Guilty Secret

by Josie Metcalfe

  Over the last few years she’d done her share of duty in the A and E department but this was the first time she could remember feeling under pressure.

  Mark Fletcher had been right about the escalating numbers being reported from the crash site but as she systematically went about the debridement and suturing of the various wounds waiting for her, and removing small components of toys from ears and noses, her overwhelming anxiety was for Nick Johnson.

  She knew he was no concern of hers and that there were badly injured patients due at any moment, but all she could think about was what had happened to him. He should have arrived at the surgery ages ago, ready to start his first official day as a member of staff, but there was no sign of him.

  Had he had an accident himself? He wouldn’t know the roads around here yet. He might not have realised just how treacherous they could be, with black ice forming where natural springs and streams encroached on the roads. Was he, even now, lying broken and bleeding in a heap at the bottom of some scree slope?

  And she couldn’t even ask, she realised as she passed yet another carefully repaired injury over to be covered with a protective dressing.

  With Vicky working just yards away, how would it look if she were the one to show concern for such a new colleague? Not good, she admitted as she pierced a hole through a nail to release the pressure of blood collecting underneath it after the digit in question had been firmly slammed in a car door.

  Even the patient’s squeal of dismay when she saw what was happening wasn’t enough to stop Frankie’s mind from racing around in circles.

  The sound of rapidly approaching sirens only served to tighten the knots in her nerves and she marvelled that her hands remained perfectly steady while she positioned the edges of a scalp wound for supergluing together.

  Between them, she and the rest of the staff in A and E had completely cleared the department of waiting patients by the time the first accident victims arrived.

  Jack had been with them at the site, so they had already been triaged on site and prioritised according to severity.

  ‘Air ambulance is ferrying the really bad stuff straight to the city,’ he told her as he stripped off a decidedly wet padded jacket and dumped it on the back of a chair. ‘One of the farmers had to put some sort of scraper attachment on the front of his tractor to clear the road so that the ambulances could get through, otherwise you’d have had some of the less injured here before now.’

  ‘So, how many are we getting here?’ She was keeping one eye on the trolleys coming in, two from each vehicle, and the wheelchairs transporting those too shocked to make it to a cubicle under their own steam. It would take a moment for the nursing team to get them settled.

  ‘At least a dozen. Maybe more,’ he said grimly as he pulled on an apron. ‘Johnny had to go in the city ambulance.’

  Her heart leapt up into her throat then dived towards her feet. Johnny…Nick had to go in the…

  ‘Why?’ she gasped as her imagination ran riot, supplying gruesome images of everything from multiple traumas to death. No! something inside her screamed. He was too full of life to…

  ‘It was either that, or perform an amputation at the side of the road,’ Jack said, jerking her out of her preoccupation.

  ‘Amputation?’ she echoed numbly, wondering how badly his perfect body had been damaged.

  ‘Poor kid was trapped,’ Jack explained with a grimace. ‘But there’s still a chance that his leg might be saved so…’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Frankie breathed, her knees as limp as overcooked noodles as everything suddenly became clear. It was one of the pupils who had been injured and Nick had gone with him on the journey to the specialist orthopaedic unit in the nearby city hospital.

  Over the next couple of hours, as she patched and mended, splinted, plastered and stitched, she heard far more detail than she ever needed to know about the events of that morning. About the inexperienced car driver apparently growing impatient with the bus driver’s caution as he manoeuvred his unwieldy vehicle full of schoolchildren along the twisty road towards Edenthwaite. About the teenager’s reckless decision to overtake and his belated panic when he hit ice and lost control. About the fact that not only had he lost his own life, but that he could have destroyed the lives of dozens of children.

  And finally, in unending glowing detail, about the doctor who had climbed down the rock-strewn hillside and right inside the shattered bus to help the injured to safety, staying to talk to the trapped boy until he was finally released.

  Reading between the lines, Frankie knew that Nick would have been doing far more than keeping his young patient company. She could only imagine how much fluid he would have been pumping into the injured body to prevent the boy’s system from shutting down. She could imagine his concern over the prospect of having to take the desperate step of amputating an otherwise healthy limb to save the child’s life, and the gamble he’d taken in waiting for a transfer to the orthopaedic unit.

  By mid-morning, the worst was over.

  Several of the students had needed to stay in for further treatment, a few would merely need to be under observation overnight, but the majority had been released after treatment to go home with their parents.

  There were still the last few minor injuries to be seen to, including the usual head-count of older patients waiting for X-rays after a fall in the snow, when Frankie heard the doors to the A and E department slide open yet again.

  She wasn’t certain what she’d been expecting, but it was the sudden flood of emotion she felt when she saw Nick striding into the unit that told her she was in serious trouble.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE doors slid closed behind Nick, shutting out the miserable cold, but his eyes were already scanning the faces turned towards him.

  Why was it that of all of them, the first eyes he met were Frankie’s? And why was it that he felt some sort of strange connection between them?

  ‘Nick!’ he saw her say, the corners of her mouth curving sweetly when she saw him.

  ‘Johnny!’ Vicky exclaimed, and he knew she was hurrying towards him. Guilt hit him hard and fast but still he couldn’t drag his gaze away from the bright gleam in eyes the colour of sun-warmed honey.

  There was concern in them, and the realisation that Frankie had been worried about him caused more of a kick than the feel of Vicky’s hands wrapped around his arm.

  ‘What an introduction to Edenthwaite!’ Vicky was saying as she pulled him towards the knot of staff winding down from the worst of the emergency with steaming mugs of tea and coffee. ‘You’re going to wish you hadn’t come here.’

  ‘No chance of that,’ Nick said quietly as he paused in front of Frankie. Actually, he hadn’t been able to make himself walk past her, in spite of the fact that Vicky was still holding onto his arm. ‘Sorry to leave you in the lurch.’

  ‘Unavoidable circumstances,’ she murmured, and he was entranced to see the soft wash of colour spread over her cheeks. Was she finding it equally hard not to react to him? Was there a double meaning in her words?

  ‘How did it go with that lad?’ someone called, and he finally managed to tear his eyes away from her. This was neither the time nor the place to ponder the strange attraction that had flared between the two of them, nor the guilt and remorse that struck him anew when he saw the open trust in Vicky’s face.

  ‘His leg was a mess and he’s having some microsurgery done while we speak, but there was no apparent nerve damage and they’re hopeful that they can repair the circulation to his foot.’

  There was a concerted sigh of relief and he suddenly realised that most of the people in the department either knew the child in question or at least a member of his family. It was just another facet of his new job that he was going to have to get used to.

  ‘Well,’ Vicky said pertly, gazing up at him out of guileless blue eyes framed by wisps of baby-fine blonde hair, ‘while you’ve been jaunting around the countryside, having free scenic tours, we’ve bee
n mucking in and doing all the hard work. And I thought it was the chance to do A and E work, as well as general practice, that attracted you to Edenthwaite?’

  ‘Must have been another attraction here,’ someone teased, then chuckled when Vicky blushed.

  Guilt swamped him again when he remembered how he had betrayed this beautiful young woman’s trust. Vicky was his fiancée, he reminded himself, but still he couldn’t stop himself looking away from her to search out Frankie’s eyes.

  The answering guilt and pain he saw in their depths was a shock almost as vicious as a blow, and he had to watch in silence as she whirled away to hurry out of the room.

  For the next few minutes he had to endure the back-slapping and congratulations of his new colleagues as Vicky completed the introductions. He hoped he was smiling and making all the right responses, but all the while he knew that he was going to have to search Frankie out. Something inside him, some spark of the decency that still remained in spite of all evidence to the contrary, was telling him that they needed to speak about what had happened between them.

  What on earth had possessed him?

  He’d barely been in the area for more than an hour and he’d ended up taking one of his new colleagues to bed. He’d never done anything remotely like it before, even in those distant days when he’d had more testosterone than common sense.

  It wasn’t enough of an excuse to say that she was a gorgeous woman, or that she was someone who sparked something deep inside him that he’d never felt before. He had asked Vicky to marry him and had fully intended to be a faithful husband, but there was something…Was it something in him, or in Frankie, or in the combination of the two of them, that had made them throw prudence to the winds?

  That combination had certainly been combustible. The two of them together had been far more explosive than any situation he’d ever encountered before and the shock waves were still echoing through him.

  As was the guilt.

  Not only was he feeling guilty for betraying Vicky’s trust, but there was also a black dread deep inside that he might have taken advantage of Frankie’s shaky emotional state in the wake of her ex-husband’s threat.

  ‘Hey, Vicky!’ someone called, holding the phone up towards her. ‘A call from the ward to say there’s one on the way in. Woman in labour with contractions coming about four minutes apart. Should be here in about twenty minutes, given a clear road. She’s already spoken to her midwife.’

  Vicky squeezed his arm as she reached up to deliver a hasty kiss. ‘Nick, I must go and make sure everything’s ready. Come up and visit if you get a chance, to see how the rest of the world goes about this medical stuff. We can’t all be doing the heroic things like climbing down hillsides and into crashed buses.’

  Nick watched her walking out of the room, her willowy body slim and trim in the navy trousers and mid-blue tunic combination she wore as her uniform. She’d been an enchanting child of fourteen when he’d first met her, all long legs, flyaway blonde hair and baby-blue eyes. She had developed into a wonderful young woman over the last twelve years, someone he was proud to be marrying, but…

  He sighed heavily as he made his way from the A and E department, passing through the central reception area on his way to the GP unit in the east wing.

  That was probably part of the problem. He’d known Vicky since she was fourteen and he had known even then that she had developed a massive crush on him.

  Over the years, he’d expected her girlish passions to find another target, probably a whole series of them before she settled on the man she would eventually marry.

  Except it hadn’t happened.

  It didn’t seem to matter that his visits had been few and far between or even that he’d eventually become involved in a long-term relationship that had seemed destined to end in his own marriage. Whenever they’d met, she’d gazed at him out of those innocent blue eyes and he’d known that she’d still been harbouring her impossible dream.

  Then his own life had taken a decidedly uncomfortable turn and he’d realised that he wasn’t quite the judge of character that he’d thought, and Vicky was still there, her smile telling him that she still believed in him.

  That belief had helped him to make some unexpected changes in the direction of his career, and now he found himself engaged and starting his first job as a fully qualified GP.

  Except, within hours of arriving in Edenthwaite, it looked as if he had already ruined everything.

  Already, he had noticed changes in himself. First, there was his preoccupation with watching Frankie whenever she was in the vicinity, then there was the fact that he seemed to have spent an inordinate amount of time since he’d left her sleeping in her bed wishing that he had the right to join her there again.

  Then, just a few moments ago, Vicky had reached up to kiss him and without a second thought he’d turned his head away so her lips had brushed his cheek. If that were to continue, how long would it be before she noticed and wondered what was going on?

  He needed to speak to Frankie.

  The two of them needed to sit down together and speak about what had happened. Perhaps then he would be able to relegate those mind-blowing events to the past, where they belonged.

  ‘I am not hiding,’ Frankie muttered through clenched teeth as she tried vainly to make sense of the instructions on the computer screen.

  The sensation of connection that she’d felt when her eyes had met Nick’s was nothing important. Just a byproduct of the fact that she’d spilled her troubles on his shoulder the other night.

  He was engaged to marry Vicky, who had every right to stand there with her hands wrapped around his arm. The sharp pain she’d felt around her heart was nothing more than hunger pangs or…or stress or…

  ‘Blast it!’ The screen had gone totally blank now, and she had absolutely no idea what she’d done.

  Exasperation tempted her to switch the thing off, but she really wanted to know how many of her over-fifty ladies hadn’t yet been for breast screening. It was pride as much as anything that made her persevere. She didn’t know whether it was something to do with the fact that she was a female GP, but last time she’d checked the figures she’d had a higher percentage of compliance than any of the other GPs in the practice.

  Not that she needed the information at this precise minute, but if she kept busy she wouldn’t have to admit that she was staying out of Nick’s way.

  The phone rang and she reached for the receiver without even looking at it.

  ‘Frankie?’

  She didn’t know how she knew that it was Nick’s voice when she’d never heard it over the phone before but the instant shiver of awareness caught her by surprise.

  ‘Speaking.’

  Her brusque reply seemed to have silenced him, but she was incapable of saying anything more. What was it about the man that he should have such an effect on her?

  ‘Nick Johnson here. Are you busy?’

  That surprised a brief chuckle out of her.

  ‘You ask if a GP is busy! It’s obvious that you’re a new boy,’ she mocked.

  In the silence she replayed her own words and cringed. There was nothing like putting her feet in her mouth with both hands. She knew only too well that he was younger by several years, but to have called him a boy…

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said gruffly. ‘When would be good for you?’

  Never, the voice inside her head screamed. It was bad enough, after their explosive intimacy, to have to see him around the practice. The idea of keeping her reaction towards him to herself in a one-to-one situation was something else entirely.

  ‘Frankie?’ The touch of impatience in his voice told her he wasn’t happy to be left hanging on.

  She glanced at her watch and realised with a shock just how much time she’d spent incarcerated in her room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said distractedly, exiting the program she’d been trying to access and switching off the computer. ‘It’s time I was leaving to p
ick the girls up from school, and tomorrow’s going to be a full day, especially if the weather doesn’t improve overnight, and—’

  ‘Fine,’ he interrupted brusquely, and she heard a hint of steel entering his voice for the first time since she’d met him. ‘I get the point. You’re a very busy person. But, Frankie, make no mistake. Sooner or later, we are going to talk.’

  Before she had time to think of a reply, let alone voice one, she found herself holding a dead phone.

  ‘Ouch!’ She gingerly put the receiver down, almost expecting it to explode. That had definitely been a man who seemed to like getting his own way. There was obviously more to him than good looks and a superb bedside manner.

  She stifled a giggle when her subconscious presented her with a picture of a totally gorgeously naked Nick Johnson making house calls.

  ‘Enough of that! Go and get your kids!’ she scolded herself, quite shocked that she should even have thought of such a thing. Her imagination had never been that raunchy before she’d met that man.

  ‘Oh, Dr Long. Thank goodness you haven’t gone,’ Mara Frost said almost as soon as she reached the reception area. ‘Mrs Vidler is on her way in with Pam. Apparently she can’t keep anything down and her stomach is very sore. She should be here in about ten minutes.’

  ‘Who’s being sick? Pam or Mrs Vidler?’ Pam must be about seven now, and Mrs Vidler was almost eight months pregnant with a much-longed-for second child.

  ‘Mrs Vidler. And she’s terrified it means there’s something wrong with the baby. She specifically asked if you were here.’

  Frankie could well imagine. Complications after her first baby was born had made this child almost a miracle. Supervising the long course of treatment and monitoring the resulting pregnancy had meant that she’d built up a closer than usual relationship with the young woman.

  She flicked another glance at her watch and groaned.

  The bell would be ringing at any moment to signal the end of lessons.

  ‘Laura and Katie will be waiting for me. Is there anyone going that way who could pick them up and bring them here to wait?’