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Dear Reader
I love being part of a continuity series. Not only do I get to work with some fabulous authors, but often there’s a bit of a challenge involved. This might be from weaving threads of other stories into my own, or it might come from the characters and their backgrounds that I’ve been given to work with.
This story gave me a new area to explore. In fiction, that is. I don’t think there’s anybody whose life has not been touched in some way by the darkness that is depression. It could be a brief acquaintance, or long enough to present one of life’s more difficult challenges. It could be ourselves, or someone that we’re close to.
This is Zoe’s story, and it begins after her world has turned upside down because of postnatal depression. She is lucky enough to meet Teo and their story is … Well, you can judge for yourself. It involves hope, of course, and that’s the key to getting out of the dark. Hanging on to hope. It’s there and it’s real, and if you can hold it close to your heart it will grow.
What better way to find a lovely big piece of hope than through the journey of a romance that has the promise of a happy future?
With love
Alison
ALISON ROBERTS lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. She began her working career as a primary school teacher, but now juggles available working hours between writing and active duty as an ambulance officer. Throwing in a large dose of parenting, housework, gardening and pet-minding keeps life busy, and teenage daughter Becky is responsible for an increasing number of days spent on equestrian pursuits. Finding time for everything can be a challenge, but the rewards make the effort more than worthwhile.
Recent titles by the same author:
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
THE TORTURED REBEL*
THE UNSUNG HERO*
THE HONOURABLE MAVERICK*
*Part of The Heart of a Rebel trilogy
These books are also available in ebook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk
Sydney Harbour
Hospital:
Zoe’s Baby
Alison Roberts
www.millsandboon.co.uk
For Linda, with much love. And Queenscliff. The combination that made this story a joy I will never forget.
CHAPTER ONE
NOTHING had changed.
Zoe Harper released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, in a sigh of pure relief. The sound went unheard thanks to the wail of the siren outside the vehicle she was in.
It could have been yesterday she’d done her last shift as an intensive care paramedic instead of … goodness, how many months ago was it?
Too many.
Enough to have made her afraid that it would feel different. Be impossible, even, given the changes in her life since then. That what had seemed a brave decision could turn out to be disastrous and that it might even send her life tumbling back into a place so awful it was too terrifying to contemplate.
But this was good.
Better than good.
‘Traffic’s a nightmare.’ Her crew partner for the day, Tom, leaned on the air horn and tried to manoeuvre the ambulance through a narrow gap. ‘Bet you wish you’d stayed home with the baby a bit longer, eh?’
Being at home with five-month-old Emma instead of heading towards a multi-vehicle pile-up on the south entrance to the Grafton Bridge?
‘No way.’ Zoe grinned at Tom. ‘Bring it on.’
She meant every word.
There was more than relief to be found here.
There was hope.
This was an opportunity to step back into the life she’d always chosen for herself. To shut the door, albeit temporarily, on what had become her new life. But it was about more than simply a job. This was the chance to find out if the person she’d always believed herself to be still existed.
Working at Australia’s premier teaching hospital on the shores of Sydney harbour might be a dream come true but the hospital’s central location didn’t help when it came to traffic hassles after a consult at one of the suburban hospitals.
And while this new car was superb to handle and its leather upholstery supremely comfortable, no sports car on earth was designed for somebody who was six feet four with the build of a well-conditioned rugby player.
Teo Tuala flexed his shoulders and neck as the traffic inched forward and then came to another complete halt. He could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles up near the bridge and now he could hear the chop of rotors from an approaching helicopter getting steadily louder.
If they were calling for air transport, it must be a fairly serious accident. Maybe they could use some assistance. Being in the left lane, Teo was able to nudge his sleek car out of the queue of vehicles and onto the motorway shoulder. He flicked his hazard lights on and got out of the confined space. A police officer, edging his way through the traffic jam on a motorbike, swerved into the space he’d created.
He was shaking his head. ‘You can’t park there, mate.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ Teo responded. ‘Thought they might be able to use a hand up there.’
The young officer’s expression changed. ‘Hop on,’ he offered. ‘I’ll get you on scene.’
Teo could see why the traffic was so disrupted as he got closer. Three vehicles were involved. One was upside down and partially crushed. Another was wedged between the upside-down car and the bridge supports. The third car was being towed from where it was blocking another two lanes of the highway.
Firemen were using pneumatic equipment to cut into the vehicles. The helicopter was hovering directly overhead, looking for a place to land. There was a background wail of additional emergency service vehicles approaching the scene from the opposite direction. The noise was overwhelming and yet Teo could still hear the shrieks of a terrified person who seemed to be trapped in one of those cars.
And it sounded like a small person.
A quick visual scan of the scene revealed the most senior ambulance officer amongst the knot of police and fire service personnel. The fluorescent vest with ‘Scene Commander’ on the back was being worn by a woman.
Teo stepped closer. ‘Hey, there …’
The woman ignored his greeting. Her attention was still directed to a young, far more junior ambulance officer.
‘Have you got access to the back seat?’
‘The firies are working on that. That door’s jammed as well.’
‘And she’s trapped?’
‘Yes. Her leg’s caught under the dash.’
‘Get a C collar on her and keep her still until we can extricate her. Stay in the back seat and keep her head immobilised.’
‘Zoe?’
The scene commander’s head swivelled even further from where Teo was standing as another male paramedic approached. The movement, under the early morning sunshine, sent flickers of colour like small flames through her hair. She had pale skin, he noted, with a scattering of freckles on her nose and the top of her cheeks.
‘What’s up, Tom?’
‘We need you. Oxygen saturation levels on the driver are dropping and there’s a kid in a car seat in there as well that we can’t get to. Too tight a squeeze for me. The firies reckon they’ve got the wreck stable. Thought you might be game to crawl underneath.’
The nod came without the slightest hesitation that Teo could detect. ‘What status is the child?’
‘Can’t tell. The seat’s upside down and the roof is badly dented on that side. I can see an arm. I reckon it’s a toddler more than a baby.’
‘I’m a paediatrician,’ Teo cut in. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’
She looked at him now. Green eyes were assessing him rapidly but with keen attention. He had the impression that he’d passed some kind of test. Pulling off her vest, she handed it to Tom. ‘Take over scene control,’ she told him. ‘There’re two more trucks responding and we should be able to start transporting using the northern lanes. The police are clearing an area for the chopper to get down but we’ll keep them on standby until we know what’s happening with the rolled car.’
She pulled another vest from a container labelled ‘Major Incident’ and handed it to Teo. ‘Put this on,’ she ordered. ‘And come with me.’
This vest had ‘Doctor’ on the back. It was a tight squeeze for his large frame but Teo got it on as he followed Zoe. It took only seconds to get amongst the knot of fire officers working on the vehicle. Teo had to watch his feet as he stepped over the thick black cables that connected the cutting gear to the power generators. A blanket marked a patch of ground where a paramedic kit was opened beside a life pack and an oxygen cylinder. Tubing from the cylinder was attached to a bag mask unit being held over the face of the driver by another ambulance officer. A policewoman was holding a bag of IV fluid aloft, its tubing snaking in through the broken window.
‘Any change?’ Zoe queried.
‘Sats down to 95. BP’s still dropping. Ninety-five on 60 now. We should be able to get her out any minute.’
Zoe’s nod was curt. ‘I’ll assess her for intubation as soon as she’s clear.’ She turned to Teo. ‘Stay here,’ she commanded. ‘I’m going to take a few seconds to see if I can get to the child. If it’s alive, we’ll get it out and I’ll hand over to you. The driver’s status 1 and I’ll need to focus on her.’
Teo knew that meant the victim was in a life-threatening situation. Was it the child’s mother? Was the child badly hurt as well? Teo normally saw his patients in the well-controlled environment of a paediatric ward or sometimes the emergency department. This was the first time he’d been on scene in a situation like this. The tension was palpable. The working conditions were astonishing—so many people, so much noise, the smell of fuel and hot metal. How hard would it be to focus?
He watched the redheaded paramedic having a short but intense conversation with a fire officer. She jammed a hard hat onto her head and then lay down, edging herself beneath the wreck of the car’s chassis.
Teo felt his breath leave his body in a silent whistle. Not only was it a challenge to focus in this kind of environment but these people were clearly willing to put themselves at considerable physical risk as well. This would be impressive at any time but the actions of this woman called Zoe were positively mind-blowing.
Because she was female?
Teo was ashamed to have to admit that was partly true but there was more to it in this case. Maybe it had something to do with this particular woman. With her striking colouring and those unusually obvious freckles on her skin that made her seem … younger? More vulnerable?
It wasn’t a word he should even think of associating with a person who was clearly in command of such an intense situation but, oddly, it stuck somewhere in the back of his head as he stood there, his gaze fixed on the steel-capped black boots he could see protruding from this side of the vehicle. They were moving. Turning as Zoe was positioning herself inside what had to be an impossibly small space to work in. He could hear the muffled, shouted conversation she was having with firemen on the other side of the wreck.
They repositioned their equipment. The ‘jaws of life’ were used to cut through a central pillar on that side of the car and metal was being peeled back like the top of a spaghetti can. Teo’s view was obstructed by the wheels of the wreck and then by the surge of rescuers that moved in. There was more shouting, the wreck rocked a little and then, less than a minute after Zoe had disappeared beneath the wreck, he saw the car seat being lifted clear and passed from one set of arms to another. It was carried towards him and suddenly Teo realised that it was actually easy to focus in the messy, dangerous environment. All you needed was a patient who needed you. This car seat had a small body strapped inside it. A baby about twelve months old. A boy who was not only alive but fully conscious. His eyes were wide open and frightened as he looked right back at Teo.
‘Put him down here,’ Teo said. He crouched beside the car seat and reached for the central buckle. ‘Hey, there, little one …’
The driver of the car was freed from the wreckage moments after the baby seat had been extricated.
What a stroke of luck, having a paediatrician on scene. Not that Zoe would have had trouble coping but it was an undeniable relief not to have to deal with a baby just yet. That might well blur the comforting demarcation she was establishing between her private and professional life.
She would far rather attend to the female driver and deal with the life-threatening injuries that were immediately apparent as they transferred her from the back board onto a stretcher. She had a collarbone and ribs that had shattered and caused major lung damage on one side. Zoe had to intubate the woman to secure her airway and then do a needle decompression to relieve the increasing pressure from air and blood accumulating in her chest, which could stop her breathing altogether.
Even then, Zoe wasn’t happy with how well the woman was breathing. Her blood pressure was still dropping as well and that might indicate further internal injuries.
‘I’d like to go with her in the chopper,’ she informed Tom when he joined the team assisting her in stabilising this patient for transport. ‘I’d prefer to monitor that tension pneumothorax myself if the air rescue team don’t mind.’
‘We don’t mind,’ one of the helicopter paramedics said over his shoulder. ‘You can party with us any time, Red.’
Zoe had never liked the nickname, earned thanks to her bright auburn hair colour, but the way it pulled her back in time was welcome. She still belonged in this world. It was Tom who would be most affected, however. ‘Would you be OK to meet me at the hospital?’ Zoe checked.
‘Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let Control know, borrow a crew member from one of the other trucks and we’ll transport the baby.’
‘Oh …’ It was the first moment Zoe had had to think about the child since her relief in finding it, hanging upside down in the car seat, but conscious and alert. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Teo’s happy.’
‘Teo?’ The name was unusual.
‘The paediatrician from the Harbour. Nice guy.’
‘Mmm.’ Zoe shifted her gaze. So his name was Teo? She had noticed the dark olive skin, of course, and the broad features that suggested he was Polynesian.
Right now, he had the baby, wrapped in a blanket, in his arms. He didn’t notice Zoe’s glance because he was looking down at the child. And … he was smiling. He was also radiating an aura of calmness. As if it was nothing out of the ordinary to be holding a baby at the scene of a major accident. As if he was actually enjoying it.
She was close enough to be able to hear if the baby was crying and she couldn’t hear even a whimper. Zoe wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d walked over there to find that the baby was smiling back up at him and, for some inexplicable reason that was irritating.
‘What’s the baby’s status?’ It came out almost as a snap.
OK, maybe the reason wasn’t that inexplicable. How was it that this guy—who looked as if he was a rugby star or a bouncer at some night club or something—could make it look as if caring for a baby was easy. Fun, even, when she was a mother, for heaven’s sake, and that kind of calmness or pleasure was … unimaginable.
It took an effort to tune in to what Tom was saying in response to her terse query.
‘All checked out fine. Totally protected by the car seat, probably, but he’ll need observing for a while. Teo says he’ll drop into ED as soon as he gets his car clear of this traffic jam and make sure he gets a thorough assessment.’
Zoe turned away from the sight of the big man cuddling an uninjured child. She should thank him for his assistance but she had more important things to do for the moment and maybe she’d catch him later in the ED anyway. She checked the monitor display on the life pack as the helicopter crew secured it to the stretcher her patient was now strapped onto.
‘Let’s get moving,’ she said.
‘Hold up …’ A police officer was hurrying towards them. ‘This is her handbag. You might want her details. Her name’s Michelle Drew, aged 34.’
‘Thanks.’ Zoe took the bag. ‘Any next-of-kin details?’
‘We’re trying to contact her husband. We’ll direct him to the hospital. You going to the Harbour?’
Zoe nodded, already moving to follow the crew. The stretcher was rolled swiftly to the back of the waiting chopper and then smoothly loaded. The doors were pulled shut and the rotor speed picked up until they lifted clear of the scene for the short run to the central city hospital.
Zoe had to suppress a smile at the adrenaline rush of being airborne as she moved to help monitor this critically ill patient. The smile was still there inside, though, as she took a quick glance down at the scene they were leaving.
She was more than ready for this kind of a party. She had missed this life so much.
The mass of vehicles and people grew rapidly smaller as they gained height but one figure stood out from the rest. The big man with the baby still in his arms. He was looking up, she noticed, watching them take off.
‘Pressure’s still dropping,’ The voice came through the earphones in her helmet. ‘Zoe, can you see if you can get another line in?’
By the time Teo walked back to where he’d parked his car on the motorway shoulder, the traffic was moving again. It took less than thirty minutes for him to get to a parking space at Sydney Harbour Hospital and walk into the state-of-the-art emergency department via the ambulance bay.
The triage nurse, wearing a headset with earphones and a microphone, looked up from directing the latest ambulance arrival to smile at Teo. There were more smiles as he went into the department. He’d learned a long time ago that the medical staff on the front line appreciated that a head of department took an interest in patients from the moment they arrived and, whenever possible, Teo would answer a call for a consult from the paediatric department instead of sending a junior doctor.
He went towards the glass board that had the ever-changing details of what patient was where. A glance to his left showed that the major trauma resuscitation area was crowded with staff. The bright red overalls of the helicopter rescue medics were on one side of the room as they observed what was happening with the patient that had to be the woman from the crushed car. His patient’s mother.
Did that mean that the intensive care paramedic was still here as well? Zoe? He’d seen her leap into the helicopter. Superwoman. Directing a major incident one minute, crawling into a wrecked vehicle the next and then winging her way to the helipad here. Teo hadn’t missed what she’d been doing in between either. The intubation and chest decompression on that woman couldn’t have been easy procedures but they’d been done well and had undoubtedly saved a life.
Zoe wasn’t in the resus area, however. He could see her standing quietly on one side of the huge glass board, scanning it for information. On the other side of the board, at the other end, were two other people, intently in conversation.
Teo knew both of them. Finn Kennedy was a neighbour, of sorts. He had the penthouse in the Kirribilli View Apartments, a nearby complex that many of the staff, including Teo, lived in. Finn was also the director of surgery here at the Harbour and was probably as frequent a visitor to this department as Teo was, but he knew that Finn’s visits were far less welcome. No one could deny Finn’s brilliance but it came with a price. Only the ignorant or very confident would attempt to stand up to this man and the person talking to him right now was definitely in the latter category.
Evie Lockheart, reputedly a rising star amongst the ED doctors, was also a resident at Kirribilli View, where she shared an apartment with another junior doctor, Mia McKenzie. Teo would have known about her anyway, however, because her family had the status of royalty around this place. Evie was the great-granddaughter of the man who had founded this hospital and, according to the rumour mill, it was now her father’s generous contributions that kept the Harbour amongst the most prestigious teaching hospitals in Australia. Teo had heard that there was no love lost between Finn and Evie but what he was seeing right now made him pause.
‘Send her to CT first,’ Finn was saying. ‘I’ll have a theatre free in thirty minutes. It’ll take that long to see what you’re dealing with.’
‘It’ll take less time than that for her to crash. She’s got a haemothorax that’s barely under control. We’re losing fluid as fast as we can load it. There’s an arterial bleed going on in there. She’s lost the pulse in her right arm and she could lose the limb if we can’t get in and deal with the damaged artery. Now, Mr Kennedy, not in thirty minutes.’
‘And what is it, exactly, that you want from me, Dr Lockheart?’
What indeed? It wasn’t the conversation that was piquing Teo’s interest. It was more the way they were standing.
Too close?
Or maybe it was the way they were looking at each other. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that that kind of eye contact was about something a lot less professional than juggling a theatre queue. It was ridiculous but it was making him feel like he was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Maybe he should step away. But Zoe was here. Was she listening too? A sideways glance seemed to coincide with exactly the same movement from the paramedic. For a split second they held the eye contact and he knew they were on the same wavelength. Teo stepped closer.
‘I’ve just come in to check on the baby,’ he said quietly. ‘Do you know where he is?’
They both turned back to scanning the board. The department was clearly very busy. Dozens of boxes were filled with the scrawl of marker pen.
The voices on the other side of the board were fainter now.
‘But didn’t one of your recent edicts stipulate that there would always be a theatre kept free for emergencies from this department?’
Evie Lockheart wasn’t a short woman. In the heels she was wearing now, she was only a few inches shorter than Finn’s six feet or so. And the way she was holding herself at this moment made her seem even taller.
‘There is. You’re using it. Plus one of mine for that ruptured spleen you sent up ten minutes ago.’
‘You’ve got a patient in Theatre 5 who’s about to go in for an elective procedure that could easily wait. They haven’t started the anaesthetic and they’re standing by for a green light from you to set up for Michelle Drew.’ To her credit, Evie wasn’t sounding smug. In fact, she seemed to have just the right note of reason and deference in her voice. She also sounded extremely persuasive.
Finn wasn’t about to be a soft touch for anyone, especially a pretty young woman. His body language was defensive, to say the least. Was Evie about to have her head bitten off in public for interfering with his job? It hadn’t been that long ago, in the wake of a discussion about funding cuts, that Teo had heard Finn make some disparaging comment about applying for a few more of the Lockheart millions seeing as their princess was currently a member of staff. But while Finn was giving Evie a glare that could have shrivelled steel, he was far too professional to lose his temper in here.