Rescued by the Single Dad Doc Read online

  Please, no. She loved this car but if she had the choice between vomit or coma...

  ‘Hold on, Kit,’ she muttered. The decision to get him to the hospital rather than calling for an ambulance had been instantaneous. He still had glass in his hand. The blood he’d lost was frightening and the hospital was so close...

  ‘I want Tom,’ he quavered.

  Tom? His stepfather? That was the name the kids had used. And Christine? The overblown, overpainted woman had emerged from the house, taken one look and fled back inside, saying, ‘I’ll ring Tom.’ So much for practical help. Rachel had hauled off her own windcheater and used that as a pressure bandage and sling.

  ‘Tell Christine—and Tom—I’ve taken him to the hospital,’ she’d told his terrified brothers, and then she’d left. There was time for nothing else.

  ‘We’ll find Tom,’ she told Kit now, as he slumped against her. ‘But first we need to stop your hand bleeding. We can do this, Kit. Be brave. Isn’t it lucky I’m a doctor?’

  * * *

  The sight that met him as he emerged from the Emergency entrance was horrific. All he could see was blood. And one small boy.

  For a moment he felt as if his legs might give way. Kit’s face, his hair, his T-shirt, were soaked with blood. The T-shirt was a treasured one, covered with meerkat cartoons. Tom couldn’t see a single meerkat now, though. All he could see was blood.

  Kit.

  ‘Mate, you’re doctor first, stepdad second.’ It was Roscoe, placing a huge palm on his shoulder as they both headed for the car. ‘Right now, Kit needs a doctor.’

  The words steadied him but only a little. He reached the car and hauled the door open.

  Kit was leaning heavily against the driver. Had she hit him? A car accident? What...?

  ‘Lacerated hand.’ The woman’s voice cut across his nightmare, her voice as incisive, as firm as Roscoe’s. ‘From a broken window. No other injury, but severe blood loss. I suspect there’ll still be glass in there. His name’s Kit and he’s asking for Tom.’

  ‘Kit.’ His voice sounded as if it came from a long way away. Kit was struggling to look at him, struggling to focus. ‘T-Tom...’ he managed—and then his eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness.

  Kit!

  It was Roscoe who took over. For those first appalling seconds—and it must only have been seconds—Tom froze, but Roscoe’s voice boomed across the entrance, calling back into the Emergency ward behind. ‘Trolley,’ he boomed. ‘IV. Blood loss, people. Move.’

  And then as Barry, their elderly hospital orderly, came scuttling out with the trolley, and Jenny, their second most senior nurse, appeared with the crash cart, Tom recovered enough to scoop Kit out of the car.

  Somehow Tom’s years of training kicked in. Triage. Look past the obvious. Get the facts and get them fast.

  The woman had been wedged between Kit and the driver’s door. She looked almost as gory as the child. Thirtyish. Jeans. Long shirt, bloodstained. A smear of blood on her face.

  ‘Are you hurt yourself?’ he managed.

  ‘No,’ she snapped, hauling herself out of the car. ‘Just the child.’

  Jenny had the crash cart beside him. With this amount of blood loss, cardiac arrest was a terrifying possibility.

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ the woman said. ‘Rachel Tilding. Who’s senior here?’

  She was asking because he wasn’t acting like a doctor. Roscoe, Barry, Jenny all looked in control. Not him.

  He made a huge effort and hauled himself back into his professional self. Terror was still there but it was on the backburner, waiting to surface when there was time.

  ‘IV,’ he managed, laying Kit on the trolley. The little boy’s hand had been roughly put in a sling to hold it high.

  A doctor...

  What had she done to Kit?

  ‘It’s only his hand.’ She was out of the car now, moving swiftly around to the trolley. ‘He smashed my window with a cricket ball, then reached in to try and get it.’

  Only his hand...but this amount of blood?

  ‘Straight to Theatre?’ Roscoe demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped back at Roscoe. ‘I’ll help if there’s no one else. I don’t know about parents. I didn’t have time to find out. Just this Tom...’

  ‘I’m Tom,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m his stepfather. He’s my responsibility.’

  ‘Stepfather...’ She glanced at him in stupefaction. ‘What sort of a...?’ And then she collected herself. ‘No matter. Kit needs a doctor, now.’

  ‘I’m a doctor. Tom Lavery.’

  ‘What the...you’re working as a doctor and employing that...that...’

  She obviously couldn’t find a word to describe Christine. Neither could he. Maybe there wasn’t one, but he and Christine were obviously grouped together. Dr Tilding’s look said Tom’s position in the hierarchy of life on earth was somewhere below pond scum.

  ‘Never mind,’ she snapped. ‘You can give me all the excuses in the world after we’ve seen to Kit’s hand. Let’s get him to Theatre. Now.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  AND THEN THINGS reassembled themselves. Sort of. This was a small country hospital but it was geared for emergencies, and many emergencies involved rapid blood loss.

  Kit had lost so much that cardiac arrest was still a real possibility. Treatment of his hand—apart from stemming the bleeding—had to wait until that threat was past.

  And in Rachel he had a godsend. She was an angry godsend, judgemental and furious, but she was a doctor.

  Maybe he could have coped alone—maybe—but he was acting on autopilot. A part of his brain seemed to have frozen. The sight of one little boy, unconscious, a child he’d learned to love, had knocked him sideways.

  It was an insidious thing, this love. It had crept up and caught him unawares, and loving came with strings. He couldn’t care for these kids—and love them—without his heart being wrenched, over and over again.

  It was lurching now, sickeningly, and after that one incredulous look, that one outburst of anger, Rachel had subtly taken control.

  As he went to put in the IV line his hand shook, and she took the equipment from him. ‘Get the monitors working,’ she told him. ‘I’ll take over here.’

  The cardiac monitors... He needed to set them up. He did, with speed. A shaking hand could manage pads and monitors.

  ‘Pain relief and anaesthetic,’ she said. ‘Do you have an anaesthetist?’

  ‘There’s only me,’ he told her.

  ‘Two of us, then,’ she said curtly. ‘Or one and a half if you’re emotionally involved. But I’m trusting you have a good nursing staff.’

  ‘The best,’ Roscoe growled, and she nodded acknowledgement. This was no time for false modesty and she obviously accepted it.

  And then Kit’s eyes flickered open again, fighting to focus. Falling on Rachel first. Terror came flooding back, and Rachel saw.

  ‘Hey, we found your Tom,’ she told him. ‘And here he is.’ Her anger and her judgement had obviously been set aside with the need for reassurance. She edged aside so the little boy could see him. ‘Kit, we’re going to fix your hand. The bleeding’s made you feel funny, and I know it hurts, but we’re giving you something that’ll make you feel better really fast. Tom’s just going to test your fingers. Will you do what he tells you?’

  And she stepped back, turning to the instrument tray, setting the scene so Kit could only see Tom.

  She was impelling him to steady. She was pushing him to do what he had to do.

  He had to focus and somehow he did.

  Appallingly, he was still seeing terror as well as pain in the little boy’s eyes. Legacy of his ghastly grandparents?

  ‘Hey, Kit, you’re here now, with me,’ he said as they rolled the trolley into Theatre. He touched the little boy’s face, willing the fear to dis
appear. ‘You’ve cut your hand but we’ll fix it. I know it hurts, but we’ll stop it hurting really soon.’

  ‘I broke... You’re not mad...?’

  ‘Dr Rachel tells me you broke her window,’ he managed. ‘I broke four windows when I was your age. I used to tell my mum and dad the cat did it. They didn’t believe me but they weren’t mad and neither am I. Accidents happen. Kit, can you tell me what you feel when I touch your fingers? Can you press back when I press? Here? Here?’

  He was now in professional mode—sort of—but the lurch in his stomach wasn’t going away.

  And the information he gained from Kit as they settled him into Theatre wasn’t helping.

  He was checking for damage to the tendons that ran through the palm and attached to the finger bones. Secondly, for nerve damage, which could result in permanent loss of function or sensation. Tom was applying gentle pressure to the tips of Kit’s fingers, asking him to push back.

  The responses weren’t good.

  And Rachel got it. She was focusing on the IV, on getting pain relief on board, but she was listening to Kit’s quavering answers. Knowing what they meant.

  ‘Okay, Dr Lavery, tell me the set-up,’ she said as Tom’s testing finished. ‘Do you have anyone here who can cope with paediatric plastics? Or someone who can get here fast?’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly. Stemming the bleeding seemed straightforward. It looked as if the radial artery had been nicked—it must have been to cause this amount of bleeding. They could fix that. But what his examination had told them was that Kit needed a plastic surgeon or a vascular surgeon or both if he wasn’t to lose part or all of the use of that hand.

  That meant evacuation. It was eight hours by road to Melbourne, ten to Sydney or Canberra. Shallow Bay wasn’t the most remote place in Australia but its position, nestled on the far south-east coast, surrounded by hundreds of miles of mountainous forests, meant that reaching skilled help could be a logistical nightmare.

  ‘Where?’ Rachel said, and he had to give her credit for incisiveness.

  ‘Sydney.’

  ‘You have air transfer?’

  ‘It’ll take medevac an hour to reach us in the chopper, but yes.’

  ‘Can someone organise that?’ she said to Roscoe. ‘Now?’ And then she turned back to the child she was treating and her voice gentled. ‘Kit, we’re going to get your hand bandaged now, and stop things hurting, but there’s a bit of damage deep inside that might make your fingers not as strong as they should be. We need to take you to a big hospital to get your hand mended.’

  ‘Tom can fix it.’ Kit’s voice quavered.

  ‘He can,’ she said, injecting her voice with confidence. ‘I know that. And so can I, because Tom and I are both doctors. If Tom agrees, I’ll do the first part now. But have you ever seen Tom sew something that’s ripped? Like a pair of jeans?’

  ‘He did once,’ Kit managed, trying gamely to sound normal. ‘Big stitches. It came apart again.’

  ‘Hey, how did I guess?’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘So Tom’s not very good at sewing and neither am I. Kit, there are things in your hand called tendons which make your fingers work. You’ve hurt them, so what you need is a doctor who’s really good at tiny stitches. Don’t worry, we’ll give you something that stops you feeling what we need to do. We’ll make sure nothing hurts, I promise. You’ll end up with a neat scar you’ll be able to show your friends, but a good needleworking doctor will make sure your fingers end up stronger than ever. So what that means is that we need to take you to Sydney.’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve just arrived at Shallow Bay and it looks a great place. But have you ever been in a helicopter?’

  ‘I... No.’

  ‘Then what an adventure. Your friends will be so jealous. Tom, will you be going with Kit, or is there someone he needs more?’

  And she looked straight at him.

  So did Kit.

  Is there someone he needs more?

  Her eyes were challenging. Angry? He didn’t get the anger, but he couldn’t afford to focus on it now.

  Kit needs his mother, he thought, and it was the belief he’d had reinforced about a thousand times in the last two years. But Claire was dead.

  Kit’s father was who knew where? Steve had been Claire’s folly. The responsibility was never going to be Steve’s.

  Kit’s grandparents? Claire’s parents? They’d glory in this drama. They’d use it against him and his fight for custody would start all over again.

  So he had to go with Kit, but to leave Shallow Bay... To leave two more needy children...

  ‘There’s no one but me,’ he said, and it nearly killed him to say it.

  ‘We’ll manage.’ It was Roscoe, gruff, stern, decisive. ‘You need to go, Doc. And hey, we have another doc here now.’

  ‘But Marcus. Henry. I can’t.’

  ‘They can stay at home,’ Roscoe told him. ‘We’ll find someone to stay with them.’

  ‘Not that childminder.’ When Rachel spoke to Kit she was gentleness itself but when she faced Tom he saw judgement that he’d left the kids with such a woman. ‘She’s unfit.’

  ‘She’s awful,’ Kit quavered. ‘I don’t like her.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Tom said, feeling helpless. He took Kit’s good hand and squeezed. ‘I’ll fix this.’ But how?

  ‘Their normal minder is Rose,’ Roscoe told Rachel. ‘She hurt her hip yesterday but she’s great. The kids love her. She’ll stay with them.’

  ‘She can’t,’ Tom said, option after option being discarded with increasing desperation. ‘Not by herself. Not with her hip, and I can’t trust Christine to help her. And with the field day at Ferndale—how many people are free this weekend?’ He sounded desperate—he knew he did—but he was torn in so many directions. Kit needed him, but so did Marcus and Henry. As a parent, he was failing on all counts.

  ‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said, but he was starting to sound unsure. He turned to Rachel, explaining Tom’s dilemma for him. ‘The annual show at Ferndale is a huge deal and almost all the locals go. There’s an added problem, too. These kids have had a bit of a tough time in the past and they need to stay in their own beds. Farming them out’s not an option. I’d offer but my wife’s almost nine months pregnant. What if she goes into labour?’

  ‘You can’t do it,’ she said bluntly. She was still looking at Tom as if he was something she’d found at the back of the fridge, something that had been mouldering for months. ‘So who can these boys depend on?’

  ‘Me,’ Tom said bleakly.

  ‘Which is why we have one child with a sliced hand and two children with no carer.’

  ‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said again, but Tom felt ill. Rachel’s disdain was obvious and he deserved it. Who could he ask, given this amount of notice?

  But the expression on Rachel’s face had changed. She looked...as if she was about to step into a chasm? It was a momentary look and then her expression became one of resolution. As if a decision had been made, but the decision was scary.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said briskly, as if what was about to be said needed to be said before she changed her mind. ‘Decision. If there’s no other option, I’ll accept responsibility. The boys don’t know me, but I’m dependable. I can’t imagine you’ll need to stay in Sydney for more than a couple of days.’

  ‘I can’t... They won’t...’

  ‘I’m not offering to do this on my own,’ she said, still brisk. ‘Nor should you agree if I did. There’s no way you should trust me. But if Rose of the hurt hip is otherwise okay... Would she agree to stay with the boys to give them the security they need? If she’s willing, then I’ll stay too. I can do housework, anything physical, and I can care for Rose as well as the boys. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor if I need to.
I’ve had experience of living with kids. I can cope with anything they throw at me.’

  ‘I can’t ask that of you,’ Tom said, but she skewered him with a look that said he needed to get his act together.

  ‘So what are your options?’

  There weren’t any.

  ‘Rachel, with Tom away, we’ll be needing you as a doctor,’ Roscoe said, sounding stunned. ‘I know you’re not supposed to start until Monday but there’s no one else. You know our last doc left us in the lurch. She had one of those scholarships you’re on, but bang, she got herself pregnant and her fiancée paid her way out. So there’s only Tom. And now there’s only you.’

  Then his face cleared. ‘But maybe it would work. Rose isn’t disabled, just sore. She lives in the third cottage down on your bay and she’s slept at Tom’s before. There’s a spare bedroom, and I imagine you could use Tom’s bed. There’s an intercom from Tom’s living room to the nurses’ station here, so someone can always listen in if you need to be at the hospital. That works if Tom has to fix a drip or something at three in the morning. Tom works around his family. I guess you can, too.’

  ‘I guess I can,’ Rachel said.

  ‘I can’t ask...’ Tom managed, but he was cut off.

  ‘You have no choice.’ Once again he heard anger, but she was moving on. ‘Okay, Kit, let’s get your hand fixed up ready for your helicopter ride. Dr Lavery, I’ll need your help to stabilise things, but then you need to go home and pack.’

  ‘You’ve only just arrived,’ Tom said. He was feeling as if the ground beneath him was no longer solid. Who was in charge here? Not him. ‘You can’t...’

  ‘Dr Lavery, I have no idea yet of what you can and can’t do,’ she said with asperity. ‘But me... Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do without seeing me in operation. Do you or do you not need a childminder to stay with Rose?’

  ‘I... Yes.’

  ‘And is Rose dependable?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So if I turned out to be a terrible person...would she kick me out?’

  ‘She would,’ Roscoe said from behind them. He was starting to smile—problem solved? ‘If she was worried I dare say she’d boss me and Lizzy to move, with or without our new baby. She’s one strong lady.’