Sometimes, Indi could be cranky and headstrong after daycare and Lucy always worried the night before a spelling test, but as expected, Jess had it all under control. Libby hoped Nick appreciated the unexpected treat of walking into a calm house.

During the dinner break she chatted with her colleagues, enjoying the opportunity to talk shop, although she noticed many of the blokes talked about their golf handicap or their upcoming vacation. Then again, unlike her, most of them worked in larger practices and had other doctors on site to discuss tricky cases.

The last presentation of the evening was a professor from Melbourne University. He was talking about his study on the SMOC1 protein and if it could play a role in treating type two diabetes, when her phone vibrated. She immediately recognized the practice’s number and hit the decline button. Ramesh was on-call with Penny and whatever the issue, they could handle it. She’d just pulled her concentration back to how the protein responded to glucose and insulin, when her phone rang again. This time she didn’t recognize the number and she let it go through to voicemail.

Then a text pinged in. Please contact Bairnsdale Regional Health Services Emergency Department as soon as possible.

Libby sighed. Perhaps Ramesh had sent one of her sickies to the hospital and they wanted to talk to her. She picked up her bag and, murmuring her apologies, shuffled past her colleagues before making her way to the emergency department. The place was buzzing, with at least a dozen people waiting in chairs, so that meant a lot was happening on the other side of the locked doors. Using her lanyard, she buzzed herself in.

She didn’t recognize the nurse at the desk. “Hi, I’m Dr. Hunter. I just got a text. I think you’ve got a patient of mine here.”

His fingers hovered over a keyboard. “What’s the name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve sent us a patient but you don’t know their name?”

Libby ignored the man’s incredulous tone and showed him her phone. “I just got this message.”

He frowned as he peered at the screen. “Are you Libby Hunter?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” He stood and gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry for the confusion. Come this way.”

She was about to ask who’d been admitted but he was already striding away from her. She followed him past the cubicles to one of the monitored beds.

“Oh my God!”

Nick lay on a hospital gurney, his usually healthy, tanned face matching the color of the covering sheet. A pulse oximeter was fitted on his forefinger, an IV line ran into the back of his hand, oxygen prongs sat in his nostrils and leads protruded from behind his hospital gown. The EKG machine beeped rhythmically.

She grabbed his free hand, gripping it hard as if he might suddenly be pulled away from her. “What happened?”