A Magical Christmas

by Patricia Thayer

Mak was squatting low on the road, his arm shoved through an incredibly small space in the crumbled sedan, clinging to Neena’s hand. He was yelling his frustration at the fire crew wielding the rescue equipment, although he knew yelling wasn’t helping anyone. He’d never seen men move more slowly, cutting here, snipping there, carefully peeling back bits of wrecked trailer and his car as if every piece was a sacred relic. It had taken them for ever to remove the drums of molasses that had been in the trailer when it had swung in an irrational but deadly arc straight into the passenger side of his vehicle.

  And all he’d been able to do had been to watch in horror as the woman he’d grown to love had been encapsulated in death and destruction. That she was still alive seemed a miracle—if she was still alive!

  He squeezed her fingers but her hand lay still and motionless in his. Dark! She’d said it was so dark…

  ‘Okay, that’s the last piece of the trailer, now we’ll cut through here, attach a wire rope to there…’ the fire-crew boss indicated the windshield frame of the car ‘…and pull the trailer and the top of the car off in one piece, which means we need you out of the way in case the whole shebang comes crashing back down.’

  Mak gave the cold fingers one final squeeze and moved reluctantly away, but only far enough to be safe if the load collapsed. He held his breath as the tow-truck winched the wreckage upward then, as it inched forward, tearing the metal with teeth-clenching screeches, finally leaving a clear passage to the front seat of the car, Mak darted forward, ripping away the torn side and front airbags, the lover beating the doctor by seconds as he touched Neena’s face with trembling fingers before feeling for a pulse beneath her chin.

  She was alive!

  Think first response—think pregnancy implications. The foetus is extra-sensitive to changes in blood oxygen levels. Mak clamped an oxygen mask across Neena’s face while behind him the ambos and the fire crew all protested.

  ‘You can’t start oxygen while we’re cutting and shifting metal because of the sparks,’ someone said.

  ‘Then stop cutting and shifting for a few minutes while I stabilise her. She’s pregnant, the baby needs oxygen—they both do.’

  He felt her pulse again, mainly because it had been such a strong beat earlier he thought he might have been mistaken but no, the beat was still strong—and steady!

  ‘Neena, can you hear me?’

  An ambulance attendant was wiping the thick dark molasses from her face. She was drenched in it, the beautiful white dress a mess.

  Yet her pulse was strong!

  Mak grabbed a stethoscope from one of the ambos and pressed its diaphragm against her belly. He heard the foetal heartbeat and felt another kick. The ambo was sliding a backboard in behind Neena’s body while another tried to fit a cervical collar.

  ‘I can’t get at it,’ he said. ‘Her head’s trapped. Does she have long hair? Is that what’s caught somewhere?’

  Does she have long hair?

  Mak saw the shining curtain of it in his mind’s eye, felt the silk of it against his fingers, but knew they had to move her.

  ‘I’ll cut it,’ he said, his heart racing because he knew what pain the loss of her hair would cause her. But emotional pain was better than death and they had to get her free as quickly as possible. For all her steady pulse she could be bleeding internally—bleeding externally, for that matter. There was still only a small part of Neena and the baby visible.

  He talked quietly to her as he cut, using heavy shears someone had handed him, telling her it would grow again, that everyone would still love her just as much—that he’d still love her.

  ‘Stand clear, Doc, we do this part best,’ the ambo said when he’d cut the hair.

  He stood clear, though he longed to gather her in his arms and lift her out, to hold her close for ever. But these men were the experts at moving injured people, so he bit back his impatience and watched.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ one of the ambos said, as they strapped Neena onto the stretcher. ‘When I saw the way the trailer had landed on that car I didn’t think anyone would have survived, yet there’s hardly a mark on her, apart from all the molasses that must have spilled from the drums in the trailer.’

  And no indication of internal injuries, although she was slipping in and out of consciousness, which Mak didn’t like.

  ‘I’ll ride with her,’ he told the ambos as they loaded her into their vehicle.

  The older of the two men smiled.

  ‘Thought you might want to do that,’ he said. ‘Looks to me as if Wymaralong might have two doctors again.’

  Mak opened his mouth to protest. Of course he couldn’t stay in Wymaralong. He was a specialist ER doctor, his life was in the city. But one look at the grey-faced woman on the gurney made him wonder, and as he sat in the back of the ambulance, using wet tissue to clean the muck from her face, the idea of becoming a country doctor instead began to grow on him.

  Although wasn’t he assuming too much?

  What made him think Neena would want him?

  A couple of hot kisses?

  She’d never said she loved him but, then, he’d never told her how he felt—hadn’t known it for sure until he’d seen that trailer careening towards them and had known, no matter what he did, it was going to hit Neena’s side of the car.

  Then he’d known. He’d felt pain judder through his body and had yelled his futile protest. Oh, yes, then he’d known…

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘I CAN’T stay here in hospital. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve got patients to see.’

  She was still in the ER at Baranock hospital and already protesting that she wanted to be released. Mak looked at the slight figure beneath the sheet on the ER examination table, at the angry cuts and abrasions the accident had left on parts of her body and the mess thick in her hacked-off hair.

  ‘Your obstetrician is on her way and she’s already said she wants to keep you in for a few days’ observation. You’ve had a shock, the baby’s had a bad jolt—’

  Neena sat up, her hands automatically cradling the tight bump of Baby Singh, panic in her voice.

  ‘Placental abruption! I need an ultrasound. What if my placenta’s come adrift and the baby is suffering?’

  ‘The staff here have done an ultrasound and everything’s fine,’ Mak soothed her. ‘But the obstetrician will repeat it just to be sure. Relax, and be thankful you’ve both come out of it so well, but be sensible as well, and stay here to rest.’

  ‘But my patients!’she wailed, and Mak shook his head.

  ‘I would never have taken you for a wailer,’ he chided. ‘I’ll look after your patients and, believe me, that’s a sacrifice. I’d far rather be here looking after you.’

  ‘Looking after me?’ Neena frowned up at him, suspicion gathering in her foggy brain. ‘Why should you want to be here looking after me?’

  Mak smiled at her—a funny kind of smile that made her stomach feel distinctly queasy.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t you really know?’

  She shook her head, which was when she realised something else was wrong. Her head felt light—unanchored. More weirdness. She forgot about Mak’s puzzling question and lifted her hands, feeling her hair, all knotted and thick.

  ‘I need a shower. My hair’s a mess.’

  Her hands continued their exploration as she spoke, continued to feel for her plait…

  ‘It’s gone—my hair’s gone!’

  Panic raced through her body, panic and despair, and yes, again a loss—too much loss. There’d just been too much loss…

  Mak was speaking, something about having to cut it off.

  ‘You cut off my hair?’ she yelled at him, sitting up so she could see his face more clearly. ‘But I told you why I kept it long—I remember telling you. It was my hair and, yes, it was a nuisance but I loved it.’ She fell back down and closed her eyes, adding in a whisper of grief, ‘And you cut it off!’

  ‘It was only hair,’ the
nurse who stood beside Mak murmured quietly, but Mak wouldn’t accept her empathy. He shook his head.

  ‘It was more than that to Neena,’ he said. ‘It was her link to the past, to her family, to a family she lost when she was far too young.’ He began to walk away, then turned back to the nurse. ‘After the obstetrician’s been, would you help Neena shower and maybe get someone in to neaten the ends of her hair so it doesn’t look quite so bad when she sees it?’

  The young woman gave him a peculiar look but she nodded her agreement.

  Mak was leaving the hospital—he was ninety per cent sure Neena was okay but he’d phone the obstetrician later—when he ran into Lauren.

  ‘I was doing my last-minute Christmas shopping here in Baranock and heard about the accident,’ she said. ‘Is Neena okay? The baby?’

  Mak nodded, then knew Lauren needed more information.

  ‘By some miracle, both are fine,’ he said. ‘Her specialist is due to check her out any minute but we—well, I—had to cut off her plait to free her from the mess and she’s devastated about it.’

  ‘It’s hair!’ Lauren said, and Mak smiled.

  ‘I know that and you know that, but Neena?’

  Lauren nodded.

  ‘She grew it for her father. It’s funny because we all rely on Neena to be the sensible one—the rock. When things go wrong in Wymaralong, whether it’s a lost dog or a major disaster like a house fire, we turn to her for guidance and support and she’s there for everyone, but she’s never had anyone to lean on, apart from Maisie and Ned—and she’s lost Maisie. Now her hair—it’s a bit like Samson in the Bible, isn’t it? Maybe she’s lost her strength with it.’

  Mak found he wasn’t as concerned about the hair as he was about the image of Neena Lauren had conjured up—the image of the woman who had no one to lean on. Yet she’d decided to go ahead with a pregnancy that, in the beginning at least, must have caused huge emotional turmoil in her, and she’d held her head high in the small town, though talk would have been rife.

  Would she lean if there was someone there to lean on?

  Lean on him if he was there?

  Lauren was still talking, something about popping in to see Neena then giving him a lift back to Wymaralong.

  ‘You will come back, won’t you?’ she added anxiously, and Mak smiled.

  He’d never find out if Neena would lean unless he was there, now, would he?

  ‘Of course,’ he told Lauren. ‘I’ll find a rest room and clean up a bit then would love a lift back to town. I’ll phone the girls at the surgery and tell them to put the afternoon patients back a bit. What time, do you think?’

  Lauren did the sums in her head and announced they’d be back by four-thirty, then she dashed away to check on Neena.

  Mak moved more slowly, uncertain where this decision was taking him but knowing it was the right one.

  Neena lay on her back in the hospital bed in Baranock, the sheet pulled up to her chin, so the bed was neat, apart from the bump of Baby Singh. She had her hands clasped around the bump and one part of her mind was whispering fervent thanks that he was okay.

  All the time!

  As for herself, she was clean, her hair, what there was of it, washed and gleaming, her head still feeling incredibly light. She had pads on her eyes because spilled molasses had got into them and though it had all been flushed out, her eyes still stung.

  Apart from that, she was fine. She’d even slept for a while—or maybe more than a while because it was dark outside now.

  So everything was okay.

  Except that it wasn’t.

  She wasn’t!

  She was edgy and unhappy, and though part of that was because she was doing nothing—you will lie there and do nothing for at least two days, her obstetrician had ordered—and doing nothing didn’t come easily to her, but the major part of it was that Mak wasn’t there.

  Which was stupid considering she barely knew the man!

  He’d been in her life for what—six days? And she was missing him?

  Get real!

  Get over it!

  Be pleased he was good enough to go back to Wymaralong and fill in for her. Most professionals, after the introduction he’d had to bush doctoring, would have seen her safely into hospital and headed back to the city.

  Except, of course, there were the shares.

  Had they come to some decision about the shares? She remembered talking about them on the drive to Baranock but couldn’t remember what, if anything, had been decided.

  Though she did remember a kiss—a wonderful kiss—so wonderful she’d felt as if she was floating on a fluffy white cloud—or maybe that had been part of the accident. How could they have been kissing on the road to Baranock with Mak driving?

  But something must have happened because when she thought about the drive—or the shares, come to that—she felt hot all over and a softness radiated out from between her thighs and she had to move uncomfortably on the bed for all the specialist had told her to lie still.

  The phone interrupted her thoughts, and she heaved herself up until she was sitting against the pillows before answering it. It would be Ned, for sure—checking on her—ready to nag about her not looking after herself, although it hadn’t been her fault.

  ‘Hello! Are you there, Neena?’

  Not Ned at all—Mak!

  Neena smiled at the phone.

  ‘Neena, can you hear me?’

  He was sounding anxious, which made her smile some more, but the third time he demanded to know if she was there, she realised she’d better answer him.

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she said.

  ‘Well, try a hello next time you pick up the phone,’ he grumbled. ‘I thought you’d passed out or fallen out of bed or something.’

  He sounded so cranky she had to laugh, which didn’t help his crankiness one bit.

  ‘I was phoning to let you know that everything went well at the surgery, I’ve seen all the patients—nothing urgent’s happening, and the obstetrician said you’re okay but you have to rest. You will rest, won’t you? You won’t go wandering around the hospital offering advice and comfort to all the other patients.’

  ‘I will rest, Mak,’ she promised him, wishing again that he was there so she could see by looking at him if he was as anxious about her as he sounded or if he was just being a fussy doctor.

  ‘Good, I’ll come to see you on Sunday—if anyone crashes a helicopter the ambos can look after him—and Lauren said there’s an ambulance going to Baranock on Monday to take someone down for surgery, so you can come back with them.’

  He was coming to see her on Sunday?

  Coming to see her but not to take her home?

  Coming to see her to talk about her patients and Saturday surgery, or coming to see her?

  ‘Neena, are you there?’

  Again the demanding tone.

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she said, although the smile inside her was so all-encompassing she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Fortunately he didn’t seem to expect a conversation for he ordered her to keep resting, promised to phone again the next day and said goodbye.

  Altogether a very strange conversation, but she was still smiling so it must have been okay.

  By Sunday Neena was reconciled to her hair, in fact, she rather liked the way the new short style framed her face and swished around her head when she moved it. And although she’d obeyed the ‘rest’ orders of both the specialist and Mak, she had persuaded one of the nurses to visit the boutique and get her a couple of pretty nightgowns and a loose floaty dress in fine cream cotton that she could wear back to Wymaralong on Monday.

  She was wearing one of the pretty nightgowns now, although she didn’t really expect Mak to drive all that way to visit her. Well, she half expected he would, because he’d phoned three times on Saturday and each time he’d said he would.

  She actually didn’t know what to think about Mak…

  Mak felt stupid. He was dressed in his cream chi
nos and his best green polo shirt, the one Helen had given him for his birthday because, she said, it would make his eyes look greener.

  Neena had probably never noticed he had green eyes.

  And she’d think the bunch of roses he had gripped in his hands were a silly idea when she was coming home the next day.

  And he didn’t even know if she liked chocolates, for all the check-out girl in the supermarket had assured him she did.

  Though why the girl had assumed they were for Neena was another thing he didn’t know.

  So he stalked through Baranock hospital, roses and chocolates in hand, mind in total confusion, so although the directions had been simple he lost the way three times. Then there she was—sitting up in a bed at the end of a four-bed ward—looking so incredibly beautiful for a moment he was sorry he’d come.

  Why?

  Because he’d driven for two hours practising all the things he wanted to say to her, and now he was here he was tongue-tied.

  He couldn’t possibly be tongue-tied. He was a well-educated professional—he had words for all occasions.

  He was tongue-tied.

  She smiled at him, which didn’t help one bit.

  ‘Are those for me?’ she asked, her smile growing wider, though whether because she liked the roses or was delighted to see him in such a dither, he couldn’t tell.

  ‘From the garden,’ he managed, although she’d have known that from the moment she saw them. ‘And these—I hope you like chocolates.’

  She smiled again and thanked him, but the smile and the look of her, the clear olive skin of her chest and shoulders rising out of the gathered neckline of her nightdress, the sharp bones of her face, the shapely red lips—the beauty that stole his breath every time he looked at her—was too much.

  He sat down on the bed and took both her hands in one of his, then touched his other palm to her cheek.

  ‘I love you, you know,’ he said, and watched her eyes widen in wonder. ‘I didn’t know until I nearly lost you—well, perhaps I knew, but it was all so awkward, and it happened so suddenly I had to be suspicious of it, but it’s love all right, because nothing else could make me feel so totally stupid, so ill at ease, so at a loss as to what to do or say or how to act or anything.’