Rescued By The Single Dad Doc

Appallingly, he was still seeing terror as well as pain in the little boy’s eyes. Legacy of his ghastly grandparents?

‘Hey, Kit, you’re here now, with me,’ he said as they rolled the trolley into Theatre. He touched the little boy’s face, willing the fear to disappear. ‘You’ve cut your hand but we’ll fix it. I know it hurts, but we’ll stop it hurting really soon.’

‘I broke… You’re not mad…?’

‘Dr Rachel tells me you broke her window,’ he managed. ‘I broke four windows when I was your age. I used to tell my mum and dad the cat did it. They didn’t believe me but they weren’t mad and neither am I. Accidents happen. Kit, can you tell me what you feel when I touch your fingers? Can you press back when I press? Here? Here?’

He was now in professional mode—sort of—but the lurch in his stomach wasn’t going away.

And the information he gained from Kit as they settled him into Theatre wasn’t helping.

He was checking for damage to the tendons that ran through the palm and attached to the finger bones. Secondly, for nerve damage, which could result in permanent loss of function or sensation. Tom was applying gentle pressure to the tips of Kit’s fingers, asking him to push back.

The responses weren’t good.

And Rachel got it. She was focusing on the IV, on getting pain relief on board, but she was listening to Kit’s quavering answers. Knowing what they meant.

‘Okay, Dr Lavery, tell me the set-up,’ she said as Tom’s testing finished. ‘Do you have anyone here who can cope with paediatric plastics? Or someone who can get here fast?’

‘No,’ he said shortly. Stemming the bleeding seemed straightforward. It looked as if the radial artery had been nicked—it must have been to cause this amount of bleeding. They could fix that. But what his examination had told them was that Kit needed a plastic surgeon or a vascular surgeon or both if he wasn’t to lose part or all of the use of that hand.

That meant evacuation. It was eight hours by road to Melbourne, ten to Sydney or Canberra. Shallow Bay wasn’t the most remote place in Australia but its position, nestled on the far south-east coast, surrounded by hundreds of miles of mountainous forests, meant that reaching skilled help could be a logistical nightmare.

‘Where?’ Rachel said, and he had to give her credit for incisiveness.

‘Sydney.’

‘You have air transfer?’

‘It’ll take medevac an hour to reach us in the chopper, but yes.’

‘Can someone organise that?’ she said to Roscoe. ‘Now?’ And then she turned back to the child she was treating and her voice gentled. ‘Kit, we’re going to get your hand bandaged now, and stop things hurting, but there’s a bit of damage deep inside that might make your fingers not as strong as they should be. We need to take you to a big hospital to get your hand mended.’

‘Tom can fix it.’ Kit’s voice quavered.

‘He can,’ she said, injecting her voice with confidence. ‘I know that. And so can I, because Tom and I are both doctors. If Tom agrees, I’ll do the first part now. But have you ever seen Tom sew something that’s ripped? Like a pair of jeans?’

‘He did once,’ Kit managed, trying gamely to sound normal. ‘Big stitches. It came apart again.’

‘Hey, how did I guess?’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘So Tom’s not very good at sewing and neither am I. Kit, there are things in your hand called tendons which make your fingers work. You’ve hurt them, so what you need is a doctor who’s really good at tiny stitches. Don’t worry, we’ll give you something that stops you feeling what we need to do. We’ll make sure nothing hurts, I promise. You’ll end up with a neat scar you’ll be able to show your friends, but a good needleworking doctor will make sure your fingers end up stronger than ever. So what that means is that we need to take you to Sydney.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘I understand that,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve just arrived at Shallow Bay and it looks a great place. But have you ever been in a helicopter?’

‘I… No.’

‘Then what an adventure. Your friends will be so jealous. Tom, will you be going with Kit, or is there someone he needs more?’

And she looked straight at him.

So did Kit.

Is there someone he needs more?

Her eyes were challenging. Angry? He didn’t get the anger, but he couldn’t afford to focus on it now.

Kit needs his mother, he thought, and it was the belief he’d had reinforced about a thousand times in the last two years. But Claire was dead.

Kit’s father was who knew where? Steve had been Claire’s folly. The responsibility was never going to be Steve’s.

Kit’s grandparents? Claire’s parents? They’d glory in this drama. They’d use it against him and his fight for custody would start all over again.

So he had to go with Kit, but to leave Shallow Bay… To leave two more needy children…

‘There’s no one but me,’ he said, and it nearly killed him to say it.

‘We’ll manage.’ It was Roscoe, gruff, stern, decisive. ‘You need to go, Doc. And hey, we have another doc here now.’

‘But Marcus. Henry. I can’t.’

‘They can stay at home,’ Roscoe told him. ‘We’ll find someone to stay with them.’

‘Not that childminder.’ When Rachel spoke to Kit she was gentleness itself but when she faced Tom he saw judgement that he’d left the kids with such a woman. ‘She’s unfit.’

‘She’s awful,’ Kit quavered. ‘I don’t like her.’

‘It’s okay,’ Tom said, feeling helpless. He took Kit’s good hand and squeezed. ‘I’ll fix this.’ But how?

‘Their normal minder is Rose,’ Roscoe told Rachel. ‘She hurt her hip yesterday but she’s great. The kids love her. She’ll stay with them.’

‘She can’t,’ Tom said, option after option being discarded with increasing desperation. ‘Not by herself. Not with her hip, and I can’t trust Christine to help her. And with the field day at Ferndale—how many people are free this weekend?’ He sounded desperate—he knew he did—but he was torn in so many directions. Kit needed him, but so did Marcus and Henry. As a parent, he was failing on all counts.

‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said, but he was starting to sound unsure. He turned to Rachel, explaining Tom’s dilemma for him. ‘The annual show at Ferndale is a huge deal and almost all the locals go. There’s an added problem, too. These kids have had a bit of a tough time in the past and they need to stay in their own beds. Farming them out’s not an option. I’d offer but my wife’s almost nine months pregnant. What if she goes into labour?’

‘You can’t do it,’ she said bluntly. She was still looking at Tom as if he was something she’d found at the back of the fridge, something that had been mouldering for months. ‘So who can these boys depend on?’

‘Me,’ Tom said bleakly.

‘Which is why we have one child with a sliced hand and two children with no carer.’

‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said again, but Tom felt ill. Rachel’s disdain was obvious and he deserved it. Who could he ask, given this amount of notice?

But the expression on Rachel’s face had changed. She looked…as if she was about to step into a chasm? It was a momentary look and then her expression became one of resolution. As if a decision had been made, but the decision was scary.

‘Okay, then,’ she said briskly, as if what was about to be said needed to be said before she changed her mind. ‘Decision. If there’s no other option, I’ll accept responsibility. The boys don’t know me, but I’m dependable. I can’t imagine you’ll need to stay in Sydney for more than a couple of days.’

‘I can’t… They won’t…’