Lucy let out a long breath. He was talking. Surely that had to be a good sign?
‘Hello? Can you tell me where it hurts?’
She cringed as she listened to herself. What a stupid question to ask someone who’d been thrown from a bike. It probably hurt everywhere…
‘Leg.’
Leg.
Lucy ran her eyes down his legs and saw the nasty gash in the leathers and the mass of blood gathering there. She wrenched off her gloves and thrust them into her pocket, her fingers shifting the leathers so that she could take a closer look.
Blood spurted into the air.
‘Oh, no!’ She pressed down on the leg hard and turned to the man from the car, noticing that he was looking slightly green. She felt slightly green, too. She’d never seen such a severe laceration. Despite the protection of the leathers, his thigh had been badly torn, presumably because he’d been thrown across the tarmac. ‘You need to go to my car, quickly. Fetch the bag on the back seat.’
‘And don’t pass out on me,’ she muttered under her breath as she watched him go.
The motorcyclist moaned again and tried to move.
‘Try and keep still,’ Lucy said urgently, wishing that she could hold his hand to reassure him. Unfortunately, both her hands were occupied in preventing him from bleeding to death. ‘You’re going to be just fine. I’m a nurse and there’s an ambulance on the way. Everything is going to be fine…’
She said it to reassure herself as much as him, and she reflected briefly on the ridiculous things people said when they were trying to reassure each other.
Everything was far from fine.
‘Here’s your bag.’ The young man was back beside her, looking at her expectantly.
She almost laughed aloud. Did he expect her bag to contain magic powers?
Weighed down by the knowledge that everyone was depending on her, she glanced over her shoulder towards the road, desperately praying that the ambulance would arrive quickly, but there was nothing but an eerie winter silence.
Which meant that the man’s life depended on her and the very inadequate contents of her practice nurse’s bag.
Lucy glanced down at her hands, which were slippery with the man’s blood. There was no way she could let go.
‘Inside the side pockets you’ll find some sterile dressing pads,’ she instructed, noticing that underneath the helmet the injured man was ghostly pale. He was losing a lot of blood and needed some fluids fast.
And she didn’t have any—what else should she do?
Elevate the bleeding part—but what with?
This situation was way beyond her experience. And well beyond a few dressing pads.
Where on earth was the ambulance?
Her heart still thudding, Lucy snatched the pads from the young man and pressed down on the wound again.
‘There should be a bandage in there, too,’ she muttered. She had to stem the bleeding and she really ought to take another look at the two in the car.
‘Do you need help?’
The deep voice came from behind her and she turned her head, blinking at the raw, male power of the man in front of her. Black leathers outlined broad, muscular shoulders and long, powerful legs. Another motorcyclist?
He dragged off his helmet, revealing cropped dark hair and a pair of cool blue eyes that took in the situation in one glance. He dropped to his haunches and his face was close enough for her to see the dark growth shadowing the line of his hard jaw. He obviously hadn’t shaved recently. She frowned at her own thoughts and shook herself. Someone’s life was at risk and she was wondering when this man had last shaved?
Was she going completely mad?
It must be the shock.