Their Marriage Miracle

by Sue MacKay

  ‘I’m here now.’ She paused, then, ‘I did love you when I left. But I had to go. We weren’t working. I couldn’t deal with anything any more.’

  She had loved him—as in the past. His lungs seemed to stop functioning; air clogged his chest. So there really was no hope of rekindling their marriage. Well, idiot, haven’t you always known that? Admit it, all those years you waited for her to come back you knew deep down she didn’t love you any more. What happened to keeping Fi at arm’s length this week? See, you’re calling her Fi again. Talk about setting yourself up for the long drop.

  Anyway, he should be relieved. He’d never wanted to get as deeply involved with a woman again as he had been with Fiona. He’d given his heart once. To do it twice and have it rejected would be foolish—especially if that second time was to the same woman.

  Fiona was still talking, and he wanted to ignore her, but he heard her loud and clear.

  ‘I know I was spoilt, impetuous and fiery, and we had some tempestuous times, but we were great together, you and I. Great enough to survive what happened to Liam if only we’d known how. I really believe that. Talk to me, Tom.’

  Sure thing. Spill his guts and then get on with his life.

  Her fingers dug into her palms as she willed him to answer. But when he did, he thought he’d never seen anyone looking so desolate. But he had to stop this conversation in its tracks. It wasn’t doing either of them any good. He felt as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice, totally unsure where he was going.

  ‘It’s too late for us, Fiona. I have other responsibilities now.’ His heart ached. He’d missed her in his life so much. Damn it. He wanted to grab her up and hold her for ever. But he wouldn’t.

  Loud knocking, followed by the front door being thrown back against the wall, had his head jerking round.

  ‘Tom, are you here? There’s been an accident down by the bridge and you’re needed.’ Stella’s voice echoed through the cottage as she advanced down the hall. He saw her pass the bedroom door, heard her heavy steps stop, backtrack to the bedroom.

  ‘Tom? I’m sorry. I should’ve stayed outside knocking, but it’s urgent.’

  Tom crawled out from under the bedcovers, glad of the interruption. ‘What’s this about an accident?’

  ‘A car skidded on ice at the approach to the one-way bridge and slammed into the bank. Pierce says the snow-laden bank took some of the impact, but to him the injuries look serious. Robert’s already there, but he needs a hand.’

  ‘How many people are injured? And where are my keys?’ Tom searched through his pockets.

  ‘On the top of the fridge.’ Fiona brushed past Stella, still standing in the doorway. ‘I’ll get them. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Two couples. They’re here for the golf tournament. According to Pierce, alcohol’s involved. And, worse, the road is treacherous between here and the highway to Christchurch. He doesn’t think you’ll get an ambulance through tonight.’

  Tom followed Fiona into the kitchen, with Stella right on his heels. He caught the keys Fiona tossed to him and swiped up his jacket.

  ‘Pierce is the local cop, and Robert’s our GP,’ he explained to Fiona on their way to his vehicle. ‘We’ll be busy if the injuries are serious, and if the road’s as bad as Pierce says we’ll have to bring the victims back here.’

  Fiona grimaced. ‘The injured people can be thankful you’ve got such a well-equipped theatre. Have we got kits to take to the scene?’

  ‘Liz is getting two ready,’ Stella answered.

  ‘Hop in, Fiona,’ Tom called to her. ‘Stella, can you get Theatre ready in case we have to perform surgery? Can you also phone Kerry and warn her we might need her?’

  ‘Of course. Have you got your cell phone so you can let us know what’s happening?’

  ‘I’ll get Pierce to phone through.’

  A figure loomed up through the murky night air. ‘Here you go, Tom. Two bags full of everything I could think of.’

  ‘Thanks, Liz. Can you give Stella a hand, and stay on in case you’re needed later?’

  As Liz answered in the affirmative Tom already had the engine revving, and Fiona slammed her door shut. She shivered, and said, ‘I wouldn’t have thought this town was big enough to have its own GP.’

  ‘Robert Greison is semi-retired. His wife died of cancer two years ago, leaving him with two teenaged boys. He decided to bring them here, where he could practise part time and be with the lads at the weekends and school holidays. They go to boarding school in Christchurch during the week.’

  Tom drove carefully on the treacherous road, and a few minutes later lights beckoned through the falling snow.

  Fiona pointed. ‘Looks like that’s it.’

  Parking where directed, Tom shoved his door open and saw Fiona flinch as the bitterly cold air snatched at her. But she braced herself and gingerly stepped down onto the slippery roadside. After grabbing the kitbags from the back seat, she followed him to the wrecked car, lying on its side in a ditch. A tow truck had backed up close to the front of the vehicle, its strong searchlights lighting up the area brighter than day. Two people—presumably men, though it was hard to tell with their thick jackets and woollen hats—were squatting down beside someone lying on a stretcher.

  Screams rent the air spasmodically. The hairs rose on the back of Tom’s neck as he hurried towards the wreck, Fiona at his side. Someone needed them. He and Fiona were here to help. That, at least, felt good.

  ‘Hey, Tom!’ A deep male voice boomed out from beside the car and one of the figures rose from next to the inert body. ‘Over here.’

  Tom took Fiona’s elbow and led her across to introduce her to Robert and Pierce. ‘Thought an extra medic wouldn’t go astray.’

  Robert eyed Fiona up and down. ‘Even better. You’re slim and might be able to squeeze inside beside the guy jammed under the dashboard. He’s unconscious. I’ve managed to reach in and establish there’s a pulse. A lot of blood too, but I’m not sure where from. It’s tricky getting to him with the car tipped over like it is.’

  ‘Sure—anything you want. Do we have a name?’ Fiona asked.

  ‘Dave Fergusson, according to the women passengers.’

  As Fiona snapped on latex gloves Tom felt a hitch around his heart. He didn’t want her putting herself in any danger by climbing into that scrunched vehicle. Jagged metal could tear clothing and skin in an instant. A sudden question came to him. ‘What about airbags?’

  ‘Deactivated,’ a fireman replied.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he murmured to Fiona. ‘That mangled wreck will be full of hazards. And it doesn’t look terribly steady, lying on its side.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, and as Robert pointed out no one else will fit through that narrow gap that used to be a window.’

  Tom knew she was right, but that only made him want to try harder to dissuade her from her mission—and yet he understood she’d agreed to go in because a man needed her doctoring skills. Fiona would never let him down. ‘You’d better watch out for pieces of metal. You’ll slice yourself if you’re not careful.’

  She gave him a smile and nudged him. ‘Tom, just help me up and stop worrying. I don’t think I can squeeze in without a bit of a shove from behind.’

  ‘You haven’t grown any over the years, have you?’ He tried to lighten the panic in his heart and bent so she could stand on his thigh, his hands holding her around her waist until she was steady. Even as he let her go he wanted to snatch her back against him, keep her safe. So much for keeping her at arm’s length.

  Placing her feet carefully around her patient, she bent down awkwardly. ‘Can someone get me a torch?’

  A low, keening moan filled the air as Tom saw Fiona carefully feel the man’s head, talking softly, reassuringly, all the time.

  ‘Dave, I’m a doctor. You’ve been in an accident. Can you hear me?’

  The man didn’t answer.

  ‘Here’s the torch. Tell me what you find as you go,
then I’ll know what equipment to get you.’ Tom peered into the wreck, frustrated at having to wait outside.

  The full horror of the scene was apparent in the yellow beam. Fiona’s patient stared sightlessly, his face streaked with blood. Blood coated everything. If it was all his, the man had lost too much.

  Inside the vehicle, Fiona talked as she worked with her patient. ‘I’m starting with his ribs, hoping we’re not dealing with a flail chest. As far as I can tell the ribs have not been pushed into the chest cavity.’

  ‘One thing in his favour, then. How about his airways?’

  ‘Clear, and his breathing’s laboured but regular.’

  ‘Good.’ Would she hurry up and get out of there?

  ‘Can you pass me a sphygmomanometer?’

  The blood pressure reading was important; a low one could indicate a continuing bleed somewhere.

  ‘Is it possible for you to reach his arm and hold it still?’ Fiona asked.

  Tom pushed his shoulders through the narrow gap as far as he could until the squashed window frame prevented further movement. ‘I’ve got a cervical collar too. Damned if I know where Liz found it, but I’m grateful to her.’

  He held the patient’s arm while Fiona inserted an intravenous line for much needed morphine and fluids. Then she took the blood pressure reading.

  ‘BP’s too low,’ she said.

  Tom watched as Fiona gently probed her patient’s abdomen. Then her hands moved down his body until Tom heard a grunt of satisfaction. ‘Torn artery at the top of his leg.’

  Stretching out, Tom helped apply the pressure needed to slow and gradually halt the bleeding.

  Fiona said softly, ‘He’s also got a huge swelling above the left eye, so possibly there are cranial injuries. We need to fit the neck collar, and that’s not going to be easy. He’s caught between the gearstick and the seat, and his body’s twisted at an angle so his lower back’s stuck under the front of the car.’

  As they struggled with the collar one of the tow truck drivers came up beside Tom. ‘We’re ready to lift the engine block back so you can get your man out of there. Just give us the nod.’

  Tom raised an eyebrow at Fiona. ‘What do you think? Is he ready?’

  ‘There’s nothing more I can do for him here, and the sooner we have him out the sooner he gets to hospital.’

  ‘Fi, come out of there. You’re only giving them something else to worry about if you’re in the car too.’ Did he have to beg her? ‘I want you out.’

  She climbed gingerly back through the narrow window space. He tugged her away, thankful to have her out of the vehicle unscathed as the tow truck swung its enormous steel hook over the bonnet.

  ‘Have you heard how the guy on the ground is?’ Fiona asked as she sheltered in front of him from the cold breeze.

  Just then Robert appeared beside them and answered Fiona’s question. ‘Broken femur, suspected punctured lung, and possibly a ruptured spleen. He took a hard landing on the road, but he could’ve been a lot worse off. We’ve put him in the back of my vehicle. Once we’ve got your man out, we’ll head back to the hospital.’

  ‘I thought there were four people in the car.’ Tom peered around, suddenly aware of raised voices coming from inside the police four-wheel drive vehicle.

  ‘Two women were in the back seat and they fared a lot better than their husbands. But they’re rather intoxicated and argumentative. Pierce has got his hands full with them as he tries to find out what happened. He’s also keeping them out of the way while we deal with their husbands.’

  ‘No injuries at all?’ He sympathised with Pierce. Dealing with inebriated people in these situations was always like walking on ice.

  ‘One of them needs her chin stitched. It’s a very long, jagged gash.’

  Tom sighed. ‘Then she can be thankful we’ve got a plastic surgeon in town.’

  ‘I’ll take a look once we’ve sorted these other two out.’ Fiona stamped her feet and hugged her upper body.

  ‘Your teeth are clacking.’ Tom draped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her neatly under his arm in an attempt to give her some warmth from his body. A purely altruistic gesture, of course.

  ‘Clacking? I’m not a castanet.’

  ‘Are too.’ His need to protect her swelled like a balloon filling with air.

  A horrendous sound of screeching metal tore through the air as the engine block was lifted away from the seriously injured man. Immediately Fiona left Tom’s side to supervise the man’s removal. In no time at all they were on the road, heading for Tom’s hospital and the operating theatre.

  And Tom tried to remind himself why he shouldn’t want Fiona working alongside him at his hospital. It wasn’t easy.

  ‘What a night.’ Fiona stretched her back.

  ‘Guess you’re not used to this where you’ve been.’ Stella handed Fiona suture thread to stitch Dave Fergusson’s torn artery.

  ‘Not a lot of car accidents in Pakistani villages.’ Fiona concentrated on their patient. With the artery repaired she turned to the head wound, which appeared to be superficial. Enough to knock the man unconscious and give him concussion, but otherwise it appeared he’d escaped serious head injuries. To be on the safe side, Fiona ordered a cranial X-ray as well as X-rays of his chest.

  While an orderly wheeled her patient to the radiology room she crossed over to help Tom and Robert. Tom glanced up at her, and grimaced. ‘Not quite what you were expecting when you signed on for the week, was it?’

  ‘It’s all medicine to me. It’s what I do, who I am.’

  ‘Keep that up and I’ll be offering you a permanent position here. We can agree that we work well together in any medical situation.’ Tom winked, then stilled, as though it had only then occurred to him what he’d offered.

  Fiona felt warmth trickle through her at the idea he wanted her around. Of course Tom probably now regretted opening his mouth. But they had worked well together throughout the night. If they could do this, why couldn’t they put their differences behind them?

  ‘Fiona?’ Robert was talking to her. ‘We’re missing the top knuckle of a thumb here. Want to work some of your plastic surgery magic on the guy?’

  Grateful for the distraction, she set to work, concentrating hard. But it was Tom who handed her equipment as she requested it, almost before she’d asked. He anticipated all her moves, as if they were a partnership. Warmth seeped through her again, and she held it around her like a shawl.

  ‘What time is it?’ Fiona laid the suture thread down for the last time and straightened her aching back.

  ‘Three-fifty-five,’ Liz called across the room. ‘It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?’

  Tom agreed. ‘Thank goodness for those Christchurch specialists.’

  Some of the surgery required on the two men had been out of the scope of a paediatrician, a GP and a plastic surgeon. But with the help of specialists at the other end of the phone they had succeeded in repairing injuries, removing organs and keeping both men alive.

  ‘I’ve requested the medic helicopter ASAP,’ Tom told everyone over hot coffee and plates of bacon and eggs, cooked by one of the hospital’s cooks who’d come in early especially. ‘But at the moment Hanmer Springs is completely blocked off by the storm that’s apparently been battering us most of the night.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know a thing, locked up in here,’ Liz noted.

  ‘What chance has the pilot got of getting through if this storm has headed on down through Canterbury?’ Fiona knew that storms could stall over areas, but she didn’t know the normal drift of a storm in the vicinity of these particular ranges.

  ‘The dispatch officer seemed fairly confident that we’d be seeing the helicopter some time around ten this morning.’ Tom yawned into his mug. ‘In the meantime I’ll brief the staff and give all of you the morning off.’

  Fiona didn’t feel tired. Rather, exhilaration bubbled through her veins. They’d all worked together to save the lives of two men. They’d also
patched up the minor injuries the two women had suffered. This was what she’d trained for, even if her specialty wasn’t emergency medicine. To help people. And working with Tom had been a bonus. Oh, yes, she was buzzing. She didn’t need to take the morning off to recuperate. Instead she felt ready for anything.

  ‘You can’t be thinking of postponing this morning’s schedule, surely?’ she queried Tom.

  ‘Absolutely. We’ll start operating at eleven instead of eight. That should give everyone a few hours’ sleep.’ Tom rolled his eyes at her. ‘Including you. I can see you’re firing on all cylinders now, but once that huge stack of food you’re pouring down your throat hits your stomach you’re going to slow down. Throw in a hot shower, and you’ll be toast.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’ A hot shower. Delicious. That was something they didn’t often get after a long, difficult shift out in the villages she’d been working in.

  The thought of that scorching water pummelling her back had her in raptures. She sighed and stretched out on the chair, her legs pushing under the table, her arms crossed behind her head. Closing her eyes, she imagined standing under the steaming jets, imagined Tom sharing it with her as he’d often used to. Her skin heated up in anticipation and she opened her eyes to find Tom gazing at her, the tip of his tongue wetting his upper lip, his eyes smoky grey. The colour they went when he was aroused.

  Excitement tingled over her skin. She knew Tom felt the pull between them. He wasn’t immune to her after all. Joy zipped through her. She wanted to leap up and punch the air. There was a chance for them—hope. They could get back together, pick up the pieces, and start the loving all over again. Yes! The loving…the lovemaking. It had all started with a shower. The very first time. Tom was remembering that too. She saw it in his eyes. Even her skin had memories in all the sensitive places he had touched with his gentle fingers, with his hot, demanding tongue. And she wanted it again. Now. In Tom’s shower back at the cottage.