LITMIR.BIZ

      He shouldn’t have left the boys with Christine. Normally Tom Lavery used his next-door neighbour, Rose, as childminder. Rose was in her seventies, huge-hearted, reliable. The boys loved her, but this morning she’d fallen and hurt her hip. It was only bruised, thank heaven, but she needed rest.

      This weekend was also the annual field-day-cum-funfair at Ferndale, two hours’ drive across the mountains. For the isolated town of Shallow Bay, the Ferndale Show was huge. Practically the entire population took part, with cattle parades and judging, baking competitions, kids’ activities. As Shallow Bay emptied, Christine, Rose’s niece, had become his childminder of last resort.

      ‘Worrying?’ Roscoe, Shallow Bay’s hospital nurse administrator, was watching Tom from the far side of the nurses’ station. Tom was supposed to be filling in patient histories. Instead he’d turned to the window, looking down towards the cottage.

      ‘Go home and check,’ Roscoe said. For a big man—make that huge—Roscoe was remarkably perceptive. ‘You’ll be writing Bob up for antacids instead of antibiotics if you’re not careful.’

      ‘I’m careful.’ He hauled his attention back to his job. ‘Christine can cope.’

      ‘As long as there’s no ad for hair curlers on telly. You know she’s a dipstick,’ Roscoe said bluntly.

      Roscoe’s smile was half hidden by his beard, but it didn’t hide the sympathy. ‘Go home, doc,’ he told him again. ‘I’ll ring you if I need you, and I’ll drop these charts off for you to fill in after the boys go to sleep tonight. I wish you could be taking the boys across to Ferndale, but hey, you have another doctor here on Monday. All problems solved, no?’

      No, Tom thought as he snagged the next chart and started writing. It was all very well for Roscoe to say he could do these tonight, but if he fell behind in his paperwork he’d never catch up.

      Another hour…

      But he glanced at the window one last time. The boys were capable of anything.

      For what was maybe the four thousandth time over the last two years he thought, What have I let myself in for?

      How long’s for ever?

      And then his attention was diverted. There was a car speeding up the track from the bay. A scarlet roadster. A two-seater.

      Tom’s cottage was one of only three down that road. Few people used it except for Tom, Rose and Rose’s occasional visitors.

      And the new doctor? He’d been told she’d collected the key from Reception a couple of hours back. Poppy, the junior nurse who’d given her the key, had been frustratingly vague when asked for a description. ‘Quite old, really,’ she’d said, which in Poppy’s twenty-two-year-old eyes meant anything over twenty-three. ‘And ordinary. Just, you know, dullsville when it comes to clothes. Didn’t say much, just took the key and said she’d be at work at nine on Monday. She drives a cool car, though.’

      If this was it, it certainly was cool, a streamlined beauty, the kind of car Tom used to love to drive—in another life.

      So this would be Rachel Tilding, the new doctor, the latest of the Lavery Scholarship recipients, here to pay her dues with two years’ service. He imagined she’d be heading to the shops to buy supplies or a takeaway meal for dinner. He should drop over tonight to say hi.

      But tonight he didn’t have his normal backup of Rose, who was always ready to slip over and mind the kids whenever he needed to go out. He could scarcely go over bearing wine and casserole and say, Welcome to Shallow Bay. Plus, he was dead tired. If he had the energy to make a casserole there’d be no way it’d leave his house.

      He sighed and started to turn back to the desk—but then he paused. The car had turned off the road and was heading down the hospital driveway.

      He could make the driver out now. The woman seemed slight, fair-skinned, with brown curly hair tumbling to her shoulders. Leaning against her was a child.

      A child with his arm raised, caught in some sort of sling. An arm which was bright crimson.

       Kit!

      Running in hospitals was forbidden. From training it was instilled into you. No matter the emergency, walking swiftly gets you there almost as fast, with far less likelihood of causing another emergency.

      Stuff training. Dr Tom Lavery ran.

      She’d collected this gorgeous little car three weeks ago and she still practically purred every time she looked at it. Two years of internship, living in hospital accommodation and being constantly tired, meant that she’d spent practically nothing of her two years’ wages. The condition of the scholarship which had funded her training meant she was now facing two years of ‘exile’ in the country. This car would be a gift to herself, she’d decided, to celebrate being a fully qualified doctor with her internship behind her. It’d also be something to remind her of the life she’d have when she could finally return to the city.

      She’d driven it to Shallow Bay with a beam on her face a mile wide, blocking out the thought that she’d had to hire a man with a van to bring her possessions, as nothing bigger than a designer suitcase would fit in with her.

      But now she wasn’t thinking of her car. She had a child in her passenger seat, a little boy so white she thought he was about to pass out. She’d put as much pressure as she dared on his arm, slinging it roughly upward before somehow managing to carry him to her car. Her cream leather was turning scarlet to match the paintwork. Any minute now Kit could throw up. Or, worse, lose consciousness.

      Please, no. She loved this car but if she had the choice between vomit or coma…

      ‘Hold on, Kit,’ she muttered. The decision to get him to the hospital rather than calling for an ambulance had been instantaneous. He still had glass in his hand. The blood he’d lost was frightening and the hospital was so close…

      ‘I want Tom,’ he quavered.

      Tom? His stepfather? That was the name the kids had used. And Christine? The overblown, overpainted woman had emerged from the house, taken one look and fled back inside, saying, ‘I’ll ring Tom.’ So much for practical help. Rachel had hauled off her own windcheater and used that as a pressure bandage and sling.

      ‘Tell Christine—and Tom—I’ve taken him to the hospital,’ she’d told his terrified brothers, and then she’d left. There was time for nothing else.

      ‘We’ll find Tom,’ she told Kit now, as he slumped against her. ‘But first we need to stop your hand bleeding. We can do this, Kit. Be brave. Isn’t it lucky I’m a doctor?’

      The sight that met him as he emerged from the Emergency entrance was horrific. All he could see was blood. And one small boy.

      For a moment he felt as if his legs might give way. Kit’s face, his hair, his T-shirt, were soaked with blood. The T-shirt was a treasured one, covered with meerkat cartoons. Tom couldn’t see a single meerkat now, though. All he could see was blood.

       Kit.

      ‘Mate, you’re doctor first, stepdad second.’ It was Roscoe, placing a huge palm on his shoulder as they both headed for the car. ‘Right now, Kit needs a doctor.’

      The

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