‘Why, for God’s sake?’ he’d barked.
‘The landlady is in a bad way. She’s having a serious asthma attack and the gunman asked that Dr Morgan go in to attend to her.’
‘And the police let her?’
‘They had no choice. She was in there before they could do anything about it. I’ve sent the injured man to hospital on her instructions. He wasn’t too serious, and we’re keeping the helicopter for the asthma patient.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Kyle had said abruptly, ‘and tell the police if anything happens to her they’ll have me to deal with.’
The chill of dread had been upon him. He felt as if his blood had turned to ice. The fellow in the pub had already shot one person. Supposing…!
He daren’t think about it. Not Hannah. Beautiful, uncomplicated Hannah, whose life he’d messed up a long time ago and who was still running round in circles because of him.
All right, it was what their job was all about, treating the sick and suffering, but not while looking down the barrel of a shotgun!
Please, don’t let anything happen to her! he’d prayed as with siren blaring he wove in and out of the traffic. He couldn’t even contemplate losing Hannah.
The public house had come in sight at last and he’d realised that with the helicopter still there and the police presence she must be still inside the building.
‘I’m from the unit that Dr Morgan works for,’ he said as he flung himself out of the car. ‘What’s happening?’
The policeman he was addressing had wasted no time in telling him. ‘As far as we know, the doctor is safe. She’s about to come out with the sick lady and the gunman, who’s demanding a lift in the helicopter.’
Relief had swept over him. So far Hannah was in one piece, but there was still a man with a gun hovering over her.
‘I’m going on board,’ he told the policeman, and before the man could argue he’d climbed into the helicopter.
‘Here they come, sir!’ the paramedic had cried, and Kyle had looked up to see Hannah supporting the gasping woman as they moved slowly towards them, the gunman bringing up the rear.
‘I’m going to try to disarm him once Dr Morgan and the woman are on board,’ he told Jack. ‘There’s no way that thug is setting foot on here. If it goes wrong, or anything happens to me, don’t wait. Take off immediately.’
For once having nothing cheerful to say, the pilot nodded grimly and then, almost before Kyle had finished speaking, it was time to act.
When they touched down at the nearest hospital with the sick woman Hannah gave Kyle a tremulous smile as they helped their patient out of the helicopter, but his face remained grave.
He’d barely spoken during the flight and it had been left to Jack and the others to express their relief that the gunman had been disarmed and in such a manner.
‘Talk about never a dull moment,’ the copilot had said. ‘I wouldn’t change this job for anything.’
But it hadn’t tempted Kyle to join in. He’d just sat staring alternately at Hannah or out of the window with the ravaged expression that had been on his face ever since they’d been airborne, and now she was trying to get through to him.
Hannah wanted to tell him how much it had meant to her, seeing him there at the door of the helicopter, and that her love for him was deep and strong, but he wasn’t tuned in. She could tell.
‘What possessed you to do such a thing?’ he said roughly, finding his voice at last. ‘That lunatic could have killed you!’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said, backing away. ‘But what was I supposed to do? Let the landlord’s wife choke to death? You would have done the same.’
‘Yes, of course I would, but—’
‘There’s a different set of rules for you, is there?’ she flared.
‘Yes. Because, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m in charge and I’m responsible for the safety of the rest of you. When it comes to myself I have no one to answer to.’
‘What about Ben?’ she cried. ‘He depends on you, doesn’t he?’
‘I’m talking about the unit,’ he snapped. ‘Not my private life.’
‘I’ve had enough of this, Kyle,’ she said wearily. ‘Whatever I do is never right in your eyes. Fortunately my time with the helicopter service is nearly up and I won’t be sorry to go.’
His face darkened, but at that moment the doctor who’d taken over the treatment of their patient appeared and spoke quietly to Kyle.
‘I’m going to be here for a while,’ Kyle said to Hannah. ‘You can carry on back to base with Jack and the others. I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Fine,’ she told him frostily.
When Kyle arrived at the unit an hour later, he found Hannah in the centre of a laughing group with glasses of champagne in their hands.
‘Here’s the other hero of the hour!’ someone cried as a glass was thrust into his hand.
Another voice shouted, ‘What a woman, eh, sir? Facing up to a guy with a gun!’
‘Yes, indeed,’ he said grimly. ‘But you wouldn’t have all been knocking back the drink if Hannah had been killed.’
He saw that he’d wiped the smile off her face and knew he was being a killjoy, but he was still being driven by the memory of the sick terror that had claimed him when he’d heard what she’d got herself involved in. It had been as if a clammy hand had been squeezing his heart and he would remember it to his dying day. And then what had he come back to? A celebration!
How could Kyle treat her like that? Hannah thought wretchedly as she slumped onto the sofa in her sitting room that evening. She’d only joined in the general euphoria to please the others.
In actual fact she’d been feeling shaky and tearful. She’d needed Kyle’s calm strength to bring her back to normality, his arms around her as proof that she’d really been safe. And what had she got?
A dressing-down that had made her feel totally irresponsible. All she needed now was for it to be in the newspapers and he really would blow his top.
She didn’t understand why he was so peeved at what she’d done. Hadn’t he admitted that he would have done the same? It was like she’d told him. There was one set of rules for her and one for him.
He’d only ever pulled rank on her twice. The first time had been when he’d caught her with Paul in the restaurant and reminded her that she was on call, and the second had been today.
Hannah closed her eyes wearily. Why did she keep going back for more when every time their paths crossed it was a disaster? She’d lived without him before and she could do it again, she decided. He was only on the fringe of her life as it was, but from now on he wasn’t even going to be that close.
Her head was throbbing, and after taking a painkiller she went to lie on the bed. As she drifted into an exhausted sleep her last thought was that he could take someone else to the theatre as she certainly wasn’t going.
The phone awakened her and it was Kyle’s voice that came over the line.
Hannah stared at the receiver blearily. Was he ringing to apologise? Or to carry on the grand telling off?
It was neither.
‘It’s part of my function to ask members of staff if they need counselling after any sort of distressing incident,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Would you like me to arrange it?’
She was fully awake now and smarting. ‘Which distressing incident are you referring to?’ she flared. ‘The robbery at the public house, or my boss’s reaction to it?’
‘Don’t be clever, Hannah,’ he said brusquely. ‘You must be blind if you don’t know what that was all about.’
‘Maybe I am,’ she snapped back, ‘and with regard to your offer of counselling…no, thanks. I’m not in the market for any favours. And while I’m on that subject, I suggest you find someone else to take to the theatre.’
‘Now you’re being childish.’
‘That’s good, coming from you!’
He ignored the comment. ‘You’ll change your mind about the theatre once you’ve calmed down.’
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‘I wouldn’t bank on it. I wish my time was up already so that I didn’t have to see you again.’ And with an angry click she put the phone down.
At the other end of the line Kyle stared at the receiver, grim-faced. So much for that, he thought.
The most lucid and articulate of men, he couldn’t understand why when it came to Hannah Morgan he couldn’t talk sense. He’d turned her courageous act into a breach of discipline, and if the rapport between them had been fragile before, now it was non-existent.
All he’d had to do had been to tell her how horrified he’d been about her safety during the pub siege and how his anguish had turned to frustrated anger when he’d seen her drinking champagne as if nothing had happened.
At that moment the phone rang, breaking into his sombre thoughts. He picked it up quickly, hoping that Hannah might have had a change of heart, but it was his mother on the line with Ben chattering in the background.
‘A certain little boy would like a word with you,’ she said laughingly.
‘When I see you on Saturday can I have a new bike, Daddy?’ Ben asked without preamble, adding with continuing brevity, ‘Without stabilisers.’
Kyle found himself joining in his mother’s laughter. ‘I think we might be able to manage the bike,’ he told him, ‘but I’ll have to have a think about the stabilisers.’
There was an ache around his heart as he listened to Ben talking about what he’d been doing at school and how he and Grandad had been playing cricket in the garden.
His relationship with Hannah was at an all-time low, but he had to be grateful that Ben still loved him and needed his presence in his life, and if his dreams of the three of them becoming a family came to nothing, then…
His face twisted. Then…what?
Pete Stubbs’s wife was pregnant and he was overjoyed. It seemed that they’d wanted children for a long time and none had been forthcoming, but now nature, with its many caprices, was favouring them.
As Hannah watched him accepting the congratulations of the other men on the unit there was sadness in her smile. Would she ever have children with someone she loved? Not if it was up to Kyle. He seemed to go out of his way to keep them apart.
The man in question appeared at that moment. He was late, having been to a resources meeting, and she couldn’t tell if the frown on his face was the aftermath of listening to budgeting suggestions or the sight of the thorn in his side in the form of herself.
‘Pete’s going to be a daddy, Kyle,’ Graham told him as the father-to-be smiled across at them.
That wiped the frown off Kyle’s face and he went across to Pete and shook his hand. ‘Brilliant news, Pete,’ he said warmly. ‘You’ll make a great dad.’
Just as you are yourself, my prickly love, Hannah thought, and if it wasn’t for that same prickliness we might have had some babies of our own.
Was he reading her thoughts again? Dark, inscrutable eyes were locking with her own uncomplicated blue gaze, and as if yesterday had never been he was sending out signals.
Not of desire this time. It was a different kind of need that she sensed in him, but she wasn’t sure what it stemmed from.
Hannah turned away. She’d given up trying to read his mind. If she had any sense she would have given up on him long ago. But the fact remained that just a little time spent with Kyle was more precious than a one-to-one relationship with anyone else.
‘So? Am I forgiven?’ he asked when he managed to catch her on her own. He wasn’t exactly pleading, but there was an expression on his face that might have been anxiety.
Hannah was tempted to tell him that he was, as he’d been right in some of the things he’d said and, loving him as she did and having wasted so much time, she wanted them to be in harmony, if nothing else.
But that sort of truce would only last until the next time he found her wanting. So she fought down the tenderness that his words had aroused in her and told him, ‘As you said yesterday, you’re the boss here and, that being so, are entitled to comment when we step out of line. So let’s forget it, shall we?’
It was an ungracious sort of reply to Kyle’s plea for forgiveness, but in all the months since they’d found each other again she’d never felt more strongly that she had to tread carefully.
‘Hmm,’ he growled. ‘So that’s how you feel?’
Her smile was wry.
‘Yes, that’s how I feel,’ she fibbed, and as a call came through at that moment for assistance at the scene of a traffic accident, Hannah was denied the opportunity to say more, even if she’d wanted to.
That same day Kyle had a visitor and Hannah immediately recognised her as the woman who had been waiting for him that night after work when they’d gone off together in a taxi.
This time she’d come up to the helipad to find him, and when Hannah saw how his face brightened at the sight of her, a day that had started well with the news of Pete’s forthcoming fatherhood seemed to be going downhill fast.
What had this woman got that she hadn’t? she asked herself. Well, Kyle for one thing, if his pleasure at seeing her was anything to go by.
With a quick glance towards Hannah Kyle said, ‘I’m going out for a couple of hours. If anyone wants me it will have to wait until I get back.’
There was a telephone call but it was for her. She’d applied for a position in Manchester and was being asked to go for an interview during the following week.
The vacancy was one of three that she was interested in. The other two were in Newcastle-on-Tyne and Gloucestershire.
If Hannah had heard Kyle’s visitor speak and noted her accent, part of the mystery would have become clear. Annie Cousins was an Australian on holiday in the UK.
The knowledge might not have brought much comfort, but it would at least have explained where she had materialised from in the monastic life of the busy head of the helicopter emergency services.
‘So you’re flying back tomorrow,’ Kyle said as they faced each other across a table in a nearby wine bar.
‘’Fraid so,’ his visitor said with a pout of full red lips. ‘Brad will be sending a search party out for me if I don’t go back soon.’
‘And you’ve sorted all the loose ends?’
‘Yeah. The estate will be finally wound up this afternoon. It’s been a long and complicated business, but that’s what comes of marrying a pommie.’
Annie was observing him from beneath long mascara’d lashes.
‘Mind you, I could be persuaded to stay. It only needs a word from a certain person that they’re going to miss me and I’ll cancel the airline ticket.’
Kyle shook his head. ‘Your place is back home, Annie. Brad needs you.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘Not in that way. For one thing I have Ben to think about, and for another I have unfinished business with someone who’s going to need a lot of convincing.’
‘You’re in love with somebody else?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, but I’ve a feeling I have a long way to go before she’ll believe me.’
‘If she has any trouble with that just tell her that I’m there on the sidelines. It’s surprising how we all place more value on someone that somebody else wants.’
Kyle’s smile had a tinge of sadness. He didn’t want to be wanted because someone else had designs on him.
‘There’ll be someone for you back home, Annie,’ he assured her. ‘You’re an attractive woman…and if what you say is true, you’ll soon be a rich one.’
She shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘Looks like it, but…’
‘What?’
‘I’ll never know whether I’m loved for my money or myself.’ She got to her feet. ‘With you I would have known that it wasn’t the money.’
Her red lips brushed his fleetingly. ‘Bye, Kyle.’
When Kyle came back on to the unit he was smiling and Hannah’s spirits plummeted even further.
He saw her expression and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her
head listlessly. ‘Nothing.’
But something was very wrong. The woman he’d just left had made it clear on the two occasions that Hannah had seen her with him that Kyle was more than just a friend. Maybe he felt the same way. She had to know.
‘Actually, I was wondering about that woman you saw today.’
Kyle’s smile faded, slightly. ‘Annie Cousins is an Australian, the widow of an English friend of mine who died a year ago. And before you ask—I’m not interested in her. She’s going back home tomorrow to her teenage son. Annie has been over here to sort out her husband’s estate and is going to be a rich woman.’
‘And that didn’t tempt you?’
Kyle wasn’t smiling at all now.
‘I thought you knew me better than that, Hannah.’
‘Yes. I do,’ she said contritely. ‘I’m sorry, Kyle. We’re involved in a war of words again. I don’t know why it’s always like this!’
‘Nor do I. Maybe one day we’ll get it right.’
As the phone on his desk began to ring she murmured dismally, ‘Yes. Maybe we will.’
Friday was one of the busiest days since Hannah had joined the team. As they found themselves dealing with a spate of traffic accidents, victims of crime and every other medical emergency that might require the services of the fast response teams, it seemed as if a mischievous force was abroad on the streets of the city.
With Kyle’s mysterious woman friend accounted for, Hannah was feeling happier, and when he’d reminded her about their house-hunting on Saturday afternoon and the theatre date on the following Friday, she hadn’t repeated her earlier refusal.
Pete and Graham were on leave, and when a call came in for a doctor to treat the victim of a house fire, Kyle went himself, leaving Hannah and Charles to cover any further emergencies that might come through during his absence.
They hadn’t long to wait. He’d no sooner gone than a call came in from a road accident in Kensington. As Charles had only just got back from a previous call-out, Hannah said she would take it.
She was using a car as Jack had taken Kyle to the house fire in the Eurocopter, and it was as she was driving towards Kensington that it came through on the radio that a helicopter had crashed in a field beside the motorway.
Emergency Reunion Page 14