The slogan wasn’t appropriate. Ryan was so fearful he could hardly breathe himself.

There wasn’t a vestige of colour on the girl’s face. She had a faint smattering of freckles across her nose and they only made her lack of colour look worse.

He had to see what damage there was. But to turn her…

‘Do you think I might move just a bit?’ a voice said cautiously. ‘There’s gravel sticking into my cheek.’

Ryan practically yelped.

Then he grinned, relief washing over him like a tidal wave. No brain damage here, then.

There were other sorts of damage.

‘Wait a bit…’

‘I think my spine’s intact, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Still with her eyes closed and still motionless, the girl’s voice seemed somehow disembodied. ‘I can feel everything.’

The girl’s voice wasn’t as sure now as it had first sounded. It held a distinct tremble. And Ryan found himself putting medical imperatives aside and moving to touch her face. To comfort her.

‘Hey. It’s OK.’ He stroked the soft, black curls as one might have reassured a frightened child. ‘You’re OK. I’m a doctor. You’ll be fine.’

She opened her eyes at that, and stared straight up at him.

And he knew her.

Ryan Henry would have known those eyes anywhere. They’d taunted him as a child. Haunted him for years.

Abbey Rhodes had been eleven years old when he’d left Sapphire Cove. She was four years younger than he and his mother had hated her. ‘White Trash’ his mother had termed Abbey, and when she’d seen Abbey, trailing home alongside Ryan, she’d let loose with both barrels.

‘Ryan, that child’s mother’s not married. Worse, she never has been married. She’s poor as a church mouse and scrubs floors for a living. If that woman thinks you’re going to waste time talking to her child… Well, that’s why we’re leaving, Ryan. This whole place has no class at all.’