Healed By Her Army Doc

Hers and Jasper’s...

‘Do you think that would have lessened their grief?’ she asked, handing him the water bottle she’d pulled from her small backpack, while certain she knew the answer to the question.

Nothing lessens grief like that...

He tipped his head back to drink and she saw the strong column of his neck, the slight bump of his Adam’s apple, and added the images to others that she had of Angus, stored away safely in the back of her mind, only taken out to study on very rare occasions.

‘No,’ he said, startling her out of her dreams as he returned the bottle, his fingers brushing hers, confusing her body with the intimacy of a single touch.

‘It could never be easy. I keep thinking of the families of those young people today. I’ve seen too many young people die, Kate, and the more I see, the more I think we owe them something. Owe it to them not to waste our own lives—to make the most of whatever time we have—not solely in pursuit of pleasure but both in work and play.’

Kate was silent for a moment, then admitted, ‘Alice was saying much the same thing to me this morning. It was why I couldn’t sleep.’

Was she saying what he thought she was? Angus hesitated, wondering if he could put it to the test.

Nothing ventured, he reminded himself.

‘So, if I asked very nicely, would you come to dinner with me?’

‘Is that you asking, or asking if you can ask?’

She smiled as she said it and Angus took it as a small victory.

He laughed.

‘I could say pretty please, but someone my size talking like that would be making a joke of it, and I’m not joking. I’d like to see you again, see you socially, nothing heavy or complicated, just a “‘getting to know you” kind of arrangement.’

He wasn’t really holding his breath, but studying the cherub on the grave gave him a chance to watch Kate’s face more surreptitiously than staring at it. He could almost see the argument going on in her head, read it in the shadows in her eyes—more grey today—reflecting the sea?

‘Okay,’ she finally said, turning to face him, ‘but it will be dependent on Blake and when he wants to do a debrief.’

She didn’t smile and something about the set of her face suggested she was pushing herself to accept.

Because she’d been a loner for a long time?

Because whatever had made her that way had left her scarred?

He was surprised to find that it hurt him to think of Kate hurting—scarred by something that had changed her so much.

‘I’m flexible,’ he said, ‘and as I’d like to be part of the debrief we can make it before or after—whatever works.’

She stood up and stretched, her long, lightly tanned legs mesmerising him, her body reminding him—

Nothing heavy or complicated, he reminded himself.

‘Are you walking on to Coogee?’ she asked, and he shook his head.

‘Then we might as well walk back together.’

Without waiting for a reply, she reached out a hand to pull him to his feet, and as he grasped it he wondered just how hard it would be to keep things light between them. Whatever magnetic force that had taken them to that dry bed in Cabin Thirty-Two—whispered to him by one of the staff as they saw the last of the injured and shocked guests off in the helicopter three years ago—was still alive and well between them. Or it was on his part, anyway.

* * *

The debrief, held late in the afternoon, eventually came to discuss whether the train driver should have been airlifted out immediately it was discovered there could be internal bleeding. The patient’s falling blood pressure had suggested that scenario, and although holding onto him until they’d known the condition of the passengers in the car hadn’t made any difference to his outcome, had the bleeding been worse, it could have been fatal.

Discussing it rationally, without the pressure of the emergency situation, was one of the ways they could improve their actions in the field, and was one of the important parts of the debrief.

‘I think we were right to wait,’ Kate said, although she’d been the one who’d asked for immediate evacuation. ‘He was relatively stable and we had the IO line open if he’d needed massive doses of drugs or blood products. The ambulance attendants had started fluid resus and he had a distal pulse. The internal bleeding could have been from a tear to his carotid from the seat belt crossing his shoulder, or damage to an internal vein or artery from the lap-band of the seatbelt. There was no palpable swelling in his abdomen to suggest a lap-band tear and his trachea showed no signs of deviation so if there was bleeding from the carotid it wasn’t affecting his airway.’

‘Yet you suggested lifting him sooner?’

Kate smiled at Blake.

‘Don’t we always think the patient we’re tending is the most important? Besides, it made minimal difference. The car was already out from under the road train and it was only a matter of minutes before you’d have ascertained if either of the occupants was alive. By the time we had Mr Grosvenor in the chopper you were able to tell us to take off.’

‘Thankfully,’ Blake said, and after a short general discussion the meeting broke up with Blake’s usual reminder of the availability of a counsellor should any of them want to talk.

‘Does he always beat himself up over what happened?’ Angus asked as they walked out of the hospital.

‘That wasn’t exactly beating himself up,’ Kate protested. ‘He’s just determined that we should be the best we can, and it’s only by going over the things we did—or sometimes didn’t do—that we can improve.’

‘But he had to hold the helicopter until he knew there were no survivors in the car,’ Angus said. ‘Anyone would.’

Kate stopped at the always open gates into the hospital and looked out over the shops and restaurants that lined the front to the ocean beyond.

‘Are we going to continue to discuss this all through dinner?” she asked, and caught the surprise on Angus’s face.

He held up his hands in mock surrender.

‘Sorry, I get carried away.’ There was a little pause before he half smiled and admitted, ‘Actually, I’m incredibly nervous about this dinner.’

Kate grinned at him.

‘Snap,’ she said. ‘I think the last time I felt this way was when I was fifteen and a boy I liked at school asked if I’d go to the pictures with him.’

‘And did you?’ Angus asked as they walked on. ‘Go to the pictures with him?’

‘I did,’ Kate said, ‘and we had popcorn and a milkshake and I got such a shock when he put his arm around my shoulders, I spilled the milkshake all over my dress. He did walk me home but he never asked me out again.’

‘First dates!’ Angus said, a small smile flirting around his lips.

‘Tell me about yours,’ Kate said, as they reached the promenade and turned to walk along it.

‘Fifteen, and when I tried to kiss her, Michelle slapped my face.’

‘Michelle?’ Kate gasped. ‘The Michelle you were going to marry? You went out with her from when you were fifteen?’

Guilt that she might have caused the break-up of such a long-standing relationship filled her chest, leaving her breathless as she waited for his reply.