LITMIR.BIZ

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and tonight was no exception. She was exhausted. In a few minutes they’d land and they’d be thrust back into the hospital atmosphere where there’d be surgery to perform, appalled relatives to counsel and treat, Cal to face…

      This was her two minutes to catch her breath and look squarely at her future.

      She couldn’t. Cal…

      ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered, and Hamish had to lean forward to hear. ‘I don’t know how to break through that barrier.’

      ‘It’s one heck of a barrier,’ Hamish told her. ‘You know his family history.’

      ‘I know what I’ve been allowed to know.’

      ‘He’s been betrayed by just about everybody in his life. It’s a miracle he’s a functioning human being.’

      ‘He’s not a trusting human being. So that makes him…’

      ‘Dysfunctional?’

      ‘Maybe,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then how far are you prepared to go to get him functioning again?’ Hamish asked, and Gina stared at the metal-plated floor and shook her head.

      ‘Not far at all. I’m just here to tell him of the existence of his son.’

      ‘You know, I doubt that,’ Hamish said gently. ‘I’ve known you, what—for about fifteen minutes? And even now, I doubt that very much.’

      She’d been right when she’d assumed the hospital would be in chaos. The casualty entrance was mad.

      Gina stood between the two stretchers that had just been wheeled in and took three deep breaths, trying for triage, trying to get some sort of priorities formed in her head. Grace appeared in the doorway, looking just as frazzled as she was feeling.

      ‘Where is everyone?’ Gina demanded.

      ‘Both Theatres are occupied,’ Grace said briefly. ‘Karen’s intracranial pressure is life-threatening. She has signs of a blood clot in association with her fractured skull and Cal’s drilled a burrhole to try and reduce pressure. Melanie has a collapsed lung and Christina and Charles are working on her. Alix is looking after path. needs and blood supply. That’s taken our full complement of doctors, except you and Hamish. Hamish, you need to check on Lucky. I came out to see if you needed any help here.’ She gazed around the mess that was the emergency ward. ‘I guess you do, huh?’

      ‘I guess we do,’ Gina said, mentally saying goodbye to the rest of the night. What a day. What a nightmare! ‘I guess we all do.’

      They worked for two hours straight. Evacuation in the morning would see the compound fractures taken to Cairns for attention by orthopaedic specialists, but meanwhile blood supply had to be ensured, adequate pain relief had to be given, wounds had to be stitched. With only paramedics and nurses to help her, Gina had three incredibly sick and traumatised kids in her care. To say nothing of their parents.

      But somehow she coped, and when Charles finally arrived to take over she was able to greet the medical director with a faint smile of reassurance.

      Charles’s face twisted as he looked around the room. She had each patient settled and ready to be transferred to the wards—or to a flight out. Their appropriate relatives were settled with them. The inappropriate relatives or the onlookers who were simply there for drama had been sent home.

      ‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.

      ‘I’ll go through the case notes—’

      ‘There’s no need,’ Charles told her. Christina appeared in the doorway behind him and the complement of doctors had suddenly grown to three. Charles spun across to the desk and lifted the folders she’d started out at the crash site. ‘Christina and I can take over here.’

      ‘Lilly?’

      ‘She’ll be fine,’ Christina told her. ‘We’ll fly her out for plastic surgery tomorrow morning but she’s stable.’

      ‘And…Karen…?’

      ‘That’s your next job,’ Charles said grimly. ‘I’m sorry, Gina, but I can’t let you go to bed yet.’

      ‘You need help with Karen?’

      ‘Karen died twenty minutes ago,’ Charles told her. ‘Cal and Emily worked with everything they had, but they failed. Cal’s just talked to her parents.’ He hesitated. ‘Gina, when things like this happen, Cal withdraws. He’s out in the hospital garden right now, and he needs someone.’

      She stared at him, appalled. ‘What are you asking? I don’t…I can’t…’

      ‘Yes, you can,’ he told her, and his voice became stern. ‘You’ve thrown a hell of a shock at our Cal this afternoon. The least you can do is mop up the mess.’

      ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’

      ‘Who are you kidding?’ he said roughly. ‘But you choose. Go to bed or go and see if you can get through to Cal. But if you go to bed now…well, I don’t see how you can.’ He stared around the room and his face grew even more grim. ‘There are things that all of us can’t walk away from. You know that as well as everyone here.’

      CHAPTER FIVE

      SHE should go to bed. She’d do more harm than good if she approached Cal now, she thought, and CJ needed her. She made her way resolutely across to the doctors’ quarters, avoiding the garden, sure that she’d made the right decision.

      CJ wasn’t in bed. Instead, there was a note pinned to his pillow.

      Dear Dr Lopez

      CJ couldn’t sleep and he seems a bit upset. We’ve got a new puppy at our place. Me and Mr Grubb are in the little blue house over the far side of the hospital and hubby’s just come over to tell me the pup’s making a fuss. So I thought I’d take CJ home. I’m guessing he and the pup might sleep together in our spare bedroom. I asked Dr Wetherby and he reckons you’ll be busy till late and us taking the littlie will give you a chance to sleep late tomorrow—but come over and get him if you want him back tonight. Or telephone and we’ll bring him straight back. I’ll let you know if he frets.

      Dora Grubb

      So CJ didn’t need her, Gina thought as she stared down at the letter. This was a note written by a competent woman who Charles trusted. CJ would be overjoyed to be asked to sleep with a puppy.

      But where did that leave her?

      She wanted to hug CJ, she thought bleakly, acknowledging that her ability to hug her small son in times of crisis was a huge gift. But to wake him now, to wake the Grubbs and the puppy as well, just so she could be hugged…

      Grow up, she told herself, and tried to feel grown-up.

      She glanced at her watch. It was three in the morning. She should shower and slide between the covers and sleep.

      She knew she wouldn’t sleep.

      Damn, she wanted CJ.

      Cal was…Cal was…

      Go to bed!

      She took a grip—sort of—and walked over to pull the curtains closed. Then she paused.

      Cal was down at the water’s edge. The shoreline was two hundred yards from where she was standing but his figure was unmistakable.

      He was just…standing.

      So what? she demanded of herself. She should leave him be.

      But he was Cal. She stared down the beach at his still figure and she felt the same wrenching of her heart that she’d felt all those years before. It was as if this man was a part of her and to walk away from him would be tantamount to taking away a limb.

      She’d had to walk away before, she thought dully, for all sorts of reasons.

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