A Consultant's Special Care
Joanna Neil
Dr. Abby Curtis starts her new job in a busy A&E department with trepidation. Her consultant boss is notorious for his critical nature and she's had enough of overbearing menHer fears are borne out as Dr. Jordan Blakesley seems intent on faulting everything she does–but he's just so attractive that she cannot keep her eyes off him! And when dramatic events in Abby's life result in Jordan paying her very personal attention, she has to decide whether his protection is something she wants to depend upon for ever…
‘I’m a doctor. I should have known something was wrong.’
Her mouth trembled as she spoke, and she pressed her lips together to stop it from happening.
‘It isn’t your fault,’ Jordan said firmly.
‘Even so, I can’t help feeling that I’m to blame.’ Her eyes flooded with tears again, and he reached up and gently brushed them away with his thumb. Then, out of the blue, he tilted her chin with his cupped hand and dropped a tender kiss on her parted lips.
She stared at him in startled wonder. He had kissed her. Jordan had kissed her and it seemed as though the world had suddenly stopped its spinning and she was floating in suspended animation.
A&E DRAMA
Blood pressure is high and pulses are racing in these fast-paced, dramatic stories from Mills & Boon
Medical Romance™. They’ll move a mountain to save a life in an emergency, be they the crash team, ER doctors, fire, air or land rescue paramedics. There are lots of critical engagements amongst the high tensions and emotional passions in these exciting stories of lives and loves at risk!
A&E DRAMA
Hearts are racing!
A Consultant’s Special Care
Joanna Neil
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Chapter One (#ud7a87313-51b2-5cbf-9877-8a490c1b966d)
Chapter Two (#u5d58f656-c444-506f-bd92-8d72d0565796)
Chapter Three (#u34233da8-5c99-528e-a2a9-f53fd3d66ba7)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘HELP… Oh, please, help me, someone. I think he’s hurt badly…he can’t breathe…’
Abby heard the distressed cry from where she was sitting, on a sun-warmed golden stretch of sand in the lee of an outcrop of rocks. She had been watching the holidaymakers swimming in the sea, enjoying the rare peace of a summer’s afternoon while she listened to the snatches of laughter and sounds of children playing nearby.
Now, though, the tranquillity of the day was abruptly shattered. Abby lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and looked over to where the appeal had come from, further along the cove, where a craggy promontory jutted out into the sea, its rock-strewn base dashed by increasingly powerful waves. A fair-haired young woman was kneeling on the beach, and she appeared to be cradling a man in her arms.
Instinct took over, and Abby scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, snatching up her sandals and canvas bag. The skirt of her cotton dress flapped against her bare legs as she went, creating a faint breeze that cooled her hot skin as she hurried along the shoreline towards the couple.
Reaching them, she saw that the man wasn’t moving, but was simply lying there as though he had collapsed. He was in his early twenties, she guessed, on the thin side, his body still damp from swimming in the sea, and there were fresh grazes on his chest. Looking at them, Abby frowned.
‘I heard you call. What happened? What’s wrong?’ she asked, sinking down on to the sand beside the pair. The mass of her honey gold curls fell across her cheek with the movement, clouding her vision, and she swept them away with the palm of her hand, tucking the silky strands behind her ear.
‘He was swimming, and I think he was beginning to get tired,’ the girl said shakily. ‘He’s been ill recently—a kind of flu virus, I think…I knew he was overdoing it and I told him he should stop, but he wouldn’t listen…I don’t know what he was trying to prove. The waves were getting fiercer and I said we should be going.’ Her mouth was trembling, her voice breaking in panic.
‘Then all of a sudden a huge wave came and took him by surprise and toppled him over and he was too close to the rocks. I knew he was too close. I think he stumbled and he must have fallen onto them. He was winded—I could see that. It was all he could do to get back to me, and then he collapsed…’ She looked up at Abby, her blue eyes troubled, on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t know what to do. I need to get help, but I can’t leave him like this.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ Abby said, her gaze busily moving over the ashen-faced man. ‘I’ll have a look at him, shall I?’
She said it confidently enough, but if the truth were known, she had not long ago finished a stint as a house officer, and she was still feeling a little unsure of herself. Her next post as senior house officer wasn’t due to start until tomorrow and even that threatened to be a nerve-racking experience.
She hadn’t met her new boss yet, but Mr Blakesley’s reputation had gone before him. He was known to be sometimes curt, blunt and demanding, and as the consultant in charge of Accident and Emergency at the Roseland Hospital, he was the one who would be supervising her experience of emergency medicine for the next six months.
Pushing those awkward thoughts aside, she concentrated her attention on the injured man. He was still conscious, but he appeared to be in pain and wasn’t paying either of them very much attention just then. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Kieran. I’m Vicky. We just came down here for the weekend. We thought Cornwall would be so romantic…’ Her voice trailed off in despair.
Abby tried to reassure her patient. ‘Kieran,’ she murmured gently, ‘I’m Dr Curtis—Abby. I’m going to take care of you, but I just need to examine you for a moment. Is that all right with you?’
Kieran nodded, almost imperceptibly, as though the effort was too great, and Abby quickly checked his pulse. His breathing was laboured, and she looked carefully down at the grazed area of his chest. She watched as he tried to breathe and discovered that there was a part of his rib cage that wasn’t rising and falling as it should. Instead of expanding as he breathed in, that section moved inwards, and when he tried to expel the air from his chest, it shifted outwards.
‘I think you have what we call a flail chest,’ Abby explained to him quietly. ‘It means that you’ve probably broken several of your ribs in a couple of places, so that part of the rib cage is moving independently and interfering with your breathing. I’ll do what I can to make you feel more comfortable, and then we’ll get you moved to hospital for a proper check-up.’
She lifted her gaze to Vicky. ‘I’ll need to go and get my medical bag from my car,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll be just a couple of minutes…it isn’t too far away. Will you watch him carefully while I’m gone? Don’t move him at all, just make sure that he’s comfortable and try to keep him warm. If he should stop breathing, tilt his head back slightly and blow into his mouth. Do you think you can do that?’
Vicky looked at her with frightened eyes, but she nodded all the same.
‘OK, then.’ Abby looked around and saw that there was a beach towel spread out on the sand nearby. ‘We’ll cover him with this, shall we?’
She carefully tucked the towel around Kieran, and then got to her feet, reaching into her bag for her phone to call for an ambulance as she headed towards the cliff. Her car was parked on a standing space on the clifftop, and she was thankful that she was strong and healthy and could manage the climb at a reasonable pace. She wasn’t so sure that the ambulance crew would cope as well in this terrain with a patient on a stretcher, though, and when the operator suggested sending the rescue helicopter, Abby agreed readily enough.
Going back down to the beach was more difficult when she was carrying her medical kit, but she made as much haste as was possible, knowing that Kieran’s condition could deteriorate at any moment. He was already having problems with his breathing, and if he had punctured a lung or a blood vessel, he could be in deep trouble.
‘He’s getting worse.’ Vicky’s agitated words greeted Abby as she came to kneel down beside her patient once more. ‘What’s the matter with him? Can you help him?’
By now Kieran was showing clear signs that something was very wrong with him. His breathing was rapid and his lips were beginning to show a bluish tinge. ‘He needs oxygen,’ Abby murmured.
Quickly, she slid a Guedel airway into place, and then covered his mouth and nose with a face mask and began to squeeze the attached ventilation bag. ‘Do you think you could manage to do this?’ she asked Vicky. ‘I need to examine him again.’ As she spoke, she heard the gratifying drone of the rescue helicopter in the distance. At least help wasn’t far away.
‘Yes, I can do that.’
‘Good.’ Abby ran her stethoscope over Kieran’s chest. There were no breath sounds on his injured side and he was becoming increasingly distressed. His pulse was rapid, and the veins in his neck were becoming distended, and all that was very bad news. It meant that pressure was building up dangerously, and if she didn’t act soon, he could go into cardiac arrest.
‘Kieran,’ she said gently, ‘the injury has caused a tear in the pleural cavity around your lungs, and air is building up in there because it can’t escape. That’s why you’re having difficulty breathing. It’s caused your lung to collapse, and I need to relieve the pressure by putting in a tube. I’m going to give you an anaesthetic so that it won’t hurt as I do that.’
His situation was desperate, and she worked as fast as she could, sliding a cannula between his ribs and withdrawing the needle. There was a reassuring hiss of air as the gas escaped, and she taped the cannula in place and inserted a chest drain. In the background, she could hear the whir of the helicopter blades as it approached.
A paramedic came to stand beside her a few minutes later. ‘What’s the situation here?’
She looked up and greeted him with a feeling of relief. Briefly, Abby outlined the patient’s condition.
‘OK,’ he said when she had finished. ‘My partner and I will get him aboard the helicopter and then I’ll let the hospital know that we’re coming in.’
His partner was already preparing the stretcher. ‘I’d like to go with him,’ Abby said quickly. ‘His condition could worsen, and I want to do what I can for him. I feel responsible for monitoring him, since I’ve already been giving him treatment.’
‘That’s all right.’ The paramedic smiled and glanced at Vicky, waiting anxiously by Kieran’s side. ‘We’ve room enough for two more.’ He helped secure their patient on the stretcher. ‘It’ll take us about ten minutes to get there, but Dr Blakesley and his team will be ready for us.’
Abby felt a quiver of alarm run through her. It was beginning to look as though she was going to meet her new boss sooner than she had expected. She could only hope that the meeting would go well.
She looked on while the paramedics transferred Kieran by stretcher to the helicopter, which was waiting some distance away. When he was safely installed, the paramedic in charge helped Vicky climb in alongside Kieran, and Abby followed.
She wasn’t at all happy with her patient’s pallor, and as the helicopter took off and the journey progressed, she realised that he was showing increasing signs of distress. That was very worrying.
Vicky held his hand and murmured soothing words, while Abby inwardly fretted. If anything, he should be showing signs of his condition improving, but instead he was experiencing increased breathlessness and his pulse rate was rising. She glanced at the chest drain, and doubts crept into her mind.
If only she knew more about emergency medicine. Although she had followed what she believed was correct procedure, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that she had made a mistake somewhere along the way.
‘He’s still breathless,’ the paramedic observed, and Abby nodded. Could she have pushed the tube in too far?
The paramedic quietly relayed the developments back to the hospital via his radio and listened to the response. ‘Dr Blakesley is going to meet us as soon as we land,’ he told Abby. ‘His team will be standing by.’
His words were meant to be reassuring, but Abby had mixed feelings about that. What would Mr Blakesley think of her if she had messed things up? With her patient in poor condition there was the distinct possibility that she could find herself starting off on the wrong foot with her new boss.
She glanced back at her patient. If blood was building up in his pleural cavity, he was in imminent danger…She found herself praying that they would get to the hospital very soon. It was more than likely that Kieran would need surgery to repair the wound in his chest.
‘We’ll need to send blood for cross-matching,’ she said. ‘I’ll organise that now…and we’ll start intravenous fluids.’ That should compensate in part for what Kieran was losing.
They landed a few minutes later, and Mr Blakesley was taking charge even before Abby had stepped down from the helicopter. While the paramedics were giving their report, Abby stood back and had time to observe the consultant momentarily.
Somehow, he wasn’t at all what she had expected. He was relatively young, for a start, in his mid-thirties, she guessed, long-limbed, and full of vital energy, his jet-black hair tousled by the wind from the whirling rotor blades of the helicopter. He was wearing an expensively tailored grey suit, the jacket open to reveal a dark blue shirt.
Within seconds Kieran had been transferred to a trolley and then he was being whisked off through the wide doors of the hospital and along a corridor towards A and E.
Abby hurried to keep up. ‘He’s losing too much blood,’ she said worriedly, coming alongside Mr Blakesley. ‘He must have lost two litres already.’
The consultant was giving instructions to his team as they went, ordering X-rays and tests and calling for a cardiothoracic surgeon, but he paused long enough to throw her a quick glance.
Close up, his features were even more impressive than she had at first noticed, and she was thrown completely off guard for a moment or two. He was incredibly good-looking, his face angular, strong-jawed, his compelling eyes a satisfying mixture of blue and grey. His mouth was firmly moulded…attractively masculine, she thought distractedly, and immediately berated herself. How could she allow such an irrelevant observation to creep into her thoughts at a time like this?
‘I know you must be concerned,’ he said briefly, ‘but I can assure you that we’ll take very good care of him.’ His voice was deep and resonant, his tone reassuring. His gaze shifted to take in Vicky, who had paused uncertainly alongside Abby and was looking anxious and tearful. ‘For the moment,’ he added, ‘it would probably be for the best if you let the nurse show you both to a waiting room while we look after him. We’ll let you know how he is as soon as we can.’
Unsure of herself and bewildered by events, Vicky allowed the nurse to gently lead her away, and Abby heard her asking what was happening to Kieran, and what his chances of recovery were. Abby stayed where she was, following Mr Blakesley into the emergency room. ‘You don’t understand,’ she began, and he lifted a querying brow.
‘Are you a relative?’ he asked, and she realised with a small frown of dismay that he must believe that the doctor who had treated Kieran had stayed behind at the beach. He went on, ‘I know that Miss Baxter is his girlfriend, but perhaps you would like to tell me who you are?’
He looked her over fleetingly, and she was suddenly conscious of the flimsy summer dress she was wearing, a sunny yellow cotton creation, splashed here and there with a pattern of tiny pale flowers. The bodice clung to her curves and emphasised her slender waist, leaving her shoulders bare except for two narrow straps, and the skirt draped itself around her legs, falling in gentle folds to her knees.
His glance flicked to the shimmering cloud of wayward curls that tumbled around her face and lightly brushed her shoulders. Abby’s cheeks flushed with hot colour. She must look like a dishevelled tourist when, more than anything else, she needed to appear calm and professional.
‘I…I’m Abby Curtis,’ she explained awkwardly. ‘Dr Curtis. I’m the one who treated him at the beach.’ Hesitantly, she added, ‘He was suffering from a tension pneumothorax and I had to act quickly. I’m…I’m just afraid I may have pushed the drain in a little too far.’
His blue-grey eyes widened a fraction and held her gaze for a second or two. ‘Abby Curtis,’ he echoed thoughtfully, adding in an enquiring undertone, ‘So…are you the one who’s about to become a new member of my team?’
Abby nodded in response. ‘That’s right. I am.’
His mouth made a faint, ironic twist. ‘And you think you could be responsible for the fact that our patient is bleeding to death? That’s quite an afternoon’s work, Dr Curtis.’
He paused momentarily, then flicked a glance at Kieran, adding, ‘I believe my patient needs me right now. As I said, perhaps you had better take some time out while we take a look at him and see what needs to be done. You’ve done your bit, and from the looks of him it will take some time to put right whatever has gone wrong. I need to find out what exactly is causing the bleeding, and I suggest that you leave me to get on with it.’
Abby felt the colour drain from her face. She was sure her mouth must have dropped open at his words, and her only consolation was that at least he was no longer there to witness her humiliation. He was striding purposefully across the room towards a treatment bay and she was left standing there, suffering from an acute attack of dismay.
One of the male doctors on his team threw her a quick glance and winced in sympathy, before turning to the patient.
Slowly, Abby pulled herself together. What was it that she had expected from the consultant—a few words of comfort, perhaps, for him to say that Kieran was safe now that they had him in hospital? And maybe an explanation of how these things came about and what could be done to avoid them happening again? A teaching insight, maybe…was that what she had been hoping for, among other things? After all, she was due to start her posting at this hospital tomorrow, under Mr Blakesley’s guidance, and surely, at the least, she could have looked forward to some measure of support from him.
It didn’t seem as though she was going to get any of that, though, did it? Unhappily, she absorbed that fact, and then slowly stiffened her back, cementing her resolve. She had acted in good faith when she had gone to help Kieran, had done everything she could to keep him alive. No one, not even the all-powerful consultant, Mr Blakesley, was going to put her down for long. She was here to learn, and she would do everything in her power to become a good doctor, in spite of his abrupt dismissal of her.
For the time being, she went to find Vicky in the waiting room.
‘Is there any news?’ Vicky asked, but Abby shook her head.
‘Not yet, I’m afraid. It will take a while. They’ll do scans to find out the extent of his injuries, and then the surgeon will most likely take over. I’m sure Mr Blakesley will do everything for him that can be done—he’s a very-well respected consultant.’
No matter what her immediate opinion of him was, she had to give him that. Abby had heard about Jordan Blakesley from a number of different sources, and though his manner might leave something to be desired, they had all spoken well of his medical expertise. That was why she had applied for this new posting.
In truth, she had ignored the fact that some people commented that he sometimes had an abrasive manner and that he could be difficult at times, because she had imagined that was just hearsay. She wanted to learn alongside the very best, and she was prepared to accept a few foibles.
She had interpreted their comments to mean that he probably didn’t suffer fools gladly, but she certainly hadn’t imagined that she might find herself in that awkward position from the outset. It was only now that she was beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of her choice.
Eventually a nurse came to tell them about Kieran’s condition. She spoke gently to Vicky, telling her that she could go and see him in the intensive care unit.
Abby didn’t want to intrude on their privacy. Instead, she decided to go and get herself a cup of coffee from the machine in the corridor. Perhaps she would get to hear what had happened to him if she hung around for a bit longer.
What she wasn’t expecting was that Jordan Blakesley would come along and find her burning her fingers on the hot coffee that spilled as she lifted the plastic cup. She licked her fingers to help ease the sting and immediately felt embarrassed to be caught that way.
‘So you’re still here, Dr Curtis,’ he murmured. ‘Worried about what you might have done to that young man, are you?’
Her green eyes sparked fitfully and then narrowed on him. ‘Of course I’m concerned about how he is. Isn’t that only natural?’ There was a hint of tension in her voice as she went on, ‘I did what I could for him. I did my best, but if I made a mistake, I feel really badly about that.’
‘Do you? And have you been waiting here, all this time, going over everything that might have gone wrong?’
Abby bit her lip and put her coffee cup down. ‘I don’t know why you’re giving me such a hard time over this,’ she said, her chin lifting. ‘I was looking for support from you, since you’re about to become my mentor. I hadn’t bargained for outright condemnation.’
He lifted a dark brow. ‘You think I was harsh in my judgement of you?’
She had probably already burned her boats, so she went for the truth. ‘I do.’
His mouth quirked momentarily, and she thought she saw a glint of humour in his eyes, but it passed so suddenly that she decided she must have imagined it. ‘Well, at least you speak your mind,’ he said abruptly, frowning at her. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’
Had she gone too far? Doubts suddenly crowded in on her. ‘I’ve not had a lot of experience in emergency medicine,’ she said, backing down a little. ‘And some of what I did was what I had only learned in theory. I didn’t know that I would be thrown into things at the deep end, so to speak. I was rather hoping that my next few months as a senior house officer would help me to improve my skills. ‘
‘Being thrown in at the deep end is what happens in A and E,’ he remarked brusquely. ‘None of us can know every type of incident that will come our way, but we have to learn how to deal with it.’ He sent her a hard blue stare. ‘If you’re going to be part of my team, you’re going to have to learn to be a lot more confident about the decisions you make, and not be forever looking back on yourself to see where you went wrong.’
‘I realise that…I thought—I hoped that would come with time.’
‘I hope so, too, Dr Curtis. For all our sakes.’ His glance seared her. ‘In fact, you should know that you saved the man’s life. His injuries caused a haemothorax, which led to him losing a lot of blood, and you did what you could to compensate for that. The surgeon has dealt with the tear and managed to stem the bleeding. He’ll be all right.’
A surge of relief flooded through her. ‘Oh, I’m so glad about that.’
‘Of course. We all are.’ His glance ran fleetingly over her, making her conscious all over again of her beach clothes. ‘Are you expected somewhere, or do you have time to take a look at him?’
‘I don’t have to rush back just yet. I’ve a few things that I must see to at home, and I’ll need to go and pick up my car fairly soon—I left it on the clifftop—but, yes, I’d like to go and see him, if that’s all right.’
He nodded. ‘You had better come with me, then, and take a look at the results of your handiwork.’ Without any more preamble, he moved briskly away.
Abby blinked, feeling somehow as though she had just been in collision with a juggernaut. Then, seeing his tall figure rapidly disappearing along the corridor, she got a grip on herself and hurried after him.
She had never before come across anyone who was such a peculiar mixture of abrasiveness and compelling vigour…except perhaps for her ex-boyfriend, Richard. He had certainly been one to make decisions and sweep her along with him, hadn’t he?
He hadn’t started out that way, though. To begin with, he had simply been kind and considerate, wanting only to please her. It had only been later that his strength of will had emerged and eventually turned to something infinitely more disquieting.
Catching up with the consultant, Abby went with him into the intensive-care unit. Kieran was asleep, his body needing rest after the trauma he had gone through. His vital signs were being monitored, and there were tubes and drips of various sorts attached to him to support his recovery. Vicky sat beside his bed, and she looked up and smiled as the two of them came into the room.
‘The nurses said they think he’s going to be all right.’
‘I know,’ Abby said softly. ‘I’m glad.’
‘He’s still drowsy from the anaesthetic,’ Jordan put in, ‘but his vital signs have improved, and he seems to be doing well enough. The tubes can probably come out in a day or so.’
They stayed by his bedside for a moment or two, while Jordan explained to Vicky about Kieran’s condition and told her what was likely to happen next. Then he signalled to Abby that it was time to leave, and they said goodbye and quietly left the room.
Out in the corridor, Jordan looked down at the gold watch on his wrist. ‘I have to go. That’s my stint finished for the day, and I’m due at a charity function within the hour.’ He threw her a quick look. ‘You said you have to pick up your car—where is it?’
‘By Blue Ridge Cove. I was spending the afternoon there, taking some time out to get to know the area.’
‘That’s more or less on my way home. I’ll give you a lift.’
The unexpected offer threw her off balance. ‘I don’t want to put you out…’
‘You won’t. Let’s go, shall we?’ Briskly, without giving her any more chance to discuss the matter, he led the way down to the car park and across to a gleaming midnight blue saloon.
He appeared to be in a hurry, and as soon as she was settled in the luxuriously upholstered seat beside him, he started the engine and drove smoothly out onto the main highway.
‘You said that you were getting to know the area…you’re new to Cornwall, then?’ he queried as they left the town and headed towards the cove. He glanced at her obliquely, and when she nodded, he asked, ‘Where have you come from?’
‘London. I’ve lived there for a number of years, because that’s where I did most of my medical training, but I decided that I wanted a change, the chance to come and live by the coast for a while and breathe in some fresh sea air.’
Abby wasn’t going to tell him that part of her reasoning in coming here was that she had hoped to escape from her ex-boyfriend. She was determined to make a new start, free from the worries of Richard’s persistent refusal to accept that the relationship was over.
‘That’s a big change,’ he murmured. ‘Have you left your family behind? Friends?’
‘Friends, yes—I shall miss them. My brother lives down here, though, and my mother lives fairly nearby, in Devon, so I shall be able to see more of her than I did before.’
‘And your father?’
She might have known that he would pick up on that omission. She was saddened, thinking about her father. ‘He died some years ago,’ she said quietly.
‘I’m sorry.’ He flicked her another brief glance. ‘At least you’ll have your brother close by.’
She shook her head. ‘Unfortunately, I won’t. He’s working abroad for a few months, but he’s letting me stay at his house in the meantime. It makes things easier for me, and Daniel will feel happier knowing that the house is being looked after while he’s away.’
‘Even so, you’re taking a huge step, moving away from everything you’ve been used to. Choosing a coastal area when you’ve been used to city life is an immense change. You can’t have come to that decision lightly.’
‘I didn’t, of course. I wanted to study emergency medicine, and the Roseland has a good reputation as a teaching hospital.’
His blue-grey eyes searched her face. ‘So do a lot of others.’
She sensed that he was still doubtful of her logic, and that he was expecting her to say more, but she didn’t want to go into her real reasons for moving down here. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about the worries she had back in London, least of all to Jordan Blakesley.
If he knew that she was afraid of a man who had become too possessive, too demanding, his opinion of her would take a nosedive. He would probably dismiss her as incredibly weak and lacking in backbone. How could he possibly comprehend the way that Richard had begun to exert an insidious hold on her, refusing to let her live her life as a free agent? She could barely understand it herself.
By now, they had arrived at the clifftop where her car was parked. Drawing up alongside it, Jordan cut the engine and let his gaze narrow on her. ‘Life down here is vastly different from that in the City, but if you’re expecting it to be easier, you’re in for a disappointment. In the summer months we’re inundated with visitors to the area and the hospital takes the strain.’
‘Yes, I guessed that.’
‘Are you sure? You’ll be under pressure a lot of the time.’
‘I appreciate that. I’m not afraid of hard work.’
‘There will be no time for indecision and wallowing in uncertainty.’
Her mouth quirked in a wry grimace. ‘I’ll try to bear that in mind,’ she murmured. She guessed his opinion of her wasn’t great. No matter that she had managed to save a man’s life this afternoon, he believed that she had been uncertain and anxious, and he wasn’t a man to tolerate shortcomings in his colleagues.
‘Good. I’ll expect to see you tomorrow, bright and early, then. Just remember,’ he added on a warning note, ‘that if you do make any mistakes, I want to know about them straight away, so that they can be put right.’
‘I understand that.’
‘I hope that you do.’
She hunted for her car keys in her bag, and then slid out of the passenger seat. ‘I must go. Thanks for the lift.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He watched her walk to her car, waiting until she had unlocked it and started up the engine. Then he drove away.
Abby’s glance followed him, her emotions a chaotic jumble of uncertainty and apprehension. The man was an enigma and, not for the first time that day, she wondered just what she was letting herself in for.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHERE are you going? Are you going to work?’ A small voice sounded by Abby’s side as she left the house to go to her car the next morning, and she looked down to see a young girl, around four years old, her golden curls gleaming in the morning sunshine.
‘Hello,’ Abby said. ‘Yes, I am.’ She smiled at the little girl. ‘You must be Chloe—do you live next door?’ Abby’s next-door neighbour, Jessica, was her brother’s girlfriend. She had met the woman once, when her brother had introduced them, but on the various occasions when she had seen her since, Chloe had been at nursery school or playing at a friend’s house, and this was the first time that she had seen her to talk to her.
‘Yes. I live with my mummy.’
‘Where is your mummy?’ Abby asked thoughtfully. She was concerned, all at once. What was the child doing out here on her own on the shared drive? Luckily, the front gates were shut, and their latches were probably too stiff for the child to manage by herself, but there was always the possibility that she might try to climb over them.
‘She’s not very well.’
‘Isn’t she?’ Abby frowned. ‘What’s wrong with her, do you know?’
Chloe shrugged her shoulders, and Abby glanced over at her neighbour’s house and saw that the front door was open.
‘Did you open the door?’ she asked.
Chloe nodded, pleased with herself. ‘I got a stool and opened it,’ she confided. ‘I’m big now.’
‘Yes, you are, aren’t you? I can see that.’ Taking the child’s hand, she said, ‘Let’s go and see if we can find your mother, shall we?’ Abby led her towards the house, just as Jessica appeared at the door, looking frantic.
‘Oh, there she is. Thank heaven. I was so worried.’
‘It’s all right, Jessica. She’s safe.’ Abby briefly scanned her neighbour’s face and noted the dark shadows beneath her eyes, which emphasised the paleness of her features. Her skin had a faintly sallow appearance, and her dark hair tumbled to her shoulders in straggly waves. ‘Are you OK? Chloe said that you were ill.’
‘I was being sick.’ Jessica pulled a face. ‘Some kind of stomach bug, I expect. I thought Chloe was still asleep, but she must have got out of bed and come downstairs while I was in the bathroom.’ She frowned. ‘I never imagined she could get out of the house by herself.’ She opened the door wider. ‘Come on in.’
Abby went into the house. ‘Perhaps you need to have a bolt fitted,’ she suggested, inspecting the doorframe. ‘I’m surprised that you don’t have one already.’
Jessica grimaced. ‘There was one once.’ She rubbed her stomach, clearly still feeling unwell. ‘It obviously wasn’t a very good one, because it was damaged when my ex-husband came around one night and tried to force his way in. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed, but with going out to work and not feeling too well lately, and one thing and another, I haven’t had the time.’
Abby frowned. It sounded as though Jessica’s ex-husband was a belligerent character. No wonder Jessica looked tired and washed-out if that was the kind of problem she was experiencing on a day-today basis. No one could live with that kind of strain for any length of time without it affecting her health, especially now that Daniel was away. ‘Isn’t that a bit worrying?’ she murmured. ‘No wonder my brother wanted me to keep an eye on you.’
‘Did he say that? Daniel’s a lovely man.’ Jessica gave a faint smile. ‘He’s so thoughtful and kind…nothing at all like Colin, my ex.’ They walked through to the kitchen and she sighed wearily and sank down onto a wooden chair.
‘Is Colin likely to try to do the same thing again?’ Abby asked.
‘He might do, although the police have warned him to stay away. They gave me a panic alarm so that I could contact them any time I needed help. I’ll get the bolt sorted out today. I don’t want Chloe to wander off again.’
‘Are you going to be all right looking after her if you’re not feeling well?’ Even though she was conscious that she ought to be setting out on her journey to work, Abby was worried about leaving her neighbour to cope on her own, and she felt even more responsible as she was her brother’s girlfriend.
‘I’ll manage, thanks.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I’ll drop her off at nursery school and go and see the doctor. I shan’t go into work today.’
‘What about your family? Are your parents able to help out?’
Jessica shook her head. ‘We had a big falling out when I married Colin. They didn’t like him and they warned me against marrying him, but I went ahead anyway, and they were angry with me. I haven’t had much contact with them over the last few years. At first I was loyal to Colin, and later I was too proud to admit that they had been right all along. It got more difficult to get in touch as time went on.’
‘I’m sorry.’ That seemed so sad to Abby, to be isolated from your family when they were still around, but there was no time for her to talk about it now, and Jessica was looking poorly again.
Abby said quickly, ‘Look, you don’t look at all well. I’ll have a word with Mrs Matthews next door, shall I? She seems nice and friendly, and she’s on her own. She’ll probably be glad to help out if you’re in a fix.’
Jessica was probably feeling too ill to disagree, because she bent over as though she was in some pain. Abby stayed with her long enough to see that she wasn’t about to collapse, and then hurried away to find her other neighbour.
Mrs Matthews’s eyes widened when Abby explained the situation a minute or so later. In her sixties, she was a widow, and she generally kept herself to herself, although she was friendly whenever Abby spoke to her.
‘Of course I’ll go round there right away and help out. You get yourself off to work, love. They’ll be all right with me. Don’t you worry.’
Relieved that she had resolved the situation in part, Abby got in her car and set off for work. After all these delays, she was certain that she was going to be late, and she was sure that Jordan wouldn’t take kindly to that.
She had half hoped he would be too busy attending to a patient to notice her arrival when she finally hurried into the accident and emergency department, but she was out of luck.
‘So you’re here at last, Dr Curtis,’ he said tersely, subjecting her to a laser-eyed scrutiny. ‘I would have expected you to at least make an effort to be here on time on your first day.’
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I would have been on time, but my neighbour—’
‘Please, don’t give me any excuses,’ Jordan said crisply. ‘I don’t want to hear them, and I’m sure the patients don’t either. You’ll find the first one waiting for you in cubicle three.’
‘I—I’ll go and deal with it now. Right away.’ She backed away from him, feeling flustered and out of sorts, then turned and headed for the cubicle. He could have at least let her explain.
As the day wore on, she settled uneasily into her role as senior house officer. The summer season was on them and, as well as the usual number of local people who attended A and E because of traffic accidents or work-related injuries, there were many holidaymakers who found themselves in trouble of one sort or another.
Abby did her best to stay calm and clear-thinking, and deal with everything that came her way, and after a while she began to feel that she was coping reasonably well. Then a child was brought in, suffering from flu-like symptoms, with muscle and joint pains.
The boy was ten years old, and complained of a headache. ‘He has a fever,’ the nurse said quietly, and Abby nodded acknowledgement.
She smiled reassuringly at him, and said gently, ‘I just need to examine you, Fraser. Can you tell me where it hurts most?’
‘My knees,’ he said, with a hint of breathlessness. ‘I hurt everywhere, but my knees are the worst. My chest hurts as well.’
‘OK. Let’s take a look at you.’ She ran the stethoscope over his chest and heard a faint irregularity of the heartbeat. ‘We’ll do an ECG,’ she told the nurse in an undertone. ‘There may be some inflammation around the heart that’s causing his breathlessness.’
The boy’s knee joints were swollen, she discovered. Frowning a little, she tried to work out what it was that was causing Fraser’s symptoms. ‘Let’s do blood tests as well to see if there’s an infection.’
Turning to his mother, she said, ‘We’re going to do tests to find out what could be causing his illness. As soon as we have the results, we’ll be able to consider our treatment options. In the meantime, we’ll need to admit him for observation.’
Jordan appeared at her side just then, and indicated that he wanted to talk to her privately. She wondered how long he had been watching her. Throughout the day, she had been conscious of him in the background, and she was sure he was keeping an eagle eye on her progress. The last thing she wanted to do was to let him know that she was floundering, but she didn’t know quite how she could avoid it.
‘Are you having trouble making a diagnosis?’ he asked softly, when they had retreated outside the cubicle, leaving the boy with his mother.
‘It isn’t anything I’ve come across before,’ she admitted. ‘I think it may be an infection of some kind, especially if it’s affecting his heart in some way, as well as his joints.’
‘May I take a look?’ he enquired, and she agreed readily enough.
Jordan introduced himself to the boy and his mother, and made a careful examination, just as Abby had already done. ‘On holiday, are you?’ he asked Fraser, and the boy nodded.
‘We came here about ten days ago,’ his mother said.
Jordan smiled. ‘It’s beautiful around here, isn’t it?’ He glanced back at the boy, and said lightly, ‘Have you been taking the coastal walks hereabouts, or do you think you might have been overdoing the football?’
‘No football,’ Fraser answered, struggling a little for breath, ‘but we’ve done lots of walking.’
Jordan gently examined the boy’s calves. ‘Did you keep to the paths, or have you sometimes wandered through the fields?’
The boy looked puzzled, and said anxiously, ‘Both. Did I do something wrong?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Jordan answered cheerfully. ‘I like to take the coastal walks myself. There are some lovely views over the bay.’ He turned to Abby and pointed out a slightly reddened area on the boy’s calf. ‘Do you see that?’ he asked.
She had missed it. It was fairly insignificant, and it wasn’t something that she would have paid much heed to under normal circumstances. Now, though, she sent Jordan a questioning look.
‘What is it?’
‘A tick bite, most likely. Sometimes they’re quite pronounced, but if this happened a few days ago the area around the bite might have settled down a bit.’ He showed the child the reddened patch and said quietly, ‘I think you might have been bitten by a tick when you were on one of your walks. They’re usually found on sheep or deer, but walkers can suffer from their bites occasionally. They can pass on an infection called Lyme disease, which may lead to symptoms like yours. We’ll know for certain when the test results come through.’
‘What does it mean?’ Fraser’s mother asked. ‘Can you treat it?’
‘We can. If it is Lyme disease, we’ll start him off on a ten-day course of antibiotics, and he’ll need anti-inflammatory drugs to bring down the swelling and help relieve the pain. We’ll most likely put him on corticosteroids for a while, too.’
He smiled once again at Fraser and moved away from the bedside. ‘We’ll sort you out,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’
The mother followed Jordan and said in a low voice, ‘Will he be cured? I mean, will there be any after-effects, any permanent damage to his joints?’
‘There shouldn’t be. It may take a few weeks for him to be fully well, but he should be fine before too long. He’ll need to rest in the meantime.’
Looking a little more reassured, the woman went back to her son.
Away from the cubicle, Abby bit her lip. ‘I’ve never come across that before. Can you be certain that’s what it is?’
He gave a crooked smile, one that added a roguish attractiveness to his features. ‘You’re a city girl,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’re not likely to be familiar with it. In any case, the tests will take away any element of guesswork. Lyme disease is known mostly in the US, but it’s also a problem in Europe and part of our own southern heathlands. You were right to admit him. He’ll need support over the next few days, especially if his heart is involved, but he should make a full recovery.’
‘I’m glad. He looks so ill and wretched just now, poor boy.’
He slanted her a narrowed glance. ‘If you’re not sure about anything, just ask.’ His tone was brisk. ‘You can’t be expected to know everything, and it doesn’t reflect badly on you if you ask for a second opinion.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘I hope you will.’
He moved away then, to attend to another patient, and she was left thinking that perhaps he wasn’t as bad as her first impression of him had led her to believe. He could be acerbic at times, but at least he hadn’t had a go at her in front of the patients.
There was no time to dwell on things, though. More patients needed her attention and she made an effort to pull her mind back to her work. Whatever she did, she was going to be watched, but maybe in time he would realise that she was a capable doctor and he would learn to trust her.
The day wore on, and at mid-afternoon, when she was thinking she could do with a break and a cup of coffee, Sarah, the nurse who had been working with her said, ‘There’s a phone call for you, Abby.’ She laid the receiver down on the desk and walked over to where Abby was signing off some charts.
Abby frowned. ‘Who is it?’ She couldn’t think of anyone who would be ringing her up at work. Her mother hardly ever called during working hours, not wanting to interrupt her in case she was busy.
Sarah gave a grimace. ‘I don’t know, he didn’t say. He just said he wanted to talk to Dr Abby Curtis.’ She lowered her voice and confided, ‘I wouldn’t mind getting his number, though. He sounded wonderful. His voice is really deep and sexy.’ Her blue eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘If you don’t want him, just pass him my way, would you? I’m footloose and fancy-free.’
Abby chuckled. ‘Well, I will, if it’s my brother. I can certainly pass him on to you…but I have to warn you, you might have to wait a while to meet up with him. He’s in South America right now, and he’s not due back for several months.’
Sarah pulled a rueful face. ‘Isn’t that just my luck?’ she said, turning away to find Jordan waiting for her.
He must have heard their conversation, but his expression revealed no hint of his thoughts. ‘Would you suture a gashed hand for me in cubicle four?’ he asked.
Sarah nodded. ‘Will do.’
Jordan went to follow up on a patient of his own, and Abby walked over to the phone on the other side of the room.
In fact, she didn’t think Daniel would be ringing her at the hospital. If he wanted to get in touch, he would be far more likely to use a cheaper method of communication, like e-mail or fax, with perhaps a more private call home once a month.
The phone was housed in a Plexiglas booth, which provided a modicum of privacy. Abby picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hello.’
There was no answer, just a silence, and she repeated, ‘Hello, this is Abby Curtis. Who is it…who wants to speak to me?’ Again there was silence, and after a moment the phone cut to the dialling tone.
Abby frowned. That was odd. She waited a moment, still holding the receiver and wondering what had happened. Perhaps the caller had been inadvertently cut off and would ring back. She replaced the receiver and waited, but nothing happened.
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered who the mystery caller could have been. She didn’t know that many men who had deep, sexy voices, and the only one to spring to mind was the last person she would have expected to hear from.
Surely Richard couldn’t have tracked her down? How could he have found out where she was? Unless someone had unwittingly told him…
Quickly, she dialled her mother’s number and asked the question that was burning into her mind.
‘Do you think there’s any way that he could have found out where I am? You haven’t said anything to him, have you? He hasn’t phoned you?’
Her mother was calm and unruffled. ‘You know I wouldn’t have told him anything, Abby. I know how important it is to you that you get away from him. I always suspected that there was something strange about him, and I didn’t want him anywhere near you once I got to know him better. I thought his obsession with you was unnatural.’
‘I’m sorry. I was just afraid that you might have let something slip, without meaning to.’
‘I didn’t. I can’t think how he could have found you so soon—and, anyway, you don’t know for sure that it was him, do you? The caller could have realised that he had made a mistake and that it was a different Abby Curtis he was looking for—someone older perhaps, and that’s why he rang off without speaking. He was probably embarrassed. Or it might have been that the nurse heard him wrong and he had asked for someone with a similar-sounding name.’
Abby might have known her mother would react like that. She was a sensible woman, whose reasoning was nearly always straightforward.
‘You’re probably right. I expect I’m making a fuss about nothing.’ Abby talked to her mother for a minute or two longer, then said goodbye and hung up.
Her mood was pensive, though. Was she simply imagining things? No matter how Abby tried to brush it off, the thought niggled that the caller might have been Richard. Given that she had told him she didn’t want anything more to do with him, he might well have been messing about, playing silly games with her.
It was a sad state of affairs, because their relationship had been good to begin with, she recalled. Richard had been sexy, appealing, persuasive, and she had found herself falling for him over the weeks that had passed.
It had only been later that she had realised there was another side to him, a part of his nature that needed to be in control, to take over, to have everything his way. That was when she had tried to break off the relationship, but her retreat had only made him more possessive, more argumentative, and when the split had finally come it had been fraught with tension. It had been worrying when he had accused her of seeing other men, falsely as it happened, and he had become steadily more resentful and threatening.
‘We belong together,’ he’d said, in a way that chilled her to the bone. ‘If you ever try to leave me, you’ll regret it. I won’t let you go, and I’ll not let any other man come near you.’
And now here she was, several months later, wondering whether even now it was still not finished with.
‘Do you think you could go and dream about your love life in your own time?’ Jordan’s voice cut tersely across her thoughts. ‘We’re running an emergency department here, not a sweethearts’ convention.’
‘I wasn’t…I mean…I was just called to the phone, that’s all. I wasn’t letting it interfere with my work.’
‘Weren’t you? While you were lost in fantasyland, patients have been lining up to be seen. If you can’t keep your mind on the job, you shouldn’t be here at all.’
‘I’m allowed to take a break,’ she said, her green eyes flashing him a cool challenge. ‘Just because I choose to take it in a phone booth instead of the doctors’ lounge doesn’t make it any less valid, and I’m still around and ready if a major emergency comes in.’
‘If you say so,’ he threw back drily. ‘Looking at you, some might have doubted that.’ He thrust a chart into her hand. ‘The woman in cubicle two has a possible migraine. She, at least, has a reasonable excuse for having a muzzy head.’
Abby took the chart without another word and went to examine the woman. Insufferable man. What was his problem? Did he think it was his life’s work to provoke his colleagues, or was it just her that he had it in for? She had only met him the previous day and already she was having to bite her tongue for fear of landing herself out of a job.
Whatever had made her think being part of his team was a rung up the professional ladder? She might as well have tried cosying up to a snarling tiger.
CHAPTER THREE
JESSICA was still not feeling too well when Abby returned home that evening.
‘Did you go and see the doctor?’ Abby asked, going into the kitchen of the house next door. Jessica nodded. She still had very little colour and looked as though she was on the verge of collapse.
‘He said it was probably a virus of some sort, but he gave me something to settle my stomach and told me to rest.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘That’ll be the day—who can rest with a four-year-old running around? Actually, though, I don’t feel as sick as I did this morning. Just this awful tiredness.’
‘I can watch Chloe for you for an hour or two if you want to go and lie down,’ Abby offered. ‘You look as though you could do with a break.’ She filled a kettle with water and set about making her neighbour a hot drink. ‘If you’ve not eaten much today, perhaps you could try a little soup. I’ll make some for you, shall I?’
‘You’re an angel. Thanks, though I’m not really hungry.’ Jessica ran a hand wearily through her dark hair. ‘You and Mrs Matthews have been so good to me today. Corinne took Chloe to nursery school and brought her home for me. I feel really bad about putting on you both like this.’
‘Nonsense. I’m sure we both want to do what we can for you. It’s not easy when you’re feeling ill and you’ve a child to care for. As soon as you’ve eaten something, you should go and rest for a while. Doctor’s orders!’
‘Bless you,’ Jessica said, closing her eyes for a moment as though her eyelids were weighted down. ‘If you’re adamant about it, I think I will. Chloe certainly seems to have taken to you.’
‘She’ll be fine with me. Don’t you worry. I’ll bring her back later and help get her ready for bed, if you like.’
‘Thanks.’
Abby waited while Jessica managed some of the soup, and then settled her into bed.
Chloe was perfectly happy to come and make pink play dough in Abby’s kitchen, and she used biscuit cutters to make shapes out of it while Abby got on with tackling a few chores.
‘Dan’el writed a letter to my mummy,’ Chloe volunteered, holding up a squidgy heart shape for Abby to admire. ‘There was kisses on it.’
‘That must have been nice for her,’ Abby commented with a smile. There had been a letter from him among her own post when she had arrived home.
‘Mmm. I think she liked it,’ the child agreed. ‘But Mummy’s eyes was wet. She said she had a cold.’
Poor Jessica. Abby could imagine how wretched she must be feeling right now, both physically and mentally, with her family keeping their distance and the man she had come to rely on half the world away. And that was without trouble from her ex-husband to give her grief.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, Abby had problems of her own to contend with at the hospital, and she was on edge a lot of the time, trying to steer a steady course through the minefield of working with Jordan.
If he thought she was the slightest bit hesitant, he would query her decisions and make her account for every test that she ordered. So far, she had managed to keep on top of things, but it hadn’t been easy.
Late one afternoon, she stopped by the desk to sign some forms for the laboratory and found herself stifling a yawn. She had been run off her feet for most of the day, and the thought of going home and soaking in a relaxing bath was uppermost in her mind.
Unhappily for her, Jordan chose that moment to sweep by, and pounced with deadly accuracy. ‘Are we keeping you up, Abby?’ he enquired in a low drawl.
She gazed up at him blankly for a moment.
His blue-grey eyes slanted down over her slender figure, noting the slight tilt of her shoulders and the negligent way she stood, one leg pressed up against the wooden front of the desk, the other foot eased out of her shoe while she rubbed her aching ankle against the calf of her other leg. She was suddenly aware of the narrow fit of her skirt, and the way her cotton top drifted upwards over her rib cage as she raised a hand to cover her mouth.
Too late, she tried to change the yawn into a cough, and his mouth twisted sardonically.
‘Nice try,’ he muttered drily, ‘but totally unconvincing. Maybe you should tell your boyfriend to go home earlier so that you can get some sleep.’
The unfairness of it made her open her mouth in protest, but he had already moved on, striding towards the light box where he stopped to view a set of X-rays and offered an opinion to the registrar who was frowning at them in worried indecision.
It wasn’t as though there was a scrap of truth in his accusation, Abby thought resentfully. She had stayed on last night after her shift should have ended to follow up on a patient that she had been admitting, and as a consequence she had only managed a couple of hours’ sleep before coming into work this morning.
Why was it that she always seemed to get the sharp end of his tongue, while the rest of her colleagues escaped with samples of his dry wit?
It was so unfair, but she wasn’t going to demean herself by explaining what had really happened, especially when he was deep in conversation with his registrar.
He crossed her path again when she was about to get in her car to drive home a couple of hours later.
‘Finished for the day?’ he enquired softly.
‘I have,’ she said, flicking a frosty glance in his direction. ‘Any objections?’
She regretted the words as soon as she had said them. Junior doctors simply didn’t talk to consultants like that—not if they wanted to get on. But it was out now, and he was giving her a brooding stare through thick, dark lashes, his eyes half-closed.
‘None at all. Enjoy your evening,’ he said.
It wasn’t what she had expected and it threw her off balance. She sent him a wary glance. ‘I will.’
She drove home and tried to shake the image of his sculpted features from her mind. He was there to vex and challenge her throughout her working day and she refused to let him disturb her off-duty time as well.
It wasn’t so easy to dismiss him from her thoughts, though, and she tried to forget about him by spending the evening with Jessica and Corinne Matthews in Jessica’s garden. They sat out on the patio and talked quietly, sipping at glasses of chilled wine until it began to get dark. Then they decided to turn in for the night and each went back to her own home.
Abby was tired, and when she finally lay down in bed, she fell asleep straight away.
She didn’t know what it was that woke her. One minute she was deep in slumber, the next she was sitting up in bed and staring around at the night shadows in confusion. The clock on her bedside table read a quarter to four, and she thought she caught a faint beam of light arcing through her bedroom curtains.
It was probably just moonlight, but for some reason her heart was pounding heavily. Then she heard a sound, like the click of a gate, and she suddenly felt fearful for Jessica and Chloe next door. Was Jessica’s ex-husband on the prowl?
She slid her feet into soft mules and pulled her fleecy wrap around herself, while she tried to decide what she should do. Jessica might need some help, and Abby was determined to protect her and Chloe from any untoward happenings.
She crept down the stairs, thankful that the dim glow from the lamp she had left on in the hall lit her way. Going out through the back door of the house, she headed for Jessica’s kitchen door. It was locked, but as she looked up, Abbey could see that the bathroom window was open.
Just then, the kitchen light came on, and Abby heard Chloe’s small voice. ‘Daddy here, Mummy?’ she was asking.
Jessica’s answer was muted, and Abby tapped on the kitchen door and said in an urgent low voice, ‘Jess—it’s Abby. Can I come in?’
Abby heard the slide of a bolt and then Jessica opened the door. She was white-faced and her hands shook a little, but Abby could see that she was trying to appear calm for Chloe’s sake.
‘Me have lem’nade, Mummy?’
‘No, Chloe. Not now.’
Abby went into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. ‘I thought I heard something and I came to see if you were all right.’
Jessica nodded, and said in an undertone, ‘I thought I heard someone prowling around outside, and got up to take a look. Then Chloe said she saw someone in her room, but she might have been dreaming.’
Abby looked at her in alarm. ‘Have you checked the house?’
‘Yes. There’s no one here now, but the bathroom window has been forced open.’ She frowned. ‘I’ll have to get that fixed as soon as I can. Perhaps I can block it up some way, just for tonight.’
‘Why I not have lem’nade?’ Chloe asked, rubbing her eyes.
‘It’s not good for you at this time of night. I’ll make you a milk drink instead. You go and curl up on the settee and I’ll bring it to you.’
Jessica settled her daughter, then fetched a saucepan from the cupboard and set about making hot chocolate.
She was trembling still, and Abby said quietly, ‘I’ll do that. You sit down. You look a bit wobbly on your feet.’ She went to the hob and watched the milk heat in the pan, then poured it into mugs and stirred the chocolate thoughtfully. ‘Do you think it was Colin?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been, but with him, trouble usually starts when he’s had too much drink. He’s not usually one to creep about.’ She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Unless he’s trying out some new way to upset me…I suppose you must think I’m feeble to let him get to me this way?’
Abby shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think that at all. I know what it’s like to deal with someone who’s unstable. I knew a man in London who could be menacing if he didn’t get his own way. He was possessive and determined to have me as his girl friend. I even had to change my phone number because of him. I tried talking to him, reasoning with him, but nothing worked, and in the end I left. It was too wearing on my nerves to have to keep on dealing with him.’
‘I think it’s a bit like that with Colin. He can’t bear to think that I don’t want him any more. That’s why he keeps coming back.’
‘Have you called the police about tonight’s break-in?’
Jessica shook her head. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much point. Whoever it was has gone now, and it would only upset Chloe to have police all over the place. Perhaps I’ll tell them in the morning, when she’s at nursery.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Abby looked at Jessica’s pale face and said, ‘Shall I stay here with you for the rest of the night?’
‘Would you? I must admit I’m feeling really wound up about all this. It’s frightening to think that someone’s been creeping about my house.’
‘I would feel exactly the same.’ Abby gave her a hug. ‘We’ll all feel safer if we stay together.’
She doubted that either of them would get much sleep after that, but at least Chloe didn’t appear to be too upset by the incident. They took the little girl up to bed a few minutes later, and she looked out of her bedroom window to satisfy herself that all was well before she climbed into bed. Then she got up again and said sleepily, ‘Me go in Mummy’s bed?’
‘All right.’ Jessica hugged her daughter close, and Abby settled down for what was left of the night in Chloe’s room. When Jessica woke her in the morning, in time to get ready for work, she felt as though she had only just fallen asleep.
In the A and E department, Jordan was his usual energetic, breezy self, and Abby looked at him sourly through bleary eyes as the morning progressed. How did he manage to be so full of life, with such endless vitality? If he said as much as one small thing to her about looking tired she would not be responsible for her actions. As it was, she was still feeling anxious about the events of the night before, and her mood was fractious.
Chloe had bounced downstairs to breakfast as happily as ever, and had seemed not to be affected by what had gone on, except that when she had been biting on a slice of buttery toast she had said curiously, ‘Dat man still in your house, Abby?’
Abby had blinked. ‘What man, sweetheart?’
Chloe had shrugged awkwardly and had then looked at her with a touch of uncertainty as though she had felt she might have said something wrong. ‘I sawed him.’
‘When did you see him, Chloe?’
‘In the dark. I looked out my window.’ Then Chloe had stopped speaking, and had resolutely refused to answer any more questions, no matter how tentatively they had been put to her.
Abby had been worried. She had made a quick check of the house, realising too late that she had left the back door unlocked in her haste last night, but there had been no sign of anything untoward, nothing appeared to be missing, and she had begun to wonder whether Chloe had imagined it.
Then, as she had been preparing to set off for work, she had discovered the imprint of a man’s shoe in the shrubbery outside her patio doors. The sight of it had sent a chill through her whole body.
Perhaps Jordan recognised that she was out of sorts and not to be messed with, because he gave her a sideways glance as she snatched up a patient’s case file from the desk and briskly scanned it, but he said nothing.
‘I’ve had Mr Stevens’ test results back from the lab,’ Sarah said, coming up behind her, and Abby jumped as though she had been scalded.
Recovering, she said quietly, ‘Thanks, Sarah. I’ll let him know.’
They were busy in the department, and she didn’t have time to stop and dwell on things, but in the late afternoon, when they had finished dealing with a nasty road traffic accident, she was having a quick cup of coffee when Sarah called her to her next patient.
‘She’s been brought in by a neighbour,’ Sarah said. ‘The neighbour thinks she’s been knocked about by her boyfriend—there’s a history of injuries over the past three years, but the woman isn’t admitting to anything. She has a fever and she looks very poorly. She’s complaining of severe headache and pain in and above the eye. I’ve put her in cubicle five.’
‘OK, I’ll take a look at her right away.’
Abby was shocked by the woman’s facial injuries, but she didn’t let her see that she was affected. Instead, she murmured sympathetically, ‘That looks as though it must be really hurting, Rhea. How did it happen?’
‘I tripped and banged my face on a door,’ the woman answered. She was aged around thirty, and her cheekbone and eye socket were swollen. There was also a split in the skin, which looked as though it had started healing but infection had set in. She looked ill.
‘This must have happened a few days ago,’ Abby murmured, inspecting the wound. ‘It looks as though the cheek has become infected…it must be very tender. Didn’t you go and see your doctor for treatment?’
‘No, I…I didn’t want to bother him. I thought it would clear up on its own.’
‘Are you having any problems with your vision?’
‘Yes, things are a bit blurred.’
‘All right, Rhea. You rest there, while I go and consult with a colleague. We’re going to have to admit you, so that we can clear up the infection as quickly as possible. It’s possible that there’s a small clot forming at the back of the eye, which is building up the pressure there and causing your visual disturbance, so we need to deal with that as well. I’ll leave you with the nurse, so that she can take a swab. That will help us to identify the bacterium causing the infection.’
She left the cubicle and went to find Jordan. He was with a patient, but he came to talk to her as soon as she asked, and she quickly told him about Rhea.
‘I think I need to start her on antibiotics straight away, and I’m organising a scan. Should I give her anticoagulants? I’m pretty sure that she has a thrombosis as a result of the infection, and her sight is already being affected.’
‘Yes, that’s the best course of action. If we don’t act quickly she could lose her sight altogether. It’s not something that we come across often these days—mostly infections are cleared up by antibiotics before they can get this far, but she probably left it because she didn’t want to let anyone see what had happened.’
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