Holding Out For a Hero

by Caroline Anderson

Because I don’t want you naked in my flat, he thought, and then had to shut his eyes for a heartbeat because that was such a downright lie. He did want her naked—naked and writhing under him, with those full, firm breasts unleashed from that awful, sexless and bloodstained sports bra and spilling eagerly into his hands…

  ‘Ben? Where’s the fire?’

  He eased his foot off the accelerator and sucked in a lungful of air. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and spent the next ten minutes forcing himself to concentrate.

  She’d meant to use Fliss’s shower, but when they got back there Fliss was out and she had no choice but to use Ben’s.

  ‘You go first,’ he said, and so she went into his bathroom, amongst all his toiletries, and discovered that he didn’t put the lid on his toothpaste and squeezed the tube in the middle and didn’t rinse the basin, so there were little tiny dark hairs all round it from when he’d shaved.

  But he used proper shampoo, and soap the same as his horribly expensive aftershave, so that when she’d washed herself she smelt of him.

  And then he was banging on the door and telling her to hurry up, and she dragged the towel he’d given her round her still-wet body, scooped up her clothes and opened the door.

  ‘All yours,’ she said with a bright smile, and he growled something under his breath and shot past her.

  She dressed quickly and rubbed her hair dry with the towel, then spent the next five minutes trying to get the tangles out of it because he hadn’t had any conditioner, of course. And then he was there, dressed in decent jeans—for once—and a shirt left open at the neck, with the cuffs turned back to expose those lean, tanned forearms with the scatter of dark hair that sent shivers up her spine.

  He was fastening his watch, the slim steel bracelet businesslike and not in the least showy, and she suddenly realised just how simple his tastes were, clean and economical, nothing flashy.

  Even his car was just a straightforward saloon, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to attract attention apart from the fact that it whispered quality.

  ‘All set?’ he asked, and she nodded.

  ‘Hair’s still damp, but it’ll be dry by the time we get there. I don’t suppose you’ve got a hair-dryer?’

  ‘There’s one in the bedroom,’ he said, and produced it. ‘Courtesy of Fliss,’ he explained, and she ran it quickly over her hair, taking off the worst of the dampness, and then they headed to the hospital.

  Pete pounced on them, and not for the first time Meg wondered how Ben coped with him and hadn’t simply landed him one by now on his arrogant and bossy nose.

  Tom caught up with them in A and E, and for their benefit and that of the camera explained what they’d done to Jess when she’d been brought in.

  ‘She’d got a sucking chest wound, of course—so when she tried to breathe in, air was dragged into her chest through the hole, instead of into her lungs through her windpipe, so her oxygen saturation was very low. On top of that she had severe bleeding from the entry wound, but that was just a blood vessel serving the muscles between the ribs, and nothing major. It doesn’t look like she got too much sea water in the wound. She’s had surgery, and I gather she’s in Recovery, and her parents are waiting to thank you both.’

  ‘And her sister? Did anybody look at her? She was very shocked,’ Meg pointed out, and Tom nodded.

  ‘She got quickly checked over but she was fine, just needed to know her sister was going to be all right. So you two are the heroes of the hour, and as far as that family are concerned you could walk on water, so you’d better go and claim your fame.’

  Ben grunted. ‘That’s absolutely the last thing I want to do,’ he began, but Tom shook his head.

  ‘You have to go. This isn’t about you, it’s about two people whose daughter nearly died, who want to thank you for saving her life. That’s all. They know about the camera, they’re quite happy, so go and be gracious.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Ben said, shooting Tom a crooked grin, and with a sigh he rested his hand on the small of Meg’s back and ushered her forwards.

  ‘Lead on, then,’ he said, and she took them up to the cardiothoracic theatre suite and found Jess’s family sitting at her bedside in Recovery.

  ‘I’d better just OK it,’ Meg said before they went in, and spoke briefly to the senior nurse.

  ‘Oh, the heroes!’ she said with a grin. ‘Sure, but don’t be long. We haven’t got anyone else in here at the moment, but we’ve got another patient coming out of Theatre in a few minutes, and we’re moving Jess to the ward in a little while, so keep it brief.’

  ‘Will do,’ Meg promised, and, giving the others the nod, she made her way over to the bed. ‘Hi, there,’ she murmured, and Kate looked up and leapt to her feet.

  ‘Meg!’ she cried, and Meg opened her arms and hugged her slender little frame.

  ‘How are you? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said shakily. ‘Jess is going to be OK. Thank you so, so much…’

  And she started to laugh and cry at the same time, so Meg hugged her again, rocking her and patting her back and letting her get it out of her system. When she looked up, Ben’s hand was being almost wrung off by Kate and Jess’s father, and their mother was clinging to his other hand and looking distinctly tearful as well.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Ben was saying. ‘I just held her. Meg did all the briefing of the emergency services and put the pressure pad on the wound and kept an eye on her condition. I just held her still—took her weight.’

  ‘And made a very brave decision, I gather.’

  He looked at her father. ‘Not really. It was risk injuring her further, or leave her there and let her drown. It was a no-brainer, really. She was just very, very lucky.’

  They nodded, and the father swallowed hard.

  ‘She’s been ill—we’ve nearly lost her a couple of times—but we’ve got her through it and she’s turned the corner and made it to her sixteenth birthday, and to lose her now, after all that, well, I don’t think we could have survived it—any of us. Especially Kate. They’re very close, being twins, even though they’re not identical.’

  ‘I’m only surprised you were up that early,’ Ben teased, turning to Kate, and she smiled ruefully.

  ‘Not my idea. Jess’s got this thing about the dawn. Every one is another victory, she says, and she loves to be out there, watching the sun come up. I don’t mind in the winter, but in the summer it can be a bit early!’

  Meg chuckled, but Ben’s laugh sounded rusty, and she glanced up and, for the briefest instant before he shuttered them, caught the pain in his eyes.

  And then Jess stirred, mumbling something, and their attention was distracted, and by the time Meg looked at him again his face was back under control and his eyes were carefully blank.

  ‘OK, guys, we’ll leave you in peace now,’ he murmured, and with another round of thanks they escaped, trailing Pete and Steve behind them. As the doors hissed shut, Ben turned to Steve and said, ‘OK, switch it off now, that’s enough of the damned heroics. Pete’s got what he wants.’

  ‘No. Pete wants you following Meg doing what she does on her day off,’ Pete reminded him, and he sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  ‘Meg?’ he said tiredly, and she took the hint.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about Ben, but I had an early and dramatic start this morning, and I wouldn’t mind a quick kip. How about we reconvene at, say—two-thirty?’

  Pete opened his mouth, looked at her, then Ben, then shut it and nodded. ‘Fine. We’ll do that. Your house?’

  ‘My flat’s a tip. How about the supermarket?’

  Pete frowned. ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  ‘You want reality or something totally artificial? I have nothing to eat in the place. I have no clean clothes. You want to watch me, fine. It’s the supermarket or the laundrette. Take your pick. Ben, can we go?’

  ‘Supermarket,’ Pete said hastily. ‘At least we can look in your trolley, which is more than we can d
o with the laundry basket. Which supermarket?’

  She told him, talking over her shoulder as they walked briskly down the corridor and out into the blessedly fresh air.

  ‘Two-thirty,’ Pete yelled after them, and Ben lifted his hand and waved.

  Or gestured? She didn’t see, but he was chuckling, and she was pleased to see him in a lighter frame of mind.

  ‘So—what are we really doing?’ he asked, and she frowned in puzzlement.

  ‘I thought you wanted to get away.’

  ‘I did—from them. Not necessarily from you. And we still haven’t had breakfast,’ he reminded her.

  And so they did just that. They went to a place that sold all-day breakfasts, and had the full works, and didn’t talk about medicine or the programme or what had happened that morning.

  In fact, afterwards Meg had no idea what they had talked about. She just knew that by the time they turned up at the supermarket they were half an hour late and Pete was ripping his hair out.

  ‘Sorry,’ she lied blithely, ‘I overslept. Right. Shall we shop?’

  Doing her duty to the public and to the programme on her day off should have left Meg tired and unrefreshed.

  Nope. She felt vital and alive, and sure as tooting it wasn’t because of Pete’s charm or her thoroughly unhealthy high-cholesterol brunch! The only thing she could put it down to was Ben. Being with him, working alongside him on Jess—just being around him was enough, but in the few brief moments after they’d lifted Jess off the metal spike before she’d been whisked away, she’d watched him working on her, and she’d got a glimpse of the doctor he tried so hard to deny.

  And without the film crew there hanging on their every word, she seemed to be making progress. OK, the KEEP OUT sign was still hanging around, but every now and again the door blew open a crack and she got a glimpse of the real man.

  The man she was falling in love with, hook, line and sinker.

  ‘Oh, damn.’

  She plopped down onto the bed and stared at herself in her mirror. ‘Oh, Meg, you fool! He’s going back to London in four days, you’ll never see him again.’

  Oh, no, that wasn’t true. She would see him—see both of them, trapped for ever by the programme, their every movement documented for posterity.

  Would it show? Was she to be seen gazing star-struck at him? No. Most probably glaring at him and hissing sparks. She seemed to save the star-struck for her off-camera moments and her dreams.

  ‘Oh, damn,’ she said again, and, hitching herself off the bed, she finished pulling on her running gear and made her way to the kitchen. A noise outside attracted her attention. Leaning over the sink, she peered down into the car park to see a group of youths kicking beer cans around.

  They were obviously drunk or worse, and as she watched one of them reeled against her car and grabbed the aerial. OK, it was broken anyway, but then he reached for the windscreen wiper and she saw red.

  Grabbing her keys, and her phone as an afterthought, she ran out of her flat, slamming the door and throwing herself down the stairs and out of the rear door.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled, and they stopped and turned to her.

  All of them. About six or seven of them, bigger than she’d realised, much drunker than she would have expected at five-thirty in the morning because they’d presumably been drinking all night and popping goodness knows what else besides. Slowly, their faces menacing, they moved towards her.

  ‘Well, now, what have we here, boys? Oh, yes. Very nice. Cute little shorts, too.’

  Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

  She was wearing the little sleeveless vest top she used for jogging, and she shoved her hands into the front pocket casually, groping for her phone without taking her eyes off them.

  Who on earth had she called last? And was her phone locked? Please, no. Let it have been Fliss. She’d call the police.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing to my car?’ she said clearly. ‘I come out of my home and find you vandalising my possessions, and I can’t tell you how mad that makes me.’

  ‘Oh, boys, watch yourselves, she’s mad at us!’ the one who’d spoken before jeered, and they all laughed and moved a little closer, closing in behind their spokesman.

  So he was the ringleader. OK. She met his eyes squarely.

  ‘OK, here’s the deal,’ she said, keeping her voice good and loud and desperately hoping all the button-pressing had connected with someone. ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t recognise you, and there’s nobody but me to witness this. If you go now, and leave me and my car alone, I won’t do any more about it. But if you take so much as one step nearer to me, I’ll scream the place down, and all the people in my apartment building will come out and see you, and call the police, and you’ll be in deep—’

  She didn’t even see him move. One second she was talking, the next she felt a searing pain in her side. She gasped with pain, but then everything went dark and she crumpled to the ground.

  ‘Meg?’

  Ben stared at the phone, held it to his ear and was about to ring off when he heard her talking. Her voice was muffled, but she seemed to be reasoning with someone, talking about nobody else witnessing something…

  ‘Meg? Meg!’ he yelled, and then there was a gasp and a roar of crackles and white noise, and the phone cut off.

  ‘Dear God—Meg.’ Ramming his feet into his shoes, he headed for the stairs, dialling 999 as he ran, then realised he didn’t know Meg’s address, just the way, because he’d picked her up the day before. He gave them Tom and Fliss’s number to get directions, because by then he was in his car and speeding towards her flat, his heart hammering in his throat.

  He had no idea what was going on, he just knew she was in trouble and he had to be there. She’d rung him. He was all she had, and he couldn’t let her down.

  He skidded to a halt into the car park and leapt out, looking around wildly for any sign of her, but there was nothing.

  ‘Meg?’ he yelled. ‘Meg, where are you?’

  And then he went round the corner of the building and saw her, lying propped up against the wall in the angle by a door, her eyes dazed with shock.

  ‘Ben?’ she said, and then she started to cry.

  His first reaction was relief—relief that she was alive, that she was talking, that she recognised him. His second was a towering, furious rage at whoever had done this to her.

  ‘It’s OK, Meg. I’m here. You’ll be all right.’

  And gently, so as to not hurt her, he gathered her into his arms and held her trembling body close.

  ‘Bastards,’ she spat, and he lifted his head and looked down at her. Even in tears she was still furious, and he laughed with relief and shushed her.

  Then the police were there, and Tom, and they were threatening to call an ambulance.

  ‘I don’t need an ambulance because some little scally threw a punch at me,’ she muttered, and looked up at Ben, her face puzzled.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked.

  ‘You rang my phone. I could hear you.’

  ‘I thought I rang Fliss. I just pressed call twice. I’ve never rung you.’

  ‘You put my number in your phone yesterday evening and called it to check it was correct.’

  She nodded. ‘I did. I forgot. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you…’

  He said something rude and sat back on his heels. ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He and Tom helped her carefully to her feet.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I’ll live. It hurts when I breathe in, but it’s just bruising. I’ll be all right. My phone’s broken, though. I think I fell on it when he hit me.’

  Ben huffed under his breath, and Tom shook his head.

  ‘You need to go to hospital.’

  ‘I do. To work.’

  Tom swore softly and shook his head again. ‘I don’t think so. At least let me look at you—’

  ‘Back off.
If I need a big brother I’ll ask for one,’ she told him, and he shrugged and let it go.

  Ben didn’t. He didn’t say anything, because the police were talking to her, but as far as he was concerned the topic was far from dead and buried. So he stood right next to her, wondering if she even realised she had his hand in a death-like grip, while the police asked if she could give a description of any of the attackers.

  ‘I’ve seen some of them hanging around here before, but I’ve never caught them doing anything,’ she said.

  ‘Could you pick them out from mug shots?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe. Probably, some of them.’

  ‘But not now,’ Tom said firmly, having another go. ‘Now she needs to go to hospital and get checked out. You can talk to her later.’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ Ben said. ‘You go back to Fliss and tell her Meg’s all right. She’ll be worried sick. I’ll see you at the hospital.’

  He put his arm round her, but she straightened up and gave him a defiant and only slightly wobbly smile. ‘I’m fine, Ben. Just a bit sore here and there. I need to go and get showered and get into my uniform—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he said flatly. ‘There’s no way you’re going to work today. You’re going to the hospital now, to get checked out, and once we’re happy I’ll bring you back here and you can get changed and…’

  He ground to a halt. And what? And then he’d take her back to his place and look after her? The flat wasn’t his. It wasn’t even rented! There was no way he could take her there and play happy families! What on earth was he thinking about?

  ‘I’ll be fine, Ben. Stop fussing.’ Pushing him aside, she limped over to what looked like a door onto the stairwell and let herself in with her keys.

  He followed her, and she turned and gave him a tired smile.

  ‘Ben, I’m all right, really. I’ll get showered and dressed, and I’ll drive myself to the hospital as usual. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said, his voice implacable, and she shrugged and turned to the stairs.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  He followed her all the way up to the fourth floor, pausing at the doorway.

  ‘May I come in?’