Desire drained away, as he had known it would, leaving him empty and shaken.
He stood up and went out of the office to the staff-room, pouring himself a cup of coffee with hands that were not quite steady.
‘Hi. Any left?’
The voice behind him was soft, and his breath jammed in his throat again. He let it out consciously.
‘Just about enough,’ he said, and his voice sounded harsh, scrapy.
He was conscious of her eyes on him, mellow with concern. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit preoccupied.’
It was clearly a dismissal, and he felt a kick of self-disgust as rejection flickered over her gentle face and she withdrew into herself.
He made himself smile. ‘Sorry. Clive Ronson. He was a bit of a mess. I was just writing up the notes.’
‘Nick will sort him out if anyone can.’
She sounded very confident.
He felt he ought to warn her, just in case the worst happened. Ridiculous. She was a professional. If the man died, she would take it in her stride. Even so… ‘He’s bad,’ Patrick warned. ‘It’ll be a few days before he’s out of the woods, you know.’
‘I know, but Nick’s good,’ she replied. ‘Too good for the likes of Mr James and his private ankle. Pompous idiot. I gather he’s still on the phone.’
Patrick felt the tension ease as they shared a smile. He noticed again how thin she was, how fine-drawn the skin over her delicate jawline.
‘How about lunch?’ he suggested into the ensuing silence.
‘Lunch?’ She said the word as if she had forgotten what it meant. He reminded her, and she laughed. ‘I know what lunch is, silly. I just didn’t realise it was time yet.’
He snorted softly. ‘It’s nearly one.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Shall I go and find a few sandwiches again?’
‘That really isn’t necessary—’
‘What did you have for lunch yesterday?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was too busy.’
‘And Tuesday?’
She sighed, recognising defeat when it stared her in the face. ‘Lunch would be lovely, but let me pay for it.’
He growled softly under his breath, and she suppressed a smile. ‘I mean it.’
‘Stubborn woman. All right, you can pay for your share. OK?’
She nodded.
Sensible woman. She knew when to give up, he thought with an inward chuckle.
He headed for the door, but as he got there a phone rang in the office.
Kathleen stuck her head out. ‘That was ambulance control. A lorry’s embedded in the front of a house, and the driver’s trapped. He’s still alive, but he’s bad, and it’ll be hours before they can get him out. They want a team.’
Anna joined him at the door. ‘Do you want us to go?’ she asked.
‘Will you?’
She nodded. ‘OK. Patrick?’
‘Sure. Let me speak to them, find out what they know so we’re prepared.’
He left Anna finding the emergency bag used for attending such accidents, and quickly established what else they would need.
His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He could eat later. Just now he had to get back on the merry-go-round.
Anna was appalled. The lorry was buried right inside the house, the cab almost invisible. As they arrived a fireman crawled out of a tiny hole near the left of the cab and shook his head.
‘I can’t really reach him. There just isn’t enough room—oh, hi, Doc. Want to try and get through? He can talk, but not a lot else. I haven’t got a glimpse of him yet.’
Anna took a breath. ‘I could try and get closer. I’m smaller than you two.’
Out of the question; it’s too dangerous,’ the fireman said bluntly.
‘For who?’ she asked him, her voice quiet. ‘For you, for me, or for the driver?’
‘He’s right, Anna,’ Patrick said slowly. ‘That whole lot looks very unstable.’
‘And what about the man inside it? How stable is he?’
The fireman shifted awkwardly. ‘We don’t know. He says his head’s bleeding, and the steering-wheel’s stuck in his abdomen, but we haven’t been able to get anyone in there.’
‘Well, you can now,’ Anna said with quiet determination. She took his hat off his head, plonked it on her own and headed for the little gap. Taking a steadying breath, she squeezed into the hole and wriggled forward, feeling her way towards the front. She could see a heavy beam of some sort lying across the front of the cab, and the door had burst open, jamming across her path. The hat was in the way, so she took it off and dropped it behind her.
‘Anna?’
Patrick’s voice. ‘I’m OK,’ she called back.
Squeezing out her breath, she wriggled through the narrow gap and up into the side of the cab. Her right hand went into a pool of something sticky, and she sniffed. Blood. Lots of it.
‘Hi, there,’ she said, squeezing as much reassurance as possible into her voice.
A grunt of pain came out of the dim cab, and she ducked her head beneath the beam that was lying above her head and peered up towards his face. Blood was oozing steadily down his cheek from a wound high up on his temple. His eyes were bright, though, and alert. That was a good sign.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked, knowing that it might be vital in ensuring his co-operation later in the rescue.
‘Nigel—Nigel Ward.’
‘OK, Nigel, let’s find out how you are. Where do you hurt?’
‘Everywhere. Head, chest, legs—especially my right leg.’
She was relieved about that. ‘Hang on to the pain,’ she told him. ‘As long as you can feel, you’re alive.’
He grinned, a surprising flash of white in the dark cab. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ His voice was wry and filled with pain. She reached out and touched his hand, offering comfort.
‘I’m Anna,’ she told him. ‘I’m a nurse at the hospital. There’s a doctor outside but he’s too big to get in here at the moment. I just want to find out how you’re doing, and then they can start making plans to get you out. I’m going to have to go again, to get some equipment. I need to take some blood so we can cross-match and replace what you’ve lost, and I’ll need to measure your blood pressure and bring you some pain relief, and maybe some supports for this beam before they can start shifting things. OK?’
‘Will you be long?’ he asked, and she felt rather than heard the fear in his voice.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Just a minute or two. I’ll talk to you as I go, and I can talk to you from outside as well ——’
‘Anna?’
Patrick’s voice was muffled but audible.
‘See?’ she told Nigel. ‘You can hear people outside. OK, Patrick,’ she called towards the door. Tm coming out. I need to do his BP, and I’ll need an IV set and Haemacel, a syringe