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He shook his head. The stretcher was set down on the examination bench and almost unconsciously Luc’s hand slid into Beth’s and held it.
Blake saw, and the concern on his face grew, but there was no room for explanation.
Neither was there room for evasion, from Blake or from Beth herself. It would be great to say, Beth’s ankle’s broken. We’ll fix it in no time, but the one thing he and Beth always had was total honesty. Sometimes it had broken them in two but it was something he couldn’t change. He knew she was listening through her haze of medication. Her medical degree meant she’d recognise sugar coating and he had to say it like it was.
‘I’ve given a peripheral nerve block,’ he told Blake. ‘There’s definitely fracture and dislocation of the ankle, and we need to check for compartment syndrome.’ Compartment syndrome had to be considered here. It was caused by extended crushing of the lower limb, forcing build-up of pressure in one section and loss of pressure in another. The long-term damage of sustained crushing was...unthinkable.
‘Do what you have to do,’ Beth said weakly, and Blake looked down into her face.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Blake Cooper. You are...’
‘This is Beth,’ Luc said hoarsely, and then he added, because it seemed absurdly important for Blake to know. ‘Blake, Beth’s a doctor. She’s also...my ex-wife.’
There was a moment’s stillness while Blake took that on board. He searched Luc’s face and Luc could see him reassemble priorities. And then it was business as usual.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ Blake said, smiling down at Beth. ‘Though I could wish the circumstances were different.’ He took her wrist and felt her pulse, his face set in the lines of someone accustomed to triage, priorities. And Luc knew Beth was a priority. The risk of delayed treatment with compartment syndrome meant the possibility of a lifetime of pain, numbness or even amputation.
‘We need to get the pressure in your foot checked now,’ he said to Beth. ‘You know what’s going on?’
He’d accepted Beth’s medical background without question. ‘I... Yes,’ Beth managed.
‘Okay, I’m taking over,’ Blake told her, with another fast glance at Luc. And Luc knew the glance. It was an order.
Step away, Luc. You’re now a relative, too close to be objective and you need to let me take things from here.
‘Beth, we need Luc on triage,’ he told Beth. ‘You know there’s a small hospital here? I’m taking you through into Theatre. If I think there’s pressure differential—and by the look of it I suspect that’s inevitable—then I’ll make an incision to decompress. Your ankle will need to be stabilised. That can be done in Sydney but the pressure needs to be taken off now. Is that okay with you?’
‘I... Fine,’ Beth managed. ‘But... Toby?’
Blake looked a question at Luc and Luc managed to haul his attention from Beth to answer.
‘Toby’s Beth’s son. Twenty months old. He was brought out half an hour ago.’
Some of the tension on Blake’s face eased. ‘A toddler. I saw him. Sam did the assessment and he’s fine. He woke as she was examining him, demanding someone called Wobit...’
‘Robert,’ Beth said faintly. ‘Rabbit.’
‘Hey, we guessed right.’ Blake smiled down at her. ‘Apparently he was dropped, but one of the paramedics remembered and scooted over and rescued him.’
‘We’ve also found your bag and purse,’ Luc told her, still trying to keep his voice steady. ‘How good are we? But now... Is there anyone we can call to look after Toby?’
‘He has to come with me,’ Beth managed. ‘If I need to go to Sydney, Toby comes too. Luc, please... I need you to promise... I need...’
And something settled deep within.
‘It’s okay,’ Luc said, and touched her face. ‘I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of you.’
And she managed a smile.
And then something odd happened. It was almost as if a ghost had touched him on the shoulder. He was looking down into Beth’s grimed, dust-caked, filthy face, but all he saw was the smile. And in that smile...strangely this wasn’t the Beth he’d remembered for the long years of divorce, the Beth who’d been his wife, the Beth he’d cared for for so long. Despite the filth, the fear, the pain, somehow this was Beth as he’d first seen her—a fellow med student laughing at him over a bench in the pathology lab. Her eyes had been sparkling with mischief. Someone must have made a joke. He couldn’t remember what it was now. All he remembered was how he’d been caught in that smile, almost mesmerised.
He’d forgotten, he thought. In all those years of need and care, and then the long separation, he’d forgotten what a beautiful woman she was. Stunning.
How could he be remembering now? What the...?
‘I’ll take it from here,’ Blake told him, looking at him strangely.
‘Thanks, Blake.’
He had work to do. He had to leave—but heaven only knew the effort it cost him to move away.
From...his wife?
CHAPTER THREE (#ufbf8bf6c-185a-5d27-9fad-bdd07504f820)
THE SURGERY BLAKE performed was primitive and fast, making incisions to equalise pressure and ensure that blood supply wasn’t compromised before Beth could safely be transported. But Luc wasn’t involved. With Beth in Theatre, with Toby safe, he needed to be back in the plaza.
In a sense they were lucky, Luc thought as he worked on. The injuries stayed within the scope of what he and the team could handle. If there’d been compromised breathing of more than one patient or, as sometimes happened in these appalling situations, the necessity for amputation in order to get people out, Beth’s foot would have dropped on the triage list and Blake would have been needed out here in the plaza. But the efforts of Luc and the rest of the team were enough.
Not enough, though, for the five people pronounced dead at the scene, or the pilot of the plane, but Luc had worked in enough disasters to know how to block tragedy and keep going.
But he couldn’t block the thought of Beth. The thought of what was happening in Theatre. The vision of her trapped and wounded in the rubble. The feel of her hands clutching her child...her child! Had she remarried? Where had she been all these years?
How could he have let her go? There’d seemed no choice—she’d given him no choice—but the rush of memory from that smile was doing his head in. Did some other man have the right to that smile?
He was trying desperately to focus but when he finished treating a teenager with a lacerated arm, he turned and saw Blake and he almost sagged with relief.
‘O-okay?’ Hell, where was his voice? And what was he doing, asking if she was okay? She was suffering from an injured foot, not anything life-threatening.
‘She’ll live,’ Blake said, surveying him cautiously. Luc was known on the team for staying calm in any situation. He needed to get a grip now. Now!
‘I’ve done what I can,’ Blake told him. ‘She has a fractured ankle but seemingly no other significant injury. The main problem is crush syndrome—compartmentalising—but I’ve done what I can to equalise pressure and I’m optimistic. But she needs an orthopod and a decent podiatric surgeon to evaluate muscle injury. We’re evacuating her on the next chopper and I’m sending you back, too.’
‘If I’m needed...’
Once again he got that careful, appraising look. Blake and Luc swapped in and out of the role of chief medic on site. They were both accustomed to checking team members for stress, and maybe—definitely—Blake could see Luc’s stress now.
‘We have enough medics on the ground here,’ he said now, roughly.
And Luc thought, Dammit, he’s worried. About me?
‘I’ve been talking to the local doc. Apparently this town has three doctors. Maryanne Clarkson’s in her fifties, solid, unflappable. She’s working her butt off in Casualty now. There’s been an older doctor called Ron McKenzie, in his seventies, and your Beth. Ron and Beth run a clinic in the plaza, right by the car park. Ron’s one of the casualties. Maryanne tells me your Beth’s a single mum with no family here. Toby, her son, usually stays in childcare in the centre while she works. That’s in the plaza, too. The staff did a magnificent job getting the kids out but they’re all traumatised. Maryanne says that means there’s no obvious person to care for Toby, and no one’s stepped forward to be her accompanying person. So in view of that, I’m electing you. Unless the divorce was so acrimonious...’
‘I... No.’
‘Then you’ll do it? She needs medical care during evacuation. I want blood supply to that foot constantly monitored. And she needs someone she knows.’
‘And the child...’
‘Does he know you?’
‘I... No.’ How could he know him? Until two hours ago Luc hadn’t known he existed.
‘Lucky you’re good with kids, then,’ Blake told him, moving on. ‘I’m sending Beth and a guy with fractured ribs and lacerations. Plus Toby. There’s room on the chopper and he’s breathed in enough concrete dust to warrant twenty-four-hour obs. They’re in your hands, Luc.’
‘Right.’
Of course it was right. How many times had he done this, accompanying injured back to Sydney?
But Beth.
And her son.
She was a single mum? There’d been someone else. Had she walked away from him, too?
There was something inside him that clenched and wouldn’t unclench.
He took a deep breath and struggled to focus. He needed to hand over what he’d done.
‘Leave it, Luc,’ Blake said roughly. ‘Sam’ll fill me in on what you’ve been doing. Your head’s with Beth. Sorry, mate, but from now on I need to treat you as compromised. Are you sure you can manage on the plane?’
‘Of course.’
‘There’s no of course about it. Where family’s concerned...’
‘Beth’s not my family.’
‘No? Well, maybe for now she has to be because, as far as I understand, she doesn’t have anyone else. If it was Sam injured...’
Where had that come from? Blake and Sam—Samantha, SDR’s newest recruit—had become an item and were now engaged to be married. They were a couple. There was no comparison.
Or maybe there was.
Until death do us part?
He and Beth had signed the divorce papers but those long-ago vows still whispered in his head. Telling him Blake was right.
Beth was injured. She wasn’t family—how could she be? But somehow there were ties that meant that, yes, he’d stay beside her. For as long as he was needed.
* * *
‘Beth?’
She’d been stirring for a while now, struggling to surface from a drug-induced sleep, fighting down fears crowding in from all sides. She’d been vaguely aware of being carried to a helicopter, being lifted aboard. She remembered the surge of fear as she’d thought she was being taken from Toby, but a paramedic had stooped over her stretcher, showing her a warmly wrapped bundle.
‘He’s asleep, Beth, but he’s coming with us.’
‘We even have Robert Rabbit, a bit scruffy but safely tucked in with him.’ And it was Luc, a growly voice in the background. He’d been supervising the loading of another patient onto the chopper. She remembered thinking that was what Luc did. He got people out of trouble. He cared...
That care had been so stifling it had ended their marriage, but as she’d been lifted onto the chopper she’d sunk into it. She hadn’t had a choice. Let Luc care and be grateful for it.
And now... They were in the air and he was saying her name, touching her shoulder. ‘Beth? Stop fighting it, love. You’re safe. But if you’re awake...there’s something you might like to see.’
Love? How long since anyone had called her that? But it was wrong. She should...
She couldn’t. She let the word wash over her and insensibly it made her feel...okay.
‘This is amazing,’ Luc was saying. ‘Can I help you sit up a little?’
‘Wh-what?’
‘This is too stunning to miss,’ Luc was saying. ‘And it might even make you feel better. You’re supposed to be strapped in. Derek’s right here beside you but he’s fast asleep. He’s copped broken ribs and lacerations and the morphine has put him out like a light. Toby’s asleep, too, but I know you’re awake. We have your glasses. As long as we can do this without moving your leg, you’re okay to see. Beth, there’s a thunderstorm. Let me help you.’ And he was right beside her, gently raising her shoulders, cradling her against him, adjusting her glasses on her nose. ‘Look out the window.’
She did—and she gasped in wonder.
The drugs she’d been given had taken away all pain. Confusion and fear faded. She felt warm and close to sleep. She was being cradled by...by...
Yeah, that was too hard to think about. She tried to block out the feel of him and focussed instead on what lay out the window.
It was indeed a thunderstorm, a massive one, enveloping Sydney in an awe-inspiring display.
Lightning flashed across the sky in a mass of jagged forks, splitting and splitting again. The entire sky was lit. The lightning seemed all around them. In the distance she could see the lights of Sydney. The Harbour Bridge. The amazing Opera House. They were lit themselves, but as each crack of lightning sizzled, their lights mingled with what nature was providing.
The drugs were making her fuzzy, weird, stunned. The sky outside was surreal.
Luc was holding her. Luc...
Focus. Lightning. Toby.
Danger? She should...she should...
‘You’re safe, love,’ Luc said again, as if he guessed her fears. Which of course he always had. ‘It looks stunning but it’s well to the north and moving away. Our heliport’s on the roof of Bondi Bayside Hospital. We’re giving the storm a few minutes to clear before we land but we’ll have you and Toby tucked up and safe in no time.’
So she could relax. She could lie back in his arms and let the wash of what looked like a massive pyrotechnic display stun her into silence. She could look out into the dark, stormy world and know that Luc had her safe.
She mustn’t. Once upon a time she’d fallen for that sweet, all-enveloping trust and it had led to heartache and despair. She had to pull away.
But the drugs wouldn’t let her and neither would her will. She’d been alone for so long. The fear of the time spent trapped was still with her. The terror.
Luc had her safe and she couldn’t fight. For now...once again she had to let him care.
* * *
And then they landed and Luc had to take a step back. Blake had obviously forewarned the admission staff and Luc was greeted with something other than professional efficiency. These people were his friends. A barrage of questions was about to descend on him, but not now. He handed over notes and suddenly he was being treated as a relative. Paediatric staff took over the sleeping Toby’s care. The orthopaedic team moved in and Beth was wheeled away to Theatre.
She’d been lucky, Luc thought. Or sort of lucky. Most of the crises his team attended didn’t have the luxury of an onsite hospital, but Beth had had excellent treatment before transfer. Blake had been able to stabilise pressure, and she was now in the care of one of the best medical teams in Australia.
Bondi Bayside Hospital. The specialists here were world class.
