LITMIR.BIZ

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of heart-attack-waiting-to-happen.

      The entire restaurant stopped as Alex’s hoarse demand sliced through their evening merriment, and then bedlam ensued as people gasped, some stood and at least one person from every table made an emergency call.

      ‘Reg, have you ever had angina before?’ Isobella demanded.

      Reg groaned, still clutching his chest. ‘No.’

      ‘The pain? What’s it like? Does it go anywhere?’ she fired again.

      ‘Down my…my arm,’ Reg huffed. ‘I feel like…like an elephant’s sitting on my chest.’

      Isobella glanced up at Alex. She looked away quickly, stunned that even in the midst of this crisis he could take her breath away. Reg cried out again, gripping his chest, and then slumped against Alex. Isobella shook him vigorously and called his name.

      ‘It’s no use. He’s not responsive,’ Alex said.

      Her hand trembled as her fingers sought his carotid pulse.

      ‘Anything?’ Alex demanded.

      Isobella kept her fingers in place, praying for a bound, a flutter, any movement against her fingers to prove that everything was okay. She shook her head and looked at Alex again. ‘Nothing.’

      They exchanged a look, both knowing this was a very bad development. If he’d lost his cardiac output so quickly then the heart attack must be significant.

      ‘Clear some of these tables back.’

      His voice might have been low but it was laced with urgent authority. He shifted so he could lie Reg on the ground. It was too cramped to do adequate CPR, and the paramedics were never going to get a trolley in here.

      ‘I’ll look after the airway,’ Alex said to her. ‘Can you do compressions?’

      She nodded, her medical training coming back to her with surprising clarity. ‘Pass me my bag,’ Isobella said to one of her colleagues.

      She fished in it and found the small sealed package she was looking for. ‘Here.’ She passed it to Alex.

      Alex looked at the protector kit. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ripping it open to reveal a handkerchief-sized square transparent piece of plastic, with a central two-way mouthpiece to prevent the exchange of bodily fluids during expired air resuscitation. He inserted it into Reg’s mouth and delivered his first two rescue breaths.

      ‘What’s the ETA on the ambulance?’ Alex asked, pausing while Isobella performed the chest compressions.

      ‘It’ll be here in a few minutes,’ Roland confirmed.

      A waiter pushed through the crowd. ‘Here,’ he announced, ‘we have this. Will this help? My boss had it installed last year, when our head chef had a heart attack.’

      Isobella and Alex looked up to find the waiter holding a portable automatic defibrillator. At this particular moment it was worth more than the Holy Grail.

      Alex grinned as Isobella kept up her chest compressions. ‘Yes, sir, it most certainly will.’ He relieved the waiter of the treasure.

      Alex wasn’t overly familiar with this type of unit, but he knew that once switched on it gave audible prompts and only delivered a shock if it deemed the patient’s rhythm warranted it. It was designed for lay people to use, and at the moment it was Reg’s best chance. Alex knew that early defibrillation was crucial to ensure the best outcome in this rapidly deteriorating situation.

      He worked around Isobella, tearing Reg’s shirt open and slapping the two adhesive pads in the indicated positions on Reg’s cold, clammy chest. The automated voice on the machine asked them to cease CPR while it assessed the rhythm. They waited for the machine, and Alex tried not to notice the way Isobella’s blonde fringe had fallen forward in his peripheral vision.

      The machine prompted him to deliver a shock, and asked everyone to stand clear. ‘Stand clear,’ Alex said, raising his voice, cursing the gravelly wobble and the havoc the increased volume wreaked on his damaged vocal cords.

      He put his arm out in front of Isobella’s chest and urged her back further. The last thing he wanted to do was to electrocute her. ‘Stand clear,’ he repeated to the crowd as his finger hovered over the button.

      When Alex was satisfied no one was in contact with Reg’s body he hit the green button, and Reg’s body arced as the electricity charged through him. The machine re-evaluated and prompted another shock, and Alex delivered the second one.

      Finally Reg moved. He gasped and moaned and the entire restaurant seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Welcome back, Reg,’ Alex murmured as he helped Isobella roll the big man on his side.

      He looked at her and she gave him a relieved smile. A totally candid, non-guarded, elated smile. It was exhilarating. He grinned back, pleased beyond measure to be finally seeing the real Isobella. It was only the wail of a siren breaking between them that stopped his sudden impulse to lean over and kiss her soft full lips in triumph.

      The paramedics pushed through the crowd, and then it was a blur of activity as they applied oxygen and hooked the patient up to their own monitor. Reg was throwing worrying ectopics and having short runs of ventricular tachycardia as the paramedics hastily inserted an IV and administered some GTN spray under his tongue.

      ‘Let’s scoop him and go,’ the female paramedic said. ‘I don’t like the look of his rhythm.’

      Isobella and Alex assisted, and they had him on the stretcher and were loading him into the back of the ambulance in two minutes.

      ‘Ring my wife,’ Reg whispered to Isobella, pulling the oxygen mask aside.

      ‘Yes, I will.’ Isobella nodded, her anxiety increasing at the grey tinge to Reg’s skin.

      ‘I’m going with him,’ Alex said to her.

      ‘I’m so sorry about the symposium,’ Reg groaned as they locked the stretcher into place.

      ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Alex dismissed. ‘Nothing is more important than getting you better.’

      ‘You can ride in front,’ the paramedic said to Alex as she slammed the back doors.

      Alex nodded. He turned to Isobella. ‘Well, that’s one way to break up a party.’

      Isobella gave him a weak smile as his voice scratched along her taut nerves. The adrenaline that had surged into her system during the crisis was making her even more sensitive to its sinful eroticism.

      ‘Thanks for your help tonight.’

      ‘It was nothing,’ she dismissed.

      He nodded. The ambulance engine roared to life. ‘I need a favour,’ he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.

      Isobella hesitated, wary of the sudden gleam in his too intriguing eyes. ‘Okay…?’

      ‘I need you to come to Cairns with me.’

      Isobella blinked. What the—? ‘No.’

      ‘It’s not a request.’ Alex grinned at her increasing look of horror. ‘I’ll have the tickets transferred,’ he said, turning away.

      Isobella gaped at him, watched him climb into the cab. No way. No way was she going away for a week with him.

      Absolutely not.

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