Bride by Accident

She shook away the feeling of unreality she’d had ever since she’d seen Dev. Emotion had to wait. Inexplicable emotion. Inexplicable…linking?

OK, maybe it had to be faced some time but not yet. Meanwhile she had to find the chief nurse.

She found her fast. Margaret was in the nurses’ station. Young, very attractive and beautifully presented, her dark hair twisted into an elegant knot, her flawless skin carefully, unobtrusively made up so she seemed perfect, she was speaking urgently into the phone and her tone was one of complete authority.

‘I need plasma now. No, it can’t wait until morning. Our stocks are completely gone. Well, if you want the risk of an accident in the middle of the night where we can’t transfuse—are you personally willing to take that responsibility? I can sign you off on saying that? I didn’t think so. I know the Medivac team have already left. No, I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have needed to ask. You know what the situation is. I’ll leave it to you, then, shall I? Plasma by sunset.’

The phone was replaced.

This was the sort of woman who was invaluable in a crisis, Emma decided. A stickler for rules but ruthlessly efficient. Once onside she’d be an unopposable force.

She needed to get her onside.

‘Hi,’ Emma said, and the woman came out of the nurses’ station to greet her.

‘Oh, my dear.’ Her voice was warm and decisive. Maybe a little condescending? Surely they had to be about the same age.

No matter.

‘We can’t believe you’ve done so much,’ she was saying. ‘Helen has been telling me what happened. For you to be a doctor, and to be brave enough to climb on the bus…Suzy was so lucky.’

‘But not Kyle,’ Emma said gently, and Margaret winced.

‘I know. It’s dreadful.’

‘I hear you’re not happy about Kyle’s parents seeing him until Dr O’Halloran gives the all-clear?’

‘No, I—’

‘I understand you’d like clearance but I’m happy to take that responsibility.’

‘You?’ The woman backed off a little.

‘I am a doctor.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I’m a battered and pregnant doctor, but I’m still a doctor,’ Emma said, and her tone was as decisive as Margaret’s had been a moment before. ‘I can certify death and I can give permission for the relatives to be with him. Kyle’s parents need to see him as soon as possible and I can’t see any reason for delay. Where is he?’

Margaret was frowning. ‘In the morgue.’

‘Do you have a private room free?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then let’s move him in there, shall we?’ she said, her tone still inexorable. ‘He’s not so dreadfully battered that we risk shock by letting the parents close. Regardless, they need to see him. We both know that. They can’t accept his death until they do. So…We need to do the best we can for these people and it can’t wait. Can you show me where the morgue is? I’ll take care of Kyle’s body while you start preparing your private room for him.’

‘Can’t they see him in the morgue?’

‘If he was your little son,’ Emma said gently, ‘would you like to say goodbye to him in a morgue? I think we can do better than that.’

The log had smashed Kyle’s internal organs, crushing him instantly, but to look at his face he might almost be sleeping.

He was such a…

No. Stay dispassionate. Somehow.

Emma washed his face with care. With tenderness. She wrapped his little body tightly so the crushing injuries weren’t apparent, she wrapped him again, more loosely, in a soft blanket so if need be he could be lifted and cuddled, and then she supervised the orderlies as they wheeled him through to the ward.

Margaret hovered, anxious, ready to say no, but Emma gave her no chance. She used the authority of her training—and the instincts of her heart. If this little one had been hers…

The orderlies—two young men who looked as if they were barely out of school, and who looked as if the shock of the day had them wanting to be back there—held back, unsure in the face of death, so in the ward it was Emma who lifted him across into the bed, settling his head against the pillows, arranging his features so he wasn’t stiffly at attention but rather in the pose of a child sleeping.

Finally she stood back and nodded. She’d done all she could. She couldn’t bring him back to life but at least he looked as if he was at peace.

This was so important. Desperately important. In a moment his parents would see him for the last time, and this memory of their child would be carried with them for ever. She couldn’t bring him back for them but she could do this.

Finally she went outside to find them. Huddled in their misery, Kyle’s parents didn’t see her coming. She touched the woman lightly on the shoulder and they turned.

Their children looked mutely up at her, past asking questions.

‘Come and see your son,’ she told them. ‘We’ve washed him and popped him into a bed for you to say goodbye to him. He’s ready.’

‘The…kids?’ the woman whispered, and Emma looked at the children. At Kyle’s brothers and sisters.

‘That’s up to you,’ she said. ‘Whether you want your children to say goodbye to their brother is your decision. But if it was my kids…I know what I’d do.’

Fifteen minutes later, Dev left Theatre, reassured Suzy’s parents, took two deep breaths and thought, What next?

The Medivac team had taken the worst of the casualties out on the first run.

Suzy was stable and the Medivac helicopter was on its way back to evacuate her. The worst was over.

There’d still be traumatised kids. Too many traumatised kids.

Maybe they could wait for a little. The nurses would have done preliminary assessment and called him for anything urgent.

He needed to find the woman who’d helped him, he thought, and the vision of her as he’d first seen her came back to him. She’d been only semi-conscious. Hell, he’d had no time for her. She’d been injured, yet she’d thrown herself into the chaos and there’d been no time for him to assess her. She’d looked sick as she’d left Theatre.

Kyle. Kyle’s parents. They had to be his priority.

But the image of the woman—what had she said her name was, Emma?—stayed with him. She was a heroine, he thought. Somewhere, somehow he’d get a medal for her if he had to do battle with politicians himself to arrange it. She was such a slip of a thing, too thin, her eyes too big for her pinched face, heavy with pregnancy, yet what she’d achieved…

He’d find her. As soon as possible he’d find her.

There was no one at the nurses’ station. Where was everyone?

Where was Emma?