Sharon Archer - The Man Behind the Badge

But what had made her want to come all the way out here, to his country town, when she so obviously didn’t belong?

And now she was returning after another weekend in the big smoke. Had she been getting a fix of civilisation, something to sustain her for her sentence in rural purgatory? Or did she have a man tucked away down there?

Someone happy to have a long-distance relationship with her?

Someone as controlled and contained as she was?

An image leapt into his mind. Male hands other than his touching her, sliding over that perfect, creamy skin. He cursed under his breath.

Jaw set tight, he slammed the vehicle door. The fangs of unrequited lust sank deep. He was slowly going crazy.

After clipping the seat belt, he reached for the ignition key.

An unholy shriek of brakes sliced through the air, the brutal noise cutting off the gentle murmurs of the mellow night. For a split second, Tom froze. Then, pulse rocketing, he jerked his head towards the sound. In the distance, a strange light show played erratically across the vegetation. Yellow beams dipped and spun like out-of-control searchlights. A moment later, everything stopped with a sickening crunch of metal.

Kayla!

A shaft of icy dread pierced his gut. With a quick, hard rev of the engine, he accelerated down the short stretch of gravel road to the intersection and spun the steering-wheel in the direction of the now stationary lights. His vehicle leapt forward as the tyres gripped the sealed road.

God, what would he find? The thought of that feminine perfection injured—or worse—appalled him.

His low beam cut through the thickening wisps of pale fog. The small jelly-bean-pink car was sitting diagonally across the middle of the road. It looked whole but perhaps the damage was on the other side.

On the driver’s side.

He was still too far away to see clearly inside the vehicle, to see if there was any movement. He leaned forward over his steering-wheel, as though that would somehow help his vision.

A moment later, her car moved, headlights swinging around in a U-turn.

He swallowed, shaken by an abrupt wash of relief that left his joints momentarily water weak.

Kayla was all right, the car was whole.

Her headlights kept moving and for the first time Tom noticed a dark blue sedan with its bonnet crumpled against the trunk of a gum tree.

Her car stopped with the beam of lights trained on the wreck.

He positioned his vehicle across the lane to block any oncoming traffic, emergency lights flashing and his headlights adding to the brightness of Kayla’s. Her door opened and she scrambled out. He yanked on his handbrake and uttered a pithy curse as she ran towards the wreck.

What was the woman doing? The scene needed to be secured before she went charging in. They’d had no rain for weeks. Fire danger at the moment was extreme. Hot exhaust, long grass. A recipe for disaster.

As Tom threw open his door, a man’s guttural cries echoed in his ears.

‘Help me! Somebody. Please. Please.’

Fire extinguisher, woollen blanket and torch in hand, Tom ran to the front of the crumpled bonnet. The sweetly nauseating tang of petrol fumes filled his sinuses. In his peripheral vision, he was aware of Kayla swinging the driver’s door wide.

‘It’s all right, we’ll look after you,’ she said, loudly enough to cut through the man’s groans. She sounded firm, confident. Trustworthy. ‘What’s your name?’

‘A-Andy.’

Charred grass smouldered and, even as Tom scuffed dirt into the blackening area, a flame flickered to life in the dry leaf litter around the trunk of the tree. Crisp twigs crunched beneath his boot as he stamped out the fledgling fire. He spread the blanket strategically to smother the tinder dry fuel.

‘Hello, Andy. My name’s Kayla. I’m a doctor.’

With one ear on Kayla’s conversation, Tom shone his torch into the engine cavity beneath the buckled bonnet. No obvious hot spots or smoke at this stage but that could change in an instant.

‘You’re going to be fine.’ Her soothing voice continued. ‘We’ll look after you now.’

Tom placed the extinguisher on the ground within easy access then strode to where Kayla was crouched at the open driver’s door. She’d positioned a cervical collar around the victim’s neck and was shining a small pencil-slim torchlight into the man’s eyes.

Tom leaned low and growled at her, ‘This scene is not safe.’

‘Then please organise it for us, Sergeant.’ She sounded pleasant but remote. Her attention was fixed on her patient and she didn’t look up.

Tom smiled grimly as he braced his hand on the top of the door and reached across her towards the steering column. At least she knew who he was. ‘I have organised it, Doctor.’

‘Well done.’ The casual, dismissive praise rankled as he watched her twist further into the car and dig her hands down either side of the man in front of her. ‘Any pain anywhere, Andy?’

‘M-my ankle.’ The slurred words were accompanied by a belch of stale alcohol. Tom could smell it even though he wasn’t directly in its path. Kayla didn’t flinch.

‘Okay, I’ll have a look.’

Tom gritted his teeth as his fingers found the key in the ignition. It was in the off position. ‘We need to get Andy out. Now. There’s—’ His train of thought dried up abruptly as Kayla shifted to the right and the bare skin on her shoulder brushed the sensitive skin of his inner arm. Electricity sizzled along his nerves, making his fingers fumble with the car key. He forced his thoughts back into line. ‘Kayla, there’s petrol vapour, a hot exhaust, tinder-dry grass. The danger of fire is extreme.’

She glanced around at him then and gave a quick, short nod. ‘Of course. I understand. We need to move him.’

Instead of shifting back, as he’d expected, she leaned further into the car. Tom tightened his lips to stop himself from yelling at her. She was doing her job, and doing it well, but that didn’t stop him wanting to pull her out of the car, get her to safety.

‘Andy, can you move your legs?’ Not by the tiniest quiver did her voice betray any concern.

‘No.’ The word was more of a moan. ‘It hurts.’

By the time Tom strode to the other side of the car and wrenched open the passenger door, Kayla had her arm pushed down into the well beneath the dashboard.

‘Can you feel that, Andy?’

‘Y-yes.’

‘Where am I touching you?’

‘Leg. Shin.’

‘That’s great.’ She withdrew her arm and shone her pencil torch into the cramped space.

Newspaper crinkled under Tom’s knee as he knelt on the seat and leaned across to reach under the driver’s seat.

‘Be careful,’ Kayla said sharply. A heady mixture of whisky fumes and her light, spicy perfume assaulted his nostrils. ‘There’s glass from a broken bottle.’

‘Thanks.’ Tom winced at the gravelly catch in his voice.

‘Andy’s legs are caught under the dash. Apart from his ankle pain, there’s no other obvious injury but visibility isn’t great. I can’t tell if he’s trapped or just wedged forward with the seat.’ She looked up, her wide eyes on a level with his for a breathless second. ‘We can’t shift him until we can straighten his legs and see. Before we try to move him out of the car, I’d like to try and shift the seat back so I can assess any lower limb damage properly.’

‘Shift the seat. Right.’ Tom drew in a lungful of air when her eyes swivelled back to Andy.

‘Can you wriggle your toes for me, Andy?’ she said, calmly carrying on with her examination.

‘Y-yeah.’

‘Are you allergic to any medications?’

‘No.’

‘Do you take medication for anything? Diabetes? Heart condition?’