Healed By Her Army Doc

Where a large man, similarly dressed, was sitting in what she thought of as ‘her’ seat.

Angus!

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, tasking the empty seat next to him and strapping herself in. ‘We won’t need your tent.’

He grinned at her, which caused a flood of unwanted reactions.

‘Just wanted to see how the other half do it,’ he said, and she shoved away her personal issues and shuddered as she thought of the emergencies that army medical response teams must answer. She’d seen her share of torn and damaged bodies cut from vehicle wrecks, but bodies mangled by unexpected bombs?

‘Do you still do it?’ she asked, as the rest of the crew settled themselves, desperate to keep things on a professional level.

He shook his head.

‘Not for a while—not after the last trip.’

And something in the way he spoke told her it had been horrific. Her hand moved towards his knee then quickly retreated, although her heart ached that this was how it had to be between them.

He was obviously having no trouble with professional distance, continuing to explain his situation.

‘I’m strictly home based for the moment. My last overseas posting was when I got back from the island—within a day, in fact.’

So maybe he’d never received the note she’d sent.

And why that brought a sudden blip of pleasure she didn’t know.

Relief she’d have understood, but pleasure?

Because it meant he hadn’t ignored it completely, you idiot, she told herself, then conversation ceased as Blake checked who was on board and the aircraft took off.

They lifted into the air, the engines settled into their customary throb, and Blake began to fill them in on what lay ahead.

‘Country crossroad, no lights or signals but a stop sign for traffic in the minor road, and clear views both ways along the major road.’

‘It’s still dark enough for the road train to have had its lights on. It would have been hard to miss it,’ Paul, one of the paramedics, remarked.

‘Not our problem,’ Blake reminded the speaker. ‘The hows and whys are up to the police and the coroner, our job is to treat the injured. Unknown number of people in the car, which was still being extricated from the prime mover when Mabel called, then the driver of the big rig.’

‘Do we know if he was carrying a passenger—his wife, or a relief driver perhaps?’ someone asked, and Blake shook his head.

‘The local police, fire and ambulance services will all be at the scene by the time we get there. There’s a very small town with a district hospital nearby but it hasn’t the facilities to handle anything serious so we’ll probably be flying anyone badly injured back with us. Paul, I want you on triage. We’ve got an extra doc with us in Angus, the fellow some of you met the other day.’

Several heads turned to nod at Angus, while Blake, briefing over, walked forward to stand behind the pilot and air crewman so he’d see the scene from above.

‘He doesn’t waste words, does he?’ Angus said, twisting his mike away from his face so he could talk to Kate.

‘We all know the routine. Right now, he’ll want to check out the terrain and see where the best place for us to set up might be. The helicopter usually puts down some distance away so people on the ground aren’t affected by downdraught. We cart all our stuff to the scene in the backpacks. The ambulance on site will have its monitoring equipment already set up but in a small country town there’s likely to only be one ambulance so they need us as well.’

Was she relaxing as she talked to him?

Angus hoped so.

If he wanted to find out what had gone on in her life to change her so much, then he needed to get close to her.

And was figuring out her life over the past three years the only reason he wanted to be close to her?

Honesty forced him to admit it wasn’t.

Since the seemingly endless hours they’d spent together, keeping the resort guests safe and relaxed—not to mention the night in the only dry bed on the island after the cyclone had passed—Kate had regularly sneaked into his thoughts.

Try as he might to forget her, an image of her would suddenly appear in his head, and at times she’d filled his daydreams and haunted his nights.

Even on that last traumatic posting in South-East Asia, where he’d been treating refugees, men, women and children, fleeing their country, their homes blazing behind them, and their attackers shooting at them as they fled to the nearest border to escape. Even there he’d thought of Kate far more than he’d thought of Michelle.

And his fiancée had undoubtedly picked up on this to have broken off their engagement within days of his return.

Although telling her about Kate—about that one night of intimacy—had probably had something to do with it as well...

And now, even through the layers of clothing they both wore, he could feel the warmth of Kate’s body at his side—feel a rightness in it—as if they belonged.

Kate...

CHAPTER TWO (#u041a4b08-a4cf-59b5-8f12-870931d24086)

THE CLUSTER OF strobing lights from the emergency vehicles told them they were close, although inside the cabin of the chopper all they could see were the blue and red flashes.

They put down outside the circle of light and, each grabbing a backpack, jogged closer to the scene.

‘We’re still cutting the vehicle free,’ a policeman told them. ‘The road train driver’s been removed. He’s in that ambulance over there.’ He pointed, before adding, ‘You might take a look at him. He’s in a bad way.’

Blake nodded to Kate, who headed for the ambulance, disconcerted but somehow not surprised when Angus followed her.

An ambo was using a bag mask ventilator on the driver, while his fellow attendant stuck ECG leads to the man.

‘GCS?’ Kate asked, referring to the Glasgow Coma Scale that measured how responsive their patient was.

‘Fourteen when we got here, but he’s in and out of consciousness.’

‘Coupcontrecoup injury,’ Kate murmured to herself as her mind pictured the scenario. The powerful rig powering through the night, then the car right there. The driver would have slammed on his brakes, and his body, held in place by a seat belt, would have stopped abruptly. But his head?

She knelt and spoke to the patient, glad to hear a response. She introduced herself and Angus, learning the patient’s name was Mike.

All good so far.

‘Can you remember what happened, Mike?’ she asked.

‘The car came flying towards the crossing, I tried to stop.’

Kate nodded, but wondered just how quickly he had stopped and whether the deceleration had caused his brain to jolt forward into the front of the skull then virtually bounce back to hit the rear.