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  Hell! He’d thought it had settled! He tried again for the phone, and finally managed to get it out of his pocket. ‘One missed call,’ he read, and tapped the keys with a shaking thumb to bring up the number. Not Joe.

  Ben Carter.

  Well, it was a start. If that tree kept shifting, an emergency consultant might not be a bad man to have around. He called him back. ‘Ben? It’s Mike.’

  ‘Mike, hi. I was just calling to have that chat—is this a good time?’

  Mike gave a strangled laugh, his breath constricted by the branch over his back. ‘Um…I’ve had better. Bit…um… stuck at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll call you later—’

  ‘No! I mean—really stuck. I’m lying under a tree.’

  There was a pause. ‘As in lying under a tree on the grass, contemplating the meaning of life, or—?’

  ‘Lying under a fallen tree that I was cutting up,’ Mike finished for him. ‘Sort of literally stuck. And I think my leg might be broken, and the tree’s not stable.’

  Just to underline that fact, the tree groaned again, and he felt sweat break out all over him. ‘I’m down by the river—only a short way from you over the fields, but you’ll need help. I’m trying to get hold of Joe, but maybe we need the fire brigade—they’ve got a few strong lads who could help shift this thing.’

  ‘Tell me where to come, and I’ll get them on their way, too,’ Ben said, his voice all calm business, and Mike felt his confidence like a soothing hand.

  ‘Right. Are you bleeding?’

  He considered that for a second. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘OK. Stay still, don’t move and I’ll be with you.’

  ‘Like I can move,’ he said, but the line was dead, and he tried Joe again, getting him this time. Joe’s language was colourful, and he could hear the fear in his brother’s voice, but he’d know what to do and how to get him out, and he could use the chainsaw.

  They arrived simultaneously, Joe on the tractor, Ben in his BMW, grounding on the track, and Mike felt a stupid, stupid urge to cry with relief.

  ‘Nice one, guys,’ he said, cracking a grin, and Joe swore and knelt down beside him, reaching through the twigs covering him to squeeze his shoulder hard.

  ‘Stupid bastard. This tree’s huge, far too big to tackle alone—why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I did. Several times. You weren’t answering.’

  Joe swore again. ‘Sorry, I was clearing the auger. Right, let’s have a look at this tree. If I could only get the tractor in here I could lift it off you with the forks, but there isn’t enough room. The other trees are too close.’

  ‘So what’s plan B?’

  Joe looked around. ‘I’m going to get this branch off you first, so you can breathe better. Then we can get a closer look.’

  ‘Great.’ Mike grunted. ‘Just make sure it’s not holding up the tree.’

  ‘It’s not. There’s a good-sized branch wedging it.’

  He got up, and Ben took his place, hands running confidently over Mike’s body. ‘Tell me what hurts.’

  ‘My leg? My pride?’

  ‘Idiot. Not your back? Only your legs?’

  ‘No, my back’s fine—well, in comparison to my legs. The right one, anyway—and, believe me, it’s enough,’ he said, fighting down bile and wondering how the hell Joe was going to get him out. The scream of the saw sounded, and the pressure on his back and ribs eased, but it didn’t take away the other pain.

  ‘What kind of pain is it?’ Ben was asking. ‘Sharp? Sickening? Dull? Raw? Tender?’

  ‘No. More—excruciatingly sharp. And sickening, yeah.’

  ‘Right. Sounds like a fracture.’

  ‘Feels like it, but I’m not an expert.’

  ‘Can you feel your foot?’

  He gave a choked laugh. ‘All too well.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Good? Mike snorted and turned his face down, resting his head on the back of his hand and closing his eyes. He felt sick—sick and scared. If he’d died, what would have happened to Fran? Or the farm? Joe couldn’t cope alone, and his father was too old to want to start all over again. He’d just retired, handed over the reins to his sons and put his feet up.

  That damn tree had better not fall any further, he thought, and, craning his neck, he saw Joe shifting logs, making a pile under the trunk so it couldn’t roll any further and couldn’t sag any more.

  Then he heard a fire engine lumbering down the track, felt the ground tremble under the weight of it, and the tree shifted again. Just a fraction, but enough to make him swear and eye the pile of logs nervously. Would they hold?

  ‘We need to clear these branches to get the airbags under it,’ someone said, and he could hear people running, and then the sound of the saw, then the weight shifted again and he groaned as pain shafted up his leg.

  ‘Stop! It’s moving on him. He needs pain relief—where are the paramedics?’ That was Ben.

  ‘There’s been a big pile-up. All the ambulances are out. They’re having to send one from Plymouth. It’ll be another twenty minutes, and I don’t think we’re going to be able to use the airbags. There isn’t enough room to get them underneath without cutting off the branches, and they’re supporting it. We need to get heavy-lifting gear and it’ll take a while—it’s at the pile-up too.’

  Great. Sweat dribbled down his face and into a graze, stinging it. He turned his cheek against his sleeve to wipe it away and caught Ben’s troubled eyes. He smiled reassuringly but for some reason it didn’t work. Nothing to do with the tons of timber hovering over his body just waiting to crash the rest of the way down and kill him…

  ‘Right. I’ll get Nick.’

  Mike heard Ben key in a number, then heard rapid instructions, and a hand came back on his shoulder. ‘Nick’s going to bring some drugs.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he mumbled. ‘I love drugs. Drugs are good.’ The tree creaked again, and he bit down on his hand and

  ‘Fran, come on in, have a seat,’ Kate said, her smile welcoming, and Fran sat down at the desk, her fingers knotted tightly together in her lap.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She consciously relaxed her hands and smiled back. ‘Fine. So—tell me about this diet.’

  ‘I’ve got the details here for you.’ Kate straightened up and reached for a sheet of paper, sliding it across the desk towards her. ‘It’s very simple—suggestions, really, for how to include certain things, trace elements and so on which, although probably present in your diet, might not be there in sufficient quantity.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Zinc, selenium, folic acid, vitamin C. You need Brazil nuts and shitake mushrooms and oysters—not together, obviously,’ she said with a chuckle, and Fran smiled with relief.

  ‘I wondered how I was going to work them in!’ she said.

  ‘Well, oysters are out of season at the moment, you’ll have to wait until the end of October if you want local ones, but the mushrooms and Brazil nuts you can get any time. And fruit smoothies. Fruit and veg smoothies—do you eat a lot of fruit and veg?’

  ‘I do. Mike’s usually crunching an apple and he eats what I give him but he’s not over-fond of salads so he tends to eat cooked veg. He drinks apple juice sometimes—does that count?’

  ‘Not really, but it makes an excellent base for the smoothies, so make him smoothies with apple juice instead

  ‘Good grief. I don’t mind that but I think he’ll kill me if he can’t have tea or coffee! Apart from the odd glass of wine and the occasional apple juice, that’s all he drinks!’

  ‘He’ll love the smoothies. You can use the veg ones as chilled soups—lovely in the summer. And they’ll do you good as well—boost your vitamin levels. If they help sperm production, they might have a beneficial effect on your ovaries, too. Just try, Fran. If it does nothing else, it’ll improve your general health and make you feel much better. In fact, it’ll do you a power of good to eat something nutritious. You’ve lost too much we
ight recently, and being underweight can harm your chances of conception—did you know that?’

  She shook her head, wondering why they were having this conversation when Mike clearly didn’t even want to spend one night—one miserable, solitary little night!—alone with her, without the dog or his daughter or the endless bloody paperwork to hide behind.

  ‘Encourage him to take cool showers and not hot baths—does he have baths?’ Kate went on.

  ‘Sometimes—if he’s been doing something very strenuous and he’s aching. Usually he showers.’

  ‘What about underpants? Does he wear loose boxers or

  Fran chuckled. ‘I’ll just steal the tight stuff and tell him it was worn out. To be honest, as long as there’s something in the drawer I don’t think he’d care what it was. I can tell him I had a crisis with the washing machine or the dog ate it or something.’

  Or she could just tell him the truth, but the whole thing was irrelevant at the moment. She was hardly going to get pregnant if they didn’t—

  ‘You need to eat lots of dairy, too,’ Kate was saying, ‘but be careful with the soft cheese and unpasteurised milk products if there’s the slightest possibility you might be pregnant.’

  A humourless little huff of laughter escaped from Fran’s mouth. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

  Kate clicked her tongue sympathetically. ‘Did you broach the subject of going away?’ she asked gently.

  Fran laughed again, but it was just as bad as the last one and utterly unconvincing. She swallowed hard. ‘He’s—He hasn’t got time.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Probably, but if he wanted to, he’d make time—wouldn’t he?’

  Kate smiled. ‘Don’t ask me. Men are a mystery.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Fran murmured.

  ‘He’ll think I’ve run up a credit card,’ she said dryly, and then felt saddened that they’d come so far down the line that they’d come to this, her talking about her marriage to a woman she hardly knew, trying to gain insight into her husband’s behaviour. Not to mention her own…

  ‘Kate, sorry—Ah. Fran. I’m glad you’re here,’ Nick said, his face troubled. ‘Um, I’ve had a call from Ben. Mike’s got a bit of a problem. He was apparently cutting down a tree—’

  ‘What?’ The word came out soundlessly from lips suddenly numb. She felt the colour drain from her face, her limbs curiously heavy and her heart lumping with dread. She lifted a hand to her mouth. ‘Not the chainsaw…’

  ‘No—no, a branch rolled onto him and it’s pinning his leg down. Ben’s with him—thinks he’s got a fracture but the ambulances are all out on a big RTA and it’ll take them ages to get to him, so I’m going to pop over there with a bit of pain relief while the fire crew get the branch off him. I’m taking morphine, but I just wondered if we’d got Entonox, Kate.’

  ‘Yes—I’ll get it. And we’ll come. Come on, Fran, I’ll drive you.’

  The props weren’t working. The weight of the upper trunk was too great, and they couldn’t shift enough wood to secure it. The fire crew was gathered round Mike, having a muttered conference that didn’t inspire confidence. He just wanted to get the hell out, and he needed those drugs.

  ‘I’m going to dig it out,’ Joe said. ‘If I undermine it,

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he mumbled, but the fire officer in charge had other ideas.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t let you get that close,’ he said.

  Joe’s reply was pithy and not in the least bit polite, and it made Mike smile. Seconds later he felt him digging, felt Joe’s hands under his leg while Ben supported it, stripping away the shale that was digging into his shin, and then his foot moved a fraction and he let out a whimper as he felt his leg sliding down gradually, away from the weight of the trunk.

  He bit down on his lip, knowing it was necessary to dig around his foot so he could wriggle free but not sure he could take it.

  Not without pain relief, but Nick was there, bringing him Entonox. He knew about that—Kirsten had had it when she’d been in labour with Sophie, and he sucked greedily on the mouthpiece while Joe tunnelled away like a mole, shifting the stony soil away from his leg and foot while he tried not to yell. Nick was putting something in his hand—some kind of IV set—and then injecting something that made him feel woozy and light-headed.

  ‘Whazat?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Morphine, and metaclopromide, to stop you feeling sick from the morphine.’

  ‘’S lovely,’ he replied. It was. The pain was going, fading a bit, less global.

  ‘Right, that’s as good as it gets,’ Joe said.

  ‘OK.’ That was Ben. ‘Mike, can you get your legs out yourself? Just slowly and carefully.’

  Pain lanced through him despite the drugs, and he swore viciously, suddenly wide awake. ‘I need a hand, guys,’ he said, sweat beading on his brow. ‘Just pull me out, nice and carefully. I can’t do this myself.’

  ‘It is free,’ Ben said, feeling round his leg gently. ‘We should be able to do it. It’s a very unstable fracture, though, and I don’t want to drag you. And you need a spinal board.’

  ‘To hell with that. What I need is to get out of here now,’ he muttered as the tree groaned again. He felt it shift against his calf, and yelled, ‘Just get me—Joe and Nick maybe?—and he could feel Ben’s hands on his leg, steadying it. On the count of three they pulled, he gasped and swore and bit hard on his lip, and then he was free, and they were dragging and lifting him away from the tree while everything went black for a second and he fought the urge to scream with the pain.

  As they put him down and shifted him to his back, Fran’s white, terrified face swam into view. He thought she was going to yell at him, but she just smiled a little shakily and said, ‘I didn’t know you knew half of those words.’ And then with a last tortured groan the tree slipped and fell the last few feet with a thundering crash, and she burst into tears.

  ‘What the hell were you doing down there on your own with the chainsaw?’

  He gave a rueful smile, and Fran felt a terrible urge

  She didn’t know. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that Mike was alive—damaged, but alive—and only because Ben, Joe and Nick had got him out when they had.

  She and Kate had got there just as he had been yelling at them to pull him out, and she’d watched in horror as his face had blanched and he’d let fly a string of words she’d never heard him use before.

  And then the trunk had dropped, right where he’d been lying, and one of the firemen had been lucky to duck out of the way of the flying branches.

  It could have been so, so much worse.

  Infinitely worse. Unimaginably worse—

  ‘I’ve done the milking for you, you idle skiver—and can you stick to Monopoly and not pick-up-sticks in future?’ Joe said, walking up behind her and saving him from the strangling he so surely deserved.

  ‘Hi, Joe,’ she said with a smile of welcome. ‘Give your brother a hard time for me, could you? I’m just going to ring your mother again and let her know they’ve moved him.’

  ‘She’s here. She and Dad have just pulled into the car park. I told them where to come.’

  Ensconced in his hospital bed, Mike groaned. ‘Did you have to? They’ll make such a fuss.’

  ‘A fuss? A fuss!’ Fran all but shrieked. ‘I’ll give you fuss,

  ‘Michael! Oh, my goodness, are you all right? We came as soon as we heard but we were on our way back from Plymouth and there was a huge tailback because of this accident—’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum,’ he said, grimacing as he caught sight of his father’s stern face.

  ‘How many times have I told you—?’ Fran’s father-in-law started, and Fran just smiled, stepped back and left them to it. She didn’t need to strangle him. His parents would do it for her. In the meantime, she might go and get herself a cup of coffee.

  ‘So how’s the invalid?’ Ben asked as she bumped into him at the ward entrance.

  ‘Gettin
g an earful from everyone,’ Fran told Ben with a wry smile.

  Ben smiled back, but his eyes were gentle with concern, and she felt hers fill again. ‘You OK?’ he asked, and she nodded, then shook her head, then shrugged a little helplessly and laughed, her traitorous eyes welling.

  ‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. At least he’s alive.’

  ‘He’ll be fine. He’ll be going to Theatre shortly to have it plated, and he’ll be in for a couple of days, then they’ll send him home in a cast to rest.’

  ‘He’ll be horrible. He’ll be so bored,’ Fran said with a sigh, and Ben raised an eyebrow.

  ‘So entertain him,’ he said with a smile. ‘He’ll be laid up and fizzing over with all that pent-up energy. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to do together to alleviate the boredom!’

  ‘Yeah, right. Like that’ll do it!’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘You going anywhere important?’

  ‘Yes—to get a coffee,’ she said, wondering if it mattered if she started Kate’s diet a day later and deciding that today justified it. She could have lost Mike—so easily. And today had proved to her beyond any doubt that she wasn’t ready to lose him. Not in any way. There was nothing like staring that dreadful possibility in the face to bring it home to her, so, yes, today justified a delay in the start of the diet, because at the moment whether or not they had a child was way down the list of her priorities.

  And Mike—her beloved, darling, infuriating, broken Mike—was right at the top.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Ben was saying. ‘I was just about to make a drink when I called him, and I still haven’t had one yet. I’ll even treat you to a chocolate muffin.’

  She laughed. ‘You truly know the way to a woman’s heart,’ she replied, and wondered when she and Mike had last laughed like that, about nothing in particular, just for the sake of laughing. Ages. A lifetime.

  But they would again. She’d make sure of it…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY were sending him home on Friday, and he couldn’t get out of hospital quickly enough.