Storm Haven

CHAPTER ONE

‘NIKKI RUSSELL, you’re killing yourself!’

Nikki looked up from her books. The causes of renal failure were swimming around her tired mind, and it took a moment before she could focus on her elderly housekeeper. Beattie Gilchrist stalked forward and planted a mug of hot chocolate on top of Nikki’s open text. ‘I know you asked for coffee,’ she said darkly, ‘but I’ve no intention of helping you stay awake. It’s bed you need, Dr Russell, and that’s a fact.’

Nikki smiled wearily and pushed her heavy glasses from her nose. ‘Thanks, Beattie. I’m coming to bed in a moment.’

‘I know. I know.’ Mrs Gilchrist folded her arms and glared at her employer. ‘In a few hours more like. You delivered the Raymond baby last night, you were up at six to Amy, you had a full day at the surgery today and it’s near to midnight now. Odds are you’ll be called out again tonight and then where will you be?’

‘Exhausted,’ Nikki admitted. ‘But the exam’s only three weeks away, Beattie.’

‘And old Doc Maybury told me there’s not the least need for you to be sitting the exam yet. He said most doctors wait five years from graduation before even thinking about it, and you’ve been practising less than that. You’ll drive yourself to an early grave, Nikki Russell, you mark my words!’

‘Beattie, I’m only twenty-seven.’ Nikki smiled placatingly at her housekeeper and pushed stray curls of flaming hair back from her face. ‘I’m young and fit. Hard work’s not going to kill me.’

‘It will if it’s all you do.’ Beattie sniffed. ‘It’s no life for a girl, buried here as Eurong’s solo GP. You should be out having fun while you’re still young. You’ve a little girl who’s growing up without knowing her mother can be fun and happy.’ She hesitated. ‘Honestly, Nikki, dear, it’s been five years since Scott…’

Nikki’s smile faded and her face closed. ‘What I’m doing now has nothing to do with Scott.’ She grimaced. ‘Or maybe it has. I had fun with Scott. And look where that got me.’

‘But-’

‘Thanks for the chocolate.’ Nikki’s eyes told her housekeeper to keep away from the raw spot-the aching pain that had been there for five long years. ‘Beattie, I really need to study.’

The housekeeper stared at her young employer in concern. Beattie had known Nikki Russell since childhood and was almost as fond of her as she was of her own family. Nikki’s nose was back in her text but Beattie tried one more time.

‘While this locum’s here,’ she started tentatively. ‘While he’s here, couldn’t you get away for a bit? Take Amy and have a few days right away…’

‘I’ve employed the locum so I can study,’ Nikki said shortly. She shoved her glasses higher on to her nose as she buried her face determinedly in her text. As she did, the front doorbell pealed. ‘Damn!’ she swore.

‘I’ll go,’ Beattie sighed. ‘Oh, my dear, I didn’t want you to be called tonight.’

‘Leave it, Beattie.’ Nikki echoed Beattie’s sigh, closed her book and rose. ‘You go to bed. I’ll deal with it.’

Nikki made her way swiftly through the darkened house to the front door, sending up a silent prayer that whoever was waiting for her had a minor problem. The last thing she needed tonight was major trauma-not when she was so tired.

Still, she might not have a choice. If there was a medical emergency there was only Nikki. On this bleak thought she swung the front door wide-and found herself staring into the most arresting blue eyes she had ever seen.

This was no emergency. The man was standing half turned, as if he had been soaking in the view across the moonlit valley to the sea beyond. There was no panic here.

‘Dr Russell?’ The man smiled as she frowned across the veranda at him. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Luke Marriott.’

Luke Marriott…Mechanically Nikki held out her hand and had it enveloped in a much larger one. The stranger’s grip was strong and warm, intensely masculine. He stood holding her hand and smiling down at her, and Nikki felt her secure, dull existence shift on its foundations.

She had never seen a man like this. Never. Not even Scott…

Good grief! What on earth was she thinking of? Nikki gave herself a mental shake, trying to rid herself of the overwhelming impression of-well, there was no other word for it-of masculinity!

Nikki was tall, but this man was taller by several inches. He was strongly built, with fair, unruly curls that looked in need of a good cut. His face bore two or three days’ stubble and his jeans and open-necked shirt were stained with sweat and dust. There was a smudge of dirt across the strong, wide features of his face, and the deep blue eyes laughing down at her in the porch light were creased as though constantly shielded from the sun.

‘Luke Marriott…’ Nikki said blankly.

‘Your new locum,’ the man explained patiently. ‘I know I’m not due until tomorrow but I hitched a lift on a prawn boat rather than wait for the bus.’ He grinned ruefully down at himself. ‘I hope that explains the dirt-and the smell. I’m not usually so perfumed.’

Nikki wrinkled her nose. Now that he mentioned it…ugh! There was a definite smell of old fish about him.

‘The prawn boat was down in Brisbane for a refit,’ the man explained ruefully. ‘One of the deck hands lives here so I filled his place until we arrived. What I’d thought would be a great two days’ holiday turned into a solid two nights working.’ He looked down to his grubby sports shoes. ‘I hate to think what’s on these,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll take them off before I come in. That is-’ he raised his eyebrows in mock-enquiry ‘-if you intend asking me in.’

‘I…’ Nikki shook her head as through trying to dispel a dream. Luke Marriott. She had advertised for weeks for a locum and had been so delighted when this man had rung to accept that she’d asked little further of him except his registration details. But…

‘But we’ve organised your accommodation at the hospital,’ she stammered. ‘There’s a room there.’

‘There’s not,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been there and the night sister’s apologetic, but Cook’s car’s broken down and if they want Cook on hand for breakfast she stays. They seemed to think their breakfast is more necessary than I am-and Cook won’t share.’

‘But…but you can’t stay here…’

‘Look, I only take up six feet of floor space.’ The man’s humour was beginning to slip. Clearly he’d expected a warmer welcome. ‘Lady, I’ve come almost a thousand miles to do a locum for you. Do you expect me to find a park bench?’

‘I…’

‘Your night sister said Whispering Palms had at least six bedrooms and it only held three people. Now, if I promise to rid myself of prawn bait and berley, and not indulge in rape or pillage, can Whispering Palms stretch itself to accommodate me?’ The stranger stepped back as he talked, his eyes following the long lines of generous verandas with the rows of French windows opening out to the night breeze. ‘Or do you want me to go back to Brisbane?’

Nikki pulled herself together with a visible effort. Of course there was no reason to refuse to accommodate her new locum. If only…Well, if only he weren’t so…

So…so she didn’t know what! She stood aside and held the door wider.

‘Of…of course not. Come in, Dr Marriott. Welcome to Eurong.’

‘I’m not very,’ he said, looking quizzically down at her. What he saw made his deep eyes crease in perplexity. Nikki Russell was a stunner in any man’s books. Her fabulous red-gold curls framed an elfin face with huge green eyes which refused to be disguised by her too heavy glasses. She was slender-almost too thin for good health-and her pale skin was shadowed by the traces of exhaustion. The casual jeans and worn cotton shirt she wore accentuated her youth. She looked too young to be a practising doctor. ‘And I wonder why not?’ he said slowly.

‘I’m sorry?’ Nikki frowned, trying to make sense of his words.

‘You do want a locum?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Nikki was under control now, moving aside to make way for him. As she did she was intensely conscious of his size-his smell-and it wasn’t all fishing-boat smell either. ‘It was only that you were so… well, unexpected.’

‘Because I wasn’t due until tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. Why else?

She turned to usher him into the house, but as she did the telephone on the hall table started to ring. Now what? She flashed him a look of apology and went to answer it. It was almost a relief to turn away-to give her confused mind time to settle.

She wasn’t granted time. The voice on the other end of the line was harsh and urgent.

‘Nikki?’ It was Sergeant Milne’s voice, Eurong’s solitary policeman.

‘Yes?’ Nikki knew trouble when she heard it. Dan Milne’s voice was laced with it.

‘You’d better get here fast,’ the policeman barked into the phone. ‘I’ve got two kids trapped in a wreck on the beach road and I doubt if either’ll make it. They look bloody awful!’

Luke Marriott and a car crash all in one night! Nikki turned from the phone to find her new locum watching her. He’d placed his luggage down on the polished boards of the hall and was listening in concern to Nikki’s terse queries.

Behind them, Beattie Gilchrist appeared in her dressing-gown and fluffy slippers. The housekeeper raised her brows in surprise at the strange man making himself at home in the hall, but didn’t speak until Nikki put down the phone.

‘Trouble?’ she said as she saw Nikki’s face. What she saw there made her treat the stranger’s presence as secondary.

‘Beattie, this is Dr Marriott, our new locum,’ Nikki said briefly, pushing her hair back in a gesture of exhaustion. ‘Can you find him supper and a bed? I have to go. There’s a car come off the back beach road and a couple of kids are still inside. Sergeant Milne’s there and it looks bad-’

‘I don’t need supper,’ Luke Marriott’s deep voice cut across her decisively. He abandoned his battered suitcase and strode back to the door. ‘Is the ambulance there?’

‘It’s on its way. But, look, I can handle-’

‘I don’t think you can.’ The big man was suddenly in control, more assured than Nikki. ‘To be honest, you look done in already, and if there are two kids… Is there a medic with the ambulance?’

‘Our ambulance drivers are volunteers with first-aid certificates,’ Nikki admitted. ‘But-’

‘Then no buts,’ the man ordered. ‘Let’s go, Dr Russell.’

It took five minutes to get to the wrecked car.

Nikki didn’t speak but concentrated on the roads, and the man at her side seemed content to let her do so. The local roads were treacherous. The population of Eurong was too small to support major road maintenance and the roads were twisting and narrow.

Above Eurong’s swimming beach, the road curved in a sharp U around the headland. The teenagers in the car had tried to take it too fast and a massive eucalyptus had halted their plunge to the sea below.

By the time Nikki’s little sedan pulled to a halt at the scene there was a tow-truck and ambulance in attendance, and floodlights lit the wreck from the road above. Nikki left the car and swiftly made her way to the edge of the cliff, abandoning Luke Marriott in her haste. What she saw made her wince with dismay.

The tow-truck driver was securing cables to the rear of the crumpled car. Ernie, the ambulance driver, was half into the wreck and the policeman was behind him. Sergeant Milne looked up and gave a wave that showed real relief as he saw Nikki. He struggled up the cliff to meet her.

‘It’s bad,’ he said briefly, casting a curious glance across at Nikki’s companion. ‘It’s Martin Fleming and Lisa Hay. Lisa’s conscious but her legs are crushed between the car and the tree. Martin’s unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig. Ernie’s trying to put pressure on now.’

‘I’ll go down.’ Nikki turned to slide down the slope but was stopped by a strong grip on her arm.

‘Your bag’s in the boot?’

‘Yes.’ Nikki had forgotten that she wasn’t alone. She looked up to Luke Marriott, relief in her eyes. ‘If you’ll get it…’

‘There’s morphine…?’

‘There’s everything. I…We’ll need saline…’

Luke was already moving. ‘That car’s stable?’ he snapped over his shoulder.

‘Now we’ve secured it, it is.’ The policeman grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t let Ernie in till then. For a while I thought they’d slide right down.’

‘We’ll need more men to get them out.’

‘They’re on their way.’

Nikki didn’t wait to hear more. She was already sliding.

The car was a mess. The ambulance driver pulled back as Nikki arrived, his face grim and distressed.

‘I can’t stop the bleeding,’ he whispered, his eyes on the conscious girl in the passenger side of the car. Lisa was moaning softly to herself, her body rocking against the savage constriction of her legs. ‘And I can’t do anything for-’

‘Get around to Lisa’s side,’ Nikki ordered. ‘See if you can check those legs for bleeding. And stop her twisting!’ She raised her voice, trying to penetrate the girl’s pain. ‘Lisa, help’s here. We’ll give you something for the pain while we cut you free. You’ll be OK now. Just keep still and let us help you.’

The girl’s moans grew louder. She turned wild eyes to Nikki. ‘Martin’s going to die,’ she sobbed. ‘And my legs…You’ll have to cut off my legs…’

‘No.’ Nikki’s voice was sharp but she didn’t make an impression. She was trying to work as she talked, conscious of the blood pumping through a wound on Martin’s scalp. Her fingers searched frantically for the pressure points but her eyes also saw what Lisa was doing to her legs. She was pulling, doing what Nikki could only guess to be more damage.

‘I’m going to die. You’ll have to cut off my legs. Martin’s dead…’ The girl’s voice rose in terrified hysteria and she writhed helplessly against her cruel confinement.

‘You’re talking nonsense.’ A man’s clipped, firm voice cut across Lisa’s screams. The ambulance driver was edged firmly out of the way and Luke Marriott’s face appeared on the other side of the car. His hands came in and caught the hysterical girl’s flailing fingers from hauling at her legs. ‘Keep still,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t move.’ Then, in the fraction of a moment while she reacted to his voice, he produced a syringe, swabbed with lightning speed and plunged the morphine home. ‘That’s good, Lisa,’ he said more gently. ‘The pain will ease now and we can cut the metal from your legs.’

‘But they’re smashed…’

‘You’re cutting them by pulling,’ Luke said firmly. ‘So don’t pull.’

‘And Martin’s dead…’

‘Is Martin dead?’ Luke looked over to where Nikki had found the point she wanted. Nikki was pushing firmly on a wad of dressing over the wound. At Luke’s terse request she looked up.

‘No one bleeds this much if they’re dead,’ she said grimly. ‘Ernie, I need a saline drip. If I can replace fluids…’

‘There you are,’ Luke told the frightened girl. He looked down at what he could see of the bottom half of her body. ‘Now, if you’ll stay absolutely still, I’ll see if I can relieve some pressure on your legs.’

It was grim work getting the two from the car, and by the end of it Nikki was despairing for the boy she was treating. Martin was deeply unconscious and the longer he remained unconscious, the worse it looked. The steering-wheel had slammed into his face. He had smashed his cheekbones, but something else was causing the coma. What? She hated to think. All she could do was keep him alive while around them men worked to free them.

Over and over she was grateful for Luke Marriott’s presence. What good fairy had brought him to Eurong tonight? Lisa needed attention as much as Martin, and Nikki knew that alone she would have struggled to keep both alive.

Finally the metal panels were ripped from the frame of the car. Martin was freed first. As Nikki, the ambulance driver and the assisting men carefully lifted his unconscious frame on to a stretcher, Nikki turned helplessly to Luke.

‘It’ll be another ten minutes before we have Lisa free,’ Luke told her. ‘How far’s the hospital?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘Take him and send the ambulance back for us,’ he ordered, and there was nothing Nikki could do but obey.

She didn’t have time to think of Luke Marriott for the next half-hour. Nikki didn’t have time to do anything but hold desperately to her patient’s fragile grip on life. Both she and Martin were fighting, she thought grimly, but only one of them was aware of it.

The nursing staff of Eurong’s tiny hospital were out in force-the full complement of five nurses and a ward’s maid were all at the hospital before Nikki and her patient reached it. In a tiny community like Eurong, word travelled fast. Everyone knew these two kids, and the nurses were grateful for anything they could do to help.

But there was so little…Nikki set up an intravenous infusion, took X-rays and then monitored her patient with an increasing sense of helplessness.

‘He’s slipping.’ Andrea, the hospital charge sister, took Martin’s blood-pressure for the twentieth time and looked grimly to where Nikki was adjusting the flow of plasma. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’

‘The plane’s on its way from Cairns,’ Nikki told her. ‘It’ll be here in an hour. They’ll transport him back there.’

‘But he’s slipping fast.’

‘I know.’ Nikki looked helplessly down at the boy’s pallid face. She suspected what was happening from the X-rays. There was pressure building up in the intracranial cavity. She was faced with an invidious choice-to operate here with her limited skill, or put the boy on the plane, knowing that by the time the plane landed in Cairns he’d probably be dead. ‘I can’t operate,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t the skills…’

There was so much to this job. She would never be skilful enough to cope with the demands on her. Nikki had done obstetrics, basic surgery and anaesthetics but now-now she wanted a competent neurosurgeon right here and now. And because she hadn’t done the training this boy would die.

‘I can.’ The voice sounded behind her and Nikki spun around. Luke Marriott had quietly entered the theatre and was standing watching her.

He looked more disreputable than he had when she’d first seen him. The travel stains and the marks from catching prawns for two nights had been augmented by an hour trying to free the injured girl. His shirt was ripped and blood-stained. Even his fair hair was filthy, matted with dirt and blood. ‘Intracranial bleed?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve stabilised Lisa,’ he said briefly. ‘She’ll make it. She has two broken legs but they’ll wait for surgery in Cairns. She’s out to it now. If you prep, Dr Russell, I’ll throw myself through the shower, scrub and operate here.’ He turned to the junior nurse. ‘Show me where to go. Fast.’

‘But you can’t,’ Nikki said blankly.

‘Why not?’ The fair-haired man turned back to her and his eyes seemed suddenly older than Nikki had thought. Despite the dirt, he looked hard, professional and totally in control. ‘You’re wasting time, Dr Russell. Prep, please, and fast.’

‘But you’re not-’

‘I’m a surgeon,’ he snapped. ‘And I’ve done enough neurology to get me through. Now move!’

Nikki moved.

The burr hole was the work of an expert. Nikki could only watch and marvel, in the few fleeting moments she could spare from her concentration on the anaesthetic. Luke Marriott’s fingers were skilled and sure. It was Martin’s good fairy that had sent him here tonight.

What on earth was such a man doing as a relieving locum in a place like Eurong? Luke Marriott’s skills belonged in a large city teaching hospital. For him to be volunteering to work for the meagre wage of a locum for three weeks…

There was little time for her to question his motives. All Nikki’s energy had to focus on the job she was doing. Skilled surgery such as Luke Marriot was performing took every ounce of her anaesthetic skill, and she knew that the nurses too were being pushed to their limits. At one stage she raised her eyes to meet the eyes of her charge nurse. Andrea pursed her lips in a silent whistle of wonder, and Nikki agreed with her totally.

And then, finally, this strange surgeon was done. He dressed the site with care and signalled for Nikki to reverse the anaesthetic.

‘We’ve done all we can,’ he said grimly. ‘Now it’s up to Martin.’

‘His parents are outside.’ Nikki was still fiercely concentrating. She wasn’t going to slip now, when Luke’s part had been so expertly played.

‘I’ll take over the anaesthetic,’ Luke Marriot told her, his voice gentling. This was the job all medicos hated-to face parents when they couldn’t totally reassure. ‘You know them, Nikki?’

Nikki nodded numbly. She stayed where she was until Luke reached her and his fingers took the intubation tube. As they did, their hands touched and Nikki felt a flash of warmth that jolted her. That, and the gentleness of his eyes…He understood what she was facing, and that, on its own, made her job easier.

‘I’ll go,’ she whispered, and left him with his patient.

The few moments with the two sets of parents were as bad as they could be. Nikki tried her best to reassure them. This sort of thing hadn’t been so bad before she had Amy, she reflected sadly, but now…How would she feel if someone were telling her these things about her lovely daughter?

‘We’re taking them both down to Cairns,’ she told them gently. ‘We can take you on the plane but you must be back here in twenty minutes with what you need. Overnight gear for yourselves and a few things Martin and Lisa will want. The hospital will provide the necessities but a few personal belongings make a difference.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe a few of Martin’s favourite tapes. He may…he may be in a coma for a while. Sound is important.’

Martin’s dad’s eyes filled with tears. ‘A coma…for a while…How the hell long?’ he demanded roughly.

‘I don’t know,’ Nikki said honestly. ‘Dr Marriott has lifted the pressure but there may have been damage done before that. We can only wait.’

Luke was waiting for her as she returned to Theatre. ‘Bad?’ he said softly, and Nikki looked up at him. For some stupid reason she felt like weeping. This wasn’t Nikki Russell-professional-untouchable.

‘Terrific,’ she said sarcastically, and her tone was harder than she intended. ‘What do you think?’

His face tightened and he turned to the sink. ‘Sorry I asked.’

Nikki bit her lip. She followed him across and mechanically started to wash.

‘You’ll fly to Cairns with them?’ she asked tentatively. Normally it would be her making the long flight, and she hated the flights with emergency patients. It left Eurong with no doctor within thirty miles. Still, both Lisa and Martin needed a doctor on the trip, and now there was Luke Marriott ready to go.

Or maybe not. Luke shook his head. ‘Your job, Dr Russell.’

Nikki stared at him. ‘But if something goes wrong…It’s you who has the neurology skills, Dr Marriott.’

‘And a fat lot of good they’ll do me at ten thousand feet. You can take blood-pressure and fix a drip just as well as I can, Dr Russell.’ They were being abruptly formal and all of a sudden it sounded absurd. The trough where they were washing was meant for one doctor. They were confined in too small a space and the night was too hot for comfort. The nurses had turned on the air-conditioning but it was still making a half-hearted effort to cool.

‘But…’ Nikki tried again. ‘But I’ve a little girl at home.’

‘You’ve a daughter?’ His brows rose as if the news shocked him. Nikki winced, wishing for the thousandth time she looked her age.

‘I have,’ she told him. ‘Amy’s four and she worries.’

‘But your housekeeper is there.’

‘Yes. But-’

‘And I’ll be there too.’ He smiled, and his smile held a trace of self-mockery. ‘I’m held to be good with children.’

‘But-’

He shook his head and his hands came up suddenly to grip her shoulders. ‘Dr Russell, do you know what I’m wearing at this particular moment?’

Nikki stared. His deep eyes were challenging her, and behind the challenge was the hint of laughter.

‘I don’t know…’ Nikki looked down, writhing in the unaccustomed hold. She didn’t enjoy being so close. Then she gasped. Luke Marriott was wearing a theatre gown. Nothing else. Below the gown hard, muscled legs emerged-naked. Even his feet were bare.

‘I’m in my birthday suit,’ he grinned. ‘Without my theatre gown I’m really something.’ His smile deepened, and he released her to turn his back, so that the ties behind him faced her. ‘Want to untie me and check it out?’

‘No!’ Nikki stepped back in horror. He turned back and smiled.

‘Well, I’m sure as hell not wearing an operating gown all the way to Cairns. My stuff was caked with dirt. I couldn’t wear it in Theatre. And these gowns are meant to fit someone about six inches shorter than I am. Sister’s already told me you keep a change of clothes here, Dr Russell. On the grounds that you’d look better in your change of clothes than I would, you’re going to Cairns.’

‘But-’

He sighed, leaned back and folded his arms. ‘What’s the matter, Dr Russell? Aren’t you happy leaving Eurong and your daughter to my tender mercies? Don’t you trust me?’

Nikki stared up at him. The deep blue eyes mocked her with their trace of laughter.

For the life of her, she couldn’t answer.