Kitabı oku: «A Very Special Proposal»

CONTENTS

COVER

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

‘DID you see that programme on TV last night?’ Amy heard one of the junior nurses ask her friend as they chatted together during their break. ‘It was all about these people who had gone on the internet to look up their old friends and classmates.’

‘I caught part of it,’ her friend agreed. ‘The bit when they were saying how many marriages were ruined by people meeting up with their first loves.’

‘I can’t imagine having that problem with my first love,’ the first voice said with a laugh. ‘He was called Alex…something-or-other. I think he stopped growing any taller when he got to twelve—just when I started to put on a growth spurt. By the time we left school, I was head and shoulders above him even though he weighed twice as much as me.’

‘Perhaps it was kissing you that stunted his growth?’ teased a third voice, but, although she was smiling at their nonsense, Amy tuned out their conversation at that point, suddenly wondering how many of her old classmates were still around the area. She certainly hadn’t kept in touch with any of them, not once she’d left to go to medical school, and then she’d married Edward and their lives had been far too full of work-related social events—chances for her ambitious husband to ‘network’ with the movers and shakers in cardiothoracic surgery—to have had time to keep up with the people she’d known at school.

It had only been fairly recently that she’d returned to the area, after she’d lost Edward, and she hadn’t really been interested in looking up old acquaintances…hadn’t been interested in any sort of social life at all, if she was really honest.

Would any of the people she’d once known have signed up with one of those internet sites—presuming she ever worked out how to get into them? Her intermittent use of the internet was usually reserved for the same few sites devoted to medical matters, researching protocols for emergency treatment and checking the most recent drugs and their efficacy and contra-indications.

Anyway, even when she had lived in the area she hadn’t known many people; even her classmates. She’d spent her last three years at school with her nose pressed firmly in her study books, determined to win a place at medical school. She’d allowed herself absolutely no time to think about boyfriends or…

Liar! a little voice in the back of her head accused. There had been one boy…young man, really, at nearly eighteen years of age…who’d done more than catch her eye.

‘Zachary Bowman,’ she whispered under cover of the surrounding chatter. She felt the same twist of guilty pleasure deep inside that had scared her so much when they’d been teenagers assigned to the same bench in the science labs. It had happened every time she’d seen his profile outlined against the tall stark windows or had dared to meet his serious dark gaze…even when their elbows or shoulders had brushed innocently as they’d reached for a flask of reagent during an experiment or noting down their findings.

He’d been every teenage girl’s fantasy of ‘tall, dark and handsome’ with an extra dash of ‘dangerous’ thrown in for good measure. She could still remember that his brown eyes had been so dark that they’d appeared as black as his hair, and as for that hair, it had been unruly, with a rebellious natural curl that had made her hands tingle with the urge to stroke the heavy weight of it back off his forehead to see if it was as silky as it looked.

‘The forbidden romance that never was,’ she murmured wryly, remembering that, apart from one notable occasion, they’d barely exchanged a word outside the classroom or the library. And that occasion was definitely better off being forgotten, if the heat of revisited embarrassment climbing her cheeks was any indication.

Except she’d never really forgotten him, even though so many years had passed. Sometimes, months had gone by and any thoughts of him had been buried under the everyday load of a stressful job and a relatively high-profile marriage. But, still, she’d wondered what would have happened, whether her life would have been very different if she’d only had the courage to…What was the phrase? Take a walk on the wild side?

Wild? Amy Willmott, née Bowes, the original over-achiever?

Suddenly she had a disturbing insight into how her life must look to others and she almost laughed aloud.

In comparison with her, plain boiled rice would seem exciting.

‘For heaven’s sake, what’s to stop you having a go at surfing the net?’ she muttered crossly. ‘It’s not as if anyone else is ever going to know and think any less of you.’ And there would be a certain amount of satisfaction in finding out whether Zach had avoided coming to the ignominious end that their teachers had predicted.

Or would she rather remember him the way he’d been then—forever flouting school dress code in a disreputable leather jacket as he’d thrown one long lean leg over the motorbike he’d been prohibited from parking on school property, then flashing her a wicked grin before he’d flipped the visor down on his helmet and roared off down the road.

That night, in spite of the fact that she’d had an extremely busy shift at work and was totally exhausted, somehow she just couldn’t sleep.

For some time she lay in the darkness and practised the relaxation and breathing techniques that had got her through her vivas unscathed, then she tried to read a light-hearted romantic novel, but the characters just couldn’t hold her attention, not when the fictional hero was having to vie with her memories.

Finally, she gave in to temptation and padded through to the spare room that she’d set up as an office where her laptop sat waiting on the desk in the corner of the room.

It was amazing how easily she found the site her colleagues had been talking about and how quickly she was able to find the name of the school she’d attended, but even before she began to scroll through the list of names, her misgivings returned, full force.

‘What on earth am I doing?’ she demanded of the gently humming machine, her hand hovering over the mouse. One more click would take her to the names beginning with ‘B’ and would tell her whether Zach’s name was registered. Part of her would love to know that he’d gone on to make a success of his life, but she really didn’t want to know that anything…anything bad had happened to him.

Somehow that would sully the innocent passion of her memories…the soft-focus fantasy that she’d indulged in for years that, if only he’d noticed her…asked her out on just one date…he would have discovered that she was the only woman for him and they would have lived happily ever after.

Except it had all been one-sided.

They’d spent weeks as lab partners, assigned purely on the basis of their names in the register, Bowman coming directly after Bowes, so if he’d had any interest in her as even a moderately attractive female, surely he’d have said…something! Anything!

He could have suggested they had a coffee together…walked with her after a study session in the library…taken her for a ride on his fearsomely powerful bike…

Ha!

The closest he’d ever come to that had been to throw her a wicked grin before he’d roared off into the distance, leaving her gazing wistfully after him.

Even when she’d screwed up her courage to mention the school leavers’ dance, he hadn’t taken the hint. Instead of a blissful evening spent in his arms, she’d had to make do with a rather strained celebratory meal with her parents in an expensive restaurant, listening to the two of them rhapsodise about the glittering future that lay ahead of her. She couldn’t allow herself to be side-tracked by anything, they’d insisted. All she had to do was keep her eye on where she was going. There would be plenty of time for her to have a social life once she was qualified and surrounded by people with the same aims and aspirations…other doctors, for example…

Amy deliberately shut Edward’s image away, refusing to allow guilty thoughts of the husband she’d lost just over a year ago to intrude on her present dilemma.

The cursor continued to blink patiently beside Shelley Adams’s name at the top of the list but it almost seemed to taunt her. Just one more click and the section on display would be replaced by the next one and she would know whether Zach’s name was there, then one more click and she would see…what? A copy of that infamous school photo with his dark unruly hair defying taming and his dark eyes…those dark eyes that had followed her through her dreams for years, even into her marriage…? Or would it be a contemporary picture with his striking features blurred by weight and age and his hairline receding towards middle age?

The idea that she might find out that he was now happily married with half a dozen beautiful dark-eyed children was somehow worse than the prospect of finding out that he’d had a fatal accident on that noisy bike of his or that he’d ended up in prison, and that was totally crazy, considering the way her own life had gone.

With her parents encouraging her every step of the way, she’d accepted the place her stellar grades had secured at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country, and immediately after she’d qualified, she’d married Edward in a fairy-tale wedding, much to their delight.

Edward Willmott, who couldn’t have been less like Zach if he’d deliberately tried. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he’d been totally focused on getting to the top of the tree in the shortest possible time, no matter what else he had to sacrifice or postpone along the way. Edward, who had died a hero in the middle of a motorway pile-up, leaving her without the child that they were always going to have next year, and feeling guilty that she hadn’t really appreciated what she’d had until it was gone and her life was totally empty.

She’d had it all, so why should she resent the very idea of Zach finding the same fulfilment?

‘No reason at all,’ she said aloud as she decisively broke the connection with the internet and shut the computer down. ‘And no reason whatever to look him up, especially at this time of night when I’ve got to be getting up in another four hours to go to work.’

She returned to bed, determined not to let her thoughts stray in his direction again, but discovered when she woke up too early, tired and out of sorts, that she hadn’t had any control over where her dreams had taken her.

‘So, what would have been so bad about clicking on his name and finding out once and for all?’ she demanded in the noisy confines of her little car as she headed towards the hospital at least an hour earlier than necessary. She pulled up at a pedestrian crossing as an elderly lady stepped off the pavement and started to make her shaky way across the road.

‘I hope your doctor’s referred you for surgery on that hip,’ Amy muttered under her breath, force of habit having her analysing the woman’s gait even as she smiled in response to the thanks the woman mouthed. She could only imagine how much pain the poor woman was in if she was moving that gingerly, clearly needing much more help than the inadequate support of the stick she was using.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a car looming in her rear-view mirror. When she registered just how fast he was approaching, she cringed in anticipation of the squeal of brakes that would come when he realised he had to stop for the crossing…Except he didn’t brake, merely swinging out around her as casually as though he was doing nothing more than passing an unimportant vehicle parked at the side of the road.

Time seemed to stand still for several long seconds but there was a horrific inevitability in the way the other car reached the crossing just as the elderly lady emerged beyond the shelter of Amy’s car right into his path, the driver apparently making no attempt to brake.

At the very last second, the elderly lady seemed to sense what was about to happen and tried to get out of the way. Unfortunately, her painful hip limited her mobility and instead of stepping back into safety, her legs crumpled beneath her and she landed on the road with a thud.

‘Oh, my God!’ Amy shrieked as she flung her door wide, narrowly avoiding stepping into the path of the motorbike that was drawing up beside her. Automatic reflexes had made her reach for her keys and her handbag so that even before she’d reached the frighteningly still figure she’d found her mobile phone and was tapping in the emergency number.

‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’ said the voice in her ear as she sank to her knees beside the elderly woman and reached out to search for a pulse.

‘Ambulance and police, please,’ she answered crisply. ‘There’s been an accident on the pedestrian crossing about a mile south of the hospital…the one almost outside the supermarket. An elderly lady. She’s unconscious but she’s still breathing.’

Amy had been so relieved when her fingers had detected a steady pulse, especially when the poor woman was twisted so uncomfortably. And her impact with the ground had been audible even inside Amy’s car, so she had been fearing the worst…that the woman’s skull had been fractured or her neck had been broken and had killed her instantly. Her obviously broken leg was almost unimportant by comparison.

There was still the possibility that either or both had happened, but for the moment her heart was still beating and she was still breathing, and if Amy could do anything to make sure that continued to happen until the ambulance arrived with all the equipment to protect her compromised systems…

‘Don’t move her!’ ordered a deep voice, only partly muffled by the tinted visor of his helmet as he grabbed her hand and pulled it away from monitoring the thready pulse. ‘If she’s injured her spine, you could paralyse her.’

He flipped up his visor with his free hand and the intensity of his dark gaze meeting hers sent an unexpected jolt of awareness through her that was totally out of place when there was a vulnerable life on the ground between them.

For a moment it was as if the injured woman didn’t exist. She actually saw his pupils widen as his eyes flickered over her face, his dark eyes darkening still further in the involuntary response of a potent male towards a female. His hand tightened unconsciously around hers almost as though he was staking some sort of claim…and for one moment suspended in time all she could think was that she wanted him to remove his helmet so she could see what the rest of his face looked like.

Mortified, she closed her own eyes for a second, reminding herself sternly that this definitely wasn’t the time for age-old courtship preliminaries, even if she had been interested in starting a relationship.

‘I know not to move her,’ Amy said in a voice that trembled just a bit as she retrieved her hand from his gauntleted grasp and returned gentle fingers to the wrinkled skin of the exposed throat. Under that powerful gaze she was finding it unexpectedly difficult to concentrate on explaining what she was doing, even as she silently blessed the television programmes that were educating the general population in emergency lifesaving protocols. ‘I’m a doctor but I’m only monitoring her pulse and respiration until the emergency services get here.’

As if on cue, she heard the sound of approaching sirens.

‘Hear that? They’ll be here in a second and they’ll have oxygen on board and a collar to protect her neck while they put her on a backboard to support her spine,’ she explained, then couldn’t help risking another glance in his direction, only to find that he was still looking at her rather than the victim.

This time the inappropriate shiver of awareness was so strong that she was afraid that he’d see it.

What on earth was going on here? She’d never reacted this way when a man looked at her, not even Edward. In fact, the only person who had been able to make her respond like this…to be aware of every molecule in her body that made her female…had been Zach.

And that was ridiculous.

Obviously, the only reason she’d thought about him—and the way he’d made her feel all those years ago—was because of that stupid conversation about those internet sites and her aborted search last night.

And now this man, with eyes every bit as dark as Zach’s had been, was stirring things inside her that were best left sleeping, especially when she should be concentrating on the unconscious woman under her fingertips.

‘Hey, Doc, have you started coming out looking for work?’ teased the paramedic as he reached her side. ‘Are you trying to do us out of a job?’

‘Just holding the fort while you get your act together, Harry,’ she retorted with a smile for the familiar face as she shifted across to give him access to their patient. ‘Her breathing is obviously being impaired by the position of her head and neck but although it’s rather fast, her pulse is surprisingly strong. She was just about to be run over and tried to step back too quickly on a leg that looked as if it already urgently needed a hip replacement. She just sort of crumpled to the ground and hit her head with a dreadful thump.’

At Harry’s suggestion, she took over setting up IV access to save time while he selected the rest of the equipment he’d need, and then she took responsibility for holding the woman’s head perfectly still while he carefully positioned the collar to protect the woman’s spinal cord. Then they were going to have to straighten her limbs before they could put her on the backboard, checking for breaks and compromised circulation at every stage before they could log-roll her onto it and load her into the ambulance for transportation. Silently, she was worried that the poor woman could easily slip into a coma after such an accident, but it was also a mercy that she was too deeply unconscious to be aware of the pain of her injuries.

Over the paramedic’s shoulder she saw one young policeman trying to impose some sort of order on the rapidly developing traffic chaos while another was scribbling furiously into his notebook as the motorcyclist spoke to him.

His helmet was now propped on one hip, discarded leather gauntlets inside and held in position by an apparently nonchalant arm that ended in a knotted fist that seemed to give mute evidence to his underlying impatience with bureaucratic niceties—or was it an indication of his anger at the callous disregard of the driver who had caused the tragedy?

Amy regretted the fact that his back was turned towards her so that she couldn’t see his face. Not that the back view was anything to sniff at, all long lean legs and narrow waist topped by broad shoulders. Disappointingly, after her memories of Zach, the sleek dark hair was cut close to the owner’s head.

Zach’s had been quite a bit longer, far too long to satisfy school rules, and the natural curl in it had made it unruly and tempting and…and what on earth was the matter with her? She was in the middle of the road, holding the head of an injured woman, and one false move on her part could paralyse her if she’d fractured bones in her neck. What on earth was she doing, ogling a motorcyclist she’d never seen in her life before and thinking about a classmate she hadn’t seen in more than a decade? Concentrate! she berated herself.

She joined Harry in a sigh of relief when the collar was successfully secured and had to stifle another sigh as she wondered how much longer it would be before she felt free to go to work. Doubtless, she would have to give her statement, too, and her colleagues wouldn’t be pleased if they had to wait hours for her to arrive before they could hand over and clock off at the end of a long shift. None of them would dream of walking out of the department, knowing that their departure would leave it understaffed, but they wouldn’t be happy if they had to stay on indefinitely, especially those with families waiting for them to come home.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, the young officer smiled in her direction and called, ‘Would it be better if I caught up with you at the hospital, Doctor?’

‘Perfect!’ Amy called back, knowing he would be able to see her relief in her answering smile. She might actually be able to get to work on time if she didn’t have to stop to answer questions now. ‘I’m Dr Willmott. Amy Willmott, and I work in A and E.’

Then she bent towards the fragile lady to help slide the backboard gently into position on the wheeled stretcher, hoping that the motorcyclist wouldn’t see her blush and guess at the cause. It was certainly the most blatant she’d ever been, deliberately announcing who she was and where he could contact her if he was as interested as his dark eyes had implied.

‘Thanks for your assistance,’ Harry said as he finally locked one door shut then climbed into the back of the ambulance to join his patient. ‘I’ll probably see you again in a minute, if you’re on duty?’

Amy glanced at her watch and grimaced.

‘I’m due to clock on in about six and a half minutes, so I’ll see you there,’ she confirmed as she reached in her pocket for her keys.

She hurried towards her car, still sitting in front of the pedestrian crossing where she’d left it, although someone had sensibly closed the door so it wasn’t causing quite so much of an obstruction.

Her heart sank when she realised that the motorcycle was no longer beside it. She had to fight the urge to look around for its owner, even though she knew it was crazy to expect him to hang about at the site of an accident just for a chance to speak to her again, then she heard a heavy engine being kick-started into life nearby and her pulse rate soared.

Unable to help herself, she cast a quick glance across, her eyes finding him at the side of the road just in time to see him finish pulling his helmet on over that sleek dark hair while the engine rumbled powerfully between his thighs.

‘Drat!’ she muttered crossly as she fastened her seat-belt, realising that she’d only just missed her chance to see his face.

As she set her car in gear and threaded her way through the tangle of vehicles and strobe-type lights ringing the accident site, she had to suppress the old pang of regret that she’d never been brave enough to ask Zach to take her for a ride on his bike. She’d wanted to, desperately. She’d even dreamed about it, imagining how it would feel to have her hair flying out behind her as they outraced the throaty roar of the engine with her arms wrapped tightly around his lean waist and her head pressed against his shoulder…

‘Just another fantasy, of course,’ she muttered wryly as she manoeuvred her car into a tiny corner space left near the light that would illuminate this part of the staff car park as soon as dusk came. She wriggled out of the door that was so close to the next car that it could only open halfway, grateful that she was still slim enough to do it, and set off at a brisk walk towards the main entrance to the hospital. ‘The reality would probably have been very different,’ she scolded herself. ‘My ears would have got so cold that they made my teeth ache and I’d have got a collection of dead flies in my teeth and up my nose.’

‘You made it, Amy, girl,’ said a softly accented voice as she arrived at the admissions desk, her belongings hastily stuffed in her locker and a white coat pulled on over her clothes to try to disguise the grubby scuffs that had appeared on the knees of her trousers.

‘With a minute and a half to spare, Louella,’ Amy pointed out to the colleague waiting to hand over and get back home to her children before they had to leave for school. ‘I would have been here earlier, but there was an accident—’

‘On the crossing by the supermarket,’ Louella finished for her. ‘Yes, Harry told us when he brought her in. He told us it wasn’t his fault if you were late because you’d volunteered to hold his hand.’

‘As if!’ Amy scoffed. They both knew that Harry was a very happily married man whose paramedic expertise didn’t need any hand-holding either. ‘Who’s looking after the lady he brought in?’

‘Ben Finchley and the new guy starting today.’

Ben was one of the best in the department so she didn’t have to worry that her little lady was getting anything but first-class treatment.

‘New guy? Remind me,’ she demanded as she cast an eye over the multicoloured annotations on the grid of the whiteboard and stifled a groan at the sheer number of patients waiting for attention. ‘I hope he’s not someone still wet behind the ears or we’ll never get through this lot.’

‘Hardly!’ Louella exclaimed as she signed off on the last of the patients she’d treated with a flourish. ‘Apparently, he’s just finished a six-month stint in a huge A and E somewhere in Africa. I think it might have been that big hospital in Johannesburg.’

Amy blinked in surprise at the information, then wondered with her usual feeling of uneasiness if he was one of the doctors who’d been lured to Britain to prop up the ailing health service. When were the bean counters ever going to realise that it would be far more economic to retain their own staff by paying them properly, rather than robbing the rest of the world of their indigenous and desperately needed medical staff.

But there was no point voicing her thoughts here, in an A and E department that was frequently rushed off its feet. She’d be preaching to the converted, both about the effect of poor levels of pay on staff retention and their general dislike of poaching staff from other countries.

‘So, you think he’s going to be worth having on staff?’

‘Even if he isn’t able to pull his weight, he’ll be worth having around,’ Louella said with a decidedly lascivious grin. ‘He’s definitely what the kids would call eye candy!’

‘Louella! What would Sam think if he heard you talking like that?’ Amy chided with a spurt of laughter. Life was never dull with Louella around.

‘Sam knows I’m married, not dead!’ the Caribbean woman declared robustly. ‘And he knows I’ve got good taste because I chose him! Now, let me tell you what you’ve got waiting for you, then you have a good day, girl, and don’t get up to too much mischief.’ A few minutes later, the relevant information listed, she blew Amy a jaunty kiss as she bustled eagerly out of the department, clearly anticipating the welcome waiting for her at home.

For just a second, the lack of anything like a welcoming family in her own home made Amy aware that her life wasn’t quite as perfect as she liked to pretend, but there were too many patients waiting for attention for her to spend any more time bewailing the things she didn’t have any more. She had her health and a satisfying job, she reasoned as she reached for the first file, and that was more than many could boast.

She’d dealt with more than half a dozen assorted cases before she caught up with Ben Finchley as he came out of one of the treatment rooms.

‘Hey, Ben, what happened to that little lady? Broken leg and head impact first thing this morning?’ she demanded, thoughts of the poor woman having haunted her ever since the ambulance had whisked her away from the scene of the accident. ‘Were you able to do anything for her, or…?’

‘You mean Ruth?’ he said with a chuckle that shocked Amy. The woman had looked so fragile that she’d been trying to prepare herself for a worst-case scenario all morning, certainly not laughter. ‘If ever there was a case of being fooled by first appearances, it was that little lady,’ Ben said, gesturing towards the staffroom then walking beside her as she took the hint that she looked as if she was overdue for a break. ‘She looked so frail that we were convinced she must have shattered half of the bones in her body, but when we X-rayed, the only major things we could find wrong were a broken femur and a collection of spectacular bruises.’