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She glanced up at Mark and said softly, 'I'll get the syringe ready for the analgesia.'

Mark nodded. 'I'm worried about the length of time that he's been lying here. The circulation around the ankle is already very poor and I'm afraid that if we leave him any longer without trying to get the ankle back into its normal position, we're going to have major problems. There are deficits in his peripheral pulses, and I'm concerned about neurovascular injury.'

'You mean you want to try to reduce the ankle here?' She was worried about that. It would have been better to wait until they could get the boy to the hospital and into Theatre, but from the look of him, that wasn't going to be an option.

'I don't see that we have any choice,' Mark said, his expression grim. 'Let's get the analgesic into him and then we'll get on with it. The sooner, the better.'

He turned to Jacob and said quietly, 'We have to get your ankle back into the correct position in order to restore your blood supply, but we're going to give you a strong painkiller before we do that.'

Sarah gave Jacob the injection and they waited for it to take effect. Mark said, 'You might feel just a brief rise in discomfort as we correct your ankle, but then you should feel a lot better afterwards. Are you ready for us to do that?'

Jacob looked anxious, but after a while he nodded cautiously and Mark murmured, 'I'll need you to assist, Sarah. Will you hold him steady?'

Sarah did as he asked, while Mark gently grasped Jacob's heel with one hand and supported the patient's calf with the other. Then he pulled smoothly on the heel, and Jacob gave a sudden shout and sank back against Sarah's arm. Andy, the man who had stayed with him, winced.

'You were very brave, Jacob,' Sarah said. 'That's the worst over with now.'

Mark examined the boy's ankle once more. 'That looks much better,' he said.

'Yes, it does.' Sarah checked the pulses. 'That seems to have done the trick. The contours of the ankle are relatively normal now and the skin tension looks a lot easier.' She turned to look at Jacob. 'How do you feel?'

'Better,' he managed. 'It's still painful, but not as much.'

'We need to get you to hospital,' she told him. 'The ankle needs to be X-rayed, and I suspect that there is a bone fracture as well as a dislocation. We'll talk to the orthopaedic team, and they will look after you.'

'What will they do?' Jacob wanted to know.

'They will probably want to make sure that the broken bone is fixed into the right position, but before they do that they'll give you an anaesthetic, so that you'll be asleep and won't be able to feel any pain.'

He looked at her doubtfully. 'Are you sure?'

'I'm sure. You won't feel a thing, so you don't need to worry about that. When it's all done, they'll wrap your foot and your leg in a fibreglass slab so that the joint can't be moved and will have the chance to mend properly.'

Jacob seemed to accept what she said. 'In the meantime,' Mark murmured, addressing the paramedics, 'we need to immobilise the joint temporarily.'

The paramedic in charge nodded. 'As soon as we've done that, we'll move him up to the ambulance.'

As a team they made Jacob as comfortable as possible before they began the journey back up to the top. It was a difficult climb, hampered as they were by their load, but they made it without incident, to Sarah's relief.

She tried to stay on top of things as they set off towards the hospital. It was difficult with the drone of the engine once more lulling her to sleep, and she was fighting tiredness every step of the way, but she made herself stay alert for the sake of their patient. Besides, it wouldn't do to let Mark see her make another lapse.

Jacob's rescuer had followed in his car, and they met up with him at the hospital. 'Is it all right if I stay with him for a while?' he asked. 'I want to be here to tell his mother what happened. I phoned her and she said she was on her way.'

'Yes, of course,' Sarah murmured. 'I expect Jacob will be glad to have a friendly face close by.'

The orthopaedic team took over, and Sarah took advantage of the break in proceedings and went to grab a coffee. The paramedics were waiting around, enjoying a brief break before their next call, and she went to chat with them for a few moments. The coffee was hot and reviving, and she sipped at it gratefully.

As they waited for their next call to come in, Sarah suddenly remembered the envelope that she had pushed into her pocket. She took it out, opening it up and scanning Owen's bold black handwriting.

'I miss you, Sarah,' he had written. 'I miss you every day and I wish you had agreed to come with me. You'd love it here, everything's so new and fresh, and the facilities in the hospital are second to none. The people are friendly, too, and you would have been in your element here. Won't you change your mind?'

She stared down at the page, her eyes becoming misty. She and Owen had dated for some time and they had been close, but when it had come to making a decision about whether to leave here and move some distance away, she had chosen to stay. Had she done the right thing?

'What's that you're reading?' Mark said, coming to stand alongside her. 'Anything that I should know about?' He glanced at the page and she folded it and pushed it back down into her pocket.

'It's nothing,' she said. 'Nothing to do with work, anyway.'

Mark's mouth crooked into a faintly mocking smile. 'Ah.. .a letter from Owen, is it? I thought I recognised that scrawl. How's he doing in his new job? Is he whipping everyone into shape?'

'He's doing fine,' she murmured. 'He doesn't have any regrets about leaving here.'

'But you wish that you had gone with him, don't you?' His expression was cynical. 'You haven't been yourself since he left. Perhaps you've come to regret staying behind?'

Sarah pulled in a long breath. Was she regretting it? She had spent some time mulling over her options, but in the end she had baulked at the idea of uprooting herself and going with Owen. She hadn't been sure enough of him or confident of his commitment towards her. Perhaps the truth was, her judgement wasn't good where men were concerned.

Instead, she had chosen to stay here and finish her posting in A and E, but she was beginning to have second thoughts about that. Was she cut out for it?

'Perhaps you're right,' she said. Mark didn't go out of his way to make things any easier for her. He was a difficult man to work with. He was constantly challenging her, demanding more than she had to give, and she struggled to keep up with his expectations.

His eyes narrowed on her. Already she was regretting that she had confided last night's troubles to him. It didn't help her situation for him to know that her family life was a mess.

Hannah was struggling because of her problems with Ryan and her efforts to bring up a child as a single mother, and in a way, because of that, her relationship with their father was guarded. Sarah's father didn't understand why Hannah couldn't find a more practical way out of her problems, and Sarah often felt like a go-between. It was wearing, constantly trying to keep the peace.

She shot a fleeting glance towards Mark. 'I probably made a mistake,' she said softly.

Mark's eyes narrowed. 'Even so, there's no going back yet awhile,' he said, his jaw flexing in a matter-of-fact way. 'You have to see your contract out.' He stared at her, his eyes dark and unfathomable.

Then he turned his head in acknowledgement as the paramedics' two-way radio crackled into action. 'Sounds as though we have another callout. We should go.'

Within moments they were on the move once more, and Sarah pushed her doubts and worries to the back of her mind. There was work to be done. Somehow or other she would prove to Mark that she was up to the task.

'Kingston
, how could you?' Sarah gazed around at the scene of devastation that had once been her sitting room. 'What were you thinking of?'

The young Labrador stood in front of her, looking at her eagerly, the fabric remains of a cushion hanging from either side of his mouth. His tail wagged. He was clearly totally unaware that he had done anything wrong. This was fun after all.. .a new house, filled with lots of exciting opportunities to explore. What more could an overgrown puppy ask for?

Sarah looked at him sternly. 'You've been very naughty,' she admonished him. 'Look at the state of this place. A ripped-up cushion, newspapers shredded... And what's that? Were you just about to have a go at the rug as well?'

Shaking her head, she began to clear away the mess. 'I haven't time for this,' she said in a cross voice. 'I'm supposed to be going to work, not having to sort you out.'

It must have been beginning to dawn on Kingston that all was not well, and that Sarah was none too
pleased with him, because he sat down and sent her a crestfallen stare.

'You can go and get in the car,' she said. 'I'm taking you to my dad's house. You can play in the dog pen there. You're not to be trusted anywhere else.'

She didn't think her father would mind. He had always kept dogs until a year or so back, when their family pet had passed on, and at least he would be around to take care of Kingston while she was at work.

The pen was at the back of the surgery where he lived and worked as a part-time GP, and it was big enough for the dog to exercise and sheltered enough to provide warmth and cover. There was an enclosed hut at the back of the pen, where Kingston could snuggle down in the old dog bed among some blankets. He would need it, given this bad spell of weather that they were having. It was late February, and there was ice around, black patches on the roads and the remains of frost on the roofs of the houses.

She arrived at her father's house some half an hour later. It was a neat, red-brick building, with a wide drive at the front and several large rooms to accommodate the surgery, a treatment room that doubled up as another surgery and a waiting room.

Her father's practice was a relatively small one, and with any luck he would be at home, nearing the end of morning surgery. He was lucky in that he had help with the practice. Now that he was close to retirement he shared the burden of looking after the health of the local community with another, younger doctor.

She found her father in his study, where he was working his way through a stack of patients' notes.

'Sarah,' he said. 'It's good to see you. What brings you here?'

'I have a bit of a problem,' she said. Quickly, she explained the situation. 'I daren't leave Kingston on his own in the house. He doesn't know the rules yet, and I'm likely to come back and find it wrecked. Do you think you could help me out?'

'Of course.'

Her father looked at Kingston assessingly as she trundled the dog around to the back of the house a short time later. 'He's a handful, that one, that's for sure.' His grey eyes were warm, though, and Sarah was glad that he had adjusted to the new arrival so calmly. He reached down and stroked the dog's silky head, petting him around the backs of his ears.

'Are you positive you don't mind having him here for a while? I couldn't leave him on his own, and I didn't know what else to do at short notice.'

'That's all right. I'll take Mm for a walk once afternoon surgery has finished. The exercise will do me good.' Her father was a fit man, trim for his age, and he still retained most of his light brown hair. He was strong-minded and personable, well liked by all his patients.

He looked at her thoughtfully. 'So what's happened to Hannah? Didn't she warn you that she was going to leave him with you?'

'She said she would only be gone for half an hour, while she dropped Jamie off at nursery school, but that was a couple of hours ago. I tried contacting her, but she isn't answering her phone.' She lifted her shoulders. 'You know Hannah. She probably met up with someone and forgot the time. Luckily, I'm on the late shift today, so I was able to wait around for a while. I can't delay any longer, though.'

'Just as long as it's not Ryan she's met up with. You'd have thought she would have come to her senses by now. As if it wasn't enough that she had to give up a good job when she became pregnant—now all she has is a part-time job that barely keeps her going.' Her father shook his head. 'He's going to be the ruin of her. How many times is she going to go through this?'

'I don't know.' Sarah sighed. 'He tried to get in touch with her yesterday, and she was trying to make up her mind whether she should ring him back.' She grimaced. 'I think she has too much on her mind just now. She's only been staying with me for a few days, but now that her door and lock have been fixed, she's thinking about going back home.'

'Would that be wise? I think she could do with some time and space to think things through, and it seems to me that Ryan needs to sort himself out once and for all.'

'She still cares for him, deep down. That's the trouble.' Sarah grimaced. 'I suppose she thinks that Jamie deserves to know his father, too. That's why she goes on hoping he'll change.'

Her father made a disgruntled sound. 'And pigs might fly.' He glanced her way. 'Are you off to work now?'

Sarah nodded. 'Yes, I should be on my way. Heaven knows what Mark will say if I'm late again. We're supposed to be having a staff meeting before we start work to discuss new procedures, so it won't be such a calamity if I'm not there for the start. Even so...'

'You had better get a move on.' Her father smiled at her. 'Don't worry about the dog. I'll take care of him.'

'Thanks, Dad.' She gave him a hug. 'I'll come and pick Kingston up as soon as my shift ends.'

The meeting hadn't started when she eventually arrived at the hospital, and people were standing around, talking. She was glad that she hadn't interrupted the proceedings. With any luck Mark wouldn't have spotted her slipping into the room.

She went and helped herself to a coffee from the filter machine by the window.

'I'm glad that you could join us,' a deep voice said. 'I was beginning to wonder if you were still having problems at home.'

Sarah almost choked on her coffee as Mark came to stand alongside her. She might have known that he wouldn't have missed anything. He used a dry tone, and she realised that he had guessed she had only made it by the skin of her teeth.