A Wedding In Warragurra

‘Hot one for you today, Kate.’ Barry Sanderson, the taciturn owner of Camoora Station, lifted his hat and ran his forearm across his sweaty brow.

Kate smiled. She’d missed the ironic understatement of the Australian outback. It was always hot in February in western New South Wales. ‘It’s a stinker. Thanks for giving me the shadiest spot on the veranda for my baby clinic.’

‘You know for as long as Mary and I are here, you’re always welcome at Camoora.’ Understanding crossed his weatherworn face before his voice became gruff, as if he’d exposed too much of his feelings. ‘Besides, we can’t have those babies overheated.’

‘Thanks, Barry.’ She continued swiftly, not wanting to embarrass him but grateful for his support. ‘I’d better get back to work. Can’t have the new doc beating me on my first day back.’

Barry put his hat back on his head. ‘You make sure you have some tea and scones with Mary sooner rather than later.’ He strode down the long veranda of the homestead, stopping to talk to Baden.

Kate watched the interchange—the stocky bushman and the tall, athletic doctor. Baden was as dark as Barry was fair. She’d been stunned this morning when he’d turned around and faced her on the plane. Yesterday’s pirate was a doctor.

A disconcerted doctor. He’d looked almost worried when he’d realised the two of them were now Team Four. That had thrown her. She was used to all sorts of expressions from half the town—disdain, hatred and loathing. But work was different. At work she was valued, admired, respected. Or at least she had been.

Teamwork was the basis of the Flying Doctors. The working day meant a lot of time was spent with your team colleague. She’d hoped to resume working with Doug Johnston, but he’d transferred to Muttawindi two months ago covering Bronte Morrison’s maternity leave. He wouldn’t be back in Warragurra for a year.

We must have just missed each other. I started in September last year. Her stomach dropped as she recalled Baden’s words. He and his family would have arrived in Warragurra just as the Kennedys had finally realised they had no legal standing to contest Shane’s will. Just as the vitriol in the local press had reached its zenith. In many circles in the town her name was mud. Perhaps Baden’s wife had heard the rumours and not heard the truth.

Tension tugged at her temples with a vice-like grip. Work was her sanctuary while she found her feet again in the town. She must make this assignment with Baden work. Only her actions could dissolve rumours and innuendo. She had to prove to him she was a professional who could be relied on, a team player. Someone he could depend on as much as he’d obviously depended on Emily.

She watched him walk along the veranda toward her, his moleskins moving against his thighs, outlining hard muscle. ‘Ah, the baby clinic.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘It’s one of my favourites.’ His smile raced across his face, lighting his eyes, making them sparkle with anticipation.

His smile sent her blood racing to her feet, making her feel light-headed. ‘I know what you mean. A roly-poly baby, healthy on breast milk reaffirms that life is good.’

They quickly established a pattern of weighing and measuring babies, reassuring anxious mothers and immunizing babies against childhood illnesses. Kate dealt with any breast-feeding issues and Baden examined the babies with reflux.

With companionable teamwork and a lot of laughter they tested the hearing of all the eight-month-old babies. Baden entertained each mother and baby with his Peter the Penguin puppet, while Kate shook the rattle behind the baby’s ears.

Baden’s experience as a father came through as he managed to relax the mums and the babies with the antics of the hand puppet. Kate imagined he would have read great stories to Sasha, complete with a cast of voices for the characters.

In the distance a child’s scream rent the air as Kate called her next mother and baby.

‘Looks like we might be patching yet another knee and dispensing a lollypop,’ Baden commented as he filled in an immunisation record.

Kate nodded. ‘I think that will be number six for the day. Gravel paths and toddlers don’t really mix.’ She turned and called her next patient. ‘So, Ginny, how’s baby Samantha going?’

Ginny cuddled the baby in close. ‘Pretty well, although I think she’s been having a growth spurt as she’s been feeding a lot.’

Kate checked Samantha’s date of birth. ‘Well, at six weeks you’d expect—’

‘Help me! Will someone help me?’ A woman’s frantic voice carried across the yard, her distress palpable.

‘Sorry, Ginny.’ Kate spun around, reaching for the emergency kit, her hand colliding with Baden’s.

He grasped the handle. ‘I’ve got it. Follow me.’

He ran down the veranda as Mary Sanderson came into view, carrying her four-year-old daughter. Her eldest daughter, Kelly, ran close behind.

Blood covered the little girl’s face as she lay whimpering in her mother’s arms. ‘What happened?’ Baden gently guided the woman into a seat.

‘She was feeding the chooks with her big sister, like she does every afternoon. Kelly said she heard Susie scream and she turned around to find the rooster had knocked her flat. I can’t believe a rooster could knock a child over.’ Incredulity marked her face. ‘I’ve spent all my life on a farm and I’ve never seen that happen.’

Kelly bit her lip. ‘The rooster was on Susie’s chest and pecking her and I ran at it but it wouldn’t let go. I threw the bucket at it but while I was picking her up it flew at her again.’ She gave a quiet sob. ‘It was really scary.’

Kate squeezed Kelly’s shoulder. ‘You did a great job, Kelly. Dr Baden and I will soon have the blood cleaned up and it won’t look so scary.’ She opened up normal saline and began to clean Susie’s face with gauze so they could clearly see the extent of the damage.

Susie’s petrified screams pulled at her. The little girl’s face seemed to be swelling under Kate’s fingers as she wiped the blood away. Her puffy eyes were slits in her face and her cheeks were increasing in size.

Baden’s long fingers gently sought a pulse in the wriggling child’s neck, which he counted against the second hand of his watch. ‘Susie, I’m just going to listen to your chest with my stethoscope.’ He bent down so he was at the same level as the little girl and showed her the round end that would lie against her chest.

Susie’s crying halted for a moment but then she started to cough—probably induced by the hysterical screaming. The coughing eased and she lay exhausted in her mother’s arms.

Apprehension skated through Kate as her trauma radar tuned in. Something wasn’t quite right. Superficial lacerations didn’t usually cause swelling like this. As she grabbed more gauze she caught Baden’s worried expression.

He felt it, too—the aura of disquiet seemed to blanket them both.

She quickly and deftly used the gauze to clean away the large amount of blood on the child’s neck. Blood oozed out as fast as she could clear it. ‘Baden.’ She hoped he could decode the tone of her voice.

He immediately pulled the earpiece out of his ear, his concentration firmly on her. ‘Yes?’

‘There’s a really deep wound on her throat and her neck is swelling fast. I’m worried about her airway.’

‘So am I. Her air entry is diminished.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mary’s voice wobbled. ‘It’s just a few scratches, isn’t it?’

Baden carefully examined Susie’s throat, his fingers gently palpating around the base of her throat. ‘There’s air under her skin.’

‘Air? That can’t be good.’ Kate reached for the walkie-talkie.

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It’s subcutaneous emphysema. I think the rooster has perforated her trachea—the tube that takes the air to the lungs—and now air is escaping into the skin.’

Mary’s hand flew to her own throat. ‘Can she breathe?’

‘She’s breathing on her own at the moment but the risk is that the bleeding and swelling will block the tube. We’re going to have to get her stable and then evacuate her to hospital.’

Kate immediately called Glen on the walkie-talkie. ‘We need the stretcher, Glen. Susie Sanderson needs oxygen and evacuation, over.’

‘On my way, over.’ Glen’s voice crackled into the dry, hot air.

Mary, her eyes wide with fear, looked frantically at them both as Baden’s words finally sank in. ‘She’ll go to Warragurra Hospital, won’t she?’

‘No, I’m sorry but she needs to go to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide.’ He rested his hand on Mary’s for a brief moment. ‘I’m going to need to examine her fully.’

‘Glen’s on his way with the stretcher, which will double as a treatment bed.’ Kate pulled out the paediatric oxygen mask and unravelled the green tubing, making it all ready to connect the moment the stretcher and oxygen arrived.

‘Give us a hand, Kate.’

Glen’s voice hailed her from the bottom of the stairs. She quickly ran to meet him and helped to lift the stretcher up onto the veranda.

Baden’s strong arms gently transferred Susie onto the stretcher, sitting her up to aid her laboured breathing. ‘Kate’s going to put a mask on you to help you feel better and Mummy’s here to hold your hand.’

His tenderness with Susie touched Kate. Not all doctors were at ease with kids. But he was a father and had probably spent a few nights walking the floor.

‘I want a drink,’ Susie sobbed between fits of jagged crying.

Kate adjusted the clear mask to Susie’s face, making sure it was a snug fit by pulling on the green elastic. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, you can’t have a drink but I’m going to give you a drink in your arm.’ Kate checked with Baden. ‘Normal saline IV?’

He nodded, a flash of approval in his eyes. ‘Yes, saline. You all right to insert it?’ He paused for a moment in his examination of Susie’s back.

For a brief moment she was tempted to say no. She’d been out of the field for six months and Shane’s parents’ campaign against her had dented her confidence. But she had to show Baden she was a team player and totally reliable. ‘Sure, no problem.’

You’ve done this hundreds of times. Don’t let the Kennedys invade work.

‘Susie, this will sting just a little bit, OK? You squeeze Mummy’s hand really tight.’ She adjusted the tourniquet and palpated for a vein. Her fingers detected a small rise and she swabbed the little girl’s arm, the alcohol stinging her nostrils.

‘OK, here we go.’ Carefully she slid the intravenous cannula into the vein, controlling the pressure so there was enough to pierce the skin but not too much that she put the needle through the vein.

‘Mummy, stop her,’ Susie squealed as the needle penetrated the skin.

Kate bit her lip. ‘Nearly there, Susie.’ Holding her breath, she withdrew the trocar. Blood.

Yes. She released her breath and taped the needle in place. ‘IV inserted, Baden.’

He gave her a wide smile of acknowledgment—a smile that raced to his vivid blue eyes and caused them to crinkle at the edges.

A smile that melted something inside her and sent spirals of molten warmth through her, reaching all the way down to her toes.

Stop it. Thank goodness he was married and off limits. Otherwise that smile could batter all her resolutions about staying single. She found her voice. ‘Do you want a bolus of three hundred millilitres?’

‘Yes, good idea. I’m worried about bleeding.’

‘What about pain relief?’ It was a tricky situation.

‘Morphine would be good for the pain so she would be more comfortable and start to breathe more easily, but it also depresses the respiratory system. It’s catch-22.’ He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, the same action he’d used when he’d told Mary about the perforated trachea. ‘We’ll titrate it in through the IV and that way we can control it and pull it if we need to.’

‘Mary?’ Kate got her attention. ‘How much does Susie weigh? I need as accurate a weight as possible.’

The distraught mother spoke slowly. ‘I…It’s been a while since I weighed her but she’d be about twenty kilograms, I think.’

‘Baden?’ He’d lifted her onto the stretcher.

He nodded. ‘That’s about right.’ He gave Susie’s knee a rub. ‘You weigh the same as the sacks of flour I buy to make bread.’

Susie gave a wan smile.

Kate calculated the dose. ‘So two milligrams of morphine.’

‘Correct.’ Baden checked the dose with her as mandated by the Dangerous Drug Act.

He called to Glen. ‘We need to go.’ He rested his hand on Mary’s shoulder. ‘Are you or Barry coming with us or will you follow on your own?’

‘Mary’s going with Susie.’ Barry’s gruff voice cracked on the words. ‘I’m going to go and kill that bloody rooster.’

‘After you’ve done that, pack them both a case, Barry, and we’ll radio you when we get back to Warragurra.’ Kate hugged the usually stoic man and ran down the steps.

Kate gave thanks that the airstrip at Camoora Station was very close to the homestead. Station hands, their dusty faces lined with anxiety, carried the stretcher as if it were porcelain, avoiding jolting the adored Susie, hoping their care would help.

Seven minutes after Baden had issued the order to depart, the PC-12 aircraft was racing down the dusty runway.

Kate did the first set of in-flight observations. Susie’s heart was racing and her breathing rapid and shallow. ‘She’s tachycardic and tachypnoeic,’ she informed Baden sotto voce the moment he signed off from the radio conversation with the paediatric registrar in Adelaide.

He placed his stethoscope on Susie’s back and listened intently. ‘Nothing is getting into the lower lobe of her left lung.’ Deep furrows scored his forehead as he leant across her to check the IV.

The fragrance of spicy aftershave mixing with his masculine scent filled Kate’s nostrils and she wanted to breathe in deeply. Instead, she deliberately leaned back and concentrated on filling in the fluid balance chart. ‘Are you thinking pneumothorax?’

‘I’m certain the lower lobe of her lung has collapsed but at the moment her body’s compensating. I’m not rushing into a needle thoracentesis without X-ray guidance unless I have to.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘It was such a brutal attack. I can’t believe a rooster’s beak could cause such damage.’

‘It wouldn’t have been the beak. It was the spur on the foot. They’re viciously sharp.’

He raised his brows. ‘You seem to know a bit about poultry.’

She shrugged. ‘Born and raised a country girl. What about you?’

‘City boy. Grew up on the Adelaide beaches.’

She laughed. ‘Linton would say that Adelaide and city was an oxymoron.’

Baden raised his brows. ‘From Sydney, is he?’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll have you know that peak hour lasts half an hour.’

His rich laugh relaxed her. ‘Peak hour in Warragurra is Saturday night when the station hands drive into town. Even from Adelaide it’s a big leap.’ She checked Susie’s pulse. ‘What brought you here?’

‘It was something I’d talked about doing for a long time.’ He had a far-away look in his eyes as if he was recalling memories.

She jotted down the volume of the new bag of IV fluid that she had just attached to Susie’s drip. ‘And suddenly the time seemed right?’

His relaxed demeanour instantly vanished. ‘Something like that.’ His voice developed an edge to it, a tone she’d not heard before.

Before she could wonder too much about what that might mean, Susie started coughing. Kate immediately aspirated her mouth but the child continued to gasp, her lips turning blue.

‘She’s obstructing!’ She snapped opened the laryngoscope, the tiny light bulb glowing white. ‘Intubation?’

‘What’s happening?’ Mary’s petrified voice sounded from her seat at the front of the plane.

‘We have to put a tube in Susie’s throat so she can breathe.’ Kate wanted to go and hug the distraught mother but all her attention was needed for Susie.

Mary’s gasp of horror echoed around the plane.

Baden accepted the laryngoscope, a grim expression on his face. ‘I doubt I’ll be able to pass the tube through the swelling.’ He tried inserting the ’scope but a moment later shook his head. ‘No go.’

Kate’s stomach dropped and she swung into emergency action. ‘Right, then. Tracheostomy it is.’ She opened the paediatric emergency cricothyroidotomy kit, which she’d had ready since they’d boarded the flight.

Susie’s small chest struggled to rise and fall, each breath more torturous than the last.

Baden snapped on gloves and grabbed the scalpel.

A sharp incessant beeping from the monitor hammered the air as Susie’s oxygen saturation levels started to fall to dangerously low levels. Each beep told them Susie was edging closer to cardiac arrest.

‘Save my daughter, please!’

Mary’s tortured plea ripped through Kate. She quickly laid the semi-conscious child on her back and extended her neck.

Baden threw her a look, his eyes dark with worry. This procedure on a child was fraught with danger but they had no choice. With a remarkably steady hand he gently palpated Susie’s neck, counting down the rings of cartilage until he found the correct position. He made a quick, clean cut.

Kate immediately cleared the area of blood with a gauze pad. She pulled the sterile packaging of the endotracheal tube halfway down, exposing the top of the tube and insertion trocar.

Baden juggled the forceps and then grabbed the tube, sliding it into place.

Kate swiftly attached the oxygen. A moment later the monitor stopped screaming as Susie’s oxygen level rose. A sigh shuddered out of Kate’s lungs as she injected normal saline into the balloon of the ET tube to hold it in place.

Baden raised his head from his patient and turned toward Mary. ‘We’ve bypassed the blockage and she’s breathing more easily now.’

Mary slumped. ‘Oh, thank you, Baden. Kate. I was so scared that she might…’

Baden nodded. ‘She’ll probably have to go to Theatre when we arrive in Adelaide to repair her lung and trachea, and when the swelling has subsided, this tube can come out.’

He turned back to Kate and spoke under his breath. ‘So much for a quiet first day back at work for you. Nothing like an emergency to pump the adrenaline around.’ He stripped off his gloves. ‘Thanks, Kate. That was excellent work.’ His lips curved upward in a friendly smile. ‘It’s good to have you on board.’

‘Thanks. It’s good to be back.’ Delicious, simmering warmth rolled through her, quickly overtaken by sheer relief. She’d managed to drive away his doubts, the ones that had shone so brightly that morning in his amazing eyes.

Her plan had worked. She’d shown him she knew what she was about, that her medicine was sound. She’d managed to stay one stop ahead of him during the emergency and at times their anticipation of each other’s needs had been almost spooky.

For the first time all day she relaxed. Team Four would be OK. Work would again be the safe sanctuary it had always been—reliable and familiar. No surprises.

Smiling to herself, she adjusted Susie’s oxygen and started to dress her lacerations with non-stick gauze.

‘Prepare for landing.’ Glen’s command sounded in her ears and with one final check of Susie she took her seat, snapping her harness firmly around her.

The paediatric team met them at the airport in Adelaide and within minutes Susie and Mary were on their way to hospital and the ICU unit.

As always happened after a high-powered emergency, Kate’s legs began to wobble. Coffee. She needed coffee. The refrigerated air of the airport terminal hit her the moment she stepped inside. She ordered three coffees to go and some giant cookies so heavily laden with chocolate chips you could hardly see the actual cookie base. Juggling the capped coffees and her bag of treats, she headed back toward the plane. Glen usually liked to get back in the air as soon as possible.

As she approached she saw Baden striding back and forth across the tarmac, his mobile phone glued to his ear and his other hand rubbing his neck. Agitation rolled off him in waves—a total contrast to the cool and level-headed doctor she’d just worked with in an emergency.

He snapped the phone shut just as she stopped beside him. She passed him his coffee.

‘Oh, thanks.’ He accepted the coffee with a distracted air.

‘Let’s move under the wing—at least there’s shade there.’ She offered him a cookie as they took the five steps into the shadow of the plane. ‘Is there a problem?’

He blew out a breath. ‘Sasha is refusing to go to after-school care. She’s never done this before, she’s always been happy to go. I don’t know why she had to pull this stunt today, the one day in weeks I’ve been delayed.’

Confusion befuddled her brain. ‘Why is the school ringing you?’

He shot her a look of incredulity that screamed she was an imbecile. ‘Because I’m her father!’

His frustration hit her in the chest like a ball on the full, almost making her stagger. Rattled, she chose her words carefully. ‘Yes, I understand that, but you’re in Adelaide and your wife’s in Warragurra. Surely she can get away from work for half an hour to talk to Sasha?’

His hand tightened on the cookie, sending crumbs tumbling toward the ground. ‘I don’t have a wife. It’s just Sasha and me.’ His phone rang loudly and he spun away to answer it.

I don’t have a wife. He’d spoken the words softly but they boomed in Kate’s head as if she were standing in front of a 500-watt concert speaker. The five small words tangled in her brain like knotted fishing wire, refusing to straighten out and make sense.

He was a single parent.

Questions surged through her, desperate for answers, but Baden had his back to her, his entire being focussed on the phone call.

She watched him end his call and consult with Glen, his dark curly hair, flecked with grey, moving in the wind. Then he tilted his head back, downing his coffee in two gulps, his Adam’s apple moving convulsively against his taut neck. Crushing the empty cup in his strong hand, he swung around, his free arm beckoning her forward.

As she drew up beside him he stood back to allow her entry to the plane’s steps. ‘Glen’s ready to leave, so after you…’ His eyes sparkled as he gave her a resigned smile. A Pirate smile. Delicious and dangerous.

Her blood rushed to her feet as realisation hit her. He’s not married. Together they were Team Four. They had to work side by side every day. The attraction she’d easily shrugged off yesterday and earlier today suddenly surged through her like water through a narrow gorge—powerful and strong.

The safe sanctuary that was work, the sanctuary she so desperately needed, vaporised before her eyes.

Baden stacked the dishwasher, his thoughts not on the china but on trying to come up with the best approach to handle Sasha’s rebellion. She’d made herself scarce, knowing he wasn’t thrilled with her behaviour. He could see her out the window, jumping on the trampoline, her long brown hair streaming out behind her.

It’s chestnut, like Kate’s. The unexpected thought thudded into him, startling him.

Kate had worked alongside him today as if she’d done it every day for a year. Calm, experienced and knowledgeable, she got the job done. Just like Emily. Except Emily didn’t wear a perfume that conjured up hot tropical nights and sinful pleasures.

He slammed the dishwasher closed. What was he doing, thinking of Kate, when his concentration should be firmly on Sasha? Guilt niggled at him. He’d promised Annie that Sasha would always be his top priority. Hell, it was no hardship. He adored his daughter. But he missed sharing the parenting journey.

Sasha had finished on the trampoline and was lying in the hammock, which was permanently slung between two veranda posts. It had been a much-adored Christmas present and had saved him from buying the requested pink mobile phone, which he planned to put off for as long as possible.

He pushed the fly-wire screen door open and walked toward her. ‘I thought you might like an ice cream.’