That was pretty much how Tom was feeling. Anger and love. Anger that Tasha should be in this position. Anger that she’d even offered to go. Fury and frustration that he’d had to accept that offer.
Pride and love that she was down there, working to save a life.
Tasha. The woman he loved with all his heart.
He’d never thought he could feel like this.
His father and his half-brother had walked out on women they’d sworn to love, betraying them in the worst possible way.
‘They didn’t really love.’ He said it out loud, not caring who heard, and suddenly Rhonda was beside him, putting her hand in his.
‘She’ll be okay.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘We all love her,’ Rhonda said. ‘And she’s amazing. You know that, too. All she has to do is climb down a few more feet, straighten one leg and wait for the chopper. What’s hard about that?’
But her hand tightened convulsively in his as she spoke and he glanced down at her and saw his fear reflected on her face.
We all love her.
Cray Point had taken her to their hearts. He’d taken her to his heart.
He wanted her.
‘Dear God, let her be safe.’ He’d wanted her for himself but it didn’t matter. He’d barter everything if she could be okay. She could go and live in Summer Bay. She could go back to England if she wanted.
Just let her live.
* * *
She made it.
James was huddled in a ball of fear and pain and hardly acknowledged her arrival. Apart from a brief murmur, a touch of reassurance, the first few moments had to be taken with finding herself safe footholds and attaching anchors. There was practically no room. How James had fallen onto what looked like the only outcrop that could hold him was a miracle.
Pete had anchored James as best he could, but he’d also placed a harness on the boy’s shoulders and attached a rope. He’d taken the other end back up to the top when he’d left.
That was worst-case scenario, Tasha knew. That was in case the ledge crumbled or James fell. Anchors were only as solid as the cliff face they were attached to.
That was the reason she stayed in her harness now and wouldn’t release the tension of the rope from above. It was her link to safety.
To Tom.
James was huddled hard against the cliff, as far from the edge as it was possible to be—which meant there was about eight inches between his back and the fall to the waves below. He stirred as she arrived but he didn’t turn to look at her.
She had to balance on the edge of the ledge to examine him, fighting an instinctive urge to cling to the cliff itself.
‘James, you know me,’ she told him, bending close so he could hear her over the sound of the surf. ‘Doc. Tasha. I saw you when you had a sore throat last month.’
‘T-Tom,’ James groaned. ‘Where’s Tom?’
‘Up the top of the cliff, where you should be.’ She was doing a fast visual assessment. The boy was scratched and bleeding from multiple lacerations. He must have hit shale all the way down. His clothing was ripped and bloodstained. He had a deep cut above his left eye but it was already congealing.
She felt his pulse. It was steady and strong, which was a small reassurance. If he had internal bleeding he’d be in shock by now. She felt his ribs, his abdomen and found nothing obvious. He was conscious, and the kids had said that he’d called out to them as he’d landed, so a head injury was unlikely.
But his leg was twisted at an impossible angle.
She touched the skin at his ankle and winced. Pete was right. His foot was blue and bloodless and cool. This was a compound fracture with compromised blood supply. The tiny amount of blood getting through wasn’t enough to keep the foot alive.
He had no massive haematoma or obvious bleed. That meant the vein was probably intact but kinked like a garden hose.
If he wasn’t to lose his foot, she had to straighten the leg.
Help.
She needed a theatre. She needed an orthopaedic surgeon, an anaesthetist and a full complement of theatre staff.
‘Tasha?’
The voice in her headphones was Tom’s and it steadied her. She took a deep breath and answered, one doctor to another.
‘I’m down. James is conscious but in a lot of pain. I’m about to give him something to ease it. Five milligrams of morphine intravenously?’
‘Right,’ Tom said, and it helped to hear him agree. She knew she was right, but saying it out loud settled her. It was as if she had a colleague beside her.
She did have a colleague beside her. Tom was with her every inch of the way.
‘James, I’m giving you a shot of something that’ll dull the pain,’ she told him. ‘It won’t stop it completely but it’ll help.’ Then she spoke directly into the speaker attached to her headphones. ‘Fractured leg with almost nil blood supply to the foot. Tom, work with me. I need anaesthetist advice.’
‘Give me a moment.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, knowing he’d guessed, grateful that she didn’t have to say out loud that she was afraid the morphine wouldn’t be enough, that reduction in such circumstances might send James into shock, that she needed to talk to a specialist. He’d guessed she was afraid.
She injected morphine. She washed the worst of the grime from James’s face. She worried about how long that leg could stay viable.
And then Tom was speaking again.
‘The best option’s methoxyflurane,’ he told her. ‘It’s a rapid, short-term analgesic using a portable inhaler and it’s in a pack at the base of your backpack. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ she said cautiously. ‘I haven’t used it.’
‘It’s mostly used by paramedics and people like me who operate outside the confines of a major hospital. We use it when we need to do acute procedures fast without an anaesthetist, or for high-dose pain relief during transfer. Relief begins after six to eight breaths. As long as James is haemodynamically stable...
‘He is.’
‘Then we can use it. Can I talk to him?’
‘Sure.’ She tugged off her earpieces and put one on James. Then she unashamedly stooped and held the other a little way back so she could listen.
‘James, this is Tom. How’s it going?’
‘B-Bloody,’ James managed, but Tasha could tell by his face that even this minimal contact with a doctor he trusted was a reassurance.
‘Tasha says you’ve busted your leg. Idiot,’ Tom said, but he sounded almost cheerful, businesslike, as if this was little more than a scratch that had to be disinfected. ‘She’s given you some morphine, which will make you nice and dopey, but the problem is that your leg’s a bit bent and the blood’s not getting through to the foot.’
‘I can’t...see.’
‘Nor would you want to,’ Tom said. ‘Bent legs aren’t pretty. So Tasha’s going to straighten it. She needs to do that before there’s long-term damage to your foot, so unless you want to limp for life you’ll need to put up with what she does. Sorry, mate, but it’s going to hurt. But not for long. Tasha’s good, she’s fast and we’ll get the leg straight and you up the cliff before you know it.’
‘I don’t want to be here.’
‘Yeah, well, you fell down,’ Tom said unsympathetically. ‘But we’re getting the chopper to lift you up. Your mum and dad are up here, ready to give you a good telling-off for bird-nesting in such a dumb place, but they want to give you a hug first. But first your foot. To ease the pain you need to breathe in through the inhaler Tasha gives you. After six to eight breaths the relief will kick in. What Tasha does will hurt but it’s just a momentary thing while she sets your leg in position. If you keep breathing through the mask, concentrating on breathing and no
t the pain, it’ll settle. Would you like me to keep talking as she works?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Then let’s go for it,’ Tom said. ‘Tasha?’
How did he know she was listening? ‘Yes?’
‘Go for it, love,’ he told her. ‘You can do this. I’m with you both.’
* * *
She needed X-rays. She needed her patient under a general anaesthetic. She needed a nice clean hospital, and space to work. And an anaesthetic strong enough to hold the pain at bay so she could manoeuvre the fracture slowly, figuring out the best way to re-establish blood supply.
She had none of those things and Tom could only guess at the stress she was under. Pete had taken photos of the smashed leg on his phone before he’d come back up the cliff. The photos were not great quality but Tom could see splintered bone, a mess, a nightmare to try to straighten in these circumstances.
He wanted to tell Tasha not to beat herself up if she failed. He wanted to tell her he expected her to fail, that what she was doing was a long shot.
He couldn’t, though, because she’d put the earphones onto James and his role now was to keep James calm so Tasha could work. As well as that, James’s parents were within earshot, hanging on his every word.
He could say nothing at all.
* * *
She’d told Tom she could.
She had no choice.
It was incredibly difficult to balance on the tiny amount of ledge space she had. The rope attached to her harness was still taut, carefully played so that as she moved it was pulled out and reined in. She wasn’t alone. She had Pete holding her harness.
She also had Tom talking to James while James breathed through the mask. It was almost as if Tom was playing the role of anaesthetist.
She had a whole clifftop of people with her every step of the way.
It takes a village to raise a child. Where had that line come from? She couldn’t remember, but there was a village at the top of the cliff. A village who cared.
She’d worked in emergency wards for almost all of her professional life. She’d been surrounded by a team.
Now she should feel isolated, afraid, but strangely she didn’t. Her team—her village—was a little distant but it was still there. And Tom was with her. He was at the top of the cliff. He was talking to James but he was still with her.
He was her rock in all this. Tom.
Despite the circumstances, she forced herself to take her time, to think clearly about the way she’d do this. She knew that she had a tiny window to get the vein unkinked. The anaesthetic couldn’t mask such pain completely. After a first attempt James would react, his body would freeze and she’d be lucky if she could get near him for a second try.
But for now he seemed almost relaxed. He was trying out the inhaler, breathing steadily, listening to Tom.
She cut the last of his shredded pants away from his leg and spent a little time familiarising herself with every inch of the fractured limb.
The tibia and fibula were both broken. She could see the breaks. They’d been smashed hard across, splintering.
She could feel a pulse above the break but not below. There was little blood getting through.
She sat and looked for as long as she needed to steady herself, to figure how she should hold the leg, how she should pull.
‘Tom says how’s it going?’ James asked in a fuzzy voice, and she knew the anaesthetic was now as strong as it could be.
‘Tell Tom we’re set to go,’ she told him, and placed her hands firmly—confidently?—where she needed them. ‘Tell Tom to stay tuned; your leg’s about to be fixed.’
* * *
‘Tasha says we’re ready to go,’ James whispered between breaths, and Tom felt ill. He wanted to be there. He needed to be there.
‘It’ll hurt,’ he warned the boy. ‘But only for a moment. Hang on in there, mate, and whatever you do, don’t move. Can you do that?’
‘Y-yeah.’
‘I know you can. We’re all with you. Tell Tasha that, too.’
And then he listened as James murmured to Tasha. Then:
‘She says she knows,’ James whispered. ‘She says I gotta lie still and think of playing footy next year. She says if I lie still she’ll come and barrack for me.’
‘I bet she will,’ Tom said unsteadily. ‘And I’ll come, too. But for now just breathe through the inhaler. Deep breaths...’
And then James screamed.
* * *
Seconds felt like hours. She still held James’s leg firmly, so he couldn’t react by hauling back, twisting, possibly undoing what she’d hoped she’d done.
She could hear the faint sound of Tom’s voice speaking to James in the background. He was the one talking James down from the peak of pain.
He had to be. Her hands held James’s leg and every trace of her concentration was on the foot below the break. She was holding the leg steady and she was pleading. Please...
And when it came she could hardly believe it. A trace of colour...
I’m imagining it, she told herself, but a moment later she knew she wasn’t. She dared to touch his ankle and she felt...a pulse.
‘Oh, James,’ she said weakly, and then she forced herself to speak more strongly because even though she felt weak at the knees James had to see her as physician in charge. ‘Well done, you. Well done, us. Blood’s getting through to your foot. You’re going to be okay.’
‘Y-you hear?’ James managed, and she knew he was speaking to Tom.
And then James managed a wan smile.
‘Tom says to tell you you’re a bloody hero,’ he told her. ‘He says he knows Mum won’t let me swear but that’s what you are. But, strewth, Doc, that hurt.’
* * *
The chopper arrived twenty minutes later. It was a complex operation, getting James onto a cradle with his leg firmly fixed, securing him, then swinging him up to the top of the cliff.
For a while Tasha was left sitting by herself on the ledge, and almost as soon as the cradle swung outwards she started to shake.
When they finally came for her, they had to treat her as a patient. She was shaking too much to be of any assistance.
‘Got you, sweetheart,’ the cheerful paramedic said as he harnessed himself to her. They swung off the ledge and hung momentarily over the ocean. ‘You’re safe.’
She didn’t feel safe. She didn’t feel safe until she was lowered onto solid ground on the clifftop.
Until she was gathered into Tom’s arms and held.
Until she was home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOM WENT WITH the chopper to Melbourne. The paramedic in charge accepted Tom’s offer with relief.
‘I’ll say yes, mate,’ he told him. ‘You guys have done brilliantly, getting that blood supply working, and I don’t want it blocking again on my watch. If you’re in the back with him we have more chance of doing something if it blocks again.’
So Tom gave Tasha a hard, swift hug and followed James into the chopper.
‘Look after her, Rhonda,’ he ordered, and Rhonda took over the Tasha-hugging and nodded.
‘She’ll be looked after. Every single person in this town will be offering to make her cups of tea but I’m first.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a whisky,’ Tasha told her, but managed a smile. ‘But tea will be great. I’ll stay on duty.’
‘I know you will,’ Tom said, the warmth in his smile a caress all by itself, and then he swung himself into the helicopter, the engine roared into full power and he was gone.
She went home with Rhonda, who bullied her into a bath, then made her eat, then left her to relax.
Tasha knew where she needed to be. She walked slowly up to the headland, to the cemetery, to a tiny grave.
Who knew how long she sat there? She didn’t know. All she knew was that the tumult that had been in her head, seemingly since the time she’d learned of Paul’s betrayal, had somehow settled.
Tonight there were things that needed to be said. She might as well say them first to her daughter.
‘Tom’s right,’ she told her. ‘He’s not a Blake boy. He’s just Tom.’ And then she thought about her words and decided they needed changing.
‘But he’s not just Tom,’ she said. ‘He’s my Tom and I love him. And maybe it’s time I realised what brave really is.’
* * *
Once the chopper had landed at The Melbourne, once a specialist medical team had wheeled into motion and once James’s mum and dad were assured James was in the best possible care, Tom was free to leave. There was a bus in the morning. He could get a bed at the hospital and Tasha was in Cray Point tonight to cope with any emergencies. There was no need to hurry back. Regardless, he hired a car. What was the point of finally being permitted to drive again if he didn’t? He headed home.
To Tasha?
He needed to stop that train of thought, he told himself as he drove. Tasha was leaving. Living in Summer Bay, he’d see her often, as a friend, as the mother of his child, but for now he needed to back off and let her be.
But he wanted to see her, and he wanted to see her now.
What excuse did he have? None, he thought, but as he drove into Cray Point it was all he could do not to turn towards Rhonda’s.
He had no reason to take the turn. Tasha would know James was safe. Rhonda had been on the phone demanding frequent updates, and he knew she’d have passed them on to the town.
Tasha would know everything she needed to know.
Except how much she was loved?
She knew that, too, he told himself, but it didn’t make any difference. She didn’t want him.
What a joke. He’d finally met a woman he wanted to share the rest of his life with, and she had the same mistrust of commitment he’d spent his life with.
He turned the last bend towards home, feeling black.
The lights were on at his place. All the lights.
Falling for Her Wounded Hero Page 16