Accidental Rendezvous
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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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

SHE would have known that laugh anywhere.

It rippled down the corridor, bringing smiles to the faces of the people who heard it, raising a chuckle here and there, leaving no one untouched. It was a rich, warm laugh; a deep laugh, spontaneous and generous, the laugh of a man who knew how to enjoy life.

It nearly brought Sally to her knees.

Heart pounding, her mouth dry, the strength in her legs vanishing by the second, she propped herself up against the nearest wall and sucked in a slow, steadying breath.

Not Nick. Please, God, not Nick. Not here, not now. Not ever! Seven years hadn’t made it any easier to think about him, and if she imagined she’d got over him, well, now she knew that lie for what it was.

She could hear footsteps approaching, and the low murmur of masculine voices, and before she could prise herself from the wall and run for cover Ryan O’Connor, the senior A and E consultant, appeared around the corner with another man at his side—a man that Sally had longed for and yet had hoped never to see again—and she was trapped.

‘Ah, Sally! Just the person I was looking for,’ Ryan said with a broad smile. ‘Meet Dr Nick Baker, my new specialist registrar.’

Reluctantly, her throat working convulsively to swallow the huge lump that had appeared as if by magic, she let her eyes move from Ryan to Nick.

How odd, she thought with the small, distant part of her brain that still seemed to be functioning. He’s changed, and yet he’s exactly the same.

Her eyes, greedy for him, took inventory. Solidly built, a shade under six feet, his mid-brown hair shorter than it used to be but still rumpled and untidy, his eyes the same astonishing blue behind the character lines that bracketed them now, his mouth mobile and expressive, the smile every bit as sexy as it had ever been—

‘Hello, Sally,’ he murmured, and the voice like dark chocolate slithered over her nerve endings and brought her hormones snapping to attention.

‘Hello, Nick,’ she said automatically, and then Ryan’s words sank in. New specialist registrar? she thought frantically. He’s working here? Belatedly she noticed the white coat, the stethoscope slung casually round his neck, the name badge on his pocket.

Thank goodness she was still propped up against the wall, because at that moment, without it, she would have fallen over with the shock.

‘Sally’s a tyrant,’ Ryan was saying with a hint of laughter in his soft Canadian voice. ‘Stay on the right side of her and you’ll be OK, but she runs a tight ship and she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Her temper’s legendary.’

‘That hasn’t changed, then,’ Nick murmured, his eyes scanning her, and she felt the touch of his gaze like fingers of fire over her body.

‘Hey, Sally, your reputation seems to have preceded you,’ Ryan said with an amused chuckle, but Nick shook his head, his eyes never leaving her.

‘No. We’re old buddies—aren’t we, Sal?’ he replied, and his eyes challenged her to defy him.

‘Absolutely,’ she said, still groping for a coherent thought. She dredged up a smile, hopefully not too inane, and switched her gaze pointedly to Ryan. ‘Well, to be exact, we were old buddies. We worked together, many years ago—’

‘Seven,’ Nick said softly.

And she thought, He remembers. How odd. I’m surprised he can even be bothered to remember my name. She cranked up the smile.

‘Is it really? Good heavens.’

A strong brow twitched sceptically, but he let it go, his mouth tipping in an answering smile more genuine than her own. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

He was holding out his hand, and without a huge breach of social etiquette it would have been impossible to ignore it. Heart pounding, she placed her hand in his and felt the shock of that contact, the first in seven years, to the tips of her toes.

His hand was hard and warm and dry, his fingers curling round hers. His thumb brushed against the outside of her wrist—by accident? It sent quivers of reaction up the nerves in her arm.

She snatched her hand back as soon as was decently possible, but not before the impact of that everyday social gesture had played havoc with her blood pressure and turned her already weakened legs to jelly.

Ryan grinned at her. ‘Well, since you two know each other, why don’t I leave you to show Nick round the department and catch up on old times? I have a couple of letters to dictate and some calls to make while we’re quiet.’

‘Quiet? You do know how to tempt fate, don’t you?’ she said with what she hoped was her usual cynicism, struggling for a normal tone that didn’t betray her shock. Not for the world did she want Nick to know he still had any effect on her—and especially not that effect! She turned to him as Ryan walked away.

‘I don’t have long,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m briefing some new nurses in a few minutes, but I can give you a quick whizz round and show you the basics. The rest you’ll pick up as you go along.’

‘I’m sure you’ll put me straight if I don’t,’ he murmured, his voice tinged with irony, and she had a flicker of guilt. It was stupid to fall out with him over nothing. Whatever lay behind them, they still had to work together in the near future, and there was no point in them getting off on the wrong foot. And Ryan’s remark about her temper hadn’t helped at all.

‘I’m not really the dragon he made me out to be,’ she told him, embarrassed by Ryan’s summing up of her character.

‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he said mildly.

She sneaked a sideways glance at him, but his face was bland and innocent of any expression. Huh! He always had been a hell of a poker player. She wondered if he’d known she was here. He hadn’t seemed surprised to see her—or maybe she just didn’t have the effect on him that he had on her. Even so, after all this time and after what they’d been to each other, she would have expected some reaction.

She took him round the department, introducing him to people, showing him the layout, while her mind whirled.

Coincidence, or not? Most people tended to stick to one particular part of the country for their specialist training, because it made for a less disrupted social life. It wasn’t always possible, of course, and sometimes people were forced to move away for a rotation.

The last time she’d known his whereabouts, he’d been in Manchester, well away from Suffolk, so maybe disruption wasn’t something that worried him, or maybe he’d moved on long ago.

Whatever, even if he’d been training within their region for some time, that covered umpteen hospitals scattered all across East Anglia. However, only so many had an A and E department of any size or note, so it was almost inevitable they’d end up together at some point. He would hardly have to engineer it. It could quite easily have been coincidence.

What she didn’t know, of course, and couldn’t find out—short of asking him, which was totally out of the question—was whether he had deliberately chosen a rotation here at the Audley Memorial, or if it was an accident of fate. Absolutely the last thing she intended to do was sound even slightly interested in his personal life or his reason for doing anything—but she would like to know …

Anyway, in her heart she knew the answer. After their acrimonious and bitter parting, and most especially after he’d failed to answer her plea when she’d needed him—really, really needed him—there was no way that he’d have come looking for her.

Which left coincidence.

All she had to decide now was whether she could survive it.

‘Sally, RTA coming in, several casualties, more to follow,’ her young staff nurse, Meg, said as she hurried up to them. ‘I’ve warned the front desk and they’re clearing Resus.’

Thanks. You might dig Ryan out of his office—he’s trying to do paperwork. He’ll probably welcome you with open arms. And put those new girls with someone doing something routine, could you? I don’t want to frighten them both off on their first morning.’ Nick, on the other hand, was a different proposition altogether. She turned to him and gave him a grim smile. ‘OK, then. Let’s see how the boy wonder shaped up, shall we?’

His answering smile was equally grim. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m on trial here?’ he murmured, and, dropping a casual hand on her shoulder, he turned her round and headed back towards Resus.

She could hear sirens in the distance, and she hurried to prepare everything in readiness for the influx. Patients were shuffled, reassured and soothed, equipment was checked, Ambulance Control quizzed again as to the exact number and severity of their casualties.

Through it all she could feel the imprint of his palm—could still feel it, hours later, when all the blood and mayhem had subsided and they were back to the usual level of pandemonium that passed for normality in the department.

Well, Nick thought, as introductions to a job went, this one couldn’t have been much tougher. They’d been working side by side, and if he hadn’t known better he would have thought Sally had been keeping an eye on him.

Checking him out, no less, making sure he was up to speed.

Damn cheek! His mouth tipped into the faintest grin. It had its upside, though. He’d spent the morning hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with her, locked together in the battle to save their patients.

He hadn’t had time to think about what he’d been doing and whether she’d approve of it. He’d just gone into autopilot, working flat out to save first one, then another of the casualties. He’d had to rely on her, and she’d been there, keeping pace with him every step of the way.

She’d been amazing to work with—fast, efficient, precise—a real treasure. She would have been a brilliant doctor, and she was plenty clever enough, but as she’d told him all those years ago, it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

She wanted to nurse, and she was still doing it, although she was far enough up the ladder now to be in a nurse manager’s post, instead of remaining on the shop floor so to speak, in amongst it.

It was where she belonged, of course, working in a highly skilled and specialised post where her undoubted talents were exploited to the full.

And they have been today, heaven knows, Nick thought. He pictured again the frightened young mother they’d had to stabilise, and Sally’s gentle reassurance as he’d explored the full extent of her injuries. She’d kept the woman calm, focused her mind on the positive and all the time she’d been working beside him, assisting him and keeping him updated with the woman’s status.

And now it was lunchtime, his stomach told him, and if there was a God at all he’d get a few minutes off and time to talk Sally into a cup of coffee and a sandwich. After all, as Ryan had said, they had a lot of catching up to do.

There was no God, of course, or if there was He was having lunch Himself. There was nothing drastic, just a steady stream of casualties ranging from the life-threatened to the frankly malingering, and it was ages before he saw her again.

She accosted him as he went from the work station back towards a cubicle with an X-ray result.

‘Have you had a break recently?’ she said almost accusingly.

He shook his head, wondering if that was an unpardonable sin in her strictly run department or if she was about to proposition him. ‘No, I haven’t had time.’

‘Nor have I,’ she confessed. ‘Grab a moment and come into the staffroom when you’ve dealt with that—is it straightforward?’

A proposition? Maybe there was a God after all. He nodded again. ‘Yes—a query fracture that isn’t. It just needs Tubigrip and advice.’

‘Right. I’ll make you a coffee and guard the biscuits if there are any. I don’t want you keeling over. Be quick.’

He changed his mind. It sounded like the unpardonable sin option, to his disappointment. Ah, well.

He was quick—as quick as he could be without neglecting the patient’s interests—and then, reminding himself that he wasn’t the only doctor on duty and he needed a break if he was to be of any real use for the rest of his shift, he walked determinedly past a crying child in the next cubicle, past a nurse carrying a set of notes who tried to hail him, and into the staffroom.

Sally was in there with her back to him, bending over to retrieve something from a cupboard, and he was treated to the curve of her bottom and a peep of slender legs when her skirt rode up as she turned towards him.

The coffee’s run out,’ she said in disgust. ‘Will tea do?’

‘Tea’s fine,’ he assured her, wondering if he was going to make a public disgrace of himself and dragging his eyes from the long sweep of her thigh. She straightened, to his simultaneous relief and disappointment, and started clattering mugs about.

‘So, how are things going?’ she asked over her shoulder.

He went closer, just to be near her, to stand within range of the scent of her skin and feel the warmth from her body.

Not that he was cold—far from it. ‘Things are going fine,’ he murmured, and she jumped and whirled round.

‘Do you have to creep up on me?’ she said crossly, and to his delight she looked flustered—flustered and every bit as beautiful as she ever had. He smiled.

‘Sorry—just coming to get my mug from you,’ he said innocently.

She made a noise under her breath that could have been anything but was probably disgust, and stuck a mug in his hand. ‘White, no sugar, not too much milk—that right still?’

She remembers, he thought, and felt a stab of regret. ‘Yes, that’s right still,’ he said softly. Grabbing a handful of biscuits from the tin she offered him, he retreated to the other side of the room, dropped into a comfy chair and crossed one ankle over the other knee to give his feelings a little privacy.

He’d been too busy earlier to react, but now, with this little homely act, she’d brought back a whole host of memories he really didn’t have the time to deal with.

‘So how’ve you been?’ he asked in what he hoped was a level voice, and she shrugged and smiled brightly. Too brightly.

‘Oh, fine. Busy. You?’

He shrugged. ‘So-so. Busy, like you. Too busy, really.’

‘Is that why you’re here, in the country, looking for a change of pace?’ she asked, a touch of disapproval in her voice. ‘If so, I hate to disappoint you but we run flat out all day and all night. Even country bumpkins have accidents.’

He gave a soft, wry laugh. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m looking for a quiet life? I haven’t altered that much.’

Her eyes scanned him almost guiltily, and she looked away. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have,’ she said, and her voice sounded gruff and a little taut.

‘Anyway,’ he said, just to make the point, ‘I’ve been working in country hospitals for years now, so it’s hardly a change of pace.’

‘No.’ She stood up, put a little cold water in her tea from the tap and drained it, then all but dropped the mug on the worktop in her haste. ‘I have to get on. I’ll see you later.’

‘What are you doing after work?’ he asked impulsively, stopping her in her tracks.

Slowly, as if she was giving herself time, she turned towards him. ‘Nothing,’ she said clearly. ‘Either with you, or anyone else.’

And she turned on her heel and walked away.

He gave a slow smile. It was a putdown, without a shadow of a doubt, but it had failed. ‘Either with you, or anyone else,’ she’d said, and that left the smile on his face, because if there was one thing he didn’t want to do, it was tread on someone else’s toes and upset things for her if she’d got her life on track.

And if she wasn’t doing anything with anyone else, then from where he was sitting right now that was a definite plus.

But progress, he thought with a laughing sigh, was clearly going to be measured in microns …

‘Why, oh, why, oh why—?’

‘Sally?’

She looked up at Ryan, standing beside her and eyeing her quizzically. ‘Hi, there,’ she said brightly. ‘Problem?’

‘Not me,’ he said, his eyes all too perceptive. ‘It was you I was worried about. Are you OK?’

‘Me? Of course,’ she lied.

‘Just wondered. You looked a little poleaxed earlier. It just occurred to me that you and Nick might have had something going once. I hope it won’t be a problem.’

‘No problem,’ she assured him with false cheer, and wondered if it could possibly be true or if it was going to be, as she suspected, a living nightmare until he moved on again. Perhaps it was time to take some in-service training—in Alaska or somewhere. Maybe Ryan could recommend a nice, remote Canadian hospital—

‘Just wondering, that’s all,’ Ryan murmured. ‘You want to talk to me, you know where to find me.’

‘Ryan, thanks, but I’m fine. It was over years ago, and it was nothing much anyway,’ she assured him, and wondered why God didn’t strike her down for such a whopper.

Or maybe it was the truth, and it really had been nothing much, only she’d been too lovestruck and besotted to realise it.

With a sharp sigh, she snatched up the next set of notes, shot through the cubicles and went out to the heaving waiting room. With any luck she’d be able to avoid him for the rest of the day. She scanned the crowd.

‘Mrs Johnson? Can you come through, please?’

Luck wasn’t on her side that day. A scant hour later, Sally stuck her head round the corner of the cubicle where Nick was working and beckoned him.

‘Could I have a quick word, Dr Baker?’ she murmured.

‘Sure. Excuse me a moment.’

He stood up and ducked through the curtain, raising a brow quizzically. ‘Problem?’

‘I will have. There’s an attempted suicide coming in,’ she told him quietly. ‘Young woman who’s thrown herself out of a third-floor window—facial and pelvic injuries. Ryan’s gone to a meeting, Matt’s on holiday and the new SHO is so wet behind the ears I daren’t trust him with a Band-Aid.’

He grinned, sending her off kilter again, and nodded. ‘I’ll get this one sorted out and come through to Resus. Five minutes?’

‘Maximum.’

‘OK. Get the mobile X-ray in there with a radiographer, and call an anaesthetist in case we have airway problems.’

‘Done it.’

‘Good girl.’ With a wink, he ducked back behind the curtain, and she ignored her skittering heart and went into Resus to make sure it was ready for the new arrival.

It was back to normal after the mayhem of the morning, thanks to the cleaners and the nurses who’d restocked the supplies. Thinking of the facial injuries and the effect they might have on the patient’s airway, she checked their stock of all the different sorts of airway the anaesthetist might need, and then went out to meet the ambulance, just as Nick emerged from his cubicle and headed towards the door.

‘Perfect timing,’ she said as the ambulance backed up and the doors opened. As the trolley was lifted out, she winced inwardly. Their casualty was a mess—she was on a spinal board, her face was trashed and her colour was lousy despite the oxygen mask held lightly in place.

The paramedic gave them a quick rundown as they wheeled her rapidly into Resus.

‘Twenty-five-year-old female, name of Jodie Farmer, neighbour saw her jump off her third-floor balcony. She landed on the concrete path outside. GCS 15 at the scene. She needs a tube down really but I thought I’d leave that to you guys as she’s still able to breathe and we were only round the corner—watch her jaw, it’s shattered and her tongue’s bleeding. She’d got umpteen teeth missing, too. It’s a mess in there.’

It certainly was, Sally thought, listening to the list of drugs she’d had on the way in and mentally assessing her. Her left cheekbone was depressed, her eye seemed twisted slightly, her upper lip was huge and torn to ribbons and her lower jaw was grossly misshapen.

In fact, her face was so severely injured Sally was amazed that she hadn’t had a lower score on the Glasgow coma scale, which measured the level of consciousness. She would have expected some degree of concussion, but maybe that would show itself later. She’d have to keep an eye on it and rescore her frequently.

In the meantime, her whole face was swelling before Sally’s eyes, and she was getting restless, moving her head and fluttering her hands, fighting for breath.

It was a fair bet that the inside of her mouth was swelling too, cutting off her air supply. Protecting that had to be the first priority, and the moment she was on the trolley in Resus Sally was ready. ‘Are you going to try and get an airway in?’ she asked doubtfully, but Nick shook his head, confirming her suspicions.

‘Not a chance, and we can’t wait for the anaesthetist, she’s distressed now. I’ll do a laryngostomy. I don’t want to poke about in there. OK, Jodie, just relax, you’re in good hands. I’m just going to get you some air.’

Within seconds he’d located the cricothyroid membrane, made a neat little slit in it and slipped in a tube. Instantly the patient stopped struggling, and her colour started to improve in moments. ‘Right, let’s get some oxygen into her and assess her injuries. I want X-rays of head, chest, total spine and pelvis to start with, and we’ll work from there. Is there a maxillofacial team here?’

‘Yes—I’ve alerted them.’

‘I want them here now. This needs urgent attention. Her eye socket’s compressed and her tongue’s bleeding badly. The orthopaedic reg could do with seeing her when we’ve got the plates, too, because this pelvis needs sorting out.’

They stood back as the radiographer slid the plates into the trolley, took the required shots and disappeared to develop them.

ABCDE, Sally thought. They’d sorted out her airway, made sure she was breathing, they were running in fluids to protect her circulation, Nick had done a brief neurological check to assess any obvious disability, and the last thing on the list was exposure—seeing the whole patient naked to check for anything else they might have missed. Before the door swung shut behind the radiographer, Sally was busy cutting clothes off, and it was immediately obvious that Jodie’s pelvic injuries were very severe.

The skin over her hipbones was stained dark purple with bruises, and there were sharp spikes of bone pushing up against the skin in places.

‘Nasty,’ Nick said softly. The probability of internal injuries is very high, I think. Circulation to both legs seems good, though, amazingly. Watch her pressure—what is it?’

‘A hundred over fifty.’

‘She’s young, but it’s still very low. Watch it like a hawk, please. I don’t want to miss anything. Pulse?’

‘One-twenty and erratic.’

‘She’s breathing all right for herself still, so hopefully her spine’s intact. Let’s check her reflexes.’

He ran a quick neurological check to see if there was any likelihood of spinal damage, and incredibly she seemed to have been lucky. ‘Looks OK. Wonders will never cease,’ he murmured under his breath.

He gave her a little more pain relief, then bent over her, speaking clearly. ‘OK, Jodie, I’m just going to have a look at your mouth and see what you’ve done,’ he told her, then carefully removed the tape from the neck brace and opened her lower jaw a fraction to make sure there was nothing life-threatening that they’d yet to find. He was gentle, but of necessity thorough, and she moaned softly.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he soothed. ‘I won’t be long.’ He sucked out her mouth, his hands gentle as he probed the shattered jaw, and he shook his head.

‘We need to tape this up to support it but there’s nothing much to tape it to. She’ll need it fixing a.s.a.p., and her tongue needs stitching fairly soon, it’s still oozing. Where’s the faciomaxillary surgeon, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Here.’ The door slapped shut behind him, and he moved up beside Nick and assessed the patient rapidly. ‘OK, I can see why you called me,’ he said under his breath. ‘Has she got a name?’

‘Jodie Farmer.’

‘Hello, Jodie, I’m Tom Kievenaar. Don’t worry, we’ll soon have you much more comfortable.’ He turned back to Nick. ‘Got any plates of this yet?’

‘Right here,’ the radiographer said, snapping them up onto the light box.

The evidence was incontrovertible. ‘Ouch,’ Nick said softly, and Tom gave a short, humourless laugh.

‘Oh, yes, this one’s a lulu. Lower jaw, upper jaw, cheekbone, nose, all the top front teeth—there’s enough material here for a whole symposium. The rest of her skull looks all right, though, by a miracle. What’s her GCS?’

‘Fifteen at the scene, but she might have been KO’d. No deterioration since admission.’

‘OK. No obvious neurological signs?’

Nick shook his head. ‘Nothing so far.’

‘Good—let’s hope it stays like that. OK, let’s get cracking. Anything else you’ve found out?’

‘She’s bitten her tongue—it’s still bleeding slightly and it needs stitches, but it’s not a priority. I haven’t checked the spinal X-rays yet, though, so we need to do that before she’s moved.’

They went over them together while Sally continued to monitor their patient and stabilise her. Her pressure was dropping slightly, probably due to the huge blood loss from her many fractures, and Sally opened up the flow on the plasma expander to maximum and reported the pressure drop to the two men.

‘Is she cross-matched?’ Tom asked, and Sally nodded.

‘Six units on their way.’

‘We’d better make it ten,’ Nick said, running an eye rapidly over her again. ‘Those pelvic injuries are worse than we’d thought.’

‘They seem to have taken the brunt of the impact,’ Tom murmured. ‘The orthos might want to work at the other end while I do her face. I wouldn’t want to move her too much until that lot’s stabilised. Let’s get some more plasma expander into her while we wait.’

It took a few more minutes before the orthopaedic registrar had come down and conferred with them, by which time the blood had arrived. Then Jodie was wheeled away and Sally felt the tension drain from her body as the responsibility for their patient passed on to the next team.

‘Nasty mess,’ Nick murmured, watching the trolley disappear through the double doors.

‘Certainly is. I don’t envy her. I wonder why she jumped?’

‘I don’t know, but the third floor isn’t high enough, obviously. If you’re going to do that, you need friends in higher places.’

‘Or a friend with enough gumption to talk you out of it,’ Sally said shortly, and stripped off her blood-streaked gloves and apron, dropping them into the bin. She glanced up at the clock and did a mild double-take. ‘Good grief, is it really five-thirty?’

‘Looks like it.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Marvellous. I finished at three.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Nick said with a grin.

‘Oh, it’s par for the course round here,’ she assured him. ‘If I ever manage to get home before the rush hour, I’m doing well. I usually fail.’

‘Such dedication to duty,’ he teased, and she glowered at him, not in the mood to be criticised for doing her job properly.

‘Don’t knock it,’ she advised tightly. ‘Some of us have to be dedicated.’

He blinked and backed away a step. ‘Ouch,’ he murmured, his mouth twisting in a rueful smile. ‘That wasn’t criticism.’

‘Better not have been,’ she retorted, suppressing a twinge of guilt. ‘Right, I’m going before anything else happens. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘How about a cup of tea first?’ he suggested, but she shook her head. She was tempted—oh, how she was tempted—but she knew all about his charm. It was lethal, and she had absolutely no defences against it.

‘I don’t think so, not tonight. I’ve got to do some washing, I’ve got no clothes left.’

‘Now that’s an interesting thought,’ he said softly, and his eyes caressed her, jamming the breath in her throat and draining the strength from her legs again.

‘Forget it,’ she advised, and walked away, resisting the urge to weaken and take him up on the offer of tea. All she needed now was to settle down with him for a cosy chat!

Little chats with Nick had a habit of getting much too cosy, and that lazy charm hadn’t diminished over the years, not one iota. Besides, seeing him again after all this time had left her thoughts in turmoil, and she needed time alone to sort herself out.

Sally kept walking.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SO, YOU and Sally were quite close at one time, I gather?’

Nick flicked a quick glance at Ryan, but his expression was innocent. ‘We were good friends,’ he said guardedly, unsure what Sally might have told the Canadian consultant and unwilling to fuel hospital gossip at her expense—or his own, come to that.

On the other hand, he was perfectly willing to pump the man for anything he would reveal about Sally’s life now.

‘I haven’t seen her for years,’ he added with truth. ‘It’s good to see her looking so well and happy—I take it she is happy?’

‘Yeah, she seems to be happy—and, no, I’m not going to tell you any more than that,’ Ryan replied with a knowing smile. ‘You want answers to questions, just ask her. I’m sure she’ll tell you anything she wants you to know, she’s usually pretty open.’

That sounded like his Sally, he thought with a pang of sadness. Open and honest and full of the joys of spring. Damn.

‘What about you?’ Ryan asked. ‘Anyone in your life going to be affected by you two meeting up again like this? Strange coincidence, wasn’t it?’

Nick gave a short huff of laughter. Ryan was altogether too smart.

‘Wasn’t it just?’ he said noncommittally. ‘But since you ask, no, there’s no woman in my life.’

‘And what about all the ghosts you’ve got behind you?’ Ryan probed. ‘Is it going to make it difficult for you two to work together?’

‘No,’ Nick said firmly. ‘There won’t be a problem.’

‘I hope not,’ he said, his voice mild but the warning there for all that. ‘I don’t want the department grinding to a halt because two of the main players are at each other’s throats or weeping in the toilets.’

Nick’s mouth kicked up in a grin as he crossed his fingers behind his back. ‘I think you’re safe—I’m not given to weeping in the toilets, and would you challenge Sally’s temper?’

‘Not knowingly,’ Ryan admitted with a chuckle, and to Nick’s relief the conversation moved onto safer topics. It had given him plenty to think about, though, and one thing in particular.

Ryan, despite the mild tone of his enquiries, was fiercely protective of Sally.

Fine. So was Nick. Just so long as Ryan didn’t want her for himself …

‘Nick was asking questions about you yesterday,’ Ryan said quietly as they paused between patients.

Startled, Sally looked up and met his eyes. ‘He was?’

Ryan nodded. ‘I told him to ask you himself. I didn’t want to tell tales.’

She shrugged, her heart thumping. He was asking about her? Was that good or bad? She picked up the next set of notes and glanced down at them, pretending interest.

‘He was probably only being curious. We haven’t seen each other for years,’ she said, and Ryan nodded.

‘Yeah, he said that. It could have been just idle curiosity.’

She shot him a quick glance. ‘You don’t think so, do you?’ she asked, and Ryan shrugged.

‘I don’t know the man. You don’t think he’s a threat to you, Sally, do you?’

‘A threat?’ Oh, yes, he was a threat, but not in the sense Ryan meant. ‘No,’ she told Ryan. ‘He’s not a threat.’ Not much. Her mouth dried, and she stared blindly at the notes. Only to her sanity—

‘Sally? Those notes you’re studying so avidly? They’re upside down.’

She felt the colour run up her cheeks, and she turned on her heel and walked away from Ryan, cutting through to the waiting room to retrieve her next patient. Just by the door she paused, gathering her wits, and tried to put thoughts of him out of her mind.

It didn’t matter that he was here, she told herself sternly. He was bound to ask questions about her, but it was irrelevant. Their affair was finished, over. She wasn’t going to allow him to talk her into anything—not ever again.

‘I’ve made coffee.’

Sally’s hand flew up to cover her pounding heart, and she whirled on Nick. ‘Will you not creep up on me!’ she snarled furiously. ‘You’re going to give me a heart attack!’

His grin was unabashed. ‘You’ll get over it, you’re made of sterner stuff than that.’ He bent closer. ‘I brought some really good Colombian coffee in—it’s gorgeous. Come and have a cup.’

His voice was coaxing, and she could almost taste the coffee. She was parched, and they were fairly quiet, and she was overdue for a break …

‘I’m only offering coffee,’ he said in a gently teasing voice, and she felt soft colour brush her cheeks.

‘I was just trying to work out if I’d got time,’ she ad-libbed weakly.

‘Liar. Come on, Sal, I’m not going to jump your bones. If you don’t get in there soon the vultures will have descended on the pot and drained it.’

She summoned a smile. ‘I’d better come now, then, hadn’t I?’

‘Dr Baker?’

They turned towards the voice of the young SHO, who was looking hopelessly out of his depth. ‘Yes, Toby?’

‘Um—I wonder if you could look at this X-ray for me, sir. I’m not sure if it’s a fracture.’

Nick turned back to Sally and gave her a wry grin. ‘Now you’re definitely safe,’ he murmured, and went into the cubicle, leaving her heading towards the staffroom with a sense of lingering disappointment that she was totally at a loss to understand.

There was still half a pot of coffee, and there was nobody in there, so she filled a mug, curled up in one of the chairs near the corner of the little room and rested her head against the back of the chair.

Bliss. The coffee smelt wonderful, and for a moment she was content just to inhale the aroma and relax. She hadn’t slept well—too many painful memories churning, too much turbulent thought to be able to escape to oblivion. Seeing Nick again had stirred up a whole hornet’s nest, and she felt edgy and restless and unhappy.

Still, for a moment she could relax. She opened her eyes, and jumped, almost slopping her coffee in her lap as she focused on him lounging against the worktop on the far side of the room.

‘You’ve done it again!’ she snapped, and he gave a wry grin.

‘Sorry. I thought you were asleep. I was just contemplating my options.’

‘Options?’ she said suspiciously. ‘What options?’

The smile was lazy. ‘Foregoing the coffee and leaving you in peace, removing the cup so you didn’t drown yourself in it when it tipped over, or waking you up. You’ve saved me from doing the wrong thing—unless just existing is enough to put me in your bad books?’

He looked so crestfallen she had to smile, even though she knew it was all an act.

‘I’m awake,’ she assured him, and he grinned and filled a mug, sitting down at right angles to her on the other side of the corner.

‘How’s the coffee?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t tried it yet. I was getting high just smelling it.’

‘You’ll be glue-sniffing in a minute. Just drink it.’

She buried her nose in the mug, breathed again and tasted. ‘Oh, gorgeous. You always could make good coffee.’

‘Yours was always lousy, if I remember,’ he said softly, and she could have kicked herself for bringing up the past.

‘I’ve got better,’ she said, firmly switching to the present, and he let it go. Not for long, though, she was sure. She had a feeling Nick was headed for memory lane with her in tow, whether she wanted to go there or not.

And she didn’t. The past was buried, her memories and her happiness and everything she cared for with it, and the last thing she needed was Nick dredging it all up again and throwing her life into chaos.

She drained her coffee, almost scalding her tongue and throat and not caring. ‘Lovely,’ she lied, not having tasted it in the end, and she unfolded her legs, stood up and tugged her dress straight. ‘I have to fly. We aren’t that quiet. Thanks for the coffee.’

She put her mug down and made her escape, leaving Nick to drink his coffee alone.

An hour later she was kicking herself. She shouldn’t have said that about being quiet. They were never quiet, not this quiet, eerily so, as if the world had ground to a halt.

She grabbed the chance to do some teaching with her new nurses, told them to do a totally unnecessary stock-check of the stores and went round the waiting room, ripping down torn posters and sticking up fresh ones.

‘Very pretty,’ Nick said from behind her. ‘How about a breath of fresh air? I’ve got some sandwiches from the trolley—care to join me?’

‘I’m busy,’ she lied, and he snorted.

‘Sally, you’ve been killing time for the past hour. You have to eat, you may as well do it now.’

‘Has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t want to eat with you?’ she snapped, and then regretted it when she saw the flicker of reproach in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with a sigh, too honest to lie to him, too kind to hurt him so casually. ‘OK, I’ll have lunch with you, just this once.’

‘Such generosity,’ he murmured drily, just to make her feel even worse!

They collected the sandwiches from his locker and filled fresh mugs with coffee, then headed out into the warm, humid August day. She led him round the corner of the building to a quiet, shady spot under the trees on the edge of a little garden. There was a bench there, and by a miracle there was nobody sitting on it.

‘Perfect,’ Nick said with a grin, and settled down, opening packets and offering them to her. ‘Prawn salad and mayo, egg mayo or BLT?’

All her favourites. She sighed softly. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, taking a prawn salad to start with and avoiding the knowing glint in his eye.

‘So, tell me,’ he said without preamble. ‘What have you been up to for the past seven years?’

Getting over you, she thought, but that one was definitely staying private.

‘Work, mostly. I’ve been here three years now, two as a junior sister, one as a G grade.’

‘Still enjoying it?’

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. ‘Yes. It’s tough—it’s a difficult job, A and E. You see too much.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he said drily. ‘I don’t know why I went for it, except that it appealed to my sense of drama. I’m still an adrenaline junky, and I like making snap decisions and staying on my toes. It seemed to answer all the relevant criteria better than any other branch of medicine.’

That sounded like Nick. She remembered the dangerous sports he’d indulged in, the way he’d always driven just that tiny bit too fast for absolute safety—the times they’d failed to use contraception because they’d been somewhere unprepared and playing Russian roulette had appealed to him.

Except, of course, it hadn’t been him who’d lost—

‘Egg mayo?’

‘Please,’ Sally said, dragging her mind back to the present and safer territory. He held the packet out to her, and she eased the sandwich out, her fingers brushing his as she did so.

Heat shot up her arm, and she all but snatched the sandwich away and scooted further into the corner of the bench, taking her coffee with her and busying herself with eating and drinking for a minute to give her feelings time to subside.

Her body had other ideas, though. It remembered his touch, the caress of his hands, the feel of his body on hers. She closed her eyes, stifling a tiny moan of need.

No, she told herself firmly. He’s bad news for you. You won’t get over him again, it’ll kill you. Just keep your distance.

‘You look tired,’ he said softly, and there was a thread of tender concern in his voice that nearly reduced her to tears.

‘I am tired,’ she confessed, swallowing the lump in her throat. She glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘We need to go back. They don’t know where we are, and I don’t trust this quiet spell. All hell’s going to break loose any minute, I just know it.’

Right on cue a siren sounded, and an ambulance swept out towards the gate, followed by another and another.

‘Looks like trouble brewing,’ Nick murmured. Scooping up the last of the sandwiches and wrappers, he dropped them in a bin and fell in beside her as she hurried round the corner, mugs in hand. The sirens were fading as they went through the doors, and the staff nurse in the triage room stuck her head out.

Thank God you’re back, they were about to page you. There’s been a pile-up on the bypass near the Yarmouth Road roundabout—ten cars or something. At least fifteen casualties coming in, the police say, some serious. The worst are trapped and they want a medical team on the spot. Ryan wants you two to go.’

‘OK,’ she said, her blood pumping, her thoughts whirling. She ran down the corridor past Resus to the store, where Ryan was checking the emergency bag.

‘Ah, you’re here, good—right, Sally, take this lot. You’ll need more fluids as well—there’s another bag there. Don’t think there’s anything hazardous involved, it seems to be just cars, but apparently there was a diesel spill, so take care and keep out of it if you can. You’ll need yellow coats—here, Nick, take this one.’

He handed him a coat with DOCTOR emblazoned across the back, and Sally grabbed her own off the back of the door.

‘Do we have an exact location?’ she asked, rapidly filling the other bag with fluids.

‘East of the roundabout. Just head that way, I don’t think you can miss it, by all accounts. We’ll contact you with more specific directions when we get them.’ Ryan chucked Nick the keys of his car, and they ran out, jumped into it and headed out of the car park.

‘You’ll have to tell me where to go,’ he said, cutting through the traffic with the siren wailing and the green light flashing on the roof.

She resisted the urge to make a smart remark, and directed him the quickest way out of the town and onto the bypass. Within five minutes Ambulance Control had contacted them with more specific directions, and ten minutes later, her heart in her mouth, Sally saw the first signs of the accident in the tailback ahead.

‘Siren again, I think,’ Nick said, and shot her a grim smile. ‘It’s a pity that the only time I ever get to do this, I’m too busy thinking about what we might find to enjoy the power trip.’

The traffic seemed to melt away in front of them, cars squeezing up onto the verges and pulling over to let them through, and then they were there in the thick of it, surrounded by flashing lights and screams and sobs and shouted commands. People were wandering around aimlessly, obviously in shock, and some of them were bleeding from head wounds.

‘OK, let’s see what the problems are,’ Nick said, hoisting the heavier of the bags into his arms and running towards the ambulance teams.

‘What have you got for us?’ he asked, shrugging into his coat, and the man in charge directed them towards the centre of the carnage.

‘We can handle the walking wounded for now,’ he said, ‘but we’ve got a couple of entrapments that need your help. That blue Fiesta is the worst, I believe, and the red BMW is the other one.’

Sally looked the way he was pointing, and saw a car just like hers with the nose tucked under the side of a lorry. The roof was crushed in, and she gave a little shudder. It was a little close to home.

They walked quickly over there. A paramedic was half in, half out of the back window of the car, contorted into an impossible position, and while Sally tried not to shudder at the state of the car, Nick squatted down and spoke to him.

‘I think this lady’s got a tension pneumothorax, but I’m too big to do anything about it,’ he said over his shoulder. There’s no room to move. Hang on, I’ll come out.’

He squirmed out backwards, and looked assessingly at them both. ‘You could get in,’ he said to Sally, and she nodded, suppressing her feelings.

‘OK. What do you want me to do, Nick?’

‘Check her for signs of pneumothorax or cardiac tamponade,’ he said. ‘Has she got oxygen?’

The paramedic nodded. ‘Yes. She’s in pain, but I didn’t want to give her anything that would lower her blood pressure. The steering-wheel’s rammed into her chest. She’s bound to have internal injuries.’

‘Where are the fire brigade? They should be cutting her out.’

‘They’re here—they’re working on the other entrapment. He’s got severe bleeding from the leg. We’re bagging in fluids but we’re only just holding him. We’ve assessed them all for priority but you might want to reassess them in a minute. There was a doctor in one of the cars, he’s giving us a hand, too.’

‘Where does this one come in the priority list?’ Nick asked, jerking his head towards the Fiesta.

The top at the moment. The other guy’s grim but, like I said we’re holding him for the minute, and we’ve got two fatalities, but this lady’s going to join them if you can’t do something soon.’

‘I’ll go in,’ Sally said. ‘You can pass me the things I need.’

She hated small spaces, but there were times when you just had to forget about things like that. She squirmed through the narrow opening left by the bent roof, and laid her hand on the lady’s shoulder.

She moaned and turned her head towards Sally, but she couldn’t speak.

‘It’s all right, I’m going to help you,’ Sally said with a quick squeeze to her shoulder. Talking softly to reassure her patient, she rapidly checked her symptoms.

The woman had distended jugular veins, which meant that the blood vessels in her chest were being compressed and causing a build-up of pressure. Her chest seemed distended on the left side, although it moved less when she breathed in and out, and she was restless and her pulse was rapid. The picture was consistent with a lung leaking air into the chest and collapsing the lungs—rapidly fatal if left untreated.

Sally turned her head and reported to Nick. ‘I think it is a tension pneumothorax,’ she said. ‘The signs all fit. She’s looking pretty rough.’ She ran through the symptoms and he nodded.

‘Certainly sounds like it. Can you get enough access to do a decompression?’

She looked at the woman’s chest. The simple answer was no, but the simple answer meant that she’d die. ‘Yes, I can do it,’ she said firmly. If she could just get the needle in at the right angle …

‘OK. I’ll talk you through it. Find the second or fourth intercostal space, and insert the needle along the upper border of the rib. Don’t go below it, you’ll get the artery and nerve. I’ll hand you the needle and a wipe now.’

‘Pass me scissors first, her blouse is in the way,’ she said, and, taking them, she sliced away the clothes over the woman’s collar-bone and then handed them back. ‘Right, let’s have a wipe and the needle.’

He talked her through it, and seconds later there was a little pop, and a rush of air through the end of the cannula.

‘OK, can you slide the catheter in now and take the needle out?’ he asked, and when she’d done that and had checked it was still venting, she taped it in place and wriggled back out.

‘She’s looking better,’ she said, ‘but she needs to come out of there fast. I don’t think I can do anything else in there, the space is too tight.’

Nick nodded, and hailed the fire brigade officer who was in charge of freeing the casualties. ‘We need to get this lady out fast.’

‘Give me ten more minutes and we’ll be with you. Can she last that long?’

Sally shrugged. ‘I hope so.’

‘We need to reassess the others,’ Nick said briskly. ‘Status can change very rapidly under these conditions.’

Just then they were hailed by the paramedic working on the person with the trapped and bleeding leg, and they had no choice but to leave their lady with the pneumothorax. With a last glance over her shoulder, Sally followed Nick and found herself down in the passenger footwell of the BMW, applying a compression bandage to the lacerated limb to try and prevent any further blood loss while the fire brigade worked on the bulkhead with the air cutters.

It was only a few moments before he was released, and then Nick left the other casualties he was treating and came over to supervise his extraction from the car and make sure he was stable before he was whisked away to hospital.

Most of the casualties were suffering from cuts and bruises, and some were dealt with on the spot by the ambulance staff and taken to hospital for a routine check-up; others went straight off in the ambulances for treatment of fractures and stitching of lacerations once their condition was known to be stable.

Once the critical patients were dealt with, Nick and Sally turned their attention to the noisy ones—anyone who could make a fuss was going to live at least a few more minutes, and they worked their way through them as rapidly as possible.

The lady with the pneumothorax was freed after half an hour, and they broke off to supervise her removal and dispatch before going back to the less seriously injured.

Finally everyone had been dealt with, and Nick straightened up and stripped off his gloves, scrubbing his face on his shoulder in a weary gesture that tugged at Sally’s heartstrings.

‘Well, at least we didn’t lose anyone else,’ she said softly, and he nodded.

‘I know. Right, we need to get back to the unit. No doubt they’ll be in chaos.’

They stripped off their yellow coats and stashed them in the boot, along with the depleted bags of emergency supplies, and then Nick reversed back out of the wreckage that surrounded them and they drove slowly away, leaving the police to clear the crumpled cars away and get the road open.

‘It’s nearly five again,’ he said to her as they pulled up outside the hospital a short while later.

Sally sighed. ‘I know. Maybe one day I’ll knock off on time.’

‘I shouldn’t hold your breath,’ he said with a chuckle, and she smiled wryly.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not. I wonder if they still need me, or if I can get away?’

Nick cut the engine and looked across at her, then reached out and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. ‘Nobody’s indispensable, Sal,’ he said softly. ‘Why don’t you go home? You look all in.’

She dragged her eyes from his and turned away, reaching blindly for the doorhandle. ‘I’m fine. I want to make sure my pneumothorax lady is OK before I go, if I do nothing else.’

‘OK, but then you go,’ he said firmly.

She made a noncommittal noise and opened the door, climbing out and looking towards the doors. The waiting room was full, no doubt with people who’d been delayed because of the crash and put to the back of the queue. If she stayed, she could help them get through the backlog quicker—

‘No.’

He’d appeared beside her; she glanced up into his face and saw his eyes were filled with gentle understanding. ‘No, what?’ she asked defensively. ‘I’m my own boss, Nick.’

‘You always were,’ he reminded her, and there was a thread of reproach in his voice.

She felt a twinge of guilt, and then reminded herself of the facts. ‘I only refused to move to Manchester with you because our relationship was going nowhere.’

‘Was it? I didn’t know where it was going. I wanted to find out. It was you who didn’t care.’

‘I cared!’ she exclaimed. ‘You told me to forget it, because I wouldn’t drop everything and go with you to the other end of the country! And then, when I tried to contact you, you didn’t bother to ring.’

He paused, his eyes searching. ‘I did try and ring,’ he said quietly. ‘I tried that number you gave me several times. Nobody had ever heard of a Staff Nurse Clarke. I assumed, in the end, that you must have been working for an agency, so I rang all the agencies I could get hold of. None of them had a Sally Clarke registered with them. I didn’t understand. I thought, if it was important enough, you’d ring me again—but you didn’t.’

She looked away, her heart pounding. She didn’t need this conversation—not now, when she was tired and stressed and pulled in all directions.

‘So what happened, Sal?’ he asked. ‘Where were you? How did you disappear?’

‘I—left,’ she lied, and opened the boot, hauling out bags. ‘Come on, we need to get inside and make ourselves useful.’

‘You’re avoiding me.’

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t bother to answer. She just picked up a bag, slung the straps over her shoulder and headed off towards A and E, leaving Nick behind her to deal with the other bag.

After a second she heard the boot lid slam and the click of the central locking, and his firm, crisp footsteps followed her. As they reached the door he grasped her arm and turned her towards him, his eyes glittering with determination.

‘Sally, I want to know. Why did you ring me—and why did you disappear?’

His voice was controlled, but he was angry, she could tell—angry and not about to be fobbed off again. She had to give him something, so she gave him a carefully doctored version of the truth.

‘I wanted to speak to you,’ she said evenly, avoiding those piercing blue eyes. ‘A member of my family was in hospital—I just needed to talk to you. I didn’t contact you again because it didn’t matter any more. It was no longer relevant.’

One of the nurses hailed them, and she turned away and pulled her arm back. ‘Come on, we’re needed,’ she told him, and headed through the doors.

‘What do you mean, no longer relevant?’ he asked, pulling her to a halt again.

Sally swallowed and forced herself to meet his eyes, praying that the emotion she was feeling didn’t show.

‘She died.’

He sighed and thrust a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, Sal, I’m sorry. Someone special?’

She rammed down the huge wave of pain that threatened to rise up and swamp her.

‘Yes. Very special,’ she said honestly, and turned away, blinded by sudden tears. ‘Very special,’ she repeated in a whisper, and all but ran away from him down the corridor to the stores.

There she dumped the bag, hung her coat up on the peg and headed back out to the work station. Angela, the senior sister, was there, filling out notes, and she looked up and smiled distractedly.

‘Good grief, Sally, isn’t it time you went home?’ she asked.

‘Do you need me?

The smile softened. ‘We always need you, but you look bushed.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘In fact, you look like hell. Go home. Have a nice strong whisky in the bath—it’ll do you good.’

‘I might do that,’ Sally said with a vain attempt at a smile. ‘How’s my pneumothorax?’

‘Doing fine. She’s gone up to the ward.’

‘Good. Right, I’ll go, then.’ She fumbled her things out of the locker in the staffroom and headed for the door, only to find Nick standing in her way.

‘Not now, please,’ she said wearily, right at the end of her tether.

‘When, then? Tomorrow? The next day? Or never?’

She closed her eyes, her control hanging by a thread. ‘Please, Nick,’ she begged, and she felt his hands close over her arms and support her.

‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’ he asked gruffly, and she felt the unwanted tears welling again.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, a little choked. ‘Just tired. Let me go, Nick.’

Slowly, reluctantly, he released her, and she all but ran to her car, driving away as quickly as the traffic would allow. She held on until she got home, until the door closed behind her, and then finally the dam burst.

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