Surgeon in a Wedding Dress

Trying to follow the direction of his gaze, she saw a boat bouncing against the waves as it pushed out to sea at an achingly slow pace. She gasped. Beyond the waves floated a person—face down.

Happy New Year.

Daniel Reilly stood knee-deep in the roiling water, his heart in his throat as the rescuers tried to navigate the charging waves. Aboard their boat lay an injured person. Alive or dead, Dan didn’t know, but he’d have a cardiac arrest soon if these incredibly brave—and foolhardy—men didn’t get back on land before someone else was lost.

The whole situation infuriated him. If only people would read the wretched signs and take heed. They weren’t put there for fun. It was bad enough having two people missing in the sea, a father and son according to the police. It would be totally stupid if one of the volunteer rescuers drowned while searching for them.

‘Doc, get back up the beach. We’ll bring him to you,’ a rescuer yelled at him. ‘It’s the lad, Anders Starne.’

‘He doesn’t look too good,’ Pat O’Connor, the local constable, called over the din.

Like the middle-aged cop, Dan had seen similar tragedies all too often around here. It wasn’t known as a wild, unforgiving coastline for nothing. But most calamities could be avoided if people used their brains. His hands gripped his hips as he cursed under his breath.

The kid had better be alive. Though Dan didn’t like the chances, it was inherent in him to believe there was life still beating in a body until proven otherwise.

Waterlogged men laid Anders on the sand, a teenager with his life ahead of him. Dan’s gut clenched as he thought of his own daughter. Even at four she pushed all the boundaries, and Dan couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d cope with a scenario like this. He totally understood why the father had leapt off the rocks in a vain attempt to save his son. He would do anything if Leah’s life was in jeopardy.

‘Except take a long break to spend time with her.’ The annoying voice of one of his closest friends, and boss, resonated in his head.

Yeah, well, he was doing his best. And because of interference from the board’s chairman, Charlie Drummond, he was taking time off, starting tomorrow. Pity Charlie couldn’t tell him how he was supposed to entertain his daughter, because he sure didn’t have a clue. Hopscotch and finger puppets were all very well, but for twelve weeks? What if he got it all wrong again? He’d be back at the beginning with Leah an emotional mess and he distraught from not knowing how to look after his girl. That scared him witless. He focused on the boy lying on the beach. Far easier.

Dropping to his knees, he tore at the boy’s clothing, his fingers touching cold skin in their search for a carotid pulse. A light, yet steady, throbbing under his fingers lifted his mood. He smiled up at the silent crowd of locals surrounding him. ‘He’s alive.’

‘Excuse me. Let me through. I’m a doctor.’ A lilting, female voice intruded on Dan’s concentration.

Annoyed at the disturbance, he flicked a look up at the interloper. ‘That makes two of us,’ he snapped, and returned his attention to his patient. But not before he saw a vision of a shapely female frame looming over him. Very shapely.

‘Where’d you come from?’ he demanded as he explored Anders’s head with his fingers.

‘Does that matter at this moment?’ she retorted.

‘Not really.’ He was local and therefore in charge.

‘What have you found so far?’ She, whoever she was, knelt on the other side of the boy.

He was aware of her scrutinising him. ‘His pulse is steady.’ He was abrupt with her as he straightened and looked her in the eye. Her gaze slammed into him, shocking the air out of his lungs. Eyes as green as the bush-clad hills behind them. And as compelling.

‘Then he’s one very lucky boy.’ Her tone so reasonable it was irritating.

And intriguing. Who was she? He’d never seen her before, and she wasn’t someone he’d easily forget with that elegant stance and striking face. He shook his head. Right now he didn’t need to know anything about her.

Jerking his gaze away, he spoke to the crowd again, ‘Someone get my bag from my truck. Fast.’ To the doctor—how did she distract him so easily?—he said, ‘I’ll wrap him in a survival blanket to prevent any more loss of body heat.’

The kid coughed. Spewed salt water. Together they rolled him onto his side, water oozing out the corner of his mouth as he continued coughing. His eyelids dragged open, then drooped shut.

‘Here, Dan.’ Malcolm, his brother and the head of the local search and rescue crew, pushed through the crowd to drop a bag in the sand. Dan snapped open the catches and delved into the bag for tissues and the foil blanket.

‘Thanks.’ The other doctor flicked the tissues from his grasp. Dan squashed his admiration for her efficiency watching her cleaning the boy’s mouth and chin as she tenderly checked his bruised face simultaneously. Her long, slim fingers tipped with pale rose-coloured polish were thorough in their survey.

‘I don’t think the cheek bones are fractured.’ Her face tilted up, and her eyes met his.

Again her gaze slammed into him, taking his breath away. The same relief he felt for the boy was reflected in her eyes. Facial bones were delicate and required the kind of surgical procedures he wasn’t trained to perform. He gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Thank goodness.’

The rain returned, adding to the boy’s discomfort. Dan began rolling Anders gently one way, then the other, tucking him into the blanket, at the same time checking for injuries. He found deep gashes on Anders’s back and one arm lay at an odd angle, undoubtedly fractured. For now the wounds weren’t bleeding, no doubt due to the low body temperature, but as that rose the haemorrhaging would start. The deep gash above one eyebrow would be the worst.

‘Where’s the ambulance?’ Dan asked Pat.

‘On its way. About three minutes out. It was held up by a slip at Black’s Corner.’

Anger shook Dan once more. This boy’s life could’ve indirectly been jeopardised because of some officious idiot’s unsound reasoning. For years now the locals had been petitioning to get Black’s Corner straightened and the unstable hillside bulldozed away, but the council didn’t have a lot of funds and small towns like Port Weston missed out all the time. He’d be making a phone call to the mayor later.

Looking down at the boy, Dan asked, ‘Anders, can you hear me?’ Eyelids flickered, which Dan took for a yes. ‘You’ve been in an accident. A wave swept you off the rocks. I’m checking for broken bones. Okay?’

Dan didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t get one. He wasn’t sure if the boy could hear clearly or was just responding to any vocal sounds, so he kept talking. It must be hellishly frightening for Anders to be surrounded by strangers while in pain and freezing cold.

Beneath the thermal blanket Dan felt the boy’s abdomen. No hard swelling to indicate internal bleeding. The spleen felt normal. So far so good. But the sooner this boy was in hospital the better.

‘That left arm doesn’t look right,’ a knowledgeable, and sensual, feminine voice spoke across the boy.

Dan’s fingers worked at the point where the arm twisted under Anders’s body. His nod was terse. ‘Compound fracture, and dislocated shoulder.’

‘Are we going to pop that shoulder back in place now?’

‘We should. Otherwise the time frame will be too long and he might require surgery.’

‘I’ll hold him for you.’ No questions, no time wasting. She trusted him to get on with it.

Daniel appreciated anyone who trusted his judgement, or anything about him, come to that. His mouth twisted sideways as he slid the boy’s tattered shirt away from his shoulder. ‘A shot of morphine will make him more comfortable.’

The drug quickly took effect. Dan raised the arm and, using all his strength, rotated the head of the humerus, popping the ball joint back into its socket. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

The woman lifted Anders’s upper body while Dan wound a crepe bandage around the shoulder to hold it in place temporarily. As they worked, a whiff of her exotic perfume tantalised him, brought memories of another fragrance, another woman. His wife. She’d always worn perfume, even when mucking out the horses.

‘Where’s that ambulance?’ He was brusque, annoyed at the painful images conjured up in his mind by a darned scent.

Warmth touched his face, and so distracted had he been that it took a moment to realise that it was the sun. A quick look around showed the clouds had rolled back and once again the beach was sparkling as it bathed in the yellow light. Things were looking up.

As though reading his mind, Pat said, ‘Now that the rain has moved up the coast, the helicopter will be on its way. That’ll make our search a little easier.’

The boy’s father. Dan’s stomach clenched as he looked up at Pat, saw the imperceptible shake of the cop’s head in answer to his unspoken question. Deep sadness gripped him. Time was running out to find the man alive.

‘It was sheer chance the men found the lad when they did.’ Even as Pat talked they heard the deep sound of rotors beating in the air.

‘Hey, Daniel,’ a familiar voice called. Kerry was a local volunteer ambulance officer. ‘What’ve we got?’

Dan quickly filled him in and within moments Anders was being ferried on a stretcher to the ambulance. There went one very lucky boy. Dan watched the vehicle pull away, thinking about the waves throwing a body onto the sharp jags of the rocks. He shivered abruptly.

‘What happened out there?’ The woman stood beside him, nodding towards the sea.