LITMIR.BIZ

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raced back across the narrow beach to grab the rest of her belongings before rejoining the small cavalcade, sparing a brief reassuring smile for the young woman being comforted by the matriarch of the boisterous family.

      It was a precarious trek up the winding pathway to the road at the top. She’d taken the much steeper steps on the way down, but even this route seemed almost as precipitous as Mount Everest now that she wanted to cover the distance quickly.

      She knew that the first hour after an accident—the so-called ‘golden’ hour—could be the most crucial in deciding the survival of a patient. It would have been impossible not to be conscious that time was ticking by at an alarming rate.

      ‘La macchina,’ announced one of the volunteer porters as they came to a halt beside a luxurious car.

      While she supervised the loading of her little charge across the back seat she subdued a brief pang of worry at abandoning her own hired vehicle. It could be awkward if she was left stranded at the hospital without transport, but it was far more important that she should be close at hand to watch over Taddeo.

      Lissa perched herself on the edge of the seat, bracing her hip against the edge of the makeshift backboard to ensure it didn’t shift as the engine roared into life. She tightened one hand over the luxurious leather upholstery, the other probing gently around the wedged towels to check on her charge’s pulse.

      Still strong and steady, thank goodness, although his continued unconsciousness was worrying. Supposing he had sustained something more than concussion? A haemorrhage? Brain damage? Was he in a coma, dying even as she counted his pulse and monitored his breathing?

      ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she muttered, giving herself a mental shake. ‘Just because you aren’t surrounded by the usual equipment in the emergency department doesn’t mean that your brain isn’t functioning the way it usually does.’ She checked the size of the child’s pupils, having to peer closely because the irises were so dark a brown that they almost merged with the pupil.

      ‘Still even,’ she whispered, relieved that they also seemed to be equally responsive to changes in light levels.

      ‘Uno minuto,’ her unofficial ambulance driver called over his shoulder, announcing their imminent arrival at the hospital. Lissa sighed with relief, then started to brace herself for the task of dredging up enough of her rusty Italian to try to explain the situation and her observations.

      She marshalled her thoughts into some semblance of order and spared a brief thought for the paramedics who had to do this on a daily basis. She’d always appreciated the ones who managed to give the maximum of pertinent detail in the minimum of words but had never realised how difficult it could be to do it.

      ‘Può aiutarmi?’ she called, beckoning two gentlemen in uniform standing near the entrance to the small regional hospital’s emergency entrance. They certainly looked strong enough to help to lift the makeshift stretcher out of the car.

      ‘There’s been an accident. He’s hit his head. He’s unconscious,’ she said, relieved that the hastily collected phrases had the desired effect.

      Her redundant driver waved off her expressions of gratitude and called his good wishes after her as she hurried away. In no time at all she was following the child into the department, relieved to have arrived so swiftly.

      Once inside the doors she was stopped by a wall of bodies and sound, unable to believe her eyes.

      The whole place seemed to be completely crowded with a multitude of people wailing in misery, and for a moment she wondered how on earth she was going to get her little charge the attention he urgently needed.

      Her press-ganged porters obviously knew their way around, as there was no hesitation in their passage through the unit. She followed closely behind, her eyes darting around in the hopes of spotting someone in authority as soon as possible.

      One of her willing companions called out urgently to a harried nurse who pointed towards a curtained cubicle. The woman’s reply was totally incomprehensible to Lissa, the words lost in the volume of misery surrounding them.

      Lissa supervised as they gently deposited their burden onto an examining table then checked the little figure again. There was still no sign that he was returning to consciousness and she was growing increasingly frustrated that there was absolutely nothing she could do about the delay in getting someone to look at him.

      If this had been the accident and emergency department she’d been working in for the last year, she wouldn’t even have had to raise her voice to have at least a nurse in attendance. What kind of place was this to have the reception area filled with such a noisy rabble and not a member of medical staff in evidence? Was there anyone in charge?

      When the curtain was whisked aside behind her she whirled to face the intruder. She would have loved to demand answers to each one of those questions but doubted whether her grasp of Italian was up to it. Neither was it the time or place for such recriminations. It was Taddeo who mattered.

      A distant part of her brain registered the fact that the man who had just joined them was the epitome of every cliché about handsome Italian males—all lean good looks and flashing dark eyes. The more rational side registered the fact that his clothing might be in immaculate good taste but it was decidedly rumpled and he looked as exhausted as if he hadn’t slept for a week.

      That didn’t mean that those dark eyes were lazy about skimming over her from head to toe, lingering pointedly in several places.

      Lissa glared at him when his gaze finally rose high enough to reach her face, angry that her body was stirring in response to the admiration she could read there.

      The sudden shiver of awareness drew her attention to the fact that she was wearing little more than a gauzy shirt over a swimsuit that covered her as faithfully as a second skin. It was a measure of how single-minded her concentration had been over the last half-hour that she’d completely forgotten her skimpy attire, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

      ‘You are a doctor?’ she demanded with a lift of her chin that denied the previous few seconds of byplay, and received a cool nod in reply. ‘Well, there’s been an accident,’ she announced, the words beginning to sound more fluent the more often she used them. ‘The child fell and hit his head. He’s still unconscious.’ She gestured towards her charge, affording him his first view of their patient.

      He gasped and she found herself unceremoniously nudged aside as he strode to the side of the bed.

      ‘Mio figlio!’ he exclaimed in a voice full of horror as he began to examine the child, and they were almost the only words she understood in the following flood of words. All she could tell was that they were questions and that he was very angry.

      ‘I’m sorry, but when you speak so fast I can’t understand,’ she announced, reverting to English and stopping him in his tracks. ‘Did you say he’s your son?’

      ‘Si…Yes,’ he corrected himself impatiently, his dark brows pulled together in a deep V as he checked the unconscious child’s pupillary reaction. ‘Taddeo Aldarini. He’s almost five years old…But what happened to him? Where is Maddelena, and what are you doing with my son?’

      He’d straightened up by then and his final question was almost an accusation, not softened at all by the sexy accent shaping his words.

      Lissa chose to answer the more important one first.

      ‘He fell at the beach and landed on his back on the rocks.’ She held up her hand when he went to interrupt. ‘He’s been unconscious since he fell but his vital signs are all within normal bounds. I didn’t let anyone move him until I could stabilise his spine on an improvised backboard. As far as I can see, his only external injury is a bump on the back of his head where the skin has been broken.’

      ‘You are a nurse?’ he questioned as he swiftly jotted down what she’d told him on the case notes.

      ‘A doctor,’ she corrected as an amplified voice cut through the hubbub outside the curtain. The electronic

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