Greek name, Greek company…
Not that Neena hadn’t expected it. Theo’s complaints about his stifling family, while probably exaggerated, had suggested nothing less, and she’d doubted Theo’s mother wouldn’t do something to follow up the outrageous offers she’d made!
First there’d been an offer of financial help, followed closely by the suggestion that Neena move to the city so she could have the best medical attention. Then a letter just to let Neena know ‘the family’ had accommodation she could have rent-free in Brisbane so she wouldn’t have to work.
And all so ‘the family’ could get their hands on Neena’s child! The same ‘family’ that had produced Theo—charming, intelligent, handsome and smart, and so cosseted and spoiled, so used to getting his own way, he’d taken Neena’s panicky, and admittedly last-minute no as a tease and had forced her.
The squelchy feeling in her stomach wasn’t as bad as it used to be, but she still couldn’t think of that night without feeling a slight nausea. She breathed deeply, in and out, and concentrated on the road ahead.
They’d left the silent, deserted town well behind them and she pushed the memories equally far away.
The road was dead straight, a single-lane strip of bitumen that in daylight stretched to the horizon. Now, at night, a cluster of lights marked the site of the geothermal experimental station.
‘Is there an airstrip at the site?’ Mak asked. ‘Can the flying doctors land there?’
Neena shook her head.
‘At first it was just a couple of exploratory crews out here, drilling down to work out how far they needed to go to get to the hot rocks. When they found them closer to the surface than they’d expected…’
She stopped and turned briefly towards him.
‘I suppose you know the rocks can be anything from two to ten kilometres beneath the surface of the earth and apparently when you’re drilling and pumping water and steam every metre makes a difference?’
‘I know a bit about the process—I’m interested in all alternate power sources and geo-thermal in Australia makes a lot of sense. But you’re saying that for exploratory purposes there was no need for an airstrip? Because the crews moved around?’
She nodded and Mak saw the frown he’d glimpsed earlier pucker her brow.
‘And now?’
Glancing his way again, she shrugged.
‘I think they should have a strip. The land’s as flat as a table top so it wouldn’t cost much to ‘doze one, and although I wouldn’t for the world wish accidents on any of the workers, they do happen and in cases like this we could airlift the injured men straight out rather than having to bring them into town and then airlift them. Every time they’re moved, we put them more at risk of infection.’
‘Well, now the company is bringing in more men to build their experimental power plant, maybe they will put in a strip.’
The lights were getting closer—and brighter—glowing in the blackness of the night.
‘If it’s not already planned, you could put it in your suggestions,’ Neena told him, concentrating on how useful this stranger could be rather than the weird sensations he was causing in her intestines.
Or wondering whether the real reason he was here was to take her baby from her—to absorb her child—into the conglomerate that was ‘the family’.
Theo’s family.
‘Suggestions?’ he said, sounding so vague, anger surged inside her.
‘Isn’t that the job you were sent for?’
The words grated from her throat as she pulled up outside the camp office, noticing in her rear-vision mirror the flashing lights of the ambulance approaching in the distance. Slipping out of the vehicle, she grabbed her bag from the back seat and hurried into the well-lit but warm cabin.
‘We covered them with clean sheets like you said, turned off the air-con and gave them a small dose of morphine,’ an anxious-looking man told them as they walked in. He was hovering between two desks on which the injured men had been laid. ‘We’ve a stretcher in the medical room but the light’s better in here.’
Neena had set her bag down on the floor and opened it. Mak knelt beside her, silently congratulating her forethought. Burns victims lost heat rapidly, and with shock a likely side-effect of the trauma, they needed to be kept warm.
‘One each?’ he suggested as she handed him a suction device and an endotracheal tube.
‘Suction, intubate then fluid.’ She was muttering more to herself than to Mak.
‘Large-bore catheters in both arms,’ he said.
Although her confirming nod and quiet ‘We need to allow good fluid access’ told him she was thinking along the same lines as he was.
The ambulance attendants arrived as they worked, took in the situation at a glance and opened up the big bag they were carrying.
‘We’ve a burns kit with treated gauze. Want us to cover the wounds?’
To cover or not to cover? It was a question that had tormented Neena in the burns cases she’d handled previously. She turned to Mak, knowing he’d have more experience.
‘You’re flying them out to a specialist unit,’ he said, ‘but you’ve two transfers before they leave here and another when they get to the city—opportunities each time for contamination. Let’s cover.’ He was competently siting a large-bore catheter in his patient’s arm as he spoke. ‘You’ve Ringer’s in your bag?’
Neena nodded, concentrating on getting the catheter sited in her own patient’s arm.
‘That’s the plane,’ one of the ambos said, as a roaring overhead shook the shed that served as an office at the work site. ‘They said they’d buzz us as they came in.’
‘Okay, let’s move them,’ Neena suggested, as she attached tubing and a bag of fluid to the second catheter on her patient, adjusted the flow, then grabbed a transfer form to complete before the injured men left the site, noting down exactly what treatment they’d been given. ‘You guys take them straight to the airfield. Dr Stavrou and I will see the other injured men.’
‘Dr Stavrou?’ one of the ambos queried, as the other helped Mak lift his patient onto a stretcher.
‘Mak Stavrou, meet Pete and Paul, two of our crew of four local ambos,’ Neena said, then she stood aside as Pete and Paul lifted her patient.
‘He your replacement while you take maternity leave?’ Paul asked, wheeling the patient towards the door.
Neena shook her head.
‘I’ll explain some other time, but for now, would you leave your burns kit here? I’ll bring it back to town.’
Time enough for the townsfolk to learn why Mak Stavrou was here. And for him to learn the town’s reaction! Not everyone was happy with the exploration crews, or the experimental power plant, but he’d find that out soon enough.
And no one in the town would be happy if they knew the suspicions she had about his visit! This was a town that protected its own, and Neena was definitely its own.
She hid a sigh bred from the frustration she often felt over this protective attitude, but they meant well, her town’s people…
‘Let’s go see the others who were hurt,’ she said to Mak, who was talking to the foreman.
‘They’re in the mess cabin, I’ll take you over,’ the foreman said, as Mak lifted the burns bag from her grasp, his fingers brushing hers in the exchange. ‘They’re not badly hurt,’ the man continued, while Neena trailed behind the two