The Surgeon's One-Night Baby

by Charlotte Hawkes

  She opened her mouth, trying to find a way to tell him who she was. But at that moment the hatch door had reopened and her words were sucked out and into the ether before Kaspar had heard them. And as she sat there, her body feeling like lead, she was semi-aware of the other skydivers making their jumps even as her eyes blurred to everything around her.

  The next thing she knew, Kaspar was hauling her to her feet, carrying out the final procedures, and then they were moving to the door, exiting the plane, dropping for what seemed like for ever but was probably no more than thirty seconds or so.

  And without warning every thought, every emotion seemed to fall from Archie’s mind, leaving her strangely numb.

  At some point, it had to have been quite quickly, Kaspar tapped her shoulder to remind her to spread out her arms and legs in the freefall position as they rushed towards the ground, although it was as though the ground was rushing to them, her back pressed to his solid, reassuring chest. There was no chance for conversation up here, they could shout and yell and the other one would never hear them, and to Archie there was something freeing in that. For all intents and purposes she was alone, even if she could feel Kaspar’s rock-like mass securing her. As the adrenalin coursed through her veins, pumping along like nothing could hold it back, it was as though the wind not only blew away the stiffness from her body but the fog that had clouded her mind for so long.

  Too long.

  Kaspar opened the chute at what Archie knew would have been around five thousand feet, the loud crack ripping through her entire being as they were yanked up into a more upright position, as if breaking her open and allowing the first hints of fear and anger and regret to seep out.

  And then absolute silence.

  Peace.

  Her heart, her whole chest swelled with emotion.

  They were still descending but, with the parachute above them now slowing their rate of descent, if she didn’t look at the ground, it almost felt as though they were floating. Suddenly time seemed to stand still.

  Another thrill rippled through her.

  She remembered what it had felt like on that first jump with her father. The life she’d intended to have. The strength of character that used to be hers. And for a moment she felt that again. Free of any responsibility for opening the parachute, steering them to the landing zone, or even having to land safely, she felt her body relax for the first time in years. And the more her body let go of some of the tension it had bottled inside for too long, the more her mind also opened up.

  Lost in her thoughts, she was almost startled when a thumb appeared in front of her.

  ‘Okay?’ he yelled, his mouth by her ear.

  Instinctively, she thrust both her hands out in a double thumbs-up, nodding her head as vigorously as she could, and then he was offering her the paddles to try controlling the chute for herself for a moment.

  She was about to shake her head when something stopped her. For a split second she could almost hear her father’s voice in her head encouraging her to do it. Tentatively, she reached up and took hold, changing direction slowly at first, surprised at just how comfortable and natural it felt. Even six years on, it was as though her muscles had retained the training her father had given her.

  ‘Were you really going to do tandem jumps today?’ She twisted her head so he could hear her easier.

  Kaspar nodded. ‘I was subbing for another instructor friend of mine who’s unwell today. Originally, though, I was going to sky surf. Peter would have loved that.’

  He stopped again, clearly catching himself.

  Archie thought back to the surfboards she’d seen in the hangar on the ground and smiled into the expanse of blue. Of course a simple skydive wouldn’t be enough for adrenalin junkie Kaspar, but he was right, her dad would have loved it.

  Bolstered, she tried a slightly trickier turn, surprised and delighted at how comfortable and natural it felt, things that her father had taught her coming back quicker than she might have anticipated. Again and again she steered the chute, going further, trying things out, wishing she had the skill to really push her boundaries. All too soon it was time to release the paddles back to Kaspar.

  Almost as though he could read her mind, Kaspar steered them into a high-speed turn, a gurgle of laughter that she hadn’t heard from herself in years rumbling through her and spilling into the silent sky. She revelled in the sound as Kaspar led them both into a series of high-speed manoeuvres that thrilled her beyond anything she’d hoped for.

  They held such echoes of what she’d loved until recently. For a moment it was as though she could almost reach in and touch the spirited, strong girl she’d once been.

  It was transitory. Archie knew that. Soon Kaspar would have to stop and once they landed this moment, this connection to her old self, would be lost.

  But this jump had done the one thing she’d desperately wanted it to do. It had finally reminded her of the girl she’d once been and—however deeply buried that part of her may be—today had helped her to begin her journey back to the old Archie.

  The biggest shock of all was that it wouldn’t have happened but for Kaspar Athari.

  He might have no idea who she was, and once this jump was done he’d be out of her life again. Maybe for another fifteen years. Probably for good. But she was grateful to him nonetheless. Part of her longed to reveal her identity to him, but part of her was afraid of ruining the moment.

  She was still gazing at the scenery spread out beneath them like the most vivid green screen image, trying to decide, when a small explosion by a truck in a layby below them snagged her attention. They were still a little too high up to see much detail but a dark shape lay on the ground. Archie opened her mouth to speak but Kaspar was already steering the parachute around for a better look.

  ‘Is that a person?’ she asked tentatively after a few moments. ‘Or bins? Or bags?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. Possibly a person.’

  His grim tone only confirmed her fears. If it was a body, they would likely have been caught in the blast.

  ‘They have ambulance crews on the ground at the fete,’ she shouted.

  ‘That’s true but the fete’s some way away, they won’t have seen the blast we saw. And I know that stretch of road, it’s on the route from the hospital and Rick’s Food Truck is parked in that layby six days a week, popular with both weekday truckers and with weekend walkers, all looking for a hot bacon and egg bap. For me, Rick’s sausage and tomato toasties are more than welcome after a long night shift.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ she asked, knowing neither she nor Kaspar would have mobile phones on the jump.

  The decisive note in her tone was something she hadn’t heard in all too long.

  ‘There’s about a mile over the fields, as the crow flies, between the truck and the fete. If we land as close as we can to the layby we can check it out. If it is a person, I’ll stay on scene while you run back and alert the medical crews at the fete. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ she confirmed, caught off guard by an unexpected flashback to a time when Robbie had come off his bike, trying to do some somersault trick, and had been lying deathly still on the ground.

  She’d been beside herself, but Kaspar had taken control then much as he was now. Assessing, verifying, trying to assimilate as much pertinent information as he could. Kaspar had taught her a lot, even as a kid.

  Just like her father had.

  Right now, she suddenly realised, she felt more like her old self than she had for years. Who would have thought she would owe Kaspar Athari part of the credit for that?

  CHAPTER TWO

  KASPAR VAULTED OVER the hedge and through the field. A part of him was glad to be getting away from the girl—Archie, her instructor had called her—with her expression-laden eyes that seemed to see altogether too much. It made no sense and yet even through her
obvious fear up there in the plane, every time she had fixed that clear gaze on him he’d been unable to shake the impression that she could see past the façade he’d carefully crafted for a drooling press over the years, and read his very soul.

  If he’d actually had a soul. But that had been long shattered. As much by his own terrible mistakes as anything else. Not least the one night that had altered the course of his life for ever.

  And yet he couldn’t seem to shake the notion that this one girl—woman—almost knew him. As though she was almost familiar.

  He told himself it was just the emotion of the day. Five years since he’d heard Peter had passed away, the closest thing he’d ever had to a real, decent father figure. Who, even as a widower trying to hold down his air force career, had been more of a father and a mother to his son and daughter than either of Kaspar’s own very much alive parents could or would ever have been.

  Peter Coates had taught him that the volatile, physically terrifying marriage of his own parents wasn’t normal or right. He’d taught Kaspar to handle his emotions so that he didn’t lose control the way his own father had. The way his own mother had, for that matter.

  Hearing about Peter’s death had winded him. Along with the rumour that Robbie had subsequently sold the old farmhouse and emigrated to Australia. Kaspar could understand why. With both parents dead, Robbie, only twenty-five, and with that kid sister of his to look after, it made sense to have a completely fresh start. And yet somehow, knowing the Coates family no longer lived in that cosy, old, sandstone place with its roaring open fires, it had felt like the end of an era.

  ‘Rick? Mate, can you hear me?’ Kaspar shook the memories off and called out with deliberate cheerfulness as he approached the figure lying on the ground, one eye half-closed and bloodied.

  The extent of the blast damage made it almost impossible to recognise the man as Rick, but the man’s build and clothing fitted. There was one way to tell for certain, though. Carefully, Kaspar ripped the man’s shirt sleeve.

  A clipper ship stared boldly back.

  Rick. But he wasn’t conscious. Pinching the man’s side, Kaspar began a quick examination, surprised when Archie came running up not far behind him. Her intake of breath was the only acknowledgement that the dark shadow was indeed a person.

  ‘Is it your friend Rick?’

  ‘Yes. Get a medical crew,’ he instructed.

  ‘He might have a mobile,’ she suggested hopefully, but Kaspar shook his head.

  ‘He doesn’t. Claims to hate them. So you’ll just have to hoof it. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Tell them to alert the air ambulance and say we’ve got an unresponsive adult male, around fifty, with severe maxillofacial blast injury, including tissue loss of the right eye and nose and unstable maxilla. GCS three and his airway is going to need to be secured immediately.’

  She recited it back clearly and competently despite the slight quake in her voice then left. Kaspar turned back to Rick. By the looks of it, the man was mercifully beginning to regain some degree of consciousness.

  ‘Rick? It’s Kaspar. Can you hear me?’

  At least the older guy was making vague groaning noises now, even if he didn’t appear to recognise Kaspar at all. He certainly couldn’t seem to speak, although that was hardly a surprise. Keeping up light, breezy conversation, Kaspar concentrated on the injuries and the potential damage to the man’s airway. If that collapsed, things would spiral downwards pretty damned fast.

  Occupied, it felt like it was only minutes later when the helicopter landed and the on-board trauma doctor came racing over.

  ‘Kaspar Athari.’ The doctor nodded in deference. ‘Your partner said it was you. I’m Tom. What have we got?’

  ‘Adult male, around fifty years old. Name is Rick.’

  ‘Rick the food truck guy? You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure enough.’ Briefly, Kaspar tapped a bold, unusual tattoo on the man’s upper arm. ‘Approximately fifteen minutes ago he was changing a gas bottle on his food truck when it exploded, no witnesses except myself and my skydiving partner but we were too far away to see clearly. He appears to have been projected by the force and hit his face and neck on something, I would guess the vehicle bracket. There’s tissue loss of the right eye and of the nose, unstable maxilla and suspected crushed larynx. Initially unresponsive, he’s now producing sounds in response to verbal stimuli. GCS was three, now four.’

  ‘And he’s breathing?’

  ‘For now,’ Kaspar said quietly. ‘But with the soft tissue swelling and oedema there’s still a risk of delayed airway compromise, while haemorrhage from vessels in the open wounds or severe nasal bleeding from complex blood supply could contribute to airway obstruction.’

  ‘Okay, so the mask is out, given the damage to his face, supraglottic devices are out because of his jaw, and intubation is out because if the blast caused trauma to the larynx and trachea, any further swelling could potentially displace the epiglottis, the vocal cords and the arytenoid cartilage.’

  The trauma doctor ran through the list quickly, efficiently. He was pretty good—something Kaspar always liked to see.

  ‘One more thing,’ Kaspar noted. ‘There’s a possible cervical injury.’

  ‘One p.m. So we’ve got a high risk of a full stomach after lunch, which means increased risk of regurgitation and aspiration of gastric contents. I could insert a nasogastric tube or I could apply cricoid pressure, but either of those procedures could worsen his larynx and airway injuries.’

  At least the guy was thinking.

  ‘Yes,’ Kaspar agreed slowly, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes. Ultimately, this was the trauma doctor’s scene. He himself might be a surgeon, but today he was a skydiver on his day off. ‘Still, I’m not confident that his airway will hold without intervention.’

  ‘Can’t intubate, can’t ventilate,’ Tom mused. ‘Which leaves a surgical airway option. Tracheotomy or cricothyroidotomy.’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Kaspar concurred, thrusting his hands in his pockets to keep from taking over. The doctor was actually good, but Kaspar knew he’d be faster, sharper. It was, after all, his field of expertise.

  It was the one thing that gave him value in this world. Every patient. Every procedure. They mattered. As though a part of him imagined that each successful outcome could somehow make up for his unthinking actions that one night with a couple of drunken idiots. As though it could somehow redress the balance. A hundred good deeds, a thousand of them, to make up for that one stupid, costly error of judgement.

  But it never would.

  Because it hadn’t been merely a mistake. It had been a loss of control. The kind that was all too reminiscent of his volatile father.

  The kind that Peter Coates had tried to teach him never to lose.

  The memories burned brightly—too brightly—in his head. It must be why he was feeling so disorientated. He’d thought the jump would help, but jumping with that woman had somehow heightened it all.

  A familiar anger wound its way inside him. Even now, all these years later. All his awards, his battlefield medals, the way the media lauded him meant nothing.

  In many respects he was glad that Archie woman was gone. She was, for some inexplicable reason, far too unsettling. The way she’d looked at him on that plane. As though seeing past the playboy front and believing he would do the right thing and help her.

  He couldn’t explain it, but she didn’t look at him the way almost everyone else in his life looked at him. She didn’t look at him as though calculating what being with him would do for her career, or reputation, or fame. In fact, she’d looked at him with eyes so heavy with meaning he hadn’t been able to stop himself from wondering what it was she’d seen. Why she made him feel more exposed than anyone had in long, long time.

  It made no sense. And Kaspar hated things not
making sense.

  Just as he hated the part of him that had wondered whether, when this was over and the patient was safely on board the air ambulance, he might head back to the fete or the hangar and perhaps buy her a coffee. Or a celebratory drink that night.

  For the first time in a long time the idea of a date actually made him feel...alive.

  ‘Want to do the honours?’

  Tom’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘You’re the on-duty trauma doctor.’ Kaspar hesitated, fighting the compulsion to jump straight in, needing to be sure. Not to protect himself but to protect the hospital. He owed them that much. ‘And you’re good.’

  ‘I am.’ There was nothing boastful about the way the doctor said it. Simply factual. Exactly as Kaspar might have said it. ‘But you’re the oral and maxillofacial specialist, it’s right up your street and this is a particularly complex patient. I can’t afford to make a wrong move. If anyone is going to be able to stabilise him enough to survive the flight, it’s going to be you.’

  ‘Fine,’ Kaspar acknowledged. It was all he needed to hear.

  He bent his head to concentrate on the job he loved best, and pushed all other thoughts from his mind. He wouldn’t think any more about Archie. He wouldn’t be taking her for a drink that night. And he certainly wouldn’t be attending the charity wrap party.

  * * *

  The party was in full swing and, predictably, people were crowding around him, from awed wannabe colleagues to seductive wannabe girlfriends.

  But there was only one person from whom Kasper couldn’t seem to drag his gaze.

  It was ludicrous. So uncharacteristic. Yet it felt inexorable.

  He hadn’t been able to eject her from his thoughts since the skydive, however hard he’d tried. And he wasn’t a man accustomed to failure—as a surgeon he had one of the highest success rates—which made it all the more incredible that banishing one woman from his thoughts was defeating him. If anything, with each day that passed she’d become more of a delicious enigma until he’d found himself powerless to resist coming here tonight.