you are, then,’ Kat said as she separated the front door keys from the rest of the bunch and held them out to him. ‘Go out to the house and get your kit. I’ll meet you at the car. Don’t…run,’ she finished with a despairing roll of her eyes as he thundered out of the room and out of sight. She winced when the front door slammed behind him.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?’ she offered. ‘It could be a very noisy two weeks living with us.’
That got more of a reaction out of him than almost anything else she’d said.
‘Living with you?’ he repeated faintly, clearly taken aback.
‘Accommodation provided?’ she reminded him. ‘The practice is a purpose-built extension on the bungalow the other side of that wall and your part is in the roof conversion—a self-contained little flatlet…Well, that’s a bit of a generous description,’ she rattled on, unable to meet the searing green eyes comfortably while she was thinking about this man living…sleeping…showering…and all just above her head. ‘There’s a bedroom and en suite and the other room has a rudimentary kitchen in one corner, but you’re welcome to join us for meals. The other locums did sometimes,’ she added with a weak attempt at nonchalance when he started looking every bit as uncomfortable as she felt.
Don’t let it change his mind about staying, she prayed, and was suddenly shocked to realise that it wasn’t just for the sake of the practice. There was something about this quiet man that told her he’d been…wounded, and she felt a sudden urgent need to…to what? Heal him?
‘Do you want me to lock up when I go, or would you prefer me to wait until you get back?’ Rose interrupted, before she could laugh at her ridiculous thoughts, and Kat could have hugged her.
‘You might as well lock up and go home as soon as you’ve finished with the files,’ Kat said with a smile, then turned to the silent man behind her. ‘At least it’s only a morning surgery tomorrow, so I should have time to show you all the intricacies of Ditchling’s finest…Ditchling’s only GP surgery.’ A stray thought leapt into her head and she turned back to Rose. ‘Was there any problem with the O’Gormans?’
‘None at all,’ Rose said airily, before giving an evil cackle. ‘I just threatened to sit on them if they didn’t behave.’
Kat couldn’t help laughing, too. Rose’s diet-resistant shape would be enough to strike fear into the rowdiest of preschoolers, even if they arrived in groups of four.
‘Right, well, I’d better get going or Sam will be old enough to drive the car himself by the time I get out there.’ Kat waved farewell and set off for the door, all too aware that she had an eleven-year-old thundercloud following her, one who had been glowering almost non-stop at Ben even before she’d introduced them.
She sighed heavily, hoping she hadn’t just made a monumental mistake. Hiring Ben was supposed to make her life easier, not more stressful.
‘I should be back in about fifteen minutes,’ she said as she pressed the key fob to unlock the car. ‘If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll get you a set of keys and show you where everything is when I get back—unless you’d rather have Rose get them for you and settle yourself?’
‘I’ll wait,’ he said decisively. ‘There’ll probably be questions that only you can answer.’
‘Fine,’ Kat said briefly, managing to limit herself to a single word this time and sliding into the car. If Sam didn’t arrive soon, she’d be making a complete idiot of herself, babbling non-stop. She switched the engine on then glanced into the rear-view mirror to check that Josh had put his seat belt on, before turning her head and starting to reverse out of her parking space in front of the practice.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the briefest flash of something moving before Josh shouted out and something thumped against the car. Something hard.
‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!’ she wailed as she slammed on the brakes and flung her door open. ‘Sam!’ she shrieked as she leapt out of the car and sped towards the back.
‘Mum…I’m sorry! I forgot!’ wailed her youngest as he threw himself into her arms.
‘Sam!’ Relief that he was apparently totally unharmed took all the starch out of her knees and they nearly buckled.
‘I forgot about going round the front of the car where you can see me,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s all my fault.’
‘Well, you’ll remember next time,’ she consoled him, wiping an uncharacteristic tear from a cheek that still retained a trace of childish chubbiness. All too soon he would be grown up and…She shuddered at the realisation that his whole future could have been wiped out in that split second.
‘At least you weren’t hurt, so—’
‘But he was!’ wailed Sam. ‘And it’s my fault!’
‘He?’ Kat glanced up sharply. ‘Who?’
‘I think he means me,’ said a voice somewhere at the back of her car, and her knees completely gave out.
‘Ben?’ She was reduced to crawling on her hands and knees but she didn’t have to go far to find him, his long legs out of her sight under the chassis while his upper body lay spread-eagled on the ground in front of her. ‘Oh, God, Ben! Are you hurt? Oh, that’s a stupid question! You wouldn’t be lying there if you weren’t. How badly are you hurt?’
Without even realising how she’d got there, she was at his head, her fingers gently winnowing through the thick dark strands as she searched for bleeding, lumps or, God forbid, depressed fractures. It certainly wasn’t the time to notice the sprinkle of silver strands at his temples.
‘Where did I hit you?’ she asked as she worked her way down his neck, conscious of the strong musculature even as she was examining each vertebra for damage or misalignment. ‘How did you fall?’
‘My leg,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I realised you were going to hit it and tried to get out of the way but…’ He shook his head in spite of her attempts to hold it still. ‘I managed to stop my head from hitting the ground.’
‘Is your leg broken?’ Her hands were shaking now as she continued her assessment with his arms, not daring to examine the rest of his spine while his lower half was restricted by the vehicle. She didn’t have enough people around to log-roll him.
‘If not, it’s the worst dislocation I’ve ever—Agh!’ His attempt at moving it must have been agony but he’d closed his mouth on the curse when Sam had crouched down beside them. Kat was immeasurably touched.
‘It was my fault, Mum,’ he hiccuped. ‘I was right behind the car and he…Is he going to die?’ The words were almost hysterical and she suddenly realised just how traumatic this was for a child who had lost his father only a year ago.
‘I’m too grumpy to die,’ Ben volunteered suddenly, and when Sam gazed at him in surprise, he aimed an exaggerated scowl at her son. ‘And I’ll get grumpier and grumpier the longer I’m lying on the ground.’
‘Kat! Oh, my stars!’ exclaimed Rose. ‘Josh came in to get me. Do you want me to phone for an ambulance?’
‘No!’ It was Ben who answered
