the saplings, seeing if she could figure out safe holds on the way down. ‘But it does—in retrospect—seem to have been worth considering.’
She heard a choke that might even have been laughter. It helped, she thought. People thought medics had a black sense of humour but, in the worst kind of situations, humour was often the only way to alleviate tension.
‘I’ll ask for your advice when I need it,’ he retorted and she tested a sapling for strength and thought maybe not.
‘Advice is free,’ she offered helpfully.
‘Am I or am I not paying you?’
She almost managed a grin at that, except she couldn’t get her sandals to grip in the mud and she was kind of distracted. ‘I believe you are,’ she said at last, and gave up on the shoes and tossed her kitten heels up onto the verge. Bare feet was bad but kitten heels were worse. She started inching down the slope, moving from sapling to sapling. If she could just reach that rope …
‘I’d like a bit of respect,’ Hugo Denver called and she held like a limpet to a particularly shaky sapling and tried to think about respect.
‘It seems you’re not in any position to ask for anything right now,’ she managed. She was nearing the back of the truck but she was being super-cautious. If she slipped she could hardly grab the truck for support. It looked like one push and it’d fall …
Do not think of falling.
‘I need my bag,’ Hugo said. ‘It’s on the verge where the truck …’
‘Yeah, I saw it.’ It was above her. Quite a bit above her now.
‘Can you lower it somehow?’
‘In a minute. I’m getting a rope.’
‘A rope?’
‘There’s one in the back of the truck. It looks really long and sturdy. Just what the doctor ordered.’
‘You’re climbing down?’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘Hell, Polly …’
‘Don’t worry. I have really grippy toenails and if I can reach it I might be able to make the truck more secure.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then … ‘Grippy toenails?’
‘They’re painted crimson.’
He didn’t seem to hear the crimson bit. ‘Polly, don’t. It’s too dangerous. There’s a cord in my truck …’
‘How long a cord?’ Maybe she should have checked his truck.
‘Twelve feet or so. You could use it to lower my bag. Horace needs a drip and fast.’
There was no way she could use a twelve-foot cord to secure the truck—and what use was a drip if the truck fell?
‘Sorry,’ Polly managed. ‘In every single situation I’ve ever trained in, triage is sorting priorities, so that’s what I’ve done. If I lower your bag and add a smidgen of weight to the truck, you may well be setting up a drip as you plummet to the valley floor. So it’s rope first, secure the truck next and then I’ll work on getting your bag. You get to be boss again when you get out of the truck.’
‘You’ve got a mouth,’ he said, sounding cautious—and also stunned.
‘I’m bad at respect,’ she admitted. If she could just get a firmer hold … ‘That’s the younger generation for you. You want to override me, Grandpa?’
‘How old do you think I am?’
‘You must be old if you think a ride to the bottom of the valley’s an option.’ And then she shut up because she had to let go of a sapling with one hand and hope the other held, and lean out and stretch and hope that her fingers could snag the rope …
And they did and she could have wept in relief but she didn’t because she was concentrating on sliding the rope from the tray, an inch at a time, thinking that any sudden movements could mean …
Don’t think what it could mean.
‘You have red hair!’
He could see her. She’d been so intent she hadn’t even looked at the window in the back of the truck. She braved a glance downward, and she saw him.
Okay, she conceded, this was no grandpa. The face looking out at her was lean and tanned and … worried. His face looked sort of chiselled, his eyes were deep set and his brow looked furrowed in concern …
All that she saw in the nanosecond she allowed herself before she went back to concentrating on freeing the rope. But weirdly it sort of … changed things.
Two seconds ago she’d been concentrating on saving two guys in a truck. Now one of them had a face. One of them looked worried. One of them looked …
Strong?
Immensely masculine?
How crazy was that? Her sight of him had been fleeting, a momentary impression, but there’d been something about the way he’d looked back at her …
Get on with the job, she told herself sharply. It was all very well getting the rope out of the truck. What was she going to do with it now she had it?
She had to concentrate on the rope. Not some male face. Not on the unknown Dr Denver.
The tray of the truck had a rail around it, with an upright at each corner. If she could loop the rope …
‘Polly, wait for the cavalry,’ Hugo demanded, and once again she had that impression of strength. And that he feared for her.
‘The cavalry’s arriving in half an hour,’ she called back. ‘Does Horace have half an hour?’
Silence.
‘He’s nicked a vein,’ he said at last, and Polly thought: That’s that, then. Horace needed help or he’d die.
She wedged herself against another sapling, hoping it could take her weight. Then she unwound her rope coil.
‘What are you doing?’ It was a sharp demand.
‘Imagine I’m in Theatre,’ she told him. ‘Neurosurgeon fighting the odds. You’re unscrubbed and useless. Would you ask for a commentary?’
‘Is that another way of saying you don’t have a plan?’
‘Shut up and concentrate on Horace.’ It was unnerving, to say the least, that he could see her, but then Horace groaned and Hugo’s face disappeared from the back window and she could get on with … what …? Concentrating not on Hugo.
On one rope.
Somehow she got the middle of the rope looped and knotted around each side of the tray.
