‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said meekly, but she was smiling and he thought there was nothing meek about this woman.
Nothing meek at all.
The island itself was a mess. Low-growing salt bush had been wrenched and hurled across the island in great tangled heaps. The sand had shifted, so there were vast ridges that hadn’t been there before.
He drove cautiously down to the stone wharf and then along the shoreline. The wharf had been used to supply the lighthouse in days when lighthouse keepers had lived here, and it’d been used to land building supplies for his house. It’d be needed again now, he thought—it’d be the only access until the bridge was rebuilt.
Would he need to buy a boat?
But he was getting ahead of himself. Or using the ideas to distract him from what lay ahead.
And from the woman who sat beside him.
Like him, she was concentrating on the track, and he thought she was almost driving for him. He’d seen this look before in fellow medics as they strode toward an emergency room after a call, knowing something grim was waiting, as though concentrating could let them see what lay ahead.
She’d argued with him to let her drive—‘Josh, your hand’—but had subsided when he’d told her it didn’t make sense, that he knew the island and she didn’t. Now, looking at the mess around them, her look was bleak.
‘They’re sensible,’ he told her. ‘They’ll have found shelter...somewhere. Or maybe the house has held.’
They jolted over the last ridge, and he stopped the truck, staring aghast at the devastation below.
The house hadn’t held.
It had been built in a tiny bay, a picturesque piece of magic, with turquoise water and a wide curve of gorgeous sandy beach. When he’d been here in the past he’d been almost blown away by the beauty of the location, and by the simplicity and charm of the wooden cottage Mick and Skye had built themselves.
There was no charm about the cottage now. There was no cottage. The base of the fireplace still stood. A couple of walls did, too, although they leaned drunkenly inwards.
Smashed furniture, clothing, the detritus of living was scattered around the whole bay.
‘Oh, no,’ Hannah whispered, and he glanced across at her blanched face and wondered if his matched hers.
He could see no one. Where were they?
The wind was still whistling, sand sweeping across the devastation. The sea was a maelstrom of white and grey. Nature reclaiming its own?
No.
Part of him didn’t want to go any further. Like that was going to happen. Reluctantly he steered the truck down to the house site, parking in the lee of the tiny amount of protection the chimney gave.
The truck was surrounded by shattered glass, ripped corrugated iron, mess.
‘Just lucky Madison left her gum boots,’ Hannah managed, striving for a lightness she must be far from feeling. Here was the almost universal black humour medics were famed for, a sole defence when your guts felt like they were being ripped out. She held up a foot to inspect a pink boot with yellow ducklings emblazoned on the side. ‘Emergency services, eat your hearts out. Bulletproof vests have nothing on ducklings.’
‘My sister got them for rock-pool paddling. She has a warped sense of style.’ Josh’s gaze was sweeping the bay, as was Hannah’s. Searching. ‘Block your ears.’
He put a hand on the horn and blasted, then blasted again. The truck’s horn was so loud the sounds of wind and sea faded in comparison.
He stared out again. Nothing.
Where could they have gone?
The Fordes’ car, a rickety sedan, was parked away from the house, pointing inland. The windows of the car were smashed and the doors on this side blasted open. Had they tried to leave, then abandoned the car in mid storm? What were their options then?
Had they huddled together to keep safe and then been buried in the mass of shifting sand? He felt sick.
Why hadn’t he insisted they stay with him? Why hadn’t he picked up the kids and carried them away bodily?
‘You can’t save people from themselves,’ Hannah whispered. ‘Josh, you did what you could.’ And then she paused. ‘Josh, look!’
And at the edge of the curve of the bay, where the sandhills rose steeply, they saw a figure. The blowing sand still formed a gritty fog, but whoever it was was waving.
It was an adult, either Skye or Mick.
‘Stay here until I see what’s happening,’ Josh said, pushing open the truck door and heading for the sandhill.
‘Pigs might fly,’ Hannah muttered, and headed after him.
It was Skye on the ridge. Josh reached her first and as Hannah came up behind she saw her fold into Josh’s arms. Josh held her tight and hard for a long moment. He’d know, Hannah thought, that the most important thing after terror was contact. Unless someone was bleeding out or not breathing then the reassurance that they weren’t alone was crucial.
For long moments he stood and held her. She was dressed in ragged shorts, T-shirt and bare feet. Her long blonde hair was a matted mess, her neck, her legs, her arms a bloody tapestry of scratches.
Finally Josh put her back, holding her tightly by both shoulders, his strength seemingly holding her up.
‘You’re safe now, Skye. You know I’m a doctor, and Hannah here is a nurse. Where are the others?’
She looked wildly up at him. Her face was as scratched and bloody as the rest of her, but the damage looked superficial, Hannah thought. Her eyes were wild but clear, and her breathing was fast but not shallow.
She saw Josh do a fast visual assessment as well. Moving on...
‘Where are they?’ Josh asked again, and Skye gave a gulping sob and grabbed his hand and started tugging. Back across the sandhill that’d been hiding her.
He reached back and grabbed Hannah’s hand they struggled forward. This storm was no longer dangerous but struggling in soft sand when being sand-blasted was hard. The duck gumboots weren’t great footwear. It’d be easier if she took them off but she wasn’t stupid—with this amount of debris she’d be another victim in moments.
But she was damned if she was being towed. She gritted her teeth and got her feet moving.
She let her hand stay in Josh’s, though. Linking was sensible.
And it made her feel...
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was in emergency mode. Focus on what lies ahead, she told herself, not on the way this man’s hand was making her feel.
Then they crossed another sandy ridge and even the feel of Josh’s hand faded to nothing.
One man and three kids.
They were crouched in the lee of a rocky crag. It wasn’t much of an overhang, though, just enough to deflect the worst of the wind.
The two older kids were holding what looked to be a horse-hair blanket over their heads, forming a canopy to increase the range of the windbreak. A younger child was crouched between them, fists in her eyes, sobbing.
A man lay prone on the ground. A body? Hannah’s heart gave a sickening lurch, but then he stirred, groaned and reached out a hand, as if to comfort the littlest child.
‘It’s okay!’ The group hadn’t seen them but Skye’s faltering cry made them look up. ‘Dr O’Connor’s here,’ she gasped. ‘He’s even brought a nurse.’
And then she sank to her knees, sagging in a culmination of relief and exhaustion.
The wind was still blasting. The kids looked scratched, battered but mostly uninjured. The littlest one looked a ball of misery but her sobs alone said that there shouldn’t be a life-threatening injury.
The man, though... He’d slumped back onto the sand, his face grey. Josh was already slithering down to him.
Triage.
What was Hannah’s first priority?
They had one blanket, and for such a group it provided little protection. The kids’ faces l
ooked stretched, their eyes too big for their faces, red-rimmed from the sand. Dehydration?
Josh was bent over Mick, focused on his need. Skye and the kids needed her attention, but Josh needed equipment and they all needed water.
She’d seen Josh load a water container into the back of the truck, plus medical equipment. Also, if the truck was here they could use its bulk as a partial wind break. She had no idea what was going on with Mick, but triage said the truck was essential.
‘Do you need me now or will I get the truck?’ she asked Josh. He didn’t look up.
‘Truck. We need gear. Drive it around the sandhill and come at us from behind. Don’t try to come straight up and over. Drive slowly, taking the lowest slope rather than the quickest route. If there’s any doubt stop and walk back. And, Hannah, treat yourself with care. Take every step with thought.’
He glanced back at her then, as if he was torn about letting her go. It seemed that with all the demands around him, with a myriad of conflicting needs, she and her unborn baby were still in his mix of priorities.
She blinked as their gazes met.
Go with care, his look said, and as she turned and stumbled back to the truck, for some stupid reason she felt her eyes welling with tears.
It was such a small thing, to have someone care as Josh was caring. And it wasn’t as if it was personal. It was medical triage.
But it felt personal. For Hannah who’d felt appallingly alone from the moment Ryan had walked out the door, from the time her father had slammed the phone down on her, cutting her off from her entire family—this felt huge.
‘So you’re overreacting. Go get the truck and stop being ridiculous,’ she muttered, but she muttered under her breath because talking to herself with sand blowing into her face was not a good idea. Also thinking of Josh...like she was thinking...was even less of a good idea.
Focus on now. On putting one foot after another into the shifting sand. Her boots were filled. Her feet were ridiculously heavy but it’d be useless to stop and try and empty them. The truck was too far away and Josh needed the truck and its contents quickly.
‘So stop thinking and move,’ she told herself, but she had a feeling that every part of her, right down to her feet in their ridiculous duckling boots, wanted her thoughts to stay exactly where they kept on drifting.
CHAPTER NINE
MEDICAL PRIORITIES TOOK OVER. Her thoughts might stray as she struggled back to the truck, but driving the vehicle across the sandhills took every ounce of concentration she possessed. They never had roads like this in Ireland, she thought grimly. Josh must be really worried to have sent her to get the truck rather than do it himself.
But she made it. She parked the truck beside the huddled group, trying to position it to block the worst of the wind, then hauled open the back and tugged out the container of water.
She filled a tin mug and handed it to Skye. ‘Wash your mouth out and drink,’ she told her. ‘Lots. Then get the kids to do the same.’
‘Mick...’ Skye sounded despairing.
‘I need to help Dr O’Connor,’ she told her. ‘We’ll take care of Mick. Your job is to get water into the kids.’
She filled another mug and carried it to Josh. Whose face was grim.
‘I need you to drink a bit of this, mate,’ he told Mick, but Mick groaned and turned his head away.
Josh lifted his head, ignoring his clenched lips, the greyness of his face.
‘Open your mouth,’ he told him. ‘I know how much pain you’re in but I need to get the sand out of your mouth. Priority, mate. We’ll get morphine on board but your airways need to be clear first. Open.’
This was a new Josh. Decisive, authoritative, someone not to be reckoned with. It was no surprise that Mick obeyed.
She headed back to the truck and grabbed the medical bag. By the time she returned, Mick’s mouth at least was clear of sand. ‘Spit,’ Josh was ordering. ‘One more mouthful and then we’ll let you swallow.’
She set down the bag and then tried herself to assess. The rug was lying over Mick’s legs. She lifted it with care and had trouble keeping her face impassive.
Mick had been wearing jeans but they were almost shredded. His legs looked as if something had sliced into him. Both legs looked a bloody mess.
She touched his feet. He was wearing sandals. One foot seemed fine.
The other was distinctly cooler.
She glanced at Josh, his eyes met hers and she knew he was already way ahead of her.
‘He and Skye laid over the kids in the worst of the storm,’ Josh said curtly, as he held the mug to Mick’s mouth again. Mick drank now, but the ashen look on his face didn’t change. ‘Skye told me. When the house collapsed they headed here and stayed. Mick lay on the windward side all night, bearing the brunt of the wind to protect his family. A sheet of iron slammed into his legs. Deep lacerations and I suspect a compound fracture.’
She nodded, careful to keep her face impassive. Major rule of training—don’t scare the punters. She replaced the rug and headed for Josh’s bag, using her body to protect its contents from the blowing sand as she searched for what she needed.
‘Hey, being eight months pregnant does have its uses,’ she quipped to those around her. ‘I make a great windbreak.’
There were strained smiles, which was reassuring.
What did Josh need? She forced herself into medical mode, into nurse mode. Swabs. Morphine. Syringe.
The wind was still fierce. The truck wasn’t enough to provide protection, and her body wasn’t all that great at withstanding its blast either.
Her mind was heading in all directions. Mick’s legs had stopped bleeding, but a pool of darkened blood lay in the sand under him. It represented a lot of blood and his colour reflected that. He’d need an IV, plasma, a saline infusion at the very least. And...compound fracture?
She handed over the swabs and syringe and started gathering IV equipment. But Josh stopped her.
‘Not here,’ he told her. ‘There’s no way I can get a stable line in with this amount of sand and wind.’ He hesitated and she could see his mind working—in a direction he didn’t like? But when he spoke his voice was bland. ‘Hannah, can you stay with Mick while I take Skye and the kids back to the house?’
‘Of course.’
She already knew why. While she’d been battling to get the truck over the sandhill, she’d been thinking transport and she already knew what Josh had obviously figured.
They needed to get these guys to safety—all of them. But the truck was a four-seater for midgets—the back seat was tiny, with a tray at the back. Her first thought had been that Josh should take Mick to safety but then he’d have to return for them, leaving Mick alone. Not safe, not after this amount of blood loss.
Next option. If she took Skye and the kids back to the house first, it’d take her an age to get back, even if she didn’t get caught in a sand drift.
Third option. She stayed with Mick and kept him alive while Josh did the first run. It was hardly a safe choice. If Mick was to go into cardiac arrest...
There was no choice.
‘There’s everything you need in my kit,’ he told her, his gaze meeting hers and holding it with a solid message. He meant defibrillator, adrenaline, equipment for resuscitation.
Please, God, don’t let me have to use them.
It was a silent prayer but she could see by Josh’s face that he knew what she was thinking.
‘Just don’t go into labour,’ he said, smiling with a confidence he must be far from feeling. ‘Mick, I’ll put a rough splint on your leg to hold it steady, but then I’m taking Skye and the kids back to my house. To safety. We need to make two runs because my truck’s too small to fit you all and I want your legs to be stretched out. Hannah’s a trained nurse and she’ll keep you safe until I get back. My house is solid, warm, with every
thing we need. You’ve done a great job, mate. The morphine will kick in any minute. Skye and the kids are already safe. See if you can drink a bit more water, then lie back and let the drugs do their work.’
‘Safe...’ Mick muttered.
‘Yeah, you’ve done it,’ Josh told him. ‘Care’s now over to me and Hannah.’
‘Hannah...’
‘She’s a nurse in a million,’ Josh told him. ‘There’s no one I’d rather leave you with.’
The wait for Josh to return seemed to take for ever, but the drugs took hold and Mick seemed to drift in and out of awareness.
He mustn’t have slept all night, Hannah thought. He’d been holding his body over his little family, taking the brunt of the storm himself.
‘You’re a hero,’ she told him as she encouraged him to drink more.
‘It’s Doc O’Connor who’s the hero,’ he muttered thickly. ‘Who’d’a thought a doc would come to this island? Gossip says he’s too damaged after that damned accident to work. Doesn’t look damaged to me.’
‘Nor to me,’ Hannah said stoutly, reflecting, not for the first time, how emotional trauma often left a far worse damage than physical. ‘We’re lucky. He’ll stabilise your leg properly and keep you out of pain until we can get you to hospital.’
‘You his partner?’
‘No.’ The idea gave her a sharp jolt. ‘I’m Miss Byrne’s niece. Josh rescued me as well.’
Luckily Mick was too fuzzy to ask more questions. He lay back and let the morphine send him into a dozy half slumber.
Hannah sat beside him and tried not to feel how uncomfortable she was. Her baby was kicking—hard.
‘You don’t like being sand blasted either,’ she said under her breath. But then she thought, Her baby.
It was an emotional punch. She’d pushed through this pregnancy by putting one foot in front of the other, concentrating on practicalities, but in a few weeks a little person would enter the world. A little person solely dependent on her.
The idea was terrifying.
Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep Page 9