A Love Against All Odds. Emily Forbes

she’d been rostered off. Today her world was changing.

      As she and Henry assembled in triage along with the other staff, Maia saw Carrie, her best friend, standing on the opposite side of the group. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question at Maia when she saw who was by her side. Maia gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. She didn’t want Carrie asking questions.

      ‘If I can have everyone’s attention …’ the ED Director said as she scanned the group, obviously deciding everyone was present and accounted for. Brenda waited for the conversational noise to cease before continuing. ‘There’s been an accident involving a school bus and we’ve got several ambulances headed our way.’

      Maia shouldn’t even have thought about it being quiet.

      ‘Apparently the earthquake triggered a landslide which caused the bus to crash but I don’t have any more detail than that. The bus driver has been airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth and the plan is to bring all the kids to us. There were sixteen primary school children on the bus. Varying injuries—fractures, cuts, bruises, some suspected head injuries and possible spinal injuries—and all of them will be in shock.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘ETA five minutes.’

      ‘It seems you got your disaster after all,’ Maia said quietly to Henry as Brenda went on.

      ‘For those of you who haven’t met him yet, I’d like to introduce Dr Henry Cavanaugh. Henry is a UK-trained emergency-medicine specialist with a special interest in disaster management. He did part of his fellowship in Christchurch at the Queen Liz but this time he is seconded to our hospital and he will be looking at our management systems, as well as taking on a clinical workload.’

      Maia could see Carrie making a beeline for her and by her expression she could tell she was in for a grilling. She really needed to process Henry’s return before she was ready for it to be dissected in a discussion with anyone, even her best friend. But she knew her chances of putting Carrie off were next to none so all she could do was ensure that the conversation didn’t take place in public.

      Henry was about to be swamped by other emergency staff who hadn’t yet met him so Maia headed for the change rooms, deciding she would quickly change into surgical scrubs. Carrie followed her, as she’d known she would. She and Carrie had been best friends since their first year of high school. For thirteen years Carrie had been by Maia’s side. She’d been through everything that had happened to Maia over the past three years and longer.

      The moment the door closed behind them, Carrie asked, ‘Did you know he was back?’

      Maia stripped off her uniform and hung it on a spare coat-hanger, exchanging her clothes for hospital-issued scrubs. ‘Who? Henry?’

      ‘Yes, Henry,’ Carrie replied as Maia stepped into a pair of surgical pants and tied the drawstring at her waist.

      ‘No. You know we haven’t kept in touch.’ They had agreed on a clean break—that had been his suggestion, not hers—and she’d spoken to him exactly twice in three years. He had called her once when her father had suffered his first stroke and again when he had died. That had been their only contact. Henry wasn’t part of her life anymore.

      ‘How did your date go last night?’ Maia asked as she tugged the pale-blue cotton shirt down over her head.

      ‘Don’t change the subject.’

      ‘I’m not. Henry being back is not a subject. Not one that affects me anyway.’

      Carrie raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?’

      Even though Maia had known the fairy tale hadn’t had the happy ending she’d wanted, and she’d pretended he hadn’t broken her heart when he’d left, it had taken her a long time to recover. But eventually she’d been able to consign him to her past and to think of him without feeling like her heart was being ripped in two. They’d wanted different things in life. Things had worked out for the best.

      ‘Positive,’ she said as she lifted her hand to gather her long, dark hair into a ponytail, wrapping and tucking the end to make a messy bun. Her engagement ring caught the light, reminding her to remove it, and she slid it off her finger and onto the necklace where she wore it while she was working.

      She was engaged to be married. Henry was an ex-boyfriend. Not the love of her life.

      ‘He’s an ex-boyfriend, that’s all.’

      Henry was her past. Not her future.

      He wasn’t her Henry any more.

CHAPTER TWO

      TWO AMBULANCES PULLED into the loading bay as Maia and Carrie returned to the ED, creating a flurry of activity. Maia’s fiancé, Todd, was a paramedic. He had a day shift and she peered through the windows of the closest ambulance and scanned the bustling medicos, looking for his familiar figure. Looking for his sturdy frame, his short, neat brown hair and his gentle hazel eyes.

      A girl of about eight or nine was pulled from the back of the first ambulance. There was no sign of Todd. The girl’s eyes were closed and she had a firm cervical collar around her neck.

      ‘Carrie, this child needs a neuro consult, possible head injury. Jim Edwards is on his way down but can you monitor her until he arrives?’ Brenda relayed the paramedics’ summary of the girl’s condition.

      ‘Sure.’ Carrie had worked at the Children’s since graduating from nursing. She was one of the most experienced emergency nurses and there wasn’t much she hadn’t had to deal with before. She crossed straight to the first stretcher.

      The doors of the second ambulance swung open and Maia saw Todd climb out. She headed for her fiancé, closely followed by Brenda. Despite the fact that he’d just come from what she imagined was a complicated and messy motor-vehicle accident with multiple casualties, Todd looked as immaculate as ever. He was fastidiously neat and somehow his uniform had remained clean and still had perfect creases in the trouser legs. In contrast Maia could sense that her thick dark hair was already escaping from the bun she’d fixed it in. She couldn’t count how many times people had uttered the phrase ‘opposites attract’ when they’d been talking about her and Todd.

      He pulled a stretcher from the back of the truck. A young boy was sitting up on it. He was alert and seemed quite fascinated by the whole experience. He was dressed in his school uniform, shorts and a T-shirt, and Maia could see that his left knee was swollen. The paramedics had rolled up a towel and stuffed it under his knee to support it.

      ‘Adam has undiagnosed knee pain,’ Todd told them. ‘And he’s unable to weight bear. Vitals all with normal limits.’

      ‘Henry.’ Brenda nodded as she called Henry over to join them. ‘Ortho injuries; can you take this one?’ she said as she pointed to Adam. ‘Maia, you go with him.’

      She wondered if that was a coincidence or if Henry had requested to work with her. Don’t flatter yourself, she remonstrated as Todd handed her a little green whistle-shaped inhaler.

      ‘He’s had the Penthrox inhaler on the way here,’ he said.

      Maia nodded and tucked the pain-reliever alongside Adam, then put her hands on the stretcher, ready to wheel it away. Before she had moved Todd reached over and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said.

      Maia saw Henry watching. His eyes moved from Todd’s hand to Todd and then to her face. Maia blushed under his scrutiny. She almost felt like she shouldn’t have let Todd touch her. Not that she could have stopped him, nor was she sure why she would have wanted to, but his familiar gesture made her feel awkward and uncomfortable under Henry’s gaze. His expression was unreadable but he gave the stretcher a push, starting it moving towards the entrance, and Todd’s hand dropped from Maia’s shoulder with the movement. Henry wasn’t watching her now, he was focused on manoeuvring the stretcher, but Maia knew his