The Doctor's Rescue

“I really, really can’t stay here in hospital much longer. It’s driving me bananas,” Will said between gritted teeth. “I know you said you were planning on being our locum for a while…. Have you got digs lined up?”

Uh-oh. She had a nasty feeling she knew what was coming. “I’m staying at The Limes.”

“I’ve got a better solution,” Will said. “My spare room. If you stay at the cottage there’ll be a doctor on the premises if I get into trouble, so they’ll let me out.”

Yeah, right.

He grimaced. “Mallory, this wasn’t—isn’t—an attempt to seduce you. Sharing my cottage until I’m fit again doesn’t mean I’m expecting you to share my bed or anything like that.”

Her skin heated again. She hadn’t been thinking along those lines at all. Although now he’d mentioned it…No. He might be drop-dead gorgeous, beneath the bruising and the plaster, but she wasn’t going to have an affair with Will Cooper. She was going to be sensible, and make sure her working partnerships stayed work only. “I didn’t think you were.”

The Doctor’s Rescue started life in the most unromantic situation—at the beginning of the school run, in torrential rain, when I was wearing the least sexy raincoat in the world. I looked like a gnome. Ping! That’s where the first line of the book comes from. My poor editor just sighed when I warned her what was coming!

It also had something to do with a book I was reading on Everest. I’d love to climb a mountain. But as I get queasy on three-inch heels, the chances are pretty slim. So I decided to make my heroine do it for me—meaning that I got all the fun and none of the danger.

GP Mallory Ryman rescues Will Cooper when he’s knocked over by a car, and he talks her into acting as his locum while he recovers. But it also means her moving in with him: which means they both have to come to terms with their past. As for who rescues whom—I’ll let you make up your own mind.

Oh, and the storm sort of happened to me. Thirteen miserable hours with no heating, and reduced to using birthday cake candles! Now, imagine it was my heroine and the most gorgeous man in the world (my own gorgeous one was on call at work) and suddenly it becomes much more interesting….

With love,

Kate Hardy

The Doctor’s Rescue

Kate Hardy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

COVER

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

‘GO ’WAY, Gnome,’ Will slurred. ‘Wan’ sleep.’

‘No, you don’t, sunshine. You’re really, really not going to sleep now. Stay awake for me.’

Bright blue eyes stared at him from under the even brighter yellow hood. Not fair, torturing him like this. His leg hurt, his head hurt, his arm hurt, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep. But the gnome was shining a light in his eyes and wouldn’t let him.

‘What’s your name?’ Her voice was gentler this time. Like her hands, which stroked his face tenderly. Lovely hands.

‘It’s W—’

Then everything faded, and he sank into sweet oblivion.

Everything hurt. Absolutely everything. Will risked moving an eyelid and closed it again quickly. The light was too bright. But he couldn’t go back to sleep again now—there was too much noise. People talking, clattering sounds and beeping. Sounds that were familiar somehow and yet strange at the same time. Where was he?

Resignedly, he opened his eyes. And saw her sitting cross-legged in the chair at the foot of his bed, reading a book. The gnome. Not a gnome—an elf, he decided, now she wasn’t wearing that huge yellow waterproof.

She smiled and put the book down. ‘Well, I suppose an elf’s an improvement on a gnome.’

Oh, no. He couldn’t have actually said that.

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Wha—?’

She uncrossed her legs, stood up and came over to the bed. ‘Would you like some water?’

He nodded gratefully. She wasn’t an elf either, then. More like an angel.

If angels had spiky auburn hair. Weren’t they supposed to be all golden and shining? And he couldn’t see any sign of wings or a halo.

Though she didn’t make a comment, so he clearly hadn’t spoken aloud this time.

She held a plastic beaker and put the straw to his lips, and he took a sip. And another. And another. And then she took the beaker away.

‘Not too much at once,’ she said.

Will resented that, even though her tone was kind. Didn’t she know his mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with sawdust? He needed water. Lots more water. He glowered at her and started to reach over to where she’d put the beaker on the bedside cabinet. Then he realised he had no chance of getting the water. Because his left arm was encased in plaster.

He stared at it in disbelief. He had a broken arm?

Her quiet voice cut into his thoughts. ‘Can you remember what happened?’

Will’s eyes widened. Oh, yes, he remembered what happened. The car coming round the corner in Darrowthwaite high street, the look of horror on the driver’s face when he saw the little girl run into the road and realised he wouldn’t be able to stop in time, the screech of tyres and the smell of burning rubber as he’d slammed on the brakes…

And then the impact. The bone-jarring impact when the car had thudded into him.

‘Car,’ he forced out.

‘Anything else?’

He looked suspiciously at her. ‘Are you a reporter?’

‘No.’ She changed tack again. ‘Do you know what day it is?’

‘Thursday.’ He suddenly realised why she was asking. She wanted to check if he had amnesia. ‘How long was I out?’

‘The second time, you mean?’

So he’d been knocked out twice?

‘Only for about fifteen minutes.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘You gave us all a scare.’

‘I’m fine now. I’m going…’ His voice faded as he tried to sit up. No, he wasn’t going to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He had a nasty feeling he knew exactly why his right leg had a dressing taped over it: the car had given him more than just a bruise. A lot more.

He stared at her. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Mallory Ryman.’

It didn’t ring any bells. And Mallory Ryman was definitely a woman once seen, never forgotten. Small and slender, with huge blue eyes and a mouth that…

Stop right there, Will Cooper. You’re in hospital with an arm in plaster and probably a pinned leg, you ache all over, you’ve probably got concussion and you’re in no fit condition to start thinking like that about her, he told himself.

And then he panicked. Was it more than just concussion making him feel groggy? Did he know Mallory? Did she work with him? Was she a neighbour? Or was she the one who’d managed to melt his resolve about never getting involved again?

‘Can you remember your name?’

Uh-oh. This was beginning to sound as if he did know her. So why couldn’t he remember who she was? ‘I’m Will Cooper.’

She smiled. ‘Good. That’s what your notes say, too. And what I was told in Darrowthwaite.’

He relaxed again. It was all right. He didn’t have amnesia on top of everything else. Though a tiny part of him was disappointed. As if he’d been hoping that she—

No. He’d already learned the hard way that love didn’t exist.

‘I thought you might like an update on the little girl.’

‘Little girl?’ Will parroted.

‘The reason you’re in here,’ Mallory told him kindly.

As if he’d forgotten. His mind was just working a bit more slowly than usual, that was all. ‘Kelly Beswick. Is she all right?’

‘Not so much as a bruise on her. You took all the impact and your body cushioned hers,’ Mallory said. ‘Her mum was in shock, mind. I had to prescribe some hot sweet tea.’

So his gnome—elf—angel—whatever—had a sense of humour. Because, of course, Will, being a GP in Darrowthwaite, should have been the one doing the prescribing. No doubt Wendy Beswick had told Mallory who he was.

‘But Kelly’s fine. The driver had a bit of a sore neck so they’re checking him out in Casualty—it’s probably minor whiplash. And Wendy’s going to keep Kelly on reins in future, particularly the next time she starts chatting to her friends in the middle of the street. I think she’s realised now that two-year-olds have a low boredom threshold. Especially when they see a cat on the other side of the road—’

‘And step straight out in front of a car,’ Will finished.

‘Lucky you saw it and got her out of the way.’

Mallory didn’t need to elaborate. They both knew that the impact would have killed the small child. Will had seen the toddler wander into the road, then the car come round the corner. There was only one thing he could possibly have done—and he’d done it. Rushed into the road, even though it had felt like wading through treacle at the time, and scooped her out of the way, taking the brunt of the impact himself.

The dull thud had reverberated through his body. And then he’d hit the tarmac.

‘And even luckier it wasn’t summer,’ Mallory said.

He knew exactly what she meant. In summer, he wouldn’t have been wearing a waxed thornproof jacket. He’d have been in shirtsleeves—thin fabric that would have been torn to shreds on the tarmac when he’d hit it. And as for the skin underneath…It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘Anyway, I told Wendy I’d come to the hospital and let you know that the little girl was all right.’

‘Thanks.’ She hadn’t needed to do that. And he appreciated it. He gave her a half-smile, then the aches in his body made him wince again. ‘Sorry I wrecked your holiday.’

‘Holiday?’ she tested.

OK, so the first week of January wasn’t the most popular time of year for a holiday in the Lakes. But she was definitely on holiday. It was obvious, wasn’t it? He gestured with his free hand. ‘Proper walking boots. Bright yellow waterproof.’ She wasn’t wearing it but he could see it draped over the back of her chair. His gaze dropped to the floor next to the chair. ‘Rucksack.’ And, since her boots looked well worn and he recognised them as an expensive make, she was clearly a seasoned walker—a climber even, though she looked too slender and fragile to have the strength for rock-climbing.

Please, don’t let her be a climber.

‘Nice deduction, Mr Holmes,’ she teased. ‘Though actually, I’m not on holiday as such.’ Her smile faded. ‘And, if anything, I owe you.’

‘How come?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not important. Anyway, you should be resting.’

‘I am resting,’ he pointed out wryly. He couldn’t move from his bed. Not without crutches, anyway, if his leg was pinned. And a quick glance around his cubicle showed no sign of crutches. So he was definitely stuck here. Great. He had a million and one things to do, clinics to run and lists to work through and paperwork to finish off and…

He must have spoken aloud again because she nodded. ‘And you feel as if you’ve been run over by a steamroller.’

‘Yeah,’ he admitted.

Mallory checked his chart. ‘You’re due some analgesics. I’ll go and tell the nurse you’re ready for them.’

She’d said ‘analgesics’, not ‘painkillers’, Will noted. And then he remembered the way she’d checked his pupils moments after the accident. Probably after he’d blacked out—that was why she’d checked his pupils in the first place. ‘You’re a doctor,’ he said.

‘Was,’ she said grimly, and left the cubicle.

Was? What did she mean, was? Had she been struck off? Or…? His mind refused to make any connections, and he sank back against his pillows. All he could think about right now was the dull ache that beat through his body.

She returned a couple of minutes later with a nurse who carried two white tablets in a small cup.

‘Paracetamol?’ Will asked hopefully.

Mallory smiled. ‘Don’t you think you might need just a little bit more than that?’

‘Yeah,’ he admitted, as another wave of pain shot through him.

‘I’ll do your obs first,’ the nurse said. She checked his temperature, pulse and respiration. Though her hands weren’t like Mallory’s. They were just as cool and professional, but the touch of her skin hadn’t heated his blood the way Mallory’s had.

No. Absolutely not. He wasn’t going to start thinking of Mallory in those terms.

He sneaked a glance at her. And wished he hadn’t when his gaze met hers. It felt as if lightning had just coursed through him. His pulse was racing, too. Not good. How could he explain to the nurse that it wasn’t anything to do with the accident? It was…the look of a stranger. A perfect stranger. All he knew about her was her name, her previous occupation and the fact she was here on holiday.

So how on earth could she make him feel like an overgrown, gawky teenager, just with one look? And how on earth could the nurse write so calmly on her chart as if an earthquake hadn’t just happened before her eyes—wasn’t still happening?

‘Shall I get him some water to go with the analgesics?’ Mallory asked.

‘Thanks.’ The nurse smiled at her. ‘I’ll leave him in your capable hands, Dr Ryman.’

‘Have you had co-proxamol before?’ Mallory asked as the nurse left the cubicle.

‘Yes.’

‘Any reaction to it at all? Any dizziness, blurred vision, slurring your words?’

‘No.’ She knew he hurt. Why didn’t she just give him the painkillers? ‘Are you the ward doctor?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She flushed spectacularly, her face clashing wildly with her hair. And then she went white. Absolutely white.

Will could have kicked himself. Considering that she’d come to his rescue after the accident and now she was looking after him—something she really didn’t have to do—he’d been ungracious. Worse, he must have touched some sort of sore nerve. She’d only just told him that she used to be a doctor and, whatever the reason for her not being one now, the pain was clearly still raw. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to be nasty.’

‘You’re in pain and I’m holding up your pain relief. And I’m sure the ward doctor checked your records before he wrote you up for co-proxamol,’ Mallory said. She handed him the cup and waited until he’d tipped the tablets into his mouth before giving him the beaker of water.

‘Thanks,’ he said when he’d swallowed the tablets.

‘Is there anything else you need?’ she asked.

A new head, he thought. One that didn’t hurt. ‘No. I’m fine, thanks,’ he said.

‘I’ll be off, then.’

‘Stay a bit longer. Please?’ The words were out before he’d even finished thinking them.

‘I…Look, you ought to rest.’

At least she was saying no in a nice way. She was probably with someone on her walking trip. He’d already taken up too much of her time. This not-wanting-to-let-her-go type of feeling…Well, the accident must have addled his brains as well as smashed his bones. ‘Sorry. Selfish,’ he mumbled. ‘Your friends…’ Must be waiting for her, though he couldn’t get the words out.

She shook her head. ‘I’m on my own.’

So she could stay, if she wanted to. But he’d already wrecked her holiday. ‘Too dark to walk now. Sorry.’

‘Climb,’ she corrected.

Climb. The word slammed into his mind and he flinched. Today had been tough. But it had just become a whole heap worse, raking up old wounds. Climbing had already cost him Roland and Julie—his brother and his fiancée. He really should have moved when it had all happened. Gone somewhere flat and quiet and as far from mountains as he could possibly find.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Does something new hurt?’

Only my heart. And that was a long, long time ago, he thought. When my fiancée fell in love with my brother. And I wasn’t there when the mountain rescue team needed me. And Roly…

‘No. I’m fine.’ With an effort, Will pulled his concentration back from the memories of that terrible night. ‘I hope the duty doctors are as on the ball as you are.’

‘If they are, you’d be better off somewhere else,’ she muttered.

He could see the pain in her eyes. The kind of pain he knew only too well, the kind of pain that all the medicine in the world couldn’t heal. Because the only way to heal it was to face your demons head on. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Asks the man with a comminuted fracture of the upper tibia, a fractured radius and concussion,’ she quipped. The car crash had shattered the bone in Will’s leg, and when the impact had knocked him to the ground, he’d landed on his arm and the bone had snapped.

‘Comminuted fracture?’

‘Uh-huh. You got off lightly—just the tibia and not the fibula as well. And it was a closed fracture.’

She wasn’t teasing him. If your tibia broke, the force of the impact normally went through your interosseous membrane, the connective tissue lying between the two lower leg bones, and fractured your fibia as well. The layers of skin and tissues over the area were very thin, which usually meant that the broken bone pierced your skin, known as an ‘open fracture’. In Will’s case, the bone hadn’t gone through the skin.

But a comminuted fracture, meaning that the bone had shattered…There could be only one reason why he didn’t have a cast on. ‘Internal fixation?’ he asked.

Mallory nodded. ‘Absolutely. So no weight on that leg until the bone knits together again.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Three months.’ He’d be stuck, unable to do anything, for three whole months. At least.

‘Could be worse,’ she said, as if she’d read his mind—though his feelings had probably been written all over his face. ‘If it’d been your femur, you’d be in traction so you couldn’t even get around on crutches.’ If you’d broken your thigh bone, you needed traction to stop the large thigh muscles contracting and interfering with the blood supply, or even displacing the broken bone again. ‘And you’d have lost a lot more blood.’ Enough even to go into shock.

And she was changing the subject. ‘Lucky me,’ he said dryly, opening his eyes again. ‘But what about you?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’

She didn’t look it. Again, the words were out of his mouth before his brain had registered them. His brain definitely wasn’t involved because he sounded far more coherent than he felt. ‘Why don’t you grab a cup of coffee, sit down and tell me about it?’

‘Nothing to tell.’

‘Looks to me,’ he said quietly, ‘as if you need someone to listen. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m a doctor—what you tell me is just between us.’

‘You need to rest.’

He nodded. ‘And I also need something to take my mind off things till the co-proxamol kicks in properly. So talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.’

Will’s eyes were what won the argument for him. Serious, yet with a certain warmth and honesty. Eyes that she could trust. Sexy, too…

No! She wasn’t going to start thinking that way about him. Even though he was cute. More than cute. Even lying in a hospital bed, in plaster and covered in bruises. Will Cooper was what Renee, her American sister-in-law, would call serious eye-candy. Dark hair that flopped over his forehead, eyes as blue as the sky at the top of a mountain, slight stubble that gave him a piratical look and the suggestion of a dimple in his cheek that would win any argument for him when he smiled.

It would be so easy to give in to the attraction. But Mallory couldn’t. She had nothing to give anyone right now. Not after Geoff. Her eye flicked automatically to Will’s left hand. No wedding ring visible, though that didn’t prove anything. He was probably married, or at least living with someone. So the chances were he wasn’t available anyway.

But she did need to talk. Will was right about that. ‘OK. Thanks.’

‘Coffee-bar on the ground floor. Better than the ward machine,’ he said. ‘They do take-away.’

‘Do you want me to bring you anything back?’

He shook his head. ‘Caffeine, right now, would blow my head off.’

‘I won’t be long,’ she promised.

The coffee-bar did a selection of tempting-looking cakes, including slices of Grasmere gingerbread and Westmorland pepper cake, but Mallory resisted the temptation, sticking to just a double espresso. By the time she got back to the ward, Will had fallen asleep.

She smiled ruefully—maybe their conversation just wasn’t meant to be—and quietly gathered her belongings together. She was about to tiptoe out of the cubicle when a husky voice demanded, ‘Where’re you going?’

Mallory nearly dropped her coffee. ‘I thought you were asleep!’

‘Just resting my eyes,’ He mumbled. ‘Sit. So, what’re you doing in the Lakes in January? Not th’ right time year f’ holiday.’

‘Will, you’re so tired, you’re slurring your words. You need to rest.’ She froze. ‘Unless you’re reacting to the co-proxamol.’

‘Neither. Talk to me,’ he insisted.

Mallory sighed. ‘I just need space to think,’ she said simply, dropping her rucksack and waterproof next to the chair and sitting down. ‘Make some decisions.’

‘Such as?’ he prompted.

This was it. The big one. Could she tell him?

But he was a stranger. Someone who wasn’t involved. Someone who might help her see a way through this whole mess. ‘Whether I’m cut out for a career in medicine. I thought maybe I’d done the wrong thing.’ How could she possibly stay on as a GP after what had happened? But, on the other hand, how could she break her father’s heart by giving up medicine? Whatever she did would be wrong.

‘Did all the right things with me,’ Will said. ‘Checked my pupils, kept me talking—till I passed out on you—double-checked the painkillers.’

‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘When I saw the accident happen, my instincts took over. So maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t give up just yet.’

‘What made you think that you should?’

She stared into her coffee. ‘Because I nearly killed someone.’

CHAPTER TWO

THERE was a long, long pause. A pause in which Mallory couldn’t bring herself to look back at Will. A pause that seemed to last for hours, though it could only have been seconds.

‘What happened?’

His voice was gentle. Kind, not condemning. She glanced up at him and saw only concern in his eyes, not judgement. And then, at last, she was able to tell him.

‘One of my patients came in complaining of a sore shoulder.’ Mallory swallowed. ‘Lindy had been carrying her toddler about, so I just assumed it was a muscle sprain. I should have thought about shoulder-tip pain being caused by irritation of the diaphragm.’

Will clearly followed her train of thought, as he said, ‘Did she say she was pregnant?’

Mallory bit her lip. ‘No. She said she was on the Pill, and she’d had a light period a couple of weeks before. I should have known better. As a doctor, I know that you can still have vaginal bleeding in pregnancy, and if she’d missed a pill or had been ill, her contraceptive might have let her down. But I didn’t push it.’ She took a swig of coffee.

‘Ectopic pregnancy?’ Will guessed.

‘Yes. And I didn’t pick it up. I was her GP, and I let her down. Badly. I didn’t give her a pregnancy test, just in case, and I didn’t send her for a scan. If I had, they’d have picked it up early enough.’