Prescription-One Bride

CHAPTER TWO

A DOCTOR…

Jessie’s jaw sagged. It took a real effort to haul her mouth closed again.

‘I don’t believe…’ she started and then, at the look on Niall Mountmarche’s face, she stopped.

He hadn’t believed that she was a vet-and now she was showing the same distrust.

A doctor…

From Ogre of Barega to medical doctor-like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde…

‘What…what sort of a doctor?’ she asked cautiously, and for the first time she saw a glimmer of a smile touch Niall Mountmarche’s face.

‘Not a doctor of philosophy,’ he reassured her. ‘Or of basket-weaving, for that matter. A people doctor. Doctor of medicine with a piece of paper from London University to prove it.’

‘An English doctor!’

‘I’ll confess I’m an English doctor,’ he agreed. ‘Does that make me less qualified?’ The smile deepened. ‘You colonials really are getting uppity.’ Then Niall looked down at the dog on Jessie’s lap and the smile faded. ‘Enough. We’re wasting time: Let’s get this trap off and move him. Is your car near the gate on the ridge?’

‘Yes.’ Jessie’s mind was working at a hundred miles an hour. ‘But…’

‘But what?’ Niall had risen and was standing over girl and dog, looking down. ‘Now what, Dr Harvey?’

‘You really are a doctor…?’

‘I really am.’ Once more that glimmer of a smile. The Ogre took a giant step back, to be replaced by someone altogether more human.

‘Then…’ Jessie hesitated. ‘My car is fifteen minutes’ walk-more if we’re carrying Harry without jolting him. I don’t want to remove the trap until I have Harry under anaesthetic. It may bleed like crazy and I’ll have to work fast. But I don’t want him carried far with the trap in place. Do you have a car at your home?’

‘Yes.’ His face had lost expression.

‘Then can we take him to your place?’

‘You mean you want me to drive him to your clinic? Is that what you’re suggesting?’

Jessie took a deep breath. She glanced down at Harry and the very limpness of his body strengthened her resolution. The Mountmarche house-and Niall Mountmarche’s car-was a few minutes’ walk away. Taking Harry to Jessie’s car meant a rough fifteen minute walk with the trap in place-or taking the trap off now and risking further bleeding.

And if Niall Mountmarche could give the anaesthetic then the dog had a chance!

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘If we carry him together then we can move him with little jolting to the pad.’

Niall’s smile had faded once more, gone as if it had never been. ‘I don’t like strangers at my house,’ he said shortly, and Jessie flinched at the coldness of his words.

Back cometh the ogre…

‘I thought I introduced myself,’ she made herself say, replacing his smile with one of her own. ‘That makes me not a stranger, Dr Niall Mountmarche.’

She was fighting here. For Harry…

For a moment she expected a stinging rebuff. He wanted to give her one-she could tell.

Then Niall looked down again at the dog in Jessie’s arms and his look softened. If he was fighting a war then he was losing. Somewhere inside was a soft core.

‘I guess you’re not,’ he said slowly and in his voice was a small note of discovery. ‘Well, Dr Harvey. If you’re not a stranger then I suggest you act like a medical colleague. And we’ve got a job to do. So let’s get on with it.’

He stooped and took the dog from her as though the creature was weightless and, as Jessie supported the trapped pad, Niall swung Harry gently up to lie cradled against his body.

The impression of a man of compassion was stirring and beginning to grow. Jessie looked up at man and dog-and there was something else stirring within that she didn’t want to think about.

Niall Mountmarche met her look and his eyes widened.

It was as if he’d read her thoughts.

As if there was some sort of communication channel between them that needed no words. That was beyond words…

She was being ridiculous.

With a mammoth effort Jessie tore her eyes away, made sure Niall’s hand was supporting the injured pad and then turned to find her bag.

‘Let…let’s go, then, Dr Mountmarche,’ she said unsteadily and fumbled in the undergrowth for her belongings.

‘Let’s go.’ Niall Mountmarche repeated and by his words Jessie knew that she wasn’t imagining it.

Whatever she was feeling, Niall Mountmarche was feeling it too.

They didn’t talk on the walk to the house.

Jessie walked swiftly beside Niall, struggling to keep up with his long strides, support the trap and watch the big dog’s pain-dulled eyes at the same time. He was so far gone. At any moment she expected to see those big eyes glaze over…

The Mountmarche house was three minutes’ walk along the creek bed. It was a ramshackle old homestead, grand in its day but long fallen into disrepair. Jessie had expected the house to be deserted but as they neared the house she stared in astonishment as a man emerged from the back door.

The man was elderly, wiry and wrinkled to almost prune-like appearance. He looked like a man who’d spent his life in the sun. Like he’d been dried in the sun…

‘What the…?’ The elderly man stopped short as he caught sight of the group emerging from the bushland. His hand rose to scratch his bald head in a gesture of bewilderment. ‘What’ve you got there, Doc?’

Doc…So Niall really was…

‘An injured dog,’ Niall said brusquely. He motioned with his head to Jessie by his side. ‘Hugo, this is Jessica Harvey, the local vet. The dog’s been caught in a trap, Hugo. Can you bring the Range Rover round before Paige sees us?’

She’d already seen. There was someone else emerging from the house behind Hugo.

‘Daddy…’ The word was a cry of shock.

Niall’s face changed. He faced the door of the house like a man expecting trouble.

‘Paige…’

A tiny, elfin-like creature was limping into the doorway.

She was maybe five or six-no more-with a body that was thin to the point of malnourishment. The child’s white-gold hair was tied with a red ribbon that only added to her paleness and her eyes were huge in her pinched, wan face.

The little girl’s body swayed a little as though she was unused to the crutches she was using for support. Both her stick-like legs were encased in callipers-iron frames that seemed too big for her tiny body.

‘Daddy…’ It was both an accusation and a cry of pain and Jessie saw Niall Mountmarche flinch like a man struck.

Silence stretched out. There was something going on here that Jessie had no idea of.

All she could do was to stand and wait.

And watch…

Finally, Niall seemed to come to a decision. He gently moved Harry in his arms so that he and not Jessie was supporting the injured pad. Then he carried the dog over to where Paige stood, stooping so that the child could see the injured animal.

‘Paige, I know I promised you no one would come,’ Niall said softly, and his voice reminded Jessie of the tone she used with wild creatures. ‘I promised it would be just you and Hugo and I. But this is Harry. He’s a three-year-old Border collie and his leg’s been caught in a rabbit trap. You can see that he’s dreadfully hurt.

‘Now, this lady is Dr Harvey and she’s the local vet. She’s been searching for Harry. If it’s OK with you I’m going to drive Dr Harvey and Harry down to the veterinary clinic and help her operate on Harry-but if 1 keep my promise to you and keep us completely to ourselves then I can’t help and Harry might die. It’s up to you, Paige.’

What on earth was he doing? Jessie looked from man to child in bewilderment.

The child was obviously almost as confused as Jessie. She looked from Jessie to the dog in her father’s arms and then back to Jessie. Her eyes didn’t trust Jessie one inch.

‘She’s…she’s a dog doctor?’ The voice was trembling.

‘Dr Harvey’s a dog doctor.’

The little girl looked down at Harry and her hand went out in involuntary compassion.

‘He’s…The doggie’s hurting.’

‘Yes, Paige,’ Niall told her, still in that low, gentle tone, as if expecting the child to turn and run. ‘He’s hurting badly. You can see that.’

‘And…and you can help the lady doctor make the dog better.’

‘You know I’m a doctor, too, Paige,’ Niall said gently. ‘It’s my job. If you agree.’

The child touched the dog’s soft ears.

‘He really could die?’

‘He really could die.’

The little girl sighed-the sigh of someone letting something precious go out of sight and not knowing if she’d ever see it again-but willing to take the risk. For something as priceless as the life of this dog.

‘You’ll be longer than when you go to the shops?’

‘Much longer, Paige. But Hugo will still be here.’

‘OK,’ Paige whispered. ‘But…But hurry back…’

The drive to the clinic was in near-silence. Jessie sat on the passenger side of Niall Mountmarche’s gleaming Range Rover with the dog cradled against her and let a thousand questions crowd through her mind as Niall drove.

There were answers to none of them.

The dog whimpered and stirred in her arms and Jessie’s hold on him tightened.

‘Soon,’ she whispered to the big collie.

It couldn’t be soon enough for Harry.

They operated on Harry fifteen minutes later.

‘Instructions, please,’ Niall said briefly as they carried the dog into Theatre.

Niall listened with care as Jess outlined the anaesthetic procedure. It wasn’t so different from human intubation. Niall flung fast questions at her and Jess began to relax as she responded. She not only had a skilled doctor here. In Niall Mountmarche, Jess had found someone who was prepared to learn and learn fast.

There was minimal delay.

As soon as the anaesthetic took effect the dreadful trap was removed, allowing Jessie to see what she was facing.

It was bad-but it could have been worse.

Swiftly, moving as a team with this strange new doctor, Jessie staunched the blood flow and X-rayed. Three of the metacarpals were fractured which meant that she’d have to fix the bones. There was necrotic tissue on the front of the pad and up the dog’s foreleg, as though infection had spread, but Niall was right. There was still circulation.

There was still hope.

Niall Mountmarche intubated the dog with skill, moving his obvious skills with human anaesthesia to the animal arena with thoughtfulness and intelligence. The questions he needed to know he asked before Jessie thought of telling him and she was left alone to concentrate on the wound.

It was enough.

She never could have coped with such a severely traumatised dog and vicious wound if she’d had to do the anaesthetic herself. Over and over in her head as she operated Jessie was offering silent prayers of thankfulness for this man’s arrival.

The dog would be dead without him.

It was a nasty piece of surgery, requiring all her skill.

The rotten flesh had to be cut away and dirt, grass and hay seeds carefully cleaned from the festering wound. It was a time-consuming task, made more difficult by the small number of blood vessels remaining viable.

Then the metacarpals had to be fixed into position with K-wire. If only one of the outer metacarpals had been broken Jess could have let it be but with three fractured the dog would lose function if they weren’t fixed.

A huge job…

Jess could amputate if she had to-but the shock of such radical surgery could be enough to kill an already weakened, frail animal. Even taking the trap from his foot without an anaesthetic might have been enough to send him over the edge.

At least the pad still had circulation because, miraculously, the rotten flesh hadn’t invaded the major blood vessels. Yet…Another half a day and it would have been too late.

Too late for both the leg and for Harry, Jessie thought grimly as she worked. He would have been dead from starvation and infection.

Not now…Please…If they gave him maximum dose antibiotic and intravenous fluid to rehydrate the body…

Niall Mountmarche had given the dog a chance at life. She had to be grateful.

Niall…

Even though her whole concentration was needed for the job in hand, Jessie couldn’t help being aware of the man working silently by her side. He was watching everything she did, she knew, and the thought, instead of making her feel nervous, in fact steadied her.

What on earth was such a man doing in a place like this? Growing wine? The thought seemed ridiculous and yet only hours ago the thought of him being a doctor had seemed ridiculous. And what was wrong with the little girl?

Such questions had to be put aside until later…Much later.

Finally, she’d done all she could. Carefully she dressed the wound and moved to help Niall reverse the anaesthetic.

Now…

Now it was up to Harry.

Jess smiled as she finally stepped back from the table and stripped off her gloves. ‘Thank you, Dr Mountmarche,’ she said simply. Her face was showing more exhaustion than she knew.

‘It’s the least I can do,’ Niall Mountmarche told her brusquely. He’d adjusted the antibiotic through the intravenous drip and was now looking at Jess as if he couldn’t really believe what he was seeing. ‘That was a fine piece of work, Dr Harvey. I’m sorry I doubted your qualifications.’

Jessie stared. An apology from the Ogre of Barega. What next?

‘You don’t make such a bad vet yourself,’ she smiled at him. ‘For a human doctor.’

For a human doctor…

All of a sudden he was. Immensely human.

And immensely male.

He smiled then, his smile reflecting her relief, and Jess felt her heart give an unexpected jolt. What a smile…

Crazy…

She turned swiftly to the sink before her colour began to rise.

Or maybe it already had.

Maybe it was too late to disguise what she was feeling.

Niall Mountmarche was watching her with a look that she didn’t understand in the least. It made her feel…

Vulnerable.

And slightly afraid.

She struggled with the tapes of her gown and Niall moved swiftly to release them. The gown was lifted away, revealing once more her dust-stained shorts and shirt and bare arms and legs.

‘Back to Jessica Harvey, adolescent in need of a good bath,’ Niall grinned, and Jessie was forced to smile.

‘It’s hard being clinically clean when you’re a vet.’

‘There are not a lot of vets I know who crawl round under grapevines looking for patients.’ Niall motioned to Harry. ‘Will you leave him here?’

‘I’ll take him into the kitchen,’ Jessie told him. ‘It’s warm by the stove and I can watch him recover and make myself lunch at the same time.’ She hesitated and glanced at her watch. It was almost two in the afternoon. ‘Would you…would you like some lunch?’

‘No. I have to get back.’

Back to being the Ogre of Barega. Back to Paige.

‘Please…’ Jess put out a hand and laid it on his bare arm-and then wished she hadn’t. The feel of his skin against her fingers did something odd to her legs.

She lifted the hand away but made herself repeat the word.

‘Please…Before you go. Come and see Frank with me. He’s the owner of the dog and he’s here in the same building-only over the other side.’

‘Yes, I heard you had twin animal and human hospitals,’ Niall grinned. ‘A Health Department nightmare.’

‘What the heart doesn’t know…’ Jessie said demurely and matched his grin. ‘We’re a long way from officialdom here, thank heaven, and the arrangements have worked well until now.’

‘And now?’

‘Dr Hurd doesn’t like my animals.’ Jessie shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. We can be very separate when we try. Will you come and see Frank?’

He glanced at his watch. ‘Paige will be waiting…’ Then he looked up at Jess and smiled, that heartwarming, heart-stopping smile that was all the things that Jess considered most dangerous in a man.

‘Ten minutes, Dr Harvey,’ he smiled. ‘Ten minutes more of human contact before I go back to being the Ogre of Barega.’

He knew. He knew of his reputation.

Jessie felt herself flush crimson but Niall Mountmarche was smiling in a way that showed he didn’t mind the title in the least-in fact, by the look of it, he rather liked it!

They wheeled Harry down to the kitchen and settled him into a cage beside the big slow combustion stove. Jess worked with swift efficiency but Niall Mountmarche stopped at the kitchen door and stared in amazement.

‘Good grief!’

‘What?’ Jess was lifting the dog from trolley to cage, careful not to tangle his intravenous line, and Niall recovered from shock enough to move to help her.

‘It’s hardly a clinically clean kitchen-pristine for cooking,’ Niall told her. He hooked the bag of saline above the cage.

‘It’s clean enough for me.’

Niall shook his head. Having settled the dog, he stood and stared around the room.

It certainly was unusual. The house had been built with mass entertaining in mind and now, even though it was separated into two wings-hospital and vet clinic-Jess had been able to keep the original kitchen for her own use. She used every inch of it.

The vast slow combustion stove was the kitchen’s heart but surrounding it was ordered jumble. Bags of animal formula were heaped along one wall; there were tiny woollen bags with heating pads-obviously used for injured wildlife-hanging from chairs and, above their heads, bunches and bunches of sweet-smelling lavender hung like fragrant clouds.

‘You eat your cornflakes in here?’ Niall demanded incredulously and Jessie smiled. Her fingers were smoothing Harry’s soft ears, settling him from anaesthetic to deep, natural sleep. The longer he slept now the better. He wouldn’t worry the intravenous line and she could get maximum fluid and antibiotic into his starving body.

‘I like it,’ she said, and her voice was a little defensive. Separate your work from your home life, they’d told her at vet school, but Jess had never quite managed it.

‘I think I like it too,’ Niall smiled. He bent down over a woollen pouch. ‘Anyone home?’

There was. A moist, pinkish-brown nose emerged, followed by two huge brown eyes. The baby wallaby checked the intruder out, cast a doubtful glance across at Jessie as much as to say, ‘What are you doing letting us be disturbed when it’s not dinner time?’ and squirmed back down into his cocoon of wool.

‘For heaven’s sake…’ Niall Mountmarche’s normally grim face was transformed. He straightened and stared round the room. ‘Four pouches. Are they all…’

‘Only two are in use,’ Jessie told him. ‘I’m…I’m not taking new orphans at the moment.’

‘Not taking…’ Niall frowned. ‘You mean these aren’t pets?’

Jessie shook her head. ‘They’re wild creatures found orphaned or injured. The islanders know I care for them so they bring them to me. But I can’t cope with any more than two babies without help.’

‘And you’re without help?’

Jessie shrugged. ‘I do have a little,’ she admitted. ‘One of the nurses’ daughters comes in for emergencies. Lucy plans to be a vet and I’ve taught her to prepare and give formula. Lucy fed these two this morning while I searched for Harry. But I was lucky it was a school half-holiday. Lucy goes to school and doesn’t do night feeds and two-hourly feeds get a bit much when you’re by yourself.’

‘But you haven’t always been by yourself?’

Niall Mountmarche was prowling the room, fingering equipment and formula bags as though fascinated. He threw the question at her from the other side of the room.

‘My cousin and his wife are the normal island doctors and when they’re here they live on the other side of the hospital,’ Jessie told him. She was still absently stroking Harry but Harry was beyond feeling. Safe and warm, he was sleeping the sleep of the angels. ‘They help-but without them it’s difficult. For the next six months…’

‘Oh, yes.’ Niall nodded. ‘For the next six months you have the horrid Lionel Hurd who doesn’t like animals. I would have thought you would have written that into the job description.’

‘We didn’t have a choice,’ Jessie said tightly. ‘It was Lionel or nothing. And I guess he’s better than nothing.’

‘But you’re not sure.’

Jessie shook her head. ‘Sometimes I’m not,’ she admitted, thinking of the last time that she’d had words with Lionel. The man gave her the creeps.

She pushed the thought away and crossed to the sink to wash her hands. It was impossible to think of Lionel when Niall Mountmarche was in her kitchen. Impossible to find two such different men…

The feel of Niall Mountmarche in her home was sending strange sensations through Jess-sensations that she wasn’t at all sure she should be encouraging. He stood looking at the domestic chaos around him and Jessie felt the weight of the past six months shift focus-as though here was someone to share her burden.

Who cared like she did…

Ridiculous. This was the Ogre of Barega she was thinking of-not some knight in shining armour charging into her life, stethoscope flying, to take over the medical cares of the island.

‘Will you come and see Frank before you go back to Paige?’ Jess asked for the second time and was aware that her words sounded abrupt. She couldn’t help it. She was suddenly badly unsettled.

Niall nodded. He glanced at his watch again.

‘I have five minutes,’ he told her. ‘Five minutes more of being a doctor before 1 transform again. Lead on, Dr Harvey. Whither thou goest, I will follow.’

Odd. There was a tone in his voice that suggested that he was only half joking.

Jess led the way through to the hospital side of the building with a light heart. She’d left Frank Reid desperate this morning. The elderly farmer had been beside himself when he knew that Harry had disappeared, furious with the girl who’d been caring for Harry for being afraid to tell him sooner that the dog was missing and furious with himself for not being well enough to go home.

‘Danged leg,’ he’d sworn, and thrown in a few more expletives besides. ‘Get me a wheelchair, Jess, and I’ll look for him myself.’

Only Jessie’s absolute assurance that she’d search as thoroughly as Frank himself would had made him lie back on his pillows again and his face when Jess had left was of total misery. He knew what the dog’s absence of almost a week most probably meant.

But now…Now the news that Jess could give the old man was a lot better than she could have expected. She pushed the ward door open with a smile and stopped in dismay.

Frank was in no condition to receive visitors.

The old man was vomiting. He’d been vomiting for a while, Jess could see, as he was past the stage where he was able to sit and hold the kidney basin for himself. He was dry-retching, heaving uselessly as the nurse watched helplessly beside him.

Jess stared down in dismay.

This was no normal gastric upset. Frank’s eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. His skin was parchment dry and the hand clutching the coverlet was gripping convulsively.

‘What’s happening, Sarah?’ Jess asked quickly, moving across to Frank’s side. Frank was so far gone that he didn’t even try to acknowledge her presence.

‘I don’t know.’ The middle-aged nurse shook her head in indecision. ‘I don’t like it, Jess, and that’s the truth. He’s been vomiting since just after you left. He was so upset about the dog-and then he lost his breakfast and he’s just kept on being sick.’

‘Have you rung Dr Hurd?’

Sarah shouldn’t be coping on her own here, Jessie knew. The nurse had done basic training twenty years ago but had been involved in little medicine since. She’d only just started back at the hospital after raising her family, filling in while one of the regular nurses was on holiday.

‘I rang Dr Hurd twice,’ the nurse whispered. ‘He said to give metaclopramide-which I’ve done-but it’s not helping. I rang him again half an hour ago and he just said to give him more. He’ll be in later…’

Later…

Jess stared down at Frank and knew without doubt that there was no ‘later’. She knew what death looked like.

Dear heaven…

‘Ring him again, then,’ she said harshly. ‘Tell him Mr Reid’s in real trouble and he must come now!’

‘He’s at Clinic,’ the nurse told her. ‘He yelled last time when I disturbed him. He said he’d come when he was ready and not before.’

Instinctively Jess looked to Niall.

Niall Mountmarche had followed her into the room and was surveying the room with a face that was totally devoid of any expression. It was as if he was deliberately holding himself apart.

He didn’t want to get involved.

‘Dr Mountmarche…’ Jess started.

‘Yes?’ It was a clipped, clinical reply. It could have meant anything.

‘Please…’ Jessie said helplessly and then, at the look on that cold face, she went further. ‘Frank’s…Frank’s my friend…’

‘I’m not practising medicine here, Dr Harvey-especially on someone else’s patient. It’s none of my business.’

‘Then Frank will die.’

The words hung in the air and everyone in the room knew that they were absolute truth.

Niall looked down at the man on the bed for a long moment. Frank hadn’t acknowledged their presence in any way. His frail body was heaving as if it was trying to rid itself of a poison that was overwhelming.

‘Damn him,’ Niall Mountmarche said savagely and Jessie knew that he wasn’t talking of Frank. He was talking of the absent Lionel Hurd. He walked over to the bed and lifted the chart. ‘He’s diabetic, isn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Jessie was hardly breathing.

‘What’s his blood sugar?’ Niall snapped at the nurse and the nurse faltered.

‘B-blood sugar?’

‘Blood sugar, Nurse,’ Niall said and his voice was dangerously calm. Jessie had a sudden vision of Niall in a large teaching hospital, with students behind him. The image of the Ogre of Barega was thoroughly replaced now. There was clinical calm-and clinical, icy professionalism.

‘The patient is diabetic, Nurse,’ Niall snapped. ‘You must be doing blood-sugar readings?’

‘Dr Hurd didn’t tell me to…’

‘Well, I’m telling you,’ Niall snapped. ‘When was the last one done? Yesterday?’

‘I don’t know…I mean…We give him his pills for diabetes but I didn’t know we had to do blood sugars…’

The nurse was close to tears.

‘Well, do one now, Nurse,’ Niall said with that same icy calm. ‘Fast.’ He lifted the chart from the end of the bed. ‘History. Dr Harvey, do you know it?’ The nurse was already scurrying for the diabetic testing kit, sniffing back tears, and Niall had obviously given her up as a source of useful information.

‘Frank was admitted to hospital a week ago with a bad leg,’ Jess told him. ‘It doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’m not…Dr Hurd doesn’t discuss his treatment with me. That’s all I know.’

Niall flicked up the blankets. Frank was wearing short pyjamas and his leg was exposed on the white sheet. The right leg from ankle to knee was red and swollen.

‘Cellulitis,’ Niall said grimly. He was holding Frank’s chart in his free hand and glanced at the line of figures. Sarah had filled in temperature and blood pressure readings with neat, precise figures. It was one thing she was good at.

The nurse was taking a tiny fingerprick blood sample now for a blood-sugar reading and her hand trembled.

‘He’s been running a temp of over thirty-eight for seven days,’ Niall said incredulously. ‘There’s no drip up? Has Dr Hurd discontinued intravenous antibiotics?’

Sarah was placing the blood sample on the stick. She nearly dropped it in her fright.

‘He’s had antibiotics orally, Doctor,’ she whispered. ‘And his diabetic tablets…’

‘So he’s not on insulin?’

‘Tablet only.’ Sarah was sure of her ground here.

‘And you haven’t taken a blood-sugar reading?’

‘I don’t…’ Sarah looked wildly across at Jessie. ‘Maybe the night nurse did-or Dr Hurd himself-’

‘Pigs might fly,’ Niall snapped. He laid the chart on the bed and lifted Frank’s wrist. ‘I need a drip set up fast,’ he told Jess. ‘Can you arrange it…?’

‘Dr Harvey’s a vet,’ the nurse said, shocked.

‘Yes, she’s a vet,’ Niall growled. ‘And she wouldn’t treat a dog like this man’s been treated. What’s the blood sugar, Nurse?’

He waited.

Sarah stared at the tiny chart. It was as much as she could do to keep her hands from trembling too much to read it.

‘Th-thirty-two…’

‘Thirty-two.’ Niall sighed. His voice was dangerously quiet. ‘A blood sugar of sixteen should be sending danger signals. Thirty-two, and you haven’t been testing…’

His face set into grim lines. ‘Someone’s been criminally negligent here,’ he snapped. ‘But we’ll worry about that later.

‘I want his urine tested for ketones as soon as possible but I won’t wait on the result. He has to be suffering from diabetic ketacidosis and I’ll work on that assumption. I want insulin-now-and I want saline intravenously at maximum flow. We’ll also need blood for electrolytes.’

‘H-how much insulin do we give him?’

‘Twenty units to begin with.’

‘And saline?’ The nurse was practically weeping and Niall winced.

‘As much as we can get aboard,’ he said icily. He was taking Frank’s blood pressure as he spoke. ‘Ninety on fifty…And you ask me how much…?’

‘Can I help?’ Jess asked quietly.

‘I need equipment for an IV line…’

Jessie had already found it. She’d moved swiftly next door to the small theatre and brought back what was needed. Before Dr Hurd’s arrival, her presence had been welcome in the hospital-as the island doctors’ presence had been welcome in her vet’s clinic. Two halves of a medical team…

Not now. Not with Dr Hurd…

Maybe she could again with Niall Mountmarche. He seemed to have accepted her completely as a medical equal. Niall accepted the syringe Jess handed him without comment.

‘I want insulin in now and the first litre of saline through within the hour. Then keep right on going-if we’re in time,’ he told Sarah. He was swabbing the back of Frank’s hand and sliding the catheter into place ready for the IV line, taking the blood sample for elecrolytes in the process.

‘The insulin can go in with the first litre. You don’t stop the flow until I tell you and I’ll tell you when to stop. You’re not taking instructions from Dr Hurd for this patient, Nurse, but from me. Move…’

‘But Dr Hurd…’

The nurse stared wildly with frightened eyes. She clearly had no idea who this strange man was-to be marching into her ward and giving orders.

‘Dr Mountmarche is a qualified doctor,’ Jess said quickly, but the nurse’s unease didn’t diminish.

‘I don’t know…’

Then her face cleared at the sound of footsteps in the hospital corridor.

‘Oh, here comes Dr Hurd now,’ she said in relief. ‘He’ll give me orders.’

‘You will do as I say. Now!’ Niall snapped. ‘There’s no time for argument. If you don’t then this man will be dead within an hour. Jessie, stay here and see she does what I’ve asked. Brain her and do it yourself if necessary.’ His mouth tightened in a grim line.

‘But Dr Hurd won’t let me,’ the nurse sobbed.

‘Leave me to deal with Dr Hurd.’

He hesitated, clearly unsure whether to stop Lionel Hurd in the corridor or stay and risk an altercation in Frank’s room. Jess saw his dilemma. A shouting match by his bedside was the last thing that Frank needed.

‘We’ll be right here,’ she said swiftly, and Niall’s eyes met hers in a fleeting moment of comprehension.

‘You’re in charge then, Dr Harvey. OK?’

‘OK.’

He nodded, a trace of a smile curving the sides of his mouth. ‘Rather medicine than Dr Hurd?’

‘Any day.’

The smile deepened. ‘So you’re sending me to battle. Well, they don’t call me the Ogre of Barega for nothing,’ he told her, and let his hand drop to touch the back of hers in a fleeting gesture of reassurance.

Then he handed the tray of equipment across to Jessie and walked out of the room.