It was a huge relief to see the absolute focus coming into her eyes as he felt her letting go of his hand. This was the Jodie Sinclair he was used to seeing—the highly qualified paramedic who was in control of any situation she was faced with and poised to act swiftly to do whatever she could to save a life. He listened to her rapid-fire questions to the medics already there and could almost see the plan of initial interventions forming in her brain as she gathered information about her condition and what injuries had already been noted.

  ‘So she was conscious when you arrived?’

  ‘Only just. Incomprehensible speech and groaning. We had to wait for the firies to cut into the side of the car and then get the other passenger out first. She could squeeze a hand on command but didn’t open her eyes. We put her GCS at less than ten. We put in an oropharyngeal airway, put her on high flow oxygen and got an IV line in.’

  ‘What’s her heart rate now?’

  ‘One twenty.’

  ‘Respirations?’

  ‘Thirty.’ The young paramedic was trying hard to keep up with Jodie’s speed.

  ‘Blood pressure?’

  ‘Initially one ten over sixty. Now systolic’s ninety and we couldn’t get a diastolic.’

  ‘Pulse ox?’

  ‘Currently ninety...no, make that eighty-eight...’

  ‘Okay... I’m going to have a listen to her chest. Keep that mask on her and the oxygen on high flow. Can someone find some shears, please, so we can cut her dress clear?’

  Eddie had always been impressed with watching Jodie at work like this. But, right now, he was proud of her as well. He might not know what it was that had threatened her enough to be making this so much more of a challenge, but he did know it would have had to have been something huge to rattle one of the most professional and focused paramedics he’d ever worked with.

  The bride’s beautifully curled and braided hair framed an unmarked face, but her arms were badly cut by the broken champagne glasses and shards of the bottle she had been thrown into. Her chest must have caught the table holding the champagne bucket and the intricate beading on the bodice of her dress was soaked in blood. Jodie knelt amongst the bunched-up fabric of the wedding dress as she cut through the heavily beaded bodice with shears to assess her for the kind of injuries that were putting their patient’s airway and breathing at imminent risk of failing and then handed the shears to Eddie, who tackled the skirt of the dress. They would need to do a secondary survey as soon as the breathing and airway was controlled, but finding any open long bone fractures or an injured pelvis were part of the primary survey to check for major haemorrhage.

  While Jodie was focused on listening to breath sounds, Eddie asked the medics on scene—apart from one who was crouched at the patient’s head with a bag mask, keeping the oxygen flow in place and ready to assist her breathing—to step further back to create space as he opened their kits.

  ‘Multiple fractures,’ Jodie confirmed as she lifted her hands and then pulled the earpieces of her stethoscope free. ‘Chest is hyper-resonant, she’s got neck vein distension, she’s tachycardic and hypotensive.’

  ‘Tracheal deviation?’

  ‘Can’t see any. Yet.’

  Jodie caught Eddie’s gaze. There were so many possibilities to think of, but the most important right now were a tension pneumothorax or cardiac tamponade from bleeding around the heart. Blunt chest trauma could interfere with the function of the heart and lead to obstructive shock, it could damage coronary arteries and effectively cause a heart attack, or there could be a time bomb waiting in the form of a tear to the aorta, which was the major vessel taking blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

  There was nothing they could do to treat an internal injury like that in the back of a crushed car. What they could do, however, was to intubate their patient to control her airway, keep her oxygenated, decompress her chest if an accumulation of blood or air was preventing her breathing and—above all—get her to a major trauma centre and close to an operating theatre as fast as possible. In order to do that, however, they needed to move her out of the wreckage and into a space where they had clear access all around her. If they ran into difficulty securing her airway they would need more pairs of hands, more equipment and the ability to work from any angle.

  There was plenty of help to get her onto the stretcher that Alex had placed as near as possible to the car, but it was Jodie and Eddie who prepared for and carried out the rapid sequence intubation, working together as seamlessly and skilfully as they’d been able to do since they’d first met. The gorgeous wedding dress was no more than a pile of discarded, blood-soaked, beaded and embroidered fabric by the time they had the only survivor from the limousine ready for transport—almost hidden by all the monitors they had in place over and around her body. A portable ventilator was doing her breathing for her, there were blood products being infused and every vital sign was being recorded.

  She was still alive but Eddie could feel all eyes on them from the crowd of people watching silently. Or almost silently. He heard the grief-stricken cry from a woman who was in the arms of a man and with paramedics and police officers who would have been keeping her updated on what was happening. She was the right age to be a parent of their patient. Or was she the mother of the groom?

  The collective grief from all those people was palpable and Eddie saw the way Jodie’s glance swerved as they walked past where the new husband’s body had been covered with a sheet and was being protected by a police officer. He could see the lines of tension in her face, which could be due to how critical their patient’s condition remained, but Eddie knew, deep down, that it was more than that. He’d never seen Jodie less than in control, no matter how critically ill her patient was. It wasn’t that she seemed in danger of losing that control now, but her face was pale and tense enough to worry Eddie and the thought that she might be in some kind of trouble was enough to be squeezing his heart so hard that it hurt.

  Not that he could allow head space to even think about it right now. They had their work cut out for them to keep this patient alive long enough to hand over to the trauma team already waiting for them in the resuscitation area of the Queen Mother’s Hospital in Aberdeen. By the time they accompanied her right into the department, to allow for all monitoring equipment to be changed over, stayed long enough with their handover to see her being rushed up to Theatre and then got back to base and dealt with all the cleaning and restocking that came in the wake of such a big incident, their shift was well over.

  Alex had been helping Eddie as the second person to sign off the use and replacement of restricted drugs so it took time to realise he hadn’t seen Jodie since she’d taken the cleaned portable ventilator and the defibrillator out to slot back onto their shelf in the helicopter cabin. He wasn’t going to head home until he’d seen her, however.

  Because he still had that feeling that something wasn’t right.

  He went upstairs to file his paperwork, to be met by Dion.

  ‘I’ve had an update from a mate of mine at Police HQ. They’ve only just cleared the scene after the investigation by the serious crash squad. He wanted to pass on their thanks for your part in what he said was one of the most traumatic accident scenes he’s ever been to.’

  Eddie swallowed hard. ‘It was a rough one.’

  Dion put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder but his gaze shifted to look down the staircase.

  ‘Is Jodie okay?’

  Eddie followed his station manager’s gaze to see Jodie sitting in the open door of the helicopter that had been rolled back into the hangar for the night.

  Just sitting, with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he answered honestly. ‘I’m a bit worried about her.’

  ‘Tell her your patient’s got through surgery,’ Dion said. ‘She’s in the ICU. You did well. Both of you.’ He gave Eddie’s shoulder a squeeze as he let it go. ‘And take care of her, will you? You’ll be able to do that much better than I can. Take her out for a drink maybe? Talk things through for a debrief?’

  Eddie went down the stairs, aware of the irony of having just been given permission to spend time with Jodie away from work when it was something she no longer wanted.

  But, as a colleague and a friend, he wasn’t about to let her be alone right now.

  ‘Hey...’ He walked up to where she was sitting so still. ‘Dion tells me that our bride is in ICU. She made it through surgery.’

  But the news didn’t seem to be welcome. To his horror, Eddie could see the sparkle of tears in Jodie’s eyes before she dropped her gaze to avoid his and her voice was no more than a whisper.

  ‘Might have been better if she hadn’t.’

  Eddie had never seen Jodie this close to tears. He’d never heard such a bleak tone in her voice. It didn’t matter that he had Dion’s permission to spend time alone with his crewmate. He would have done this anyway.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ he told Jodie.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘I might go for a run.’

  Eddie put his finger under her chin so that she was forced to meet his gaze. ‘It wasn’t an invitation,’ he said softly. ‘Dion reckons we need a debrief and I agree with him, so I’m just telling you what’s going to happen.’ He held her gaze. ‘You’re safe, Jodie. And I’m going to make sure you stay that way.’ He let his hand slide down her arm until it reached hers and then he pulled her to her feet and then into a hug. It didn’t matter that Dion was probably still watching them. His lips were against her ear. ‘Maybe I need this as much as you do. So you’re coming with me, okay?’

  He felt rather than heard Jodie’s response as her head moved slowly against his shoulder. Up and down.

  Okay...

  Eddie glanced up as he led the way out of the hangar and he saw Dion was also nodding as he turned away. The older man probably assumed they’d be heading for the Pig and Thistle—maybe with Alex and Gus for a full crew debrief—but Eddie was quite certain that Jodie needed a far more private space than that.

  She needed protection, and that was something he wasn’t about to let anyone or anything prevent him providing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WASN’T THAT cold this evening, but Jodie seemed frozen to the point where it seemed like it was too difficult to even move her facial muscles enough to talk.

  So Eddie didn’t ask any questions.

  He lit the gas fire in the small living room/kitchen area of his apartment and, when that didn’t seem enough, he pulled the duvet from his bed and wrapped it around Jodie as she sat, hunched, on his couch.

  He made her a mug of hot, sweet tea and, when that didn’t seem enough, he added a slug of his favourite whisky. He made one for himself as well and sat beside her as he sipped the drink.

  It was Jodie who broke what was actually becoming a rather companionable silence.

  ‘It’s Saturday night. Don’t you have something better to do than sit at home like this?’

  ‘Nope.’ Eddie shook his head. ‘I probably would have gone to visit my brother, Mick, but I know my other brother, James, was coming up today so I can catch up with them both tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s he doing? Mick, I mean...’

  Eddie drained his mug. ‘Not great. He’s not eating properly and he’s losing weight. He goes through the motions of doing his therapy but it’s kind of half-hearted and any progress has stalled. It’s like he lost a much bigger part of himself in that accident than just the ability to walk. My sister Ella’s thinking we might have to think about a family intervention of some kind.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘She and her husband have found this idyllic-looking rehab centre in New Zealand. They want to go there for a belated honeymoon and they’ve got this idea of taking Mick and putting him somewhere different for a month or two. Somewhere gorgeous and warm with forests and a beach that’s safe enough to take disabled people swimming in the sea. He says he doesn’t want to go because he’d be a burden for all that travelling, but she says maybe they should just take him anyway.’

  ‘Does he have a wife? Or a partner?’

  ‘No.’ Eddie let his breath out in a wry huff of sound. ‘He fell in love enough to want to marry a rather gorgeous Brazilian woman who told him she was pregnant with his baby a few years back. James and I were right beside him at the altar as his best men on his wedding day—waiting for the bride who never showed up.’

  Jodie was silent for a moment and then her voice was very quiet. ‘Had she had an accident? On the way to the church?’

  ‘The only accident she had was to get pregnant,’ Eddie muttered. ‘The real father of the baby had turned up and that was that. They were off to live happily ever after together and Mick was thoroughly and very publicly jilted. He vowed he’d never make the mistake of committing himself to any woman after that and he persuaded me and James to join in the pact. We needed to learn from his example and never try to get married. Life was short and we all needed to live hard. Mick took the rules a bit more seriously than we did, mind you. I’ve never felt the urge to jump off a cliff to go hang-gliding.’ Eddie stopped as he remembered the first moment he’d ever set eyes on Jodie, in the staffroom that morning, when she’d been declaring that the best thing ever was to jump off the side of a mountain with just a small parachute to keep you alive. He lifted his mug and then remembered it was empty. ‘Want a top-up?’ he asked Jodie.

  She held out her mug. ‘Yes, please...’

  Eddie busied himself in the kitchen for a few minutes and when he carried the fresh mugs of spiked tea back to the couch he found Jodie still snuggled into the duvet like a caterpillar in a cocoon, but she didn’t have that frozen look to her face any longer. Her lips were a much better colour as well.

  He handed her a mug and then held his up to touch it. ‘Cheers,’ he said.

  But Jodie just nodded and then took a long sip of her tea.

  ‘I get it,’ she said, a moment later. ‘I get what Mick gets out of doing that dangerous stuff.’

  ‘The adrenaline rush?’

  ‘It’s bigger than that when you lose something that’s really important. For me, it started when I wasn’t that bothered about whether or not I was going to survive the jump. It was like throwing myself into the hands of fate. If I got caught, I survived—and maybe that would mean there was a reason to keep going.’

  Eddie’s breath caught in his chest.

  ‘What did you lose?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘The love of my life.’

  Wow... There wasn’t anything Eddie could think of to say. That was about as important as it got, wasn’t it? No wonder he’d been so certain that Jodie couldn’t be ‘the one’ for him, or rather that he wasn’t her soul mate. She had already had one. At least he could put his arm around Jodie as her friend, and she seemed to like that because she leaned against him.

  ‘I met Joel when we started high school together,’ Jodie continued softly. ‘We were friends from the first day and we started dating when we were fourteen. We never even thought about dating anyone else. We took a gap year when we left school because we wanted to travel to as many places as we possibly could before we settled down and went to university and got good jobs and then started having kids.’

  Jodie wasn’t looking at him, so Eddie tightened his hold on her just a little and made a sound that let her know he was listening to every word she was saying. That he knew this was important and that she had more to say. He wanted to hear that too.

  If felt like he needed to hear it.

  ‘We got as far as Bali,’ Jodie said. ‘And it was so beautiful and we were so happy that we decided to get married. On the beach. As soon as we could. I bought a pretty white dress at a market and had my toenails painted with tiny white daisies on them. I think the most expensive thing we bought was a gorgeous bunch of gardenias that I was going to carry. Joel bought a cheap white shirt at the market, but he wore it with his shorts that were bright blue—as blue as the sea and the sky the day we got married. He went swimming in them later that day in the sunset... I just went in as far I could without getting my dress wet while I was holding it up because I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted to keep it for ever and wear it on every anniversary...’

  The silence was heavy this time. Jodie had her eyes closed.

  ‘My dress got ruined anyway,’ she finally said, in a broken whisper. ‘I was kneeling on the beach in the dark, hours later, when they finally found where the rip had taken him and brought him back to put in my arms. I couldn’t move, even when the waves broke all around us.’

  There were tears rolling down Jodie’s cheeks now and Eddie’s heart was breaking right around her like those waves on her tragic wedding day. He understood her words that it might have better if the bride they’d gone to today hadn’t survived after losing the man she had just married. Jodie knew the agony she had ahead of her.

  How hard must it have been for Jodie to have coped with that scene?

  It was instinctive to reach for her with his other arm as well. To enfold her and hold her close. To brush away the tears on her face and pull her tight against his chest as she cried. He was crying himself, but part of that emotion was because he knew he was holding the most extraordinary woman he’d ever met. Someone courageous enough to pick up the pieces of her broken life and make something totally awesome out of it.

  Someone who had, today, faced up to what must have brought back the worst memories she could have and she had been able to put them aside in order to help someone else.