Although she hated leaving him on his own, she had to go back to Becca. She found some lint-free, sterile cloths in her case and took them with her. She snipped holes for the girl’s eyes, nose and mouth, then gently covered her face to minimise the risk of infection getting into the tissue, but didn’t do anything else in case she caused more damage. Becca was trembling with shock after Alison finished, and she put her arm around her.
‘It won’t be long now, sweetheart. The ambulance is on its way.’
‘Is Toby all right?’ Becca whispered through the dressings.
‘If Toby is the driver of the car, he’s fine.’
Becca hesitated for a moment before the words came rushing out. ‘He’d been drinking last night. I had no idea until we set off or I would never have got in the car with him. I was really scared, because he kept weaving in and out of the traffic when we were on the motorway. And when we got into the country he just put his foot down. When we came to a junction, I took off my seat belt and begged him to let me out of the car, but he just laughed and drove even faster.’
Alison sighed. ‘He did a very reckless and stupid thing. Alcohol stays in the body for hours, and nobody who’s been drinking heavily at night should get in a car and drive the following morning.’
‘I know that,’ Becca said miserably. ‘But Toby never listens to what anyone says.’
‘What were you doing here in the first place? You’re obviously not local.’
‘No, we’re from London. We’re boarders at the same school. Toby’s parents have a holiday home in Rock and he invited everyone down there tonight for a party. I was going to travel on the coach with some of our friends but Toby said he would give me a lift.’ Tears welled to her eyes. ‘My mum and dad are away and they have no idea that I got a weekend pass from school. They’ll go mad when they find out what’s happened!’
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ Alison said softly.
There wasn’t time to say anything else because the ambulances arrived just then, quickly followed by the police. Alison handed Becca over to the paramedics and went back to the tractor driver, even though there was very little she could do for him. She gave the paramedics a full report, then the police took a statement from her and she was free to leave. However, she couldn’t help thinking about what Becca had told her. She couldn’t bear to think of the poor girl being on her own until her parents arrived.
She got back into her car and followed the ambulances to St Piran Hospital. She found a parking space, then hurried through to the A and E department. It was extremely busy, and she had to wait her turn before she could explain to the receptionist why she was there.
By the time she got through to the treatment area Becca had been seen by the duty doctor. He took Alison aside and explained that the girl needed specialist care for her injuries and that they were waiting for one of the surgeons to see her. Alison went into the cubicle and sat with her, doing her best to keep Becca calm while they waited for the surgeon to arrive. It seemed to take for ever before the curtain swished back, and she gasped when Jack appeared.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘They had a rush on—a major pile-up just outside Boscastle—so I got called in,’ he explained, with a smile that immediately set her heart off on its yo-yo tactics again. ‘What’s your excuse?’
‘I happened to be driving along the road when this accident happened,’ Alison replied primly, in case he thought she had dreamt up an excuse to see him. ‘I stopped and helped.’
‘Thank heavens you did. At least you knew what to do and didn’t make my job more difficult by trying to patch things up,’ he said warmly as he walked over to the bed.
Alison felt a little glow erupt inside her at the praise. She moved aside, not wanting to crowd him while he examined his patient. He smiled at the girl as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Hi, it’s Rebecca, isn’t it?’
‘Everyone calls me Becca,’ she shyly corrected him.
‘Hmm, pretty name. It suits you. I’m Jack Tremayne, one of the surgical staff here. Now, let’s take a look and see what’s happened to you.’
He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, then examined the girl’s injuries, taking his time as he studied every part of her face. Peeling off the gloves, he rolled them into a ball and tossed them into the bin.
‘Right, Becca, I’m not going to lie to you. You have some really nasty cuts there. There’s bits of gravel and other muck in them, too, and that will need to be cleaned away before I do anything else, otherwise the dirt will be tattooed into your skin—and we don’t want that happening, do we?’
‘No.’ Tears began to leak from Becca’s eyes again. ‘Am I going to look like a freak?’
‘No way!’ Jack grinned as he held out his hands and waggled them under her nose. ‘These hands don’t know how to do freaky. I give you my word that I’ll have you looking almost as good as new, but it will take time. There isn’t going to be a quick fix, sweetheart. It’s going to take time and patience, but we have loads of both to spare, don’t we?’
‘I guess so,’ Becca agreed, obviously reassured by his upbeat manner.
Alison smiled when she heard how much more positive the girl sounded. Jack had struck exactly the right note—not too formal, not too scary, but truthful, too—and she was impressed. Mind you, she was impressed by a lot of things he did. She hurriedly cleared her mind of such nonsense as he continued.
‘The worst injury is to your left cheek. A flap of skin has been pulled away and that will need to be reattached. Hopefully, the blood supply can be restored, but it might need a skin graft as well as some fancy needlework to put it back together.’
‘You mean that you will have to take bits of skin from somewhere else?’ Becca said, sounding a little unsure about the idea.
‘Yes, although it sounds far worse than it is. Basically, what it means is that I will find an area where the skin tone matches the colour of your face—behind the ear is usually the best place. I’ll remove just enough skin to cover the injury and transplant it to your cheek. Hey presto—problem solved.’ He patted Becca’s hand. ‘It’s not certain that it will have to happen yet, so we’ll worry about it if and when, shall we?’
He stood up when Becca nodded. ‘Right. I’m going to take you to Theatre and make a start. I believe your parents are away and that your aunt and uncle are trying to contact them?’
‘Yes. Mum will go mad when she sees the state of me…’
Jack leant over and squeezed her hand. ‘No, she won’t. She’ll just be so glad that you’re all right that she won’t think about anything else.’
‘Do you honestly think so?’ Becca said wistfully. ‘Is that what your mum would do?’
An expression of pain crossed Jack’s face before he turned away. ‘Yep. That’s exactly what my mum would do, so trust me, Becca. You have nothing to worry about on that score.’
Alison’s heart went out to him. Everyone in Penhally Bay had been shocked and saddened when Jack’s mother, Annabel Tremayne, had died, so how much worse must it be for Jack? She followed him out of the cubicle, wanting in some way to make him feel better about the loss he had suffered.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. It still gets to me at times, though.’ He gave her a sad smile. ‘Daft, isn’t it? It’s two years since Mum died and I should have come to terms with it by now.’
‘Not at all. It’s only natural that you should miss Annabel. She was your mother and you loved her—it’s understandable that you should feel sad because she isn’t here any longer.’
‘I think the hardest thing is knowing that Freddie will never meet her. Mum would have been thrilled about having a grandson as well as a granddaughter.’
‘At least Freddie will be able to get to know his granddad,’ Alison pointed out.
‘Hmm. If his granddad is interested in getting to know him.’
Alison looked at him in astonishment. ‘But Nick was over the moon w
hen he found out about Freddie. He told everyone about him.’
‘Really?’
Jack didn’t attempt to hide his scepticism and she laughed. ‘Yes, really. I doubt there’s anyone left in Penhally Bay who doesn’t know about the doctor’s little grandson.’
Jack shook his head in amazement. ‘I’d never have believed it, to be honest. I thought Dad would have kept it very quiet. I mean, the fact that your son has found out he has a child he knew nothing about isn’t really something to brag about.’
‘That may be your take on the situation but it’s definitely not Nick’s,’ Alison said firmly. She glanced round when she heard someone coming along the corridor. ‘Anyway, I’d better not keep you. Good luck with the op. I hope everything goes smoothly.’
‘Thanks.’ Jack started to walk away, then suddenly turned back. ‘And thanks for what you told me just now about my dad. It meant a lot to me, Alison. Really it did.’
He gave her a quick smile and left, but Alison was in no doubt that he’d meant what he’d said. There was a warm feeling inside her as she went back into the cubicle, a sense of satisfaction that in some small way she had made Jack happy.
She sighed. She could get addicted to the feeling if she weren’t careful and, like any addiction, it could prove to be extremely dangerous.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ANGIE, Dave, Mel, Parkash…Oh, and that’s Lilian in the corner.’
‘Hi, nice to meet you all.’
Jack nodded hello to his new workmates as he approached the table. Becca had been prepped and was fully anaesthetised now. Although Jack could have done some of the work under local anaesthetic—some of the scrubbing and debriding—he’d decided it would be less stressful for the girl if she wasn’t aware of what was happening.
‘You’re quite happy about this, Jack? I know it was an imposition to drag you in here today…’
‘But you had no choice.’
Jack smiled at his new boss. Although he had met Alexandra Ross only briefly at his interview, he had taken an immediate liking to her. In her late thirties, Alex had a reputation for being a first-rate surgeon, and Jack felt privileged to be working with her. She had been head of surgery at one of the major London teaching hospitals before she had moved to Cornwall the previous year. Jack wasn’t sure why she had made the move but he was glad that she had. It was good to know that he had someone of her calibre to supervise him while he finished his training.
‘I was glad to help, Alex, so don’t give it another thought. My contract started on Friday anyway, so it’s not as though I’m breaking any rules by being here.’
‘Definitely not, although I have to admit that breaking rules wasn’t my first concern.’ Alex returned his smile. ‘I hope you managed to sort out some child care without too much hassle?’
‘It wasn’t a problem,’ Jack assured her, trying not to think about how Freddie had cried when he had left him with Lucy. He had to forget about his personal problems and concentrate on the task ahead.
Pulling the mask over his nose and mouth, he bent over the table. As he’d told Becca, his first job was to remove all the muck from the various cuts and then see what he was left with. It wasn’t a job he could rush, and he didn’t intend to do so either. Becca’s future happiness was in his hands, and he was very aware of that fact as he set to work.
Using a tiny metal scrubber, he carefully cleaned away all the grit. He was so absorbed that he merely nodded when Alex told him that she would leave him to get on with it. Although it was a compliment to his skills not to be supervised at every step, he wouldn’t have expected anything less. He was good at his job, and the people he worked with soon realised that.
‘Can I have some more saline over here?’ he asked, glancing at the circulating nurse. He nodded when she washed away the minute particles of grime that he had removed from a cut on Becca’s forehead. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Jack saw her eyes crinkle above her mask and smiled back. He believed in fostering a good working relationship with the other members of the team and was pleased that they seemed so willing to accept him. ‘I hope you still feel like that in a couple of hours’ time,’ he joked, and everyone laughed.
‘Don’t worry, Mel will soon let you know if you’re in her bad books,’ the anaesthetist, Parkash Patel, informed him. ‘Take it from me, Mel has her own highly effective way of making her displeasure felt!’
‘That sounds ominous. I must try really hard not upset her.’ Jack chuckled when Mel grunted loudly to indicate her displeasure at being so unjustly criticised. ‘Whoops! Looks like I’ve just earned my first black mark.’
He bent over the table again, feeling himself relax as he carried on. Surgery was the only thing he had ever wanted to do. However, when he had discovered the difference he could make to people’s lives through plastic surgery, he’d known he had found his true calling.
Plastic surgery improved both the function and the appearance of a patient’s body. Although some surgeons were sniffy about the value of cosmetic plastic surgery, Jack believed in that too, especially when it was used to rectify the devastating effects caused by an illness or an accident. His long-term goal was to have his own clinic, where he could help people regain their lives by restoring their looks as well as the functionality of their bodies. It was very much in the future at the moment, but it was what he was aiming for.
Fired up by his belief in what he was doing, Jack lost himself in his work. Once he was sure all the dirt had been removed he began the delicate task of stitching the cuts. Lilian, the SHO, watched entranced as he used the tiniest stitches to bring the skin together.
‘I don’t know how you know where it all fits!’ she exclaimed. ‘It looks such a mess that I wouldn’t know the best place to start.’
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Jack said, easing a tiny flap of torn skin back into its rightful place. ‘You find the places where the skin seems to fit the most easily and join them together first. After that, the rest should fall into place. The one thing you must be careful about, though, is that you don’t cut away too much tissue when you are debriding an area or you’ll never be able to match things up.’
‘Why are you using interrupted sutures? Continuous ones would be a lot quicker.’
‘Yes, but they don’t give as good a result. It’s not speed but the quality of your work that will determine the outcome for this patient for the rest of her life. Cut conservatively, match with care and use the smallest stitches, and there’s a very good chance she will thank you for it in later life and not blame you.’
‘I don’t think my suturing will ever be that neat,’ Lilian said wistfully, and Jack laughed.
‘Then practise! It’s like everything else—you need to do as much as you can before you get the hang of it.’
It took another two hours before he was satisfied that he had done all he could for now. The large tear on Becca’s left cheek was the thing that worried him most. There’d been too much tissue damage to match the edges successfully. It would need a skin graft, and that was something he’d have to do at a later date. He sighed as he straightened up.
‘That’s about all we can do for now. Thanks for all your help. It’s been really great working with you.’ He moved away from the table, then stopped when he heard everyone applauding. Glancing back, he shook his head. ‘What’s that for?’
‘Well, we definitely don’t want you getting too big for your boots,’ Mel informed him tartly, ‘but I think we all agree that was an excellent performance, don’t we, folks?’
Jack chuckled when everyone chorused their agreement. ‘I don’t know what to say, guys.’
‘How about “the drinks are on me”?’ Dave, the theatre orderly, chirped up.
Jack grimaced. ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, but I’ll have to take a rain-check for now. I’ve left my sister baby-sitting my little boy and I need to get back before chaos breaks out. Can we make it next week? I promis
e I’ll get myself organised by then,’ he said, crossing his fingers behind his back.
He left Theatre and headed to the changing room, wondering if he would be able to keep his promise. He was loath to leave Freddie, apart from when he had to go to work, and he wasn’t sure if it would be right to take an hour or so off to get to know his new colleagues better.
He sighed as he stepped into the shower. Adapting to life as a single father took some getting used to, but he would manage. He had to. He definitely wasn’t going to let Freddie down, no matter what sacrifices he had to make. If he had no social life, so what? He’d done more than his share of partying and he was happy to leave all that behind him now. Basically, there was nothing he needed apart from Freddie and his work.
Scooping a handful of soap out of the dispenser, Jack lathered his chest, then paused. There was one issue he hadn’t considered—mainly because it had never been an issue before. He had never had a serious relationship with a woman. Even his relationship with India had been a casual affair. But what if he met someone and fell in love with her—how would he juggle that with being a dad? If it was hard to get away for a quick drink with his colleagues, how would he find the time to spend with her? And, on the flip side, how would she feel about the fact that he had a ready-made family?
Jack frowned as he rinsed off the lather. He couldn’t answer any of those questions. It was a case of having to wait and see what happened. He wasn’t even sure what had put the idea into his head in the first place. After all, it wasn’t as though he had spent much time thinking about the woman he would eventually marry. He’d been far too busy working and enjoying himself. But now he found himself giving it serious thought.
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