the vehicle recovery company.
* * *
If he had to put a name to that look, Rafe supposed that hostile arousal might just about cover it. He had no doubt that the hostility was there, but the arousal was probably just wishful thinking on his part.
He supposed he didn’t deserve anything else, but she didn’t have to ram it down his throat. It was obvious that she could cope without him, but he wasn’t entirely surplus to requirements. If she thought that leaving her hadn’t hurt him as well, then she could think again.
Rafe kicked disgruntledly at the tyre of the disabled ambulance. Mimi had taken hold of her life with both hands, gained a qualification and got a new job. His life was back on track, too. When he’d left, he’d made the right decision and now was no time to start re-examining it.
The ambulance was tipped at a slight angle in the mud, but it was wedged firmly against a tree and seemed stable enough. Rafe gave the vehicle a good shove and it stayed put, so gingerly he opened the back doors and climbed inside, looking around to assess the damage.
‘They’re sending a truck out. The tow company’s pretty busy, but they’re giving me priority, so they should be here inside an hour.’ She was standing in the rain, outside the ambulance, looking at him thoughtfully.
‘Good. Not long to wait, then.’ This couldn’t be easy for her. Medicine was all about teamwork, and he knew that the nature of the ambulance crews’ work tended to forge the tightest of teams. She must be feeling very alone right now.
She looked up at him and he thought he saw a flicker of confused warmth in her face. ‘How much of the ambulance equipment can you take in your car?’
‘Pretty much everything that’s portable.’ Rafe surveyed the inside of the wrecked vehicle. ‘Apart from the stretcher.’
‘I was reckoning on leaving that.’ Mimi was standing stock-still, her arms folded. As if she knew what she had to do but just couldn’t bring herself to start. Rafe picked up one of the bags, stowed away under the seat, and climbed out of the stricken vehicle, making his way to his car.
* * *
Rafe’s sudden appearance seemed to have peeled away everything she had built up in the last five years, like a bad skin graft sloughing off a wound, leaving it red raw. And now she was leaving Jack behind and stripping her ambulance of everything that could be moved. She could almost reach out and touch the feeling of loss.
She had to get a grip. Mimi repeated the words in her head, in the hope that they might sink in.
As usual, it was practically impossible to see what Rafe was thinking, but as they worked quietly together the atmosphere between them seemed to relax. He watched as she checked through the contents of the Controlled Drugs safe, countersigning the inventory, and then set to work helping stow as much as they could from the ambulance into his car.
Typically, the rain seemed to slacken off just as they were finishing, and the tow truck chose that moment to arrive as well. Tired and shivering, Mimi clambered into Rafe’s car and hung her dripping jacket in the back.
‘Here.’ He rummaged for a moment on the back seat, unzipped a bag and produced a sweater. ‘Put this on.’
He ducked back out of the car, closing the door, and Mimi picked up the sweater. She didn’t particularly want to follow his orders, nor did she want to wear his clothes, but refusing might give him the idea it meant something to her. And when she pulled it over her head it was warm and all-enveloping.
The key was in the ignition and she started the engine, putting the heaters on full and directing the ventilation up on to the windows. As they began to clear she could see Rafe, talking to the vehicle recovery men as the winch slowly pulled her ambulance out of the mud and on to the back of the truck.
He jogged back to the car and got in. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’
‘Yes. Let’s go.’ She blurted out the instruction, knowing that he wouldn’t go anywhere unless she allowed it, and realising that somehow that didn’t put her in charge.
‘Hospital?’
‘Yes, thanks. We need to get the controlled drugs back there.’
He nodded, leaning forward to start the engine. Even in these conditions it wouldn’t take long before they were back at the hospital and then she could thank him and wave him goodbye.
RAFE WAITED WHILE Mimi argued with the ambulance control supervisor. They’d both turned around at the same time, to look at him for a moment, and then Mimi had turned away again, her eyes dead, as if he mattered rather less to her than the chair he was sitting on. The supervisor beckoned her into his office and she followed him, protest leaking from every movement she made.
He’d loved her fire. That unquenchable, unstoppable thirst for life that made the best out of everything had enchanted Rafe. It had challenged all the assumptions that his family had taught him. Boys don’t cry. A man should take care of the women in his life. He must handle his problems alone, not needing to talk about them.
And Rafe had come so close to quenching that fire. When his mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and his family had descended into a state of restrained crisis, Mimi had wanted to help, had fought him to let her in. But Rafe couldn’t. He’d already perfected the art of hiding whatever pain life threw at him and he didn’t know how to do anything else.
He didn’t blame her for giving up on him, but it had hurt all the more because Mimi never gave up on anything. Lying with her in their bed, unable to either sleep or to share his anguish, had taught Rafe the nature of true loneliness. Leaving had been his way of keeping her safe from the silence that had descended on their home.
That was all history now. He’d thought it could never change but, as the door of the supervisor’s office opened and he saw Mimi walk towards him, he began to wonder. He’d measured his failure in their relationship by the lack of emotion she’d shown when he left, but now anger was stamped all over her face and he had little doubt that most of it was directed at him.
‘Everything okay?’
She shook her head. ‘There are no spare vehicles and no one for me to partner with. They’re sending me home...’
‘Unless?’ Rafe had seen enough of the situation here to be able to guess what Mimi’s options were.
Her face was set in an expression of almost believable remorse. ‘I apologise for what I said. I should have thanked you for getting me out of the way of that rope when it broke.’
Mimi was still thinking about that? Then Rafe realised that this was the precursor to something else.
‘You’re welcome. I apologise for what I said too. I had no real intention of tying you to a tree.’ However appealing the thought had been at the time.
‘No. It didn’t really occur to me that you did. I think we were both letting off a bit of steam.’ She screwed her face into a frown. ‘My controller... He says that if you need any help I could always tag along with you.’
Deep down inside a primitive sense of triumph pulled
