LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Then I’ll eat my hat.’ And then he took her hand and held, and he smiled down at her and his smile …

      It sort of did funny things to her. She’d been feeling woozy before. Now she was feeling even woozier.

      ‘We need to move,’ he said, still holding her hand strongly. ‘We’ll take you to the hospital now, but once we have the antivenin on board we’ll transfer you to Sydney. We’ve already called in the medical transfer chopper. Horace has cracked ribs. Marg’s demanding specialists. I’m more than happy that he be transferred, and I’m imagining that you’ll be better in Sydney as well. You have cuts and bruises all over you, plus a load of snake venom. You can recover in Sydney and then spend Christmas with your family.’

      Silence.

      He was still holding her hand. She should let it go, she thought absently. She should push herself up to standing, put her hands on her hips and let him have it.

      She was no more capable of doing such a thing than flying, but she gripped his hand so tightly her cuts screamed in protest. She’d bleed on him, she thought absently, but what was a little gore when what she had to say was so important?

      ‘I am not going back to Sydney,’ she hissed and she saw his brow snap down in surprise.

      ‘Polly …’

      ‘Don’t Polly me. If you think I’ve come all this way … if you think I’ve crawled down cliffs and ruined a perfectly good dress and scratched my hands and hurt my bum and then been bitten by a vicious, lethal snake you don’t even know the name of yet … if you think I’m going to go through all that and still get to spend Christmas in Sydney …’

      ‘You don’t want to?’ he asked cautiously and she stared at him as if he had a kangaroo loose in his top paddock.

      ‘In your dreams. I accepted a job in Wombat Valley and that’s where I’m staying. You do have antivenin?’

      ‘I … yes.’

      ‘And competent staff to watch my vital signs for the next twenty-four hours?’

      ‘Yes, but …’

      ‘But nothing,’ she snapped. ‘You employed me, Dr Denver, and now you’re stuck with me. Send Horace wherever you like, but I’m staying here.’

      The transfer to the hospital was swift and efficient. Joe, his nurse administrator, was pre-warned and had the test kit and antivenin ready. Joe was more than capable of setting up an IV line. Wishing he was two doctors and not one, Hugo left Polly in Joe’s care while he organised an X-ray of Horace’s chest. He needed to make sure a rib wasn’t about to pierce a lung.

      The X-ray showed three cracked ribs, one that looked unstable. It hadn’t punctured his lung, though, and Horace’s breathing seemed secure. If he was kept immobile, he could be taken to Sydney.

      ‘You’re not sending Dr Hargreaves with him?’ Mary, his second-in-command nurse, demanded as he left Horace with the paramedics and headed for Polly.

      He’d been torn … Polly, Horace, Polly, Horace …

      Joe would have called him if there was a change. Still, his strides were lengthening.

      ‘She won’t go,’ he told Mary. ‘She wants to stay.’

      ‘Oh, Hugo.’ Mary was in her sixties, a grandma, and a bit weepy at the best of times. Now her kindly eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ll be looking after her instead of going to the beach. Of all the unfair things …’

      ‘It’s not unfair. It’s just unfortunate. She can hardly take over my duties now. She’ll need to be watched for twenty-four hours for reaction to the bite as well as reaction to the antivenin. The last thing we need is anaphylactic shock and it’ll take days for the venom to clear her system completely. Meanwhile, have you seen her hands? Mary, she slid down a nylon cord to bring me equipment. She was scratched climbing to secure the truck. She was bitten because …’

      ‘Because she didn’t have sensible shoes on,’ Mary said with asperity. The nurse was struggling to keep up but speed wasn’t interfering with indignation. ‘Did you see her shoes? Sergeant Myer picked them up on the roadside and brought them in. A more ridiculous pair of shoes for a country doctor to be wearing …’

      ‘You think we should yell at her about her shoes?’

      ‘I’m just saying …’

      ‘She was driving here in her sports car. You don’t need sensible clothes while driving.’

      ‘Well, that’s another thing,’ Mary said darkly. ‘Of all the silly cars for a country GP …’

      ‘But she’s not a country GP.’ He turned and took a moment to focus on Mary’s distress. Mary was genuinely upset on his behalf—heck, the whole of Wombat Valley would be upset on his behalf—but Polly wasn’t to blame and suddenly it was important that the whole of Wombat Valley knew it.

      He thought of Polly sitting on her makeshift swing, trying to steady herself with her bare feet. He thought of her polka dot dress, the flounces, the determined smile … She must have been hurting more than he could imagine—those cords had really cut—but she’d still managed to give him cheek.

      He thought of her sorting the medical equipment in his bag, expertly discarding what wasn’t needed, determined to bring him what was. Courage didn’t begin to describe what she’d done, he thought, so no, he wasn’t about to lecture her for inappropriate footwear.

      ‘Polly saved us,’ he told Mary, gently but firmly. ‘What happened was an accident and she did more than anyone could expect. She put her life on the line to save us and she even managed her own medical drama with skill. I owe her everything.’

      ‘So you’ll miss your Christmas at the beach.’

      ‘There’s no choice. We need to move on.’

      Mary sniffed, sounding unconvinced, but Hugo swung open the door of the treatment room and Joe was chuckling and Polly was smiling up and he thought …

      Who could possibly judge this woman and find her wanting? Who could criticise her?

      This woman was amazing—and it seemed that she, also, was moving on.

      ‘Doctor, we may have to rethink the hospital menu for Christmas if Dr Hargreaves is admitted,’ Joe told him as he entered. ‘She’s telling me turkey, three veggies, commercial Christmas pudding and canned custard won’t cut it. Not even if we add a bonbon on the side.’

      He blinked.

      Snake bite. Lacerations. Shock.

       They were talking turkey?

      Okay. He needed to focus on medical imperatives, even if his patient wasn’t. Even if Polly didn’t seem like his patient.

      ‘The swab?’ he asked and Joe nodded and held up the test kit.

      ‘The brown snake showed up in seconds. The tiger segment showed positive about two minutes later but the kit says that’s often the way—they’re similar. It seems the brown snake venom’s enough to eventually discolour the tiger snake pocket, so brown it is. And I reckon she’s got a fair dose on board. Polly has a headache and nausea already. I’m betting she’s been solidly bitten.’

      Hugo checked the kit for himself and nodded. He’d seen the ankle—it’d be a miracle if the venom hadn’t gone in. ‘Brown’s good,’ he told Polly. ‘You’ll recover faster than from a tiger.’

      ‘I’m feeling better already,’ she told him and gave him another smile, albeit a wobbly one. ‘But not my dress. It’s ripped to pieces. That snake owes me …’

      He had to smile. She even managed to sound indignant.

      ‘But you’re nauseous?’

      ‘Don’t

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