by Joanna Neil
He looked at her leg, lifting the frozen plastic bag from her. ‘That’s not quite so inflamed now. I’ll rub some antihistamine cream on it, and it should start to feel easier within a few minutes.’
‘Thanks.’ She watched him as he smoothed the cream into her leg, his head bent. He was gentle and his hands were soothing, one hand lightly supporting her leg while he applied cream with the other. She could almost forget the sting while he did that. She studied him surreptitiously. His black hair was silky, inviting her to run her fingers through it.
‘How are you doing?’ He lifted his head and studied her, and she hastily pulled herself together. She felt hot all over.
‘I’ll be okay now. Thanks.’
‘Good.’ He held her gaze for a moment or two as though he was trying to work out what had brought colour to her cheeks, and then, to her relief, he stood up. ‘Do you want to stay and have breakfast with us, and then we’ll head off to the beach? I’m not sure what we’re having yet. Toast and something, maybe.’
‘That sounds good.’ She straightened up and made herself think about mundane things. It wouldn’t do her any good to think about getting close up and personal with Matt. Look what had happened last time. He was fighting his own demons, and she was worried about all the other women who might try to take her place.
‘I could take Ben with me to collect some eggs. How would that be?’ She stood up.
‘Dippy eggs and toast soldiers!’ Ben whooped again and licked his lips in an exaggerated gesture. ‘I love them.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Matt agreed. ‘But are you sure you don’t want to rest your leg for a bit longer?’
‘I’ll be fine. Why don’t you ring your friend and make arrangements to do some kite-surfing? We’ll be back in a few minutes.’
She collected a basket from her kitchen and took Ben with her to the hen coop. There she lifted the lid that covered the nesting boxes and they both peered inside.
‘I can see two eggs,’ he said happily, foraging amongst the wood shavings. ‘And there’s some more.’ He looked in all the nest boxes, carefully picking out the eggs and laying them in the basket. He counted them, pointing his finger at each one in turn. ‘There’s six.’
‘Wow. We did well, didn’t we?’ Saffi closed the lid on the coop and made everything secure once more. ‘Let’s go and wash these and then we’ll cook them for breakfast.’
‘Yum.’ Ben skipped back to the house, more animated than she’d seen him in a while.
Over breakfast they talked about kite-surfing for a while, and about how Saffi was coping with the dayto-day running of the property.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s quite easy once you get into a routine—but, then, I’m not going out to work at the moment, so that makes a big difference.’
Thinking about that, she looked over to Ben. Keeping her voice low she said, ‘At least you must be able to see your sister every day, with working at the hospital. How is she? Have they managed to find out what’s causing her problems? Could it be anything to do with stress, with the marriage problems, and so on?’
‘It’s always possible, I suppose. But they’re still doing tests—she’ll be going for a CT scan on Monday.’
‘It must be a worry for you. Do you manage to get together with your parents to talk things through?’
He nodded. ‘They’ve been coming over here to visit her as often as they can. I think my mother will have Ben to stay with her next weekend.’
‘That should give you a bit of a break, at least, and I expect Ben will look forward to staying with his grandmother for a while.’
She glanced at the boy, who was placing the empty top piece of shell back onto his egg. He was getting ready to bang it with his spoon.
‘Humpty Dumpty,’ he said, and they both smiled.
Still dwelling on news from the hospital, Saffi asked, ‘Have you heard anything more about the girl who fell from her horse? How’s she doing?’
‘She’s had surgery to stabilise the neck bones, and she’s on steroids to bring down the inflammation, as well as painkillers. They’ll try to get her up and about as soon as possible to make sure she makes a good recovery. I think she’ll be okay. She’s young and resilient and she has a lot of motivation to get well again.’
‘That’s a big relief.’
‘Yes, it is.’ He seemed pensive for a second or two, and Saffi wondered what was going through his mind.
She glanced at him and said tentatively, ‘At the hospital, you seemed quite surprised to see the nurse…Gina. I had the feeling…were you and she a couple at one time?’
Perhaps they still were, or maybe he was planning to resume their relationship…Her mind shied away from the thought.
His mouth flattened. ‘We dated for a while.’
‘Oh.’ She absorbed that for a moment or two. Wasn’t it what she had expected? ‘Did something happen to break things up? I suppose you moved to different parts of the country?’ And now they were reunited once more in Devon…what was there to stop them taking up where they had left off? A shiver of apprehension ran down her spine.
‘Gina wanted to take things to a more serious level.’ He grimaced. ‘I wasn’t looking for anything more than a fun time.’
She winced inwardly. Was this the way he treated all women? Hadn’t he admitted as much? As far as she and Matt were concerned, at least he’d had the grace to say he didn’t want to take advantage of her.
‘That must have been upsetting for her.’
‘Yes, I guess it was.’
She frowned. She couldn’t see him simply as a man who played the field without any consideration for the feelings of the girls he dated. But if he did, there must surely be a reason for his behaviour. She didn’t want to see him as a man who was only interested in seducing women with no thought for the consequences.
They finished breakfast and cleared away the dishes, and Matt started to get his kite-surfing gear together.
‘I hope you’re all right with this,’ he said. ‘We’re usually on the water for about an hour.’
‘I can keep Ben amused for that long, I’m sure.’ She smiled. ‘Are we about ready to go? I think the waiting’s too much for him. He’s running around like a demented bee.’
Matt laughed, and a few minutes later he crammed his kite and small surfboard into the back of the rapidresponse car and they set off.
‘How can you answer an emergency call if you’re out on the water?’ she asked with a quizzical smile as he drove along the coast road.
‘I can’t. I’d have to turn them down, and ask them to find someone else to go in my place, but if anything should happen when I’m back on dry land I’ll be prepared. Usually I get to enjoy my weekends, but you never know.’
They went a few miles down the road until they arrived at the surfers’ beach, a sandy cove, bound by rugged cliffs that were covered with lichens and here and there with moor grass and red fescue.
Matt parked the car and Saffi looked out over the sea as he changed into his wetsuit. He was wearing swimming shorts under his clothes, but it was way too distracting, seeing his strong, muscular legs and bare chest with its taut six-pack. ‘From the looks of those people surfing, it must be an exhilarating experience,’ she said.
‘It is,’ Matt agreed. ‘If you’re interested, I could teach you how to do it—just as soon as we get a day on our own. Do you do any water sports?’
‘Um…I’ve a feeling I do. I know I can swim, anyway, and I think I might like to learn kite-surfing. It’s mostly men who do the sport, though, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. A lot more women are getting into it nowadays. You’d start with a trainer kite and learn simple techniques first of all.’ He looked at her expectantly and she nodded.
She was getting her confidence back now, feeling stronger day by day, and maybe it was time to accept some new challenges.
‘Maybe I’d like to try,’ she said, and he gave her a satisfied smile. She breath
ed in the salt sea air. It was good to be with him out here, and to look forward to more days like this, but didn’t she know, deep down, that she was playing with fire? She was getting closer to him all the time, when the sensible thing would be to keep her distance. It was quite clear he wasn’t looking for any serious involvement.
He introduced her to his friends and she and Ben watched from the beach as they went out onto the water. Saffi walked along the sand with the contented little boy, helping him to collect shells in a plastic bucket, looking up every now and again to see the surfers wheeling and diving, letting the wind take them this way and that.
Ben kicked off his shoes and splashed in the waves that lapped at the shore, while Saffi kept a close eye on him, and then they walked back to the base of the cliff where he could dig in the sand.
She saw the surfers moving over the sea at a fast pace, some of them lifted up by the kites from the surface of the waves, skilfully controlling their movements and coming back down again to ride the water. The wind was getting up now, gusting fiercely, and she rummaged in her beach bag for a shirt for Ben.
‘Here, put this on. It’s getting a bit chilly out here.’
He stopped digging for a while to put on the shirt and then he gazed out at the sea. ‘I can’t see Uncle Matt,’ he said. ‘He’s too far away.’
‘There are two of them in black wetsuits…I’m not sure, but I think that might be him coming in to the—’ She broke off, clasping a hand to her mouth in horror as she saw one of the surfers lifted up by a sudden squall. Was it Matt? His kite billowed, the fierce wind dragging him swiftly towards the cliffside so that he was powerless to do anything to stop it. He was hurtling towards the craggy rock face at speed, and Saffi’s stomach turned over in sheer dread. As she watched, he hit the jagged rocks near the foot of the cliff and crumpled on to the sand below.
She saw it happen with a feeling of terror. Was it Matt? It couldn’t be Matt…she couldn’t bear it.
She sprang to her feet. ‘Ben, come with me,’ she said urgently. ‘That man’s hurt and I have to help him. We need to get the medical kit from the car.’
He didn’t argue but left his bucket and spade behind as they hurried up the cliff path to the car. ‘Is it Uncle Matt?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, sweetheart.’ She rummaged in her bag for her phone and called for an ambulance.
‘Will you make him better?’
She gently squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll do everything I can. But you must stay with me, Ben. You can’t wander off. I need to know you’re safe. Promise me you’ll stay close by me.’
‘I promise.’
‘Good boy. It might not be very nice to see the man that’s hurt, so you’ll probably need to look away.’ Heaven forbid it should turn out to be Matt. She studied him. ‘Okay?’
He was solemn-faced, taking in the enormity of the situation. ‘Okay.’
She whipped open the boot of the car, thankful that Matt had left the keys with her. She pulled out the heavy medical backpack and the patient monitor and then locked up the car once more and hurried back down the path as fast as she could go, with Ben by her side.
They had to make their way carefully over rocks to get to the injured man and all the time she was praying that it wasn’t Matt who was lying there. Whoever it was, he was screaming with pain. A small crowd had gathered around him and she said, ‘Let me through, please. I’m a doctor.’
People moved aside and she saw that two lifeguards were already by the man’s side. One of them, whitefaced, said quietly, ‘His foot’s twisted round at an odd angle. It’s like it’s been partly sheared off.’
Saffi pulled in a quick breath. Not Matt, please don’t let it be Matt.
‘I’ll look at him,’ she said, shielding Ben from what was going on. ‘Would one of you keep an eye on the little boy for me?’ She glanced around. ‘Perhaps he’d be better over there, out of the way, but where I can still see him.’ She pointed to a sheltered place in the lee of the cliff where there was enough sand for him to dig with his hands.
‘Sure. I’ll do it.’
‘Thanks.’ She looked down at the kite-surfer and a surge of relief washed through her as she realised it wasn’t Matt lying there. It was his friend, Josh. She laid down her pack and knelt beside him.
‘Josh, I’m a doctor…I’m going to have a look at you and see if I can make you more comfortable before we get you to hospital. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ He clamped his jaw, trying to fight the pain, and Saffi went through her initial observations. The foot was purple, with no great blood loss, and he was able to wiggle the toes on his other foot, as well as move his leg.
She didn’t think there was any spinal injury but she needed to take precautions all the same, so she asked the lifeguard to help her put a cervical collar around Josh’s neck.
Josh’s pulse was very fast and his blood pressure was high, most likely because of the excruciating pain. That was going to make it difficult to move him. He might a doctor to remember also have other, internal injuries, so the best thing to do would be to administer pain relief.
She asked both lifeguards to help her. ‘I’m going to give him drugs to reduce the pain. As soon as I’ve given him the medication, we’ll have to carefully roll him on to his back and set him up with an oxygen mask. Are you all right with that?’
‘Yeah, that’s okay.’
She glanced at Ben to make sure he was staying put, and then prepared to go on with the procedure. Thankfully, it wasn’t likely that he could see much of what was going on, while three people were gathered around Josh. She made sure Josh was as comfortable as possible, looping the oxygen mask over his head.
There was a movement on the periphery of the crowd and she saw that Matt had gone to stand with Ben. She looked at him and he gave her a nod of support.
At the same time, the ambulance siren sounded in the distance, getting nearer.
‘Thanks for your help,’ she said to the lifeguards as she connected the oxygen cylinder to the tube. ‘One last thing…I need one of you to help me get his foot back into the proper position.’ If they didn’t do that, the circulation could fail and the foot would be useless.
One of the lifeguards hesitantly volunteered. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, reassuring him. ‘I’ll talk you through it. We need to give it a tug.’
He swallowed hard, but a few minutes later the foot pinked up, and she could feel that the pulses were present.
She sat back on her heels. The paramedics would help with splinting the foot and getting Josh onto a spinal board. Her work was almost done.
Matt came over to her, holding Ben by the hand, as they transferred his friend to the ambulance a short time later. He’d rolled down the top half of his wetsuit and Saffi couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was hunky, perfectly muscled, his chest lightly bronzed. Her heart began to thump against her rib cage and her mouth went dry.
Together, they watched the ambulance move away, and as the crowd dwindled and people returned down the path to the beach Matt drew her to him, putting his free arm around her.
‘You were brilliant,’ he said. ‘I thought about coming over to you to help, but I could see you had everything under control, the whole time. You were amazing. How did it feel?’
‘Feel?’ She stared at him blankly for a moment, not understanding what he was saying, and then realisation came to her in a rush. Without any conscious thought she’d acted like a true A and E doctor.
‘I didn’t think about what I was doing,’ she said, her eyes widening. ‘All I know is I was terrified it might be you who was injured, and I was desperate to make sure you were all right. I couldn’t think beyond that. The adrenaline must have taken over.’
‘That’s my girl.’ He hugged her close and kissed her swiftly on the mouth.
His girl? Her heart leapt and she returned his kiss with equal passion, a fever beginning to burn inside her. How did
he manage to do this to her every time, to make her want him more than anything, more than any other man?
Where had that thought come from? She didn’t re- member any other man in her life before this. There must have been, surely? But somehow she was certain that Matt was the one man above all who could stir her senses and turn her blood to flame.
Ben started tugging at Matt’s wetsuit. ‘Can we go down to the beach? I want to make another sandcastle.’
Matt gave a soft groan and reluctantly broke off the kiss. ‘Perhaps I should never have started that,’ he said raggedly. ‘Wrong place, wrong time.’ He frowned. ‘It’s always going to be like that, isn’t it?’ he added with a sigh. ‘I have to keep telling myself I must stay away, but when I’m with you it’s so hard to resist.’
And she should never have responded with such eagerness, Saffi reflected wryly. She knew what she was getting into, and going on his record so far it could only end in sorrow, so why couldn’t she keep her emotions firmly under lock and key?
CHAPTER SIX
‘HAVE YOU THOUGHT any more about going back to work in A and E?’ Matt asked. he’d popped home from the hospital to pick up his laptop, and Saffi was glad to see him, and even more pleased that he’d stopped to chat for a while. she missed him when he wasn’t around.
It was lunchtime and she was hosing down the chicken run, a chore she did once a week to make sure the birds’ living quarters were scrupulously clean. The hens were out on the grass, exploring the pellets of food she’d scattered about.
Matt seemed keen to know what she planned to do workwise, and she guessed it was because he cared enough to want her to be completely well again. Being able to do the job she’d trained for was a big part of that recovery process.
‘I think it would do you good to go back to working in a hospital,’ Matt said. ‘It could help to bring back some memories.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m just not sure I’d cope with the responsibility—what if I’ve forgotten some of the techniques I knew before?’
