in the blackness of the night.
‘If it’s not already planned, you could put it in your suggestions,’ Neena told him, concentrating on how useful this stranger could be rather than the weird sensations he was causing in her intestines.
Or wondering whether the real reason he was here was to take her baby from her—to absorb her child—into the conglomerate that was ‘the family’.
Theo’s family.
‘Suggestions?’ he said, sounding so vague, anger surged inside her.
‘Isn’t that the job you were sent for?’
The words grated from her throat as she pulled up outside the camp office, noticing in her rear-vision mirror the flashing lights of the ambulance approaching in the distance. Slipping out of the vehicle, she grabbed her bag from the back seat and hurried into the well-lit but warm cabin.
‘We covered them with clean sheets like you said, turned off the air-con and gave them a small dose of morphine,’ an anxious-looking man told them as they walked in. He was hovering between two desks on which the injured men had been laid. ‘We’ve a stretcher in the medical room but the light’s better in here.’
Neena had set her bag down on the floor and opened it. Mak knelt beside her, silently congratulating her forethought. Burns victims lost heat rapidly, and with shock a likely side-effect of the trauma, they needed to be kept warm.
‘One each?’ he suggested as she handed him a suction device and an endotracheal tube.
‘Suction, intubate then fluid.’ She was muttering more to herself than to Mak.
‘Large-bore catheters in both arms,’ he said.
Although her confirming nod and quiet ‘We need to allow good fluid access’ told him she was thinking along the same lines as he was.
The ambulance attendants arrived as they worked, took in the situation at a glance and opened up the big bag they were carrying.
‘We’ve a burns kit with treated gauze. Want us to cover the wounds?’
To cover or not to cover? It was a question that had tormented Neena in the burns cases she’d handled previously. She turned to Mak, knowing he’d have more experience.
‘You’re flying them out to a specialist unit,’ he said, ‘but you’ve two transfers before they leave here and another when they get to the city—opportunities each time for contamination. Let’s cover.’ He was competently siting a large-bore catheter in his patient’s arm as he spoke. ‘You’ve Ringer’s in your bag?’
Neena nodded, concentrating on getting the catheter sited in her own patient’s arm.
‘That’s the plane,’ one of the ambos said, as a roaring overhead shook the shed that served as an office at the work site. ‘They said they’d buzz us as they came in.’
‘Okay, let’s move them,’ Neena suggested, as she attached tubing and a bag of fluid to the second catheter on her patient, adjusted the flow, then grabbed a transfer form to complete before the injured men left the site, noting down exactly what treatment they’d been given. ‘You guys take them straight to the airfield. Dr Stavrou and I will see the other injured men.’
‘Dr Stavrou?’ one of the ambos queried, as the other helped Mak lift his patient onto a stretcher.
‘Mak Stavrou, meet Pete and Paul, two of our crew of four local ambos,’ Neena said, then she stood aside as Pete and Paul lifted her patient.
‘He your replacement while you take maternity leave?’ Paul asked, wheeling the patient towards the door.
Neena shook her head.
‘I’ll explain some other time, but for now, would you leave your burns kit here? I’ll bring it back to town.’
Time enough for the townsfolk to learn why Mak Stavrou was here. And for him to learn the town’s reaction! Not everyone was happy with the exploration crews, or the experimental power plant, but he’d find that out soon enough.
And no one in the town would be happy if they knew the suspicions she had about his visit! This was a town that protected its own, and Neena was definitely its own.
She hid a sigh bred from the frustration she often felt over this protective attitude, but they meant well, her town’s people…
‘Let’s go see the others who were hurt,’ she said to Mak, who was talking to the foreman.
‘They’re in the mess cabin, I’ll take you over,’ the foreman said, as Mak lifted the burns bag from her grasp, his fingers brushing hers in the exchange. ‘They’re not badly hurt,’ the man continued, while Neena trailed behind the two men, telling herself she couldn’t possibly have felt a reaction when the stranger’s skin had brushed hers.
She was worried about the injured men, and uptight because she’d had this Mak Stavrou foisted on her. The twinge had been nothing more than tension.
‘Some of the steam was still leaking from the pipes when they went over to drag their mates away but I’d say they’re only superficial burns,’ the foreman explained.
They were superficial burns, soon treated and dressed.
‘Leave the dressings in place until Monday then come into town and we’ll check the wounds and dress them again if necessary,’ Mak told the three men.
They all agreed and thanked him, while Neena smiled to herself. In this case, Mak was the person with the most experience, but as far as these rough outback labourers were concerned, it was as natural to them as breathing to consider the male of the species as the main authority—the chief!
‘Best if you’re a boy,’ she muttered, patting the bump as she made her way back to her vehicle. ‘Life’s a lot easier for men.’
CHAPTER TWO
BEST if you’re a boy?
The phrase he’d heard Neena mutter hung in Mak’s head as they drove away from the exploration site, but the weariness of the long drive out to Wymaralong was claiming him and he couldn’t think clearly about the implication of the words.
‘Do you not know the sex of your baby? I thought with regular scans most people found out quite early.’
Neena didn’t take her eyes off the road, simply shaking her head by way of reply.
‘I didn’t want to know,’ she said, and before she could explain the vehicle struck something and jolted to a stop, slewed across the road, airbags inflating so the world turned white.
‘What the—!’
The muttered oath told him his companion was conscious and as he fought his way out of the airbag he heard her door open.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Can you move your legs and arms? Coming on to dawn, I don’t drive fast because I’m always wary of ‘roos. I don’t
