up, Lizzie thought bitterly. Concerned, shocked and sad. That’s what her eyes said, but in reality what was going on was a deep internal pondering as to when dinner could be expected to appear. As this deep pondering started approximately two seconds after she’d finished last night’s dinner, it didn’t leave much brain room for anything else.
‘Phoebe won’t jump on you,’ Lizzie told him. ‘She doesn’t do jumping. I don’t think she knows what it is. Are you OK?’
‘No. I have a broken leg. Can I have some more morphine?’
‘You know very well you can’t.’ She cast him a really worried glance. ‘It must really hurt.’
‘You’re not supposed to say that,’ he said faintly, and there was that amazing trace of laughter in those amazing eyes. ‘It should be, “Come on, lad, pull yourself together. You’ll be right by morning. Take an aspirin and have a nice lie-down and give me a call…” Are you sure I can’t have any more morphine?’
‘I’ll get you to hospital and get you settled first.’
‘So if I go into cardiac arrest you can resuscitate me.’
‘That’s the ticket.’
‘Maybe I could just cardiac arrest for the next few minutes so I could pass out on the way.’
‘I’m sure you don’t mean that.’ The seat belt clicked into place, but she was still leaning across him, staring worriedly into his face. ‘I’ll drive really, really carefully.’ She took a deep breath and straightened away from him. ‘Besides, you can’t go into cardiac arrest. Don’t you have a wedding to go to?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Emily will have kittens.’
‘Emily being your fiancée?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Well, she can have kittens and Phoebe will have puppies and they’ll all live happily ever after. Meanwhile…I’m sorry, Dr McKay, but there’s no easy way to do this. Let’s get you to hospital.’
CHAPTER TWO
Memo:
I will not scream.
I will not panic.
I will not tell this crazy woman and her crazy dog to get out of my town this minute.
I will remember that I might just need them…
BY THE time they reached the tiny township hospital Harry was grey. His face was etched with pain and he was holding himself rigid. Lizzie steered her car into the entrance of the tiny emergency department, switched off the engine and put her hand on the hooter.
‘Don’t do that,’ he told her. ‘They’ll think I’m an emergency.’
‘You are an emergency.’
‘I’m fine.’
Ha! She was past arguing. ‘You might be fine, but I’m not,’ she told him. ‘I’m wrecked. Is the duty doctor here now or will he or she have to be called in?’
‘Duty doctor?’
‘Duty doctor.’ She was suffering from reaction here. Why didn’t a whole medical team burst from the doors, ready to take over?
‘There’s no duty doctor. There’s only me, and I’m decidedly off duty.’ Harry’s voice was strained to breaking point and Lizzie stared at him in horror.
‘What?’
‘You heard.’
‘You mean…’ She caught her breath, appalled. ‘You mean this is a one-horse town?’
‘A one-doctor town. Yes. That’s why I need a locum.’
‘They didn’t tell me it was a one-doctor town.’ The doors were finally opening now, and a uniformed nurse was hurrying toward them. The nurse was eye-catchingly lovely, in her early thirties maybe, trim, and elegant and…well, just plain beautiful. Her long black hair was braided into a severe rope hanging over her shoulder almost to her waist. Her hair would be gorgeous unbraided, Lizzie thought inconsequentially. More gorgeous. The woman herself would be even more gorgeous if she didn’t look so worried.
She wasn’t the only one worrying. Lizzie was distracted enough not to be worrying about someone else’s worry. She should be worried about the man on the back seat—she was—but she was also appalled at the thought of not having help.
‘The people at the locum agency told me one of the doctors was getting married and needed a fill-in,’ she said slowly, thinking it through. ‘One of the doctors. Implying several.’
Harry closed his eyes, an unmistakable wash of pain sweeping through. ‘If they said one of the doctors then they lied.’
‘But… I would never have come if…’ Her voice rose in panic. ‘I don’t do this. Not alone. I can’t.’
‘Welcome to Birrini, Dr Darling,’ Harry muttered, his face grim. ‘I think you’ll find you can. It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice.’ Then, as the nurse reached the car and pulled open the back door, he managed a strained smile. ‘Hello, Emily. This is Dr Darling. Our locum. She’s here to replace me. It was to be while you and I got married, but maybe now it’s while she mends my broken leg.’
She couldn’t worry about her lone status now. Like Harry said, she had no choice.
Once in the relative security of the hospital she turned on her autopilot. Never mind that she was soaked to the skin. Harry needed her more than she needed to take care of herself.
Medicine first, she told herself, and tried to stop the tremors sweeping through her body. Her spare clothes were back at the holiday cottage. She’d worn a smart little business suit into town to meet the medical community. The smart little business suit was now a bedraggled mess, with the jacket wrapped around Harry’s splint. Lizzie’s mass of bright blonde curls had been hauled into a neat businesslike knot when she’d set out that morning but that was a thing of the past, too. Her curls were now hanging in soaked tendrils around her face, mud-matted and coldly dripping.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
At least Harry was being warmed. She could examine him now with considerably more care than her roadside check, and she did so as she and Emily stripped him and dried him and gently manoeuvred him into a hospital gown.
‘I’m not wearing a hospital gown,’ he muttered.
‘Harry, stop being silly.’ Emily’s voice was laced with tears and Lizzie gave her a sharp glance. There wasn’t a lot of professional detachment here—though maybe she was being unfair.
If someone brought my fiancé into town, squashed, maybe I’d be a bit tearful too, she told herself.
Maybe. She thought
