‘Coming on to you!’
Selina gasped. ‘You have some nerve! You’re just like the rest of the male population…under the impression that, having lost one husband, I’m on the lookout for another…or the equivalent of.’
Her voice broke on a sob and he flinched.
‘It’s not like that,’ she choked. ‘I just want to be left alone.’
Kane bit into his bottom lip with even white teeth. If he’d wanted to break through Selina’s reserve, what better way could he have found? But what a fool to make such a comment!
‘I’m sorry, Selina. I spoke without thinking. It’s just that in the past I have been propositioned and…well, I don’t like it. So do please dry your eyes and tell me I’m forgiven for being such an insensitive clod.’
She threw him a watery smile.
‘You’re forgiven. I’m afraid I’m very touchy these days…And, Kane…?’
‘What?’
‘I’m not surprised you’ve had to fight them off.’
Abigail Gordon loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a village in Cheshire, England. She is active in local affairs and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.
Recent titles by the same author:
EMERGENCY RESCUE
THE NURSE’S CHALLENGE
PARAMEDIC PARTNERS
BY
ABIGAIL GORDON
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
CHAPTER ONE
THE breakfast pots had been washed, the beds made, the washer switched on, the letter from her father-in-law in the morning post dutifully read, and now Selina was about to top up her tan on a sunlounger in the back garden.
Creamed against the powerful rays of a midsummer sun and wearing a black bikini, she was looking forward to some prime time by herself. Shutting her ears to the noises coming from the main street of the village, which was only yards away, she sank down thankfully onto the soft upholstery.
Two whole days, she thought thankfully. Time to recharge her batteries before going back on the unit for night duty.
Tomorrow there was to be a fête on the village green they might go to, and there was a film on in the town centre that she wouldn’t mind seeing afterwards.
But today she was going to potter. Sunbathe for a while, have a leisurely lunch and then later make a nice meal for the two of them.
When the phone rang she groaned. Letting the magazine she’d brought out with her fall to the ground, Selina eased herself off the sunbed and padded inside.
The voice at the other end of the phone belonged to the head teacher at Josh’s school, and her face blanched as he said in subdued tones, ‘I’m glad I’ve caught you in, Mrs Sanderson. I’m afraid that your son has had an accident.’
‘What do you mean?’ she cried. ‘What kind of an accident?’
‘He ran out of the school yard onto the main road to retrieve a ball during breaktime and into the path of an oncoming car.’
Don’t let him be dead, she prayed as dread turned the blood in her veins to ice. Not my little one. I can’t take any more.
‘We’re not sure how badly hurt he is,’ he went on. ‘We haven’t moved him under the circumstances and an ambulance is on its way.’
So at least Josh was alive, she thought frantically, but for how long?
‘Tell the paramedics to wait for me,’ she shrieked into the receiver, and before he’d had time to reply she was flinging open the hall cupboard and throwing on a long raincoat to cover the bikini, at the same time forcing her feet into the nearest footwear to hand, which happened to be the trainers she wore for jogging.
She was at the junior school on the outskirts of the village within minutes, and she didn’t have to search for the scene of the accident. The ambulance was already there, standing purposefully at the kerbside outside the gates. Even if it hadn’t been, the crowd that had gathered would have been indication enough.
As she flung herself out of the car and began to push past the onlookers with frantic haste, Selina’s horrified gaze was on the small figure of her son, lying very still at the pavement edge.
A paramedic was bending over him and another was stepping down from the ambulance with a red response bag in his hands.
‘I’m his mother,’ she cried, falling to her knees on the other side of the small casualty with hands outstretched to do the things she’d done countless times…for other people’s children.
The man bending over her son was examining him with deft yet gentle hands. Beside herself with panic, she cried, ‘Have you checked that he’s breathing? For spinal injuries? That his tongue is free? That his tubes aren’t—?’
He didn’t lift his head.
‘Yes. I have,’ he informed her levelly, ‘as far as is possible under the circumstances. Now we need to get the boy to hospital as quickly as possible.’
‘Roll him onto a backboard,’ she ordered. ‘I don’t want Josh risking further injury by being handled too much.’
Selina wasn’t aware of the brief appraisal of a pair of dark eyes, or that the man’s voice when he spoke again wasn’t quite as impersonal as before.
‘We’re going to do that. So if you would, please, stand back?’
She could hardly bear to move an inch away from Josh, but heaven forbid that she should behave like other hysterical relatives she’d seen, hindering the progress of the ambulance team.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she cried.
‘Of course,’ he said crisply, and within seconds they were off, with the siren blaring and the light flashing above the fast-moving ambulance with its distinctive coloured flashes.
Instinctively Selina reached across for the advance support bag containing the equipment that would be needed if Josh went into cardiac arrest or if his airways became blocked. But a voice from beside her, which was heating up by the moment, cried, ‘Do you mind? I’m in charge of this vehicle. You may be the boy’s mother, but I’m the paramedic and I have everything under control. At least I would have if you could resist trying to take over. I understand your great anxiety but do, please, leave it to me.’
As if realising for the first time that he was in charge, Selina just sat and blinked at him.
‘As you can see,’ he continued, ‘we have your son on a backboard to prevent further spinal injury, should there be any, and we’ve tied his legs together as the left one is almost certainly fractured. The cuts on his head and arms are mostly superficial, except for the gash on the temple…and I will be monitoring his heart all the time we’re in transit. Does that satisfy you?’
The younger man, who had taken over the driving, turned his head at that moment. He could have been invisible for all the notice Selina had taken of him so far, but now he was registering, and when he spoke she recognised the voice and the face.
‘She’s one of us, Kane,’ Mike Thompson explained.
In his second year of training, and referred to by those in the know as an ambulance technician, he was a reserved sort of young man who never had much to say, but it was obvious that he felt some sort of explanation was due, and towards that end he went on to explain awkwardly, ‘Selina’s on the unit.
’
The other man groaned, and said to Selina, ‘So that’s why you’re trying to take over. I get the picture.’
At that moment Josh opened his eyes, and as he did so both men were once more blurred figures on the edge of her nightmare.
‘Mum, I hurt all over,’ he said tearfully. ‘I was hit by a car. Where’s Dad?’ He’ll make it better.’
‘I know what’s happened, my darling,’ she said softly. ‘You’re in an ambulance on the way to hospital. They’ll make you better there.’
‘I want my dad,’ he wailed. ‘It’s not fair.’
Selina swallowed hard. In the shock of the accident Josh was trying to put the clock back and, aware of the man hovering watchfully beside her, she said soothingly, ‘I know. But you do know that he would have been here if he could, don’t you?’
Josh nodded glumly and turned his head into the flat pillow beneath it.
‘So he can move his neck,’ the strange paramedic said. ‘That’s good. And apart from the fractured limb, the rest of him seems to be flexible enough. They said at the school that the car driver wasn’t going very fast and that your son bounced sideways off the bonnet, which probably saved his life.’
Selina nodded bleakly. It was something to be thankful for, but there would be questions she would be asking about supervision in the playground. Though at the moment all that mattered was Josh.
The ambulance was turning into the hospital car park and as she raised herself from her kneeling position beside her son, the old coat that she’d flung on swung open and an expanse of bare midriff was briefly on view.
She must look like nothing on earth, she thought raggedly as she clutched it to her. Trainers, the briefest of bikinis…and a raincoat that didn’t button properly. A far cry from the neat navy trousers and crisp white blouse that would have been her normal attire had she been taking a call-out such as this while on duty.
As the bossy paramedic wheeled Josh into Casualty, Selina was beside him, holding his hand and hoping that Gavin would be on duty.
He was. He’d just come out of one of the cubicles, and as he swished the curtains together behind him he saw them.
His glance went first to Selina’s white face and then flicked to Josh.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked as he hurried across to them.
‘Josh has been knocked down by a car,’ she choked out. ‘The paramedic says he has a fractured leg and there might be other injuries.’
Light blue eyes in a tired face met hers. ‘And what’s your opinion?’
‘I’m so worked up I can’t even think straight.’
He patted her shoulder briefly. ‘Let’s get him sorted then, shall we?’
The moment Josh was rolled off the backboard onto the bed in an empty cubicle, Mike Thompson and his unknown colleague stepped back, their job done, and at that point Selina began to calm down a little.
Now that Josh was in hospital, with Gavin there to take over and with a nurse hovering, she was able to take stock of the man who must obviously be Charlie’s replacement.
Selina had worked with Charlie Vaughan ever since joining the ambulance unit, and now, at the end of her second year of training, she was having to part company with the man who had been with the ambulance service for thirty years and was about to retire.
If it hadn’t been for Charlie’s never-failing good humour and infinite patience during that time, both with herself and those he served, Selina knew she might have given up.
The hours were long, and there was always trauma of one kind or another awaiting them when a call came through, but there was job satisfaction, too…lots of it.
Charlie had said the other day that a paramedic from another area was to replace him and Selina had a feeling that the man eyeing her unsmilingly from the other side of Josh’s bed could be he.
He was tall and loose-limbed, with a shock of dark hair above a face that might have been described as hawk-like if it hadn’t been so arresting. His eyes were deep brown and very cool, his mouth a straight line, and she had a sudden sinking feeling that partnering this man was going to be a different ball game to working with Charlie.
‘Kane’s replacing Charlie,’ the monosyllabic Mike said, as if reading her mind, and Selina nodded, while the man in question continued to eye her silently.
What was the matter with him? she thought irritably. He’d had enough to say in the ambulance. Maybe he was waiting for some comment from her? Meeting his glance, she said stiffly, ‘I see. I thought that might be it, but I’ll have to ask you to excuse me. All I can think of at the moment is that my son is hurt.’ Her voice broke.
‘I took him to school myself,’ she croaked to no one in particular. ‘Saw him safely into the playground and watched his class file in and now…now I’m told that he’s been knocked down by a car.’
‘I’m sending Josh for X-rays on his leg and spine,’ Gavin said gently. ‘Buck up, Selina. He’ll be frightened if he sees you upset.’
She blinked back the tears that were threatening.
‘Yes, you’re right. Let’s go, then.’
The man in the white coat, who was as familiar to her as her own face, nodded. ‘I’ll be waiting when you get back,’ he promised.
When she looked up, Mike and the new man had gone. Back to base, no doubt, to await the next red alert or whatever else came through that needed their attention.
As they set off down the corridor, with the nurse pushing the bed and Selina holding tightly onto Josh’s hand, Gavin called after them. ‘By the way, I like the outfit, Selina.’
She managed a smile.
‘I was sunbathing.’
‘I’d never have guessed,’ he said with a smile of his own.
* * *
Josh had been lucky. The X-rays showed no spinal injuries, but he had sustained a fracture of the tibia of his right leg. The break was across the shaft, for which Selina was thankful as fractures of the lower part of the tibia often resulted in a fragmented ankle bone that had to be repaired by surgery, whereas in Josh’s case, a plaster cast on the leg for approximately six weeks should see the bone healed.
‘I’m keeping him in for a couple of days just as a precaution,’ Gavin said when the cast had been applied, ‘and as it goes without saying that you won’t be budging from his side once he’s settled into the children’s ward, why not go home and change out of your fancy dress? I’ll keep an eye on Josh until they find him a bed.’
‘I might just do that,’ she said. ‘I’d hate your staff to think that your sister’s eccentric…and, dear brother, am I glad that you’ve chosen to do a stint in Accident and Emergency.’
He shrugged. ‘In a crazy sort of way I’m enjoying it. It’s a case of you ambulance folks bringing ’em in, and my lot sorting ’em out.’
Selina shuddered. ‘And in this case it was Josh that they wheeled in. I can’t stop thinking that he might have been killed.’
As she was making her way to the main reception area to telephone for a taxi she saw the two paramedics coming towards her. Remembering how her introduction to the new man had been somewhat heated, Selina said awkwardly, ‘I see you’re back already.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Another red alert came through before we’d got back to base and, having delivered the patient to A and E once more, we’re on our way back again. How’s the boy?’ he went on.
‘He’s got a fractured tibia, which has just been put in plaster, and my, er…Gavin is keeping Josh in for a couple of days. There were no obvious spinal injuries, but he isn’t taking any chances and wants to keep him under observation for a while.’
He nodded.
‘Good.’
Dark eyes were flicking over her and momentarily a smile tugged at his mouth.
‘I take it that you’re going home to change. We’ll drop you off if you like.’
‘I’m starving,’ Mike put in. ‘If you’re taking Selina home, I’ll have a bite in the restaurant here and you can pick me up on the way back.�
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Selina hesitated. Another encounter with the man who was going to be featuring prominently in her working life in days to come didn’t appeal. But for him to take her home and bring her back almost immediately when he came to pick up Mike would be so much quicker than any other way, and she didn’t want to be away from Josh for a moment longer than necessary. He was happy enough with his Uncle Gavin, but it was her he needed the most…and his absent father.
But if she started thinking about Dave she would go to pieces completely and that wouldn’t help anybody, especially Josh.
She smiled.
‘That’s an offer I can’t refuse. I’m so anxious to get back to Josh.’ She looked down at the shapeless raincoat and, thinking of what it was concealing, told him, ‘I was sunbathing when I got the call from the school and I threw on the first things that came to hand. I don’t remember if I locked the door even, so I do need to go home for a few minutes.’
‘Let’s get moving, then,’ he said flatly, as if he thought she was gabbling somewhat.
When she climbed in beside him Selina was aware that, if what Mike had said was correct, this man was replacing Charlie. That was how it was going to be in future, and a bigger contrast to the amiable sixty year-old she couldn’t imagine.
As they pulled out of the city limits he said, ‘I suppose I’d better introduce myself.’ Taking a hand off the steering-wheel for a moment, he offered it to her. ‘Kane Kavener is the name, and the station officer has told me that you and I will be working together.’
His grasp was firm as they shook hands briefly. Selina thought illogically that it was like the man as there seemed to be nothing limp about…what was it he’d said his name was? Kane Kavener?
‘What they’ve told you is correct,’ she confirmed as their hands fell apart. ‘Charlie Vaughan, who I’ve worked with ever since joining the ambulance service, retired yesterday and so I’m short of a partner.’
‘So, what stage of training are you up to?’ he asked. ‘You’re not a paramedic?’
Selina shook her head.
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