‘Good.’ Would she hurry up and get out of there?
‘Can you pass me a sphygmomanometer?’
The blood pressure reading was important; a low one could indicate a continuing bleed somewhere.
‘Is it possible for you to reach his arm and hold it still?’ Fiona asked.
Tom pushed his shoulders through the narrow gap as far as he could until the squashed window frame prevented further movement. ‘I’ve got a cervical collar too. Damned if I know where Liz found it, but I’m grateful to her.’
He held the patient’s arm while Fiona inserted an intravenous line for much needed morphine and fluids. Then she took the blood pressure reading.
‘BP’s too low,’ she said.
Tom watched as Fiona gently probed her patient’s abdomen. Then her hands moved down his body until Tom heard a grunt of satisfaction. ‘Torn artery at the top of his leg.’
Stretching out, Tom helped apply the pressure needed to slow and gradually halt the bleeding.
Fiona said softly, ‘He’s also got a huge swelling above the left eye, so possibly there are cranial injuries. We need to fit the neck collar, and that’s not going to be easy. He’s caught between the gearstick and the seat, and his body’s twisted at an angle so his lower back’s stuck under the front of the car.’
As they struggled with the collar one of the tow truck drivers came up beside Tom. ‘We’re ready to lift the engine block back so you can get your man out of there. Just give us the nod.’
Tom raised an eyebrow at Fiona. ‘What do you think? Is he ready?’
‘There’s nothing more I can do for him here, and the sooner we have him out the sooner he gets to hospital.’
‘Fi, come out of there. You’re only giving them something else to worry about if you’re in the car too.’ Did he have to beg her? ‘I want you out.’
She climbed gingerly back through the narrow window space. He tugged her away, thankful to have her out of the vehicle unscathed as the tow truck swung its enormous steel hook over the bonnet.
‘Have you heard how the guy on the ground is?’ Fiona asked as she sheltered in front of him from the cold breeze.
Just then Robert appeared beside them and answered Fiona’s question. ‘Broken femur, suspected punctured lung, and possibly a ruptured spleen. He took a hard landing on the road, but he could’ve been a lot worse off. We’ve put him in the back of my vehicle. Once we’ve got your man out, we’ll head back to the hospital.’
‘I thought there were four people in the car.’ Tom peered around, suddenly aware of raised voices coming from inside the police four-wheel drive vehicle.
‘Two women were in the back seat and they fared a lot better than their husbands. But they’re rather intoxicated and argumentative. Pierce has got his hands full with them as he tries to find out what happened. He’s also keeping them out of the way while we deal with their husbands.’
‘No injuries at all?’ He sympathised with Pierce. Dealing with inebriated people in these situations was always like walking on ice.
‘One of them needs her chin stitched. It’s a very long, jagged gash.’
Tom sighed. ‘Then she can be thankful we’ve got a plastic surgeon in town.’
‘I’ll take a look once we’ve sorted these other two out.’ Fiona stamped her feet and hugged her upper body.
‘Your teeth are clacking.’ Tom draped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her neatly under his arm in an attempt to give her some warmth from his body. A purely altruistic gesture, of course.
‘Clacking? I’m not a castanet.’
‘Are too.’ His need to protect her swelled like a balloon filling with air.
A horrendous sound of screeching metal tore through the air as the engine block was lifted away from the seriously injured man. Immediately Fiona left Tom’s side to supervise the man’s removal. In no time at all they were on the road, heading for Tom’s hospital and the operating theatre.
And Tom tried to remind himself why he shouldn’t want Fiona working alongside him at his hospital. It wasn’t easy.
‘What a night.’ Fiona stretched her back.
‘Guess you’re not used to this where you’ve been.’ Stella handed Fiona suture thread to stitch Dave Fergusson’s torn artery.
‘Not a lot of car accidents in Pakistani villages.’ Fiona concentrated on their patient. With the artery repaired she turned to the head wound, which appeared to be superficial. Enough to knock the man unconscious and give him concussion, but otherwise it appeared he’d escaped serious head injuries. To be on the safe side, Fiona ordered a cranial X-ray as well as X-rays of his chest.
While an orderly wheeled her patient to the radiology room she crossed over to help Tom and Robert. Tom glanced up at her, and grimaced. ‘Not quite what you were expecting when you signed on for the week, was it?’
‘It’s all medicine to me. It’s what I do, who I am.’
‘Keep that up and I’ll be offering you a permanent position here. We can agree that we work well together in any medical situation.’ Tom winked, then stilled, as though it had only then occurred to him what he’d offered.
Fiona felt warmth trickle through her at the idea he wanted her around. Of course Tom probably now regretted opening his mouth. But they had worked well together throughout the night. If they could do this, why couldn’t they put their differences behind them?
‘Fiona?’ Robert was talking to her. ‘We’re missing the top knuckle of a thumb here. Want to work some of your plastic surgery magic on the guy?’
Grateful for the distraction, she set to work, concentrating hard. But it was Tom who handed her equipment as she requested it, almost before she’d asked. He anticipated all her moves, as if they were a partnership. Warmth seeped through her again, and she held it around her like a shawl.
‘What time is it?’ Fiona laid the suture thread down for the last time and straightened her aching back.
‘Three-fifty-five,’ Liz called across the room. ‘It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?’
Tom agreed. ‘Thank goodness for those Christchurch specialists.’
Some of the surgery required on the two men had been out of the scope of a paediatrician, a GP and a plastic surgeon. But with the help of specialists at the other end of the phone they had succeeded in repairing injuries, removing organs and keeping both men alive.
‘I’ve requested the medic helicopter ASAP,’ Tom told everyone over hot coffee and plates of bacon and eggs, cooked by one of the hospital’s cooks who’d come in early especially. ‘But at the moment Hanmer Springs is completely blocked off by the storm that’s apparently been battering us most of the night.’
‘Wouldn’t know a thing, locked up in here,’ Liz noted.
‘What chance has the pilot got of getting through if this storm has headed on down through Canterbury?’ Fiona knew that storms could stall over areas, but she didn’t know the normal drift of a storm in the vicinity of these particular ranges.
‘The dispatch officer seemed fairly confident that we’d be seeing the helicopter some time around ten this morning.’ Tom yawned into his mug. ‘In the meantime I’ll brief the staff and give all of you the morning off.’
Fiona didn’t feel tired. Rather, exhilaration bubbled through her veins. They’d all worked together to save the lives of two men. They’d also
patched up the minor injuries the two women had suffered. This was what she’d trained for, even if her specialty wasn’t emergency medicine. To help people. And working with Tom had been a bonus. Oh, yes, she was buzzing. She didn’t need to take the morning off to recuperate. Instead she felt ready for anything.
‘You can’t be thinking of postponing this morning’s schedule, surely?’ she queried Tom.
‘Absolutely. We’ll start operating at eleven instead of eight. That should give everyone a few hours’ sleep.’ Tom rolled his eyes at her. ‘Including you. I can see you’re firing on all cylinders now, but once that huge stack of food you’re pouring down your throat hits your stomach you’re going to slow down. Throw in a hot shower, and you’ll be toast.’
‘Sounds wonderful.’ A hot shower. Delicious. That was something they didn’t often get after a long, difficult shift out in the villages she’d been working in.
The thought of that scorching water pummelling her back had her in raptures. She sighed and stretched out on the chair, her legs pushing under the table, her arms crossed behind her head. Closing her eyes, she imagined standing under the steaming jets, imagined Tom sharing it with her as he’d often used to. Her skin heated up in anticipation and she opened her eyes to find Tom gazing at her, the tip of his tongue wetting his upper lip, his eyes smoky grey. The colour they went when he was aroused.
Excitement tingled over her skin. She knew Tom felt the pull between them. He wasn’t immune to her after all. Joy zipped through her. She wanted to leap up and punch the air. There was a chance for them—hope. They could get back together, pick up the pieces, and start the loving all over again. Yes! The loving…the lovemaking. It had all started with a shower. The very first time. Tom was remembering that too. She saw it in his eyes. Even her skin had memories in all the sensitive places he had touched with his gentle fingers, with his hot, demanding tongue. And she wanted it again. Now. In Tom’s shower back at the cottage.