MELANIE MILBURNE – Australian Bachelors: Outback Heroes: Top-Notch Doc, Outback Bride / A Wedding in Warragurra / The Outback Doctor's Surprise Bride (страница 8)

‘You’ll only be in hospital a few days, five at the most,’ Kellie said. Turning to the hovering Bruce, she asked, ‘Do you have a first-aid kit here, Bruce? My doctor’s bag is back at the cottage. And I’ll need the number of the flying doctor service. I left the card Dr McNaught gave me with all the contact numbers on it back at the cottage.’

Once the call had been made Julie asked to be taken to her house to see her kids and organise things before the flying doctor arrived.

‘I’ll take you,’ Bluey offered as he came to where they were gathered.

‘Yeah, right,’ Julie said with a look of disdain. ‘You’re exactly what I need right now, a broken-armed drunk to come to my rescue in a beat-up hulk of a car.’

Bluey looked affronted. ‘I’m no drunk, Jules. I’ve only had two light stubbies. Sure, there’s a spot of rust or two in the old Holden, but I can drive it with one arm tied behind my back …’ he grinned and added, ‘or my front.’

‘What’s going on?’ Matt’s voice sounded deep and controlled as he came in, carrying a doctor’s bag in one hand.

‘Julie has a lacerated flexor tendon and I’ve organised transport to Brisbane with the flying doctor service,’ Kellie informed him. ‘I called them and they’re only half an hour away on another trip from the station out at Gunnawanda Gully.’

Matt took Kellie aside and, looking down at her seriously asked, ‘I notice you have blood on your hands,’ he said. ‘Do you realise you should be wearing gloves? You could put yourself at risk of infection.’

Kellie felt a little tremor of unease pass through her. ‘I didn’t have my doctor’s bag with me,’ she said. ‘I simply responded to a call for help and acted accordingly.’

‘There’s no point putting yourself at risk,’ he admonished her. ‘Once you had established it wasn’t a life-threatening injury you should have taken universal precautions. You should have called me and met me at the clinic where we could have explored the wound, gloved up at the very least.’

‘I realise that but—’

‘Furthermore, if it turns out Mrs Smithton doesn’t have a tendon injury, you would have wasted thousands of dollars of community money, getting an air ambulance out here for nothing.’

Kellie was incensed. She knew a tendon injury when she saw one—her brother Seb had severed his during an ice-hockey match when he’d been sixteen—so she considered herself somewhat of an expert on that particular injury.

‘Not only that …’ Matt was still dressing her down like a junior colleague. ‘You are not officially on duty until next week.’

‘I don’t see why that should make any—’

Matt ignored her to turn back to the group surrounding Julie. He opened his bag and, putting on some surgical gloves, gently inspected the wound. ‘What about if I call Ruth Williams?’ he asked Julie. ‘She’ll be happy to help you out with the boys.’

‘I called her a few minutes ago,’ Bruce piped up. ‘She’s gone to the house to get some things together for Julie for the hospital. She said she’ll meet you at the airstrip.’

‘Good,’ Matt said, and stripped off his gloves. ‘You’ll be OK, Julie. It’s a bit of bad luck but it could have been a lot worse.’

‘I don’t see how,’ Julie said with a despondent set to her features. ‘I won’t be able to work for a couple of weeks and I need the money right now.’

Matt put his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. ‘The boys will be fine, Julie. Ruth will love being with them, don’t worry. I’ll keep my eye on things as well, OK?’

Julie gave him a grateful look. ‘The new doctor’s nice, isn’t she?’ she said. ‘Very pretty too, don’t you think?’

Matt concentrated on zipping up his doctor’s bag. ‘I hadn’t really noticed.’

Kellie felt that all too familiar ache of inadequacy as she overheard the exchange. Maybe she should do something about her hair, she thought, tucking a wayward strand behind one ear. A few highlights, maybe even a trim, or even a new style would give her ego a much-needed boost. Not that she’d noticed a hairdresser’s anywhere in town. Culwulla Creek was hardly the place to prepare for a Miss Universe line-up, Kellie realised, but a girl—even a girl living in the dry dusty outback—needed a lift now and again, didn’t she?

‘I think she’s just what this town needs,’ Julie said. ‘Tim and Claire will be delighted to know they chose exactly the right person to fill the position.’

‘The flying doctor’s just landed,’ Bluey announced as he popped his head around the door. ‘Do you want me to come with you and hold your hand, Jules?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got nothing planned for the next few days.’

Julie gave him another scornful look. ‘That’d be the blind leading the blind, wouldn’t it?’

Bluey grinned boyishly. ‘You break me up, Jules.’

Kellie looked at Matt, who was smiling at the exchange. It wasn’t a broad smile by any stretch of the imagination but it was enough to make his dark blue eyes crinkle up at the corners and his normally rigid mouth relax. Kellie couldn’t help thinking how sensual it looked without its tightened contours.

He turned and caught her staring at him and his smile instantly faded. ‘Is there something wrong, Dr Thorne?’ he asked.

Kellie met his gaze. ‘No,’ she said, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed under his frowning scrutiny.

He held her look for a tense moment. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I have a patient to see to. I’ll let you get back to your socialising.’

Kellie couldn’t help thinking there was a hint of criticism in his tone. He made it sound as if she had nothing better to do than sit around and drink cocktails with the locals while he got on with the job of being the only reliable, hard-working doctor in town. ‘I’d like to come with you to the airstrip,’ she said with a little jut of her chin. ‘I need to learn the ropes and now is as good a time as any.’

He looked as if he was about to disagree, but perhaps because of the assembled group nearby he appeared to change his mind. ‘All right,’ he said, letting out a sigh that sounded like something between irritation and resignation. ‘Follow me.’

CHAPTER FIVE

KELLIE thought the airstrip looked even smaller than when she had arrived there only hours earlier. The arrivals building was no bigger than a suburban garden shed, and the red gravel runway looked too small for a car to brake suddenly, let alone an aircraft.

Before the plane had landed a team of locals had performed the mandatory ‘roo shoo’ which involved a couple of cars driving up and down the strip to clear away any wildlife such as kangaroos, emus or possums. Kellie could see one or two of the drivers standing chatting to the pilot as she and Matt approached.

Once Julie was settled on board, Brian King, the pilot, Nathan Curtis, the doctor, and Fran Bradley, the nurse, quickly introduced themselves.

‘It’s great to meet you,’ Fran said with a friendly smile. ‘I know of a few women out on the land who’ll be glad to know you’ve joined the outback clinic team.’

Kellie swallowed as she looked at the aircraft. ‘Er … yes, I’m sure it will be heaps of fun …’

‘Dr Thorne isn’t too keen on flying,’ Matt said with an unreadable expression.

Kellie glowered at him. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to it if it’s not too rough.’ She turned back to the nurse. ‘I had a scary trip back from a rotation I did in Tamworth a few years ago. We had to make an emergency landing when one of the engines failed. A few of the passengers were seriously injured. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a coward ever since.’

Brian smiled reassuringly. ‘We’ll do our best to keep you safe out here,’ he said. ‘We don’t take unnecessary risks. I’ve only had to make one emergency landing in twenty years of flying in the outback.’

‘That’s very good to know,’ Kellie said, with another nervous glance towards the plane which, in her opinion, looked like it wouldn’t look out of place in a child’s toybox.

Julie was soon loaded on board and everyone stood back as the engine turned over in preparation for take-off. On the way back to his car Matt stopped to chat to Ruth. ‘Are you sure you’ll be able to manage Julie’s boys?’ he asked with a concerned pleat of his brow.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Ruth assured him. ‘They’ll keep me on my toes, no doubt, but it will be good for me. Take my mind off things.’

‘Can I help in any way?’ Kellie asked. ‘It’s not as if I’m not used to handling boys and I don’t start at the clinic until next week.’

‘If you’d like to, that would be lovely,’ Ruth said. ‘Julie’s house is on Commercial Road, number fifteen, I think it is from memory—no one really bothers with numbers out here. Anyway, it’s the house next door to the old community centre.’

‘I’ll find it,’ Kellie said with a confident smile.

Matt opened the car door for Kellie once Ruth had driven off. ‘You may have had plenty of experience handling your brothers but I can assure you Julie’s boys are something else. They’ve been running wild for years. I’ve had each of them for patients with every injury imaginable. How one of them hasn’t been killed before now is little short of a miracle.’

Kellie waited until he was behind the wheel before asking, ‘How old are they?’

He frowned as if searching his memory. ‘Ty is fifteen, Rowan fourteen and Cade is twelve.’