Melting the Trauma Doc's Heart

by Alison Roberts

  Olivia had tears running down her cheeks as she took the photo from the card and held it in her hand. It wasn’t simply the extra evidence of how much her father had always loved her that was her undoing. It was realising that she’d only ever once had that kind of feeling again that she’d had when this photo had been taken, and that had been those moments in Zac’s arms—between their lovemaking and finally falling into that dreamless sleep.

  It was crazy to miss someone so intensely when she had only known him for such a short time but there it was. Isaac Cameron had rocked her world and it was never going to be the same. She wanted to tell Zac that. Even if he didn’t feel the same way and even if he believed he could never get attached to anyone again because of whatever tragedy he’d been through, maybe he should know that he had changed someone else’s life for the better.

  Maybe it might make a difference if he knew that he was loved. It might even change Zac’s life for the better and he deserved that, didn’t he?

  Olivia dried her eyes and straightened her back, opening her phone to find that voicemail message that had changed her life. The number was still tagged as “unknown”. How crazy was that? It felt like she had known Isaac Cameron forever.

  It was going to take courage to tap that link and, in that moment of hesitation, Olivia remembered the last time she had been about to do exactly this. She had been going to return the call and tell this stranger what she thought of him. And then she had decided that she would tell her father what she thought of him but, in the end, she had chosen to say what she needed to say face to face.

  There was even more reason to have this conversation face to face. It would be so much easier to keep the truth hidden when you were on the other end of a phone call. And Olivia really, really needed to know if what was simmering behind all this—somewhere between a longing and a belief—might be true. That you couldn’t feel the kind of connection with someone that she had found with Zac if it was totally one-sided.

  Simon wasn’t going to be too impressed by her leaving town again so soon but, perhaps because Peggy Eglington was the next patient she was due to see, something else was suddenly very clear to Olivia.

  This wasn’t the place she belonged and it was time she did something about that.

  Peggy was in the waiting room as Olivia walked out of the Plastic Surgery Institute after she’d been to talk to Simon.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she told her client. ‘But Simon will be delighted to see you today. I can’t stay, I’m afraid. It’s a personal thing...’

  CHAPTER TEN

  NO...

  It couldn’t be. Zac took a second look at the car pulling in to one of the visitors’ parks in front of Cutler’s Creek Community Hospital. His breath caught as he peered through the window to see the figure climbing out of the driver’s seat.

  It was definitely Olivia Donaldson. Not that she looked anything like the first time he’d seen her, in that tight skirt and matching jacket. Or the last time, when she’d disappeared wearing hospital scrubs under her coat. Right now, she was wearing jeans and jodhpur-style boots and a warm jumper under an anorak. As if she was quite used to living in a place like this with its hot summers and icy winters.

  This was his own fault, Zac realised as he walked towards the reception area. If he hadn’t taken Bruce’s advice and forwarded that party invitation, maybe Olivia wouldn’t have come back here so soon—and he would have already left the area. This was unsettling, to say the least. Just when things had started to settle down properly and he was feeling completely back in control of his life.

  On the other hand, maybe it could be useful. Perhaps Don Donaldson would listen to his daughter and not insist on being back at work when he was only just getting back on his feet. “Light duties” he was calling it but really he should be at home for at least a few more days.

  He reached the entrance to Reception just as Olivia was coming in through the front doors and his steps almost faltered as he realised just how unsettling this actually was. It wasn’t just that Jill wasn’t behind the desk that made it feel as if he and Olivia were the only people on the planet right then. It was a flashback to when she’d come here to tell him about Chloe’s foal being born. When he had still been dazed from what had gone on between them the night before and when he’d been aware of a connection that had made the rest of the world seem irrelevant. His senses were suddenly heightened to the point that tiny details were leaping out at him. How could he have forgotten how incredibly blue her eyes were and surely he couldn’t actually be aware of the scent of her skin when he wasn’t even within touching distance? And, oh...man...he had completely blocked the memory of what that smile was like, hadn’t he?

  Yep. This was unsettling all right. So why did it feel good at the same time? As if something at a cellular level was coming alive all over again?

  Olivia’s smile was faltering. Because he wasn’t smiling back?

  ‘You’re still here,’ Olivia said.

  ‘You thought I wouldn’t be?’ Had she hoped he wouldn’t still be here?

  ‘You said you were planning to leave.’

  ‘I am.’ This was better. Talking about future plans was a good way to regain control. ‘It’s not that easy to find a locum, though. It’s always been hard to find anyone who wants to come and live in a one-horse town like Cutler’s Creek.’

  ‘I might know someone,’ Olivia said. ‘Though she might need a refresher course in general medicine and whatever other training is available to work in a rural hospital.’

  Zac blinked slowly. ‘You? But... I thought it was the last place you’d want to be.’

  ‘So did I,’ Olivia said quietly. ‘But I was wrong. I’m starting to think that this might be the place I really belong. And that’s thanks to you.’

  ‘Oh?’ A prickle of something like premonition made Zac rub the back of his neck. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘You told me about those letters. And the parcels. I took them back to Auckland with me and...and maybe my mother had some idea what was in them because if I’d opened them and read those books I might have dreamed of coming here a very long time ago. I might never have even gone to medical school and she would have been so disappointed by that. She would have thought I was throwing my life away.’

  ‘What sort of books?’

  ‘Pony stories. Books about Central Otago with the most amazing photographs. And there were stories in Dad’s letters. About the people who lived here and what the mountains were like. I could understand why my parents’ marriage could never have worked and why my mother might have thought she was protecting me by cutting me off from my dad. But there was so much about how much he missed me and hoped that I would come and visit. So, here I am. For a long visit, I hope...’

  Zac was trying to find the words to tell her what good news this was. Because her father and her grandmother would be thrilled. Because it meant that he would be free to leave anytime he wanted. For some reason, however, the words were hard to find and in the slightly awkward silence he became aware of something else. A sound he was very familiar with.

  Olivia knew what it was, as well. ‘That’s the civil defence siren,’ she said. ‘That means there’s an emergency somewhere, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’ Zac was reaching for the phone he had in the pocket of his white coat. ‘It does.’ He activated a rapid-dial number. ‘Bruce? What’s happening?’

  * * *

  Olivia was watching Zac’s face as he made a phone call. She had, in fact, been watching his face very closely from the moment she’d walked in here. He’d felt it, she knew he had. He’d felt that connection between them that might have started as nothing more than a powerful sexual attraction but it had become something far more significant during those intense hours they’d shared since then. Taking it further was a risk, of course. Loving anybody was a risk and maybe Zac wasn’t ready to take that risk yet. Sh
e could still hear an echo of what he’d said to her that day.

  ‘Sometimes you have to shut yourself off from something that hurts too much because, if you don’t, it can destroy you. It will destroy you.’

  Olivia could understand that. He’d loved and lost someone and it would be a huge leap of faith for him to risk doing that again. This was pretty scary for her, as well. She’d come here to offer her heart to him and it was going to be devastating if he didn’t want to accept it. He’d said he was still planning to leave Cutler’s Creek. And he hadn’t even smiled at her.

  He certainly wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘What...? Oh, no...’

  Zac had gone noticeably pale, and for a horrible moment Olivia was reminded of the expression on his face when that plane wreck had caught fire behind them. As if, for a heartbeat, he was somewhere else. Somewhere soul-destroying. From the corner of her eye she saw Jill coming back into Reception, and walking slowly beside her was Don.

  ‘Okay,’ Zac said. ‘Tell Ben and Tony to take the ambulance. I’ll meet you at the farm...’

  ‘Libby...’ Don was smiling at her. ‘I didn’t tell anyone that you were coming. It’s still going to be a surprise for your gran’s party tomorrow.’ He turned to Zac as he ended his call. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘I heard the siren.’

  ‘Gavin Morris had an accident on his quad bike up in one of his higher paddocks. He might have broken his ankle by the sound of it, getting himself out from under the bike, and he lost his phone so he had to drag himself down to the road to flag down some help.’

  ‘You going to pick him up, then?’

  ‘Yes. And no. There’s something else and I don’t know where I’ll be needed more.’

  Olivia could see how still Zac was holding himself. This was something huge, she realised. Something painful...

  ‘He’d taken Jamie out on the bike with him to give Faye a chance to have a sleep while the baby was sleeping.’

  ‘Oh, no...’ Don’s face creased. ‘Jamie’s been hurt? He’s just a wee lad—two years old now?’

  ‘We don’t know if he’s hurt,’ Zac said. ‘He ran off while Gavin was getting out from under the bike and he’s vanished. He’s somewhere on the side of that mountain and we’ve got to find him.’

  ‘I’ll come, too,’ Don said.

  ‘Don’t be daft, man. You’re in no fit state. What you can do is be here. I might need to send Gavin to you in the ambulance if he needs treatment.’ Zac was already heading for the door. ‘Maybe you could stay and help your dad, Liv.’

  ‘No.’ There was no way Olivia could let Zac walk out that door alone, looking like that. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Yes, go...’ Don nodded. ‘I can manage here.’

  Olivia was shoulder to shoulder with Zac as the doors opened. He turned his head as they walked through them and, this time, as his gaze met hers, that feeling of connection was even stronger. She knew, without a doubt, that Zac wanted her beside him for whatever they were about to face.

  He needed her.

  * * *

  There was an unsealed road that led well up into the Morris family’s high country farm and a paddock was being used for vehicles to park. Zac’s SUV with its magnetic light on the roof was one of the first to arrive, along with the ambulance Ben was driving and Bruce in his police car. Mike and his colleagues from the volunteer fire service arrived a short time later as Zac was assessing Gavin’s injury, and then more and more people that Olivia had never met were turning up. One of Cutler’s Creek’s people was in trouble and the community was gathering to do whatever it could to help. Under Bruce’s direction, they were fanning out over the tussock-and rock-covered land, starting to search for a small boy. His helmet had been found, not far from where the quad bike had rolled, but there was no sign of Jamie.

  Olivia had helped Zac splint Gavin’s ankle.

  ‘It could well be broken given how painful it is,’ Zac said. ‘But it’s not displaced and your limb baselines are all okay for the moment. I’ll get Ben to take you in to the hospital and Doc Donaldson can X-ray it for you. You’ll need to go to town to get it plastered if it is broken, though.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until Jamie gets found. Just give me something for the pain. I’ve got to help search.’

  ‘Where’s Faye?’

  ‘Someone’s gone to get her. And the baby.’ Gavin covered his face as he groaned. ‘What if...? Oh... God...this is unbearable.’

  ‘I know.’ Zac gripped his shoulder. ‘We’ll give you something for the pain and you can stay here for now, in the ambulance. We’ll get someone to keep an eye on you but if things get worse, we’ll have to take you in to the hospital, okay?’

  Gavin scrubbed at his face as he looked up at both Zac and Olivia. ‘Can you go and help?’ he begged. ‘Please... I just need someone to find my son.’

  * * *

  How far could a two-year-old boy go?

  The search had been going for an hour. And then another. People were searching in pairs and moving further and further out from where the accident had happened. Olivia was climbing around some big rocks, peering into gaps that could be large enough for a small body to have squeezed into.

  ‘Jamie?’ she called. ‘Where are you, sweetheart?’

  In the silence that followed her call she came to stand beside Zac, following his example to shade her eyes against the lowering sun to look down the slope of this paddock.

  ‘Have you had an update on Gavin?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed and his pain’s under control. He’s got his wife and their new baby in the ambulance with him and they’re being well looked after.’

  ‘They must be frantic. I know I would be. That caravan wasn’t there before, was it?’

  ‘I think it belongs to the Women’s Institute. They’ll be providing hot drinks and food for everybody involved in this search. I imagine your gran is down there in the thick of it. She’s been running that club forever.’

  ‘She’s an amazing woman,’ Olivia said. ‘I’m really looking forward to getting to know her. And... I can’t believe how everybody is here helping. They...they really care, don’t they?’

  She looked up at Zac and he could see tears shining in her eyes. It was an effort to pull in a breath because of the squeeze he could feel in his own chest.

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended. ‘This is a two-year-old kid. It’s...’ He turned away. ‘Come on...we’ve got to keep looking. Let’s head for those trees in the gully.’

  He strode ahead but Olivia was keeping up with him. She touched his arm. ‘What is it, Zac? Tell me...please?’

  He walked a few more paces before saying anything. He’d held back from telling her this once before but maybe she needed to know the worst about him. Maybe that would keep him safe?

  ‘It was the reason I came here in the first place,’ he said. ‘A kid of about the same age.’

  ‘He got lost?’

  ‘No. He got beaten up by his stepfather. Drug addict mother didn’t even come into ED with him. There was nothing we could do and there was nobody who cared enough to be there with him. Or to hold him while he died.’

  Olivia caught his hand in hers. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I held him.’

  The squeeze on his hand was sympathetic. ‘I can understand why you needed to get away,’ she said. ‘How heartbreaking that must have been.’

  ‘No, you don’t get it.’ Zac pulled his hand free from hers. ‘That was when I thought I should walk away from medicine completely. Because, after Mia died, I’d taught myself not to care too much. Not to get attached to anything. Or anyone. I thought it was the only way I could keep doing the kind of work I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life.’

  He could still feel the horror of that moment. ‘I got to the poi
nt where I could hold a dying child and not feel anything but numb and I just wanted to hide. I realised that I had no idea who I was any more and I didn’t like the person I’d become. Not caring at all is actually worse than caring too much because it takes any meaning out of life. That’s why I came here. To hide. To see if I actually still existed.’

  ‘You do care, Zac. You know you do. I know you do. It’s one of the things I love about you.’

  Her words skated past his brain. He knew she was right. He did care again. He could feel the pain of it pressing down on him. He could still take control, though. He knew how to push it away and slam the lid down on the pain that caring so much could bring.

  Olivia was slightly ahead of him as they reached the edge of a gully where the ground dropped sharply. She stopped so abruptly that Zac almost walked into her and he had to catch her shoulders to stop her falling down the steep slope.

  And then he looked to see what had made her stop and he froze, as well. The last tree he could see was on such a steep part of the slope that it was growing out at a ninety-degree angle with its canopy hanging over a cliff edge and its twisted, exposed roots clinging to the rocky slope. Curled up in a gap between those huge tree roots was a small boy who was wearing gumboots and a warm coat with a hood. He had his eyes closed and he was so still that Zac could feel his own heart stop for a beat. He could feel it cracking. Was Jamie asleep? Unconscious? Or had the worst happened?

  ‘No...’

  Olivia slid out of his grasp and took a step onto the slope. She started to slide instantly and only prevented the momentum of her fall becoming uncontrolled by catching the branches of another small tree.

  And something snapped inside Zac as that crack burst wide open.

  This was his fault. He had persuaded Olivia to be here. By making that phone call in the first place and now by having sent that party invitation. She was here because of him and now she was in danger herself. And there was a small child who was also in danger. Was history trying to repeat itself by creating a combination of the worst moments of Zac’s life?