Which was why he had come here in the first place, he thought dourly. The call had come in and there’d been no one willing to take it.
‘That leaves you stuck,’ she continued. ‘For a couple of hours at least. Unless you accept help.’
‘Fine,’ he conceded, trying not to sound confused. ‘I’ll accept your help. Can you wait outside?’
‘Very magnanimous,’ she said, and she grinned.
His lips twitched despite his confusion. It was a great grin.
Get on with the job. Ignore gorgeous grins.
‘Just go,’ he told her, and she clicked her disreputable boots together and saluted.
‘Yes, sir.’
CHAPTER TWO
SHE went. Fergus did a perfunctory examination and then a more thorough one.
Oscar had no broken hip, but Ginny was right-the man was dead drunk. His blood pressure was up to one ninety on a hundred and ten and his breathing was fast and noisy, even once he was on oxygen. Fergus checked his saturation levels and accepted the inevitable.
‘I gotta go to hospital, don’t I, Doc?’ Oscar demanded, with what was evident satisfaction. His breathing was becoming more shallow now and Fergus wondered whether he’d drunk a lot fast just as they’d arrived-just to make sure. ‘I told you I got a broken hip.’
‘You don’t appear to have broken anything,’ Fergus told him. ‘But, yes, you need to come to hospital.’ He gazed around the kitchen and grimaced. ‘Maybe we need to think about some sort of permanent care,’ he suggested. ‘Unless there’s anyone who can stay with you.’
‘That’s not me,’ Ginny said through the screen door. ‘Or anyone in this district. This isn’t exactly Mr Popular here. What’s the prognosis?’