The Doctor's Baby Secret (10 page)

Corrine nodded. ‘Just get him free. I'll worry about the arm once we get him out.'

Austin took a deep breath and disappeared under the water again.

She watched him disappear with her heart in her mouth. She felt so useless. There was no boat to let her get out there to help. The lake staff had been notified about the accident and were responding quickly. But standing at the side of the lake, waiting for Austin to reappear, was making her antsy.

It wasn't that he wasn't capable. He'd already proved that. But she knew he'd handed his oxygen over to the kid and he was struggling to get him free. Part of her just wanted to dive into the lake to help. But she knew she would be more of a hindrance than a help.

Blair appeared at her side with the portable stretcher. ‘Ambulance is on its way. Is he unconscious?'

She shook her head. ‘Austin gave him his oxygen tank. He's just trying to get him free.'

‘Thank goodness.'

It seemed as though minutes had passed—but they couldn't have, because Austin would have had to come up for air. Or maybe he was sharing the tank with the boy?

Finally his head appeared in the water. He had the teenage boy in his arms.

Blair moved to the water's edge. ‘Over here, Austin.'

Austin swam slowly, still cradling the boy in his arms. The teenage boy was sobbing, his head against Austin's shoulder, and he made no effort to try and move himself. As soon as she set eyes on his arm she realised why.

The broken bone was clearly visible and the surrounding tissue completely damaged. The bone had erupted through the skin, leaving a wide-open tear. Compound fractures like this were always at a huge risk of infection. And in a lake like this? The very thought made her shudder. He needed out of there and careful treatment as soon as possible.

She gulped and started unpacking sterile dressings from the medical kit. As Austin approached the lake edge the boy flinched at Blair's outstretched arms.

‘Don't touch me! Don't touch my arm.'

Austin paused. He was treading water just as she'd seen him do before, but this time he had a whole other person in his arms. The weight must be dragging him down. But he seemed cool and calm.

‘How do you want to do this?' he directed towards her.

She leaned forward with Blair, both their arms in the water. ‘What's your name?' she called to the boy.

Austin repeated the question in his ear and the boy mumbled a response. ‘Mason. His name's Mason.'

‘Mason, I'm Corrine Carter. I'm a doctor. We're going to help you and as soon as we get you out of here I'll give you something for that arm. Just hold it steady. I promise. We won't touch it.' She nodded towards Austin. ‘Can you boost him up a little?'

Another pair of arms appeared next to her. It was one of the first-aiders. Austin clenched his teeth and tried to boost Mason towards them. No one touched his arm but Mason let out a yelp that echoed around the lake. It was understandable—with an open fracture like that any movement of his body would cause pain in his arm.

They lifted him as best they could out of the lake. Austin didn't hesitate. He pushed up with his forearms, jumping out of the lake and coming to help. Between the four of them they managed to get Mason onto the bright orange portable stretcher.

A motorboat appeared on the lake. The first-aider looked up as his radio beeped. He spoke quickly for a few seconds. ‘The ambulance is waiting for us. It's come around the lake as far as it can.' He nodded towards the motorboat. ‘Some of the team are just going to retrieve the jet bike and do a check for any more people who shouldn't be on that part of the lake.'

Corrine nodded in sympathy. The team here worked really hard to keep everything as safe as possible. It was a shame when a few reckless teenagers spoiled things for the other lake users.

She opened some sterile saline and poured some onto the sterile dressings. ‘Mason, I'm going to lay these gently on your arm while we transport you to the ambulance. Once we get there, I'll give you something for the pain.'

Mason winced and whimpered as she gently laid the wet sterile drapes over his arm. It was important to protect it from any further chance of infection. An open wound and fractured bones could lead to serious, life-threatening infections. She didn't even want to think about what kinds of bacteria were in the lake and already affecting his wound.

There were plenty of hands to help lift the stretcher to the ambulance, where she gave the paramedics a brief rundown on what had happened. It only took a few minutes to connect Mason to the monitoring equipment and get his vitals. The paramedic met her gaze and glanced at Mason's arm. ‘Morphine?'

She nodded as he drew the drug up. Mason would really need some strong pain relief before she even touched his arm again.

‘How do you want to clean it?'

She lifted the wet gauze and tried to stop from wincing now she had a clear view of the damage. ‘How far away are we from the nearest trauma centre?'

Her brain was currently in overdrive. Mason would need a tetanus shot and some IV antibiotics. If they weren't going to be at a trauma centre soon she would have to find some way to administer them.

‘It's only about a thirty-minute journey.' She nodded. ‘In that case, I'm going to do the absolute basics. There's some debris in the wound that needs to be flushed out.' Mason was whimpering again and she lifted her hand. ‘I'm not going to touch or poke or prod it. I promise you. What I am going to do is just pour some more saline over the wound to try and get rid of any dirt and any bugs. We'll leave the rest to the experts at the hospital. Okay?'

The paramedic finished inserting the IV on Mason's other arm and administered the morphine. Corrine waited a few minutes before she lifted the wet swabs away. She held a disposable bowl underneath and gently poured some sterile saline over the fracture site, washing away some of the debris and dirt that was trapped in the wound. Once she was finished she wet some other sterile swabs and covered the site over.

She nodded to the paramedic. ‘We'll leave it like that in the meantime.'

She looked at Mason's pale face. ‘You're lucky there was someone there to help you today.' She wasn't about to lecture him—the police would probably talk to him at some point—but she wanted him to understand how much danger he'd actually been in.

‘Who was the guy?' asked Mason.

‘He's called Austin Mitchell. He's one of the astronaut candidates training at WSSA.'

‘I was rescued by an astronaut? How cool is that?'

Corrine sighed. It was a typical teenage response. Of course he would think it was cool that an astronaut had rescued him. He wouldn't give any consideration to the fact that coming into a restricted area with a jet bike could actually have injured some of the divers in the water. If Austin, or any of the others, had come up at just the wrong moment...

She couldn't even think about it. These guys had worked so hard for their places on the training programme. Fate had already dealt them one tough card. They didn't need any others.

Austin stuck his head in the back of the ambulance. ‘Corrine, are you going with the ambulance?'

She nodded and dug in her pocket for her car keys. ‘What's the name of the trauma centre?'

The paramedic looked up. ‘It's the Flynn and Grier Memorial Centre.'

She tossed her keys towards Austin. ‘Could you get someone to take my car back to the base?'

His gaze was steady. ‘Why don't I just follow you to the trauma centre then take you home?'

Her stomach gave a little flip. She wasn't sure exactly where they stood. She hadn't wanted to presume he would do that for her. And there was something about the way he said those words. Although they were very safe and innocuous it almost seemed as if she were getting into trouble.

‘Thanks,' she answered brightly, then turned back to her patient.

‘That guy's an astronaut?' Mason had that schoolboy-admiration look in his eyes.

‘Yes,' said Corrine sharply. ‘And you could have taken his head off, or any one of my other astronaut candidates today. It wasn't your finest move.'

Mason baulked as the paramedic gave her a smile and pulled an oxygen mask over Mason's face. The doors slammed shut behind them and the ambulance started the bumpy journey back to the main road.

Corrine sighed and sat back to monitor her patient. This was going to be a long day.

* * *

Austin swallowed as he watched the ambulance disappear up the road ahead of them. Abe Rosen appeared at his side with a bottle of water. ‘Here,' he said. ‘You did good. One look at that arm nearly had me gagging. Don't know how I'll do when it comes to the first-aid stuff.'

Austin took a welcome slug of the water. Abe was a fellow candidate, but an engineer. He'd been pretty quiet since they'd started training.

Austin looked at him. ‘Haven't you got two kids? I thought you would be used to blood and guts and all sorts.'

Abe laughed and shuddered. ‘I tend to close my eyes when anything involves body fluids.' He wagged his finger. ‘I'll have you know that my claim to fame is that I can change a diaper with my eyes closed.'

‘You're really that bad?' He was amazed. He'd just thought all these things went hand in hand with parenthood.

Abe nodded as he walked alongside. ‘Oh, yeah. My own personal gag reflex is the smell of regurgitated baby milk. It's even worse when you don't know they've barfed on you and you get a little waft a few hours later and realise it's been on your back the whole time.'

Austin laughed. Abe hadn't said too much before this. But Austin had his own theory about that. ‘So, what do your wife and kids think about you going into space?'

Abe hesitated. ‘Let's just say she's anxious that I get back.'

Austin bit his lip. They didn't talk much about the dangers. Even though these were drummed into them at every briefing, every test flight and highlighted in every manual—the fact there might be a tiny possibility that you wouldn't come back didn't really come into the general conversation.

They focused on the positives. How to overcome any problems they might encounter in space. How to plan for any possibility. Even the unlikely Apollo Thirteen scenario, where you had to think about every tiny piece of equipment available on the space or command module and how it could be used to get you back home.

‘What about the kids?'

Abe shrugged. ‘They think it's great. Daddy is going into space. Brody just asked me if I'd meet his favourite cartoon character. It's not real to them. Daddy always worked in a lab before. This is much more exciting.'

‘You couldn't have done all this before you got married and had kids?'

Abe gave him a thoughtful glance. It was almost as if he could see exactly where Austin's train of thought was going.

He nodded. ‘Maybe—in an ideal world. But...' he held his hands up towards space ‘...before I met Anne...once I got into space I would have wanted to stay there. The space station wouldn't have been enough. I would have been the guy who was signing up for the one-way mission to Mars. Now, I have something to come home to. Anne and the kids ground me. They make me realise that what I do is just a tiny part of things.'

He nudged Austin. ‘Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you and me. It'll keep on turning whether we're here or not.'

Austin nodded. His mind was swimming. He didn't even want to acknowledge the kind of things that were floating around in there. Because those kinds of thoughts weren't
him
. They never had been.

‘Maybe you need someone to ground you too.'

It was like a whole snow dump over his head. It didn't matter that he might be a little cold anyway, walking along the side of the lake in his wetsuit. A shiver worked its way down his spine. His whole head was playing games with him.

Right now, if he closed his eyes for a second he could see Corrine, sitting in her shorts, on her rocker on the porch of that yellow clapboard house. That was what made him feel grounded right now. And he didn't like it. Not one bit.

Trouble was, he was starting to get a little of what Abe said. The world didn't revolve around him. And when you'd spent most of your life as a selfish so-and-so it was a bit of an adjustment.

His friends probably wouldn't call him selfish. He'd do anyone a good turn. They would probably call him single-minded.

But it wasn't just Corrine on his brain. He'd had another call from the Head of Research at the university. They still wanted him. But the reality was they couldn't wait for him. The research needed to be started in the next year. He would still be completing his astronaut training. Then, if he was successful, he'd have to wait his turn to be scheduled for a mission. Chances were he'd spend the next ten years of his life here at WSSA—just as he'd planned.

The timing drove him crazy. The cancer research needed to be done now. Not in ten years' time. He got that. He really did.

But the Corrine stuff? It was driving him even more crazy.

It wasn't just the insane chemistry and attraction. It wasn't just the sex. It was all the distracting stuff around about that.

He'd never met a woman who'd captured his attention like Corrine. He'd never actually been with a woman that he wanted to spend every single day with. A few dates a week had been fine. Sometimes even too much. But Corrine was different. Work kept that apart. And for the first time in his life he actually resented that a little.

Something had changed in him. Something had altered. It was as if the earth's gravitational pull had just tilted a little. And it had put him on a collision course with her.

He'd had women declare that they loved him before. He'd had women weep and wail when he'd finished with them. But everything about Corrine was different.