She told Aidan that he would be going to hospital then made her way to the next casualty, a middle-aged man. A section of metal had fallen on him, pinning him to the ground. He was lying face down, his hard hat obscuring his face. Gemma checked for a pulse at both neck and wrist but there was none. It was impossible to turn him over because of the weight of the metal, but she knew there was nothing she or anyone else could do for him. She left him there and hurried to the next person, arriving at the same time as Ben. He grinned at her as they both knelt down.
‘Not quite what I’d planned on doing today.’
‘Me neither,’ Gemma agreed, glancing across at the crane. Ross was leaning into the cab while he attended to the driver. He seemed oblivious to the danger he was in or maybe he didn’t care. Maybe his apparent calm was all a front and inside he was so devastated about losing Heather that he no longer cared what happened to him.
The thought was sheer torture. Gemma knew she couldn’t cope with it if she hoped to do her job properly. She dragged her gaze away and forced herself to concentrate on the injured man. There was a lot of blood on his face and that worried her until Ben discovered that he had broken his nose. That explained the heavy bleeding and a quick examination along with a few pertinent questions—name, age, what day of the week it was—soon established that he hadn’t suffered a serious head injury. He would need to be checked again when he reached hospital, of course, but she and Ben were happy to move on to the next casualty.
‘I hate to interrupt but I need a hand over there.’
All of a sudden Ross was standing beside them, sounding unusually curt again as he addressed himself to Ben. Gemma felt her heart ache because it was so unlike him to speak to anyone this way. He was always totally professional in his dealings with the staff at the surgery, never lost his temper, and was always calm and reasonable. He must be devastated by what had happened to behave so out of character, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it, either.
‘Typical. Gemma and I were just doing a bit of bonding and now you want to drag me away.’ Ben leered at her so comically that Gemma couldn’t help smiling then wished she hadn’t when she saw Ross’s expression darken.
‘Well, I’m sorry to spoil your fun but you’re the expert here. I’m just a humble GP, don’t forget.’
Ben whistled softly as Ross stalked away. ‘Ouch! That put me in my place, didn’t it? This wedding business has hit him really hard. It’s not like Ross to bite people’s heads off like that. I knew it was odd this morning when he told me what had happened. I mean, he didn’t even sound upset. He must have been bottling it all up until now.’
‘Probably,’ Gemma agreed sadly. ‘I just wish there was something we could do.’
‘To get Ross and Heather back together, you mean?’ Ben’s face lit up. ‘Great idea! It’s a crying shame, them breaking up like that. He and Heather are just perfect for each other. They’re so well matched that it’s disheartening, really. You just know that you’ll never find anyone as perfect yourself, or, more to the point, someone who thinks you’re perfect for them.’ His smile dimmed. ‘I certainly won’t.’
Gemma had a feeling there was more to that comment than Ben was admitting. However, there was no time to ask him to explain when there were so many lives at risk. She finished attending to their patient while Ben went to help Ross, using a wad of lint to clean away the blood. By the time that was done, the police had arrived, bringing with them more members of Dalverston’s rapid response team, although as one wit pointed out they might need a new name after today seeing as their response had been far from speedy.
It was good to have so many experienced people around, though. Gemma did whatever she was asked, unconcerned when at times she found herself acting as gofer. She wasn’t too proud to admit that other people knew more about emergency procedures than she did and was happy to learn from them. It was different in the surgery—she was completely at home there and confident that there was little she couldn’t handle, but this wasn’t her natural element.
Her gaze strayed once more to Ross, who was in the thick of things, helping the team attend to the crane driver. Even as she watched, she saw him issue instructions to one of the paramedics and saw the man obey them. No matter where Ross worked, or in what capacity, he would feel completely sure of himself. Heather had been exactly the same. No wonder they’d been so right for each other. Two good-looking, talented, perfect people who should have had a perfect life together.
Tears filled her eyes and she hurriedly turned away. She wasn’t perfect and she never could be. The scars on her body might have faded but they were still there, still looked repulsive to anyone who saw them. Even if Ross and Heather never got back together, even if Ross realised that he could find someone else equally perfect for him, it wouldn’t be her.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THERE’S
no way we can risk lifting him out of here even on a spinal board. We’ll need the air ambulance to winch him out.’ Ross sank back onto his heels, curbing the urge he felt to question Ben’s decision. He wasn’t sure why he felt so bloody minded. After all, his friend dealt with injuries like this every day. Normally, he would have deferred to Ben’s expertise without a second thought, so what was different today? Was it pique over the way Ben and Gemma seemed to have become best buddies all of a sudden?
The thought did nothing to enhance his mood. Fortunately, another voice entered the conversation then, sparing him from having to reply. ‘I’ll get the police to radio back to base and request the helicopter.’
Sam Kearney, one of the newer additions to Dalverston’s rapid response team, hurried off to set things in motion, giving Ross a very necessary breathing space. He took advantage of it, breathing in and out a couple of dozen times, although it didn’t achieve very much. Ben and Gemma an item? No way!
‘Can you help me get this collar on him?’
Ben’s request interrupted his flow of thoughts. Ross eased himself a little further into the confines of the cab and supported the driver’s head while Ben strapped a cervical collar around his neck. The driver, a man called Sandy Walsh according to the ID tag attached to his overall pocket, was still unconscious, but that was a blessing in the circumstances. He had suffered extensive facial injuries, including a shattered eye socket, a broken cheek bone and a fractured jaw. Several broken ribs, a suspected fractured femur and what looked like a Pott’s fracture to his left ankle could all be added to the list, although Ross suspected more would be discovered once they got him to hospital.
‘Thanks. With a bit of luck the air ambulance will be at Base and we won’t have to wait too long.’ Ben sat back and regarded Ross with concern. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘Fine.’ Ross returned the look with one just the upper side of chilly. ‘This isn’t the first emergency call I’ve attended.’
Ben waved a dismissive hand. ‘I didn’t mean that. This type of situation is perfectly suited to you, Ross. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you’d be an ideal candidate for emergency work if you wanted.’
‘That’s nice to know,’ he replied drily, wondering where the conversation was leading. ‘However, I’m quite happy with what I do so don’t worry that I intend to encroach on your territory.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried on that score.’ Ben shrugged. ‘You may be temperamentally suited to emergency work, but it’s not your scene. It’s too disordered for your liking. You never know what’s going to happen from one minute to the next.’
‘General practice isn’t exactly a walk in the park,’ Ross retorted, stung, and Ben held up his hands.
‘I wasn’t implying that it was. Sorry.’ He stopped, went to speak, then stopped again. Ross sighed.
‘What? I can tell you’re dying to impart some pearl of wisdom, so get on with it.’
‘It’s you and Heather,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Are you sure you two can’t sort this out? You guys are perfect for each other. It’s a crying shame that you’ve spl
it up because of some sort of stupid misunderstanding.’
‘Misunderstanding?’ Ross’s brows rose steeply. ‘Do you know something I don’t? What misunderstanding are we talking about?’
‘Nothing really. It’s just that Gemma and I were talking earlier and we wondered if there was a way to get you and Heather back together.’
‘And what did you come up with?’ Ross said, his heart giving the funniest little bounce at the thought of Gemma discussing him. He hurriedly battened it down. Just because his name had cropped up in the conversation, it didn’t mean anything.
‘Oh, we didn’t get as far as working out a plan. But maybe if you went to see Heather and told her how you felt, that you loved her, etcetera, it would help.’
Ben sounded embarrassed, as well he might, Ross thought. This wasn’t the sort of conversation they’d had before. Discussing his feelings was something he avoided doing. He had learned a long time ago to keep his emotions under wraps. It made it easier to reach a balanced decision if he removed them from the equation, he’d found. Although he appreciated Ben’s intentions were of the highest calibre, he could hardly explain that there was no point phoning Heather when it would mean him having to explain why. Admitting that he felt more relieved than devastated would lead to a lot more questions than he was prepared to answer at the moment.
‘I appreciate what you’re saying, Ben. Really, I do.’
‘Great! So long as you’ll give it some serious thought, that’s the main thing.’
Ben clapped him on the shoulder to show that the touchy-feely conversation was over and everything was back to normal. Ross wished it was but in no way did anything feel normal any more. Had he ever really loved Heather, he wondered, the kind of love that one saw depicted in films, a love that made men weep and sacrifice their dreams?
He didn’t need to think about the answer and it saddened him to know how close he had come to ruining Heather’s life as well as his own. He loved Heather as a friend but now he was certain it was no more than that. He certainly wouldn’t walk barefoot through hot coals for her, or forfeit his ambitions. He couldn’t imagine doing that for any woman…except, possibly, Gemma.
The thought stunned him so that he found it hard to think let alone refute it. There was a roaring in his ears and he shook his head, but if anything it grew louder. Surely such thoughts about Gemma weren’t affecting his hearing as well as his mind?
It was a relief when he realised that the helicopter was hovering overhead. It landed in a field beside the canal and the crew jumped out. Ross moved out of the way, leaving it to Ben and the paramedics to co-ordinate the rescue. Within a very short time the injured man was strapped to a specially adapted spinal board and winched out of the crane straight into the helicopter. The crew leapt on board and that was it. The rest of the casualties were being transported back to hospital in a variety of vehicles and now all that was left was for the accident investigators to determine what had happened. However, his role in the proceedings was at an end.
He headed over to where Ben and Gemma were standing, trying not to notice how cosy they looked together. ‘That’s it, then. Back to the ranch, folks?’
‘Yep. Let’s saddle up,’ Ben quipped, earning himself another of Gemma’s wonderful smiles which in its turn resulted in Ben looping an arm around her shoulders.
Ross followed them along the tow path, through the copse, over the stile, feeling like a gooseberry. It was abundantly clear to him that they didn’t need his company. Tension gnawed at him as he dumped the backpack into the boot of his car then waited while the others shed their wellies. Even though it must have taken less than five minutes before they were ready to leave, he was champing at the bit and gunned the engine with a lot more verve than was necessary until he happened to glance in the rear-view mirror and saw Gemma’s lips whiten.
Remorse cooled him down faster than anything else could have done. He drove them back more sedately than a maiden aunt attending a church picnic, pulling up outside his house without even the tiniest judder. Ben leapt out and opened the rear door for Gemma to alight, bowing low as she did so.
‘M’lady.’
‘Thank you, Nicholls,’ she said with suitable hauteur. She sailed past him then stopped, eyeing the melting puddle of ice that lay directly in her path. ‘And what, pray, am I supposed to do about this, my good man?’
‘Apologies, m’lady.’
Ben scooped her up into his arms, ostensibly to lift her over the puddle, and Gemma smiled smugly. However, as he stepped across, he suddenly dropped her onto her feet, showering them both with icy water. Ross looked from one laughing face to the other and all of a sudden all the tensions of the day erupted.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you two. Grow up!’
Slamming the car door, he strode up to the house and let himself in. He sighed because it wasn’t their fault that he never indulged in such horseplay. He’d always taken life a little too seriously for that, always been more focussed on the important issues, like his career and his ambitions for the future.
Was that why Heather had decided not to marry him? he wondered suddenly. Had she realised that she wanted a husband who could be both a playmate and a lover? A husband who would devote as much energy to having fun as he did to achieving his goals?
Ross’s heart was heavy as he walked to the sitting-room window and watched his best man and the bridesmaid having fun. Women wanted a man they could live with, laugh with, grow old with—gracefully or disgracefully, it shouldn’t matter which. They wanted someone who would make them feel loved, cherished, needed, someone who wanted to be loved, cherished and needed in return, and Heather hadn’t been convinced that he could fulfil either of those roles.
It wasn’t Heather’s fault either, but his. He’d always held part of himself back, always been wary of giving too much in case he was rejected, and he knew why too. His reluctance to commit stemmed from the fact that his own father hadn’t wanted him as a child and had rebuffed his attempts to establish a relationship with him when Ross had grown older.
His parents had never married. His mother had been just seventeen when he was born, his father a year older. Rachel, his mother, had never tried to hide the truth from him while he’d been growing up, so Ross had always known that his father hadn’t wanted to play any part in his life. However, he’d clung to the fantasy that while his father might not have felt able to support a child when he’d been so young himself, it would be different when Ross was older; he’d be keen to get to know him then.
As soon as he turned eighteen, Ross set about finding him. It didn’t take long because his father still lived in the same town. Ross wrote to him and asked if they could meet, and was thrilled when he received a reply almost immediately, setting up a time and a date. He was filled with anticipation as he set off that morning, sure in his own mind that this would be the start of something wonderful. He hadn’t told his mother what he was doing, not because she would have tried to stop him, but because he hadn’t wanted anyone to know until he’d got used to the idea himself. Having his father back in his life was such a big deal.
The man who met him in the café wasn’t anything like Ross had imagined him. He looked older, sterner, his expression verging on unfriendly as he told Ross brusquely to sit down. Ross barely had time to say hello when his father informed him in no uncertain terms that Ross must never contact him again. He had his family to think about, a wife who knew nothing about the son he’d fathered by accident, children who would be hurt if they found out they had a half-brother.
By the end of the ten minutes, which was all the meeting took, Ross was in little doubt that he would never see this man again. His father didn’t want anything to do with him, viewed him as a threat more than anything else. They parted after the briefest of handshakes and Ross had never tried to contact him again and he never would. He didn’t need to be told twice that he wasn’t wanted, but the experience had left its mark on him. He became more guarded and focussed
more on his career. Although he made friends easily, attracted women by the score, he always held part of himself back. He’d never told anyone about what had happened, not his mother, not Ben, not even Heather.
He sighed as he watched Ben and Gemma laughing together. It just seemed to sum up everything that had been wrong with his and Heather’s relationship. If he couldn’t tell the woman he’d been about to marry something so revealing, who could he tell?
Gemma suddenly looked up and spotted him. Lifting her hand, she waved to him, her pretty face alight with laughter. Ross felt a sudden tightening in his guts, a feeling that his innards were being gripped by some force he didn’t understand. Lifting his hand, he waved back, saw her face light up even more, and felt a rush of powerful emotion run through him. He could tell Gemma his secret, he realised. He could share it with her and not feel embarrassed or ashamed. She would understand; she would care. And the thought was too much, coming as it did today of all days.
Swinging round, he turned his back on temptation, closed his heart and his mind to the idea. He had ruined one woman’s life and he wasn’t about to ruin another’s to make himself feel better!
Monday morning rolled around and Gemma knew that the surgery was going to be a hotbed of gossip that day. News of the cancelled wedding had made its way right around the town. Even old Mr Singh in the local newsagent’s had asked her why it had been called off and his conversation was usually limited to the state of the weather. Ross would be showered with sympathy, and he would hate every second of it.
Carol Walters, the practice manager, was already at her desk when Gemma arrived at Dalverston Surgery. Gemma steeled herself when she saw the curiosity on the older woman’s face as she went in. As the chief and only bridesmaid, she, too, would have to run the gauntlet.
‘OK, so what happened?’ Carol demanded eagerly.
The GP’s Meant-To-Be Bride Page 4