His Runaway Nurse Read online

‘You could join in out there, as long as I can contact you if the boys are found and need attention. I’ll give you one of the walkie-talkies. I’ve got one group down along the river, although it’s unlikely they’d have got that far, and when I get another group together—it takes the country blokes longer to get here—I’ll start them on the edges of the forest. I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves when the kids could be hiding under a van somewhere, or in someone else’s tent.’

  Flynn left the building, which was situated on the far side of the showground, and as he walked past the stalls, still carrying his bag for it would have been senseless to leave it in the shed, he noticed that the business of the festival seemed to be continuing, although he did hear a loudspeaker repeating a message for everyone to keep their eyes out for two un-accompanied boys aged four and six, dressed in jeans and T-shirts and wearing, when last seen, cowboy hats.

  But once past the marquees it was obvious a search was in progress, men and women moving in a line, getting down on their hands and knees to peer under caravans and cars, calling for keys to open van doors, car doors and boots, everyone tense and alert, a nervous energy tangible in the air.

  ‘Jamie, Sam!’ voices chorused, gruff voices and the high-pitched tones of teenage girls.

  Flynn moved through them, seeking the search organiser, wondering about the mother of these missing children, and how she might be coping.

  ‘Flynn!’

  He turned to see Majella, squatting beside a folding chair, her arms around a distraught woman—obviously the mother he’d been concerned about! They were under a tented annexe attached to a large caravan.

  ‘Would you happen to have a sedative? Naomi says she doesn’t need one, and I’m not sure about sedation and pregnancy, but she’s very distressed and it can’t be good for the baby,’ Majella explained. ‘Naomi, this is Flynn Sinclair, he’s the local doctor.’

  Caring, practical and efficient all at once, Flynn realised as he took in Majella’s explanation. All the awkwardness between them over the house and the will had been wiped away by fear for two lost boys and concern for their mother.

  The woman, Naomi, had been sitting, bent forward with her head in her hands, and it was only Majella’s mention of pregnancy that made him notice the bulge. The huge bulge!

  Flynn knelt in front of the heavily pregnant woman who was hyperventilating now, breathing and crying at the same time, weeping for her sons, breathing for the unborn child.

  ‘Your job is to keep this new baby safe,’ he told her. ‘We will find the boys.’ He spoke so firmly and positively she forgot her tears, looking up at him with puffy, reddened eyes.

  ‘You will?’

  Hope fluttered in the words, a hope that squeezed dread within Flynn’s chest. But she was not to know that.

  ‘We will!’ he repeated with so much conviction Naomi nodded acceptance and fished around in her big smock to find a handkerchief and wipe her face.

  Then she heaved herself to her feet.

  ‘I’ve got to go to the bathroom,’ she said, and moved away, heading for the camp restrooms.

  Majella stood up, thinking she’d accompany her, but the woman shook her head.

  ‘I’m all right. I had to have that cry, but now I’m better. As the doctor said, I’ve got to be strong for all three of my children.’

  Majella sank down into the abandoned chair and looked up at Flynn, who’d straightened as the woman had stood.

  ‘Your words were better than any sedative,’ she told him, hoping the turmoil she felt whenever she was in his presence wasn’t obvious. Telling herself the turmoil was to do with the will, not Flynn himself. Telling herself lies. ‘And no risk of harm to her or the new baby.’

  She added the last bit so he’d know she was thinking of the anxious woman not this new Flynn-Majella dynamic.

  ‘Where are your searchers meeting up?’

  Well, Flynn wasn’t thinking of personal dynamics—and neither should he be with two children missing. He’d always had a strong sense of responsibility, and she’d seen it again in the way he’d spoken to Naomi, taking charge of assuring and reassuring her, being definite in his assurances, as if by saying it he could make it happen.

  Which, being Flynn, he probably could.

  ‘At the gate between the camping ground and the main showground!’ she said. ‘Then someone will come back to here to report, while the others go and join the teams going out from the SES shed.’

  ‘You’ve done this kind of thing before?’

  ‘Only once, a search for an old man who’d wondered from a nursing home near where I was based at the time, but I was also involved in post-earthquake rescue in southern Asia. There we had to search through every ruined building, under every fallen tree, always hoping to find someone still alive, although the bodies outnumbered the living people about one hundred to one.’

  She paused, then, remembering, added, ‘Of course, the bodies had to be found as well. Not only for sanitary reasons, but to bring peace of mind to all the loved ones they had left behind.’

  ‘Southern Asia? After an earthquake? You’ve done that kind of work?’

  She smiled at his amazement, although she could understand it. The girl he’d known had worried about getting dirt on a dress.

  ‘It’s what the army does best, that kind of thing, and, being in the medical corps, we were the first in, before the engineers and general troops.’

  ‘But Grace is, what? Two? Three? Surely the earthquake…?’

  ‘She’s three and was nine months old when the unit went to Asia. I left her with Helen. I had to return to work.’

  But although part of her mind was on the conversation—and busy blocking out the reason why she’d needed to work—most of it was on Naomi. Hadn’t she been gone an unnecessarily long time? Majella stood up, thinking she’d better check.

  Before she could move further, a loud cry pierced the air, then both she and Flynn were running, straight across the narrow access road and grassy play area, towards the restrooms.

  ‘My waters! My waters broke!’ Naomi whimpered, as Majella grabbed her shoulders to support her and Flynn hitched his arm around her waist from the other side.

  ‘Come on, we’ll get you back to the caravan,’ Majella told her. ‘Your waters breaking doesn’t mean you’ll have the baby immediately, but you will probably go into the early stages of labour and you need to be comfortable.’

  ‘Do many of your soldiers have babies that you’re so knowledgeable about childbirth?’ Flynn asked, when they’d settled Naomi back in her chair in the annexe and he’d followed Majella into the caravan, where she’d gone to make their patient a cup of tea.

  ‘I have had one myself!’ Majella reminded him. ‘And there are plenty of women in the army these days.’ Then she grinned and added, ‘Though I must admit I’ve never delivered an army baby. But we’re trained for all emergencies—a bit like ambulance attendants with advanced resus and support skills, and I’ve done some obstetric work out in the field.’

  She was stirring sugar into the cup of tea she’d made—panacea for so many ills, strong sweet tea—but she nodded towards the segmented area of the big caravan where a section of a double bed was visible through partly closed concertina doors.

  ‘I really wanted to check out the van. I didn’t think Naomi would want to leave the camp in case the boys were found, and I wondered if we could deliver the baby here if we had to.’

  ‘We?’ Flynn repeated, feeling as if he was in a continual state of amazement as far as Majella was concerned. He’d got as far as realising Naomi wouldn’t want to leave, but checking the van’s suitability for childbirth? Majella was way ahead of him.

  ‘You can deliver a baby just about anywhere,’ he added, to cover his own lack of forethought.

  ‘Don’t I know it!’ she said, making him feel amazed again—and possibly just a little bit inadequate.

  This was Majella, the girl he’d taught to saddle horses, and how to keep
the tack clean and lubricated with the use of saddle soap; how to lift a horse’s hoof to check for damage; how to put polish on the hooves when her grandfather’s horses had been going to the races.

  He’d even taught her how to whistle with two fingers in her mouth, though he’d stopped the whistling business when he’d realised she’d been able to make a louder noise than he had.

  Of course, she would have learned a lot in twelve years, especially in the army, but it just served to remind him how little he knew her now.

  ‘She’s having labour pains,’ Majella reported, coming back into the van after delivering the cup of tea. ‘Isn’t there some concern about delivery after the waters have broken? Something about a dry birth?’

  ‘She should be OK if labour’s already started,’ he said, then realised he should be tending the patient, not standing in the van thinking about Majella, or peevishness and especially not attraction. ‘But I want to examine her and check the foetal heart rate so we’ve a baseline for the progress of the labour. Will she at least come inside?’

  Majella went back outside, returning to tell him Naomi wanted to stay in the annexe, but would move to a couch they had there so Flynn could examine her properly.

  ‘The hospital is just up the road and we could leave word that’s where you are,’ he said, feeling he at least had to try to get the woman to a place where everything needed was on hand, should things go wrong.

  ‘I don’t do hospitals,’ Naomi said firmly, as he listened to the steady, rapid beat of her unborn baby’s heart. ‘I see a midwife all the way through the pregnancy and usually have a midwife for the delivery. Or just Bill, it was, with Sam. Bill delivered him.’

  She began to cry again, and Majella soothed her this time, assuring her they’d find the boys, telling her it was time to think about herself.

  ‘About as useful as spitting on a bushfire, telling her that,’ Majella whispered to Flynn, who was gently feeling the woman’s bulging stomach, checking the position of the baby who was preparing to enter the world.

  ‘It’s coming head first,’ he told the two women, ‘so no worries there. Would you like a girl this time?’

  More spitting on the bushfire but he wanted to keep Naomi focussed on her labour as much as he possibly could. There was also something called the ‘Hawthorne’ effect, a phenomenon where a woman in labour actually felt better when there was a professional on hand, soothing her and fussing over her. He wasn’t certain he’d feel better being fussed over if he was in the pain women seemed to experience in childbirth—in fact, he suspected he might want to murder the fusser—but whatever worked was good as far as he was concerned.

  Explaining what he was doing all the time, he snapped on gloves and knelt beside her, wanting to check the dilatation of her cervix and confirm the position of the head.

  Third child, shorter labour, she was already six centimetres dilated, and the contractions were strong and although he hadn’t been timing them precisely, he knew they were about five minutes apart.

  ‘I want to walk,’ Naomi said, ‘or at least stand up.’

  Majella and Flynn helped her to her feet but, although she got as far as the chair, another contraction gripped her before she could go any further.

  ‘I’ll sit on the ground,’ she said, slumping between them so they had to lower her carefully onto the grass. Majella pushed the chair towards her, and Naomi rested her upper body against it.

  ‘I’ve got to check the search teams,’ Majella said quietly to Flynn, who nodded then watched her walk away. There was a dream-like aspect to this reunion with Majella—one of those dreams that are impossible yet during the dream seem quite normal, until you wake and remember you’re not a rock star, nor would you ever be likely to be having breakfast with the Queen.

  So watching her walk away was disconcerting. Would she come back or would he wake up?

  Naomi groaned and shifted, but when Flynn suggested she might be more comfortable on the couch or in bed, she shook her head.

  ‘Gravity helps, you know,’ she told him when she could speak again. ‘So does standing in the shower, but I guess I can’t do that right here and now.’

  He was pleased she’d made the little joke, because it meant the pain had diverted her thoughts from the boys, although they’d been missing so long now that anxiety was gnawing at his guts, so how much worse must she be feeling, beyond the barrier her pain had now created?

  ‘If I squat, using the chair for support, it’ll tip over,’ Naomi said, struggling now to find a comfortable position. ‘You could sit in it to keep it balanced.’

  If I’m sitting in the chair for support, who catches the baby? And what am I doing, fussing around here, when I should be making preparations for its arrival.

  ‘The couch won’t tip over. I’ll help you across to it and you can squat there. Are there baby clothes somewhere in the van? And a clean towel or sheet I can put down beneath you?’

  He helped her to her feet but she was no sooner upright than Naomi gripped his arms again, breathing fast now, panting with the effort of containing her pain but not crying out at all.

  ‘Cupboard just inside the door, got “Baby” marked on it.’

  He found the bundle of linen in the cupboard marked Baby, and praised Naomi for being so well prepared. The bundle as far as linen was concerned, was not unlike the baby bundles at the hospital, and all of it was spotlessly clean.

  ‘With the boys at the lively stage they are, I needed to be ahead of things,’ Naomi told him, then tears streamed down her cheeks once more and all Flynn could do was hold her while she wept.

  ‘We’ll find the boys,’ he kept repeating, but when his name was called on the emergency band of the two-way radio he moved out of the annexe, pretending he needed to be in open space to hear the message, but really wanting to be away from Naomi in case bad news came loudly through the receiver.

  ‘No luck with the search parties in the camping area or the stalls, I’m sending three groups into the forest now. You know the forest behind the showgrounds as well as anyone—will you join the search but stay in contact in case you’re needed?’

  ‘Will do, but not right now,’ Flynn said, then explained Naomi’s predicament.

  ‘Never rains but it pours,’ the SES captain said, and Flynn smiled as he remembered the man’s fondness for a cliché. Everyone in town—here we go again on small-town ways!—knew about it and teased him, but it didn’t stop him using the well-worn phrases all the time.

  Flynn returned to his patient who announced she was ready to push, and the second stage of delivery began, ending after only twelve minutes, when Flynn lifted a good-sized baby girl into view and handed her to her weeping mother.

  For a moment he just stood and watched the pair, feeling the wonder and delight he always felt when he brought a new life into the world. Seeing the new miniature person breathing for the first time, peering around with puzzled eyes at a whole new world.

  Had Grace’s father seen her born?

  Felt this wonder?

  He closed his mind to the questions and turned his attention back to Naomi.

  ‘You’re sure you wouldn’t like to go up to the hospital now?’ he asked, as he realised just how little a doctor actually did at a delivery. The nurses kept up sips of water or provided ice blocks for the patient to suck. They did the soothing and the pillow fluffing, they monitored the foetal heartbeats and counted seconds between contraction peaks, and checked dilatation, then did the Agpar scores, weighed and measured the newborn, bathed and dressed it, cleaned up the mother and made sure she was comfortable. Now here he was, baby safely delivered, only a placenta to check but, instead of being able to walk away, he was it as far as support for the pair was concerned.

  ‘I’m staying here. The van’s our home. My husband is a wood-carver—he makes puzzles and pictures out of wood. I had both the boys in the van and planned to have this baby here anyway.’

  Naomi was adamant. She had her smock hitched
up and the baby nuzzling at her breast. He put one of the clean muslin clothes from the bundle across them both and found a plastic dish under the edge of the van. A dog’s water bowl? Didn’t matter, he could clean it out and use it for the placenta, and, after checking it and bagging it, he could get some warm water in the dish to sponge the baby and see to Naomi’s comfort.

  By the time Majella returned, he had the baby dressed—and felt an inordinate amount of pride in this achievement—and Naomi clean and fresh. She lay back on the lounge, the baby in her arms, the little crib Flynn had found beside the bed on the ground beside her so she could pop the baby into it if she felt tired.

  But the way she clung to the baby, Flynn sensed it wouldn’t leave her arms—no matter how exhausted she might be—until her boys were found.

  ‘You didn’t wait for me,’ Majella protested, when she took in the scene in the annexe, and though anxiety was etched deep in Naomi’s face she offered a weak smile as she showed the baby to Majella.

  ‘There’s no news, is there?’ she asked quietly, and beads and bells jingled as Majella shook her head.

  ‘But I spoke to a Mrs Jakes. She’s coming back to sit with you. The doc here knows the forest like the back of his hand. He’s more use in a search party than playing with the baby.’

  Naomi grabbed at Flynn’s hand.

  ‘Go now!’ she said. ‘Go and find my boys.’

  Majella watched Flynn’s face as Naomi made her plea and saw both doubt and determination. He bent and kissed this woman he barely knew softly on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll find them,’ he promised, then he straightened up and walked out of the annexe, leaving behind an air of such certainty that Naomi actually smiled.

  That was the Flynn she’d loved, Majella realised. The one beneath the bossiness and know-it-all attitude. The one who’d say a thing, then do it, because that was his creed.

  But finding lost boys?

  Was it always possible to keep a promise—to make your assurances come true?

  Majella didn’t think so.

  She checked the notes Flynn had left on the table, smiling to herself when she saw the kitchen scales beside them. Had he ever had to attend to all the details of a birth without a nurse or midwife on hand? she wondered. Somehow she doubted it, but he’d managed—as, she had no doubt, he always would.