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Bloody was right. No one smiled.

‘Leith,’ Steve said faintly. ‘Abbey, Leith…’

‘Ryan’s with Leith,’ Abbey told him.

‘You go too… I’ll be right. You go…’

Abbey stooped and gave him a quick hug, sent a silent message to Eileen with her eyes to look after him-and then went.

Once Steve’s bleeding had stopped, Leith was in more trouble than Steve.

She was conscious and there seemed little blood, but as Abbey approached she could tell things were serious by the look of grimness around Ryan’s mouth.

‘Ryan?’

Ryan looked up and saw her and then looked down again. He was injecting morphine into Leith’s lateral thigh and it took his entire attention.

He signalled to Caroline to keep holding the little girl’s hands.

‘That’ll stop the pain, Leith,’ Ryan said gently. ‘Just don’t move one inch. You hear? I want the painkillers to work and they can’t work if you move.’

He rose to greet Abbey.

‘Steve?’ There was no disguising the anxiety in Ryan’s voice.

‘I’ve stopped the bleeding and I’ve set up a line for plasma. He should be OK.’

‘The leg?’

‘Retrievable. Not by me, though. I’d imagine he’ll have to go to Brisbane. The air ambulance service is sending a helicopter. It should be here any minute. They’ll take him to Cairns, stabilise him and send him on. Leith?’

‘I’d guess fractured spine.’

‘Oh, Ryan… ’

‘I’m not sure of the damage,’ Ryan said grimly, ‘but she’s not feeling her legs. What else is there?’

‘I’ll find out,’ Abbey said grimly. ‘Oh, God…’

The other two casualties were a child with a gashed arm-it’d need stitching but Abbey could do that at Sapphire Cove-and a boy with a bluebottle sting. The rider of the jet ski.

‘I thought I must have been stung by a box jellyfish, like that boy was a couple of weeks back,’ Paul muttered over and over again. Bluebottles were tiny air-filled sac-like jellyfish that trailed along the water’s surface. They stung, but the pain eased after thirty minutes or so with no lasting damage. Paul was all of twelve years old and what had happened had him appalled. ‘I never meant… I never…’

‘It’s not your fault, Paul,’ Abbey said wearily, and she gave him a hug as she washed down his leg with fresh water. She was right. It was his stupid parents for letting him have such a powerful machine in the first place.

Abbey badly wanted to kick someone-and she couldn’t kick a twelve-year-old. His parents were just as appalled as Paul. They were being punished enough, without Abbey kicking.

Which didn’t ease Abbey’s desire to kick one bit.

She went back to check Steve and found him drifting in and out of consciousness. She’d given him as much morphine as she dared.

And then the helicopter roared in overhead and came in to land on the firm, damp sand at the water’s edge.

‘You go with them,’ Abbey yelled at Ryan over the noise of the chopper as Steve and Leith were skilfully loaded onto stretchers. She glanced down at Leith and her mouth tightened in fear. A broken back. Was Leith facing paraplegia-or worse? Maybe… maybe with Ryan the child had a chance. Spinal injuries were so unpredictable. But if Ryan was there…

‘Please, Ryan. I want you to go.’

Ryan looked down at Abbey with an unreadable expression on his face.

And he went.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RYAN was away for five days.

For those five days Abbey hardly had time to blink. She was thrust back into her old workload with a vengeance.

Steve Pryor was undergoing massive reconstruction of his thigh. He wouldn’t lose his leg, but it would take months before he was able to use it in anywhere near a normal fashion.

Caroline, the night sister who’d spent the day at the beach with him, travelled to Brisbane so there’d be someone with him during major surgery. It turned out Steve had no family. Caroline was it. And, by the look of her haggard face as she arrived back in Sapphire Cove, Abbey knew Caroline wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘He’s such an owl,’ Caroline sniffed into Abbey’s arms. ’Such a gentle, loving person. And he saved those kids. I don’t think I can bear it.’

‘You’re in love with him,’ Abbey said on a note of discovery, and that produced more sniffs and a fast retreat into a handkerchief.

‘Yes. but now… I mean it all happened so fast. I only went out with him the once and how’s he supposed to believe I love him already? And now he’s in Brisbane and I’m here and he was only here on a locum anyway and I’m never going to see him again.’

‘Let’s see what Steve has to say about that when he’s feeling a bit better.’ Abbey smiled. And then asked what she most wanted to know. ‘Now, tell me. How’s Leith? Is Ryan still with her?’

Caroline hauled herself together and blew her nose. And managed a watery smile.

‘Dr Henry assisted at the operation. The surgeons down there asked him to. Oh, Dr Wittner, they think he’s wonderful. No one thought she’d walk again but there’s some new technique Dr Henry knew was being trialled.

‘The surgeons here did a video conferencing session with some of Dr Henry’s colleagues in the States-paediatric orthopaedic surgeons, the best in the world. Dr Henry organised it so it seemed like they were actually in the theatre while they were operating on Abbey. And now they say there’s a really good chance she will walk.’

Well, well.

Abbey took it all in and hugged it against her heart. It helped. It helped that even if she couldn’t marry Ryan the Ryan she knew and loved was still going strong.

She was proud of him. She ached for him. She loved him.

It had to be shoved aside for the moment. There’d be time to be really miserable later. There were all sorts of after-effects from the accident on the beach. Paul, the child who’d been riding the jet ski, had been admitted to hospital, suffering from shock, and it would take all her skills to pull him out of it without serious emotional scars. His parents were almost as bad. Basically good-hearted people, they were deeply distressed at what had happened.

The police sergeant wasn’t helping. He wanted blood, and when Abbey counselled him strongly about taking it further he broke down and wept and needed help himself.

The small child with the gashed arm was the least of her worries. Wendy was proud of her stitches but her parents were upset. Then the local school teacher wanted Abbey to come and speak to the children at assembly as the children were desperate to know what was going on.

And there was her ordinary hospital work. Abbey asked the farmers to take over her cows again and Marcia kept on helping with Jack, but still she finished each day exhausted. And missing Ryan.

Janet was still recovering, following her exercise regime with stoic determination. With reason.

On the fifth day after the accident Abbey walked into Janet’s ward to find her sitting up in bed with Sam at her side. That didn’t surprise her. Sam had been a constant visitor. What did surprise her were the silly grins on both of their faces. They sat hand in hand on the bed and they looked for all the world like two teenagers caught having an illicit cuddle.

Abbey lifted her eyebrows and smiled a query.

‘Sorry, guys. You want me to come back later?’

‘No.’ Janet blushed and looked at Sam. And blushed again.

‘We have something to say to you,’ Sam said seriously. And it was his turn to turn pink.

And Abbey knew.

‘You want to ask for Janet’s hand in marriage,’ she said in delight. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Well…’ Sam’s smile deepened in quiet satisfaction. ‘I should ask someone.’

‘Have you asked Janet?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she said?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said bluntly. ‘She said she’ll marry me if you’ll marry Ryan.’