Reunited With Her Surgeon Prince

Ellie had far more than she could cope with already. This was his call.

He’d like a full theatre of trained staff. He had Chris.

But, even though Chris looked as if she could be anyone’s mum, the nurse was cool, efficient and exactly what he needed.

‘I can give an anaesthetic,’ she told him. ‘I’ve done it before when Ellie’s been in trouble. We can take Lisa into Theatre and go for it if that’s what you want.’

He’d worked on battlefields with less help than this. ‘That’s what I want.’

From the next cubicle, Ellie must have heard. She was focusing on the kid with the punctured lung but she must have the whole room under broader surveillance.

‘You can’t just straighten for the time being?’ she called.

Marc moved so he could talk without being overheard. The last thing Lisa needed to hear was a fearful diagnosis. ‘There are bone fragments everywhere,’ Marc told her. ‘I can re-establish blood supply but if something moves it’ll block again. It’s not safe to transfer her without surgery. But priority’s the ruptured spleen. I’ll need to go in to check for sure but her blood pressure’s dropping fast and the symptoms fit.’

She swore. ‘You can do it?’

‘I can.’ His gaze swept the room, seeing the mass of trouble she was facing. ‘You have enough on your hands.’ More than enough.

‘I can’t help,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘Then do it. Chris, give him all the help he needs.’

And Chris was already wheeling Lisa’s trolley through the doors marked Theatre.

He had no choice but to follow.

* * *

The cavalry arrived two hours later. Helicopters with skilled paramedics. The doctor from the neighbouring town. Everyone and everything she needed was suddenly there, and Ellie was able to step back and catch her breath.

The door to Theatre was still closed. There hadn’t been time to investigate. She’d had to trust that Marc knew what he was doing.

Now, though, as paramedics fired questions at her, as each of these kids got the attention they needed, she was able to think of what—and who—was behind those doors.

‘I have a kid with a shattered elbow and possible ruptured spleen,’ she told the senior paramedic. ‘A visiting surgeon was on hand. He’s in Theatre now.’

‘Here?’ the guy said incredulously, and Ellie thought again of the mixed emotions his arrival meant for her.

Marc was behind those doors. Her old life was a life of secrets. A life that now had to be faced.

She took a deep breath and opened the door to Theatre.

Chris was at the head of the table. She smiled and gave Ellie a swift thumbs-up, then went back to monitor-gazing.

Chris was magnificent, Ellie thought, not for the first time. Ellie had needed to talk her charge nurse through an anaesthetic more times than she could count and she’d coped magnificently every time. She should be a doctor herself. She practically was.

But her attention wasn’t on Chris.

Masked and gowned, Marc could be any surgeon in any theatre anywhere in the world. He was totally focused on the job at hand.

‘Nearly closed,’ he growled and his voice was a shock all by itself.

She’d never thought she’d hear it again.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘We’ve stabilised the elbow, removing bone fragments that could shift. The circulation should hold until she receives specialist orthopaedic attention. The worst risk was the spleen. It was a mess. There was no choice but removal. Sorry, Ellie, to leave you with everything else. I had Chris slip out and tell Joe to call if there was any priority you couldn’t cope with, but then we went for it.’

‘He’s done the whole thing,’ Chris breathed. ‘He’s removed the spleen but he’s done so much more. He’s stopped the internal bleeding completely. Blood pressure’s already rising. And the elbow! Look at the X-rays, Ellie. To get the circulation back. He’s saved her life and he’s saved her arm. Oh, Ellie, I can’t tell you...’

‘Thanks to Chris,’ Marc growled, still focused. ‘You have a gem of a nurse, Ellie.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ she said a trifle unsteadily.

This was surgery way beyond her field of expertise. Maybe she could have diagnosed and removed the spleen but the pneumothorax had been just as urgent. She would have lost one of the two kids, and how appalling a choice would that have been? But the elbow... She glanced at the X-ray, saw the mess, and knew without a doubt that Lisa would be facing amputation if Marc hadn’t been here.

Marc’s battlefield training had come to the fore. She never could have done this alone.

A bullet had been dodged. Or multiple bullets. She wanted to sit down. Badly.

It wasn’t going to happen.

‘I’m just applying an external fixator and then I’m done,’ Marc told her. ‘Ten minutes? I gather the air ambulance is here. I’d like Lisa transferred to Sydney as soon as possible. The elbow will need attention from a specialist. I’m not an orthopod.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Chris muttered, and Ellie looked at Marc and thought, What good fairy brought you here today?

And then she thought of the repercussions of him being here and she stopped thinking of good fairies.

She didn’t have time to go there. She had to face the relatives.

But there was no longer any urgency. She had room for thought.

Marc was here.

Good fairies? She didn’t think so.

* * *

The first chopper took the most seriously injured, including Lisa, but the boy with the pneumothorax left by road. Air travel wasn’t recommended when lungs were compromised. The road ambulance also took the driver of one of the cars and his girlfriend. The pair had suffered lacerations; the girl had a minor fracture. They could have stayed, but feelings were running high in the town and a driver with only minor injuries could well turn into a scapegoat.

The second chopper, a big one, had places to spare and the battered train crew chose to leave on it. They, too, could have been cared for here, but their homes, their families, were in Sydney. Borrawong Hospital was suddenly almost deserted.

But Marc was still inside and, as Ellie watched the second chopper disappear, that fact seemed more terrifying than a room full of casualties.

‘You can get through this.’ She said it to herself, but she was suddenly thinking of all the times she’d said it before. During the trauma of being the kid of a defiant, erratic single mum with cystic fibrosis. The roller coaster of a childhood living with her mother’s illness. The relief of her mother’s first lung transplant and then the despair when it had failed.