Read Online Doctor...to Duchess? by Annie O'Neil - Free Book Online Page A

should hold him steady and give him extra warmth while we wait.” She pulled off her coat and bundled it up. “Use this as a support cushion to help.”
    He took the coat and placed it on the ground where they would roll Reg. “Do you have any morphine?”
    “Some.”
    “Let’s make use of it, shall we?” Oliver gave her a gentle smile before returning to his exacting placement of the blanket around Reg’s ribs.
    Julia handed over the vial and prepared a needle for him. She liked how he worked—steady. In control. Doing what he could in a bad situation. It was easy to picture him working in a conflict zone. Shame. As each moment passed, it was getting easier to picture him here. Julia shook her head. Not the time or place to daydream!
    Ever so carefully, they managed to shift Reg’s upper torso onto the left side, the high-flow oxygen mask attached to his mouth.
    “How long is it before the helicopter arrives?”
    Julia glanced at her watch, surprised to see five of the ten minutes had passed. It had felt like the blink of an eye. “About five more minutes.”
    “Why don’t you hold Reg in place, and Mike and I will go ahead and pull the tractor off? It will take a couple of minutes and that way when the chopper arrives we won’t be in the way. They can land in the center of the field no problem, put Reg on a board and get him to hospital.”
    “Are you sure the tow ropes can handle it?”
    Oliver locked eyes with her, his voice rock solid. “I wouldn’t try it—particularly with you looking after Reg—if I wasn’t sure.”
    “Oh.” She blinked away the desire to stay there, searching the depths of his eyes, exploring what he meant by “particularly with you.” Was it a slight or was he looking after her as well as Reg? She blinked again and saw he needed a decision. “No, of course not. Let’s get going.”
    * * *
    Oliver double-checked the gears and eased his vehicle forward. It had a three-and-a-half-ton towing capacity. A quick check on the old-fashioned tractor had said it was just over two tons. This should be a no-brainer. He began to feel the strain of the tractor tug on his vehicle. Lifting it against the pull of the slope was going to make it tough. Tough—but not impossible. Slowly, he inched forward. With his eyes darting between the rear-view mirror and the field in front of him he began to feel his vehicle take on the full weight of the tractor. This would go well. The familiar sensation of success kicked in. This was the Oliver he knew. The one who made decisions and stuck with them. As the tractor came upright with a comfortable thud, Oliver gave himself a grin in the rear-view mirror.
See? Nothing to it
.
    The familiar sound of a helicopter’s rotors snapped him back into action. Mike was already untying the tow leads so Oliver could move the Land Rover out of the helicopter’s way.
    Within moments, the crew was on the ground, and Reg Pryce was boarded and on the way to hospital. He didn’t know if the poor man would survive his injuries—they were serious—but at least they had done all they could. He looked over as Julia signed some paperwork before the flight took off. Scrubbing at his chin, he silently acknowledged that Reg stood a much higher chance because of her. He wouldn’t even have tried to get a helicopter in and that bored straight through to his soul.
    Had this place really made him that cold—that lacking in drive? He certainly wasn’t like that anywhere else he worked. His brain worked well outside the box in the stark environs of a combat zone and it didn’t feel good that he was as likely to fall into old patterns here at Bryar Estate as the next person. A smile crept onto his lips despite himself. Maybe Julia’s arrival was a reminder of all that
was
possible in this hideaway hamlet. Just maybe.

CHAPTER FOUR
    “ R IGHT .” O LIVER TURNED around decisively as the helicopter swept up and beyond their sightline. “It’s time we jumped in the