Loe raamatut: «Finding His Wife, Finding A Son»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I COULD USE an emergency.’

Dr Luc Braxton perched himself on the end of Harriet’s bed and snagged a chocolate from her stash. He was bored. Harriet was also bored but with more reason. She’d smashed her leg during an abseiling training exercise some weeks back. The break was horrific, there’d been complication after complication and she was struggling to regain any strength at all.

‘That’s not a kind thing to say to me,’ she retorted, but she managed a smile. Yeah, she was bored, but Luc took boredom to a whole new level.

Luc and Harriet were both members of Australia’s crack Specialist Disaster Response team. They were based at Bondi Bayside Hospital, and while not wishing disaster to fall on the community at large, Luc was edgy when it didn’t.

Disaster response was what Luc lived for. Harriet’s accident, with its possible long-term consequences, had left him gutted, but even the damage to his friend hadn’t taken the edge off his addiction to adrenaline.

‘Was the conference boring then?’ Harriet asked, trying to sound sympathetic.

‘Who could be bored in New York? And, no, the emergency medicine component was great. I learned a lot. But I did spend most of my time on my butt, listening, and twenty-four hours sitting on the plane either way. And then to get home and find the team doing another disaster drill off in the Blue Mountains without me...’

‘Which is why you’d better hope there’s no emergency,’ Harriet told him, but there was sympathy in her voice. Harriet was a specialist intensive care nurse. Luc was an emergency medicine physician. Neither was good at doing nothing. ‘The team can be recalled fast but it’ll take an extra couple of hours to bring them back to base,’ she said. ‘And you know they need to do it. Our last was the disaster when I was hurt, and they’ve been trying to get back there ever since. They return tomorrow. Let’s hold emergencies until then.’

‘So you’re not bored?’

‘Of course I am.’ Harriet glowered and winced as she tried to move her leg. ‘Give it a break, Luc. I’m likely to be bored for a very long time. At least you can do something about it.’

She eyed Luc with speculation. ‘Hey, maybe it’s about time you thought about your love life. Word is that cute little nurse you’ve been dating threw you over before you left. Seems you stood her up for one date too many.’

‘Gotta love the hospital grapevine,’ Luc said equitably. ‘It knows my love life better than I do.’

‘You give it fodder. How many’s that this year? Three? Isn’t it time you thought about settling? Babies and a mortgage and washing the car on Sundays? Not interested?’

‘Not in a million years.’

‘Word is you were married.’

‘Yeah.’ He pushed himself off the bed and headed for the door. Personal discussions weren’t something he did. ‘Eight years ago. I’m not going back there in a hurry.’

‘So why the serial dating?’ Bored and interested, Harriet wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘What are you looking for, Luc? Someone cute, smart, sexy, willing to have nine out of ten dates cancelled because of crises, happy for her guy to dangle from a rope mid-air while the rest of the world thinks he’ll break his neck...’

‘Harry...’

‘Hey, I know, it’s none of my business.’ She was starting to enjoy herself. ‘But you need to quit it with working your way through the hospital staff—it’s getting messy. How about you join a proper dating site? I’ll help you fill in your profile. What do we have? Six foot two, tall, dark, ripped and just a touch mysterious—or at least he likes crime novels. Yeah, I’ve seen you reading them between jobs. Super fit. Pulls a great wage. You might need to buy yourself life insurance to cover security issues but, wow, Luc, wait and see how many hits you get. You’ll make some girl a wonderful husband.’

‘I have no intention of being a husband, wonderful or otherwise.’

‘But you’ve already been one,’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Want to tell Aunty Harry what happened? Where is she now?’

‘And I have no intention of telling you about my marriage, even if you are bored,’ Luc retorted through gritted teeth. ‘It’s past history. I have no idea where she is now. I’m heading down to Emergency to see if I can find someone to treat.’

‘The nurses are saying there’s nothing doing in Emergency. There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting happening in this whole hospital. Like your love life.’

‘You want to talk about yours? How are you and Pete?’

She winced again. ‘Yeah, okay, stalemate. But seriously, Luc... My offer of planting you in the middle of a dating site still stands. It might even be exciting.’

‘I have enough excitement in my life,’ he said, and gave her a hug, snagged another chocolate from her oversupply and left.

Harriet was left staring thoughtfully after him.

‘You know,’ she said, to no one in particular, ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t. I’m pretty sure there’s not enough excitement in the universe to keep Luc Braxton happy. And I’d love to know what happened, and where that wife of yours is now.’

* * *

Dr Beth Carmichael was so tired all she wanted to do was sleep. Today had been once crisis after another. She was finally free to head home, but heading home with a toddler and a briefcase of medico-legal letters didn’t promise the sleep she craved.

There’d even been a drama when she’d gone to pick Toby up from childcare.

‘Beth, would you mind looking at Felix Runnard? He’s been listless all day and now he’s developed a fever. His mum’s not due to pick him up until eight tonight and her boss gives her a hard time if she has to leave early. We’ve popped him into isolation but...what do you think? Should we ring his mum?’ Margie Lane, the childcare supervisor, was a sensible woman who didn’t fuss but she’d sounded worried.

So Beth had put aside her longing for home and sat down with the little boy on her lap.

A slight fever? The staff had taken his temp an hour ago but now he was burning. He was also arching his head and crying when she touched his neck.

Fever. Sore neck. No sign of a virus. Alarm bells had rung.

‘Check his tummy for me,’ she’d told Margie as she cradled him, and Margie had lifted his singlet and removed his nappy.

The beginnings of a rash.

Meningitis?

The childcare centre was in the shopping plaza, as was the clinic Beth worked from. She sent someone to the clinic for antibiotics and injected a first dose straight away. She could hope her tentative diagnosis was wrong, but she couldn’t wait for confirmation. If she was right, immediate antibiotics could make all the difference.

An hour later Felix and his parents were in the med. evacuation chopper on their way to Sydney. Meningitis hadn’t been confirmed but Beth wasn’t wasting time doing the tests herself. If the infection was moving fast, Namborra wasn’t where he needed to be. It was better to bail out early, maybe even terrify his parents unnecessarily, than risk the unthinkable.

Even after he’d left, there’d been things to do. She’d cleaned herself with care, then organised for parents to be contacted, with antibiotics ordered for anyone who’d been in contact with Felix. Finally she’d stripped again—one thing a country GP always carried was a change of clothes. She’d then hugged her own little Toby and carried him out through the undercover car park.

He was whinging because he was tired. She was also tired, but Toby didn’t have meningitis and right now she felt the luckiest mother in the world.

‘Let’s have spaghetti for tea,’ she told Toby, and his little face brightened.

‘Worms.’

‘Exactly. How many worms would you like?’

‘One, two, a hundred,’ he crowed, and buried his head in her shoulder.

She hugged him tight and headed toward the entrance. Doug, her next-door neighbour, would be waiting to pick her up. Bless him, she thought, not for the first time. Doug was in his seventies, a widower who spent his days making his garden and his car pristine. When she’d first started working at Namborra he’d noticed the number of taxis she was using and tentatively made his offer. At first she’d been reluctant—her hours were all over the place—but she’d finally accepted that Doug’s offer filled a need for him as well as for her.

Giving was lovely. She’d realised that a long time ago. It was the taking that was the hardest.

So now...she’d kept Doug waiting for over an hour but she couldn’t hurry. The light was dim and she had trouble making out the pillars. Grey on grey was her worst-case scenario.

Sometimes she even conceded a cane would help.

‘Yeah, a toddler in one arm, a holdall and briefcase in the other plus a cane...where? Not going to happen...’

And then she paused.

There was a roaring from above, the sound of a plane.

The town’s small airstrip was close. It wasn’t so unusual for planes to fly overhead, but the approaching roar was so loud it was making the building vibrate.

What the...?

She had a fraction of a second to clutch Toby tighter and duck because that was what she always did when she sensed trouble. Keep your head out of the firing line...

All of her was in the firing line. So was all of the Namborra Plaza.

* * *

Luc had finally found something to do. A kid playing hockey after school, no shin pads and a ball hit with force. He’d been bleeding impressively as his teacher had tugged him through the emergency doors. The dressing they’d hopefully taped to his lower leg wasn’t doing it.

The kid was ashen and feeling nauseous, mostly from the sight of blood rather than the pain, Luc thought, but eight stitches, a neat dressing and a promise of a scar had him restored to boisterous. ‘You’re sure it’ll scar?’ he demanded.

‘Just a hairline,’ Luc told him.

‘You can’t make it bigger?’

Luc grinned. ‘You want me to re-stitch, only looser?’

The kid chuckled. A nurse appeared with soda and a sandwich and the kid attacked them as if there was no tomorrow.

‘Shin guards from now on,’ Luc told him, and then the beeper in his pocket vibrated.

The hospital used his phone—or the intercom—to page him. The vibrating pager was used for members of the Specialist Disaster Response.

Three buzzes, repeated.

Code One.

Yes!

Or...um...no. He shouldn’t react like this. Code One emergencies meant the highest level of need. It meant that somewhere people were in dire trouble. He should hate it, and a part of him did. After a multiple casualty event, he made use of the SDR’s debriefing service and sometimes even that didn’t stop him lying awake in the small hours, reliving nightmare scenarios.

But this was what he was trained for, and in a way it was what he needed.

One of the team’s more perceptive psychologists had had a go about it once, and for some reason—the nightmares must have been bad—he’d let her probe.

‘Your childhood was traumatic and your mum depended on you?’ In typical psych. fashion she’d put it back on him. ‘How did that make you feel?’

And for some reason he’d let himself think about it.

His mother had walked out on his father when he’d been a toddler. She’d gone from one tumultuous relationship to another, one crisis to another. His earliest memories... ‘Is there anything in the fridge? Go next door and ask Mrs Hobson for something. Tell her I’d kill for a piece of toast. And aspirins. Go on, Luc, Mummy will hug you if you get her an aspirin...’

More dramatically, he remembered a drunk and angry boyfriend tossing them out at midnight. He remembered his aunt arriving and scolding him. ‘What are you doing, boy, standing round doing nothing? Go back inside and demand he give your mother her belongings. Go on, Luc, he won’t hit you. Can’t you see your mother needs you? You’re no use to anyone if you can’t help.’

He’d been seven years old. Somehow he’d faced down his mother’s bullying boyfriend. He’d pushed what he could see into a suitcase and his aunt had reluctantly taken them in.

And then there’d been his cousin...

Don’t go there.

‘So you’ve always associated love with being needed?’ the psychologist had asked, but it was too close to the bone and Luc had ended the sessions.

Did he associate dependence with love? There was a germ of truth, he acknowledged, and maybe that’s why he and Beth...

But this was no time to think of his failed marriage. His pager was still buzzing.

Don’t run in the hospital.

His long-legged stride came close.

* * *

After the massive roar of the plane, the shock of impact, then the domino effect as the slabs of concrete smashed down around them, there was suddenly silence.

And then the car alarms started, reacting to the fall of debris.

Beth was on the ground—at least she thought it was the ground. Her back was hard against a pillar.

There was rubble all around her, almost head-high.

Something was across her leg. Something...

The pain was unbelievable.

But worse... Toby was silent.

The air was so thick she could hardly breathe.

Toby.

She was still cradling him against her chest. His little body was curved into hers.

His stillness...

‘Toby...’ Her voice came out as a strangled, dust-choked whisper. ‘Toby?’

And he moved, just a fraction, to bury his face deeper into her breast. A whimper...

Thank you. Oh, thank you.

Her hands were moving over him, searching, pushing away rubble.

No blood. No more whimpers as she ran her fingers over his body.

She was good at this, assessing in the dark. Too good. But her skill was useful now. Her fingers were telling her there seemed no damage. Her arms had been around his chest and his head. He seemed okay.

But for herself...

There was no damage to her hands—maybe scratches but nothing serious. But her leg...

She tried to pull it free from the rubble, and the pain that shot through her body was indescribable.

But Toby was her priority. She was wearing a T-shirt, the one she’d changed into in a rush after treating Felix. Somehow she managed to put Toby back from her, enough to wiggle the hem of the T-shirt up to her neck. Then she pulled it down again, all the way over Toby, turning it into a cocoon to protect him from the dust.

Still he didn’t move. The noise, the shock, the darkness must have sent him into panic and for most toddlers the reaction to blind panic was to freeze.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, but it wasn’t.

Breathing seemed almost impossible. Her mouth was full of grit. The dust wasn’t settling.

Toby was safe under her T-shirt, but what was the rule? In a crisis, first ensure your own safety. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead.

Okay, Toby had come first but now she needed to focus on herself.

The leg... She needed to...

Breathe. That was top of the list.

She was cradling Toby with one arm. With the other she groped and found the canvas carryall she’d brought from crèche. The clothes she’d just taken off were in a plastic bag on the top. Maybe they were contaminated with meningitis virus but now wasn’t the time to quibble.

Oh, her leg...

Somewhere close by, someone started to scream.

There was nothing she could do about it.

First save yourself.

She’d been wearing a blouse when she’d treated Felix and it was at the top of the bag. She tugged it free and a flurry of concrete rubble fell into the bag as she pulled it out.

Was there anything around her likely to fall? How could she tell?

The darkness was total. Her phone had a torch but her phone was at the bottom of her purse and where was her purse? Not within reach.

No matter. She was used to the dark.

Toby wasn’t, though. He was whimpering, his little body shaking.

There was nothing she could do until she had herself safe.

She had the shirt free. She shook the worst of the dust out, knowing more was settling every second. Then she had to let Toby go while she wrapped and tied the shirt around her face.

The whimpering grew frantic.

‘It’s okay.’ And blessedly it was. The shirt made breathing not easy but at least possible.

She took a moment to cradle Toby again, hugging him close, blocking out the messages her leg was sending her.

‘Stay still, Toby, love,’ she whispered. ‘I need to see if I can get this...this mess away from us so we can go home.’

Fat chance. She wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Oh, her leg...

Was she bleeding? She couldn’t tell and she had to know.

Carefully she manoeuvred Toby around to her side, though he clutched her so hard she had to tug. Thankfully the neck of her T-shirt was tight so he was safe enough in there. He wasn’t crying loudly—just tiny terrified whimpers that did something to her heart.

But her leg had priority. With Toby shifted to the side she could lean down and feel.

There was a block of concrete lying straight across her lower leg. Massive. She couldn’t feel either end of it.

She was bent almost double, fighting to get her fingers underneath, fighting to see if there was wriggle room.

Her fingers could just fit under.

No blood or very little. She wasn’t bleeding out, which was kind of a relief.

The pain was...was...there were no words.

She went back to clutching Toby. If she just held on...

She was awash with nausea and faintness. The darkness, the pain, the fear were almost overwhelming and the temptation was to give in. She could just let go and sink into the darkness.

But that’d mean letting go of Toby. He was being so still. Why? She didn’t have room in her head to answer. He was breathing, his warm little body her one sure thing in this nightmare.

The sound from the car alarms was appalling. The screaming from far away reached a crescendo and then suddenly stopped, cut off.

There was nothing she could do. Her world was confined to dark and dust and pain—and Toby.

There was nothing else.

* * *

Even without the emergency code, Luc would have known there was trouble the moment he walked into the Specialist Disaster Response office. Mabel, the admin secretary, was staring at the screen and her fingers were flying over the keyboard. This was what she was trained for.

Mabel sensed rather than saw him arrive, and she didn’t take her eyes from the screen as she spoke.

‘Plane crash into shopping centre,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Cargo plane. Pilot on board but hopefully no passengers. It’s smashed into the side of the Namborra Shopping Plaza. You know Namborra? Five hours’ drive inland, due west. It’s the commercial centre for a huge rural district. Hot day, air-conditioned shopping centre, Tuesday afternoon. There’s no word yet but guess is multiple casualties. It seems the undercover car park and a small section of the plaza itself have collapsed.’

‘What resources are on the ground?’ Luc asked.

‘There’s a small local hospital but anything serious gets airlifted here, so there are few resources. I’m bringing the team back, field hospital, the works, but it’ll take time to get them there. Luc, I’m trying to sequester med staff from the rest of the hospital but they’re not geared up like you are. The fire team’s already notified and the first responders will go with you. The chopper’s on the roof. Gina’s refuelling and ready to go. Resources will follow at need but I want you in the air ten minutes ago. Go!’

And ten seconds later he was gone.