by Fiona Lowe
It’s no big deal, it’s just canoeing. Perhaps he had a prior engagement and the timing clashed? What did it matter that he’d said no? She should be relieved and happy. She’d kept her side of the bargain and issued the invitation, which meant he had to honour his promise of not asking her out. This was a totally win-win situation for her.
But the relief she knew she should feel didn’t come. If his ‘no’ was to do with not being available then surely he would have said so instead of walking away. And he had walked away.
He’d said he loved kids so it wasn’t that. A gazillion questions zoomed around in her head as she tried to work out his uncharacteristic behaviour but she couldn’t fathom any reason for it. It made no sense and yet something about canoeing had made him turn pale and turn on his heel.
Her beeper sounded and she snapped her attention back to work. A patient was waiting for her to administer a general anaesthetic and that came ahead of an enigmatic surgeon. At least it did for now.
Leo stripped off his gloves and dropped them into the bin. The cholecystectomy he’d just performed had been straightforward and uneventful and now the patient was in recovery. As the surgeon, he should be filled with a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. Instead, he kept thinking about how he’d almost lost the plot when Abbie had invited him canoeing.
Several times during the course of the operation he’d caught her staring at him over the top of her mask. Usually he welcomed the gaze of a beautiful woman, loving how much flirting could take place with eyes alone when the rest of the face was hidden. But today there’d been no flirting and he’d found himself ducking her penetrating and insightful stare, hating the fact that his guard had not merely slipped but had plummeted and smashed to pieces at the mention of the river.
Being in Bandarra was bad enough but using the river—that was something he’d never do.
He’d been thankful that as the surgeon he could leave the theatre earlier than the anaesthetist, which meant Abbie was still tied up in Recovery and not able to verbalise all the questions he’d seen flashing in her eyes. But, no matter how many questions she had, he didn’t talk about Dom to anyone—not even Nonna—and he had no plans to start talking now.
Damn it, why had he even suggested she ask him out on a promise he’d stop asking her out? He’d thought it such a clever idea, a way to spend time with Abbie on her own turf, gambling on a bigger chance that she’d relax some of those barriers she held up so hard and high. Relax them and lower them so they could resume that kiss. That mind-blowing, blood-pounding kiss that had planted a craving deep inside him which burned like an eternal flame seeking more fuel. But the idea had bitten him hard, leaving his game plan frayed and exposing a part of his life he kept very deeply buried.
He pushed his way out through the double doors, needing to concentrate on doing his final job as the surgeon and keep all thoughts of the past at bay.
‘Buon giorno, Sofia. The operation went very well and Lorenzo will be back eating your wonderful zuppa in no time.’
‘Grazie, Leo.’ Sofia, a younger friend of his Nonna’s, pinched his cheek. ‘You are a good boy and a talented man. You must come soon and eat with us in the Cantina while you are home.’
Home. He knew there was no advantage in pointing out he’d lived in Melbourne for a year longer than he’d ever lived in Bandarra. Country towns never completely let their favourite sons go, no matter how much they wanted to be gone. He also knew there was no point in refusing the invitation because a ‘no’ would not be accepted.
‘That would be lovely, Sofia.’
‘Good. My granddaughter, she is a good cook; I think you should meet her.’
Good cook or not, Leo didn’t want to be matched up. ‘I’ll bring a friend who can enjoy her cooking as well.’ He spoke the protective words with no friend in mind but he immediately heard Abbie’s voice in his head. I know enough to feed myself and that’s all I need to know.
The thought of watching Abbie’s lush lips close around a slice of the delectable wood-fire pizza that Sofia was famous for, and being next to her the moment she made the connection that food wasn’t just for sating hunger, jolted him with heat.
‘Bene.’ Sofia tried not to look too disappointed as she walked towards the ward to wait for Lorenzo.
Leo puffed out a breath, his duty done. Unless the nursing staff paged him, he wasn’t required at the hospital or the clinic until tomorrow. The afternoon stretched before him—him and Bandarra—the thought sent a restlessness to him. He could go home but his parents’ house would be empty and he wanted to avoid a quiet and censorious house.
La Bella winery thrived because of hard work. His father would be in the vineyard but, ever since Stefano’s decree that Leo stay for the vintage, Leo had made sure he was never alone with his father because he anticipated a conversation he didn’t want to have. A tour bus was booked in and his mother and younger sisters would be busy at the cellar door and Anna would be directing lunch at the restaurant. No problem, he’d visit Nonna and then he’d— He had no clue what to do.
He ran his hand through his hair. He supposed he could help at the cellar door but his sisters would either moan he was in the way or organise him and neither scenario appealed. He could play tennis but his nieces wouldn’t be home to partner him until four. The prickling unease he always experienced in Bandarra had, over the last few days, formed into a tight burr that had embedded itself hard and fast. Too many memories made it impossible to relax and he felt like a caged lion, pacing back and forth.
Talk to Abbie.
He rejected the thought immediately. There were plenty of things he wanted to do with Abbie but talking wasn’t one of them. As he crossed the car park he heard a whirring sound and a peloton of cyclists in bright green, white and red Bandarra hospital jerseys shot past him with a wave, and he recognised the physiotherapist and the radiologist. Lunchtime cycling? There was a thought. He’d buy a bike and go riding. A long hard ride in the summer heat was just what he needed to keep the Bandarra demons at bay and to banish a pair of fine green eyes that saw too much.
CHAPTER SIX
ABBIE checked the liquid display on the ear thermometer. ‘Mate, you’ve got a fever, that’s for sure.’ She gently palpated the boy’s glands. All up. ‘Have you vomited?’
Alec sniffed and rubbed his watery eyes. ‘I chucked after breakfast and now my throat hurts a bit but I’ll be OK. Mum needs me to go to the shops. The baby’s making her tired.’
Abbie bit her lip. Usually getting information out of an eleven-year-old was like pulling teeth and in most situations with children this age the mother of the child hovered, answering any questions before the child could open his or her mouth. She glanced over at Penny, Alec’s pregnant mum, who sat staring out of the window with blank eyes.
When had Alec realised he was the carer in this relationship? She remembered at ten having to make toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner and trying to get her mother to eat. This sort of parent-child role reversal was all too common at the refuge and it ripped at her heart every single time.
She’d called into the refuge just to confirm numbers for tonight’s canoeing but Rebecca, the case worker, was out. Another resident had called her aside, voicing her concern for Alec. Penny had silently agreed to the examination with barely a glance when Abbie had knocked on the door of their room.
‘Sorry, Alec, but you’ve got a virus and you won’t be going to the shops today or for a few days.’ She poured a dose of cherry-flavoured paracetamol syrup. ‘You drink this and I’ll talk to your mum.’
Alec frowned as if he wanted to object but Abbie put one hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave a firm nod. ‘You need to get better and then you can help your mum, OK?’
The flushed and feverish child drank the antipyretic, relief burning on his face as hot as the fever. Then he curled up against the pillows and closed his eyes, his body needing the restorative balm of sleep.
Abbie opened her prescription pad a
nd scrawled down an order for an antiviral influenza drug. If Alec had been at home in a settled environment she would have gone the recommended route for a flu-like virus and advised fluids, bed rest and paracetamol. But Alec’s life was far from settled and living in a communal house changed all the rules. She walked over to Penny and gently touched her shoulder. Her palm met fiery-hot skin.
Penny flinched at the touch.
Abbie silently cursed at her uncharacteristic lapse. Too many women who came to the refuge associated touch with pain. ‘Penny, do you have a fever too?’
Baby-blue eyes glazed with a pyretic stare turned towards her. Dusky black shadows marked her pale face and bright red fever spots burned on her cheeks. She coughed—a shuddering wet sound—and immediately brought her arm close to her ribs in a guarding action.
Abbie’s diagnostic radar went on full alert. ‘How long have you had pain when you cough?’
Penny shrugged. ‘I dunno. Since Adam hit me.’
Abbie’s stomach clenched as memories threatened her. She gave herself a shake and refocused on the woman in front of her. Alec had said they’d lived in Victoria until two days ago. ‘Did you see Justin and have an X-ray?’
The mother shook her head as her hand caressed her belly. ‘X-rays aren’t good for the baby.’
‘Neither are broken ribs good for you.’ But Abbie was equally worried about the cough and the fever. Put together they meant pneumonia. Pregnancy and pneumonia were a shocking combination, especially in someone so emotionally and physically drained as Penny. Not to mention that they were in the middle of an H1N1 virus pandemic.
Abbie kicked herself. She’d been so focused on Alec when she’d first arrived that she’d associated Penny’s blank look with depression but now she was seeing the real picture. ‘Can I please examine you?’
Penny shrugged again and Abbie took that as a ‘yes’.
Gently lifting her blouse, Abbie stifled a gasp at the purple and yellow bruises on the woman’s thin body. There was every chance she had bruised or fractured ribs, which would account for the guarding. Abbie mentally crossed her fingers that the cough was nothing too severe but Warrior Abbie did a massive eye-roll and mouthed, Get real.
‘I’m going to listen to your chest. Can you please breathe in and out when I say?’ Slowly she moved her stethoscope around her patient’s back as she listened to the lung sounds. The stark sound of fine crackles in the lower lobes was unmistakable. She tapped the area, hearing the dull percussion sounds. Penny had double pneumonia and probable rib fractures.
‘Penny, given Alec’s symptoms and your fever and cough, I need you both to come to hospital.’
The sick woman could hardly focus on Abbie. ‘It’s just a cough.’
‘No, Penny, it’s more than a cough.’ She recognised the malaise of depression and illness where any effort was just too hard. She bent down so she was at eye-level. ‘I need to take care of you so you can take care of Alec and the baby.’
Penny stared and then slowly nodded. ‘OK.’ But she remained seated.
‘I’ll arrange everything and be back in a few minutes.’ Abbie picked up her medical bag and walked out of the house to her car. She didn’t need anyone to overhear her phone conversations and panic. She punched in a familiar number.
‘Paul Jenkins.’ The commanding voice of the senior paramedic answered her call.
‘Paul, it’s Abbie. I need an ambulance at seventeen Creamery Lane and I’ll be here when your officers arrive.’
‘No problem, Abbie. We’re on our way.’
The call terminated and she rang Rebecca, leaving a message on her service asking her to return to the refuge as soon as possible. Then she scrolled down her contact list and, finding the unfamiliar number she needed, she pressed ‘call’. The ringtone sounded long and loud in her ear. ‘Come on, come on, pick up.’ She paced up and down, the tough buffalo grass of the nature strip springing under her feet. She was about to cut the call when the ringing stopped.
‘Leo…Costa.’
The whooshing and rushing sound of exhaled air swept down the phone. Instantly, the image of his broad chest with muscles rippling surfaced in her mind and liquid heat poured through her. She gripped the phone too hard. What was he doing?
Stop it. She didn’t want to know. Well, she did want to know but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about anything except work. ‘Leo, it’s Abbie.’
‘I’ll meet you…in EMD in…ten minutes.’ His words, although gasped out, carried one hundred per cent professionalism without a trace of the flirting banter that had tinged their more recent conversations.
Not that she’d seen him since he’d left Theatre after Lorenzo Galbardi’s surgery but the fact that he seemed to know instinctively that she needed him for patients gave her supportive reassurance. ‘Thanks, Leo, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Creamery Lane.’
‘That runs parallel with Dorcas Street, right?’
‘Yes.’ The buffeting noise of wind crackled down the line, making it hard to hear and she didn’t want to talk directions. ‘Listen, I’ve got a mother and son with flu and therefore suspected H1N1 virus.’
‘How…sick?’
Again with the panting. Was he jogging? The trees waved gently in the breeze, which was completely out of sync with the roaring sound coming down the phone. ‘One patient is pregnant and has bilateral consolidation of the lower lobes of the lungs.’
‘Hell, that’s not good. Do we have a bed in ICU?’
The words sounded clearer and confusingly in stereo. She twirled around to see Leo swinging off a shiny black and red road bike, the hands-free device of his phone still in his ear.
Her jaw dropped of its own accord and she openly gaped as rafts of shivering delight shot through her before pooling deeply inside her and heating into simmering need. He stood before her, his taut, fit body clad in the distinctive green, white and red cycling Lycra leaving very little to the imagination. Every sinew, tendon and ligament was delineated by the clinging material like the chiselled detail on a Michelangelo sculpture.
She fought for a coherent sentence and cleared her throat. ‘You’re training for the Giro d’Italia?’
He gave her a long, lazy grin. ‘Maybe the Murray to Moyne. The Allied Health blokes want to take on Mildura hospital this year so I thought I might join them. This is my first training ride and I was around the corner when you called.’ He removed his helmet and his smile flattened out, with deep lines bracketing his mouth. ‘So we hospitalise the pregnant woman and we home quarantine the boy. How is that complicated?’
His no-nonsense surgeon’s tone immediately centred her, thankfully banishing every inappropriate sensation. ‘The complication is this house is a women’s refuge and there are five other women with their children living here at the moment.’
‘Can we hospitalise the boy too?’
‘Yes, we can but–’ She ran a statement through her head, practising how to introduce the tricky topic.
He stared at her, deep lines creasing his forehead and then realisation dawned in his eyes. ‘I’m male.’
Oh, yeah, all male. Every single gorgeous millimetre.
He rubbed his hand through his hair, raising glossy jet-black spikes. ‘So what’s the best way to play it? Do you think the pregnant woman will let me look after her in hospital if I have Erin with me the whole time? That leaves you to examine the rest of the women here at the house and organise education and possible quarantine.’
Surprise fizzed in her stomach. He gets it. She clenched her hands to keep them firmly by her sides instead of letting them fly around his neck in a hug of thanks. So often her male colleagues were offended by the fact that in this type of situation their gender immediately put them at a disadvantage as the refuge preferred a female doctor. But Leo didn’t appear to be at all threatened by this. Damn it, once again he’d broken out of the charm-use-and-abuse-box she so desperately wanted h
im to stay in.
‘Thanks, Leo.’
He shrugged as if he was confused as to why he needed her thanks.
‘Abbie, Abbie, come quick!’ A pale and feverish Alec came running out of the house. ‘Mum’s fallen over and she’s not waking up.’
Abbie ran, hearing the clatter of Leo’s cycling shoes close behind her. She found Penny on the floor by the chair she’d been sitting on and with Leo’s help rolled her into coma position. She checked her airway and then slid in the plastic airway guard Leo handed her which would prevent Penny’s tongue from rolling back. Then she counted her respirations while Leo’s long fingers located Penny’s carotid pulse.
He pulled his hand away. ‘She’s tachypnoeic.’
‘And tachycardic. I’ll insert an IV.’ Abbie pulled an IV set out of her bag and rummaged around until her fingers felt the tourniquet. She didn’t need to voice her fears that swine flu and pregnancy were a potentially life-threatening combination—she could see that very thought reflected back at her in Leo’s inky eyes.
‘Will she be all right?’ Alec’s scared voice broke over them.
Leo stayed bent down and turned so his face was at Alec’s eye level. ‘Your mum’s very sick but Abbie and I are both doctors and we’re doing our absolute best to take care of her.’
‘And the baby?’
Leo hesitated for half a beat. ‘And the baby.’
‘Are you sure you’re a doctor? You don’t look like one.’ Alec sounded extremely suspicious.
Leo didn’t even blink at the accusatory tone. ‘I’m on holiday and I was having a bike ride when Abbie phoned me. Most of the time I wear a suit or baggy green pants and a matching top when I’m in the operating theatre.’
The boy blanched. ‘Does Mum need an operation?’
Leo shook his head. ‘No, mate, but she needs antibiotics and she needs to be in hospital.’
‘I was looking after her.’ The words came out on a wail.