by Fiona Lowe
‘I will be home.’
Abbie leaned forward. ‘Maria, I can’t make a precise promise but I can discuss it with your family and Leo—’
Maria’s fist came down on the table, her eyes glinting as stormy black as her grandson’s. ‘Leo knows why and he has to be there too.’
A shiver ran down Abbie’s spine, leaving behind a sense of unease. Don’t be a drama queen; you just need a good night’s sleep. But one thing she did know—nothing she could say would stop Maria from being where she had to be on that date. But why did Leo need to be there too?
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘ABBIE, got a minute?’
Leo’s deep velvet voice washed over her, immediately sending her tightly wound body into an overdrive of delicious tingling sensations. Her hand clenched hard against the pencil in her fingers, almost breaking it in half, but still the streaks of unfulfilled need burned hot inside her, tugging at every hard-held resolution. Warrior Abbie lay weak and wounded as the invaders yelled, Just say yes, get naked and get him out of your system. Have some no-strings fun; how dangerous can it be?
For two days she’d only seen Leo at work and he hadn’t made any attempt to bring up the neither accepted nor declined invitation that lay between them. He’d surprised her again. The fact that he’d really meant that the RSVP was completely up to her and strings-free should have given her some relief, but just thinking about him sent her body into meltdown and her brain into a tailspin.
‘Sure.’ She carefully put her pencil down, willing her hand not to shake, and she glanced up. Leo and a woman, equally as dark and attractive as him, stood on the other side of the nurses’ station. His wide smile raced to his eyes as he slung his arm around the woman’s shoulders with the air of a man in very familiar territory.
A bright green flash streaked through her, spiralling around all her good intentions and shocking her to her toes. No, no, no. She couldn’t possibly be jealous because she didn’t care enough. The flash morphed into a face and thumbed its nose at her.
‘Abbie, I’d like to introduce you to my sister, Chiara.’
Sister. Abbie hated the relief that settled through her as she stood up and walked around the station. ‘Pleased to meet you, Chiara. Leo didn’t mention he had more than one sister.’
Chiara extended her hand with a laugh and a smile. ‘I think he likes to pretend he only has one but there are three of us.’
‘Three bossy, opinionated women.’ But Leo didn’t sound at all disgruntled and his eyes twinkled like the night star.
Chiara elbowed him. ‘Three sisters whose friends provided you with a limitless supply of dates in high school.’
Abbie laughed. ‘Poor Leo; it must have been tough growing up in a household of strong women. I bet you dreamed of having a brother.’
His ready smile vanished, replaced by a grim tightness around his mouth that seemed to whiten the scar on his chin. A sharp pain unexpectedly jabbed Abbie in the chest before dissolving into a dull ache that lingered. She instinctively rubbed her sternum.
Leo cleared his throat. ‘Chiara, her husband, Edoardo, and their sons are a registered foster family so I spoke to the social worker and Alec’s going to be discharged into their care.’
Surprise at the idea gave way to comforting warmth that wove through Abbie at Leo’s thoughtfulness. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. What a great idea.’
The woman nodded, understanding clear on her face. ‘We live at the vineyard too so, with Anna’s girls, my boys plus the other cousins who live on the adjoining property, there’re plenty of kids and lots of distractions.’ She sighed. ‘My heart is sick just thinking about Alec. Leo says his mother is frighteningly ill and fighting for her life.’
Abbie bit her lip and caught Leo’s tense gaze. ‘I just got an update from Melbourne City and Penny’s now on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.’
‘Hell.’ His eyes closed for a fraction of a second before opening again, his anguish for Penny’s battle mirroring her own.
Chiara turned to Leo, questions clear on her face. ‘Is that bad?’
Leo nodded. ‘It’s the last defence against swine flu. It’s a machine where the blood is drawn out of the patient by a pump which acts like a replacement heart, and then it’s pumped through this strange diamond-shaped device which adds oxygen into the blood and removes the carbon dioxide before the blood’s returned to the patient.’
‘So a machine is being her heart and lungs?’ Disbelief rang in the words.
‘That’s right.’ Abbie wrung her hands. ‘Right now her lungs are so badly affected by the H1N1 virus they can’t do their job. We need to hope that she’ll recover but it’s going to be a long, hard road.’
Chiara rolled her shoulders back. ‘We’ll look after Alec for her. When can I take him home?’
‘In a couple of days.’ Abbie and Leo spoke together, their voices contrasting like a melody. Leo winked at Abbie, his smile now firmly back in place, and her stomach went into free fall.
‘Great.’ Chiara pressed her bag to her shoulder. ‘I’ll go and spend a bit of time with him now and then visit again tomorrow with the boys.’ She spun on her heel and then turned back. ‘Oh, Abbie, I forgot to say but Mamma wanted to invite you to the blessing of the grapes and the vintage picnic. Of course the date’s still up in the air but it’s getting really close and you’ve been so great with Nonna that we’d love you to be there.’
Abbie’s cheeks burned hot as Leo’s penetrative and questioning gaze bored into her over the top of Chiara’s head. One that said, Now, this will be interesting. I dare you to come.
Leo would be at the picnic and avoiding him would be impossible. But refusing an invitation like this would be social suicide in the small Bandarra community and she had to live here long after Leo had returned to his city life. Fun, amazing sex and then goodbye, the whispers taunted. He will leave and that will keep you safe.
The words hammered her and she closed them down by focusing on Chiara’s expectant face and pushing her mouth into a smile. She hedged her bets. ‘As long as there’s no emergency, I can be there.’
‘Fingers crossed, then.’ Chiara smiled.
Her fingers rolled in against her palm. ‘Fingers crossed.’
‘Ciao.’ Chiara presented her cheeks to Leo, who kissed her quickly in a European farewell, and then she walked briskly towards Alec’s ward.
Abbie’s stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime, and she headed towards the front entrance of the hospital. Leo fell into step beside her. ‘Are you going for a training ride today?’
As they reached the automatic doors he stood back, allowing her to proceed first. ‘I thought I—’
‘Abbie!’
She pulled her attention from Leo and swung quickly around at the strangled sound of her name.
Morgan Dalhensen ran towards them, dripping wet, clutching an equally wet child against his chest. ‘Help me.’
Abbie and Leo sprinted across the car park.
The man stumbled as they reached him and he almost threw the child into Abbie’s arms. ‘He’s not breathing.’
The child felt as floppy as a rag doll in her arms, and the telltale sign of blue lips had her kneeling immediately and laying the child on the ground. She checked his airway, hoping for something as easy as a physical obstruction that had choked him but knowing the high probability was he had water in his lungs. Her fingers met no obstruction. She checked for a pulse. Nothing. She moved her fingers, trying again.
‘One minute he was on the riverbank and the next I couldn’t see him and I turned my back for a minute and, oh, God, help him.’ The anguished father’s voice rained down on her.
‘Starting CPR.’ Abbie rolled the toddler over and realised Leo was still standing stock still next to her, his gaze hauntingly bleak and empty and fixed fast on the child. She’d expected him to have already run to ED for the emergency resuscitation kit and a trolley. ‘Leo.’ Her elbow knocked his leg hard. ‘Get the resuss kit. Go.’<
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As she pinched the child’s nose and lowered her mouth to make a seal, Leo finally broke into a run. She puffed in two breaths and started compressions, counting out loud with each one.’
‘Come on, Zac,’ Morgan’s voice pleaded into the hot summer air.
Come on, Zac. The sound of running footsteps and the more distant sound of rattling trolley wheels reassured Abbie as she puffed in two more breaths and started the next round of thirty compressions.
A wailing moan filled with distress broke from Morgan’s lips.
‘We need to get him inside and warm him up.’ Leo’s voice wavered as he scooped Zac up and put him on the trolley.
Abbie climbed up next to the child, continuing her compressions as Leo and Erin ran the trolley into ED.
The moment they were in the resuscitation room and Abbie’s feet were back on the ground, Leo moved in next to her, attaching the boy to the monitor. ‘Erin, get him out of his wet clothes and wrap him in a space blanket. We need to warm him up.’
‘Doing it now.’ Erin deftly cut away the boy’s small shorts and T-shirt.
The monitor started beeping and Leo gripped his chin as he stared at the green tracing. ‘We’ve got a heartbeat but he’s extremely bradycardic and needs CPR to maintain his circulation.’
Abbie’s arms kept compressing Zac’s chest to keep his blood moving. ‘Leo, intubate him.’
Leo whitened under his golden tan, the scar on his chin almost luminous. ‘Your arms will be tired. You tube him and I’ll take over compressions. On my count of five.’ His voice, usually so firm and sure, creaked over the numbers. ‘Three, four, five, change.’
What? Her arms were fine but Abbie didn’t question the change because every second counted. She couldn’t understand why Leo wanted her to tube the child when they probably both had the same amount of experience in tubing a toddler—virtually none.
Erin wrapped the boy in a space blanket.
Abbie opened up the paediatric laryngoscope and tilted back Zac’s head. The tiny light cast a glow and she visualised the vocal cords, which was always a good start.
Erin handed her the small ETT tube.
Holding her breath, Abbie slid the tube carefully along the silver blade of the ’scope, between the tiny cords and into place. She immediately withdrew the scope.
Erin ripped off lengths of tape. ‘I’ll tape, you suction.’
With fine tubing, Abbie suctioned the ETT tube, clearing some brown-coloured fluid that squirted into the holding container.
‘God, his lungs are probably filled with bloody brown river water.’ Leo’s ragged voice scraped against her like cut glass.
Erin attached the air-viva and connected the oxygen before rhythmically squeezing the bag, forcing air into the child’s damp lungs.
Leo’s hands looked ludicrously large against the small child’s chest. ‘He needs atropine to bring up his heart rate.’
Abbie picked up the tourniquet. ‘I’m putting in a line.’
Leo nodded curtly, his face full of sharp angles and taut cheeks.
A shiver chilled Abbie. She’d never seen him look so tense or grim, not even in Theatre when Jenny was close to dying under his hands on the operating table. Zac was one sick child but Jenny had been just as ill so his reaction puzzled her.
She snapped the tourniquet onto Zac’s tiny arm, her fingers fluttering over his skin, trying to find a vein. Nothing. She moved the tourniquet to his leg and started over. ‘He’s shut down, I’ll have to–’
‘Stop stuffing around.’ Leo’s eyes blazed with fear. ‘Just put the damn adrenaline and atropine down the ETT tube, Abbie. Now!’
Erin’s large brown eyes widened at Leo’s edgy and frantic tone and her hands shook slightly as she prepared to disconnect the air-viva.
Abbie drew up the drugs, the uncharacteristic tension cloaking them like thick fog. What was going on? She’d never seen Leo lose his cool before but right now his normal and easy control of situations was unravelling like a skein of wool.
Erin removed the air-viva and Abbie dispensed the drugs. ‘Atropine and adrenaline administered.’
Leo kept compressing Zac’s heart and Erin pressed air into his lungs and Abbie stared at the monitor, silently counting. The beeping sound slowly increased as the drugs took effect. Abbie breathed a sigh of relief for Zac. They were winning.
She wanted to high-five but one look at Leo’s pinched face had her feeling as if they’d just lost. What was going on with him? He should be as relieved as she was. She smiled at him, willing him to smile back with his trademark grin, the one he used with effortless ease, but his tense jaw and tight mouth stayed in their grim line as he stopped CPR and stepped back now that Zac’s heart was pumping fast enough on its own.
She knew Zac wasn’t totally out of the woods yet, given he had river-water-induced pulmonary oedema and a massive risk of infection. ‘I’ll be happier with Zac at the Royal Children’s under specialist paediatric care.’ She stared straight at Leo, somehow knowing he needed to be out of the room. ‘Erin and I have got this covered. Now he’s better perfused I’ll be able to get the IV in, so you go ring the air ambulance and then bring Morgan back so I can explain everything.’
Leo’s dark brows pulled down as if he was about to object but he stayed silent, his face etched with sorrow. His fingers rubbed the scar on his chin before falling away and caressing the child’s hair. Wordlessly, he turned and walked out of the room.
Abbie’s heart clenched and she had to stifle a gasp. From the moment Leo had laid eyes on Zac he’d changed. It was as if she’d just truly seen the real Leo for the first time. A man stripped bare of his social props and now totally exposed. Everything about him that she’d feared—his charm and charisma—had vanished. Even the things she admired like his care and professional control had taken a beating and all that was left was a hurting and tortured man. The real Leo.
The realisation stunned her. Every barrier she’d erected to keep him at a distance fell to the ground. Right then she knew that, the moment she could, she had to go to him. She had to find him and do whatever it took to help him.
Leo’s thighs burned as he powerfully pressed and pulled the pedals of his bike around, each revolution taking him further away from the hospital, further away from the helipad and everything connected with the now-resolved emergency. But the Bandarra demons sat hard and heavy on his shoulders, digging in deep. Christina’s screaming voice and Dom’s total silence had bored into him from the moment he’d seen Zac, keeping him back in the past when he’d needed to be in the present.
A child had needed his help and he’d totally frozen.
Blinking against the flashes of red soil, green vines, black road and blue sky, he watched the numbers on the bike computer climb to thirty-five kilometres an hour. He had no destination in mind—he just had to ride. Ride until he could feel nothing and forget everything.
His chest muscles strained as he used every atom of oxygen in the hot torpid air and still he pushed harder, taking himself as close to the edge of what his body could bear. He didn’t want comfort; he wanted pain. He drove himself until his body turned inward, completely consumed by the overwhelming physical demands. Until all extraneous thoughts, noises, sounds and scents were blocked from his consciousness.
Ten kilometres later he slowed and the tightness in his chest eased, his leg muscles ceased to burn and relief flowed through him. He opened a water bottle and chugged down half the contents, his body soaking up the fluid like a dry crinkled sponge, and then he poured the rest over himself. Pulling off his helmet, he wiped his brow with his bandana and, as his body gradually uncoiled from its exercise-survival mode, his eyes progressively focused on his surroundings.
The distinctive wiry leaves and furrowed bark of the bull-oak came into view, followed by the blue-green leaves of the river red gums with their peeling bark of green, grey and red. His chest tightened as his head swung around, taking in the muddy edges of brown water, and then his ga
ze zeroed in on the distinctive carving on one of the trees. Dom and Christina 4 Eva.
Wadjera billabong.
His heart pounded hard in his chest, pushing a dull and unrelenting ache into every part of him. Why the hell had he ridden here? A place he’d avoided for years. The ride was supposed to help him forget because he sure as hell didn’t want to remember.
Every part of him urged him to leave. Buckling his helmet with numb fingers, he prepared to click his left foot into the pedal before swinging his right leg over the seat and riding away fast. Very fast.
The crackling noise of tyres on gravel made him pause. He turned to see a very familiar white four-wheel drive pull into the clearing. Like a film in slow motion, he heard the engine die, the click of the door opening and saw a pair of shapely legs jump down before the owner appeared from behind the door clutching an enormous basket. A pair of questioning green eyes hit him like a king-punch.
‘Leo.’
‘Abbie.’ How had she known he was here when he had no clue he would be?
His heart sped up. She’d want to talk about what happened with Zac. Women always wanted to talk. Get on your bike. Leave now.
Her sweet scent wafted towards him and part of him hesitated. Every cell in his body urged him to flee and his hands gripped his racing handlebars. Just keep running.
‘I have to get back.’
She stepped closer and a flicker of disappointment flared against banked heat, followed by something vague, half-formed and undefined. She chewed her lip. ‘Really? I thought you could do with some time away from the hospital. I brought food and drink.’ She lowered the basket onto the ground.
The pull to leave couldn’t stop his gaze from following her every movement. The sway of her hips, the way her no-nonsense navy-blue straight skirt moulded to her pert behind and the fact that her plain T-shirt fell forward when she bent over, exposing creamy mounds of flesh peeking out of pink lace. His groin tightened. Go anyway.