Praise for Marion Lennox

‘Marion Lennox’s Rescue at Cradle Lake is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘A very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.’

—Dear Author on Christmas with Her Boss

Wildfire Island Docs

Welcome to Paradise!

Meet the small but dedicated team of medics who service the remote Pacific Wildfire Island.

In this idyllic setting relationships are rekindled, passions are stirred, and bonds that will last a lifetime are forged in the tropical heat …

But there’s also a darker side to paradise—secrets, lies and greed amidst the Lockhart family threaten the community, and the team find themselves fighting to save more than the lives of their patients. They must band together to fight for the future of the island they’ve all come to call home!

Read Caroline and Keanu’s story in

The Man She Could Never Forget by Meredith Webber

Read Anna and Luke’s story in

The Nurse Who Stole His Heart by Alison Roberts

Read Maddie and Josh’s story in

Saving Maddie’s Baby by Marion Lennox

Read Sarah and Harry’s story in

A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart by Meredith Webber

All available now!

Dear Reader,

Wildfire Island is my dream destination—a tropical paradise where all things are possible. Our island is breathtakingly beautiful, its weather wonderful one day, perfect the next. I close my eyes and imagine myself soaking up the sun as I float by the waterfall feeding the freshwater lagoon, preferably holding a drink with a wee umbrella.

Of course all tropical paradises have their bad days, and that’s what happens in Saving Maddie’s Baby. Maddie starts off with a very bad day. But this is Wildfire Island, where romance is always in the air—even if my hero Josh has to put himself in mortal danger to find it.

Saving Maddie’s Baby is Book Three of the six-book Wildfire Island Docs series, written with my fabulous fellow authors Alison Roberts and Meredith Webber. We’ve had a lot of fun indulging ourselves in our Wildfire Island fantasy. I hope you have the same fun reading them.

Marion

MARION LENNOX has written over a hundred romance novels and is published in over a hundred countries and thirty languages. Her international awards include the prestigious RITA® Award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement award for ‘a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love’. Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog, and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven.

Saving Maddie’s Baby
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Meredith and Alison,

who make my writer’s life fun.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Marion Lennox

Wildfire Island Docs

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

HEROES AND HEROINES don’t choose to be brave, Maddie decided. Mostly they have bravery thrust upon them. In her particular case, a heroine was created when vast chunks of rock trapped one doctor in an underground mine, a mine she should never have been near in the first place.

This heroine wasn’t brave. This heroine was stupid.

Everyone knew the mine was dangerous. Ian Lockhart, the owner, had left Wildfire Island weeks ago, with salaries unpaid and debts outstanding. The mine had been closed for non-compliance with safety standards not long after Ian’s disappearance.

So whose bright idea had it been to see if they could tap one of the seams close to the surface?

There were reasons this seam hadn’t been tapped before. The rock was brittle. Without salaries, though, and desperate for income, the islanders had cut through the fence and quietly burrowed. No one was supposed to know.

But now … The call had come through an hour ago. A splintered piece of shoring timber and a minor rockfall had left one of the islanders with a fractured leg.

If it hadn’t been badly fractured they might have brought Kalifa down to the hospital, keeping their mining secret. Instead, his mates had had the sense to ring Maddie, asking her to come across the mountains to the overgrown mine site.

Maddie—Madeline Haddon—was heavily pregnant but she was the only doctor available. The miners had told her there were shards of bone puncturing Kalifa’s skin, so transporting him by road before assessment meant the risk of cutting off the blood supply.

She’d had to go.

Once at the mine site, it had taken work to stabilise him. Kalifa needed specialist surgery if he wasn’t to be left with a permanent limp, and she was worried about the strain on his heart. She’d just rung Keanu, the other island doctor, who was currently on his way back from a clinic on an outer island. She’d been asking him to organise Kalifa’s evacuation to Cairns when there was an ominous rumble from underground.

The mouth of the mine had belched a vast cloud of dirt and dust.

She’d thought Kalifa and the two friends who’d called her had been working alone. She’d never imagined there were men still in there. Surely not? But out they came, staggering, blinded by dust.

She’d been helping lift Kalifa into the back of the jeep—her jeep was set up as a no-frills ambulance, used in emergencies for patient transport. She’d turned and gazed in horror as the miners stumbled out.

‘How many of you are down there?’ The guy out first had a jagged gash on his arm. She grabbed a dressing and applied pressure.

‘Tw-twelve,’ the guy told her.

‘Are you all out now?’ When they’d rung about Kalifa she’d assumed … Why hadn’t she asked?

‘Three still to come.’

‘Why? Where are they?’

‘Malu’s smashed his leg,’ the guy told her. ‘He’s bleeding like a stuck pig.’

‘Is he stuck? Has the shaft caved right in?’

‘Just … just a bit of a rockfall where Kalifa fell against the shoring timber. Malu got unlucky—we were trying to shore it up again and he was right underneath where it fell. Macca and Reuben are helping him out but they had to stop to tighten the tourniquet. But the shaft’s clear enough in front of the fall. They’ll be out soon.’ His voice faltered. ‘As long as they can stop the bleeding.’

She stared at the mine mouth in dismay.

The dust was settling. It was looking almost normal.

Bleeding out …

Oh, help.

She’d done a swift, sweeping assessment of those around her. No one seemed in immediate distress. Men were already helping each other. The nurse who’d accompanied her, Caroline Lockhart, was taking care of a miner who looked like he’d fractured his arm. He was still standing, not in obvious danger. A couple of the men were crouched on the ground, coughing. They should be checked.

Triage.

One broken arm. Bruises, lacerations, nothing else obvious. Kalifa was waiting to be transferred to hospital.

Bleeding out …

Triage told her exactly where she was needed.

But she was pregnant. Pregnant! Instinctively her hand went to her belly, cringing at what she was contemplating.

What was the risk?

This had been a minor rockfall, she’d told herself. The shaft was still clear.

Along that shaft, Malu was bleeding to death. She had no choice.

‘Help me,’ she snapped at an uninjured miner. She grabbed his hand, pressing it onto the pad she’d made on his mate’s bleeding arm. ‘Push hard and keep up the pressure until Caroline has time to help you. The bleeding’s already easing but don’t let go. Caroline, can you radio Keanu?’

‘He’s on his way in from Atangi.’

‘Tell him to land the boat on this side of the island and get here as fast as he can. Meanwhile, don’t move Kalifa. He needs a doctor with him during transfer. The blood supply to the leg’s stable, as long as he doesn’t shift. But he has enough pain relief on board to keep him comfortable. Meanwhile, give me your torch,’ she snapped at another miner. ‘And your hard hat.’

‘Y-you can’t go in there,’ the miner stammered. ‘Doc, you’re pregnant. It’s dangerous.’

‘Of course it’s dangerous. You’ve been working in a mine that’s supposed to be closed, you morons. But what choice do I have? Malu’s got two children and his wife’s my friend. Caro, you’re in charge.’

And she picked up her bag, shoved on a hard hat and headed into the shaft.

‘Doc, wait, I’ll come with you,’ one of the miners yelled after her.

‘Don’t even think about it. You have children, too,’ she snapped back. ‘We now have four idiots in the mine. Don’t anyone dare make it five.’

CHAPTER ONE

DR JOSHUA CAMPBELL was so bored with solitaire he’d resorted to cheating to finish each game faster. It defeated the purpose, but he’d read every journal he could get his hands on. He’d checked and rechecked equipment. He’d paced. He was driving the rest of the staff at Cairns Air Sea Rescue Service nuts. He was going out of his mind.

No one in Northern Queensland seemed to have done so much as stand on a spider for the whole week. He’d been rostered for patient transfers, and every one of them had been routine. Patients had either been heading home, or were being flown from the city hospital to the country hospitals where they could continue recuperation among friends. There’d not been a single emergency amongst them.

‘If this keeps up I’m joining the army,’ Josh grumbled to Beth, his paramedic colleague. ‘Maybe there’s a place for me in the bomb squad. Do you suppose there’s any call for bomb disposal any place around here?’

‘You could try cleaning our kitchen as practice,’ Beth said morosely. ‘School holidays and three teenage boys? I’d defy a hand grenade to make more mess. You need to try a touch of domesticity if you want explosions. Consider marriage.’

‘Been there, got the T-shirt,’ he muttered.

‘That’s right, with Maddie, but that’s ancient history.’ Beth and Josh had joined the service at the same time, and after years of working together there was little they didn’t know about each other. ‘You hardly stuck around long enough to feel the full force of domestic bliss.’ And then her smile faded. ‘Whoops, sorry, Josh, I know you lost the baby, but still … It was so long ago. You and Karen, you think you might …?’

‘No!’ He said it with more vehemence than he’d meant to use. In fact, he startled himself. They were in the staff office, in the corner of the great hangar that held the service planes. The door was open and Josh’s vehemence echoed out into the vaulted hangar. ‘No,’ he repeated, more mildly. ‘Domesticity doesn’t interest either of us.’

‘And you’re seeing less of each other,’ Beth said thoughtfully. ‘Moving on? Seeing we’re quiet, you want to check some dating sites? We might just find the one.’

‘Beth …’

‘You’re thirty-six years old, Josh. Okay, you still have the looks. Indeed you do. It drives me nuts, seeing the way old ladies melt when you smile. But your looks’ll fade, my lad. You’ll be on your walker before you know it, gumming your crusts, bewailing not having a grandchild to dandle …’

‘I’m definitely applying for the bomb squad,’ he retorted, and tossed a sheaf of paper at her. ‘Just to get away from you. Sort these for a change. They’re already sorted but so what? Give me some peace so I can download a bomb squad application.’

And then the radio buzzed into life. They both made a grab, but Beth got there first. She listened to the curt instructions on the other end and her face set.

The tossed papers lay ignored on the floor. Josh was already reaching for his jacket. He knew that look. ‘What?’ he demanded as she finished.

‘Trouble,’ Beth said, snagging her jacket, as well. ‘Mine collapse on Wildfire Island. One smashed leg, needs evac to the orthopods in Cairns. Plane’s leaving in ten.’

‘Mine collapse?’ He was snapping queries as he got organised. ‘Just the one injury?’

‘He was injured at the start of it. One of the supports collapsed. Fell on this guy’s leg but the rest of the idiots didn’t see it as a sign they should evacuate. But now …’ She took a deep breath. ‘The collapse looks serious. We’re working on early information but one of the local doctors is trapped, as well.’

One of the local doctors.

Wildfire.

And something inside seemed to freeze.

Beth stopped, too. ‘Josh? What is it?’

‘You said Wildfire. Part of the M’Langi group?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s where Maddie’s working.’

‘Maddie?’ Her eyes widened as she understood. ‘Your Maddie?’

‘We’re not married.’ It was a dumb thing to say but it was all he could think of.

‘I know that. You haven’t been married for years. So how do you know she’s there?’

‘I sort of … keep tabs. She’s working fly in, fly out, two weeks there, one week on the mainland. Her mum’s still in a nursing home in Cairns.’

‘Right.’ Beth started gathering gear again and he moved into automatic mode and did the same. There was a moment’s loaded silence, and then …

‘You mean you stalk her?’ she demanded, but he knew it was Beth’s way of making things light. Making a joke …

‘I do not stalk!’

‘But you keep tabs.’ There was little to add to their bags, only the drugs they kept locked away or refrigerated. ‘It sounds creepy.’

‘We keep in touch. Sort of. Christmas and birthdays. And I take note of where she’s registered to work. In case …’ He hesitated. ‘Hell, I don’t know. In case of nothing.’

Beth’s face softened. She clipped her bag closed, then touched his shoulder as she straightened. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been married twice, remember. Once your ex, always your ex. Unless it’s nasty there’s always a little bit of them under your skin. But, hey, there’s a sizeable med centre on Wildfire. The trapped doctor doesn’t have to be Maddie.’

‘Right.’ But suddenly he was staring into middle distance. He knew … Somehow he knew.

‘Earth to Josh,’ Beth said, not so gently now. ‘The plane’s waiting. Let’s go.’

The crash had come from nowhere. One minute Maddie was working efficiently in the dim light, worried but not terrified.

Now she was terrified.

She needed to block out the dust and dark and fear.

Where was her patient?

She’d lost her torch. She’d fallen, stumbling in terror as the rock wall had crashed around her. She was okay, she decided, pushing her way cautiously to her knees. There was still breathable air if she covered her mouth and breathed through a slit in her fingers. But she couldn’t see.

Somewhere in here was a guy with a life-threatening bleed.

Where was the torch?

Phone app. She practically sobbed with relief as she remembered an afternoon a few weeks ago, sitting on the hospital terrace with Wildfire’s charge nurse, Hettie, while Caroline had shown them apps they could put on their cell phones.

Most she had no use for, but the torch app had looked useful for things such as checking it was a gecko on her nose and not a spider in the middle of the night. The disadvantages of living in the tropics. But now … Yes! Her phone was in her jacket pocket. She grabbed it and flicked it on.

One push and a surprising amount of light fought through the dust.

She could now see the big torch, lying at her feet. She grabbed it. The switch had flicked off when it had fallen. Not broken. She had light.

Next …

The guy she’d come in for.

She’d met them halfway in. Blood had been streaming from Malu’s thigh and he’d been barely conscious. The miners with him had tied a tourniquet but it wasn’t enough.

‘He needs more pressure,’ she’d snapped. ‘Put him down.’

And then she’d felt the rumbles. She’d felt the earth tremble.

‘Run!’ she’d screamed at the two guys who’d been carrying him, and she still seemed to hear the echoes of that yell.

They’d run.

She hoped they’d made it. Fallen rock was blocking the way she’d come. Please, let them have made it to the other side.

It was no use hoping. First things first. She was raking the rubble-strewn floor with her torch beam, searching for Malu. The combined beam of torch and phone only reached about three feet before the dust killed it.

He must have pulled himself back.

‘Malu?’

‘H-here.’

A pile of stone lay between them. She was over it in seconds. It hurt, she thought vaguely. She was eight months pregnant. Climbing over loose rock, knocking rock in the process, was maybe not the wisest …

She didn’t have time for wise.

He was right by the pile. He was very lucky the rocks hadn’t fallen on him.

Define luck, she thought grimly, but at least he was still alive. And still conscious.

Dust and blood. A lot of it.

He had a deep gash on his thigh where his pants were ripped away. The guys had tried to tie a tourniquet but it had slipped. Blood was oozing …

But not pumping, she thought with relief. If it’d been pumping he’d be dead by now.

She was wearing a light jacket. She hauled it off, bundled it into a tight pad, placed it against the wound and pushed.

Malu screamed.

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she told him, but there was no time to do anything about the pain. She had to keep pushing. ‘Malu, I have drugs but I need to stop the bleeding before I do anything else. I need to press hard.’

‘S-sorry. Just the shock …’

‘I should have warned you.’

Go back to basics, she reminded herself, desperately fighting the need to cough, and the need to breathe through the grit. Desperately trying to sound in control. Don’t start a procedure before explaining it to the patient, she reminded herself, even if she was trapped in a place that scared her witless.

Malu had relapsed into silence. She knew Malu. He was a large, tough islander from the outermost island of the M’Langi group.

He had a wife and two small children.

She pushed harder.

She had morphine in her bag. If she had another pair of hands …

She didn’t.

His pants were ripped. Yes! Still pressing with one hand, she used the other and tugged the jagged cloth. The cloth ripped almost to the ankle.

Now she was fumbling one-handed in her bag for scissors. Thank heaven she was neat. There was so much dust … Despite the torchlight she could hardly see, but the scissors were right where she always stored them.

One snip and she had the tough fabric cut at the cuff, and that gave her a length of fabric to wind. The miners had tried to use a belt as their tourniquet but it was too stiff. The torn trouser leg was a thousand times better.

She twisted and wound, tying the pad—her ex-jacket—into place. She twisted and twisted until Malu cried out again.

‘Malu, the worst’s over,’ she told him as she somehow managed to knot it. ‘The bleeding’s stopped and my hands are now free. I’ll make us masks to make breathing easier. Then I’ll organise something to dull the pain.’

And get some fluids into you, she added to herself, saying silent prayers of thanks that she had her bag with her, that she’d had it beside her when the collapse had happened, that she’d picked it up almost automatically and that she hadn’t dropped it. She had saline. She could set up a drip. But in this dust, to try and keep things sterile …

Concentrate on keeping Malu alive first, she told herself. After so much blood loss she had to replace fluids. She’d worry about bugs later.

Malu was barely responding. His pulse … His pulse …

Get the fluids in. Move!

Five minutes later Malu had morphine on board and she had a makeshift drip feeding fluids into his arm. She’d ripped her shirt and created makeshift masks to keep the worst of the dust from their lungs. She sat back and held the saline bag up, and for the first time she thought she might have time to breathe herself.

She still felt like she was choking. Her eyes were filled with grit.

They were both alive.

‘Doc?’ Malu’s voice was a whisper but she was onto it.

‘Mmm?’

‘Macca and Reuben … They were carrying me.’

‘I know.’

‘Reuben’s my uncle. You reckon they’ve made it?’

‘I don’t know.’ There was no point lying; Malu would know the risks better than she did. She grasped his hand and held. There was nothing else she could do or say.

The thought of trying to find them, trying to struggle out through the mass of rubble … Even if she could leave Malu, the thing was impossible. The rubble around them was unyielding.

Malu’s hand gripped hers, hard. ‘Don’t even think about trying to dig out,’ he muttered, and she thought that even though his words were meant as protection to her, there was more than a hint of fear for himself. To be left alone in the dark … ‘It’s up to them outside to do the rescuing now. Meanwhile, turn off the lights.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The lights. We don’t need ‘em. Conserve …’

‘Good thinking,’ she said warmly, and flicked off her torch. Then she flicked off the torch app on her phone. But as the beam died, a message appeared on the screen. When had that come in?

She wouldn’t have heard.

The message was simple.

Maddie? Tell me you’re not down the mine. On way with Cairns Air Sea Rescue. Josh.

Josh.

Josh was coming.

Her phone was working. Help was on its way.

It was amazing that the signal had reached down here, but this was a shallow tunnel, with ventilation shafts rising at regular intervals. The simple knowledge that she had phone reception made her feel better. And Josh was coming … All of a sudden she felt a thousand per cent lighter. She told Malu and felt the faint relaxation of the grip on her hand. Cairns Air Sea Rescue would be the forerunners, she knew. The cavalry was heading this way.

She gripped her phone hard, as if it alone was a link to the outside world. Help. Heavy machinery. Skill, technology, care. All the things needed to get them out of here.

Josh was coming.

It shouldn’t make one scrap of difference that Josh would be one of the rescue crew. Their marriage had been over for years. They talked occasionally as casual acquaintances. Friends? Probably not even that.

But still … Josh was coming.

‘So you still got reception?’ Malu whispered, sounding incredulous, and she looked at the one bar out of five signalling a really weak link to the outside world.

‘Just.’

‘Tell ‘em to hurry,’ Malu muttered. ‘And tell them if there’s one single camera at the mine mouth then I need a new pair of trousers before they bring me out.’

She even managed a chuckle. He was so brave.

His pulse was so weak …

‘I’ll tell them,’ she said and ventured a text back.

Yeah, we’re underground. There’s a bit of rock between us and the entrance. We’re not very respectable. If you’re coming in we’d appreciate a change of clothes. There’s a distinct lack of laundry facilities down here.

She read it to Malu and he managed a chuckle. She should say more, she thought. She should give a complete medical update but for now it was enough that she was breathing and Malu was breathing.

She just had to keep it that way until Josh …

Until the cavalry arrived.

The plane was taxiing out onto the runway. ‘Phones off now,’ the pilot snapped, and Josh went to flick off his phone—and then paused as a message appeared.

If you’re coming in we’d appreciate a change of clothes. There’s a distinct lack of laundry facilities down here.

He swore. Then he swore again.

‘Josh?’ Beth was watching, all concern.

‘She’s down there,’ he said grimly. ‘Maddie’s trapped.’

‘Then all the more reason to turn your phone off so we can take off.’ But she took the phone from his hands and stared at the screen, and her face tightened. This team were used to horror, but when it affected one of their own …

‘Wait thirty seconds,’ she told the pilot, and she started texting.

‘What?’ He tried to grab his phone back, but she turned her back on him and kept typing. Then the text sent, and she handed it back.

He looked down at what she’d written.

We’re on our way. With Josh in the lead. He’ll be in there with you, even if he has to dig in with his bare hands.

‘Beth …’ He could hardly speak.

‘Truth?’ she queried, and he tried to swallow panic. And failed.

‘Truth,’ he muttered, and he flicked his phone off and they were on their way.

CHAPTER TWO

WHAT BLESSED FAIRY had made her run into the mine with a fully loaded medical bag?

What bad goblin had made her run in at all?

In the hours that followed, Maddie tried to get a grip on what had happened.

There should have been systems in place to stop her, she decided as the darkness seemed to grow blacker around her. There should also have been barriers to stop the mine’s ex-employees gaining access in the first place.

But who was in control? Where was Ian Lockhart? He owned this mine, or at least his brother did. So much on this island was running down. Lockhart money had dried up. There’d even been mutterings that the medical service would have to close.

At least the service had still been operating this morning, she thought, grasping at any ray of light she could find in this nightmare. The good news was that she’d been here. Yes, she’d been dumb enough to run into the mine, but she’d carried three units of saline and she’d only used two on Malu. The bleeding had slowed to nothing and his blood pressure was rising and …

And she was still trapped underground. A long way underground.

Her telephone beeped into life again. Ringing. Not a message.

A real person! But first she frantically sought settings to turn the volume down. The dust was still settling around them, and it seemed to her that any little sound might cause more rock to fall.

Malu was no longer aware. She’d given him more morphine and he’d fallen into an uneasy slumber. The ringtone hadn’t woken him.

‘H-hi.’ It felt eerie to be calmly answering the phone in such conditions. She had to stop and cough. ‘H-hold on.’

Let it be Josh.

Why did she think that? Josh was coming from Cairns. He couldn’t be here yet. The coughing eased and she managed to focus again.

‘Maddie?’ The voice at the end of the phone was growing frantic. Not Josh.

She recognised the voice—Keanu, one of the other two island doctors. Sam, the island’s chief permanent doctor, had decided to take leave before she had her baby, which meant she and Keanu were currently the only doctors on the island.

‘What’s happening?’ he demanded. ‘Are you okay?’

‘We seem to be trapped but we’re okay.’ She glanced down again at Malu. ‘You and me both, aren’t we, Malu?’

Malu didn’t respond but she didn’t expect him to. The wound on his thigh was ugly. Without morphine he’d be writhing. She released the pressure from his makeshift mask a little, trying to get a balance between stopping the grit and making it harder for him to breathe.

Oxygen would be good. Why hadn’t she lugged in an oxygen cylinder, as well?

She should have brought a wheelbarrow.

‘Maddie?’

She jerked herself back to focussing on the call. ‘Keanu? Malu has an impact injury, thigh.’ She suspected broken ribs, possible internal injuries as well, but it was no use saying that in Malu’s hearing. ‘I suspect he’ll need surgery when we get out of here, evac to Cairns, but I’ve stopped the bleeding and he’s stable. Two litres of saline, five milligrams of intravenous morph …’

‘You had that stuff down there?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘I was a girl scout,’ she said dryly. ‘I’m prepared.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then …

‘Are Macca and Reuben with you?’

‘They ran when the second collapse came. They’re not with us now.’

He must have her on speaker phone. She could hear sobbing in the background. He’d be in the operations room of the mine, she thought. The sobbing would be Macca’s and Reuben’s families.

Malu’s family would be there, too.

No one belonging to her.

But then … Josh was coming. He’d said he would.

Josh wasn’t her family, she reminded herself. In truth, he never had been.

‘That last rockfall …’ She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to. ‘Was anyone else hurt?’

‘Everyone’s clear but you four.’

‘Kalifa?

‘Maddie, worry about yourself.’

‘Should I worry?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘It might take a while to reach you,’ Keanu said at last. ‘How’s the air down there?’

‘Dusty.’

‘But?’

‘But otherwise okay.’ She sniffed. ‘I can feel a bit of a draught. Do you reckon there might be some sort of escape hatch?’

‘It’s probably from a ventilation shaft. Thank God that’s still working.’ He hesitated. ‘Maddie, we need to bring experts and machinery from the mainland.’

‘The mainland … Cairns.’

‘Yep.’

‘Is that coming on the mercy flight?’

‘How do you know about the mercy flight?’

‘Josh told me.’

There was another silence. ‘Your Josh,’ he said at last.

‘He’s not my Josh.’ And then … ‘How do you know he’s my Josh?’

‘Hettie told me. She relayed the message from Cairns Air Sea Rescue. But … You’ve been talking to him yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maddie?’

‘Mmm?’

‘You need to conserve your phone. It’s probably not the time for chats with your ex.’

‘He texted. I also have three battery backups in my bag. That’s enough for two days.’

‘That might not be enough.’

‘You have to be kidding.’

‘I hope I am,’ he said. ‘But for now … two days or not, conserve your phone.’

Two days or not, conserve your phone.

Maddie sat back on her heels and tried—really hard—not to panic.

Two days?

There’d been an incident, not so long ago, where miners had been trapped … where? Tasmania? The miners had been successfully brought to the surface after how many days? Fourteen? She couldn’t remember the details but she remembered watching the rescue unfold on television. She’d been mesmerised by the tragedy of the mine collapse but even more mesmerised by the courage shown by the miners trying to keep their sanity as the appalling endurance test had stretched on.

Neither of them had been badly injured.

Malu was suffering from shock and a deep laceration, she thought, but what else? She wanted X-rays. She wanted him in hospital. She wanted a sterile environment and the necessary surgery for his leg.

She couldn’t even see him.

Two days …

The darkness was absolute.

Her fingers were on Malu’s wrist. His pulse was settling. There was no need to turn on the torch.

She flicked the torch on anyway, just for a moment. Just to see.

Their chamber was about eight feet in diameter. The roof was still up there, and there were shoring timbers above them. Where their tiny enclosure ended, the shoring timbers had splintered like kindling.

The floor was rock-strewn. She needed to clear it a bit to get Malu more comfortable.

She could do it without the torch. She had to do it without the torch. She flicked it off again and the total darkness was like a physical slap.

Her phone gave a tiny ping and the screen lit momentarily. She took three deep breaths—because she had been close to panic—and she let herself look.

Landed. You nice and safe down there? Got a couple of good rocks you can use for pillows or are you thinking you might like to come on up? Josh.

She could have kissed him. Except she didn’t kiss Josh. Not any more. He’d always been uncomfortable with overt displays of affection. Even when they’d been married … Affection had been an effort, she thought, seizing on the excuse to get her mind off the dust. She’d never been in any doubt that he’d wanted her, but affection had been for behind closed doors. It was almost as if he’d been ashamed to admit he’d needed her.

He didn’t need her. He’d figured that five years ago when he’d walked away from their marriage. But right now she needed him. She texted him.

I’m not going anywhere. Just trying to decide which rock pillow to use. It seems I have a choice. Have given Malu morphine. He’s suffered major blood loss. Have given two litres of saline. I only have one more and want to hold it in reserve.

For drinking? She didn’t say it. She couldn’t.

Heart rate a hundred and twenty. Only just conscious. Worrying.

Damn Keanu and his ban on using her phone, she decided, as she hit Send. Okay, her battery life was precious, but Josh was a trauma specialist, a good one, and she needed advice. If she was going to be stuck down here with Malu, then the least she could do was keep him alive.

Which meant texting Josh. Didn’t it?

She didn’t get the little whoosh as her message sent. She stared at the single flickering bar of reception on her screen and willed it to send. Send. Send.

The screen went blank again and she was left with darkness.

Whoosh.

Sent. Delivered. At least she hoped it had been delivered. Josh would be on his way from Wildfire’s tiny airstrip, and he had to cross the mountains to get to the mine. There were places up there where there was no phone reception at all.

How long before he saw it?

Did it matter? She was pretty sure there was nothing more she could do medically for Malu, except make him comfortable.

Comfortable? Rock pillows. Ha!

Josh will text when he can, she told herself, and the thought was comforting.

Why? Why Josh rather than anyone else?

She had lots of friends on Wildfire Island. She’d been working as a fly in, fly out doctor here for five years now, spending two weeks here, one week in Cairns. She was doing okay. She’d put her marriage behind her. This next stage of her life … Well, it was a gamble but it was something—someone—she desperately wanted.

Unconsciously her hand went to her belly. She’d been hit as the rocks had flown, but surely she’d protected her baby enough?

Why on earth had she risked her baby? It had been a split-second decision but now … it seemed almost criminally stupid.

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ she whispered to the little one in her belly, and she felt like weeping.

She had to talk to someone.

Maybe she could text Hettie. Hettie, Wildfire’s charge nurse administrator, was a real friend, whereas Josh was now merely a contact, someone she’d put to the back of her mind like she’d put old school photos to the back of her wardrobe. One day she’d throw them out.

But not yet, she decided as she told herself she couldn’t phone anyone and started groping her way around the floor. She was shoving loose rocks to the side, clearing space so she could make Malu as comfortable as possible.

Photos. The thought was suddenly weirdly front and centre. Pictures of her mother before the stroke. Photographs of her wedding day.

They were all history, she told herself. She should get rid of them all. She touched her belly again, lightly, a touch that, all at once, seemed to be almost a prayer.

‘I don’t need any of it,’ she said out loud, even though speaking was impossibly hard through the dust. ‘The past is just that. I have a future now.’

But still …

Text soon, she pleaded silently to her phone. Please, Josh?

And she went on clearing rocks.

A truck met them at the airstrip. A chopper would have been more sensible, Josh thought grimly as they transferred gear from the plane to the truck, but the instructions had been explicit. ‘We used to keep a solid clearing around the minehead but there’s been cost-cutting,’ Hettie had told them. The charge nurse at the hospital had put herself in charge of communication. ‘The jungle’s come back and even the parking lot got so rutted in the last rain it’d take hours to clear a landing site. We’ll get you from the airstrip to the mine by truck.’

If they couldn’t land the choppers, the injured would have to be trucked back to the airstrip for evacuation.

The injured …

Maddie?

The thought of where she was made Josh feel sick. He couldn’t think of her. He had to concentrate on the job at hand—but it was taking too long to reach her.

To reach it. To reach the mine.

Maddie.

With the gear loaded he jumped into the front passenger seat of the lorry. Another jeep took Beth. They turned off the coast road, skirting the plateau to the other side of the island.

He checked his phone.

Nothing.

‘There’s no reception, mate,’ the lorry driver told him. ‘Not with the plateau between us and transmission.’

‘Do you know anything more?’

‘Not more’n you, probably.’ The guy’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, but it wasn’t because of hard driving. His face was grim as death. ‘We haven’t heard from Macca and Reuben. They’re mates. We know Malu and Doc Haddon are alive but they’re trapped.’ The man’s knuckles gripped even tighter. ‘Bloody Lockhart. Rips all the money from the mine and what does he do with it? He’s been told those shoring timbers needed replacing or the mine sealed. And where is he? Not here facing what he’s done, that’s for sure. It won’t be him crawling down the mine trying to get them out.’

‘That’ll be Max Lockhart?’ Josh ventured, trying not to think of anyone crawling down the mine to get … Maddie out. He was dredging up stuff he’d seen in the press about this island group. ‘Isn’t Max Lockhart the owner of Wildfire?’

‘Yeah.’ The guy spat out the window of the moving truck. ‘But we’ve hardly seen hide nor hair of Max for years. Ian’s his brother. He took over day-to-day running of the mine a few years back. He’s supposed to be running the island for his brother, but as far as we can see he’s just out for what he can get. He’s somewhere overseas now. The mine got dangerous, the money stopped and he left. And now this mess … How the hell are we going to get ‘em out?’ There was a moment’s silence and then he swore with an intensity Josh had never heard before and never wanted to hear again.

‘And … Doc Haddon?’ Josh ventured, not because he wanted to but because he was almost forced to say it.

The knuckles kept their death grip but the lines on the man’s face softened. ‘She’s a great kid. Well, maybe she’s not a kid any more but I’m sixty, mate, so she’s a kid to me. She’s been on the island for five years now. The wife got shingles last year. Doc saw her in the market, saw the bumps. We’d thought they were just bites but before we knew it Doc had her at the clinic. She gave her this fancy medicine right on the spot. The shingles was bad enough but Ally—that’s our daughter—she looked it up on the internet and said if Mum hadn’t taken the stuff it could have been ten times worse. And every day Doc found an excuse to pop in. When she was off island she got Caroline or Ana to come instead. You know that nerve pain they get? Real bad, it was, but Doc Maddie was right onto it. She cares for everyone like that.’

And then his face hardened again. ‘They say she just ran in. Everyone else was running out and someone shouted that Malu was bleeding so hard the guys carrying him had to stop. She grabbed her bag and ran. She’s a hero.’

And his voice cracked with emotion as he swiped his arm across his face and sniffed.

Josh’s phone pinged. He glanced down, trying not to hope, but the word on his screen read Maddie.

He couldn’t read the message. For some dumb reason his eyes were blurry, too. He had to do a matching swipe before he could make it out.

I’m not going anywhere. Just trying to decide which rock pillow to use. It seems I have a choice. Have given Malu morphine. He’s suffered major blood loss. Have given two litres of saline. I only have one more and want to hold it in reserve. Heart rate a hundred and twenty. Only just conscious. Worrying.

How long since that’d been sent? While he was in the air? He swiped his face again and turned into doctor. Texted back, hoping whatever sliver of reception he had would last.

You’re doing great. Heart rate will be high considering shock. Do what you can to keep him warm, cuddle him if you need to. If it’s his thigh, see if you can get him sloped so his legs are higher than his heart. But you know this, Maddie. Trust your instincts. Love you.

And then he paused.

How many times in the past had he texted his wife and finished with the words Love you?

‘You’ve never really loved me.’ He remembered Maddie saying it to him in those last dreadful days when he’d known their marriage was over. ‘Love shares, Josh. Love gives and takes and you don’t know how.’

Love you?

She was right, of course. He hadn’t loved her. Or not enough.

He stared at the screen for a moment and then he deleted some characters. Then hit Send. Without the love.

‘I can’t imagine what the wives are going through,’ the truck driver said, almost to himself. ‘And Pearl … Malu’s wife … She’s another who thinks the sun rises and sets with Maddie. Y’know, our local mums are supposed to go to Cairns six weeks before bubs are born but the docs can’t make ‘em so Pearl didn’t. Maddie had to be choppered out to Atangi in the middle of the night. Breech it was, and Doc Maddie did an emergency Caesarean, right there in Pearl’s kitchen. Pearl won’t go to any other doctor since. And now Doc’s trapped with Malu. Doesn’t bear thinking of.’

Josh tried to think of something to say—and couldn’t. He didn’t trust his own voice.

‘Married yourself, are you?’ the guy asked at last. They were heading downhill now, through dense tropical rainforest, presumably towards the coast. Josh was trying to consider the terrain, thinking of what he already knew: that the rainforest had reclaimed most of the cleared land round the minehead, and how hard it was going to be to get machinery in.

He wanted to worry about machinery. About technicalities. He wanted to worry about anything but Maddie.

Married yourself? The guy’s question still hung.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Not now.’

He didn’t deserve to be married. He hadn’t protected …

He’d failed.

Born to useless, drug-addicted parents, Josh had been the protector since he could first remember. The strong one.

He remembered a social worker, one of the early ones, walking into their house to find Holly curled on the bed and whimpering. There hadn’t been food in the house for days.

He’d been eight and Holly five. Josh had been big for his age, confused, helpless, as hungry as his little sister, but he hadn’t been whimpering. He’d learned early not to cry.

And the woman had turned on him, shocked into an automatic attack. ‘Why didn’t you come for help?’ she’d demanded. ‘You’re big enough now to protect your sister. Why didn’t you at least tell a neighbour?’

He’d never made that mistake again. He’d protected and protected and protected—but it hadn’t worked. He remembered the helplessness of being torn apart from Holly, placed in separate foster homes. The nightmares.

He’d learned to disguise even those. His job was to protect, not to share his pain. Not to add to that hurt.

And now? Once again Maddie was hurting and he was stuck on the far side of a mountain.

‘Partner?’ Maybe the guy was trying to distract himself. Surely he was. They were his friends underground.

And that was what Maddie was, he told himself. His friend. Nothing more.

‘I guess … A girlfriend,’ he told the guy and tried to think of Karen. They’d only been dating for three months but that was practically long-term for Josh. Karen was fun and flirty and out for a good time. She didn’t mind that his job took him away so much. She used him as he used her—as an appendage for weddings and the like, and someone to have fun with when it suited them both.

Maybe she wasn’t even a girlfriend, Josh thought. But that didn’t matter.

Whereas Maddie …

‘Here we are,’ the truck driver said, turning off the main road—if you could call it a main road—into a fenced-off area. The main gates were wide open. The sign on the fence said Mining Area—Keep Out, but there was no trace of security.

There were a few dilapidated buildings nestled among the trees. Only the cluster of parked vehicles, an ancient fire truck, a police motorbike and a jeep with the Wildfire Medical insignia, told him that anything was wrong.

‘Best place for the chopper’s round the back,’ the truck driver told him. ‘The guys were starting to clear it when we left.’ He pulled to a halt outside the first of the buildings and turned and clamped a hand on Josh’s shoulder. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he told him. ‘Thanks for coming. We sure need you.’

Josh climbed out of the truck and as he did his phone pinged. Maddie again.

We’re warm enough. Could use a bit of air-conditioning. Do you think you could arrange it? Also a couple of fluffy pillows, two mattresses and Malu reckons he could handle a beer. I could handle a gin and tonic, though I suppose I’m stuck with a lemonade. Actually lemonade sounds brilliant. I’m happy to make do. That’s my ‘needs’ list, Dr Campbell. Could you get onto it, stat?

A pillow would be nice. A pillow would be magnificent. Instead, Maddie lay on her back, with her hands behind her head, trying not to think how hard the rock was. And how much of a dead weight Malu’s legs were.

See if you can get him sloped so his legs are higher than his heart.

That was easier said than done. She could have put rocks under his thighs—yeah, that’d be comfy. Instead, she’d emptied her soft leather medical bag and given that to him as a pillow. She’d given him a couple of sips of the water—not as much as he wanted but she was starting to figure that if Keanu said two days then she might need to ration. Then, out of options, she’d lain down and lifted his legs onto hers.

It helped. She had her hand on his wrist and she could feel the difference.

He’d objected but not very much. In truth, he was drifting in and out of consciousness. He could hardly assess what she was doing.

She wouldn’t mind a bit of unconsciousness herself. She ached where she’d been hit by flying debris. She had a scratch on her head. Blood had trickled down and it was sticky. And grimy.

She’d kill for a wash.

Her back hurt.

Cramps?

That was her imagination, she told herself fiercely. It had to be.

Lie still and think of England.

Think of Josh? He’s out there.

Josh. Her husband.

He was no such thing, she told herself, but for now, in the dust and grit, she allowed herself to think it. She’d married him. She’d made vows and she’d meant them.

When she’d signed the divorce papers it’d broken her heart.

‘Josh …’ She couldn’t help herself. She said his name aloud, like it was some sort of talisman. She didn’t need him, or at least she hadn’t needed him until now. Josh hated to be needed.

But that wasn’t true, she conceded. He loved to be physically needed, like he was needed now, flying off to the world’s emergencies, doctor in crisis, doing what he could to help in the worst possible situations. But when she’d needed to share emotional pain?

That’s when he’d been … divorced.

‘Who’s Josh?’

Malu asked his question sleepily. He stirred, winced, swore then settled again. His legs were so heavy. She couldn’t do this for much longer, she decided, but she’d cope as long as she could.

‘Josh is my ex-husband,’ she said, more to distract herself than anything else. Doctors didn’t reveal their personal lives to their patients, yet down here the lines between professional and personal were blurred. Two days? Please not.

‘He’s a trauma specialist with Cairns Air Sea Rescue,’ she said, and the words seemed a comfort all by themselves. ‘He’s texted. He’s on his way.

‘Because of you?’ Malu’s words were slurred, but strong enough to reassure her.

‘It’s his job.’

‘So not because of you.’

‘We’ve been divorced for five years.’

‘Yeah?’ Malu must be using this as a means to distract himself from the pain, from the fear, from the difficulty breathing, she decided. It was so hard to talk through the dust.

She couldn’t tell him to hush and conserve his energy. Maybe she needed distraction, too.

‘So he’s not the dad?’ Malu asked.

‘No.’ She wasn’t going there and it seemed Malu sensed it.

‘I can’t imagine being divorced from my Pearl,’ Malu managed, moving on. ‘So … five years ago? What happened? Wrong guy in the first place? He play fast and loose?’

‘I guess … first option. He was always the wrong guy.’ She thought about it for a bit and then suddenly she found herself talking. Talking about Josh. Talking, as she’d never spoken of it to anyone.

‘Josh had it tough,’ she said, softly into the dark. ‘He had a younger sister, Holly. His parents were worse than useless and that the two of them survived at all was a miracle. They were abandoned as kids and went from foster home to foster home. Sometimes they were separated but Josh fought battle after battle to keep them together. To keep his sister safe. Their only constant was each other.’

‘B-bummer …’

‘Yeah,’ she said softly. ‘It was a bummer. But Josh was tough. He got a scholarship and made it into medicine, then worked his way through university, supporting Holly while he did it.’

‘Where’d you meet him?’

‘Just after I finished university. I was a first-year intern. We became friends and … well, one thing led to another.’

‘To marriage.’

‘That’s right,’ she whispered, thinking back to the precious months before that nightmare time. Lying in the dark, holding Josh. Feeling him hold her. Feeling his love unfold, feeling that they might have a chance.

‘B-but?’ He coughed and coughed again and then moaned, and she did a recalculation of morphine dosages and figured she could give him more in half an hour. She daren’t give it sooner. She couldn’t drug him too deeply, not with this amount of dust in the air.

So distract him. Tell him … the truth?

‘I’m still not sure the reasons for marriage were solid,’ she told him. ‘My mum … well, maybe you already know? I told Pearl about her when she asked why I don’t stay on Wildfire all the time. My dad took off when I was six. I’m an only child. We were incredibly close—and then she had a stroke. Major. She’s unable to do anything for herself. She’s permanently damaged. Anyway, as I said, Josh was my colleague and my friend, and when the stroke happened he was amazing. He cared for me when I was gutted. He cared for Mum—in fact, I think sometimes he still visits her. He did … everything right. And I thought … well, I fell so deeply in love I found myself pregnant.’

‘Hey, that happens,’ Malu whispered. ‘Like me ‘n Pearl. Never a better thing, though. So, your Josh. He was happy about it?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she whispered. ‘He told me he was. But there’s one thing Josh is good at, and that’s hiding his emotions. All I knew was that he seemed happy about the baby, and he said he loved me. So we married. He still felt a bit … distant but I thought … maybe …’

‘So what happened to the baby? What broke you up?’

‘Knowledge,’ she said bleakly. ‘Learning Josh knows how to care, but not to share. Do you really want to listen to this?’

‘Pearl says I’m a gossip,’ Malu whispered, and grabbed her hand and held on. A link in the darkness. ‘Tell me.’ And then, as she hesitated, his grip tightened. ‘I know it’s not my business, but honest, Maddie, I’m scared. You could tell me it’s all going to be fine but we both know that’s not true. Distract me. Anything that’s said in the mine stays in the mine.’

She almost smiled. ‘That seems a really good arm twist to give you more gossip.’

She sensed a half smile in return. She was friends with his wife, but she barely knew Malu. Though maybe that was no longer true, she decided. There was nothing like hurling you down a mine and locking you in, with the threat of rockfalls real and constant, to make you know someone really fast.

And what harm to talk about Josh now? she asked herself. Somewhere he was out there, worrying. Caring. Caring was what he was good at, she thought.

Caring wasn’t enough.

Tell Malu? She might as well. He needed distraction and she … well, so did she.

‘They say troubles come in threes,’ she said finally into the dark. ‘So did ours. Mum had her stroke. We got married, which was the good bit, but there were two more tragedies waiting in the wings. We lost the baby—Mikey was born prematurely—and then Josh’s little sister died.’

‘Oh, Maddie.’ What sort of doctor–patient relationship was this? she asked herself. It was Malu doing the comforting.

As Josh had comforted.

‘You know, if it had been my sister and only my baby, like it was my mum, I’m guessing Josh would have coped brilliantly,’ she said, and now she was almost speaking to herself. Sorting it out in her mind. ‘But it was Josh’s pain and he didn’t know how to cope with it. It left him gutted and his reaction was to stonewall himself. He just emotionally disappeared.’

‘How can you do that?’

‘Normal people can’t,’ Maddie said slowly. ‘But Josh had one hell of a childhood. He never talks about it but when I met him his sister was doing brilliantly, at uni herself, happy and bubbly. She told me how bad it had been but Josh never did. He used to have nightmares but when I woke him he’d never tell me what they were about. Sometimes I’d wake and hear him pacing in the night and I knew there were demons. And then came baby Mikey, too small to live. And Holly. One drunk driver, a car mounting the footpath. So after all that, Josh’s care came to nothing and he went so far into himself I couldn’t reach him. He finally explained to me, quite calmly, that he couldn’t handle himself. He didn’t know how to be a husband to me any more. He had to leave.’

She shook her head, trying to shake off the memory of the night Josh had finally declared their marriage was over.

There was a long silence, for which she was grateful. And then she thought …

These are cramps. Stomach cramps.

Back cramps?

And that thought brought a stab of fear so deep it terrified her.

She was lying on a rock floor, supporting Malu’s legs. Of course she had cramps.

Of course?

Please …

‘I can top up the morphine now if you like,’ she managed at last, and at least this was an excuse to turn on the torch. She needed the phone app torch, too, to clean the dust away and inject the morphine. She held the phone for a bit too long after.

The light was a comfort.

The phone would be better.

No word. No texting.

Cramps.

Josh …

Malu’s grip on her hand gradually lessened. She thought he was drifting into sleep, but maybe the rocks were too hard. The morphine didn’t cut it.

‘So your Josh abandoned you and joined Cairns Air Sea Rescue?’ he whispered at last.

Oh, her back hurt. She wouldn’t mind some of that morphine herself …

Talk, she told herself. Don’t think of anything but distracting Malu.

‘I think that other people’s trauma, other people’s pain, are things he can deal with,’ she managed, struggling to find the right words. Struggling to find the right answer. ‘But losing our baby … It hurt him to look at me hurting, and when Holly died, he didn’t know where to put himself. He couldn’t comfort me and he thought showing me his pain would make mine worse. He couldn’t help me, so he left.’

‘Oh, girl …’

‘I’m fine,’ she whispered, and Malu coughed again and then gripped tighter.

‘I dunno much,’ he wheezed. ‘But I do know I’m very sure you’re not.’

‘Not what?’

‘Fine. You’re hurting and it’s not just the memory of some low-life husband walking out on you.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘I can tell pain when I hear it.’

‘I got hit by a few rocks. We both have bruises all over.’

‘There’s room on my pillow to share.’

‘It’s not exactly professional—to share my patient’s bed.’

‘I’m just sharing the pillow,’ Malu told her with an attempt at laughter. ‘You have to provide your own rock base.’

She tried to smile. Her phone pinged and she’d never read a text message faster.

Hey, you. Quick update? Tell us you’re okay. Josh.

‘Is that telling us the bulldozers are coming?’ Malu demanded, and the threadiness of his voice had her switching on the torch again. ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he managed. ‘You tell them … tell them to tell Pearl I’m okay. But I wouldn’t mind a bulldozer.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a piece of foam,’ she told him, and tried to think of what to say to Josh. Apart from the fact that she was scared. No, make that terrified. She hated the dark and she was starting to panic and the dust in her lungs made it hard to breathe and the cramps …

Get a grip. Hysterics were no use to anyone.

She shouldn’t have come in in the first place, she told herself.

Yeah, and then Malu would be dead.

Josh wanted facts. He couldn’t cope with emotion.

Yeah, Josh, we’re fine.

CHAPTER THREE

JOSH WASN’T ON Wildfire to dig into a mine and pull people out. Not even Maddie. Josh was there to assess medical need, perform triage, arrange evacuation where possible and then get his hands dirty dealing with injuries needing on-the-ground treatment.

And there was a need. The locals were doing all they could, but the medical team here consisted of one doctor and two nurses. It had apparently taken the doctor—an islander called Keanu—time to get there, and the guy who had been injured first was taking up his attention. A fractured leg followed by a cardiac arrest left room for little else.

But there was more medical need. Apparently, before Keanu had arrived, the miners had fought their way back into mine, frantically trying to reach their injured mates. It hadn’t worked. There’d been a further cave-in. Further casualties. Keanu barely had time to acknowledge Josh and Beth’s arrival.

There was still a sense of chaos. Keanu had ordered everyone back from the mine mouth but no one seemed to be in charge of rescue efforts.

‘Where’s the mine manager?’ Josh snapped as he surveyed the scene before him. A group of filthy miners were huddled at the mouth of the mine, with pretty much matching expressions of shock and loss. Keanu had organised the casualties a little way away, under the shade of palm trees. He and the nurses were working frantically over the guy with the injured leg, but he shook his head as Josh approached.

‘We have everything we need here. It’s touch and go for this guy and there’s others needing help. The guy with the arm first.’ He motioned across to where a miner was on the ground, his mate beside him.

‘No breathing problems?’

‘They’ve all had a lungful of rock—we could use a tank of oxygen—but …’

‘I’ll get Beth to do a respiratory assessment. Beth?’

‘Onto it.’ She was already heading for the truck, for oxygen canisters. ‘Okay, guys,’ she called. ‘Anyone want a face wipe and a whiff of something that’ll do you good? Line up here.’

‘What’s happening down the mine?’ Josh asked.

‘Hettie’s called the mining authorities in Cairns. We need expertise. They’re sending engineers and equipment now.’

From Cairns. It’d take hours.

Maddie was down there.

Keanu was adjusting a drip, watching the guy’s breathing like an eagle watched a mouse. A tiny thing, the rise and fall of a chest, but so important. ‘So you’re the ex-husband,’ he managed.

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah, well, we all love Maddie, but she’s in there now and it’s up to the experts to get her out. Meanwhile, sorry, mate, but there’s more work here than we can handle. We’re still trying to stabilise. We have a suspected ruptured spleen, a guy with an arm so crushed he might lose it, a fractured leg with shock and breathing problems and more. Could you look at the spleen for me?’

And somehow Josh had to stop thinking of Maddie underground, Maddie trapped, Maddie deep in a mine where there’d already been two major rockfalls. He needed to focus on the here and now.

Triage …

He headed across to the guy with the suspected ruptured spleen. As long as he wasn’t going into shock—which he could be if the rupture was significant—then the arm was the first priority. If he could save it.

Four underground. Including Maddie.

‘Who’s the mine manager?’ he snapped, asking it not of Keanu, who was committed to the patient under his hands, but of the miners in general.

‘Ian Lockhart,’ one of the men ventured. ‘At least, he’s supposed to be in charge but he lit out when the debt collectors started sniffing around.’

‘Was he in charge of day-to-day running of the mine?’

‘That used to be Pete Blake. Max Lockhart owns the island but he’s never here. He put Pete in charge but Ian reckoned he knew it all. He sacked Pete last year and took over the day-to-day stuff himself. Reuben Alaki’s acting supervisor now but …’ He hesitated and his voice cracked. ‘Reuben’s one of the guys stuck down there.’

‘Is Pete still on the island?’

‘He’ll probably be out fishing.’

‘Get him,’ Josh snapped. ‘Use one of the island choppers to bring him here—do an air drop.’

‘What, pluck him off his boat and drop him here?’

‘Exactly,’ Josh snapped. ‘We need expertise now.’ He bent over the guy with the fractured arm. Compound. Messy. ‘Okay, mate, let’s get you assessed and see if we can do something for the pain. Meanwhile let’s get things moving to get your mates out from underground.’

And then a nose wedged its way under his arm and he almost froze with shock. It was a great, bounding golden retriever.

Bugsy.

It was so long since he’d seen the dog it was all he could do not to shed a few tears into his shaggy coat. The big dog recognised him. That was amazing all by itself.

He’d given Bugsy to Maddie after their honeymoon, just before he’d gone back to work. His job was search and rescue. He spent days at a time in remote places, coping with emergencies like this one.

He’d been aware just how alone Maddie had been—that was one of the reasons he’d married her. Puppy Bugsy had been a great idea. He’d been their one constant when things had fallen apart, but when things had really fallen apart it had been logical that Maddie take him.

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