The Doctor's Christmas Bride (Lakeside Mountain Rescue 1)

But to be jealous you had to care, and Jack didn’t care about her. Not like that.

Or did he?

She sat in silence, her mind running over everything that had happened since the night she’d walked into the pub and announced that she was going to start dating men again.

Jack had sabotaged every date.

Had he done that because of Lizzie? Because he didn’t want Lizzie to have a daddy?

Or had he done it because he hadn’t been able to see her with another man?

CHAPTER

EIGHT

THE week before Christmas Jack, Bryony and Sean were in the staffroom discussing the mountain rescue team Christmas party, when Nicky rushed in, looking stressed.

‘I just had a call from Ambulance Control,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Ellie has driven her car into a ditch.’

‘Our Ellie?’ Jack was on his feet immediately, his expression concerned. ‘She’s nearly eight months pregnant. Is she OK?’

Nicky shook her head. ‘I haven’t got many details but they had to cut her out of the car.’

Bryony was already hurrying to the door.

‘She’s been poorly right the way through this pregnancy,’ Sean muttered, and Bryony remembered that he was very friendly with the couple outside work. ‘That’s why she gave up work early. Has anyone called Ben? This is his wife we’re talking about.’

Ben MacAllister was another of the A and E consultants, and Ellie had worked as a nurse in A and E before she’d become pregnant.

‘He’s away on that immediate care course,’ Jack reminded him, and Sean swore softly.

‘Well, someone get on the phone.’

They heard the ambulance siren and Jack turned to Bryony. ‘Call Tom,’ he said urgently. ‘I don’t know whether there’s a problem with the baby, but we’re not taking any chances and I want your brother here.’

Without questioning his decision, Bryony hurried to the phone and called her brother and then hurried to Resus where the paramedics had taken Ellie.

Jack and Sean were already examining her thoroughly.

‘Is Tom coming?’ Jack was giving Ellie oxygen, clearly concerned about the baby.

‘He’s in Theatre, doing an emergency section,’ Bryony told him, trying to hide her shock at seeing Ellie on the trolley. Her face was paper white and her blonde hair was matted with blood. ‘He’ll be down as soon as he can.’

Jack nodded and touched Ellie on the shoulder, lifting the mask away from her face for a moment. ‘You’re going to be fine, Ellie,’ he said softly. ‘The scalp wound is quite superficial. How are you feeling?’

‘Worried about the baby,’ Ellie said weakly, her normal exuberance extinguished by the shock of the accident and the pain she was in. ‘Has someone called Ben?’

‘He’s on his way,’ Nicky told her quickly, and Ellie gave a groan and closed her eyes.

‘He’ll be so worried—I wasn’t sure whether we should have called him really…’

‘He’d want to know,’ Sean said, his face unusually white and strained as he looked at his friend lying on the trolley. ‘What the hell were you doing, driving your car into a ditch anyway?’

Bryony saw Ellie smile and she lifted the oxygen mask from her face so that she could answer.

‘I swerved to avoid a sheep,’ she croaked, and Sean rolled his eyes.

‘Well, of course you did,’ he said gruffly, and looked at Jack. ‘This is your show.’