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 diagnosis. ‘There are bone fragments everywhere,’ Marc told her. ‘I can re-establish blood supply but if something moves it’ll block again. It’s not safe to transfer her without surgery. But priority’s the ruptured spleen. I’ll need to go in to check for sure but her blood pressure’s dropping fast and the symptoms fit.’
She swore. ‘You can do it?’
‘I can.’ His gaze swept the room, seeing the mass of trouble she was facing. ‘You have enough on your hands.’ More than enough.
‘I can’t help,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Then do it. Chris, give him all the help he needs.’
And Chris was already wheeling Lisa’s trolley through the doors marked Theatre.
He had no choice but to follow.
* * *
The cavalry arrived two hours later. Helicopters with skilled paramedics. The doctor from the neighbouring town. Everyone and everything she needed was suddenly there, and Ellie was able to step back and catch her breath.
The door to Theatre was still closed. There hadn’t been time to investigate. She’d had to trust that Marc knew what he was doing.
Now, though, as paramedics fired questions at her, as each of these kids got the attention they needed, she was able to think of what—and who—was behind those doors.
‘I have a kid with a shattered elbow and possible ruptured spleen,’ she told the senior paramedic. ‘A visiting surgeon was on hand. He’s in Theatre now.’
‘Here?’ the guy said incredulously, and Ellie thought again of the mixed emotions his arrival meant for her.
Marc was behind those doors. Her old life was a life of secrets. A life that now had to be faced.
She took a deep breath and opened the door to Theatre.
Chris was at the head of the table. She smiled and gave Ellie a swift thumbs-up, then went back to monitor-gazing.
Chris was magnificent, Ellie thought, not for the first time. Ellie had needed to talk her charge nurse through an anaesthetic more times than she could count and she’d coped magnificently every time. She should be a doctor herself. She practically was.
But her attention wasn’t on Chris.
Masked and gowned, Marc could be any surgeon in any theatre anywhere in the world. He was totally focused on the job at hand.
‘Nearly
