‘So where is she now?’ Ryan asked in a voice of foreboding. He put his hand up to run long surgeon’s fingers through his thick brown hair. He was tired to the point of exhaustion. He had to fix Abbey’s leg. And he still had to face his father.
‘Rod-the head of the lifesavers-is driving her in, but she wanted to make a house call first.’
‘To Mrs Miller, I’ll bet!’ Ryan exploded. He crashed one hand against the door of the nurses’ station, making Eileen jump. ‘For Pete’s sake-the woman’s got a dislocated knee, if not a broken leg. She’s had a thump on the head that’ll give her a headache for a week, if not longer, and she’s haring round the country like there’s nothing wrong.’
‘She’s tough, our Abbey,’ Eileen said quietly, and then cast Ryan a doubtful glance. ‘She’s had to be.’
Ryan didn’t take it up. He didn’t care how tough Abbey was. Twenty-six hours in the air-a car accident-a neardeath-and now…
‘She realises I’m waiting to set her leg,’ Ryan said darkly.
‘I don’t think she realises anything of the kind.’ Eileen looked at him doubtfully. Eileen was the same age as Ryan and she remembered him from childhood, but she’d always been a bit in awe of Ryan Henry, even when he’d been fifteen.
Tall and dark, clever and aloof-that was how Eileen remembered him. His strong bone structure, dark skin and good looks, combined with the almost astounding intelligence and sportsmanship he’d displayed at school, had made him stand apart It had only been Abbey who’d refused to be intimidated by his solitary air.
Ryan Henry…
Fancy him coming back. Eileen chewed her bottom lip, trying to think how Ryan’s presence could help Abbey. Eileen and Abbey ran this hospital as a tight-knit team, and maybe only Eileen knew just how hard-pressed Abbey really was.
But local gossip had it that Ryan was here on his honeymoon. That figured. The wonder of it was that Ryan hadn’t married years ago. Ryan Henry was tall, dark and rangy. Despite his lean frame, he was strongly muscled and obviously used to the outdoors. His brown eyes crinkled in warm understanding.
His twinkling eyes had even made the boy’s unfortunate parents smile a while back, and Eileen had been astounded. Ryan’s deep brown hair ran backwards in waves that almost made you want to put your hand up to touch it…
Good grief! Eileen pulled herself up with a start. She was a married lady. What on earth was she thinking of?
‘Who does Abbey expect will set her leg, then?’ Ryan was saying savagely, and Eileen hauled her thoughts back to Abbey with a visible effort.
‘Oh…’ Eileen sighed. ‘I expect we’ll do it together.’
‘We?’
‘She and me. Or is that-I and her?’ Eileen frowned. ‘You tell me, Ryan Henry. You were always better at English than me. Than I.’
Eileen tossed him her cheeky grin again, and Ryan stared. A nurse who threw back schoolday memories wasn’t something he was used to. He expected deference in the hospital where he worked-and he got it.
But Eileen was smiling and he couldn’t take offence. Anyway, he had to concentrate. What Eileen was saying didn’t make sense.
‘Abbey said she stitched her arm herself,’ he said blankly, thinking it through.
‘She did,’ Eileen said. ‘Even I was a bit shocked at that one. There was a car smash. Abbey went with the ambulance to the scene and helped get them out. She cut herself badly but didn’t let on. There was so much blood no one noticed some of it was hers. She just wrapped it up, didn’t say a word and kept on working.
‘Afterwards, when we were all exhausted-there were two deaths, you know, and they were locals-Abbey just quietly went away and stitched herself up. It was her right arm, too, and she’s right-handed. She didn’t do too bad a job either, though it has scarred.’
‘Eileen… Sister Roderick.’
‘Eileen.’ Eileen smiled. ‘Heck, Ryan, we go back too far to be formal.’
‘Yeah. Eileen.’ What was it about calling a nurse by her first name that made him so uncomfortable? ‘Eileen, are you saying you approve of Abbey setting her own leg?’
‘Well, no. But there’s no alternative.’
‘She could go to Cairns.’
‘An hour and a half’s drive?’ Eileen shook her head. ‘No way. It’s crazy if, as you say, the knee is just dislocated. Between us we’ll get it back in. What happens here if there’s an emergency while she’s away? Abbey will refuse point blank to go. Bluntly, Ryan, Abbey hasn’t time to waste on herself. She has a baby, there’s cows to milk, her mother-in-law needs her-’
‘Stop!’ Ryan put up a hand, as though fending off something he couldn’t cope with. ‘You’re saying Abbey’s responsible for all those things?’
‘That’s right.’ Eileen paused and the hospital matron let her smile slip as a thought struck home.
Abbey shrugged her responsibilities off lightly but there was no reason Eileen should do the same for her.
‘It’s not easy for Abbey, though,’ she admitted, looking hopefully up at Ryan. Hey, Ryan was a doctor, after all, and he was planning on being in town for a while. Eileen thought some more, came to sudden urgent conclusions and then she made her voice deliberately doleful. ‘And if her leg’s as bad as you say it is I have a feeling it’ll be impossible.’
‘So what will you do while she’s laid up?’
‘Find her a darned good set of crutches, I guess.’ Eileen put her hands on her hips and fixed Ryan Henry with a look. ‘Ryan, this place runs because of Abbey Wittner. I don’t know if you remember the medical facilities here when you were a kid…’
‘I don’t remember there being anything here at all,’ Ryan confessed, remembering a dreadful car ride to Cairns late at night when his appendix had burst.
‘There wasn’t anything,’ Eileen said bluntly. ‘Since Abbey got her medical degree she’s organised everything. Galvanised the locals into building this hospital. Restructured the home-nursing service. The medical services in this town are wonderful now-but without Abbey they’ll fall apart.’
‘But, whether you need her or not, she’s just dislocated her knee,’ Ryan said faintly. ‘Even when we get it back in place she’ll have to spend the next week with it up. It’ll be so bruised and swollen she won’t be able to use it. She’ll have to take some time off.’
‘She never has before,’ Eileen said darkly. ‘Not when she had her baby. Not when… Well, not ever. I don’t see why she should now. As long as the leg’s not broken then I’ll help her get it back into place, we’ll shove on a Robert Jones bandage to protect it and we’ll go on from there.’
‘Well, I knocked her off her damned bicycle,’ Ryan growled. ‘I’ll at least have to fix the leg.’ Then he met Eileen’s suddenly hopeful look and he could read her thoughts as clear as day. ‘I am an orthopaedic surgeon, after all,’ he said bluntly, ‘but that’s all I’m doing.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Eileen said meekly, but she gave him a very long look before she headed back to her work.
An orthopaedic surgeon. Well, well…
Abbey arrived at the hospital half an hour later to find Ryan, pacing. When Rod finally drove Ryan’s hire car into the casualty entrance, Ryan grabbed a trolley and almost flung it at the back seat.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
There was a note of raw anxiety in his voice but Abbey didn’t hear it. All she heard was anger.
‘Busy,’ she said crisply, hiding the pain in her own voice. She wasn’t letting this man know she’d been silly. She’d thought she could do the house call. But the morphine had worn off and in the end it had been all she could do not to pass out from the pain. ‘How’s the boy? Eileen says you have him stabilised and the antivenom’s working.’
‘Yes. Abbey, did you do that damned house call? Are you crazy?’ Rod, the head of the lifesavers, had climbed out of the driver’s seat and was watching Ryan and Abbey with interest, but Ryan only had eyes for Abbey.