This wasn’t good. From the state of the car, Alyssa knew Gaz’s legs had to be crushed. If they weren’t hurting, that was a bad sign: it meant there could be severe nerve damage.

‘You said you were stuck. Where are you stuck—your arm, your legs?’

‘My legs.’

Probably his feet were jammed underneath the pedals. ‘Can you move your left foot for me?’ she asked.

Gaz began to shake. ‘No.’

‘How about your right?’

‘No. I can’t feel anything.’ Then his eyes widened as realisation hit him. ‘Oh, God, I can’t feel my legs!’

‘It’s OK,’ Alyssa soothed, knowing it was very far from OK. If this was a crush injury, the chances were that Gaz was already bleeding to death—or that the pressure of the car against his legs had stopped the blood flow. Which meant that the second they cut him out and the pressure was released, he’d start to bleed heavily. As it was, there was a risk of compartment syndrome, where his blood would compress the nerves and muscles and the blood wouldn’t go through the tissues properly—so he could end up with a lot of dead muscle tissue.

If he survived that long.

Don’t think about that, she reminded herself. Concentrate on saving him, not on the poor odds. Go through the drill. ABCDE. Airway fine—obviously no obstruction because Gaz could talk. Breathing fine—no pallor, no blueness around the lips, no rasping. Not a tension pneumothorax at this stage, then, though she’d need to keep a close eye on him and act the second she noticed any of the signs. Circulation was the one she was really worried about: if Gaz had a large external haemorrhage, it was going to be hard to staunch it.

But the streetlights weren’t enough to show her what she needed to know. ‘Seb, can I borrow your torch a minute?’ she called. At the same time, the rest of the mnemonics were going through her head. Disability—Gaz was awake and responsive, so neurological worries could be put aside for now. Exposure—well, they couldn’t move him until the fire brigade cut him out, so no point in worrying about that one.

Airway, breathing—her breath hitched—circulation.

Seb appeared with the torch. Alyssa shone it into the car. The light told Alyssa that what she’d most feared wasn’t there: no dark patch of blood spreading across Gaz’s seat.

If only the ambulance and fire crew would get here. Like yesterday.

‘Are my mates OK?’ Gaz asked.

‘Hold on there a second, and I’ll check with Seb,’ she said, and pulled Seb away from the car. ‘We need to get him out of there, fast. I’m not sure if we’re going to have time to get him cut out of the car.’

‘Bad haemorrhage?’

‘No, but probably crush syndrome.’

‘So the second we move him, he’s going to crash,’ Seb said.

‘We are not going to lose him,’ Alyssa said in a fierce whisper. ‘I’m going to try and keep him talking. He wants to know about his mates.’

‘Tell him that one of his mates was knocked out briefly so he needs to go in to be assessed, and the two in the back have whiplash and will be fine. I’ll check the lorry driver and I’ll be back.’

Alyssa went back to Gaz, who’d grown paler and more frightened. She held one of his hands. ‘OK. Seb says your mate in the front was knocked out, so we’ll check him over at the hospital. The two in the back have got whiplash but they’ll be fine—they just won’t be up to going clubbing or playing football for a couple of weeks. Seb’s checking the lorry driver, but he managed to get out of the lorry all right.’

‘Oh, God. He must be so mad with me.’

Yeah. And he’d be giving a statement to the police. So if Gaz had stolen the car and gone joy-riding, the police would throw the book at him. But that was the least of their worries right now. ‘It’s OK,’ she soothed. ‘The fire brigade is on its way and we’ll get you out of there.’

He shivered. ‘I’m cold.’

‘Hang on in there, Gaz. Do you want me to call your mum?’

‘I can’t reach my phone.’

‘It’s OK, I’ll use mine.’

‘I’m so scared,’ he whispered.

‘I know, love. I would be, too. But the lorry’s stable and it’s not going to fall on you, and the fire brigade will cut you out and lift the car off you. I’ve seen it lots of times before.’ And she’d coped as part of the trauma team in a major motorway pile-up. Several times. But this…this was different. It felt personal somehow. ‘Tell me your mum’s number and I’ll get her for you.’

But when Gaz had finished dictating the number and Alyssa had made the connection, the network message informed her that ‘this person’s mobile phone is switched off’.

‘She’s gone out, then,’ Gaz said. ‘Am I going to die?’

That depended on the crush injuries, but if she told him that, he’d panic. She needed to keep him as calm as possible. If he panicked, it would send his blood pressure up and cause more problems. ‘I hope not. How old are you, Gaz, twenty?’

‘Eighteen. Passed my test last week—first time,’ he added, with a hint of pride in his voice. ‘My old man bought me the car.’

So the lorry-driver had been wrong. Gaz wasn’t a joy-rider. Good. ‘Do you want me to call him, or is he with your mum?’

Gaz shook his head. ‘He doesn’t live with my mum. Never has. And he only bought me the car ’cause he thought it might stop her going on about the child support he owes her and never paid.’

Oh, yeah. She knew all about that one. A dad who didn’t give a damn and thought he could buy his way out of his responsibilities. Her teeth gritted.

‘I’m not going to walk again, am I?’ he asked.

‘Until we get you out of there, we can’t assess the damage,’ she hedged.

To her relief, before Gaz could ask the crunch question again—was he going to die?—the fire brigade arrived.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Gaz begged. ‘Please, don’t go.’

‘Of course I won’t. But I might have to get out of the way for a few minutes while they cut you out, OK?’

He nodded weakly. Seb had clearly briefed the fire brigade. When they asked her to move aside, she went over to where he was briefing the paramedics and gave them Gaz’s obs.

‘We’ve done all we can here,’ Seb said, when she’d finished.

Alyssa shook her head. ‘Gaz is panicking like hell. He asked me not to leave him. So I’m staying.’ She bit her lip. ‘As soon as they’re ready to take that car off him…’

‘Hey. There’s still a chance. A small one, but there’s still a chance.’

Not much of one, and they both knew it.

‘I said I’d get his mum for him.’ Alyssa hit the redial button on her phone. Ten seconds later, she cut the call. ‘Her phone’s still switched off.’ She turned to the paramedics. ‘The driver asked me to stay with him—he’s pretty scared. Can I go with you and hold his hand? It’ll help keep him calm. Plus, I’m a doctor in the ED at Docklands Memorial, so I can help out in the back as well.’

To her relief, they agreed.

‘I’ll meet you at the hospital and take you home,’ Seb said.

She shook her head. ‘Don’t put yourself out.’

‘Alyssa, don’t argue. I’m not going to see you stranded at the hospital or having to wait hours for a taxi.’

Both were distinct possibilities—possibilities she didn’t relish—so she wasn’t going to argue with him. ‘Thank you.’

She went over to the paramedics and held Gaz’s hand as they strapped him to a spinal board. They soothed him, but Alyssa had noticed the momentary tightening of their faces before they’d masked their expressions. They didn’t think he had much chance either.

‘I tried your mum again but couldn’t get her,’ she said softly.

‘If I d…If I don’t make it,’ he choked, ‘will you tell her I love her and I’m sorry?’

She forced the tears back. No time for emotion now: she had to be a professional. And if she told him the truth, what would it achieve? She’d just make his last few minutes as miserable as possible. ‘Sure, but you’ll be able to tell her yourself.’If she could get Gaz’s mum on the phone. ‘We’re getting you out of there.’

‘Will you go with me in the ambulance?’

‘Of course I will.’

And then it was the bit she was dreading. They lifted the car off Gaz, applied direct compression to his crushed legs and rushed him into the ambulance.

Seb finished giving his witness statement to the police, then climbed back into his car and drove to the hospital. Thank God he’d thought straight enough to ask which hospital they were going to rather than just assuming it was the nearest one.

He hadn’t planned tonight to be like this at all. It should have been fun, a night out, a good meal, and nothing more than that.

And the whole thing had turned into a nightmare. If they’d left five minutes sooner or five minutes later, Gaz and his mates wouldn’t have seen the E-type and behaved so stupidly. Probably egged each other on: Go on, Gaz, you can take it, give it some va-va-voom!

And Gaz wouldn’t be in the back of an ambulance right now with crushed legs—legs that might well have to be amputated.

If the kid even made it to the hospital.

Alyssa had been amazing. Cool, calm, collected and kind—she’d done all the right things in the right order. She hadn’t even worried about the fact that doctors’ professional indemnity insurance didn’t cover them at the scene of an accident, unless they were there on a shout as part of their job. And she’d cared enough to go with a frightened teenager in the back of an ambulance, holding his hand and reassuring him.

There was a hell of a lot more to Alyssa Ward than met the eye. And Seb found himself wanting to know more.

Seb parked the car and headed straight for the emergency department. Alyssa was sitting in the reception area, talking to a policeman—clearly giving him a witness statement.

He waited until she’d finished and walked over to her. She looked drained and miserable—drained because she’d done so much to keep their patient going, and miserable because she wasn’t staff and could do absolutely nothing to help the boy now. He knew exactly where she was coming from, so he wrapped his arms round her and held her close.

‘He’s in Resus. Critical,’ she said, her voice shaking.

‘Hey. You got him here. That’s a hell of a lot better than we hoped for.’

‘He’s only eighteen, Seb. He made a stupid mistake, yes, but he’s so young!’

‘I know.’ He stroked her hair. ‘I feel bad now. I was going to chase after him and yell at him.’

‘Maybe if someone had done that before…’She added bitterly, ‘His dad didn’t bother to stick around and help guide him. What the hell is wrong with men?’

Seb knew that wasn’t a dig aimed at him—he had a feeling it went far deeper than that. Did Alyssa have issues with her father? Then again, he thought wryly, they couldn’t be much worse than his own issues with his mother.

He said nothing, just held her until she’d calmed down enough to pull away.

‘Before you say it,’ he said softly, ‘that was a professional hug. That was a “we’ve got a patient critically ill in Resus and it’s a bad day” hug from one doctor to another. An “I know how you feel because I’ve been there” type of thing. No strings, no expectations.’

She didn’t say anything, but the hard look in her eyes softened.

Did she really think he was that much of a louse—that he’d see she was emotionally drained and use it as a lever to get her into bed? Is that what everyone else in the hospital thought of him?

Suddenly, Seb didn’t like himself very much.

‘Look, you can’t do anything else for him now. We’re not staff—not here,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it a day. Go home, get some rest. And ring in tomorrow.’

‘And they’ll tell me he’s “comfortable”. Patient confidentiality,’ she said bitterly.

‘Explain who you are. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll lean on the consultant for you,’ he said.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Alyssa, if you stay here all night, he might still be critical in the morning,’ he said gently. ‘You need to get some rest. Come on.’

They drove back to her flat in silence.

‘Thank you for tonight,’ she said stiltedly.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘The accident wasn’t your fault.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

She frowned. ‘What, then?’

She already thought the worst of him, so she may as well know the truth. ‘This night out was supposed to be a make-over for you, dinner and a show. Except it annoyed me that you were throwing it back in my face—so I decided on the spur of the moment to make you go out with me tonight. Which meant I didn’t have time to get tickets for a show or organise a make-over.’

That was the last thing she’d expected from him. A confession—and an apology. Despite her misery—and the fact that she felt so very, very cold—she smiled. ‘You’re admitting to being a spoiled brat and having a temper tantrum?’

‘Yep.’ A hint of dimple. ‘Forgive me?’

And then she realised what he was doing. Charming her. She’d say yes; he’d ask for a kiss to prove it; and, the next thing she knew, she’d be inviting him in for coffee. No—worse than that. She’d be inviting him in for sex. Partly because she found him attractive, and partly because, after the accident they’d just helped to deal with, she needed to celebrate life.

Hell. Not this way. Not a one-night stand with Seb Radley.

‘Nothing to forgive,’ she said, and unclipped her seat belt. ‘Thank you for dinner.’

‘My pleasure.’ His expression was odd, unreadable.

‘Goodnight,’ she said, and climbed out of the car before he could come round and open the door for her.

As if he guessed why, he stayed put and didn’t suggest seeing her to her door. Though she noticed that he waited until she’d unlocked her door, switched on her light and closed the door again behind her before he pulled away. Politeness? Genuine concern? Or just hoping that she’d change her mind and make an offer?

She wasn’t sure which. Maybe a bit of all three.

One thing she was sure about. Sebastian Radley had the power to unsettle her, if she let him. So she’d keep her distance in future.

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