be ageing early. Lizzy Hurst should have calculated the effects her horrid oysters would have on people like Aunt Maud.
Quinn would be learning the effects of the poison on the island’s invalids right now, Fern thought bleakly, and for a wild moment she wished that she was driving beside him to check on the two islanders they were concerned about.
‘I should be wishing I was staying with Sam,’ she corrected herself, and knew that she didn’t wish it in the least. Sam would be devastated.
She swore at the road in front and shoved her foot harder on the accelerator. The bridal car sped forward with undignified haste.
What a mess.
How could things possibly get any worse than this?
CHAPTER TWO
SHE shouldn’t have asked that question.
Three minutes later Fern pulled up outside the home of her aunt and uncle and raced inside. She had two minutes to climb into some jeans, she told herself, but she got no further than the front door before she knew that the worst was here with a vengeance.
‘Fern…’
It was her uncle’s voice, hoarse with fear, and he was yelling from the upstairs bedroom.
Fern heard the fear.
Uncle Al wasn’t a man to express fear lightly.
Fern took the stairs three at a time, her bridal gown hoisted almost to her waist.
Dear God…No!
This wasn’t food poisoning. Fern’s medical training snapped into place as she stared down in horror at her aunt.
Fern’s aunt had collapsed. Maudie Rycroft was a limp, prostrate form huddled against the wall of the bedroom, her wonderful, flowery wedding hat tipped crazily down over her face. She wasn’t moving.
Fern sank to her knees, satin wedding gown flowing out around her, and searched frantically for a pulse.
Nothing. There was no pulse in Maud’s wrist. None in the carotid artery.
‘What happened?’ Fern was already clearing the airway, sliding her aunt down to lay her flat on the floor and give herself room to work. Maud’s crazy hat was tossed aside, unnoticed.
‘She was ill,’ Fern’s uncle stammered. ‘Like everyone else, she was sick as a dog. Maud was sick once outside the church and again just now.’
The elderly farmer was literally wringing his hands. He stared down at his wife and his face was as bloodless as Maud’s. ‘And she was so upset, Fern,’ he whispered. ‘Your aunt was sobbing and sobbing, thinking all her plans for a lovely wedding were ruined. And then she came out of the bathroom and said her chest felt tight and there was pain going down her arm and she just…she just fell over…I couldn’t even catch her before she fell…’
It had to be a heart attack. Nothing else would fit.
Unless the oysters Lizzy had given them were so poisonous that they had affected the heart. There were poisons that caused paralysis…
Surely not, Fern thought frantically, the nightmare image of the whole island collapsing with heart pain flitting through her head and being thrust away as unthinkable.
‘Phone Dr Gallagher,’ she snapped back to her uncle. ‘Tell him Maud’s had a cardiac arrest and I need him here now. Go!’
This was a dreadful way to treat the uncle she loved-to treat any frightened relative for that matter-but there was no time now for reassurance or niceties. Fern’s medical equipment was all still in Sydney. She needed Quinn’s doctor’s bag and she needed it now!
There were some things she could do without equipment. She had to get oxygen to Maud’s brain. Fern took her aunt’s face between her hands and blew in her first breath.
Then she let Maud’s face go, dropped her hands onto her aunt’s chest and linked them.
And shoved down hard.
One, two, three…
Cardio-pulmonary massage was almost instinctive in Fern by now. She could do it in her sleep. How many times had she done this in an emergency situation?
But how many times had it worked? What were the statistics? Something horrible…Less than twenty-five per cent of those…
Don’t think of that. Don’t. It had to work now. It must…
Please, please, please…
This was her beloved Aunt Maud. Maud was only in her sixties. It wasn’t her time to die…
Fern shoved down hard, again and again, pausing only to fill her aunt’s lungs with air before beginning the relentless rhythm again. In the hall below she could hear her uncle shouting desperately into the phone and then she heard his feet pounding upstairs again.
‘He’s on his way,’ the farmer gasped. Fern didn’t stop her rhythm for a moment. Al stared down at his wife and seemed almost to shrink against the wall. ‘Oh, God, Fern, is she…?’
Fern didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Breathe, push…Push…Push…
Come on, Maudie…
They’d done so much for her, Albert and Maudie. What was the use of Fern’s medicine if she couldn’t save her aunt now?
Breathe, push…
She needed a defibrillator. The cardiac massage wasn’t working.
Where was Quinn with the defibrillator? Electric shock was the only way that they could jolt this heart into starting. How far away was he? How long would it take for him to get here?
Quinn Gallagher was the only one who could save Maudie now.
And then Fern heard a car’s tyres screeching, a car door slam and someone was shouting below stairs. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply into her aunt’s lips-a breath of gratitude. Quinn…
Her uncle dragged himself from his misery against the wall and managed to yell back-and ten seconds later Quinn burst through the door at a run.
He had what she needed. Fern glanced up and saw the defibrillator in his hands. One part of her prayer had been answered…
She went straight back, breathing and pushing. She had eyes only for Maud.
There was no laughter in Quinn Gallagher now. There was no space for anything.
Quinn wasted no words. He left Fern doing what she was doing, instinctively trusting her professionalism, and worked round her, ripping Maud’s gay wedding dress apart as if it was tissue and attaching electrodes with the swiftness of an expert.
Her first impression of competence had been absolutely right, Fern thought fleetingly. Quinn Gallagher was attuned to emergency medicine with the skill of years of training behind him. His hands wasted not a second.
Leads attached, Quinn squatted back on his heels and pulled Fern back with him.
‘Now.’
He put his hand on the switch and Maud’s limp body jerked in spasm. Before she was still Fern was back breathing into her lips. Breathe, pump, one, two, three…
‘Again.’ Quinn pulled her back.
Breathe…
“Again…’
It wouldn’t work.
Fern breathed deeply once more into her aunt’s lips but then Quinn was hauling her back, his strong fingers
