Escape (9 page)

He shrugged as an apology.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “The thing with London is that yo
u get so sucked into the place,
you end up forgetting anywhere else exists. You kind of lose yourself.”

“This place is a bit like tha
t too—only in a good way.” H
e grinned.

“Have you been to London?”

“Yeah, I lived there for a while as well, but I never really liked the place. I thought, after growing up in a small town, it was what I wanted, but I was wrong. I lived there long enough to figure out the city would put me in an early grave.
Too much noise, too many people, too damn fast.
I swear as soon as I got off the train, I had to start running to keep up with everyone.”

She smiled, knowing exactly what he meant.

“And you’ve never regretted coming out here?”

“Are you kidding? Have you looked around you?”

She had and she did. It was beautiful. The moon hung low over the ocean,
its light reflected in the
waves. A light breeze touched her skin
,
bringing with it the scent of the bonfire and the sweet smell of the barbeque. Laughter drifted over to them. A girl screamed with laughter as her boyfriend picked her up and dumped her, fully clothed into the ocean.

“I came out to the island just like everyone else, backpacking, planning to learn to dive. When I went back home and told everyone I was moving they thought I was nuts,” he continued. “Bu
t they had never even been here. A
ll they were doing was sitting back in the UK complaining about the weather. I had no reason to stay.”

“Lucky you,” she said quietly, thinking to herself all of her reasons to be back home.

“And what do you d
o in the big city?” he asked
.

She glanced away and bit her lip. “Not much,” she lied. “I was a late starter and just graduated, so I haven’t figured it out yet.” The last thing she wanted to do right now was start talking about her work. The violent, angry, sad place of the hospital didn’t seem to exist here. To merge the two worlds in any way seemed like sacrilege.

He looked at her, surprised. “I thought you were going to tell me you were some executive for a corporate bank or something.”

She laughed. “Thanks. Are you telling me I look like a banker?”

“Look like a banker?” he raised an eyebrow, his gaze
flicking across her body. A
thrill of excitement race
d
through her. “No, Lucy. You certainly don’t look like a banker.” Then he gave
a tiny shrug and his eyes dart
ed away. “It’s just the way you talk sometimes. It’s as though something in your life is missing or something about it makes you sad.”

She stared at him. His ton
e had changed, suddenly serious. H
is dark eyes seemed to have grown even darker. She had no idea he was so perceptive, or maybe he had simply recognized something in her th
at had once been part of him also
.

“You seem to know what you’
re ta
lking about,” she said.

“I should. I was the banker.”

“You?”
S
he almost laughed, but then realized he wasn’t kidding. “Wow! I would never have picked that.”

“Well, I hadn’t picked you for the late starter, student type, so I guess we both got it wrong.”

They smiled at each other, locked in the moment. Their eyes said more than their mouths ever could and for a moment, Lucy thought he was going to kiss her. Then he looked away and the moment was broken.

“Maybe I should take the day off tomorrow,” he suggested. “Take you out for some proper diving.”

She couldn’t help the grin lighting her face. “Wouldn’t your boss mind?”

“Well, actually I’m...”

The sound of bare feet pounding
towa
rd them on the wet sand cut
him off.

“Rudy!” someone shouted.

Rudy jumped to his feet. Lucy recognized the man running toward them as the blond guy who Rudy had been drinking with at last night’s party. She thought he worked at the resort, but had no idea what he did.

He reached them, panting for breath. “Rudy, you have to come. There’s been an accident. One of the guests has fallen from the swing bridge and she’s hurt. She won’t even let us move her.”

“No, don’t move h
er.” Instantly, Lucy switched
to doctor mode; her voice authoritative, her shoulders back, her back straight. She got to her feet and grabbed the guy’s arm. She felt Rudy’s eyes on her, confusion at her sudden change, but she had no time to explain things to him now.

“Show me where she is.”

They set off at a jog, running along the sand. By the time they reached the girl, Lucy
was panting and
seriously out of breath. She quickly caught it again when she saw Leanne lying on the ground, hurt.

Lucy knelt beside her.
“Hey, how are you doing? Can you tell me what hurts?”

Leanne’s face glowed scarily white in the moonlight. She looked up at Lucy with fear in her eyes.

“My arm,” she managed to say.
“And my side.
It hurts to breathe.”

Carefully, Lucy manipulated Leanne’s arm, feeling for the bone beneath the skin and muscle, checking for breakages. She couldn’t feel any obvious breaks, but from the amount of pain Leanne was experiencing, Lucy thought she probably had a fracture. However, the painful breathing worried her most. That, combined with the pain in her side, indicated a broken rib and if she wasn’t careful, it could puncture a lung.

“Is there a hospital on the island?” she asked, turning to Rudy.

“No. There’s a medical center for the locals, but it’s pretty basic.”

“What do you do when
there is an emergency?”

“We radio in a helicopter from one of the bigger islands, like Koh
Samui
.”

“Then I suggest you get on the radio.”

He looked at her and for a moment she
saw
a flash of something else in his eyes—respect, admiration, combined with a question:

Who was she?

Chapter Six

I have clearly underestimated this
woman
, thought Rudy as he stood waiting for the helicopter to arrive.

Several hours had already passed since he radioed for help and he was starting to get anxious. They
’d
managed to get Leanne to the local clinic and Lucy found a good enough dose of morphine to keep Leanne’s pain to a minimum.

He had been amazed when, in the back of the SUV they commandeered as an emergency vehicle, Lucy took her identification out of her purse to show she was a qualified doctor. It hadn’t been appropriate to start questioning Lucy about her career at that moment, but he didn’t know if he was supposed to feel impressed or intimidated.

In truth, h
e was both.

The steady thrum of the approaching helicopter made him sag with relief. Pin
pricks of light illuminated
the night sky and he rushed inside to let everyone know help was coming.

The chopper landed with a whipping of air and a flurry of activity. Two paramedics jumped off the aircraft and he watched, taking a step back, as Lucy gave them Leanne’s s
tats and told them she was a Casualty
doctor.

“She’s lucky she had you here,” the older of the paramedics said. “If she had been
moved in the wrong way, there’s
a chance she could have pierced a lung.”

Lucy nodded, as though she understood the implication of what he said.

Rudy stayed by her side, feeling like a loose end. He was used to being the one in charge and in control, and it felt strange to find someone else in his role.

Watching Lucy at work was like seeing the real Lucy. He had suspected there was more to her than she was letting on and now, seeing her so calm and authoritative in the face of a crisis, he could see the whole person. He didn’t understand her reasons for keeping her profession a secret, but he could tell she was good at her job. If he were ever in an accident, he hoped Lucy would be there to take care of him.

He couldn’t help being impressed, but he was also worried. If Lucy hadn’t been at the resort, and if she hadn’t been with him when Leanne fell, what would have happened? The clinic on the island was tiny and as basic as they came, with just a single waiting room and
a separate
treatment room. It didn’t have the equipment or the staff to deal with anything more serious than a dose of Delhi-belly or a bad case of sunburn.

Lack of a decent medical clinic had worried Rudy for a while and now the worry was more of a reality. The paramedic’s words rang in his ears, ‘
she’s lucky she had you here...she could have pierced a lung.’

Did he believe in luck, or was it more like fate?

Rudy hadn’t hidden
his
surprise
when she pulled out her ID card, but Lucy had been too preoccupied to start explaining things. Only when the chopper left for the main land with Leanne on board, did he turn to her.

“So,” he said. “You’re a late starter?”

Together, they sat out on the veranda of the clinic—a wooden deck running right the way round the building— waiting for their ride back to the resort. They were high up in the middle of the island. The forest stretched out in front of them, the dark shapes of trees
highlighted
under the moonlit sky.

The only ‘ambulance’ (another SUV driven by a middle-aged Thai man called
Sanun
) had already gone home for the night and they were stranded. Rudy had called the resort and they were sending someone out to collect them.

She hadn’t wanted Rudy to k
now she was a doctor, but she’
d been left with little choice.

Lucy hated having to explain herself to him. She wanted to follow her usual instincts and run and hide, but his broad, solid presence made it impossible for her to disappear and she knew she had to play this one out. Whatever she was—whoever she was—she had reached a point where she needed to be honest with him.

She sighed. “I’m sorry.
I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you would want to talk about my work and that was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you want to talk about it? It must be so exciting being a doctor.”

“See,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. When people know
you’
re a doctor they look at you differently. It’s like they expect something more from you or think you should be something special.”

“Being a doctor is something special. Leanne might have been seriously injured if you hadn’t been here to help her.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I like to help people, but I’m certainly nothing special.”

Lucy thought about how she had never dreamed of being a doctor, how she’d simply managed to fall into the profession, if that was possible.