A Single Dad To Heal Her Heart. Caroline Anderson
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‘Ah—!’
‘OK?’
She nodded, shifting slightly, her breathing slowing, and she closed her eyes briefly.
‘Yeah. That’s better. The path just—went.’
So she remembered that, at least. ‘“I’m always careful”,’ he quoted drily, and she laughed weakly as relief kicked in.
‘Well, nobody’s—perfect,’ she said after a moment, and then her eyes welled and he reached out a hand and brushed the soft blond hair back from her face with fingers that weren’t quite steady, scanning her face for bruises.
‘Are you OK now? You scared me half to death.’
She met his eyes with a wry smile, and for once the sparkle in her eyes wasn’t mischief. ‘That depends on your—definition of OK. I’m alive, I can breathe—just, I can feel everything, I can move, so yeah—I guess I’m OK. Do I hurt? Oh, yeah. These rocks are hard.’
‘I’m sure. Don’t move. Let me check you over.’
‘You just want to get your hands on me,’ she quipped, her breath still catching.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said lightly, trying not to think about that right now because however true it might be, he could see she was in pain. He simply wanted to be sure she didn’t have any life-threatening injuries and then maybe his heart could slow down a bit. ‘Why don’t you let me do my job?’ he added gently, trying to stick to business.
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Well, at least you can remember that. How many fingers am I holding up?’
‘Twelve.’
He tried to glare at her but it was too hard so he just laughed, told her to co-operate and carried on, checking her pupils, making her follow his finger, feeling her scalp for any sign of a head injury.
Please don’t have a head injury...
‘My head’s fine. It’s my ribs that hurt.’
So he turned his attention to her body, checking for anything that could be a worry because she’d hit that rock hard and a punctured lung could kill her. He squeezed her ribcage gently.
‘Does that feel OK?’
‘Sort of. It’s tender, but it’s not catching any more when I breathe and I can’t feel any grating when you spring them, so I don’t think I broke any ribs,’ she said, taking it seriously at last. ‘I thought I had an elephant on my chest. I had no idea being winded was so damn scary.’
‘Oh, yeah. I’ve only ever been winded once, when I fell out of a tree. I must have been six or seven, but I remember it very clearly. I thought I was dying.’
She nodded, then looked away again, just as they heard a slither of shale and Sam appeared at their sides.
‘How is she?’ he asked tightly.
‘Lippy and opinionated but apparently OK, as far as I’ve checked. She was winded. At least it shut her up for a moment.’
Sam chuckled, but Matt could see the relief in his eyes. ‘Now there’s a miracle.’
‘Excuse me, I am here, you know,’ she said, shifting into a better position, and Sam looked down at her and grinned.
‘So you are. Good job, too, we don’t need to lose a promising young registrar, we’re pushed enough,’ he said drily, and sat down. ‘Why don’t you shut up and let him finish so we can get on?’ he added, and Matt laughed. As if...
‘Any back pain?’ he asked, but she just gave him a wry look.
‘No more than you’d expect after rolling down a scree slope and slamming into a rock, but at least it stopped me rolling all the way down,’ she said, trying to get to her feet, but he put a hand on her shoulder and held her down.
‘I’m not done—’
She tipped her head back and fixed him with a determined look. ‘Yeah, you are. I’m fine, Matt. I just need to get up because there are rocks sticking into me all over the place and I could do without that. You might need to give me a hand up.’
He held his hand out but let her do the work. She’d stop instinctively as soon as anything felt wrong, but he was horribly conscious that he hadn’t ruled out all manner of injuries that might be lurking silently, but that was fine, he had no intention of taking his eyes off her for the rest of the day.
She winced slightly, but she was on her feet.
‘How’s that feel?’
‘Better now I’m off the rocks. Did you see what happened? Did I step off the edge, or did it crumble?’
He snorted. ‘No, it crumbled. I told you the edge was unstable, but did you listen? Of course not. You were in too much of a hurry. When you weren’t walking backwards, that is.’
‘Only one step—’
‘I’ll give you one step,’ he growled. ‘So, are you OK to go on?’
‘Of course I am. You seriously think I’m going to give up now just because of this?’
‘You might as well. I don’t get beaten,’ Sam said, getting to his feet, and she laughed in his face.
‘We’ll see about that,’ she retorted, stabbing him in the chest with her finger, then she took a step and yelped.
Matt frowned. ‘What?’
‘My ankle.’ She tried again, and winced. ‘Rats. I can’t weight-bear on it. I must have turned it when the path gave way.’
‘Well, that’s just upped my chances,’ Sam said with a grin, and Matt rolled his eyes.
‘You two are a nightmare. Right, let’s get you off here and have a better look at that.’
* * *
Livvy flexed her ankle again and regretted it. She was so mad with herself, and she was hideously aware that it could have been much, much worse. If it had been her head against that rock instead of her chest...
After all she’d been through, that she could have died from a moment’s lack of concentration was ridiculous. She’d meant what she’d said about being careful. She was always careful, meticulous with her lifestyle, fastidious about what she ate, how much she exercised—she woke every morning ready to tackle whatever the day brought, because whatever it brought she had at least been granted the chance to deal with it, and she never stopped being aware of that glorious gift.
And now, after the physical and emotional roller coaster of the last five years, she’d nearly thrown it all away.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
‘OK?’
She