He stopped as soon as the doors swung wide.
He might be an emotionally-distraught owner, he might be going out of his mind with worry, but Sam Webster was still a doctor. He was a cardiac surgeon, with additional training in paediatric cardiology. The theatres where he operated were so sterile that no bacteria would dare come within fifty feet, and he was trained enough so that barging into an operating theatre and heading straight for the dog on the table wasn’t going to happen. So he stood at the door and took in the scene before him.
Bonnie was stretched out on the operating bench. There was already a drip set up in her front leg and a bag of saline hung above. The vet, Doug—he knew this guy, he was the vet who gave Bonnie his yearly shots—was filling a syringe.
There were paddles lying on the floor as if tossed aside.
Paddles.
He had it in one. Catastrophic blood loss. Heart failure.
But the vet was inserting the syringe, the girl at the head of the table was holding Bonnie’s head and whispering to her and they wouldn’t do that to a dead dog.
Doug glanced up and saw him. ‘That’d be right,’ he growled. ‘Doctor arriving after the hard work’s done. Isn’t that right, Nurse?’ He heard the tension in Doug’s voice and he knew Bonnie wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he also knew that this girl had got his dog here in time—or maybe not in time, but at least she stood a chance.
If she’d gone into cardiac arrest on the beach...
‘How are you at anaesthetics?’ Doug snapped, and he forced himself to focus on the question. Medical emergency. How many times had he had the rules drilled into him during training? Take the personal distress out of it until the crisis is over.
‘I’m rusty but grounded,’ he managed.
‘Rusty but grounded is better than nothing. Humans, dogs, what’s the difference? I’ll give you the doses. I want her under and intubated and Zoe here doesn’t have the skills. I’ve called for back-up but I can’t get hold of my partner in time. You want to make yourself useful, scrub and help.’
‘What’s...what’s the situation?’ He was watching Bonnie, but he was also watching the girl—Zoe?—holding Bonnie still. They wouldn’t have had time to knock her out yet, he thought. They’d have been too busy saving her life.
The girl looked...stunning. She was smeared in blood, her chestnut-brown curls were plastered across her face, she was wearing a lace bra and jeans and not much else.
She still looked stunning.
‘Don’t talk,’ she said urgently. ‘Not until you’re scrubbed and can stay with her. She heard you then and she wants to get up.’
That hauled him back into medical mode. He nodded and moved to the sink, fast. He knew the last thing they needed was for Bonnie to struggle, even so much as raise her head.
‘It’s okay, girl, it’s okay.’ In the quiet he heard Zoe’s whisper. She wasn’t so much holding Bonnie down as caressing her down, her face inches from Bonnie’s, her hands folding the great, silky ears.
He had no doubt that this was the woman who’d saved his dog’s life. He’d seen her in the distance, picking Bonnie up and carrying her up the beach. From far out in the surf he hadn’t realised how slight she was. And the blood... If she’d walked into Gold Coast Central’s Emergency Department looking like that she’d have the whole department pushing Code Blue.
He glanced at the floor and saw the remains of her shirt, ripped and twisted into a pad and ties. That explained why she was only wearing a bra.
She’d done this for his dog?
Was she a vet nurse? If so, how lucky was he that she’d been on the beach?
Luck? He glanced again at Bonnie and thought he needed more.
Doug was injecting the anaesthetic. Sam dried, gloved, and took over the intubation. Zoe stood aside to give him room then moved seamlessly into assistance mode.
She was obviously a vet nurse, and a good one. She was watching Doug, anticipating his needs, often pre-empting his curt orders. Swift, sure and competent.
Doug was good, too. He’d met this guy before and thought he was a competent vet in a family vet practice. His work now said that he was more than competent to do whatever was needed.
They worked solidly. With fluid balance restored, Bonnie’s vital signs settled. Doug had all the equipment needed to do a thorough assessment and a full set of X-rays revealed more luck.
Her left hind leg was badly broken and so were a couple of ribs, but apart from the mass of lacerations that seemed the extent of the major damage.
Her blood pressure was steadying, which meant major internal bleeding was unlikely. Amazingly, there seemed little more damage.
‘I can plate that leg,’ Doug said curtly. ‘It’s easier than trying to keep her off it for weeks. If you’ll assist...’
Of course he’d assist. Sam was almost starting to hope.
He thought of the buggy crashing down on Bonnie, and he thought this outcome was either luck or a miracle. Either way he was very thankful.
And that this girl had been there as well...
She hardly spoke. She looked white-faced and shocked but her competence was never in question. Doug was a man of few words. He worked and Sam worked with him, and the white-faced girl worked as well.
They needed the full team of three. With Bonnie anaesthetised and seemingly stable, Doug decided to work on to do whatever was necessary.
‘Otherwise I’ll be hauling a team in to do this tomorrow,’ Doug said. ‘That’s two doses of anaesthetic and with both of you here I don’t see why I need to do that.’
Zoe wasn’t asking questions. She must be desperate for a bath and a strong cup of tea with loads of sugar—or something stronger, he thought—but she didn’t falter. Sam hadn’t seen her before, but he had only been at the Gold Coast for a year. He’d brought Bonnie to the vet twice in that time, for routine things. Two visits were hardly enough to know the staff.
He’d like to be able to tell her to go and have a wash, he thought, but she was needed. She’d scrubbed and gloved and was ignoring the fact that she was only in bra and jeans. She looked shocked and sick, but she was professional and capable.
And she still looked...stunning. It was the only word he could think of to describe her. A bit too thin. Huge eyes. A bit...frail?
Gorgeous.
What would she look like without the gore?
But he only had fragments of time to think about the woman beside him. Most of the time he forgot, too, that he was in board shorts and nothing else.
There was only Bonnie.
This was no simple break. Bonnie’s leg would be plated for life.
Sam was no orthopaedic surgeon but he knew enough to be seriously impressed by Doug’s skill. The fractured tibia was exposed and Doug took all the time he needed to remove free-floating fragments. He was encircling the remaining fragments with stainless steel, bending the plate to conform to the surface of the bone then drilling to fix bone screws. He checked and checked again, working towards maximum stability, examining placement of every bone fragment to ensure as much natural healing—bone melding to bone—as he could. Finally he started the long process of suturing the leg closed.
Which was just as well, Sam thought. Zoe looked close to the edge.
Bu they still needed her. She was doing the job of two nurses, assisting, preparing equipment, anticipating every need.
Bonnie was so lucky with her rescue team. The big dog lay under their hands and he thought he couldn’t have asked for a more highly-skilled partnership.
He owed this girl so much. If there was back-up he’d stand her down now, but there was no one. She’d already done more than he could ever expect—and he was asking more.
But finally they were done. Doug stepped back from the table and wiped a sleeve over his forehead.
>
‘I reckon she’ll make it,’ he said softly, and as he said it Sam saw Zoe’s eyes close.
She was indeed done. She swayed and he moved instinctively to grab her—this wouldn’t be the first time a nurse or doctor passed out after coping with a tense and bloody procedure. But then she had control of herself again, and was shaking him off and moving aside so Doug could remove the breathing tube.
‘I... That’s great,’ she whispered. ‘If it’s okay with you, I might leave you to it.’
‘Yeah, you look like a bomb site,’ Doug said bluntly. ‘Take her home, Sam, and then come back. Bonnie’ll take a while to wake. I won’t leave her and you can be back before she needs reassuring.’
‘I have my car...’ Zoe said.
‘I’ve seen your car and I’m looking at you,’ Doug said drily. ‘You drive through town looking like that you’ll have the entire Gold Coast police force thinking there’s been an axe murder. Leave the keys here. I’ll park it round the back and you can fetch it tomorrow. Where do you live?’
‘The hospital apartments,’ she said. ‘They’re only two blocks away. I can drive.’
‘You tell me those legs aren’t shaking,’ Doug retorted. ‘You’ve done a magnificent job, lass, but now you need help yourself. You have some great staff, Sam. You were damned lucky to have your colleague on the beach.’
‘My colleague...?’
‘You realise Bonnie arrested?’ Doug went on. ‘Heart stopped twice. With blood loss like that it’s a wonder she made it. A miracle more like. If Zoe hadn’t got her here... Well, if she cops a speeding fine for her trip here, I’m thinking you ought to pay it.’
‘I’d pay for more,’ Sam said, stunned—and confused. ‘You’re not a vet nurse?’
‘I’m a nurse at Gold Coast City,’ she managed. ‘I’d rather go home by myself.’
A nurse. A human nurse. One of his colleagues?
‘Take her home, Sam,’ Doug told him. ‘Now. Take a gown from the back room, Zoe, so you look less like a bomb victim, but go home now. You deserve a medal and if Sam doesn’t give you one I’ll give you one myself. Go.’
‘I’ll be giving her a medal,’ Sam growled. ‘I’ll give her a truckload if she’ll take it. What you’ve done...’
‘It’s okay,’ Zoe managed. ‘Enough with the medals. Doug’s right, I just need to go home.’
* * *
She wanted to go home but she didn’t want this man to take her.
She wanted, more than anything, to slide behind the wheel of her car, drive back to Gold Coast Central, sneak in the back way and find a bath and bed.
But there was no ‘back way’, no way to get back into the hospital without attracting attention, and Doug was right, she and her car were a mess.
Sam was taking her home?
He ushered her outside where his Jeep was parked next to her car and she thought...she thought...
This guy was a doctor? A colleague?
He was still only wearing board shorts. Unlike her, though, he didn’t look gruesome. He looked like something from the cover of one of the myriad surfing magazines in the local shops.
The Gold Coast was surfing territory, and many surfers here lived for the waves. That’s what this guy looked like. He was bronzed, lean, ripped, his brown hair bleached blond by sun and sea, his green eyes crinkled and creased from years of waiting for the perfect wave.
He was a doctor and a surfer.
Where did dog owner come into that?
He grabbed a T-shirt from the back seat of his Jeep and hauled it on. He looked almost normal, she thought, even after what had happened. His dog was fixed and he was ready to move on.
She glanced down at her oversized theatre gown and the bloodied jeans beneath them and something just...cracked.
For hours now she’d been clenching her emotions down while she’d got the job done. She looked at the mess that was her car, her independence, her freedom, she looked down at her disgusting jeans—and control finally broke.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, but she shook her head.
‘What were you thinking?’ she managed, trying hard to keep her voice low, calm, incisive, clear. ‘Leaving her waiting on the beach? Leaving her alone? To be so far out and leave her there... If I hadn’t been there she’d be dead. You have a dog like Bonnie and you just desert her. Of all the stupid, crass, negligent, cruel...
‘Do you know how lucky you are to have a dog? Of course you don’t. You’re a doctor, you’re a healthy, fit, surfer boy. You can buy any dog you want, so you just buy her and then you don’t care that she loves you, so she lies there and waits and waits. I was watching her—and she adores you, and you abandoned her and it nearly killed her. If I hadn’t been there it would have! She nearly died because you didn’t care!’
So much for calm, incisive and clear. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, and he was standing there watching, just watching, and she wanted to hit him and she thought for one crazy moment that it’d be justifiable homicide and she could hear the judge say, ‘He deserved everything that was coming to him.’
Only, of course, she couldn’t hit him. Somehow she had to get herself under control. She hiccuped on a sob and that made her angrier still because she didn’t cry, she never cried, and she knew she was being irrational, it was just...it was just...
The last few days had been crazy. She’d spent her whole life in one small community, closeted, cared for. The move here from Adelaide might seem small to some, but for Zoe it was the breaking of chains that had been with her since childhood.
It was the right thing to do, to move on, but, still, the new job, the new workplace, the constant calls from her parents—and from Dean, who still couldn’t understand why she’d left—were undermining her determination and making her feel bleak with homesickness.
But she would not give in to Dean. ‘You’ll come to your senses, Zoe, I know you will. Have your fling but come home soon. All we want to do is look after you.’
Aaagh!
She did not want to go home. She did not want to be looked after.
But neither did she want to yell at this stranger or stand in a theatre gown covering a bra and jeans, looking disgusting and feeling tears well in her eyes and rage overwhelm her, and know that somehow she had to get back into the hospital apartments, past strangers. Plus she’d intended to buy milk on the way home and...and...
And she would do this.
She fumbled under her gown to fetch her car keys. She had to lift the thing but what the heck, this guy had seen her at her worst anyway. She grabbed her car keys from her jeans pocket but Sam lifted them from her hand before she could take a step towards the car.
‘We go in my car,’ he said in a voice that said he was talking her down, doctor approaching lunatic, and she took a step back at that.
‘I’m not crazy. I might have yelled too much but you deserve it.’
‘You think I don’t know it? I love Bonnie,’ he said. ‘I deserve everything you throw at me and more, apart from the accusation that I could just buy another dog because I never could. I am deeply, deeply sorry for what happened. The fact that Bonnie has been watching me surf since she was a pup twelve years ago doesn’t mean it’s okay now. The fact that it’s a secluded beach and the guys in the buggy were there illegally doesn’t mean it’s okay either. Years ago Bonnie would have watched the whole beach. Tonight she just watched me and she paid the price. Zoe, you’re upset and you have every right to be but I can’t let you go home alone.’
‘You can’t stop me. It’s my car. Get out of the way.’
‘Zoe, be sensible. Get in the car, there’s a good girl...’
He sounded just like Dean—and she smacked him.
* * *
She’d never smacked a man in her life.
She�
��d never smacked anyone in her life. Or anything. Even in the worst of the bleak days, when the first transplant had failed, when she’d heard the doctors telling her parents to prepare for the worst, she’d hung in there, she’d stayed in control, she hadn’t cried, she hadn’t kicked the wall, she hadn’t lashed out at anything.
Not because she hadn’t wanted to but it had always seemed that if she did, if she let go of her relentless control, she’d never get it back. She’d drop into a black and terrifying chasm. She was far better gripping her nails into her palms until they bled and smiling at her parents and pretending she hadn’t heard, that things were normal, that life was fine.
And here, now, the first week of her new life, standing in the dusk in a veterinary surgeon’s car park, with a doctor from the hospital where she wanted to start her new life...
She’d hit him.
The chasm was there, and she was falling.
She stared at him in horror. The yelling had stopped. There was nothing left in her and she couldn’t say a word.
* * *
His face stung where her hand had swiped him in an open-palmed slap. The sound of the slap seemed to echo in the still night.
She was staring at him like the hounds of hell were after her.
It didn’t take a genius to know this woman didn’t normally slap people. Neither did it take a genius to know she was on some sort of precipice. She was teetering on the edge of hysteria. She was hauling herself back, but she was terrified she wasn’t going to make it.
What did you do with a woman who’d just slapped you? Walk away, reacting as he’d been taught all his life to react to people who were out of control?
Her eyes were huge in her white face. She was dressed in an oversized theatre gown and blood-splattered jeans and she looked like something out of a war zone.
And he could tell that there were things in this woman’s life that lay behind even the appalling events of the last few hours.
She’d hit him and she was looking at him as if she’d shot him. In his private life he avoided emotional contact like the plague. But with this woman... What was it about her?
Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor's Redemption Page 2