Specialist Disaster Response team. They were based at Bondi Bayside Hospital, and while not wishing disaster to fall on the community at large, Luc was edgy when it didn’t.
Disaster response was what Luc lived for. Harriet’s accident, with its possible long-term consequences, had left him gutted, but even the damage to his friend hadn’t taken the edge off his addiction to adrenaline.
‘Was the conference boring then?’ Harriet asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
‘Who could be bored in New York? And, no, the emergency medicine component was great. I learned a lot. But I did spend most of my time on my butt, listening, and twenty-four hours sitting on the plane either way. And then to get home and find the team doing another disaster drill off in the Blue Mountains without me...’
‘Which is why you’d better hope there’s no emergency,’ Harriet told him, but there was sympathy in her voice. Harriet was a specialist intensive care nurse. Luc was an emergency medicine physician. Neither was good at doing nothing. ‘The team can be recalled fast but it’ll take an extra couple of hours to bring them back to base,’ she said. ‘And you know they need to do it. Our last was the disaster when I was hurt, and they’ve been trying to get back there ever since. They return tomorrow. Let’s hold emergencies until then.’
‘So you’re not bored?’
‘Of course I am.’ Harriet glowered and winced as she tried to move her leg. ‘Give it a break, Luc. I’m likely to be bored for a very long time. At least you can do something about it.’
She eyed Luc with speculation. ‘Hey, maybe it’s about time you thought about your love life. Word is that cute little nurse you’ve been dating threw you over before you left. Seems you stood her up for one date too many.’
‘Gotta love the hospital grapevine,’ Luc said equitably. ‘It knows my love life better than I do.’
‘You give it fodder. How many’s that this year? Three? Isn’t it time you thought about settling? Babies and a mortgage and washing the car on Sundays? Not interested?’
‘Not in a million years.’
‘Word is you were married.’
‘Yeah.’ He pushed himself off the bed and headed for the door. Personal discussions weren’t something he did. ‘Eight years ago. I’m not going back there in a hurry.’
‘So why the serial dating?’ Bored and interested, Harriet wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘What are you looking for, Luc? Someone cute, smart, sexy, willing to have nine out of ten dates cancelled because of crises, happy for her guy to dangle from a rope mid-air while the rest of the world thinks he’ll break his neck...’
‘Harry...’
‘Hey, I know, it’s none of my business.’ She was starting to enjoy herself. ‘But you need to quit it with working your way through the hospital staff—it’s getting messy. How about you join a proper dating site? I’ll help you fill in your profile. What do we have? Six foot two, tall, dark, ripped and just a touch mysterious—or at least he likes crime novels. Yeah, I’ve seen you reading them between jobs. Super fit. Pulls a great wage. You might need to buy yourself life insurance to cover security issues but, wow, Luc, wait and see how many hits you get. You’ll make some girl a wonderful husband.’
‘I have no intention of being a husband, wonderful or otherwise.’
‘But you’ve already been one,’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Want to tell Aunty Harry what happened? Where is she now?’
‘And I have no intention of telling you about my marriage, even if you are bored,’ Luc retorted through gritted teeth. ‘It’s past history. I have no idea where she is now. I’m heading down to Emergency to see if I can find someone to treat.’
‘The nurses are saying there’s nothing doing in Emergency. There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting happening in this whole hospital. Like your love life.’
‘You want to talk about yours? How are you and Pete?’
She winced again. ‘Yeah, okay, stalemate. But seriously, Luc... My offer of planting you in the middle of a dating site still stands. It might even be exciting.’
‘I have enough excitement in my life,’ he said, and gave her a hug, snagged another chocolate from her oversupply and left.
Harriet was left staring thoughtfully after him.
‘You know,’ she said, to no one in particular, ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t. I’m pretty sure there’s not enough excitement in the universe to keep Luc Braxton happy. And I’d love to know what happened, and where that wife of yours is now.’
* * *
Dr Beth Carmichael was so tired all she wanted to do was sleep. Today had been once crisis after another. She was finally free to head home, but heading home with a toddler and a briefcase of medico-legal letters didn’t promise the sleep she craved.
There’d even been a drama when she’d gone to pick Toby up from childcare.
‘Beth, would you mind looking at Felix Runnard? He’s been listless all day and now he’s developed a fever. His mum’s not due to pick him up until eight tonight and her boss gives her a hard time if she has to leave early. We’ve popped him into isolation but...what do you think? Should we ring his mum?’ Margie Lane, the childcare supervisor, was a sensible woman who didn’t fuss but she’d sounded worried.
So Beth had put aside her longing for home and sat down with the little boy on her lap.
A slight fever? The staff had taken his temp an hour ago but now he was burning. He was also arching his head and crying when she touched his neck.
Fever. Sore neck. No sign of a virus. Alarm bells had rung.
‘Check his tummy for me,’ she’d told Margie as she cradled him, and Margie had lifted his singlet and removed his nappy.
The beginnings of a rash.
Meningitis?
The childcare centre was in the shopping plaza, as was the clinic Beth worked from. She sent someone to the clinic for antibiotics and injected a first dose straight away. She could hope her tentative diagnosis was wrong, but she couldn’t wait for confirmation. If she was right, immediate antibiotics could make all the difference.
An hour later Felix and his parents were in the med. evacuation chopper on their way to Sydney. Meningitis hadn’t been confirmed but Beth wasn’t wasting time doing the tests herself. If the infection was moving fast, Namborra wasn’t where he needed to be. It was better to bail out early, maybe even terrify his parents unnecessarily, than risk the unthinkable.
Even after he’d left, there’d been things to do. She’d cleaned herself with care, then organised for parents to be contacted, with antibiotics ordered for anyone who’d been in contact with Felix. Finally she’d stripped again—one thing a country GP always carried was a change of clothes. She’d then hugged her own little Toby and carried him out through the undercover car park.
He was whinging because he was tired. She was also tired, but Toby didn’t have meningitis and right now she felt the luckiest mother in the world.
‘Let’s have spaghetti for tea,’ she told Toby, and his little face brightened.
‘Worms.’
‘Exactly. How many worms would you like?’
‘One, two, a hundred,’ he crowed, and buried his head in her shoulder.
She hugged him tight and headed toward the entrance. Doug, her next-door neighbour, would be waiting to pick her up. Bless him, she thought, not for the first time. Doug was in his seventies, a widower who spent his days making his garden and his car pristine. When she’d first started working at Namborra he’d noticed the number of taxis she was using and tentatively made his offer. At first she’d been reluctant—her