Kitabı oku: «Healed By Her Army Doc»

CHAPTER ONE

SHE MIGHT BE Kate’s favourite relative and most stalwart support, but Aunt Alice was adept at catching Kate in unguarded moments and tonight was no exception.

‘You’ve only worked a half-shift today, and you’re off duty tomorrow, so it couldn’t be better, and you’ve got the excuse of that team meeting you had this afternoon,’ Alice pointed out.

The team meeting that afternoon was the reason Kate was unguarded, though flummoxed would have been a better word. Arriving late from Theatre, still pulling off her theatre cap and running her fingers through her chaotic, needing-a-cut hair, she’d rushed into the SDR meeting room, and the first person Kate had seen had been Angus.

Not surprising, the seeing part. Men who stood just over six feet tall and had the shoulders that went with the height weren’t easy to miss.

But Angus?

Here!

Shock halted her momentarily, then, as her bones had turned to jelly, she’d subsided into the nearest seat, rather wishing her weight would take it straight down through the floor.

Or there’d be an earthquake, tornado, hospital on fire—any distraction...

The worst of it was that whatever had flared between them three years ago on the island was just as electrifyingly alive as it had been back then. She could feel that inexplicable awareness that had rocked both of them arcing across the room between them. Looked up to check she couldn’t actually see it in the form of flashing lightning because she’d heard it in the thunder in her veins.

Angus!

‘You can tell Harriet what was discussed,’ Alice was persisting, bringing Kate out of the horrendous memories of the afternoon meeting of the Specialist Disaster Response team. ‘She’s really down about missing it, well, not the meeting so much but as being part of the team. She could have gone to the meeting, but I think that Pete was supposed to collect her and, as far as I can make out, he’s been conspicuous by his absence lately.’

Not much got past Alice, who, although unconnected to the hospital, was a long-term resident of the apartment block where so many of the staff lived.

In her head Kate acknowledged her great-aunt was right, and not only about Harriet’s boyfriend disappearing. Before she’d injured her leg in an accident on a training day for the SDR, Harriet had been an integral and enthusiastic part of the team but after battling operations and infections she must be wondering if she’d ever be able to join it again, while she and Pete had been one of the glamour couples of Bondi Bayside Hospital’s social scene.

Not that Kate was part of that scene, but in any hospital there were few secrets.

‘Go on,’ Alice was saying. ‘You’ve lived here two years, you work at the same hospital, belong to that team together, and you barely know Harriet. You can’t shut yourself away for ever—it’s just not natural. She probably thinks you’re a terrible snob because you’re a surgeon and she’s only a nurse.’

‘Hardly “only” a nurse, Alice,’ Kate said. ‘She’s one of the top nurses in the ICU and that’s probably one of the most important jobs in the whole hospital.’

Kate was glad of the conversation—anything to keep her mind off the SDR meeting.

Off Angus!

He can’t be here!

He is!

She dragged her mind back to the subject of Alice’s conversation, to Harriet Collins.

‘Intensive Care is high-level nursing. It’s just that with work and study and keeping up the level of fitness I need to stay on the team I don’t really have time—’

‘Tosh!’ said Alice. ‘You’re hiding away from something—from life itself, in fact. I know you needed to grieve for the baby, that’s why I asked you to come and live here with me. New hospital, new job, new people—but you should have moved on by now. This self-imposed isolation of yours has gone on long enough. So get over to Harriet’s apartment and tell her about the meeting. Find a way to convince her she’ll get back on the team before long.’

Knowing it was futile to argue, Kate had a quick shower, washed her hair, pulled on jeans and a light sweatshirt and made her way along the corridor to Harriet’s apartment, her feet beating out an accompaniment to the phrase running over and over in her head.

I will not think about Angus, it went. I will not think about Angus. I will not think about Angus...

Harriet’s apartment was at the front of the block so as Harriet opened the door—more than slightly startled—Kate could see straight through the living room to the ocean beyond, painted pale pink and violet as it reflected the colours of the sky at sunset.

‘Kate!’

The exclamation told Kate she’d guessed right, although she now substituted ‘extremely’ for the ‘slightly’ in the startled stakes.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting you but I thought you might like to know what went on at the meeting.’

Harriet stared at her and seeing the blankness in her hazel eyes, and the pale drawn skin beneath the lovely auburn hair, Kate had to set aside her own preoccupation and accept that Alice—as ever—had been right. All was not well with the usually vibrant Harriet.

‘So, can I come in?’

Wordlessly, Harriet stepped back and waved her hand towards the living room.

‘What a fantastic view! You take in the whole bay. It’s unbelievable. You must see the beach and ocean in so many moods. Are you a photographer? You could take a thousand pictures from your balcony with not one of them the same.’

Kate knew she was blethering, but Harriet’s silence was unnerving and she’d already been totally unnerved once today.

‘Did Alice send you to cheer me up?’

Not exactly the conversation opener Kate had expected but it would do.

‘Yes, she did. She’s worried about you. We’re all worried about you.’

Deep breath!

‘Actually, to be honest, she’s worried about me too. She thinks I work too hard, but the SDR meeting was interesting. Blake had brought along an army bloke who has been working on a new emergency response tent. You know, one of those ones that fold up and can be dropped into disaster zones and comes complete with all our medical needs. Apparently, he has a new prototype he wants to trial next time we have a callout to somewhere fairly isolated.’

‘Not close to a local hospital or, say, in a bushfire where the hospital’s been damaged or destroyed,’ Harriet said, picking up on the idea immediately. ‘I’ve seen army ones on exercises we’ve taken with other teams. They really are a complete package, right down to food, water and accommodation for the first responders—enough for them to be self-sufficient for a fortnight.’

Taking the words as a small spark of interest, Kate said, ‘Shall I tell you about it? Will we sit down?’

Harriet was frowning slightly, but as Kate perched on the sofa, her hostess dropped into an armchair. The frown was understandable. Here was this neighbour, who’d been in the apartment block for two years yet had never ventured over the threshold, making herself at home.

And talking, talking, talking—

The doorbell shrilled, and Harriet’s frown deepened.

‘It must be someone from another apartment because they didn’t ring at the front door.’

It shrilled again.

‘Would you like me to get it?’ Kate offered, her heart going out to the woman she’d only known as lively and active, now a pale shadow of her former self.

A shadow with her injured leg still in its ungainly brace.

‘No, I’ll go.’

Harriet rose to her feet and limped to the door, opening it to reveal the person Kate was still telling herself not to think about.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ came the deep growl from the doorway. ‘I’m Angus Caruth, and Blake gave me Kate’s address, and then Alice said she was here and that you wouldn’t mind if I popped in to say hello. I barely recognised her earlier, at the meeting. I don’t think I’d ever seen Kate with dry hair.’

Kate’s gut had twisted more with every word he spoke, but she’d regained some control over her mind, so as Harriet ushered in her new visitor, she used anger to mask all the other reactions that had rioted inside her since the meeting.

‘Blake gave you my address?’ she demanded. ‘Whatever happened to staff confidentiality?’

‘Oh, I’d blame Sam for that,’ Harriet said, obviously intrigued by this second visitor. She waved her arm towards the sofa, and invited Angus to sit. ‘Ever since she and Blake got together, she’s been seeing the world through a pearly haze of love.’

She turned to Kate and smiled—smiled properly!

‘So what’s with the wet hair?’

The smile was the first sign of the old Harriet that Kate had seen so she felt obliged to reply.

‘Angus and I met in a cyclone. Everyone had wet hair.’

She kept her eyes on Harriet as she spoke, for all the good that did her. Her body was as aware of Angus as it would have been if he had been sitting on top of her—her skin prickling with something she’d rather call discomfort than—

No, it couldn’t possibly be attraction...

How could this have happened?

Why did it have to be her hospital he’d turned up at?

And why, after all this time, could he still affect her like this?

But now he was talking again, and if she closed her eyes—

She straightened in her seat.

‘“Angus and I met in a cyclone” hardly covers it,’ he was responding, smiling at her before turning to Harriet. ‘We were stuck in the dining room of a resort hotel and a tree had crashed into one glass wall, so we had about sixty panicking people to deal with. Kate calmly organised the wait staff to tear tablecloths into bandages and once we had all the injured settled as well as we could, she started everyone singing. I think trying to manage “Come to dinner” sung in four parts certainly took their minds off the howling gale and thunderous winds outside.’

Refusing to yield to the memories, Kate tried desperately to ignore the man on the sofa beside her—to ignore all the signals that were zapping between their bodies.

She had to get away, to sort out what was happening and why, after three years, she should still feel this way about a man she barely knew.

It was the coward’s way out but she turned to Harriet.

‘Angus is the man I was telling you about, the one with the new tent, and now he’s here, he can tell you about it himself.’

She pushed herself to her feet, hoping her face wasn’t revealing the torrent of emotions roaring inside her—hoping her legs would hold her up and, most of all, hoping Angus couldn’t see the quivering mess his presence had made of her body.

‘I really should go,’ she added. ‘It’s my turn to cook dinner.’

She strode to the door, opening it and pausing briefly to waggle her fingers in farewell.

And to take in the face of the man who’d haunted her dreams for the past three years.

Angus!

Closing the door behind her, she leant against the wall in the hall, eyes shut so she could see him again on her eyelids—check him against her memories.

No, he hadn’t changed. Still the same dark, almost shorn hair, black quirky eyebrows above deep-set blue eyes, slightly crooked nose, the result she knew of a youthful brawl, and lips—

She wouldn’t think about his lips—not the shape of them, or the paleness, or the way they’d felt as they’d brushed across her skin...

Her heart fluttered and for a moment she was back on the island—back in his arms—lost in blissful sensation...

She pushed angrily away from the wall. How dared Blake Cooper give out her address? How dared Angus walk back into her life like this?

* * *

Angus felt her absence, which was ridiculous given he hadn’t seen her for three years, for all he’d thought about her. Wondering where she was, what she was doing, thinking about contacting her, but how?

And why?

To hurt her as he’d hurt Michelle—never being there for her when she’d needed him, never considering just how hard their separations had been for her?

This new project would take him away even more. Their orders to leave would come within twenty-four hours of a disaster occurring somewhere in the world. Here today and gone tomorrow—how fair was that on any woman, let alone one he’d come to remember as special...?

Then she’d rushed into the SDR room where he had been explaining the new emergency structure, her fingers flipping her hair into a dark halo around her head.

Too far away to see the pale blue-grey of her eyes, but aware they’d widened in shock—

‘I’d rather hear about the cyclone than the tent.’

Harriet’s words made him realise he was still staring at the door through which Kate had vanished.

He caught the speculative gleam in Harriet’s eyes and smiled at her.

‘About the cyclone or about Kate Mitchell?’ he asked, and Harriet blushed.

‘Well, she has always been something of a mystery woman,’ she admitted. ‘I imagine the army is a bit like a hospital where everyone knows everyone else’s business, but Kate...’

She shrugged.

‘Perhaps we’re better talking about the tent.’

Angus smiled again and agreed, although his mind was whirling with questions. Kate a bit of a mystery woman? Blake Cooper had given much the same impression. A loner, he’d said. Yet the Kate Angus remembered had been outgoing and cheerful, shrugging off the pain she must have been feeling when she’d joked about honeymooning alone on the island.

‘Well, I’d booked it and paid for it, why shouldn’t I enjoy it?’ she’d said with a smile that had belied the cloudy sadness in her eyes.

Had he hurt her more?

Caused the change?

Surely not, but something had...

He turned his attention back to Harriet.

‘You probably know all about regular emergency structures but most of them are intended for long-term use, say after an earthquake. The “tent”, as Kate called it, is a smaller affair—an inflatable, easily set-up protected area that combines a trauma unit to act as the ED, a surgical theatre for life-and-limb-saving surgery, and a multifunction unit with drugs and blood products, facilities for lab tests, and sterilisation support. Some of these are “add-on” units in other emergency set-ups, but what we’ve tried to do is provide the best facility possible for first response units like your SDR.’

‘That makes sense,’ Harriet said. ‘Most patients are airlifted, or taken by road transport once they’re stabilised, so you wouldn’t need an intensive care unit or ward beds like some I’ve seen. It sounds like a great idea.’

‘It’s only a great idea if it works,’ Angus told her. ‘I’ve been planning and organising the construction of this one for some time, but I’ve only recently been posted to a base on the outskirts of Sydney. I knew Blake back when I was studying medicine so when I heard about his—well, the hospital’s—SDR team I hooked up with him, hoping maybe we could get to trial it.’

He paused, then added, ‘Not that I’m looking for a disaster—heaven forbid—but things happen, don’t they?’

Harriet gave him a weak smile and pointed to her leg.

‘Don’t they just,’ she said, and a finality in the words finished the conversation.

Could he go? Just stand up and walk out? Say goodbye, of course—but even if he went, could he go back to Kate’s—or Alice’s—apartment? He doubted he’d be welcomed. Kate had been out the door here before he’d got settled on the sofa.

He stood up.

‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘I do hope you get back on the team before long. You might even get to try out my “tent”.’

But Harriet didn’t respond and he’d seen enough PTSD cases to know that even if she hadn’t been diagnosed with it, she was deeply depressed. She’d made all the right noises when he’d first come in and even shown interest in his knowing Kate, but that short stint of casual conversation had taken all her energy.

And although he wanted nothing more than to go back to Alice’s apartment and see Kate, he sat down again.

‘How long since you hurt your leg?’ he asked, watching her face so he could read the argument going on in her head about whether or not she would answer.

Politeness won.

‘Months now—I’ve lost count. I got a post-op infection that knocked me back, and the rehab seems to go on for ever.’

‘You’ll get there,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to keep believing that you will. Don’t give up. Giving up’s easy, it’s sticking it out that’s hard, but in the end, it’s worth it. The inner strength you gain will make you a better nurse and better SDR team member.’

‘And a better person? Did you forget that bit?’ Harriet asked, but at least she was smiling again.

‘Don’t know about that, but seeing medicine from the other side definitely improves your understanding of patients and what they are going through.’

‘Been there yourself?’

He smiled and shook his head.

‘Close enough,’ he told her, remembering the long bleak months after his last posting, part of a humanitarian response team to an overcrowded refugee camp in South-East Asia. Some of the things he’d seen—the stories he’d heard—had made him wonder if he’d ever feel normal again.

‘And Kate?’

‘Nice try,’ he said, as Harriet’s teasing smile told him he could leave with an easier conscience. He’d jolted her out of her dark mood, although for how long he didn’t know.

He said goodbye, adding that he hoped they’d meet again, and was pleased when she roused herself enough to walk to the door with him.

As he left he realised he had an excuse to talk to Kate again—he could knock on the apartment door, mention his concern about Harriet’s mental state.

It was a weak excuse and she’d see it that way, but having met up with her again he knew he—

What?

Wanted to see more of her?

Yes, there was that—definitely—but...

What he really wanted to know was what had changed her from the woman who’d smiled through the pain of the end of her relationship, who’d settled terrified guests with a warm word and a joke during the cyclone, who’d been friendly and outgoing and...

Well, fun!

Back when he’d met her, she’d have had every reason to be withdrawn. She’d discovered her best friend had been sleeping with her fiancé and had broken off the engagement, heading for the island to escape the talk.

But she’d taken one look at his pale face on the island boat and made him stay on deck, explaining it was far better to be outside than in if you felt the slightest bit queasy. So they’d clung to the rail, salt spray washing over them both, and she’d kept his mind off the journey, telling him about the little coral cay that lay ahead, and the research station on it that she’d visited each year with her great-aunt Alice, a marine biologist.

Alice!

The great-aunt!

By the time they’d reached the island he’d realised Alice probably meant more to Kate than her parents, and now here she was, living with Alice—a ‘loner’!

Because?

He realised that, in spite of all they’d been through together, he didn’t really know her.

He looked around the elevator lobby, and finally pressed the ‘down’ button.

* * *

Kate did her best to concentrate on cooking the chicken breasts in lemon and capers that was one of Alice’s favourite dinners, but she’d made it so often it couldn’t distract her enough.

Why wasn’t Angus wearing a wedding ring?

Hadn’t he gone to the island to check it out as a place for his and Michelle’s honeymoon?

They’d joked on that terribly rough boat trip that they were both on pretend honeymoons, talking to take their minds off the wild seas.

And the cyclone hadn’t even been close at that stage. It was only two days later it changed direction—as cyclones so often do—and headed straight for the island.

Maybe army personnel didn’t wear wedding rings, she decided. Some kind of safety thing? Could a light flashing off a gold or silver ring tell a sniper where to shoot?

Kate shook her head as she turned the capers in the frying pan, crisping them nicely. Think about the capers, not have ridiculous thoughts about snipers. Angus had been based in Townsville, anyway, and she doubted he’d have been bothered by snipers there.

Angus.

‘You burning those capers, Kate?’

Surely not! She looked down at the pan, forcing her mind away from the man who’d come back so unexpectedly—shockingly, really—into her life.

‘No, but you like them crisp. Nearly ready!’

She put the thin slices of chicken breast back into the pan, with the lemon juice and zest, swirled it around, then served them onto the waiting plates. The bowl of salad was already on the table, and Alice joined her there as she set down the plates.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, savouring the tasty food, but Kate could hear the wheels turning in Alice’s head as she decided how to phrase the question Kate knew she would ask.

Except she didn’t ask a question, instead issuing a statement.

‘So that was the man who caused you all the trouble!’

Kate shrugged.

‘He wasn’t to blame for anything,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh, so you got pregnant all by yourself?’

Kate pushed her plate away and looked at her aunt. Great-aunt really, but they’d never made the distinction. She’d been closer to Alice than she had to her mother, had learnt more about life and the way the world worked on those holidays on the island than she’d ever learnt at home or at school.

‘The getting-pregnant part was definitely my fault,’ Kate admitted. ‘I’d been on the Pill so didn’t give a thought to the fact that I hadn’t been in my room for three days during the height of the storm, which meant I hadn’t been taking it. Stupid, I know, but it had been a tense time with so little sleep, and the relief of finally getting the injured and the majority of the upset tourists off the island had overwhelmed us both.’

She paused, then looked up to meet Alice’s eyes.

‘It was survivor sex, if that makes sense, yet...’

‘It was more than that?’ Alice asked gently.

Kate nodded.

‘It seemed that way,’ she murmured, a little of the remembered passion sparking to life inside her. ‘We’d been through so much together, it was as if we had a...bond, I suppose, is the only way to describe it. A special bond.’

‘Didn’t you tell him you were pregnant, get in touch with him?’

Kate shuddered as she remembered the anguish of those early days.

‘How could I? I’d done exactly what my best friend had done—slept with someone else’s fiancé—and that had broken up my marriage plans. Should I break up his as well?’

She sighed.

‘In the end, I knew it wasn’t right to not tell him so I kind of left it up to him. I sent him a note, care of the base in Townsville, just asking if he’d like to give me a call—gave him my number. I never heard anything after that, which, I think, given all that happened, was for the best, don’t you?’

Alice shook her head.

* * *

Angus made his way back towards the hospital where he’d left his car, his left hand in his pocket, fingering the card Blake had given him.

Some impulse made him stop and look around at the dark water of the ocean disappearing into the night, at the sand, patterned in shadows by the street lights on the esplanade. He breathed deeply, drawing in the salty tang of the air that only existed this close to the beach.

He was a free agent at the moment, at the beginning of an untimed trip to talk to groups like Bondi Bayside’s SDR all over Australia. He’d started here because it was closest to his army base, intending to find a hotel in Sydney to use while he covered the other response teams and government officials he needed to see. But wasn’t that a hotel? Just across the road from the apartments? Bondi wasn’t so far out of Sydney city that he couldn’t base himself here for the local appointments.

He pulled out Blake’s card and phoned him, inordinately pleased when Blake said he was only too happy to take him on their next callout. Another reason to stay in Bondi!

‘So you can see how our system works,’ Blake had added, causing a small twinge of guilt in Angus’s gut. ‘I’ll give Mabel your mobile number. We meet at the chopper on the roof of the hospital. Check in at Reception if you get a call. I’ll leave instructions for them to give you a special visitor’s card that will give you access to the elevator, and allow you to go up to the roof.’

It was only when this was organised that Angus realised Kate might not be on the next SDR callout, but she was here, in Bondi, he’d seen her, and he had no intention of leaving until he’d seen her again. Seen her properly! If he didn’t catch up with her this way, he’d have to think of something else.

Why?

The question struck him as he was about to turn away from the beach, and he couldn’t brush it away.

Was it simply determination to find out why, according to the little he’d heard, she’d changed from a lively, friendly, outgoing young woman to a loner? Back then, he’d seen the shadows of sadness in her eyes, but she’d talked and laughed and even joked about her solitary honeymoon—been vibrantly alive...

Or was it because she’d somehow got beneath his skin three years ago?

Because something special, quite apart from the sex, which had been momentous, had happened between them on the island? Something had drawn them together during those terrifying hours in a way he’d never felt before?