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‘It’s true. I’m fine,’ she whispered.
‘In fact, you’ve never looked better,’ he agreed, relaxing. Then triage kicked in again. ‘You’ve been in a car accident. You’re sure no one else was hurt?’
‘There’s only me.’
‘And your car… You’re sure it’s not blocking the road? Do I need to call the emergency services to clear it?’
‘It’s way off the road,’ she said, suddenly bitter. ‘But even if it was, would you need to clear it? Apart from the car that caused me to crash—which didn’t even stop—I’ve seen no other car for hours.’
‘It’s a quiet little town in the middle of coastal bushland—and we’re on holiday.’ He was still watching her face, thinking the situation through. What next?
In the warm room Erin’s colour was starting to return. Her foot needed attention, as did her mass of cuts and bruises, but if she’d carried the dog for miles she must really care about it. Maybe triage said he ought to check.
‘If you’re okay for a minute, I’ll see what’s happening to your dog.’
‘Would you?’ She closed her eyes. ‘I think he’s dying. He was moving when I picked him up—he sort of moaned—but he didn’t struggle.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Dom said, and put his hand on her cheek in a fleeting gesture of reassurance. ‘Don’t move.’ He tucked the rug more tightly round her, pulled a couple more logs onto the fire then left, leaving the door wide so she could watch him.
Her eyes followed him. She must love the dog a lot to carry him with her foot like that, he thought. It’d be good if he could do something. But, like she’d said, the dog looked close to death.
The creature hadn’t moved. Dom flicked the hall light on so he could see him better and stooped over the limp form.
He wasn’t dead yet. Neither was he unconscious. The dog’s eyes were huge. He looked up at Dominic and his expression was almost imploring.
If there was one thing Dom was a sucker for it was a dog, especially a dog in trouble. And this one was really in trouble. ‘Hey,’ Dominic said softly, and put a finger gently behind the dog’s soft ear. He scratched gently. ‘Hey, it’s okay.’
He liked this dog on sight. It was mix of English bulldog and something he didn’t know. Part bulldog, part mutt? Dog ugly in every sense of the word. He looked a bit like Winston Churchill, missing the cigar.
But he didn’t smile at the thought. The situation was too serious.
Tending an injured dog had problems not normally associated with people, the main one being their propensity to bite. This one looked beyond biting, but Dom sensed that even when he was well this dog would be docile. His eyes followed him with absolute trust.
But, hell, he must be hurt. Why wasn’t he moving?
A few months ago Dom had attended a guy who’d come off his bike onto gravel. That’s what this dog looked like—he’d been dragged along the road. His coat was a mass of scratches, some deep. His mistress was in a much better state than he was.
What was so wrong that the dog couldn’t move?
He’d laid the dog on the doormat and the dog had slumped so his legs were facing the wall. Now Dom carefully pulled the mat around—with dog attached—so he could get a clear view of the dog’s joints. A smashed leg would explain immobility.
But his legs were fine. Or…not. Here at last was information to enter in his patient’s history. In Dom’s expert medical opinion, these were her legs.
‘What’s your dog’s name?’ he called back into the sitting room.
‘You tell me and we’ll both know,’ the woman muttered, and Dominic thought he needed to give her something for pain.
But suddenly his attention switched back to the dog. For, as he watched, a ripple ran across its limp body. The muscle contraction was unmistakable.
From a little bit of information suddenly he had a lot of information. Too much. This dog was not male and she was not fat. She was heavily pregnant and by the look of her body she was in labour.
Great, Dom thought. Fantastic. Half an hour ago he’d been bored to snores. Now he had a wounded woman lying on his sitting-room settee, and a pregnant bitch who was showing every sign of dying unless he could do something about it. And the last vet had left Bombadeen back in 1980. Via the graveyard.
Okay, he needed a history. He rose, striding swiftly back into the sitting room. ‘I need to know…’ he started, but at the look on Erin’s face he changed priorities again and headed for his surgery. That foot would be excruciatingly painful. His surgery was at the back of the house, accessed through his study. Two minutes later he was back, hauling his bag open, retrieving what he needed.
‘Sorry,’ he said, kneeling beside Erin and lifting the rug back a little. ‘I shouldn’t have let the dog distract me. I’m giving you something for the pain. Are you allergic to anything?’
‘No, I—’
‘No reaction to morphine?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then let’s stop things hurting,’ he said. He should set up a mask but he was forming priorities as he went. A mask meant he’d need to stay with her while she slowly gained the level of pain relief she needed. But he had a birth on his hands. She had brought the dog, after all.
‘I don’t need morphine,’ she muttered.
‘Tell me it’s not hurting.’
She hesitated. Then, ‘It’s hurting,’ she conceded.
‘You came to the doctor’s. I assume that’s because you were looking for medical help.’
‘Your house is the first house out of bushland. But when I saw your sign… I was looking for help with the dog.’
‘I’m not a vet. I’ll do my best for her, but—’
‘Her?’
‘Her. But we’ll get you sorted first. I’ll give you something to stop the vomiting as well.’ He hesitated, his eyebrows still raised. Waiting for her agreement. She looked at the syringe. Then she winced again and nodded.
‘I suspect you’ve been brave enough for a lifetime tonight,’ he said gently, swabbing her thigh. ‘I need to go back to your dog but can you quickly tell me what happened?’
‘I’m on my way to Campbelltown,’ she said, closing her eyes as the needle went in. Then opening them again. ‘Hey, not bad. That hardly hurt.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ he said, and smiled. ‘It’s what I do. So then?’
She was still having trouble talking. Shock, exhaustion and fear had taken quite a toll. ‘Anyway, I’d sort of deviated from the main Campbelltown route. I…I needed thinking time. So I didn’t know the road. And then there was a car in front of me. An ancient car that trailed smoke. It was weaving as if the driver was drunk. It was just after dark. The road was narrow near the cliffs beside the river, and suddenly the rear door of the car opened and the dog was thrown out.’
‘Thrown…’
‘They pushed him,’ she said, horror flooding into her voice as she recalled. ‘Right into the path of my car. I would have hit him but I swerved.’
‘You went over the cliff!’ She must have. The road by the river left no room for error.
‘What do you think?’ she said bitterly. ‘So my car was on its side right down the bottom of the cliff. I’m lucky I didn’t go into the river. I lay in the car for a bit thinking someone would rescue me—I’m sure the people in the car in front must have seen what happened. But nothing. So finally I kicked my way out of the passenger door, which was suddenly my roof. It was really dark. My shoe came off and I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find my phone. I climbed up the cliff but it took me ages and the dog was lying in the middle of the road. Just lying there. So I sat there in the dark, waiting to get my breath back—waiting for someone to come along. And I thought the dog was dying but he didn’t die. So finally I picked him up and carried him here.’
‘If you went over where I think you went over… That’s two—maybe three miles you’ve walked,’ Dominic said, horrified.
‘It felt like ten.’ She closed her eyes again. And then she opened them again. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. No, actually, not nothing. I’m thinking you deserve a medal. I can’t believe…’ He shook his head, forcing himself to move on. ‘I need to go back to the dog.’
‘The she dog,’ she said cautiously. ‘Elementary mistake. I guess my examination skills leave a bit to be desired.’
Definitely medical, he thought. Nurse? But now was hardly the time to ask.
‘The she dog,’ he agreed gravely. ‘And I think I know why she’s not moving.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s in labour. I’m guessing by the look of her that she’s been in labour for a while. I need to haul out my veterinary books and see what I can do. We’ll give your injection time to work and I’ll take a closer look at those scratches. Meanwhile…’
‘Do your best,’ she said, and managed a smile. ‘I didn’t pick she was a she and I didn’t pick she was in labour. I deserve to be struck off. But please…help her. I haven’t lugged her all this way to have her die.’
CHAPTER TWO
SHE might well have. The dog was still exactly as Dom had left her. He squatted beside her and winced.
She was an obvious stray. She wore a frayed collar with no identification. She’d been dumped. She looked emaciated and exhausted and ill almost to the point of death.
Maybe it would be more humane to put her down, he thought ruefully. As the only person with any medical knowledge for fifty miles, Dom had been called on for veterinarian duty in the past. He had something in his bag that would be fast and painless.
But…
But the dog was looking up at him. He’d never seen such pleading eyes.
He swallowed. It’d be sensible…
The dog’s gaze wasn’t leaving his face.
He watched as another contraction rippled through her body. It was weaker than the last. It was a wonder her contractions hadn’t ceased altogether, given what she was going through.
He did a fast, basic examination. There was no sign of a puppy coming.
How long had the contractions been happening? Erin had obviously not been in a state to notice, but the fact that the second contraction was weaker than the first told its own story.
This was an abnormal labour, in a dog near death.
He couldn’t do a Caesarean section. He’d learned a few basic vet skills, but this was way beyond him. He had no anaesthetist to help him. Even if could find out the dosage, what sort of anaesthetic could he give a bitch so close to death?
Erin’s heroics aside, what was the sensible course of action?
She was a badly injured, stray dog in obstructed labour. He knew the logical thing to do.
But still her eyes pleaded.
Okay. Soft-touch Doc Dom. He sighed and hit his phone. Fiona McLay was the nearest vet, fifty miles away. She was as soft a touch as he was. Like Dom, Fiona was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She was nearing seventy, she was wonderful, and when he was having a bad day he reminded himself that if Fiona could do it, so could he.
She answered on the first ring.
‘Sorry to wake you, Fi,’ he said. ‘But I have a problem. Can you give me some advice?’
The morphine was starting to take effect. Finally. The pain in her foot and in her shoulders was taking a back step.
She was warm. Gloriously, safely warm. Dominic had loaded the fire, the flames were leaping and the room was fabulously heated. She was still a bit damp but it didn’t matter.
She could go to sleep, right now.
She should ring Charles and her parents, she thought drowsily. They’d worry.
Or not. They’d just assume she’d been caught up at work. They certainly wouldn’t be pacing.
They’d be furious with her anyway. Maybe they’d even expect her not to come.
‘I’d kill her.’
Out in the hall Dom’s voice sounded startled. Up until now she’d been concentrating on the pain, but now Erin lay back and let Dom’s words sink in.
‘If you’re sure… Then I’m guessing it’s been stuck for hours. Yeah, you’re right, there’s no choice. No, you’re right there, too, she’s not going to make it that far. Or that long. She’d be dead before you got here. Thanks for offering anyway, Fi, you’re a hero. Okay, step by step. Yeah, I’ve got the kit you made up for me—not that I ever dreamed of using it. Talk me through it slowly. I’ll write down dosages as we go.’
Silence followed. She peered around the back of the settee and saw him taking notes. Finally the receiver was replaced. She heard him moving away somewhere further down the hall, the sound of running water in the bathroom, then things being set up on the floorboards by the front door. Just out of sight.
‘I know, girl,’ he said, so softly she had to strain to hear. ‘It’s not a great operating table, but I don’t want to move you more than I need to. And I’ve set up the desk lamp so I can see.’
This was killing her. She wiggled her foot with care. The worst of the throbbing had stopped. That was because she wasn’t standing on it, she thought.
Okay, she wouldn’t stand on it. She wrapped the rug around her, slid off the settee and wriggled on her backside over the floor. Her shoulders complained but what the heck—what was morphine for? She’d put too much into saving this dog to stop now.
She reached the doorway and peered round. Dom was intent on the dog. He’d set up a high bendy light so he could see. He was setting up a dripstand.
She paused, taking in the whole scene. Her dog was lying in the hallway. With the morphine aboard Erin could focus on her surroundings now, taking in the wide, old-fashioned hall, the high ceilings, the massive architraves. And she could also get a good look at this doctor. Dominic Spencer?
He was youngish, she thought. Mid-thirties? His dark chocolate-brown hair was a bit too long, a bit wavy, with some of it flopping down over one eye. Not too far—like he was a week or so overdue for a haircut. And a day or two late for a shave. And a year or so overdue for an iron. He looked rumpled, she thought. She was used to the men in her life being…groomed. This guy was wearing faded jeans, ancient trainers and an old cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a frayed collar. His top two buttons had disappeared long since.
He didn’t look like a doctor, she thought. If the sign on the brass plate out the front—plus his actions since she’d arrived—didn’t bear out his introduction she’d have guessed maybe he was the doctor’s artist-brother, who’d maybe cadged a bed over Easter because he was living on the smell of an oily rag.
But in what he was doing, this guy was proving every inch a doctor. His lean face looked absolutely focused.
He looked…wonderful. It must be the morphine talking, she thought, dazed. She didn’t respond to men like this. Of all the stupid, hormonal reactions…
At least he hadn’t noticed. With the drip started, Dom had turned his attention to his equipment.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He glanced around—one swift glance that said he was completely preoccupied—then turned back to what he was doing. ‘If you move you’ll hurt yourself,’ he said briefly. ‘Go back to the settee.’
‘I’m hurting because of this dog,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll call her Marilyn.’
