Sarah’S Gift
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD been years since Sarah had noticed a man—five and a half, to be exact, and most of them not worth remembering.

She noticed this man, though.

Not that it was surprising. She would have had to be blind, deaf or hermaphrodite not to sit up and pay attention when he strolled through the double doors into the business end of Audley Memorial’s A and E unit, one hand shoved casually into the pocket of his well-cut trousers, the other dangling a jacket over his shoulder on one finger.

Tall and fair, his rangy body wasn’t lean enough to be lanky. It looked powerful, well put-together, with a look of Paul Newman about the grey eyes and a mouth just made for kissing. And laughing. And whispering sweet nothings. He also had no business just wandering onto the unit unannounced.

She slapped the file shut and stood up. ‘Can I help you?’

His eyes dropped to her name badge, seeming to make a point of reading her name, then they flicked up and locked with hers, and a smile brushed his lips, just briefly. ‘Sister Cooper—I’m Matt Jordan. I believe you’re expecting me?’

His voice was deep, a little gravelly, with a soft Canadian accent that did odd things to the hairs on the back of her neck. How strange. She gave him a professional smile and ignored the shivers down her spine. ‘Oh, yes. You’ve come to study us, like bugs under a microscope. Welcome to the Audley, Dr Jordan—and to England.’ She went round the desk, held out her hand and had it swamped by long, strong fingers that wrapped around the back of her hand and engulfed it.

His touch was cool, dry, firm—and businesslike, so why did she experience that strange reaction? She had to fight the urge to snatch her hand back, but the next second, almost as if he knew she was uncomfortable, he freed her and smiled, sliding his hand easily back into that trouser pocket.

‘I was told to report to the ER—sorry, A and E! Ryan O’Connor’s expecting me.’

‘Yes, he is, but he’s tied up now, so you’ll have to put up with me.’

He grinned. ‘More likely to be the other way round, and I hope to learn from you, not treat you like a bug.’

She laughed. ‘Whatever. I’m sure blood’s red both sides of the pond. I’ll have to write you out a glossary of abbreviations—in fact we’ll get Ryan to do it as he’s Canadian too.’

‘At least we both speak the same language.’ Laughter touched his mouth, putting her at her ease instantly.

‘I shouldn’t bet on it, we’ve trained him pretty well,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘He’s about somewhere—we’re quiet this morning, by a miracle, although that will all change now I’ve gone and opened my big mouth. He’s just seeing a couple of yesterday’s patients who’ve come back for a check-up. He’ll be along in a minute.’

His brows pleated together. ‘How come you’re quiet? What a luxury.’

Sarah laughed. ‘Tell me about it. It won’t last. With the cold snap we had over the weekend we’ve had a string of casualties. They had to call Jack Lawrence in overnight, and he’s taken today off as a result so I expect the day will go to hell very shortly. It’s unfortunate, really, because if he’d been here you might have stood a chance of a gentle introduction. As it is I expect you’ll get dragged into Resus before long and flung in at the deep end. It’s been a bit like that recently.’

He nodded knowingly. ‘We have the same every year but usually a little earlier—our winters tend to be longer. Lots of tumbles?’ he suggested.

She agreed. ‘Lots. Mostly elderly people with fractured wrists and hips, some youngsters with wrists again or collar bones—the odd coccyx from landing on their bottoms. Then, of course, there are the RTAs—’

‘Road Traffic Accidents?’

She nodded and smiled. ‘That’s right. You call them MVAs, I believe—Motor Vehicle Accidents?’

He nodded affirmatively and grinned again. ‘Maybe we won’t have such a communication problem.’

‘I’m sure we’ll cope. Most of the time we’ll know what we’re doing anyway, so it’s automatic.’ She cocked her head slightly on one side. ‘Fancy a cup of tea or coffee? You’ve arrived at just the right time. All my delegating’s done and my paperwork’s up to date, so I can sit back and relax for five minutes, knowing the only person I’m holding up is myself, and I reckon I deserve it after the weekend.’

His smile warmed the blue-grey depths of his rather gorgeous eyes. ‘I’d love a cup of coffee. Breakfast seems a long time ago. I had to take my daughter to school on the way here, and the traffic was a bit heavy by the time I finished getting lost.’

She chuckled. ‘The traffic round here’s always a bit heavy. We get used to it. Come on, let’s go and check the coffee machine. Patrick might have put it on, otherwise it’ll be instant or wait for the machine to finish.’

‘We’ll go for instant,’ he said without hesitation. ‘If we wait someone’ll try and waste themselves and we won’t get it at all.’ He followed her down the corridor, his firm, light tread keeping pace with her businesslike bustle easily. ‘Do you get many MVAs—sorry, RTAs?’

‘Enough. We’re well sited for picking up the nasties that happen on the through trunk routes. Although it’s a rural area we’re bisected by busy roads with heavy commuter traffic and lots of freight movements, and so we get accidents, particularly if the weather closes in suddenly like it did on Saturday.’

She led him into the staffroom and found that it shrank to half its size. Matt Jordan seemed to fill it, propped against the worktop with his arms folded and a lazy grin on his face, watching her as she switched on the kettle and then picked up two mugs. ‘Instant OK? Patrick’s failed us.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll get used to it.’

Sarah snorted. ‘Or learn to like tea.’ She filled the coffee-machine and flicked the switch to turn it on. ‘Did your daughter settle into school all right?’

He frowned and scrubbed a hand round the back of his neck. ‘I hope so. I didn’t have time to stop and worry, but she went in with Ryan O’Connor’s children, so I think she’ll be OK. The O’Connors have been great, really helpful.’

‘Did you know him before? Is that why you chose the Audley for your research?’

Matt shook his head. ‘It’s just coincidence that he’s a fellow Canadian, but it made a link. He’s been really helpful, especially with Em. I hope she’s OK.’

‘Ring the school—ask.’

‘And do what if they say she’s unhappy? I’m at work—and, anyway, she’ll cope. She’s used to fitting in. She’s moved around a lot in her short life.’

Sarah poured the hot water into the mugs and stirred. ‘Can’t your wife go if there’s a problem?’

‘I don’t have a wife,’ he said, in a voice that brooked no further discussion. Sarah took the hint. There were things she didn’t talk about, too, things you didn’t want to get out and air. She could respect that. She moved on.

‘So how are you dealing with the after-school and weekends and being on call?’ she asked, concerned to make sure he’d covered all his bases. ‘Have you managed to sort all that sort of thing out already?’

‘I have a neighbour—or rather Ryan does—who will fetch her from school and sit with her until I get to pick her up. When I’m on call overnight Ryan said she can go to them until I sort out a better arrangement.’

Sarah nodded. Arranging for child care was difficult, especially if you were new to an area. She’d had to do it once…

‘There’s a crèche in the hospital, did you know?’ she suggested.

His smile was crooked and rather enchanting. ‘I think my five-year-old daughter might draw the line at going in a crèche, somehow.’

Five. Sarah felt a pang, and suppressed it. There were lots of five-year-old girls. Literally hundreds of thousands—probably millions the world over. And nine-and seven-year-old boys.

She slopped milk into one mug and cocked a brow at him, putting the thoughts away. ‘White?’

He shook his head. ‘Black, please, no sugar. That’s fine. Cheers.’

His fingers brushed hers and yet again there was that strange reaction, that little shimmy of the pulse that came out of nowhere.

‘So, how long have you been here?’ he asked, settling himself in one of the easy chairs with his outstretched legs shrinking the room again. She stirred her coffee and tried to forget about his blatant masculinity.

‘Two years. I started as a staff nurse—I became Junior Sister just over a year ago.’

‘And do you like it?’

‘The hospital or the work?’

‘Either.’

She smiled. ‘I like both. They’re a very friendly bunch here. The doctors are all very civilised and approachable, and the nursing staff make a well-knit team. It’s a good place to work, if you can cope with the gallows humour.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t know a single trauma unit where the staff don’t have a really sick line in patter. It goes with the territory—it’s just a way of defusing the distress. If you didn’t do it, you’d burn out in no time.’

Her smile was wry. ‘People don’t understand, though, unless they work there too. They think we’re saints, but if they heard some of the things that were said we’d fall off our pedestals big time.’

‘It helps if you have a partner who understands,’ he said, and she wondered if his wife hadn’t understood and if that had been the problem. He didn’t give her time to dwell, though, just carried on. ‘Didn’t Ryan’s wife work here?’

‘Yes, and Jack Lawrence’s, and Patrick’s.’

‘A regular dating agency.’

She laughed. ‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it? I think it’s just the pressure. There’s not much time to meet anyone else, and if you’re working together intensively you get very close. You have to learn to trust people and rely on them, and it’s only a short step from there to commitment. I won’t say romance, there’s precious little of that around here.’

He snorted. ‘Again, it sounds just like home.’

She tipped her head and looked searchingly at him. ‘Do you miss it?’

‘The hospital? No. The weather? Definitely no—well, not the cold, anyway. However, I hear the snow’s thick and I imagine they’re all skiing every spare minute.’

Sarah eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You sound wistful. Will you miss the skiing?’

‘That obvious, huh?’ He grinned, a mischievous, cheeky grin that made her insides flutter. ‘Yeah, I’ll miss it. I’m sure I’ll find something else to take its place—and, anyway, Emily isn’t too keen. She prefers to swim.’

‘There’s a good pool in the town.’

‘Is there? Do you go?’

She thought of the water and swallowed irrational panic. ‘Not recently. I don’t have children.’ She held his gaze steadily. Not any more, at least, she thought, and prided herself on not flinching. ‘I expect Ryan takes his kids—he’ll be able to tell you where it is.’

She was saved any further conversation by Ryan’s arrival. He shook Matt warmly by the hand, recharged their cups from the coffee-machine, which had gurgled and burped its way to completion, and sprawled out opposite Matt, filling what was left of the floor with his outstretched legs.

‘How’s Emily coping with school? Heard anything?’

Matt held up a hand, as if warding off evil. ‘Not a word. Please, God, she’s OK. I’m not calling the school—no news has to be good news.’

Ryan chuckled. ‘She’ll be fine. They’re very good there. Evie and Gus love it.’

‘Let’s hope she does, too.’ He drained his coffee, set the cup down and leant forward expectantly.

Coiled, Sarah thought. Like a spring, or a cat ready to pounce. She watched him as he chatted to Ryan about the unit, answering questions here and there, and then Ryan got to his feet and suggested they went on a grand tour.

‘Want me?’ Sarah asked as they headed for the door.

‘Sarah, you’re always wanted,’ Ryan said with a grin, ‘but just for now I think I can almost cope.’

She poked her tongue out and debated having another cup of coffee as she listened to them walking off down the corridor to Ryan’s running commentary on the layout of the unit.

She had work to do, despite her remarks to Matt. If nothing else there was stock to check and requisition, and after such a hectic weekend it wasn’t fair to leave it all to her juniors, quiet or not. All she needed today was someone on the hospital management committee coming round and asking why they’d used so many wrist supports over the past week, and she’d be sorely tempted to take the pad of requisition slips and post it where the sun didn’t shine!

Matt followed Ryan, taking in the details of the unit with half his mind while the other half dwelt on Sarah Cooper. Ryan had mentioned her, but more as a colleague than anything. He hadn’t touched on her looks. Maybe he hadn’t noticed, which wasn’t surprising considering how deeply involved he was with his wife.

Matt, though, couldn’t get her face out of his mind and he found himself looking for her around every corner, listening for the sound of her voice, waiting for her to reappear.

He wondered how long her hair was. It looked sleek and heavy, a very dark brown that owed nothing to a bottle. It was up, but down it could have been anything from shoulder-length. He wondered what it would feel like, and knew it would be soft and heavy for Emily’s was. The thought of this woman’s hair threatened to drive him to distraction.

Like her voice. Soft and lilting, no sharp edges or harsh notes—it was made for whispering tender words in a moment of passion. So were her lips, soft and kissable, full enough without being pouty, unadorned with lipstick, like early-morning lips.

And her eyes, hazel with a touch of gold, gentle eyes with a hint of sadness—eyes that had seen too much, endured above and beyond the call of duty.

Yes, if he had to find one word to sum her up it would be soft—soft and womanly, with curves in all the right places and not a skinny angle to be seen.

He hated skinny angles.

‘This is Resus.’

He jerked his head up and looked around, conscious of how little attention he’d been paying. Hell, he couldn’t afford to get distracted like that, someone’s life might depend on him paying attention in the next few minutes so that he knew the ropes.

He forced thoughts of the soft and delectable Sarah Cooper out of his mind—for now. He’d have to get to know her, but he had plenty of time. Three months.

Suddenly it didn’t seem long enough.

Sarah was uneasy about the quietness. She shouldn’t be, she knew. She should just be taking advantage of it to do the mundane routine things like the stock-check and putting that curtain back on the hooks that a drunk had half pulled down over the weekend, but she found she was restless.

Was it because of the unaccustomed quietness, or because of Matt, their new member of staff? He was supposedly over in England to study the way trauma units here worked, and he was going to go away with a false impression of how little they worked unless something happened, Sarah thought—and then the phone rang.

‘Elderly female, hypothermic, suspected fractured femur, on her way in—and the paramedic with her needs looking at. He’s been bitten.’

‘Bitten?’

Sarah could almost hear the woman on ambulance control shrug. ‘So they said. ETA ten minutes.’

‘OK, thanks.’

She put the phone down and went to find Ryan. ‘Hypothermic lady with a hip on the way in—and she’s bitten the paramedic, by all accounts, so I suggest we send her up to Orthopaedics nice and quickly!’

Ryan grinned. ‘I think we’ll let Matt take his first case—I wonder if she’s got rabies?’

‘Gee, thanks, I can hardly wait,’ Matt murmured, rolling his eyes, and Ryan laughed and slapped him on the back.

‘Come on, let’s get you a white coat and a stethoscope so you look like a real doctor, and then you can come and play.’

‘Wow, I haven’t played doctors and nurses for years,’ Matt said with a grin. ‘Who gets to take their clothes off first?’

‘You, if you’re not careful,’ Sarah quipped, and left them to it, trying not to think about playing doctors and nurses with Matt. Instead she concentrated on playing nurses for real, and prepared a trolley in case they had to rewarm their patient with peritoneal dialysis, warming some saline in readiness.

In the event their patient was only mildly hypothermic, and they wrapped her in a foil blanket, treated her with warmed, humidified air and forty per cent oxygen, and because she was very dehydrated they set up an IV line to dribble in warmed fluids to boost her gently.

While she was waiting for an X-ray they turned their attention to the paramedic, who was clutching his groin and looking pained.

Sarah’s eyes widened and brimmed with laughter. ‘What on earth did you do to her that she bit you there?’ she asked, astonished. ‘You must have really upset the poor woman.’

‘What? What woman?’

‘Mrs Pomfrey—wasn’t it her that bit you?’

The paramedic gave a pained chuckle. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? It was her dog that bit me—some bloody pit-bull cross, I reckon, from the jaws it had on it. She said it was a terrier—called it Fifi.’

‘Really?’ Sarah snapped some gloves on and grinned. ‘I thought the woman had bitten you—that’s what ambulance control said. Oh, well, off with your trousers, let’s have a squint at this. Did Fifi get anything vital?’

‘Bloody well tried,’ he muttered, undoing his zip and sliding his trousers down. Sarah helped him remove them, then the torn boxer shorts, just as Matt came in.

‘One chewed paramedic, name of Tom Hallam,’ she told him. ‘It was a dog called Fifi, by the way, not the patient, who bit him.’

Matt grinned. ‘That’s a relief. Human bites are usually dirtier than dog bites, but I think our old dear could only have gummed you to death, Tom. What’s the damage?’ Sarah swabbed the bloodstained skin and revealed a nasty tear and a couple of puncture wounds just at the top of his left thigh, in the groin area.

‘Looks like the extent of it,’ she told him.

Matt nodded, checking the area for any other puncture wounds. ‘Lucky. A couple of inches to the right and you’d have been singing falsetto. Maybe she thought you were the postman.’

‘The vet, more likely—and a couple of inches to the right and the dog would have been in orbit by now,’ Tom said with a grin, propping himself up to see the damage. ‘Reckon I got away with that quite lightly, considering.’

‘Absolutely. I think we need to suture that tear, though, Sarah, if you could give him some local?’

She was already there, drawing up the lignocaine. As she swabbed his thigh and lifted the syringe, Tom caught her wrist, laughter playing in his eyes.

‘Anybody says, “Just a little prick,” and I’ll sue,’ he said softly.

She froze for a second, and then the mirth just bubbled over. By the time Ryan came to find out what was going on, she was leaning against the wall, tears running down her cheeks, the half-naked paramedic was doubled up on the couch and Matt was sagging over the foot of it, wheezing.

Matt, speechless, waved a hand at Ryan and hissed something unintelligible. Sarah straightened, struggling to regain her composure, and Tom unwound himself and lay down again with a little groan.

Ryan glanced at the man, now lying flat, and arched a brow at Sarah and Matt. It was enough to set them all off again, and Ryan, shaking his head, walked off in amused disbelief.

It was twenty minutes before they managed to finish off and send the hapless paramedic on his way, still grinning.

They were just on their way to find Ryan for the rest of the A and E tour when the phone rang again, just as the waiting-room doors opened on a great swell of people, all unrelated, all arriving at the same time.

‘Told you it was too good to be true,’ Sarah said drily. ‘Let’s see how you cope under pressure.’

Well, was the simple answer. Any fears they’d had about the language barrier and different terminology were swept aside by the sheer volume of work they had to get through.

There were two RTAs, one serious with fatalities and the other a driving instructor and his pupil who had both been caught out by the black ice and had suffered minor whiplash injuries, sliding into the kerb. In between were all manner of walking wounded—what Matt called ‘street and treat’ cases.

‘They walk in off the street, you treat them and send them back out again—hence the term.’

Some of the ones who walked in didn’t walk out again, of course. One young man had been driving a tractor with a flail on it, cutting the hedge, and it had tangled in a wire fence. He felt a little stinging cut near his hipbone but ignored it, carried on and finished the hedge.

‘I just felt a bit strange at lunchtime and I can feel a little sharp lump—I thought I might have a splinter from the hedge,’ he told Sarah.

‘Hmm. Can you hang on? I’ll just get someone to look at that,’ she told him, and went to find Matt who was just finishing up with the whiplashed driving instructor. ‘Could you check a patient for me? It doesn’t look much but his blood pressure’s a bit low and he looks pretty rough—you know how you just feel something’s missing in the history?’

Only too well. What do you know?’

She filled him in, and he went into the cubicle and took a quick look at the ‘splinter’. ‘Right,’ he said calmly. ‘I think we need an X-ray to check this out. Just stay there, I’ll get them to come to you.’

The mobile X-ray machine was there in seconds, and within a very few minutes they had their answer—a piece of wire from the old fence had penetrated his abdomen and by a miracle had missed all but the smallest vessels.

‘He needs the OR,’ Matt said quietly. ‘Who do I need to speak to?’

Oliver Henderson’s on take today—I’ll get his registrar down.’

‘I would go for the big guns,’ he murmured. ‘I just have a feeling.’

It turned out he was right. They heard later that the end of the wire had penetrated the man’s aorta, and when they pulled it out he had a massive bleed and needed stitches and a little Goretex patch.

‘He was dead lucky there,’ Matt said. ‘If he’d moved around a lot or changed his clothes or eaten anything much that might have been the end of him.’

‘Good job he didn’t try and pull it out,’ Sarah said with a shudder.

They were in Resus, preparing it for an emergency on the way in, and as she spoke they heard the sirens wail.

‘Hello, we’re on again,’ he murmured.

It might have been difficult, working with a total stranger from another—albeit very similar—country, but for some reason it wasn’t. Sarah knew what he was going to ask for, and by and large anticipated it anyway. By the end of that first day they were working in tune, both full of respect and admiration for the other, and well on their way to forming a team.

They were also late, and Matt was concerned about his daughter, so with a grin and a wave he left the department, striding briskly down the corridor, palming the doors out of his way and vanishing.

Sarah was thoughtful. It had been a long time since she’d been so in tune with anyone, if ever. It had been a joy and a privilege to work with Matt, and in between the trauma his wit had coincided with hers.

Ryan found her in the locker room, staring into space.

‘Sarah?’

She turned and gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, Ryan, did you say something?’

He shook his head. ‘Nice guy.’

‘Matt? Mmm. Knows his stuff.’

‘He’s very highly qualified. I don’t know what he thinks he’ll learn from us, but it will be interesting having him in the department—very interesting.’ He shot her a searching look, and then snagged his jacket from his locker.

‘I’d better go—Ginny invited him round for supper tonight with Emily and I think I have to go home via a supermarket—I had a shopping list put in my hand this morning as I left home because she doesn’t get home from Norwich until six-thirty.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Don’t suppose you want to join us?’

‘What—and help you start the meal?’

He grinned. ‘Rumbled. So, do you?’

‘Want to join you?’ She hesitated. It would be nice, and she had nothing else to do tonight and precious little food. Besides, Matt would be there… ‘Thanks, Ryan, I will—if you’re sure Ginny won’t mind the extra mouth to feed.’

He chuckled. ‘When has she ever minded feeding you? It’s hardly the first time—and, anyway, you can help, like you said.’

She gave a wry grin and watched him go. ‘Six OK?’ she called after him.

‘Wonderful. You can bath the kids.’

She closed her eyes, suddenly tired. Why had she agreed to it?

Because Matt was going to be there.

She felt a shiver of anticipation, and suppressed it. Matt was a colleague—nothing more, nothing less. Just a colleague.

So they shared a zany sense of humour.

Colleague, she said to herself. Colleague, colleague, colleague.

And, anyway, she wasn’t interested in men…

CHAPTER TWO

SPENDING time with Ryan and his children was a refined form of torture. It was, however, a torture Sarah subjected herself to regularly, and Ryan and Ginny seemed to accept her without question. Ryan, of course, knew about Rob and the children, at least in outline, and he knew her well enough to know that his children were safe with her.

How safe she was with them was another question entirely.

She heard the front door open and shut, and Matt’s voice filtered up the stairs and into the bathroom. She pulled out the plug and reached for a towel.

‘Come on, kids, time to get out and say hello to Emily. Where are your pyjamas?’

Evie, of course, knew where hers were. Gus, of course, didn’t have a clue and they had to play hunt the PJs for five minutes in, on and around his bed. The bottoms emerged easily enough from the chaos, but the top was more determined. She ended up lying across the bed, head down, fishing underneath it amongst the clutter he’d hidden there. Finally, though, she located the top.

‘Eureka!’ Sarah cried and came up victorious, clutching the pyjamas in her hand, her hair dishevelled and on end, to find Matt standing in the doorway with an enigmatic expression on his face. In front of him, wide-eyed and silent, was a little girl with dark hair and huge grey eyes, regarding her steadily as if she were quite mad.

‘He lost his pyjamas,’ she explained a little lamely, shovelling her hair off her face with one hand and scooting across the bed. ‘Gus, here you go, put the top on, please.’ She struggled to her feet, straightened her sweatshirt and tried to find a smile.

‘You must be Emily,’ Sarah said to the child, and she nodded soberly. Gosh, what gorgeous eyes. Like Matt’s. ‘So, how was school?’ she asked her.

For a moment she said nothing, then she sat down next to Gus and sorted out his pyjamas. ‘OK, I guess. Mrs Bright’s nice. I like her name and she’s funny. No, Gus, you put your head through this hole here.’

Sarah hid a smile. Why was it that girls always seemed to end up mothering boys? Even older boys. If things had been different—

She straightened, the urge to smile gone. ‘I need to go and help Ryan in the kitchen. Ginny will be home soon and she won’t want to have to cook after her long drive.’

‘She’s back. That’s what I came to tell you—and to get out of their way so they can say hi in peace.’

‘Oh.’ She glanced down at the children, playing happily on the floor with a model farmyard. ‘We may as well go down, anyway. We’ll just have to interrupt them. I could murder a drink.’

‘You and me both,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t think we had time to stop today after that first coffee. I feel totally dehydrated.’

‘We’ll go and break things up, then, before they get so sidetracked that they forget to cook. I expect your Emily will be tired tonight after her first day at a new school and will need an early night.’

‘Not to mention me.’

She grinned. ‘You tired? You amaze me.’

He returned her smile with a slow one of his own. ‘It’s just getting used to the new set-up, although it’s not as bad as I thought it might be. It’s all surprisingly familiar, really, apart from the odd hiccup when I say CBC instead of FBC.’

She shrugged and started down the stairs. ‘Same difference. Full blood count, complete blood count—what’s the odds? I find EKG harder. How do you get K from electrocardiogram?’ she asked laughingly.

He paused on the top step. ‘Search me,’ he said with a grin. ‘Just so long as you yell when you’re lost.’

She stopped on the half landing and turned to look up at him. Heavens, he looked even bigger! ‘Don’t worry, I’m never lost, and if I was, believe me, I’d yell.’ She ran down the last few stairs, conscious of him close behind her, exuding masculine charm in waves.

They found Ryan and Ginny in the kitchen, his hands in the sink scrubbing potatoes, her arms around his waist and her head resting on his shoulderblades.

Ginny straightened and smiled, and Sarah thought she looked tired. ‘Hi, there,’ Ginny said, and her eyes flicked past Sarah to Matt. ‘How did you get on? Ryan says you seemed to fit in very well.’

‘He has the same sick sense of humour at least,’ Ryan growled from the depths of the sink.

Matt laughed. ‘That was just something silly the guy said. It wasn’t even that funny, it just struck a note.’ He peered in the sink. ‘Anything I can do?’

‘Yes—make me a cup of tea while Ryan sticks the jacket potatoes in the microwave. He’s got fresh salads and cold meat and cheese from the deli counter in the supermarket, so he’s got damn all to do. For heaven’s sake, don’t help him, he’s got it easy enough as it is!’

‘Ignore her, she’s just jealous because she insists on doing it the hard way,’ Ryan said with a grin, and then ducked the end of a teatowel Ginny snapped at him.

‘Cook, slave,’ she ordered, and then ran upstairs to change, leaving Ryan humming happily over his potatoes.

‘So, who am I making tea for?’ Matt asked.

‘Pass. Ginny definitely, and I’ve never known Sarah say no,’ Ryan told him, stabbing potatoes and lobbing them into a dish.

‘Absolutely not. Count me in.’

‘Unless you’d prefer wine or beer?’ he continued, looking at Matt.

‘Got any low-alcohol beer?’

‘In the fridge. I’ll have some too. Sarah?’

She was watching Matt as he stooped over the fridge, his jeans pulled taut over his hips and thighs. ‘Tea is fine. I’ll make it,’ she said absently, and wondered what on earth had got into her that she couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. She made tea for herself and Ginny, then took it through to the sitting room, leaving Ryan and Matt alone together.

She needed a minute or two alone, time to think about how she felt and why. It was crazy—must be because they’d worked together all day and were in tune.

So why didn’t she feel the same about Ryan, or Patrick, or Jack? Because she worked with them often enough, God knows, and they shared sick jokes and horrendous tragedies and hilarious moments of black comedy.

So why Matt? And why now, after all this time, did she have to choose a man with a child—and not just a child, but a girl, a five-year-old girl with dark hair and solemn eyes, in need of a mother.

Her arms ached, and she hugged them around her waist so they didn’t feel so empty. Overhead she could hear Ginny, talking to Ryan’s children. She was a stepmother. Her own life had contained tragedy, as had Ryan’s, and they were happy.

Clearly it was possible to start again, to find happiness again with someone else.

She tried to remember Rob’s face, but she couldn’t see it, or hear his voice. Only the voices of the children, and the lusty wail of a new-born baby girl—

‘Hi. Which tea’s mine?’

‘Um—the mug with yellow poppies on it,’ she said, and wondered if her voice sounded odd to Ginny or if she’d get away with it.

Nope.

Ginny sat down beside her and laid a hand on her arm. ‘You OK?’

She nodded and dredged up a smile. ‘Yes, fine. Just a bit tired. I think I’m getting a cold,’ she lied.

‘Aren’t we all? Norwich is hell. I’m thinking of giving up.’

Sarah looked at her in astonishment. ‘But you’re almost there! You’ve nearly done your training!’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean just yet. I want to qualify as a GP, then I can do locum work in the term, but the kids need me. It’s all very well Betty and Doug having them occasionally, but they’re getting on a bit to have them all the time in the holidays and they need continuity.’

‘And you need them,’ Sarah added quietly.

‘Yes—yes, I do.’

‘I can understand that. I need them, too. We’re no different in that respect.’

Ginny looked down into her tea and swirled it, her face pensive. ‘You could always get married again and have more children,’ she suggested tentatively.

Sarah swallowed the tight lump in her throat. ‘Yes, I suppose I could. I won’t get them back, though.’

Anguish chased across Ginny’s weary features, and she reached out to Sarah. ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply they were like tins of beans in a supermarket—just go and buy some more or something. I know you can’t get them back. I just thought, if you could fill the void—’

‘I know.’ Sarah reached out and laid her hand on Ginny’s knee for a second. ‘I know. Don’t worry about me, Ginny, I’m fine.’

‘Virginia, do you want me to do all this garlic bread?’ Ryan yelled from the kitchen.

She stood up with an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t run away.’

Sarah didn’t run. She sat there, listening to the byplay in the kitchen, the teasing laughter and affectionate ribbing, and tried to remember what it had been like married to Rob.

Very similar, she thought. She couldn’t quite remember, though, not clearly. It was almost sad how little she did remember, how much she must have forgotten. It didn’t seem to do them all justice, somehow.

Gus came in, trailed by Emily, looking tired but otherwise quite at home. It was amazing how resilient and flexible children were. Gus turned on the television and they sat down cross-legged in front of the screen. Evie ran in then, hugged Sarah in passing and sat down beside them, changing channels until she found something she wanted to watch.

Sensing a squabble brewing, Sarah got to her feet and called the children. ‘Shall we go and see if the table needs laying? I think supper’s nearly ready.’

‘Did I hear Daddy say something about garlic bread?’ Evie asked, looking over her shoulder.

‘Yes, you did.’

Oh, yum, I like garlic bread. Come on, you two, let’s go and lay the table.’

Sarah followed the headlong dash into the dining room, helped them count the number of places that were needed and then went to find another chair while they set out the cutlery.

Matt was lounging in the kitchen doorway, a beer dangling from his finger, an indulgent smile playing around his lips. He turned to her. ‘How long have these two been married?’ he asked softly.

She peered past him to where they were wrestling with the corkscrew and giggling, and smiled. ‘Just over a year.’

‘It shows,’ he said drily. ‘Shall we start taking things through to the dining room?’

‘Good idea.’ They loaded up with salads, plates of cold meat and cheese, steaming garlic bread and hot jacket potatoes crisped in the oven, and then went back for Ryan and Ginny.

‘If you could bear to drag yourselves apart,’ Sarah said from the doorway, ‘we’ve taken everything through. All we need is the wine, one more chair and you two.’

They separated reluctantly, and as Sarah looked at the soft flush on Ginny’s cheeks and the possessive glow in Ryan’s eyes she thought inexplicably of Matt.

Heat raced through her, taking her breath away.

‘You’re mad,’ she muttered to herself, and turned to find her nose almost on Matt’s broad and rather solid chest.

‘Excuse me?’ he murmured.

‘Nothing. Come on, let’s eat.’

She went back into the dining room, herded the children onto their seats and sat down amongst them, automatically stopping fights, pouring them half-glasses of water from the jug and taking two of the four pieces of garlic bread away from Gus.

‘But I like it!’ he protested.

‘So does everyone else. You have to share—and, anyway, if you have all that, you won’t have room for all the other lovely things.’

The others were seating themselves during this exchange, and Ryan turned to Matt with a laugh. ‘You can see why we love having Sarah here, can’t you? She’s just a natural with them.’

‘So I see.’

She could feel his eyes on her, seeing her, all the way through their meal. She had never felt more watched, and yet every time she looked up he was looking somewhere else, talking to someone else, spearing a piece of salad, handing someone something—never looking at her.

And yet she knew—she just knew—that he was.

What she didn’t understand was why.

A new SHO on her A and E rotation was attached to Sarah the next day, so she hardly saw Matt. She missed him, especially since the young woman was struggling to deal with the new job.

Sarah had to prompt her to X-ray a person who had come in, having had a minor shunt in her car and struck her head on the steering-wheel.

She’d been brought in by a friend, and so ambulance staff hadn’t had a chance to apply a neck brace. Jo Bailey, the new doctor, asked her how she felt and treated her like a minor head injury patient, while Sarah, gradually realising that a cervical examination wasn’t going to be forthcoming, quickly whipped out an X-ray request form, filled it in and slid it across the desk.

‘Dr Bailey, if you could just sign this while I put the neck brace on, I’ll take the patient round to X-Ray for you.’

Dr Bailey, confused and ready to protest, caught Sarah’s eye and subsided. She signed the form, handed it back and muttered, ‘Thanks.’ Sarah slid past her with the patient on the trolley.

‘Any time,’ she said with a smile and a wink, and stifled a sigh until she was out of earshot.

The result was clear, but it might not have been following a rapid deceleration and subsequent whiplash, and it wouldn’t hurt the doctor to learn before it was too late. They had coffee shortly afterwards, and Jo Bailey thanked her again.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking about. I know you have to check the neck—I must have been cuckoo.’

‘There’s a lot to remember all at once,’ Sarah consoled her, and then they were off again.

Now, however, she was erring on the side of caution, ordering tests that would bleed patients dry and clog up the labs and X-Ray for weeks. Sarah, once again taking over, edited the requests a little, except in cases where she herself felt out of her depth, and then they called on Jack or Ryan.

When Ryan came, Matt came too, and so she got to see him. At one point he paused beside her and, under cover of a screaming child, he glanced at Jo Bailey and raised an expressive brow. ‘Is she safe?’

Sarah nearly laughed. ‘I have no idea. I suspect not. It may just be nerves, but I think she needs to be attached to someone medical who can stop her using up the region’s financial resources single-handed.’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Easily. Either that or she forgets to X-ray necks.’

‘Holy-moly. She’s a liability.’

‘Tell me about it. Talk to Ryan—if she works with him she won’t come to any trouble.’

‘He doesn’t need us both.’

Sarah laughed. ‘I can nursemaid you—you just use the wrong words.’

He mock-bristled. ‘They are not wrong!’

‘Just not English. See what he says.’

‘I will.’ He tapped her on the nose. ‘You’re prettier than he is.’

She blushed a little but he’d gone, whisked away by another call, and she was left alone with the screaming child and Jo.

Within half an hour they’d swapped, under the pretext of Ryan wanting Jo to see some action in Resus, and Matt was with Sarah. After that last remark she wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but after a few minutes she decided it had just been another joke.

She felt perversely disappointed, not that there was much time for flirting. They were rushed off their feet, and she was only too glad to be working alongside someone who knew what they were doing.

She soon got used to him saying ‘CBC’, ‘EKG’ and so on and, as on the day before, she found they worked together almost without the need for words.

At one point they were working in Resus alongside Ryan and Jo Bailey, and Sarah was hugely relieved to have Matt opposite her and not Jo. A woman was admitted with severe head injuries, including a massive scalping injury, due to her hair being caught in machinery. Her face had been torn apart, her skull compressed on one side, and there was no chance for her.

‘Ouch—bad hair day,’ Matt winced, and whistled under his breath. ‘Right, let’s see if we can stop this bleeding and assess her consciousness level. Do we have a GCS score yet?’

The Glasgow Coma Scale was an international scale used to evaluate the degree of consciousness of a patient, and there was no language barrier. There was no score, either, because the ambulance that had brought her in had had more important things to worry about—like keeping her alive.

Sarah wasn’t sure if they would succeed for much longer. They tried, anyway, because she was young and fit and it just seemed a lousy way to go, but it was hopeless.

They shocked her, they injected her with a cocktail of drugs to prompt her heart, but to no avail.

‘This is hopeless,’ Matt said, shaking his head.

‘Want to stop?’

‘No, but there’s no point going on. She’s a corpse, basically. What the hell are we trying to achieve?’

Sarah shut her eyes and sighed. ‘You’re right. Let’s give up. We might even get time for tea if we stop now.’

‘Her husband’s here,’ someone said around the door, and Matt rolled his eyes.

‘Wow. I’ll go get him, shall I? I expect he’d like to see her—one last fond look.’

They glanced down at the torn and devastated features despairingly. ‘Give me ten minutes,’ Sarah said.

‘You are kidding.’

‘No. Do it. Go and talk to him, and get someone to check with me.’

‘Goody. This is my first chance to ruin an English family’s lives, you realise.’

There was a gasp from the other end of the room, and Sarah looked up to see Jo, staring at Matt in horror.

‘Lighten up, kid, it happens all the time,’ Matt told her.

‘But to joke about it! Don’t you have any idea?’

Matt ignored her. ‘I guess I’d better wash up.’

‘Might be good,’ Sarah told him, not even bothering to look at him. She knew just how blood-splattered he must be. She turned her attention, instead, to the wreckage in front of her.

’I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do to save her. Her hair was caught in a machine—she had severe head injuries. There was no way she could have survived.’

The man, about Matt’s age, seemed to shrivel. For ages he said nothing, then he looked up, his eyes shocked and far-away. ‘Can I see her?’

Matt crossed his fingers discreetly. ‘In a while. I’ll get someone to come and sit with you and give you some tea—let it sink in a little.’

He slipped back into Resus and did a mild double-take. ‘Wow.’

Sarah stood back and looked at her handiwork. ‘Will that do?’

She’d obviously washed the woman’s face and head, dried the skin and then carefully rearranged the facial features. They looked battered, but the transparent micropore tape holding the skin together was hardly visible, and with the scalp area swathed in drapes the damage was hardly detectable.

Matt was touched. ‘That’s wonderful. At least he won’t have to torture himself for ever with what she might have looked like.’

‘Does he want to see her?’

‘Oh, yes—don’t they always?’

‘It does help,’ she said softly. ‘It makes it real—sometimes too real.’

She turned away, clearing up the mess, swabbing the floor, changing her gown. Jo and Ryan had gone, their patient stabilised and transferred to the ward, and they were alone.

Matt watched her, wondering what to say, how to raise the subject of her loss. ‘Do you ever talk about it?’

She stiffened. ‘Not often. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t bring them back. On the other hand it doesn’t make it any worse.’

‘Hard to see how it could.’

‘No. Well, I think we’re ready.’

She turned back and her eyes were calm and clear, not filled with tears, as he’d been expecting. She seemed to read his mind.

‘I’m OK, Matt. It’s all right. You don’t have to walk around me on eggshells.’

He nodded, then glanced once more at their patient. ‘I’ll bring her husband. Stay here, please, so we can restrain him if necessary. I don’t want him pulling those towels off and finding the mess underneath.’

She stayed, and while the shocked and grieving husband of their patient said his tearful farewell she stood close and tried not to hear the pain. She didn’t allow herself to think of the next few days, weeks, years of his life. Despite what she’d said, things like this brought it all a little too close to the surface.

The man went out, his wife was transferred to the hospital mortuary where the pathologist could do a little more cosmetic work following the post-mortem, and Matt and Sarah went into the staffroom and dropped bonelessly into the chairs.

‘Tea?’ Ryan offered.

‘You bet. Grieving relatives always make me thirsty.’

‘Me, too. Nice big mug, Ryan,’ Sarah said with a groan, and dropped her head back. ‘I could never work in an abbatoir—I just hate the smell of blood.’

Oh, I love it—did I mention my mother was a vampire?’ Matt murmured from the depths of his chair.

‘You lot are all so unfeeling!’

They lifted their heads and looked at Jo in astonishment.

‘Excuse me?’ Matt said mildly.

‘Don’t you have any thought for what they’re going through? The pain, the weeks of grief—’

‘Try years,’ Matt offered, his voice harsh.

‘Years, then. You’re all so callous. Your jokes—God, they’re sick. You’re sick. Fancy seeing that woman and saying she’d had a bad hair day! It’s really—Oh, I can’t find the words.’

‘Common problem down here, finding the right words,’ Ryan said in a conversational tone.

‘But it’s so distasteful!’

‘Dying’s pretty distasteful,’ Ryan told her. ‘And, anyway, how do you expect us to grieve with each and every one of our patients and their families? It simply isn’t possible.’

‘You could try.’

‘No—no, you couldn’t. It’s just a way of dealing with it. It may be sick, but it works, and it’s better than burnout.’

‘I’m not sure you’d know how to grieve, anyway,’ she said disparagingly.

Jack, standing in the doorway where he’d been throughout this exchange, gave a soft snort. ‘I think you might find we do. I’ve lost a son, Ryan’s lost his first wife, Patrick’s lost his first wife, Sarah’s lost her husband and children—I think you’ll find, on balance, we know rather a lot about grief. Maybe our way of dealing with it might shock you, but we’re still here, years later, saving lives that otherwise would be lost. Not everyone can cope with it. Maybe you’ll find you’re one of the ones that can’t.’

‘Maybe.’

She hugged her arms around herself, eyes staring wildly from one to the other, and a shudder ran through her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I had no idea…’

‘Poor kid,’ Sarah murmured, and went over to her. ‘Jo, it’s OK. It is nasty. Today hasn’t been good. That last case—it was a bit rough. Have a cup of tea.’

‘Is that everybody’s answer to everything?’ Jo said wildly. ‘Have a cup of tea? The universal panacea?’

‘That’s the boy,’ Jack murmured, squatting in front of her, mug in hand. ‘Here, drink up. You’re shocked. You’ll get used to it. We all start like this, full of ideals and thinking the old hands are callous. Some of us have been doing it for so long we can hardly remember what it was like to start, but we’ve all been there. You just take your time.’

He straightened. ‘I think you need to work in gently—nice easy cases, nothing too much at first. Why don’t you go with Sarah and she can show you a bit of front-of-house stuff in the triage room? Show you how the categories are made up, how the patients are sorted into priorities?’

She nodded, and Sarah slipped an arm round her and gave her a hug. ‘You’ll do. Drink your tea and come and find me—I’ll get out there now, I think there’s a bit of a queue after the last two.’

The afternoon passed a little better after that. Nothing else horrendous came in, and Sarah was able to teach Jo some of the fundamentals of processing the patients.

She seemed grateful. She even apologised for being critical, but Sarah brushed it aside, not wanting to get into this conversation. She could tell where it was leading, and she didn’t want to talk about Rob and the boys, at least not while she was at work.

She handed over to the next nursing team at four thirty, and then went into the staffroom for a cold drink, before setting off for home. She mixed the last of the squash and was drinking it when Matt came in and eyed it longingly. ‘Is there any more? I could drink the sea dry.’

‘No, sorry.’ She handed the last of it to him. ‘Here, have this.’

He drained it, his throat working, and she watched the stubble-shadowed skin of his jaw with fascination. Then he set the glass down and winked at her. ‘Thanks. I needed that. How’s the drama critic?’

She smiled, ignoring the flutter in her chest. ‘Jo? OK now.’

‘She’ll learn. Listen, about that swimming pool you told me about yesterday. I—ah—I don’t suppose you want to come with us one day this weekend? Show us where it is, have some fun?’

An icy shiver slid down her spine. ‘It’s easy to find,’ she told him evasively. ‘I could show you on a map…’

He dug up one of those smiles of his that seemed to undermine her resolve. ‘I can find it, I’m sure. I just thought it would be nice for us to have company. Anyway, I actually wanted a favour. I can’t take Emily in the men’s room any more—she’s getting a bit big, but not quite big enough to go into the ladies’ room on her own.’

‘How do you normally manage?’ she asked, ignoring the shiver.

He shrugged. ‘Usually I ask a likely-looking mum to give her a hand, but I’d be much happier knowing she was with someone I could really trust—and it can get a bit boring, waiting for her to decide she’s had enough. It would be much more pleasant with a civilised adult to talk to.’

His smile was guileless, innocent—and very appealing.

‘How about Ryan?’ she suggested, still looking for a way out.

‘I ask him for so much as it is—and, anyway, I don’t want Emily getting too close to Ryan’s kids if she’s got to leave them in a few months—besides which, if Ginny comes with Ryan I’ll feel like a gooseberry again, and if she doesn’t it won’t help with the changing-room problem.’ His smile curled round her again, decimating her defences. ‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you?’

‘Just a swim?’ she said suspiciously. ‘This isn’t a chat-up line?’

He looked surprised, and she felt suddenly foolish.

‘Oh, no,’ he hastened to assure her. ‘I’m here for just three months, and I don’t believe in quicky affairs. Trust me, I really meant only a swim, or perhaps a burger afterwards—definitely no strings, I promise.’

And just like that, she found herself talked into it. She even volunteered to be their guide over the coming weekend to show them a little bit of Suffolk—and told herself it was for the sake of the little girl, and nothing to do with a tall, rangy Canadian with a voice like roughened silk and legs that stretched halfway to Alaska…

CHAPTER THREE

SATURDAY morning was cold, bright and just the sort of day for a lovely brisk walk. Sarah wondered if there was the slightest chance she could talk Matt and Emily into it as an alternative to swimming, but she might have known she couldn’t.

They arrived as arranged to pick her up at nine-thirty, and when Matt pulled up on the drive in his rental Ford Emily leapt out of the back and ran to the door, just as Sarah opened it.

She looked down at the little girl and her heart sank. She knew, beyond any doubt, that they were going swimming. There was no way Sarah could disappoint her. Her eyes sparkled, her hair was flying and bouncing as she skidded to a halt, and her voice was a breathless squeak.

‘Have you got your swimsuit on? I have—I’m all ready. All I have to do is take off my jumper and jeans—’

‘Hi, there.’ Matt’s voice was low and soft and slithered over her nerve-endings, leaving her weak-kneed. ‘Emily, darling, slow down. It’s too early to be so cheerful.’

So he wasn’t a morning person, Sarah thought with a little smile. She opened the door wider. ‘Hi. Come in—I’ve just got to pick up my things.’

They followed her into the hall, and she ran upstairs and picked up the bag from her bed. She’d got it ready earlier, all the while debating whether she could bring herself to do this. Now, it seemed, she had no choice. She didn’t give herself any more time to fret about it, but ran downstairs again and smiled brightly.

‘Right, then, shall we go?’

Matt gave her a keen look and she wondered if her false cheer was really that transparent or if she had a smut on her nose.

They arrived at the swimming pool within minutes, and she took Emily through to the changing room. It was, in fact, a communal changing room, with cubicles and family areas, so Matt could have brought Emily by himself. Still, it was too late now to back out, she thought, and, anyway, she might surprise herself and enjoy it.

She always used to, but that, of course, was before—

‘Sarah? Are you ready yet?’

She looked down at Emily, bouncing and squirming on the spot, and ruffled her hair. ‘Yes, sweets, I’m ready. Come on.’

They held hands and went through the shower together, and the feel of those trusting little fingers curled around hers made Sarah forget what she was about to do. Thank God for the shower, she thought, sticking her head under it so that water ran down her face and disguised the tears. That little hand.,.

‘OK, guys?’

Her breath stopped dead in her chest. Matt was propped against the wall, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded over a broad chest with a light scattering of hair arrowing down the centre. Water from the shower beaded his skin, glistening in the bright lights and showing off his powerful shoulders.

He shrugged away from the wall, his muscles rippling slightly, and Sarah tried to remember how her feet worked and how to make her breath go in and out. And she’d thought he looked good in clothes?

‘All set?’

She nodded, swallowing hard and dragging her eyes away from his body. Emily bounced over to him and caught his hand, towing him towards the leisure pool—and Sarah, too, because her hand was still firmly held as well. There were fountains and islands, a crocodile lurking in the shallows, and lots of little children splashing and shrieking and having a wonderful time.

She felt the tension leave her. It was just a swimming pool. She would be fine. They would be fine.

She let them lead her into the water, absently noticing a lifeguard on duty at the side of the pool, watchful eyes scanning the area, whistle at the ready to halt any silliness. Emily slipped her hand free and dived into the water, turning onto her back and beckoning Sarah.

‘Catch me!’

She turned over and sped off, slippery as an eel, darting through the water and disappearing behind an island.

‘It’s deep there,’ she began worriedly, but Matt just grinned.

‘She swims like a fish. She’s fine. You go that way, I’ll go the other.’

She went, but slowly, and wasn’t surprised to hear a little shriek and find Emily in Matt’s arms, giggling and splashing him. He released the child and followed her, disappearing under the surface and tickling her. Sarah decided they could both swim a lot better than she could, and so she left them to it, wallowing on her back in the shallows, elbows propped on the shelving ‘beach’, watching them.

Emily certainly seemed to be having fun—and so was she, Sarah discovered to her amazement. Matt appeared, swarming over the crocodile and sitting astride it, grinning. ‘Mick Dundee, ma’am, at your service,’ he said in a lousy Australian accent.

She laughed and splashed him. ‘Idiot.’

He grinned, unabashed by her put-down, and settled beside her, legs outstretched, scanning the water and checking Emily. They chatted idly, his eyes never leaving Emily, and Sarah thought what a good and devoted father he was.

They were interrupted by a disembodied voice, calling for everyone’s attention and warning them that the wave machine was going to be switched on. ‘Everybody behind the steps, please. All non-swimmers stay behind the islands.’

‘Will Emily be all right?’ Sarah asked worriedly. ‘Shouldn’t she be back here?’

‘She’s fine. She loves wave machines. Come on in.’ He stood up and held out a hand to her, but she scooted further up the beach and shook her head.

‘No, I’ll stay here. You go to Emily.’

He hesitated, then nodded and turned, wading out towards his daughter. He reached her just as Sarah felt a pull on the water around her legs, a current, like an undertow—

She scrambled to her feet and went and sat on a low wall overlooking the pool, fighting the waves of panic that threatened to swamp her. Was that what it had been like, to feel the suck of the water, dragging you down?

Her arms wrapped around her waist, hugging her sides, and a shudder ran through her. She was rocking, she realised, and a woman paused beside her and studied her anxiously. ‘Are you all right, my love?’ she asked gently.

Sarah forced a smile and made herself sit still. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit cold, but I hate the waves.’

‘Me, too. Here, borrow this towel for a moment. My kids won’t mind.’

She wrapped a soft, warm towel round Sarah’s shoulders and sat beside her, chattering inconsequentially. Gradually the shudders died away, and the sound of the laughing, happy children penetrated the fog of panic surrounding her.

She looked up and saw Matt and Emily, surfing up the beach. As they turned to go back towards the deep end, a boy ran along the side of the pool and slipped.

He landed flat on his back, his head hit the edge with a sickening thud and he slid over the side into the deepest part of the water—right by the gaping maw of the wave machine. Matt must have seen because he turned and disappeared beneath the water, heading for the spot where the boy had slipped under.

‘No!’ She leapt to her feet, dropping the towel, and ran down the side as the lifeguard blew a whistle. She could see Matt being sucked down after the boy, reaching for him, grabbing him, both of them pulled against the mesh guard over the wave machine, Panic clawed at her again, choking her, and hot tears stung her eyes. ‘Help them!’ Sarah screamed. ‘Get them out!’

‘Everybody clear the pool,’ a voice said over the loudspeakers, and a lifeguard dived in beside Matt and helped him bring the boy to the surface.

The wave machine must have been switched off, she realised dimly as Matt and the lifeguard swam up to the beach and carefully slid the boy up onto the tiles.

Matt was looking around, searching for someone, and caught her eye. ‘Sarah, come here. I need your help.’

She stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to move as relief washed over her. He was alive. He hadn’t drowned—

‘Sarah!’

His voice galvanised her, and she crossed quickly to him, pushing through the crowd that was now forming.

‘I’ve got a first-aid certificate,’ someone was saying.

‘It’s all right, he’s a doctor,’ she said absently, and knelt down on the other side of the boy, facing Matt. ‘He hit his head.’

‘I know. It’s starting to bleed, but I want to check his spine. I think he winded himself, so hopefully there isn’t any water in his lungs—the wave machine would have sucked it out anyway. Check his airway.’

She did, by lifting his jaw without touching his neck, functioning on autopilot.

‘Airway’s fine, but he’s not breathing.’ She bent over and closed her mouth over the boy’s nose and mouth, breathing firmly into him. His lungs seemed to resist the inflation and she wondered how badly he’d winded himself. Sometimes if the air was knocked right out of the lungs they found it almost impossible to inflate again.

‘Any joy?’ he asked her.

‘Maybe. His pulse is strong.’

‘Daddy? Matt?’

‘It’s OK, sweetheart—just sit down and wait for me, darling, there’s a good girl. He’s going to be all right.’ His hand continued to slide down the boy’s spine, feeling each vertebra for any possible abnormality.

‘Seems OK—it was a pretty flat landing but I want to be sure.’ He turned to the lifeguard who was trying to disperse the crowd. ‘Do you have a backboard?’

‘Sure. I’ll get it.’

‘Why do they want a blackboard?’ someone asked.

‘A backboard, stupid—I think he’s broken his back,’ was the reply. ‘I expect he’ll be paralysed.’

Matt took the boy’s arms and lifted them up and out, pulling the chest wall up as Sarah breathed into his mouth. Just then the boy coughed, dragged in a great gasp of air and started to cry, curling up his legs and wrapping his arms around his waist.

‘He’s not paralysed,’ the first one said, sounding almost disappointed.

The rest of the crowd cheered. Sarah ignored them, concentrating her attention on the boy and comforting him by holding his hand while Matt checked his pupils and spoke to him, asking his name, the day of the week, how he’d got to the pool that morning—anything to check that he knew who and where he was.

‘He seems lucid. I think he’s been lucky. Darren, are your parents here?’

‘No—I’m with my mates.’

Matt lifted his head. ‘Darren’s friends about?’ he asked the crowd.

Two boys stepped forward, looking worried. Matt turned to the lifeguard. ‘Can we get rid of the rest of this lot? If we can slip him onto the backboard and lift him out of the way, they can all carry on and we won’t have an audience. We need to call an ambulance—I want to get this head checked and stitched and make sure everything else is OK. Do you boys know his home phone number?’

‘Yeah.’

An official was there by then, hovering and making notes, and he took the boys off to contact Darren’s parents, with Matt’s instructions that they were to proceed directly to the hospital.

A few minutes later Darren was removed in the ambulance, the ‘beach’ had been swabbed down and the place was back to normal. Sarah, though, felt as if she’d lost ten years off her life.

Matt took her arm and towed her towards the changing rooms, Emily tucked in against his side. ‘Emily, you go with Sarah and get changed, I’ll see you out the front in a few minutes. I want to follow him to the hospital.’

His eyes were keen, searching Sarah’s face, and she avoided them. She nodded and shepherded Emily to the lockers, retrieved their clothes and went and changed.

‘I don’t have my underwear!’ Emily wailed, searching through her things. ‘I forgot!’

Sarah dredged up a smile. ‘Just put your clothes on without, and we’ll go home and change you after your daddy’s checked things at the hospital. OK?’

Emily nodded and struggled into her jeans, trailing the hems in a puddle and getting stuck halfway down one leg, with her wet foot refusing to release the fabric.

Sarah helped her, towelled and combed her hair and then quickly finished herself off, before gathering their wet things up and pushing them into a bag. ‘All set?’

Emily nodded, and together they went out, Emily still wriggling one foot into a shoe, to find Matt waiting, pacing the foyer. They all but ran to the car, and once at the hospital he told Sarah to entertain Emily while he checked Darren.

She took the little girl into the staffroom and got her a glass of squash, then hunted around to see if there was anything to eat.

Oh, look, a box of chocolates. They must be from a patient. Here, have one.’

She had three in the end before Matt appeared with a smile in the doorway.

‘OK?’

‘Yes, he’s fine, he’s gone home with a head injuries card just in case, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

He helped himself to a chocolate, then looked at the other two. ‘Right, how would you like to go and play with Evie and Gus while I take Sarah for a coffee?’

‘OK. I’ve got no underwear on—I forgot.’ She wrinkled her little nose, and he laughed and hugged her head against his side.

‘I’m sure Evie will have some she can lend you, just this once. Come on.’

‘I don’t really need a coffee,’ Sarah told him, wondering how long it would be before she could go home, crawl into a corner and forget about the last few hours. It had all been too much, and she really didn’t feel up to making small talk or, worse still, rehashing the events.

She just wanted to forget.

Matt, though, didn’t seem to be about to let her. ‘I need one,’ he told her, ‘and I could use some company.’

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