Return of Dr Maguire (Mills & Boon Medical) (4 page)

‘Don’t even think of doing that!’ Christa’s voice was sharp. ‘The helicopter will be here soon—’

‘And that could be too late. If I could get underneath it, I could lift it out of that gap in the wall and with Carl’s support we could push it to one side.’

She stared crossly at Lachlan. ‘Suppose you get crushed?’

‘If we wait for that damned air ambulance to come, the boy will need more than a spinal brace and a leg splint.’

Christa got up from Greg’s side and pulled at Lachlan’s arm. ‘Do you want there to be two casualties, for heaven’s sake?’

He shook her arm away irritably. ‘I’ll be OK. We haven’t got a choice—look, it’s swaying again...’

For a second they looked at each other stubbornly then Christa shrugged, acknowledging that Lachlan was right. They couldn’t just ignore the situation—something had to be attempted. She looked around the barn desperately. There were some old packing cases and dust sheets by the wall near Carl. She began dragging them across to Gregory and shouted to Carl.

‘Come on! Help me get these over Gregory to protect him before you start tampering with the damn beam—put the sheets over him and then the packing cases like a cage. It might just take the shock if the beam falls.’

‘Why can’t we just pull him away from it?’ asked Carl.

‘Because,’ said Christa in a low voice, ‘we don’t know what damage Gregory’s done to his spine. If he’s damaged it in the fall, we could sever it.’

They worked feverishly to construct some sort of barrier between Gregory and the chunk of wood wedged over him, then Lachlan slid his body underneath it to the side of the injured boy, so that he could try and shift the beam from where it was so precariously perched. There was a tense silence: Gregory’s eyes fluttered open again and he focussed them on Christa.

‘What’s happening?’ he whispered.

Christa’s voice was calm. ‘Nothing to worry about, Gregory, just making sure the beam’s secure. Everything’s under control.’

She hoped devoutly that that was the case, and indeed something told her that if anyone could handle an emergency like this, Lachlan Maguire could. She watched him tensely as he manoeuvred the beam, calm but concentrated, no sign of panic. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised by his competence—someone who worked with the Flying Doctor service had to be able to think on his feet, quite an asset for someone she was going to work with.

Lachlan pulled the rag from his pocket and wound it round his hand to try and get more purchase. ‘Come on, Carl—I know you’re in shock, but you’ve got to help me, for your mate’s sake.’ His voice was tough, uncompromising. ‘Give me a hand to try and shift this. While I push it up, get your arms round it to pull.’

Both men grunted with the effort of trying to shift the wood away from over Gregory’s body, and eventually, with a final push and a shout of warning from Lachlan, it fell harmlessly to one side.

‘Thank God,’ whispered Christa, blowing out her cheeks and closing her eyes in relief. Lachlan climbed stiffly to his feet with a relieved grin and dusted his hands together.

‘There you are—nothing to it!’ He went across to Carl. ‘Thank you for helping there,’ he said quietly. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you. Now, tell me how all this started.’

Carl hung his head and muttered, ‘We...we were trying to get at the guttering—we saw the ladder and Greg thought it would be easy. I told him not to, but he started pretending he was a high-wire act and just fell from the beam up there.’

‘Were you trying to nick the lead?’

‘We didn’t think nobody would miss it. We didn’t mean any harm, we just needed a bit of cash...’ The boy started to shake at the memory of the accident, wrapping his arms round his thin body, rocking slightly on his heels.

Lachlan looked at Carl’s white face. ‘You feel all right?’

The boy shook his head helplessly as if unable to express just how he felt. ‘I...I just can’t believe it... Seeing it happen...’

His voice petered out, not equal to describing what he’d just seen, and Lachlan nodded, recognising all the signs of violent emotional shock in the boy. What Carl had witnessed had happened with appalling swiftness, with no time for him to prepare or adjust to the situation. His senses were stunned by the events and Lachlan recognised all the signs of ‘onlooker reaction’. He put his arm round Carl’s shoulder and drew him to the wall.

‘I want you to sit down here. Your body’s got a touch of shock, just as much as if you’d had a physical injury. After a nice hot cup of sweet tea you’ll feel much better.’

The boy’s face relaxed slightly. He hadn’t been expecting any kind words, but they helped to calm him, bring back something of normality to his fractured emotional state. There’d be plenty of condemnation later, thought Lachlan wryly.

Christa attached an oximeter peg to Gregory’s finger to get a readout of his vital signs.

‘What’s it like?’ said Lachlan.

Christa grimaced and murmured, ‘BP’s low, eighty over fifty. Not surprising, and his pulse is thready. How’s the pain, Greg?’

The boy stirred slightly but didn’t speak, and Lachlan looked at his watch.

‘How long are they going to be?’ he growled.

Then through the beating of the rain on the roof there was the sudden clatter of a helicopter’s rotors overhead, the sound increasing in volume as it descended somewhere near the surgery. Christa sent up a silent prayer—they’d arrived just in the nick of time.

‘Where will they land?’ asked Lachlan, as he and Christa exchanged relieved glances.

‘There’s a field beyond the woods at the end of the garden, they’ll put down there. It’ll only take them a few minutes to get here now.’

Lachlan got to his feet and went to the door to meet them, and very soon three men in bright orange outfits and luminous jerkins with ‘Doctor’ and ‘Paramedic’ labels across them came running across the courtyard. Lachlan gave a quick résumé of Gregory’s visible injuries and what he and Christa had done so far to stabilise him.

‘He’ll get a full body scan, and the theatre’s on standby,’ said the doctor accompanying them. ‘He was damn lucky that he had you two near him when he decided to do his sky-walking exploits.’

The paramedics set up a drip and strapped a spinal board on Gregory, with an oxygen mask over his face, and Carl started to sidle surreptitiously towards the door. One of the paramedics stopped him, looking at his pale face and trembling hands.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’ he enquired.

‘No. I’m OK.’ The voice was sullen, uncooperative.

‘Why don’t you come with us for a check-up, eh?’

A vehement shake of the head. ‘I’m OK, I tell you. I’m going home.’ He jerked his head in Gregory’s direction. ‘He’ll be OK now, won’t he? You don’t need me.’

‘Oh, yes, we do, my friend.’ A burly policeman had appeared at the barn door and stood in front of the boy. ‘We need a few names and addresses, young man. A little bit of information as to how this happened, if you please.’

He led Carl out of the building. The boy looked pathetic, shoulders drooping, and his jeans hung so low around his hips they were barely able to stay up. He looked back at Lachlan and muttered, ‘Will Greg be all right?’

‘Hopefully, but he won’t be climbing around on roofs for a while,’ remarked Lachlan drily.

* * *

The emergency services had gone and it had stopped raining as Christa and Lachlan walked back across the yard, Titan trotting proudly beside them, as if aware that he had been the first to alert them to the emergency. Lachlan stretched, flexing his stiff lower back, which had taken the strain of him pushing the beam away, and took a deep breath of the clear air. The velvety night sky had cleared of cloud and was twinkling with a tapestry of stars. In the distance was the sound of the sea, whooshing in and out on the beach.

‘God, that smells good. How I’ve missed that special Highland tang,’ he murmured. ‘I’d forgotten just how intoxicating the air can be in this little corner of the world.’

‘How many years since you’ve been here, then?’

A short silence, then he said roughly, ‘Too many...but it’s good to be back.’

Christa looked at the bleak expression on his face, and felt a moment’s impatience. If he had missed home so much, why hadn’t he come back occasionally to see his mother, a woman on her own? Christa was tempted to ask outright what had kept him away, but she sensed that that would be a question too far at the moment.

She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. So much had happened in the last hour and she should have felt drained, but instead she felt the kick of adrenalin after a job well done. Together they’d managed to keep Gregory alive, to retrieve a situation that had looked almost impossible.

She was profoundly grateful that Lachlan Maguire had been there—almost unwillingly she admitted that he’d been pretty impressive, efficient and reliable. Just the kind of person one would want in an emergency. She flicked a glance at his tall figure beside her—perhaps, after all, she was prepared to believe that he was as good as he said he was at his job!

‘I...I’m glad you were here. In fact, if you hadn’t been, I think the ending could have been very different. Thank you,’ she said.

‘Do you think our young friends are the culprits who’ve been nicking stuff from here?’ he said.

‘Could be... They’re both patients but I haven’t seen them for ages. From his odd behaviour on the roof I wonder if Gregory’s on something Anyway, they’ll do plenty of tests at St Luke’s.’ Christa sighed. ‘I’ll bet his parents don’t know what he’s up to—or are turning a blind eye to the situation.’

‘They’re going to find out soon,’ said Lachlan grimly.

‘God—it was a bit scary, like being back in A and E again. I thought we’d lost him, and he had so many injuries...’ Then she puffed out her cheeks, laughing up at Lachlan, her amber eyes dancing with relief. ‘But it was a great feeling that we kept him going till the paramedics came, wasn’t it?’

He looked down at Christa’s dust-covered face turned up to his, and a feeling of affinity with a colleague after a job well done intensified into something else—the treacherous flare of sexual attraction. For a second his eyes roamed over her heart-shaped face and wide eyes, as if seeing her properly for the first time, and he sucked in his breath. Good God, she was absolutely ravishing...and desirable.

Almost absent-mindedly he touched her cheek, wiping away some mud and allowing his finger to trail down her jaw. He smiled at her, then without warning he bent his head down and brushed her lips with his, slowly, deliberately, fiercely.

‘You shouldn’t look so bloody beautiful,’ he whispered against her ear.

Christa remained motionless for a second then touched her lips where his had been. They felt full, tingling and soft, and for a second she was bewildered. Where the hell had that come from, or had she just imagined it?

Then a feeling of outrage swept through her—Lachlan Maguire had the cheek of the devil!

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded icily.

He laughed. ‘Come on—you’ve got your headmistress look on your face again! It was just an expression of thanks for a job well done. Am I to sit on the naughty step?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘We seemed to work rather well together, that’s all! A spur-of-the-moment thing!’

‘You took a damn liberty!’

He looked rather penitent, but his blue eyes danced at her mischievously, and he gave his most disarming grin. ‘It was just a little gesture of, er, thanks,’ he protested. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you—it was a sort of compliment!’

Christa opened her mouth to say something cutting then shut it again because for a minute Lachlan looked so like a naughty schoolboy that, despite herself, she felt an urge to giggle. Obviously the impulsive kiss that had sent her reeling meant absolutely nothing to him—just a bit of fun.

And yet, she admitted to herself, the truth was that every single nerve in
her
body had seemed to respond with a longing for something more, something much more intimate, something that would repeat the fireworks that had seemed to explode so suddenly around her as his mouth had plundered hers. It was as if a switch had been thrown, and something that hadn’t worked for a long time had been kicked into action.

She pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind and decided the best response was to try and treat the episode with dignified aversion.

She buttoned up her jacket, and said rather pompously, ‘Don’t expect a repeat performance, Lachlan—I took you on as a work colleague, not a rake!’

He burst into laughter. ‘Come on...it doesn’t suit you to take life so seriously, Dr Lennox! I thought you secretly wanted to press your lovely body close to mine...’

This was a little too near the truth. Christa flushed and said indignantly, ‘Don’t be silly!’

Lachlan assumed a more contrite expression. ‘Don’t be cross. I’m sorry if I took you by surprise, but I know we’ll make a very good partnership.’

Those amazing eyes danced winningly into Christa’s, almost like a caress in itself, and although she was really mad at him, she couldn’t help smiling back. They were going to have to work together amicably, she told herself, so there was no point in maintaining a frigid atmosphere. She’d just have to be on her guard in the future. After all, wasn’t it typical of some males to take relationships as casually as picking sweets from a jar?

Then, dangerously, the thought echoed in her mind that if one kiss could practically send her into orbit, making her heart clatter in her chest and a thousand butterflies seem as if they were fluttering somewhere around in her stomach, what would it be like if they made real, proper love?

Titan whimpered and Christa bent down to ruffle the little dog’s head, grateful of the distraction to her thoughts. ‘Poor old Titan, you want your supper. In all the fuss I’d forgotten that. Come on, then—home time now.’ She turned to Lachlan and said lightly, ‘See you soon.’

As she walked home through the still night Christa’s heart beat a tattoo against her ribs, and even her legs felt slightly wobbly. It had been so long since any man had caressed her or kissed her—so long since she’d fancied anyone enough to do so. But out of the blue, out of nowhere, had come a man she didn’t know at all, sending her into a spin! She came to her front door and her hand trembled slightly as she tried to put the key in the lock.