Emergency: Wife Lost and Found Read Free

resuscitation bed, the blanket covering her was whipped off. Then he finally got confirmation, but he’d already known for a good fifteen seconds that it was Lorna.
    He’d always wondered if she’d changed. Up in Glasgow for a conference a couple of years ago, he’d scanned the shops and bars for a woman with auburn hair and huge amber eyes. He’d told himself it was futile, that it had been so long ago she might have dyed her hair by now, she’d always hated that it was red after all—or maybe she’d have put on weight. Or, worse, he might bump into her pushing a stroller containing twins. He was being ridiculous, he had told himself that day, because even if she walked towards him, stood in front of him, he probably wouldn’t even recognise her.
    He’d known at the time he was kidding himself and he’d had that confirmed today.
    Ten years on and he’d recognised her in an instant by her pretty feet alone.

Chapter Two
    ‘S HE WAS UNRESPONSIVE when they found her, but she had did have a pulse. She arrested when we moved her from the vehicle,’ the paramedic informed them as they raced into Resus.
    ‘Do we have an ID?’
    As she transferred the patient over to the resuscitation bed it was May who asked the question when James didn’t—he was still massaging the chest, even though Lavinia had offered to take over.
    ‘From the driving licence in the car we have a Lorna McClelland, thirty-two years of age, from Scotland; she’s a doctor apparently…’
    ‘How was she missed?’ It was the first time James had spoken since her arrival, and it was an irrelevant question really. She had been found, she was ill, for now all they could deal with was what presented, and May frowned as James persisted with the pointless. ‘How could she have been missed?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ the paramedic answered. ‘We just got a callout twenty-five minutes ago. Mind you, it’s been chaos out there.’
    Instead of the emergency consultant it was Khan, the anaesthetist, who was running the show, flashing lights in the patient’s eyes, frowning up at James as he checked the airway, calling for drugs, and at that moment May stepped in. She had no idea what was wrong with James, but she would find out later. He was standing there, massaging the chest, as grey as sheet metal and instead of assessing the patient and commencing active treatment, still there he stood. It happened now and then, May knew that well, where staff just hit a wall. But maybe it was another peril of working in Emergency that was occurring here, May thought as she watched the beads form on his brow. He knew this patient!
    ‘Abby.’ Pressing the intercom, she summoned the registrar from her break. ‘We need you in Resus. Lavinia,’ May ordered, ‘take over the massage.’
    He stood and watched, half heard May say to Abby something about James not feeling too good, but all he could really hear was the sound of gushing in his ears, and the blip, blip, blip of the cardiac monitor as Lavinia delivered cardiac massage.
    Lorna’s blouse was already undone, her bra cut and pushed to the side. Her boots or shoes had already been taken off, where they had attempted IV access. They were slicing through her soaked clothes with scissors, sheering through her torn stockings and underwear. He could see the scars from her operation and it made him want to weep, but instead he just stood there, watching them lift her pale knees and insert a catheter, knowing how much she would hate all this, tempted to tell them to just leave her alone, tempted to pick her up and run, but wanting them to carry on as well.
    ‘Go to the on-call room,’ May said to him. ‘James, go to the on-call room, you look as if you’re about to pass out.’
    ‘I’m staying…’
    He’d never felt more useless in his life. As an emergency consultant he was accustomed to crises, but to have her slam back into his life like this, he was literally paralysed. She was so white. Lorna had always