‘Pressure? What’s pressure?’ Hannah murmured the words quietly.
Sophie chuckled, nudging her friend in the ribs. ‘Don’t listen to her, Matt. Hannah’s very focussed at times.’
He could see that already. And he liked Sophie immediately, she was the kind of woman that he usually chose to spend his free time with. Conventionally pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, she seemed easygoing and uncomplicated. Hannah, on the other hand...
Hannah was compelling. Beautiful. Almost certainly not the right kind of woman to get involved with, because bonds made with Hannah might not be easy to break. Matt dismissed the idea. No one was going to get involved with anyone, he should relax and look at this as an extension of his work. Money for the hospital was an extension of his work.
‘We’d better get going...’ Hannah was scanning the crowd intently, obviously looking for someone. ‘I’ll see you next Saturday, then?’
A whole week suddenly seemed a very long time to wait. But Matt hadn’t planned on winning today, and he was going to have to fit his training sessions in whenever the opportunity presented itself.
‘You know where to find me if you want me?’
Hannah nodded quietly, and it was Sophie who answered. ‘Yes, we know. We’ll leave a message with the surgical unit...’
Matt watched as the two women walked away from him. Sophie was obviously reliving one or other of the obstacles, tracing shapes in the air in front of her to illustrate the point. Hannah was listening intently. He wondered if she ever gave herself a break and loosened up a bit.
‘Mum...!’
A small boy, of about six, was running across the grass towards them, followed by an older woman. Even if he hadn’t called to her, Matt would have guessed this was Hannah’s son, his tawny eyes and red-brown hair matched hers almost exactly. Hannah stretched out her arms in an expression of joy, falling to her knees, as the boy ran straight into her arms.
If she’d employed half the exuberance that she’d shown just now, she would have floated over the obstacle course, instead of battling her way through it. Sophie and the older woman were chatting and laughing together, and Hannah was doing a little victory dance with her son. The thought that he wanted to do a very different kind of victory dance with her was enticing and entirely inappropriate, but it was the kind of image that was difficult to erase from his memory.
It would fade. Memories did fade when you were a stranger, always on the move. Matt had learned to travel light, making no lasting personal attachments to hold him back.
He’d been travelling light since he was eight years old. Always running, always trying to leave behind the bad memories. But they were the ones that had caught up with him now, crowding in and obscuring the sun. As clear as if it had all happened yesterday, and blocking the view of Hannah and her family.
Matt had known that his father had an uncertain temper and that he’d sometimes hurt his mother and made her cry, but he knew now that his mother had protected him from the worst of it, locking him in his bedroom or sending him to a friend’s house to spend the night. Afterwards he’d seen his mother wince in pain as she’d bent or reached for something. There had never been any bruises on her face, but as he’d got older Matt had begun to understand that was the one place his father had never hit his mother.
His father had hurt him once. Just once, but Matt still remembered the pain and the terror of being unable to escape the hand clamped firmly around his arm. Now he thought of it as a good thing, because it had been the final straw that had made his mother pack their bags and leave.
At first it had been exciting, a taste of the kind of freedom that Matt hadn’t even realised existed. They’d changed their names, using his mother’s surname instead of his father’s, and had embarked on a new life, in a new town. And then his father had found them and they’d run again. Another new life in another new town. Matt had forgotten how many there had been. In the end he hadn’t bothered to make new friends, because he’d known that he and his mother would be moving on again soon.
Matt watched as Hannah played with her son in the late afternoon sunshine. They seemed happy, carefree. No looking over their shoulders...
Until Hannah did look over her shoulder, straight at him, and caught him staring. Matt raised his hand, giving a smile, and she returned the gesture. Then he turned and walked away. He had no business wanting Hannah’s warmth. He needed her as a teammate, and that was just for the next few weeks. After that, he’d be moving on again.
CHAPTER TWO
LIGHTS, NO SIRENS. There was no lack of urgency in getting their patient to the hospital, but Hannah needed to be able to hear his laboured breathing. And Sophie needed to be able to hear if Hannah called out to her to stop.
The ambulance swayed a little as it turned into the hospital. Sophie specialised in giving their patients a smooth ride, but speed was of the essence. She’d radioed through to the hospital, asking for immediate assistance, then put her foot down.
They drew up outside A and E, and Hannah concentrated on monitoring their patient, a middle-aged man who’d been hit by a bus. Sophie climbed down from the driver’s seat, opening the back doors of the ambulance, and Hannah saw a tall figure in surgical scrubs waiting outside.
‘What are you doing here?’ As usual, Sophie voiced the question that was on Hannah’s mind. Matt Lawson should be in the operating theatre, not A and E.
‘Just helping out.’ Matt was smiling and relaxed, but when Sophie and Hannah manoeuvred the stretcher out of the ambulance he moved quickly, his eyes on their patient as he guided them through the melee of people in A and E to an empty cubicle. It wasn’t unusual for the doctors in A and E to place a call for specialist help from other departments when they were busy, and Matt must have been the one to answer.
Matt had clearly been told about her provisional diagnosis, and everything necessary to confirm it was laid out ready. He pulled on a pair of gloves, listening as she relayed Ben’s name and what she’d already observed about his condition. Taken together, his symptoms indicated that Ben might be in the early stages of a tension pneumothorax, and if it went unchecked the progressive build-up of air in his pleural cavity could prove fatal.
‘I’ll need you to help me lift him. I appear to be flying solo.’ Matt murmured the words to Hannah quietly, so that Ben couldn’t hear.
‘I’ll stay. Sophie and I are on our lunch break now.’ It looked as if everyone was busy with other patients, and Matt would need her help.
‘Thank you.’
The warmth in his smile prompted an inappropriate thrill in Hannah’s chest as her heart beat a little faster. She pulled on a disposable apron and gloves, trying not to think about how Matt’s assessment of her actions seemed suddenly all-important.