Sue MacKay - Return of the Maverick

He turned to the nurse. ‘There’s a major contusion on the right-hand side of the head.’ Brain injury was a serious consideration.

‘Can we remove the bike without moving him?’ she asked.

‘You’re thinking of spinal injuries.’ He studied the way the boy’s foot was through the spokes. ‘We could but it’s best we wait for the paramedics so they can put a collar on first.’

They worked together, quickly and carefully, checking the boy thoroughly. Within moments an ambulance pulled up and a paramedic was with them. ‘Hey, what’ve we got?’

Brad quickly explained the injuries he’d noted while the paramedic applied a plastic collar, his gaze returning to the boy. Blond hair was plastered to the boy’s scalp. Brad’s belly suddenly clenched. The young innocent face, now very pale, dredged up a memory from deep in Brad’s soul.

Raw pain sliced through him, wrenched his heart. ‘Sammy.’ The name tore through him, spilled over his tongue, out into the street. ‘Sammy.’

His beloved boy hurting, his body broken, not moving at all. Sammy could be dying. He could have a serious brain injury. And his father couldn’t help him.

The nurse had a hand on his wrist, shaking him, talking to him in a calm voice. ‘Doctor, this is Jason Curtis. He lives just along the road.’

‘What?’ Brad dragged his gaze from the lad and turned to stare into the sincerest, deepest blue eyes he’d ever seen. The woman was telling him something important. He shook his head in an attempt to clear away the fog, and listened carefully.

‘Jason Curtis. His father works at the building centre.’ She dropped his wrist.

‘Not Sammy?’ Not his son? Hope flared. Brad looked back at the boy lying before him, and gulped. He looked nothing like Samuel. Except for the blond hair, the skinny legs and knobbly knees. Brad’s head spun. Damn it, he’d just made an idiot of himself freaking out like that. How could it be Samuel anyway? He was far away in California. The pain subsided, and Brad leaned down to run the back of his hand over the boy’s soft cheek, his fingers shaking.

Not his son, but another man would be feeling this agony as soon as he learned about the accident. What did these medical people think of him losing his cool like that? They’d probably cart him off to the lock up if he wasn’t careful. He looked around at the thinning crowd. At least no one here seemed to have recognised him. Thank goodness. He didn’t want his mistake added to the rest of the gossip no doubt circulating around Blenheim about him. Twisting his neck further, he found the nurse’s thoughtful gaze on him. She’d heard every word he’d uttered.

She gave him a tentative smile before filling in the patient report form for the ambulance crew. ‘Jason’s mum works in ED.’

The second officer leaned over and read the boy’s name. He whistled. ‘This is Polly’s boy? She’s already on shift.’

Glad of the distraction, Brad said, ‘Tricky. What happens when you call this job through to ED? It could be her who picks up the radio link.’ He felt for the woman. ‘Is there any other way of letting the staff know so they can tell her personally?’

‘We’ll phone in on our cell,’ one of the medics answered as he strapped the oxygen mask to Jason. ‘Right, let’s get that bike off and roll this lad onto the backboard.’

The four of them worked to get Jason safely untangled before transferring him to the stretcher and into the ambulance.

Brad turned to the nurse now standing beside him. ‘Phew, I’m glad that’s over. I always feel uncomfortable dealing with these situations when I’ve got no equipment at hand.’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. ‘And poor Polly’s going to get a shock, even if she is told before Jason gets there.’ She looked up at him and he could see the thought in her eyes.

A shock such as he’d just had.

Stepping up to the back of the ambulance, the woman advised the paramedic, ‘Tell Polly I’ve gone round to tell Jason’s father, will you?’

The paramedic began closing the back of the ambulance. ‘Sure will. And thanks for your help, Erin. I wish you’d come and join us. You’d make a great team member and we could use your skills.’

Brad gasped. Erin? As in Erin Foley, nurse at the medical centre he’d started working at? What would she have to say about his loss of concentration back there? If she informed the staff at the centre about it they might think they had more cause to look at him sideways.

But right now she was saying with an expressive shrug, ‘Who knows? If my new boss doesn’t work out, I might have to consider it.’

Still absorbing this latest bombshell, Brad muttered, ‘You’ve got doubts about a new boss before you’ve even worked with him?’ Why? Could she be feeling remorse for the tongue-lashing she’d given him over the phone last month despite not knowing him?

Erin blinked at him. ‘Ah, yes, I have.’ Turning her shoulder to him, she spoke to the paramedic again.

Of course she’d think it was none of Brad’s business. He should tell her who he was, get whatever was bothering her out in the open before clinic began. But, damn it, this was the woman who’d forced his hand, made him jump on a plane and cross the Tasman to help out the man who’d taken care of him years ago. If not for Erin Foley’s caustic phone call he’d still be justifying staying in Adelaide, pretending it was work that kept him there, not reluctance to face a town full of people who’d despised him for being a bad boy as a teenager. People who were no doubt laughing up their sleeves at his failed marriage, thinking he’d got his just deserts for believing he could escape his roots and rubbing their noses in it as he went. He shivered. And he couldn’t bear if they started in on Samuel.

The laughter about his mistakes and misdemeanours he could handle, but if anyone dared say a word about Samuel’s parentage he wouldn’t be able to hold in his hurt and anger.

A nudge in the arm from Erin’s elbow brought him back to his surroundings. She asked politely, ‘Are you okay? You look a bit pale.’

Pale? ‘I’m fine.’ He opened his clenched hands. ‘You want me to come with you to tell the boy’s father?’

‘No, thanks. I know them well.’

And he was a stranger. In her eyes, at least. There was a very real chance he’d know one of Jason’s parents, might’ve gone to school with one of them, so it was best he didn’t go with Erin to see Jason’s father. Brad didn’t want the past getting in the way of what she had to tell the other man. ‘Fair enough. Though someone else might’ve already beaten you to the door.’

‘Very likely but I need to make sure. I’d say Jason was on his way to school when he was hit by the van.’ She stretched her legs and looked around the crowd, nodded at a few people she obviously knew.

Of course she knew them. Some of them might even be patients at the medical centre where he now worked. Where she worked. He was her boss and he was interested in her other than as a nurse. That had to stop right now. This very instant. It wasn’t professional.

Only last week when he’d started at the clinic he’d had to hold his tongue when everyone had told him about the competent and cheerful nurse who had gone on leave the same day he’d started. He’d known the acid of her tongue over the phone, but nothing else about her. He’d expected a middle-aged paragon who was efficiency personified. No one had told him she was drop-dead gorgeous, and that was with a helmet on and wearing those dreadful Spandex cycle shorts with the padded seat.

Movement out of the corner of Brad’s eye caught his attention. Two youngsters were picking up a bike from the side of the road, a bike that looked suspiciously like Erin’s. ‘Hey, you two.’