coughing and can’t take a full feed, you will need to give him small regular feeds. Bring his bassinette into your room for the next few nights and keep an eye on him until the coughing has completely gone. Babies can develop apnoea as a complication of whooping cough, which means he may stop breathing for short periods.’
Suddenly the baby began a bout of coughing. It escalated quickly to a point where he was struggling for breath. Pierce immediately lifted him from his mother’s arms and supported him in an upright position to make breathing easier. The cough was severe and Pierce immediately knew that James had been infected for longer than his mother suspected and was past home care with antibiotics.
‘That’s how he coughed all last night,’ Carla gasped, and her eyes widened with concern at the infant’s condition.
‘It could be bronchiolitis or whooping cough but either way I want to transfer him to New England District hospital immediately. They are better equipped to help him through the illness. Antibiotics will need to be administered, as I first told you, but James needs to have oxygen delivered through a tiny mask during these coughing episodes.’
He stepped outside his consulting room and into the waiting area. ‘Tracy, can you call for an ambulance, please? Relay that it is not an emergency but we need a monitored transfer to New England District. Carla can’t drive and attend to James at the same time.’
Stepping back into the room where Carla sat, chewing her lip nervously, Pierce continued, ‘James will need to spend a while in hospital, but I want you to have this in case you need me.’ He handed her a card with his twenty-four-hour paging number. ‘And don’t hesitate to call if you have any concerns. One more thing, if it is confirmed that James has whooping cough, then the chances are high you will both will have contracted it, too. So if you get any sign of a cough, immediately begin antibiotics. If you don’t, it may take six to ten weeks to subside and nothing will make the recovery quicker once you pass the initial two-week period. Please call your sister too and get her off to her family GP in Tamworth as soon as possible.’
‘My husband was coughing last night too, so I’ll get him onto the antibiotics tonight. Should I give him a cough suppressant so he can sleep?’ Carla asked, as she gently placed the now quiet baby back into his pram to await the ambulance.
‘I don’t recommend it. I’d prefer to let him cough. It’s what the body naturally does when it needs to clear the lungs of mucus and I prefer not to suppress that reaction.’
Carla stood up and took the new script that Pierce held out to her. ‘I’ll give the hospital a call later and speak to the paediatrician about the treatment plan for James.’ With that he wheeled the pram through the waiting room and directed Carla into the spare consulting room. ‘The ambulance should be here quite soon but until then you can wait here comfortably.’
Pierce explained to Tracy his reasoning for keeping Carla separate from the waiting patients. If he was correct with his diagnosis of James, he suspected that over the next few days there would be a few more of their family and friends appearing with whooping cough but at least keeping Carla isolated until the ambulance arrived might help those in the surgery that morning.
Laine turned into the narrow driveway of her motel, past Reception and continued driving down to her room. She pulled up at the front of the Ned Kelly room, her cosy home for the three-night stay. She had checked in a few hours earlier. She unpacked her equipment from the car and carefully stacked it up against the wall inside her room. It didn’t take too long before the car was empty and her room looked like a photographic warehouse.
Tossing her sunglasses and keys on the bed, she crossed to the window and pulled it open to enjoy the fresh air. It felt so good to fill her lungs. It was a welcome change to the hotels where she routinely stayed. Her usual accommodation was elegant and never less than five star, but there was also never a window to be opened and always an abundance of pollution in most major cities when she stepped outside.
Laine stood motionless, looking out across the open paddock, and thought back to when she’d lived in the town. It had been over a decade ago but nothing much appeared to have changed.
Part of her wanted to take a walk around her old town. To feel like she belonged, the way it had been all those years ago. Now she was a stranger in her home town. But she didn’t want to come face to face with the people who had been like her extended family when she’d been growing up—there was still the chance they might recognise her. It had been twelve long years and she certainly wasn’t the Melanie they would remember.
Quite apart from her new name, she had grown out her trademark super-short pixie cut, the chubbiness of her baby face even as a teenager had been replaced by an elongated profile and her braces were long gone. The awkward teen with the tomboy dress sense, who would milk the cows, help to plant the crops, shoo away the crows and look forward to a twenty-minute car trip into Armidale as if there were no bigger treat possible, no longer existed. She had left that life far behind. She didn’t belong in this town any more.
Laine walked away from the window with her heart suddenly, and unexpectedly, aching for her past. And even more for what had been taken from her. She kicked off her designer espadrilles and lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes closed and her mind slipped back to a happy time. A time when she’d felt loved and protected and wanted. Turning on her side, she felt a tear slip from her eye and roll down her cheek. It had been many years since she had stopped and yearned for that time in her life.
She wiped the tear away with the back of her hand, and silently berated herself for being swept up in emotions after only a few hours of being in the town. It was silly. Melancholy musings had no place in her life. She was an independent woman with no ties, just the way she liked it. The way it needed to be, she told herself, before she drifted off for a much-needed nap. The frantic six-week schedule she had given herself hadn’t factored in any down time between shoots and flights and finally it had caught up with her.
Hours later she was woken from her slumber by a knock at the door.
Laine sat upright, staring at the wooden door, with no clue as to who would be on the other side. Waking with memories still so close to the surface, it quickly took Laine back to a time when she would run from a knock at the door. When she had felt sure someone was coming to take her away from the loving home she had found. Earlier in her childhood, the knock had signalled that the authorities had been called and a decision made to move her to the next placement. She became numb and often didn’t care as she’d been leaving a less-than-pleasant situation, but all that had changed when she’d come to live with the Phillips family and found a place she’d truly wanted to call home. Then the knock would send her scurrying to hide so that they couldn’t find her and rip her away from a place where she felt safe. Over time, with help from her new parents, she’d learnt that a knock did not signal something ominous. It merely meant visitors were arriving and she learnt to embrace the sound.
Then there was Manhattan, where no one knocked on her door unexpectedly. They had to call from the lobby and she or the concierge had to let them up. Laine liked it that way.
She quickly looked around the clean motel room. The housekeeping was done. There was no reason for anyone to be calling on her. No one knew she was in town. The arrangement to use the McKenzie property had been done by a third party so they had no knowledge she was in town.
‘Laine, it’s Pierce,’ came the deep voice from the other side of the door. She could hear him clearly. There was no other noise. No sounds of taxi horns or police sirens or people partying in the room above. For a brief moment Laine found comfort in the silence. It was so peaceful until the knocking started again.
‘I’ve finished up for the day and thought we might grab a bite to eat,’ he suggested tentatively through the still-closed door. ‘If you’re up to it.’
Laine was hungry but the thought of spending more time than absolutely necessary with Pierce was unsettling. He was an incredibly attractive man with charisma and home-grown charm and she was feeling slightly vulnerable, being back in this town. It was as if the warm memories of her past were trying to thaw her now cold outlook on life. She didn’t