Читать книгу Bride by Accident - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 9

WHAT she really needed was bed. Urgently. But Emma glanced out to the parking lot and saw Kyle’s parents. They were holding each other, isolated, a cocoon of despair that wrenched her far out of her professional detachment and her own need for rest. There were other children around them, staring up at their parents in distress.

A shattered family.

Dev would be in Theatre for another half-hour at least, she thought grimly. He had to make sure Suzy was stabilised for the trip to Brisbane. And then there was everyone else.

Jodie and the schoolteacher—Colin Jeffries—had already been airlifted out. Dev had told her that much. The Medivac air rescue team had blessedly been in the air when they’d sent out a call for help, and they’d been able to evacuate them fast. Jodie needed urgent vascular surgery and Colin’s wound required the attention of a plastic surgeon, so they’d taken off straight away, promising to return for Suzy.

That was three patients sorted, but there were so many others. Stitches, fractures, trauma…Dev would be frantic for hours.

Taking care of Kyle’s parents would be dreadful, Emma thought, glancing again at the little family out in the parking lot. But maybe she could help. This was something she could do for him.

And she desperately wanted to do something for him, she decided. She thought of Dev as she’d left him in Theatre: a big man with clever fingers and eyes that cared. She let herself dwell on the image for a moment—and she felt the stirring of an emotion that was at least as strong as anything else she’d felt that day.

Dev was like Corey but also unlike him. Gentle yet strong. The way he’d smiled…The way he’d spoken to Suzy…

She caught herself, confused. Where was her mind taking her? This was crazy. She had no business even vaguely thinking of Dev in the way she was thinking of him. It was ridiculous.

She shook away the feeling of unreality she’d had ever since she’d seen Dev. Emotion had to wait. Inexplicable emotion. Inexplicable…linking?

OK, maybe it had to be faced some time but not yet. Meanwhile she had to find the chief nurse.

She found her fast. Margaret was in the nurses’ station. Young, very attractive and beautifully presented, her dark hair twisted into an elegant knot, her flawless skin carefully, unobtrusively made up so she seemed perfect, she was speaking urgently into the phone and her tone was one of complete authority.

‘I need plasma now. No, it can’t wait until morning. Our stocks are completely gone. Well, if you want the risk of an accident in the middle of the night where we can’t transfuse—are you personally willing to take that responsibility? I can sign you off on saying that? I didn’t think so. I know the Medivac team have already left. No, I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have needed to ask. You know what the situation is. I’ll leave it to you, then, shall I? Plasma by sunset.’

The phone was replaced.

This was the sort of woman who was invaluable in a crisis, Emma decided. A stickler for rules but ruthlessly efficient. Once onside she’d be an unopposable force.

She needed to get her onside.

‘Hi,’ Emma said, and the woman came out of the nurses’ station to greet her.

‘Oh, my dear.’ Her voice was warm and decisive. Maybe a little condescending? Surely they had to be about the same age.

No matter.

‘We can’t believe you’ve done so much,’ she was saying. ‘Helen has been telling me what happened. For you to be a doctor, and to be brave enough to climb on the bus…Suzy was so lucky.’

‘But not Kyle,’ Emma said gently, and Margaret winced.

‘I know. It’s dreadful.’

‘I hear you’re not happy about Kyle’s parents seeing him until Dr O’Halloran gives the all-clear?’

‘No, I—’

‘I understand you’d like clearance but I’m happy to take that responsibility.’

‘You?’ The woman backed off a little.

‘I am a doctor.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I’m a battered and pregnant doctor, but I’m still a doctor,’ Emma said, and her tone was as decisive as Margaret’s had been a moment before. ‘I can certify death and I can give permission for the relatives to be with him. Kyle’s parents need to see him as soon as possible and I can’t see any reason for delay. Where is he?’

Margaret was frowning. ‘In the morgue.’

‘Do you have a private room free?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then let’s move him in there, shall we?’ she said, her tone still inexorable. ‘He’s not so dreadfully battered that we risk shock by letting the parents close. Regardless, they need to see him. We both know that. They can’t accept his death until they do. So…We need to do the best we can for these people and it can’t wait. Can you show me where the morgue is? I’ll take care of Kyle’s body while you start preparing your private room for him.’

‘Can’t they see him in the morgue?’

‘If he was your little son,’ Emma said gently, ‘would you like to say goodbye to him in a morgue? I think we can do better than that.’

The log had smashed Kyle’s internal organs, crushing him instantly, but to look at his face he might almost be sleeping.

He was such a…

No. Stay dispassionate. Somehow.

Emma washed his face with care. With tenderness. She wrapped his little body tightly so the crushing injuries weren’t apparent, she wrapped him again, more loosely, in a soft blanket so if need be he could be lifted and cuddled, and then she supervised the orderlies as they wheeled him through to the ward.

Margaret hovered, anxious, ready to say no, but Emma gave her no chance. She used the authority of her training—and the instincts of her heart. If this little one had been hers…

The orderlies—two young men who looked as if they were barely out of school, and who looked as if the shock of the day had them wanting to be back there—held back, unsure in the face of death, so in the ward it was Emma who lifted him across into the bed, settling his head against the pillows, arranging his features so he wasn’t stiffly at attention but rather in the pose of a child sleeping.

Finally she stood back and nodded. She’d done all she could. She couldn’t bring him back to life but at least he looked as if he was at peace.

This was so important. Desperately important. In a moment his parents would see him for the last time, and this memory of their child would be carried with them for ever. She couldn’t bring him back for them but she could do this.

Finally she went outside to find them. Huddled in their misery, Kyle’s parents didn’t see her coming. She touched the woman lightly on the shoulder and they turned.

Their children looked mutely up at her, past asking questions.

‘Come and see your son,’ she told them. ‘We’ve washed him and popped him into a bed for you to say goodbye to him. He’s ready.’

‘The…kids?’ the woman whispered, and Emma looked at the children. At Kyle’s brothers and sisters.

‘That’s up to you,’ she said. ‘Whether you want your children to say goodbye to their brother is your decision. But if it was my kids…I know what I’d do.’

Fifteen minutes later, Dev left Theatre, reassured Suzy’s parents, took two deep breaths and thought, What next?

The Medivac team had taken the worst of the casualties out on the first run.

Suzy was stable and the Medivac helicopter was on its way back to evacuate her. The worst was over.

There’d still be traumatised kids. Too many traumatised kids.

Maybe they could wait for a little. The nurses would have done preliminary assessment and called him for anything urgent.

He needed to find the woman who’d helped him, he thought, and the vision of her as he’d first seen her came back to him. She’d been only semi-conscious. Hell, he’d had no time for her. She’d been injured, yet she’d thrown herself into the chaos and there’d been no time for him to assess her. She’d looked sick as she’d left Theatre.

Kyle. Kyle’s parents. They had to be his priority.

But the image of the woman—what had she said her name was, Emma?—stayed with him. She was a heroine, he thought. Somewhere, somehow he’d get a medal for her if he had to do battle with politicians himself to arrange it. She was such a slip of a thing, too thin, her eyes too big for her pinched face, heavy with pregnancy, yet what she’d achieved…

He’d find her. As soon as possible he’d find her.

There was no one at the nurses’ station. Where was everyone?

Where was Emma?

There was a sound of distant sobbing. Kyle’s family? Margaret came round the corner and met him, her face a mix of uncertainty and concern.

‘Kyle’s parents?’ It must be.

‘Kyle’s in Room 5,’ she told him.

He frowned. The last time he’d seen the child’s body the orderlies had been carrying it into the morgue. ‘Why?’

‘Emma…the doctor…asked me to put him in there so his parents could spend time with him. I hope it’s OK. Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No,’ he told her. ‘Do you know where Emma is?’

‘She’s with them. Or she was.’

What the heck was she doing there? She should be in bed. He needed to check her baby. He…

‘You’ve had a hell of a day,’ Margaret was saying. She put a hand on his arm.

He grimaced. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly, and listened to the sobs. ‘But not as hellish as some.’

‘I hope I did the right thing, letting Emma bring him from the morgue.’

‘Of course.’ She seemed to expect it so he gave her a swift hug. She smiled, and then pulled back, smoothing her uniform.

‘Not here.’

‘No.’

Enough. He had to face Kyle’s family.

He turned towards room 5, thinking through the decision to move him. A private room and a bed rather than a stretcher in the morgue. Good call.

Here she was again. His phantom doctor, springing up where he least expected her.

She wasn’t very good at lying down and dying, he decided. Thank God.

‘OK. It’s a good idea,’ he told Margaret. ‘So you’ve been talking to her. Do we know anything about her other than her name’s Emma?’

‘She’s bossy,’ Margaret said, and gave him a half-smile. ‘Almost as bossy as I am. She washed Kyle and made him look…normal. She did a lovely job.’

He winced at that.

A lovely job. Bad choice of words, he told Margaret silently. Was there any such thing as a lovely job where Kyle was concerned?

Kyle was the fourth kid of a family of six and a real little daredevil. Dev had been stitching him up and putting casts on fractured limbs ever since he’d started practising medicine here.

That Kyle was dead was unthinkable.

He was in Room 5. She’d done a lovely job.

Deep breath.

Margaret gave him a questioning look, asking him mutely if he wanted her to accompany him, but he shook his head. This was something he had to do by himself.

She left him to it.

He turned into the next corridor—and then paused.

The door to Room 5 was slightly ajar and through the open door he could see Kyle’s mother. And Kyle. The woman had lifted her son into her arms and she was cradling him and weeping into his copper curls. Her husband looked on helplessly. Kyle’s brothers and sisters were there, too, huddled around their little brother. A family united in grief. A family saying goodbye to their Kyle.

And outside, on the seat outside the door, just out of sight of the family, sat Emma.

She was huddled over, bent at the waist as if she was in pain, and she was weeping silently into her open palms. Her shoulders were racked by silent sobs.

It seemed that Emma had finally stopped.

How long had it been since he’d cradled a woman in his arms?

Never?

Sure, he’d kissed a woman. He and Margaret had a very satisfactory relationship and he thoroughly enjoyed kissing her. But as for cradling her…

He never had. The lines of professional detachment meant that he’d never cradled a patient.

But this…

This was suddenly an overwhelming need. He stooped to pull Emma’s hands from her face, he saw the despair etched deep in her eyes, he saw the lingering horror, and he saw the shuddering sobs rack her body—he couldn’t bear it. He took her in his arms. When she slumped against him, helpless in the face of her grief and shock and exhaustion, he simply lifted her up and cradled her against him and rocked her as if she were a child.

He held her while the shuddering sobs went on and on. He simply held her.