Please, please, please…

This was her beloved Aunt Maud. Maud was only in her sixties. It wasn’t her time to die…

Fern shoved down hard, again and again, pausing only to fill her aunt’s lungs with air before beginning the relentless rhythm again. In the hall below she could hear her uncle shouting desperately into the phone and then she heard his feet pounding upstairs again.

‘He’s on his way,’ the farmer gasped. Fern didn’t stop her rhythm for a moment. Al stared down at his wife and seemed almost to shrink against the wall. ‘Oh, God, Fern, is she…?’

Fern didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Breathe, push…Push…Push…

Come on, Maudie…

They’d done so much for her, Albert and Maudie. What was the use of Fern’s medicine if she couldn’t save her aunt now?

Breathe, push…

She needed a defibrillator. The cardiac massage wasn’t working.

Where was Quinn with the defibrillator? Electric shock was the only way that they could jolt this heart into starting. How far away was he? How long would it take for him to get here?

Quinn Gallagher was the only one who could save Maudie now.

And then Fern heard a car’s tyres screeching, a car door slam and someone was shouting below stairs. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply into her aunt’s lips-a breath of gratitude. Quinn…

Her uncle dragged himself from his misery against the wall and managed to yell back-and ten seconds later Quinn burst through the door at a run.

He had what she needed. Fern glanced up and saw the defibrillator in his hands. One part of her prayer had been answered…

She went straight back, breathing and pushing. She had eyes only for Maud.

There was no laughter in Quinn Gallagher now. There was no space for anything.

Quinn wasted no words. He left Fern doing what she was doing, instinctively trusting her professionalism, and worked round her, ripping Maud’s gay wedding dress apart as if it was tissue and attaching electrodes with the swiftness of an expert.