‘To stop him moving his head, in case he’s injured his spine,’ she said with a nod of agreement as she calmly curved frosted-blue-tipped fingers around the smooth childish cheeks.
‘Exactly.’ Amy breathed a sigh of relief that for all her youth the girl was apparently unflappable. ‘I’ll have to do as many checks as I can without moving him. It looks as if it might be a while before an ambulance can get here.’
Even as she was speaking she was raising first one eyelid and then the other, noting with a sinking dread that the response of one was considerably more sluggish than the other. Was it evidence of bleeding inside the skull? If so, there was nothing she could do about it in the middle of the street. All she could do was catalogue her findings in her head so that it would save time when she handed the boy’s care over to the paramedic when the ambulance finally arrived.
Amazingly, seven-year-old Davey didn’t appear to have any obvious broken bones. In fact, he didn’t seem to have any overt injuries apart from the obvious one to his scalp. But there was still that worrying trace of fluid from his ear that could signal catastrophic injuries within the brain.
Her mobile phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket and for just a moment she contemplated ignoring it.
‘Yes?’ It had better be something important or whoever had rung was going to find the call cut off without an explanation. At least it was hands-free.
‘It’s Ambulance Dispatch, here, Doctor,’ said an efficient voice on the other end. ‘They should be with you in about four minutes, now that they’ve got the police escorting them.’
Almost as he spoke, someone from the crowd called out, ‘I can hear sirens! They’re coming!’
Amy tilted her head to gauge the direction, pleased to hear that someone had passed on her advice about the best route to reach the scene. Now their biggest obstruction would be the crowd of people in her immediate vicinity.
‘Can you all clear the way?’ she called, raising her voice so that it would carry over the concerned hubbub. ‘Pedestrians, get back on the pavement and, drivers, back in your cars and move them as far over to the edge of the road as you can go. The emergency services will be here in three minutes and they need to come as close as possible.’
‘Your car will need moving, too,’ pointed out a young male voice behind her, and Amy looked up into the face from a mother’s nightmares. ‘I could do it for you, if you like.’
‘That’s Jonno, my boyfriend,’ said the young first-aider, still calmly holding Davey’s head. ‘It’s all right. He’s passed his test and got a clean licence.’
‘I’ve got a bike licence, too,’ he added cockily, and Amy had to smother a smile when she realised that, apart from his shaven head and the piercings that matched Dee’s, there was something about his attitude that reminded her of Zach, fifteen years ago.
‘The keys are in the ignition,’ she told him, silently sending up a prayer that her insurance company wouldn’t have cause to slap her wrists for her nonchalance with the property they were covering. ‘It’s an automatic with power steering so it’s a doddle to drive, but it’s the three-litre version so go easy on the accelerator.’ It hadn’t been Edward’s choice as a suitable car for the wife of an up-and-coming consultant—far too racy and powerful—but she’d loved it as soon as she’d seen its lipstick-red paintwork.
‘No sweat!’ He threw her a cheeky grin and strode eagerly to the open door.
It was time to check Davey’s vital signs again and she was relieved to find that there had been no worsening of either his breathing or his pulse. Hopefully, that ruled out the possibility that there was any major blood loss from any internal injuries, but until he could be transported to the hospital she had no way of confirming whether the car had broken his ribs, leaving him in danger of a punctured lung or lacerated spleen or liver.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw young Jonno tentatively start to manoeuvre her car, but within moments he was driving it with almost the same confidence as she did, tucking it neatly into the tightest of spaces at the edge of the road to leave a clear path for the ambulance.
‘I should have known I’d find you in the middle of things,’ said a husky voice behind her, and Amy’s heart thumped several extra beats when she looked all the way up his lean leather-clad body into Zach’s dark eyes.
‘Always there when I’m needed,’ she joked with a slightly shaky smile, shocked to realise just how much she’d been longing to see him when her hands began to tremble with the need to be held in his comforting warmth. Treating patients in a fully equipped and staffed A and E was very different to coping alone in the middle of the road. She and Zach had made a good partnership that night by the river, but until his arrival here she’d been feeling very alone, with the sole responsibility for Davey’s life.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ He bent down beside her and she was enveloped by the unique mixture of soap, leather and man that was uniquely Zach’s.
‘Ah, no.’ She had to swallow before her voice worked properly. This was definitely not the time to lose concentration, especially if it was nothing more important than her over-active hormones causing her distraction. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more we can do until the ambulance arrives.’
Even as she spoke, she caught her first glimpse of the flashing emergency lights reflecting off the shop windows as they came into view round the corner, and within seconds they were pulling up just feet away from Davey’s head.
‘It’s all right, Davey,’ Dee said clearly, when her little patient grew visibly agitated. ‘I’ve got you safe. That’s just an ambulance siren. It’s nothing to worry about.’
Amy was impressed that the youngster had realised how important it was to speak such comforting words to a frightened victim.
‘You two are making a habit of this,’ said Harry’s familiar gruff voice as the paramedic dumped his bag of tricks beside him on the road and squatted at her side. ‘What have you got for us this time?’
‘Seven-year-old versus four-by-four,’ Amy said succinctly, even as he took the appropriately sized cervical collar out of his bag and prepared to fit it to the child’s neck, Zach positioning himself to assist. ‘His pulse is sluggish, breathing is spontaneous and more or less regular but rather shallow. He’s bleeding from a scalp laceration at the back of his head, but without gloves I didn’t want to do any probing to feel for skull fractures.’
The blood of two patients on her unprotected hands had been enough to worry about for one week. She and Zach had both been relieved to be told that neither patient had carried any serious infections, but there was no guarantee that she would be as lucky a third time.
‘There is a slight imbalance in the pupil sizes and response times and there’s an apparent leak of CSF from his right ear. No other apparent injuries.’
‘Did anyone see the accident? Do we know how it happened?’ Harry prompted, clearly intent on gleaning as much information at the scene as possible.
‘I saw it. It happened right in front of me,’ Amy said grimly. ‘The traffic was having to reverse to get out of the way of that delivery lorry.’ She gestured over her shoulder towards the vehicle now totally stranded across the junction, unable to move in any direction. ‘The car in front of me reversed without checking to see if the road was clear behind him and ploughed straight into Davey as he tried to cross the road.’
‘Where was he hit? How did he fall?’ Zach prompted, knowing as well as she did that different points of impact could result in widely different injury patterns.
Amy closed her eyes for a second to visualise those important seconds. ‘He’d run into the road and must have realised at the last moment that the car was coming back at him because he was facing the vehicle almost straight on when it hit him. He fell straight back, striking the road with the back of his head while the wheels passed him by on both sides.’
‘At least it was a blessing that none of the wheels caught any of his limbs,’ Harry said darkly. ‘Those thi
ngs are so big and heavy that the level of damage they do usually means amputation.’
Between them, Davey was soon strapped safely to a backboard and on his way into the ambulance ready for his mother to join him for a swift journey to hospital.
With a sudden attack of guilt, Amy realised that she’d almost completely ignored Davey’s mother, both while she’d been monitoring the child and then when she’d been handing over to the paramedic. She turned to look for her, wondering how on earth she’d been coping with the situation with two small girls clinging to her.
She needn’t have worried. Jonno was sitting on the edge of the kerb with one little girl on each knee, the older one examining the chunky silver anchor dangling from his ear and the younger one grinning in delight as she tentatively ran delicate fingertips over the emerging bristles on his shaven head. Davey’s mother was sitting beside him, wrapped in his voluminous jacket, while the tears streamed down her face, her eyes never leaving her little son.
‘Thank you,’ Amy said as soon as she reached Jonno, the words heartfelt.
‘No. Thank you,’ he countered with a self-deprecating shrug as he gently stood each little girl on her own feet and rose to his. ‘It would have been years before I got a chance to drive one of those if you hadn’t trusted me.’ He handed her the keys then turned to help Davey’s mother to her feet.
‘Whoops!’ said Zach, arriving just in time to catch her when she wobbled precariously on shaky legs. ‘The paramedic wants to know if you’re coming in the ambulance with Davey.’
‘Can I?’ she implored, gazing up at Zach with eyes drowning in fear. ‘And the girls?’
‘And the girls.’ He released her to stoop down and scoop one up in each arm. ‘They’ll be off as soon as they’ve got you all safely inside.’
The meaningful nod of his head and his decisive strides told Amy that they needed to get moving as soon as possible and her heart sank. Was Davey’s condition deteriorating? Had she missed something important? Something life-threatening?
It was Jonno who escorted the shaky woman to the vehicle, only accepting his jacket back when Harry produced a blanket to replace it. Then, with the lights flashing silently this time, the driver made short work of turning the vehicle in spite of the restricted space, and they were away.
The siren came on again just before they turned the corner and disappeared out of sight, and Amy could only imagine what was going on inside.
‘Will he be all right?’ Dee asked quietly, then shook her head and answered for herself. ‘Stupid question. How could anyone know until they’d done X-rays and stuff? But…how long will it be before you’d know?’
‘Not until the results of all the tests are through, and sometimes not even then,’ Zach said matter-of-factly. ‘Sometimes in A and E we just have to clean a patient up and they’re virtually ready to go home, and sometimes they can be weeks in Intensive Care, making no progress at all before they start to improve. Others aren’t so lucky.’
‘So, if I rang the hospital, could I find out how he’s doing?’ she asked, directing this question at Amy.
She shook her head. ‘The hospital wouldn’t give out that sort of information to someone who isn’t even family, but…Look, give me your phone number and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks. Thank you very much.’ Amy noticed that her smile was a little shaky now that the immediate drama was over, a common reaction in the aftermath of a sudden surge of adrenaline.
‘You did very well, Dee,’ she said, putting a consoling hand on the young girl’s arm, the tremors more obvious under her clothing. ‘If you ever consider a change of career, I think you ought to consider medicine. You kept your head beautifully.’
‘And wasn’t Jonno brilliant with the little kids?’ Dee exclaimed, and Amy had to hide a smile when the young man’s resulting blush travelled right up over his shaven head.
‘I didn’t really do anything,’ he said with a shrug, as he donned his over-sized jacket again. ‘I was only distracting them so they weren’t looking at their brother lying there.’
‘And you took care of their mother,’ Zach added quietly, holding out his hand towards the younger man. ‘You did well. You’ve got good instincts about caring for people.’
Jonno tentatively shook his hand as though it was something he didn’t do very often, and mumbled something unintelligible as his blush intensified.
‘Excuse me. I’m PC Frostic. Which one of you is the doctor?’ interrupted a voice, and they all turned to face a young uniformed policewoman.
‘Two of us are,’ Zach volunteered helpfully. ‘I’m Dr Bowman and this is Dr Willmott.’
‘Well, which one of you was it who rang the incident in? If you were a witness, we’re going to need a statement.’
‘Will it take long? Only I was due at work…’ Amy glanced down at her watch and gasped. ‘I was due to start my shift over half an hour ago in A and E.’ She glanced around her at the chaos that still surrounded them. ‘How long is it going to be before this lot is sorted out?’
‘Are you both due on duty?’
‘Yes, and the department’s short-staffed at the moment,’ Zach said. ‘We really don’t have time to—’
‘Just a minute, Doctor,’ she said, raising her index finger, and turned away to speak into the neat gadget that had recently replaced the old bulky walkie-talkies. Less than a minute later she turned back. ‘I’ve just cleared it with the DCI. We can do your interview later, so you’re free to get to work…if you can get out of this tangle.’
‘Mine’s the red one over there,’ Amy said with a grimace, when she saw the way it had become completely hemmed in. It would be ages before she could get away.
‘Mine’s the Honda Fireflash abandoned halfway down the road. I could give you a lift, Amy,’ Zach offered.
‘But my car…’
‘Is the car locked, Doctor?’ the young policewoman interrupted. ‘If you’d trust me with the keys, I could make certain it was delivered to the hospital for you.’
As Amy handed over her keys again, she couldn’t help noticing that there was the same avid expression on the officer’s face that there’d been on Jonno’s at the prospect of driving her car.
‘You could always give me the keys back when you come to do the interview,’ she suggested with a conspiratorial grin.
‘I could do,’ PC Frostic agreed eagerly, returning the grin whole-heartedly as she tucked the keys in her pocket. ‘I’ll see you later, then, Dr Willmott.’
‘Now, where’s this…what did you call it?’ she asked Zach as they set off through the tangle of cars and official vehicles.
‘Honda Fireflash. This is it,’ he supplied, as he stopped beside the sleek mixture of bright polished chrome and immaculate paintwork that almost exactly matched the scarlet of her car in daylight.
‘It’s your motorbike,’ she said stupidly, only now realising the significance of his leather clothing. Then she looked down at the remains of the neat suit she’d donned that morning. It was dirty and ruined beyond repair but, more importantly, it had a slim straight skirt that made it totally inappropriate for riding a motorbike. ‘I can’t get on that thing!’
‘You did before,’ he pointed out blandly, as he retrieved two helmets from the panniers then rocked the bike off its stand and prepared to throw his leg over it, but he couldn’t hide the wicked gleam in his eyes.
‘You know very well that I was wearing trousers the last time!’ she exclaimed, unwillingly cradling ‘her’ helmet. ‘I’d have to…’ She clamped her lips shut, but he finished the thought for her.
‘You’d have to pull your skirt right up to your…hips?’ he suggested, wickedly changing the word they both knew he was thinking. ‘Well, if you sit really close to me, no one will be able to see anything untoward. And, anyway, it’s only for a couple of minutes until we get to the hospital. Then you could change into a scrub suit without anyone being any the wiser.’
It was logical. It was sensible.
But the gleam in his eyes had grown brighter and she knew that he was every bit as aware as she was that until they arrived at the hospital she was going to be pressed against his back with little more than her underwear between them.
Not quite, she silently corrected herself as she surrendered to the unavoidable, awkwardly clambering into position behind him in a vain attempt at preserving her modesty, then giving in to the inevitable and sliding right forward so that she was plastered against his back. There was nothing between them but her underwear and the supple leather that, rather than being cold against her thighs, was warm from the heat of his body and fitted him like a second skin.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘NO ONE will be any the wiser? Ha!’ Amy muttered, her cheeks burning for the umpteenth time that morning.
It would have been true if the department was as busy as usual, but with a major traffic hold-up blocking half the access routes into town, far fewer than the usual number of casualties had arrived for the Monday morning rush, so half the department had been standing idle when Zach had drawn up outside the main entrance.
The pleasure of wrapping her arms around him again and feeling the rush of air as the powerful engine sped them swiftly to their destination had almost made her forget that her legs must look completely naked with her skirt hiked almost to her waist.
The first wolf whistle had reminded her with a jolt, as had the impossibility of dismounting without revealing both the colour and the brevity of her underwear.
And Zach hadn’t helped a bit.
Even with his visor down on his helmet she’d been able to see the searing glance that had taken in her unintentional revelation as he’d murmured, ‘Have you got a thing for scarlet, then?’ through the intercom. By the time she’d dragged her helmet off and marched into the building, her cheeks had matched them.
And, of course, the hospital grapevine had ensured that the tale had only grown with the telling. Just moments ago, she’d heard one of the paediatric consultants, visiting the department to take a look at a hypoglycaemic seven-year-old, asking Louella if it was true that one of the A and E staff had turned up that morning wearing nothing more than a bra and a G-string.
A Very Special Proposal Page 11
