‘You drove that thing through the bush?’ Tom gasped, and Luke’s smile became genuine. Luke would have run thinking the worst, Lily thought. He’d have known that if Tom had gone into cardiac arrest while he was gone there’d have been nothing she could do—not when taking her hands from the pressure point meant blood loss would resume.
But now …
Luke was inserting a catheter. He had IV fluids! Not blood product, she thought, that’d be too much to hope from most emergency kits, but he had saline, and any fluid was a lifesaver.
Could be a lifesaver.
Please.
The catheter was inserted in seconds. An IV line was set up.
‘There’s morphine going in, Tom,’ Luke said. ‘Any minute now you can stop gritting your teeth.’
‘I’m not gritting my teeth,’ Tom said, indignant. ‘Or not very much.’
Lily let out her breath, not knowing until then that she’d been holding it. There was a chance …
‘I’m releasing the tourniquet for a moment,’ Luke said. ‘I’m not saving you only to lose that leg. You might want to grit those teeth.’
‘Pansies grit teeth,’ Tom said, though the expression on his face said the pain was bad. ‘Me and Lily aren’t pansies.’
‘You and Lily can face the world with your heads held high,’ Luke said. ‘Pansies? I don’t think so. Heroes, both of you.’
‘It’s our Lily. I’m just lying here thinking of England.’
‘Well, think of England a while longer,’ Tom said. ‘I need to get the paddock cleared for the chopper. Harbour Hospital, here we come.’
‘Hey, we might even be in time for Teo’s party,’ Lily managed, desperately striving for lightness. ‘Tom, there’s a party on the beach tonight. You want to get stitched up and come?’ They all knew how impossible it was, but the thought was a good one.
Tom groaned. ‘Parties,’ he whispered, trying to sound withering. ‘Mind, if alcohol’s involved, I wouldn’t mind a wee drop.’
‘Neither would I,’ Lily said, with meaning. ‘And not so wee at that.’
The helicopter arrived soon after with a team of paramedics from the Harbour who knew Luke by name.
Jack Stephens, trauma specialist, was in charge. The team must have understood the call was deadly serious to have sent a physician of Jack’s standing. In her two nights in the Harbour Lily already knew this guy’s reputation and he was with a team who were just as awesome. They worked with competence and speed, and a light-hearted banter that made Tom relax as nothing else could.
‘For years we’ve been trying to wangle an invitation to see the place where Luke hides out,’ Jack told Tom as he replaced IV saline with blood product and set up another line in case of need, then checked Lily’s position and placed a hand on her shoulder—a silent message not to move. ‘Thanks for organising it. I guess you’re not quite up to guided tours.’
‘Maybe another time?’ Tom said weakly, and Luke gripped his hand and held.
‘Don’t agree to anything,’ he urged. ‘This guy’s a freeloader from way back. He’ll have conned you into bed and breakfast in no time.’
‘I’m guessing it’s you who needs the bed and breakfast,’ Jack told Tom. ‘Let’s get you back to the Harbour.’ He cast an uncertain look at Lily, looking closer at where her hand lay. ‘And I’m thinking we’re taking Lily as well. You’ve got a pulsing artery there, Tom. Lily has her hand on exactly the right spot and it’s hard to reach. If we try to clamp it here we risk more blood being spilled and you’ve made enough of a mess already. Lily, can you stay where you are while we work around you?’
Luke made an involuntary protest. To have Lily hold that position during transfer.
But it was the only way. Where she was now, not only was she holding the blood flow back but somehow she’d lucked onto a position where a tiny amount of blood was seeping through to Tom’s foot. To take Lily away, to slice down, to tie off the artery, keeping the blood supply to the foot uncompromised …
It had to be done in a well-equipped theatre to give Tom any chance of keeping his leg, as well as his life.
‘I’ve never ridden in a helicopter,’ Lily said. ‘Cool.’
She was amazing, he thought. She was as pale as a ghost, still shaken by gastro. Her jeans were blood-soaked and she was only wearing a bra on top. She wasn’t moving. She knew what needed to be done and she was doing it.
‘We can’t fit you in as well,’ Jack told him, and grinned at the look on Luke’s face. ‘This is cool indeed. Our team has the whole ride back to grill Lily and Tom about our Dr Williams’s secret love life and secret farm life. The hospital’s been bursting with questions since Wednesday. Now, you, Luke Williams, can butt out and calmly drive your poncy little car back to the Harbour while we do our interrogation as we ride in real transport. We’ll do our best to save your uncle’s leg while we’re at it. By the way, you might want to stop and collect pyjamas for your uncle on your way. That’ll give us more time to interrogate. Okay, guys, let’s move.’
The Aston Martin, loaded now with two subdued dogs, took a lot more time getting back to the road than it had taken getting to his uncle.
He’d hit a couple of small trees, bush-bashing in his desperation to get back to Tom and Lily. His front fender was bent. He stopped at Tom’s house and had to do a bit of rebending in order to protect the wheel. He didn’t want any hold-ups on the way back to hospital.
He was thumping the fender one last time when his neighbour Patty arrived, looking scared.
‘I saw the chopper,’ she said. ‘From the Harbour. What’s happened?’
He told her, and she offered to pack Tom’s bag while he got the car sorted.
‘I’ll take care of the dogs and the rest of the place as well,’ she said. ‘Tell him Bill and I will drop in and see him as soon as he’s well enough for visitors.’
‘He won’t want—’
‘He always says he doesn’t want,’ she said. ‘But what men say and what men mean are different things. Like telling me he doesn’t need me bringing him casseroles and pies. Like telling me he doesn’t want you living here. He’s a lying hound but he’s our lying hound so we’d be grateful to have him home safe and sound.’
He left her, but her words stayed with him.
What men say and what men mean are different things …
If he and Lily hadn’t been there today …
Tom couldn’t stay on the farm any more. Not alone. They’d have to find him a live-in housekeeper.
He’d hate it.
Could he finally decide to commute?
Tom would hate that, too. He’d put up with him as a kid, because he’d felt sorry for him. He tolerated Luke owning the place next door and he appreciated his help, but essentially he was a loner.
Tom didn’t want Luke close, like Luke didn’t want anyone close.
Anyone like Lily.
His thoughts should have only been on Tom. Instead they kept drifting to a shadowed girl with bloodstained clothing and a courage that defied belief.
Riding Glenfiddich yesterday.
Holding Tom today.
Facing down the gossip of the Harbour.
Coping with a mother who sounded like a nightmare.
Wasn’t