by Joanna Neil
‘I…uh, yes, of course.’ She took a step back and opened the door wider. ‘I don’t actually have a stalker. I think I was just imagining things. I haven’t seen anyone near the place this evening.’
‘That’s good. Perhaps if he sees my car parked outside, he’ll stay away.’
He followed her along the corridor towards the living room, stopping to admire the artwork that adorned the walls at intervals along the way.
‘I recognise that one,’ he said, indicating a country scene, a gentle wash of greens and gold and hazy blue sky, the bark of a tree picked out in oils, the leaves a medley of dappled sunlight and shades of autumn. ‘I’ve seen it before somewhere. Isn’t it your sister’s work?’
‘That’s right. She gave it to me when I moved in here.’
‘I think I recognise the place.’ He studied the picture more closely. ‘Isn’t that the dip near the brook by Bluebell Copse…the place where we all used to go blackberry picking in the summer?’
‘It is.’ Emma held her breath. He couldn’t know just how much that small part of their home village meant to her, could he?
That was where she had first realised that she was falling in love with Rhys. He had stood tall and strong, smiling into her eyes as he’d held back the brambles so that she could walk through to the meadow beyond. It had been a teasing smile and it had melted her heart, but she had never been able to bring herself to tell him how she felt about him.
He looked at the painting for a moment longer, taking it in, before he turned away and continued down the hallway. ‘It’s all very clean and bright in here,’ he murmured. ‘Was it like this when you moved in, or have you added your own touches?’
‘I decorated it throughout,’ she answered slowly. ‘It didn’t take long because there isn’t very much to the place, but I wanted to make it my own.’
She hesitated before showing him into her living room. ‘Actually, I have another visitor,’ she told him. ‘He’s having supper with me.’
‘Oh?’ Rhys looked taken aback. ‘Perhaps I’m intruding.’
‘No, of course you’re not. Come on through.’
Elliot was sitting at the table, in the corner that housed her kitchen units and acted as a dining room. He had finished off the remnants of the casserole, eating like a man who wasn’t sure where his next meal was coming from, and now he was tucking into a slice of apple pie, generously topped with creamy custard.
Rhys stood stock still in the doorway. He didn’t say anything at all for a moment, just stared at Elliot.
Elliot, in turn, stared back at Rhys. Then he put down his spoon and for a while there was silence in the room.
‘I’ve moved into a house across the road,’ he said at last. ‘You know how things were with Amy and me. Something had to give, sooner or later.’
Rhys nodded. ‘She’s not doing too well right now. I imagine she’s very upset.’
‘Because I’ve moved out?’ Elliot shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t react at all. I might as well not have been there for the last few months. She didn’t seem to care about anything.’
‘That’s all part of the illness, isn’t it? Depression takes people in different ways.’
‘I don’t think so. I had the feeling that she just didn’t want me around. Our marriage has been disintegrating for quite some time.’
Rhys’s glance moved over the kitchen, taking in the dinner plates that had been moved to a worktop by the sink and coming to rest on the half-eaten apple pie. ‘It looks as though you’ve managed to find someone to fill the void,’ he said.
Turning to look back at Emma, he gave an odd grimace. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time,’ he murmured. ‘I can see that you won’t be needing my help in keeping unwanted visitors away.’
Emma tried to make things right. ‘There’s really no need for you to rush off, is there? Won’t you at least stay for a while? Have a cup of coffee?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He walked over to the door. ‘I can see myself out.’
Emma hurried after him, but by the time she reached the hall he had already shut the front door behind himself.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I JUST didn’t realise how bad it was at first.’ The young woman was frantic, raking a hand through her brown hair, her mouth trembling as she spoke. ‘Alex was playing in the field with the other children, and when his friends came to fetch me, they said he had fallen back against the stile. They told me that they had been messing about, playing fighting games, and I thought he had just bruised himself and that he would be all right.’ Her voice broke. ‘I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t get up. I thought he was overreacting, looking for attention.’
The woman looked at Emma, her face tear-streaked. ‘The paramedic said that he needed to go to a renal unit, but I don’t understand—what’s wrong with him? Is he going to be all right? He’s only eight years old—I just can’t believe this is happening.’
Emma was kneeling on the grass, making a careful examination of the little boy, while Rhys checked his blood pressure and pulse. ‘We won’t know the full extent of his injuries until we get him to the hospital and do some scans,’ she answered quietly, ‘but it looks as though he might have damaged a kidney when he fell backwards onto the stile. It may be that a rib has cracked and caused a puncture wound.’ She sent the woman a quick glance. ‘I’m sure you want to be with him at the hospital, so if you want to go along with the paramedic he’ll see that you get a lift to the unit.’
The child’s mother nodded. Pulling herself together, she leaned over to kiss her son on the cheek, and whispered, ‘I’ll come to you at the hospital and I’ll stay with you there, Alex. Don’t worry, the doctors will make sure that you’re going to be all right.’
Emma hoped that she could live up to that promise. She was more than a little disturbed by the amount of livid bruising on the boy’s back, in the area between the lowest rib and his pelvis, and it was becoming clear that the child’s pain was getting worse.
‘You’ve been brilliant, Alex,’ she told him now. ‘You’ve been very brave.’
The little boy was too ill to answer her, and she was very much afraid that his condition was deteriorating fast.
She glanced up at Rhys. He had finished his initial checks and was opening up his medical pack. ‘I think we need to get intravenous access and start treating him for shock,’ she said, taking care to keep her voice low. ‘I’ll give him analgesia as well, but it’s worrying me that his pain level is increasing.’
Rhys began to set up an IV line. ‘I agree, it’s not looking good,’ he said, his words pitched equally low. ‘We’ll have to be quick—we can’t take the risk of the kidney losing its blood supply. I’ll call ahead and let the team know that we’ll need them to do urography. At least there’ll be a nephrologist standing by.’
Emma nodded, and began to supervise the boy’s transfer to the helicopter. Rhys was quiet, not saying very much, except what was essential, and she was very aware that he had had been that way all morning. He had hardly spoken a word to her, except when it was necessary, when it involved his patients. That disturbed her. It wasn’t what she was used to.
But, then, perhaps she was overreacting. The day had started off badly, with a callout to a particularly nasty road traffic accident, and now they had a race against time to save this child’s kidney. It should have been all in a day’s work, something that she would have taken in her stride, but today her nerves were stretched to the limit and then some.
Rhys had been in a strangely withdrawn mood from the start. He hadn’t said a word to her about his visit to the flat last night, but she could feel the distance between them as though he was deliberately putting up barriers.
Perhaps he was still brooding over the fact that she had invited Elliot to supper, but why should she be forced onto the defensive over that?
She had always been on good terms with Elliot. His marriage break-up wasn’t anything to do with her, wa
s it, so why should Rhys adopt a cool attitude towards her as though she had done something wrong?
As soon as Alex had been left in the capable hands of the renal team, they went back to their base. Rhys started to repack his medical bag, stocking up on items that had been used, and Emma did likewise, making a swift check of her own supplies.
‘You haven’t been your usual self today,’ she remarked, sending him a sideways glance. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ She decided to tackle the issue head on. ‘Is something wrong? Is it something I’ve done or said?’
His glance was flint sharp. ‘Why on earth would you think that? As far as I’m concerned, you can say or do whatever you please.’
‘But you weren’t happy yesterday when you saw that Elliot was in my flat, and you left very suddenly. I was afraid that I’d offended you in some way…but I did appreciate the fact that you took the trouble to come and help me out. I want you to know that. I wasn’t really expecting you to turn up, but it was very thoughtful of you to come along, all the same.’
‘If I’m not saying very much, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with whatever’s going on in your life.’ He sent her a steady look. ‘I’m simply trying to work out what to do for the best for my sister. My parents are worried about her and they’ve asked me to help, but Amy’s problems aren’t something that can be resolved easily. She needs some kind of specialist counselling, but she isn’t willing to get involved in any of that.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Emma subsided, feeling slightly foolish. Of course he wasn’t going to spend time thinking about her, or wonder about how she lived her life. She wasn’t that important to him.
She said cautiously, ‘Has Amy been to see a bereavement counsellor? I know the baby wasn’t full term, but she suffered a loss all the same.’
‘Yes, we’ve tried that.’ His mouth made a straight line. ‘There’s more to it than the loss of her baby. Her marriage has fallen apart, and I suspect that she feels helpless and doesn’t know how to put things right.’ He sent Emma a penetrating gaze. ‘Of course, it won’t help matters any if she discovers that the first thing Elliot did after leaving her was to seek comfort with you.’
Emma drew herself up. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Her green eyes sparked. ‘You make it sound as though there was something going on between us, and I resent the implication. Elliot had only just moved into his flat and he was feeling unsettled and he wanted company, someone to talk to.’
‘I’m sure he did. It didn’t take him long to find it, did it? Then again, he’s always been very fond of you and I can’t help wondering if that isn’t why he chose to take up the lease on a flat in your area of all places.’
Emma stared at Rhys, tension growing in her as she realised that he wasn’t going to listen to reason. How could he think that way?
She tried again. ‘He just wanted to talk. He said there had been problems in the marriage for a long time. They both wanted a child, but Amy had struggled to conceive, and in the end IVF had seemed the only way for them to go. That was a problem in itself. The treatment was expensive and it was touch and go whether it would work and every failure made Amy more and more depressed.’ She stared at him, her expression perplexed. ‘But you must know all that.’
‘I know that she needs his support now more than ever, but she isn’t going to get it if he finds solace with you, is she?’
Emma clamped her lips together. He was being unfair and it wasn’t at all like him. Had things deteriorated so badly between them that he couldn’t see reason? His insinuations were intolerable. How could he possibly imagine that there was anything going on between Elliot and herself?
She couldn’t trust herself not to say something that she would regret, and arguing with Rhys was not the way to go. Instead, she picked up her medical bag and moved away from him.
Did he really believe that she was the enemy, that she might stand between Elliot and his wife? It was incredible that he should think that way but, of course, he was worried about his sister right now, and perhaps that was making him irrational.
Emma was relieved when her shift came to an end at last. She needed time for her head to clear, for the warring thoughts that crowded in on her to be swept away. Most of all she needed space, away from Rhys.
‘You’re not on duty tomorrow, are you?’ he asked, causing her to hesitate just as she was preparing to leave.
She shook her head. ‘No…Why? Is there a problem?’
‘Only that Martin won’t be in either, so we’ll be one member of the team short. He’s going on a course in the afternoon and I’m looking for someone to fill in for him. I know it’s short notice, but he had to change places with someone at the last minute. I’ll understand if you don’t want to do it.’
She thought about it. No matter what their differences were, they had to find a way of working together, didn’t they? ‘I suppose I could do that.’ She just needed a bit of breathing space right now, but she might be feeling more positive tomorrow.
‘I’ll be in the City in the morning, anyway,’ she said. ‘My dad asked me to check up on the building work at the property he’s renovating while he goes to have talks with his bank manager. I don’t mind coming in to work after I’ve done that.’
‘Thanks. I’ll book you in.’
Her father’s building project was more or less on course, but perhaps that was because he had kept a careful eye on things. He was very clear about what he wanted, and he liked to make sure that everything was going to plan. It was in his nature to do that.
When she looked in on the builders next day, she saw that they had put the last of the partition walls in place, and the electrical work was very nearly finished. The next step would be to bring in the plasterers and arrange for the plumbing to be installed.
On the ground floor, where the restaurant was to be housed, everything was structurally sound and ready for the kitchen equipment to be brought in.
‘My dad will be really pleased,’ she told the foreman a couple of hours later, as she was about to leave. He walked with her out onto the street.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes…you’ve done some first-class work here, and you’ve managed to keep everything pretty much on schedule.’
‘We always aim to do a good job,’ he acknowledged. ‘Not like some I could mention, who try to cut corners.’ He inclined his head to indicate a renovation project going on further down the street. ‘They landed themselves in trouble again today…some sort of accident with a blowtorch. I heard that there was an explosion. You probably heard the fire engine a short while ago.’
‘Yes, I did. I wondered what was going on.’ Emma frowned. ‘It looks as though the fire crew is still there.’
She knew the firm he was talking about. It was well known that he was locked into a bitter rivalry with a company that was constantly undercutting his prices. They were involved in some building work, converting a property into self-contained apartments, and she took a look at what was going on as she passed by the premises a few minutes later on her way to the tube.
The fire that had been raging for the last half-hour was very nearly extinguished, but apparently the fire officer was still concerned. ‘We thought everyone was out of there, but we were wrong,’ he told one of his crew. ‘I can’t think what’s keeping the ambulance.’
A police officer came forward and started to move everyone away to the opposite side of the road. ‘Stay back, please,’ he said. ‘We need to bring some equipment through here.’
Threaded through the buzz of talk all around her, Emma heard someone moaning in pain and she looked up at the building, trying to fathom where the sound had come from. The building was wrecked, one side of it open to the elements, and as she stared at the crumbling masonry she was reminded all too vividly of the aftermath of the explosion at her father’s restaurant. Fear clamped her stomach. That episode wasn’t something that she had ever wanted to revi
sit.
She hesitated momentarily, her mouth dry, a feeling of terror sweeping through her. The sound of agonised groaning continued, breaking into her thoughts, and she shook off her dream-like state and started to push her way forward through the assembled crowd.
‘I’m a doctor,’ she said, going over to the police officer. ‘Can I help in any way? Has someone been injured?’ She was relieved that she had brought her medical bag with her, ready for the afternoon’s work. Over the years, she had learned that it helped to be prepared for all eventualities, and she also made a point of keeping equipment to hand in her car.
He nodded. ‘Yes, we’ve a man with burns to his hands and arms, but he’s not the only one. It appears that one of the workers was trapped on an upper level—presumably he couldn’t escape with the others because of the fire—and then part of the building collapsed. He fell, but landed on a ledge on the next floor. We don’t know how badly he’s been injured, and we’re not sure whether it’s safe to move him. They’re bringing in a lifting platform so that we can get to him more easily, but there’s a concern that the structures above him are still not safe.’
Emma went to attend to the burns patient first of all, covering his wounds with special dressings and setting up an intravenous drip. Then she looked up at the building once more, her heart in her mouth.
‘I need to go up there,’ she said to the fire officer. ‘Can you get me up to the man on the ledge?’
‘It isn’t safe,’ he said. ‘I can’t allow it, not until we can be sure that we’ve secured the area.’
‘We can’t just leave him, not without checking his condition first,’ she insisted. Inside, she was shaking, dreading the moment of truth, of facing up to her demons, but she knew that she couldn’t leave an injured patient if she had the power to help him. ‘A few minutes could make all the difference between life or death or permanent damage, and I need to at least try to take a look at him.’