Summer Kisses

Jenna gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Let me take a look at it. If I think she needs to be seen by one of the doctors, then I’ll arrange it. Hello, Lily.’ She crouched down so that she was at the same level as the child. ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’

She studied the livid bruise across the child’s cheekbone and the swelling distorting the face. ‘Was she knocked out?’

‘No.’ The woman hovered. ‘I put an ice pack on it straight away, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.’

‘I’m sure it helped.’ Jenna examined the child’s cheek, tested her vision and felt the orbit. ‘Can you open your mouth for me, Lily? Good girl—now, close—brilliant. Does that hurt?’ Confident that there was no fracture, she turned to Lily’s mother. ‘I think it’s just badly bruised, Mrs Parsons.’

‘But she could have fractured it. Sorry—it isn’t that I don’t trust you.’ The woman closed her eyes briefly. ‘And I know I’m being anxious, but—’

‘I know all about anxious. You don’t have to apologise.’ Seeing how distressed the mother was, and sympathising, Jenna made a decision. ‘I’ll ask Dr McKinley to check her for you. Then you won’t be going home, worrying.’

‘Would you?’

‘I’ll go and see if he’s free—just wait one moment.’ Giving Lily a toy to play with, Jenna left her room and walked across to Ryan just as the door to his consulting room opened and a patient walked out.

She paused for a moment, conscious that she hadn’t seen him since Hamish had embarrassed them both the day before.

‘Ryan?’ Putting that out of her mind, Jenna put her head round the door. ‘I’m sorry, I know you’re busy…’ And tired, she thought, looking at the shadows under his eyes. He worked harder than any doctor she’d ever met.

Or were the shadows caused by something else?

‘I’m not busy—what can I do for you?’ The moment he looked at her, Jenna felt her insides flip over.

‘I have a patient in my room—I wondered if you could give me your opinion. The little girl is six—she’s slipped and banged her face. The bruising is bad, but I don’t think there’s a fracture—there’s no flattening of the cheek.’

Work always helped, she thought. After Clive had left, work had been her healing potion. It had stopped her thinking, analysing, asking ‘what if?’ And she’d discovered that if you worked hard enough, you fell into bed dog-tired and slept, instead of lying awake, thinking all the same things you’d been thinking during the day.

‘Flattening of the cheek can be obscured by swelling—’

‘It isn’t that swollen yet. It only happened half an hour ago, and her mum put an ice pack on it immediately. I can’t feel any defect to the orbit, and she can open and close her mouth without difficulty.’

‘It sounds as though you’re confident with your assessment.’ His long fingers toyed with the pen on his desk. ‘Why do you need me?’

‘Because the mother is so, so worried. I thought some reassurance from you might help. I know what it’s like to be a panicking mother.’

‘Who is the patient?’

‘Parsons?’

Ryan stood up. ‘Lily Parsons? That explains why you have a worried mother in your room. Little Lily had a nasty accident a couple of years ago—almost died. She fell in deep water in the quay and a boat propeller caught her artery.’

‘Oh, no—’ Jenna lifted her hand to her throat, horrified by the image his words created. ‘How did she survive that?’

‘My predecessor, Connor McNeil—Logan’s cousin—was ex-army. Trauma was his speciality, otherwise I doubt Lily would be with us today. She went into respiratory arrest, lost so much blood—’

‘Were you here?’

‘No. It was just before I arrived, but Connor’s rescue has gone down in island folklore. Apparently Jayne totally flipped. She witnessed the whole thing—blamed herself for the fact that Lily had fallen in. The child was watching the fish, and a crowd of tourists queuing for the ferry bumped into her and she lost her balance.’

‘Poor Jayne!’ To stop herself looking at his mouth, Jenna walked back towards the door. ‘All the more reason why you should reassure her.’

Without arguing, Ryan followed her into the room, charmed Jayne, made Lily laugh, and then checked the child’s eye with a thoroughness that would have satisfied the most hyper-anxious mother.

Jenna watched, wondering why someone with his own trauma skills would give up a glittering career to bury himself on Glenmore.

Something must have happened.

Life, she thought, had a way of doling out grim surprises.