‘Except my waters.’ Gracie grinned.
The three women shared a smile and Sienna wondered why she felt such a rapport with this slip of a girl. Maybe she liked Gracie because she didn’t seem fazed about the idea of having a baby on the roadside.
But Gracie didn’t need Sienna. She had a supportive family and a town that cared, if the phone conversations she’d overheard at the B&B said anything.
And she had Eve.
Sienna and Eve had never been close. So it was normal that working with her sister would feel weird. She hadn’t even seen Eve in her role as midwife before. She had tolerated but never understood her at home on the brief leave weekends and holidays away from boarding school, and had always felt vaguely sorry for her. ‘Not enough drive in the girl,’ their mother had always said.
But as a professional, even Sienna could see, Eve was a force to be reckoned with. There was a light that shone in her when she was caring for people.
Then Sienna frowned at herself – she wasn’t here to reunite with and appreciate her sister. Just to do a job and get out, ASAP.
‘So how are you feeling in yourself, Gracie?’ Eve asked, bringing Sienna back to her patient.
‘Great.’ Gracie lifted her shoulders and winced. ‘Tired, but very happy.’
Anaemia, shock from the accident and a newborn. Exhausted, more likely. ‘That’s good. Hope you’re not expecting a lot of visitors tonight?’
Gracie’s eyes lit up. ‘Depends on the weather. Mum will come back later ’cause she’s staying in town, but my friends home on school holidays will probably come in if they can.’
‘I prescribe rest before you go home.’
Eve smiled. ‘Gracie is going to do her midwifery as soon as Tilly goes to school.’
‘Just born and already talking school?’ Life on hold. Tragic, but she didn’t say it. Apparently she may as well have.
Eve’s eyes glittered. ‘Not at all. Gracie is going to be the most amazing mum first. She started uni before she fell pregnant. It will all work out.’
Sienna nodded to placate Eve, unsure what had happened. She glanced at the dresser crowded with homemade posies of desert flowers and hardy foliage and tried a change of subject.
‘You’re a bit of a star around town, from what I’ve been told.’ She picked up the bunch of mangled stems in a wilting posy on the bedside table and they wobbled drunkenly in her hand. ‘Looks like they’ve been squeezed in a vice.’
‘They’re from Sergeant McCabe.’
‘I know.’ Hence the vice. The man looked like he didn’t know the meaning of the word gentle. He’d seemed very uncomfortable standing in the doorway when he’d arrived. And when he departed, Sienna remembered with amusement. Indeed, he didn’t strike Sienna as the sociable type. But then she remembered his voice as he spoke to Gracie in the ditched car. Surprisingly, she could also remember his well-muscled thighs. She frowned at herself for the thighs.
‘Lots of good wishes going your way. So, home in the morning if all goes well overnight?’
Gracie shrugged and her hair flopped into her face. ‘We’ll be fine. And Eve said she’ll come out and visit.’
Sienna blinked and glanced at Eve. ‘I thought you lived 150 kilometres out of town?’
‘Yep. Not too far, luckily.’
A home visit would remove a staff member for half a day. Novel idea. The upkeep would bleed like a severed artery.
‘Sure, if that’s normal around here.’
‘We don’t have a normal.’ Eve smiled at Gracie. ‘Not even supposed to have patients staying here but the electrical storm sorted that, and by the time the RFDS can land, Gracie will be ready to go home if you say she’s fine.’
Sienna bent over Tilly and stroked her tiny hand. Baby fingers never failed to fascinate her, especially these ones that could have been such a tragedy if things had turned out differently.
‘I’ll be back to see you tomorrow morning.’
Gracie’s big eyes stared up at her. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Sienna had never had anyone hero-worship her before. She’d had respect, but not hero worship. She didn’t do warm and fuzzy; it made her uncomfortable. Or that’s what she’d always told herself. She’d decided early on not to expect people to love her. Her mother had been one driven woman, and not given to praise. Sienna had respected her enormously.
‘Well, thank you,’ she gestured to the baby bassinet, ‘for making my first night here memorable, and for introducing me to Tilly.’
She needed to get out of here. Get her stuff unpacked. Be efficient somewhere.
TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, after she’d dropped in on Gracie and assured herself mother and baby were both fine, Sienna headed to the hole of an office they’d given her to get ready for her first day of trawling through that mountain of medical records.
It was very quiet. Almost sleepy after the excitement of lightning and thunder through the night. She wasn’t used to waiting for things to happen. Normally she was juggling research, emergency caesareans, long clinic days and board meetings.
She’d be wishing someone had a crisis soon because she had too much time to think.
The secretary – and her landlady – appeared at her door. ‘Dr Wilson? Dr Callie asked if you were okay for drinks at her house tonight?’
God, no. ‘Look, Fran. I don’t do chatting to people. I don’t socialise much. I work. That’s what I do.’
‘But . . .’ Fran blinked at her through heavy, plain-framed glasses. ‘What do you do on your days off?’
‘When I have them? Drink coffee in coffee shops. Get my hair and nails done.’ She looked at the woman beside her. ‘What do you do?’ Obviously not your hair and nails. But the really funny thing was, she was actually interested.
Fran ran her hand nervously over her own hair. ‘I guess I clean the B&B. Catch up on the housework. I have four grown sons and you’ve met the one who lives at home. My husband,’ she hesitated, ‘died during the last drought.’
They hadn’t got into family history when Sienna arrived last night. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She glanced out the tiny window of the ex-storeroom. She wasn’t complaining about the space because the air-conditioner was big and she needed get started. ‘Better get back to work.’
Fran nodded and disappeared.
They had a meeting later that day to discuss the project outline, the medical records she’d read before she came, and the chance of finding a common factor. Sienna would give it a good run for their money. Callie could have asked her then about drinks instead of passing the message on. Eve still raved about her so she probably was as nice as she’d seemed before. But Sienna still couldn’t believe Eve was actually living with their father’s widow. Talk about disloyalty to Mum.
Sienna had seen the B&B advertised online and jumped on it. Apparently Fran was the local information service in emergencies and the locals got their updates through her. So she had two phone lines and good internet service. Thank God she could use her internet. That had been a huge relief.
She put her laptop down on the desk and spun in the chair. The sooner she started, the sooner she’d be out of here. Her mind drifted back to the night before and it was surprising how clear the snapshot was.
So why was she thinking about the surly man who’d visited Gracie last night with a posy of crushed wildflowers?
She shrugged and switched on her laptop. It had been a while since she’d spent the night with Mark. She’d finished that relationship last week in disgust after his lack of support in regards to her secondment. Diversion was not a good idea.
Work! So how was she going to collate the data? Who and what was involved when a woman became pregnant around 2000 kilometres from Brisbane? Logic. The woman needed to confirm her pregnancy. She needed tests and antenatal screens, bloods taken and transported, results returned. So Sienna would check those.
The woman might be exposed to fertilisers, cattle disease, earth-borne infections �
� she’d check them too.
The woman needed more frequent observation towards the end of pregnancy. She’d need access to good transport in the last weeks, and seamless storage and retrieval of the information so a woman was admitted for delivery with all documentation present.
Then Sienna would need to plot the data for the stillbirths and premature labours over the past two years. When the increase happened. At what stage of pregnancy and who discovered and dealt with it.
Had any of those women delivered a healthy infant since?
These were all questions that needed answers, and there were about a thousand more. But she would get there. Already, despite herself and the situation she was in, the questions gnawed at her. Was there a reason or was it all just coincidence?
Fran knocked timidly at the door. ‘Eve asked if you could come through, please.’
She sighed, distracted from her purpose. She was the researcher, not the handy consultant obstetrician, and she’d make sure her sister knew it.
‘You wanted me, Eve?’
Eve stepped closer to the sun-browned woman with the unmistakable pregnant belly as if to shield her, and Sienna felt her little sister’s censure.
She hadn’t meant to be abrupt with the patient but she’d been busy.
Eve was smiling but her eyes suggested she was less impressed. ‘This is Hattie Ironfield. Hattie lost her baby last year at thirty weeks. She’s twenty-nine weeks and her husband is asking if she should go to Brisbane for the birth of their baby now.’
Sienna’s mind focused with a slap. She needed to remember that the numbers weren’t just numbers. They were women like the one in front of her with big sad eyes and rough-skinned hands from manual labour. She guessed she’d needed the reminder.
‘I’m sorry to hear of your loss, Hattie. I’m Dr Wilson, Eve’s sister, and I’m here to go through all the information to see if we can come up with a way to keep other babies safe.’
She sat down on the spare chair. ‘So it’s a good question and if I was in your shoes I’d be asking it too.’ Sienna repeated the point. ‘Can it happen again?’ She looked Hattie in the eye. ‘To be honest, anything can happen. But we’ll be doing some extra tests this time, keeping a closer eye on everyone here. I wish I could tell you that going to Brisbane would guarantee your baby being well.’ She watched Hattie’s face. ‘But I can’t.’
The woman’s voice was strained. ‘I know that, Doctor.’
Eve quietly asked, ‘What happens if you do go away? Can they manage on the station without you?’
Hattie shrugged. ‘They’d have to. The kids would miss me.’
‘Do you have people you could stay with for a couple of months in Brisbane?’
‘Not really. I’d have to go to a hotel but there is one we stay in if we have to go to Brisbane. So at least I know it a little. And I’d do that if it would make my baby safer.’
Here was a dilemma. It was no use her making a decision to uproot a woman for an extended time, Sienna thought, if the people in Brisbane don’t think it’s necessary.
‘How about I have a chat to the obstetrician you’d be referred to in Brisbane? See what they say about the service here now and whether it still means you’d be better off going to the city.’
Hattie’s shy smile peeped out like a little ray of sunshine. ‘That would be good.’
‘Okay.’ She glanced at Eve. ‘Pass me the antenatal card. I’ll recheck Hattie’s medical records and then I’ll have a chat with the director of obstetrics in Brisbane. No use just talking to the one on call.’
‘Guess not.’ Eve was dry but there was a glint of approval in her eye. Sienna found herself grinning back. Since when did she need approval from her little sister?
Eve handed over the notes and Sienna nodded to Hattie. ‘Give me a good fifteen minutes. I need to know what I’m talking about before I ring. If I have any questions I’ll come out and find you so don’t go too far away.’
Hattie nodded. ‘Okay.’
Sienna looked at Eve and then at the portable ultrasound parked in the corner like a computer on wheels. ‘Maybe you could do a quick ultrasound, if you like. Practise your umbilical flow assessment.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe the toys you have here.’
Eve grinned. ‘More than I was allowed to play with in Brisbane. You haven’t spent much time with Blanche yet.’
Four hours later Sienna met up with Callie, who’d been with Sylvia for her doctor’s appointment. She was just the same as she’d been before, quietly pleasant and calm, but Sienna still didn’t like to think of her as a half-sister.
If she was honest, she could see why Eve liked her; she probably had more in common with this new sister than she had with Sienna. And there was nothing wrong with Callie’s brain.
She’d cast her eyes over the notes for Hattie, picked out the two grey areas that Sienna had noticed, and agreed with the obstetrician in Brisbane that nothing could be changed by a higher level of care. So, happily, Hattie would stay home until four weeks before her due date.
They finished discussing the cases. Sienna outlined how she planned to structure the review and her initial feel for the grey areas.
Callie broached the subject when Sienna was least expecting it. ‘So are you up for any O&G consultations while you’re here?’
I knew it. ‘You have the FOG to do that. I had a chat with Phillip up in Roma as I came through.’
‘I’m not talking about cancelling Phillip, just the days when he gets called away to emergencies and can’t make it. Eve and I can do the women’s health stuff like pap smears and breast checks and contraception. But the women who need to see a specialist have often travelled hundreds of kilometres and they shouldn’t have to wait another month for something that might need more rapid assessment.’
‘You mean one-offs, here and there? Fine.’ God! She was such a softie.
‘What about things like diathermies, removal of polyps, problems that only need a local anaesthetic to fix before the patient can go home? Save another trip rather than referring them on for admission at Longreach?’
She was getting needy here. ‘Fine. Anything under a local. But I don’t have colposcopy instruments so anything that needs a good look I can’t do.’
‘Sure.’
Sienna didn’t like the way Callie said that: there wasn’t a lot of sympathy there. ‘I’ve got work to do as well, and work to get back to in Melbourne, so as soon as I’ve done what needs doing here I’m off.’
Callie nodded politely.
Sienna was starting to suspect this Ms-Nice-Lady act was a front for a very determined woman. ‘Okay, then. Of course if there’s a last-minute cancellation I could do a couple of hours of catch-up.’
Callie carefully avoided her eye. ‘That’s great.’
As the day came to an end, Callie and Eve were back on the verandah of the big house and Sylvia was propped up comfortably on cushions, enjoying the company and the spectacle of the receding electrical storm, even if there’d been little rain to go with it. She looked thinner, frailer, but more serene, as if happy just to fade away quietly in the background.
Every time Callie’s gaze travelled over to her mother Eve saw a flicker of pain cross her sister’s face and she wanted to weep for both of them. But that was the last thing Sylvia wanted. In fact, she’d forbidden them to.
Eve had her own familial cross to bear. ‘I’m sorry Sienna wasn’t more helpful.’
‘I thought she was very helpful.’ Callie smiled gently at Eve. ‘Stop worrying. She was fine. I’ve met a lot of specialists like her. They always seem more driven and focused, which is reasonable given the meaning of the word “specialist”. And she’s here, isn’t she?’
‘Thanks to Blanche.’ Eve could feel the tension seep away from her shoulders. She really did feel responsible for her sister, yet she hated the thought that she was being disloyal to Sienna. ‘And she’ll get the job done. I’ve never seen her not complete something once she’s starte
d.’ She shrugged. ‘But she’s not a warm and fuzzy person.’
Callie smiled. ‘Maybe she hasn’t met her warm and fuzzy other half?’
Eve ran her mind over a few of Sienna’s past boyfriends and winced. Mentally rolled her eyes. Again, disloyal to Sienna.
TWENTY-FOUR
The storm had stopped and as she walked down the slippery road to her B&B Sienna wondered if she should have stayed for that drink she’d knocked back. Suddenly she felt the need for company.
Up ahead a broad-shouldered, erectly postured man in a pale-blue shirt and dark trousers backed out of a door and locked it.
Ah. She’d know those thighs anywhere. Sergeant McCabe securing the premises. All safe in the police station. The thought made her smile in the dimness.
Sienna walked on until she was level and strangely the whole world seemed to slow right down, until her feet had carried her close enough to smell the tinge of clean sweat. It was not something she’d had a fetish for before, but this was just enough to know he was a man’s man. She wondered if he was a ladies’ man as well.
She lifted her chin and glanced over at his back and shoulders. Either way, he was a fine dude to have beside you in a dark alley. Which suddenly made her think of other things. Good grief. She fancied a new man, and here of all places. Now that was amusing.
She heard the jingle of keys as they slid into his pocket, noticed the raucous cries of the cockatoos in the big gum across the road and could suddenly feel the warm breeze on her skin. What was with the sensory overload?
He turned around, unsurprised to see her there; in fact he’d probably known she was there before she’d recognised him.
He looked down at her. He was one tall guy. There was not a lot of men she could say that about.
‘Evening.’ He spared her a nod and turned to walk away.
She’d better say something or she’d be on her own again. ‘You’re an interesting man, Sergeant McCabe. What’s your problem with women?’
He stopped, turned back and glanced at her coolly. The guy was vibrating aversion. He looked up and down the street as if searching for someone or something to rescue him. An armed hold-up? A break and enter?
Red Sand Sunrise Page 17