Rescued by Dr. Rafe (11 page)

* * *

Mimi heard the click of the key turning in the lock. Almost overbalancing as she tiptoed back across the hallway, she sank silently to the floor outside the door, pressing her cheek against it. She wasn't used to drinking more than the odd glass of wine with a meal, and when she closed her eyes she felt dizzy. Perhaps she
was
a bit tipsy...

You started it, Rafe.
She mouthed the words into the cool darkness. Maybe he had, but she hadn't exactly beaten him off. She'd been so turned on, and he'd been... She knew that he'd loved it too.

And in the morning a headache would have been the least of her worries. Mimi brushed her fingers lightly over the wood panelling of the door.

‘Thank you.' She knew he wouldn't hear the whispered words. Slowly she got to her feet, her socks muffling the sound of her footsteps across the wooden floor in the hall. Then she climbed the stairs and fell fully clothed on to her bed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

R
AFE
OPENED
HIS
eyes and closed them again. Sunlight was spilling into the living room, and he felt as if he'd lost the use of his arms. When he tried to move, he realised that he was rolled tightly in the duvet.

Disentangling himself, he sat up. He was going to have to face Mimi. Somehow that seemed just as difficult as if he'd slept with her. But at least he could make sure he wasn't going to have to do it naked.

He picked his jeans up from the floor and stretched his cramped limbs. Unlocked the door, and then walked towards the sounds of activity coming from the kitchen.

She looked up from the coffee machine. ‘You're up early.'

Rafe looked at his watch, frowning at the sixpence, which had clearly been falling down on the job lately. Seven o'clock. If he'd realised, he probably would have stayed put on the sofa for another half hour.

‘Coffee?'

‘Yeah. Thanks.' He eyed her suspiciously. She looked as bright as a daisy. Maybe he'd overestimated how much she'd had to drink last night. ‘Do you have a headache?'

‘No. I haven't got a headache.' She reached into the cupboard for a second mug, putting it on to the counter top with a clatter, as if to prove her point.

‘Good.' Rafe sat down at the kitchen table and waited. This probably wasn't the time to tell her that it didn't matter if she was angry with him. Anger, any kind of emotion, in fact, was better than the way they'd parted the last time. And he was suddenly under no illusions. This
was
another parting.

She walked across to the table, setting a mug of coffee in front of him and sitting down. ‘Last night...'

‘It doesn't matter.' The words sprang to his lips by instinct and then he shook his head. ‘Actually, it does.'

She took a deep breath. ‘You were right, last night, and I'm sorry. I was crazy to even contemplate...'

‘I contemplated it too. And it would have been a mistake, for both of us.'

He wanted to tell her that he
had
loved her, and that maybe he still did, but that was no use because she deserved a lot more than Rafe knew how to give. She deserved someone who could share his feelings openly, who could heal her wounds and make her see herself as Rafe saw her. Beautiful, funny, talented... That was the kind of list that she deserved.

Her gaze met his, and he realised that he wasn't going to say any of those things. He didn't trust himself, not after he'd so nearly made the wrong decision last night. It was better to just leave it.

She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. ‘Then we're done?'

‘Are you okay about that?' There was nothing else left to say.

She ignored the question, getting to her feet in a sudden burst of energy. ‘Why don't you go and take a shower? I'll make some breakfast.'

It was an undisguised invitation to leave her alone for a while. Rafe needed that time too. As he stood in the shower, wondering whether being able to cry about it would make things any better, it occurred to him that this was the final confirmation that they'd made the right choice. Mimi was downstairs in the kitchen, probably crying into her coffee. And yet going to her was unthinkable, just as he knew that she wouldn't come to him. When neither of them could even do that, the best they could hope for was a civilised parting and a little closure.

* * *

Last night's rain had brought another round of injuries with it. Cuts, sprains, a dislocated finger, and a broken arm where a man had fallen out of a tree, trying to rescue a cat. At lunchtime they took advantage of a sudden lull in the stream of calls and parked up by the side of the road where groups of men were digging ditches, using the earth from them to make a barricade to contain the river on this side and protect the village which lay half a mile away.

Mimi watched as Rafe strode over to the men to speak to them. She didn't join him. It was better to let go a little now, before she had to do it for good this evening, and she was grateful for this opportunity to just relax back into her seat and close her eyes.

Last night had been a turning point. They'd come so close and then drawn back, acknowledging that sleeping together would be a huge mistake. She'd known it, but saying it made it real. She had to say goodbye to the fantasy that they might somehow pick up where they'd left off five years ago, and deal with the reality. She repeated the mantra that she'd developed over the morning. She and Rafe were no good for each other. He would break her heart just as surely now as he had then.

Someone knocked on the car window and she opened her eyes. One of the men who had been digging was standing there, his clothes spattered with mud and rain, his face creased in a smile. Mimi rolled the window down.

‘Come and eat your lunch with me, miss.' He jerked his head towards a tarpaulin, strung beneath the branches of a tree.

It looked nice. A little patch of grass that hadn't been rained on steadily for the last two weeks. There were a couple of old deckchairs and a large metal barrel for a makeshift table.

‘Thanks.' Mimi reached for the bag with the sandwiches and flask and opened the car door. In a gesture of old-world courtesy, the man held out his hand for her to take as she got out.

His bright blue eyes twinkled as he saw the size of her lunch bag. The cutting of sandwiches this morning had been more of a therapeutic effort than anything, and she had no idea how she and Rafe were going to eat them all.

‘You need to sit down and eat a good lunch. Keeps you going.' The man was probably sixty if he was a day, but all the same he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, in case she needed to lean on him on the way over to the tarpaulin.

It was a small act of kindness, magnified by the emptiness in her heart. ‘You've got yourselves all set up here.'

‘We've been digging along this stretch for days, all the men of the village in shifts. There's another gang down the road.'

‘And no flooding so far?'

‘Touch wood.' The man tapped his forehead.

‘What about the other side?' The fields on the other side of the river were already deep in water.

‘Can't do anything about the farm; Chris knows that. We've done what we can to help him. My wife's up at the farmhouse at the moment, helping lay sandbags.' The man took off his cap and scratched his balding head. ‘The water's got to go somewhere.'

‘She's not overdoing it, I hope.'

The man chuckled. ‘If you happen to be passing, you might just stop and tell her that; she doesn't listen to me. Now, you just sit down here.'

He brushed the dingy canvas of the most stable-looking deckchair and motioned her into it. Then he produced an impossibly clean white handkerchief from inside his jacket and spread it on top of the barrel.

‘Thank you. This is nice.' The view over the river would look almost idyllic if she hadn't known that the bright reflections in the distance were the result of flooded villages and fields.

‘Pleasure. Always a pleasure to see one of your people.' He nodded towards Mimi's bright ambulance service jacket. ‘You're doing a fine job.'

‘Thank you.' Tears were beginning to mist Mimi's eyes. She could just about handle the brittle good humour between herself and Rafe, the thought that after today she probably wouldn't see him again, but right now kindness was the only thing that could threaten to break her.

Rafe was still with the other men, clearly discussing earthworks, five heads turning one way and another in synchronisation as the men surveyed the digging. Mimi put her Thermos down on the handkerchief, hearing a dull clang as she did so.

‘What's in the barrel?'

‘That's from the brewery, miss.' The man tapped the side of his nose in a gesture of friendly conspiracy. ‘Came floating down the river. We called them, but they've got enough to worry about at the moment.'

‘The Old Brewery's flooded?' That didn't come as much of a surprise; it was right by the river.

‘Three days ago. They're clearing out the mess now but I say it's too soon. There was more rain last night and the river's too high just now.'

‘I'll bet you've seen a few floods...' This area was on a flood plain and the rivers broke their banks regularly every few years.

‘This is the worst. Never seen nothing like this.' The man surveyed the expanse of water before them. ‘Want a sip of beer with your lunch?'

‘You're drinking it?' Mimi looked at the barrel more closely and saw a large shiny patch of metal where it had been cleaned and a tap inserted. ‘It's been in the water.'

‘You're telling a Somerset man how to drink his beer?'

‘Well, no...' That would be sacrilege. And, anyway, Mimi knew that she'd be wasting her breath.

‘Just be careful, though; that water's filthy. If I find you've made yourself ill I'll rat on you to the doctors and they'll be giving you every precautionary test that the hospital can throw at you.' If she had no jurisdiction in the question of beer-drinking, she could at least exert some authority on the matter of infection control.

The man chuckled. ‘We gave the barrel a good wash before we tapped it. Made sure of that.'

Maybe she should get Rafe to enquire more closely on the matter. Or confiscate the barrel, or get the men to pour the beer away in the river. She glanced towards him. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, deep in conversation, obviously now a temporary member of the gang. He'd probably just clap the men on the back, congratulate them on their ingenuity and accept a pint from the barrel.

Mimi puffed out a breath and reached for her pack of sandwiches. For the next ten minutes she was off duty.

Rafe had strolled across and helped himself to a sandwich from the pile. ‘These look good.'

She nodded. The coldness between them was already beginning to set in. When they were working and there was a shared objective, it was a little easier to ignore. ‘Did you know they're drinking from there?' She pointed to the barrel.

‘Really?' He inspected the tap. ‘Looks as if they've cleaned it up...'

‘All the same. I wouldn't take the chance on it...'

‘Yeah, you're right. Leave it with me. I'll have a word.' He walked back over to the group of men, taking a large bite from his sandwich.

Ten minutes of welcome relaxation and then Rafe was back, jogging towards her, hastily putting his phone back into his jacket. ‘Time to go.'

‘What's up?' Mimi was on her feet instantly, grabbing her flask and the rest of the sandwiches and stuffing them into the bag. There was an urgency in Rafe's movements which meant only one thing.

‘You know where the Old Brewery is?'

‘Yeah, just follow the barrels floating down the river.' She threw the bag into the car and scrambled in. ‘It's a couple of miles that way...'

Rafe started the SUV up with a jolt, spraying mud from the back wheels, and then they were on the road again, the group of men returning her hurried wave goodbye.

* * *

This call was going to need an ambulance in attendance, but they were nearby and every minute might count. A man working at the brewery had got careless and touched a live cable running from a generator.

‘The ambulance controller told us not to move him. But the water's rising again...' The man who greeted them was obviously in authority here and he guided them quickly towards the redbrick building. The yard was awash with water and duckboards were laid across it.

‘Where is he?' Mimi seemed concentrated on only one goal, striding towards the building. Rafe followed, carrying the holdall which contained the emergency resus gear.

He moved past her to lead the way, reckoning that since they were barely talking to each other she could hardly object. They went up a flight of steps, leaving the sludge-covered ground floor to find that the rooms upstairs were clean and dry, their white-painted walls seeming to defy the mess downstairs.

They were shown through to a large open area which smelled strongly of malt. A man was lying on the floor, a folded coat under his head. The small group of his fellow workers parted as they saw Rafe and Mimi.

Mimi was on her knees next to him. She looked down at the man and smiled. ‘Hi there. Stay still now; the doctor's here.'

Rafe heaved a sigh of relief. He was obviously breathing and conscious. He dumped the bag and knelt down on the other side of the man. As he examined him, he heard Mimi questioning the men who were standing around, getting the information that he needed to know. The man hadn't been unconscious; he'd been thrown clear of the cable. His name was Grant.

‘I'm going to clip something on to your finger now...' Rafe turned to fetch the pulse monitor and found that Mimi was already holding it.

‘Thanks.' Rafe checked the small display and nodded in satisfaction. The man had some nasty burns on his arm and had cracked his head on the concrete floor when he fell, but he was breathing and his pulse was fast but steady.

The sound of running footsteps behind them, and a man's voice. ‘Mr Harding... The water's rising fast...'

Everyone's head turned towards the man who had ushered Rafe and Mimi inside. ‘How much time have we got?'

‘Fifteen, twenty minutes. The water's building up at the back and it'll be coming in through the windows soon...'

Mr Harding turned to Rafe. ‘We need to evacuate the building as soon as we can. The ground floor's about to be flooded again.'

Rafe turned to Mimi and she nodded in answer to his unasked question. ‘Okay, we'll move him now.' He looked around for something that might be pressed into service as a makeshift stretcher.

‘We've got a carry cot.' Mr Harding gestured towards a large canvas bag which lay on the floor.

‘Really?' Mimi's eyebrows shot up and Mr Harding smiled grimly.