CHAPTER THREE

      CHARLIE SAW THE small child fall from the playground equipment. He was only too aware that while there was a thick blanket of freshly fallen snow in some places, in other areas there was only a thin covering. The shade the trees gave in summer when they were covered in lush green leaves was lovely but the branches had acted as natural canopies preventing the snow from building up to a level that would have broken her fall. He felt a knot in the pit of his stomach at seeing the child lying motionless on the ground and he rushed across the car park.

      While it wasn’t an overly tall slide, the child, he could see, was very tiny. As he drew closer he could see there was no one with her. Why would anyone leave a child out in the freezing weather unattended? He looked around and there was no one in sight. No one running to help. Fuelled by concern for the child and anger at the parent or parents, he raced to the gate.

      ‘How damned irresponsible,’ he muttered under his breath and shook his head. But his words were driven by something deeper. His dreams of being a father had ended the day his wife died and that made it even harder to see that this child had been left alone. If he were the father he would protect his child at any cost and he would never have left one so tiny out in the cold. Alone.

      He undid the safety latch with a sense of urgency as he heard soft moans coming from the child he could then see was a little girl, lying still on her side. She was conscious. He quickly crossed to her and knelt down. ‘You’ll be okay, honey. I’m a doctor at this hospital. I just want to see if you’ve been hurt.’ He kept his words to a minimum as he could see just how young she was.

      ‘Where’th Mummy? I want Mummy.’ Bea’s eyes suddenly widened and began to fill with tears.

      ‘We’ll try and find Mummy,’ he said as he wondered the very same question.

      Where the hell was the little girl’s mother? And her father?

      As he began to check her vital signs he guessed she was between three and four years of age. ‘Where does it hurt?’

      ‘My arm hurths,’ she said, abruptly sitting upright with tears running down her ruddy cheeks.

      Charlie was surprised but relieved to see her level of mobility and suspected her tears were fuelled by fear and pain in equal amounts. ‘Anywhere else?’

      ‘No. It’th jutht my arm. Where’th Mummy?’ Her chin was quivering and the tears were flowing freely.

      Charlie reassured her again they would find her mother as he continued his medical assessment. As she awkwardly tried to climb to her feet, it was obvious to Charlie that she had only injured her arm so he scooped her up ready to take her to the emergency department. Neither a stretcher nor a paramedic team was needed and he wanted to get her out of the bitter cold air immediately and into the warmth of the hospital where she could be thoroughly assessed.

      ‘Put my daughter down now!’ Juliet’s loud voice carried from the gate to where Charlie was standing.

      Charlie’s eyes narrowed on her. ‘I’m a doctor, so please open the gate for me and step aside. This child’s been hurt,’ he told her as he approached with Bea still firmly in the grip of his strong arms. ‘I’m taking her to have an X-ray.’

      Juliet hurriedly opened the gate. ‘She’s my daughter. I can take her,’ she said, reaching out for Bea, but Charlie ignored her request and moved swiftly, and in silence, in the direction of the emergency entrance with Juliet running alongside him.

      ‘I said, I can carry her.’

      ‘I heard you but I have her, so let’s keep unnecessary movement to a minimum.’

      Juliet nodded. It was logical but she still wished her injured daughter were in her arms, not those of the tall, leather-clad stranger who was supposedly a doctor. ‘I saw her fall but I couldn’t get to her in time.’

      Charlie’s eyebrow rose slightly. ‘That’s of no consequence now. I saw her. I’ll get her seen immediately in A&E and then you can perhaps explain why she was left unattended out in this weather at such a young age.’

      ‘Excuse me?’ Juliet began in a tone that didn’t mask her surprise at his accusatory attitude. While she thought it was unfair and unjust it also hit a raw nerve. ‘I wasn’t far away—’

      ‘Far enough, it would seem, for me to get to her first,’ Charlie cut in with no emotion in his voice. As the three of them entered the warmth of the emergency department, the feeling between them was as icy as the snow outside. ‘I need her name and age.’

      ‘Beatrice, but we call her Bea, and she’s four years and two months.’ Juliet answered but her voice was brimming with emotion. Overwhelming concern about Bea and equally overwhelming anger towards the man who was carrying her child. How dared he be so quick to judge her?

      ‘Four-year-old girl by the name of Bea, suspected green stick fracture of the forearm,’ he announced brusquely to the nursing staff as he took long, powerful strides inside with Juliet following quickly on his heels. Charlie carried Bea into one of the emergency cubicles and laid her gently on the examination bed. With the curtains still open, he continued. ‘We need an X-ray stat to confirm radius or ulna fracture but either way, if I’m correct, we’ll be prepping for a cast. And bring me some oral analgesia.’

      ‘Ibuprofen, acetaminophen or codeine?’ the nurse asked.

      ‘One hundred milligrams of suspension ibuprofen,’ Charlie replied, then, as it was a teaching hospital and he was aware that three final-year medical students had moved closer to observe, he continued. ‘Generally paediatric fracture patients have significantly greater reduction in pain with ibuprofen than those in either the acetaminophen group or the codeine group and they suffer less negative side effects.’

      ‘What’th happening, Mummy?’

      ‘The doctor,’ she began before she shot an angry glare over her shoulder in Charlie’s direction. She was impressed with his knowledge but not his attitude towards her. ‘Sweetie, the doctor thinks you may have broken your arm when you fell from the playground slide so he’ll take a picture of your arm with a special machine.’

      ‘Will it hurt?’

      ‘The machine won’t hurt you at all but they will have to very gently lift your arm to take off your coat and then take a picture. So the doctor will give you some medicine so it doesn’t hurt.’

      The nurse returned with the ibuprofen and Charlie asked Bea to swallow the liquid.

      ‘Please do as the doctor asks because it will make the pain go away,’ Juliet told her daughter with a smile that belied how worried she was. ‘Don’t worry, Bea, I’ll be with you every minute. I’m not leaving your side.’

      ‘That’d be a nice idea,’ Charlie put in, with sarcasm evident in his voice just enough for Juliet alone to know the intent of his remark but no one else. Without looking up, he signed the radiograph request the A&E nurse had given him.

      Juliet took a deep breath and counted silently to three. It was not the time to tell him just what she thought of his snide remarks, particularly not in the presence of her daughter and the medical students. But that time would come once everyone was out of earshot. And he would hear in no uncertain terms just what he could do with his unwarranted opinion.

      ‘Can you please complete the paperwork?’ the nurse asked of Juliet. ‘We only need the signature of one parent.’

      ‘Bea only has