Jennifer Hayward - Deal With The Devil

‘It’s under control. The main thing is to keep her still. We don’t know what she’s broken with that fall.’

‘I’m glad you said that it was a fall. That’s what I thought. Surely that must be less serious than another heart attack. Is the ambulance on its way? I’ve made sure the “closed” sign’s on the front door. When I get a chance, I’ll ring round a couple of the regulars and explain the situation.’

Leo hesitated. ‘No ambulance.’

Brianna looked at him, startled. ‘But she’s got to go to hospital!’

‘Trust me when I tell you that I have things under control.’ He squatted alongside them both. The time of reckoning had come and how on earth had he ever played with the thought that it wouldn’t? How had he imagined that he would be able to walk away without a backward glance when the time came?

Of course, he certainly hadn’t reckoned on the time coming in this fashion. He certainly hadn’t thought that he would be the one rescuing his mother because it now seemed that there was more conversation left between them.

‘You have things under control?’ Brianna looked at him dubiously. ‘And yet there’s no ambulance on the way?’

‘I’ve arranged to have her air-lifted to the Cromwell Hospital in London,’ Leo said bluntly.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It should be here any minute soon. In terms of timing, it will probably get here faster than an ambulance would, even an ambulance with its sirens going.’

In the midst of trying to process what sounded like complete gibberish to her, Brianna heard the distant sound of an overhead aircraft. Landing would be no problem. In fact, there couldn’t have been a better spot for an air ambulance to land. The noise grew louder and louder until it felt as though it would take the roof off the pub, and then there was a flurry of activity while she stood back, confused.

She became a mystified bystander as the professionals took over, their movements hurried and urgent, ferrying Bridget to the aircraft.

Then Leo turned to her. ‘You should come.’

Brianna looked at him in complete silence. ‘Leo...what’s going on?’ How had he managed to do that? Who on earth could arrange for someone to be airlifted to a hospital hundreds of, miles away? She had thought that maybe he had been in computers, but had he been in the medical field? Surely not. She was uneasily aware that there were great, big gaps in her knowledge about him but there was little time to think as she nodded and was hurried along to the waiting aircraft.

‘I don’t have any clothes.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘What do you mean, it’s not a problem?’

‘We haven’t got time to debate this. Let’s go.’

Brianna’s head was full of so many questions, yet something in her resisted asking any of them. Instead she said weakly, as they were lifted noisily into the air and the aircraft swung sharply away, leaving the pub behind, ‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ And then, with a tremulous laugh, because the detachment on his dark face filled her with a dreadful apprehension, ‘I guess this would make a fantastic scene in your book...’

Leo looked at her. She was huddled against him and her open, trusting face was shadowed with anxiety.

This was a relationship that was never going to last. They had both been aware of that from the very start. He had made the position perfectly clear. So, in terms of conscience, he was surely justified in thinking that his was completely clear? But it still took a great deal of effort to grit his teeth and not succumb to a wave of unedited, pure regret for what he knew now lay on the horizon. But this wasn’t the time to talk about any of this so he chose to ignore her quip about the book that was as fictitious as the Easter Bunny.

‘I think she’ll be fine but why take chances?’

‘Leo...’

‘We’ll be at the hospital very shortly, Brianna.’ He sighed deeply, pressed his thumbs against his eyes and then rested his head against the upright, uncomfortable seat. ‘We’ll talk once Bridget’s settled in hospital.’

Brianna shivered as he looked away to stare out of the window but she remained silent; then there wasn’t much time to do any thinking at all as everything seemed to happen at once and with impressive speed.

Once again she stood helplessly on the sidelines and watched as the machinery of the medical world took over. She had never seen anything like it and she was even more impressed at Leo’s handling of the situation, the way he just seemed to take charge, the way he knew exactly what to do and the way people appeared to listen to him in a way she instinctively knew they wouldn’t have to anyone else.

Like a spare part, she followed him into the hospital, which was more like a hotel than anything else, a hotel filled with doctors and nurses, somewhere designed to inspire confidence. The smallness of her life crowded her as she watched, nervously torn between wanting to get nearer to Bridget, who had now been established in a room of her own, and wanting to stay out of the way just in case she got mown down by the crisp efficiency of everyone bustling around their new patient.

It felt like ages until Bridget was examined, wheeled off for tests and examined again. Leo was in the thick of it. She, on the other hand, kept her distance and at one point was firmly ushered to a plush waiting room, gently encouraged to sit, handed a cappuccino and informed that she would help matters enormously if she just relaxed, that everything was going to be perfectly fine.

How on earth was she supposed to relax? she wondered. Not only was she worried sick, but alongside all her concerns about her friend other, more unsettling ideas were jostling in her head like pernicious, stinging insects trying to get a hold.

She was dead on her feet by the time Leo finally made an appearance and he, too, looked haggard. Brianna half-rose and he waved her back down, pulled one the chairs across and sat opposite her, legs apart, his arms resting loosely on his thighs.

More than anything else, she wanted to reach out and smooth away the tired lines around his eyes and she sat on her hands to avoid giving in to the temptation which here, and now, seemed horribly inappropriate.

‘Leo, what’s going on?’

‘The main thing is that Bridget is going to be okay. It seems she stood up and fell as she was reaching for her cane. She banged her head against the edge of the table and knocked herself out. They’ve done tests to make sure that she suffered no brain damage and to ascertain that the shock didn’t affect her heart.’ He looked at her upturned face and flushed darkly.

‘I’m amazed you rushed into action like that when she could have just gone to the local hospital.’ She reached out tentatively to touch his arm and he vaulted upright and prowled through the shiny, expensive waiting room of which they were the only occupants.

‘Brianna...’ He paused to stare down at her and all of a sudden there was no justification whatsoever for any of the lies he had told. It didn’t matter whether they had been told in good faith, whether the consequences had been unforeseen. Nor did the rights and wrongs of sleeping with the girl, now staring up at him, come into play.

‘It’s late. You need to get some rest. But more importantly we have to talk...’

‘Yes.’ Why was she so reluctant to hear what he had to say? Where was that gut reaction coming from?

‘I’m going to take you back to my place.’

‘I beg your pardon? You still have a place in London? What place? I thought you might have sold that—you know?—to do your travelling.’

Leo shook his head and raked his fingers through his dishevelled hair. ‘I think when we get there,’ he said on a heavy sigh, ‘some of the questions you’re asking yourself might begin to fall into place.