new patient.
She took one of the space blankets from the teacher, who had unfolded the silver material, and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders, looking across him so Marty saw the worry in her serious grey eyes.
Grey, huh?
‘I’ll give him some morphine for the pain, and start a drip.’ She turned to the teacher. ‘Could you manage the fluid bag on the trip back to the hospital? It’s just a matter of holding it above his body and making sure the tube doesn’t kink.’
‘And just why are you asking that?’ Marty demanded as they both helped the man into the chopper and settled him on the stretcher.
She turned and touched his arm, just above the wrist—a simple touch—getting his attention before saying very quietly, ‘Because there’s no way you can take him and me, given how tight your take-off load was already. I’ll just wait until the tide goes down and someone can come for me. I’ll be all right, although you’ll have to phone my dad and let him know what’s happening.’
Marty stared at the small hand, still resting on his arm, then studied the face of this woman whose touch had startled him. She met his gaze unflinchingly.
‘Well?’ she said, removing her hand and concentrating again on their patient.
He shook his head, unable to believe that she’d figured all this out and delivered it to him as naturally as she might tell someone she was ducking out to the shops.
‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she continued, as she calmly inserted a cannula into the man’s undamaged hand and attached a line for the fluid. ‘The children are upset already, so the teacher has to go back with them. I’m the obvious choice to give up a place.’
‘And you’re happy to stay alone on the beach?’
Grey eyes could flash fire, he discovered.
‘I didn’t say I was happy about it, but as I can’t fly the helicopter I can’t see any other solution. You’ll have some chocolate bars in the helicopter—I’ve never been on one that didn’t—so you can leave me a couple, and some water. I’ll be fine as long as you phone my dad.’
Much as he wanted to argue, there was little point. He couldn’t take off with both of them on board—not safely...
He went with practical.
‘There’s a cellphone signal here, you can phone your father yourself.’
It seemed a heartless thing to say to a small woman he was about to leave on a deserted beach with bushfires raging all around her, but his mind wasn’t working too well.
Something to do with grey eyes flashing fire?
Impossible...
She half smiled as she drew up a calibrated dose of morphine and added it to the drip.
‘I could if my phone hadn’t been in my pocket when I went into the water.’
‘Well, of all the—’
He stopped. Of course, she wouldn’t have considered her phone when there was a man in the water who needed her help.
Realising she was so far ahead of him he should stop talking and just do something, he wetted some cloth with sterile water and laid it over the man’s legs where the stretcher straps would go, so the burns wouldn’t be aggravated.
Or too aggravated.
He tilted the stretcher to raise the patient’s legs, then checked on the children—all of whom were still sitting remarkably motionless on the sand near the door.
‘Okay, you stay,’ he said to Emma, ‘but I’ll be back for you just as soon as I can. Are you winch trained?’
‘I am, but I don’t think that’ll be possible tonight. Even if you’re still on duty, the chopper will be needed to get the young man to a burns unit,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s warm and there’s enough soft sand on the top of the dune that will stay dry so I can sleep on that until someone can get back here. Or if the fire dies down, I can walk out.’
Could he read the nonchalant lie on her face? Emma wondered as she satisfied herself that their patient would make it safely to Braxton Hospital, where he’d be stabilised enough for a flight to the nearest burns unit.
But it wasn’t really a lie. The twins would be fine with her father, they were used to her coming and going, but—
Damn her phone!
Damn not thinking of it!
‘Here’s a spare phone and an emergency kit. Chocolate bars and even more substantial stuff, water, space blanket, torch.’
She spun towards Marty and read the worry in his face as he handed her the phone and backpack. He was hating doing this, leaving her on her own on the beach, but he was a professional and knew it was the only answer.
‘I’ll be back for you,’ he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder, and this time she didn’t argue, backing away towards the rocks to avoid the rotor-generated sandstorm.
AS THE LITTLE aircraft lifted into the air, she watched it until the noise abated, aware all the time of the part of her body his hand had touched.
It had to be caused by comfort for some kind of atavistic fear, she decided. A reaction to being left so completely alone in a place she didn’t know at all.
* * *
Ring Dad.
Speaking to her father calmed her down. As ever he was his wonderful, patient self, assuring her the boys were already eating their dinner, having had a busy day helping him in the garden.
Emma laughed.
‘I can just imagine their idea of helping!’
‘No,’ her father said, quite seriously. ‘Once I’d explained which were weeds to be pulled out and which were plants to be left behind, they only removed about half a dozen chrysanthemums that needed thinning anyway, and one rather tatty-looking rosemary that looked as if it was happy to give up the struggle to live.’
There was a pause before her father added, ‘But more importantly, what about you? You’re out near the coast path? I saw on TV that the fire had swung that way.’
‘I’m on a beach, and quite safe. I’ve even had a swim.’
She told him about the man in the water and made light of being left behind, doing her best to give the impression she wasn’t alone.
‘I’m just not sure what time the chopper will be able to get back,’ she told him, ‘so I may not be home before morning.’
For all Marty’s ‘I’ll be back’ she just couldn’t see it happening. The dune at the top of the beach might still
