Her mind was racing now but, wherever it raced, she couldn’t see a safe way out of here until morning. They’d need a stretcher and they’d need secure fastenings up top. The closest stable land was thirty feet from the hole. They’d increase the risk of ground collapsing if they weren’t working in daylight. She’d definitely need her reserves of morphine.
She didn’t say any of that, though. She swabbed his thigh, injected the drug, then carefully sliced away the torn leg of his jeans so she could see what she was dealing with.
That the leg was broken was obvious. She’d seen the rough stones under the entrance hole and thought he must have landed on those. The impact and falling awkwardly would have been enough to snap the bones.
But it wasn’t all bad. She touched his ankle and was relieved to feel warmth, plus a pulse. ‘Great news, your foot’s still breathing,’ she told him, taking him at his word that he was a doctor. It didn’t take much medical training to know that a break could cut blood supply, and twenty-four hours without would mean dire consequences. ‘But the leg does look broken.’
‘Of course it’s broken,’ he growled. ‘I couldn’t have this degree of pain without a break. How badly?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘It doesn’t look too bad from where I’m standing. When the morphine kicks in I’ll check your toes.’
‘Check ’em now.’
‘No.’ She wasn’t having him passing out again. ‘If you can bear it, just lie back and see if you can relax until that pain relief kicks in. Then I’ll cut off your boot and check your shoulder. It looks dislocated—maybe fractured...’
‘I think dislocated,’ he told her.
‘You might be right, but let’s not investigate until the morphine’s had time to work. Meanwhile I need to summon the troops. Lie back and think of England while I organise me a posse.’
There was silence at that, and she could almost see his mind sifting her words.
‘A posse?’ he said at last, sounding cautious. ‘You mean...you’re on your own?’
‘I have my dog. Me and Sherlock.’
‘But you’ve climbed down here without backup.’
‘I’m not an idiot,’ she told him, hearing alarm. He’d gone straight to the scenario of two people stuck down here rather than one. ‘First, I’ve used a secure rappelling loop, so I can get out again whenever I want. Carrying you with me, not so much, but I’ve covered that too, because secondly I’ve already let people know where I am and what I’m doing. Which I’m guessing you haven’t?’
‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘I know, it was incredibly stupid of me, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she told him, thinking though that he was right to feel dumb. Didn’t he realise just how close to total disaster he’d been? But she guessed he already knew that. He’d had more than twenty-four hours to think about it. ‘Our lovely Sergeant of Police and his troops will probably already be on their way,’ she told him, keeping her voice brisk and cheerful. ‘I just need to update them on what’s needed.’
‘So...’ He looked as if he was struggling to get his head around what was happening. ‘You’re not part of a search party already looking for me?’
‘Afraid not. Will anyone be wondering where you are?’
‘No.’ Blunt. Harsh.
‘Then that’s what you get for not letting anyone know you’re here. Downside—no one knows you’re here.’
‘You think I’m an idiot.’
‘Mine’s not to judge,’ she said primly. Talking was a good way to distract him from pain. ‘I just deal with stuff as I find it.’
‘And I’m...stuff.’
‘I’m sure you’re very nice stuff,’ she reassured him.
‘But idiotic stuff.’
She smiled, hearing the mortification behind his words, but she didn’t say anything. It certainly wasn’t her place to judge, but he needed to accept that his actions had indeed been foolish.
‘So...’ he said at last. ‘You and your dog were just scouring the mountains looking for any injured...stuff?’
‘Sherlock and I found an orphaned wallaby last week,’ she told him. ‘So yeah, I guess that’s us. Like St Bernards in the snow.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And that needs an apology. I forgot to attach the brandy keg around Sherlock’s neck. The wallaby didn’t need it, but here... Total fail. We’ll be crossed off the Worldwide Beagle Rescue Association forthwith.’
He was looking dazed, struggling to follow the flippancy she was using to distract him until the morphine kicked in. ‘So Sherlock’s...a beagle?’
‘Yes he is, and he found you. You owe him a month’s supply of dog treats.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ It was almost a snap.
‘Ooh, that’s supposed to be my question.’ She thought she wasn’t doing such a bad job of distracting him. ‘Drat, I have a whole questionnaire for new patients back at the surgery. Where’s my form when I need it? But I already told you I’m a doctor. Elsa McCrae. FRACGP. General Practitioner. And you?’
‘Marcus Pierce,’ he responded. ‘FRACS. FRACP. Cardiologist.’
FRACS—College of Surgeons. FRACP—College of Physicians. ‘A heart surgeon,’ she said, imbuing her voice with deferential awe. Thinking, though, that it was so often the intelligent ones that got themselves into dire trouble on the island. Smart didn’t always equate to sensible, but she kept her voice neutral. ‘That’s great,’ she told him. ‘As soon as the morphine kicks in I’ll get you to keep track of your pulse while I check your shoulder and take your boot off. Marcus, will anyone be out looking for you?’
‘No.’ A flat veto.
‘You don’t have friends on the island?’
‘I came here to scatter my mother’s ashes,’ he said tightly. ‘Privately.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, more gently. ‘Did your mother live here?’
‘She visited frequently. She loved this peak.’
She sat back on her heels, frowning. Thinking of his name. Pierce. Making associations.
Remembering a little lady with a fierce determination to climb every peak on the island. A lady who’d had to come to see her the last time she was on the island because she couldn’t stop coughing. ‘I know what’s wrong with me, girl,’ she’d said when Elsa had listened to her chest. ‘I’m a doctor myself. There’s nothing you can do to cure me. I just want something to alleviate the symptoms so I can climb Lightning Peak one last time.’
‘Louise Pierce?’ she said now, even more gentle. ‘Was Louise your mum?’
‘I...yes.’
‘I knew her. She spent a lot of time here, at the Misses Harnett’s guesthouse, and we were so sorry when we heard she’d died.’ She sighed. ‘I know it’s easy to be wise after the event, but Rhonda and Marg Harnett were your mother’s friends. They would have come up here with you in a heartbeat.’
‘I didn’t want complications,’ he growled. ‘I came on yesterday morning’s plane and I was intending to be out on the evening plane.’
‘And now you have more complications than you could have imagined.’ She sighed again. ‘I’m so sorry. But I need you to shush now while I try my phone and see if I can get reception from down here.’
She phoned and the satellite did her proud. The line crackled and broke but Macka heard her. ‘It’s up to you,’ she told him. ‘But I can’t think it’ll be safe to bring him up until dawn. Can you bring us a decent lamp, pillows, rugs and maybe a couple of air mattresses? I have a rappelling loop set up so we can lower stuff. Oh, and can you bring some dog food for Sherlock?’ Her dog had ceased barking but she knew he’d be waiting patiently above ground and wanting his dinner.
She disconnected and turned to find Marcus looking mortified. ‘Morning?’
‘Sorry, but I don’t think it’s safe to bring you up until we h
ave decent light.’
‘Hell,’ he said. And then, ‘There’s no need for you to stay down here too.’
‘You know there is,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘You’ve done the medical training. You know the rules.’
‘I won’t have blood clots. I won’t pass out again.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t bring the indemnity forms,’ she told him. ‘And it’s no problem. Because of the remoteness of this island I did extra training as an emergency doctor. Rappelling into caves and being stuck underground will add enormous credit to my CV.’
She was swinging her torch beam around the floor as she talked. She found his phone first. Smashed in the fall. Thank God for Sherlock’s hunting instincts, she thought. Without his phone he could have lain here until...
No. It didn’t bear thinking about.
She also found a good-looking leather slouch bag, which held a wallet and, wonderfully, another bottle of water. On the strength of it she offered Marcus more.
He drank with gratitude. Despite the greyness of his face as she’d shown him his smashed phone—he must realise what he’d been facing even more acutely than she did—he was looking less rigid. The morphine must be taking effect.
‘Right,’ she said briskly as he settled again—or settled as much as anyone could on dirt and rocks—‘let’s get you to work. Cardiac surgeon? I don’t need the surgeon part so much, but can you keep track of your pulse while I get this boot off?’
He even managed a chuckle at that, a deep, nice chuckle, another great sign that the morphine was working.
Leg first. The shoulder needed attention but blood supply to the foot had to be her first concern.
She headed for his boot, blessing the sharp little everything tool she always carried. Yes, his ankle had a pulse, but she wanted to see pink toes. His foot was swollen—she’d expect nothing else with the damage to his leg—and the boot alone could now be constricting supply.
‘So, your job...’ he said, and she could hear the strain in his voice as she took her time to slice the thick, good quality leather. ‘You’re on permanent patrol up here? Is that how you make a living? Donations from the grateful lost? How many hikers do you find?’
‘More than you might think,’ she told him, remembering previous island walks interrupted as she’d come across lacerations, sprained ankles, insect bites—and, more recently and more dreadfully, the full-blown cardiac arrest.
She could have used a cardiac surgeon then, she thought bleakly. She’d never felt so alone, so helpless. Specialist help could have saved a life, but it was an ocean away.
‘And the rest of the time?’ he asked.
‘I have a surgery down near the jetty,’ she managed, hauling herself from just one of the memories of failure that haunted her. ‘We have a hospital too. It serves all the islands. It’s mostly used for our elderly—six of our ten beds are classified nursing home. The rest are simple problems—minor infections, patients waiting for evacuation to Sydney or continuing their recovery after being transported home. It’s a very basic medical service but it’s all we can manage.’ She had his sock off now and was examining toes. ‘Marcus, this is looking good. There can be no blood supply constriction at all.’
‘Just the matter of a broken leg and twisted shoulder.’
‘There is that,’ she said, looking again at the damage. Thinking of possible movement. Possible consequences. ‘Marcus...’
‘My friends call me Marc.’
‘You might not want to call me a friend when I tell you what I want to do,’ she told him. ‘That leg’s definitely broken and I need to splint it to make sure circulation stays secure. You have lacerations and bruising where it must have struck rock, but nothing’s piercing the skin. If I up the morphine and you manage to grit your teeth, I reckon it’ll be safer to straighten it a little and brace it. It’ll need to be braced before we move you tomorrow anyway, so I might as well do it now. Plus I might as well see if I can get that shoulder into a more comfortable position.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’ll save you lying awake all night worrying about surgery in the morning.’
‘You’re all heart.’ She saw him close his eyes, accept the inevitable. ‘How are you at fixing dislocated shoulders?’
‘Without an X-ray? I’d normally not even go there.’
‘But in an emergency situation? Given the low risk? I’ve felt it. There’s no suspicion of fracture.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘I felt it as I fell. It twisted hard but not hard enough to break. I’m sure this is a simple dislocation. Elsa, it’s agony and I’m done with agony. I tried to put it back myself.’
‘Yeah?’ Like that was easy to do. ‘With what results?’
‘I did actually faint,’ he admitted. ‘So then I stopped.’
‘Very wise.’
‘But you could do it.’
‘I might not be able to.’
‘You could try. You’re sensible enough to stop if it doesn’t click into place fast.’
She sat back and considered. ‘You’d accept the risk?’
‘Yes, I would.’
There was a level of trust. He’d accepted her as competent enough to do no harm.
‘I guess,’ she said doubtfully. ‘With the morphine on board... I could give you a muscle relaxant too.’
‘Bless you,’ he said simply and then moved on, almost colleague to colleague. ‘The leg. What’ll you brace it with?’
‘That’s the good side about you falling,’ she told him, making her voice brisk, as professional as she could. ‘We have a selection of bush litter around us. I can see at least three sticks I can whittle with my neat little knife to make a nice smooth brace. You’d have to agree with me though, Marc. You’d have to accept that I’ll hurt you.’
He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, and his face had become resolute.
‘Help me to sit up,’ he asked her. ‘I need to see my leg for myself first.’
‘No.’ She put her hands on his chest, firmly pressing him back. ‘I know you’ve been trying to move but Marc, you must know there’s the possibility of spinal damage. You fell hard. You know the rules. Let’s get you safely X-rayed before you start shifting. We’ll get you up on a stretcher and check you before you start doing fancy stuff like sitting up.’
‘But...’
‘No buts. You know what’s sensible.’
He closed his eyes, looking grim. ‘I’m supposed to be flying to St Moritz tomorrow, to be there over Christmas,’ he muttered. ‘For a couple of weeks’ skiing.’
She raised her brows at that. ‘Really?’ She paused to consider. ‘I guess it could still happen. How are you at skiing on one leg?’
No answer.
She hadn’t really expected one. She thought, tangentially, how amazing to live a life where you could pop over to St Moritz to ski when you felt like it.
He’d be a good skier, she thought. Okay, she didn’t know for sure, but she could sense it. His body was solid, muscled, ripped in all the right places.
She was still holding him. She’d moved to stop him shifting and her arm had gone around his good shoulder as she’d tugged him back to a prone position and encouraged him to relax. She’d left her arm there for a moment. He was cold and she was warm. He needed contact.
Comfort?
But the comfort seemed to be working both ways. This underground dungeon was creepy. It was almost dark above them.
She had a phone light and a torch. She had a spare battery for her phone in her backpack. Help was on its way. There was no need for her to want comfort.
But still, as she held him and felt his inherent strength, she took it where she found it. She’d learned to do that. She had her grandpa’s help when she needed it medically, but Grandpa was growing increasingly frail. She had Sherlock, but...
&n
bsp; But there were still lots of times in Dr Elsa McCrae’s medical life when she felt totally alone, and for just one brief moment now she let herself accept the feel of this man beside her. She let herself imagine that maybe she could depend on him.
Which was ridiculous. His mind was clearly focused on the next thing. Bracing his leg. Thinking about his shoulder.
‘Okay,’ he said briefly. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
She hesitated. She could—maybe she should—wait for more light. But it’d still be a couple of hours before help arrived. Macka was a great policeman but he wasn’t the fittest bloke on the island. He’d have called on a couple of the fire brigade guys to help. They were fitter, faster than Macka but they didn’t know the route.
Two hours. She released him and looked again at that leg and thought it did need to be fixed fast. If it was a compound fracture... She had no way of knowing for sure, and she had to work on the worst-case scenario.
‘We do it now,’ Marcus said, and she heard her own thoughts reflected in the tone of his voice. He’d know the risks as well as she did. ‘And the shoulder if you can. Let’s go.’
So she did.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE WAS NO orthopaedic surgeon and she wanted to be one. She had no X-ray equipment and she needed it. She had no help and she wanted that, too.
All she had were her instincts.
Do no harm. First rule in every situation. She had a leg that still had circulation. She could leave it exactly how it was. His shoulder needed to be X-rayed to make sure it wasn’t broken. She should leave that in place too.
But a dislocated shoulder was too excruciatingly painful for him to sleep, even with the morphine, and in the morning he had to be moved regardless. The long night lay ahead of them and the shoulder would be agony. And if he moved during the night, if the leg twisted as they tried to get him up, if his circulation blocked... It didn’t bear thinking about.
No X-ray machine would miraculously appear down here. No orthopaedic surgeon was on his way with Macka. She was on her own.
Mistletoe Kiss with the Heart Doctor Page 3