Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor? (13 page)

Harry came towards them and Bonnie said quietly, ‘Her waters broke. She’s going to have the baby now and she doesn’t want to get back in the ambulance. She wants to have it under the stars. Is that okay with you, Harry?’

Harry sighed, hugely, and she watched his tight shoulders finally drop with the breath. He lifted his head. ‘It’s all coming true, isn’t it? The more I try to stop things happening, the more they seem to go against me. You were right. We would have been safer at the centre.’ He smiled without humour.

He glanced ruefully up at the heavens. ‘But it’s not about me. It’s about Tameeka. As long as we have emergency light when we need it, let’s make it as good as we can for her. We’ll get some blankets in case she needs to be lifted into the back in an emergency. There’s four of us, we can lift her with the blanket.’ They’d still needed contingency plans.

Then he smiled at her and Bonnie felt the tension slip from her shoulders like a huge sack of potatoes as Harry stopped fighting against her. She hadn’t realised how much stress she’d been carrying around.

Thank goodness, Harry. Excellent man. About time.

They set up a little bed on the ground, and dimmed the back lights but left the front cabin light on.

Harry unobtrusively rubbed his forehead with two fingers and finally allowed the moment to soak in. He glanced across to where Auntie Dell sat cross-legged on the ground with Bernie hunched a handswidth away as Tameeka breathed quietly now in the still evening air.

The stars flickered and shone above like a carpet of guardian angels and somehow, with each of Tameeka’s breaths, he could feel the pinpricks of pain that had burred into his skin for so long flicker and then fade away. Even more slowly he allowed Bonnie’s words of earlier that day to sink in.

Tameeka was healthy, her baby had grown normally,
and nothing had indicated there would be a problem. But he’d been determined to imagine every scenario that could go wrong.

He’d forced them onto the road and increased the risk when it would have been far safer to at least have facilities around them. He hadn’t been smart, and his fear wasn’t helpful to him, to the midwife and especially to the mother.

How far he’d come from the man who’d helped out at the birth centre in Ubud. How far from the joy and wonder he’d savoured with uncomplicated births just a few years ago.

Bonnie had tried to tell him that and he’d refused to listen. But still she sat with her hands clasped loosely in front of her. A towel lay across her lap, waiting to dry the baby.

She looked so calm, yet instantly attuned to every nuance of Tameeka’s needs, and he envied her the faith he should have had, hoped he’d have again, thanks to nights like this and to Bonnie.

He’d had that faith once and after tonight he was determined to find it again. He’d lost the passion for well women doing what nature intended somewhere in his worry for himself.

Bonnie had sent him on the quest, and while it wasn’t comfortable it had finally begun to feel right. This woman he’d been fated to meet, and who’d startled him out of his destructive stupor, shining brightly on the edge of his vision, then slowly lighting up his sky until she’d gradually warmed him from within.

She’d banished the darkness that even the brightness of Bali hadn’t been able to penetrate.

Fifteen minutes later, with the night still warm and bright, with little breeze and just as Tameeka’s baby’s head crowned, a brilliant shooting star shot across the horizon like a smiling angel. Harry felt the magic as he glanced across at Bonnie and counted himself doubly fortunate to be there.

Harry leant across and rested his hand on the small of Bonnie’s back as she lifted the mewling infant to her mother’s breast.

‘Now, that’s what I call birthin’,’ Auntie Dell said.

O
F COURSE
mother and baby were well and they called off the Alice Springs ambulance. Harry drove back to Uluru. A beaming Bernie sat in the back with his family.

Tameeka slept with her baby stretched across her chest like a kitten and her baby’s father keeping watch over them both.

When Harry broke the silence, it wasn’t awkward—nothing could be while they all floated in post-birth euphoria—but the events of the day lay between them, waiting for the time he had to speak. ‘I’ve been hard work, Bonnie.’

‘This sounds familiar.’ He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Like another birth.’

‘Good grief.’ Harry looked across at her and he could feel his mouth tilt. ‘I think we’re actually forming a bit of history.’

She widened her eyes theatrically. ‘Not the
H
word, Harry? Oh, my goodness.’

It was okay. She understood. He had the impression she would always understand. ‘You were right. Tameeka’s birth was amazing. She was incredible.’

‘Yes, she was. I think I mentioned she’s designed to do it.’

‘Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you may have. But let’s keep the births for the centre in Alice next time.’

‘Yes, Doctor.’ Demurely. He’d like to kiss that respectability away but he’d have to wait. But he could plan.

That was when it hit him. Splat, like the yellow smear on the windshield in front of him, drawn to the light, followed by a short, sharp blow as life as he knew it was wiped out. He loved her.

He’d fallen in love. He’d said he couldn’t do it again and she’d made him. He’d lost his heart when he’d vowed he’d never risk that again.

He’d thought he’d been attracted, get back on the bike kind of attracted, which had drawn him here from Bali and suggested he needed to practise reconnecting with women without the drama of falling in love. Just rapport and teasing and maybe a little more of that lovely sex without strings.

But that hadn’t happened. He was so stupid he could see it now like his own comet in the sky. That would be the comet that was going to wipe him out.

This was squeeze the heart, protect with your life, make babies and die together kind of falling in love—which was a whole different scenario and one he’d vowed never to be a part of ever, ever again.

He glanced out the window into the wall of darkness beside him and forcibly resisted the urge to slow the ambulance until it stopped, open the door and just walk away.

He was trapped. Trapped by his promise to Steve for
another week, trapped by internal walls he’d trusted to protect him, trapped by the woman beside him who had crumbled those walls with her straight talking and straight looks that flew straight to his heart, and now he was in deep trouble.

He couldn’t help it. He went into defence mode. Couldn’t stop it. If she hated him, good. He needed distance for the next few days until he could get himself away.

‘If it happens again, I’ll ask for a different midwife.’

Bonnie blinked and the curve of her lips dropped with shock. He was joking. Wasn’t he? Her head swivelled to look at him and he was staring straight ahead with his mouth a grim line and cheeks stiff and stark in the reflected light. He wasn’t joking. ‘What did you just say?’

‘I won’t have my patients put at risk again. All pregnant women will be in Alice Springs a month before they’re due.’

Bonnie’s mind raced. What the heck had happened in the space of a minute? ‘Certainly, Doctor. Perhaps we should send them when their pregnancy tests come up positive. At ten weeks.’

The stranger said, ‘I don’t want to discuss it any more. You know how I feel.’

Bonnie shook her head, still reeling but very close to telling him where to go. ‘I know how the other doctor who was here five minutes ago felt, but this new guy is a pain.’

She would have said more, hadn’t even started on what she felt like saying, but another road train had
stopped at the side of the road and the driver waved them down.

Good. Anything to get her mind off the slow death she was planning for Harry.

Harry was pleased at the distraction too. He wasn’t happy with the option his brain had chosen—to alienate Bonnie—but he guessed it had worked. She looked ready to jump out of the car herself.

This day was never going to end. He slowed and pulled up beside the truck driver as Bonnie wound down her window.

‘You okay?’ she asked, but he could see the man was holding his right arm tightly across his chest.

Trouble was confirmed when the man said, ‘Got me fingers caught in the cattle gate.’ He grimaced. ‘Doesn’t feel right.’

‘Let’s see.’ Harry climbed out and Bonnie opened her door to get the bandages from the back, he guessed. Dell and Bernie climbed out and Harry could hear her rummaging through the drawers for the first-aid supplies.

By the time she’d returned to the truck driver Harry had him sitting on a log and was ready to bind the fingers.

He pretended to the world that everything was normal. He pretended to himself. ‘Bonnie, this is Blue.’

Typically, Blue had a thatch of bright red hair that glowed even in the dark. His name was standard country humour about redheads, probably his nickname since school days.

Blue was in pain, Harry could see that, because his plastering of freckles stood out starkly across his nose and his pale face. Maybe not too much pain because his
eyes lit up when he saw Bonnie, and Harry felt himself frown.

‘G’day, there, Bonnie, you’re a sight for sore eyes,’ Blue drawled. He tipped his Akubra and the twinkle in his eyes was unmistakable. Blue was a larrikin, no doubt about it, and Bonnie didn’t seem to mind.

Bonnie smiled at the man in a way that seemed just a little too friendly and made Harry realise just how far he’d sunk.

‘Hello, there, Blue. Nice to meet you,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet your fingers throb like blazes.’

Harry cut her off. ‘Looks like you’ve broken two, and damaged the thumb badly.’ He glanced at Blue’s pale face, ‘Lucky you didn’t chop them off, judging by the slice here.’

Blue nodded, distracted from Bonnie, Harry was pleased to see, and much less amused. ‘Yeah. Thought I did, happy to count ‘em after I got ‘em out of the gate.’ He shrugged. ‘At least the cattle didn’t get out. One of the bolts worked loose and I’d fixed that first—bloody lucky—before I stuffed meself.’

Harry made short work of stabilising and binding Blue’s fingers and then looked up at the truck. ‘You’ll need X-rays and suturing at the clinic at Uluru, we’re the closest. Can you squeeze in the back with the others?’

Blue looked doubtfully at the ambulance and then at his truck. Harry correctly interpreted his concern. ‘Sorry, I can’t drive your rig. Can you phone someone to help?’

Blue scratched his head with his good hand. ‘Might take a day or two and the cattle need to get to the sales.’

Bonnie stepped between them. ‘If you sit in the cab with me, Blue, I can drive you to the medical centre, then you could take over once the doctor’s fixed you up.’ Bonnie turned her shoulder away from Harry to face the injured man and Harry saw Blue’s eyes widen even further in admiration. Harry didn’t miss that.

She went on, ‘I worked out at Kununurra and drove a rig like this from Halls Creek six months ago when the driver had chest pain and we couldn’t get help.’ She glanced dismissively at Harry. ‘The doctor has the ambulance covered.’

Of course she could drive a truck with three trailers on a dirt road. He probably could too, if he wanted to. She and Blue would have a lovely time. Harry felt like swearing but refrained. At least the man was injured. And he had no right to even think like that.

‘You go ahead, Doctor,’ Bonnie said firmly.

It was all good. He’d get space to get his head around how he was going to get out of Uluru without Bonnie finding out. And he’d bet Blue would look after her. Harry dug his toe into the dirt and then flicked a rock out towards the grass. It was great she could drive the rig. Really.

‘Let’s load up, then.’ Harry glanced at Bernie, who obediently jumped into the back, and Dell paused as she surveyed the empty passenger seat. ‘I’ll come and sit beside you then, Doc.’ Auntie Dell was happy. ‘I reckon that’ll be real comfy.’

‘Lovely,’ Harry said through his teeth. They all climbed in and Harry started the ambulance.

‘Ya know …’ Auntie Dell had been thinking. ‘You and her should start a birth place for the women around
here, Doc. Them girls don’t wanna go away from their families to have their babies.’

Harry almost laughed out loud at the simplistic concept. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’

‘Nothing complicated about having a baby. It’s getting the girls five hours’ drive away at the right time that’s complicated.’

The next day, Bonnie saw very little of Harry. If she entered a room he exited unless it was medically impossible, and at those times they were both too busy to worry about anything.

Even when Leila, the little girl they’d met at the Rock that first morning, came in with her mother and Auntie Dell with a nasty dose of gastro, Harry had eyes only for the toddler, and the way he cajoled the little one to a smile made the difference in his attitude to her even more noticeable, at least to Bonnie.

He stroked the child’s fine hair as he looked at Shay. ‘You might need to take Leila to the hospital at Alice Springs.’ He shook his head at Leila’s slightly sunken eyes and dull skin and erred on the side of caution, as usual.

Shay cast an agonised glance at Auntie Dell, who cast one at Bonnie—who suppressed a sigh. She was almost over going in to bat for everyone else.

That was what happened when a workplace lost equality between professionals. This was all Harry’s fault. If she didn’t know better, or try to believe better anyway, she’d say he was being as difficult as he possibly could just to incense her.

They both knew it was hard for the women to get to
Alice Springs and how unpleasant the journey would be with a sick child. Leila wasn’t quite sick enough for the Flying Doctor to pick up and really just needed a watchful eye and some IV fluids.

‘Shay wondered if we could try with IV fluids here,’ Bonnie said steadily. ‘Through today anyway. And see if Leila improves.’ She glanced away from Harry’s expressionless face to the mother, whom she smiled at to relieve the tension. ‘Because that’s what children can do.’

Shay smiled back with relief and Bonnie added, ‘Then Leila could go home and get checked again in the morning.’

At least Harry considered it. ‘And if she gets worse?’

‘You’d check her before she went home and, of course, Shay would bring her back during the night if she was worried, wouldn’t you, Shay?’

Shay nodded vigorously and Auntie Dell nodded once, firmly. Come on, Harry, Bonnie thought with a sigh. The little one is sick, but not critical, and was even starting to improve in front of their eyes. They could handle this here for the moment and maybe the family wouldn’t have to be thrown into upheaval.

Thankfully he seemed to listen to her for a change, and even snap out of his mode enough to agree, albeit grudgingly. ‘I’ll check her later and decide then. Before three o’clock.’

Good. Bonnie threw in for good measure, ‘Shay’s Tameeka’s older sister.’

‘Really?’ Harry’s face twitched into a smile she didn’t expect. ‘How’s Tameeka doing with her baby?’ Harry asked.

‘Real good,’ Auntie Dell answered for her niece with a big white grin. ‘Bernie’s telling everyone how amazin’ that birth was.’

‘Great,’ Harry said, and glanced at Bonnie. ‘Hope we aren’t going to have a rush of last-minute labours.’

Bonnie smiled grimly to herself. She’d asked for that. But he had seemed in a better mood. Though it was easier to hate him when he was a pain. Nice Harry was too hard to ignore.

She kept Leila until late in the afternoon, when, with the resilience of children and the extra fluids they’d infused, the little girl was ready to go home with her mum and Auntie Dell.

‘I’ll just get the doctor to check her one more time, Shay.’

Leila’s mother nodded and Bonnie tracked Harry down in the records room, checking statistics. They looked like antenatal ones. Now what was his problem?

‘Can you see Leila now, please? She looks much improved.’

He nodded and followed her out to the main assessment room. The little girl even smiled at him and Bonnie felt the tug of her heart at Harry’s rapport with the little one.

‘You were right, Bonnie,’ he said after they left. ‘She didn’t need to go.’

He offered her a strangely whimsical smile she didn’t know how to react to. ‘I want to finish what I’m doing tonight and then I have something to show you. Probably tomorrow.’

He paused, then added, ‘You’ll be glad when I’m
gone and a reasonable doctor arrives that you can work with.’ He didn’t give her a chance to answer, just walked away, and Bonnie shook her head. Her heart might not agree but it was getting that way.

The next morning Bonnie felt unwell. She must have caught the bug Leila had because the thought of breakfast was not a pleasant one.

Her face paled and she rushed for the bathroom. Obviously the thought was enough.

Afterwards she fell back on her bed and wiped her face with the washer she’d grabbed from the sink. Whew. At least she felt a little better now.

She reached across to the night table and picked up the phone to ring Vicki and let her know she’d be late when someone knocked on the door. She groaned. She hoped it wasn’t Harry. Today was not a good day.

‘Go away,’ she muttered into the empty room. The person knocked again and she sighed as she sat up gingerly and finally made her way over to the door.

She leant her head on the edge of the door as it opened. ‘Not this morning, Harry. Not well.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Haven’t searched for a diagnosis, Doctor,’ she said faintly, ‘but I’m guessing I caught Leila’s bug.’

‘You look like death. Back to bed.’ He pushed her back into the room gently and pulled back her covers. ‘In you go.’ She climbed in and he tucked her up like Gran used to do. Thankfully there was no sign of the grumpy doctor at all, and it felt weepily good.

When her head hit the pillow she closed her eyes, but she could hear a rattle in the corner of the room and
Harry reappeared with the metal wastepaper bin and a glass of water. ‘Just in case.’