Their First Family Christmas. Alison Roberts

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      Alistair was drawing up the morphine. He held the ampoule so that Emma could do the drug check. Her nod was brisk. Happy with Jack’s breath sounds, she wanted to start a neurological check. The potential head injury was high on her list of concerns.

      ‘You know where you are, Jack?’

      One side of his mouth curled into that ironic smile she remembered so well.

      ‘Oh, yeah... Unless the Eastern got shifted recently?’

      ‘And can you tell me what date it is today?’

      The smile vanished and Emma knew, with what felt like a kick in her gut, that the pain in his eyes had nothing to do with his injuries. It was a standard question but how insensitive was it, given these particular circumstances?

      ‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ Jack said softly. ‘I’m...I’m sorry, Red.’

      The old nickname, bestowed in honour of her wild, auburn hair, was almost her undoing.

      Nobody else called her ‘Red’. Never had, never would...

      Not even Sarah. She used to make Emma laugh when they were kids by calling her the ‘Ginger Ninja’ and there was nobody else in her life that would dream of doing that.

      This time, the lump had jagged edges and there was no way of stopping the sting that got to the back of her eyes.

      ‘I’m sure you didn’t do this on purpose.’ Her voice sounded odd, coming from around the edges of that lump. ‘I’m sorry, too.’ She gathered some strength she didn’t know she had. ‘But don’t worry—we’re going to look after you.’

      The nurse had finished cutting the leather of his bike pants and was working on the sleeves of his jacket. She had to pause while Alistair flushed the IV line, after injecting the painkiller.

      ‘I’ll draw some bloods,’ Alistair said. ‘Including an ETOH level?’

      ‘I haven’t been drinking.’ Jack’s words sounded a little slurred but his face had relaxed a bit, suggesting that his pain level—which Emma suspected he had under-reported—was dropping, so it was quite likely the morphine was making him sleepy.

      Alistair’s look said it all. The slurred words were no surprise. This was Jack Reynolds, wasn’t it?

      A flash of anger caught Emma unawares. Okay, Jack had left here under a huge cloud but there’d been a reason for that, hadn’t there? A reason big enough to make it, if not forgivable, at least enough to offer the benefit of doubt now.

      The nurse cutting away clothing had caught the look and her eyebrows rose.

      ‘This is Mr Reynolds,’ Alistair told her. ‘He used to work here. He was one of our orthopaedic surgeons.’

      ‘Oh...’ The young nurse looked impressed. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Reynolds...about having to cut your leathers. I know how expensive they are.’

      ‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Jack muttered. ‘And call me Jack. I’m not at work at the moment.’

      Emma caught her breath. Was he planning to be at work in the near future? Was that why he’d come back? But why would he choose today, of all days, to come back to Glasgow?

      But then again...why wouldn’t he?

      One of the junior doctors who had joined the team had taken off the dressing that covered Jack’s arm injury.

      ‘Can you wiggle your fingers for me, Jack?’

      Emma was still holding her breath. The scraped skin looked raw and painful but if he’d broken bones it could affect his future as a surgeon and that might destroy what had always been the most important thing in his life. Jack Reynolds might still be seen as a badly behaved maverick by some—Alistair, for instance—but nobody had ever had anything other than praise to offer about his work as the rising star of the orthopaedic surgical department. Ironically, he’d been heading towards specialist trauma work and had been the best available for injuries that had the potential to seriously affect someone’s quality of life. Like neck fractures or mangled hands.

      She released the breath in a sigh of relief as she saw the way Jack was able to move his hand. And he could make a fist and resist pressure without it causing undue pain in his arm so it was unlikely that any bones had been broken.

      He might not be so lucky with that lower leg injury that Alistair was assessing. The nasty haematoma on his calf could well be the result of an underlying fracture and it was causing some pain to try and move his foot.

      Neither of those injuries was in any way life-threatening, however. Emma was more concerned about the bruising on Jack’s ribs and whether he had a head injury. Despite the protection of a helmet, if he’d hit his head hard enough to lose consciousness, even briefly, he was very likely to have a concussion and possibly something worse, like a bleed, going on.

      ‘Take a deep breath for me, Jack. Is it painful?’ Emma put her hand over skin that was mottled with early bruising.

      ‘A bit.’

      ‘We’ll get some X-rays done soon. You might have broken a few ribs. Let me know if you get short of breath at all.’

      ‘I’m fine.’ Jack had closed his eyes again. ‘The department looked busy out there. You must have patients who are worse off than me.’

      Emma ignored the comment. And the look that Alistair flicked in her direction. He knew. Not about how close she’d been to Jack, of course—keeping that a secret had been part of the excitement—and he hadn’t actually been in the department this time last year but there would be very few people in this hospital who hadn’t heard every single detail about the heartbreaking tragedy she and Jack had been so much a part of. The aftermath had been the hot topic for gossip for weeks as well. And everybody knew how much Emma’s life had changed when she’d finally taken responsibility for Lily.

      Maybe Alistair thought she should step out. That she would prefer not to be caring for Jack after those traumatic weeks that had ended in a battle that everyone believed Jack had deserved to lose.

      She couldn’t let him—or anyone else—know just how far from the truth that was. Her next words came out a little more sternly than was probably warranted.

      ‘Don’t move your head. I’m undoing the collar so I can have a feel of your neck.’

      * * *

      Jack couldn’t see Emma because she was standing behind his head.

      But he could feel her.

      Not just the obvious touch of her fingers on his neck as she pressed her thumbs on each side of his spine, putting systematic, gentle pressure down the midline to check for the presence of tenderness before moving further from the midline to repeat the process.

      No. He could feel her in a much more ethereal sense. He hadn’t known which hospital he was being transported to after the accident and he hadn’t been feeling that great when he’d arrived, but even with his eyes shut, he’d known that Emma was in the room.

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