The Doctors' Christmas Reunion. Meredith Webber

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      Andy sat in the tiny space that was his hospital ‘office’, scanning the internet for videos of soccer coaching, although images of Ellie as she’d sat in the kitchen again kept intruding. The hospital was quiet—too quiet—leaving him far too much time to think of Ellie and the mess their marriage was in.

      Shouldn’t losing a child have brought them closer together, not thrown up a wall between them?

      It was because thinking of Ellie caused him physical pain that he had thrown himself into establishing a Maytown soccer team, allowing soccer to block out all but his most insistent thoughts.

      Would their son have played soccer?

      The wave of pain that accompanied that thought sent Andy back to the videos.

      How could he not have known how much it would hurt—losing the baby, losing his son?

      He took a deep breath and went back to the videos. He needed to do something constructive and worthwhile.

      The call to the emergency room—hardly big enough to deserve the name ‘department’—sent him in search of work, which was an even better diversion than the soccer team.

      Although the ghost of Ellie always worked beside him, for this had been their dream: to work together in the country, bringing much-needed medical services to people who’d so often had to go without.

      The patient was a child, a young boy—maybe twelve—bravely biting his lip to stem the tears while he clutched at his injured side.

      ‘Bloody fence strainers broke,’ a man Andy assumed was the father said. ‘The barbed wire whipped around him like a serpent. I’m Tim Roberts, and this here’s Jonah.’

      Andy shook hands with the pair, then leant over to examine the wound. A red weal showed where the wire had hit the boy, but the serious wound was just above his right groin.

      ‘Bit of a barb got in there, but the wife pulled it out with tweezers and put some cream on it last night, but you can see how it is now.’

      The area was red, swollen, and obviously infected.

      ‘I’ll need to open it up,’ he said. ‘We’ll just give Jonah light sedation and clean out the wound.’

      There was no need to mention there could be damage to the bowel, but Andy would have to look carefully, which was why he’d chosen to give an anaesthetic over a local pain injection.

      His mind ran through the roster of staff on duty. Tony was a good theatre nurse but Andrea—who was the only nurse trained to give anaesthetic—was off duty. He’d have to phone Ellie to come in and do it.

      And the stupid flip of his heart when he even thought her name reminded him that the love he felt for his wife had never gone away.

      Yes, they’d parted—pushed apart by the pain of loss—but the love he felt for her was as strong as ever.

      Or was it longing more than love...?

      ‘I won’t be able to operate until later,’ he told Tim. ‘If you’ve other things to do in town, Jonah will be quite safe here. In fact, he’ll probably be thoroughly spoilt by the nurses.