Gemma fumbled out of her seat belt, hauled off the headset, then wondered exactly what emergency supplies this helicopter carried. Turning around earlier, she’d seen a stretcher locked in behind her seat, so surely there’d be the regular emergency kits most rescue services carried.
‘I’ll get the bag,’ Abed said, helping her out then opening a door into the rear compartment.
He hoisted a large backpack onto his back and led her towards where they’d seen the vehicle, although it was now hidden behind a dune. She struggled through the sand, wondering how Abed could walk so easily, carrying the big load, but when she topped the dune and saw the car, fear for Yusef lent her strength and she hurried forward.
The vehicle was empty, keys in the ignition and a full water bottle sitting on the front passenger seat.
‘Wherever he is, he’s probably dehydrated by now,’ she muttered to herself, grabbing up the bottle. Abed had left the pack by the car and was walking towards the base of the cliffs, calling Yusef’s name.
He was in the cleft, lying awkwardly but conscious, for on seeing Abed he spoke to him in his own language.
‘He knew I’d come,’ Abed translated for her, although drag marks in the sand behind Yusef’s supine body suggested he hadn’t been entirely certain.
Now she moved forward into Yusef’s view.
‘Gemma?’
The throaty, tortured word struck like a knife wound in her heart, but now was not the time for personal pain—he was alive and it was her job to make sure he stayed that way. And though she longed to ask what had happened, she didn’t, checking his pulse, his blood pressure, his pupils, seeing the contusion on the side of his head, wondering about fluid building up inside his skull, a haematoma waiting to kill him…
‘Give him little sips of water,’ she told Abed, ‘but only little sips.’
She continued to examine him, seeing bruises on his chest, large and heavy—he’d been kicked?’
‘Maybe broken pelvis,’ Yusef told said, his voice so weak and thready, she shushed him into silence, but as she ran her hands around his hips she could feel something wrong with the integrity of the pelvic ring.
‘Yet you tried to move!’ Gemma grumbled. ‘And how do you know it’s not your spine? A broken spine can show the same characteristics.’
She had her fingers on his wrist again. His pulse was a little fast but not thready—dehydration the cause, she guessed.
‘Look at my left leg, splayed out like that.’ His voice might be weak but there was spirit in the words. ‘And if it was spine you’d expect nerve damage, and the sciatic nerve is fine, I can move my legs even if it hurts.’
Gemma was using her hands, still trying to feel the damage, but the jeans he was wearing prevented her from seeing his pelvic region and removing his clothes just wasn’t an option. If there was a broken bone in his pelvis, any movement could cause more damage. She could picture the bone stabbing into his kidney, or slicing through a major blood vessel. Already there could be severe internal bleeding, although he would probably not be conscious if that was the case.
‘We’ve got to move you,’ she said, feeling helpless because movement posed such risk.
‘Stretcher, pull me on by my clothes. Jeans should keep the pelvic girdle more or less in place.’
He spoke so calmly Gemma could only stare at him, torn between rushing to do exactly as he’d said and bursting into tears, so relieved was she that he was safe.
Well, nearly safe.
Abed left to get the stretcher, Gemma hurrying with him as far as the vehicle to get some fluid and IV equipment from the bag. Pain relief—she’d need to give him something before they moved him, and she sorted through the options, then jogged back. But before she could set up the IV, Yusef caught her hand.
‘You flew?’ he asked.
‘How else was I supposed to find you?’ she growled. ‘Stupid man that you are! Abed was sure you must be injured and didn’t want a doctor from the hospital because it would cause a fuss—word would get out—people might panic.’
‘But you flew?’ Yusef repeated, and Gemma didn’t answer, knowing her actions had been a dead giveaway of her love for him. But if it wasn’t said out loud it would be less embarrassing, she decided, pulling the IV tubing and catheter out of its packaging.
‘Just lie still,’ she told him, but again he stopped her, grasping her hand once more.
‘It wasn’t Hassim,’ he said, but Abed had returned and now Gemma slid the needle into her patient’s vein, connected the tubing, fitted the bag of fluid, and started it dripping into him. Then an injection of morphine, enough to make him woozy and hopefully enough to make him sleep. She didn’t know where the conversation had been going but she guessed he was exonerating his brother.
Why?
The whole thing was a mystery but Yusef had been badly kicked and beaten and someone was responsible.
Tugging him onto the stretcher, using his clothes to move him, she and Abed got Yusef strapped into place, then together carried him back as far as the vehicle.
‘Put him in and drive or carry him?’ Abed asked.
Gemma hesitated for only a second.
‘Carry him,’ she said. ‘It’s not that far and I can manage. Putting him in the vehicle, we might jolt him more than carrying him.’
Yusef was objecting blearily, telling Gemma to put him down, but she ignored his drugged comments and continued towards the helicopter, where she helped Abed slide the stretcher in, then strap it down.
‘What now?’ she asked Abed, as he shut the rear door on their patient. ‘If it is his pelvis he’s likely to need surgery or at the very least bed rest. People will have to know.’
‘I’ll fly him directly to the hospital. Now we know he is safe we can let it be known there’s been an accident. Who should we have standing by as far as medical staff are concerned?’
Gemma thought about it.
‘A neurologist and an orthopaedic surgeon definitely. Tell them head injury and a suspected fracture of the pelvis with pelvic ring displacement. And to organise a urologist as there could be internal damage. X-rays, of course, and scans, but the specialists will order what they want.’
The trip back was swift, Abed landing the small craft on the pad on the top of the hospital. As soon as the rotors slowed, a group of men rushed forward, opening the door, hauling out the stretcher and letting down its wheeled legs.
Gemma scrambled out, anxious to see no more harm came to Yusef in the transfer. She found the person who seemed to be in charge, and told him what she’d given Yusef, explaining that his self-diagnosis had been a broken pelvis.
‘We’ll take it from here,’ the man assured Gemma, ‘although you might like to come along with him. The X-rays and scans could be uncomfortable, he might like to have your support.’
Who did she think Gemma was? His lover?
Well, she was, but not officially—in fact, she’d turned down the official position. Gemma spun around, thinking Abed would be a far better person to be accompanying Yusef, but he was back in the helicopter, obviously about to take off, abandoning her at the hospital.
It seemed to take for ever, the scans, the discussions and consultations, different staff being brought in, male nurses to cut off Yusef’s clothes, trusted lackeys moving in to shield him from prying eyes. And through it all, Gemma remained by his side. She had to, for his hand had grasped hers and wouldn’t let it go, no matter how woozy he seemed to be.
So much for unseemliness, she thought at one stage. Now everyone in the country will know he’s been carrying on with the red-haired foreigner. But she didn’t leave him even when his hand dropped hers, or when she was asked to wait outside the X-ray room. She hovered close, determined to be there for him, whenever he needed her, unseemliness forgotten in worry and concern.
Although sadness filtered through as well, sadness that should she be the mistress, it would be the wife who was here beside him—more reason that her decision had been the
right one.
‘This ilium bone he’s broken, is that serious?’
Abed had returned and after consultation with one of the specialists he’d turned to Gemma.
‘Not as bad as some of the other bones in the pelvic ring, but he’ll probably be off his feet for up to twelve weeks depending on where the break is. Maybe less if they are pinning it.’
‘They are,’ Abed told her. ‘They’re taking him straight from X-Ray to Theatre. They’re prepping him—that is the word?—now.’
It’s a straightforward operation, Gemma told herself, but fear for the man she loved had gathered in her mind and body and held her in its grasp. She thought of the important and powerful muscles that attached to the pelvic girdle and could only imagine the pain Yusef must have felt as he’d tried to drag himself back to the vehicle.
‘I will take you back to the compound,’ Abed said. ‘The operation will be long, they tell me.’
Gemma frowned at him.
‘Are you telling me I have to go—that I can’t stay here at the hospital to see him when he comes out of Theatre?’
‘Wouldn’t it be best?’ Abed said gently.
‘Best for whom?’ Gemma demanded. ‘For him, so no one knows he’s got this red-haired woman in his life? What about me? Where do I get a say in this? I love him, Abed, I want to be here with him, and if me staying here causes problems then he’ll just have to get over them as best he can because I’m staying and I’ll keep on staying until he tells me to go, okay?’
To Gemma’s surprise, Abed laughed, and then he hugged her.
‘I’ll make sure there are English-speaking staff around so you can question them,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry about publicity, the floor where he will be taken after the operation is sealed off from the public and the press.’
Abed departed, leaving Gemma totally confused. If Abed didn’t want her to leave because of publicity, why had he suggested it? Because once Yusef came to his senses and was unaffected by drugs, he might not want Gemma around?
Well, too bad there as well, because she was staying.
He came out of Theatre five hours later. Gemma, who’d been shown to a small room where she’d dozed and leafed through magazines she couldn’t read, was led into the recovery room, one so familiar it could have been in any hospital anywhere in the world. The anaesthetist was there, taking it on himself to stay with his important patient, and it was he who assured Gemma that the operation had gone well.
‘Was there other internal damage?’ she asked.
‘Muscle involvement but nothing serious,’ he assured her, then he nodded to where Yusef was stirring on the bed.
‘Sit by him, take his hand, he is more likely to respond to you than to the voice of a nurse he doesn’t know.’
‘Even though I speak in English?’ Gemma said, suddenly shy in front of this man and the three nursing staff in attendance.
‘He has spoken English from his childhood, and it is your voice rather than the words that he will respond to.’
Gemma stared at the anaesthetist a moment longer, seeking any kind of judgement in his face, but he was nodding encouragingly and one of the nurses was holding a chair for Gemma by Yusef’s bed, and she could read no condemnation in any of their faces.
Only concern, and maybe love, for she knew from talking to the women that Yusef was already loved as a ruler.
Though not by everyone! Someone had beaten him badly and if it wasn’t Hassim, who had it been? She’d been so concerned about Yusef’s condition she hadn’t thought to ask Abed what had happened—what he had found out.
She sank into the chair and took Yusef’s hand, unable to stop herself touching his cheek where a dark bruise was now appearing.
‘He was very lucky the physical damage was confined to his hip, the X-rays showed no skull fracture,’ the anaesthetist was saying. ‘Broken ribs, superficial cuts and bruises elsewhere, but nothing drastic.’
Though still watchful, he moved away, waving to the nurses to step back and give Gemma some privacy by the patient’s side. Gemma held Yusef’s hand and talked to him, reminding him of their meeting, which seemed like such a long time ago. Talking of the island, too, although uncertain whether he’d remember that day as good or bad. But it had been magical, so she recalled that magic, the rock fall with the ferns, the cool, clear water in which they’d swum.
He was swimming. The water was deep, deeper than he’d thought, but he was swimming upward, to the top. He had to get there, for Gemma was waiting for him, calling to him, needing him, she said.
Had it only been need, the thing he’d thought was magic?
It must have been because she wouldn’t live with him.
Yet she was there, at the surface of the water, waiting for him…
He struggled, sank, struggled again, and finally said her name.
Or thought he did.
He must have said something for the fingers holding his had tightened, and he could hear her voice again.
‘Gemma?’
He thought the word had come out stronger that time, but if he was still under water maybe she wouldn’t hear, so he tried again, and this time he felt her hand on his cheek and pictured it, tiny golden freckles on the fingers, tiny pinpoints of delight.
‘I’m here, Yusef,’ she said, in case he hadn’t recognised the hand. ‘Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?’
He tried but his eyelashes were stuck together.
Her fingers brushed across his eyelids, unsticking them, and he opened them to see her sitting by his side.
White walls, sheets, drip stands.
‘Hospital?’
‘You were injured, broke your pelvis, the bone’s been pinned, you’re just out of Theatre.’
A very concise explanation from the woman by his side, the woman who was clinging to his hand as if she’d never let it go. But what was she doing there?
Here?
He tried to make sense of it all but was too tired.
‘Too tired,’ he managed, by way of apology for not talking to her, then he drifted off to sleep.
‘That’s proper sleep,’ the anaesthetist told Gemma. ‘We’ll keep him on the monitors here for another hour then shift him to a room. Do you want to stay?’
Try to shift me, she wanted to say but she stuck with a quiet but firm ‘Yes, please.’
One of the nurses brought her tea and sandwiches, which Gemma looked at with surprise.
‘It is easy food to have on hand in hospitals,’ the nurse said, correctly guessing Gemma’s reaction. ‘We have them specially made for the hospital, for patients, guests and staff, a good supply. It is something that was recommended when the hospital was built.’
Gemma shook her head. The longer she was in this country, the more she was surprised, most often by the different customs but sometimes by strange innovations like a humble sandwich being available in the hospital.
One nurse remained to watch the monitor, but apart from her, Gemma was alone with the man she loved. Did he know that now? Was her presence by his side enough to tell him of her love?
And would it bother him?
She decided she no longer cared—no longer cared even about the mistress thing, coming to the conclusion that if that was all she could have of Yusef, maybe that would do.
Maybe…
But right now her main worry, when she wasn’t worrying about Yusef’s health, was what was happening beyond the hospital walls. Had Hassim grabbed the opportunity of Yusef being out of action to take control of the country?
Would Yusef’s plans for the peaceful co-existence of the old and new settlers come crashing down? Would his desire that his people kept their old values be forgotten?
Sitting there, looking at Yusef’s now so familiar face, her heart aching with her love for him, Gemma worried for him. At first she’d been suspicious of him, regarding him in the same light as her grandfather, a stern, authoritative man, but then she’d grown to know him and to understand the de
pth of his love for his country and its people. Now she worried for that country and those people, people she, too, was coming to love.
It was all too confusing and she was suddenly very, very tired, so she rested her head on the side of his bed and closed her eyes, drifting into an uneasy doze.
He felt better when he woke this time, and Yusef looked around, remembering the trip out to the desert, Hassim and Makka, falcons, then—
The next thing he could recall was Abed coming, a hazy recollection of a helicopter flight, scans, an operation. A nurse who’d been watching the monitor came towards him, asking if she could get him anything. A drink of some kind?
He shook his head, aware there was someone even closer than the nurse, and turned to see Gemma’s head on the bed beside him. His right hand was clasped in hers and tucked under her head and now he was fully awake he suspected he had pins and needles in that hand.
But she was sleeping and it was such delight to watch her sleep he wouldn’t—couldn’t—move his hand.
The scarf she’d wound around her head had come askew so tendrils of red hair had escaped and were coiling around his hand, soft bonds tying him to her…
He lifted his left hand, wanting to touch her hair, her face, but it was tethered to the drip on that side and wouldn’t reach, so he could only look at her, and wonder what magic conjunction of the fates had brought him and her together.
And that they would be together he had no doubts. Wasn’t her presence by his side proof that she cared about him? Not to mention the flight she’d undertaken, for all her fear of flying.
Yet he’d shamed her by offering her an inferior position! He realised that now, although his thinking at the time had been that as his mistress she would be special—far more special, in his way of thinking, than a wife.
Though obviously she hadn’t realised that. Had he mentioned love? Had he explained?
Of course he hadn’t, thinking she’d be so overjoyed to be offered the position, her acceptance would be a mere formality.
Then doubts began to gather like dark clouds before a storm.
Desert King, Doctor Daddy Page 15