Rescuing Dr Ryan

by Caroline Anderson

  'What about insurance?' she asked, being practical for once in her life.

  'You're covered if you're over twenty-five.' He gave her a sceptical look.

  'Well, of course I am!' she said in disgust, and stomped off. 'Idiot. He knows quite well how old I am!' She locked the back door, ignoring Bruno's pleas, and went round the corner.

  Oh, lord, it was a massive great Volvo estate! Miles long, and hugely wide. Terrific. She'd never driven anything this big before, and she was going to have to do it smoothly and carefully. With an audience.

  Marvellous. She could hardly wait.

  She got in, stared at the gear lever and got out again, stomping back round the corner to Will.

  'It's automatic,' she said accusingly.

  'Yes—that makes it easier.'

  'Fiddlesticks.'

  'Trust me, I'm a doctor. D is drive, P is park, R is reverse, N is neutral. Leave it in Park, start the engine, put your foot on the brake and put it into Drive. You have to hold down the button on top while you move the lever.'

  'Hmm.'

  She went back, started it, put it in drive and took her foot cautiously off the brake and screamed when it moved. She hit the brakes, her left foot flailing uselessly, looking for a task. Idiot, she told herself, and eased her foot off the brake again. It rolled gently forwards, and she tried the accelerator, cautiously. OK.

  She nosed out of the barn, totally unsure how far she was from anything, and cursed herself for never having driven anything bigger than a supermini. She crept round the end of the barn, stopped as close to Will as she could get and looked at the gear lever in puzzlement.

  'Put it in Park,' he told her. 'And put the handbrake on,' he added as an afterthought, as if he didn't quite trust her.

  She was about to make a smart-alec retort when she took her foot off the footbrake and the car rolled forwards a fraction.

  She gave another little yelp and slammed her foot back down, and he shot her a pitying look.

  'It moved!' she said defensively.

  'It's fine. It's just taking up the slack. You could have reversed it in so the door was closer.'

  'No, I couldn't,' Lucie said tightly, realising with dismay that she was going to have to reverse around the barn to get back to the track. Oh, blast. She got out of the car and slammed the door, and he winced.

  'Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,' he muttered.

  'You don't have a choice,' she reminded him.

  'We could have called an ambulance.'

  'We might have to yet. My car's in the way.'

  'I've got a tow-rope. We can pull it out.'

  'We?' She eyed him up and down, and snorted. 'I don't think so.'

  'We'll worry about it later. Just get me in the damn car,' Will said through gritted teeth, and she stood in front of him and grasped him by the shoulders, pulling him forwards and upwards as he got his legs under him and straightened with a groan.

  'OK?'

  He gave her a dirty look. 'Wonderful. Open the car door.'

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. 'Please?'

  'Please.'

  'Better.'

  'Don't push it,' he growled, and she gave up. She stomped round the bonnet, yanked open the front passenger door and came back for him, but he was already on his way, stubborn and self-reliant. Fine. Let him struggle.

  Then Will wavered, and she had a sudden vision of him toppling over on those broken arms. Not a good idea, and she needed this post if she was going to finish her training. Stifling her urge to leave him to it, she put her arm around his waist to steady him and helped him round the car, then opened the door and watched as he eased himself in. His jaw was working furiously, his eyes were screwed shut and once he was in he dropped his head back against the headrest and let out a shaky sigh.

  'I think we'll pass on the seat belt,' he said through gritted teeth, and she shut the door firmly on him.

  Lucie crossed round to the driver's side, wondering how, under these circumstances, she could have been so conscious of the hard, lean feel of his body. Even through the thickness of the soft sweater he was wearing she'd been aware of every rib, every muscle, every breath.

  She had a feeling he was, too, and her compassion returned, forcing out her bizarre and untimely thoughts and replacing them with a more appropriate concern for his health. She slid behind the wheel, looked over her shoulder and wondered how on earth she was going to reverse this thing the size of an oil tanker back around the barn...

  How could she be so stupid? Will asked himself. How could a woman with apparently enough brain to train and qualify as a doctor be so stupid that she couldn't manage to drive a perfectly normal car?

  She panicked, she overreacted, she allowed some times too much room, sometimes nothing like enough, and her judgement on the bumpy drive left a great deal to be desired.

  No wonder she'd got her car stuck.

  'Are you trying to do it again, you idiot woman?' he snapped as she jolted down yet another pothole.

  'Don't call me names just because your drive's so awful! There should be a law against it.'

  There should be a law against her smart mouth, but he didn't suppose he'd get it past all the women MPs. 'Drive on the centre and the side,' he told her through gritted teeth, but there were places where you had to pick your way and, sure as eggs, she'd pick the wrong one.

  And every jolt was agonising. He would have, driven himself, except, of course, he couldn't even hold the steering-wheel, never mind turn it. Damn.

  They lurched through another pothole and he felt cold sweat spring out on his brow. He needed to lie down. He needed pain relief. He needed oblivion.

  He didn't need to be giving some delinquent female driving lessons!

  'There's my car,' she announced defiantly, and he cracked his eyes open and sighed with relief.

  'You can drive round it. Head for the left—the ground's firm there.'

  Well, more or less. They got through it with a bit of lurching and wheel-spinning, and then the track improved. Just another few minutes, he told himself. Just a little longer...

  'Yes, it's a lovely clean fracture through the radius and ulna. Classic Colles'. We'll reduce it here, if you like. As for the other one, it's just a nasty sprain, you'll be glad to know.'

  He was. He was hugely glad to know that he wasn't going to be dependent on anyone for help with his basic functions. It would probably hurt like hell to use it, but at least if it wasn't plastered, he'd have some rotation in the hand, and that would make all the difference.

  Will didn't enjoy having the fracture reduced. They bandaged his hand to compress it and drive the blood out of it, which hurt, then stopped the blood supply to his arm and filled the vessels with local anaesthetic.

  That bit was fine. Then the doctor grasped his hand and pulled, and the bones slid back into place with an audible crunch.

  To his utter disgust, he threw up, and all he could think was thank God Lucie wasn't there watching him with her wide green eyes and sassy mouth. Just for good measure, he retched again, then sagged back against the bed.

  'Finished?' the nurse asked him in a kind voice, and he nodded weakly.

  The doctor shot him a thoughtful look. 'I think you've got a touch of concussion. Perhaps we need to keep you in overnight.'

  'No,' he said firmly, ignoring the pounding in his head and the tingling sensation in his cheek. What concussion? 'I'm fine. I want to go home.'

  'Stubborn sod, aren't you?' the doctor said cheerfully, and stood back to survey his handiwork. 'That looks fine. We'll let the anaesthetic out now and see how it feels when it comes round. Oh, and you'll need another X-ray after we put a back-slab on—an open cast, just in case it swells overnight. You'll need to come back tomorrow for a check-up and have a proper cast on if all's well. OK?'

  Will nodded.

  'I still think you should stay overnight, but so long as you'll have someone with you, that'll have to do. You know what to look out for.'

  He
did. He'd dished out advice on head injuries for years, but he'd never had to take it. He wasn't thinking too clearly now, and his hand was beginning to tingle as they let the blood back through it.

  At least the other one felt safer now, strapped up and supported from his fingers to his elbow in tight Tubigrip with a hole cut for the thumb.

  MICE, he was reminded. Mobilisation, ice, compression, elevation. It used to be RICE, but they'd changed the rules and got rid of the resting in favour of mobilisation. That was good, because without his right arm, the left was going to be mobilised a heck of a lot in the next few weeks!

  'I'll write you up for some painkillers,' the doctor said. 'You can take up to eight a day, no more than two at a time and no closer together than four hours.'

  He had no intention of taking them, except as a last resort, but he accepted them anyway—not that it was exactly difficult to get a prescription. He'd pick one up on Monday morning when he went to work, he thought, and then it hit him.

  How on earth was he going to work with one arm in a cast and the other—the wrong one—in a support? Brilliant. And Lucie was just starting a six-month stint as a trainee, and he was the only member of the practice qualified to train her.

  He sighed. Well, she'd just have to cover his patients, and he'd supervise her and tell her what to do and she could drive him around—always assuming he could stand it! She'd be staying at the cottage anyway, he thought, and then remembered the cottage bedroom—the one without a bed, with a stinking, soaked carpet that needed replacing.

  He let his breath out on an irritated sigh. She'd have to stay in the house—which might be as well for a day or two, but in the long term would drive him utterly frantic. Still, it wouldn't need to be long term. He could order a bed and a carpet over the phone, and have, them installed and move her in there within a couple of days.

  He would need to. He guarded his privacy jealously, and he wasn't sharing his house with anyone any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  Most particularly not a pretty, sassy little thing with attitude. He'd lose his mind!

  Lucie was bored. She'd read all the leaflets, studied all the posters, walked up and down all the corridors, tried out the drinks machine and read half the magazines.

  How long could it take, she thought, to do a couple of X-rays and slap on a cast?

  A nurse appeared. 'Dr Compton?'

  Finally! She bounced to her feet and crossed the room. 'How is he?'

  The nurse smiled understandingly. 'Bit grouchy. Men don't like losing their independence. He's ready to go home now.'

  Lucie followed her to one of the treatment rooms, and there was Will sitting in the wheelchair, looking like something the cat had dragged in. He shot her a conciliatory look. 'Sorry you've had such a long wait.'

  'That's OK. I know more than I ever wanted to know about how to sail the Atlantic, adjust grandfather clocks and make mango chutney. Do you want a wheelchair ride to the car, or shall I bring it to the door?'

  'Both,' the nurse said.

  'I'll walk,' said Will.

  Lucie looked from one to the other, nodded and went out, jingling the car keys in her hand and humming softly, a smile playing around her lips. Stubborn, difficult man. It was going to be an interesting six months.

  CHAPTER TWO

  'What do you mean, uninhabitable?'

  Will sighed and shifted his right arm, swore softly and dropped his head back against the wall behind his chair. Lucie had got the distinct impression he'd been about to ram his hand through his hair in irritation. "There was a missing roof tile. That's what I was doing.'

  'You said you were rescuing the cat,' she accused, and he sighed again, even more shortly.

  'I was—she'd gone up there because I'd been up there, fixing the roof. Because it was leaking. So the bed was wet. The carpet's ruined. The room is trashed, basically, until I can get a new carpet and bed next week and get the ceiling repainted.'

  So not too long to wait, then. Just a few days of each other's company. It might be just as well, the state he was in. Lucie cocked her head on one side and studied Will. He looked awful. She wondered when he was going to relent and have a painkiller. Never, probably.

  Stubborn as a mule.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, then looked at the door and dragged in a deep breath. Then he got very slowly and carefully to his feet.

  'Can I get you something?'

  'I need the loo.'

  She went to stand up, and he fixed her with a glare that would have frozen the Atlantic. 'Don't even think about it,' he said tautly, and, suppressing a smile, she fell back in the chair and waited patiently for him to return.

  Buttons, Will decided, were the spawn of the devil. Desperation got them undone. Nothing seemed sufficiently urgent to induce him to hurt that much just to do them up. Lord knows why he'd bought button-fly jeans. He must have been mad. So now what? Flies undone, or change into something more sensible, like tracksuit bottoms?

  But they were upstairs, and he was down here, and it was all too much like hard work. His head was spinning, and he felt sick again. Damn. He tried to turn the tap on, but the washer needed changing and he always had to turn it off hard to stop it dripping. The other tap might be better.

  Apparently not. It wouldn't budge for the feeble urging of his left hand, and his right was totally out of action.

  He leant his head against the wall and winced as he encountered a bruise. If he'd been three, he would have thrown himself down on the floor and wailed, but he wasn't. He was thirty-three, and stubborn and proud, and he wasn't giving Lucie the privilege of seeing him this far down.

  'Will? Are you OK?'

  'Fine,' he lied through clenched teeth.

  'I thought you might want these jogging bottoms—I found them on the chair in your bedroom. They'll be more comfortable to slouch around in, I should think.'

  He opened the door—thank the Lord he had levers, not knobs—and took them from her. The damn woman must be psychic. He avoided her eyes. He didn't want to see mockery or, worse still, pity in them. He pushed the door shut with his hip.

  Her voice came muffled through the wood. 'Thank you. My pleasure, any time. You're too good to me, Lucie. No, no, not at all.'

  'Thank you,' he bit out tightly, and looked at the trousers, then at his feet. All he had to do now was get his shoes off and swap the trousers without falling over.

  Will looked awful. Grey and drawn and sick. He'd been ages just changing into the jogging bottoms, and now he was slumped in a chair in his cheerless little sitting room while she struggled to light the fire.

  Finally it caught, and Lucie put a log on the kindling and prodded it. It spat at her out of gratitude, so she put another log on to keep it company and put the spark guard in front.

  Bruno seemed to approve. He gave a deep grunting sigh as he collapsed in front of it, and proceeded to sleep. It was what Will needed to do, of course, but he was fighting it.

  'Why don't you go to bed?' she suggested after an hour of watching him wrestle with his eyelids.

  'I need to stay awake—concussion,' he told her in a patronising tone that made her grind her teeth.

  'No, you need to be monitored so you don't go into a coma without anyone noticing. I can do that— I am almost qualified to tell if a person's alive or dead, you know.'

  He gave her a baleful look and shut his eyes again. 'I'm fine.'

  Like hell he was fine, but who was she to argue?

  Taking the suitcase with her overnight things, which they'd retrieved from her car, she went upstairs, found a bedroom next to his that was obviously a guest room and made the bed with sheets from the airing cupboard in the bathroom.

  Once she'd done that, she went into his room, changed his sheets and turned back the bed. He'd need to sleep, whether he liked it or not, and she'd monitor him, again whether he liked it or not.

  She went downstairs and stopped in front of him, studying him. He had dozed off, his head resting
awkwardly against the wall, and for a moment she contemplated leaving him.

  His eyes were shut, the lushes dark against his ashen cheeks, and his brows arched proudly above them. Most people looked younger and even innocent in sleep. Not Will. He looked hard and craggy and implacable. Tough. Indestructible.

  Sexy.

  Good grief. Sexy? She looked again. Well, maybe. He was probably quite good-looking, really, she conceded absently. Tousled mid-brown hair flopped in disorder over a broad, intelligent brow. Beneath it his nose was lean and aristocratic, despite the kink in it that gave away an old injury. Below the sculpted, full lips were a strong jaw and stubborn chin—no surprise there.

  Sexy? Maybe. Certainly interesting in a strictly academic, architectural sense. And he did have beautiful, striking pale grey eyes brought into sharp relief by a darker rim. They weren't comfortable eyes. Too piercing. She wondered if they ever softened, if he ever softened.

  Probably not.

  They flickered slightly, but didn't open. He was awake now, though. She could tell. 'Will?' she said softly.

  He opened them, spearing her with a surprisingly alert gaze. 'What?'

  'Your bed's ready. Do you want anything to eat before you go to sleep?'

  He sighed heavily. 'No. I feel sick still.'

  'Water? You ought to drink plenty to help your kidneys deal with all the rubbish in your bloodstream after your fracture.'

  He nodded. 'I know. I'll get some water in a minute.'

  'How about painkillers?'

  'Don't need them,' he said, a little too quickly.

  'I'll get you some water, then I think you should go and lie down. You'll be much more comfortable.'

  'Did anyone ever tell you just how damn bossy you are?' he growled.

  'Mm-hmm. Lots of times,' she said cheerfully. 'Where does the dog sleep?'

  'In here, now you've lit the fire, I should think. Anywhere. Usually outside my bedroom door.'

  She went upstairs with the water and his painkillers, and came back for him, only to find him halfway up the stairs with that look on his face that brooked no interference.