Buch lesen: «The Consultant's Special Rescue»

CHAPTER ONE

AMBER moved restlessly, trapped in a half-world between sleeping and waking. ‘I’ll find him for you, Mum,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll find him.’

It was a troubled sleep, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that it was important that she wake up…there was something she had to do, wasn’t there? But when she tried to open her eyes, her eyelids were heavy, as though they were weighted down, and her limbs felt like lead.

In the end the effort was all too much for her. She gave up the struggle.

If only the hammering would stop. It was there in the background, banging, banging—no, it was pounding in her head, clouding her mind, stopping her from thinking. She needed to think, to concentrate. There was something she had to do, but the continuous thump, thump refused to go away, and she couldn’t clear her head enough to think what it was. Something to do with her brother, but it was all hazy in her mind.

Then there was a cracking sound, a shattering, and thankfully the banging at last stopped. She revelled in the peace, but not for long, because now there was another noise to take its place, an incessant droning sound that went on and on irritatingly.

Amber frowned. Her head hurt, and suddenly it was difficult to breathe. She started to cough, harsh, racking coughs that left her drained of energy.

‘Come on,’ a deep, masculine voice said. ‘We have to go now.’

Amber paid him no attention. She wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how authoritative the voice sounded. She was having enough trouble getting her eyes open, let alone even beginning to contemplate the thought of moving from this cosy bed. Was the man mad? And anyway, what was a man doing in her room?

She blinked, screwing up her eyes, and then finally managed to wrench them open. Looking around, she made a bleary survey of the room, and saw a dressing-table-cum-work surface and a chest of drawers. There was a chair, with some clothes draped over its back. She stared at them, and vaguely recognised the dress. Hadn’t she’d been wearing that?

‘I said we should go now.’ It was the man’s voice again, more demanding this time, as though he was beginning to lose patience. She decided to ignore it. There weren’t any men in her life that had any say over what she did or didn’t do and, besides, right now she was in no state to get up and go anywhere.

Another coughing spasm caught her unawares. Once it had passed, she tried to drag air into her lungs, but it was a struggle. What was happening to her? Was she ill? Her chest felt heavy, and every breath she took was laboured.

She stared about her once again. Where was she…? What was this place? It looked like students’ accommodation, like a bedsit of some sort. What was she doing here?

Casting her mind back, she vaguely remembered a party. Had she had too much to drink? Was that why she was feeling so out of sorts?

Suddenly, strong hands gripped her, and she realised that she was moving, that she was being lifted off the bed. Her eyes widened in shock, and she stared at those hands, at the powerful arms, and finally at the man they belonged to. His jaw was angular and hard boned, and his hair was black, crisp cut. His eyes bored into her, grey with a hint of blue, all-seeing and unrelenting. He was purposefully taking her away from where she had been comfortable and she resented his intrusion.

‘Leave me alone,’ she said tightly, aimlessly swatting at those imprisoning hands. ‘Was it you who was doing all that banging while I was trying to sleep?’ She broke off to cough and clear whatever it was that clogged her lungs. ‘I don’t want you here. Go away.’

She might as well not have spoken, because he didn’t take any notice at all of her complaints. He simply pulled her up off the bed until she was in an upright position and she glared at him, her blue eyes sparking angrily.

Why was he here? She didn’t know him. She had never seen him in her life before, but he seemed to tower above her, his whole image conveying strength and determination. How was she going to be able to fight him off?

Perhaps she could brace herself and use all her strength to resist him? A moment later her feet made contact with a rug, and somewhere in the back of her mind she had the idea that something was missing. She stared down at her feet and realised what was wrong. They were bare.

There was a faint sense of satisfaction in the discovery, because at least it meant that part of her brain was working. She tried to twist around, her gaze searching the floor.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘My shoes,’ she started to say, but her voice sounded cracked and hoarse. She coughed, and tried again. ‘Why are you still here?’ She frowned, and then looked around again. ‘I need my shoes.’ A grey mist seemed to fill the room, at low level, grey, turning to black, and she couldn’t see well enough to find them. Why was everything so difficult? This must all be a bad dream.

‘We don’t have time to look for them now.’ He was urging her towards the door, a hand holding onto her arm, his other hand flat against the curve of her spine. She felt the heat of that touch as though he was stroking her bare flesh, and it was so vibrant a sensation, so intense that it seemed as though a solitary flame licked along her spine. She couldn’t understand it. Why was she reacting to him this way?

His closeness propelled her into action. She tried to fight him, but it was no use, she was powerless against him.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put this against your nose and mouth. It will keep the worst of the smoke away.’ He handed her a large clean handkerchief and opened it over her face.

‘What smoke?’ she mumbled.

He didn’t answer, but shepherded her out of the room and along the corridor, supporting her when they started down the stairs and her legs threatened to crumple beneath her. It occurred to her that the soot-laden mist followed them everywhere, but she couldn’t fathom what it was.

Cold air rushed in on her as they reached the outside of the building, and she stood still for a moment as the shock of it brought on yet another bout of coughing. Her lungs felt scratchy and raw, and when she tried to breathe it was a battle to get the air into her wheezy chest.

‘What’s going on?’ she said in a cracked voice, puzzled by the buzz of activity and the sounds that filled the night air. The sky was black, sprinkled with stars, and the quadrangle was bright with the yellow lights of the buildings all around.

Someone pushed a wheelchair behind her, and the man who had brought her out here pressured her into it with his hand on her shoulder.

‘Sit down and take it easy,’ he said. ‘You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke. Let the paramedics take care of you.’

He turned to another man and said, ‘That’s everyone accounted for. I’ve checked all the rooms and they’re all clear.’ The man he had spoken to nodded, and Amber realised that this other person was wearing a fireman’s uniform. She looked around for a fire engine, and saw one in the distance.

Almost as soon as the two of them had finished speaking, a paramedic came and strapped an oxygen mask to her face. ‘Breathe in as deeply as you can,’ he said. ‘The doctor will come and take a look at you.’

Someone—the doctor, she guessed—came over to her. She looked around for the man who had brought her here, but he had disappeared and she felt an odd, momentary sense of isolation sweep over her, as though she had been deserted. It was strange that she should feel such emptiness after the way she had resented his presence.

‘I’ll just listen to your chest,’ the doctor said, taking out a stethoscope. He placed the end of the stethoscope on her back, over what she was wearing, and listened for a moment. ‘I think we’ll give you salbutamol to help with the bronchospasm,’ he murmured. ‘It will dilate the airways and help you to breathe more easily.’

Amber stared down at her thin nightshirt. Apart from a pair of briefs, it was all she was wearing. The shirt was made of brushed white cotton, with a delicate scattering of printed flowers across the scooped neckline and the hem. She didn’t recognise it as belonging to her, but then through the fog that clouded her brain she remembered that someone had offered it to her last night. It didn’t do much to cover her, and a large expanse of her legs was showing, much more than she would have liked.

The man who had brought her here was coming back to her now. His gaze moved over her and she was suddenly conscious of her state of undress and tried to pull the nightshirt a little further down over her thighs. Her hands were shaking, and the helplessness of her situation wafted over her like a draught of cold air.

She stared up at him in confusion. Her nerves must be more frayed than she’d realised. She wasn’t usually this feeble.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Do you need anything?’ His expression was restrained, serious even.

She said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ She thought about that, and then added, ‘Actually, I have to go now. I have to go and check on my mother. I need to know that she’s all right, and I have to go and find my clothes.’

‘Is your mother in the building?’ He looked concerned, all at once, his expression urgent.

She rubbed her forehead and tried to clear her thoughts. ‘No. No, I…’ She tried to make sense of everything. ‘She hasn’t been well lately. She’s staying with my aunt.’ She started to get up out of the wheelchair. ‘I need to go and find my clothes and my bag.’

‘I think they can wait.’ He seemed to relax. ‘If your mother’s with your aunt, then there’s no need to rush away, is there? It’s very late, the early hours of the morning, and your mother is probably asleep. Your aunt will let you know if anything is wrong, won’t she?’

Amber nodded, feeling a little foolish. Of course he was right. ‘I’m sorry, I think I’m a little confused…disorientated.’

She began to shiver, and he said, ‘That’s only to be expected. It’s probably a result of all the smoke you’ve inhaled.’ He bent towards her. ‘Let me put this around you. You must be in shock, and it will help you to feel better.’ He wrapped a blanket around her, and gradually warmth seeped into her. ‘Do you remember anything that happened?’

‘Not really. I think I was asleep,’ she said, slipping the oxygen mask off her face, ‘and then you came and brought me here. I don’t know what’s going on. Is there a fire?’ Her voice rasped at the back of her throat.

He nodded. ‘It started in the kitchen of the building. Someone had left a pan of something on the hob and forgot to switch the heat off.’ Reaching out to her, he put the mask back in place. ‘Just try to keep breathing steadily.’

She held it away a little, so that she could speak. ‘I wasn’t in the kitchen. There was a party…someone’s birthday. I don’t remember an awful lot about it.’

‘Perhaps you had too much to drink.’ His expression was faintly cynical, and something in her instantly rebelled against being judged that way.

‘You’re assuming that,’ she said stiffly. Who was he to criticise her? He didn’t know anything about her.

‘It was very difficult to wake you. You didn’t seem to recognise the urgency of the situation.’

‘Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be because of alcohol.’ It must have been the smoke that had done it, that had clouded her brain. She wasn’t a drinker. She knew that much. Probably she’d had two or three glasses of wine at most.

Snatches of memory were coming back to her now, and she recalled that she hadn’t known many of the people at the party. She had only been there because she was new—and for some reason it was important that she get to know them. She wondered why that should be.

The answer came to her in a flash of inspiration— a new job, that was it. She was about to start a new post and she was going to be working with them in A and E.

It began to worry her that some of her new colleagues-to-be might have suffered in the fire. ‘Was anybody hurt?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps you should go and see to them. I’m all right. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

His mouth made a straight line. ‘One of the men, a doctor, has burns to his hands. Someone’s jacket caught fire and he tried to put out the flames.’

‘Oh, dear…that’s terrible.’ She looked up at him, anguish in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’ A coughing spasm overtook her, and as soon as it was over she asked, ‘Will he be all right?’

‘I’m not sure yet.’ He adjusted her mask once more, and she took a few moments to breathe in deeply. ‘He’s over there, being attended to by the doctor.’

Amber glanced to where he pointed, and saw the doctor applying something to the man’s hands. She guessed that it was silver sulphadiazine cream and that as an added precaution the doctor would protect the patient’s hands afterwards with polythene bags sealed at the wrists.

‘Please, go and check on him, and the others. You don’t need to stay with me. I’m fine.’

She took a moment to suck a desperate breath of air into her lungs. Across the paved courtyard, a sound alerted her, and she saw someone she recognized—a nurse who had introduced herself last night as Chloe. Chloe was standing with her little girl, a child of about four years old.

‘The little girl isn’t well,’ Amber said now. ‘I think she needs help.’ Even through the noise of all the activity all around, she could hear the sound of the child’s grating cough. She started to get up out of the wheelchair to go to her, but the man laid a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

‘Stay there. I’ll go and see if she needs any help.’

He strode away, and Amber subsided back into her chair, breathing fast, wearily battling against the rawness of her chest. She guessed that he would go and alert the doctor or one of the paramedics if there was a problem. As for herself, she doubted she would be much help in the circumstances. Her lungs had been filled with smoke and she was suffering from the after-effects, battling to stay on top of things.

She watched him from a distance, and couldn’t help noticing how very gentle he was with the child and her mother. He knelt down beside the little girl and put a hand on her back as though he would comfort her. A moment later, he was signalling for the paramedic.

Amber hoped that the little girl would be all right. She remembered seeing her last night, before her mother had put her to bed. She was an angelic-looking child, with hair that curled exuberantly and matched her mother’s golden locks. She had Chloe’s blue eyes, too.

The man gave Chloe a hug, and Amber wondered how well they knew each other. That wasn’t the sort of hug that he would have given a total stranger. It was a familiar, easygoing hug that said he cared.

He waited while the paramedic attended to the little girl, and then turned and spoke to someone nearby. He said something to Chloe, and knelt down once more to talk to her small daughter.

Amber pulled off the oxygen mask. It was high time she took charge of herself. She couldn’t sit out here all night. The doctor and the paramedics seemed to have everything under control here, but her own situation was fraught with difficulty. Her purse was in the building, along with her shoes and all her immediate possessions. How was she going to get herself home?

Perhaps she could call a taxi, if she could persuade someone to lend her the coins for the call, or maybe her aunt would accept reversed charges and make the call for her. Amber winced. It wouldn’t be fair to wake her in the early hours of the morning, though, would it?

She stood up, and felt the cold paving slabs beneath her feet. Maybe one of the paramedics had a mobile phone on him and would let her make the call. She started to walk towards the ambulance, her gait a little unsteady but purposeful all the same.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Her rescuer stood in front of her, blocking her path.

‘I’m just going to make a phone call,’ she said, gazing up at him in exasperation. Why did he always have to turn up at the wrong moment? She straightened up, drawing herself to her full height, which meant that the top of her head was just about level with his shoulders. What was he, six feet two?

She looked him in the eyes. She was doing her best to make a dignified exit, but as she tried to sidestep him, the blanket began to slip down from her shoulders, exposing a line of smooth, bare flesh, hampering her efforts and forcing her to make a strategic grab for the edges.

‘Why do you need to make a phone call?’ he asked.

Pulling the blanket around herself once more, she tried to answer and found that she was struggling to get the words out. ‘Why do you think?’ she managed, between breaths. ‘I need to go home.’

‘Not just yet,’ he said, leading her back to the wheelchair. ‘You really should be going to the hospital. I would be grateful if you would just stay put for a little while longer. You’re like a jack-in-the-box, and it’s very wearing, trying to keep pace with you. First you resist my attempts to get you to move at all, and now it seems that you can’t stay still for more than five minutes at a time. Please, do me a favour and sit down and try to relax.’

‘I’m not going to hospital,’ she mumbled.

Taking no notice of her mutiny, he manoeuvred her into the chair and leaned over her. Then he placed the oxygen mask over her face once more and she sent him a frustrated stare. She didn’t see that she had much choice in the matter but to stay in the chair. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. He was blocking her exit with every inch of his tautly muscled body.

She looked up at him, her eyes troubled. ‘I should thank you for getting me out of the building,’ she muttered, pushing the mask to one side. ‘I didn’t realise that you were trying to rescue me.’

‘I guessed as much.’ He smiled at her, a crooked half-smile that lit up his face and made her catch her breath all over again. She began to feel light-headed, weak in every limb, and she pulled in oxygen as though it was a lifesaver. He was incredibly good-looking, and those eyes—they meshed with hers and seemed to see right into her soul.

She looked away. Just thinking along those lines made her feel vulnerable. She said huskily, ‘What were you doing there?’ He wasn’t wearing the uniform of a paramedic or a fireman, and she didn’t recognise him from the party. In fact, he stood out from everyone here. He was dressed in an immaculately styled grey suit, and his shirt was pristine—or it would have been before he had battled the smoke.

‘I’m here because my father owns this block of flats. He doesn’t live locally and he asked me to come and check on things and report back to him. I expect he’ll be along first thing in the morning to see what needs to be done.’

‘Oh, I see. This must all be a dreadful shock to him.’

‘It’s more of a shock for the people involved, I imagine. We’ll have to find alternative accommodation for them until the damage has been repaired.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘You’re not one of the tenants, are you?’

Amber shook her head. ‘It was late when the party finished, and I didn’t want to drive home because I’d had a drink.’ Her car keys were back in the flat. ‘The girl giving the party said I could stay in her friend’s flat. The friend is away just now, but she gave permission.’

He frowned, and she sent him an anxious look. ‘It was all right to do that, wasn’t it? I’m not getting her into trouble, am I?’

‘No, that’s all right. It’s not your problem. I was just concerned because we didn’t know that you were there until one of the other tenants remembered that you were in the room.’

Amber shuddered. ‘So I could have still been in there now?’

‘No. I made sure to check all the rooms, and the firemen were doing their own sweep of the building.’

She was humbled. ‘Thank you for getting me out of there. I’m sorry I gave you so much trouble.’ She gave him sideways glance. ‘I owe you a lot, and I don’t even know your name.’

‘I’m Nick.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘And you?’

‘Amber.’ She removed the mask and put it to one side. ‘I’m fine now. I really must think about getting home. Why don’t you go and look after the nurse and her little girl? I imagine they need you more than I do and I can manage perfectly well.’ From the gentle, considerate way he had approached them earlier, she guessed that he knew them fairly well. Perhaps, as they were tenants of his father, he had become friendly with them.

His brows drew together. ‘I doubt that. You seem to be in a worse condition than either of them. You were in the building for the longest time.’

He glanced over to where Chloe and her child were being treated by the paramedics. ‘Chloe and Lucy will be all right. You don’t need to worry. I’ve arranged for them to go and stay with Chloe’s cousin until we can fix them up with something else. She’s coming to fetch them.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I think I can see her arriving now.’

‘That’s good.’ She tried a smile. ‘Well, I’m sure there are other people who need help more than I do. Perhaps you should go and enquire after them…that poor doctor, for instance. I really need to start finding my way home.’

He gave her an odd look. ‘The doctor’s on his way to hospital, which is where you should be, too.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not going there.’

He studied her. ‘All of the other tenants seem to be managing perfectly well. Most of them are fully dressed and aware of what’s going on, and they seem to have managed to grab what belongings they needed before they made their escape. As for you, I really don’t think you’ll get very far in the state you’re in.’

He made it sound as though she was hopelessly inadequate. ‘You didn’t give me a chance to get anything that I needed,’ she said. ‘I do seem to remember looking around for my shoes, and I’m sure if you had given me a moment I would have thought of other things I needed.’

‘Best not to go there, I think,’ he said. ‘We both know that you were well out of it. I expect the fresh air has helped to revive you a little, but that’s not saying that I would trust you to manage on your own.’

Clearly, he still thought that she was a party animal, but she didn’t have the energy to argue the point with him. She glanced over at the building. ‘They seem to have put the fire out,’ she murmured. ‘Do you think they would let me back in there?’

‘Definitely not. It’s probably not safe, and no one will be allowed in until the fire chief gives the say-so. That will probably not be for a day or two, given the damage.’

She made a face. ‘All I actually need is a phone. Then I could arrange for a taxi to come and pick me up.’

‘I’ll take you where you need to go,’ he said, and when she would have demurred, he added, ‘That way I can be sure that you will get there safely, and that you won’t be wandering the streets in your bare feet. Are you staying at your aunt’s house?’

‘No, I have a place of my own.’

He looked surprised at that, and she wondered what he was thinking. Did he imagine that she was just a slip of a girl who was incapable of looking after herself?

He flicked a glance over her, and she realised that she must be in a totally dishevelled state. Her long chestnut hair was unruly at the best of times, and since she had unpinned it when she’d gone to bed last night it must be in full riotous disarray by now. No wonder he was looking at her as though she had lost her senses.

‘I would appreciate a lift. Do you think we could go now?’

He nodded. ‘Let me help you to my car. It’s just around the corner from the building.’

He helped her to her feet, and said, ‘Keep the blanket around you. I’ll take it back to the paramedics tomorrow.’

His car was a top-of-the-range saloon, gleaming even in the darkness, and she guessed that even if he wasn’t in partnership with his father, he must be doing well for himself. He helped her into the passenger seat and she sank back against the upholstery, her weary limbs thankful for the luxury and comfort that the interior offered.

He started the engine. ‘Where do you live?’

She gave him the address with some hesitation. He was probably used to the best of everything, but her modest cottage was all she could afford, and at least it gave her the opportunity to be independent. She had come to Devon at her mother’s request, but there was simply no room for her to lodge with her aunt.

‘Are you going to be able to get in without your keys?’ he asked as they drove out of the town and headed for the country lanes.

‘I keep a spare, just in case. I’ve hidden it away.’

‘You’re not going to tell me that it’s under a plant pot, are you?’ He sent her an oblique glance.

She lowered her head and hoped that he couldn’t see the flush of heat that ran along her cheeks. ‘Not exactly. It’s under a stone and there are several others around.’

‘I might have guessed.’ He raised his eyes heavenward and then concentrated on the road ahead.

He was a good driver, confident at the wheel, and he took the bends with ease. It didn’t take long before they arrived at the house, and he parked the car by the pavement, coming around to help her out of her seat.

‘This is it,’ she said. ‘It isn’t much to look at, but it’s just right for me.’

He was staring at the plain, stone-walled front, and she hoped that in the darkness he couldn’t see the peeling paintwork at the windows. ‘I’ll just go around to the back and find the key,’ she muttered.

He went with her, stooping to get the key when she located the rock in question. ‘I’ll come in with you and see that you get settled in all right,’ he said, and she recognised a sinking feeling in her stomach. What was he going to make of her minuscule, dilapidated home?

At least the kitchen light was working. She flicked it on and invited him inside. ‘I’ll see if I have any coffee in the cupboard,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink?’ It was the least she could offer after all he had done for her.

‘Thank you. That would be good.’ He was looking around, and she could see that he was finding the place hard to take in.

‘I know that a lot needs to be done to make it right,’ she said, as she stopped for a moment to wash her hands under the tap, ‘but I bought it for a song, and I thought that in time I would be able to do it up. It needs some building work here and there, and I think there’s going to have to be a lot of replastering, but it has great possibilities.’

He didn’t appear to agree with her. He was frowning, and she thought it was perhaps a good job that he couldn’t see the rest of the house. ‘At least the cooker’s working,’ she said. She was rummaging in the cupboards, a struggle while she was holding onto the blanket in order to retain her dignity, but she had to turn around and say, ‘Sorry, no coffee. Will tea do instead?’

‘Tea will be fine.’ He stared around him. ‘You know you have damp in here, don’t you?’

She nodded. ‘It was one of the things that was pointed out in the survey, but I was assured that it could be put right. It’s just going to take me a while, that’s all.’

She made the tea and pushed the cup towards him. ‘I’d offer you biscuits, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to get to the shops yet.’

‘That’s all right. I’d say biscuits were the least of your worries.’ He looked at her as though he thought she must have been completely mad to take on a project like this. ‘How on earth are you going to manage?’

‘I’ll get by,’ she murmured. She took a sip of her tea to calm her nerves. What did he know of how the other half lived? From the looks of the expensively tailored suit he was wearing, and the car outside, he had never had to struggle for anything.

‘Wasn’t there any possibility of you going to live with your aunt—that is, assuming that her house is more habitable than this one?’

She grimaced. He wasn’t one to mince his words, was he? ‘She only has two small bedrooms, one for herself and my mother has the other one. We can’t complain. We only moved to Devon a couple of weeks ago, and it was good of her to take my mother in.’

Her mother had been adamant that they should come here. There was every possibility that Amber’s brother could be in the area, and she was desperate to get in touch with him.