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CHAPTER 1

HEL

D octor Ethel Rayleigh sat on the bench, watching the ice hockey game in front of her. Although it would take a brave soul to call her Ethel, as she refused to answer to that travesty of a name, instead insisting on being called Hel.

Her usual—more than full-time—job was as a Consultant in the Emergency Department of Kookaburra Creek Base Hospital. And now, somehow, she was also the doctor for the local ice hockey team, the Kookaburra Creek Wombats, aka the Burra Wombats.

Hel couldn’t lie to herself, she knew how it happened. Her inner people pleaser came out when the doctor who had done it for the beginning of the season needed to drop out and asked her to take over. She was already overworked and exhausted. Unfortunately, her mouth said the word yes, even as her brain screamed no.

So here she was, committed to coming most Saturdays to freeze half to death in an ice rink.

Today was her first game, and Hel couldn’t stop the wince that crossed her face every time the players collided with each other.

She physically jumped backwards when two of them hit the glass hard right in front of her. She scanned the Burra Wombat pressed against the glass—or maybe they were called boards?—for any sign of injury, as he had taken a punishing blow.

He must have been fine because he shoved the other player off and turned his back on her, skating away at top speed to chase the—she wanted to say puck—although it could have been called an ice biscuit for all she knew.

She read the back of his shirt as he rushed away from her. Forster. She mulled his name over. That was the famous one, right? He was American, oh, actually Canadian, and he was the reason the team had a full house tonight.

Evidently, he was over from the NHL, and his time in Australia was to film a documentary and strengthen the sport in the country.

To Hel, it made no sense whatsoever to try to strengthen ice hockey in the land of beaches and surfing. But from what she had seen online, the documentary makers were paying him a boatload of money, so here he was.

Hel pondered what it would be like to be really wealthy. She was well paid—which she had worked long and hard to achieve—but each month, she set aside a large chunk of her money for her parents. It started only as a small amount when she first began work as a doctor, enough to give her parents—who had sacrificed so much for their three kids—a few luxuries in their otherwise frugal existence.

A little bit of money each month increased to a lot of money when it became clear that the back pain her dad suffered every day, from a lifetime spent as a building labourer, was serious and required surgery that the public health system—the same system Hel gave her blood, sweat and tears to—wouldn’t cover.

Hel refused to listen when her dad said it would be okay, that he would be fine without surgery and she found a private spinal surgeon who could do the operation. The only problem was they now had to scrape together enough money to pay for it.

Hel tried not to think about the lack of help from her two siblings as it upset her too much.

Her older brother, Ken, left Australia the minute he turned eighteen to travel the world, which he had done for nearly two decades.

He was now forty years old and had finally settled down in Indonesia with a Balinese woman and had two adorable kids. They owned and ran a small yoga retreat, which kept their family comfortable in Bali but didn’t give them any extra to spare for their parents. In fact, each year, Hel paid for her parents to visit him, and once a year for Ken and his family to visit Australia.

Maggie, her younger sister, met a boy at sixteen. They were pregnant at seventeen and married at eighteen.

Luckily for Maggie, he was from a generationally wealthy family, so she was set for life. Unluckily for Hel’s parents, this family were snobs, unable to accept that their son married so far ‘beneath’ him, and Maggie made very sure to keep her ‘embarrassing parents’ away from her new family and friends while she lived the high life.

Hel was the only one vaguely accepted by the stuck-up in-laws, who, while they couldn’t imagine working for a living, saw how a doctor could have a certain status in society.

She had tried talking to her sister when they went for lunch together at Maggie’s exclusive country club about giving their parents an allowance to help them out or some money for the surgery.

Maggie had shot her down, informing Hel that it wasn’t her money to give away, there was no way she would be asking her husband for anything, and she couldn’t afford to dip into her allowance.

Maggie then paid for their lunch—very generously—from her spending allowance, picked up her ten thousand dollar handbag, and swept out the room, towing Hel along and lecturing her on pulling oneself out of the gutter and how they shouldn’t be giving their parents handouts, as it was up to the parents to support the children and not vice-versa.

Hel had been left open-mouthed. She didn’t know what her sister’s ‘allowance’ actually was, but from the clothes Maggie wore, Hel assumed it was in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, a month, and she couldn’t ‘afford’ to give five hundred bucks to their parents.

So each pay cheque, Hel sent some money to her parents and set aside the rest for the surgery. Keeping her own expenses down by living in a shared house and only going out once a week with her friends to the pub quiz.

As she stared at the ice in front of her, she let her mind wander to her friends, who she was sure would enjoy the spectacle of the ‘man mountains’ skating past at high speed. She snapped a quick picture and sent it, not waiting for a reply as they usually weren’t quick in answering.

Sadie, who was the head of the anaesthetic department in Burra Base Hospital, was married with two kids and always occupied. And now her other friend Clara, who was also an anaesthetist, had met Taylor Anderson—Hollywood megastar and love of her life—she never seemed to be home. Flying off for days or weeks at a time to wherever Taylor was filming.

Taylor and Clara had bought a house outside Burra Creek, which had three cottages in the grounds. Hel had opened her mouth several times to ask them if they would consider renting one of them to her. But she didn’t, as it felt like taking advantage of their friendship, so she continued to live in her cheap room in a shared house with a rotating collection of junior doctors who had varying levels of cleanliness.

She often wished that Clara would notice her shit living conditions and offer a solution, but she was totally caught up with being in love and planning her wedding.

A twinge of jealousy passed over Hel. She wished her friends every happiness, but it was sometimes hard to be the single one of the trio when the other two were so deliriously in love.

Hel’s eyes snapped to the far end of the rink, where a player had taken a puck—or ice biscuit or whatever it was called—to the chest and was now lying on his back. She got to her feet for a better look, but the giant men on skates kept getting in her way, and she couldn’t see what was going on.

Mentally she ran through the contents of the medical bag sitting at her side, hoping she wouldn’t need to grab it and head out onto the ice.

She glanced down at the special shoes she wore, with little spikes on the bottom to stop her falling over and wished again that this hadn’t been a last-minute job, so she had practised in them. She had the horrible feeling it wasn’t as easy as the coaching staff made it look.

Something was definitely wrong, the player wasn’t moving. She picked up the medical bag, ready to go.

The coach went first, sprinting across the slick surface to his player. Watching him move so quickly gave her the confidence that it couldn’t be so hard after all.

Stepping to the door, her breath caught when the cold hit her. She hadn’t realised how much the screen, separating her from the ice, sheltered her from the low temperature because now she was freezing. The shivers started, and she couldn’t stop them.

“DOOCCCCCCC.” The coach’s voice bellowed, his hand frantically waving to her.

She was about to step onto the ice when he bellowed again.

“HE’S NOT brEATHING.” Panic tinged his voice.

A chill settled over Hel, which had nothing to do with the frigid temperatures in the ice rink. Her mind went into overdrive, and she spun around, dashing away from the door to snatch the portable defibrillator from where it was mounted on the wall behind the players’ bench.

Every player who wasn’t on the ice was on their feet, trying to see what was happening, but they all cleared a path for her to get to her target. Snatching the box off the wall, she threw it over her shoulder as well and ran back to the door.

She stepped onto the ice, and despite the spikes, her feet immediately went out from under her, and she smashed down, landing hard on her bottom and hitting the back of her head on the slippery floor.

For a moment, everything went black, then the arena lights overhead dazzled her eyes. Winded and dazed, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to stand up again.

After a moment, she recalled why she had stepped onto the ice and struggled to get upright, wincing when the cold bit into her fingers as she pushed her palms down on the frozen surface.

“Shit,” she cursed when a chunk of ice sliced into her palm. Glancing down at her hand, she saw it had drawn blood.

Finishing the struggle to her feet, she reached into her pocket and pulled out some surgical gloves, putting one over the hand with the cut. She didn’t have time to deal with that now, she could see them doing chest compressions on the fallen player.

This time, she moved carefully, not wanting to risk falling again.

Her progress was painfully slow, not helped by the fact the blow to her head had left her slightly dizzy and her ears ringing.

Hel kept going, keeping her gaze fixed on where she needed to be.

Her eyes widened in surprise when one of the players broke off from the group and came skating at full speed towards her. She barely managed to stop herself screaming when the giant on skates, who looked close to seven feet tall—which was huge even when you were five foot eight—skidded to a halt so close to her that her hair blew in the breeze he created.

“Doc,” he said, nodding to her.

She tried to figure out which player it was but didn’t have time before he swept her up into his arms. One hand circled her waist, and the other was under her legs as he clutched her to his chest. Their gazes met for a brief second, and she caught her breath when his green eyes locked on hers.

“What?” Hel didn’t have time to form a full thought before he looked away from her and was moving across the ice at what seemed like a million kilometres an hour.

They reached the fallen player in seconds, and she was deposited right next to them. For a moment, she felt sad when the strong arms put her down. She dismissed the errant thought and dropped to her knees on the ice next to her patient, not noticing when water soaked through her jeans and the cold bit into her skin.