style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Very neat,’ she said shakily as she watched Dave cut the final thread and carefully sealed the bloody needle and soiled swabs into a thick waste packet.
The unflattering surprise must have shown in her voice for he cut her his wry grin.
‘Actually, I do needlepoint as a hobby—not very macho, but it helps me relax. The only trouble is that I’m so good at it my wife makes me do all our darning!’
Since Ray had told her that the Freemans were loaded, Nina took his last comment with a pinch of salt.
‘How are you feeling now, Ryan?’ Dave shone his pen light into the blue eyes.
‘Like some sadist just used me for needlepoint practice!’ came the grim reply.
Dave laughed. ‘Well, you can relax now and have a good rest—the sadist is leaving. Nina here will look after you. We’ll see how you are in the morning. My bet is that by then you’ll be a different man.’
Ryan’s grim expression flattened into serene calm. ‘I have no doubt you’re right.’
Nina was not so sanguine and she followed Dave back into the kitchen with her doubts. ‘So you definitely don’t think he’s got a fracture?’ she said in a low voice.
‘Without an X-ray I can’t totally rule it out,’ he began cautiously, ‘but, no, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. Although he’s displaying a disordered state of consciousness that suggests concussion, there’s nothing to indicate any serious underlying brain injury. He’s dizzy but not nauseous, and while his verbal responses are mixed, his motor responses are all good. The deep bruising on his forearms looks like a defence injury, so I suspect he must have deflected a great part of the impact along his arms. The cut is just minor stuff and should heal with no trouble. I definitely couldn’t find any suspicious bumps or depressions anywhere else on his skull.’
‘But you do think he might have some minor concussion?’ Nina pressed as he repacked his briefcase.
‘I think you should keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours, just to be on the safe side. He can go to sleep if he wants to, but you should wake him every couple of hours. Turn on the light and make him open his eyes, see if he can talk lucidly and obey a few simple commands.’
‘Don’t you think you should stay?’ she asked nervously.
‘Look, I know you don’t have a phone here—so take my cell phone.’ He handed it to her with succinct instructions on how to work it. ‘And here’s my number at the bach,’ he said, scribbling it on the back of one of his business cards. ‘If you have any problems or questions—whatever time it is—call me. Okay? And if any calls come through for me—just advise whoever it is to take two aspirin and call me in the morning!’
She didn’t respond to his bracing good humour and he sobered.
‘Tell me what’s really bothering you.’
She turned the palm-sized phone over and over in her hands as she finally got to the crux of her concern. ‘Surely you must be worried about the extent of his memory loss. He’s going to completely freak out when the realisation hits him that his whole life is a void.’
Dave paused in doing up the latch of his briefcase, his eyes faintly compassionate. ‘Is that what happened to you?’
She felt the tension build up along her spine, tightening all the connnective muscles along the way. This was why she had always avoided him in the past. She hadn’t wanted to be the object of any professional curiosity. Word of mouth had inevitably made the bare bones of her story fairly common knowledge on the island, but in general people didn’t poke their noses into your background unless you raised the subject with them yourself. There were too many Shearwater Islanders whose pasts wouldn’t bear too close examination.
‘It was totally different for me. I always knew exactly who I was. When I woke up from that bump on the head, I was still me. I didn’t lose my entire identity…just a couple of unimportant years out of my life that I’ve shown I can perfectly well do without.’
She tossed her head carelessly, setting her damp ponytail swinging, but he didn’t ask the question for which she was unconsciously braced: how did she know they were unimportant if she couldn’t remember them?
‘And they’re still lost?’ His bushy eyebrows arched up. ‘Since you’ve been living here you haven’t experienced any flashes of recall for the previous two years?’
The back of her neck itched. ‘Nope. The only drawback is that I sometimes have to remind myself that I’m two years older than I feel,’ she added flippantly, to show him how little the whole thing bothered her.
Which was true. Nina didn’t like to talk about the circumstances of her arrival on Shearwater Island, but that was only because she was too busy with the exciting challenges of the present to waste time looking back over her shoulder. She certainly didn’t need to consult a psychiatrist!
‘Most women would envy your being able to honestly deny remembering a couple of birthdays,’ Dave agreed in the same joking vein, reflecting her own attitude back at her in a way that eased the fine tension from her body as he continued. ‘But you’re right—Ryan’s global amnesia is different, although I’m sure it’s only a temporary trauma. He’s a bit shocky, and that compounded with the concussion has probably scrambled the links between his memory systems. It’s a pretty classic pattern. After he has a good rest and his system settles down, his ability to concentrate should return, along with his memory.’
Nina felt she was learning more than she really wanted to know about the mysteries of the brain. She had never been one for clinical details, which was probably why she tried to rule doctors and hospitals out of her life.
‘Were you able to find out anything else about him?’ she asked, determined to keep the focus firmly back where it belonged.
He plucked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Well, he has a few old scars—’ he tilted his head roguishly ‘—but I think they come under doctor-patient privilege. He couldn’t say where he’d come from or where he was going and we couldn’t find any wallet in his clothing—maybe he lost it out there on the road. You’re more familiar with who’s living around here than I am at the moment. Are you certain you haven’t seen him before, even casually?’
‘I’m positive. He’s a total stranger,’ she said firmly. ‘That was the first thing that struck me about him. Believe me, if I knew who this Ryan was, I’d leap at the chance to hand him over to whoever invited him to visit. I don’t mind helping out in an emergency, but I’m really not prepared for a house guest right now.’ She was aware that sounded selfish, but already the stranger had caused a disruption to her peaceful existence.
‘Speaking of which—have you got something else he can wear, or should I bring some of my clothing over? He needs to keep warm to counteract the effects of shock.’
‘I think I have a few things lying around that should fit him.’ Karl had been the last person she had had to stay, and he was notoriously untidy with his possessions.
She half turned and her breathing shortened as she suddenly saw the man leaning against the corner where the living-room wall abutted the kitchen. How long had he been standing there listening? And how much of the conversation had he actually taken in? There was a guarded watchfulness in the blue eyes, a kind of
