She had to get away.
Her car was parked in the front.
She’d drive.
She’d just drive, and then she’d be all right.
She could leave the memories behind.
Alex stepped up to his sister, his blue eyes narrowed. ‘Did it work?’
Libby bit her lip and stared after Katy, guilt and anxiety clouding her eyes. ‘Judging from her reaction, I think it might have worked a little too well. Oh, hell, Alex, are you sure we’re doing the right thing? You know she hates talking about it and usually we go along with that.’
Alex rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, displaying a rare departure from his customary cool. ‘She’s marrying a man she doesn’t love, Lib, for all the wrong reasons. Anything is worth a try.’
Libby’s eyes shone a little too brightly. ‘But I hurt her.’
‘And you think she won’t hurt when she finally wakes up and realises that she’s made a mistake marrying Freddie? And anyway…’ Alex paused and took a long slug from his glass of champagne. ‘You only made her talk about stuff she thinks about all the time.’
‘I felt like a total rat, not telling her about Jago,’ Libby mumbled. ‘What’s she going to do when she finds out that he’s now a doctor and working in her hospital?’
‘She’ll be shocked, but she needs to confront her past and get on with her life instead of bottling it up,’ Alex said firmly. ‘It’s the right thing to do. Stop worrying.’
Libby glared at her brother. ‘How come you’re always so damned confident about everything? Aren’t you even remotely worried he’ll hurt her again?’
Alex’s jaw hardened. ‘We both know that Dad was somehow responsible for the first time, which was why I didn’t go after Jago eleven years ago, but if he hurts her again…’ There was a brief pause and the warmth of his tone dropped several degrees. ‘Then I’ll kill him. Now change the subject. Dad’s spotted you at last and he’s on his way over. Better hitch that skirt up another inch, Lib. I can’t quite see your knickers.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘RTA COMING in, Jago.’ Charlotte, one of the A and E sisters, replaced the phone and turned to the consultant. ‘Young female had to be cut out of a car. Apparently it’s taken them a while to free her.’
Jago lifted night-black eyes from the X-ray he was studying, his handsome face sharply alert. ‘Details?’
‘Not many. Head and chest but I don’t know how bad.’ Charlotte tilted her head, studying his face, marvelling at how unbelievably gorgeous he was. It didn’t matter how long she’d worked with him, she still stared. All the female staff stared. As one of the cheekier nurses had quipped, ‘Some staffrooms have posters of heartthrobs—we have the real live thing.’ Charlotte pulled herself together. ‘I can hear the siren.’
Jago nodded briefly. ‘Get someone to check Resus while we meet the ambulance.’ With that he yanked the X-ray out of the light-box and strode through the department, broad-shouldered and confident, pausing briefly to hand the X-ray to one of the casualty officers. ‘If you take a close look at this, you can see a lunar dislocation on the lateral view, Alison. You missed it.’
Aware of his reputation for zero tolerance when it came to clinical mistakes, the young doctor regarded him warily.
‘I—I didn’t request a lateral view.’
The consultant’s voice was silky smooth. ‘But fortunately I did.’
‘The AP view looked normal, Mr Rodriguez—’
‘Which is why you should also have requested a lateral view X-ray.’ His tone was icy cold and unsympathetic and the casualty officer shifted in her seat.
‘I—I thought that was a pretty rare injury. I read in a book that it’s quite common to miss that particular injury on X-ray.’
‘Not in my department,’ Jago said softly, visibly unimpressed by her error. ‘Next time request the right views and check them carefully. Expect the unexpected. Rare injuries still happen. Refer the patient to the orthopaedic team for a manipulation under anaesthetic and then join me in Resus. We’ve got an RTA coming in.’
‘Yes, Mr Rodriguez.’ The young female SHO was pink with mortification and Jago gritted his teeth impatiently. The girl was sloppy and over-confident and he’d be relieved when she finished her six-month stint in two weeks’ time. Some people weren’t cut out for emergency medicine and she was one of them. And on top of that, her longing looks were beginning to irritate him. She’d made it obvious that she’d be happy to extend their relationship beyond the confines of the hospital but he had more sense than to break hearts in his own department and these days he was becoming more and more picky about who he shared his bed with.
By his side Charlotte winced. ‘Ouch—you were hard on her.’
Jago lifted a dark eyebrow, his expression cool. ‘You’d prefer that she discharged a patient with a dislocation?’
‘No, but—’