Her Boss and Protector. Joanna Neil

about it from the first. She wasn’t experienced in emergency work, and it was going to be a challenge. Now, with everything that had happened, it was just one more problem to add to everything else that she had to contend with.

      ‘Is Nanna there as well?’ Connor looked troubled.

      Jade nodded and ushered the children into the cottage and along the hallway towards the kitchen. She wasn’t sure how to tackle this situation, and the truth was she was feeling completely out of her depth. Perhaps it was best just to let the children ask questions, and to answer them as simply as she was able.

      ‘Can we go and see Mummy?’ Rebeccah asked. ‘And Nanna? Will we be able to go and see them?’

      Jade put their belongings on the worktop in the kitchen and then turned to face the children. ‘I hope so…when they’re feeling a little bit better perhaps. The doctors and nurses are looking after your mummy and nanna as best they can. We just have to wait a little while until they start to get well again.’

      She said it confidently enough, but inside she felt sick with worry. When she had last seen Rebeccah’s mother, the medical team had been battling to save her life. They had been giving her intravenous fluids to keep her from going into shock, and they had been calling for the assistance of a surgeon. As to her own mother, they were still trying to find out whether she was suffering from any internal bleeding. It seemed as though the world had been turned upside down in a matter of minutes, and now Jade was left struggling to cope with the aftermath.

      She went over to the fridge and brought out a bottle of milk. ‘Do you want milk and biscuits? They might keep you going until I get things sorted out for tea.’

      Connor nodded and came over to the table. ‘Why can’t Daddy come and look after us?’ he said, climbing up onto a chair. ‘Then we could stay at our house.’

      ‘He’s away, Connor—he’s working on the oilrig out at sea. Don’t you remember?’ She frowned. ‘It won’t be so bad staying here with me, will it?’

      ‘No…but I haven’t got all my toys. I want my fire engine.’

      ‘It’s his favourite toy,’ Rebeccah said knowledgeably. ‘He even takes it to bed with him.’ She turned to her brother and said with a sneer, ‘He isn’t our dad, anyway. Not our real dad…and he’s hardly ever at home.’

      ‘So? I don’t care.’ Connor was scowling, and Rebeccah glared at him in return. Jade wondered whether she ought to intervene.

      ‘I think I picked up your fire engine and put it in one of the bags,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you two go outside and play in the garden for a while?’ She sensed that they were unsettled after what had happened, and were fizzing inside like a volcano that was about to erupt. Maybe they needed to let off some steam. With them off her hands for a while, perhaps she could take the time to phone her half-brother and let him know what had happened.

      The children didn’t need a second bidding. They wolfed down the milk and biscuits and then they were off like a shot through the French doors and out into the wilderness that passed for a garden. Jade watched them go. Absently, she noticed that the grass needed cutting and there were weeds that needed to be pulled, but for the time being other things had to take priority.

      She went over to the phone and dialled her brother’s number, aware of a hollow feeling in her stomach as she waited for the call to be put through. She could see the children through the glass doors, and she frowned when Connor came back into the kitchen and began to rummage through the bags on the worktop. Belongings were scattered far and wide until he found what he was looking for.

      He looked at her in triumph. ‘Got my fire engine,’ he said, and ran outside once more.

      Sounds of squabbling came from the garden, but just then her brother’s boss answered the phone and she tried to ignore what was going on outside for a while. ‘I need to talk to Ben,’ she told him. ‘Is he able to come to the phone? Something’s happened that he needs to know about.’

      ‘He was diving earlier today, checking the pipelines,’ the boss said. ‘Right now he’s undergoing decompression—is there anything I can do for you?’

      ‘There’s been an accident,’ she told him, ‘and his wife and our mother are in hospital. I was hoping that he would be able to come home.’

      ‘I’m so sorry. Of course I’ll let him know. How are they? Is it bad?’

      Jade was watching the children as she spoke, and she saw that Connor had started to climb onto the shed roof, with Rebeccah close on his heels. Her stomach knotted. It was a lean-to shed, positioned up against the fence that separated their property from the one next door. She guessed that they were trying to get a better look at the tree in the next garden. Its branches overhung the shed a little, and it was probably a big temptation to them. The children looked safe enough for the moment, but she would have to go and get them down from there.

      She said, ‘I don’t know all the details yet. They’re still doing tests at the hospital.’ She pulled in a shaky breath. ‘They were out on a shopping trip, and as they were crossing the road a car jumped the lights and hit them. My brother’s wife has a suspected pelvic fracture and head injury, and our mother is being treated for a shoulder fracture and abdominal trauma. We don’t know the full extent of their injuries yet.’

      ‘I’m dreadfully sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll certainly get the message to Ben, and we’ll make sure that he’ll get back to you as soon as we can manage it. It might take some time—he’ll be in the decompression chamber for another day or so, and then we have to wait until conditions are right to fly him home. The weather isn’t always in our favour out here, but we’ll send him back to you as soon as is humanly possible.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She cut the call, and sat for a moment staring bleakly into space. She had desperately wanted to talk to Ben. He was her one point of contact, and now that had been denied her she felt devastated. It was as though she was totally alone in the world, and memories poured in, washing over her like a tidal wave…recollections of a bleak childhood spent waiting for a father who never came.

      Shouts from the garden drew her back to the present. There was a cracking sound as a tree branch broke, but she could see that the children were safe. Hurrying out through the French doors, she went over to the shed to see what the fuss was about. ‘Come down from there,’ she said.

      ‘I seed the ghost,’ Connor shrieked. ‘He’s coming to get us.’

      Rebeccah was pale. ‘I heard him,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘He’s got a big deep voice, and he said he wants to talk to us.’

      Jade frowned as she helped the children down. She had no idea what had upset them, but it was clear that they were both shaken. She looked around but there was no sign of anyone but the three of them. ‘There aren’t any ghosts,’ she said.

      ‘Is, too,’ Connor insisted. ‘We wasn’t being naughty. We was just trying to look at the tree.’

      Jade turned her attention to Rebeccah, and Connor disappeared round the side of the shed. She thought that maybe he was trying to hide, but then she heard him scrabbling about. As she went to investigate what he was up to, a voice caught her unawares.

      ‘Could I speak to you for a moment?’

      Jade turned to see where the sound was coming from, putting a hand up to her temple, brushing back her shoulder-length golden curls and shielding her eyes from the sun. The children were right. It was a deep, male voice, and she was pretty sure that it didn’t belong to any spectre.

      The children weren’t hanging around to find out who it was, but took to their heels and fled into the house. Jade glanced after them. Connor was carrying something, but she couldn’t make out what it was, and at the moment she was more interested in finding out who the voice belonged to.

      ‘I’m over here, by the gate,’ the man said, and she turned to where the large wrought-iron side gate separated the back garden from the front