Kate Hardy - Her Honourable Playboy

‘Eighteen. Passed my test last week—first time,’ he added, with a hint of pride in his voice. ‘My old man bought me the car.’

So the lorry-driver had been wrong. Gaz wasn’t a joy-rider. Good. ‘Do you want me to call him, or is he with your mum?’

Gaz shook his head. ‘He doesn’t live with my mum. Never has. And he only bought me the car ’cause he thought it might stop her going on about the child support he owes her and never paid.’

Oh, yeah. She knew all about that one. A dad who didn’t give a damn and thought he could buy his way out of his responsibilities. Her teeth gritted.

‘I’m not going to walk again, am I?’ he asked.

‘Until we get you out of there, we can’t assess the damage,’ she hedged.

To her relief, before Gaz could ask the crunch question again—was he going to die?—the fire brigade arrived.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Gaz begged. ‘Please, don’t go.’

‘Of course I won’t. But I might have to get out of the way for a few minutes while they cut you out, OK?’

He nodded weakly. Seb had clearly briefed the fire brigade. When they asked her to move aside, she went over to where he was briefing the paramedics and gave them Gaz’s obs.

‘We’ve done all we can here,’ Seb said, when she’d finished.

Alyssa shook her head. ‘Gaz is panicking like hell. He asked me not to leave him. So I’m staying.’ She bit her lip. ‘As soon as they’re ready to take that car off him…’

‘Hey. There’s still a chance. A small one, but there’s still a chance.’

Not much of one, and they both knew it.

‘I said I’d get his mum for him.’ Alyssa hit the redial button on her phone. Ten seconds later, she cut the call. ‘Her phone’s still switched off.’ She turned to the paramedics. ‘The driver asked me to stay with him—he’s pretty scared. Can I go with you and hold his hand? It’ll help keep him calm. Plus, I’m a doctor in the ED at Docklands Memorial, so I can help out in the back as well.’

To her relief, they agreed.

‘I’ll meet you at the hospital and take you home,’ Seb said.

She shook her head. ‘Don’t put yourself out.’

‘Alyssa, don’t argue. I’m not going to see you stranded at the hospital or having to wait hours for a taxi.’

Both were distinct possibilities—possibilities she didn’t relish—so she wasn’t going to argue with him. ‘Thank you.’

She went over to the paramedics and held Gaz’s hand as they strapped him to a spinal board. They soothed him, but Alyssa had noticed the momentary tightening of their faces before they’d masked their expressions. They didn’t think he had much chance either.

‘I tried your mum again but couldn’t get her,’ she said softly.

‘If I d…If I don’t make it,’ he choked, ‘will you tell her I love her and I’m sorry?’

She forced the tears back. No time for emotion now: she had to be a professional. And if she told him the truth, what would it achieve? She’d just make his last few minutes as miserable as possible. ‘Sure, but you’ll be able to tell her yourself.’If she could get Gaz’s mum on the phone. ‘We’re getting you out of there.’

‘Will you go with me in the ambulance?’

‘Of course I will.’

And then it was the bit she was dreading. They lifted the car off Gaz, applied direct compression to his crushed legs and rushed him into the ambulance.

Seb finished giving his witness statement to the police, then climbed back into his car and drove to the hospital. Thank God he’d thought straight enough to ask which hospital they were going to rather than just assuming it was the nearest one.

He hadn’t planned tonight to be like this at all. It should have been fun, a night out, a good meal, and nothing more than that.

And the whole thing had turned into a nightmare. If they’d left five minutes sooner or five minutes later, Gaz and his mates wouldn’t have seen the E-type and behaved so stupidly. Probably egged each other on: Go on, Gaz, you can take it, give it some va-va-voom!

And Gaz wouldn’t be in the back of an ambulance right now with crushed legs—legs that might well have to be amputated.

If the kid even made it to the hospital.

Alyssa had been amazing. Cool, calm, collected and kind—she’d done all the right things in the right order. She hadn’t even worried about the fact that doctors’ professional indemnity insurance didn’t cover them at the scene of an accident, unless they were there on a shout as part of their job. And she’d cared enough to go with a frightened teenager in the back of an ambulance, holding his hand and reassuring him.

There was a hell of a lot more to Alyssa Ward than met the eye. And Seb found himself wanting to know more.

Seb parked the car and headed straight for the emergency department. Alyssa was sitting in the reception area, talking to a policeman—clearly giving him a witness statement.

He waited until she’d finished and walked over to her. She looked drained and miserable—drained because she’d done so much to keep their patient going, and miserable because she wasn’t staff and could do absolutely nothing to help the boy now. He knew exactly where she was coming from, so he wrapped his arms round her and held her close.

‘He’s in Resus. Critical,’ she said, her voice shaking.

‘Hey. You got him here. That’s a hell of a lot better than we hoped for.’

‘He’s only eighteen, Seb. He made a stupid mistake, yes, but he’s so young!’

‘I know.’ He stroked her hair. ‘I feel bad now. I was going to chase after him and yell at him.’

‘Maybe if someone had done that before…’She added bitterly, ‘His dad didn’t bother to stick around and help guide him. What the hell is wrong with men?’

Seb knew that wasn’t a dig aimed at him—he had a feeling it went far deeper than that. Did Alyssa have issues with her father? Then again, he thought wryly, they couldn’t be much worse than his own issues with his mother.

He said nothing, just held her until she’d calmed down enough to pull away.

‘Before you say it,’ he said softly, ‘that was a professional hug. That was a “we’ve got a patient critically ill in Resus and it’s a bad day” hug from one doctor to another. An “I know how you feel because I’ve been there” type of thing. No strings, no expectations.’

She didn’t say anything, but the hard look in her eyes softened.

Did she really think he was that much of a louse—that he’d see she was emotionally drained and use it as a lever to get her into bed? Is that what everyone else in the hospital thought of him?

Suddenly, Seb didn’t like himself very much.

‘Look, you can’t do anything else for him now. We’re not staff—not here,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it a day. Go home, get some rest. And ring in tomorrow.’

‘And they’ll tell me he’s “comfortable”. Patient confidentiality,’ she said bitterly.

‘Explain who you are. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll lean on the consultant for you,’ he said.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Alyssa, if you stay here all night, he might still be critical in the morning,’ he said gently. ‘You need to get some rest. Come on.’

They drove back to her flat in silence.

‘Thank you for tonight,’ she said stiltedly.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘The accident wasn’t your fault.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

She frowned. ‘What, then?’

She already thought the worst of him, so she may as well know the truth. ‘This night out was supposed to be a make-over for you, dinner and a show. Except it annoyed me that you were throwing it back in my face—so I decided on the spur of the moment to make you go out with me tonight. Which meant I didn’t have time to get tickets for a show or organise a make-over.’