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‘Are you busy right now? Is Caroline in the shop?’ Giles was normally the epitome of politeness, and offered at least some form of greeting when she answered, but the double questions without even a quick ‘how are you doing’, immediately put Holly on edge.

‘I’m just on my lunch break. Why? Is something wrong?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not exactly? What does that mean?’

A slight pause filled the air before he spoke again.

‘I may have had a little bit of an accident,’ he said.

2

‘Are you okay to lock up?’ Holly said to Caroline as she raced down the stairs. Her heart pounded as she slung her handbag over her shoulder and took the bottom step so fast, she nearly slipped into the shelves. Thankfully, she righted herself in time.

‘Is everything okay?’ Caroline asked.

Holly made a movement somewhere between a shrug and a shake of her head.

‘I’m not sure. It’s Giles; he’s at the hospital.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I don’t know. He just asked me to pick him up. He didn’t say what happened. I’ll ring you when I have some idea.’

Caroline nodded. ‘Okay, go, go. I’ve got things covered here.’ Holly carried on towards the door, though she had only put one foot outside when Caroline called again. ‘Don’t forget, you’ve still got your apron on.’

Holly looked down and, true enough, she was still wearing her blue and white uniform. She didn’t stop to take it off, though. What did her clothes matter? She needed to get to the hospital now.

Sweat dampened Holly’s hands as she gripped the steering wheel.

‘He’s fine. He’s going to be fine.’ She kept her breaths deep as she spoke aloud, hoping that either the speaking or the breathing would help slow the panic that was coursing through her. But as she drove out of the village and towards the town, it was near impossible to stop her thoughts from running wild. ‘He’s going to be fine. He rang me. He asked me to pick him up. If it had been that serious, the doctors wouldn’t have let him ring, would they? They would’ve had somebody else call me, wouldn’t they?’

They were rhetorical questions, which she was almost certain she knew the answers to, but it still didn’t help the anxiety that was building more and more with every mile she drove.

Maybe it was nothing to do with Giles at all, she considered. Maybe it was Faye, his sister, who’d had the accident.

She was the one who worked at the hospital, after all. Maybe something happened to her, and Giles wanted Holly there beside him. But then, why wouldn’t he say that? And Faye had a husband now. No, it wouldn’t be to do with Faye, but now she couldn’t remember exactly how Giles had worded himself. Had he saidthere’s been an accident, orI’ve had an accident? Why couldn’t she remember?

As Holly drove into the hospital car park, an ambulance siren rang out loudly in front of her. Her throat tightened and her pulse kicked up another notch. For a long time after Evan’s death, the sound of a siren would have caused her to shut down entirely. It happened once in the sweet shop. She hadn’t been long back at work when an ambulance had rushed down the High Street. Holly had frozen, her hand shaking, the bag of sweets rattling in her grasp as images of the day she had lost Evan rose to the surface of her mind.

Her father had been there at that moment and, seeing what was happening, took control of the situation. He got her to sit down at the bottom of the stairs while he dealt with the customer, then switched the sign on the door toClosed. For nearly an hour, he had sat there beside her, holding her hand, waiting for the moment to pass. And it had, eventually. Since then, there had been several ambulances down the High Street and though they always caused her heart rate to rise a little, that was it. The images of Evan would float into her mind, then drift away again.

But what if she lost Giles, too?

Since the accident, she had done everything in her power to mitigate anything happening to her friends, including taking every first-aid course available to her. She had taken an adult first-aid course, a paediatric first-aid course and first-aid training for sailing and water sports, which involved hefty travelling to the nearest sailing club, but felt necessary after what she had been through with Evan. She had even considered training to become a volunteer first responder too, but hadn’t yet got around to it. Still, all the training in the world didn’t mean anything if she wasn’t there to help the people she loved in the moments they needed her.

Her heart was in her mouth as she rushed through the double doors of the hospital towards the reception.

‘I’m here to see Giles Caverty,’ she said, tears thickening in her throat. ‘He was in an accident. I don’t know what sort. He just rang me and said I needed to come.’

‘Yes, just one second,’ the nurse said as she tapped away at the screen. ‘Caverty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Great. He’s on Ward 3. Take the elevator to the third floor, then turn right. You’ll see the signs for it.’

Holly didn’t even thank the nurse as she turned and raced towards the elevator.