The Stranger's Secret. Maggie Kingsley

three months.’ He nodded with resignation. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

      ‘Well, thank goodness you did,’ Fiona declared, lowering Jess carefully into a wheelchair, then pushing her through a door marked X-RAYS. ‘We islanders don’t tend to go out much in the evening in winter and heaven knows how long Jess might have been stuck in her car if you hadn’t happened along.’

      ‘I didn’t exactly happen—’

      ‘Would you mind staying with Jess until I get Bev and Will?’ Fiona continued. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

      And before either of them could reply she was gone in a flurry of starched green cotton.

      ‘Bev is our part-time radiographer,’ Jess explained as a frown creased Ezra’s forehead. ‘Will’s her husband, and a first-rate anaesthetist, though how long we’ll be able to keep him is anybody’s guess. Our resident surgeon retired last year, you see, and we haven’t been able to replace him. I can do some surgery, but—’

      ‘Why did you do that?’

      ‘Do what?’ she asked in confusion.

      ‘Tell her the accident was your fault?’

      Jess eased herself gingerly round in her wheelchair. ‘I don’t think you’d have a very happy three months here if word got round that you’re the man who trashed the doctor’s car and landed her in hospital.’

      The frown deepened. ‘But why should you care? Like you said, you don’t know me from Adam.’

      She was hurting more and more by the second, and was in no mood to try to explain what she didn’t quite understand herself, but she managed to dredge up a smile. ‘Maybe I’m an old softy at heart. Maybe I’m just too sore to be able to think straight.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘Didn’t I tell you to buy a decent car—well, didn’t I?’ Will Grant declared as he breezed into the X-ray department. ‘Buy a Volvo or a Range Rover, I said—’

      ‘Yes, we all know what you said, dear,’ his wife Bev interrupted, pushing past him, ‘and right now I don’t suppose Jess wants to hear you repeat it. Fractured right tibia and patella, you reckon?’ she continued, eyeing Jess critically, and when she nodded the radiographer frowned. ‘I’m not too happy about that bruise on your forehead. I think we’ll X-ray it as well.’

      ‘If you’re hoping to find any brains, I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ Ezra murmured, and Will laughed.

      ‘Too damned right. I’ve been telling this girl she’s an idiot for the past three years. Taking on her father’s practice—’

      ‘Look, could we just get on with this?’ Jess protested, scowling across at Ezra who, to her acute annoyance, merely smiled back.

      It didn’t take long for Fiona to check her blood pressure and temperature, and it only took a few minutes more for Bev to process the X-rays.

      ‘Well, the bad news is you’ve definitely fractured your tibia and patella,’ the radiographer declared. ‘The good news is they’re both nice clean breaks, and I can’t see any indication of internal damage.’

      Jess let out the breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. OK, so she’d broken her calf bone and kneecap, which would mean eight to ten weeks in plaster, but clean breaks meant she wouldn’t have to go to the mainland. Clean breaks and no internal injuries meant she could still take care of her patients.

      ‘My turn now.’ Will beamed, leading the way out of the X-ray department into the next room. ‘Time for a spot of good old reduction and plastering.’

      ‘But…but this is an operating theatre,’ Ezra declared, coming to a halt on the threshold.

      ‘We don’t have a plastering department,’ the anaesthetist explained. ‘Frankly, we’re lucky to have a hospital at all, considering the authorities would like nothing better than to shut us down. Centralisation of resources, they call it. In my opinion—’

      ‘Yes, dear, we all know your opinion,’ his wife sighed. ‘But right now Jess’s leg needs attending to.’

      And Ezra Dunbar badly needed some fresh air, Jess thought as she glanced up at him and saw how white he had become. Delayed shock, her professional instincts diagnosed. OK, so he hadn’t been hurt in the accident, but he had been involved and the knowledge of what could have happened had obviously just hit him.

      ‘Don’t you think it might be better if you waited outside?’ she said gently.

      He thrust his hands through his hair and she saw they were shaking. Delayed shock, indeed. And delayed shock in a very big way.

      ‘I—Right…Fine,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll…I’ll see you later, then.’

      And before she could say anything else, he was gone.

      Will stared after him for a second, then chuckled as he loaded a syringe with short-acting anaesthetic. ‘Well, who’d have thought it? A big, strapping chap like that coming over all queasy and not even a drop of blood in sight!’

      ‘Not everybody’s as cold-blooded as you are, Will,’ Jess retorted, only to flush slightly when they all stared at her in amazement. And it was hardly surprising. What on earth was she doing, leaping to a virtual stranger’s defence? And not simply a stranger but the man who had landed her here in the first place. Not that any of them knew that, of course, but… ‘Look, could we just get on with getting this leg of mine aligned and plastered?’ she continued vexedly. ‘I don’t want to be here all evening!’

      Ezra didn’t want to be there at all as he leant his head against the waiting-room window and tried to calm his fast-beating heart.

      Hell, they must all think he was an idiot. One minute he’d been fine, and the next…

      It had been the smell. He’d never realised that all operating theatres probably smelt the same, but they did, and when he’d seen the table…

      ‘Oh, hell.’

      He clenched his hands tightly together and whirled round on his heel. Think of something else. Think of anything else, his mind urged, before you make an ever bigger fool of yourself than you already have done.

      If only he hadn’t been driving so fast. If only he’d been paying attention. But he hadn’t, and now…

      Restlessly he paced the waiting room. What the hell were they doing in there? Aligning and plastering a leg shouldn’t take very long. Unless, of course, they’d found some complication.

      A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he turned quickly as a door opened behind him. Fiona. And to his relief, Jess was with her.

      ‘She’s thrown up twice, and fainted once,’ the staff nurse stated, holding out a bottle of pills. ‘She can take two of these for the pain, but no more than eight in twenty-four hours.’

      ‘B-but surely you’re going to keep her in?’ Ezra stammered, and Fiona sighed with resignation.

      ‘She won’t stay. Maybe you can make her see sense but I doubt it.’

      ‘Jess, of course you’ve got to stay!’ Ezra exclaimed as Fiona walked away. ‘You could be suffering from shock—’

      ‘I’m not,’ she said smoothly. ‘Will’s plastered my leg, and given me some painkillers, so could we, please, leave now?’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Could you drive me down to my practice? It’s not far, but…’ she gazed wryly at the crutches Fiona had given her ‘…I don’t think I could manage it on these.’

      ‘You want to collect something?’ he murmured, still stunned by the knowledge that she’d actually discharged herself.

      ‘Not collect, no. My surgery started