Read the book: «Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor's Redemption»

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

WHY DID ACCIDENTS seem to happen in slow motion?

There seemed all the time in the world to yell a warning, to run down the beach and haul the dog out of harm’s way, to get the fool driving the beach buggy to change direction, but in reality Zoe Payne had time for nothing.

She’d been sitting admiring the sunset at the spectacular surf beach five minutes’ drive from Gold Coast City Hospital. A tangerine hue tinged the white crests of the breaking waves, the warm sea air filled her senses and the scene was breathtakingly lovely.

She’d also been admiring a lone surfer, far out in the waves.

He was good. Very good. The surfable waves were few and far apart, but he had all the patience in the world. He waited for just the right wave, positioned himself before the rising swell with casual ease, then rode seamlessly in before the breaking line of white water.

The scene was poetry in motion, she’d decided, and the surfer wasn’t bad either. When the wave brought him close to the shore she saw him up close. He was tall, sun-bleached, ripped, and the way he surfed said he was almost a part of the sea.

But she’d also been watching a dog. The dog was lying partly concealed among the dunes, closer to the shore than the place she sat. She wouldn’t have known he was there, but every time the surfer neared the shore the big brown Labrador leaped from its hiding place and surged into the shallows. The surfer came in the extra distance to greet the dog, they exchanged exuberant man-dog hugs, and then the surfer returned to the sea and the dog to its hiding place.

She’d been thinking she’d kind of like to go and talk to the dog. This was her first week at Gold Coast City and she was feeling a bit homesick, but there was something about man and dog that said these two were a team that walked alone.

Only now they weren’t alone. Now a beach buggy was screaming down from the road above.

There was no way a beach buggy should be on this beach. There were signs everywhere—protected beach, no bikes, no horses, no cars.

And this wasn’t a local fisherman driving quietly down for an evening’s fishing. This was a hoon driver, gunning his hired beach buggy—she could see the rental signs—for all he was worth.

He hit the dunes and the buggy became almost airborne.

The dog…

She was on her feet, yelling, running, but her feet wouldn’t move fast enough, her voice wouldn’t yell loud enough.

Oh, dear God, no!

For the buggy had hit the dune in front of the dog and hurled right over. It crashed down, hit the next dune, was gunned to further power and roared off along the beach, leaving whatever had happened behind it.

One minute Sam Webster was paddling idly on his board, waiting for the next wave. He was about to call it a day. Surfing after dark was dumb. He knew the risks of night-feeding marine life, and risk-taking was for fools. Besides, the waves were growing fewer, and the current was taking him out. If he couldn’t catch a wave soon, he was faced with a ten-minute paddle to get back to shore.

It was time to head back to the beach, take Bonnie home and head for bed.

To sleep? Possibly not. Sam Webster didn’t do much sleeping any more, but hard surfing morning and night helped. His job at the hospital was high-powered and demanding. He crammed his days to the point of exhaustion, but still sleep was elusive. Nights weren’t his friend.

But Bonnie needed to be home. Where was a wave when you wanted one?

And then…

He heard the beach buggy before he saw it, roaring along the beach road, and then, unbelievably, veering hard across the dunes onto the beach.

The dunes…

‘Bonnie!’

He was yelling now, paddling and yelling at the same time, but the tide was turning and he wasn’t making headway.

Where was a wave? Where was a wave?

The buggy was freewheeling along the beach.

Bonnie!

And then the buggy hit the dune where Bonnie lay.

His eyes were locked on the hollow where Bonnie had dug herself a cool spot to lie. He was willing her to emerge. Willing her to show herself.

Nothing.

A figure was running from the grassy verge above the beach. A woman. He wasn’t interested. All he was interested in was Bonnie.

Where was a wave?

For one appalling moment she thought it was dead. The great, chocolate-brown Labrador was lying sprawled on the sand, a pool of blood spreading ominously fast.

She was down on her knees.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Hey.’ She spoke softly. The last thing she wanted was to terrify the dog even more. The eyes that looked up at her were great pools of fear, shock and pain.

But not aggression. Fear, shock and pain sometimes made even the most placid animals vicious, but Zoe knew instinctively that this dog wouldn’t snap.

She was beyond it?

Maybe.

The buggy looked as if it had landed on her hind quarters. Her head, chest and front legs looked relatively unscathed, but her left hind leg…Not unscathed.

There was a gash running almost its length.

So much blood…

She hauled off her shirt, ripping it, bundling part of it into a pad and using the rest to tie the pad so she got maximum pressure, talking to the dog as she did.

‘Sorry, girl, I don’t want to hurt you, but I need to stop the bleeding.’

Even if she stopped it…The blood on the sand…

She had to get this dog to help. She’d seen patients go into cardiac arrest through blood loss, and this dog was losing so much…

She glanced out to sea. The surfer was frantically paddling, but he was far out and there were no waves behind him.

It’d take him maybe five minutes to reach the beach—and this dog didn’t have five minutes.

She’d slowed the blood flow. She hadn’t stopped it.

There was a vet’s surgery near the hospital. She’d seen it the day she’d arrived, when she’d been making her first exploratory forays, searching for a supermarket. It had a sign on it, ‘All Hours, Emergency’.

That’s what this was, she thought as she ripped and tied her shirt. Total emergency.

Her car was right by the beach. Could she lift the dog?

She glanced again out at the surfer. He was surely the dog’s owner. She should wait.

And give him a dead dog?

There was no choice. She scrawled one word in the sand. She lifted the big dog into her arms, staggering with the weight, and then, despite its weight, she found the strength to run.

It was the longest paddle of Sam’s life.

The long, low waves that had been giving him such pleasure all evening had disappeared. The sea looked millpond-smooth but the tide was surging and the current was almost stronger than he could paddle against.

In a normal situation he’d let the current take him along the beach, travelling sideways to the tidal tug and gradually reaching the beach without this fight. But this wasn’t a normal situation.

Bonnie.

Emily’s dog.

He remembered the day Emily had brought her home. ‘Look, Sammy, isn’t she adorable? She was in the pet-shop window and I couldn’t go past her.’

They had been medical students and dirt poor, living in a one-room university apartment. Having a dog had meant moving house, taking on more rent than they could afford and juggling impossible study hours into caring for an active dog, but Em hadn’t thought of that.

She’d seen a puppy and she’d bought it. She hadn’t thought of consequences.

Which was why Emily was dead, and all he had left of her was her dog, his dog, and his dog had disappeared, carried by a stranger up over the sand dunes to the road beyond and he couldn’t see her any more and he was going out of his mind.

And finally, when he reached the beach, things weren’t any better.

He dumped his board and ran, but what he found made him feel cold and sick. The hollow where Bonnie had lain was almost awash with blood.

So much blood…How could she survive blood loss like this?

Where was she?

He turned and saw three letters scrawled in the sand, rough, as if done with a foot.

‘VET.’

Sensible. Dear God, sensible. But where? Where was the closest vet?

Staring at Bonnie’s blood…It was so hard to think.

Think.

There was a vet’s surgery near the hospital, the one he normally took Bonnie to. It was the closest. Surely whoever it was knew that.

He was heading up the beach, ripping his wetsuit off as he ran.

So much blood…It was impossible that she would survive.

She had to survive. Without Bonnie he had nothing left.

The veterinary hospital was open and amazingly, wonderfully, a vet came out to meet her. Maybe it was the way she’d spun into the entrance, burning rubber. Medics were clued in to hints like that, she decided, because by the time she was out of her car, a middle-aged guy wearing a clinical coat was there to help her.

‘Road trauma,’ she said, wasting no words, somehow shifting into medical mode. What she must look like…She’d ripped off her shirt to stop the blood flow. She was wearing a lacy bra and jeans and sandals and she was smeared with blood from the neck down—or even higher, but she wasn’t looking. But the vet was looking. He took her arm and hauled her round so he could see her face on, before he even looked at the dog.

‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded, and she caught herself, realising he needed reassurance. Triage dictated humans before animals, even for a vet, so she needed to waste a few words.

‘A buggy hit her on the beach,’ she said. ‘I saw it happen but, no, I’m not hurt. This is all her blood. She’s not my dog—her owner’s out surfing but I didn’t have time to wait for him to get back in. She’s bleeding out from the back leg.’

‘Not now she’s not,’ the vet said, and he was already leaning into the car. He could see the tourniquet she’d fashioned with her shirt and he cast her a glance of approval. ‘She’s Bonnie,’ he said, flipping the name tag on her collar. ‘I know her—she’s one of the local docs’ dogs. Sam Webster. You’re not medical yourself, are you?’

‘I’m a nurse.’

‘Great. I’m the only one here and I’ll need help. You up for it?’

‘Of course,’ she said, but he hadn’t waited for a response. He was already carrying the dog through the entrance to his surgery beyond.

CHAPTER TWO

HE’D COME TO the right place. As soon as he pulled into the entrance to the veterinary surgery he could guess Bonnie had been brought here.

An ancient car was parked across the emergency entrance. It looked battered and rusty, it had obviously seen far better days, and right now the back door was swinging wide and all he could see on the back seat was blood.

There were spatters of blood on the ramp. There were spatters of blood leading to the entrance.

He felt sick.

He’d got rid of his wetsuit. He was wearing board shorts and nothing else, his feet were bare and so was his chest. He felt exposed, but the feeling was nothing to do with his lack of clothes.

Get a grip. You’re a doctor, he told himself harshly. Let’s treat this as a medical emergency.

At this time of night the vet surgery was deserted, apart from a cleaner attacking the floor with a look of disgust. He looked at Sam with even more disgust.

‘Sand as well as blood. I’ve just cleaned this.’

‘Where’s my dog?’

‘If you mean the half-dead Labrador the girl brought in, Doc’s got her in Theatre.’ He motioned to the swing doors at the end of Reception. ‘Girl went in, too. You want to sit down and wait? Hey, you can’t go in there. Wait…’

But Sam was gone, striding across the shiny wet floor, through the green baize doors and to what lay beyond.

He stopped as soon as the doors swung wide.

He might be an emotionally-distraught owner, he might be going out of his mind with worry, but Sam Webster was still a doctor. He was a cardiac surgeon, with additional training in paediatric cardiology. The theatres where he operated were so sterile that no bacteria would dare come within fifty feet, and he was trained enough So that barging into an operating theatre and heading straight for the dog on the table wasn’t going to happen. So he stood at the door and took in the scene before him.

Bonnie was stretched out on the operating bench. There was already a drip set up in her front leg and a bag of saline hung above. The vet, Doug—he knew this guy, he was the vet who gave Bonnie his yearly shots—was filling a syringe.

There were paddles lying on the floor as if tossed aside.

Paddles.

He had it in one. Catastrophic blood loss. Heart failure.

But the vet was inserting the syringe, the girl at the head of the table was holding Bonnie’s head and whispering to her and they wouldn’t do that to a dead dog.

Doug glanced up and saw him. ‘That’d be right,’ he growled. ‘Doctor arriving after the hard work’s done. Isn’t that right, Nurse?’ He heard the tension in Doug’s voice and he knew Bonnie wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he also knew that this girl had got his dog here in time—or maybe not in time, but at least she stood a chance.

If she’d gone into cardiac arrest on the beach…

‘How are you at anaesthetics?’ Doug snapped, and he forced himself to focus on the question. Medical emergency. How many times had he had the rules drilled into him during training? Take the personal distress out of it until the crisis is over.

‘I’m rusty but grounded,’ he managed.

‘Rusty but grounded is better than nothing. Humans, dogs, what’s the difference? I’ll give you the doses. I want her under and intubated and Zoe here doesn’t have the skills. I’ve called for back-up but I can’t get hold of my partner in time. You want to make yourself useful, scrub and help.’

‘What’s…what’s the situation?’ He was watching Bonnie, but he was also watching the girl—Zoe?—holding Bonnie still. They wouldn’t have had time to knock her out yet, he thought. They’d have been too busy saving her life.

The girl looked…stunning. She was smeared in blood, her chestnut-brown curls were plastered across her face, she was wearing a lace bra and jeans and not much else.

She still looked stunning.

‘Don’t talk,’ she said urgently. ‘Not until you’re scrubbed and can stay with her. She heard you then and she wants to get up.’

That hauled him back into medical mode. He nodded and moved to the sink, fast. He knew the last thing they needed was for Bonnie to struggle, even so much as raise her head.

‘It’s okay, girl, it’s okay.’ In the quiet he heard Zoe’s whisper. She wasn’t so much holding Bonnie down as caressing her down, her face inches from Bonnie’s, her hands folding the great, silky ears.

He had no doubt that this was the woman who’d saved his dog’s life. He’d seen her in the distance, picking Bonnie up and carrying her up the beach. From far out in the surf he hadn’t realised how slight she was. And the blood…If she’d walked into Gold Coast Central’s Emergency Department looking like that she’d have the whole department pushing Code Blue.

He glanced at the floor and saw the remains of her shirt, ripped and twisted into a pad and ties. That explained why she was only wearing a bra.

She’d done this for his dog?

Was she a vet nurse? If so, how lucky was he that she’d been on the beach?

Luck? He glanced again at Bonnie and thought he needed more.

Doug was injecting the anaesthetic. Sam dried, gloved, and took over the intubation. Zoe stood aside to give him room then moved seamlessly into assistance mode.

She was obviously a vet nurse, and a good one. She was watching Doug, anticipating his needs, often pre-empting his curt orders. Swift, sure and competent.

Doug was good, too. He’d met this guy before and thought he was a competent vet in a family vet practice. His work now said that he was more than competent to do whatever was needed.

They worked solidly. With fluid balance restored, Bonnie’s vital signs settled. Doug had all the equipment needed to do a thorough assessment and a full set of X-rays revealed more luck.

Her left hind leg was badly broken and so were a couple of ribs, but apart from the mass of lacerations that seemed the extent of the major damage.

Her blood pressure was steadying, which meant major internal bleeding was unlikely. Amazingly, there seemed little more damage.

‘I can plate that leg,’ Doug said curtly. ‘It’s easier than trying to keep her off it for weeks. If you’ll assist…’

Of course he’d assist. Sam was almost starting to hope.

He thought of the buggy crashing down on Bonnie, and he thought this outcome was either luck or a miracle. Either way he was very thankful.

And that this girl had been there as well…

She hardly spoke. She looked white-faced and shocked but her competence was never in question. Doug was a man of few words. He worked and Sam worked with him, and the white-faced girl worked as well.

They needed the full team of three. With Bonnie anaesthetised and seemingly stable, Doug decided to work on to do whatever was necessary.

‘Otherwise I’ll be hauling a team in to do this tomorrow,’ Doug said. ‘That’s two doses of anaesthetic and with both of you here I don’t see why I need to do that.’

Zoe wasn’t asking questions. She must be desperate for a bath and a strong cup of tea with loads of sugar—or something stronger, he thought—but she didn’t falter. Sam hadn’t seen her before, but he had only been at the Gold Coast for a year. He’d brought Bonnie to the vet twice in that time, for routine things. Two visits were hardly enough to know the staff.

He’d like to be able to tell her to go and have a wash, he thought, but she was needed. She’d scrubbed and gloved and was ignoring the fact that she was only in bra and jeans. She looked shocked and sick, but she was professional and capable.

And she still looked…stunning. It was the only word he could think of to describe her. A bit too thin. Huge eyes. A bit…frail?

Gorgeous.

What would she look like without the gore?

But he only had fragments of time to think about the woman beside him. Most of the time he forgot, too, that he was in board shorts and nothing else.

There was only Bonnie.

This was no simple break. Bonnie’s leg would be plated for life.

Sam was no orthopaedic surgeon but he knew enough to be seriously impressed by Doug’s skill. The fractured tibia was exposed and Doug took all the time he needed to remove free-floating fragments. He was encircling the remaining fragments with stainless steel, bending the plate to conform to the surface of the bone then drilling to fix bone screws. He checked and checked again, working towards maximum stability, examining placement of every bone fragment to ensure as much natural healing—bone melding to bone—as he could. Finally he started the long process of suturing the leg closed.

Which was just as well, Sam thought. Zoe looked close to the edge.

Bu they still needed her. She was doing the job of two nurses, assisting, preparing equipment, anticipating every need.

Bonnie was so lucky with her rescue team. The big dog lay under their hands and he thought he couldn’t have asked for a more highly-skilled partnership.

He owed this girl so much. If there was back-up he’d stand her down now, but there was no one. She’d already done more than he could ever expect—and he was asking more.

But finally they were done. Doug stepped back from the table and wiped a sleeve over his forehead.

‘I reckon she’ll make it,’ he said softly, and as he said it Sam saw Zoe’s eyes close.

She was indeed done. She swayed and he moved instinctively to grab her—this wouldn’t be the first time a nurse or doctor passed out after coping with a tense and bloody procedure. But then she had control of herself again, and was shaking him off and moving aside so Doug could remove the breathing tube.

‘I…That’s great,’ she whispered. ‘If it’s okay with you, I might leave you to it.’

‘Yeah, you look like a bomb site,’ Doug said bluntly. ‘Take her home, Sam, and then come back. Bonnie’ll take a while to wake. I won’t leave her and you can be back before she needs reassuring.’

‘I have my car…’ Zoe said.

‘I’ve seen your car and I’m looking at you,’ Doug said drily. ‘You drive through town looking like that you’ll have the entire Gold Coast police force thinking there’s been an axe murder. Leave the keys here. I’ll park it round the back and you can fetch it tomorrow. Where do you live?’

‘The hospital apartments,’ she said. ‘They’re only two blocks away. I can drive.’

‘You tell me those legs aren’t shaking,’ Doug retorted. ‘You’ve done a magnificent job, lass, but now you need help yourself. You have some great staff, Sam. You were damned lucky to have your colleague on the beach.’

‘My colleague…?’

‘You realise Bonnie arrested?’ Doug went on. ‘Heart stopped twice. With blood loss like that it’s a wonder she made it. A miracle more like. If Zoe hadn’t got her here…Well, if she cops a speeding fine for her trip here, I’m thinking you ought to pay it.’

‘I’d pay for more,’ Sam said, stunned—and confused. ‘You’re not a vet nurse?’

‘I’m a nurse at Gold Coast City,’ she managed. ‘I’d rather go home by myself.’

A nurse. A human nurse. One of his colleagues?

‘Take her home, Sam,’ Doug told him. ‘Now. Take a gown from the back room, Zoe, so you look less like a bomb victim, but go home now. You deserve a medal and if Sam doesn’t give you one I’ll give you one myself. Go.’

‘I’ll be giving her a medal,’ Sam growled. ‘I’ll give her a truckload if she’ll take it. What you’ve done…’

‘It’s okay,’ Zoe managed. ‘Enough with the medals. Doug’s right, I just need to go home.’

She wanted to go home but she didn’t want this man to take her.

She wanted, more than anything, to slide behind the wheel of her car, drive back to Gold Coast Central, sneak in the back way and find a bath and bed.

But there was no ‘back way’, no way to get back into the hospital without attracting attention, and Doug was right, she and her car were a mess.

Sam was taking her home?

He ushered her outside where his Jeep was parked next to her car and she thought…she thought…

This guy was a doctor? A colleague?

He was still only wearing board shorts. Unlike her, though, he didn’t look gruesome. He looked like something from the cover of one of the myriad surfing magazines in the local shops.

The Gold Coast was surfing territory, and many surfers here lived for the waves. That’s what this guy looked like. He was bronzed, lean, ripped, his brown hair bleached blond by sun and sea, his green eyes crinkled and creased from years of waiting for the perfect wave.

He was a doctor and a surfer.

Where did dog owner come into that?

He grabbed a T-shirt from the back seat of his Jeep and hauled it on. He looked almost normal, she thought, even after what had happened. His dog was fixed and he was ready to move on.

She glanced down at her oversized theatre gown and the bloodied jeans beneath them and something just…cracked.

For hours now she’d been clenching her emotions down while she’d got the job done. She looked at the mess that was her car, her independence, her freedom, she looked down at her disgusting jeans—and control finally broke.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, but she shook her head.

‘What were you thinking?’ she managed, trying hard to keep her voice low, calm, incisive, clear. ‘Leaving her waiting on the beach? Leaving her alone? To be so far out and leave her there…If I hadn’t been there she’d be dead. You have a dog like Bonnie and you just desert her. Of all the stupid, crass, negligent, cruel…

‘Do You know how lucky you are to have a dog? Of course you don’t. You’re a doctor, you’re a healthy, fit, surfer boy. You can buy any dog you want, so you just buy her and then you don’t care that she loves you, so she lies there and waits and waits. I was watching her—and she adores you, and you abandoned her and it nearly killed her. If I hadn’t been there it would have! She nearly died because you didn’t care!’

So much for calm, incisive and clear. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, and he was standing there watching, just watching, and she wanted to hit him and she thought for one crazy moment that it’d be justifiable homicide and she could hear the judge say, ‘He deserved everything that was coming to him.’

Only, of course, she couldn’t hit him. Somehow she had to get herself under control. She hiccuped on a sob and that made her angrier still because she didn’t cry, she never cried, and she knew she was being irrational, it was just…it was just…

The last few days had been crazy. She’d spent her whole life in one small community, closeted, cared for. The move here from Adelaide might seem small to some, but for Zoe it was the breaking of chains that had been with her since childhood.

It was the right thing to do, to move on, but, still, the new job, the new workplace, the constant calls from her parents—and from Dean, who still couldn’t understand why she’d left—were undermining her determination and making her feel bleak with homesickness.

But she would not give in to Dean. ‘You’ll come to your senses, Zoe, I know you will. Have your fling but come home soon. All we want to do is look after you.’

Aaagh!

She did not want to go home. She did not want to be looked after.

But neither did she want to yell at this stranger or stand in a theatre gown covering a bra and jeans, looking disgusting and feeling tears well in her eyes and rage overwhelm her, and know that somehow she had to get back into the hospital apartments, past strangers. Plus she’d intended to buy milk on the way home and…and…

And she would do this.

She fumbled under her gown to fetch her car keys. She had to lift the thing but what the heck, this guy had seen her at her worst anyway. She grabbed her car keys from her jeans pocket but Sam lifted them from her hand before she could take a step towards the car.