blush-a-thon. “Well, can you recommend anyone? Anyone who does do men?”
“I do men!” said Gaynor, before guffawing like Barbara Windsor after three bottles of Rioja.
Luca joined in, giggling away even if he had no idea what he was laughing at. He really was adorable – if slightly on the terrifying side.
“You could try Lock’s, up near Cornmarket. He should be able to help.”
He nodded his thanks, and maintained eye contact for just a fraction longer than the circumstances merited. Please leave, she thought, and let my face fade back to its normal shade. But for some reason he wasn’t moving – his bulk was between her and the door, making her feel trapped and hot and way too bothered.
He maintained that annoyingly intense eye contact and grinned wickedly at her, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Maggie tried to smile back, aiming for friendly-but-firm, but thought she probably looked a bit like the Elephant Man as she did it. Her insides were going a bit squishy, and there was a strange ringing noise in her ears. She felt like she should say something more, try and at least appear like a normal intelligent human being, but her vocal chords had decided to go on strike. He was just so…shiny. And big. And healthy. There was a kind of glow around him – the Ready Brek boy crossed with GI Joe. For some reason, it made speech completely impossible.
“I need to go doo-doo,” said Luca.
At least someone wasn’t stuck for words.
Everything was hurting. His ribs, his face. His leg. Especially his goddamn leg. Marco had played a lot of sports in his life, and been on the receiving end of a lot of injuries, often inflicted by men the size of small SUVs. But nothing had ever quite hurt as much as this. He felt…broken. All over. He’d been well and truly Humpty-Dumptied.
It had all happened so quickly. One minute he was pumping along, listening to the playlist Leah had sent him, mind drifting in and out of the lectures he’d been working on, and the next…wham, bam, thank you ma’am – he was off his bike, and lying in the freezing snow wheezing for breath and wanting to cry like a great big baby. With the sounds of Aerosmith’s Love In An Elevator still very inappropriately bouncing around his brain. It was probably all their fault – rock music must have made him cycle too fast.
And now, on top of it all, on top of all of the pain and the confusion and the damn cold, there was this crazy woman – screaming at him so loud his ears were starting to hurt as well. She was definitely screaming louder than Steven Tyler had been a few minutes earlier.
She was crouched next to him, kneeling in the snow, and shaking him by the shoulders. Each little tug sent even more excruciating pain ricocheting down his left leg like an electric shock. The worst thing was he couldn’t even understand properly what she was saying – he was probably in shock. Or in concussion. Or in limbo, as the Big Guy decided whether he was going to get sent upstairs to the celestial choirs or downstairs to the red hot pokers. Dead In An Elevator.
Even that, he thought, trying to focus on the words flying out of her mouth, would be better than this torment. He blinked a couple of times, clenched his fists together so tight he could feel nails cutting into his palms, and stared up at her. Come on, man, he told himself. Get a grip.
He could hear the sound of sirens wailing in the background, and hoped that help was on its way. That there’d be morphine soon. Oblivion. Even if it did come with red hot pokers. He just needed to hold on for a little while longer; man up until he was whisked away in the back of the truck with the paramedics.
“Yeah, yeah…okay…stop shaking me, for Christ’s sake!” he managed to say, “it hurts like hell!”
Abruptly the woman dropped her hold on his shoulders, raising her trembling, blue-tinged fingers into the air with a gesture of surrender. Her eyes were bright green; filled with shining, unshed tears. Wild loops of red hair were tufting out of her cycling helmet, creating a fuzzy auburn halo around her whole head. She looked…crazed. And vaguely familiar.
“I’m sorry!” she said, leaning in close to his face. “But where’s the baby? Where’s Luca?”
“He’s not here, okay? He’s fine! I’m…not fine! Didn’t you wonder if I might have had a spinal injury before you started shaking me like that, you crazy woman? I could be paralysed for life!”
She fell back onto her bottom, relief flashing across her face, the tears finally falling. He saw a spasm of pain cloud her expression and she wiggled around in the snow, trying to find a more comfortable position. He recognised that pose. Bruised coccyx. He’d been knocked on his own ass enough times to spot the symptoms. He’d actually feel sorry for her, if it wasn’t for the searing agony of his own. He tried to move his leg a fraction of an inch; was relieved when it responded – he wasn’t paralysed for life, after all – but unprepared for how much it was going to hurt.
Marco let out a scream, then bit his lip so hard he felt tasted blood. Jeez. This was not good. Not good at all.
The woman he’d collided with leaned forward, and he recoiled as much as he could. For all he knew she was going to whip out a red hot poker any second now.
“Hey – don’t start shaking me again, okay, lady? Just…back off!”
She nodded, but stayed at his side. He felt her icy fingers crawl into his, and her other hand gently stroked stray hair back from his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice now low and soothing and not as generally all-out terrifying as before. “I saw the baby seat on the back. You came into my shop yesterday, and I thought, well…I thought the worst.”
He held tight onto her fingers. She was even colder than him. So cold that every tear that fell threatened to freeze on her eyelashes. She had terrific eyes…huge, clear, the colour of dark green grass. Eyes that went with the pale, freckled skin, the long, deep red hair. Once he’d mentally removed the cycling helmet, it came back to him: it was the woman from the little place with the dresses in the window. The seamstress with the smile and the toy gun. The chick who’d given Luca that Christmas bow he loved so much. Wow. Small world, he thought, as another wave of pain crashed through him.
It explained her reactions, at least. Who gave a damn about a big oaf like him if there was a two-year-old cutie pie on the loose? If the roles had been reversed, he’d have shaken her too.
“It’s all right. He’s safe. Now, tell me…does that leg look right to you? It sure as hell doesn’t feel right.”
She glanced down, and tried hard to hide her involuntary shudder at what she saw.
“It looks just fine. Nothing a few stitches won’t fix.” And possibly a few metal plates and a skin graft, thought Maggie, while trying to smile reassuringly. It was a hideous mangled mess of jeans and banged up flesh. She hadn’t stared too long in case she started to notice any bright white bone that really shouldn’t be visible at all.
“’Kay,” he replied, strengthening his grip on her fingers. “I’ll take your word for it. You know all about stitches. Listen, keep hold of me, all right? My ID’s in my pocket. My phone’s in there too; look for numbers
