‘Big batteries.’ Alf grimaced. ‘A man’s gotta have some comfort. What can I do now, Doc?’
‘Get my bag, if you can,’ Quinn told him. ‘It’s on the Wave Dancer.’
The Wave Dancer-the huge boat that had brought out Quinn and Sam-was almost alongside. The crews of the boats must be frantic, Fern realised. They wouldn’t have a clue what was happening.
Then Alf had the motor running again. It was foolhardy for two boats to be alongside when one was without a motor-dangerous at the best of times.
The men knew what they were doing, though. Fern and Quinn could stick to their medicine. If there was one thing the fishermen of Barega were good at, it was coping with the sea.
The boats were manoeuvred as though they were on a lake at midday instead of an ocean swell after dark. In two minutes there were more men clambering onto the deck of Alf’s boat and Quinn’s precious bag was with them.
Morphine…Saline…Everything they needed to try to keep Sam alive…
Everything except luck…
He’d need that, Fern thought grimly, feeling Sam’s cold and clammy skin. Luck, luck and more luck…
There was a sharp exclamation of horror from the bow of the boat and Fern glanced up in time to see the men drag aboard what was left of the dinghy.
Fern’s fear of a shark feeding frenzy had been realised. The dinghy was torn to ribbons.
Sam had been lucky already.
And at least Sam had Quinn Gallagher, Fern thought with gratitude, as Quinn set up a saline drip with a speed she’d never seen before.
If ever there was a man to have around in an emergency it was this man.
If ever there was a man to have around…
Over the next few hours Sam hovered between life and death but by three in the morning Quinn’s skill had loaded the dice in favour of life.
By three in the morning Fern was so exhausted that she was almost past caring.
They’d brought Sam back to Theatre and spent four gruelling hours trying to stem the bleeding and do emergency repairs.
If Quinn hadn’t been a skilled surgeon they wouldn’t have had a hope. The wound was horrendous.
At least the kidneys were clear. Their first task as they reached the hospital was to insert a catheter and watch for blood. The clear urine was the first piece of good news they’d had all night.
There was more.
It was just as well that Sam’s blood group was O positive-if he’d had a rare blood type the task of cross-matching enough blood with the island’s limited supplies would have been a nightmare.
With unit after unit of blood dripping into his veins to make up for the massive blood loss, Quinn assessed the wound and decided that his only choice was a full laparotomy. They didn’t have a clue what damage there was.
If there was liver damage…
It didn’t bear thinking of.
Quinn worked fast but thoroughly, cleaning and debriding the wound as he found and tied off the mass of tiny torn blood vessels that made the wound bleed so freely.
Fern gave the anaesthetic-a job that required her full attention with a patient who was so badly shocked-and could only marvel at the skills Quinn showed.
This man had been trained with the best. He was cool, swift and skilled but he was no textbook surgeon. This sort of surgery-repair of a wound so horribly different-took courage and intelligence, both of which Quinn seemed to have in abundance.
Barega was indeed blessed to have him here.
The bowel had been ripped and a small section completely torn out. Such a wound would have left Fern helpless with horror but Quinn didn’t falter. He hardly talked during the reanastomosis-the joining of the torn ends of the bowel-or as he performed a meticulous peritoneal lavage, carefully washing out the abdominal cavity. Slipshod work here would cost Sam his life.
This was no slipshod work.
The fingers doing the surgical procedures were skilled and sure and Fern knew that Sam wouldn’t be in any better hands if he’d been in Sydney.
The two island nurses stayed in Theatre and it took the four of them, working flat out, to give Sam a chance of life. This job in a major teaching hospital would have warranted a team of seven or eight. Here they had to make do with what they had.
Fern could only marvel as she watched Quinn sew the abdomen closed. There was still a massive defect-the dressing had to be applied over an area with no skin-but Sam now had a chance.
Finally, Quinn had done all he could. Fern adjusted intravenous antibiotics to maximum dosage and reversed the anaesthetic as the last dressing was put in place.
Quinn’s work had been little short of brilliant. It was now up to Sam…
When Quinn wearily pushed his mask from his face, it was more than he who sighed with relief. The nurses pushed the trolley away with their shoulders sagging in exhaustion. Neither nurse had been in such an intense surgical situation since their training hospital-and even then Fern doubted that they’d been under such pressure.
‘That was…That was magnificent…’ Fern told Quinn as she walked unsteadily over to the sink. She hauled her own mask from her face with a feeling of unreality.
‘It wasn’t too bad a job you did yourself, Dr Rycroft,’ Quinn told her and Fern flashed him a look of astonishment.
‘You don’t even sound exhausted.’
‘I guess I am,’ he admitted, ‘but I’ve gone onto automatic pilot.’
‘Some automatic pilot. It’s saved Sam’s life…’
‘I just hope that’s right. It’ll be days before we know for sure. His chances of infection are still high. You realise he’ll have to go to Sydney? It’s a rough job I’ve done tonight. Cosmetic stuff will have to be done by the plastic guys.’
‘As long as he lives…’
‘As you say.’
Fern closed her eyes, exhaustion sweeping over her in waves. The urgent needs past, she felt just plain sick.
Quinn stepped behind her and untied the ribbons of her surgical gown. He flicked his gloves into the waste bin and then put his hands on her waist.
‘You’re all done, Dr Rycroft,’ he said gently. He pulled her back to lean against him and she was too tired to care…
Not true.
She was too tired to resist.
‘Bed, I think, Dr Rycroft.’ Quinn’s head dropped and he planted a light kiss on her hair.
‘I…I think so…’
‘You realise you lost a fiancé tonight?’
Quinn’s voice was coming from a very long way away. Fern leaned back against his chest and let his words drift. They didn’t make an awful lot of sense.
What had he said?
‘Sam’s going to live,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I know he is.’
‘Not with you, he’s not.’
‘Why…?’
She had to force herself to ask the question. What Quinn was saying didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was the feel of his arms around her, the feeling that here-against this man’s body-she was secure against all peril.
The nightmare of the night was just that-a nightmare. It couldn’t touch her now. She was with Quinn.
She was home.
You don’t have a home, remember, Fern? a tiny voice whispered into the back of her head. That voice had been a shout since the night her parents died. Now the shout was fading almost to oblivion.
‘Your Sam nearly went crazy when we told him what Lizzy was doing-that she was drowning,’ Quinn said gently across her thoughts. His arms didn’t slacken for a moment. She was enfolded in a cocoon of compassion as he spoke.
‘I have to admit I thought the man incapable of passion. When I told him Lizzy would drown without him, though, he was out of his bed in seconds. He insisted point-blank I go with him; his theory was that I was a better trained doctor than you, and his Lizzy-his Lizzy-was going to have the best.
‘I still had Maud to consider and you were already out with Lizzy so I refused and I thought Sam would kill me. So it wasn
’t me threatening to pick up Sam and take him out to sea-it was the other way round!’
‘Sam…’ Fern said faintly.
‘Sam.’
Quinn’s arms tightened even further. Surely this wasn’t a professional approach at comfort by one imparting bad news…
Surely this was something more.
‘Jess came back from her rounds just then-fortunately,’ Quinn told her. ‘She can do cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and can operate the defibrillator if necessary and she offered to stay with Maud before Sam did me physical violence. But it was a close thing.’
‘Sam…Sam and Lizzy have always been friends,’ Fern whispered. ‘Sam and Lizzy and me.’
‘Well, I think you have to face it.’ Quinn swung Fern round in a gentle but firm movement so that her weary, shadowed face was looking up at him. ‘Fern, I think tonight the “me” was taken out of the equation.’
‘You don’t know…’
‘I do know,’ he told her, his eyes never leaving her face. Quinn’s hands were on her shoulders and without their support she would have toppled. ‘I thought your Sam was incapable of passion and I was right. He was. Your Sam is. Lizzy’s Sam, though…’
‘I don’t want to hear this…’
There was a long silence. The theatre clock ticked above their heads and that was the only sound there was.
‘You have to hear it, Fern,’ Quinn said softly at last. ‘I just wish to blazes I could make you stop looking like that…’
‘Like…’
‘Like a woman Sam’s crazy to abandon…Like a woman I could…’
He didn’t finish. He couldn’t. What was growing between them was too strong for words.
Fern didn’t have to wonder this time whether she raised her lips in invitation to be kissed. She knew she did.
It was no act of flirtation or seduction, though. It was two magnetic poles finding their home. The force pulling them together was something that Fern had never felt in her life before.
She only knew it felt right.
At that moment they had no separate will-only their mutual need-only their mutual acceptance of what was right.
They stayed, locked together, for what could have been hours. Fern didn’t know. The clock ticked above them and Quinn’s lips stayed on hers. His hands held her waist to his body and there was no other movement.
There was no need for further movement.
This wasn’t passionate love-making. It was a process of healing-of bringing together two parts of a separate whole.
The aching void that had been in Fern since the night her family was killed was closing, filling, as though the link between herself and Quinn was feeding her something as essential as the plasma they had placed in Sam’s veins. This wasn’t blood, though. It was a nectar so sweet that it made her want to cry.
But she couldn’t cry when she was here.
She couldn’t cry when she was being kissed by someone like Quinn.
He was still wearing his bloodstained surgical gown and the jeans Fern had on were even more gory than his surgical greens. It didn’t matter. The time for dissembling was over.
There was only Quinn…
She opened her lips to him and her aching heart felt as though it opened at the same time, allowing the sweetness of love to flow through…
His hands came up under her blouse, cupping her breasts with fingers that were exquisitely gentle. It was as if he was touching the most precious thing this world had to offer, Fern thought, and knew that her thought was truth.
What was flowering between them was a gift-a gift so precious that none could deny it.
Certainly not Fern.
Her body arched against him and she heard herself give a soft moan of sheer ecstasy.
He broke away then, holding her at arm’s length, her bloodstained blouse falling back into position. His eyes were dark and demanding, claiming his own.
‘This is right,’ he said, and his voice was thick with suppressed passion. ‘Hell, Fern, you can’t marry Sam after this. You know you can’t’
‘I know…’ Her voice trailed to a whisper.
‘You belong with me.’ His hands gripped more tightly, possessive and urgent ‘You feel it too, don’t
you, Fern? Whoever else has claims-on either of us-we’re one, Fern Rycroft. I felt it the moment I set eyes on you-and we’re wasting time by denying it…’
‘S-Sam…’ Fern whispered. ‘I have to speak to Sam…’ Her tired mind was going round and round in circles. She only wanted to be with this man-with Quinn, with her heart-and yet she was still engaged to Sam. She shouldn’t be here, letting Quinn make love to her, when in the next room her fiancé was fighting for his life.
‘You have to speak to Sam,’ Quinn agreed, pulling her tight to him again. ‘And I…I have organising of my own to do. But that’s all it is, my lovely Fern. Reorganising our lives so we can be in our rightful place. Together.’
‘I don’t know,’ Fern whispered. Her heart was thumping with fear, doubt and passion all at the one time. ‘Maybe…’
‘There’s no “maybe” about it, Fern Rycroft,’ Quinn growled thickly into her hair. He tilted her chin again so she was looking wonderingly up at him. ‘There’s only us.’
‘Are you still here?’
A woman’s light voice, calling from the doorway around the partition from the sink, was the first thing that intruded from the outside world.
Heaven knew how long the voice had been calling. The kiss was deep enough to blot out all but the loudest of alarms.
Quinn swore unsteadily as the lingering kiss finally ceased and they pulled apart. He didn’t release Fern entirely, though-just pulled her round to stand beside him, his arm still encircling her waist.
It seemed almost a gesture of propriety, of possessiveness, though Fern still felt that she’d topple over without his supporting arm. The combination of weariness, shock, relief and…and the nearness of Quinn…was making her dizzy.
It was Jessie.
The young vet peered anxiously around the partition and smiled with relief when she saw them.
‘Here you are. I was starting to think Quinn must have driven you home, Fern, and I rang your uncle hours ago to tell him we’d give you a bed here.’
‘C-can you?’ The feeling of unreality was deepening, if anything.
‘Of course we can.’ Jessie smiled from Quinn to Fern, seemingly oblivious to the position of Quinn’s arm and the burning colour of Fern’s cheeks. ‘Lizzy’s in the ward with your aunt, though, so you can’t stay there. We’ve packed Lizzy with hot-water bottles and sedated her. Her temp’s back up to normal. She was still restless until you finished in Theatre and one of the nurses came in to tell her Sam would most likely live. Now she’s sleeping like a baby.’
‘You…you sedated her?’
‘Needs must,’ Jessie grinned. ‘It’s not so different from sedating a horse.’ Then, at Fern’s look, she laughed and relented. ‘OK, Quinn gave me instructions before he went to Theatre-while you were prep-ping Sam.’
‘I…I see…’
‘I don’t think you see very much at all,’ Jessie corrected her kindly. ‘Fern, you look as exhausted as Lizzy. Bring her down to bed, Quinn…’
‘But…’
‘I have a huge bedroom and two beds,’ Jessie assured her. ‘And I take my parrot up to the kitchen at night-so there’s no need to worry about anything but my snoring. Quinn, you’re not going to bed yet?’
‘Not yet. Not until Sam’s fully recovered from the anaesthetic and settled into natural sleep. It could be a couple of hours.’
‘Then Fern and I had better sleep so that at least someone’s functioning in the morning.’ Jessie’s kindly eyes assessed Fern’s face. ‘Can you walk, Fern, or does Quinn have to carry you?’
‘I can…’
She couldn’t.
Fern didn’t finish her sentence. Quinn had already swung her up in his arms and was heading for the door, squeezing all the pro
test out of her.
‘For a very clever vet, you ask some very silly questions, Jess,’ he smiled back at the vet, but the tenderness on his smile was all for Fern. ‘My lady has her own method of transport.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
FERN slept the sleep of the dead.
When finally she woke the sun was pouring in over her bedcovers and Jessie was walking towards the bed carrying a tray.
‘Bacon on toast and coffee,’ she smiled. ‘Hungry?’
‘Y-yes.’ Fern rubbed her eyes.
Then she rubbed them again. Jessie seemed to have grown a new breast in the night.
As she stared, the middle breast wriggled.
‘OK, you,’ Jessie said placidly, cradling the extra breast in the cup of her palm. ‘I know it’s time for another feed.’
She grinned down at Fern’s look of astonishment.
‘I’ve won another baby in the night,’ she said. ‘A
tiny wombat. One of the local farmers found it in his back paddock when he went to check on a calving. I’m not sure of its chances-it seems badly shocked-but this way at least it has a hope. My movement, warmth and heartbeat are the closest approximation I can get to his mum.’
‘I…see…’
This place was a madhouse. Hospital, home, veterinary clinic, orphanage…
They were so busy. It was great of Jessie to bring her breakfast. Fern glanced at the bedside clock.
And glanced again.
Eleven o’clock!
It couldn’t be.
‘It sure is,’ Jessie smiled, seeing Fern’s look of astonishment. ‘I thought if you didn’t have this now you’d be running breakfast into lunch. Besides…’ she sat down on the bed in comfortable companionship, still stroking her wriggling extra breast ‘…the air ambulance is due in half an hour to take Sam to the mainland and we thought you’d want to say goodbye.’
‘Oh…Of course…’ Fern took the mug of coffee with gratitude. She sipped and sipped again and her crazy world finally tilted back to the right way up. ‘How is…how is Sam?’
‘His obs are good so far,’ Jessie told her. ‘Quinn has the morphine so topped up he’s hardly conscious-but his blood pressure’s holding and Quinn’s happy with his electrolytes and his haemoglobin level. Things are looking good.’
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