to look after yourself,’ he told her.
‘I will.’ She touched his hand, staring down at him and suddenly fighting a stupid urge to weep. ‘Of course I will. Looking after me is what I’m principally good at. Now sleep.’
His head was fine. Lizzie checked the X-rays from every angle and could see no damage at all. It must have been a fair bang to make him lose consciousness but there was little to show for it now. She’d watch him carefully for signs of internal bleeding, but every sign was that he’d been lucky.
Not so the leg. Lizzie held the X-ray up to the screen and May whistled.
May had introduced herself with cheer. ‘I’m May. I’m general dogsbody round here. Basic nurse training twenty years ago. All care and no responsibility. Emily’s our nurse administrator but I guess with Emily in a flap I’m it.’
She was a welcome it. The freckle-faced forty-something woman exuded a warmth that Lizzie was in sore need of. Now she’d checked Harry’s head she could concentrate on that hot shower and dry clothes.
‘He’s not going to be walking down any aisle tomorrow, is he?’ May asked shrewdly, and Lizzie shook her head.
‘No.’ She looked again at the X-rays. She’d been very lucky to get the leg back into a position where the blood vessels weren’t blocked. Very lucky.
‘It’ll need pinning?’
‘It’s a corkscrew break right through, with breaks in both tibia and fibula. He can do six weeks in traction and possibly end up with a really bad result or he can get it pinned. Plus, there are slivers of bone that need fixing or removing.’
‘Can you pin it here?’ May asked, and Lizzie shook her head.
‘Heck, no. Pin this leg? Our Dr McKay needs an orthopaedic surgeon and an anaesthetist. Maybe I could do the anaesthetic but… How good are you at joining broken bits of bone together?’
May grinned and shook her head. ‘Carpentry’s never been my strong point.’
‘Then we ship him out to someone who can.’
The nurse turned back to the screen and screwed up her nose. ‘So the wedding’s off?’
‘Absolutely. I’d like him evacuated as soon as possible. Soon. His head looks good but he did lose consciousness for a bit. If there’s the slightest chance of him having an intracranial bleed, he needs to have it somewhere near a neurosurgeon. He can go to Melbourne, see out his danger period in a nice city hospital with all the facilities, get his leg pinned and plated and then come back here and recuperate.’
‘With you looking after him?’
Lizzie let her breath out in a long slow sigh. ‘I guess.’
This wasn’t the locum position she’d planned. Absolutely not. Once upon a time she’d been a family doctor—for two short years after she’d graduated. Now—after one awful day she hated even to think about—she was a nine-to-five doctor. She looked after the emergency department of a city hospital. She did her absolute best for everyone while she was on duty and then she walked away.
She closed shop.
And here, a tiny fishing village with its only doctor incapacitated… This place could suck her in, she thought fearfully. She should drive out of here right now. She could go back to the locum agency and tell them they were liars.
She’d get another job. There were always jobs for locums. But…
‘We’ll be in a mess without you,’ May told her, and she winced.
‘I’m like you,’ she muttered. ‘I’m all care, no responsibility.’
‘Unless you’re stuck,’ May said shrewdly. ‘And you are stuck. There’s no one else. If Harry’s away and you don’t stay we’ll have to close the hospital until he gets back. All those people…’
‘How many?’ Lizzie demanded, startled, and May gave an apologetic shrug.
‘Well, five. Five in acute care. But there’s a nursing home, too.’
‘That wouldn’t have to shut.’
‘No, but the hospital would.’
Lizzie tried to get her tired mind to think. This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. ‘Um… I only agreed to come last Tuesday. This wedding’s obviously been planned for months.’
‘We had another locum booked,’ May told her. ‘Only he realised how remote it was and pulled out.’
So that’s why they’d lied to her. Lizzie’s heart hardened. ‘Then I can—’
‘No, you can’t,’ May told her. ‘You’re nice.’
‘I’m not nice.’
‘Yeah, you are. I’ve seen your dog. Anyone who didn’t get a dog like that put down at first sight has to be more than nice.’
‘You mean really, really stupid,’ Lizzie said, and May grinned.
‘You said it, Dr Darling, not me. But if the cap fits…’
It was the best shower she’d ever had in her life. Lizzie stood under the hot water and let the heat and the steam soothe away the mud and the cold and the shock. Long after she was thoroughly clean she still stood there, letting the heat soothe her tired brain. Making her mind blank. Giving her time out.
Somewhere someone called Jim was looking after Phoebe. That in itself was a godsend. Ever since Grandma had died Phoebe had followed her like a shadow and Lizzie, who didn’t do family, who didn’t do connections, was finding it a weighty strain.
Phoebe was supposed to be back at the holiday cottage right now, but when Lizzie had shut the gate behind her this morning Phoebe had set up a wail that would have woken the dead. Then she’d launched herself at the wooden gate like a battering ram, over and over again, hurling her ungainly body at the wood in manic desperation to follow.
‘You’re pregnant,’ Lizzie had told her. ‘You’ll go into premature labour if you don’t stop it. I’ll be back tonight.’
But Phoebe had kept right on howling and battering. Finally Lizzie had shoved her in the car. She was staying down here because of the dratted dog. If she had to do this locum job with Phoebe sprawled over her feet while she took surgery then the patients would just have to wear it.
What had May said? Anyone who hadn’t had a dog like this put down at first sight had to be more than nice. ‘Ha.’
She wasn’t being nice. It was just… Just that she was stuck.
Phoebe had been Grandma’s dog. Grandma had loved Phoebe and she’d loved Lizzie. Grandma had been the one constant in Lizzie’s trauma-filled upbringing and the thought of losing her…
No. She wasn’t going to cry. She blinked and splashed her face with some more hot water. She wouldn’t cry. But neither could she put Phoebe down.
‘But what on earth ever possessed you to let her get pregnant?’ she wailed to her grandmother. ‘One basset hound I can cope with.’ She thought about it and changed her story. ‘No. One basset hound I can survive. But a pregnant basset hound? A hound with puppies? And they mightn’t even be bassets.’
Actually, that wasn’t such a bad thought. Maybe they’d have their father’s intelligence. Whoever the father was.
‘Maybe he’s a Border collie.
‘Yeah? Border collies are smart. You seriously think a Border collie would look twice at our Phoebe?
‘Maybe not.’
‘Um…is there someone in the shower with you?’ a voice called. ‘If there’s a party happening in there I’ll go away. I don’t want to disturb you.’
May.