by Joanna Neil
‘I can give you your heart’s desire,’ he said softly. ‘You only have to say the word and it’s yours. I owe you a debt for ever because you saved my uncle’s life.’
She frowned, mist swirling inside her head. ‘Is this all because of your uncle?’
‘We can work this out between us.’ Ethan’s voice was soft, hypnotic. ‘Are you so set on letting him lose his heart to you? He’s not himself these days. All he can talk about is that he’s found you and that he feels blessed because you agreed to come out here with him. What kind of hold do you have on him?’
‘I don’t have a hold on him.’ She gazed at him in consternation. Surely he couldn’t really believe what he was saying? ‘This doesn’t make any sense at all.’
‘It all seems perfectly clear to me. He’s ill and he’s not thinking straight. You saved his life and he wants to repay you for that in some way, but he’s taking things to the extreme, and you’re going along with it, sucking him in deeper. Why don’t you let me save you from yourself? He doesn’t need to be hurt in any way. We can sort this out, you and me. You decide what it will take for you to leave him be.’
Amber stared up at him, letting his words flow over her until they began to rain down on her like a cold shower. Everything he had done, everything he had said had been a pretence, a mockery. He didn’t care for her at all. He simply wanted to get her away from his uncle.
‘How could you?’ she asked. ‘How could you say such things to me?’
She turned away from him and started to run along the path that led away from the beach. She would not listen to what he had to say. She ignored him when he called her name. All she knew was that she had to get away from him. She had to go back to her temporary home, and she would do it under her own steam. She wanted nothing more to do with him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT’S going on with you and Mr Ethan? Have you and he had words?’ Molly was preparing food in the kitchen, getting ready for an early breakfast. She was cooking omelettes, wonderful, fluffy creations that Amber knew from experience melted in the mouth, but now she paused, looking directly at Amber.
‘What makes you say that?’
Molly gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘You think I don’t know about these things? Hah!’ Molly shook her head and began to deftly slice peppers, wielding the knife like an expert before tossing the brightly coloured chunks into the pan with the eggs. ‘It’s going on too long. I see you, this last couple of weeks, avoiding looking at each other, not talking unless you have to.’
‘Um…I suppose you could say we had a difference of opinion, if you like. But we’re fine, really.’ Amber sent Molly an anxious look. ‘I was hoping it didn’t show. Neither of us wants to upset Martyn in any way.’
‘Uwe! I think he probably guessed already.’ Molly gave the eggs a quick stir, then angled the spatula towards Amber, shaking it briefly, ‘You think he doesn’t know what’s going on? You’re wrong. That man knows everything.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Amber thought about that for a moment or two. ‘But if he does know, it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.’
Molly smiled. ‘He’s very wise. He knows these things have a way of working themselves out. Me? I think you need to sort it out.’ She sniffed the air. ‘The bagels are done…you want to fetch them out of the oven?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Amber picked up the oven gloves and slid the tray out, tipping the freshly baked bagels onto a warm platter. ‘Will it be all right if I take one of these to go? I’m supposed to start work at the hospital this morning, and I want to be there early so that I have time to familiarise myself with everything. I’ve already spoken to Martyn about missing breakfast.’
‘That’s fine.’ Molly indicated the array of fillings set out on the worktop. ‘Help yourself to bacon and tomatoes. I made you some salad. You want to take that with you? It’s in the fridge.’
Amber smiled and dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘You’re an angel,’ she said. ‘I love you to bits.’
‘Heh-heh. Me, too. You good for Mr Martyn. He’s perked up no end since you’ve been around.’ Molly tipped the omelettes on to a plate. ‘You take care in this new job. Don’t let them boss you around. You’re just a slip of a girl, but you know what you doing.’
Amber grinned. She hoped Molly was right about that. A new job, a new hospital, different people to get to know…it all promised to be quite an experience.
She had bought herself a small car, refusing Martyn’s offer of help, and so the journey to the hospital was an easy one. She knew the route fairly well, since Ethan had shown her the way a few days ago. He had stayed with her while she’d looked around the place where she would be working and then he’d disappeared on an errand while she’d met the people who would be her colleagues.
Molly had clearly picked up on the atmosphere between the two of them. This last couple of weeks had been fraught with problems, since both she and Ethan had their own particular grievances and were thrown together daily in their contact with Martyn. It had been difficult being in the same room with Ethan, let alone having him as a neighbour, but they had come to an agreement of sorts. They had to be together for as long as she was in Hawaii, and so they would make the best of things, for Martyn’s sake.
They both knew where they stood. Ethan didn’t trust her and she was always guarded in her dealings with him.
She tried to put all that behind her as she drove along the valley road. The lush, forested slopes had a soothing effect on her, so that by the time she arrived at the hospital she was on good form.
The hospital was a modern building in the middle of a thriving town. Surrounded by lakes and green hills, it was pleasing on the eye, a pleasant place to work. Her job here was to help out in Accident and Emergency, with an element of going out to treat patients outside of hospital, if necessary. As she understood things, she would be working alongside a consultant and senior house officers. Her immediate boss was a young Hawaiian doctor, a registrar named Kyle. She had met him on that first visit and he seemed friendly and confident about what he was doing. There was a monthly rota system in operation for callouts.
‘How are you doing?’ Kyle greeted her cheerily as she was trying to find her bearings.
‘I’m all right, I think,’ she said. ‘I’ve said hello to all the doctors and nurses on duty, I know where the charts and the lab forms are stored, and I’ve discovered where all the equipment is kept. So I think I’m about ready to make a start.’
‘That’s great.’ He handed her a chart. ‘Your first patient shouldn’t be too difficult to handle. She’s a young girl who was walking on the beach when she felt something wrap itself around her foot. Then she was stung, but someone has already removed the spine that was stuck in her foot.’
‘So what kind of creature stung her, do we know?’ She glanced through the notes, but there was no answer in there.
‘I’d guess a stingray,’ Kyle said. ‘They have an appendage that has sharp, sword-like stingers that can do some real damage. The stingers are filled with venom, so you have both a puncture wound and a poison to deal with.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Amber acknowledged him. ‘I’ll go and take a look at her.’
‘Okay. Let me know if you have any problems.’
‘I will.’
The girl was about fourteen years old, and she was clearly in a distressed state. She’d been vomiting, and appeared to be feeling faint.
‘Hello, Lara,’ Amber greeted her. ‘I’m Dr Shaw. Let’s see what needs to be done about your injury, shall we?’ She smiled at the girl’s mother, letting her explain what had happened.
A nurse had already cleaned the wound, and Lara was soaking her foot in water that was as hot as she could bear. The nurse frequently checked the temperature and added more hot water.
‘You need to keep your foot in water for just a few more minutes,’ Amber said after she had examined the girl. ‘You have already been soaking it for about forty minutes, haven’t
you?’
Lara nodded. ‘I’ve got a terrible headache. I feel awful.’
‘I know you do. These things are not very pleasant, are they? The hot water should deactivate the venom and it also helps to ease the pain, but I’ll give you something to take for that anyway. I think the best course of action would be for me to infiltrate an anaesthetic into the wound, and that should help tremendously. I’m going to give you an antibiotic, as well to counteract any bacteria that might be lurking there.’
She left Lara soaking her foot while she prepared the anaesthetic, and once that was done, the nurse gently dried the area.
‘All we need to do now is to put a dressing on it,’ Amber said when she had finished. ‘You should be feeling much better very soon.’
‘It feels good already,’ Lara said. ‘It’s such a relief. It was a horrible pain.’
‘Well, next time you go wading in waters where there are stingrays, perhaps it would be a good idea to wear some kind of waterproof sandal, or at least shuffle your feet so that you can see if there are any rays lurking close by.’
She left the girl with her mother a few minutes later, and went to report back to Kyle. ‘I think we have a satisfied customer back there,’ she said. ‘I hope all my problems are going to be as easy to solve as that one.’
Kyle laughed. ‘You should be so lucky. In fact, we’ve just had a call to say that there’s been a boating accident off the coast. We wouldn’t normally expect you to go out with the crew on your first day, but the doctor who’s actually on call isn’t feeling so good, and the boss thought we should give you the option. How are you with lifeboats? Do you feel up to going on board to help out?’
She nodded. ‘That’s fine by me, if you’re sure you have enough people on hand here.’
‘We’ll manage. Go and get kitted up in the locker room. The nurse will show you your uniform. You need to be ready to go in five minutes. The boss will meet you at the ambulance bay.’
Amber hurried to get ready, and she was waiting at the ambulance bay with a minute to spare. She looked around for the emergency vehicle, but as it came into view, her heart sank. Ethan was holding open the passenger door for her, leaning across from the driver’s seat.
‘Over here,’ he said.
Her jaw dropped. ‘Are you the boss? Don’t tell me you’re in charge of callouts?’
‘Okay, then, I won’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Are you going to get into the car? We don’t have time to debate the issue.’
‘You didn’t tell me that I would be working alongside you,’ she said with a frown as she slid into the seat beside him. ‘You might have warned me. I thought you worked in a different hospital. According to Martyn, you were based nearer to Honolulu.’
He started the engine and headed for the main road. ‘That’s true, or at least it was true, but when Martyn was taken ill I had to work closer to home so that I could take over the running of the plantation. I transferred to the local hospital.’
‘You must have known we’d end up working together.’
‘Not necessarily. I didn’t know you were going to volunteer for the on-call work, did I? That wasn’t part of the plan originally. It was just something you and Kyle worked out between you.’ He checked the road conditions in the mirror and then indicated that he was turning onto the coast road. ‘Anyway, what’s happened has happened, and we have no real choice but to make the best of it.’
She pressed her lips together. He was right, and, no matter what her feelings were on the matter, it was time to start thinking about the work ahead. ‘So tell me about this accident at sea. What can we expect?’
‘Apparently, a mast snapped on a sailboat and people were injured when it fell. A woman phoned the accident in.’ He sucked in a sharp breath. ‘She said her husband and brother were injured, along with her young son. It looks as though her husband has come off worst because he has collapsed. The brother has some sort of head or facial injury, and the boy has a possible fractured wrist.’
‘So our role is to treat them as best we can and then send them on to hospital,’ she said. ‘Presumably they’ll be transported by lifeboat?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, unless we need to transfer anyone urgently, in which case we’ll call for air support. I doubt that will be necessary. They’re not far off the coast, so it shouldn’t take us long to get there.’
He kept his attention on the road the whole time they were speaking, and Amber could see from the rigid line of his jaw that he was unusually tense. Perhaps he was worried about what lay ahead of them and was desperate to reach the injured people as soon as was possible.
In fact, they were on board the sailboat within fifteen minutes. The lifeboat stayed alongside while Amber and Ethan tended to the injured people.
Ethan turned his attention to the man who was most seriously hurt. ‘It looks as though he has abdominal injuries,’ he said. His expression was grim. ‘I’ll put in an airway to support his breathing, but we need to stabilise his spine in case there are other injuries.’
‘I’ll help you with that as soon as I’ve seen to the other two,’ Amber said. She had already decided that the man with the facial injury needed urgent attention, but the boy, Shaun, who was about twelve years old, was in a distressed state.
‘Try to keep him calm,’ she told his mother. ‘Support his arm and wrist with a pad of rolled up clothing. I’ll come and see to him as soon as possible.’
Her priority with the injured man was to put a tube down his throat to secure his airway before swelling would prevent her from doing it. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, and on examination it appeared that his jaw was broken and that meant it was going to be a tricky process.
‘What will you do?’ the man’s sister asked. ‘I tried to stop the bleeding but I couldn’t. And I was so worried—I didn’t know what to do for my husband. I know the mast hit him across his abdomen but I didn’t know what to do to help him.’
‘Dr Brookes will look after your husband,’ Amber answered. ‘He’s doing everything that needs to be done. As to your brother, I’m going to clear his mouth and throat of any obstruction,’ she told her. ‘I’ll use suction to do that. I’ll have to keep doing it every now and again to make sure that his throat is clear, and once I’m satisfied that his breathing is stable, I’ll put a bandage around the crown of his head and his jaw to keep things in the right position.’
She was already working on him as she was speaking. She added a second bandage around his forehead to keep everything in place. ‘We’ll arrange for a specialist to operate on him as soon as we get back to the hospital,’ she said.
As soon as she had done what was necessary, she turned her attention to the boy. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ she asked him.
‘I fell,’ he said. He was much calmer now, and she guessed that the shock of the accident had caused his initial distress as had the pain and discomfort he’d suffered. ‘Well, my dad pushed me out of the way so that I wouldn’t get hurt when the mast fell. I put out my hand to stop myself falling and I felt the bones go.’ He looked at his wrist and hand. ‘It’s an odd shape, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is. That’s because the bones have cracked and moved out of place,’ she explained. ‘I’m going to give you something to take away the pain, and we’ll put a splint on your arm so that it doesn’t move and cause any more damage. When we get to the hospital, a doctor will give you an anaesthetic—something to make sure that it doesn’t hurt—and then he’ll put the bones back into the right position. You’ll have to wear a cast for a few weeks while the bones mend.’
He nodded as though he understood, and Amber worked quickly to relieve his pain and support the wrist.
‘Is my dad going to be all right?’ he asked. He sent his father a surreptitious, worried look. ‘And what about my uncle Sam? His face is a mess.’
‘Your uncle will be much better once he’s had an operation to fix the bones of his jaw in place,’ she said, ‘and Dr Brookes is doing e
verything that he can for your father.’ She glanced at Ethan to see how he was coping and then looked back at the boy. ‘If you’re all right for the moment, Shaun, I’ll go and help him.’
‘Yes. Help him, please.’
Ethan was listening to his patient’s heartbeat through his stethoscope at that moment. ‘How is he doing?’ Amber asked in an undertone.
‘Not too well, by the look of things.’ Ethan’s mouth made a flat line. ‘His heartbeat is very slow, and I suspect that there’s internal bleeding. We need to get him to hospital and into surgery as soon as possible. I’m giving him intravenous fluids to ensure that he doesn’t go into shock, but we have to be very careful not to overdo it and cause even more problems.’
‘Shall I ring ahead and tell the trauma teams what’s happening?’
‘Yes. And arrange for an ambulance to meet us by the shore.’ He twisted around to look at the man’s son. ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he said. ‘Your father’s a good man, and his first thought was to protect you. You can be proud of him.’ He studied the boy, and Amber guessed he was wondering how much information he could take on board.
‘He needs an operation to repair any damage that might have been caused inside him when the mast hit him,’ he said. ‘We’re doing everything we can to make sure that he’ll come out of this all right.’
Shaun seemed to cope with that well enough. His mother put an arm around him, and they clung to each other for comfort.
Ethan turned back to his patient, and Amber could see that he was deeply concerned for him. He pressed his lips together and simply watched him for a moment, and she realised that he felt a deep empathy for the little family.
It was only then that she remembered what Martyn had told her about Ethan’s parents. They had been killed in a boating accident, he’d said, when Ethan had been in his teens. Was Ethan thinking about that right now? Perhaps that accounted for the sadness in his eyes.