away, considerably more slowly than before. She turned back to the jogger.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
He nodded. ‘Just a bit shaken up. I’ll be OK.’ He frowned at the lane. ‘Where did you spring from?’
The cottage. I’m renting it. I’d better get on, if you’re sure——?’
He grinned. Tine—see?’ He turned to jog away from her, and his left leg collapsed under him. Making a grab for Polly, he swore softly under his breath and bent to explore his left calf.
His right hand was gripping her shoulder firmly, and Polly tucked her left arm around his waist to support him. He felt lean and solid, without an ounce of fat. He was also shaking slightly, probably with shock.
‘What’s the problem?’
He shook his head and straightened, frowning at his left hand. It was streaked with blood and he glanced down at his leg again.
‘Don’t know. It hurts, though. It didn’t a minute ago.’
‘That often happens,’ Polly hastened to reassure him. ‘Often we don’t feel an injury until it’s safe to do so. I suppose it’s a safety mechanism. Let’s get you inside and have a closer look.’
Still supporting him around his waist, she changed sides so that his injured leg was next to her and she could give him better support, and they made their way slowly into the cottage. The top of her head came up to his chin, and his arm rested comfortably across her shoulders. They fitted well together, she thought idly.
Once in the kitchen, he sank gratefully on to a chair and flexed his leg.
‘It feels as if there’s something in it,’ he muttered, and Polly stripped off her coat, turned on the kettle and washed her hands thoroughly.
‘Take off your tracksuit bottoms,’ she instructed, rummaging in the kitchen cupboard for her first-aid kit.
‘Do you say that to all the strange men you meet?’ he asked, laughter brimming in his voice.
‘Only the ones who fall in my hedge and write themselves off,’ she returned. ‘You’re quite safe, I’m a qualified nurse. I’m also going to be late for work, so if you could co-operate, please?’ When she turned back he had pulled his trousers off and was standing on one leg in his jogging shorts, craning his neck to see the back of his calf.
‘Here,’ she said, and grasping his ankle firmly, she lifted his well-muscled but lacerated lower leg and propped it across the seat of the chair. ‘Stand still. You don’t need to see, I do,’ she told him frankly, and then examined the area without touching it for a few seconds. Because he had been exercising, the blood vessels were all dilated and so the scratches were bleeding freely. However, there only seemed to be one serious wound.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, peering over his shoulder again.
‘Stop squirming around,’ she chided. ‘You’ve got hawthorns in it, and a nasty cut. I’ll clean it up and lift out the thorns with tweezers, but you really ought to have stitches in the cut, I think. You’ll have to keep still.’
‘Yes, Nurse,’ he said in a mock-submissive voice, and Polly’s mouth twitched into a smile.
She cleaned the area as gently as possible, and then after warning him, swabbed the cuts with antiseptic.
He winced and his leg muscles clenched involuntarily. Polly apologised and carried on swabbing. ‘It could have been worse.’ she told him, ‘you might have sat in the hedge.’
His choked laugh was cut off abruptly when she swabbed him again.
‘You haven’t asked if I’ve got AIDS,’ he said through gritted teeth, and Polly straightened for a second and looked him dead in the eye.
‘I should think not! I would imagine, as you’re an intelligent person, that you would have had the grace to tell me. You’re far more likely to have Hepatitis B——’
‘Sorry, all clear. I’ve had my jabs.’
‘Tetanus?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not recently.’
‘Well, you must. Go to the doctor today and have a booster.’ She bent her head over his leg again. ‘You don’t know what you could have picked up from these thorns. Infected animals could have brushed against them or anything.’
‘Unlikely,’ he murmured, watching with interest as she removed the tweezers from the cup of boiling water and dipped them in the antiseptic to cool them. ‘I’m probably in more danger from those things.’
‘That’s the most sterile I can get them at this sort of notice. Sorry,’ she added as he flinched again. ‘You look as if you’ve had a run-in with a porcupine. There,’ she laid the tweezers aside and swabbed the cut again, then wiped it dry. ‘I’ll put a butterfly plaster on it for now, but I really would recommend that you go to your doctor.’
Polly pressed the plaster in place, covering it with a sterile gauze dressing, and stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘You’ll do. I must get on. Can I give you a lift home?’
‘Please, if you’ve got time. Are you going through Longridge?’
‘I work there. That’s no trouble.’
She picked up her coat, and handed him his tracksuit bottoms. ‘I’m afraid they’re ruined,’ she said apologetically.
He shrugged. ‘They were ancient anyway.’ He hobbled out to the car, commenting as he went that his leg felt much better without the thorns.
She drove carefully into town, following his directions and dropping him in front of a lovely cottage, set back from the road behind a low wall in a quiet little lane just off the town centre.
‘Take care, now, and do go to the doctors’ with that. I’m sure they’d rather see you before it goes septic,’ she said cheerfully.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said with a laugh, leaning down through the passenger door to throw her a cheeky grin. ‘Thank you…?’
‘Polly,’ she supplied.
‘Thank you, Polly. You’re a gem.’
She blushed. ‘Rubbish. I’ll see you,’ she mumbled.
The grin widened. ‘Yes, you will. Go carefully, Pollyanna.’
She pulled away, and glancing back in her rearview mirror, she saw him give a jaunty wave before turning to hobble into his house. Nice man, she thought, even if he did call her Pollyanna. She wondered what his name was, and if she would see him again …
Polly arrived at the surgery in good time for her first clinic, but not in time to turn out her shelves. Oh, well, there was always the evening. She could stay late—goodness knew, there was precious little else for her to do as she didn’t know anybody yet.
She hung her coat in the little cloakroom and studied herself in the mirror for a moment.
