Ma’am, are you okay? Quick! Someone get me an ambulance!
‘Dr Adams!’
The voice cut across the emergency department like a siren. Lincoln spluttered his coffee all down the front of his scrubs and onto his open white coat. He glanced at the cup of lukewarm coffee. His first since yesterday and he wasn’t going to get to drink it. He tossed the cup in the trash and turned towards the voice.
James Turner. Head of the President’s security detail. Not again. This man was beginning to haunt his dreams—both at night and during the day.
But something was wrong. He had someone—a woman—in his arms. Linc strode towards him as James Turner unceremoniously dumped the woman on top of a gurney behind one of the sets of curtains. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead and nose. Linc wondered if he’d managed to change out of his obligatory black suit at all since he’d arrived in Pelican Cove.
‘I think I found something belonging to you, Dr Adams.’
‘To me? I don’t think so.’ Lincoln shook his head and moved over to the gurney.
‘Really?’ James Turner raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean you don’t recognise your own wife?’
‘My what?’
‘I knew it. Another scam artist. It’s ridiculous the lengths some of these reporters will go to. Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of her.’
Linc moved nearer the woman on the gurney. Her head and body were turned away from him but from the back the curly red hair looked like someone else’s. Someone he’d known five years ago. Only then she’d spent most of the time with it tied up in a ponytail, not spread across her shoulders and back, like it was now.
He leaned closer, then started. Yip. That definitely was a very pregnant abdomen. At least six months. His eyes flickered to her face. Pale skin, flawless, almost translucent, with a faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose. And she was out cold. And James Turner was trying to pull her upwards, obviously thinking she was faking.
‘Stop!’
This time his voice was every bit as loud as James’s had been.
The cold, hard stare he was getting used to met him again.
‘Get your hands off her.’ Lincoln walked around to the other side of the gurney. He had to be sure. He had to be sure his eyes were not deceiving him.
No. They weren’t. This was Amy Carson. This was his Amy Carson. The one he’d spent six hot, sweaty months with on the Amazon aid boat. Spending the days looking after a range of newborn ailments and spending the nights lost in the sea of her red hair. And he could absolutely authenticate it was her natural colour. This was definitely Amy Carson. The same one that had asked for help only forty-eight hours ago.
A very pregnant Amy Carson.
‘What happened?’ he asked James, as he spotted the crumpled envelope at the top of her bag. No one usually carried an envelope that size—not unless they were carrying their hospital notes.
‘I got radioed from the checkpoint. She was apparently making a scene, saying she had to see you. The cop on duty had her sussed the moment he saw her. The paparazzi have been trying every angle to get up here. Never thought they would resort to this, though. It’s really taking it a bit too far. She collapsed down at the checkpoint a few minutes ago.’
Lincoln stuck his head from behind the curtain. ‘Nancy, I need some help in here. Can you get me a foetal monitor, please?’ he shouted to one of the E.R. nurses. He turned back angrily to James, ‘And you? Go and get David Fairgreaves and tell him I need him to see a patient.’ He yanked the cardiac monitor leads and BP cuff from the wall. ‘Not every person you meet is trying to get to the President, Mr Turner.’ He touched the pale face lying on the gurney. ‘She—’ his voice lowered automatically ‘—was trying to get to me.’
He waited for James to depart and pulled the curtain tightly closed.
Amy Carson.
The girl he’d searched for. The only girl to ever get under his guard. He’d almost resigned himself to the fact he wasn’t going to see her again. But here she was, in the flesh, right before his eyes again. Except her flesh had expanded considerably, creating a nice neat bump under her breasts. Nothing like how she’d looked the last night he’d seen her as she’d danced about their cabin in her underwear, laughing and teasing him. This time she wasn’t laughing at all, she was out cold. And she’d been looking for him. What on earth was going on?
Nancy came in, clutching the Doppler scanner, and grabbed a nearby patient gown. She pushed Lincoln aside as he struggled with Amy’s long white smock top. ‘Here, let me,’ she said, as she deftly manoeuvred the top out of place, replacing it with a Velcro-fastened green gown. Her hand slid underneath the gown as she attached the leads from the cardiac monitor and pressed the button to switch the machine on. Lincoln fixed the cuff on Amy’s arm and watched for a few seconds as it inflated. Without saying a word, he already knew what it would say.
Nancy pulled a white plastic patient clothing bag from the locker and folded Amy’s white smock. Her eyes fell on the patient notes, still in their battered envelope, currently lying at the bottom of the bed. ‘Have you read those yet?’
‘No. I haven’t had a chance. Why?’
‘Do you know her?’
He hesitated. But Nancy was as sharp as a tack. ‘Do you want me to get someone else to see her?’
Linc shook his head. ‘I asked James Turner to go find David Fairgreaves for me.’ He waved his hand over Amy’s stomach. ‘I’m not an obstetrician.’
Nancy picked up the notes beside the bed and started to write down her heart rate and BP. ‘I need a name, Linc.’
Lincoln picked up the Doppler scanner and put a little gel on Amy’s stomach. He pulled her maternity trousers down slightly, adjusting them to reach the area that he needed to. He slid the transducer across her abdomen and after a few seconds he heard it. There. Thump, thump, thump. Like a little butterfly beating its wings. The baby’s heartbeat. Whatever had happened to Amy, her baby was safe. A smile broke out across his face.
‘Linc, I need a name—for the admission notes?’
‘It’s Amy. Amy Carson.’
‘Do you know her date of birth?’
He blinked. ‘August 14.’
Then he realised something. He picked up the buff-coloured folder from the bottom of the gurney. ‘You could have got all that from the notes she brought with her.’
Nancy smiled. ‘Yes, I could have. But the fact you know it makes it all the more interesting why this young lady ran the gauntlet today to see you. Pelican Cove just got a whole lot more interesting. Something you want to tell me, Dr Adams?’ Her eyes were fixed expectantly on Amy’s stomach—as if Lincoln had a closely guarded secret to tell. She leaned over and stuck the tympanic thermometer in Amy’s ear.
He shook his head firmly and let out an almost forced laugh. ‘You can’t possibly think …’
Nancy
