scrawled the heartbeat but he thought he saw something unusual. He hit the printout button and studied the paper strips, detecting a change in the ST segment. Combining it with Poppy’s musings, he had a sudden idea. ‘Check his jugular vein.’
Matt shoved his stethoscope back in his ears and listened carefully to Daryl’s heart beat. Instead of a loud and clear lub-dub, the sound was muffled.
‘Cardiac tamponade.’
They spoke in unison, their thoughts and words meshing together for the very first time. ‘He’s bleeding into the pericardial sac.’
Poppy ran the ultrasound doppler over his chest, locating the heart. ‘There you go.’ She pointed to the dark shadow around the heart that squeezed the vital muscle.
Matt snapped on gloves and primed a syringe, knowing exactly what he had to do. Under ultrasound guidance, he withdrew the fluid from around the heart. ‘Hopefully that will stabilise him until you work your magic.’
Her teeth scraped quickly over her bottom lip; the slightest of hesitations. ‘A pericardial sac repair without the back-up of bypass isn’t quite what I’d expected.’
He understood her concerns and he had some of his own. ‘The anaesthetic will stretch me too.’
‘It’s going to be touch and go.’
‘I know.’ He met her direct and steady gaze, one devoid of any grandstanding or combative qualities, and wondered not for the first time about the many facets of Ms Poppy Stanfield.
CHAPTER THREE
IT HAD been a hell of a piece of theatre. Matt couldn’t help but be impressed by Poppy’s expertise. Except for requests for unanticipated instruments, she’d been virtually silent throughout, but it hadn’t been an icy silence that had put the staff on tenterhooks; the case had done that on its own. Given the complexity of the surgery, she’d done the repair in a remarkably short space of time, giving Daryl the best chance of survival. It had been a lesson to Matt that she knew her stuff and did it well. Although many visiting surgeons had her air of authority, not all of them had the skills to match.
It had been one of the most challenging anaesthetics he’d ever given due to the patient being haemodynamically unstable, and maintaining his pressure had been a constant battle. Thankfully, Daryl had survived the emergency surgery and was now ventilated and on his way to Perth.
Once the flying doctor’s plane had taken off and the night shift had arrived, Matt no longer had a reason to stay at the hospital. As he took the long way home it occurred to him that even Poppy had left the hospital before him, finally taking with her those bright red cases that matched her lips.
Again, shame washed through him. He hated it that he kept thinking about her bee-stung lips. He didn’t want to because they belonged to a woman who was so different in every way from his wife that it didn’t warrant thinking about. When he thought of Lisa the words ‘fair, soft and gentle’ came to mind. Poppy Stanfield wouldn’t understand the description.
He pulled into his carport and as he reluctantly walked towards the dark and empty house, memories of past homecomings assailed him.
‘Tough case, honey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, you’re home now.’ Lisa leaned in to kiss him. ‘Annie’s already in bed and our room is deliciously cool.’
His key hit the lock and the door swung open, releasing trapped and cloying heat, which carried silence with it in stark contrast to the past. God, he hated coming back to this house now.
Yeah, well, you hated not living in it.
He dropped his keys in a dish he’d brought home from the Pacific and which now sat permanently on the hall table, and thought about the months he’d stayed away from Bundallagong. Being back hurt as much as being away.
He turned the air-conditioner onto high, poured himself iced water and briefly contemplated going to bed. Picking up the remote, he turned on the television, rationalising that if he was going to stare at the ceiling he’d be better off staring at a screen. He flicked through the channels, unable to settle on watching anything that involved a story and eventually stared mindlessly at motor racing, the noise of the vehicles slowly lulling him into a soporific stupor.
He was back on the beach again, with dry heat warming his skin and coconut palms swaying in the breeze, a peaceful idyll that promised so much. Set back from the sand line was a grass hut, its roof thatched with dried sugarcane leaves, and he strode towards it quickly, anticipation humming through his veins. His family was waiting for him. He stepped up onto the lanai but instead of cane chairs there was a stretcher. Bewildered, he stepped over it and walked into the fale, expecting to see the daybed, but instead he was in an operating theatre that looked like a set from MASH, with patients lined up row upon row, some with sheets pulled over their heads. Voices shouted but he didn’t recognise the words, and he turned back, wanting to run, but the lanai had vanished, leaving splintered timber as the only evidence of its existence.
Deafening noise roared and his arms came up to protect his head and then his eyes were suddenly open and the television was blaring out so loudly the walls vibrated. He must have rolled on the remote, taking the volume to full blast, and he quickly pumped it back to a bearable level, but the ringing in his ears took a moment to fade. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the buzzing, and thought perhaps bed was a better option than the couch—not that he wanted to sleep because the dreams would terrorise him.
As he swung his feet to the floor, a woman’s scream curdled his blood. He quickly shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed a torch and ran outside.
He heard a wire door slam and he moved his torch round to the house on his left, the house owned by the hospital. With a start he saw a tall, barefoot woman dressed in a long T-shirt standing on the steps, her arms wrapped tightly around her.
He jogged over as the outside lamp cast her in a pool of yellow light. ‘Poppy? What the hell happened? Are you all right?’
She shuddered, her height seeming slightly diminished. She swallowed and it was if she had to force her throat to work. ‘Mice.’
He knew his expression would be incredulous. The woman who’d stormed into his department with an approach similar to a man marking his territory had been reduced to a trembling mess by a mouse. For months he hadn’t been able to laugh and now he had to try hard not to. ‘You’re scared of a mouse or two?’
Her head flew up and a flash of the ‘take no prisoners’ woman he’d met nine hours ago surfaced. ‘Not generally, no. But I opened the wardrobe to hang up my clothes and mice streamed out, scurrying over my feet, into my case and …’ She took a steadying breath. ‘I defy anyone, male or female, not to let out a yell of surprise when confronted by fifty of them.’
His mouth curved upwards, surprising muscles stiff from lack of use. ‘That has to be an exaggeration of about forty-eight. Are they in the kitchen too?’
‘I don’t know!’ Her voice snapped. ‘I didn’t stop to enquire if they’d taken over in there as well.’
Don’t get involved. But he couldn’t resist a dig. ‘I did suggest
