‘In your dreams,’ he growled, disarmed by her smile and struggling to keep a hold on the situation. Worst-case scenario-she could go into labour.

Or she could lose the baby.

Another death…

He needed a medical kit. Usually he carried basic first-aid equipment but his friends’ luggage had filled the trunk and the back seat. Fiona and Brenda. No medicine this weekend, they’d said, and they’d meant it.

Women. And here was another, causing trouble.

But, actually, Maggie wasn’t causing trouble, he conceded, or no more than she could help. She looked like there was no way she’d complain, but he could see the strain in her eyes.

Okay, he told himself. Move. This woman needs help and there’s only me to give it.

‘I meant what I said about keeping still,’ he told her. ‘I have work to do and you’ll just get in the way. So stay!’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly, but he didn’t believe the meekness for a minute.

There wasn’t a lot of choice. In truth, Maggie’s leg hurt so much she was feeling dizzy. She lay back on the grass and tried not to think about the consequences of what had just happened and how it might have affected her baby. That was truly terrifying. She tried not to think how Gran would be needing pain relief, and how she’d been away from home for far too long. She thought about how her leg felt like it might drop off, and that she wouldn’t mind if it did.

If this guy really was a doctor he might have something in the back of his fancy car that’d help.

He really was a doctor. He had about him an air of authority and intelligence that she knew instinctively was genuine. He was youngish-mid-thirties, she guessed-but if she had to guess further she’d say he was in a position of power in his profession. He’d be past the hands-on stage with patients-to a point in his profession where seniority meant he could move back from the personal.