close to death?
Erin’s heroics aside, what was the sensible course of action?
She was a badly injured, stray dog in obstructed labour. He knew the logical thing to do.
But still her eyes pleaded.
Okay. Soft-touch Doc Dom. He sighed and hit his phone. Fiona McLay was the nearest vet, fifty miles away. She was as soft a touch as he was. Like Dom, Fiona was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She was nearing seventy, she was wonderful, and when he was having a bad day he reminded himself that if Fiona could do it, so could he.
She answered on the first ring.
‘Sorry to wake you, Fi,’ he said. ‘But I have a problem. Can you give me some advice?’
The morphine was starting to take effect. Finally. The pain in her foot and in her shoulders was taking a back step.
She was warm. Gloriously, safely warm. Dominic had loaded the fire, the flames were leaping and the room was fabulously heated. She was still a bit damp but it didn’t matter.
She could go to sleep, right now.
She should ring Charles and her parents, she thought drowsily. They’d worry.
Or not. They’d just assume she’d been caught up at work. They certainly wouldn’t be pacing.
They’d be furious with her anyway. Maybe they’d even expect her not to come.
‘I’d kill her.’
Out in the hall Dom’s voice sounded startled. Up until now she’d been concentrating on the pain, but now Erin lay back and let Dom’s words sink in.
‘If you’re sure…Then I’m guessing it’s been stuck for hours. Yeah, you’re right, there’s no choice. No, you’re right there, too, she’s not going to make it that far. Or that long. She’d be dead before you got here. Thanks for offering anyway, Fi, you’re a hero. Okay, step by step. Yeah, I’ve got the kit you made up for me-not that I ever dreamed of using it. Talk me through it slowly. I’ll write down dosages as we go.’
Silence followed. She peered around the back of the settee and saw him taking notes. Finally the receiver was replaced. She heard him moving away somewhere further down the hall, the sound of running water in the bathroom, then things being set up on the floorboards by the front door. Just out of sight.
‘I know, girl,’ he said, so softly she had to strain to hear. ‘It’s not a great operating table, but I don’t want to move you more than I need to. And I’ve set up the desk lamp so I can see.’
This was killing her. She wiggled her foot with care. The worst of the throbbing had stopped. That was because she wasn’t standing on it, she thought.
Okay, she wouldn’t stand on it. She wrapped the rug around her, slid off the settee and wriggled on her backside over the floor. Her shoulders complained but what the heck-what was morphine for? She’d put too much into saving this dog to stop now.
She reached the doorway and peered round. Dom was intent on the dog. He’d set up a high bendy light so he could see. He was setting up a dripstand.
She paused, taking in the whole scene. Her dog was lying in the hallway. With the morphine aboard Erin could focus on her surroundings now, taking in the wide, old-fashioned hall, the high ceilings, the massive architraves. And she could also get a good look at this doctor. Dominic Spencer?
He was youngish, she thought. Mid-thirties? His dark chocolate-brown hair was a bit too long, a bit wavy, with some of it flopping down over one eye. Not too far-like he was a week or so overdue for a haircut. And a day or two late for a shave. And a year or so overdue for an iron. He looked rumpled, she thought. She was used to the men in her life being…groomed. This guy was wearing faded jeans, ancient trainers and an old cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a frayed collar. His top two buttons had disappeared long since.
He didn’t look like a doctor, she thought. If the sign on the brass plate out the front-plus his actions since she’d arrived-didn’t bear out his introduction she’d have guessed maybe he was the doctor’s artist-brother, who’d maybe cadged a bed over Easter because he was living on the smell of an oily rag.
But in what he was doing, this guy was proving every inch a doctor. His lean face looked absolutely focused.
He looked…wonderful. It must be the morphine talking, she thought, dazed. She didn’t respond to men like this. Of all the stupid, hormonal reactions…
At least he hadn’t noticed. With the drip started, Dom had turned his attention to his equipment.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He glanced around-one swift glance that said he was completely preoccupied-then turned back to what he was doing. ‘If you move you’ll hurt yourself,’ he said briefly. ‘Go back to the settee.’
‘I’m hurting because of this dog,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll call her Marilyn.’
‘Marilyn?’
‘As in Monroe. ’Cos she’s gorgeous and misunderstood.’
His mouth quirked into a trace of a smile. A damned attractive smile, her hormones said.
No, she told her hormones.
‘Marilyn it is, then,’ he agreed. Then his smile died. ‘But I need to tell you she’s not likely to make it.’
‘I can’t believe I didn’t pick up that she was in labour. I thought she was just fat.’
‘You’re hurt yourself.’ He turned back to her, refocusing. ‘Go back to the settee,’ he said. ‘Please. This won’t be pretty.’
‘You’re not putting her down?’
‘Not yet.’ He motioned to the drip. ‘I’m getting some fluid on board. She’s still having weak contractions. My guess-and I’ve just spoken to the vet in the next town and she concurs-is that she’s been in labour for some time. We think she’s got a pup stuck. Maybe that’s why she was dumped. Maybe she got into trouble giving birth, someone said they’d take her to the vet-maybe to keep kids happy-and then they dumped her. Taking a pregnant bitch to the vet costs money.’ His face tightened. ‘Dumping her would be easier. Throwing her out where you said they did-my guess is they intended her to go in the river. It’s only a guess, but people can be cruel.’
He spoke like he knew what he was talking about. He spoke like a man with ghosts. She registered it, but only fleetingly. Her foot was hurting, her hormones had taken a back seat to discomfort, and she only had so much registering space possible.
‘So what are you doing?’
‘Trying to get the pup out.’
‘A Caesarean?’
‘I can’t. She’s so weak it’d kill her even if I had the skills-which I don’t.’
‘Neither do I,’ she said regretfully. ‘I’m an accident and emergency consultant.’
‘You’re a doctor?’ he demanded, clearly astounded.
‘I am.’ She wriggled closer. He was loading a syringe. ‘What is that?’
‘Lubricant,’ he said, and the surprise he’d shown disappeared as he turned back to what he was doing. He was carefully filling a syringe full of gel. Then he moved, deliberately blocking her view.
‘You’ll kill the puppy,’ she said, appalled. How could he manoeuvre lubricant into a blocked birth canal without…?
‘The pup will be dead anyway,’ he said flatly. He was speaking almost to himself. ‘Fiona…my vet friend…tells me if it’s been wedged for hours there’s no chance it’s still alive. She tells me I have a choice. I put Marilyn down now, or I try and get the dead pup out of the birth canal so whatever’s behind can come out of its own accord. If it doesn’t work then I’ll have to put her down, but I intend to try. So if you could shut up…’
‘I’m shutting up,’ she said, and pushed herself forward a bit more. ‘But you have an assistant. I may not be sterile but I’ll do whatever I can to help.’
It was a nasty procedure with an initial nasty outcome. Dom inserted the lubricant with difficulty. He injected oxytocin. He used forceps with even more difficulty. He fitted the forceps just as a contraction hit. He tugged. The thing shifted and suddenly it was there. Just as Fiona had foreseen.
He glanced back at Erin, who was lying full length on the floor, keeping a light touch on Marilyn’s carotid artery, feeling her pulse, and stroking her ears. ‘One pup,’ he told her softly. ‘Dead.’
Amazingly, Marilyn struggled, raising her head as if to see. She moaned, a low doggy moan that sounded almost like despair.
