The Fling That Changed Everything

It wasn’t just her eyes that shone with pleasure—her whole face seemed to light up. It was impossible not to smile back.

‘Looks better on a nice day.’ He turned to Jack. ‘Are you up with the forecast? How’s that cyclone tracking?’

‘Bit too close for comfort, this one. We could be in for a rough few days.’

‘I’d better check the stocks in Emergency,’ Ana said. ‘We always get a rush on dressings and sutures and things in a cyclone. It’s amazing the debris that people can get hit with.’

‘Hettie might be able to do that when it’s quiet later. She’s on the afternoon shift, isn’t she?’

Ana nodded. ‘I’ll see how many people we’ve got in the waiting room for the clinic, then.’

‘I’d love to have a look around your emergency department,’ Lia said. ‘If that’s okay?’

In the tiny silence that followed her query Sam realised that the question had been directed at him. If he was honest, though, he’d known that already. He could feel Lia’s gaze on his skin.

‘Sure.’ He met her gaze long enough to be polite. ‘Jack knows his way around. Feel free to explore the whole—’ The sound of his telephone ringing stopped his invitation. He delved into his pocket to extract the phone from the tangle of his stethoscope and that was irritating enough to make him loop the stethoscope around his neck with one hand as he answered the call with the other.

He’d been expecting this. ‘Yes, it’s all sorted, Pita.’ He stepped away from the others and lowered his voice. ‘I’m tied up in a clinic this morning but I’ll leave it beside the radio in the staffroom. White envelope with your name on it.’

He heard a burst of laughter behind him but he kept moving as he ended his call. He had work to do and he knew the waiting room would be filling up fast. He didn’t have time for any social chitchat. His visit to the staffroom would not even include stopping to make a coffee.

Not that being busy was enough to explain the odd tension he was aware of. Maybe that had more to do with the fact that he could still feel Lia watching him as he walked away.

* * *

Déjà vu.

Lia watched Sam walking away. Maybe she would have to get used to feeling like she wasn’t overly welcome here.

She certainly needed to get over letting it get to her. She pasted a smile on her face as she turned back to Jack and Ana, but they were looking at each other.

‘What’s with the white coat? Has Sam been down in the lab already this morning or something?’

Ana shook her head. ‘Not that I know of.’ She grinned at Jack. ‘He said that he just wanted to look professional.’

Lia caught her bottom lip with her teeth to stop her saying anything. Like confessing that she had started the day in exactly the same way. The French braiding of her hair hadn’t been nearly as easy as she’d implied to Ana. It had taken ages and it had been Sam she’d been thinking of as she’d stared into the mirror and tried to perfect her professional look.

Had he done the same thing with that pristine-looking coat?

And if so...why?

To impress her?

He was still within sight on the walkway. In fact, he’d stopped in his tracks and was staring at something outside in the garden. Lia had been entranced by the flock of rainbow-coloured parrots she’d seen earlier and had had to point them out to Jack, but he’d been far less interested because it was something he saw every day so they would be unlikely to have attracted Sam’s attention, either.

‘Ana?’ Sam’s call was calm but they could all sense the urgency. ‘Grab the resus trolley, will you? I can see someone lying on the path.’

He disappeared behind the greenery of the lush shrubs hedging the walkway and Lia’s reaction was automatic. As Ana raced down the walkway to vanish through a door, Lia ran in the opposite direction—to follow Sam. She could hear the rattle of trolley wheels behind her as she pushed through the hedge to where Sam was now crouched over a sprawled figure.

‘Is he breathing?’

‘Can’t tell. Help me roll him over.’

He was a large man and it needed them both to roll him onto his back. Lia immediately tilted his head to make sure his airway was open and then she put her cheek close to his face and laid a hand on his diaphragm to feel for any air movement.

‘He’s not breathing.’

Sam had his fingers on the man’s neck. ‘There’s no pulse.’

Ana had had to go further down the walkway to find a gap to get the trolley through, and Jack was helping her, but there was no time to wait until they were there with the life pack and the bag mask. Lia already had her hands positioned in the centre of the man’s chest and she began compressions without waiting for any instruction from Sam.

‘I wonder how much downtime there’s been already.’

‘Not much, I hope. I think it was the sound of him falling that made me look over the hedge. He broke a few branches on the way down.’

She could feel Sam watching her as he spoke. Assessing her performance. Fair enough. This was a big man and it took a lot of strength to be able to make sure she was pushing hard enough to create an output from his heart. She could feel a sweat breaking out but she kept her arms straight and kept pushing. Hard and fast. At least a hundred compressions a minute, she reminded herself. And a third of the chest for their depth.

Ana threw a bag mask to Sam as she stopped the trolley. He caught it easily and in one swift movement had the mask over the man’s nose and mouth. He hooked his fingers under the chin to help press hard enough to create a good seal and then flicked a glance at Lia, who paused her compressions to allow him to squeeze the bag and deliver a couple of assisted breaths. The chest rose and fell twice and she started compressions again as soon as she saw the chest falling for the second time. Her arms were aching with the effort now but she knew she couldn’t slow down, even as Ana was cutting the man’s T-shirt to pull it clear and sticking the defibrillator pads on the side just below his heart and beneath the collarbone on the other side.

She began counting aloud to let Sam know when it was time to deliver another breath. Jack had attached the oxygen bottle to the mask.

‘Twenty-eight...twenty-nine...thirty...’ She held her hands clear as another two breaths were delivered.

The static on the defibrillator screen was settling and they could all see that their patient was in the potentially fatal rhythm of ventricular fibrillation.

‘Come and take over the airway,’ Sam instructed Ana. ‘I’ll get an IV in after the first shock.’

Lia could hear the tone of the life pack charging.

‘Stand clear,’ Sam ordered. ‘Shocking now...’

The rhythm didn’t change.

‘Do you need a break, Lia?’ Sam was pulling IV supplies from the trolley.

‘No. I’ll let you know when I do.’

‘You’re doing a good job. I’ll take over after the next shock.’

The praise was enough to banish the ache in her arms and to ignore the sting of perspiration getting into her eyes.

Clearly hampered by his white coat, Sam stripped it off and shoved it onto the bottom of the trolley. Then he moved swiftly enough to have an IV line inserted and the first dose of drugs on board before the end of the two minutes of CPR that meant another shock was due to be delivered.

‘Who is he, do you know?’ Jack asked.

‘He’s Rangi’s brother, Keoni,’ Ana said. ‘And I think he had an outpatient appointment this morning. Sam wants to test the whole family for diabetes.’

‘Stand clear,’ Sam ordered again.