‘You could easily have sent someone else up here to cope with the press contingent.’
‘Hubert and Robbie together are more than capable.’ He smiled, that slow lazy smile that had the power to unsettle her world. Then. In the past. A long time ago. Now a smile couldn’t unsettle her. A wave had done that pretty decisively already. ‘I’ve done a fast examination of Hubert,’ he told her. ‘He’s pretty solid. What makes him think he’s dying?’
‘I revoked his fishing licence,’ Morag confessed. ‘He hit the jetty at full tilt and pushed a full day’s catch by the entire fleet into the bottom of the harbour.’
‘So he decided he’d die?’
‘Why not? Dying’s interesting, as long as you can stretch it out a long, long time.’ She managed a fleeting smile. ‘And today you’ve made life even more interesting, for both of them. Thank you.’
‘It’s self-interest,’ he confessed. ‘I have need of the island doctor.’
Her smile faded. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should be up.’
‘You needed to sleep. There’s a lot to cope with, Morag,’ he told her seriously. ‘As you said, these are your people. We’re coping with major trauma-major physical damage-but as well as that there’s also shocking emotional damage. If you’re strong enough to work through this, you’ll be our most valuable medic.’
‘You mean…you’re being nice to me so that I can cope mentally with what’s coming?’
‘Something like that.’ He smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Hey, Morag, it’s really good to see you again.’
‘It’s good to see you, too,’ she whispered. He didn’t know how much. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Cope. Not collapse. My job is to support you. I can do hands-on physical stuff but this community needs you if it’s going to be viable.’
‘You’re thinking it’s still viable?’
‘I don’t know what the decision will be.’
‘I want to be in on that decision-making.’ She eyed her clothes on the dresser and thought about making a grab for them. To be sitting in bed…
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed. ‘And one of my tasks is to make sure you’re capable of that.’ He smiled again. ‘Now, I’m going to make us some toast. Do you want some space to get dressed or do you want some help?’
Help her with dressing? He had to be kidding. ‘I can cope.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ His smile faded. ‘You seem to have coped so far. Alone.’
‘I haven’t had much choice.’
‘No.’
Silence. It was a tangible thing, this silence. It was loaded with history and with pain.
Loaded with emptiness.
‘Get dressed, love,’ he said at last, almost roughly. ‘I’ll make you breakfast, but we need to move fast. For today we need each other.’ Then he grinned and reached for her pile of clothes. ‘Here’s your modesty. You know, you really do remind me of you.’
They both knew what he meant by that. Once upon a time he’d thought he’d fallen in love.
With someone who was no longer her.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE might fleetingly remind Grady of the Morag she’d once been, she thought bitterly as the morning progressed, but the old Morag was long gone. The sophisticated career-woman who’d only cared for herself… Ha!
Even that thought hardly had time to surface. Everywhere Morag looked there was need. Aching, tearing need that she had no hope of meeting. The walk back down to the ruined township had her stopping time and time again as people wept on her, people hugged her, people tried to talk through their fears.
But at least she wasn’t the town’s only doctor. At least she had help. They all had help.
It seemed the Petrel Island tsunami had caught the sympathy of the world, and resources were pouring in. Huge Chinook helicopters were ferrying in resources as fast as they could, and already there was order emerging from the catastrophe.
Last night the cricket ground had looked like a massive disaster area. Now huge tents held dormitory-style bunks for everyone. Apparently even those whose homes were undamaged were being advised to stay here. The huge wash of water had caused more than direct problems, with landslips and flooding leading to sewerage and plumbing nightmares.
But engineering problems, thankfully, weren’t Morag’s worry. She had enough to face without that.
The place Grady took Morag to-finally-was another huge white tent. It turned out to be a stunningly set-up field hospital.
People had worked all through the night, Morag realised, dazed and washed with guilt that she’d slept through such an effort.
‘You needed to sleep,’ Grady said gently as they stood at the entrance to the big tent. Damn, how could he guess what she was thinking almost before she knew she was thinking it? ‘You were so shocked and exhausted that you were past operating. Do you want to see Sam?’
‘He’s not been evacuated?’
‘We’re taking him out this morning.’ He grimaced. ‘There was the small matter of his cat.’
‘Sam’s cat.’ Morag thought about Sam’s cat while she stared around her.
The tent had a foyer, just like a real hospital. A woman clad in emergency-services yellow was seated at a desk, directing traffic. Two corridors led off-one labelled EMERGENCY and the other WARDS. Wards? How could they have done this in such a short space of time?
It looked unreal. If it hadn’t been for the grass underfoot, the building could have been a city clinic.
Her head was spinning. She had to focus on one thing at a time. Hamish. The Kooris.
Sam’s cat. That was easiest.
‘I know Oscar,’ she said. The vast, overfed tom was almost an institution on the island. He was fiercely protective of his master, and most of the islanders actively disliked him. He hissed and spat at anyone who came near Sam’s boat. If anyone threatened his Sam-and that might be by saying hello and holding out a hand to be shaken-then Oscar knew what to do. He ruled the island cats with well-sharpened claws, and he wore each of his many battle scars like the tattoos on the toughest of bikie gangsters.
‘He would have been on the boat with Sam,’ Morag said, dismayed. Oscar was definitely not her favourite cat, but she knew how heartbroken Sam would be without him.
‘That’s right,’ Grady told her, smiling. ‘He was washed out of the boat with Sam, and Sam’s wife assumed he was dead. But Sam wasn’t having a bar of it and insisted on staying until he found out. Anyway, about an hour ago Heather came marching into the hospital with the most bedraggled cat you’ve ever seen. She dumped it on Sam’s coverlet and said, “Here, here’s your damned cat, now you can get yourself fixed up properly.” The cat’s fine. Elsey, our chief nurse, tried to be nice and approached Oscar with a towel. Oscar put two fang marks in her hand and she’ll have to have a course of antibiotics. Despite losing his leg, suddenly all’s almost OK with Sam’s world.’
Grady was smiling. And suddenly so was Morag.
This was normal. These were her people, responding as they must to extraordinary circumstances. For the first time she thought there might be a tomorrow.
And this was the worst. From here, it could only move forward.
‘What do you want me to do about it?’ she asked.
‘Explain to Sam why he can’t take his cat to the mainland?’
‘I can do that.’
‘Find someone to offer to look after it?’
‘Harder,’ she admitted. ‘But Oscar hangs around the lighthouse. I can put cat food out. Not that he’ll deign to eat it. He steals food from every kitchen in the island. Then what?’
His smile faded. ‘Morag…’ He hesitated but she knew as soon as he looked at her-as soon as his smile faded- what he was going to ask.
