The Surgeon's Perfect Match

by Alison Roberts

  If she did run and Ryan accepted the statement she was making, then the opposite would be the case, and if they sorted themselves out they would have a solid base for an equal partnership.

  And if she did run and they never got back together, at least she would know she could still meet a difficult challenge and get through it. Therefore, she would be able to keep meeting other difficult challenges in her life.

  Like getting over Ryan and getting on with her life.

  It wasn’t entirely coincidence that she met Ryan at the costume shop a couple of days before the run. They shared pretty much the same schedule so it made sense to use a gap on Thursday afternoon to ensure they collected the supplies they needed before the shops ran out.

  Many thousands of people took part in this annual run. The entry fee they paid went to the general charity supported, but large groups of people—like the St Margaret’s Hospital staff—also collected separate sponsorship for their own fundraising projects. Not everyone dressed up, but as representatives from a large children’s hospital it always seemed appropriate to provide some entertainment to the children who would be lining city streets to watch.

  Ryan had a large bundle of shaggy, tawny fur in his arms when Holly arrived at the shop. He stood back, seemingly checking out the display of face paint and other accessories but also watching silently as Holly collected and paid the hire fee for her pile of sleek black fur.

  ‘Do you want any face paint?’ the salesgirl asked.

  ‘Yes, please.’ Not that there was any point in trying to disguise herself any more, but if she was going to do this, she may as well go the whole hog.

  ‘So you’re still going to do the run, then?’

  Holly had to stop and meet the stare directed at her from Ryan.

  ‘Yes…I am.’

  The eye contact seemed welded into place. Neither appeared willing or able to look away. Unspoken messages flashed between them. Ryan was taking this as confirmation that his opinion counted for nothing. Holly was reiterating her right to make her own choices. There was a hint of hurt bewilderment on both sides as well.

  How had it come to this?

  Hadn’t Ryan told her—way back—that he admired her courage and determination and independence? Why would he now want to stifle those attributes?

  Questions.

  But no answers.

  It was Ryan who broke the eye contact and turned away.

  ‘Good luck, Holly.’

  Luck might well be needed.

  It was one thing to have been so determined and put so much into her training, but quite another to see the size of the event she was about to participate in for the first time.

  Getting dressed at Sue’s house had been fun. The black panther suit could have been designed to show off Holly’s height and slim build. Sue’s husband had given a very appreciative whistle.

  ‘Cut that out,’ Sue had ordered. ‘You’re supposed to be rounding up dwarves, not ogling the panther.’

  Sue’s youngest child, three-year-old Ben, had kept pulling off his long bobble hat and sitting down in the middle of the chaos.

  ‘He’ll never walk that far,’ Sue had told Holly, ‘so I’m going to be in the pushchair brigade. Are you walking or running?’

  ‘Running,’ she had said confidently.

  But now she wasn’t so sure. There was an air of anticipation at the beach start venue that was surprisingly nerve-racking. Along with the media vehicles and police cars on the nearby road were three ambulances. Did they expect a lot of problems? It had only been last year, hadn’t it, that a run in another part of the country had produced a fatality? A young man had collapsed and died of a heart attack only seconds after crossing the finish line.

  Maybe Holly should join the walkers rather than the runners. She could go with Sue and the people pushing young children or in wheelchairs themselves—they were gathering on the road surface rather than the sand. But then Holly spotted a lion and she knew it was Ryan because he was talking to James, the anaesthetist, who had a Superman outfit on. And she thought of the support that had snowballed when word had got round the gym she had been attending so often in the last couple of weeks. Complete strangers had offered to sponsor her and she stood to make a significant contribution to the fundraising all by herself if she completed the run.

  Holly joined the runners but kept to the back of the huge group watching the massive organisational task being undertaken. They would be released in stages according to projected speed. Runners first, then walkers—many of whom were accompanied by children or dogs. The ones with wheels came after that along with a medley of those just out for fun, sporting roller blades, skateboards, unicycles and scooters. She could even see a couple of people on stilts.

  A brass band was playing, cans of coins being shaken as people collected donations from spectators and shouting and laughter came from all directions among the thousands of participants. No wonder they had chosen a small cannon to signal the start of each section.

  It took a long time for all the runners to pass through the flags. Being near the back of the group, it was several minutes before Holly found she had enough space to start jogging. She couldn’t see where Ryan and the other St Margaret’s staff were and she didn’t expect to see them again until after the finish when they were due to meet up for a celebratory barbecue. Ryan and James would be right at the front of the pack in any case, competing to double their fundraising efforts by being first across the line.

  Holly settled into a moderate jogging pace and was delighted to find herself actually passing others. They ran along a road section of a couple of kilometres and then there was another part of the beach included on the route. This time the sand felt like glue on Holly’s feet and the effort began to tell. She could feel herself slowing and her heart rate increasing as she pushed herself on.

  There would be no shame in walking for a stretch, she reminded herself. And she would have done precisely that except it was at that point she spotted a lion to one side and not far ahead.

  There had to be more than one person dressed like that. It couldn’t be Ryan. The leaders were at least a kilometre or more ahead of Holly by now. But then the lion turned its head and Holly knew it had to be Ryan. He was giving up the chance to keep his status as the fastest and fittest member of St Margaret’s staff and the extra money in order to keep an eye on her. Why else would he be so far back in the pack? And why else would his head keep turning in her direction?

  There was no question of slowing to a walk now. No way. If Ryan wanted to watch her fail so that he could say ‘I told you so’, he had another think coming.

  They hit the road again and Holly increased her speed. It was much harder to breathe now and she was aware of an odd buzzing sensation in her head, but they were well over the halfway mark. She would probably see the finish line around the next bend or so.

  Spectators were thin at this point and the road wide enough to allow a television station van to roll alongside, filming the event. An ambulance, its lights flashing, was coming up behind the van. Somebody up ahead must have injured themselves. At least it wasn’t her being rescued. She turned her head, wondering if Ryan was still watching and might be thinking the same thing.

  She couldn’t see him, which made her keep looking, running with her head turned, ignoring the pain in her chest as she struggled to pull in enough oxygen to keep her legs moving. People around were shouting but that odd buzzing muted the sounds so Holly couldn’t tell whether it was encouragement or something else.

  She gave up looking for Ryan. It was all Holly could do now to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To keep moving.

  And then something hit her. Hard. Holly was propelled sideways at speed and had no hope of regaining any balance. She bounced off one runner and then straight into another, who somehow caught her as they both fell. It all happened so fast Holly had no idea what could have happened. Had she tripped? Or accidentally got in someone else’s way?

&
nbsp; ‘I’m sorry.’ Holly pushed herself to her hands and knees as other runners bypassed the obstacle she made with the runner who had cushioned her fall. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You bloody idiot!’ The voice came from behind Holly. ‘Just look what you’ve done!’

  Holly looked, still on her hands and knees, still gasping for breath. But she could make no sense of what she saw.

  The ambulance, its beacons still flashing, had stopped. So had the television van and a police car. Just in front of the ambulance was a pile of what looked like tawny-coloured fur.

  ‘You weren’t even looking where you were bloody going!’ the stranger’s voice accused Holly. ‘You went in front of the van and almost right in front of that ambulance just when it was picking up speed.’

  ‘That guy saved you,’ someone else informed Holly. ‘If he hadn’t pushed you out of the way, you would have been run over.’

  ‘And he got hit instead.’

  Holly fought a wave of dizziness and nausea as she kept her gaze on that tawny heap.

  It wasn’t moving.

  Ambulance officers were crouching beside it now and they were looking grim.

  Holly struggled to her feet and staggered towards the scene. She couldn’t get close enough because there were too many people trying to help now so she stood gazing helplessly at the ominously still figure lying on the road. Voices around her sounded disembodied.

  ‘He just threw himself in front of us. There was no way we could have seen him!’

  ‘Is he breathing?’

  ‘Can’t tell under all this damn fur. Grab some shears. And some oxygen.’

  ‘Keep those cameramen out of here.’

  ‘Get a neck collar. If he’s not breathing it could well be a cervical injury.’

  ‘Would someone, please, move those spectators out of the way?’

  Holly felt someone catch her arm. ‘Come this way.’

  She wrenched her arm free. ‘No way!’ Holly turned to the police officer trying to clear the area and gave him a defiant stare.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she announced. ‘I’m staying right here with Ryan.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘THIS lady knows the lion.’

  Holly was pushed closer to Ryan and a paramedic looked up.

  ‘His name is Ryan Murphy,’ she said shakily. ‘He’s a doctor.’

  ‘Ryan?’ The paramedic leaned close and pinched an ear lobe. ‘ Dr Murphy? Can you open your eyes?’

  There was no response.

  Another paramedic was sliding a neck collar into place and fastening the straps. A second ambulance rolled up and stopped.

  ‘Any medical conditions we should know about?’

  ‘He had a kidney removed about two months ago.’

  ‘What for?’

  Good question. Holly fought back a wave of pure misery and her voice caught. ‘So he could give it to me.’

  The lion suit was being unceremoniously sliced down the front.

  ‘Fractured right femur,’ one of the crew announced. ‘I’ll get a traction splint.’

  ‘Bruising to the abdomen, left side, possible rib fractures,’ another said.

  ‘Good dent to the back of his head as well, on the right side.’ An oropharyngeal airway was being inserted into Ryan’s mouth to protect his airway and then an oxygen mask hid his features.

  Holly was trying to absorb the information she was hearing. A fractured femur on the right. A possible splenic injury and fractured ribs on the left, an occipital blow to the right side of the head.

  A classic car versus pedestrian multi-trauma injury. For children, anyway. Common enough to have its own name. Waddell’s triad. An adult would normally be too tall to collect these injuries but Ryan hadn’t been standing upright when he had been struck, had he? He’d been diving forward to push her out of the way so the top of his leg could well have been at bumper level, the fender hitting his lower ribs and then the road surface being responsible for the head injury.

  It added up to a nasty set of injuries, capable of producing severe blood loss.

  ‘Let’s load and go,’ a paramedic ordered. ‘We’ll get IV access established on the road.’

  A traction splint was applied to Ryan’s broken leg and then he was log-rolled onto a backboard because of possible spinal injuries. Foam cushions held his head immobilised, strapped into place. Larger straps held his body to the bright orange board. Within a commendably short period of time, the board was lifted to a stretcher and then into the back of an ambulance.

  ‘You coming?’ a female paramedic asked Holly. ‘Are you a friend?’

  Holly simply nodded and climbed the steps. The back doors slammed shut behind her and someone thumped on the outside of the doors to give them the all-clear to head away. Holly could hear the muted sound of the siren and through the small, square windows on the back doors she could see crowds of people continuing the fun run.

  This was as far from fun as Holly could imagine. She watched the paramedic crew as they worked on Ryan. She saw the first needle penetrate a vein on his arm and she could remember so clearly the day she had taken that blood sample for Ryan. How alive his skin had felt. Had that, in fact, been the first recognition of how attracted she was to him?

  Or had it really been so long ago she couldn’t put a specific date to it? Could only remember how lovely she’d thought the first smile he’d given her had been.

  What did dates matter, anyway? Nothing mattered apart from the fact that Ryan was badly hurt. And it was her fault. This hadn’t been the first time Ryan had risked his life for her, but this time it had been due entirely to her pig-headedness.

  She was a control freak.

  Ryan wasn’t.

  How could she have ever doubted that his actions had stemmed from a genuine concern for her?

  From love.

  He hadn’t been running that close to her in order to see her fail and rub her nose in it. Knowing Ryan’s personality, the notion was just plain insulting. Just as insulting as accusing him of trying to retain ownership of the kidney. And she’d had the nerve to feel self-righteous. Angry. She hadn’t given him a chance over the last couple of weeks, had she? He wasn’t going to make the first move when he could have faced rejection. He’d been unsure of the strength of Holly’s involvement and, instead of reassuring him, she had made things worse by stamping her foot and going ahead with her plans to prove her physical capabilities.

  And he had still been there for her. Trying to stay close enough to watch out for her. To support her.

  Holly was still in a dazed state of self-recrimination when they arrived at Auckland General’s emergency department. She only took in snatches of the handover.

  ‘GCS of 7.’

  ‘BP’s dropped. Narrow pulse pressure. Currently 80 over 60. We’ve run in a full litre of saline.’

  ‘Closed fracture of the right femur.’

  ‘Abdominal distension, left side. Rib fractures.’

  Holly had pulled the head of her costume back to hang down but she felt ridiculous, standing in this high-tech resuscitation area wearing an animal suit. Ryan had been stripped of any vestige of his costume but Holly couldn’t see the body of a patient who might have further injuries that needed assessment.

  She could only see the familiar, solid shape of the man she loved.

  ‘What’s that scar from?’

  ‘A nephrectomy.’

  ‘What did he need that for?’

  ‘He didn’t. He was a living donor, apparently. For that panther.’ The ED consultant looked up and smiled at Holly. ‘Is that right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Any complications with the surgery?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any other medical history we should know about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Allergies?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Airway’s clear.’ The doctor at the end of the bed adjusted the oxygen flow. ‘Saturation’s down.
Ninety-two per cent. Breathing’s shallow. Respiration rate of 36.’

  ‘We need another line in. Get some bloods off at the same time for a type and cross-match.’

  ‘He’s O negative,’ Holly told them.

  ‘Isn’t that the one the blood bank’s extra low on?’ a nurse asked.

  ‘Find out,’ the consultant ordered. ‘And order some packed cells and fresh frozen plasma. I’m not happy with the level of hypovolaemia.’

  ‘And I don’t like these oxygen saturation levels,’ the doctor in charge of Ryan’s airway and breathing announced. ‘I think we should intubate and get him onto a ventilator.’

  Holly had to step back as the level of activity around Ryan’s bed increased. X-rays were ordered and taken. A CT scan and abdominal ultrasound booked. More blood tests were done and a surgical consultation requested from both general surgery and orthopaedics. A neurosurgeon was called to look at Ryan’s head injury.

  Jack arrived at the hospital half an hour later.

  ‘What’s happening, lass? Is he badly hurt?’

  Holly nodded and then burst into tears. ‘This is all my fault, Jack.’

  The old man’s arms felt stick thin but their grip around Holly was firm. ‘That’s enough of that,’ he comforted gruffly. ‘It’ll be all right, love, you’ll see. Ryan’s a tough old bird, like me. He’s not going to die.’

  But Holly wasn’t so sure about that.

  The way things were looking right now, losing Ryan on a permanent basis was a horrific but definite possibility. And that prospect was, quite simply, unbearable.

  Pain.

  Through a dark mist, Ryan was only aware of having the worst headache of his life. Mercifully it faded and his next awareness was pain in his leg. That, too, seemed to fade and a more familiar ache took its place. He’d felt this one before. When he’d had that kidney removed.

  Holly.