With a strange sense that fantasy and reality had just become inextricably entwined, Amy’s heart almost forgot how to beat

It felt almost as if she was turning in slow motion until she finally faced the man who’d been standing behind her.

There was a weird feeling of inevitability as she looked up into those newly familiar dark eyes, but it wasn’t until she caught sight of that sleek dark hair that the pieces fell into place.

Zach was a doctor? In her hospital?

Dear Reader,

How many times have we daydreamed about the people we went to school with, wondering about the girl who never looked anything but perfect and the gorgeous boy who didn’t even give us a second look? Have they led a charmed existence or are they now overweight, balding…just as ordinary as the rest of us?

How about the bad boy? The one with the attitude and the leather jacket who rode a forbidden motorcycle.

I don’t have to wonder about him because I married the dark-haired, dark-eyed bad boy who showed me how to hold on tight for my first pillion ride, and have spent years discovering that bad boys can be very, very good.

Amy never saw Zach again after they left school and has always wondered what happened to him. Their teachers had predicted that he would end up in prison…or worse…but he’d stolen her heart when they were partnered in the labs at school. She’s never forgotten him, even though she’s now a successful E.R. doctor.

And now, here he is, far from being the failure everyone had predicted, but a doctor, too, and the effect he has on her heart is more potent than ever.

Her parents are still warning her against him, but this time Amy is determined to take a walk on the wild side.

I hope you enjoy taking the journey with Zach and Amy as much as I did writing about it.

Happy reading!

Josie

A Very Special Proposal
Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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.’

‘But…’ Amy blinked. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same patient? You can’t mean the woman who had to throw herself backwards to avoid being run over. Her legs collapsed under her and she hit the ground so hard…’

‘The very same,’ Ben confirmed with a broad grin. ‘Like you, we were convinced we were going to find a fractured skull, at the very least, and we were half expecting her to peg out before we could do anything for her. Instead, she’s already conscious and it looks as if she’s going to pull through and come out of it with colours flying, once the orthopods patch her leg up with a shiny new joint.’ He lifted the jar of coffee and a questioning eyebrow and Amy nodded, still bemused by the incredible tale he was telling.

‘Mind you,’ he continued, as he poured in the hot water and added a splash of milk to each when she nodded again, ‘that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t got the mother and father of all headaches at the moment, but when we tried to give her some morphine to take some of the pain away while she waited to go to Theatre, she told us in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want any of that nasty stuff because it made her sick the last time she was given it—when she had her appendix taken out as a teenager.’

He turned to hand her the steaming mug and offer her a giant glass jar of sugar when he caught sight of someone over Amy’s shoulder. ‘Hey, here’s the man who was working on Ruth with me. Have you met our new colleague? He’s just joined us from a hospital on the other side of the world where the sort of thing we deal with here would be nothing more than a walk in the park. Amy Willmott, meet Zach Bowman.’

CHAPTER TWO

WITH a strange sense that fantasy and reality had just become inextricably entwined, Amy’s heart almost forgot how to beat.

It felt almost as if she was turning in slow motion until she finally faced the man who’d been standing behind her.

There was a weird feeling of inevitability as she looked up into those newly familiar dark eyes but it wasn’t until she caught sight of that sleek dark hair cut close to his head, when once it had curled rebelliously almost to his shoulders, that the pieces fell into place.

‘It was you!’ she breathed when she recognised the motorcyclist from the scene of the accident that morning, the broad shoulders she’d admired earlier in the day so much wider and more muscular than those of the teenage boy she remembered so clearly. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘It wasn’t the time or the place and, anyway, I didn’t know if you’d even remember me,’ he said, then she caught a glimpse of that old familiar gleam in his eyes. ‘So, ABC, how have you been?’

‘ABC? Do you two know each other already?’ Ben was trying to keep up with this unexpected development but Amy barely heard him, every atom of her concentration focused on the man she’d nearly looked up on the internet just last night, the man she’d been convinced that she’d never see again because he was probably in prison or dead. Zach was a doctor? In her hospital?

‘Amy Bowes Clark was my lab partner for sciences when we were at school together,’ Zach explained with a slightly dismissive air, as though the matter was hardly worth mentioning, and Amy was struck by a pang that felt almost like disappointment.

‘You know very well that I never used the Clark, and I regretted ever telling you about it,’ she added crisply, remembering the way it had given him ammunition for teasing her about being far too upper crust for an ordinary state school. But at the same time it had also caused a strange sense of connection with him that he’d actually felt at ease enough with her to tease her about her family name and what it did to her initials. It had been more than he ever had with the other members of their class.

‘Dr Bowman?’ called a voice from the door, and all three of them turned to see one of the younger receptionists there. Her eyes were bright with appreciation as they travelled over Zach’s lean frame and Amy was startled to feel the sharp claws of possessive jealousy rake her when he smiled back at the young woman.

‘The police just phoned through and I thought you’d like to get the message as soon as possible,’ she said with an ingratiating smile that clearly telegraphed her availability. ‘They said to tell you that they ran that licence plate you gave them, and they’ve tracked the car down. They found clear evidence that it had been involved in a recent accident and wanted to know if it could have struck the patient. They’ll want to compare DNA from your patient.’

‘Did they leave a contact number?’

‘Oh, yes! Here,’ she purred as she offered him a piece of paper, then added in a blatant attempt at seduction, ‘And I put my number on there, too…in case you needed it for…anything.’

‘Thank you for passing the message on so promptly,’ Zach said blandly, tucking the piece of paper in his pocket unread. He turned to Ben and Amy. ‘What are the protocols in the hospital for getting permission for taking DNA samples?’

There was a silence that went on just a beat or two too long as the woman left the room, clearly crestfallen that Zach hadn’t responded to her invitation with something more personal, but as soon as the door closed behind her there was a definite response from the rest of the males in the room.

‘Hey! You’re in there, Zach!’ called one.

‘Way to go!’ hooted another. ‘That’s quick work.’

‘You haven’t even been here for a day and they’re already panting after you. You’ll have to tell us your secret,’ said a third.

‘It’s probably just that I’m new,’ Zach said dismissively, and when Amy saw the darker colour seeping over the lean planes of his face she suddenly realised that he was genuinely uncomfortable with the attention.

‘It always happens with fresh meat, male or female, or can’t you remember that far back, John?’ she teased one of the older consultants who’d joined in the catcalls. ‘Give it a day or two for her to see him haggard and unshaven at the end of a long shift and she’ll soon turn her sights on someone else.’

‘Now I don’t know whether to thank you for taking the heat off me or feel insulted that you were so dismissive of my charms,’ Zach said so softly that his voice probably didn’t reach even as far as Ben’s ears.

He’d leaned closer to her, close enough for her to see every one of those absurdly long eyelashes and the start of creases at the corners of his eyes put there, in all probability, by six months of squinting into fierce African sunlight. He was also close enough for her to be able to feel the warmth emanating from his body and smell the hint of soap or shampoo that still lingered on his skin in spite of several hours of hard and often messy work.

It wasn’t anything with a strong perfume—she couldn’t ever remember him smelling of anything other than plain clean soap and water—and when it was underscored by the individual musky scent of his skin, it made her body react more strongly than Edward’s expensive colognes ever had.

His raised eyebrow reminded her that she hadn’t replied to his last comment but her brain was so overloaded with his proximity that she couldn’t even remember what he’d said.

Luckily, her blushes were spared by a head appearing around the door to announce the imminent arrival of several ambulances and she was left with the choice of scalding her mouth, trying to finish her coffee too fast, or abandoning the mug. She abandoned it with one last longing look and a mental note to try again soon. Her brain would soon slow down if she became dehydrated.

The brain is a perverse thing, she mused an hour later as she ducked a flailing fist as she tried to position an IV.

The patient on the table was suffering from multiple injuries from a car crash, yet, in spite of the fact he desperately needed their help, insisted in trying to fight them off.

Her own brain was no more logical.

Her first response to having to leave Zach to get to work on the unending influx of patients was relief. But, at the same time, her brain seemed to be silently counting the seconds until she could see him again, desperate to know whether her initial reaction to his presence had just been the result of shock.

It must be, she told herself reassuringly. It couldn’t be anything more than a knee-jerk reaction to meeting the man she’d been thinking about just last night. She’d got over that silly crush years ago.

Really? taunted the voice inside her head. Then why are your eyes searching him out every time you walk to your next patient and why are you straining your ears for the sound of his voice?

‘That’s just because…because I want a chance to find out what happened to turn his life around,’ she justified defiantly under her breath as she pulled on a second pair of gloves to treat one of the department’s ‘regulars’—a young drug addict whose HIV had already developed into full-blown AIDS.

‘What happened this time, Tommy?’ she asked gently as she took in the battered face. The way he was hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his ribs told her that they were probably in the same state.

‘Some people don’t seem to like beggars,’ he mumbled painfully through split lips.

‘I think you just can’t stay away from me,’ she teased as she slowly helped him to take off the clothing hanging on his skeletal frame, hoping she wouldn’t find anything more than bruises. She didn’t know whether he had enough reserves in his system to cope with broken ribs or, even worse, a punctured lung.

‘Sorry, Doc. You aren’t my type,’ he retorted with an attempt at a smile that ended in a wince as he opened up the cut on his lip again. ‘On the other hand, that is someone I could really go for…’ There was an unexpected gleam of appreciation in his least swollen eye as he nodded at something he could see beyond her shoulder.

Amy turned to find out who had caught his eye, and there, through a gap in the curtains, was Zach, a quizzical expression on his face as he watched…what? Tommy? Her?

Their eyes met and when her heart felt as if it turned a complete somersault in her chest she realised that this was something more than the lingering memory of a teenage crush.

‘You and me both,’ she muttered with feeling, and her hands tingled with more than a remembered longing to explore the clean lines of his face and the strength of his powerful body.

Tommy laughed aloud. ‘Down, girl!’ he teased as Zach responded to the sudden burst of sound, his dark eyes seeming to find hers unerringly. ‘It wouldn’t be a fair contest…I’m in no condition to fight you for him.’

The reminder that the young man was her patient and had potentially serious injuries snapped her back to what she should be doing with a guilty start, but she still had to force herself to drag her eyes away from the man outside the curtain.

‘So, let’s see what we can do to get you back in fighting form,’ she suggested, and began to palpate the darkly bruised ribs.

‘I dunno about fighting form,’ he said around a groan of pain. ‘I’d be grateful just to have a good summer. I’d rather not be around when winter comes.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, concerned. There had been such resignation in his tone…far too much for someone who hadn’t even reached his twenties yet.

‘I won’t make it through another winter on the street,’ he said bluntly. ‘And to tell the truth, I don’t really want to.’

‘Oh, Tommy…If you had a place in a hostel…’ Amy began, but he was shaking his head before she could complete the sentence.

‘They’ll only take you in if you’re clean—off drugs,’ he clarified, in case she didn’t understand.

‘But I’m sure we could find you a place on a programme to—’

‘Not a lot of point, is there, Doc, with me in this state? Anyway, I’m not too keen on going back into the system, seeing as how it was the system that did this to me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said quietly while she systematically cleaned up his wounds one by one, taping steristrips over the cuts that would heal without stitches and leaving the worst until last for suturing. This was the most she’d ever heard Tommy say about his life but she’d known that there were dark shadows in his background—she could tell by the expression in his eyes. They held the same fathomless, wary depths that she’d first seen in…Zach?

‘I was put into care when I was about four, when my mum dumped me at the social services office, and the system was so glad they’d found somewhere to put me that they forgot about me.’

He fixed her with eyes that were uncannily like Zach’s for the amount they kept hidden, but suddenly she realised that there was also a banked inferno of emotions raging underneath his apparent apathy.

‘By the time someone thought to check up on why I kept trying to run away, the bastard who was supposed to be looking after me like a father had been abusing me for years and I was HIV positive.’

‘Oh, Tommy…’ Amy breathed, her heart breaking for all the misery he’d suffered in his life…was still suffering, she realised, confronted with the evidence of his latest assault.

‘Hey, I’m cool,’ he said with an awkward shrug, even though the slight flush of colour in his pale cheeks told her he’d been touched by her sympathy. ‘If I’m lucky, it’ll be a good summer. I’ve got no job to go to so I’ll be outside in the sunshine with plenty of time to listen to the birds and smell the flowers while I stick my hand out for money for my next fix. By the time winter comes…who knows?’ he finished with another shrug and a corresponding grunt of pain when the manoeuvre jarred his ribs.

‘Have you been taking any anti-retroviral medications?’ Even as she asked, Amy realised that Tommy’s drug abuse would probably preclude his adherence to any regular preventative treatment.

‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, obeying her silent gesture to turn his head for the next set of stitches to close the wound in his scalp. ‘They made me feel worse than coming off dope, and it was already too late to have any real effect. Anyway, if I was given a supply of drugs…any drugs…I’d more than likely be mugged for them.’

Amy couldn’t argue with that. Tommy was the expert when it came to conditions on the streets.

‘Well, you probably already know that one of the dangers now is developing an infection that your body can’t fight.’

‘So they tell me, but I’ve been lucky so far—apart from having the crap kicked out of me. Haven’t had anything more than a cold.’

The conversation died for a few minutes while Amy concentrated on making a neat job of his scalp, grateful that he’d chosen such a brutally short hairstyle as it made the task so much easier.

Finally, as she handed over to the nurse to tape a protective dressing in place, she positioned herself so that she met his gaze head on, her pen poised over the clipboard that held his notes.

‘So, Tommy, if I give you a course of antibiotics, will you promise me that you’ll take the whole course?’

‘How long is a course?’ he parried warily.

‘Just until you come back to have your stitches taken out?’ she bargained, her heart aching that there was so little she could do for him. ‘A week? Would you be able to keep them out of sight for a week?’

‘Make it five days and I’ll do my best,’ he countered, then grinned cheekily. ‘And that’s only because you asked nicely.’

‘They break your heart sometimes, the way they’ve had to survive,’ said a quiet voice just behind her, and when Amy looked over her shoulder and up into Zach’s dark eyes she realised that he understood far more about the hell Tommy had gone through than she would ever know.

‘So, who is Mr Willmott?’ said that same voice right behind her in the cafeteria queue, and Amy gasped, dragged out of her pessimistic thoughts about young Tommy’s chances of surviving into his twenties by the man who could have ended up just like Tommy, if his teachers had been right.

‘Dr Willmott,’ she corrected automatically, only remembering as she said it that, of course, it had reverted to Mr when Edward had climbed up the next rung of the promotion ladder. Not that it was relevant any more.

‘Really,’ Zach said as he took a tray from the pile and kept pace with her slow shuffle in the queue towards the hot meals. ‘I presume he works here. Is he in A and E, too, or one of the other departments?’

‘No, he doesn’t work here.’ Suddenly she felt strangely guilty to be talking about her husband with Zach, but couldn’t find a way to end the conversation without sounding rude. ‘He’s…He was killed. A year ago. On the motorway.’

The words emerged in jerky lumps. Uncomfortable. Unpractised.

After the initial ‘getting to know you’ enquiries, the other A and E staff had tactfully refrained from asking for any more painful details and she certainly hadn’t volunteered. The only people who talked about Edward any more were her parents, bewailing the loss of her handsome, successful husband every time she set foot in their house, and his parents, endlessly, when she made her duty visits.

And yet…for the first time, she actually wanted to talk about what had happened. Did this mean that she was actually coming to terms with her loss, or was it because it was Zach she was telling?

Almost as soon as they were sitting down she found the stark details pouring out of her as if she needed to purge herself of the words. Somehow, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t seen him for so many years—and hadn’t really known him well even then—she knew that she could trust him with her confidences.

‘There was a pile-up in bad weather…dozens of cars involved…a woman had been thrown out of a vehicle. Apparently, Edward saw it happen. He pulled over and got out to help and was hit by another car. He was killed instantly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Zach said, visibly shocked and clearly at a loss for what to say.

‘He was on his way back from a conference,’ Amy went on, the words coming easier now that she’d started. ‘I didn’t even know it had happened…that he was dead…until the police came to tell me.’ She shuddered at the memory of the late-night knock at the door.

‘Did you have any children?’ he asked, a perfectly ordinary question but one that caused a familiar pang for lost opportunities.

‘No. We hadn’t got as far as starting a family,’ she admitted sadly. ‘It’s still just me and my parents.’

For a second she thought she saw something dark in his eyes at that information, but couldn’t be sure—it was gone too soon.

She knew it couldn’t have been put there by her mention of her family, because he’d never met them, but that didn’t stop her speculating that she might have reminded him about something painful in his past.

How many relationships had he had since the days when she’d sighed over him in their biology and chemistry lessons? Probably far too many to count, with his bad-boy good looks…and why the thought of all those women should cause something painful to tighten around her heart…

‘Do you still live in the same place?’ he asked. ‘The big stone house near the top of the hill?’

‘I’ve got my own place now, not far from the hospital, but…How did you know where I lived?’

There was a glimpse of that shadow in his eyes again but then it was gone, hidden behind those thick dark lashes that he still seemed to have a habit of using to camouflage his thoughts.

‘How did I know where the princess’s castle was?’ he teased, looking up from the coffee he’d purchased to finish his meal, but there was an edge to his voice that was all too reminiscent of the old Zach. ‘Everyone knew where the Bowes Clarks lived. It certainly wasn’t any secret.’

And how Amy had hated the fact that, all too often, as soon as people realised who her parents were, they treated her differently, as though family wealth made her something other than just another teenager trying to get good exam results. Unfortunately, her parents still had some sort of crazy idea that their family was somehow inherently ‘better class’ than their neighbours and that their daughter should automatically—

Her thoughts were cut off by the simultaneous shrilling of their pagers.

‘Well, we almost managed an uninterrupted meal,’ Zach said as they both hastily piled the debris onto a single tray, depositing it in the appropriate place as they hurried towards the door, knowing that the ‘multiple trauma’ message could be anything from a small handful to dozens that would require all available staff.

‘Sorry to interrupt your meal break,’ the co-ordinator said as they appeared in the department, her gaze taking on a speculative air as she saw them arrive together. ‘We’re taking in the overflow from a major motorway incident. Initial estimates of ten vehicles involved seems to be going up every time the emergency services speak to us. The last person I spoke to said it could be as many as thirty.’

‘So, where do you want us, Liz?’ Amy offered, not envying her the major logistical nightmare she was going to have to deal with over the next few hours.

‘Could you both start off processing the walking wounded to keep the decks clear for the major injuries coming in? At some stage you’ll have to be redirected to Resus as the more serious patients start arriving, but—’

‘Has someone warned the patients already waiting that they could be about to be pushed to the back of the list again?’ Zach asked with a glance towards the grid on the whiteboard that was heavily populated with the names of the people already signed into the department and waiting for attention.

‘I’m just about to do that,’ the co-ordinator said with a grimace. ‘I wanted to get my troops organised first.’

‘Bang goes the department’s performance targets,’ Amy said grimly. ‘Those politicians who think they can sit at a desk and tell a doctor how many minutes it should take to treat a patient should try coming down here and seeing what it’s like living in the real world. It couldn’t be less like a production line in a factory.’

‘Don’t get me started!’ Liz warned. ‘If they’d only pay the staff properly we’d have enough of them willing to stay to do the job. As it is, all the money seems to be swallowed up by employing more and more administrators to carry stopwatches for the politicians.’

‘I heard that there are now more administrators in the hospital than there are patients!’ offered one of the staff nurses as she moved a patient’s name from one place on the board across to the list signifying that they were now waiting their turn for X-rays.

‘Don’t depress me!’ Liz groaned with a shake of her head as Amy hurried after Zach, her voice carrying along the corridor. ‘I wouldn’t mind if the extra staff were actually doing some of the real work…cleaning floors, delivering meals or spending time with patients. As it is, it seems as if their only function is to draw eye-watering salaries for shuffling unnecessary papers…’

‘Oops! I’m sorry I spoke!’ Amy murmured with a wry grin as she and Zach stationed themselves in adjoining stations in a three-bay treatment room, donning gloves and disposable aprons in preparation for their first patients. ‘I didn’t mean to set her off like that.’

‘It’s such a sore spot with medical personnel that it’s difficult not to,’ Zach said sombrely. ‘When you apply to medical school, they certainly don’t warn you just how demoralised you’ll be by the time you finish your training. You’ve just spent years piling up debt while you slog your guts out to qualify, and you…we…can see what’s wrong and how to fix it, but they bring in someone from big business who hasn’t a clue what medical priorities are and he builds an empire of bean counters trying to run it like…like…’

‘Perhaps you should think about something else, too, or your blood pressure will be astronomical,’ Amy teased, even as she appreciated the fire in his eyes as he voiced his views.

They barely had time to treat one patient apiece before the floodgates opened and from that point on there certainly wasn’t time to conduct a debate about the shortcomings of the health service. There was time, though, for Amy to realise that Zach’s impassioned pronouncement showed a different side of his character to the Zach she’d known all those years ago.

Then he’d mostly kept his head down below the parapet, limiting his subversion to the length of his hair, his leather jacket and his motorbike. Even so, the teachers had seemed to target him for scorn and derision, belittling his work in front of his peers and denigrating his chances of ever making anything of himself.

‘If they could only see him now!’ she breathed into her disposable mask as she hurried to lend him a hand putting in a drain when a patient collapsed spectacularly with a previously undiagnosed flail chest. Every movement was swift, decisive, accurate and, in its own way, beautiful to watch. There was absolutely nothing of the juvenile delinquent in this caring, dedicated man.

‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, the slightly gruff tone to his voice her only clue to the fact that he’d been worried whether he would be able to sort out the problem before it resulted in brain damage and heart failure.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said with a smile that answered his relief, and suddenly knew that there was more to the words than their social meaning.

It had only been a matter of hours since she’d been tempted to try to track him down on an internet website. Not wanting to destroy her teenage fantasies, she’d decided against finding out what had happened to him but, as if by magic, he’d reappeared in her life.

‘So, where do I go from here?’ she murmured, groaning as she tried to stretch the kinks out of her neck and shoulders after long minutes spent retrieving far too much of a shattered windscreen from a child’s face. It was going to take the expert techniques of their most experienced plastic surgeon to minimise the scarring that would be a permanent reminder of this day. In the meantime, she could step out of the way while the cubicle was cleared of debris and readied for the next patient and lean back against the nearest wall to allow her spinal muscles to recover. She didn’t even have the energy to remove her gloves or apron.

‘You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?’ Zach demanded, his shoulder almost touching hers as he joined her against the wall. ‘I thought you were settled in the area?’

Amy blinked at the unexpected questions, belatedly realising that she must have spoken her own thoughts aloud.

What could she say? I was just wondering whether I had any more chance of attracting you now than I did as a teenager?

‘I am settled, I think. I’m close enough to my parents so that visiting them doesn’t have to be a major time-consuming trek, yet far enough away so I can call my life my own…’…More or less, she added silently, hoping she hadn’t grimaced at the thought of the way the two of them still tried to organise her life for her.

Which reminded her, she thought with a barely stifled groan.

There had been a message on her phone earlier, reminding her that she was supposed to be attending some ‘do’ this evening. She certainly couldn’t remember what it was about—with her father a stalwart member of so many prestigious committees and boards of governors, there was usually something at which it was ‘imperative’ she show her face.

She also had a sneaking suspicion that, now that a year had passed since she’d been widowed, her mother was trying to be surreptitious about using the events to introduce her to a selection of ‘suitable’ men from whom she would be expected to choose another husband.

Not that her parents could ever find fault with her first choice, as they told her ad nauseam, but if she was ever to provide them with the grandchild they needed if they were to pass on their inheritance…

For just a second she toyed with the idea of inviting Zach to go as her partner, but it was definitely a less shocking idea than it would have been when he’d sported his unruly hair and an attitude to match. He might still ride a motorbike, but as a fully qualified doctor, the rebel was now well and truly part of the establishment.

Anyway, if she did ever get up the courage to invite Zach to go out with her—or vice versa—the very last place she’d want to go to fulfil her fantasy would be anywhere under her parents’ eagle eyes.

She glanced up at the clock, hoping for a moment that the current workload would give her the excuse to phone and cancel, but no such luck.

‘Clock-watching?’ Zach asked while she was still trying to work out some way of avoiding an evening of tedium. ‘Got a hot date this evening?’

‘Hardly!’ She laughed. ‘Just a command performance at some semi-formal function—some committee or other—and the very last thing I want to do after a shift like this. I can’t imagine anything worse than being herded into a room full of people spouting inanities, plied with white wine so acid that you could use it to clean drains and offered very pretty-looking “nibbles” that are totally tasteless unless they’ve been overloaded with salt and artificial flavourings when I’d far rather have a hearty plate of spaghetti Bolognese or carbonara.’

Zach chuckled. ‘I remember that about you—the way you could always put away about twice the calories of any other woman and still stay so slim. And you had the best brain in the class. No wonder the other girls were jealous of you.’

Simultaneously embarrassed by the praise and delighted that he’d noticed anything personal about her, she forgot to keep a tight rein on her tongue.

‘If they were jealous of me it was because I had the sexiest boy in the class as my lab partner,’ she countered, then groaned in humiliation, mortified that she couldn’t remember what she’d last touched with her gloved hands and so couldn’t even cover her red face. Furious with herself for putting her foot in her own mouth, she stripped the gloves off and flung them into the bin then made a performance about donning a clean pair.

‘The sexiest boy in the class?’ he repeated with a dawning grin. ‘Really? If only I’d known!’

‘You must have known!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s why you always grew your hair so long, wore the leather jacket and rode the motorbike…a motorbike, by the way, that everyone in the class, male or female, wanted an invitation to ride.’

‘Ready for your next one?’ prompted Liz in the doorway behind them while Amy was still desperately wanting to call back her words. If only there was a way of turning the clock back just one minute. ‘We’re down to the last few who were delayed by the influx from the motorway.’

‘Wheel them in,’ Zach invited in a resigned tone that completely disappeared as soon as Liz’s head did from the doorway. Then he took several long strides to bring him close enough that their shoulders touched as he leant against the wall beside her, his broad muscular one against her more slender one.

Below the short sleeves of their faded green scrubs his firm flesh was hot and darkly tanned against her cooler, paler skin, but she shivered at the intimacy of the contact, overwhelmingly aware that he was doing it deliberately.

‘One day,’ he murmured for her ears alone, ‘I might tell you why I really dressed that way.’

CHAPTER THREE

ZACH leant back into the corner of the wooden bench, swung his feet up onto the other end of the seat and sighed with relief.

It felt as if it had been days since he’d last had time to sit down and it wasn’t just his feet doing the complaining.

He took a cautious sip of the outsized mug of coffee, then a deeper draught when he found it had cooled enough on his journey out to this little courtyard area hidden in an angle of the building housing the A and E department.

His view of the night sky was disappointing. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but many of the stars would always remain invisible because there were so many streetlights around.

It hadn’t been like that at the refugee camp. There, when night had fallen, the only light to break the complete darkness had been the occasional flickering of firelight or the generator-powered lights in the operating theatre. There, the sky had been full of billions of points of starlight, all so clear and bright that it had seemed as if he could almost reach out and grab a handful of them.

Fanciful nonsense, of course, just like his dream last night that Amy was riding on the back of his motorbike, her arms wrapped around his waist and her body pressed tightly against him as they sped through the night together.

Had his subconscious somehow known that she was about to reappear in his life? Had it been warning him, or was it that age-old wishful thinking? If he’d known that the elegant woman bending over the elderly hit-and-run victim had been his ABC he might have managed to introduce himself in an adult manner. As it was, he’d had a hard time trying not to swallow his tongue as all those old feelings had flooded over him in a maelstrom.

‘Ha!’ he snorted into the darkness. ‘Even my dreams are stuck in an adolescent time warp. You’d think I’d manage to come up with something new in the last fifteen years!’

It wasn’t as if he’d received any encouragement from her, then or now. She would always be the princess to his pauper, something that was obvious even when they were both wearing unisex scrub suits. She would never look anything less than cool and elegant while he…

He glanced down at the crumpled state of the shapeless garb and chuckled at the thought of covering the top half, at least, under his leather jacket. That was the way he’d coped at school, camouflaging the fact that although they were perfectly clean, his clothes were disintegrating with age because there was so little money to replace them.

Anyway, it wasn’t as though smart clothing would have made any difference at school. According to his teachers, he had been thick and stupid and on the fast track to oblivion. Amy had been the only one who’d spoken to him as if he’d had more than two brain cells between his ears. She’d been the one who’d made him think that, perhaps, there might be another road to travel than the one to perdition, that, maybe, she would be interested in him if he were to ask.

He’d soon found out that the princess’s interest had been anything but personal, and for a week or two had gone into self-destruct mode. Luckily, that hadn’t happened until after he’d taken all his exams, and by the time his successful results had come through he’d got his head on straight again and his eyes fixed on that distant goal.

‘And it’s staying that way!’ he declared into the darkness, even as the alarm on his watch reminded him that it was time to get ready for the hospital fundraiser he’d been conned into attending.

He swung his feet to the ground and levered himself upright with a groan. ‘So, just you remember that you learned your lesson the first time around,’ he reminded himself sternly. ‘Princesses and paupers don’t mix.’

Except the reminder didn’t stop his pulse rate rocketing into the stratosphere when he saw Amy enter the room an hour later, her honey hair freshly coiled in some elegant arrangement high on her head and her slender body draped in a fluid column of something dark blue shot with shimmering strands of silver that instantly made him think of stars in a midnight sky.

‘Fanciful nonsense,’ he muttered under his breath as he turned his back on her and accepted a glass from the brimming tray offered by a smiling waiter. But, even though he set off to circulate in the opposite direction, somehow he always seemed to know exactly where she was, the pale gold of her hair attracting his gaze like a candle flame across a dim room.

Finally, with an audible groan that startled the heavily bejewelled matron beside him, he gave in to the inevitable.

‘Dr Willmott, I presume?’ he said when he joined her at one side of the crowd. ‘You look a little different.’

‘Zach!’ The pleasure in her eyes when she caught sight of him gave his spirits a nitroglycerine lift, as did the subtle widening of her pupils when her eyes travelled over his evening suit. ‘You scrub up well, too. I’ve never met a man yet who didn’t look good in a DJ—a bit like James Bond, all suave and sophisticated.’

‘Suave and sophisticated?’ he repeated with a blink, never having thought of himself that way. ‘I think I like that.’

‘Not that I didn’t like your old leather jacket and your snazzy motorbike leathers this morning,’ she teased.

‘Zo, tell me,’ Zach said in a heavily faked Germanic accent. ‘How long have you had zis leather fetish?’

Amy chuckled aloud, the serene grey of her eyes gleaming with her appreciation of his nonsense, and his spirits lifted still further.

‘If I’d known you were coming to this thing, too, perhaps we could have come together,’ he suggested, deliberately stifling the logical voice in the back of his head that was telling him to walk away now, while he still could. ‘That way I wouldn’t have had to dread standing around all by myself in a room full of strangers.’

‘You needed someone to hold your hand?’ she teased, and for just a moment he was tempted to do just that. He’d done nothing more than accidentally brush against her when they’d been tending a patient today, and the contact had felt electric. Had it been some sort of fluke reaction, or merely static electricity? Or had the awareness that had caused his teenaged self to spend endless hours fantasising survived fifteen years intact?

‘Amy, dear,’ said a cultured voice behind them. ‘Do introduce us to your friend.’

The hairs went up on the back of his neck. It had been fifteen years since he’d last heard that voice but he’d never forgotten it…probably never would.

‘Father,’ Amy said with a smile as they turned to face the older couple standing behind them, but he took petty delight in the fact that it was a far less carefree one than those she’d bestowed on him. ‘Hello, Mother. I’ve always loved that colour on you.’

‘Amy.’ The well-preserved woman returned her daughter’s hug with such a restrained gentility that it seemed to Zach as though she was more worried about their greeting creasing the burgundy fabric of her dress than embracing her only child. ‘Darling, why aren’t you wearing the dress I sent over for you?’

‘I’m sorry, Mother, but I didn’t see it until I was almost ready to leave the house. If I’d stopped to change at that point, it would have made me late,’ Amy said with every appearance of regret, but somehow Zach knew it was faked. There was a definite subtext to this conversation that was probably far more interesting than what was actually being said. He would have to get Amy to explain it later.

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