She had the capacity to glance at the child’s medical file and take in what was important straight away.
‘Can I see your toe? Doc Riley stitched it last month. Did he do a lovely neat job of it?’
Riley didn’t have time to check the details Pippa was checking. Cordelia would have decreed it a waste of time. Cordelia followed orders.
Pippa was… great.
The day flew. He was having fun, he decided in some amazement. There was something about Pippa that lightened the room, that made the kids happy and jokey. Harry came in to check on their progress and stayed to watch and help a bit, just because it was a fun place to be.
How could one woman make such a difference?
Finally they were finished. They’d seen every school child, which was a miracle all by itself.
‘Half an hour?’ Harry said. ‘That’ll get us back to Whale Cove by dark.’
‘I need to do a quick round of Joyce’s old guys before I go,’ Riley said. ‘Plus I need to say goodbye to Amy. You want to come, Pippa?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s been a long day. I hadn’t planned on you working.’
‘I’ve had fun,’ she said simply, and smiled, and he thought…
That maybe he needed to concentrate on the job at hand. He did
Why not?
The question had him unsettled.
Unlike Harry, who fell in love on average four times a year, he steered clear of even transitory commitment, but he did date women; he did enjoy their company. When he’d told Pippa on the beach that he’d like to invite her to dinner, it had been the truth.
But the more he got to know her the more he thought it’d be a mistake.
Why?
She was fascinating. She’d thrown herself into today with enthusiasm and passion. She’d made him laugh-she’d made the kids laugh. She loved what she was doing. She was… amazing.
And there was the problem. He looked at her and knew with Pippa he might be tempted to take things further.
He never had. Not since Marguerite. One appalling relationship when he’d been little more than a kid…
Except it was more than that. A shrink would have a field day with his dysfunctional family. He’d known three ‘fathers’, none of them his real one. He’d had stepbrothers and stepsisters, they’d always been moving home to escape debts, stupid stuff.
He’d escaped as best he could, physically at first, running away, sleeping rough. Then he got lucky, welfare had moved in and he got some decent foster-parents. There he learned an alternative escape-his brains. The library at school. A scholarship to study medicine, at Melbourne, then England. He’d earned the reputation of a loner and that was the way he liked it.
Only living at university he’d finally discovered the power of friendship. It had sucked him right in-and then he’d met Marguerite.
After Marguerite he’d tried to settle, only how did you learn to have a home? It didn’t sit with him; it wasn’t his thing.
When he’d come back from England he’d gone to see his foster-parents. They’d been the only real family he knew. They’d written to him while he was away.
They were caring for two new kids who were taking all their energy. They were delighted that his studies were going well. They’d given him tea and listened to his news. His foster-mother had kissed him goodbye, his foster- father had shaken his hand, but they’d been distracted.
He wasn’t their child. They’d done the best they could for him-it was time he moved on.
He did move on. His six years in Whale Cove was as long as he’d ever stayed anywhere. He took pleasure in the challenges the job threw at him, but still his restlessness remained.
He had no roots. A surfboard and enough clothes to fit in a bag-what more did a man need?
But as he walked along the veranda with Pippa, he thought, for the first time in years, a man could need something else. But a man could be stupid for thinking it. Exposing himself yet again.
‘Riley?’
Joyce’s voice cut across his thoughts. That was good. His thoughts were complicated, and Pippa’s body was brushing his. That was complicating them more.
‘Yes?’ His reply was brusque and Joyce frowned.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘Not with me there isn’t,’ he said, pulling himself up. ‘I need to see Amy and then we’ll go.’
‘I’m sorry but I need you to wait,’ Joyce told him. ‘I’ve just got a message to say Gerry Onjingi’s in trouble. They’re bringing him in now. He was climbing the windmill at one of the bores and he fell off. They had pickets stacked up underneath. Gerry fell on one and it’s gone right through his leg.’
They weren’t going to leave before dark. Bundling Gerry into the plane and taking him back to the coast wasn’t an option. Not with half a fence post in his leg.
For the men had brought Gerry in, picket attached. He lay in the back of an ancient truck and groaned, and Pippa looked at the length of rough timber slicing through his calf and thought she’d groan, too. Gerry was elderly, maybe in his seventies, though in this climate she was having trouble telling.
‘Crikey!’ Riley swung himself up into the tray the instant the truck stopped. ‘You believe in making life exciting. This is like a nose bone, only different.’
‘Funny, ha-ha,’ Gerry muttered, and Riley knelt and put his hand on his shoulder.
‘We’ll get you out of pain in no time,’ he told him. Joyce was already handing up his bag. ‘Let’s get some pain killers on board before we shift you inside.’
‘Will I have to go to Sydney?’
And the way he said it… No matter how much pain he was in, Pippa realised, the thought of the city was worse.
‘No promises, mate,’ Riley said. ‘We need to figure what the damage is. We’ll get you out of pain and then we’ll talk about it.’
It was amazing how such a diverse group of professionals could instantly make an elite surgical team.
Even Harry took part. By the time the morphine took effect, Harry had organised an electric buzz saw, with an extension cord running from the veranda. ‘Electric’s better,’ he said briefly. ‘Less pressure and this fitting’s got fine teeth. It’ll take seconds rather than minutes by hand.’
The picket had pierced one side of Gerry’s calf and come out the other. Pippa helped Joyce cover Gerry with canvas to stop splinters flying. Riley and Pippa supported Gerry’s leg while Harry neatly sliced the picket above and below.
‘Closest I can get without doing more damage,’ Harry muttered, and put the saw down and disappeared fast.
‘Turns green, our Harry,’ Riley said, grinning at his departing friend. ‘Still, if you asked me to pilot a chopper in weather Harry’s faced, I’d turn green too.’ He was slicing away the remains of Gerry’s pants, assessing the wound underneath. It looked less appalling now there was less wood, but it still looked dreadful. ‘Pippa, what’s your experience in getting bits of wood out of legs?’
‘I’ve done shifts in City Emergency. We coped with a chair leg once.’ She made her voice neutral and businesslike, guessing what Gerry needed was reassurance that this was almost normal. Riley’s question had been matter-of-fact, like bits of wood in legs were so common they were nothing to worry about.
‘You got it out?’
‘We did. When he came out of the anaesthetic the publican was there, demanding he pay for the chair.’
‘So this little picket…’
‘Piece of cake,’ she said, smiling down at Gerry. Thinking it wasn’t. The wood had splintered. The wound looked messy and how did they know what had been hit and not hit?
‘Then let’s organise X-rays,’ Riley said. ‘And an ultrasound.’
‘You can do an ultrasound here?’
