Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Scared because she’d been there and done that once before.

  She didn’t need Melanie to tell her the calorie content of anything because she knew it all already—knew more than Melanie or anyone should ever know about how to lose weight. Like the treadmill she was pounding now, Annie remembered the hamster wheel she’d once climbed on, thriving on the usually absent approval from her mother as she’d whittled away her puppy fat, frantically chasing two sisters who had always been thinner, prettier, cleverer, always that bit ahead, forcing herself ever on as the approval from her mother had changed to concern, as the goalposts had kept shifting, until her only focus had been to keep going.

  Thankfully she’d jumped off.

  Had seen the error of her ways before things had become too dangerous, but she’d glimpsed the dark side of the street and had sworn she’d never go back there. Still, she was glad that she had done this one week, glad because it had shown her that she was really free of it, that once the wedding was over, normal services would resume. Just the rehearsal to get through tonight and the tan tomorrow and then she’d try on her dress and if it didn’t fit, well, she’d tried. Annie knew at that point she should probably have been motivated enough to up the elevation a touch more, but she was almost beyond caring, so instead she pressed the ‘cool down’ button, gulping water as the treadmill gradually wound its way down. Walking as she stared out of the gym window at the pool complex down below and idly watching as someone in the fast lane came in so fast, that for a second Annie thought he was going to hit the wall, that he wasn’t going to turn in time. Instead he had finished, strong arms heaving his body out of the water, and for the second time that morning Annie lost her footing on the treadmill.

  Watching the swimmers was actually riveting viewing after all—well, one swimmer in particular!

  It was him.

  And whoever had suggested that imagining people who intimidated you without their clothes on to make things easier had clearly never seen Iosef Kolovsky with practically nothing on.

  His body was divine. Even from this distance, Annie could see his body was superbly toned, wide shoulders tapering down to a very flat stomach. Annie swallowed as he strode across the floor and came delightfully into better focus. His bathers, heavy with water, were down just low enough on his hips to allow the viewer a glimpse of a delicious line of hair, a decadent arrow that pointed downwards, but as she rather reluctantly dragged her eyes upwards Annie was mortified to find him staring up at her, realising then that the treadmill was at a complete standstill. That she’d absolutely, one hundred per cent certainly been caught—not just staring but drooling!

  So she’d looked at him, Annie tried to reason with herself, but even the cold jets of the shower couldn’t soothe the blush that had swept over her. If it had been anyone else from work she’d have looked over when she noticed them but she’d have waved if they’d seen her, Annie conceded. She certainly wouldn’t have stood transfixed on a motionless treadmill, gawping. And all too soon she’d have to face him—in fact, if she didn’t step on it she’d be late for work.

  What was it with Iosef Kolovsky?

  Yes, he was good-looking and, yes, he had a fabulous body, but he was also arrogant, opinionated and downright rude—at least he was with her Annie fumed as, shivering now, she turned off the shower and grabbed her towel from the peg.

  She’d been staring daggers at him, Annie decided hopefully, pulling her stuff out of her locker, or perhaps she could pretend that she needed glasses and had been squinting, trying to make out if she knew him. All these thoughts were being processed as she tried to wrestle a damp body into a pair of knickers. She paused as she straightened up, the pale heel of a foot jutting out from under one of the shower doors catching her eye. From its position it was clear that whoever the foot belonged to was lying on the floor.

  ‘Hello,’ she called out. ‘Are you OK?’

  No response.

  Annie grabbed up her towel, wrapping it around her as she crossed back over to the showers. She banged on the door with one hand, trying to rouse whoever the unfortunate person was, while with the other she palpated the foot, relieved to feel a pulse but knowing that her banging wasn’t going to rouse whoever was in there. The shower was running and if blasts of cold water weren’t having an effect then her banging wasn’t going to do anything.

  The woman could be drowning on the other side of the door, Annie realised with horror, lying face down in a pool of water…

  She needed help!

  Urgently!

  Only this wasn’t Emergency, where she could press a bell and summon a team. Running back, Annie grabbed a coin out of her purse, spilling most of its contents on the floor. Then she quickly yanked open the changing-room door and called out for assistance, startling a young guy who was walking past the door towards the gym, earphones in place and bag over his shoulder. Clearly not expecting a dripping wet woman, wrapped in a towel and looking frantic, jumping out at him on his way to his morning workout.

  ‘Go to the desk and tell them we need an ambulance.’ Annie’s voice was slightly breathless but clear. ‘Tell them there’s a woman collapsed and unconscious in the shower and to send someone up to help with the door.’ She hadn’t finished talking before the young man dropped his bag and fled for the reception area.

  Knowing that help was on the way allowed her to breathe just a touch easier, and back at the shower cubicle she attempted to use the coin she’d grabbed from her purse to turn the lock from the outside, a trick she’d used many times before. Collapsed patients in showers and toilets were not an unknown predicament in Emergency but as Annie freed the lock and pushed on the door, she realised with a sinking feeling that the worst possible scenario had transpired. The collapsed body in the confined space was wedging the door closed so forcing the door would be useless and could only injure the patient further. She didn’t even turn her head as the changing-room door slammed open and footsteps raced to join her.

  ‘Don’t,’ Annie ordered as a rather burly personal trainer faced the door shoulder on. ‘It’s jammed by the patient.’

  ‘I’ll ring Maintenance, get them to take it off,’ he offered.

  But Annie wasn’t listening. Instead she was eyeing the impossibly small gap between the shower wall and the ceiling and wishing she’d been on her diet for more than four days!

  ‘What’s the story?’

  She’d know that voice anywhere, and even though to that point she’d barely given a thought to her lack of attire, suddenly Annie was acutely aware that she was dressed in little more than a towel.

  He didn’t even wait her response, just assessed the situation in seconds.

  ‘You’re the only one small enough.’

  The personal trainer went to crouch, his palms pleated together to make a step, but Iosef wasn’t wasting a second, his hands gripping her waist and hoisting her up to the wall where she clung none too elegantly as he let go and placed her waving feet on his shoulders. Thank the Lord she’d at least had time to put on knickers.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ he demanded impatiently, but the gap was too high and too narrow and until she was on the other side there would be nothing to report.

  He was so tall that from her position, standing on his shoulders, it wasn’t that far a stretch to get her right leg over the partition and squeeze through the gap. She looked down to the shower floor below, ignoring his impatient questions as she chose a piece of floor space where she could safely drop. It was not a clear drop, though, as she grazed her left leg on the partition and gave a rather large yelp.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Iosef called.

  ‘I just caught my leg!’ Annie snarled through gritted teeth.

  ‘I meant with the patient.’

  She was a large lady, half sitting, half lying against the opposite partition wall, her shoulders wedging the door awkwardly, and Annie noted with disquiet the awkward position of her head was actually half blocking her airway.

&n
bsp; ‘Completely unresponsive, no signs of injury’ Annie called. ‘Laboured resps. I’m going to have to position her, she’s blocking her airway.’

  ‘Can you lay her down?’

  The door’s going to have to come off! Unless …’

  ‘Unless what?’ he barked.

  ‘I might be able to shift her around enough to get the door open, but she could have a neck injury.’

  ‘She could well be a corpse with a neck injury if we don’t get to her soon,’ Iosef pointed out—and in this instance he was right. Although a patient generally shouldn’t be moved, her position was actually life-threatening and though Annie would do all she could to support her alignment, she had no choice but to move her. She raised the woman’s head a fraction and her breathing was instantly less noisy and laboured. ‘I’m throwing a towel over to you—use that under her arms so you can get a grip. Does she have a medic alert bracelet or anything?’

  Annie rolled her eyes. ‘I think I might have managed to mention it if I’d seen one.’

  ‘No time for sarcasm, Nurse!’ She could almost see his smile as he delivered his rebuke, but rather than respond she got on with the job in hand.

  ‘Here.’ She pulled off a rubber bracelet with a key on it from around the unconscious woman’s wrist and threw it under the door.

  ‘That’s not an alert—’ Iosef started then stopped, telling the trainer to go to the locker and search it.

  ‘Could you throw a couple more towels?’ Annie called, and even if Iosef didn’t give a damn as to whether or not the patient was naked, as a few towels were thrown over, Annie knew that no matter how dire the situation she’d want whoever found her to take a couple of seconds to preserve her dignity.

  On the other side of the door she could hear Iosef barking orders to her, but Annie wasn’t actually listening—there was no effective advice that could be offered from someone who hadn’t seen and assessed the situation. The best she could do now was rely on her own instinct.

  God, she was heavy. The woman’s dead weight and the slippery tiles combined to make the task exhausting, but finally Annie managed to angle her enough that the limp body was leaning against her and, doing as Iosef had said, she placed a towel under the woman’s armpits and gripped her as she leant backwards. She watched with a mixture of frustration and relief as the door opened a few inches, allowing Iosef to look inside.

  Why did he have to look so fabulous?

  Of course, in theory it shouldn’t have mattered a jot what the doctor on the other side looked like, but just as she had preserved her patient’s dignity, it would have been nice to preserve her own. But, of course, Dr Perfect looked impeccable while she lay sprawled, drenched and positively beetroot with exertion on the floor.

  ‘Just a few inches more—come on, Annie,’ Iosef ordered.

  Which was fine for him to say, Annie thought, grunting with the exertion of it all.

  She hadn’t actually seen him when he’d first burst into the changing room; her mind so busy with the task in hand, she’d more heard him, been aware of him—only now she could see him and it was impossible not to notice the contrast between them. A fraction of a second to take in his immaculate appearance. His hair was wet but, unlike Annie’s, it was neatly combed backwards, utterly unruffled he stood resplendent in a suit. The only ungroomed part of him was that he hadn’t yet shaved, but then again, her mind quickly processed, in the short time she’d known him he’d always had that smudge of designer stubble on his strong jaw.

  ‘Where is she bleeding?’ he asked, seeing the reddish tint to the water and running his hands through the woman’s hair.

  ‘That’s mine!’ Annie said tightly, neither expecting nor receiving a shred of sympathy.

  ‘It could be cardiac.’ He was crouching down, feeling a carotid pulse with one hand and lifting the unfortunate woman’s eyelids with the other, his scent heavy in the confined space.

  ‘Hypoglycaemia,’ Iosef said, more to himself than her, ‘or stroke.’

  He was working his hands down her body, then pulled out a pen and scraped the soles of her feet to check the woman’s reflexes, breathing a sigh of relief as the response was correct, her big toes pointing downwards. Had they lifted, for example, it might have indicated a cerebral problem. His expensive pen was, for now, Iosef’s only diagnostic tool, and he continued to wield it without pause, rolling it against the bed of her fingernails to check her response to pain.

  ‘How long for the ambulance?’

  ‘Soon,’ Annie said helplessly. ‘It seems like ages but it’s only probably been—’

  ‘I’ve got her bag.’ Even the personal trainer was breathless. ‘It was one of the lockers down by the pool,’ he explained, but Iosef wasn’t listening. He was tipping out the contents like a kid with his stocking on Christmas morning. The riddle was solved before the contents had even hit the wet floor, a small diabetic kit drawing their eyes. Without a beat of hesitation both set to work, Annie pricking the woman’s finger and placing a drop of blood on the dextrose strip as Iosef pulled out a glycogen injection and snapped it open.

  ‘Naught point two,’ Annie called and within seconds he had delivered the vital injection.

  The paramedics arrived moments later.

  ‘Hypoglycaemic!’ Iosef called. ‘She hasn’t got a scrap of glucose in her. I want IV dextrose!’ Even though the woman had been given a glucose injection, it had been given into the muscles and would take a longer to work than intravenously—and given the current state of her sugar level, time was of the essence, dextrose urgently needed to prevent brain damage. Iosef didn’t introduce himself as a doctor as he barked his orders, and whether or not the paramedics recognised him from emergency was almost immaterial—he was so commanding, so utterly in control of the situation there could be absolutely no question he knew what he was doing.

  Or maybe it was that they knew Annie!

  Oh, the morning was just getting better and better.

  One of the paramedics slipped an oxygen mask on the patient while the other pulled up the drug, both managing to have a cheeky laugh at Annie’s predicament.

  ‘You just can’t keep out of trouble, can you, Annie?’ Eric laughed.

  Seemingly not as, standing on legs that were rather shaky, one hand holding the vital towel, she finally picked her way out of the tiny cubicle. But instead of immediately heading for her clothes, she lingered, pulling the blanket off the stretcher and trying from the doorway to drape her patient. Staying to watch for just a moment more—seeing a patient in a hypoglycaemic coma being given IV dextrose was just one of those things that as a nurse it was nice to see—hopefully a rapid, happy outcome to a medical emergency.

  Iosef had already inserted a bung before the solution had been pulled up—a large syringe was required and, given the thick, sticky nature of the solution, it took a while to draw it through the needle. She watched as Iosef picked up a wallet from the floor and pulled out a driver’s licence before delivering the vital solution. As a nurse Annie knew how important it was to use a patient’s name, particularly when they came to. Wow, he was impressive.

  Annie couldn’t help but smile as the instant miracle occurred.

  ‘It’s OK, Grace.’ Iosef’s voice was calm and reassuring as his patient’s eyes flickered open, flaccid limbs suddenly jerking into motion, a look of confusion on her face as she struggled to sit up and orientate herself. ‘Your blood sugar was low but it’s OK now. Just lie back down …’A look of horror darted across Grace’s face as she started to process her surroundings as her hands flailed to cover herself, but still he reassured her. ‘You’re fine, you’re covered. I’m a doctor and there are paramedics here. In a moment we’re going to move you onto a stretcher.’

  And a nurse, Annie thought, a flash of something she couldn’t quite identify coursing through her as with a shrug she sorted out her clothes and slipped unnoticed into one of the cubicles, wondering why she let him bother her so.

  As an emergency nurse,
recognition and appreciation was always lacking—not just from patients, from colleagues too sometimes. But something, something about Iosef’s dismissal of her efforts, her everything, irked her. ‘I don’t need to go to hospital,’ Grace attempted, but Iosef was having none of it.

  ‘You’re going.’

  She was. In no time the paramedics had her on a stretcher and on her way, shouting a quick goodbye to Annie as she pulled on the top of her uniform behind the cubicle door.

  ‘See you guys. Thanks!’ Annie called cheerfully, pressing the towel to her shin to stop the blood flow, feeling stupid for the tears that were filling her eyes because her leg hurt like hell.

  It was pure adrenaline, Annie told herself, sticking on a few plasters retrieved from the bottom of her bag. Then, having pulled on navy stockings and a skirt, she hobbled out of the cubicle to the mirror. The previously deserted changing room was fit to bursting now as it filled with the backlog the emergency had created. Dragging a comb through her hair, she saw her red nose and the overflowing pool of tears in her eyes and attempted a sniff to hold them back.

  It was the excitement of the morning catching up with her and the fact she’d barely eaten a thing since Monday. Tears were really threatening now and, angry with herself, Annie held them back. She slung her bag over her shoulder and hobbled out of the gym. It was nerves about the wedding perhaps, Annie explained to herself, and her now very sore leg wasn’t helping much. Taking a gulp from her water bottle, Annie willed herself calm before starting the car engine and heading for work.

  She certainly wasn’t upset because Iosef Kolovsky hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘IT’S bad enough you’re late, but you have the nerve to swan in here with a bacon sandwich and a take-out coffee.’ Walking into the staffroom to dump her bag, Annie jumped as she unwittingly walked into the midst of two senior doctors rowing. Jackie was apoplectic, her hand shaking as she ripped off her white coat and sensible shoes, her eyes bulging with rage as she changed into a pair of killer stilettos and spritzed herself with deodorant. ‘You know there has to be a senior doctor here at all times. Marshall’s working tonight and you know I’ve got to see the florist and caterers this morning.’ On and on she went as Iosef just stood there, leaning against the lockers, lazily eating his sandwich, as Jackie raged on.