His Emergency Fiancée (8 page)

Then she realised they were actually dancing. She didn’t have time to be nervous, she was too busy counting steps and trying to remember what he’d said and letting his hands spin her round at the appropriate point. By the time the song was halfway through, she was starting to enjoy herself. And by the end she was won over. She could do this. With Ben beside her, she could do this.

She was prepared for a second dance—but not for what the woman at the microphone said.

‘In case some of you hadn’t noticed, our guests of honour have arrived.’

Guests of honour?

‘We’d all like to welcome Dr Ben Robertson home,’ she said. ‘And his bride-to-be, Dr Kirsty Brown.’

Kirsty stared at Ben in horror.

He stared back, equally wide-eyed.

‘You’ve kept it very quiet, the pair of you, but congratulations,’ the woman continued, and the band played a few bars of the Wedding March.

‘And there’s a glass of champagne for everyone at the bar,’ she informed them, ‘to celebrate their engagement.’ The band played another fanfare, and the woman reached out to pull a string. A banner unfurled to read H
APPY
E
NGAGEMENT
, B
EN
AND
K
IRSTY
,
and there was a long round of applause punctuated by whistles and calls of, ‘It’s about time, too!’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Kirsty muttered.

‘It never occurred to me,’ he muttered back. ‘I never thought Gran would be so pleased she’d tell the world!’

‘The buffet opens in twenty minutes. But now we’re going to celebrate the happy couple’s news with the St Bernard’s Waltz.’

There were three or four other dances for couples—she ended up swapping partners for each of them, but it was fine. And everyone wanted to tell her how they’d really known for years that she and Ben would end up together.

‘Ben’s letters to Morag were always full of you. Kirsty this, Kirsty that, right from the day he first met you.’ Robbie Forbes, the post office manager, smiled broadly as he whirled her round. ‘At least he chose a girl with a Scots name!’

Ben’s letters as a student had been about her? But what about his string of girlfriends? The gorgeous blondes and redheads with legs that went on for ever? Hadn’t he written about
them
? Why her?

‘Have you named the day yet?’ Robbie continued.

‘Er—no. When I’ve qualified. I still have to finish my surgeon’s exams,’ she prevaricated.

‘Don’t leave it too long,’ he advised kindly. ‘When you find the right one, you’ll want the rest of your life together to start right away.’

Except she wasn’t the right one for Ben, was she?

‘Of course, we all feel we already know you—even though this is the first time we’ve actually met you,’ Jim Ramsay from the fish and chip shop said during the next dance. ‘And you’re perfect for him. I know it’s traditional to marry in the bride’s home town, but the parish church up here’s so pretty, it’s a perfect spot for a wedding.’

‘Er, we haven’t really decided anything yet,’ Kirsty hedged, remembering her vision of Ben in a kilt down the aisle of a tiny stone church, lit by candles, waiting for his bride. ‘There’s plenty of time to sort out all the details.’

‘I bet your parents are pleased you’ve a good man like Ben.’

Her parents? She hadn’t breathed a word of this to them. Or to her brothers. Pleased? They’d lecture her for
days
about being so stupid!

She was relieved when the caller told them to get in line ready for the next dance, and Ben annexed her as his partner.

‘This one’s the easier version,’ he told her.

‘Just spare me from the grillings,’ she said feelingly. ‘Everyone wants to know when and where the wedding’s going to be!’

‘I’m sorry, Kirst.’

‘Wasn’t it your countryman who talked about tangled webs and practising to deceive?’

‘I’ll sort it out. I promise,’ he said. ‘But it looks as if Gran told the whole village. This is their way of welcoming you.’

If she’d been Ben’s real fiancée, it would have touched her heart to know the village thought so much of him. As his fake fiancée, she simply felt as if she was lying to everyone. She
hated
lying. The fact they were all such nice, genuine, innocent people made it even worse.

The next dance passed in a whirl and by the time the band stopped, everyone was slightly red-faced and grinning.

‘I need a drink!’ she said to Ben, and they headed for the bar.

‘Champagne for you both,’ the barmaid said, handing them both a glass.

‘Any chance of a long, soft drink instead, Sandy?’ Ben asked.

‘At your engagement? Don’t be so daft!’ came the retort.

With a rueful smile, Ben accepted the glass and handed one to Kirsty. ‘Well—cheers,’ he said.

‘Will you not do the thing properly, Ben Robertson?’ Sandy asked loudly. ‘Give the girl a kiss!’

Ben retrieved Kirsty’s glass. She could see mischief lurking in his eyes and she didn’t trust that mild expression an inch.

He bent his head to her ear. ‘If they want a show, let’s give them one!’

And, before she could protest, he took her in his arms, arched her backwards as if they were doing the tango and kissed her. Very thoroughly.

By the time he lifted his head again, Kirsty was extremely flushed and feeling light-headed. And as she hadn’t actually sipped her champagne yet, she couldn’t blame it on that.

‘This is meant to be a family occasion, not X-rated,’ Sandy teased.

‘You told me to do it properly,’ Ben retorted, handing Kirsty her glass and draining his own. ‘Kirst, my ain sweet one.’ He was really hamming up his accent, she thought, too amused by it to be cross with him about that kiss. ‘Will ye no’ finish that so we can get back to the dance?’

She raised her glass in salute, drained the contents and set it back on the bar. ‘Happy now, bonnie sir?’

‘Bonnie’s for girls,’ he said in a stage whisper.

‘What about Bonnie Prince Charlie?’ she countered.

‘Hmm. I’ll concede that. But it’s still mostly used to describe Scotland and pretty little girls with rosy cheeks, my bonnie wee Kirst.’

Kirsty glowered at him. She wasn’t
that
little—and everyone knew she wasn’t pretty. So why was he making such a big thing of it?

He merely smiled at her and steered her back to the main hall for more dancing.

The music and the atmosphere had got to her and she was really beginning to enjoy herself. If any of her brothers could see her now, she thought, they’d never believe their eyes!

She should have known that it was too perfect. In the middle of an energetic Strip the Willow there was a sudden crash. One of the dancers had tripped, she thought. And then the music stopped and it was clear that it was more than just a fall.

Ben and Kirsty went straight over to the fallen man. ‘Marty McAllister,’ Ben said as they drew near enough to recognise him. ‘He’s the local driving instructor. He got me through my test.’

‘D’you need anything, Ben?’ a woman asked as he knelt down beside Marty.

‘Call an ambulance and get me some towels or something to put under his head,’ Ben said, loosening Marty’s collar. He had a nasty feeling he knew what it would be. Marty was in his fifties, smoked, was Jim Ramsay’s best customer, was a good fifteen kilos overweight and had a job that pushed his blood pressure up—in short, he was a perfect high-risk candidate for a myocardial infarction, a heart attack.

‘Marty,’ he said gently, ‘are you in any pain?’

‘Just a bit of indigestion,’ Marty said, wheezing slightly. ‘Had it before but it’s worse tonight.’

‘Is it just in the middle of your chest?’ Ben asked.

Marty shook his head. ‘It’s my left arm, too. Can’t move it properly.’

Ben and Kirsty glanced at each other. Marty’s face was still red and shiny from his exertions in the dance. Sweaty—healthy hot or worryingly cool? Kirsty put her hand on his forehead—it felt cold and clammy.

‘Do you feel—?’ Ben began, and his question was answered as Marty turned his head to one side and promptly vomited.

‘Definitely an MI,’ Ben said softly.

‘How long will the ambulance take?’ Kirsty asked in an undertone.

‘Twenty minutes, at least,’ Ben said.

Not soon enough.

‘Your bag’s at Morag’s, isn’t it?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘You stay here—he knows you. Get someone else to call the local GP for thrombolytic drugs a.s.a.p. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ Kirsty went straight over to Morag and explained the situation. Morag gave her the house keys and Kirsty pulled off the soft-soled shoes and replaced them with her flat outdoor shoes before setting off at a run.

She’d seen this so many times before in patients where she’d done a bypass—fatty deposits or atheroma formed patchy plaques on the inner lining of the arteries, reducing blood flow and encouraging blood clots to form. The clots resulted in a sudden stoppage of the blood flow to the heart, so tissue in the heart muscle died, causing pain and making the heart pump blood less efficiently.

She knew Ben wouldn’t have any thrombolytic drugs that would dissolve the blood clot but he’d have analgesics, so they could at least do something to ease the pain. And Ben’d have fluids in the bag, too, so they could put a line in if Marty went into shock. Hopefully the GP would arrive before the ambulance—the quicker Marty had drugs to dissolve the clot, the better his chances of surviving. As it was, his heart was likely to have an arrhythmia. Kirsty bit her lip. If his particular arrhythmia was the one known as ventricular fibrillation, which interfered with the heart’s pumping action, he’d die without drugs or electrical defibrillation to bring his heart rhythm back to normal.

By the time she got back to the village hall, breathing heavily from her run, Ben had made Marty more comfortable. The bad news was that the GP was away on another call—they had to wait for the ambulance to arrive.

Kirsty took the analgesics from Ben’s bag. He’d already called for a glass of water, so she gave a dose of the painkillers to Marty. ‘These’ll help the pain,’ she said gently.

‘What’s going to happen to my Marty?’ Ellen McAllister asked.

Ben looked at Kirsty and nodded slightly, signalling that he could cope with Marty on his own, and Kirsty drew Mrs McAllister to one side. ‘He’s had a heart attack, Mrs McAllister,’ she said quietly.

‘I told him! I
told
him! I told him those fags would kill him—that, and all the chocolate he scoffs. I’ve put him on diet after diet, and he sneaks out when my back’s turned for some chips or a choc bar. His car’s full of sweet papers. Oh, Marty!’

‘I know. They drive you mad, men,’ Kirsty said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘Never listen to a word you tell them, do they?’

‘That they don’t,’ Ellen said feelingly. She bit her lip. ‘He’ll be all right?’

‘We’ll know more when the ambulance gets here,’ Kirsty said, ‘because they’ve got a machine that can look at the way his heart’s beating, and they’ll have drugs to get rid of the blood clot that caused his heart attack.’ Drugs she’d hoped they’d have got by now from the GP. Marty just
had
to hang on.

‘Is he going to die?’

Difficult one. ‘Nearly half of all people who have a heart attack live for more than a year afterwards,’ Kirsty said carefully. Unfortunately, around forty to fifty per cent died within the first three weeks after the heart attack; she could only hope that wasn’t going to be the case here. ‘The ambulance will take him to the coronary care unit, where they can monitor his progress and treat any symptoms.’

‘You’re a heart doctor, aren’t you? That’s what Morag said.’

‘I’m a general surgeon,’ Kirsty said. ‘But I do have a few heart patients, yes.’

‘Will he have to have an operation?’

‘Sometimes drugs will do the trick,’ Kirsty said. ‘They’ll help his heart get back into the right rhythm and stop the heart being damaged further. Or they can put a little tube down his blood vessels to widen them—it’s a procedure called angioplasty. What I do when I operate is called coronary artery bypass. That’s where I take lengths of a vein from the leg and sew one end to the aorta—that’s the main artery in the body—and the other end to a point below where the arteries are blocked. That’s why it’s called a bypass—the blood can be pumped through the heart as normal and bypass the blocked artery. While I repair the heart my patient’s connected to a heart lung machine. When I’ve finished, the patient comes off the machine and the blood flows normally again, then I wire the breastbone together and sew up the layers around the patient’s heart, then his chest. Within a couple of days, he’ll be back on his feet.’

‘You make it all sound so easy,’ Ellen said.

‘It does take up to five hours,’ Kirsty admitted, ‘but it’s the most common major heart procedure in the UK. Surgeons do around ten thousand a year.’ She did a quick bit of mental arithmetic. ‘That’s around two hundred a week—so if that’s what Marty needs he’ll be in experienced hands.’

‘He’s had indigestion for days,’ Ellen said grimly. ‘Said he couldn’t settle to anything.’

‘They’re all fairly common signs of a heart attack,’ Kirsty told her. From the sound of it, Marty had already had a minor attack some time over the last few days. ‘But you weren’t to know, so don’t go blaming yourself. These things happen. Sometimes people have a mild heart attack and they don’t even have any signs. They’re called silent infarcts.’

‘And they really don’t know they’ve had a heart attack?’

‘Not until they have tests—which could be years afterwards.’

‘I see.’ Ellen turned back to Marty, her face lined with concern. ‘I just want him to be all right. He was going to take early retirement next year. I don’t think I could bear it if he, if he…’ The sobs broke through her words.

‘Help’s on his way. He’ll be in the best possible care within minutes,’ Kirsty said, putting her arms round Ellen and letting her cry. ‘And Ben’s with him right now.’

‘Your Ben. He’s a good man.’

‘I know.’ Except he wasn’t really
her
Ben. And, in the circumstances, there was no way she could explain that.