To the Doctor: A Daughter

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS hot and exceedingly wet. These were the first things Gemma noticed. The men had used extinguisher foam to prevent the place going up in smoke and then they’d played water over the iron to cool it. But the iron was buckled and twisted and torn, and the water had seeped through. It stank now of the aviation fuel it was mixed up with. The cavity was vilely uncomfortable and it was incredibly claustrophobic.

‘If you were thinking of having a cigarette while you wait for me, maybe you should think again,’ she gasped as she hauled herself ever so carefully towards the farmer.

‘Holy heck.’ Weak to the point of death or not, Ian sounded as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘It’s a woman!’

‘Now, don’t tell me a woman’s place is in the kitchen,’ she told him, wiggling under a jagged piece of iron that was almost as low as her nose. ‘Otherwise I’ll be forced to go make you a nice batch of scones instead of rescuing you.’

‘You’re…rescuing me?’ His voice sounded a long way away. Like he was concentrating on pain rather than what was happening around him. Really bad pain.

‘Someone has to do the rescuing.’ Keep it light, Gemma told herself. She was trying desperately not to let fear pervade her voice but it was damnably hard. ‘What do they say? Behind every successful man there’s a woman? And in cases like this, the woman’s right out in front. Because the woman’s the only one who’ll fit.’ She tried to keep her voice light and confident-no easy task when there were bits of iron sticking into her legs, a splinter had just rasped her cheek and the smell of the spilled fuel was overpowering. ‘How are you doing?’ She’d worked her way six feet under the iron. Another eight or so to go…

‘Not…not too good.’

‘Do you know who I am? I’m the lady doctor.’

‘I heard about you.’ It was a huge effort for the farmer to talk, she thought. He was drifting toward unconsciousness.

She had to stop talking. Shoving her way though the mass of crumpled iron and wood took all her concentration.

‘Are you OK, Gemma?’ Nate was shining the fireman’s flashlight past her, trying to light her way, but the gap was too narrow and the flashlight’s battery was fading. His voice sounded sick with anxiety.

‘I’m fine.’

She wasn’t the least bit fine. The fumes were making her head dizzy and she felt sick.

But somehow she kept going. Somehow…

And finally she reached Ian-just. By stretching out, her fingers could fleetingly touch his face. It was contact as welcome for Gemma as it must have been for the farmer. ‘Hey, Ian, don’t you dare go to sleep on me. Not when I’ve crawled all the way in to say hello.’

‘I don’t…’

‘You don’t even know my name.’ She pushed against a piece of timber blocking her path. It moved-just a bit-but the iron above it didn’t seem to shift so she pushed it down toward her legs. She gained another couple of splinters in the process but it gave her a clear passage. ‘I’m Gemma.’

‘I’m Ian.’

‘That’s great.’ She now had clear access. She let her hand drift over his face until she found what she was looking for. There was a steady pumping of blood from his forehead. ‘Let’s get this stopped.’

At least she’d known to expect this. She had a wad of dressing roped against her waist. Now she hauled it up and pushed it as hard as she could against his head. She could feel the blood pulsing under her hand. It was a filthy gash, she thought grimly. Deep and jagged and ripped into more blood vessels than she cared to imagine.

It was just as well she was here. He wouldn’t last for an hour without her.

But would he last for an hour with her?

It was almost impossible to adjust a pressure bandage in these conditions. The flashlight was fading and she was working almost blind. She bound tape around the farmer’s head and tightened it until she could tighten no further-and then she had to feel with her fingers whether the flow was easing.

And blessedly it was. ‘Yes!’

It was a minor triumph. The big farmer was slipping toward unconsciousness. ‘I feel so… Geez, Doc, I think I have to sleep…’

‘Don’t you dare sleep on me,’ she ordered. ‘There’s forty cows out there depending on you. They’re hanging their heads over the gate right now waiting for your ugly face to appear.’

‘They’ll want milking.’

‘I reckon someone else might milk tonight.’ Heck, she was losing him. The pulse under her hand was fast and weak. ‘Nate…’

Nate was waiting, crouching back a little from the entrance to her cavern so as not to block the little light she had. ‘Gemma.’ There was no hiding the anxiety in his voice.

‘Ian’s legs are stuck fast. There seems to be some sort of beam over them-I can’t see to tell you more. I need saline and plasma. And morphine.’

‘You can administer them while he’s in there?’

She didn’t have a choice. There was a deep pool of blood under her hand and the farmer’s head was still oozing.

‘Of course I can,’ she managed, her tone far more confident than she felt. ‘What’s a little confinement and darkness to a beaut anaesthetist like me? Can you send in what I need?’

‘Can do.’ They’d rigged the rope around her waist in a loop, so that as she tugged her equipment along the cavity toward her, the other side of the loop returned to the outside world. It was a makeshift supply line but it would have to do.

Damn it, it must.

‘And I need a decent flashlight.’ This one was all but dead and she had to be able to see what she was doing. Surely firefighters carried torches.

These firefighters didn’t. ‘Ron…do we have a decent torch?’ she heard Nate ask the fire chief, and by the sound of his expletive she knew the response had been a helpless shake of the head.

‘There’s one up at the house,’ the farmer muttered. ‘In the back porch.’

‘Did you hear that?’ Gemma asked, and heard Nate swear again as he relayed the information to those behind him.

‘Yes, I want you to find it.’

He’d heard-but he was dealing with morons.

‘They’re going now,’ he told her.

Gemma thought, Good-if two of them went then maybe combined they might just have enough brain power to find the torch.

Meanwhile…

‘I need to rip your shirt,’ she told the farmer. She was working one-handed-the other was still applying pressure to his head.

‘Don’t mind me-it’s not my Sunday best.’

‘Great.’

It was thick flannel-much worse than his Sunday best, Gemma thought, as it was much stronger-but somehow she did it. She released the pressure on his head for a fraction of a second, put her teeth into the cloth and ripped. It was a small triumph but it was enough to give her a boost. It was wonderful what you could do when you had to!

And then there was a call from the outside world and Nate was shining a new flashlight in to light the darkness.

‘I’m sending this in, Gem.’

Gem… Her grandfather had called her Gem, she thought inconsequentially. Once upon a lifetime, he’d called her that and she’d loved it. It was a term of endearment that hadn’t been used since he’d died.

And why it had the capacity to pull her off stride here…

Not for long. She had herself together soon enough, hauling the syringes and packs of saline and plasma toward herself. Nate had rigged up the flashlight so it bobbed along with the supplies, lighting their path. It meant that when they caught on an obstacle he and Gemma could see what was happening. Holding one end of the loop each, they could wiggle it past.

Finally she had what she needed. All she had to do was set it up. Easier said than done.

‘What sort of feeling do you have in your legs?’ she asked, and the farmer gave a weary grunt.

‘Pins and needles.’

Well, that was something. Better by far than the nothing he’d reported earlier. If he’d received a blow to his spine he could have temporary nerve damage and the pins and needles might be a sign that they were recovering.

‘I like pins and needles,’ she told him warmly. ‘It means you’re getting your circulation back.’

‘All the better to bleed with.’

He could joke. Great.

Now all she had to do was get fluids aboard-rebuild his blood supply-and hope like crazy they could get him out without any further damage.

It was a long, long wait.

Getting the plasma and saline running was a nightmare. She needed room, she needed drip stands, she needed nurses to hold equipment… In fact, what she needed was a hospital. But, somehow, working by the light of the torch and manoeuvring through dust and wreckage and the stench of spilled fuel-somehow she managed it. It had been the most non-sterile procedure she’d ever done, she thought grimly, but it couldn’t be helped and infection was the least of their worries right now.

With the lines established, she let the farmer’s pain relief kick in. He dozed and she no longer fought to keep him awake. Sleep was the best thing. The less stress he was under the better.

At least his head wound had ceased bleeding. She had no way of telling what the damage was to his legs. That would have to wait. Meanwhile, his pulse seemed to be getting stronger. Surely that meant there wasn’t a leg wound spurting blood. Surely that meant he had a chance.

Please…

‘How’s it going, Dr Campbell?’ If Nate hadn’t been constantly there she would have gone mad, she thought, but he hardly stopped talking. He told her every single thing that was happening on the outside world. ‘We have twenty men and a truckload of shoring timbers,’ he said now. ‘Now we’re just waiting for the crane.’

‘Couldn’t twenty men lift a light plane?’

‘Are you suggesting they stand on your roof while they do it? You’d be squashed flat. Learn patience, Dr Campbell.’

But he was more impatient than she was. And more fearful. As confident as he sounded, she could sense the fear behind his words.

And once the whole structure moved, groaning and shifting as it resettled on its fragile base. She heard Ian whimper in pain as the timber over his legs dug deeper and Nate shouted a warning.

It didn’t keep moving. The iron above her nose settled from three inches above to one inch-it was pressing hard on her breast and she could no longer get out the way she’d come in. She was as trapped as Ian. It was still OK. Just.

And finally Gemma heard the yells that signified the arrival of the crane.

Even then the danger wasn’t over. There was an interminable wait.

‘We’re attaching cables from above,’ Nate told her. ‘We need to secure the plane, but if we climb over the iron then we risk collapse with the extra weight. So we’re swinging men out on the crane hooks to attach cables from the air.’

Finally it was done.

‘It’s set,’ Nate told her, trying to keep his voice calm. Trying to stem the awful anxiety. ‘We’re taking the plane’s weight now.’

The iron creaked and groaned, but almost as soon as it moved there were men shoving in shoring timbers-at the entrance, then a foot in, then two feet, three feet-moving with a speed she hadn’t thought possible. They shored it up so as the iron creaked and shifted with the release of the plane’s weight it didn’t shift further down onto her face but onto the solid presence of the timbers.

The iron lifted. An inch. Two, then three, then…

Then Nate was crawling in beside her, before the iron was fully lifted.

She was horrified. ‘Get out. Only one of us needs to be here.’

‘There’s no danger now. The men will haul the iron off. Put this over you.’ He’d hauled in a plate of solid steel, heavy but effective. He shoved it between their heads and the roof of the cavity so that as the men worked steadily toward them from the outside they were protected from falling dust and debris.

‘Don’t stay…’

‘I’m staying.’ His arm was around her, holding her close. She was wedged tight against the farmer and Nate found Ian’s hand underneath her body so that Gemma was cradled between the two men. Ian had slipped into oblivion but Nate’s presence was all she needed. Nate…

‘Just wait.’

She could wait. All of a sudden the fear had been lifted. All she could feel was Nate.

There was a shout of triumph and then miraculously the sheet of iron was lifted away. Instead of staring into darkness, she was staring into the sunlight and the shock was so great she closed her eyes in disbelief.

Daylight…

There were men helping her to her feet-men taking the plasma and saline bags from her-holding them up while more men worked on the timbers trapping Ian.

Nate’s arm was steadying her, ensuring she was OK.

‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t. She was shaking like a leaf but there were more important things to worry about than her wobbly knees. ‘Look after Ian.’

They were lifting the big beam holding Ian. He’d fallen face forward and the beam was lying over his back. No wonder he hadn’t been able to move. But…it didn’t look crushed, she thought. There was debris holding either end, so most of its weight wasn’t on him.

Maybe he’d been lucky. Or…relatively lucky.

Nate was kneeling beside him. The morphine Gemma had administered had taken hold and he was barely conscious, but he was aware of the men around him. As Nate took his hand he even managed a feeble smile.

‘It’s good to see you, Doc.’

‘It’s good to see you, too, Ian.’ Nate took a neck brace from one of the ambulancemen and fitted it with care. ‘Hold still. We’ll shift you just as you are.’ If there was a compression fracture of the spine the last thing they needed was for it to shift. ‘Ian, don’t move your legs or arms in any way-let us do the moving. Don’t try and help us. Can you feel your fingers and toes?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘OK, don’t worry about it. Let’s get you onto a stretcher.’

Gemma helped, and Nate let her. OK, she was slight but she knew what she was doing. Moving a patient with suspected spinal injuries was a skill in itself. Nate directed with care, until he had Ian safely onto a rigid stretcher.

‘Great.’

‘Do we need an air ambulance?’ Gemma whispered out of Ian’s hearing. ‘If there’s spinal compression…’

‘I’ve got one on standby.’ He hesitated and then took a knife from his bag and sliced off the man’s boots. He’s done this before, Gemma thought. As a country GP he’d be the one who had to cope with trauma. With the boots discarded he put a hand on Ian’s shoulder, prodding him into wakefulness.

‘Ian, can you hear me?’

‘Mmm.’ Ian opened his eyes. ‘Yeah. You sound a long way off.’

‘Can you wiggle your toes for me? Try.’

They all stared at the farmer’s grubby socks as if they were the most important things in the world.

And blessedly, miraculously, they wiggled.

‘That’s great,’ Nate said, and there was a tremor of raw emotion in his voice. They weren’t looking at quadriplegia here, then. ‘And your fingers?’

Once again, there was a shaky wiggle.

‘Geez, my back hurts…’ Ian whispered. He closed his eyes and was almost immediately asleep again.

‘Let’s keep the air ambulance on standby.’ Nate straightened. ‘We’ll take him in and give him an X-ray but with luck he’ll be more bruised than broken.’ He nodded to the men at the ends of the stretcher. ‘OK, boys, load him into the ambulance. And, Gemma…’

‘I’ll take your car if you want to go in the ambulance.’ The local ambulance was manned by volunteers-which was why it had taken so long to get there. The ambulance officers were a plumber and a schoolteacher respectively. They had first-aid training and nothing else.

But there was no way Nate was letting Gemma drive herself-or do anything herself. ‘Nope.’ He threw his car keys to the fire chief. ‘We both go in the ambulance,’ he told her. ‘And you, Dr Campbell, will go lying down.’

‘No.’

‘If you don’t lie down you’ll fall down,’ he told her, and she realised suddenly that what he was saying was the truth. Reaction was setting in and her knees were threatening to give way. ‘OK.’ He looked down at her and he smiled-and what a smile! It was a smile she’d never seen in her life before.

‘What…what?’

She was too tired, too battered to think. All she knew was that Nate’s arm was around her and she was where she most wanted to be in the world.

‘How’s my patient?’

‘You mean me?’ Gemma woke to confusion and found Nate smiling down at her.

‘Who else would I mean?’

For a moment she was thoroughly confused. She was lying in her gorgeous four-poster bed. Mrs McCurdle had taken charge when she’d arrived home, clucking like a mother hen. Then Jane had arrived. ‘OK, I’m on night duty but when something like this happens we all come in-and there’s enough staff without me sticking my oar in.’ Together they’d washed Gemma’s scratches, applied enough sticking plaster to provide a small assembly line with a week’s work and settled her under the bedcovers.

‘I don’t want to be here,’ she’d said, distressed, and Jane had fixed her with a look.

‘Dr Ethan says if you try and move we’re to sit on you.’

‘I should be helping.’

‘The pilot’s dead,’ Jane had told her bluntly. ‘He’s beyond help. And Ian’s being taken through to X-ray right now. If Dr Ethan needs you then he’ll call, but for the moment we’re under instructions to keep you where you are.’

So Gemma lay and fretted, wanting to get up but aware at the same time that she was trembling all over. Mrs McCurdle provided hot tea and hot-water bottles but Gemma still couldn’t get warm.

And then Nate arrived, crossing swiftly to the bed, and her heart started hammering even harder than it had when she’d thought she might die.

‘Gemma…’ There was such tenderness in his voice that it made her blink. He sounded…different.

‘How goes it?’ Why wouldn’t her voice work properly? She tried again. ‘Ian…’

‘Ian is going to be OK. He’s one very lucky farmer.’ Nate sank onto her bed and lifted her hand, linking her fingers with his. It was a gesture of comfort, she told herself. Nothing more. So there was no reason at all for her heart to hammer even harder. ‘The X-rays show a green-stick fracture of his forearm and a couple of broken ribs. That’s all. His spine is only bruised-the numbness was temporary, caused by the blow, and now it’s completely gone. That’s not to say he won’t be sorry for himself for a good long while-that was a huge beam that slammed down on him. Graham and I have stitched his head, strapped his ribs and set his fracture and now he’s fast asleep. Like you should be.’

‘I’m not sleepy.’

He smiled down at her, with that smile that had her heart doing somersaults. ‘How about if I give you something to make you sleep?’

‘No. I should get up. Cady…’

‘Milly’s mother collected Cady an hour ago and has taken him out to have a party tea.’

‘Wh-why?’

‘Because she heard what was happening, of course. That’s what country practice is all about, Gemma. People looking after their own.’

And still his hand held hers. People looking after their own. That was how she felt, she thought, and it was the strangest sensation. Like she was cherished.

People didn’t cherish the likes of Gemma Campbell.

‘You realise you saved Ian’s life?’

‘I didn’t-’

‘He’d have bled to death in there, Gemma. You risked your life to save him. In fact, you risked your life to save us. Going near that damned power pole… And the community knows it. Ian’s wife is with him now. She’d normally have been in the dairy with him but she’d taken the kids to the city, shopping, so there’s another little miracle for you. She’s ready to fall on your chest with gratitude.’

‘I don’t-’

‘You don’t think you’re up to having anyone falling on your chest?’

‘Um, no,’ she managed, and he chuckled.

‘Jane says a couple of your scratches are deep. Can I see?’

‘No.’

‘I’m a doctor.’

‘Yeah, and so am I,’ she said with a note of asperity. ‘I can check my own scratches, thank you very much.’ The scratches Jane was talking about were in places she wasn’t having this man look at in a million years.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Gemma…’

‘Mmm.’ She was still defensive. Still trying desperately to maintain an armour plating round her heart. What was it with this man? He just had to look at her and she felt like jelly.

‘Gemma, when that iron shifted…when you were underneath…’

‘It wasn’t a good moment,’ she admitted, and Nate closed his eyes.

‘No, Gemma. It wasn’t a good moment. It made me see…’ Nate hesitated, and the grip on her hand tightened. He opened his eyes but he wasn’t looking at her. It was as if he was looking into an abyss. ‘It made me see how much…how much you’re starting to mean to me.’

‘I don’t-’

‘No, let me finish.’ He did look at her then, his dark eyes meeting hers and holding her gaze. ‘When I asked you to marry me…I was stupid.’

‘Well, there’s one thing we agree on,’ she whispered, but he shook his head.

‘No. I wasn’t stupid for asking you to marry me. In fact, I’ve never done anything so sensible in my life. But I was stupid when I thought that we could lead separate, independent lives.’

‘Nate-’

‘No, let me finish.’ He’d been shaken to the core. There was emotion in his voice-Nate Ethan had been thrown right off track and he was trying to make sense of it. ‘My parents didn’t have a good marriage. They had…well, I guess it could be called a marriage of convenience. My mother was a society hostess and my father was a brilliant surgeon. The role model they gave me was a marriage where the partners only came together as a matter of convenience. And I thought, well, for a long time that was what I thought should happen to me. Sure the life they led left me cold-that was why I turned to country medicine. But as for contact…as for loving…’

‘Nate, you’re shaken up.’ Somehow Gemma managed to make sense of this. Somehow. ‘You’ve had a shock. You’ve had two weeks of shocks. You learned that you have a baby. You’ve seen a man killed and you’ve been traumatised by this afternoon’s events. Now’s not the time to be saying-’

‘Now is the time to be saying. Marriage as a convenience… I must have been mad. It was only because I hadn’t yet met the right woman. And now I have. Hell, Gemma, I think I’m in love with you.’

There. The thing was said and it was out in the open.

He couldn’t believe he’d said it.

He looked…astonished, Gemma thought. As if he didn’t believe he was capable of such a thing.

He loved her?

People didn’t love Gemma Campbell.

‘Nate, you’ve had a fright,’ she said wearily. ‘You’ll see things differently in the morning.’

‘I won’t.’

She shrugged. There was a tiny part of her-a small warm core of her-that wanted to say yes! That wanted to accept every protestation this man could make. That wanted to take his face between her scratched hands and kiss him and kiss him…

To make him hers.

What was she thinking of? She wasn’t free to love this man. She couldn’t take him even if she wanted him.

‘Gemma…’ His hands were on her face, forcing her eyes to meet his. A girl could drown in those eyes, she thought drearily. If she could just let herself…

No. She’d let him kiss her once and that way could only lead to disaster. Somehow she had to pull back-to make him see.

‘Nate, I don’t want this.’

‘You do.’

‘No.’

‘Why not? It could be so great. You and me…’

‘No!’

‘You’re tired.’ His eyes were searching hers, puzzled and concerned. He didn’t understand. Well, why should he? She barely understood herself.

She was tired. Right, that was it. She was tired. ‘Yes.’ It sounded pathetic. She sounded pathetic.

‘We’ll talk in the morning.’

‘Yes.’ Maybe in the morning she’d have herself together. She’d have her armour back in place.

But she so wanted to kiss him.

‘You’d better go…’

‘Mmm.’ But he didn’t. His hands were still holding her face. He gazed down at her for a long, long minute and then very slowly he lowered his mouth onto hers.

She should refuse. She should push him away-shove-do anything but let herself sink into that kiss.

But she was no longer capable of fighting. She was no longer capable of pushing him away. Because suddenly there was nothing in this world except Nate. Nate holding her, Nate’s eyes searching hers, Nate’s mouth pressing against hers… Her brain told her to push this man away but her brain wasn’t the major force any more.

So what was? She didn’t know. All she knew was that it was a force as strong as life itself. Man meeting woman and merging with passion and with love. She wanted to push him away but her arms wouldn’t work. Nothing worked. Only the need of him-the want.

The love.

She gave a tiny moan and tried again to break away but it must have felt like encouragement to the man who’d gathered her in his arms. He was deepening the kiss. Searching her mouth. Searching her soul…

He felt so good. So right. The only thing in her world was Nate. His hands, his mouth and his body.

Nate.

Her body was aching for him. Her lips-her breasts-her thighs. In his arms the dangers of the day faded to nothing. Here was her life. Here was her home.

He’d said he loved her!

She should fight but was no longer capable of fighting. For this one wonderful interlude she abandoned herself to his kiss. Glorying in the fact that she could be loved. She, Gemma…

There was a knock on the door.

Hell!

They pulled apart. Somehow they pulled apart-just. Inches only. Gemma looked up at the man beside her, and her face was dazed with confusion.

And Nate’s expression mirrored hers.

But the knocking continued. ‘Yes?’ Nate’s voice was distant, as if the outside world had nothing to do with what was happening here.

But the outside world was intent on intrusion. Jane was peering around the door and her expression was rueful. It was as if she knew what she’d interrupted and she hated doing it.

‘Gemma?’

‘Mmm.’ Gemma was still looking at Nate.

‘There’s a man outside who wants to see you,’ she said, and her voice was tinged with uncertainty. ‘Gemma, he says he’s your husband.’