And there was a deeper level. Sam depended on Blake.
Their wedding was to take place in two weeks. It was a marriage of equals and Luc knew in his bones that they’d be gloriously happy.
They needed...each other.
There was a touch on his arm and he turned to find Gina watching him, looking worried. Gina was an amazing chopper pilot and they depended on her absolutely.
They needed Gina.
He was thinking suddenly of his mother, fragile, brittle, demanding. She’d needed, over and over again.
She’d even needed her little niece’s death to be his fault, so she and her sister wouldn’t have to take the blame.
‘It wasn’t fair.’ He said it out loud and Gina’s look of concern deepened.
‘Luc, love? Are you okay? You did great. Really great but everyone’s safe. Thanks to you.
‘Thanks to all of us.’
‘We’re a great team,’ she said, and suddenly she hugged him. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s go home.’
‘Back to Bondi?’
‘Where else?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly. ‘Yeah, for now, Bondi. But home... Hell, Gina, I’ve never had one.’
‘Hey, I’ve seen the view from your apartment.’ He had her seriously worried—he could see that. ‘Your home’s amazing.’
‘The telly’s too small.’
‘Really? You can fix that.’
‘I might have to,’ he said slowly and then, because she was still looking worried and she was part of his team and he loved every single one of them, he hugged her back. ‘But that’s for tomorrow. For now...you’re right, let’s go home. Wherever home is.’
* * *
The commercial flight from Brisbane to Namborra left at ten the next morning and Beth was on it. With Toby.
The head of the clinic had been annoyed when she’d rung to quit, but not surprised. He was a man in his seventies, an entrepreneur who wanted to make money from medicine.
‘I knew you wouldn’t stay,’ he said gruffly into the phone. ‘You guys who want to save the world drive me nuts. Me, I just want a quiet life making a decent nest egg for retirement.’
A decent nest egg. She thought of the fortune the man was reputed to have and she almost choked.
‘So I’m heading to Namborra, the outback town the plane crashed into a few weeks ago,’ she told him, and then cheekily added, ‘You want to make a donation to the rebuild fund?’
‘You’re telling me I’m losing a doctor to them—and you want money?’
‘Would you rather donate money or come and do the hard yards with me?’
And amazingly he’d chuckled, and promised a bank transfer.
That was great but as soon as she disconnected she stopped thinking about him. About Brisbane. She had to get on that plane. She had time to think of nothing else.
Except... Luc was still in her mind. In her heart?
Why had she been worried last night? Why the niggle?
For that’s all he is, she told herself firmly as she carried Toby up the steps onto the plane. ‘A niggle. My life’s about to get very busy and that’s just the way we want it. We have no time to worry about Luc. We’re on our own again, Toby, love.’
She was about to be Namborra’s only doctor.
That was taking alone to a whole new level.
* * *
Luc had a couple of minor scratches that needed attention—hauling kids and mum one at a time out of the wrecked car and harnessing them up the cliff had involved a scratch or two. Blake insisted on a full body check and told him to go home to bed.
As if he could. He showered and checked again on his rescued family—all present and correct—and then headed up to annoy Harriet.
‘Hey, well done,’ she told him. ‘The guys are saying you did good.’
‘It’s the mum who did good,’ he told her. ‘Having the presence of mind to freeze and get the kids to stay frozen...they saved themselves.’
‘So that dressing I see on your hand...’
‘I gotta have something to show for a night’s work.’
‘It sounds as if it was awesome. Oh, I wish I’d been with you.’
‘I know you do.’ He stooped and hugged her. ‘But your rehab is going great. You’ll be back as part of the team...’
‘You know my leg won’t let me,’ she said, flatly now. ‘You’re mouthing platitudes, Luc Braxton. Me and Beth. Perfect or nothing, and perfect’s not going to happen. And if we’re not perfect then you can’t take it. You’ll spend your life worrying about us.’
‘That’s...’
‘True,’ she finished for him. She put her head to one side and considered. ‘Tell me I’m wrong then. You don’t want to wrap Beth in cotton wool?’
‘I... What she does is her business.’
‘So if she ever decided she wanted to hang from ropes and save people?’
‘She’d never be able to.’ It was a gut response, and he saw Harriet wince.
‘Yeah, like me. No rope hanging for us because we’re not perfect.’
‘Harry...’
‘It’s okay. I understand.’ She tugged his hand so he had to stoop and then she hugged him, hiding her face for a moment in his shoulder. Using the moment to regroup? ‘I’ll just...figure it out. My way. I hope.’ She moved back and seemed to have herself back under control. ‘By the way, have you been in contact with Beth?’
‘I... No. Why should I?’
‘Why not indeed,’ she said speculatively.
‘There’s nothing wrong?’
‘There you go again. Protective mode.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yeah, you are.’
He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, Harry, I admit it. I messed up our marriage. I love her. I...’ He stopped. How to say it. But in the end it just happened. ‘I need her.’
‘Even if she doesn’t need you.’
‘She’s proved she doesn’t need me.’
‘She might.’
And panic slammed back. ‘What...? Harriet, what are you...?’
‘It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong,’ she said hastily. ‘Or not with Beth.’
‘Toby...’
‘Will you stop it? If you’re going to be any use at all, you need to get over that mind set.’
He paused. Took a breath. Eyed Harriet with caution.
Yeah, he was overreacting. He needed to work on that.
He needed to work on a lot of things.
‘So why are you asking if I’ve been in touch with Beth?’ He flattened his voice. Tried to make himself sound only vaguely interested.
Failed.
‘Because of Maryanne,’ Harriet told him.
He had a feeling Harriet was playing games with him and he needed to stay calm and ride it out.
‘Maryanne.’
‘Namborra’s doctor.’
‘That’s who I thought you meant.’ He hesitated. ‘So... Maryanne... She hasn’t cracked and offered Beth a job?’
‘I don’t know about the job but it seems she has cracked.’ She was watching him, he thought, assessing his reaction. He felt like an insect in a specimen jar but there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Explain,’ he said sternly, and she took pity on him and did.
‘She’s ill,’ she said. ‘The med. evacuation chopper brought Maryanne herself in yesterday. Sue from the flying squad popped in to see me late last night. She knows Beth’s from Namborra and she thought maybe I might let Beth know. I have Beth’s number but... I thought I might wait. And talk to you.’
‘The med. evacuation chopper brought Maryanne in...’
‘Stroke,’ she said, briefly, back in medical mode. ‘She has some cognitive impairment, hopefully transient but it’s too so
on to tell. She’s still in Intensive Care and of course that means Namborra’s without a single doctor. Anyway, it occurred to me that if your Beth found out about it...’
‘She will have.’
‘Yeah?’
‘She has friends at Namborra. Of course they’ll tell her.’
‘There you go, then. No need for me to tell her. No need for you to even contact her.’ But she was looking at him again in that same way. Head to the side. Inquisitive.
Summing up the possibilities.
What were the possibilities?
There was little love lost between Beth and Maryanne. He knew Beth would be concerned but he doubted she’d be rushing back to Sydney to see her.
But then...
He thought of Namborra, of how remote it was, of how long they’d taken to find doctors in the past, so long in fact that Maryanne had had to accept Beth and Ron.
He thought of how Beth felt about Namborra. She’d given but...she’d felt the community cared.
There it was again. She’d needed Namborra and Namborra needed her.
‘Hell,’ he said, and saw Harriet’s curiosity step up a notch.
‘Hell? Really?’
‘She’ll go.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Harriet said in satisfaction.
‘She can’t.’
‘She can’t what?’
‘You know as well as I do. She can’t cope on her own.’
‘Because?’
And he took a deep breath and fell silent. He walked over to the window. Now Harriet was in permanent rehab, she’d been moved to one of the few rooms in the hospital with a sea view. He could see the bay. He could see...
The future. Beth working her butt off in Namborra.
Bringing up Toby alone.
The urge to fly to the rescue was almost overwhelming.
But...
She wouldn’t want him.
He wanted her.
‘Luc?’ Harriet’s voice from behind him was almost tentative. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he didn’t. ‘But...hell, Harry, I need to go take a walk. A very long walk. I think... I think I have a whole lot of thinking to do. A lifetime’s worth of thinking and that may take quite some time.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
BETH’S DAY HAD been crazy, from beginning to end. It had started at three in the morning with a false alarm: ‘I was sure it was a heart attack, Doc—Stevie told me I shoulda let that curry alone...’ She’d been running on catch-up all day. And now, when she should be heading home for dinner, she was stuck in a bathtub with a three-year-old.
It sucked.
There wasn’t a lot of choice, though. Three-year-old James Hollis trusted her. His mum, Millie, was eight months pregnant and had finally been persuaded to take a few minutes out and give her body a rest. Someone had to sit in the bath with her little boy.
For James Hollis’s toe was firmly stuck in the plughole.
Beth had given James as much tranquilliser as she dared but he didn’t seem sleepy. He was bundled in blankets and pillows. She was holding him tucked into her. His toe was inconveniently stuck but she’d given him a digital nerve block. He wasn’t upset. They were watching some ridiculous cartoon about a cute wombat on Beth’s laptop.
Walter Wombat’s moralising antics were making Beth want to throw up.
She still had a ward round to do—plus when the firefighters currently cutting pipe under the house finally got James out of the bathtub there’d still be the not so small matter of giving anaesthetic while she cut the plug from his foot. She doubted he’d stay calm enough for her to do it under local.
And there was another worry. Anaesthesia. She needed to be two doctors.
She was currently weighing up sending James to Sydney—when they finally had him free—but that’d mean another hour at least with his toe constricted. Or do the thing herself?
And Toby... Margie had him in care and would be giving him dinner. He’d be having fun. He wouldn’t be missing her but, oh, she was missing him.
‘We’re cutting through now,’ one of the firemen called from under the house. ‘We’ve got your end of the bath stable but don’t move, Doc. We’re cutting through the floorboards so we can see to cut the enamel from the side.’
‘Fine,’ she called back. James had headphones on—thankfully—so she didn’t have to compete with a cartoon wombat telling her not to litter.
Her leg was aching. Of course it was. ‘Stay off it as much as possible,’ the orthopod back in Sydney had told her and she thought, yeah, right, she was off it. She was sitting in a nice bath at the end of a long day.
Joke.
‘Done,’ the voice from below said in satisfaction as she heard a clump of masonry fall away. ‘Coming up. You respectable, Doc?’
Ha.
She sighed. Two weeks as Namborra’s sole doctor and she was exhausted.
Two weeks and the rest of her life to go?
Without Luc.
Stop it. Stop-it-stop-it-stop-it.
The mantra in her head wasn’t working but she had to make it work. She’d spent years teaching herself that she didn’t need Luc, and here she was, pining like a teenager.
An uncomfortable teenager. In a bathtub.
But she couldn’t keep doing this. Two weeks doing the work of three doctors had made her see sense. It wasn’t fair to Toby.
It was impossible.
‘The firemen are coming back in,’ she told James, lifting a corner of his earphones. On her instructions, the firemen had donned their uniforms and were keeping them on. James had been told if he was very still then he and his mum could ride to the hospital in the fire truck as soon as he was free. It was pretty exciting for a three-year-old, and he was being extraordinarily good.
It was only Beth who wanted to drum her heels and yell.
Or weep.
She felt...she felt...
Like she had to get a grip. She did—sort of. She held James tighter and put on a cheerful professional face as the door opened and a couple of firefighters trooped in.
And...oh, for heaven’s sake...
Luc?
Luc. Here he was again, riding to her rescue, and it wasn’t even Beth who had her toe stuck.
He was casually dressed. Faded jeans. Open-necked gingham shirt. Smiling?
At her.
The urge to weep was almost overwhelming.
She didn’t, though. She sat in the bathtub and held James and didn’t say anything at all.
‘We’ve cut it right out.’ Troy, the head of Namborra’s fire service, sounded almost cheerful, talking over his shoulder to Luc. ‘A great hunk of the floorboards and we’ve cut the pipe below. Once we rip these side tiles off we’ll have full access—we’ll cut that plug right out and they’ll be free. This is young James Hollis. His mum’s about to pop another baby out, his dad’s doing a bit of interstate truck driving and James here decided he’d make life more interesting by sticking his toe in the plughole.’
Then Troy turned to her and the little boy she was holding. ‘How you going, young James? Doc Carmichael? Here’s Doc Braxton come to help. He’s one of the docs who was here during the plane crash. You remember Doc Braxton, Doc? Hey, wasn’t he the doc who came with you to the memorial service? Of course you know him.’
Of course she knew him.
She stared up at Luc in stupefaction. His smile had slipped. He was looking at her as if he saw the tears she was struggling to hold back.
He was looking at her with concern, with a look that said she’d be cared for and cherished...
Yeah, been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
‘What are you doing here?’ It was a snap, out before she could stop herself, and his smile returned.
�
��That’s not a very polite way to greet a friend. Mind, greeting friends from bathtubs does put you at a disadvantage. I can see that. I stopped at the hospital and they told me I could find you here. So I thought I’d pop right over and help.’
Of course he did. That was what he did. Riding to the rescue. Luc, the hero.
She’d had it with heroes. Hadn’t she made a decision to stay clear of this man? For ever?
But right now... It would be petty—and unprofessional to say she didn’t need him.
As well as untrue.
‘I... Great. Could you...could you check on Millie?’ she said, grudgingly. ‘I... She’s thirty-seven weeks pregnant and she’s been sitting in the bathtub for longer than I have.’
‘Where is she?’ And he’d clicked into medical mode, just like that. Which was also what he did. He was no longer Luc, her ex-husband, her nemesis. He was a colleague and right now she could have fallen on his chest and wept.
Only you didn’t do that to...nemesises? Nemesi?
Maybe she was close to hysteria?
‘I hope she’s in her bedroom. I sent her there twenty minutes ago.’
‘Right,’ Luc said. ‘But we might do a bit of role swapping?’ And before she could argue, before she could say that James trusted her and might disintegrate with strangers around him, Luc was kneeling beside the bath and producing his phone.
James, who was finally wearying of Walter Wombat and his nauseous prosing, shoved back his headphones and looked at Luc with wobbly suspicion. The sedative was keeping him back from the edge of toddler panic, but he was reaching the limits of his endurance.
Any minute now he’d disintegrate.
‘Hey, James. I’m Dr Braxton. I’m a doctor who’s very good at getting toes out of plugholes,’ Luc told him. ‘But first, would you like to see what you look like?’ And he lifted his phone, snapped a fast picture of James and handed the phone over.
What child could resist seeing a picture of himself? James stared at the screen, fascinated.
‘Let’s take a picture of Doc Carmichael holding you?’ Luc said, and did, then gave the phone back to James.
Another moment. James’s attention was totally caught.
Finding His Wife, Finding a Son Page 15