to-understand information to all children in their first year of school, and we’ve programmes like this as follow-up. Is a similar early-education programme in place in the US?’

  Brad began to explain about the state-to-state differences in health programmes and Nick tuned out. Phoebe and Bill had stopped their perambulations, and Phoebe was examining the skin of a tall, stringy, red-headed teenager.

  ‘There’s an example of someone who shouldn’t ever be on a beach,’ he said to Linda, pointing to where Bill was now examining the lad’s skin. ‘Not without any covering on his legs, arms or torso.’

  As they all watched, Phoebe glanced up, and when she saw Nick she waved her hand. He felt a clenching of a different kind in his abdomen and, excusing himself to the media crew and Brad, he took the steps two at a time and crossed the sand towards them.

  ‘What do you think?’ Phoebe asked, when Nick arrived at the group. Then she must have remembered her manners, for she added, ‘I’m sorry. Phil, this is Dr Nick David. Nick, this is Phil. He said he’s been meaning to get someone to check this mark on his neck.’

  Phoebe indicated the mark, a dark blue-brown splotch with untidy edges, and a swollen pinkness on its lower limit.

  ‘How long has it been there?’ Nick asked, and the young man shrugged.

  ‘Maybe a couple of months. Might always have had something there. I’m a freckly kind of person, so what’s one more freckle?’

  He spoke with the casual offhandedness of his generation, but Nick sensed it was a cover for deep concern. So many people put off having visible or tactile signs of trouble investigated because they feared the diagnosis. They didn’t want to know they have a problem.