Josh ran a hand over the back of his neck, for the first time in his life feeling totally redundant in a medical situation. He kept waiting for her to do something wrong so that he could intervene, but she was doing everything right and she didn’t even seem to want help doing it.
She leaned closer to the patient, her body a slim curve in the tight wetsuit. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’ Her voice was brisk and professional. ‘Can you tell me your name?’
The man groaned and screwed up his face. ‘My head…’
‘I know about your head and I know about your arm.’ Her slim fingers were on the man’s scalp, feeling for damage. ‘But now I need you to tell me your name.’
The man closed his eyes and the girl frowned slightly. Then she leaned closer to him and gave a sniff.
‘He’s been drinking.’ Her nose wrinkled in distaste and she glared at his friends who were still lurking close by, looking as though they’d rather be anywhere else. ‘Was he drinking before surfing?’
One of them shifted. ‘Maybe, just a bit.’
‘A bit?’ She gave them a look designed to freeze boiling water. ‘One of you get on the phone and call an ambulance. He’s going to need to go to hospital. I can’t tell what’s the bang on the head and what’s the alcohol. What’s his name?’
‘Dave.’ One of the lads shrugged. ‘He only had a couple of beers.’
‘Before surfing? He should have known better. And so should you lot.’ The girl shot them a look of contempt and then turned her attention back to the patient. ‘Dave, I’m going to put a dressing on your head and then get you to hospital. You’re going to need an X-ray and some stitches, and next time either drink or surf but don’t do both together. I need another T-shirt to bind his head.’
Finally she looked up at Josh and immediately she stilled. Slanting green eyes locked with his and widened as something powerful and indefinable passed between them.
Josh considered himself an expert on all things female but he’d never seen eyes like those in his life before and he couldn’t look away. Neither, it would seem, could she.
Mac cleared his throat. ‘Earth calling all doctors…’
The girl blinked and dragged her eyes away from Josh, but a betraying pink touched her cheeks that had nothing to do with the hot August sunshine and everything to do with powerful chemistry.
‘Have you got anything which we can use as a dressing for his head?’
Josh was having trouble concentrating. ‘I—er…’
‘Take your T-shirt off, Josh,’ Mac suggested kindly. ‘It might cool you down. You look a little hot.’
Josh dragged his gaze away from the girl and glared at his brother. ‘Take your own T-shirt off.’
‘Louisa bought me this for my birthday. And I’m not the one who’s overheating.’
Josh swore softly and dragged his T-shirt over his head, deriving some satisfaction from the fact that the girl stared at his muscular chest for several seconds before grabbing the garment and turning her attention back to the patient.
Josh watched her with masculine speculation. He was experienced enough with women to know when one of them was interested and the girl with the green eyes was definitely interested, despite her pretended indifference.
He’d felt the attraction like a physical force and he knew that she had, too.
She was securing his T-shirt in place when they heard the ambulance siren.
The ambulance drove onto the sand and Mac gave a nod of recognition as the crew hurried towards them.
‘His GCS is twelve,’ the girl told them, and proceeded to give them a fluent account of the patient’s injuries. ‘In view of the blood loss from the artery, I want to get a line in and then we need to ship him off as fast as possible. He’s going to need surgery on that wrist and possibly a CT scan. He’s been drinking. Make sure you tell them that in A and E.’
Josh watched in admiration as she found a vein with apparent ease, strapped the Venflon in place and nodded to the paramedics.
‘All right. He’s all yours.’ She stood up, her damp hair trailing down her back like a blaze of fire.
Anticipating the moment when he could get the girl on her own and swap essential details, Josh paused briefly to chat with one of the paramedics who he knew well, but when he finally glanced up, the girl had vanished.
He frowned and glanced around him but there was no sign of her.
Damn.
Mac gave a grin and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, bro’, that was a first. A woman who didn’t notice you. Think you’ll ever get over it?’
‘She noticed me.’ Josh was still looking around the beach. She had to be somewhere. She couldn’t have just vanished that quickly. ‘She definitely noticed me.’
Where the hell was she?
‘Which is why she hung around to get better acquainted. Face it, brother, she’s the one who got away. I saw her face when you used your “I’m a doctor” chat-up line. She was not impressed. I’m a doctor, too, and you’re in my light.’ Mac was still laughing as he recited her words exactly. ‘And she was bloody good with that patient. Knew exactly what she was doing. I wouldn’t mind having her in our department. That really would be a first. A woman who doesn’t notice you.’
Josh narrowed his eyes, remembering that one, intense moment when their eyes had locked. ‘She noticed me.’
‘Well, she certainly didn’t hang around to further the acquaintance,’ Mac drawled. ‘And apart from the body, which I have to admit was impressive, she didn’t seem like your usual type. For a start, she could string words into a sentence. And she’s clearly a doctor, and a good one at that. You never date doctors.’
‘Only because I can’t stand the conversation over the dinner table.’ Josh yawned. ‘It’s much more interesting to date someone in a different profession.’
But he would have made an exception for the girl with the green eyes.
Mac shot him a wry look as they strolled back along the beach to the dunes that led to his garden. ‘I never realised you were so interested in conversation. I thought all your relationships were enacted beneath the sheets.’
Josh grinned. ‘Absolutely right. What better place is there?’
KAT unzipped the neck of her wetsuit and stood still with her back against the jagged rocks, waiting until she judged it safe to reappear.
Only when the two men had walked a safe distance along the beach did she emerge and retrieve the surfboard that she’d left at the water’s edge. By then the ambulance had gone and the crowd had dispersed.
Maybe it was cowardly of her to avoid them, but she knew that if she’d hung around then the handsome, blue-eyed doctor would have entered into a conversation that she didn’t want to have. The strength of her reaction to him had shaken her and she sensed that it was mutual. She’d recognised the look in his eyes and knew exactly which direction the conversation would have taken.
And she just didn’t want to go there.
Did he think she was some sort of brainless idiot? she wondered bitterly as she tucked the board under her arm and walked in the opposite direction along the beach towards her tiny cottage. ‘I’m a doctor,’ he’d announced