bring it to her as she swapped places with the doctor. She watched him as he gathered his things and boarded the little dinghy that would ferry him across to the helicopter pontoon.
She watched him as he left her to monitor Nigel. That wasn’t an issue. She was more than capable. She didn’t need his help. She could work more efficiently without the distraction. But as the dinghy pulled away from the pontoon, she wondered where he was from and, as he raised a hand in farewell, she realised she had no way of finding out. She didn’t even know his name.
CHAPTER TWO
GEORGIE parked her car beside the airport building that was the headquarters for the Cairns division of QMERT. She climbed out and pulled her white singlet top away from her body, looking for some respite from the heat. A quarter to eight in the morning and the north Queensland humidity was already stifling. She could feel the perspiration gathering between her breasts. She’d been in the tropics for months now but after moving from the cooler climes of Melbourne she still hadn’t got used to feeling hot and sticky ninety per cent of the time. But despite the sometimes intolerable humidity she was thoroughly enjoying her secondment to the Queensland Ambulance Service and QMERT.
And the weather wasn’t always so oppressive, she reminded herself. It had been remarkably pleasant out on the reef yesterday. It was only on the mainland that she noticed the humidity. The scenery yesterday had been very pleasant too, she recalled with a smile. It had been a pity the cute doctor had left before she’d got his name.
She still hadn’t decided whether she was more annoyed or intrigued by him. She had to give him credit for his quick reaction to the crisis yesterday. Nigel had made it safely back to the Cairns hospital and he had the doctor to thank for that. She supposed he’d only been doing what he’d been trained for and she couldn’t hold that against him. But, still, she wished she knew who he was.
She’d kept her eyes peeled last night when she’d gone out to dinner with her brother and sister-in-law, hoping she might see him wandering the streets of Cairns, but her search had been fruitless. She shrugged. She’d expected nothing less really, it had been a rather vain hope. But it had been her only hope. The only way she might see him again. More than likely he was just a tourist, just someone passing through Cairns, someone she was never likely to see again. But that idea was strangely disappointing.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. She had other things to think about than a perfect stranger. It was time to go to work. She searched through her bag for an elastic band to tie up her hair. The air was muggy, heavy with moisture, and having her hair hanging halfway down her back was making her feel hotter. She gathered her dark hair into a ponytail that hung in a thick rope between her shoulder blades, picked up her bag and headed for the air-conditioned comfort of the corrugated-iron and weatherboard building.
She walked past the helicopter that was the latest addition to the QMERT fleet. The night crew was obviously back at base and she wondered what kind of shift they’d had. She hummed show tunes as she crossed the tarmac, pushed open the door to the base and headed for the communications centre. Comms was always her first port of call as she always wanted to check what was happening.
‘Morning, Lou, what have I missed?’ she greeted the dispatch officer who was stationed at her desk.
‘Nothing much,’ was the answer. ‘The boys have just got back from an IHT,’ Louise went on, using the abbreviation for an inter-hospital transfer, ‘but other than that it was pretty quiet overnight.’
Georgie pulled a face, her dark eyes flashing with good humour. She loved the pace and hype of busy days. Flying off in the helicopter to save lives was a huge buzz and while quiet days were good because they meant no one was getting injured, busy days meant the chance to put her skills to use.
‘It’s not all bad,’ Louise added. She knew how Georgie felt about quiet days—everyone on the team felt the same. ‘The new doctor starts officially today. Showing him the ropes should keep you out of trouble.’
‘That’s Josh Wetherly, right? The emergency specialist from Brisbane?’ Georgie recalled some details from the bio that had been circulating about him.
Louise nodded. ‘His experience looks pretty good on paper but, trust me, he looks even better in real life. I reckon you’ll be more than happy to show him around the chopper and maybe even around Cairns.’
Georgie rolled her eyes. She was used to Louise trying to find her a man. Louise and her husband had been married for twenty-five years and she thought everyone deserved the same happiness. Georgie didn’t disagree. Her parents were also a fine example of a happy marriage, but she didn’t want to be reminded that at twenty-seven years of age people were starting to expect her to settle down. There were still things she wanted to do before she settled down to domestic life and she certainly didn’t need another mother figure trying to find her a husband. Her own mother was perfectly capable of that! Besides, at fifty and almost twice her age, Louise’s idea of a hot man was not quite the same as Georgie’s. It took more than good manners and a nice head of hair to get her attention.
One of the reasons Georgie had moved to Cairns had been to get away from the pressure her family had been putting on her to find a partner but so far her plan wasn’t working too well. Her family continued to show a tendency to send eligible bachelors her way and she’d lost count of the number of blind dates she’d been obliged to go on. She didn’t need Lou on her case as well. She needed a project, something to occupy her time so she could legitimately say she was too busy to date. Showing Dr Wetherly around Cairns wasn’t her idea of a suitable project. She’d have to find something else.
The phone on Louise’s desk rang before Georgie could think of a smart retort. She waited for Lou to take the call, knowing it would probably mean a job for the team.
Lou jotted notes as she spoke to the clinical co-ordinator in Brisbane, nearly fourteen hundred kilometres south of their Cairns base. The information the retrieval team received was almost always third hand: the emergency call would be put through to headquarters in Brisbane and, depending on the location of the emergency, the Brisbane co-ordinator would pass the call on to the dispatch clerk in Brisbane, Townsville, Toowoomba or Cairns. They would then pass the information on to the retrieval team. QMERT was responsible for an area extending in a radius a few hundred kilometres around Cairns, including the waters and islands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia. The Royal Flying Doctor Service took over to the north up to Cape York and further inland into the Outback, while QMERT Townsville covered the area to the south.
Louise hung up the phone and relayed the scant information she had to Georgie. ‘A four-month-old baby in respiratory distress. She’s in Tully hospital, they’ve requested an IHT. I’ll find Pat—’
‘And I’ll get changed and track down Dr Wetherly.’ Georgie finished Lou’s sentence. She knew she had time. Pat, the helicopter pilot on duty, would need to get details about the flight and landing, do his pre-flight checks and refuel if necessary. She only needed a few minutes to get changed and find the new doctor. A job this early in the morning wasn’t going to be an ideal introduction for the new recruit on his first day but there was no way around it. She just hoped he was up to the challenge.
She headed for the change rooms to stow her bag and change into the navy and grey jumpsuit that was the retrieval team’s uniform. As she pushed open the door and stepped around the privacy wall that screened the room from the corridor she was greeted by the sight of semi-naked men. The QMERT building was not overly large and the change rooms were unisex. There was a central changing area divided by lockers with male and female showers and toilets off to each side, which afforded a little privacy but not a lot.
The
