Unlocking the Rebel's Heart
Autore
Alison Roberts
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CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS NO way to avoid the collision.
Paramedic Benjamin Marshall might have had quite a few years’ experience speeding around the rural roads of Central Otago in New Zealand, sometimes pushing his ambulance to the limits on sharp bends, steep hills or even gravel surfaces if he was on the way to an emergency but this time, there was nothing he could do but slam on his brakes and hope for the best when he came around a blind bend to find a car barely off the road, with its driver’s door wide open.
Far worse than the horrible thud and screech of metal being mangled as the front bumper of the ambulance tore the door off the car and shunted the whole vehicle forward was the sight of a pair of flailing arms from a person who’d been standing directly in front of the car. Ben got a blurred impression of a slim body, a rope of long, dark hair and arms that were looking oddly graceful as they swam through the air. Arms that vanished at alarming speed as the body disappeared into the deep ditch of a water race that ran along the side of the road as part of the local farm irrigation system.
The shocking thought that he might have just killed someone was foremost in Ben’s mind but he couldn’t simply jump out of the ambulance to go and find out. He knew, all too well, what could happen if he didn’t take the few seconds needed to do something to protect others. He’d seen it happen before. One accident on top of another that had caused totally avoidable fatalities. Slamming his vehicle into reverse, he hit the switch for the beacons before he began moving, to provide a visual warning for anyone else that might be approaching that blind corner. At least any vehicles coming around the bend from the other direction had more than enough room on the other side of the road. Fortunately, the road on this side was still clear and he was able to stop the ambulance, fast enough to skid in the loose gravel on the verge, in a position that could be seen from a distance and would prevent another accident. Ben was already running at the same instant his feet hit the ground as he jumped from the driver’s seat. Pushing the car further off the road was an urgent task as well, he noted as he ran past it, but that was nowhere near as imperative as finding out if there was someone drowning in that ditch.
‘Hey,’ he called loudly. ‘Where are you? Are you hurt?’
The silence was ominous. The kind of silence you only got on a road like this, surrounded by farmland for endless miles in every direction, framed by an impressive mountain range in the distance that still had heavily snow-covered peaks in this first month of spring. Ben could hear the tremulous bleating of a newborn lamb that was somewhere close. He could also hear what sounded like a loud sniff of someone who...was crying? Or trying not to, perhaps.
Two more strides and he was on the edge of the water race. The water at the bottom wasn’t deep enough to completely cover the sheep that was lying in the ditch but its head was certainly under water and probably had been for some time.
‘It’s dead...’ The woman hunched on the edge of the bank rubbed at her nose. ‘It was my fault. I killed it.’
‘It happens.’ Ben crouched in the long grass of the verge beside her. ‘The sheep shouldn’t have been on the road and it’s lucky that you didn’t try and swerve which could have put your car into the ditch and killed you.’ He was looking at her carefully, trying to assess how badly she might have been hurt when she’d been hit by her own car. Or was he making an assumption, here?
‘Were you alone in your car?’
She nodded. ‘Of course I was.’
Oh? Why was it something that should have been obvious? Was she always alone in her car? In her life? Ben blinked away the blip of curiosity.
‘Where were you headed?’
It was good to keep her talking. He could see that she wasn’t having any trouble breathing. Her colour looked okay and a quick body scan didn’t reveal any sign of major blood loss happening. The bottom of her jeans and the ankle boots she was wearing looked soaked, however—as if she’d already been in the ditch to try and help the sheep before climbing out to go back to her car.
Maybe if he’d been a few seconds later, she would have already driven away from the scene. But he hadn’t been later and he couldn’t leave this woman to wait until any other help arrived. He still needed assurance that she wasn’t injured and that wet clothing meant she was going to need some shelter very soon. The sleeves of the neat fitting jumper were also wet but at least that was woollen and would offer some protection against a breeze that still carried the bite of winter temperatures.
‘Cutler’s Creek,’ she responded. ‘I don’t think it’s that far away.’ She turned to look over her shoulder at the crumpled bonnet of the car. At the driver’s door that was almost completely detached and was twisted enough to be mostly lying on the grass. She screwed her eyes shut as if she rather not see the evidence of what had just happened. She also let out her breath in an unhappy sigh.
‘You’re right,’ Ben said. ‘You’re not far away. Not that you’ll be going anywhere in that car. Let me check you out and then I’ll call for some help.’ The relief that he hadn’t caused a major injury was wearing off and Ben was starting to feel seriously annoyed that this woman had done something as stupid as creating an obstacle on the road that could have killed someone else. ‘Our local cop, Bruce, is a dab hand at sorting stuff like this,’ he told her. ‘You’d be surprised at how often this kind of thing happens. Especially to tourists.’
‘I’m not a tourist.’ She had the nerve to sound offended.
‘Then maybe you should’ve known better than to leave your car in the middle of the road.’ Ben was quite used to keeping his tone calm no matter how much someone annoyed him. He needed that ability when you couldn’t know what else might be going with a patient—like a head injury, perhaps. Or low blood sugar. But this woman didn’t look as if her brain function was compromised in any way. She was looking at him as if he was the culprit when it came to doing something stupid. He sucked in a measured breath. ‘Nobody coming round that bend had a hope of seeing your car in time to stop safely.’
‘I tried to get off the road but I could see there was a ditch. And I had to stop—I’d just hit something...’
‘And you needed to leave your door wide open as well?’
She looked startled. Ben could see the moment that she realised she’d done something dangerous because she hadn’t even thought about any potential repercussions. She looked more than startled, actually. The way her eyes widened and her lips parted made her look horrified.’
‘So... Are you injured? Do you have any pain anywhere?’
It only took a blink for her to refocus. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t need checking out.’
‘You just got hit by a vehicle.’ Ben couldn’t resist a verbal nudge. ‘Like that sheep.’
‘Shunted is a more accurate description. It barely touched me. I just lost my balance and fell into that ditch.’ She was looking at the unfortunate sheep again. ‘I landed on my feet. I’m fine.’
‘I’m a paramedic. It’s my job to make sure you’re really fine.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ she flashed back. ‘And if I was hurt, I could take care of myself.’ She was struggling to get to her feet as she spoke and Ben could see her wince in pain as she put weight on her left foot even though she was clearly doing her best not to let it show.
He could also see her face much better now that she had turned. Her eyes were almost as dark as that long braid hanging over her shoulder. So dark, they were making her face look paler. Or maybe that was due to the pain she was obviously in.
‘Where’s it hurting?’
‘It’s nothing. Just a bit of a sprain, I expect.’
‘You’ve got X-ray vision, then, Dr...?’
‘Hamilton.’ The polite response to his query about her name was almost reluctant. ‘Joy Hamilton. And you are...?’
‘Ben Marshall. Station manager for the local ambulance service.’
She was looking almost disconcerted now which was a bit odd but maybe it was embarrassment instead, as the realisation that she’d done something so stupid was sinking in. Why was she heading for Cutler’s Creek anyway? Ben wondered. Was she a friend of one of their local hospital’s medical staff?
‘You a friend of Liv’s?’ he asked.
‘Who’s Liv?’
‘Wife of the head of our local hospital, Isaac Cameron. Daughter of the local legend who’d been running the place for decades until Zac arrived. Plastic surgeon. She came from Auckland but if you’re on the way to visit her, you’re out of luck. She’s in Dunedin, what with the baby still being in NICU.’
Dr Hamilton was looking bemused. ‘I’ve never met Liv. Never heard of her.’
‘Oh...sorry.’ Ben shrugged. ‘Guess you look like you belong in a big city.’
She did. Those were obviously designer jeans and expensive boots. She had the points of a white collar sitting neatly on either side of the neckline of her bright red jumper. She looked very neat all over, Ben decided, especially with her hair so tightly plaited. It gave the impression that she belonged somewhere like a library rather than anywhere in a busy hospital. Maybe her doctorate was in something like archaeology. Or philosophy? Not that it was any of his business and besides, he was aware of something else now. He could still hear the bleating of that lamb and the sound was getting louder. Distressed, even.
‘I do know Isaac Cameron,’ Joy Hamilton said. ‘I spoke to him on the phone before I decided to take...’ She stopped speaking as she noticed Ben tilting his head, looking for the direction the bleating was coming from. He had to give her credit for the speed with which she cottoned onto exactly what he was thinking.
‘Oh...that must have been why that sheep was on the road.’ Her brow was suddenly furrowed with deep concern. ‘There’s a baby here somewhere.’
She turned to start walking along the edge of the ditch. Or rather, limping heavily. It was Ben’s turn to frown as he tried to assess how bad that injury to her lower leg might be but then she turned her head to glare at him.
‘Why are you just standing there?’ she demanded. ‘Help me look for it.’
There was a sharp pain in her ankle every time she tried to put weight on it but Joy Hamilton wasn’t about to admit it. Not when Ben the paramedic would probably give her another one of those looks that told her she was too stupid to be allowed out of a city.
And maybe she was. She’d murdered a sheep. She hadn’t given a thought to any blind bend in the road behind her as she’d slammed on her brakes after that horrible thud and...how could she have been thoughtless enough not to make sure her door was shut properly after she’d jumped out of the car? She never did anything without thinking about potential consequences. She was the most careful person on earth, in fact.
How could she not be when she’d been brought up having to atone for the fact that her mother had been the complete opposite? She knew how to tick every box and to never miss any important details, which was exactly what made her so good at her job in emergency medicine.
So far, the only real risk Joy Hamilton had ever taken was to apply for the locum position at a hospital in the middle of nowhere, here in the South Island. She might not come from the country’s largest city of Auckland but her hometown was the vibrant capital of the country and, right now, Joy would feel a lot more comfortable walking on an inner city Wellington footpath than pushing through almost knee high grass on the edge of this isolated road.
That pain in her ankle was getting worse every time she stepped on it so it was quite possible that she did have a fracture but she’d been humiliated enough by the expression in this paramedic’s eyes when he’d asked whether she had X-ray vision. A patient kind of expression, with just a hint of amusement, as if he was dealing with a naughty child. Or someone with very limited intelligence.
Very blue eyes, she remembered now. So blue, in fact, that she turned her head as if she wanted to check that her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her. He was too far behind her to see properly but she took in the spiky brown hair with its streaks of blond that made him look like he spent a lot of time outdoors in the sunshine. If they weren’t hundreds of miles away from a beach, she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he was into surfing. Not that she should be remotely interested in what this man’s hobbies might be. The realisation that the station manager for the local ambulance service, who already knew she didn’t belong here, was an undeniably gorgeous looking man only made this situation worse.
No...what really made it worse was the way he smiled at her as she looked back.
She knew that kind of smile. The gleam she would have seen in his eyes if she’d been any closer. This was the kind of man who revelled in anything unconventional. Created chaos, even, by an inability or lack of desire to follow rules. The kind of man her grandfather had had absolutely no sympathy for when their exploits resulted in damage to property or loss of life or limbs.
‘Should’ve followed the rules, shouldn’t they? They’re there for a good reason...’
The kind of man Joy had known to steer very well clear of for her entire life.
A bad boy...
She was definitely getting closer to the lamb, because the bleating was louder, but she couldn’t see where it was in this long grass. Then she heard Ben’s voice behind her.
‘It’s in the ditch. Looks like it’s stuck in the mud.’
Sure enough, when Joy stepped closer, she could see the small, woolly creature with its legs sunk into the muddy edge of the shallow creek at the bottom of this ditch. It was looking back at her, with black, button eyes and ears that were far too big for it that stuck out sideways and something just melted inside Joy’s chest.
‘Oh...you poor wee thing.’ She slid down the edge of the bank, taking no notice of the way her new Italian boots were disappearing into the mud. She got hold of the lamb and pulled it clear, holding it in her arms as she turned to get back up the bank.
It was then that she realised her injured ankle was highly unlikely to be able to support her weight enough to climb out of the ditch when she couldn’t use her hands to help.
‘Here...’ She held the lamb up. ‘You take it.’
Ben’s eyebrows rose enough to let Joy know that he was more than a little surprised by her bossy tone.
‘Please...’ she muttered as an afterthought.
He was grinning broadly as he took the lamb from her arms. He started to turn away but his head swerved as he heard the cry of pain Joy was unable to stifle as she took her first step to climb the bank. He tucked the lamb under one arm and leaned down to offer her his hand.
She had no choice but to take it because the bank was too steep to try and get out on her hands and knees. They both had muddy hands now, thanks to the lamb, which made their skin slippery so Joy had to hold onto Ben’s hand with both of hers even as she felt his fingers curl into a firm grip. It was a big hand. Warm. And strong. So strong, she had the impression he could have hauled her out of that ditch in the blink of an eye but he was taking his time and his movements were considered enough to feel oddly gentle.
She had to stand on one leg when she reached level ground. How embarrassing was this? She was covered in mud and her clothes were damp enough to make her shiver in the cold gusts of wind. Far worse than that, however, was that she was going to have to admit that she hadn’t been completely honest earlier. She was injured and she was going to have to ask for help.
Except she didn’t have to ask for anything. Ben put the lamb down on the ground where it promptly collapsed into the long grass.
‘Stay there,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
Stepping forward, as Joy could feel herself wobbling enough that she was about to lose her balance completely, Ben simply scooped her up into his arms and strode back along the road to where he’d parked his ambulance. If his handhold had felt strong and capable, it was nothing to how it felt being in his arms. Joy was fairly slim but she was tall enough to have never felt petite. Until now...
She’d never been swept off her feet and carried like a child by any man. Ever. Her grandfather had had a bad back and hadn’t picked up anything heavy. Her boyfriends would have never considered a move like that because she would never have dated them if they had. She was hating this feeling of being helpless, of course, but Joy had to admit there was a rather different reaction beneath the current of what felt like humiliation. A frisson of...what was it?
Pleasure...?
No. That would be unacceptable. It was probably more like relief, perhaps, in that she could temporarily relinquish responsibility and let someone else make decisions and look after her?
Fortunately, the journey was over before such an unwelcome notion could make itself any more pronounced. Ben opened the back doors of the ambulance and flipped the steps down with one hand, climbed inside and put Joy down on a stretcher that had a pristine, white sheet over it.
‘Where’s it hurting?’
‘My ankle.’
‘I need to get that boot off. Might need to cut it.’
‘No...it’s brand new.’ A hint of something like panic was enough to make her not think about what she was saying. ‘You’ll ruin the luck.’ She ignored his raised eyebrows. ‘It’s got a zip on the side. Somewhere under that mud. Here... I’ll find it.’
‘Uh-uh...’ Ben pointed to the pillow at the top of the stretcher. ‘Lie down. I’ve got this.’ As Joy hesitated he gave her a stern look. ‘My truck, my rules,’ he said.
And there it was again. An invitation to let someone else look after her and...it was irresistible this time. Joy sank back against the pillow with a shiver, pulled the blanket Ben draped over her up to her shoulders and let him open the zips and ease the boots free from her feet. Her uninjured foot first but she knew he was doing that because it was important, whenever possible, to compare any injured body part with a normal side. It was ridiculous to know that her cheeks were going red because it felt as if she was being undressed for something other than a medical examination.
At least the pain of her injured ankle, especially as he peeled off the damp sock, put this experience firmly back into a professional realm. She could even ignore the extraordinary warmth of his hands against her chilled skin.
‘I can’t see any obvious deformity,’ he told her. ‘You’ve got a good pedal pulse and capillary refill. Can you wiggle your toes?’
She could.
He held her leg with one hand and her foot with the other, putting pressure on in different directions.
‘Does this hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘How about this?’
‘Ouch...’
‘Sorry. You’ve got some bruising coming out already there. I don’t think you’ve broken anything but we won’t know until you have an X-ray.’ A twitch of his lips suggested that he was tempted but had decided against making a comment about her visual abilities again. ‘I’ll put a compression bandage on this, elevate it and then take you into Cutler’s Creek emergency department.’
With a groan of defeat, Joy closed her eyes. This so wasn’t the way she had intended arriving at her new position. Then her eyes snapped open again.
‘You’re not just going to leave that lamb all by itself, are you? With its dead mother in the ditch?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. He had ripped off the plastic covering of a crepe bandage and he held the end of it against her ankle as he started unrolling. ‘It’s all under control. I sent Bruce a message before we went on that lamb hunt.’
‘Bruce the...policeman?’
‘That’s the one.’ The bandaging that was happening was well practised and swift. It was also firm enough to already be reducing the pain Joy was aware of.
‘What did you mean before?’ Ben’s tone was casual, as if he was just trying to make conversation while he worked. ‘About ruining the luck if I’d cut your boot off?’
Okay...this was embarrassing but he was going to find out before long anyway.
‘I always get new shoes for a new job. For luck...’
There was a sharp focus in those blue eyes as they flicked up to meet hers.
‘You’re heading to Cutler’s Creek for a new job? As in...the locum that Zac’s been trying to find?’
‘That’s the one.’ It was only after she’d spoken that Joy realised she was echoing both the words and tone of what Ben had just said about Bruce the policeman.
He was silent now, however, as he hooked the crocodile clips in place to fasten the bandage and then ease a pillow under her foot and ankle. It felt as if he didn’t know quite what to say about the fact that they would quite possibly be working together in the very near future. Because he wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea?
‘Wonder what’s holding Bruce up...?’ Ben straightened and then turned to peer through one of the small, square windows in the back doors. ‘Ah...about time.’ He opened the door and raised his voice as he jumped out. ‘What took you so long, mate?’
Joy could hear the response.
‘I was trying to find someone at home with a tractor who could tow this car off the road. Greg’ll be here in a minute but he’s not exactly thrilled about cleaning up after another tourist.’
‘Ah...’ Ben poked his head through the door before pulling it closed and Joy could swear he actually winked at her. ‘Be back in a minute,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’
As if she could. Joy closed her eyes again and tried to remember why it had seemed a good idea to apply for this new job. Oh, yeah...she’d been fed up, hadn’t she? Sick of herself and bemused by yet another relationship disaster which had to win the prize for being the most humiliating.
She was the one who ended relationships—usually because they had become so predictable and unexciting they could only be described as boring—but this time she was the one who’d been dumped. By Ian, one of the radiologists in her emergency department, in favour of a ditzy, blonde nurse who was probably ten years younger than Joy. He’d been apologetic when he’d ended things. Kind, even, but his words still rankled.
‘You’re a lovely woman, Joy. Gorgeous and smart and damn good at your job. But...you’ve got zero spontaneity. I don’t think you’ve ever taken a risk in your entire life, have you? I’m sorry, but do you even have any idea how...how boring that can get?’
Watching the two of them making eyes at each other when they had all been on the same shift had sparked the disturbing thought that there were aspects of life that were passing Joy by. That, perhaps, she might never actually experience?
Her colleagues had been so astonished when she’d announced she was taking leave because she needed a change of scene that Joy had to wonder if they all thought the same as Ian—that she was the most boring person on earth. Had Ian been right? Was she the reason her relationships had always fizzled out?
Well...they wouldn’t think she was that boring now, would they? She was creating havoc even before she’d stepped through the door of her new job. So much for those lucky new boots. Her car was written off, she might have broken her ankle, there was a dead sheep that someone would have to deal with and...
And she didn’t need to recall that cute little face of an orphaned lamb because the back doors of the ambulance opened again and there it was, peeping out from the crook of Ben’s elbow, with its long, skinny legs trailing below.
‘Can’t leave him for Greg to take back to the farmhouse.’ Ben used his free hand to scratch the lamb between those ridiculously large ears. ‘Poor little guy seems to have broken its leg.’
The lamb bleated loudly as if to agree. There was something about this tall, capable man holding a vulnerable baby creature that was doing something odd to Joy’s gut. Something she wasn’t sure she particularly liked because it was rather too distracting but it was impossible to look away.
‘X-ray vision, huh?’
Oh, yeah...his eyes were an extraordinary kind of blue. And there was a gleam in their depths that suggested that, even if he might think she was somewhat stupid, he didn’t think she was the most boring person on earth. Deep down, Joy had to admit she kind of liked that. It even occurred to her that, seeing as nobody here knew anything about her, she could choose to become a totally different person. And create a completely new, exciting kind of life to go along with that new personality?
‘Here, hold onto him.’ Ben shoved the lamb at her so Joy had no choice but to take hold of it in her arms. ‘I need to find something to use as a splint.’
He was bandaging some folded cardboard around the lamb’s front leg a minute or two later when the ambulance doors were opened again. A large man leaned in and put something on the floor.
‘Here’s the doc’s handbag,’ he told Ben. ‘Thought she might need her phone and whatnot. I’ll get her suitcases out before the car gets towed and bring them in to the hospital.’ He caught Joy’s gaze then, and smiled at her.
‘Welcome to Cutler’s Creek,’ he said.
Ben’s gaze flicked up to meet hers and she could see that he was very well aware of just how much she thought her lucky new footwear had failed to do its job.
‘Yeah...’ He seemed to be trying not to laugh. ‘Welcome to Cutler’s Creek, Dr Hamilton. You’re going to love it here.’
