by Joanna Neil
At work next day, Emma felt as though she was hungover. She muddled through the morning, conscious that she had to give her best, and worried because she was finding that so difficult to do. The fact that her brain was foggy had nothing to do with the wine that she had drunk, but far more to do with lack of sleep. She was still concerned about why Samson was unnerved. It worried her that someone might be hanging around the place, and she was left feeling insecure, on edge.
‘Have you been there?’
The drone of the helicopter almost wiped out the words. Shaken out of her trance, Emma looked up at Rhys. He was watching her, a questioning look in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Did you say something? I was miles away.’
‘So I gathered.’ His mouth made a wry twist. ‘I was just pointing out Richmond Park below us, and I was asking you if you’d ever been to Pembroke Lodge, maybe had lunch there at some time?’
She frowned, pausing to look at the landscape laid out beneath them. They were passing over a stretch of water and she could see deer grazing on the grassland below.
Ahead of them, a magnificent white porticoed building, a Georgian mansion, nestled in beautifully landscaped grounds. ‘Is that it?’ she asked.
He nodded, and she said, ‘No. I’ve always meant to go there and try it out, but I’ve never quite managed it. Is it worth a visit?’
‘I think you would like it. It was built on high ground, and the views from there are fantastic. On a clear day you can see across the Thames valley and beyond, as far as Windsor.’
They had been heading west, and as they passed over the golf course and the botanic gardens she saw the river ahead of them. The pilot began to sweep the aircraft in a northward arc.
‘We’ll be at our destination any minute now,’ Rhys said.
They flew onwards, following the course of a canal, passing over a series of locks. People were walking along the towpath, enjoying the summer’s day, and Emma half wished that she could join them. Then they left the countryside behind, and a network of roads started to take its place.
Inside the helicopter, they started to prepare for action. They had been called out to a road traffic accident, and Emma was slightly apprehensive as to what they would find. A lorry had overturned, coming off the motorway, and a motorcyclist had had the misfortune to be caught up in the chaos.
‘Let’s go,’ Rhys said, as they touched down. He and Martin moved swiftly, sprinting ahead of her, and Emma did her best to keep up with them.
The lorry driver was in a bad way. He was conscious, but his skin had an unhealthy pallor, and he was confused, finding it painful and difficult to breathe. His neck veins were engorged, and his heart rate was way too fast. His blood pressure was falling.
Firemen were doing their best to release him from the cab, but they stopped for long enough to allow Emma to climb in beside him and attend to his injuries. Rhys went with Martin to examine the motorcyclist.
‘Jack, I think you have broken several ribs,’ she said to the driver, after she had made a swift examination. ‘It looks as though they have penetrated your lungs and the pleura, and that’s why you’re having difficulty in breathing. Air has entered the pleural cavity, but it can’t escape, and so pressure has built up, causing your lung to collapse. I need to try to re-inflate the lung.’
‘Do what you have to, Doctor,’ Jack said in a rasping voice.
She nodded, already preparing a syringe. ‘I’ll give you a painkiller first.’ As soon as she had done that, she identified the second intercostal space in the midclavicular line, and then inserted the cannula just above the third rib. There was a satisfying hiss of air escaping. Quickly, she removed the internal metal needle and taped the plastic cannula in place.
‘Is your breathing a little easier now?’ she asked.
He nodded, but he was growing weaker by the minute, and he closed his eyes.
Emma was already preparing an intravenous line in order to give him vital fluids. When she had examined him, there was some abdominal tenderness in the right upper quadrant, and she was afraid that he might also have sustained liver and spleen injuries. She needed to get him to hospital and to Theatre where a surgeon could operate to repair any damage. In the meantime, he could be bleeding internally.
‘Are you hurting anywhere else?’ she asked.
He indicated his left shoulder, and that helped to confirm her diagnosis. A build-up of blood from an injured spleen might cause referred pain like that.
Rhys came to join her. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked, sending her a swift glance. ‘We need to get these people to hospital now. My patient has abdominal trauma. I suspect he has a split pancreas, and we need to get him to surgery fast. There’s nothing I can do to control the bleeding.’
Did he think that she was working too slowly? ‘Same here,’ she said under her breath. She was going as quickly as she could. ‘I need to put in a chest drain—give me a couple more minutes, will you?’
‘I’ll give you a hand.’
It was difficult for the two of them to work in such cramped conditions. The firemen were doing their best to continue with their rescue operation while Emma and Rhys worked, but Emma knew that she had to go on. Blood was building up inside her patient’s chest cavity, causing more pressure, and though he was breathing oxygen through a mask, he was still in a critical condition.
This time she identified the fifth intercostal space, anterior to the mid-axillary line. She cleaned the area and infiltrated a local anaesthetic into the skin and pleura. Then she made a transverse incision parallel to the line of the ribs, pierced the pleura, using the blunt end of the clamp, and inserted the chest drain, clamping the opposite end. Finally, she attached the end to an underwater seal and released the clamp, ensuring the free flow of blood.
Rhys sutured the tube in position and taped it in place.
Emma frowned as she watched gas bubble through the underwater drain. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ she said in a low voice, turning away so that Jack wouldn’t hear.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Rhys agreed. ‘We’d better have a cardiothoracic surgeon standing by.’
Emma pulled in a deep breath, but Rhys was already on the move, calling for the firemen to release the patient. ‘We need to get him on a stretcher and into the helicopter, as fast as you can.’
A few minutes later, their patients were on board, and the pilot turned the helicopter back towards the hospital. Rhys’s patient was in a bad way. He had a nasogastric tube in place, along with two intravenous lines, and he was being given oxygen. As soon as they reached the hospital, he would need a CT scan to determine the extent of the damage.
A team was waiting to meet them the instant they landed. Handing over, Emma once again felt the lack of closure, the need to stay with her patients and follow through to the end.
Perhaps Rhys read her thoughts. ‘You have already made a difference to the outcome,’ he said. ‘You gave them lifesaving treatment, and now it’s down to others to carry on. The job we do relies on teamwork, on everyone playing a part.’ He looked at her. ‘You shouldn’t feel bad about letting go. You did well.’
‘Perhaps…I can’t quite get used to handing over. You’ve been doing it for a lot longer than I have, and perhaps it’s easier for you.’
Martin and the others had already gone back to base, but Emma was restless, and for the moment she couldn’t face going back to the unit.
‘Do you want to grab a bite to eat?’ Rhys asked. ‘I have some lunch in my pack, and we could share it out here in the fresh air—over by the wall, if you like. There’s some shade there, and less of a breeze.’
She stared up at him. ‘I didn’t have time to make sandwiches this morning. Are you sure you have enough for both of us?’
He nodded. ‘I always bring extra, just in case.’ He led her towards a sheltered corner of the roof terrace, and they sat down on a bench. He removed a canvas bag from his pack and spread out the contents on a low wooden table. There was chicken
and scotch eggs, a container with sandwiches and a small bowl of readymade salad. He had even brought along bottled water.
‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ She picked out a chicken drumstick and nibbled at salad, then wiped her hands on a serviette. ‘This is good. I was more hungry than I realised.’
He studied her thoughtfully. ‘I think perhaps you needed time to wind down. You’ve been out of sorts all day, haven’t you?’
‘Was it that noticeable?’
‘It was. Is it anything you want to talk about?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. I’m not at all sure what it is that’s bothering me. There’s nothing that I can put my finger on.’
He looked at her through narrowed eyes, and she found herself noticing inconsequentially that his lashes were thick and dark, and his grey eyes were all-seeing, as though nothing could escape him.
‘Are you still worried about the article in the paper the other day?’
‘What makes you think that I was worried?’
Rhys shrugged. ‘I’ve known you for a long time, remember. You’re very defensive about your father…and besides that, there were some personal details that could have seemed invasive.’ He was still watching her, in that steady way of his, and she swallowed, trying not to let his scrutiny disturb her. ‘Has the reporter been back to bother you? I had the feeling that he wanted to do another article…to delve into what your father is working on now.’
‘He won’t get very far if he tries. Not if I have anything to do with it, anyhow. He can snoop as much as he likes, but he won’t get anywhere very fast.’
‘So he has been bothering you?’
She grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Someone has been hanging around, I think. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps I’m imagining things.’ She braced herself. ‘I’m probably overtired, a little out of sorts, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.’
He moved along the seat, sliding closer to her. ‘If it’s going to affect you at work, then it’s something that we should both be concerned about, don’t you think?’ He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘If there’s anything at all, you should tell me about it.’
It was a long time since she’d been this close to him. It was just a casual gesture on his part, born of familiarity from all those times they had hung around together as teenagers and beyond, but to Emma it was something far more. His touch heated her skin, turned her blood to flame. It was impossible to ignore the gentle caress. His fingers cupped her shoulder, urged her towards him, to face him, and his head tilted to one side, as though by some magnetic impulse he would draw her to look into his eyes.
She tried to resist, fighting the urge that compelled her, but his gaze tangled with hers and he studied her face, reading the confusion in her green eyes.
‘Do you think he’s watching the house?’
‘I think he might be.’
He was thoughtful for a moment or two. ‘I could come over and check the place out for you, if you like. If nothing else, he might see me and realise that you’re not alone. It might be enough to put him off. He’s not to know that I don’t live there.’
‘I don’t know.’ She tugged lightly at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘It’s probably nothing, and I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘You aren’t.’ He squeezed her gently, drawing her closer to him, so close that she could feel the beat of his heart and absorb the warmth that came from him.
She wanted to lean her head against his shoulder and give herself up to this tender moment. It felt good, having him hold her this way, but at the back of her mind a warning bell was beginning to make itself heard. It wouldn’t do for her to accept his help and allow herself to care for him, would it? His opinion of her father wouldn’t change, and his family would always be antagonistic towards her. Knowing what had happened to their daughter, they wouldn’t find it easy to forgive, and they would certainly never forget. Most of all, would they ever come to believe that her father hadn’t been to blame?
Emma eased herself away from Rhys. One day, she would prove her father’s innocence. She would put an end to all the gossip and speculation, once and for all. Quite how she was going to achieve this, she wasn’t sure, but in the meantime she would stay loyal to him and defend him from anyone who pointed a finger of accusation…even Rhys.
‘Are you OK?’ Rhys was looking at her doubtfully.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure? This can be a difficult job at the best of times. You can’t afford to be carrying around a mess of troubles. They cloud your judgement and slow you down when you need to be clear-thinking and level-headed.’
‘I’m sure.’ She felt deflated all at once. That was what this was all about, wasn’t it? He was making sure that his team was on the ball, that everyone measured up. It wasn’t personal. It had never been personal.
She took a drink of the water he offered her, and then said on a light note, ‘I expect we should go and join the others. Judging by the number of calls we’ve already had today, we’ve not finished by a long way.’
He accepted her mood change without comment, and after a minute or two they cleared away the impromptu picnic and went back to headquarters.
Some three hours later, when her shift ended, Emma went to see how their patients were doing. More than anything, she was worried about Melanie, who had been thrown from her horse a few days ago. Surely there would be some news by now?
‘I rang the spinal injuries unit to check up for you. It isn’t as bad as we first thought,’ the staff nurse told her when she called in on her. ‘It’s beginning to look as though her spinal cord is intact. There was a compressive lesion, but she had surgery to alleviate that, and we think she’ll be back on her feet eventually, once the swelling has settled down.’
‘That’s a relief.’ Emma ventured a smile. ‘What about the baby, though? Is there any good news there?’
Staff nurse nodded. ‘Things seem to be healing up there, too. There was just a small tear, and it seems to have righted itself. She’ll need to rest, of course, but the baby doesn’t appear to have been harmed in any way.’
‘I’m so pleased about that.’ She said goodbye to the nurse and headed towards the exit doors. ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ she said.
‘I hope you will. It’s good for the patients, too. They often want to thank the doctors who brought them in.’
Emma set off for home. She was tired after her day’s work, and she was more than a little distracted after the way Rhys had held her in his arms. She wanted to forget that it had ever happened, but the memory remained imprinted on her mind, and refused to go away.
She would be glad to put her feet up and lose herself in a good book, but the day wasn’t done with her yet. Another surprise awaited her when she arrived home.
‘I wondered if I would bump into you,’ a man said, as she was about to put the key in her front door. ‘I just moved into a place across the road, and I thought I remembered that you lived around here.’
Emma recognised the voice. Turning around, she saw Rhys’s brother-in-law coming towards her.
‘Elliot?’ Her eyes widened, and she looked at him closely as he came to stand beside her. He hadn’t changed at all since she had last seen him. His hair was black, with a slight wave at the front. His eyes were dark, too, a sombre grey that seemed to reflect his mood right now.
She pulled herself together. ‘Did I hear you say that you have come to live around here?’
‘That’s right.’ His mouth made a grimace that might have been intended as a smile. ‘I suppose you must have heard that Amy and I have separated?’
‘Yes, I did.’ She frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I always thought you were so happy together.’
‘We were, mostly…until we lost the baby. Then everything started to go downhill.’
Emma stiffened. She realised that she was waiting for the recriminations to start up, but Elliot didn’t say a
ny more, and after a moment she said hesitantly, ‘Is there a chance that you’ll get back together again, do you think?’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that it became impossible for us to live together any longer. She told me she thought it would be better if I left, so after a while I started to look around for a place of my own.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t know what to say to him. ‘Sorry’ seemed such an inadequate word. ‘I suppose it must have been quite difficult for you to find somewhere suitable.’
He nodded. ‘Given that now I’m having to pay for two properties, yes, it was, but I imagine things will sort themselves out in time.’
He was a solicitor, hardworking and intelligent, and he had deserved every bit of his success, but he was young and he was still establishing himself in his field. She wouldn’t have imagined that he would come to live anywhere near here, but perhaps it wasn’t so unusual. There were quick links from here to the City, and most of the people who lived in the area were young professionals. The properties were modernised and reasonably priced, and if he was still maintaining the family home, she guessed this would suit his pocket.
‘Are you settling in all right?’
‘More or less. It takes some getting used to.’
She made a faint smile. ‘I imagine it would.’ She was thoughtful for a moment, and then said, ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee? I’ve only just finished work, and I was planning on heating up a casserole for supper. You could join me, if you like.’
‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble.’
‘I’m sure. Come on in.’
They were finishing off the meal some half an hour later when the doorbell rang. ‘It’s probably Lindsey, my neighbour,’ Emma said, going to answer it. ‘She often pops round in the evening, especially when her husband is away.’
It wasn’t Lindsey. Rhys was standing by the porch, looking at her with the quizzical expression she had come to know so well, and Emma’s mouth opened and closed in a kind of shock.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said.
‘Weren’t you? I thought we said that I would come around, if only to warn off your stalker.’ He waited. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
