From Bachelor to Daddy Read online

  ‘Poor kids, they must have been terrified,’ Emma said. ‘Do we know how many there are?’

  ‘Two teachers, a teacher’s aide, and sixteen children,’ Marty said grimly. ‘Hence no aircrew. We stripped everything not needed from the chopper because we’ll only have two chances to lift them all off the little beach they ran to. Once the tide comes in, that’s it, and not knowing the age or size of the kids makes calculations for lift-off weight difficult.’

  Emma nodded. She’d learned all about lift-off weight during the training she’d undertaken in Sydney, necessary training as the rescue helicopter at Braxton relied on emergency department doctors on flights when one might be needed.

  They were over the fire by now, seeing the red line of flame still advancing inexorably towards the ocean, while behind it lay the black, smouldering bushland.

  Two rocky headlands parted to give a glimpse of a small beach and as they dropped lower she saw the group, huddled among the rocks on the southern end, their hands held protectively over their bent heads as the down-thrust from the rotors whipped up the sand.

  ‘Good kids, did what they were told,’ Marty muttered, more to himself than to Emma.

  They touched down, the engine noise ceased, and before she could unstrap herself, Marty was already over the back, opening the doors and leaping down onto the sand.

  He turned to grab Emma’s bag then held up a hand to help her down. An impersonal hand, professional, so why didn’t she take it? Jumping lightly to the sand as if she hadn’t noticed it...

  ‘I’m a trained paramedic so if you need me just yell,’ he was saying as she landed beside him. ‘I’m going to juggle weights in the hope we can get everyone off in two lifts.’

  He paused and looked her up and down.

  ‘You’d be, what—sixty kilos?’

  ‘Thereabouts,’ she told him over her shoulder, hurrying towards the approaching children. One of the adults—probably a teacher—was helping a young, and very pale, girl across the beach.

  ‘Let’s sit you down and make you comfortable,’ Emma said to the child, noting at the same time a slight cyanosis of the lips and the movement of the girl’s stomach as she used those muscles to drag air into her congested lungs.

  ‘I’m Emma, and you’re...?’

  ‘Gracie,’ the girl managed.

  ‘She’s had asthma since she was small but this is the first time we’ve seen her like this,’ the woman Emma had taken for a teacher put in.

  ‘Do you have your puffer with you?’ Emma asked, and was pleased when Gracie produced a puffer from a pocket of her skirt.

  ‘Good girl. You’ve had some?’

  Gracie nodded, while the teacher expanded on the nod.

  ‘She’s had several puffs but they don’t seem to be helping.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Emma said calmly to Gracie. ‘I’ve brought a spacer with me, and you’ll get more of the medicine inside you with the spacer. Have you used one before?’

  Another nod as Emma fitted the puffer to the spacer and inserted a dose, then found a mask she could attach to the spacer so the girl could breathe more easily.

  ‘Just slow down, take a deep breath and hold it, then we’ll do a few more.’ Probably best not to mention twelve at this stage. ‘See how you go.’

  The girl obeyed but while it was obvious that the attack had lessened in severity, she was still distressed.

  Marty had appeared with the oxygen cylinder and a clip and tiny monitor that would show the oxygen saturation in the blood. He joked as he clipped it on the girl’s finger, and nodded to Emma when the reading was an acceptable ninety-four percent.

  The oxygen cylinder wouldn’t be needed yet.

  Emma drew the teacher aside and explained what had to be done to fill the spacer and deliver the drug.

  ‘Are you happy to do that on the way to the hospital?’ she asked, and the teacher nodded.

  ‘I do it all the time,’ she said. ‘My second youngest is asthmatic. We just didn’t think to carry a spacer with us.’

  Which left Emma to fill in the chart with what she’d done, dosage given, and the time. The flight from the hospital had only taken fifteen minutes so the child would be back in the emergency department before there was any need to consider further treatment, and she knew from her briefing that another doctor would have been called in to cover for her.

  Marty had done a rough estimate of the weight of his possible passengers and had begun loading them into the helicopter. To the west the smoke grew thicker and the fire burning on the headland to the south told them they were completely cut off.

  He looked at the tide, encroaching on the dry sand where he’d landed. He had to move now if he wanted to get back here before the tide was too high.

  ‘I’m taking the sick child and the teacher with her,’ he said to the new doctor, wondering how she’d cope being left on the beach surrounded by fire on her first day at work.

  ‘And the teacher’s aide who’s upset,’ he added, concentrating on the job at hand. ‘She’s not likely to be of any use to you, plus another six children. Will you be all right here until I get back? You have a phone? We’re quite close to Wetherby so there’s good coverage.’

  ‘I have a phone, we’ll be fine, you get going,’ she said, waving him away, and as he left he glanced back, seeing her hustling the children towards the sheltering rocks to avoid the sand spray at take-off.

  Sensible woman, he decided. No fuss, no drama, she’ll be good to work with.

  He settled the asthmatic girl in the front seat and strapped in those he could, letting the rest sit cross-legged on the floor.

  He ran his eyes over them, again mentally tallying their combined weight, adding it to the aircraft weight so he was sure it was below take-off weight. The next trip would be tighter.

  They were off, the children sitting as still as they’d been told to, although the urge to get up and run around looking out of windows must have been strong. The teacher he’d brought along would have sorted out those who were strapped in seats, he realised when the excited cries of one child suggested he had at least one hyperactive passenger.

  ‘Can you manage?’ he asked the teacher, who was in the paramedic’s seat behind the little girl, and had put another dose of salbutamol into the spacer and passed it to his front seat passenger.

  ‘Just fine,’ the sensible woman assured him. ‘You fly the thing and I’ll look after Gracie. Deep breath now, pet, and try to hold it.’

  The school mini-bus was waiting behind the hospital as he landed, and the aide helped the children into it while the teacher took Gracie into Emergency.

  ‘Most of the parents are at the school,’ the bus driver told him. ‘I’ll take this lot there, then come back.’

  Marty nodded, hoping he hadn’t misjudged the tide and that he would be bringing back the other children, the teacher and the unknown Emma Crawford.

  As yet unknown? he wondered, then shook his head. Hospital staff were off limits as far as he was concerned.

  Besides which, she was short and dark-haired, not tall and blonde like most of his women.

  Most of his women! That sounded—what? Izzy would say conceited—as if he thought himself a great Lothario who could have whatever woman he liked, but it really wasn’t like that. He just enjoyed the company of women, enjoyed how they thought, and, to be honest, how they felt in his arms, although many of his relationships had never developed to sexual intimacy.

  What colour were her eyes?

  Not Izzy’s eyes, obviously, but the short, dark-haired woman’s eyes—the short, dark-haired woman who wasn’t at all his type.

  The switch in his thoughts from sexual intimacy to the colour of Emma Crawford’s eyes startled him as he flew back towards the beach.

  Meanwhile, the woman who wasn’t at all his type was attempting to calm the c
hildren left on the beach. Three were in tears, one was refusing to go in the helicopter, and the others were upset about not being in the first lift. The teacher was doing her best, but they were upsetting each other, vying to see who could be the most hysterical.

  ‘Come on,’ Emma said, gathering one of the most distressed, a large boy with Down’s syndrome, by the hand, ‘let’s go and jump the little waves as they come up the beach.’

  Without waiting for a response, she steered the still-sobbing child towards the water’s edge, and began to jump the waves herself. A few others followed and once they were jumping, the one who still clung to Emma’s hand joined in, eventually freeing her hand and going further into the water to jump bigger waves.

  ‘Now they’ll probably all compete to go the deepest and we’ll be saving them from drowning,’ Emma said wryly to the teacher, who had joined her at the edge of the water.

  ‘At least they’ve stopped the hysteria nonsense,’ the teacher said. ‘They work each other up and really...’ She hesitated before admitting, ‘I was shaken by it all myself, so couldn’t calm them down all that well.’

  ‘No worries,’ Emma told her. ‘They’re all happy now.’

  Which was precisely when one of them started to scream and soon the whole lot were screaming.

  And pointing.

  Emma turned to see a man race down the beach and dive into the water, her fleeting impression one of blackness.

  ‘He was on fire,’ one of the children said, as they left the water and clustered around their teacher, too diverted by the man to be bothered with screams any more.

  Emma waded in to where the man was squatting in the water, letting waves wash over his head, her head buzzing with questions. How cold was the water? How severe his burns? Think shock, she told herself. And covering them...

  ‘Can you talk to me?’ she asked, and he looked blankly at her.

  Shock already?

  ‘I’m a doctor, I’d like to look at your burns. I’ve got pain relief in my bag on the beach.’

  She touched his arm and beckoned towards the beach but he shook his head and ducked under the water again.

  Time to take stock.

  He was young, possibly in his twenties, and very fair. His hair was cut short, singed on one side and blackened on the other. The skin on his face on the singed side was also reddened, but not worse, Emma decided, than a bad sunburn.

  If the rest of his body was only lightly burned then maybe waiting in the water for the helicopter was the best thing for him. She tried to see what she could of his clothes—now mostly burnt tatters of cloth. At least in the water they’d have lost any heat they’d held and not be worsening his injuries.

  But shock remained an issue...

  ‘Can I do anything?’ the teacher called from the beach.

  ‘If you’ve got towels you could spread a couple on the beach—just shake any sand off them first.’

  Not that shaking would remove all the sand, but if she could get him out, lay him down and cover him loosely with more towels, she could take a better look at him and position him to help with possible shock.

  The low rumble of the helicopter returning made them all look upward, and Emma was pleased to see the children running back to the rocks.

  Pleased to think she could avoid the difficulty of examining him here on the beach, she was also relieved to have help getting the man out of the water.

  ‘Rescue helicopter,’ she told him, hoping the words might mean something. ‘It will fly you to hospital.’

  This time she got a nod, but as she reached out to take his arm and help him to stand upright, he pulled back again.

  She didn’t argue—he was probably better staying where he was rather than risk getting sand on his burnt skin.

  Marty saw the two heads bobbing in the water below him and wondered what was happening. At least the kids were all over in the rocks.

  He hovered for a minute before touching down, checking the seemingly minute area of sand that was still above the incoming tide. It would have to be a really quick in and out.

  As soon as he jumped down, the children hurtled towards him, all talking at once. Jumping waves, man on fire, doctor might drown...

  He thought the last unlikely but had pieced together the information by the time the teacher arrived to explain.

  ‘He won’t come out,’ the teacher told him. ‘And every time Emma tries to take his arm, he dives away from her. He might be a foreign backpacker and not understand she’s trying to help him.’

  Marty nodded.

  Most of the backpackers roaming Australia had some knowledge of English, but the shock of being caught in the fire could have been enough for this poor bloke to lose it. He pulled a couple of space blankets out of the helicopter and gave them to the teacher to hold.

  He turned to the kids.

  ‘Now, all of you sit down on the sand, and the one sitting the stillest gets to fly up front with me, okay?’

  The children dropped as if they’d been shot and although Marty doubted they’d stay still long, it should be long enough to get Emma and the man out of the water.

  And work out what he was going to do next.

  Maybe the man was very small...

  Emma had apparently finally persuaded her patient to move towards the shore so Marty had only to go into knee-deep water to reach the six-foot-plus young man.

  ‘I haven’t been able to get a good look at his burns but I’d say some of them are serious,’ Emma told him, her face pale with worry about this new patient.

  She took one of the space blankets from the teacher, who had unfolded the silver material, and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders, looking across him so Marty saw the worry in her serious grey eyes.

  Grey, huh?

  ‘I’ll give him some morphine for the pain, and start a drip.’ She turned to the teacher. ‘Could you manage the fluid bag on the trip back to the hospital? It’s just a matter of holding it above his body and making sure the tube doesn’t kink.’

  ‘And just why are you asking that?’ Marty demanded as they both helped the man into the chopper and settled him on the stretcher.

  She turned and touched his arm, just above the wrist—a simple touch—getting his attention before saying very quietly, ‘Because there’s no way you can take him and me, given how tight your take-off load was already. I’ll just wait until the tide goes down and someone can come for me. I’ll be all right, although you’ll have to phone my dad and let him know what’s happening.’

  Marty stared at the small hand, still resting on his arm, then studied the face of this woman whose touch had startled him. She met his gaze unflinchingly.

  ‘Well?’ she said, removing her hand and concentrating again on their patient.

  He shook his head, unable to believe that she’d figured all this out and delivered it to him as naturally as she might tell someone she was ducking out to the shops.

  ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she continued, as she calmly inserted a cannula into the man’s undamaged hand and attached a line for the fluid. ‘The children are upset already, so the teacher has to go back with them. I’m the obvious choice to give up a place.’

  ‘And you’re happy to stay alone on the beach?’

  Grey eyes could flash fire, he discovered.

  ‘I didn’t say I was happy about it, but as I can’t fly the helicopter I can’t see any other solution. You’ll have some chocolate bars in the helicopter—I’ve never been on one that didn’t—so you can leave me a couple, and some water. I’ll be fine as long as you phone my dad.’

  Much as he wanted to argue, there was little point. He couldn’t take off with both of them on board—not safely...

  He went with practical.

  ‘There’s a cellphone signal here, you can phone your father yourself.’

>   It seemed a heartless thing to say to a small woman he was about to leave on a deserted beach with bushfires raging all around her, but his mind wasn’t working too well.

  Something to do with grey eyes flashing fire?

  Impossible...

  She half smiled as she drew up a calibrated dose of morphine and added it to the drip.

  ‘I could if my phone hadn’t been in my pocket when I went into the water.’

  ‘Well, of all the—’

  He stopped. Of course, she wouldn’t have considered her phone when there was a man in the water who needed her help.

  Realising she was so far ahead of him he should stop talking and just do something, he wetted some cloth with sterile water and laid it over the man’s legs where the stretcher straps would go, so the burns wouldn’t be aggravated.

  Or too aggravated.

  He tilted the stretcher to raise the patient’s legs, then checked on the children—all of whom were still sitting remarkably motionless on the sand near the door.

  ‘Okay, you stay,’ he said to Emma, ‘but I’ll be back for you just as soon as I can. Are you winch trained?’

  ‘I am, but I don’t think that’ll be possible tonight. Even if you’re still on duty, the chopper will be needed to get the young man to a burns unit,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s warm and there’s enough soft sand on the top of the dune that will stay dry so I can sleep on that until someone can get back here. Or if the fire dies down, I can walk out.’

  Could he read the nonchalant lie on her face? Emma wondered as she satisfied herself that their patient would make it safely to Braxton Hospital, where he’d be stabilised enough for a flight to the nearest burns unit.

  But it wasn’t really a lie. The twins would be fine with her father, they were used to her coming and going, but—

  Damn her phone!

  Damn not thinking of it!

  ‘Here’s a spare phone and an emergency kit. Chocolate bars and even more substantial stuff, water, space blanket, torch.’

  She spun towards Marty and read the worry in his face as he handed her the phone and backpack. He was hating doing this, leaving her on her own on the beach, but he was a professional and knew it was the only answer.