He nodded, drawing up a chair in front of her and laying a towel over the seat. ‘Rest your leg on there. I’m going to bathe your foot first to make sure there are no bits of debris in the wound.’
‘Okay...thanks.’ She watched him as he hunkered down and began to work. He was very thorough, cleaning her foot with meticulous care and then gently drying it.
‘There are several small puncture wounds,’ he commented. ‘I’ll press some gauze against it for a while until the bleeding stops.’
‘You look as though you’ve done this sort of thing before,’ she murmured, looking over his medical pack with interest.
‘I have, although I usually have to deal with rather more serious injuries than this,’ he answered soberly. ‘I’m a doctor. I work at the hospital on the island, in the emergency department, and I’m on the rota as a first attender where the paramedics need a doctor to go along and help out.’
‘Ah, that explains it,’ she said, speaking half to herself.
‘I beg your pardon?’ He glanced at her, absently resting his hand lightly on her leg before pausing to check under the gauze to see if the bleeding had stopped.
She cleared her throat. His touch was doing very strange things to her nervous system. Things she’d thought she’d long forgotten. ‘It’s just that you have that kind of air about you,’ she explained, ‘as though you’re very capable, well organised, and know exactly what has to be done. I expect seeing the state we’re in here has been a bit of a shock for you.’
He didn’t answer, but his mouth moved in a faint curve. He applied a topical antiseptic and then bound up her foot, securing the neat bandage with tape.
‘That should be a bit more comfortable for you,’ he said. Finally, he stood up, reaching for his coffee and taking a long swallow. He paused for a moment, staring at his cup in puzzlement, and she guessed he was faintly surprised to discover that he quite liked the taste. ‘So how do you fit into the picture here?’ he asked. ‘Did you decide to move over here with your brother and his family, or were you already living on the island?’
‘Uh, I came over here when my brother and his wife were...delayed.’ She still didn’t want to talk about what had happened and hoped he wouldn’t persist. ‘I have to get the children into school for the new term, and of course the removal had been planned and booked a few weeks ahead. It was important that things went smoothly.’
He nodded. ‘What do you think of our island? Have you been here before?’
She shook her head, making the silky, copper curls quiver and dance. ‘I saw it for the first time on Thursday. It’s so beautiful, it took my breath away—the lovely beaches and the clear blue water, the palm trees... It’s like a subtropical paradise.’
His mouth curved. ‘Yes, it is.’ He stood up and started to clear away his equipment just as the kitchen door burst open and Charlie came rushing in.
‘Boomer’s been sick all over the flowers,’ he announced. ‘It’s yucky. He’s brought up all of his breakfast and there’s lots of grass in it, too.’
Saskia groaned. ‘Did you let him out into the garden first thing this morning?’
‘Becky did.’
She sighed. ‘That must have been when he did it. We’ll have to stop him eating grass somehow.’ She looked at Charlie. ‘Okay, I’ll come and hose it down in a bit. Try to stop him from running around, will you, but keep him out there for a bit longer if you can until his stomach settles down?’
‘Okay.’ Charlie went outside once more and Tyler sent her a brief, sympathetic glance.
‘I’d better leave you to get on. It looks as though you have your hands full.’
She nodded, giving him a regretful look. ‘Like I said, it should all be sorted out over the weekend.’
She stood up, testing her foot against the hard floor. ‘That feels good,’ she said. ‘It must be all the padding you put in there. Thank you so much for helping me out. And thanks for the milk—I appreciate it. You’ll have earned yourself a thousand brownie points with Caitlin.’
He smiled. ‘You’re welcome.’ He left by the kitchen door, and she heard him saying goodbye to the children as he left. As she glanced out of the window, she saw him briefly pat Boomer on the head.
She looked disconsolately at the mess around her. There couldn’t have been a worse time for the landlord to pay them a visit, but that wasn’t the worst of it, was it? They shared the same profession. She was a doctor, too. How would it be if he heard about her application for a job at the hospital where he worked? She couldn’t see that going down too well.
For all that he’d been pleasant to her and he had helped her out, she suspected that he didn’t think very much of her lackadaisical ways. There was no point suggesting that she would put everything right...she had a strong feeling that, left to him, he would have organised things properly from the start, and everyone, probably even the dog, would have been given a job to do to help out.
Still, she couldn’t help wishing things had been different. After all, he was the kind of man women dreamed of, and she was by no means immune...even though she’d sworn off men. He’d made her body tingle just by being near... And when he’d rested his hand on her bare leg...phew.
She sighed. Maybe it was just as well she’d made a bad impression on him. It would nip things in the bud from the outset...because she really ought to have learned her lesson by now. After all, it was only when you got to know men that things started to go wrong.
‘CHARLIE, WILL YOU hurry up, please? We need to get a move on or we’ll be late.’
Saskia looked around the kitchen, mentally ticking off a list in her head. ‘Becky, don’t forget your PE kit—you need to take that with you as well as your backpack.’
‘Yeah, okay.’
‘Do you have everything you need, Caitlin?’ She peered into the hallway to look at the teenager, who was frowning at her hair in the mirror and trying to brush loose strands into place, something she’d been doing for the last several minutes. ‘What about your geometry set—did you remember to put it in your bag? Perhaps I should have a quick look, just to make sure.’
Caitlin whipped the backpack away from her before Saskia had a chance to investigate. ‘I can sort my own things out,’ she said, turning away and pressing a hand against her forehead as though her head was aching. ‘I don’t need anyone checking up on me.’
Saskia winced. So far, nothing was going to plan. Her vision of a smooth, hassle-free morning getting ready for this first day of the school term was dissolving with every minute that passed. Caitlin had been tetchy ever since she’d dragged herself out of bed, and when you added in Becky’s insistence on taking time to go outside to pet her lop-eared rabbit, and Charlie’s complete oblivion to everything going on around him, getting them all organised and ready was rapidly turning into a stressful situation.
‘Charlie, can you switch off that computer game? We’re leaving right now.’
