Читать книгу The Rebel Of Penhally Bay / Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Midwife / Falling For The Playboy Millionaire / A Mother For The Italian's Twins - Kate Hardy - Страница 16

I LOVE you.

The words stayed in her head, echoing round and round for the next dreadful minutes as she struggled to get IV access and keep him oxygenated.

‘Gary, lie still, you mustn’t move your head, you might have a neck injury. Just lie as still as you can for me, that’s great, and we’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.’

She could hear the sirens approaching, the blue flashing lights flickering on their surroundings and casting weird shadows under the cramped space she was squeezed in with the injured boy. And what she could see in those pulses of light didn’t reassure her at all.

She reached her hand under his shoulder and felt something warm and tacky, and her heart sank. Blood. Lots of it, seeping out of him at an unsustainable rate, and he was starting to fit.

‘OK, we have to get him out of here now!’ she yelled, and Sam ducked down behind her and laid his hand on her thigh.

‘What’s going on?’

‘He’s fitting, Sam, and there’s so much blood—Oh, hell, he’s gone off. He’s not breathing. Sam, we have to get the car off him or we don’t stand a chance!’

Behind her, she heard Sam relaying her message, then the voices of the other men arguing, and then she felt someone grab hold of her feet and pull her out.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We’re going to roll the car off him. Come on, out of the way, Gemz.’

He hauled her to her feet and they stumbled backwards as the fire crew and policemen heaved in a concerted effort, and the car hovered and then rolled away, bouncing back on its wheels with a series of creaks and groans.

Light flooded the scene, and Sam dived in almost before the car had settled and put his ear to Gary’s chest. ‘Quiet!’ he yelled, and everyone fell silent. ‘Right, he’s still with us, we need to stabilise his spine and then scoop and run! Move!’

They moved, and in a matter of moments he was logrolled onto the spinal board, supported and strapped in place and loaded into the waiting ambulance. And Adam Donnelly was there, too, getting into the ambulance and telling Sam to go back to Jamie.

‘He needs you, he’s in a hell of a state. I’ve got this one. Maggie’s coming, she’ll see to him. Right, let’s go, everybody!’

Sam turned and looked at Jamie, who was hovering on the fringe, his face ashen and his body shaking. And for the first time he realised there was blood running down his cheek.

He must have scratched himself climbing through the hedge, he thought dumbly, and then Jamie held his stomach and turned away. ‘I feel sick,’ he said, and retched violently onto the ripped-up grass at the side of the road.

‘Jamie?’ Gemma crossed to him and put her arm round his shoulders, and Sam stared at him in consternation. Was it just shock? Or…?

‘So can anybody tell me how it happened?’

Sam turned to see Lachlan D’Ancey standing in the road with a cluster of police around him, and his heart sank. Of all the things for Jamie to get himself involved in, he thought, and then he heard Jamie talking and his breath jammed in his throat.

‘He said he’d borrowed it—I didn’t even realise he had a licence, but then I realised it wasn’t borrowed at all, and I begged him to stop, but he just went faster, and he was laughing and saying old man Polgrean deserved it if he trashed his car after last night, and then we started to skid and there was a thump and we were just flying through the air.’

Dear God. He’d been in the car?

Sam felt his legs give, and jammed his knees back to stop them collapsing. No! He hadn’t been in the car! Surely not? He’d have been injured, and Sam hadn’t even so much as glanced at him.

‘Jamie, let me see you,’ he said, crossing to him and taking the torch from Gemma. He flashed it in his eyes, but to his relief his pupils were equal and reactive and although he was obviously distressed, he was alert.

So he might be concussed, but he wasn’t showing signs of brain injury yet. He was lucid, shocked but basically functioning, and Sam lowered the torch and handed it back to Gemma.

‘What hurts?’ he asked, scanning him quickly and noting he was holding his left arm. ‘Were you wearing a seat belt?’

Jamie nodded. ‘I was—Gary wasn’t.’

Of course not. He’d thought he was immortal, beyond the laws of man or God, but he’d found out the hard way that that simply wasn’t true. And he’d taken Jamie with him on that fateful journey with potentially disastrous consequences, and they could have both been dead.

He swallowed hard. ‘I need to check you over properly,’ he said, wrestling back his control and prioritising.

‘Is he dead?’ Jamie’s voice was hollow, and Sam ached for him. He felt Gemma beside him squeeze his arm, giving him support. ‘No, but he’s in a very bad way,’ he said softly.

‘I want to go with him.’

‘No, I need to look at you, Jamie. We can go to the surgery.’

‘Can we talk to James now? We need to take a formal statement.’

He shook his head. ‘Not yet, Lachlan. I want to check him out first. I need to have a proper look at him and X-ray his arm, amongst other things. But you could talk to Mrs Lovelace. She needs to know. Gemma? Keep an eye on him for a minute, I’m just going to pick up my things. I won’t be long, bro.’

So while he retrieved his medical equipment from the midst of the wreckage, she put her arm round Jamie’s waist and led him to Sam’s car and put him into the passenger seat, then perched on the edge and held him tight as he started to shake violently.

‘Are you OK, Jamie?’ she asked softly.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, but his voice was flat and his body was shaking like a leaf.

‘How’s your arm?’

He looked down at it in confusion. ‘Um—I don’t know. Sore? I can’t really feel anything.’

Oh, Sam, come on, she thought. Come and talk to him. Come and check him over.

But then Maggie Donnelly, Adam’s wife, appeared and crouched down and asked him a few questions, then went back to Sam, who shook his head. Oh, no, Sam, she thought, because she’d heard Jamie’s answers, and she didn’t like them.

She went to Sam, taking his hand and gripping it tight. ‘They have to take him to hospital, Sam,’ she said, backing the paramedic up. ‘Maggie’s right, they have to get him checked over properly, make sure you haven’t missed anything.’

‘I can do it.’

‘No, Sam, you can’t,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s your brother. You’re too close. Just go with him and be with him, and I’ll go and tell your mother what’s happening and wait with her, OK?’

He hesitated for an age, then nodded. ‘OK. How will you get back down to town?’

She smiled. ‘I’m sure I can convince the patrol car to drop me off.’

He nodded, then, ignoring the onlookers, he bent his head and kissed her. ‘Thank you. And thanks for going to Mum. Don’t tell her too much.’

She smiled ruefully. ‘I won’t. Go on, go and look after him. He needs you. He’s pretty shaken up. Are you all right to drive?’

He nodded again. It seemed to be all he could do. Words were deserting him and all he could see was the car flying through the air with his brother inside it. He could have been killed, and Gary might already be dead.

‘Right, come on, let’s go, we’ll follow you, but pull over if he deteriorates,’ Maggie said, and Sam got into his car beside Jamie, fastened his seat belt for him and then followed the ambulance back to St Piran’s.

It was after three before they got home, and Gemma was sitting up with Linda in the kitchen drinking what felt like their hundredth cup of tea as the car pulled up.

‘Oh, that’s Sam. Gemma, make sure—see if he’s brought Jamie.’

Her face crumpled, and Gemma hugged her swiftly and went out of the front door in time to see Jamie unfolding himself stiffly from the front seat, his left arm in a sling and with a back-slab on it, and steristrips on his cheekbone.

‘Jamie’s here,’ she called back, and she heard Linda’s sob of relief. She smiled at the young man as he stepped inside, trying not to wince at the rapidly emerging bruises on his face. Linda was going to have a fit. ‘Hi, sport, how are you?’ she asked gently.

‘Sore,’ he said, still sounding shaken, ‘and I just want to go to sleep but Sam won’t let me.’

‘You can go to sleep, but I’m going to keep waking you,’ Sam warned, ‘just to be on the safe side.’

‘But I don’t want to wake up.’

‘I know. Neither do I. But I need to make sure you’re all right. You’ve had a head injury, Jamie, you need to be checked regularly.’

Then Linda was gathering her errant son gently into her arms and sobbing, and Jamie was patting her awkwardly and trying not to cry, and Gemma could see that Sam was struggling, too.

And it had all been so horribly, stupidly unnecessary.

‘How’s Gary?’ she asked Sam in a low voice, and he shrugged.

‘Touch and go. Ben Carter filled me in. He’s got a shattered pelvis, a flail chest with penetrating rib injuries and a head injury—and that’s just the obvious stuff. They’re stabilising him, but he’s got weak reflexes in his legs and he may have permanent damage to his spinal cord. They’re going to scan him when he’s stable, but he’s on steroids now and they’re fighting to keep him alive. The rest will sort itself out if he makes it.’

‘Does Jamie know?’

‘Yes. He saw him briefly in Resus, but Gary was out of it. He just needed to know he was alive.’

She rubbed his arm comfortingly. ‘Sam, I’m so sorry. I’ll go now. Call me if there’s anything I can do.’

‘Sure. Thanks, you’re a star.’

He kissed her briefly on the cheek, his hand resting a moment longer on her shoulder, then he turned back to his family to pick up the pieces of yet another crisis.

How much more? How much more could he be asked to take? And how could she even conceivably put any more on him?

She left them to it and went home to bed, only to find the chocolate sauce bowl had been upended in the middle of her bed in all the confusion, and she thought of Sam making love to her, and the conversation they’d been having which had been so violently interrupted—a conversation they had yet to finish.

And she desperately needed to get to bed, but it was trashed, and the spare bed wasn’t made up.

Pulling the bedding off, she carried it back downstairs, stuffed the sheet into the washing machine and took the quilt into the sitting room and curled up on the sofa with it snuggled round her. She was cold, she realised, and shaking with reaction now it was all over and there was nothing more to do. She could feel the sobs rising in her chest and she tried to hold them back, but she could still see Gary fitting, the terrible moments as he fought for his young life, and suddenly it was all too much.

‘Oh, Sam, I need you,’ she sobbed. Cuddling the bedding closer, she buried her face in it, in the scent of Sam’s body, and wept for Gary and his family, and the close call Jamie had had, and Sam, struggling to hold it all together—and above all, the senselessness of the illness that had taken her away from him and wasted the last eleven years…

‘How are things?’

Sam gave her a weary smile, pushed her backwards into her treatment room and closed the door, then pulled her into his arms and held her without speaking for several minutes.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked softly, and he nodded, his head moving against her shoulder.

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘And Jamie? I didn’t like to ask too much last night, but I’ve been wondering.’

‘He’s OK. He’s very sore, and he’s got some spectacular bruises, but they did an ultrasound aorta scan and X-rayed him all over and—well, he’s fine. He’s got several fractures in his lower arm and wrist and hand, and his sternum’s really bruised from the seat belt, but on the whole he’s been incredibly lucky. Unlike Gary.’

She sighed and rubbed his back comfortingly. ‘Poor Amanda. Nick’s been to see her at the hospital and she’s devastated. She said everyone’s going to think he’s got his just deserts, but she’s heartbroken. She’s such a sweet woman, but hopelessly ineffectual. According to Nick her husband’s a total waste of space, and she keeps letting him back every time he’s out of prison. But at least she’s got proper contraceptive cover now, so she’s not still getting pregnant every time he’s out, and maybe the other children will learn by Gary’s mistakes and there might be a better chance for them.’

Sam let out his breath on a harsh sigh. ‘Maybe. At least he can’t hurt anyone else for a while now.’

‘No. Amanda said that herself, apparently. Poor woman. Oh, well, if he survives maybe it’ll be the making of him.’ She straightened up and looked into Sam’s red-rimmed, exhausted eyes. ‘You don’t look as if you had much sleep. What are you doing here? You should be at home in bed. They aren’t expecting you.’

‘I’ve brought Jamie in,’ he explained. ‘He needs another X-ray and a proper cast. Gabriel’s just checking him over for me. Could you put the cast on? My left hand’s not very useful, I might squeeze it too tight. No feedback.’

‘Of course.’

She went down to the X-ray room with him and she and Sam looked at the plates with Gabriel while Jamie sat on the chair and stared blankly at the wall opposite, his battered face expressionless.

‘Well, it looks good,’ Gabriel said, studying the films on the light box. ‘Nothing displaced. See here, a clean break of the radius and ulna, and two of the carpals, here and here, and the scaphoid and first metatarsal both have very fine cracks, but he’s been lucky and I think he can have a proper cast now. There’s only a little swelling. He’ll need the thumb held out to keep the scaphoid aligned, but he should be OK. It’ll need another X-ray in two weeks to check the alignment.’

‘Great. Thank you, Gabriel. So, Gemma, can you plaster it for him?’

‘Sure. Come on, Jamie, let’s see what we can do. What colour do you want?’

‘I don’t care,’ he said tonelessly, so she went for dark blue, and swiftly and carefully wrapped his arm in the fibreglass cast, checking it was comfortable and making him wiggle his fingers slightly, then glanced up at Sam. ‘Happy with the position?’

‘Very. You’ve done a lovely job, thank you.’

‘Thank the time I spent in A and E doing nothing else,’ she said, then smiled at Jamie. ‘Right, you’ll do,’ she said, squeezing his shoulder in support. ‘Keep it up, rest it and wiggle your fingers every few minutes. And don’t get the cast wet, don’t stick anything down it if it gets itchy and tell someone if it gets too tight or too loose or if your fingers swell or discolour. OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, not looking at her, and she could see he was at the end of his rope.

‘Take him home, Sam, put him to bed—and get some sleep yourself,’ she said softly. ‘You both look done in.’

‘I can’t sleep,’ Jamie said. ‘I just keep seeing it.’

Sam put an arm gently round his shoulders. ‘You’ll be all right. Come on, mate, let’s go home and see if we can find a DVD.’

She watched them go, and Kate came out of the office and shook her head. ‘Poor boy. He must be so upset.’

‘He is—I think he feels guilty because he’s got away with it so lightly in comparison. I’ve just been putting a cast on for him to replace the back-slab. Which reminds me, how’s Jem’s wrist?’

‘Oh, he’s fine. Back at school and proudly showing it off to everyone. I think he wishes it had been broken! He’s feeling terribly guilty about Digger’s paw.’

‘He shouldn’t. Digger’s fine, he’s spending all his time on Linda’s knee at the moment, and now Jamie’s hurt he’ll be snuggled up to him as well, so he’s got plenty of company while he heals. He’ll be spoilt rotten.’

She watched Sam through the glass doors as he put Jamie in the car and then drove away, and she wondered how long it would be before they could spend any time alone together, and when, if ever, they’d finish that long-overdue conversation…

‘It’s been really odd at school today—quiet. Nobody likes Gary, but they all remember him, and of course the middle brother’s still there. It’s as if everyone’s holding their breath, waiting for the news.’

‘Mmm.’ Kate nodded at Rob and stirred the teapot thoughtfully. ‘Jem said how strange it was without Tel and Tassie. They’re above him and Matthew, of course, but he knows Tel.’ She didn’t let herself dwell on how he’d been so badly bullied by him, but somehow Rob knew that and gave her a gentle one-armed hug.

‘He’s OK now, Kate.’

‘I know. I’m just so glad he’s got Matthew for a friend.’

She looked up at him and smiled, and he stared down at her and for a moment she thought—no. Silly. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss her. Although if he did…

But he moved away, and she took a deep breath and poured the tea, and the moment was gone. Rob took the tea from her and looked out of the window to where the two boys were playing in the garden.

‘Can I ask something?’ he asked quietly.

She followed the direction of his eyes and thought, Oh, no. Please, no. ‘What?’

‘You and Nick…’

He let it hang there in the air, and she looked down into her tea while Rob waited.

Then, when it was obvious she wasn’t going to reply, he sighed softly. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Forget I said anything.’

She hesitated, then blurted out, ‘Nobody knows.’

‘Nobody?’

She gave a strangled laugh. ‘Oh, Nick knows,’ she said, and wondered if her voice sounded as bitter as it felt. ‘But hardly anybody else, although that won’t last. It’s getting more and more obvious as he gets older, and it’s only a matter of time.’

She bit her lip, staring at Jem through the window and feeling her heart swell with love. ‘It was just once,’ she went on. ‘A stupid, stupid thing, and I know I ought to regret it, but—I love my son, Rob, and I wouldn’t turn the clock back and undo it for anything, because then I wouldn’t have him. He would never have existed, and I can’t imagine life without him.’

‘No. I know what you mean. Losing Annette broke my heart, but I don’t think I could ever have dealt with losing Matthew.’

She felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Rob. It must have been dreadful.’

‘It was—but it’s a long time ago now, nearly five years, and I’m ready to move on.’

She looked up at him then, and realised he was talking about her, about them, and she thought, Yes, I’m ready, too. Not for a grand passion, maybe, because there’ll always only be Nick, but a gentle love, a caring friend, someone to share things with? I’m ready for that.

‘What are you doing on Friday night?’ she asked.

‘Why?’

‘Because the children are both at Alex Pentreath’s birthday party, and I wondered if you’d like to come for supper?’

He hesitated for a moment, then smiled. ‘That sounds very nice. Thank you. I’d love to.’

‘Good,’ she said with a smile. ‘More tea?’

Gary Lovelace made slight progress in the next few days, and by the end of the week he was downgraded from critical to stable. Not that many of the people in the village cared one way or the other, and not least Mr Polgrean, who was furious about his car and not at all surprised to hear that Jamie had been involved.

And because Jamie was getting better, Sam took him to see the man, to explain that he hadn’t been anything to do with its theft and to apologise for all the trouble he’d caused in the past, and after he grudgingly accepted his brother’s apology, he turned to Sam and said he owed him one, too.

‘This leg business. They said I could have died. You were right, and I had no business bringing up the past like that. If you’d walked away…’

‘I could have been struck off for neglect. Let’s just forget it and let bygones be bygones, shall we?’ he offered, and held out his hand to the crusty old fisherman.

And after an age, he took it, and Sam watched the anger and bitterness drain out of him. He took Jamie home, and the following day he returned to school, to Sam’s relief, as he had significant public exams coming up in the next few weeks, and then everything quietened down.

On the home front, at least. Sam was able to go back to work, and it was mayhem, because the tourists were starting to come in larger numbers, especially the surfers, and then Adam Donnelly dropped a bombshell into the mix.

‘Maggie and I have decided that the world’s a fascinating place and we want to go and see it before we settle down and have a family, so we’re going to be leaving Penhally at the end of August,’ he announced at their weekly staff meeting.

Amid the exclamations and ripple of comment, Sam wondered what the staffing implications would be—and if Nick would try and talk him into staying on full time.

He wasn’t sure, and he certainly didn’t know what his answer would be, but that would rather depend on Gemma, he thought, which brought up the subject of the conversation they’d been having when Jamie had phoned him on Monday night.

And it was Friday now, four days later, and he was still no nearer finding out why she’d left him.

But he’d promised to take Jamie over to the hospital this evening to see Gary, and his mother needed his attention, and he would just have to wait. It wasn’t the sort of conversation he wanted to rush. There was something she wasn’t telling him, something so hugely significant that it had led to the end of their marriage, and he wanted time to talk it through, to get right to the bottom of it and thrash it out, once and for all.

He’d waited nearly eleven years, after all. What difference could a few more days make?

Nick drummed his fingers on the kitchen table and stared blindly out of the window at the dark sea.

He was lonely. Lonely and bored, and he knew Jem was at a party tonight. He glanced at his watch. Ten to ten. Kate might still be up. He could drive past, see if there were any lights on. He wanted to talk to her about Polly Searle—or Polly Carrick, as she now was.

He couldn’t remember her at all, but he could remember her father, and he’d been a thoroughly nasty piece of work. No wonder she’d changed her name to her mother’s maiden name. He couldn’t remember much about her, because he’d not been her GP, of course, Phil had, but Kate would know.

And she was right, they could do with a woman doctor. He hated all the menopause stuff, it was utterly foreign to him and women got so emotional. Yes, a woman doctor would be good.

Tossing his keys in the air and catching them with a sweep of his arm, Nick headed out of the door, locking it behind him out of habit—not that he needed to, probably, with Gary Lovelace out of the frame for now, but old habits died hard.

He drove along Harbour Road past the fishing boats that were all getting ready to go out on the tide, and up Treligga Road to Kate’s house. He could see lights on, but as he approached he noticed a strange car on the drive.

Odd. She must have visitors.

And then he saw her cross in front of the kitchen window, and a man—Rob Werrick?—walked into view.

Damn. So he’d been right, they were seeing each other. Unless Rob was picking up something Matthew had left behind? That could be it.

Except, if that was the case, why was Rob looking down at Kate like that? And why…?

Oh, God. He watched in horror as Kate lifted her face to his kiss, then sat, transfixed, as the kiss grew more passionate.

No! But then they moved apart, and he felt a wave of relief, but it was short-lived. The landing light came on, then the bedroom light. And Kate reached up and closed the curtains.

He felt a wave of nausea wash over him and, spinning the wheel, he gunned the car back down the hill and out along the Harbour Road, up past the Smugglers’.

He didn’t stop, although he often dropped in for a quiet pint with Tony.

But not tonight. Tonight…

Tonight he just wanted to scream with frustration and bitterness and all the pent-up emotion that was normally locked down tight inside him, and until he had it under control, he was going nowhere.

But he couldn’t get the image of Kate and Rob out of his mind, and he was eaten up with a nameless emotion that felt suspiciously like jealousy.

Ridiculous. He didn’t even want Kate!

But he was damned if he wanted someone else having her, he thought bitterly. He contemplated going home and getting drunk, but dismissed the thought. There was a better way to deal with his frustration, and it was about time he dusted off his social life. Hauling his phone out of his pocket, he scrolled through his numbers, then paused and pressed the call button.

Moments later, it was answered, and he took a breath and leant back, calming himself.

‘Louise? It’s Nick. How are you? We haven’t spoken for a while—I’m sorry, I’ve been rather tied up. Look, are you busy? I was wondering if I could drop by…’