of the carriage through the smoke. How she had navigated the carriage while weighed down with a dangling infant and her life seeping away through the blood-soaked material around her wrist, he could only guess. But she had and had still saved enough energy to demand that he save them.
He knew he would be able to recall her expression any time he closed his eyes. Stewart couldn’t believe she had survived the carnage. ‘Desiree?’
He lifted her in his arms when she collapsed against him and turned to place her gently on the ground behind him.
Her pulse was thready and far too fast from loss of blood. ‘She’s critical. I need to find her injuries. We’ll triage the baby so I can get to the mother.’
He eased the shocked baby from Desiree’s shirt and tried not to see the family resemblance as he placed the baby gently beside her mother for assessment.
Time was important and he needed to do this without emotion—and do it quickly.
The infant had no external bleeding, no obvious limb deformity or head injury. Possibly some abdominal tenderness and tautness, he thought as he ran his fingers lightly over the baby’s stomach, but nothing immediately life-threatening—unlike the mother.
He passed his niece to a paramedic, who passed her into another waiting pair of hands, then moved to crouch over the unconscious woman.
Stewart rested his fingers on Desiree’s throat to feel her carotid pulse. Her heartbeats fluttered frantically beneath his fingers and his own pulse leapt. ‘She needs fluids then blood, urgently, or we’ll lose her.’
The paramedic had already opened his kit to assemble the equipment while Stewart briefly ran his hands over Desiree’s temple and scalp, then quickly down her body, grimacing at the small but unmistakable bulge of her stomach, before clamping his hand around the blood-soaked scarf on her wrist.
Heaven knew what condition the unborn baby would be in.
‘This seems to be the only bleeder, but it’s arterial, plus a lump on the side of her head.’ The paramedic shone a small torch, and with his free hand Stewart lifted heavily lashed eyelids one at a time to allow the man to shine the light into her pupils.
‘The reaction is sluggish but present on both sides,’ the paramedic said as he taped the intravenous cannula and line into place on Desiree’s arm.
‘We need to get her transported and transfused.’ Stewart reached down and gathered Desiree up in his arms. ‘She’s dragged herself across a carriage so I doubt I’ll do any more damage if I lift her onto the stretcher. Are you able to transport them together?’
‘No problem if you take the infant. I’ll keep the fluids going.’
As Desiree was transferred into the ambulance Stewart could see that haemorrhagic shock had set in. They hadn’t even been able to measure her blood pressure and wouldn’t know if she had sustained organ damage from the near exsanguination.
For the moment he just prayed that her heart wouldn’t stop with the loss of blood. He willed the rapid spike of her heartbeat to continue across the monitor screen as the sirens screamed and they hurtled towards the hospital.
The premature contractions had well and truly progressed by the time they realised she was in labour.
CHAPTER TWO
THE room swam and it was hard to focus. Distant throbbing in her arm forced her eyes open. A vaguely familiar backpack rested on the shelf opposite and she stared at it until the blurred lines firmed and stopped their dance.
There was something comforting about having that much control of her vision again.
Then she noticed the serene-faced older lady in the wheelchair. The lady knitted sedately with her bright blue eyes fixed like a white-feathered bird watching her young.
‘Hello, Desiree. You’re awake.’ She knitted with incredible speed without reference to the garment.
Desiree? She looked around but there were only two of them in the room. Desiree?
The lady smiled and allowed her words to sink in before explaining. ‘I’m Leanore, your mother-in-law. See, I remembered.’
She looked so pleased. ‘Stewart said I haven’t met you before, which is such a relief because I don’t remember you. It’s such a pain when your brain goes, dear.’
Desiree blinked at the word usage and then moistened dry lips and nodded weakly to Leanore. She cast around for a reason to be lying in a bed surrounded by flowers but couldn’t find one.
It seemed Leanore wasn’t the only one whose mind had gone. ‘Where am I?’ Fragments of memory and the crawl from the train crash came back. The man’s eyes. She remembered the baby’s cries.
‘Where’s the baby?’ Desiree’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat at the end of the sentence to calm the semi-hysterical note she could hear in her own voice.
Leanore concentrated and then recited as if she’d been coached. ‘You’re in St Somebody’s Hospital, in Sydney.’ The lady frowned and then shook her head. ‘No. Can’t remember the name of the place.’ She shrugged and moved on. ‘The little girl is fine, Stewart said. I remember that. I’m sure that’s what he said. He’s just ducked out for a minute and will be right back. Apparently it’s a miracle you both survived.’
A sad expression crossed the old woman’s face. ‘Your little girl is my granddaughter and she looks just like my darling Sean. I remember he is dead. Now, that’s one of those things I’d gladly forget.’
A flutter of panic, like a child’s balloon caught by the wind, rose in a bubble in Desiree’s chest.
‘She’s a little girl, not my little girl.’ Desiree began to cast more frantically around in her memory. ‘I’m sure she’s not my child. I don’t think. I don’t remember…’ Then it struck her. ‘Anything!’
The woman’s eyes darkened with compassion. ‘I know. Horrible, isn’t it? My son said you mightn’t. Don’t worry. At least your mind will all come back. I’m getting dottier by the day.’ Leanore chewed her lip, upset at causing distress. ‘I’ll call my son, shall I?’
The old lady felt for the bulky necklace around her neck and pressed the centre. She tilted her head at Desiree and winked. ‘He makes me wear this and I’m not to stand up unless he’s here. He’s a good son.’
Desiree had no idea what the lady was talking about but she felt as if she’d woken in a farce. Who was her wheelchair companion and what kind of place was this?
A train crash? She remembered the baby but surely it wasn’t her baby? She didn’t have a baby. Or did she? Perhaps somewhere in the past she may have been pregnant.
Frantically her eyes darted around the room as she tried to force memories that wouldn’t come. Who was she? How could she have had a baby if she didn’t remember? How long had she been here?
The blankness of the past rose like nausea in her throat and crowded her already crowded mind until it was all too much. The room swirled as her eyes closed and with relief she allowed the room to fade away until she floated like a balloon
