LITMIR.BIZ

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have a funny accent.’

      ‘I’m a surgeon with a funny accent, yes, but I do know how to treat people after car accidents. I knew Dr Carson back when we were both training. When she was at university. Believe me, if she needs help then she’ll be pleased to see me.’

      Pleased? That was stretching it, he thought grimly, but right now didn’t seem the time for niceties.

      The crutches were still raised. The kid was taking a couple of moments to think about it. He eyed him up and down, assessing, and for a moment Marc took the time to assess back.

      And then...

      Then he almost forgot to breathe.

      The kid was small and skinny, freckled, with dark hair that spiked into an odd little cowlick. He was dressed in jogging pants and an oversized red and black football jumper. One foot was encased in a worn and filthy trainer. The other foot was hidden by a cast, starting at the thigh.

      He could be anyone’s kid.

      His hair was jet-black, his brows were thick and black as well, and his eyes...they were almost black too.

      And those freckles! He’d seen those freckles before, and the boy’s chin jutted upward in a way Marc remembered.

      He looked like Ellie. But Ellie had glossy auburn hair that curled into a riot. Ellie had green eyes.

      The kid had Marc’s hair and Marc’s eyes.

      Surely not.

      And then, from the other side of the door, someone screamed. It was a scream Marc recognised from years of working as a trauma surgeon. It spoke of unbearable pain. It spoke of a medical team without the resources to prevent such pain.

      Shock or not, now wasn’t the time to be looking at a kid with dark eyes and asking questions.

      ‘You need to let me in,’ he told the boy, urgently now, as he pulled himself together. ‘Ask Dr Carson if she needs help.’

      ‘You really are a proper doctor?’ The boy’s voice was incredulous.

      ‘I am.’

      ‘Then go on in.’ There was suddenly no hesitation. He peeped a grin at Marc and there was that jolt again. He knew that grin! ‘But you’re either in or out,’ he warned. ‘If another doctor ever walks into this town Mum says we’ll set up roadblocks to stop them leaving. That’s me. I’m the roadblock. No one gets past these crutches.’

      * * *

      ‘Ellie!’

      Chris was Ellie’s best trained nurse. While Ellie was treating the kid with a suspected pneumothorax she’d put Chris in charge of the girl with the smashed elbow. Lisa Harley had smashed a few other things as well, but it was her elbow that was Ellie’s greatest concern. The fracture was compound. She’d found a pulse on the other side of the break but it was faint. The blood supply was compromised.

      But the kid with the pneumothorax had taken priority.

      ‘I’ve lost the pulse,’ Chris called urgently. ‘And I’m worrying about her blood pressure. Ellie...’

      She couldn’t go. She had to release pressure in the chest of the kid under her hands. One lung had collapsed—she was sure of it. Any more pressure and she’d lose him.

      A life or a hand...

      ‘Five minutes,’ she called back to Chris. Could she close this in time? No matter. She had to focus on what she was doing.

      The door swung open.

      It was too soon to expect the air ambulance from Sydney. It was too soon to expect the doctor from the neighbouring town, but Felix wouldn’t have let anyone in unless they could help. Unless they were a doctor.

      So she looked up with hope—and then felt herself freeze.

      Marc.

      He was older. There was a trace of silver in his jet-black hair. He looked taller, broader...more distinguished.

      But he was still Marc.

      Marc, here!

      Her world seemed to wobble. If she’d had time she would have found a chair and sat down hard.

      The boy she was treating needed all her attention. A smashed rib piercing the lung meant air was going in and not getting out. The pressure would be building. The second lung could collapse at any minute. She needed to insert a tube to drain the air compressing the lung and she needed to do it fast.

      Marc was here.

      ‘Where can I help?’ he asked and somehow she forced her world back into focus. No matter why he was here; the one thing she knew was that he was a skilled doctor. A surgeon. Every complication that had suddenly hit her world had to give way to imperative.

      ‘Chris needs help,’ she told him, gesturing towards the nurse. ‘Lisa Harley, seventeen, smashed elbow—I’m sure it’s comminuted. There must be fragments of bone cutting the circulation. Feeble pulse in her fingers until a moment ago, but now nothing. Chris says blood pressure’s dropping too, but I haven’t had time to figure out why. I’ve given her morphine, ten milligrams. She probably also has alcohol on board.’

      Marc’s attention switched instantly to Lisa, lying wanly on the trolley. The morphine had kicked in but the kid looked pallid.

      ‘I’m on it,’ Marc said, in his perfect English with that French-plus-something-exotic accent that had made Ellie’s toes curl all those years ago. He crossed to Lisa and touched her fingers. He’d be feeling for the pulse, Ellie knew. Even though it was Marc, she could only feel relief.

      ‘You’re right,’ he said calmly, smiling down at Lisa in a way that would be medicine all by itself. ‘Hi, Lisa. I’m Dr Falken. We need to get your arm sorted, but it’s your lucky day. I treat hurt elbows all the time.’ He checked her blood pressure and frowned. ‘We might also check your tummy and see if there’s anything else going on.’ He flicked a glance back to Ellie. ‘Lisa’s priority one?’

      ‘I’m coping with a pneumothorax but I have it under control,’ she told him. She hoped. ‘We also have a severe facial injury but I’ve intubated and she seems stable. Nothing else seems life-threatening. Chris, can you assist Marc? Everyone, this is Dr Marc Falken. He’s...he’s an old friend from university and he’s good. Give him all the assistance he needs. Marc, sorry, but you’re on your own.’

      * * *

      There was no time for shock or questions. There was only time to work.

      With Chris’s help he did a fast X-ray. The elbow was a jigsaw of shattered bone fragments.

      It wasn’t the greatest of her problems, though. Lisa’s blood pressure continued to drop. Chris helped him set up an ultrasound and that confirmed his fears.

      Ruptured spleen. She’d have internal bleeding. This was life or death.

      Ellie had far more than she could cope with already. This was his call.

      He’d like a full theatre of trained staff. He had Chris.

      But, even though Chris looked as if she could be anyone’s mum, the nurse was cool, efficient and exactly what he needed.

      ‘I can give an anaesthetic,’ she told him. ‘I’ve done it before when Ellie’s been in trouble. We can take Lisa into Theatre and go for it if that’s what you want.’

      He’d worked on battlefields with less help than this. ‘That’s what I want.’

      From the next cubicle, Ellie must have heard. She was focusing on the kid with the punctured lung but she must have the whole room under broader surveillance.

      ‘You can’t just straighten for the time being?’ she called.

      Marc moved so he could talk without being overheard. The last thing Lisa needed to hear was a fearful

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