LITMIR.BIZ

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not that either. I hate it that we missed someone. I knew it wasn’t over…’ His words were drowned out by the sirens and the noise of the camera crews. Security opened the back of the ambulance door before it had even halted, the driver jumped into the back and, seeing the greedy cameras, pulled the blanket over the patient’s face, which was acceptable as she was already intubated, while the other paramedic pushed on her chest. The stretcher was unclipped and James took over the cardiac massage as May bagged the patient. They bumped the stretcher out of the ambulance, raised it and then set off to the resuscitation area in a skilled, practised motion.

      But midway there, James lost his stride, the whole party halting for less than a second as James caught up, or seemed to.

      She’d always had pretty feet.

      Despite her plain clothes and serious, unmade-up face, Lorna had always worn pretty pink nail varnish just as this patient was, and Lorna had a mole just on the dorsum of her right foot too. James could feel the chest beneath his hand as he massaged the heart and he had, for that stupid second, wanted to stop the stretcher, wanted to rip the blanket from her face and find out that it wasn’t her.

      Except James knew with dread that it was.

      A coil of wet dark auburn hair had escaped the blanket, and as they whooshed into Resus and prepared to lift her onto the hard resuscitation bed, the blanket covering her was whipped off. Then he finally got confirmation, but he’d already known for a good fifteen seconds that it was Lorna.

      He’d always wondered if she’d changed. Up in Glasgow for a conference a couple of years ago, he’d scanned the shops and bars for a woman with auburn hair and huge amber eyes. He’d told himself it was futile, that it had been so long ago she might have dyed her hair by now, she’d always hated that it was red after all—or maybe she’d have put on weight. Or, worse, he might bump into her pushing a stroller containing twins. He was being ridiculous, he had told himself that day, because even if she walked towards him, stood in front of him, he probably wouldn’t even recognise her.

      He’d known at the time he was kidding himself and he’d had that confirmed today.

      Ten years on and he’d recognised her in an instant by her pretty feet alone.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘SHE WAS UNRESPONSIVE when they found her, but she had did have a pulse. She arrested when we moved her from the vehicle,’ the paramedic informed them as they raced into Resus.

      ‘Do we have an ID?’

      As she transferred the patient over to the resuscitation bed it was May who asked the question when James didn’t—he was still massaging the chest, even though Lavinia had offered to take over.

      ‘From the driving licence in the car we have a Lorna McClelland, thirty-two years of age, from Scotland; she’s a doctor apparently…’

      ‘How was she missed?’ It was the first time James had spoken since her arrival, and it was an irrelevant question really. She had been found, she was ill, for now all they could deal with was what presented, and May frowned as James persisted with the pointless. ‘How could she have been missed?’

      ‘I’m not sure,’ the paramedic answered. ‘We just got a callout twenty-five minutes ago. Mind you, it’s been chaos out there.’

      Instead of the emergency consultant it was Khan, the anaesthetist, who was running the show, flashing lights in the patient’s eyes, frowning up at James as he checked the airway, calling for drugs, and at that moment May stepped in. She had no idea what was wrong with James, but she would find out later. He was standing there, massaging the chest, as grey as sheet metal and instead of assessing the patient and commencing active treatment, still there he stood. It happened now and then, May knew that well, where staff just hit a wall. But maybe it was another peril of working in Emergency that was occurring here, May thought as she watched the beads form on his brow. He knew this patient!

      ‘Abby.’ Pressing the intercom, she summoned the registrar from her break. ‘We need you in Resus. Lavinia,’ May ordered, ‘take over the massage.’

      He stood and watched, half heard May say to Abby something about James not feeling too good, but all he could really hear was the sound of gushing in his ears, and the blip, blip, blip of the cardiac monitor as Lavinia delivered cardiac massage.

      Lorna’s blouse was already undone, her bra cut and pushed to the side. Her boots or shoes had already been taken off, where they had attempted IV access. They were slicing through her soaked clothes with scissors, sheering through her torn stockings and underwear. He could see the scars from her operation and it made him want to weep, but instead he just stood there, watching them lift her pale knees and insert a catheter, knowing how much she would hate all this, tempted to tell them to just leave her alone, tempted to pick her up and run, but wanting them to carry on as well.

      ‘Go to the on-call room,’ May said to him. ‘James, go to the on-call room, you look as if you’re about to pass out.’

      ‘I’m staying…’

      He’d never felt more useless in his life. As an emergency consultant he was accustomed to crises, but to have her slam back into his life like this, he was literally paralysed. She was so white. Lorna had always been pale, yet now she was as white as the sheet she was lying on. Even her lips were white. The only colour on the bed was her hair, thick, long and red still, so she hadn’t dyed it after all. In fact, she hadn’t changed at all. This fragile, slender little thing was just as he remembered her, and the Lorna he’d known was such a private person she would loathe the intrusion on her body very much. The warming unit had been pushed aside as full access to her body was needed. Abby was here now, taking over, asking for peritoneal lavage—where a bag of warmed fluids would be run into her abdominal cavity. The anaesthetist called for an oesophageal warming tube, but then Abby checked the monitor, the fine VF required Lorna be defibrillated. As the first shock was delivered to the frail body, James truly thought he would vomit as her chest lifted off the resus bed.

      She didn’t deserve this!

      May didn’t just tell him to leave again, she took him. There were plenty of experienced staff in with the patient now and guiding him by the arm through the department as if he were sleepwalking, she took him into his office and sat him at his desk, where he put his head in his hands.

      ‘Stay in there with her,’ James said, hating being away yet knowing it was right that he was. There wasn’t a hope in hell of being objective with her care. He’d never been able to be objective where Lorna was concerned, so how could he possibly start now? But the thought of her alone, the thought of him not being there for her when she needed him most, had him halting May as she turned to go. ‘May, if they stop…’

      ‘I’ll come and get you.’

      ‘Before they stop,’ James added.

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘What’s wrong with James?’ Abby frowned, looking up briefly as May made her way back to the resuscitation area.

      ‘He’sbeen here since 3 a. m.,’ May shrugged. She certainly wasn’t going to fuel the fire! ‘He mentioned he didn’t feel well when we were waiting for the ambulance.’

      There was no time to dwell on a consultant missing in action, though.

      An hour in, May rang her husband and told him she’d be really late now and to go ahead and have dinner..

      Very late, she told him a couple of hours later when she got the chance to ring again.

      James had been right with his prediction—it was a long resuscitation.

      The rapid warming did its job and then they had to work on getting the heart to beat independently, but for now she had an external pacemaker. Then there was a rapid CT scan, which showed a hairline fracture and cerebral swelling, and while all this was going on the police had tracked down her relatives and informed them of the direness of the situation.

      ‘What

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