Dangerous Love Read Free

wouldn’t mind betting the child was a teenager who’d been playing a game of dare with her mates, probably showing off in front of some lads. Those kinds of accidents usually involved locals who should know better and should certainly have more respect for the area in which they lived – not to mention respect for themselves.
    “Right, Stanley,” she looked up from the notes and smiled at the empty chairs and the one, grey-coated and rather wet figure sitting slap bang in the middle.
    He looked up, surprised, his eyebrows rising slightly.
    “Oh, is it my turn?” he asked breathlessly. It was a game they played. He always pretended to be pleasantly surprised and since he was only called if they weren’t busy, it was a game they were happy to indulge. The longer it took him to walk from the chairs to the cubicle, the longer he would be inside and out of the rain.
    It wasn’t right that an old person should have to live like that, Regan thought, but she had no idea why he lived the life he did. Perhaps it was through choice. It seemed sad that at his age there was no one to take proper care of him, no warm-hearted daughter to take him shopping, no strapping grandson to do a bit of decorating for him.
    She held his arm as they walked through. He was amazingly thin beneath the layers of wet clothing. They’d offered to try and get him “in” somewhere, but he wasn’t having any of that. He’d rather end his days on the ground under a flattened cardboard box than imprisoned in a home. That’s how he saw it. Prison.
    The doors opened and the paramedics came in with the cliff fall casualty. Funny, but the figure on the bed didn’t look much like a teenager. In fact she looked rather small. Not that Regan could see much. The paramedics were rapping out what had happened as they sped towards Resus with Josie and the duty doctor, Karen, running alongside.
    Regan’s eyes strayed to the doors, waiting for them to open, for an anxious parent or two to come through. No one came. And now the phone was ringing and everyone else was busy.
    “Excuse me,” Regan said, sitting Stanley on a chair inside an empty cubicle. “I’ll just get that. I’ll be right back.”
    “Take your time, dear,” Stanley smiled. “I’m in no hurry. In fact my heart feels a lot better since I got here.”
    The call was brief. Regan hung up and hurried over to Resus. The door opened and Josie came out, her face as white as a sheet.
    “There’s another ambulance on the way,” Regan said, watching Josie carefully. “Apparently the lifeboat guy who retrieved the casualty then went over the cliff himself. Suspected spinal injuries. Would… What’s the matter, Josie? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. You haven’t lost her?”
    “Sorry, there’s no easy way to say this. It’s Georgie,” Josie said, reaching out and touching Regan’s arm.
    Regan blinked, confused. What did she mean? Georgie was at home in bed.
    “Georgie was the child that went over the cliff,” Josie went on, her voice leaden because she knew the impact the news would have on Regan. “She’s okay, she’s not badly hurt, but…”
    “Georgie?” Josie whispered. Her heart felt as if it had dropped like a stone right down through her chest into the pit of her stomach. She felt her insides tighten, her heart freeze with fear. “My Georgie? No way, you must be mistaken, Josie.”
    “No mistake I’m afraid, Regan. Go in with her,” Josie said, smiling but looking as if she might be about to burst into tears herself. “But be prepared. She’s got a scalp injury so there’s quite a lot of blood. I know you’re used to it, but when it’s your own…”
    The lead in Regan’s feet turned to air and she flew through the door and into Resus where she saw her own little girl on the bed, her head immobilised in a brace while Karen gently checked out her arm.
    “Mummy!” Georgie wailed.
    “Oh, sweetheart, what have you done?” Regan said, rushing to her