‘Sam... Sam... Are you listening to me?’
She tried to focus. To hear what Blake was saying.
This was Blake... If anyone could keep her safe it would be this man.
‘You have to move. The rock fall is over. You’re not hurt but we have to get down. Now...’
Sam tried to nod her head but that only triggered a shake that instantly spread to the rest of her body. She knew what she needed to do but she couldn’t make her hands co-operate. Or her legs.
So she tried to speak but the only sound that emerged was an echo of the distress that had swallowed her the instant she’d seen those rocks begin to fall.
Blake wasn’t saying anything now, either. Sam felt his arm slide around her body as he positioned himself behind her. Somehow, he managed to keep her against his body with one arm as he worked both his own ropes and hers with his other arm.
The first drop was difficult and they stopped with a jerk. The second jerky movement finally seemed to break through what had paralysed Sam. Blake was trying to keep her safe but she had to do that for herself, didn’t she?
She always had. To protect the people she loved.
Her parents.
Blake...
‘You can let me go.’ Her voice was rough. ‘I can do this now.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Let me go, Blake.’ She pushed his hand away from her ropes and took hold of them herself. ‘I can look after myself. I don’t need you.’
‘Fine.’ Blake’s arm disappeared as he swung himself to one side.
A minute later they were both at ground level but any relief Sam felt for finishing the abseil without his assistance vanished as her feet hit solid ground and she crumpled because her legs refused to hold her up. She was still shaking. She wanted to apologise to Blake. To try and explain what had happened to make her freeze like that, even, but any words died on her lips as she looked up at him.
Because he looked...angry?
He held her gaze for a long moment. A searching look, as if he was trying to figure out what was wrong with her. And then he gave his head a single, dismissive shake and turned away. The sound of him unclipping his ropes and discarding them was like a punctuation mark. The sound of his boots on rock as he walked swiftly away made it feel completely final.
Sam had never needed human contact more than she did at this moment. She had never felt more alone.
Where was Harriet?
She raked the scene with a wild glance but she couldn’t see her best friend anywhere. Nobody was even looking in her direction. They were all clustered to one side, the group opening and then closing again to swallow Blake.
Sam pulled her knees up and then caught them with her arms. It gave her a space to bury her head for a moment. To try and get control of the shaking. To banish what felt like a tsunami of tears that was trying to relentlessly close in on her.
* * *
‘Harriet?’ Blake dropped to his knees beside the limp figure on the ground.
Her face was deathly pale, which made her freckles stand out. Pete was crouched beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m really sorry, Blake.’
‘What on earth for?’ Blake had taken hold of her hand but he was using his index finger to feel for her radial pulse.
‘I’ve wrecked our training day...’
The pulse was rapid but steady enough and strong enough to tell him that her blood pressure was not dangerously low.
‘Don’t be daft...we get to practise some first aid, too, now.’
His gaze was raking his body but he knew that others would have already completed a primary survey. He glanced up. Jack was looking almost as pale as Harriet and he had Luc right beside him.
‘Compound fracture,’ Luc told him. ‘Tib and fib. She caught a direct hit from a decent-sized rock.’
Luc sounded calm. As though this was nothing that couldn’t be dealt with easily. The look he was giving Blake, however, told him that this was more serious and when he dropped his gaze to Harriet’s left leg, his heart sank.
It was a mess. An open wound with visible pieces of shattered bone. The risk of infection was huge. The risk of Harriet actually losing her lower leg looked considerable, as well. The potential for irreparable blood supply and nerve damage was obvious.
‘Limb baselines?’
‘Weak but present.’
Well, that was something. It meant that not all the nerves or blood vessels were damaged beyond repair. ‘Is that the only injury?’
Luc nodded. ‘Seems to be.’
Jack glared at Blake. ‘It’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘It’s okay.’ Pete seemed to be avoiding looking anywhere near Harriet’s leg. ‘These guys know what they’re doing, babe. It’ll be okay, you’ll see...’
Someone pushed their way through the silent, horrified group.
‘Here’s the first-aid kit. And the helicopter’s been dispatched. ETA about fifteen minutes.’
Luc was ripping open the zips on the kit. They needed IV gear to get a line in and give Harriet some pain relief. They needed sterile dressings to cover the gaping wound. And they needed a splint. There wasn’t much more they could do here. Harriet needed to get to a hospital as fast as possible and into Theatre with the best orthopaedic surgeon that could be found.
They could hear the beat of the approaching helicopter by the time they had Harriet ready for transport. The silent group of onlookers moved back to get out of the way of the paramedics and their stretcher. It took only another minute or two to have Harriet secured but she didn’t seem happy. Her head turned from one side to the other and she cried out when the stretcher was lifted.
‘No...wait... Where’s Sam?’
Blake felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. Sam had not only demonstrated how completely unsuitable she was to join this team, she hadn’t even come near her friend who was the one who’d actually been injured in this disaster.
He turned his head to speak to Luc.
‘There’s no way we’re going to let Sam join the SDR,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She froze up there. Couldn’t even follow instructions.’
‘Sam...’ Harriet’s call was almost a sob.
‘I’m here, Harry...’ Sam’s quiet voice came from right behind Blake’s shoulder.
She moved straight past him. She didn’t even glance at him but he knew that she’d heard what he’d said to Luc.
‘Oh, God...’ Sam was crouching beside the stretcher. ‘I’m so sorry... I... I messed up.’
‘Not as much as I did.’ But Harriet was trying to smile. ‘Can you come with me, Sam? I’m... I’m really scared...’
‘But... I should come with you,’ Pete said.
‘You hate blood.’ Harriet’s voice wobbled. ‘And hospitals, come to that. I’ll see you later...when everything’s been fixed, okay?’
‘Okay...if that’s what you want.’ Pete’s concerned frown didn’t quite disguise his relief.
‘Of course I’ll come...’ But Sam looked towards the paramedics. ‘Is there enough room?’
‘We can take two extras. No more.’
‘I’m coming, too.’ Blake ignored Sam, turning to Luc instead. ‘Can you take charge now? If people want to carry on with the next climb, that’s fine. It’ll be a while before we can co-ordinate another day like this but if you decide to wrap things up, that’s fine too. Is there anyone who can get my bike back to town?’
‘I can.’ Jack stepped forward. ‘No problem.’
‘Don’t stop the day,’ Harriet said. ‘Not on my account. That would make me feel even worse than I do now. Sam...you don’t mind missing the rest of it, do you?’
‘Of course she doesn’t.’ Blake couldn’t help the acerbic comment. ‘She’s probably relieved.’
Sam said nothing but he noticed the way her chin lifted a little as she followed Harriet’s stretcher to the waiting helicopter.
Any remorse for that less than kind comment, or that she’d overheard him dismissing her bid to join this team, evaporated. She couldn’t blame him if she was feeling bad. She hadn’t even tried to deal with that situation on the cliff face in any meaningful way—just pushed him away when he’d been trying to help. She had ruined any chance of acceptance all by herself.
What seemed worse was that she wasn’t the person that Blake had believed her to be.
Where was the courage and determination he’d seen her display on that USAR course? The woman he’d inadvertently fallen in love with?
Maybe something good would come from the catastrophe this day had become.
It would be so much easier to move on now.
CHAPTER NINE
SAM CHOSE TO use the waiting room near Theatre to wait until Harriet’s surgery was over.
Blake chose not to. It could be hours and there was no way he was going to sit in a confined space—alone—with Sam.
‘Please call me as soon as she’s taken through to Recovery,’ he told the staff member who’d shown them the room. ‘I’ll be in the building.’
He didn’t look back but he knew that Sam had gone into the empty room with its comfortable chairs and water cooler and supply of magazines.
He knew that she was looking almost as scared as Harriet had looked when they’d finally wheeled her into Theatre. Terrified of the possibility that she could wake up and find she was missing half of her leg.
Blake actually stopped before he got to the elevators.
Turned around, even.
But then he turned back and punched the button to summon the lift.
He had to fight this...
This pull to go back to that room. To comfort Sam. To support her. Just to be there with her and hold her hand.
Because, if he didn’t fight, he’d be giving in to the last thing he’d ever wanted in his life. To invite somebody into his world who was so important to him they could shape the whole direction of his future.
He’d be throwing away what had always been his dream.
Complete freedom.
He couldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t allow himself to do that.
Besides...there were things that needed doing. Like finishing the accident report and other paperwork that had been postponed in order to fast track Harriet through Emergency. And he wanted to have a better look at those X-rays.
A comminuted fracture that made it hard to count the number of breaks in her bones. How on earth were they going to manage to put that back together? That it was already an open wound made it all so much worse. Even with the benefit of IV antibiotics that had already been started, it would take luck to stave off an infection that could destroy more tissue and risk more, debilitating, nerve and blood vessel damage.
He managed to spend over an hour doing that. And then he spent another twenty minutes or more texting Luc to keep him informed about Harriet and to find out what was happening now up in the Blue Mountains. Everybody was worried, apparently, but the consensus of opinion had been that they couldn’t waste the resources that had gone into arranging this training session and they were going to see it through.
Still there was no call to tell him that Harriet’s surgery was over.
Was Sam still sitting there alone in that room?
Had anyone taken her a coffee? Or something to eat? He didn’t like the idea of her being hungry or thirsty.
If he took her something himself, would that mean that he’d lost this internal battle?
No. Blake could feel his frown deepening as he shoved his phone back in his pocket and started walking. It wouldn’t actually make any difference if he gave in to this pull because she wasn’t about to consider being with him for the rest of her life, was she?
She didn’t do relationships. She’d told him that. Or rather she’d agreed with him when he’d said that. When they had been negotiating another ‘one-off’. Or a two-off or however many it took before one of them had had enough.
We both walk alone, Blake. For whatever reason...
Why had he never found out what her reason was?
It couldn’t possibly be as solid as his reason. She hadn’t grown up struggling to achieve every step towards a better life or watching someone she loved sacrifice their life for her. She was warm and caring and deserved to be with someone who would reward those attributes by giving them right back to her. And no man in his right mind wouldn’t have been attracted from the moment he laid eyes on the most gorgeous woman in the world. She would have had more choice than any woman dreamed of, surely?
So why did she choose to be alone? He didn’t understand.
Any more than he understood why she’d lost control so completely on that cliffside. It just didn’t make sense. He’d seen her on the climbing wall that night. She knew what she was doing and she had the courage to tackle anything.
He’d seen her at the USAR course and he would have trusted her to face anything and not panic. Blake had been in dodgy situations often enough to learn to trust instincts like this and right now they were telling him that her reaction to that rock fall was completely out of character.
And he had damned her for it.
Guilt was the last straw that tipped the balance in any internal fight that had been ongoing. That, and the idea he’d had that Sam might be hungry.
Was that why his pacing the corridors had somehow brought him so close to the staff cafeteria? There was nothing to stop him getting some takeaway coffees and some food but what would Sam like to eat? There were sandwiches on offer and hot things like sausage rolls and slices of pizza but there were lots of other things like muffins and cookies and he couldn’t decide what she would choose if she was standing here herself.
The need to feed Sam had suddenly become the most important thing on his agenda. And he wanted to know what her choice would be so that this wouldn’t be so difficult on another occasion. Because there would be another occasion in the future. There had to be...
Blake grabbed a handful of paper bags and a pair of tongs to start lifting items from the cabinets.
* * *
The worst thing about waiting alone was that there was nowhere to hide from yourself.
No way to distract yourself from thoughts that were dark enough to feed on themselves and become even darker as minutes built into an hour and then started to count down the next.
Nothing to counteract the ‘what ifs’.
Like what if she hadn’t tried to play down her eagerness to participate and had been one of the first people to go down that cliff? The shock of that rock fall and its effect on her would have been completely private. Something she could have analysed later until she could understand it and excuse herself and then move forward, knowing that she would be able to cope if it ever happened again.
She wouldn’t be feeling so disappointed in herself for demonstrating such weakness.
Or so gutted that Blake clearly despised her for it. She could still hear the note of disgust in his voice.
‘There’s no way we’re going to let Sam join the SDR... She froze up there...couldn’t even follow instructions...’
And what if Harriet lost her leg? She’d lose everything she loved most about her life. Her job, her work with the SDR team, even the joy she got from surfing and swimming. All the things that made her who she was and the things that she shared with Pete. How would he cope with a disabled partner? Sam had the horrible feeling that he wouldn’t cope at all well. He hadn’t actually wanted to come with her in the helicopter, had he?
That was incomprehensible. Imagine if it had been Blake who’d been injured? Nothing would have kept her from staying as close as possible. Even if he ha
dn’t wanted her to...
It only needed a split second to change a life, didn’t it?
To change many lives, in fact...
How different would her own life have been if Alistair had not died on that mountain? And her parents’ lives.
Oddly, the grief that thoughts of her brother always triggered seemed different now. Because she was so worried about Harriet or sad that things with Blake had ended so badly? Or was it that the extraordinary flood of emotion that had been triggered as she’d been caught in the horror of that rock fall had somehow released something that had been buried for what felt like for ever?
Not that Sam could figure out exactly what that might be but there was a sense that it was something peaceful. Like acceptance, perhaps?
Like knowing that random things could happen to anyone no matter how careful they tried to be. That a life could be lost—or changed for ever—in a heartbeat so you had to make the most of every moment and not let others hold you back, no matter how much you loved them.
Blake was going to hold her back now, wasn’t he? Could she fight that and ask for another opportunity to prove herself as competent enough to be considered for the team?
Did she want to fight the man she loved?
As if her thoughts had somehow conjured him up, Blake appeared in the doorway of this small room. He was balancing a tray of cups in one hand and held a carrier bag stuffed with smaller paper bags in the other.
‘I...ah...thought you might be hungry.’
He put the tray of cups down on top of the pile of magazines Sam hadn’t thought to leaf through. And then he started unloading the carrier bag onto the low table.
‘I wasn’t sure what you’d like,’ he said.
Such a casual tone, as if it was a normal thing to buy up what looked like half the contents of the cafeteria. Plastic triangles of sandwiches, the tops of muffins and doughnuts to be seen inside paper bags. The smell of something hot and savoury like a sausage roll or those mini mince pies.
He’d thought she might be hungry?
The Shy Nurse's Rebel Doc Page 13