They worked quickly to strap their patient safely in place, covering him with a blanket to keep him warm and prevent shock. Ross glanced at Frances. ‘Will you be coming along with us? We can find room for you in the ‘copter if you like.’
‘Thank you. I’d like that. I want to stay with him.’
‘Good.’ Ross and the paramedic started to walk with the trolley towards the waiting helicopter. Izzy accompanied them, keeping a check on her patient’s vital signs.
She glanced towards Ross. ‘I had no idea you had taken a job with the air ambulance,’ she said in a low voice.
‘The opportunity came up, and it seemed too good a chance to miss,’ he answered. ‘They needed someone to fill in for one of the doctors who was away for a couple of months, and with Alice likely to be in the hospital for the next few weeks it looked as though the job was tailor-made for me.’
‘What happened to your work in the Lake District?’
‘My contract came to an end. They’ll hold it open for me in case I decide to go back next year on a permanent basis, but I thought with Jake leaving it was time for me to come and take up the reins of the estate for a while.’
She studied him as they lifted the trolley bed on to the aircraft. So there was still the possibility that he wasn’t going to be staying around. Why didn’t that come as any real surprise to her?
‘I’m even more startled to see you here today, right now,’ she murmured, going into the medical bay of the helicopter. ‘It was only this morning that you and the children were heading off to Inverness. What happened to your plans to go and see Alice?’
He gave a brief smile. ‘Oh, we did all that. Afterwards I left them with their aunt Jess, so that I could come in to work. She’s going to keep them with her in Inverness for a couple of days. At the moment things are a little tricky for me because of the shift system I’m working, but I dare say it will all work out in the end.’
The paramedic made sure that the trolley bed was locked in place and that Frances was happily settled close by her husband’s side. Then he came over to Izzy and Ross. He must have heard what they were saying because he commented, ‘In fact, Ross and I had a difficult stint last night. We didn’t get finished until after midnight. There was a boy injured and lost on the hills, and being pitch-black out there it took us a while to find him. He was okay, as it turned out—just a little shaken up and suffering from exposure and a pulled ligament in his knee.’
‘Oh, I see.’ That explained why Molly had found it difficult to wake Ross this morning. Izzy felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Had she been too quick to pass judgement on him?
She checked the intravenous line and made sure that Jim was comfortable. He was struggling to take in oxygen through the breathing mask, and she settled it more comfortably over his face. ‘You’ll be in hospital in no time at all,’ she told him. ‘The doctors will do a scan to see if there’s a clot on your lung. If they find one, they could decide to go on treating you with medication, or they may want to remove it using a thin catheter threaded through the blood vessel. Either way, you will be well looked after.’
She said goodbye to Jim and his wife and went to the open door of the helicopter. Ross went with her, jumping down to the ground and reaching up to help her descend. His hands went around her waist, his palms lying flat on her ribcage as he lifted her down with ease, as though she was as light as a feather.
When her feet touched the ground his hands stayed on her, as though he would steady her, and she realised with a slight sense of shock that her own fingers still lay on his shoulders. Her whole body responded as though he had triggered an electric current.
Coming to her senses, she drew back her fingers, her mind skittering with uncertainty.
‘So that’s why you were lying in bed this morning,’ she murmured. ‘I have to take back all the bad things I was thinking.’ She frowned. ‘Only, who was watching over the children last night if you were out working?’
‘You were thinking bad things?’ His mouth made a flattened shape. ‘I thought as much.’ He straightened, letting his hands fall away from her. ‘You don’t trust me at all, do you?’
‘Put it down to the fall out from times gone by,’ she murmured.
He gave a faint smile. ‘As always. Actually, I did have things all in hand. I arranged for Maggie to stay and watch over them until I returned home. She was pleased enough to do it. Of course I’ll have to organise things a little better if I’m to stay for a while. Molly and Cameron need some kind of stability, and getting them enrolled in school is going to be one of the first things I must do.’
‘Yes, that’s probably best.’ Izzy stepped away from the vehicle. ‘I should let you go,’ she said softly. This was neither the time nor the place to be holding a conversation about his future plans, much as her curiosity was pricked. Wind from the helicopter’s rotors tousled her hair, and she lifted a hand to hold the strands away from her face. ‘If you get the chance, let me know how our patient progresses, will you?’
He nodded. ‘I will. You can count on it.’
She moved away, and he slid the door of the helicopter shut. Within moments the aircraft rose skywards and zoomed away.
Watching the helicopter move out of sight, Izzy was assailed by a strange notion of unfinished business. Seeing Ross at work had given her a tremendous jolt, and along with it had come the realisation that their paths might cross much more often than she had ever expected.
Today had not been a good start. Why hadn’t she guarded her tongue instead of alerting him to all her doubts and criticisms? He was simply doing a job, making the best of things just as she was, and it was wrong of her to find fault with everything he did. It was in his favour that he was taking care of the children at all. Perhaps she should leave it to her father to cast aspersions on his motives.
Her father, as things turned out, was in a highly charged mood when she visited him later that day.
‘You’re working with Ross Buchanan?’ His tone was grim. ‘As if it isn’t bad enough that he’s back among us. Why do we have to rub shoulders with him, too?’
Izzy’s mother came into the living room, setting down the tea tray on a low coffee table. She glanced at Izzy. ‘Sit yourself down, love. You’ve had a trying day by all accounts. You should relax with a cup of tea and some cake. I had a baking session this morning—fruitcake. Help yourself.’ She shook her head, making the soft brown tendrils of hair quiver as she lifted the teapot. ‘You wouldn’t think so many people would manage to get themselves into difficulties up in the hills, would you?’
Izzy sat down on the sofa and leaned forward to slide a wedge of cake on to a plate. ‘I’m more surprised that there are so many people who still want to walk the hills in December,’ she murmured. She glanced at her father. ‘As to Ross, he is at least doing a worthwhile job. You have to grant him that, surely?’
‘I’ll not grant him anything,’ her father said gruffly. ‘I’ve heard that he’s brought builders in to go on with that log cabin project his father started on the estate some six years back. I don’t know how on earth he managed to get planning permission. A lot of people objected to the development, and from my point of view it’ll be certain to draw away the tourists. I’m sure that’s his grand plan.’
‘But you’ll be all right, won’t you?’ Izzy said. ‘You have the regular people who come every year for the fishing. That’s more than a lot of the villagers have.’
‘That’s only because I kept hold of this land and my father and his father before him fought to stay on it. There were no thanks due to the old Laird and the generations that followed him for that. Their land borders ours, and if they’d had their way they’d have long since moved the boundaries and made it their own.’
Izzy bit into her cake and tried to keep exasperation from getting the better