She’d reached him.

She was right by him. Her arm was brushing his.

She glanced sideways up at him.

Mistake.

The smile had faded. He was looking down at her with such an expression…

She stopped. Of course she stopped. When a man was looking at a woman as Dev was looking at her…

‘Dev.’

‘I can’t,’ he told her, and she felt her heart twist within. His words held a pain that was well nigh unbearable.

‘I’m just a woman, Dev,’ she said softly. ‘What’s the problem?’

Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories! Marion writes Medical Romance™ as well as Tender Romance™. Initially she used different names, so if you’re looking for past books search also for author Trisha David. In her non-writing life Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, kids, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive. As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories, her stories allow her to travel, and if ever there was one advertisement for following your dream she’d be it! You can contact Marion at www.marionlennox.com

Recent titles by the same author:

RESCUED BY A MILLIONAIRE

(Tender Romance)

THE DOCTOR’S SPECIAL TOUCH

(Medical Romance)

THE DOCTOR’S RESCUE MISSION

(Medical Romance)

THE LAST-MINUTE MARRIAGE

(Tender Romance)

Bride by Accident

Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS here.

Just as she saw him in her dreams, he was beside her. His face was more deeply tanned than she remembered. Laughter lines were deeply etched at the corners of his eyes.

She couldn’t remember laughter lines.

He had a lovely face, she thought mistily, struggling through the fog of returning consciousness. Strong. Seemingly almost chiselled. His eyes were the same deep, impenetrable grey she’d fallen in love with the moment he’d smiled at her. And his gorgeous mouth. He’d kissed so well, before…before…

The fog receded. He couldn’t be here.

But he was. His eyes weren’t smiling, but she hadn’t expected that. Not any more. She could scarcely remember the time when those eyes hadn’t been clouded in despair.

But something was different. He was looking at her in concern. As if it was possible for him to care.

It was she who should be concerned. She was the one who cared. She’d loved him to despair and back again.

She’d lost.

But now, magically, he was here. His hands were gripping hers as he tried to make her focus. She could feel the warmth of him. The strength.

The strength?

‘Corey,’ she murmured, but his face didn’t change. Still there was a concern that she didn’t recognise—didn’t understand.

‘Is your breathing OK?’ he asked. ‘Does it hurt to breathe?’

It wasn’t Corey. The voice wasn’t the same. It was deeper. Older?

What cruel joke was this?

She was so confused. She tried to make herself speak, but it was so hard.

‘Let me be,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll be fine, Corey. I’m always fine.’

A voice called then from behind them. It was another voice she didn’t know, loud and male and fearful.

‘You’ve gotta come, Doc.’

It was over. The dream was receding, as she knew it must. Corey—her Corey—put a hand on her forehead and smoothed her dark curls back from her face.

‘Lie still,’ he told her. ‘Help’s coming.’

Sure.

It was the sort of disaster every doctor dreaded.

Dr Devlin O’Halloran rose from the woman he’d been checking and stared around, trying desperately to decide where to go next. The woman was dazed but her breathing was fine, which was all he had time to check. Everything else had to wait.

Triage. Priorities. The problem was there was only one doctor—him—and this disaster might well need a dozen.

This place was so isolated.

Karington National Park, a Queensland paradise where rain-forest met sea, was said to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. The locals who lived here loved it. Tourists thought it was magic.

But the steep cliffs and high mountains meant that the roads here were treacherous, especially at the end of the rainy season when the roadsides were sodden and liable to crumble. The logging truck had come around the bend too fast. One logging truck with an unstable load meeting one school bus with twenty kids on board.

And one tiny, two-seater car with a pregnant driver.

These trucks weren’t supposed to use this route, Dev thought savagely. It might be more direct than the inland road, but it was far more dangerous. By the look of it, the truck had swerved to miss the car. It hadn’t, quite. It had clipped the front, then slammed into the cliff. The logs had been thrown off with force, and they’d rolled down against the school bus. The logs were vast eucalypts from the farmed timberlands north of the national park. They’d crushed the side of the bus and they’d pushed it sideways off the road.

Towards the sea thirty feet below.

They were desperately lucky that the bus hadn’t slid right down. Now it was lying on its side, balanced precariously on the cliff face.

Likely to slide further.

This was chaos.

He couldn’t cope.

Dev had been at a house call only minutes from here when the call had come. An emergency transmitter on the bus console—installed because one of the schoolkids was a severe asthmatic—was linked directly to Dev’s cellphone. Jake had obviously hit the transmit button and yelled that he was needed. Nothing else. The transmission had ended before he’d got details. So Dev had headed along the bus route, expecting an asthma attack, swearing at Jake for not telling him more.

And found this.

Chaos.

There was no one but him.

The truck driver was sitting on the roadside, shocked into immobility. Jake, the local bus driver, was staring at the bus as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.

Children were clambering out the back window of the bus—using it as an emergency exit. Someone seemed to be lifting them out from the inside. They were helping each other down.

Jake was useless.

The bus could slide at any minute.

‘Jake, will you help get these kids out?’ he snapped. ‘I want everyone off the bus—now.’

Why hadn’t Jake already done it? It had been almost five minutes since he’d called.

There were ten or twelve kids on the verge now, clustered in a shocked, confused huddle.

There were still more on the bus. If it slid…

It mustn’t slide. Not yet.

He was helping the kids down from the back windows now, hauling them out, swinging them down to the roadside, giving each a cursory check as he went. The children were battered, bleeding, crying, but there was no time for comfort. He’d practically fallen over the young woman so he’d checked her first, but getting the kids out had to be the highest priority.

Damn, why hadn’t Jake done this before anything? he thought as he realised just how precariously the bus was balanced. The man must be more shocked than he’d thought.

Maybe he was lucky Jake had had the capacity to call him at all.

The kids were still emerging, sliding out into his arms as he lifted them down. Some were crying, but most were so shocked they were simply following instinct. They were from the local primary school—kids aged between six and twelve.

He needed help. He had to get more help.

He had to keep pulling kids out. The bigger ones were out now but someone inside was handing the littlies out to him. The teacher?

‘Come on, you can do it. You must.’

Yeah. The teacher. Colin Jeffries. Devlin recognised his voice, giving shaky directions from inside.

‘I think…I’ve got all I can,’ Colin called, his voice wavering. ‘There’s a couple more trapped but I can’t…I can’t…And Jodie’s in real trouble.’

‘OK, come out yourself,’ Dev called.

Colin did, sliding awkwardly backwards out through the bus’s rear window—the emergency exit that was the only way anyone could get out. Dev moved to help him. In his mid-fifties, his suit ripped and spattered with blood, Colin was bleeding profusely from a deep gash on his face, and he was hauling a kid out after him.

‘Jodie needs help,’ he told Dev, and he laid Jodie down at Devlin’s feet before sitting—abruptly—himself.

There was blood everywhere. Far too much blood.

Some of it was the schoolteacher’s. More than enough to tip him over into unconsciousness, Dev thought grimly.

But the child’s blood was pumping. Triage. Jodie.

‘Get some pressure on your head,’ Dev snapped at Colin. ‘Put both hands against the bleeding and push—hard.’

He was doing the same himself, pressing hard against Jodie’s shoulder. Hell, he had to stop this.

But there was so much need.

Priorities.

There were kids all around him, milling, seeing him as the only authority figure.

‘Jake?’ he called, but the bus driver didn’t respond. The driver was staring at the bus as if he was seeing something he’d never seen before.

Dev didn’t even have time to shake him back to reality.

OK. There was only him. He raised his voice as he worked over Jodie. Most of these kids had been his patients for the three years he’d been practising medicine in the town. He knew their parents from childhood. They knew him.

‘Can the oldest—Katy and Marty, that must be you—collect the kids together? Sit everyone down well away from the bus. We’ll get your parents here soon. But first, Marty, can you run and get my bag from the back seat of my car? It’s not locked. Run.’

That was all he had time for. He wasn’t looking at the kids. Or at the teacher. This was Jodie—Jodie McKechnie, a tiny ten-year-old who he knew well, and her situation was desperate.

There was blood pumping from her shoulder. Bright arterial blood.

It had to be a torn artery.

Jake was still standing immobile. Helpless.

There was no time here for helplessness.

‘Jake, grab my phone.’ He gestured to his belt and then as Jake stared at him as if he didn’t know what he was talking about, he yelled. ‘Jake, grab the phone. Now!’

Jake moved. Trancelike.

There was no time for sympathy. ‘Call the hospital,’ he snapped. ‘I want every available person at the hospital out here now. Tell them that. And then help get those kids clear. Colin says there’s still kids on the bus. You have to get them off. You must.’

But that was all he had time for. Jodie. He was losing Jodie.

Hell, he needed pressure. He’d have to clamp blood vessels. He had to stop this bleeding.

There was still chaos around him.

But he could only do what he could manage now. If he didn’t stop the bleeding within minutes, Jodie would be dead.

Marty appeared at his side with his doctor’s bag—already open—and Devlin blessed him.

‘Help Katy now,’ he told him.

That was all he had time for. He blocked out the remaining chaos. He had one child to care for.

He had one life in his hands and he could think of nothing else.

Emma lifted her head with extreme caution. What on earth had happened?

Where was she?

She stared around her, stunned. Cautiously she pushed herself to a sitting position, willing the fog to clear so she could finally figure out what must have happened.

There’d been a crash. There must have been a crash.

But she couldn’t remember. All she knew was that she was sprawled on the road. She remembered lying still, trying to make her head work, exploring every piece of her body, unable to believe that she was still alive.

Until the voice had arrived. The face. She remembered the face.

The face above her had cemented her feeling that she was in some other space. Not here. Not in reality. The face was her husband’s.

And Corey was dead.

No. He wasn’t dead. He was here.

Maybe she was dead.

No, she told herself fiercely, trying hard to get a grip on reality.

Corey was dead. She wasn’t.

Someone was snapping orders, fast, harsh. The man she’d thought was Corey?

Someone was crying. A child. It was a thin, fragile sobbing and it helped her haul herself together. It helped ground her.

The fog receded, just a little.

She’d definitely been in a car smash. This was real.

Somewhere a child was terrified. Did that mean she had to pull herself together and do something about it?

She put her hand to her head and felt, gingerly, all over. Ouch. OK, she’d been hit on the head and maybe she’d been out of it for a minute or so. But she was OK. She was fine.

She moved her head a little and paused.

All right, not fine. But she was OK, and OK was all she had to be going on with.

But this wasn’t just her. She put a hand on her bulge and thought in sudden fierce anxiety, My baby has to be OK, too.

As if in response she felt a kick, for all the world like an indignant reminder that she should take more care of her precious cargo.

‘Hey, this wasn’t my fault,’ she told her bulge as she pushed herself up onto knees that were decidedly jelly-like.

She used the car—her mangled car—to haul herself higher. To her feet.

Her car was a mangled wreck. She’d been lucky to get out alive.

She was alive. What next?

The face had said to lie still.

How could she?

The child’s sobbing was a trickling stream of fear. What had the professor said at the kids’ hospital where she’d done her medical internship? If a kid comes through the front door screaming, he can usually be put at the end of the queue. It’s the quiet ones you look at first. Don’t ignore the quiet ones.

Did that mean she could ignore the sobbing?

No. This sobbing wasn’t a hysterical scream. It was a sound of pure terror.

Where was the face? Where was the man she’d thought was Corey?

What had happened?

She stared around her, growing more appalled by the minute.

There were logs everywhere, vast, bare trunks, each maybe two feet thick and twenty feet long. They were sprawled over the road like bowled ninepins.

A guy—maybe the truck driver?—was retching over on the verge.

Another guy—a little man with a white face and a ripped shirt—was frantically punching numbers into a mobile phone.

A third adult was crouched by the lorry, clutching his head. There was a crimson stain blooming under his hands.

And then there were the children.

One of the children was lying on the road and someone else—another man, the face?—was working frantically over him. Over her?

Her. A girl.

The little girl was wearing pink tights, stained crimson. There was a medical bag spread open and she could see the face was trying to attach clamps.

He looked so like Corey, she thought, the fog drifting. If he was Corey then he must be a doctor, which would explain…

He wasn’t Corey. He was an unknown doctor, working desperately to save a life. She was concussed. She was seeing things.

She wasn’t imagining the blood. There was far too much blood.

She could help. She took a step towards him and then she paused, her medical training slamming in.

No. This wasn’t about one child. She had to figure out priorities.

Triage.

Somehow she forced her attention from the doctor and his small patient. Her eyes started moving methodically from child to child, assessing as she went.

These kids had all obviously clambered or been lifted from the wreck of the bus. Scratches, lacerations, shock. She did a visual check of each child as well as she could. Looking for desperate need.

Damn, why didn’t her legs want to hold her up?

They had to. They had no choice.

The guy with the bloody head—an older guy in a suit—was looking as if he was in real trouble. He was sitting by the bus as if he’d collapsed there.

Maybe she should go to him first.

His situation didn’t look immediately life-threatening.

Assess the whole situation.

The kids were all moving. No one seemed to be unconscious. There was lots of blood, but nothing that looked like uncontrolled bleeding. A couple of children were cradling their arms. There’d be fractures, she thought. Lacerations.

Her eyes moved swiftly across the group. Nothing too urgent, she thought, moving on.

OK, go to the guy with the suit and the bloody head, or help the doctor.

Maybe that was where she was needed most. She could help the doctor with the clamps. There was so much blood. He was fighting against the odds.

But still she held back. This whole assessment had taken only seconds. She’d checked the people. Now assess the scene for further danger.

Her training—taking in the whole situation before deciding on action—made her eyes move on. To the bus. It lay precariously on the cliff edge, with logs pushing against it. The doctor must have been moving to the bus to check it, she thought, and then been deflected by a need that had been even more urgent. A child bleeding to death.

The bus could slide down.

Was it empty? It had to be empty.

How to check?

She forced her feet to walk across to the guy with the phone. Somehow. Her legs really didn’t want to hold her up.

The guy looked as if he was trying to make a phone call. He was punching numbers.

‘Is everyone out of the bus?’ she asked.

He turned and stared at her as if he didn’t understand what she was saying. As if she was a voice without a body attached. Then, without answering, he turned back to the phone and started punching numbers again.

Too many numbers. The job was too much for him. His fingers were all over the place. Achieving nothing.

He must be in deep shock.

Who was he trying to ring? Emergency services? Surely someone had rung them.

Here was a priority.

There was no time for gentleness. Emma took a deep breath, told her legs to stay working—she felt as if her body belonged to someone else—and she lifted the phone from the man’s nerveless fingers. She didn’t have time to treat him with kid gloves. The bus could slide at any minute.

‘Is everyone out of the bus?’ she demanded, in a voice that could have been heard interstate. It wasn’t a voice that could be ignored.

Especially when she was two inches from his face.

He gaped.

But he didn’t respond.

She lowered her voice to threatening.

‘You want me to slap you? Answer me! Is the bus empty?’

It worked. Sort of. She’d shocked him out of his stupor, but he was still no use. ‘N-no,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t…I don’t know.’

He reached for the phone again, as if that was all he could think of to do.

Maybe he didn’t know whether the bus was empty. Maybe he couldn’t even manage a phone call. Emma took a step back, held onto the phone, punched the emergency code and waited until a female voice responded.

‘Emergency. What service do you require?’ The voice was clinically efficient and Emma blessed her for it. Maybe this call had already been made but she was taking no chances.

‘All of them,’ she snapped. ‘A school bus has been crushed by logs a few miles north of Karington on the coast road. The bus is threatening to slide off the cliff. This guy will give you details but we need every service now, including cranes to secure the bus. I want ambulances, medics, police, heavy machinery to stop the bus from sliding. There may be kids trapped on the bus. Get out the army if you must, but get help for us now.’

She’d done something at least, which was almost amazing in itself. Her body didn’t feel as if it belonged to her.

But she had to go on. She handed the phone back to the dazed bus driver and instructed her legs to walk forward a bit further. To the bus.

That meant she had to pass the guy on the ground treating the little girl. The doctor.

He didn’t look up. She looked down and saw what he was doing.

So much blood.

He needed help. To apply pressure and clamp arteries himself…he needed someone else.

But the bus could slide.

He was searching, desperately searching, for blood vessels. Priorities. Too many children.

She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Triage. If there were still kids on the bus and it slid…

She couldn’t let herself be deflected.

She’d reached the guy with the bloodied face now—the middle-aged man in a suit. Maybe a schoolteacher? There was blood streaming from a gash on his forehead and she stooped to see, hauling her jacket off to form a pad as she knelt.

‘You were on the bus?’ she asked, pushing the pad hard over his face. ‘Lie down flat.’ She pushed him down and started pressing. ‘Is everyone off?’

He groaned. ‘There’s still a couple…I think. I’m not sure but there were a couple of children I couldn’t reach. Before…before…’

He wavered. He was suffering from blood loss as well as shock, Emma thought, and he was close to sliding into unconsciousness.

‘Stay still,’ she told him again, propelling him backwards so he was lying flat. She pushed hard on the pad but she was already looking around to find someone who could take over. It was an ugly gash, deep and ragged, but she had to move on.

The two drivers were useless. Which left only the kids.

He’d have to do this himself.

She guided his hands up to the makeshift pad. ‘Push down on this and don’t let go,’ she told him. ‘Push hard.’

It was the best she could do. She straightened—and there was a child beside her. A little girl, who only reached her shoulder. Skinny. Pig tails. Really thick glasses.

About twelve.

‘What do you want us to do?’ the girl said, matter-of-factly, and Emma could have kissed her. The bus driver and the lorry driver were worse than useless. The teacher was too badly injured to help. She had to use this child.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Katy.’

‘Katy, you’re doing great,’ Emma told her. ‘I need a leader and you’re it. Can you organise the big kids to check the little ones? Tell everyone that they need to cuddle anyone who’s hurt. Gently. Lay anyone down who needs to lie down and tell other kids to stay with them. Organise everyone into pairs so that everyone has someone who’s looking after them. If I find anyone else on the bus, can I send them out to you?’

‘Sure. Me and Marty will look after them,’ Katy said. ‘Do you want someone to push down on Mr Jeffries’s pad?’

If there had been a medal to hand, Emma would have pinned it on her right then.

‘Yes,’ she told her.

‘I’ll call Chrissy Martin to look after Mr Jeffries while I look after the others,’ Katy said. ‘She reckons she’s going to be a doctor and she doesn’t get sick when anyone bleeds.’

‘Are all the kids out of the bus?’ Please…

‘There’s two still left,’ Katy told her, and Emma forgot about medals. ‘Kyle Connor and Suzy Larkin. I was just coming to look for them.’ She looked dubiously at the bus. ‘You reckon it’s safe to go back inside?’

‘I’ll look for you,’ Emma told her, staring with her at the bus with a sinking heart. ‘You have work to do.’

So did she.

Someone had to climb into the bus.

Kyle and Suzy. Two children. Two children on the bus.

There was sea under the bus. Thirty feet down. What was stopping the bus from sliding into the sea?

Nothing.

She looked back at the rest of the adults to see if there was anyone who could possibly help her.

Not the doctor. If he left what he was doing…well, he couldn’t.

The other adults? One sick, one too stunned to be any use at all, one injured.

Not a snowball’s chance in a wildfire of any help from this lot.

She couldn’t ask the kids.

Which left her.

She gulped.

‘Don’t slide,’ she told the bus. Stupidly. Inconsequentially. ‘Don’t you dare slide. I haven’t come all this way to get squashed.’

Squashed wasn’t a good thought and she couldn’t afford to think it. If she hesitated any more she wouldn’t do it. There was no choice.

Two kids.

She reached up, grabbed the top of the window-frame and hauled herself up and inside the bus.

She was met by chaos.

A bus, lying on its side at a thirty or forty degree angle on the side edge of a cliff wasn’t the most organised place to be at the best of times. And this one had been crushed by rolling logs.

There was shattered glass, twisted metal and seats, satchels spilling schoolbooks…

How had so many kids got out of here alive? Emma asked herself as she tried to get her bearings.

The frame was still almost intact. That’d be why. There’d be cuts from the broken glass but not much impact damage.

What else might have caused major trauma?

There were a couple of logs that had smashed right inside.

Maybe they’d missed everyone.

Yeah, right.

But maybe they had. She couldn’t hear anything.

‘Is anyone in here?’ she called, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt.

Nothing.

Maybe Katy had been mistaken. Please.

She bit her lip—then slid her way slowly down, gingerly, horribly conscious of the fact that the bus was precariously balanced thirty feet above the sea. But there was nothing she could do about that little nightmare. She couldn’t think about it.

She did think about it.

No matter. She couldn’t let it matter. She worked slowly down the rows of seats, searching, searching…

Thank God she was wearing sensible clothes. Her oversized jeans and windcheater and her sneakers protected her from the worst of the broken glass. If she’d been in summer dress and sandals she’d be have been cut to ribbons.

Where were they?

Katy had said there were two kids. Katy looked the sort of kid who’d miss nothing.

And as she thought it, she found the first.

She almost missed him. A vast log had smashed through a window, crushing the child against the far bus wall. Crushing him so that she could scarcely see him. The log had rolled back as the bus had settled, but Kyle had been left where he’d been crushed.

No.

He must have died instantly, Emma thought, sickened beyond belief. A little boy, seven or eight…

Bright copper hair.

Dead.

She swallowed and swallowed again. Katy had said his name was Kyle.

Kyle.

She was crying now. Tears were sliding uselessly down her cheeks and she couldn’t stop them. She didn’t try.

‘Kyle.’ She whispered his name, then put her hand across to touch the little boy’s face. His face was almost untouched but the rest of him…No. She checked for a pulse, but it was no use. She was searching for something she knew had irretrievably gone.

Useless.

Her touch turned into a tiny gesture of blessing. It was all she could do for him.

Doctors should grow accustomed to death.

Doctors never did.

Two kids. She had to move on. Katy had said there were two kids. She swiped away the useless tears and went on searching.

Where…? Had someone been thrown out?

Where?

‘Suzy?’ she called.

Nothing.

She was reaching the front of the bus now, the lowest point—checking, checking.

And then she heard…

It was a rasping, choking sound, so slight it had been almost lost in the sounds she herself was making as the broken glass crunched under her.

Where had the sound come from?

Further forward.

Here.

She paused, staring down in horror.

Suzy.

The little girl had been hit. Not like Kyle—she hadn’t been completely crushed. But the log had slammed against her face.

Her eyes were OK. She was staring upward, frantic. Caught between two seats, she hadn’t been able to call for help.

Of course she hadn’t. It was all she could do to breathe, Emma realised, sliding down so she was right against her. Every breath was a gurgling, gasping attempt to gain enough air to survive.

She was failing. There was a dreadful hue to her skin, which was mute evidence that her efforts weren’t enough.

The log had smashed her cheek, her mouth, her throat. The damaged flesh would be swelling, making breathing more difficult every second.

‘It’s OK,’ Emma told her, catching her hands and trying to sound assured, not panicked. ‘You’re OK, now, Suzy. I’m a doctor. I’m here to help you breathe. It’s OK.’

The child stared wildly up at her, her eyes reflecting the terror that Emma felt.

And then, as if she’d held on for long enough—for too long—she fought for one last dreadful breath and she slipped into unconsciousness.

No.

Unconsciousness meant death, Emma thought desperately. Without fighting, how could Suzy get air past the damage? How could she get the oxygen she so desperately needed?

Emma slipped her fingers into the little girl’s throat, frantically hoping that she might find loose teeth or bloody tissue that could be cleared. What she felt there made her lift her fingers back in despair. It wasn’t just loose teeth or blood blocking the trachea. This was major damage. Air wasn’t going to get into these lungs via the child’s mouth or nose.

What next?

The guy outside had a doctor’s bag. He’d have a scalpel, maybe a tracheostomy tube…

No. It’d take too long to call—explain—get the bag in here. The child was dying under her hands.

She had seconds.

The breathing was a rasping, thin whistle, each one shorter than the last. The little girl’s body was convulsing as she fought for breath.

The fight was lost.

She had to do something now! She stared wildly round. What? Anything. Anything.

A child’s pencil-case…

She hauled it open, ripping at the zip so hard it broke. What? What?

A pencil sharpener. A ballpoint pen.

She hauled them out, sobbing in desperation. Maybe.

She had her fingernail in the tiny screw of the sharpener, twisting, praying, and the tiny screw moved in her hands. In seconds she had the screw out, and the tiny blade of the sharpener slid free into her palm.

She had a blade. A crazy, tiny blade but a blade. Dear God. Now she needed a tracheostomy tube.

She hauled the ink tube from the ballpoint.

OK, so now she had basic equipment. Sort of.

How sharp was her blade?

There was no time to ask any more questions. It was this or nothing. Suzy was jerking towards death.

Go.

And in seconds it was done—the roughest, most appalling tracheostomy Emma was ever likely to see, ever likely to perform, in her life.

Where was her medical training now? Was she mad?

To cut an incision in Suzy’s throat with a rough blade from a pencil sharpener, to insert a ballpoint casing that still had ink stains and teeth marks on the end where its owner had thoughtfully chewed while doing his schoolwork—how could it possibly work?

But wonderfully, magically, it did. Within seconds of the ballpoint casing entering her rough incision site, Suzy’s breathing rerouted through the plastic.

The awful, non-productive gasping ceased.

The child was still unconscious but her breathing was settling to a rhythm. The dreadful blue was fading.

She’d done it. She relaxed, just for a moment.

The bus shifted, lurched, and she forgot about relaxing.

For a moment she thought they’d plummet together and all she thought was, What a waste. What a waste of a truly amazing piece of surgery.

She’d succeeded, she thought wildly, terror and jubilation crazily mixed. Suzy could live. There was no way this bus could plummet now.

‘Let’s just keep really still,’ she told herself. Not that she had a choice. She was holding the ballpoint casing right where it had to be held. If she moved, Suzy’s breathing would stop. As simple as that.

She couldn’t move.

The little girl’s eyes flickered open, and Emma put her spare hand on the child’s forehead to stop her jerking as she regained consciousness.

‘Suzy, you’re fine. But you mustn’t move. I’ve put a tube in your throat to help you breathe but you mustn’t move an inch. Not an inch.’

The child’s eyes widened.

Emma was right there.

‘I’m not moving either, Suzy,’ she told her. ‘We’re stuck on the bus and we’re waiting for someone to come and get us out. Who do you think will come first? I’d like the fire brigade. Wouldn’t you? All those bells and sirens sound great, and I love firemen’s helmets.’

Suzy’s eyes said she was crazy. Maybe she was crazy.

‘What shall we do while we wait?’ Emma continued, still holding Emma’s forehead firmly. ‘Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Emma O’Halloran. I’m a doctor from England and I’m here to meet my baby’s extended family. Only they don’t know I exist. Do you think they’ll be pleased to learn about my baby?’

When help came it came as a cavalry.

Daphne, the lady in charge of Karington’s telephone emergency response, had rung everyone she could think of. Emma had said send the army and Daphne hadn’t done that, but only because there wasn’t an army to hand. She’d sent everyone else.

The sirens were faint at first, but they built until it sounded as if the entire emergency services for the country were heading this way.

Devlin had Jodie’s bleeding stopped—almost. He was concentrating now on setting up an intravenous line. He had to get fluids into Jodie’s little body if she wasn’t to die of shock. Given the amount of blood loss, heart failure was a real possibility.

He had his jacket off, and it was spread over the child to keep her warm. He set the drip to maximum—saline and plasma. Thank God he never travelled without them. Even so, his supplies were severely limited. So, as the cavalry arrived, the relief he felt was almost overwhelming.

The local ambulance was the first to appear. As the two paramedics, Helen and Don, parked their vehicle and ran across to meet him, he decided that he’d never been more grateful to see anyone in his life.

There was no time for greetings. ‘I need more plasma here,’ he said curtly. ‘And I need her warmed. Do you have warmed blankets on board?’

Helen, the senior officer, looked down at Jodie and nodded.

‘Yep. Will do. But it looks like you’ve done the hard part.’ She knelt and placed her stethoscope on Jodie’s chest and listened—something Devlin hadn’t had time to do. But what she heard was obviously reassuring. ‘It’s sounding steady,’ she told him. ‘Don, can you take over here? Dev, what else?’

Thank heaven for Helen, Devlin thought. In her early fifties, Helen had been born and bred a dairy farmer. But after her husband died in a tractor accident and her kids left home for the city, she’d retrained as an ambulance officer. Her decision to turn to medicine meant Karington had an ambulance team second to none.

What else? She was asking for the next priority and he hadn’t had time to think of one.

But it was staring them both in the face. Sort of. The quarter of it they could see above the clifftop.

‘The bus,’ he started, and then paused. As if his mention of it had caused a reaction, the bus gave a long, rolling shudder—as though it was about to topple.

Helen made a move towards it but Devlin held her back.

‘I think everyone’s out.’

‘They’re not all out.’

It was the child, Katy. She was crouched on the roadside beside her schoolteacher, pressing Emma’s jacket against the gash on his head as Emma had shown her. Now she looked up, her eyes filling with tears that it seemed she’d been holding back until now. Somehow.

‘The pregnant lady’s on the bus,’ she told them. ‘I told her that Kyle and Suzy were still on the bus and she climbed in after them. She hasn’t come out. I told her that Chrissy would do this, but Chrissy was sick so I have to do it. But I don’t know what the pregnant lady’s doing.’

Devlin did a fast sift of available information. ‘The pregnant lady?’

How many pregnant ladies could there be? His eyes moved to the woman he’d seen first—the woman who’d been lying beside her crushed car. He’d almost fallen over her as he’d run.

Her car was still there. Of course. It was mangled past repair.

The woman wasn’t.

He’d thought she was only semi-conscious.

How could she be on the bus? He’d told her to lie still. She looked as if she could have been badly injured.

But it had been such a fleeting impression. She was a young woman, he thought, and she’d been badly battered in the crash. She had dark curls, bunched back with ribbon, big green eyes that were too big for her shocked, white face, a smear of blood on her forehead.

She’d been pregnant. Very pregnant.

She needed medical attention.

‘She’s on the bus?’ he said again, blankly.

‘Yes,’ Katy told him, still fighting back tears of reaction ‘I was going to get on and look for Kyle and Suzy myself, but she told me I had to look after Mr Jeffries and the younger kids. She said she’d go. But…she hasn’t come out. Do you think it’s going to fall?’

She started to cry.

CHAPTER TWO

‘IS THERE someone inside?’

The call echoed through the smashed bus and no words had ever sounded sweeter.

Emma had listened to the sirens approaching. She’d heard vehicles stop, people talking, urgent voices, kids crying. And now there was a voice, calling through the shattered back window. It was the voice of the man she’d thought was Corey.

It wasn’t Corey. She must have been stupid to think it was.

Whoever it was, at least it was help.

‘They’re here,’ she told Suzy.

Suzy couldn’t answer. Of course she couldn’t. But the little girl’s bravery defied description. She was following orders to the letter, not moving a fraction. Her eyes were locked onto Emma’s, and Emma knew that contact was dreadfully important.

So was the contact Emma’s fingers were making. She was holding the ballpoint as if it was the most precious thing in the world. As indeed it was. It was the fine thread between life and death.

And now it seemed as if life might just win. Might…

‘We’re in here,’ she called, trying to make her voice assured. Mature. In charge. ‘Suzy and I are here, just waiting for rescue. We’re hoping for the fire brigade.’

There was a moment’s hesitation.

‘Is Kyle in there with you?’

Lightness faded. There was no way to dress this up to make it less brutal. She tightened her grip on Suzy’s forehead, and forced herself to respond.

‘Kyle’s been crushed,’ she said flatly. ‘He’s dead. He must have died instantly.’

There was a moment’s silence. An awful silence while those outside the bus took in the awfulness.

Then another question, as if he was afraid to ask.

‘Is Suzy OK?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Emma said, forcing her voice to sound firm and sure. ‘But we’ve had some problems. I’ve performed a tracheostomy. I’m holding a ballpoint casing in position to help her breathe. We can’t move.’

There was an even longer silence at that.

‘You’ve performed a tracheostomy?’

‘Yes. Her face has been badly hurt. But she’ll be fine, just as soon as you can get her out of here.’

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Emma.’ What did he want? she thought grimly. Proof of medical qualifications?

‘You’re the pregnant lady who was driving the Kia?’

‘That’s me.’ She smiled down at Suzy and tried again to force lightness into her voice. ‘So there’s me, there’s my bulge and there’s Suzy. We’d appreciate it if you could get us out as soon as possible. Please.’

‘We’ll do our best.’ There were sounds of an argument outside the bus but she couldn’t make out exactly what was being said. A few voices, mixed.

‘Miss?’ It was another voice. Lower. Deeper.

Different.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m Greg Nunn from the fire brigade.’

That was good news.

‘We hoped the fire brigade would come,’ Emma said, speaking to Suzy as much as to the voice outside. ‘If we have a fire engine, then we think that anything’s possible. We’re very pleased to hear from you, Mr Nunn. Suzy and I were hoping we might get rescued by the fire brigade—and here you are.’

Only they weren’t quite close enough. ‘We can’t come in,’ Greg told her. ‘No one can until the bus is secure. This bus isn’t too stable.’

Her smile faded a bit. Not too stable…

‘We know that,’ she said in some asperity. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Can you lift the little girl out?’

‘I told you, I can’t. First, we’re right down at the front of the bus and I’m not very good at climbing and lifting. Second, I’m holding a tracheostomy tube in place.’

‘Can you come out yourself?’

He had to be joking.

‘No,’ she said flatly.

‘If she’s holding a tracheostomy tube in place, she can’t,’ the first voice said. The doctor?

‘Who are you?’ she asked—and it was suddenly absurdly important that she knew. He had a doctor’s bag. He had to be a doctor.

She could really use a doctor right now.

‘I’m Devlin O’Halloran,’ he told her. ‘Dr O’Halloran.’

She froze.

Things were swinging away from her again. The sensation of dizziness she’d fought ever since her car had been struck came sweeping back, and for a horrible moment she thought she might pass out.

Devlin O’Halloran.

Was this someone’s idea of a sick joke?

Corey. Devlin. Of course.

It wasn’t a joke.

‘I can’t come on board,’ he told her, and his voice sounded strained to breaking point. ‘We can’t put extra weight inside. We’re working to secure the bus now.’

‘That’s good,’ she managed, but her tone must have changed.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he demanded, then, as an aside, added, ‘Damn, I’m going in.’

‘You go in and the whole thing goes down the cliff,’ she heard someone say. ‘It doesn’t need any more weight. Get real, Doc. We’re working as hard as we can.’

Forget the O’Halloran bit, she decided. Her brain was working on so many levels it was threatening to implode from overuse.

She couldn’t think about the O’Halloran thing. She didn’t want to look around the bus—she mustn’t. She had to keep positive—keep hopeful—so that she could remain smiling down at Suzy as if she really believed things were fine.

‘What’s happening out there?’ she called.

This was surreal. She was kneeling by Suzy it was as if they were in a cave and the rest of the world didn’t exist. She could hear the sea below them, the waves crashing against the cliffs.

It was a normal sunny day. There were shafts of sunlight piercing the shattered windows. Fifteen minutes ago this had been a glorious morning.

If she looked downwards she could see the sea through the smashed windows. This was wild country and the wind was rising. The sea here was a maelstrom of white foam against the cliffs. Waiting…

‘We’re attaching cables to the bus,’ someone called. ‘To get you steady.’

‘That’s a good idea.’

‘But we don’t have enough cable,’ someone else called. ‘We’ve sent for some from the town. We need steel cables to attach to the trees, and the only trees strong enough are along the cliff a bit.’

‘But we’ve hooked a rope on the fire-engine,’ someone else called. ‘That should help.’

‘Not enough to let Doc down into the bus,’ someone else called. ‘The road surface isn’t stable enough. But we’re working fast.’

‘Work faster,’ she said faintly. ‘We like the idea of the fire-engine but Suzy and I are running out of things to talk about.’

It took half an hour. Half an hour while Suzy’s throat swelled even more, and it became more and more difficult to keep the plastic tubing right where it had to be. There was bleeding into the wound and a couple of times her breathing faltered.

Emma lifted her a little, cradling on her knees so her head was slightly elevated. She watched her like a hawk, and as her breathing faltered she moved, adjusted, adjusted…

Somehow she kept her breathing.

She must be in such pain. The child lay limply in Emma’s arms and stared up at Emma her as if the link to this strange lady above her was the only thing between her and death.

Which wasn’t so far from the truth, Emma thought, as the minutes dragged on.

The ballpoint casing couldn’t last for ever.

Hurry.

But finally the cable arrived. She heard shouts, barked orders as the men and women outside finally had something to do.

And then…

‘She’s secure. We’re coming on board.’

‘Don’t wait for an invitation,’ she called, and she knew that her voice was starting to wobble. ‘Come on in. And bring morphine.’

‘We’re coming now.’

Two of them came on board. The doctor—Devlin?—and a middle-aged lady in khaki overalls with an ambulance insignia.

They crawled into the bus the same way Emma had come in. She cradled Suzy and watched them come—but only with her peripheral vision. She was still looking down at Suzy, aware that the eye contact she had with the little girl had assumed immense importance.

‘They’re coming, Suzy,’ Emma whispered. ‘The cavalry. Dr Devlin O’Halloran and friend.’ She glanced up at the approaching figure—a big man in a loose pullover and jeans. Someone had given him leather work gloves. He had a thatch of deep black hair, wavy, sort of flopping over his eyes as if he was in need of a good haircut. He looked so like…

No. He didn’t look like anyone, she told herself fiercely. No one she could think of right now.

‘I guess this must be your local doctor,’ she told Suzy. ‘Do you know him?’

But Suzy’s eyes were blank. Glazing a little. Shock and pain and blood loss were all taking their toll.

‘Have you brought fluids and morphine?’ she demanded. That was what she needed most.

‘We have.’

Dev had paused momentarily by Kyle—just momentarily. Emma hadn’t looked that way again. Not once. But she knew what he’d be seeing and she heard in his voice how much he hated it.

‘We’ve brought everything we need,’ Devlin said, but the inflexion in his voice was odd. He wasn’t commenting on Kyle. He didn’t have to.

‘There’s nothing we can do here,’ he said to the woman with him, and it was almost a sigh. He started to clamber lower.

Helen remained with Kyle, her face closing in distress. ‘I’ll call in a stretcher for Kyle,’ Helen said, as Dev fought his way over the upended seats to reach Emma and Suzy. ‘Unless you need me there. Do you?’

‘Go ahead,’ Devlin said grimly. And then he paused.

He’d reached them. He saw—and his face grew almost incredulous as he saw the situation they were in. As he saw Emma’s makeshift attempt at a viable tracheostomy. ‘How the hell—?’

‘Don’t ask questions,’ Emma said, fighting off faintness once more. ‘I want morphine and intravenous fluid and I want it now.’

‘But…’

She didn’t have time to listen to buts. ‘The ballpoint’s secure enough,’ she said grimly. ‘For now. But we need to work fast.’

A stunned pause.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. He cleared a flat spot to put his bag and hauled it open, with another fast, incredulous glance at Emma. Then he started work.

‘It’ll be a couple of minutes before we have Suzy ready to shift,’ he told Helen. ‘Go ahead and lift Kyle free. I’ll manage here. I think. Or rather, we will.’

It was a dreadful place to work. An impossible angle. Far too much broken glass. Seats that were upside down. Suzy was lying on the outside wall of the bus, jammed against the bus wall and two seats. Over the last half-hour Emma had wiggled so she was right in there beside her, supporting her head as best she could. It was impossibly cramped.

Dev had taken the situation in at a glance. Emma underneath the little girl, her fingers holding the ballpoint tube.

‘I can’t move,’ Emma said—unnecessarily—and Dev nodded.

‘Don’t.’ He smiled down at Suzy, a slow, lazy smile that almost reassured Emma. Almost. ‘You guys just stay still while I do my stuff,’ he told them. He wouldn’t be sure if Suzy was hearing him but he wasn’t taking chances.

‘Suzy, I’m giving you something for the pain right now,’ he told her. ‘Then I’m going to put a little tube in your arm so we can replace some of the blood you’ve lost. As soon as you stop hurting so much, we’ll lift you out of here. Your mum and dad are waiting on the cliff.’

Of course they would be. Emma winced. All the mums and dads would be frantic. By now the rest of the kids would probably have been taken back to town, she thought, and reunited with their parents.

Except for Kyle.

Don’t go there.

She was close to breaking, she thought, suddenly fighting another wave of nausea. It was adrenaline that had kept her going until now. But Dev was here and…

‘Don’t give in now, Emma.’ Devlin’s voice jerked her back. To the urgency of what she was doing. The dizziness receded. ‘Suzy needs you too much.’

‘I wasn’t planning on giving in,’ she said with what she hoped sounded like indignation. ‘Only wimps give in.’

‘And you’re no wimp.’

He sounded teasing, she thought. Nice.

That was another crazy thing to think. Just because he had Corey’s face…

No.

He had a syringe prepared now. Swiftly he swabbed Suzy’s arm and injected what must be morphine. He wasn’t touching her throat. He had too much sense.

‘I don’t think a stretcher’s going to work in here,’ he said, glancing at the chaos around them as the morphine slid home. ‘That ballpoint needs to stay absolutely still. I don’t think taping’s going to work.’

‘I don’t see how it can.’ She was lifting the tube a little so it wasn’t hitting the far wall of the trachea. A proper tracheal tube would go down, past the damage and the swelling. But to put a proper tracheal tube in now…To remove the ballpoint and to take such a risk…

No. She needed to keep it in place until they got somewhere with decent theatre facilities, where they could operate fast. Where they’d have oxygen to compensate for faltering breathing.

She couldn’t leave her ballpoint.

‘I think the only way is if we inch her out,’ Devlin was saying. He was setting up an IV line, knowing they had to get fluid in. It’d make it more complicated to lift her but they could place the bag on her chest and she needed the fluid so much… ‘Literally inch by inch,’ he continued. ‘If I lift her, can you come with me every step of the way? Can you do that?’

‘I can.’

He was looking at her—really looking at her—and there was concern in his face. ‘You’ve been in the accident yourself. You were concussed. You shouldn’t be here.’

‘I am here. Let’s get on with it.’

‘I can ask Helen to take over.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s taken me time to figure out where this has to lie,’ she told him, motioning with her eyes to the ballpoint. ‘If I wobble even a fraction from where I’m holding it, it’ll block, but I’ve figured out now how to get it back. I’m the only safe person to hold it.’

He stared at her for a long moment—and then nodded. There was no choice and he knew it.

He went back to fitting the intravenous line. Above them came the sound of scraping, of broken glass being scrunched.

Kyle’s stretcher was being hauled from the bus.

‘Do you want any more help in here?’ Helen sounded subdued—as well she might. She’d helped the stretcher out and then had paused at the window.

‘We’re going to have to do this on our own,’ Devlin told her. ‘Just clear a path, Helen, and cross every finger and every toe. And then some.’

He shouldn’t ask her for help.

He didn’t have a choice.

Dev lifted the little girl carefully, so carefully, inching his way backwards out of the bus. Every move had to be measured so the woman—Emma—could keep up with him. Her hand was holding the ballpoint steady so air could enter Suzy’s lungs. She looked so battered he’d been afraid she’d faint, but that battering wasn’t affecting her hand. It was rock steady.

Could she keep it up?

Maybe they should stay, he thought. Maybe they should try and stabilise the airway.

To operate in these confines, to remove the ballpoint and try and replace it here…

They couldn’t.

It was a huge risk to move Suzy, but it was a risk they had to take. He was forced to depend on this woman he didn’t know. This woman who should be a patient herself.

She must be a doctor. She had to be. To perform a trach-eostomy in these conditions, with such a result—it was an operation that was little short of miraculous.

But where had she come from? She wasn’t a local. Yet tourists didn’t tend to travel alone, not when they were six or seven months pregnant.

Now was not the time to ask questions, he decided as he kept inching out. He had Suzy cradled in his arms and Emma was with him every inch of the way.

Just as long as she held up.

He glanced at her face and it was sheet-white. She had the baby to consider, he told himself savagely. She’d been almost unconscious when he’d found her. She should be in hospital herself.

If she were in hospital, Suzy would be dead.

He needed her. Suzy needed her.

He kept inching out backwards.

Emma kept following.

They emerged to a scene that made Emma blink.

The children were gone—all of them. The bus driver, the truck driver, the injured teacher—they were gone, too. They must have been ferried away from the scene at some time while the bus had been in the process of being stabilised. There were two steel cables running from the bus’s chassis to the trees on the opposite side of the road.

Since those cables had been attached, they’d been safe.

What else?

Kyle was still there. His tiny, blanket-covered body lay to one side and there was a fireman sitting beside the stretcher. Just sitting. As if he’d sit however long it took. No matter that there was nothing to do. The man’s stance said that he was simply here to guard. To begin the grieving for the loss of a tiny life.

Once again Emma felt tears welling behind her eyes.

‘Not yet,’ the man beside her said, and she blinked.

He knew what she was thinking?

‘I’m fine,’ she muttered, and he smiled, albeit a shaky one.

‘I know you are. You’re great.’

There was a stretcher waiting, with Helen hovering. They lay laid Suzy down with care. The morphine had taken hold now and she was drifting in a haze of near-sleep.

‘I’ll take over now,’ Devlin said, moving to take over her grip on the ballpoint, but Emma shook her head.

‘I know how it should feel,’ she told him. ‘I have it right where it should be. I’m hanging on until we get to a proper theatre with proper equipment. And a surgeon. Tell me there’s a surgeon at Karington.’

‘That would be me,’ he said gravely.

That would be him.

Her eyes met his. A surgeon. She had a surgeon right here. The relief was so great it made her dizzy all over again.

‘Well, hooray,’ she managed. ‘So what are we waiting for? Let’s find you a theatre and a scalpel and something to replace this blasted pen. But you’re not removing me from it except by scalpel.’

And twenty minutes later she was finally, finally able to step away.

Not only was Dev O’Halloran a surgeon, he was a surgeon with real skill. Inserting a tracheostomy tube into a wound that was massively swollen, where the cut was jagged and rough, where there was too much bleeding already and where the patient was a child with a trachea half the size of an adult’s…It was a nightmare piece of surgery that Emma couldn’t imagine doing. But, then, she couldn’t have imagined using a ballpoint casing and a pencil sharpener to perform similar surgery. It seemed that on this day anything was possible.

Devlin’s surgery worked. Finally, finally the tube was in place. Emma’s ballpoint casing was just an empty piece of plastic abandoned on the tray, and she was free to step back from the table.

They’d used a local anaesthetic. Anything else would have been too risky with the breathing so fragile. But Suzy was so shocked and so groggy with the morphine that she didn’t register as Emma stepped back.

‘Give the lady a chair,’ Devlin growled, and one of the nurses pushed a chair under her legs.

Emma sat.

Her legs felt funny, she thought.

Dev was still working, closing the wound, doing running repairs to the ravages of the little girl’s face.

Preparing her for the trip to Brisbane where a skilled plastic surgeon could take over.

She needed to get out of there, Emma decided. Dev had skilled nurses to help him. He no longer needed her.

The smells of the theatre were making her feel ill. She was accustomed to them. They shouldn’t…

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and pushed herself to her feet.

‘Go with her, David,’ Devlin said urgently to one of the nurses.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she muttered.

But she wasn’t.

No matter. She made her jelly legs move.

Ten minutes later, after as nasty a little interlude in the bathroom as she could imagine, she emerged a new woman. Or almost a new woman. She’d washed her face, splashing water over and over until she felt that she was almost back to reality.

What was she about—almost passing out in Theatre?

It was hardly surprising, she told herself. Students did it all the time, and even more experienced theatre staff did it more often than they liked to admit. The trick was to hold it back until you were no longer needed.

She’d done that. She should be proud of herself.

She wasn’t.

She swiped some more cold water onto her face and stared into the mirror.

What had she done? Realisation was only just dawning.

She’d risked her baby.

The sight of those cables when she’d climbed from the bus had made her feel sick. She hadn’t realised. When she’d climbed on board she’d thought at some superficial level that the bus might slip, but she hadn’t considered it as a real possibility. It was only now as she thought back to the huge cables and thought of what might have been…

Her hand dropped to her swollen belly and she flinched.

She’d taken a gamble. She’d won, but such a gamble.

Maybe she wasn’t such a new woman. Maybe she’d better splash some more water.

Finally she took a deep breath and went to face the world again. In the waiting room there was a man and a woman—farmers? They looked up as she emerged from the washroom, and their faces reflected terror.

Oh, help. They’d be Suzy’s parents, Emma thought. They’d seen her go into Theatre with their daughter, and then they’d seen her rush out to the washroom. Ill.

Two plus two equals disaster.

‘Hey, it’s fine,’ she told them, rushing to take that dreadful look from their faces. ‘Everything’s gone brilliantly. Suzy’s breathing’s stabilised and Dr O’Halloran is just fixing the dressings. She’ll need to go to Sydney to have her face repaired by a plastic surgeon, but even that doesn’t look too difficult. I’d imagine you’ll have a Suzy with a couple of scars—but that should be the extent of the damage’s all. Honestly.’

The couple visibly restarted their breathing process. Their combined faces sagged in relief.

‘But you…’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, trying to make her voice cheerful. ‘I’m really sorry I scared you, but pregnant women throw up all the time.’

Their faces cleared still more. ‘Oh, my dear…’ the woman faltered, and Emma suddenly decided against medical detachment. She bent over and hugged her.

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been dreadful but now she’s safe.’

‘We’ve just seen Kyle’s parents,’ the man—Suzy’s father—said heavily. ‘He’s the only one dead. We’ve been lucky, but they…’

‘The nurses won’t let them see him.’ Suzy’s mother pulled herself out of Emma’s arms and she sniffed. ‘But you…you’re a doctor.’

‘I am.’

‘Helen—the ambulance officer—said you saved our daughter’s life.’

‘I was in the right place at the right time,’ she said softly, but Suzy’s mother had something else on her mind. Her daughter would make it. She had room to worry now about others.

‘The hospital’s chief nurse, Margaret Morrisy…she’s a stickler for the rules. She’s told Kyle’s parents that they can’t see Kyle until Dr O’Halloran says so. They’ve been waiting and waiting for Dev to finish and I think…they’re going crazy.’ She gulped and gave a little nod towards the theatre. ‘If it had been Suzy who’d died, then I know what I’d want and I’d want it now. If you’re a doctor…can you figure out how they can see him? Now?’

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT she really needed was bed. Urgently. But Emma glanced out to the parking lot and saw Kyle’s parents. They were holding each other, isolated, a cocoon of despair that wrenched her far out of her professional detachment and her own need for rest. There were other children around them, staring up at their parents in distress.

A shattered family.

Dev would be in Theatre for another half-hour at least, she thought grimly. He had to make sure Suzy was stabilised for the trip to Brisbane. And then there was everyone else.

Jodie and the schoolteacher—Colin Jeffries—had already been airlifted out. Dev had told her that much. The Medivac air rescue team had blessedly been in the air when they’d sent out a call for help, and they’d been able to evacuate them fast. Jodie needed urgent vascular surgery and Colin’s wound required the attention of a plastic surgeon, so they’d taken off straight away, promising to return for Suzy.

That was three patients sorted, but there were so many others. Stitches, fractures, trauma…Dev would be frantic for hours.

Taking care of Kyle’s parents would be dreadful, Emma thought, glancing again at the little family out in the parking lot. But maybe she could help. This was something she could do for him.

And she desperately wanted to do something for him, she decided. She thought of Dev as she’d left him in Theatre: a big man with clever fingers and eyes that cared. She let herself dwell on the image for a moment—and she felt the stirring of an emotion that was at least as strong as anything else she’d felt that day.

Dev was like Corey but also unlike him. Gentle yet strong. The way he’d smiled…The way he’d spoken to Suzy…

She caught herself, confused. Where was her mind taking her? This was crazy. She had no business even vaguely thinking of Dev in the way she was thinking of him. It was ridiculous.

She shook away the feeling of unreality she’d had ever since she’d seen Dev. Emotion had to wait. Inexplicable emotion. Inexplicable…linking?

OK, maybe it had to be faced some time but not yet. Meanwhile she had to find the chief nurse.

She found her fast. Margaret was in the nurses’ station. Young, very attractive and beautifully presented, her dark hair twisted into an elegant knot, her flawless skin carefully, unobtrusively made up so she seemed perfect, she was speaking urgently into the phone and her tone was one of complete authority.

‘I need plasma now. No, it can’t wait until morning. Our stocks are completely gone. Well, if you want the risk of an accident in the middle of the night where we can’t transfuse—are you personally willing to take that responsibility? I can sign you off on saying that? I didn’t think so. I know the Medivac team have already left. No, I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have needed to ask. You know what the situation is. I’ll leave it to you, then, shall I? Plasma by sunset.’

The phone was replaced.

This was the sort of woman who was invaluable in a crisis, Emma decided. A stickler for rules but ruthlessly efficient. Once onside she’d be an unopposable force.

She needed to get her onside.

‘Hi,’ Emma said, and the woman came out of the nurses’ station to greet her.

‘Oh, my dear.’ Her voice was warm and decisive. Maybe a little condescending? Surely they had to be about the same age.

No matter.

‘We can’t believe you’ve done so much,’ she was saying. ‘Helen has been telling me what happened. For you to be a doctor, and to be brave enough to climb on the bus…Suzy was so lucky.’

‘But not Kyle,’ Emma said gently, and Margaret winced.

‘I know. It’s dreadful.’

‘I hear you’re not happy about Kyle’s parents seeing him until Dr O’Halloran gives the all-clear?’

‘No, I—’

‘I understand you’d like clearance but I’m happy to take that responsibility.’

‘You?’ The woman backed off a little.

‘I am a doctor.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I’m a battered and pregnant doctor, but I’m still a doctor,’ Emma said, and her tone was as decisive as Margaret’s had been a moment before. ‘I can certify death and I can give permission for the relatives to be with him. Kyle’s parents need to see him as soon as possible and I can’t see any reason for delay. Where is he?’

Margaret was frowning. ‘In the morgue.’

‘Do you have a private room free?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then let’s move him in there, shall we?’ she said, her tone still inexorable. ‘He’s not so dreadfully battered that we risk shock by letting the parents close. Regardless, they need to see him. We both know that. They can’t accept his death until they do. So…We need to do the best we can for these people and it can’t wait. Can you show me where the morgue is? I’ll take care of Kyle’s body while you start preparing your private room for him.’

‘Can’t they see him in the morgue?’

‘If he was your little son,’ Emma said gently, ‘would you like to say goodbye to him in a morgue? I think we can do better than that.’

The log had smashed Kyle’s internal organs, crushing him instantly, but to look at his face he might almost be sleeping.

He was such a…

No. Stay dispassionate. Somehow.

Emma washed his face with care. With tenderness. She wrapped his little body tightly so the crushing injuries weren’t apparent, she wrapped him again, more loosely, in a soft blanket so if need be he could be lifted and cuddled, and then she supervised the orderlies as they wheeled him through to the ward.

Margaret hovered, anxious, ready to say no, but Emma gave her no chance. She used the authority of her training—and the instincts of her heart. If this little one had been hers…

The orderlies—two young men who looked as if they were barely out of school, and who looked as if the shock of the day had them wanting to be back there—held back, unsure in the face of death, so in the ward it was Emma who lifted him across into the bed, settling his head against the pillows, arranging his features so he wasn’t stiffly at attention but rather in the pose of a child sleeping.

Finally she stood back and nodded. She’d done all she could. She couldn’t bring him back to life but at least he looked as if he was at peace.

This was so important. Desperately important. In a moment his parents would see him for the last time, and this memory of their child would be carried with them for ever. She couldn’t bring him back for them but she could do this.

Finally she went outside to find them. Huddled in their misery, Kyle’s parents didn’t see her coming. She touched the woman lightly on the shoulder and they turned.

Their children looked mutely up at her, past asking questions.

‘Come and see your son,’ she told them. ‘We’ve washed him and popped him into a bed for you to say goodbye to him. He’s ready.’

‘The…kids?’ the woman whispered, and Emma looked at the children. At Kyle’s brothers and sisters.

‘That’s up to you,’ she said. ‘Whether you want your children to say goodbye to their brother is your decision. But if it was my kids…I know what I’d do.’

Fifteen minutes later, Dev left Theatre, reassured Suzy’s parents, took two deep breaths and thought, What next?

The Medivac team had taken the worst of the casualties out on the first run.

Suzy was stable and the Medivac helicopter was on its way back to evacuate her. The worst was over.

There’d still be traumatised kids. Too many traumatised kids.

Maybe they could wait for a little. The nurses would have done preliminary assessment and called him for anything urgent.

He needed to find the woman who’d helped him, he thought, and the vision of her as he’d first seen her came back to him. She’d been only semi-conscious. Hell, he’d had no time for her. She’d been injured, yet she’d thrown herself into the chaos and there’d been no time for him to assess her. She’d looked sick as she’d left Theatre.

Kyle. Kyle’s parents. They had to be his priority.

But the image of the woman—what had she said her name was, Emma?—stayed with him. She was a heroine, he thought. Somewhere, somehow he’d get a medal for her if he had to do battle with politicians himself to arrange it. She was such a slip of a thing, too thin, her eyes too big for her pinched face, heavy with pregnancy, yet what she’d achieved…

He’d find her. As soon as possible he’d find her.

There was no one at the nurses’ station. Where was everyone?

Where was Emma?

There was a sound of distant sobbing. Kyle’s family? Margaret came round the corner and met him, her face a mix of uncertainty and concern.

‘Kyle’s parents?’ It must be.

‘Kyle’s in Room 5,’ she told him.

He frowned. The last time he’d seen the child’s body the orderlies had been carrying it into the morgue. ‘Why?’

‘Emma…the doctor…asked me to put him in there so his parents could spend time with him. I hope it’s OK. Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No,’ he told her. ‘Do you know where Emma is?’

‘She’s with them. Or she was.’

What the heck was she doing there? She should be in bed. He needed to check her baby. He…

‘You’ve had a hell of a day,’ Margaret was saying. She put a hand on his arm.

He grimaced. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly, and listened to the sobs. ‘But not as hellish as some.’

‘I hope I did the right thing, letting Emma bring him from the morgue.’

‘Of course.’ She seemed to expect it so he gave her a swift hug. She smiled, and then pulled back, smoothing her uniform.

‘Not here.’

‘No.’

Enough. He had to face Kyle’s family.

He turned towards room 5, thinking through the decision to move him. A private room and a bed rather than a stretcher in the morgue. Good call.

Here she was again. His phantom doctor, springing up where he least expected her.

She wasn’t very good at lying down and dying, he decided. Thank God.

‘OK. It’s a good idea,’ he told Margaret. ‘So you’ve been talking to her. Do we know anything about her other than her name’s Emma?’

‘She’s bossy,’ Margaret said, and gave him a half-smile. ‘Almost as bossy as I am. She washed Kyle and made him look…normal. She did a lovely job.’

He winced at that.

A lovely job. Bad choice of words, he told Margaret silently. Was there any such thing as a lovely job where Kyle was concerned?

Kyle was the fourth kid of a family of six and a real little daredevil. Dev had been stitching him up and putting casts on fractured limbs ever since he’d started practising medicine here.

That Kyle was dead was unthinkable.

He was in Room 5. She’d done a lovely job.

Deep breath.

Margaret gave him a questioning look, asking him mutely if he wanted her to accompany him, but he shook his head. This was something he had to do by himself.

She left him to it.

He turned into the next corridor—and then paused.

The door to Room 5 was slightly ajar and through the open door he could see Kyle’s mother. And Kyle. The woman had lifted her son into her arms and she was cradling him and weeping into his copper curls. Her husband looked on helplessly. Kyle’s brothers and sisters were there, too, huddled around their little brother. A family united in grief. A family saying goodbye to their Kyle.

And outside, on the seat outside the door, just out of sight of the family, sat Emma.

She was huddled over, bent at the waist as if she was in pain, and she was weeping silently into her open palms. Her shoulders were racked by silent sobs.

It seemed that Emma had finally stopped.

How long had it been since he’d cradled a woman in his arms?

Never?

Sure, he’d kissed a woman. He and Margaret had a very satisfactory relationship and he thoroughly enjoyed kissing her. But as for cradling her…

He never had. The lines of professional detachment meant that he’d never cradled a patient.

But this…

This was suddenly an overwhelming need. He stooped to pull Emma’s hands from her face, he saw the despair etched deep in her eyes, he saw the lingering horror, and he saw the shuddering sobs rack her body—he couldn’t bear it. He took her in his arms. When she slumped against him, helpless in the face of her grief and shock and exhaustion, he simply lifted her up and cradled her against him and rocked her as if she were a child.

He held her while the shuddering sobs went on and on. He simply held her.

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