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‘I’m going to put a mask over your face, Sylvie. Deep breaths.’ Jack replaced the mask, and Sylvie’s chest rose and fell as she breathed in the oxygen.
‘That’s right, Mum.’ Harry’s gaze flickered towards Jack and he nodded him on. ‘Deep breaths, eh. Do as the man says.’
‘Well done.’ Jack didn’t take his gaze from Sylvie but the words were for Harry. ‘You just passed the first responder’s initiation. Don’t back off when someone’s sick all over you.’
The young man gave a nervous laugh. ‘What the hell’s the matter with her...? With us?’
‘I think it may be carbon monoxide poisoning. She seems to be coming out of it now.’ Sylvie was quiet but her eyes were open and focused.
‘What...like car exhaust fumes?’
‘Something like that. One of those heaters may be faulty. Where did you get them?’
‘Dad’s mate lent them to us. He uses them in his greenhouse.’
Sylvie stirred in his arms and Jack smiled down at her. ‘All right. You’re doing just fine, Sylvie.’
Cass knelt down beside him. ‘Next door. They’re waiting for us.’
‘Thanks. Help me lift her?’ Jack gave the oxygen tank to Harry to carry, more as a badge of honour than anything else, and Cass helped settle Sylvie in his arms. A middle-aged woman was standing at the door of the next house, and Jack carried Sylvie carefully up her own front path and back down her neighbour’s.
The house was neat and warm. He was waved through to a sitting room, two large sofas placed on opposite sides of the room. On one sat a man, his arm clamped tightly around Alex’s shoulders.
‘She’s all right, Alex. She just needs fresh air and she’ll be okay. We all will.’ Harry seemed to have taken over Jack’s role and he relinquished it gladly to him. When this was all over the young man could feel proud of the way he’d acted.
He laid Sylvie gently down on the sofa. A roll of kitchen towel was produced, to wipe Harry’s jeans, and Jack asked him to sit with his mother. Cass appeared from the hallway, pocketing her phone.
‘You’ll be wanting her seen at the hospital?’
‘Yeah. All of them need to have blood tests for carbon monoxide.’
‘Okay, there are a couple of cars coming now, and we’ll take them down to the motorway and get them across there. A lot quicker than calling an ambulance...’ She stopped suddenly, reddening. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we’d better get a couple of cars down here and take them across at the motorway. It’ll be a lot quicker than calling an ambulance.’ His eyes sparkled with amusement.
‘Yeah. Right.’ Cass wrinkled her nose at him and Jack tried not to laugh. She was irresistible when she second-guessed him, and that thing with the nose was the icing on the cake.
‘How long?’ He had to make a conscious effort to get his mind back on to the task in hand.
‘Ten minutes. I’ll go and get some clothes for them.’
‘Just coats, from the hallway.’ The front door must be still open and the air in the hallway would have cleared by now. ‘I don’t want to have to carry you out.’ Though he’d carry her pretty much anywhere she liked if given half a chance.
‘I’d like to see you try.’ She turned her back on him and marched out of the room, leaving him to his patient.
CHAPTER TEN
SYLVIE’S HUSBAND WAS in one of the cars that arrived and the family was ferried down to the motorway together. Cass had disappeared, and Jack saw her waiting on the other side of the water with her SUV. She dropped the keys into Jack’s hand and told him she’d meet him at the hospital and Jack helped Sylvie into the front seat, the rest of the family squeezing into the back.
He drove away, leaving her standing alone on the road. There wasn’t any point in wondering exactly how she was going to get to the hospital. She’d said she’d be there, and Jack had little doubt that she would.
She arrived, pink-cheeked, nearly an hour later and sat down next to him on one of the waiting room chairs.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey yourself.’ He wasn’t going to ask.
‘Everything all right?’
