‘Calm down, sweetheart,’ he said, thwarting her half-hearted efforts by drawing her closer to his chest. ‘It’s not a problem.’

‘It’s difficult to calm d-down,’ she sobbed against his throat. ‘All I can think of is those poor people and everything they’ve l-lost and … and …’

She turned her head to look up at him just as he angled his to press his face against hers, and somehow, accidentally, fleetingly, their lips brushed.

He froze, unable to breathe, convinced that even his heart had stopped beating for several timeless seconds as he savoured the softness of her mouth against his for the first time.

‘Daniel?’ she whispered huskily, and he was utterly amazed that she hadn’t immediately broken the contact between them …

About the Author

JOSIE METCALFE lives in Cornwall with her long-suffering husband. They have four children. When she was an army brat, frequently on the move, books became the only friends that came with her wherever she went. Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends, and hates saying goodbye at the end of a book—but there are always more characters in her head, clamouring for attention until she can’t wait to tell their stories.

Also by Josie Metcalfe:

A WIFE FOR THE BABY DOCTOR

SHEIKH SURGEON CLAIMS HIS BRIDE*

THE DOCTOR’S BRIDE BY SUNRISE*

*Brides of Penhally Bay

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

‘PLEASE, Colin, I said no,’ Jenny repeated, wondering why it seemed so hard to get the words out. It almost felt as if her tongue was tied. ‘Th-thank you for bringing me home, but now it’s time for you to go.’

‘You don’t really mean that, sweetie … not after all these weeks. Your family is just waiting to see my ring on your finger.’ Colin nuzzled the side of her neck and when she could barely breathe for the pungent aftershave he was wearing, she remembered all too clearly why she’d always hated the smell of scent on a man.

She hitched her shoulder and tried to twist her head out of reach when his lips started to slide their way towards her mouth.

‘Well, my family will just have to w-wait,’ she said, but the words just didn’t seem to emerge with the same degree of vehemence that they left her brain … and her tongue now felt as if it was too big for her mouth … and as for her eyes … it was almost impossible to focus and the lids were so heavy …

‘I only w-went out with you tonight because … because it had been arranged before we … we broke up.’

‘We didn’t break up, sweetie,’ he argued in that patronising way that managed to set her teeth on edge even when it seemed as if it came from several miles away.

‘You must have had a bit too much to drink if you think that was anything more than a minor tiff. Anyway, you’ll have forgotten all about it by the time you wake up in the morning with my ring on your finger …’

‘N-no! No ring!’ she said as vehemently as she could, but when she shook her head she lost her balance and nearly fell over.

‘Excuse me?’ said another male voice from an impossibly long way away. ‘Is there a problem, here?’ There was something very familiar about that new voice and she just about managed to focus on the face of the man who was able to grab her before she landed on her bottom in the hallway.

She felt curiously disconnected from everything around her, almost as if she was watching it all happening to someone else; watching as her rescuer retrieved her key and sent a clearly furious Colin away.

When her knight in shining armour swept her up into his arms she couldn’t even summon up the coordination to wrap her arms around his neck, but with her head lolling on his shoulder she drew in a deep breath of soap and male skin that was oh, so familiar … trustworthy … safe.

The last fleeting memory she had was of this new but familiar man carrying her into her flat and depositing her on her bed, shoes and all, and pulling the covers over her.

Miracle

Times Two

Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘UM … THANK you for the other night,’ Jenny said, the heat of embarrassment crawling visibly up her throat and into her face.

‘No thanks necessary,’ Daniel Carterton said lightly, guessing that the newest member of his team must have spent the whole of her day off working up to this apology. ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’ And if she believed that, there was a rather ornate bridge in central London on special offer.

He’d chosen his seat at the banquet honouring her father so that he could lighten the boredom of the affair by catching glimpses of Jenny across the room. That self-indulgence had been the only reason why he’d noticed the surreptitious way her companion had been topping up her glass throughout the evening. His suspicions were raised by the smug look of satisfaction on the man’s face when Jenny had been less than steady on her feet when she’d finally got up from the table, but that didn’t stop him from feeling almost like a stalker when he’d decided to follow them to make sure she arrived home safely.

‘Do you want to answer that thing?’ Daniel asked as Jenny’s phone rang.

‘Not in this lifetime,’ she said grimly after a glance at the screen, silencing the noise with a press of a button to send the call direct to voicemail. ‘And if I knew how to bar him from connecting with my mobile at all, I’d be happier still.’

‘Trouble in paradise, Jennywren?’ he teased, knowing he should go straight to hell for crossing his fingers that he was right. Jenny Sinclair was a genuinely lovely person who deserved a happy life with someone her equal … something he could never be. He’d been born so far on the other side of the tracks that he couldn’t even hear the train from there.

And it certainly wouldn’t make any difference that he’d worked his cotton socks off to become one of the youngest consultants in his field. As someone who’d only scraped into one of the lesser medical schools at his second attempt, he wouldn’t stand a chance of gaining her parents’ approval. Their blatant professional elitism meant that the fact that he’d been self-supporting and working crazy hours to earn every penny necessary to put himself through his training would count for nothing … even if he were ever to tell them about it. It certainly wouldn’t make them look any more favourably on him for daring to look at their daughter.

So, he’d resigned himself to the fact that the only woman who could make his heart give that extra beat just by thinking about her was the one he could never have.

Well, if he was forever condemned to the role of colleague, occasional guardian angel and potential friend, he might just as well enjoy it while he could. Since Jenny had joined his unit he’d already seen a number of men make a blatant play for her, but without apparent success. Whoever was trying to ring her wasn’t going to fare any better, if the expression on her face was anything to go by, but it wouldn’t be long before another took his place, not with someone as special as his little Jennywren.

Except … there was something different, this time. A shadow that hadn’t been there before?

‘Come on. Spill the beans,’ he coaxed lightly, knowing he was venturing into new ground. ‘Which one’s causing a problem? Tell big brother all about it.’

‘Big brother?’ She threw him an old-fashioned look from those fascinating hazel eyes before she pondered darkly for a moment.

He was almost holding his breath hoping she would confide in him when she suddenly burst into speech.

‘It’s Colin Fletcher,’ she revealed grimly. ‘He’s obviously so thick-skinned that he can’t take a hint … even after you sent him off with a flea in his ear the other night.’

‘That man was Colin Fletcher? As in, your father’s blue-eyed boy, Fletcher?’ That did surprise him. He knew the name from hospital gossip but hadn’t realised the man had been Jenny’s escort that night. He was reputed to be a born social climber from an apparently well-to-do family, and it had been hinted that the man had his eye set firmly on taking over Jenny’s father’s prestigious position at the hospital, to say nothing of inheriting his lucrative private practice when the great man could be persuaded to retire. It was now blindingly obvious to Daniel that, as his son-in-law, Fletcher would be the obvious choice, and if he were to have a glowing recommendation from the great man himself, it would practically make any interviews for a replacement unnecessary.

He saw her shudder with something more than distaste in her expression, and knowing that she was remembering what had happened that night, every protective instinct leapt to attention.

‘He must be the slimiest, most insincere, self-serving … weasel in the whole hospital,’ she continued heatedly, sparks almost radiating from her. ‘He insisted on holding me to the arrangement to sit at my parents’ table at that big “do” the other night—in spite of the fact we weren’t going out any more. He then plastered himself to my side as if we were Siamese twins, and even though I never have more than two glasses of wine when I go out, he must have been topping up my glass on the sly all evening, so he’d have the perfect excuse to see me home.’

‘You’d already told him you wouldn’t be going out with him any more?’ Daniel gave her points for working out exactly what had happened at the same time as he added another item to the list of why he didn’t like this Fletcher character. Top of the list was the fact that the man was the immaculately groomed poster boy for the perfect man for Jenny, unlike himself.

‘I’d told him in words of one syllable that I had no intention of ever going out with him again—and that was more than two weeks earlier—so where he got the idea that he had the right to insist on partnering me for the evening … to virtually take over control of my life …’ It did Daniel’s heart good to hear the anger in her voice, knowing she was coping with her near miss. The fact that she was talking about it at all was far better than bottling it up inside, and that she was comfortable using him as a confidant …

‘Well, he could hardly leave you to make your own way home if you were three sheets to the wind,’ he pointed out, trying to be fair even while he was rejoicing, inside, that she’d obviously seen through the little toady.

‘I suppose not, even if it was his fault for topping up my glass without asking.’

Just the thought that the man might have set the whole thing up deliberately, that he had been within seconds of locking the two of them in Jenny’s flat, was enough to have a red haze of protective fury descend over him, again, and he had to force himself to swallow the bile that rose in his throat at the very idea of this precious unattainable woman being at the mercy of that.

‘I just feel so stupid that I didn’t realise what he was doing until it was nearly too late. I’m just so grateful that you were there to …’

‘No thanks necessary,’ he said, again, hoping she wouldn’t think to ask why he’d ‘just happened’ to be there at that time of night. He could hardly tell her he’d been watching her during the dinner and had a bad feeling about her escort’s intentions, could he?

‘Well, I certainly won’t be getting into that sort of situation, again, even if it means suffering from dehydration,’ she announced grimly. ‘At least, then, I’d be sober enough to kick him out of my flat.’

‘You? Kick someone out?’ He raised an eyebrow and ran a teasing glance over her slender frame, mentally estimating that, while Colin wasn’t particularly overweight—yet—he must be more than a head taller than she was and weigh at least half as much again. Any future escort was unlikely to be very much smaller, so her chances of overpowering an adult male were virtually nil.

‘Remember, I went to those self-defence classes?’ she prompted, and he almost groaned aloud at the swiftly repressed memory of the one and only time when he’d been cajoled into being her practice partner. He’d barely survived with his sanity intact after an hour of Jenny’s sweetly curvaceous body climbing all over him in her attempts to pin him to the floor.

‘Actually, I probably wouldn’t need to do much more than twist his arm behind his back to frogmarch him to the door. He’d probably be squealing that I was damaging his hand and destroying his career,’ she muttered and he couldn’t help snorting with laughter.

‘The mouse that roared,’ he teased and tapped her on the nose, wishing he dared linger long enough to enjoy the silky texture of her skin, but they could never have that sort of relationship.

‘Hey! Who are you calling a mouse?’ she demanded, smacking his hand away. ‘Not that I’m not grateful for your help, but I’m sure I’d have been able to deal with him if he hadn’t been topping up my glass all evening.’ Then her shoulders slumped and she sighed into her coffee. ‘Unfortunately, he’s been bombarding me with calls, messages and texts ever since. If there was a way I could strong-arm him into leaving me alone …’

‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’ he offered, relishing the thought of even the slightest chance of messing with pretty boy’s perfect dentistry.

‘I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ she said, the light striking coppery sparks off her hair as she shook her head, adding firmly, ‘I’m a grown woman. I should be able to deal with situations like this for myself. Anyway, he’s bound to get tired of it, eventually.’

‘Well, at least I can sort your phone out for you.’ He held out his hand. ‘Tell me the weasel’s number and I’ll set it up so his calls are barred.’

‘How come you know how to do that?’ She pushed the slender gadget across the table with a surprised expression on her face.

‘Perhaps it’s a boy thing,’ he joked and had to duck her retribution as he accessed her contact details and pressed the relevant buttons to refuse all future calls from Colin Fletcher’s mobile even as he added his own number to her phone book. ‘There you are; all done. He’s history.’ He paused a second, but his ingrained sense of honesty forced him to admit what else he’d done. ‘I’ve also put myself as number one on your speed dial—in place of the Chinese takeaway. So if you have any further problems…’

His offer was cut off by the insistent sound of the pager clipped to his belt and he reached for his own phone to return the call.

‘This is Daniel Carterton. You paged me?’ he said tersely, knowing the call was unlikely to be trivial. It very rarely was in his chosen specialty.

‘One of your at-risk mums is on her way in,’ the voice on the other end responded equally crisply. ‘It’s Aliyah Farouk. She says she’s started having contractions.’

‘Send someone down to A and E to bring her straight up to the unit. Whatever you do, don’t let her get trapped down there by the paperwork police. I’ll be there in four minutes.’ He cut the connection before he swore ripely under his breath.

‘Problems?’ Jenny demanded, already on her feet and straightening the hem of her top and smoothing both hands over her hair to ensure it was tidy, all trace of laughter gone from her lively face.

‘Apparently, Aliyah Farouk’s having contractions,’ he said, knowing he didn’t need to say any more to Jenny for her to know the seriousness of the situation.

‘Damn,’ she muttered forcefully. ‘We thought we’d got away with it; that she was finally on the home stretch,’ she added as she followed him out of the door at a rapid clip, and sudden warmth wrapped around his heart that she’d automatically referred to the two of them as we. That was something, he consoled himself as he strode along the corridor. At least he could savour the two of them linked together as we in a work situation.

‘If she is in labour, let’s see if we can do something about slowing things down … at least long enough so we can do something to give the babies’ lungs a chance,’ he said, putting such thoughts to the back of his head with all the other things about Jenny that he had to ignore, like her surprisingly long legs that almost enabled her to keep pace with him. Instead, it was time to concentrate, setting his brain working to produce a list of possible complications that could have sparked this situation with Aliyah.

‘Hi, Aliyah,’ Jenny called as soon as she caught sight of their white-faced patient being wheeled swiftly into the unit by a uniformed paramedic. ‘You love us so much that you couldn’t stay away?’

‘S-something like that,’ the young woman muttered through trembling lips, then burst into noisy sobs. ‘P-please help me,’ she begged, clutching at Jenny’s hand as tears coursed down her elegant cheeks. ‘I can’t lose my babies. I can’t … not after everything we’ve gone through. You must save my little boys, even if you can’t save …’

‘Aliyah, no!’ her darkly handsome husband interrupted fiercely before dropping to his knees in front of the wheelchair. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you,’ he said before breaking into an impassioned speech in his own language.

‘Jenny …’ said Daniel’s familiar deep voice behind her, and instantly she snapped out of her unexpected fascination with the scene in front of her.

She quickly slipped into her proper role, escorting Aliyah through to Daniel’s examination room and taking her vital signs in preparation for his evaluation of the situation, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t feel a residual ache of envy for the depth of love between Aliyah and her husband.

‘So, let’s see what’s going on, then, shall we?’ Daniel said as she finished adding the latest findings to Aliyah’s file. ‘Your blood pressure’s up and so is your pulse—which is perfectly logical in a stressful situation—but they shouldn’t be raising your temperature.’

Jenny had thought the same thing and had the necessary vials ready when the decision was made to do a range of blood tests.

‘In the meantime, you say you haven’t been spotting but you have been experiencing pains.’ His dark brows drew together thoughtfully. ‘Shall we do an ultrasound to check up on your little passengers before we do anything else?’

‘Please!’

‘Yes, please!’ The Farouks answered almost simultaneously, making everyone smile in spite of the tension in the room.

‘Well, let me get you a nice big glass of water before we set everything up,’ Jenny said. ‘For some reason, that’s the preferred method of torture used by ultrasound technicians … to make pregnant women waddle around with a baby pressing on a full bladder.’ It was a joke that she often told to pregnant women in an attempt at sidetracking their thoughts, but it rarely worked very well with women as stressed-out as Aliyah Farouk, finally pregnant after a string of unexplained spontaneous abortions.

This whole side of the unit was relatively new to Jenny, who’d spent several years working with the most fragile of their premature babies under the unit’s director, Josh Weatherby. Then Daniel had joined the team, the focus of his attention being the at-risk mothers and babies—those who needed his special skills if they were to have a hope of a successful pregnancy—and she’d found herself fascinated by the new field.

Of course, as soon as word had gone round that he was good-looking, heterosexual and single, there had been much laughter among the existing staff about the sudden influx of nurses wanting to join his specialist side of the unit even if it meant undergoing further training, but for Jenny, that had just been a particularly delicious bonus.

She had decided to take advantage of the opportunity when it was offered, as a way to step back from the constant minute-by-minute stress of caring for babies who could stop breathing at any moment, or suffer from a catastrophic intracranial bleed with very little warning, or develop necrotising enterocolitis, or any one of dozens of other complications.

She hadn’t realised until it was too late that it could be every bit as stressful caring for the pregnant women referred to the unit and the children they were fighting to carry, especially as she grew to know them over the weeks of their pregnancy. Anyway, by the time she’d realised it, she was hooked on the job and the delight of working with someone as focused and professional as Daniel. The fact that he also had a wicked sense of humour and was one of the best-looking and sexiest members of staff, causing a spike in her pulse rate whenever he entered a room, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Aliyah Farouk had been one of the first patients she had met in the at-risk category, and she’d immediately warmed to the woman, feeling an empathy for her desire to continue with her legal work as long as possible. It had been during a wait for an earlier ultrasound that Aliyah had confided the details of her battle with her ultra-traditional parents to be allowed to study the law that had struck a chord with Jenny’s own battles after her decision to become a nurse rather than follow her parents’ preferred route as a third-generation doctor.

‘Let’s see if we can get a clear picture, yet,’ the ultrasound technician said a while later as she squirted a small mound of clear pale blue gel on the neat swell of Aliyah’s belly. ‘And there’s absolutely no truth to the rumour that we keep that gel in the fridge so we can shock the baby into running around.’

A shoulder pressed firmly against hers as Jenny craned her neck to see the shadowy image appearing on the screen and she didn’t need to glance at the lean muscled body or draw in the mixture of soap, hospital laundry starch and warm man to know that it was Daniel standing beside her. Her galloping pulse had already told her that.

‘Well, baby one is still definitely there,’ the technician said as she gestured towards the patterns of dark and light that differentiated between foetus and the surrounding water and maternal tissues. ‘And there’s a second very healthy heart there, too. Listen.’

The rapid patter of two foetal heartbeats, one after the other, filled the room and one of the little creatures suddenly seemed to react to the fact that they were all intruding on what should have been a private place, almost seeming to wave a fist at them.

‘All right, little ones,’ the technician chuckled as she tapped the necessary buttons to record the scan and silence the Doppler. ‘We’ve seen that you’re both safe and sound in there, so we’ll go away and leave you in peace, now.’

Aliyah burst into noisy sobs of relief and Jenny was certain that there was a suspicious gleam in her stoic husband’s eye, too, as he cradled her dark head against his shoulder.

‘So, if there is nothing wrong with the babies, why is Aliyah having pains?’ he demanded, apparently only allowing his fear to show now that his wife couldn’t see his face. ‘Is there something wrong with her?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out with the tests we’ve taken,’ Daniel explained calmly. ‘It shouldn’t be long before we have the first of the results back.’

‘Now that the ultrasound’s been done, it would be a good time to do some urine tests, too,’ Jenny suggested. ‘Aliyah’s probably desperate for the bathroom by now.’

‘Good idea,’ Daniel agreed. ‘And then, could we find her a comfortable place to rest until we know what’s going on?’

‘You think I need to stay in hospital?’ The idea clearly horrified her. ‘You think it’s something so serious that I can’t go home?’

‘I’ve no idea at the moment,’ he said and Jenny registered that, although she hadn’t known Daniel for very long, in that time he’d never been anything less than absolutely honest with a patient. ‘But it would be a good idea if you tried to stay as calm as possible until we get all the results, if only for the sake of your blood pressure. It would be better for the babies, too.’

‘And for me,’ her harried husband added.

Jenny stayed until Aliyah was as settled as she was going to be in one of the side rooms closest to Daniel’s office, adding her voice to the young woman’s when she urged her husband to go back to the important business meeting he’d been called out of.

‘Your wife and baby are safe here,’ she pointed out logically. ‘They’re surrounded by doctors and nurses, and if it’s a problem caused by some sort of infection, the antibiotics we’ve given her will already be starting to do their job.’

‘I have this mask to hand if the pains return,’ Aliyah added as she held up the clear plastic face mask attached to the Entonox. ‘And anyway, this is a room where I can have my mobile switched on, so I can call you or receive your calls whenever you wish.’

It took several minutes of reassurance and then several more supplying the suddenly tearful woman with tissues after her husband left before Jenny was free to set off in search of Daniel.

She found him just as he was reaching for a piece of paper being spat out by the printer.

‘Please, tell me that’s the preliminary report from the lab and it’s just a simple waterworks infection; bladder or kidney, I don’t mind which, just as long as there’s nothing wrong with the pregnancy,’ she demanded and was rewarded with a broad grin.

‘Your every wish is my command,’ he said with a flourishing bow, then handed her the paper to add to Aliyah’s file. ‘Obviously, there hasn’t been time to isolate the particular bug causing the problem, but as we put her on trimethoprim in the interim …’

‘She could have relief from her symptoms within an hour,’ Jenny finished for him.

‘Within one to four hours,’ he temporised. ‘It would probably be quicker relief with ciprofloxacin, but that’s not so good for the pregnancy.’

He went on to run through the progress on several other cases, but Jenny suddenly knew that he was feeling every bit as relieved and delighted with the prospects for Aliyah’s pregnancy as she was.

The realisation was so unexpected that, for a moment, she completely lost track of what Daniel was saying.

Was she just imagining that she could read his feelings, or was she actually beginning to be able to see beyond the cheerfully professional persona he showed the world?

It was always unlikely that one person could be that unfailingly even-tempered and still be human, and that opened up a whole new world of possibilities in the mystery of the gorgeous specimen of masculinity that was Daniel Carterton. Possibilities such as, if his smiles were a camouflage for other, deeper thoughts, was he hiding secrets … and if so, what sort of secrets?

Not that it would ever be something dark—such as Colin’s underhanded ploy to get her alone when he obviously cared very little for her other than the fact of who her father was.

No. If Daniel had secrets they would be … what?

‘What?’ the man in question echoed, snapping her out of her crazy thoughts and into the real world and the recognition that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

‘What?’ she repeated, feeling stupid and horribly afraid that she was going to blush.

‘That’s what I asked you,’ he said with a puzzled frown. ‘You were just standing there, staring at me as if you were trying to unravel the secrets of the universe on the end of my nose.’

She closed her eyes for a second, grateful that at least he hadn’t realised it was those gorgeous deep blue eyes and their unfairly long lashes she’d been gazing at, or the rogue curl of dark hair curving forward onto his forehead as he worked his way through the basket of correspondence waiting for his attention.

One envelope contained a photograph of a perfect set of twins, obviously identical, even down to the slightly cross expression on their faces, and she couldn’t help chuckling.

‘Anybody you know?’ she asked.

‘Their mother was one of the earliest patients I saw when I came to work here—before you joined the unit,’ he said and reached for a manila folder standing beside his computer to slip the photo inside with what looked like quite a few others.

‘Are they all your babies in there?’ she demanded, holding out a hand for the folder before she thought how intrusive he might find it.

‘Sometimes parents send me a picture to let me know their babies have arrived safely,’ he said, upending the folder in the middle of his desk to reveal dozens of babies, from the smallest, wrinkliest preemie to some that looked to be at least three months old when they were born.

‘Why have you got all these hidden away?’ she demanded as she spread them out across his paperwork. ‘These should all be on display somewhere.’

‘On display?’ He looked as if the idea had never crossed his mind. ‘Why?’

‘For reassurance,’ she said impatiently. ‘You deal with at-risk mums and babies, so you have a far higher mortality rate than an ordinary Obs and Gynae department. Most parents–to-be come here expecting the worst and it would be so good if the first thing they saw when they came into your room is a whole array of photos of the healthy happy babies you’ve helped on their way … far more babies than the number that don’t survive,’ she pointed out.

His attempt at a response was cut short by the strident ring of the telephone and she’d only taken a couple of steps towards the door to afford him some privacy for the call when the sudden tension in his voice stopped her in her tracks.

‘When? Where? How long ago?’ he snapped out in short order. ‘Well, find out and ring me back as soon as you do. Have you notified Josh Weatherby?’

With the mention of the senior consultant a shiver of dread ran up Jenny’s spine, every hair standing up on end in its wake.

Whatever it was, this did not sound good; not if it involved the man who took charge of all the seriously premature babies or those with peri-natal problems.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked as soon as he took the phone away from his ear.

Her words collided with his as he rapped out, ‘There’s been an accident, right outside the hospital.’

‘Not one of our mums,’ she pleaded, but the grim expression on his face was enough to confirm the bad news.

‘Sheelagh Griffin,’ he said, already tapping to access the young woman’s file on the computer. ‘Apparently, she started spotting heavily and cramping this morning, so her husband insisted on driving her in. He hit a pedestrian as he was turning in through the gates and smashed their car into one of the granite pillars.’

‘Do you need me to come down with you?’ It was a given that he would be going down to A and E to speed the young woman’s admission to the unit, otherwise she could be caught up in the nightmare of paperwork until it was too late to do anything for the precious babies.

‘Stay up here, for now,’ he said after only a moment’s hesitation. ‘I can call you down if I need to, but you’ll be my eyes and ears up here while I’m away.’

Jenny was immensely flattered that he would already think her competent for such a responsibility. She had done extra training for this new position but she was a nurse rather than a doctor—much to her parents’ enduring disappointment.

‘Let me know if you want me to get anything organised,’ she said, startled to realise that what she’d really wanted to say was Hurry back.

And how stupid is that? she berated herself before he was even out of sight. She and Daniel didn’t have that sort of relationship, and there was very little chance that they ever would. After all, no matter what her parents’ narrow-minded view was of people who had risen to the top in spite of starting off at one of the less elite medical schools, Daniel was something of a high-flier, and as such, was stratospherically beyond the reach of a humble nurse, no matter how well trained and good at her job.

Anyway, hadn’t Daniel categorised their relationship just a short while ago when he’d invited her to ‘tell big brother’ about her troubles?

Colleague … little sister … friend, perhaps? She might slot into several niches in Daniel’s life, but there was very little chance that he would be interested in seeing her in a role that she was only now beginning to realise might be the one she really wanted.

The phone rang stridently at her elbow, snapping her out of her pointless reflections and doubling her pulse rate with the expectation that she would hear Daniel’s voice when she answered it. It was a complete letdown to realise that the caller had simply been connected to the wrong department.

‘Jenny?’ Daniel’s voice behind her had her whirling to face him, the first of at least a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue until she saw his face.

‘Daniel? What’s happened?’ she demanded, automatically reaching out to take his arm. ‘Are you ill?’ He looked positively grim, and in the short time he’d been away from the department, his face had somehow become hollow-looking, his eyes filled with shadows.

‘I was too late to do anything to slow down Sheelagh’s labour,’ he said bluntly, and she could hear the same defeated tone that always emerged in his voice whenever something happened to one of their special babies, but this time there was something more, something infinitely darker.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE the babies still alive? Have they gone to Josh’s unit?’

Even babies that premature were often born alive and a few of them actually pulled through, albeit with a legacy of permanent disabilities, but it was an outside chance that they would have survived anything other than a Caesarean birth.

‘One is.’ Daniel grimaced, silently, the brilliant colour of his dancing blue eyes strangely flat. ‘I’ve admitted Sheelagh into the isolation room overnight. I told her it was in case of complications, but they both know it’s just a matter of time before …’

She nodded her understanding even as she thought that they really should think of a better name for the little suite at the furthest end of the unit. Apparently, that little area had been one of the arrangements Daniel had instigated within the first few days of his appointment—a place where mothers who had lost their babies could stay for monitoring and treatment without fear that their devastation would be made worse by the sights and sounds of pregnant women or healthy newborn babies all around them.

‘Did it happen because of the accident?’ Jenny demanded, something about the tension surrounding him like an electrical field warning her that there was worse news to come.

‘My guess is that one of the babies died in utero and that triggered a spontaneous abortion of both foetuses.’ He sank heavily into the chair and came to rest with his hands tightly linked together on the array of happy photos still spread over the inevitable pile of papers in front of him. He gazed blankly at them for several endless seconds while she fought the urge to go to him and throw her arms around him, to cradle his head against her and ask if there was anything she could do.

‘The person they ran down was Aliyah’s husband,’ he announced rawly, and his devastated expression rocked her back on her heels.

‘Dear Lord,’ she gasped, sinking heavily onto the edge of the nearest chair when her legs refused to support her. ‘Is he …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but she didn’t need to for him to know what she was asking.

‘He’s in theatre. Depressed skull fracture, punctured lung, broken leg … you name it, he’s got it,’ he listed grimly and she felt her eyes widen with each additional injury on the list.

‘But he’s still alive?’ she pleaded anxiously.

‘For the moment,’ he agreed and it only took the tone of his voice to know that the prognosis wasn’t good.

Her heart sank like a stone. ‘What are you going to tell Aliyah?’ The image in her head of how tenderly the injured man had been supporting his wife less than an hour ago was so clear that it was almost painful.

‘How on earth was he injured so badly?’ she demanded on a sudden surge of anger for the destruction of such a perfect couple made even more tragic by the fact they were finally expecting the babies they both wanted so badly.

‘Did he forget where he was and step out into the traffic, or …?’

‘Apparently, the Griffiths’ car went out of control and mounted the pavement at the entrance to the hospital. He was slammed against one of the pillars and trapped.’

Jenny winced as she imagined a human head coming into contact with that impressive construction of unforgiving Cornish granite.

‘And I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say to Aliyah,’ he said finally, his voice as rough as gravel. ‘She’s still shaky after that scare with the baby and we’re waiting for the antibiotics to do their thing. I don’t know whether I should hold off telling her in the hopes that he comes out of surgery with some sort of positive prognosis, or whether I should go to her straight away in case she needs to prepare herself to say her final farewell while he’s still alive.’

‘Or at least given a semblance of life by various machinery,’ she muttered, feeling sickened by the awful possibility.

How would she feel if she were in the same position?

Would she rather know, immediately, that the man she loved had been terribly injured and was not expected to live, and have to agonise for hours imagining what was going on in theatre? Or would she prefer to receive the news after every effort had been made to repair the damage?

‘If she weren’t pregnant …’ Daniel muttered and she knew he was weighing up exactly the same options and trying to balance their patient’s right to know against the increased risk to her pregnancy such a shock might cause.

A sudden unearthly scream from further along the corridor sent all the hairs up on the back of Jenny’s neck.

‘What on earth …?’ She whirled and took off out of Daniel’s office at a fast clip, almost colliding with a young nurse catapulting out of Aliyah Farouk’s room.

‘Nooo!’ The unearthly scream sounded again, then was replaced by a wail that degenerated into inconsolable weeping.

‘What’s going on here?’ Daniel demanded, glaring fiercely at the shocked-looking nurse.

‘I don’t know, s-sir!’ The poor girl’s teeth were almost chattering. ‘Sh-she was trying to phone her husband’s work to leave a message and they said he hadn’t arrived. S-so she said she was going to try his mobile phone and … and …’

Jenny winced as she put two and two together. It didn’t take much to imagine the scene in a busy A and E, especially as her husband’s clothing would have been summarily cut off his body to enable swift access to his injuries. Keeping track of his mobile phone would have been a low priority, everything being stuffed into the same bag for later retrieval.

It was all too easy to imagine the junior member of staff detailed to take charge of yet another patient’s belongings to think it was a good idea to tell a seriously injured patient’s wife that she needed to come to the hospital as soon as possible.

‘Okay, Joanne. Go and get yourself a cup of tea and don’t come back until you’ve stopped shaking. Let someone know where you’re going,’ Jenny said.

‘Th-thank you,’ she stammered, but Jenny was already following Daniel into the room, shutting the door firmly against any intrusion.

She was just in time to see him reach out to the keening woman and gasped in disbelief when Aliyah turned on him like a rabid dog, her eyes wild and her fingers stiffly curved as though ready to rip him to shreds.

‘No, Aliyah, no,’ Daniel said, his deep voice almost crooning as, far from backing away, he stepped straight into the danger zone and wrapped a consoling arm around her shoulders. ‘Gently. Gently,’ he said. ‘This is not good for the babies. Think about those precious babies.’ His words were almost hypnotic in their gentle rise and fall, but it took several racking moments before Aliyah’s devastation would allow her to hear what he was saying.

Suddenly, she flung herself into Daniel’s arms and he had to ease himself onto the side of the bed to support her weight as she sobbed, clearly broken-hearted.

‘Why?’ she wailed at intervals, but there was obviously no answer for the randomness of chance. If her husband had decided not to go back to his office, or if he had decided to leave even a couple of minutes earlier, this would not have happened.

It was only when she finally drew back from Daniel’s comforting hold and looked up at him from tear-swollen eyes she demanded, ‘Why did he have to die before he could even see our sons?’ that Jenny understood the enormity of her devastation.

For a moment, she wondered whether the information was true. Then she put her rational head on and recognised that the person who had answered the phone in A and E was unlikely to have more up-to-date news than Daniel.

Still, she reached for the phone and pressed the relevant numbers.

‘Theatres,’ said a crisply efficient voice when the call was answered.

‘This is Jenny Sinclair calling on behalf of Daniel Carterton,’ she announced. ‘Can you give me an update on Mr Farouk’s surgery? His wife’s a patient in our unit.’

‘Oh, no!’ the voice exclaimed, instantly sympathetic, then, ‘Just give me a minute to check,’ but Jenny wasn’t worried about a moment or two’s delay. It might give Aliyah time to comprehend the fact that her husband hadn’t died at the scene of the accident, as she seemed to believe.

‘Surgery’s still ongoing,’ the voice reported in her ear while she watched Daniel try to calm his patient enough to listen to what he needed to explain. ‘There are three of them working on him at the moment—a thoracic surgeon, an orthopod and a neurosurgeon. They said they’ve managed to stop the bleeding but there’s still a long way to go before they’ll know anything definite. Do you want someone to phone with updates?’

‘Please,’ Jenny confirmed. ‘Updates would be good,’ and she put the phone down.

‘He’s still alive?’ Aliyah breathed with tremulous disbelief, her thick dark lashes clumped by tears. ‘Please, tell me he’s still alive.’

‘So far,’ Jenny cautioned, stepping close enough to take the hand the young woman held out to her. She squeezed it reassuringly between both of hers as she paraphrased the information she’d just been given. ‘So far, they’ve managed to stop him bleeding, but that’s only the first step.’

‘What else do they have to do? When will I be able to see him?’ She flipped back the covers and started to slide her feet over the side of the bed. ‘Please, can I go to him? I need to be with him.’

Daniel had to step in with a doctor’s authority before they could persuade their patient that there was absolutely no point in trailing through the hospital only to have to sit in a surgical waiting room.

‘We’ll probably receive news, here, before you would, there,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Jenny has arranged for someone in the surgical department to phone through updates as soon as there is anything to tell us.’

‘You promise?’ Her dark eyes flicked frantically from one to the other. ‘You will tell me as soon as you hear anything?’

‘I’ll promise if you’ll promise, too,’ Daniel said firmly, then pointed to the figures on the monitor panel. ‘You must lie back and relax and concentrate on bringing your pulse and blood pressure down, for your babies’ sakes. Do you think your husband would forgive himself if worrying about him damaged your sons?’

The rest of her shift seemed interminable and it almost felt to Jenny as if they were all holding their breath while they waited for news of the surgery.

The report that Aliyah’s husband had survived the removal of several large shards of bone from his brain and that the plate of skull they’d removed to access them would not be replaced until some of the swelling had gone down was the final part in the lengthy process.

Not that surviving the complex operations would guarantee the patient’s survival, and there was still an extremely long way to go before they would even begin to know how much permanent damage his brain had suffered in the impact and its aftermath.

‘Are you as exhausted as I am?’ Jenny demanded as she emerged from the locker room still sliding her arms into the sleeves of her jacket to find Daniel performing almost exactly the same task as he walked towards her.

‘Probably,’ he grumbled. ‘And it’s not as if the day was unusually busy.’

In fact, the unit had been relatively quiet, beyond the usual round of clinics and assessments. Of course, there was an almost electric buzz in the air every time the phone rang, with everyone seeming to hold their breath in case it was news about Sheelagh Griffin’s desperately struggling baby or the outcome of Faz Farouk’s lengthy surgery. It was always that way when one of ‘their’ patients had bad news, and in a unit that saw the highest-risk patients, they saw more sadness than most.

This seemed somehow different, almost as if the whole world was waiting to hear the outcome. And still the tiny baby clung to life as though oblivious to the fact that his fight was doomed to failure, while Aliyah Farouk waited impatiently to be given permission to go to her husband’s side.

‘I never realised that tension could be so draining,’ she said as she automatically fell into step beside him, both of them heading towards the exit after their brief detour to glimpse the tiny scrap that was barely as long as her hand. ‘But I suppose that when everything revs into high gear every time the phone rings …’

‘And your body gets flooded with adrenaline in anticipation of news,’ he added.

‘So your pulse and respiration speed up, causing you to burn up so many calories that you feel completely limp and empty even before the situation resolves itself.’

‘ So, you’re saying that you’re about to collapse with lack of nourishment and are in imminent need of sustenance?’ he asked and she was grateful that he’d changed the topic to something so mundane and normal.

‘How did you guess?’ Jenny pulled a face as she rubbed a hand over the noises coming from her stomach. ‘I know it’s not the best thing nutritionally, but I think I’m going to get a takeaway, for speed.’

‘I could do tagliatelli carbonara, if you’re interested?’ he offered tentatively and she blinked in surprise, then wondered if, like her, he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts just yet.

She had to squash the bubble of excitement that started to swell inside her at the idea that she’d be spending some off-duty time with him. After all, it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d let her know he saw her as more of a little sister than an attractive woman.

‘How long would I have to wait to eat?’ she demanded, concentrating on looking suspicious. ‘Is that a crafty way of getting me to do the shopping so you’ll have the ingredients to cook?’

‘I’m mortally wounded that you could think me so devious!’ he complained as he stepped aside to allow her to exit the automatic doors first. ‘When have I ever given you cause to think that I’m anything other than honest and straightforward?’

His teasing words died away as she came to a halt, her way blocked by a darkly scowling Colin Fletcher.

‘There’s something wrong with your phone,’ he announced bluntly. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day to tell you I’d be picking you up at the end of your shift.’

Jenny swallowed hard, tempted to close her eyes tightly to pretend that the obnoxious man wasn’t standing there, clearly unconcerned that he was about to cause a scene in front of goodness knew how many colleagues, patients and visitors.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my phone,’ she said quietly, not certain whether she was glad to have Daniel’s silent presence at her back or embarrassed that he was a witness to the result of her stupidity in ever agreeing to go out with Colin in the first place.

‘There must be something wrong because I haven’t been able to get through,’ Colin argued with a pointed glance at his watch then a disparaging look at her favourite pair of well-worn jeans. ‘You’ll need to get yourself tidied up enough to go somewhere decent like the Pastorale. I’d better give you a lift to your flat or you’re not going to have enough time to make a good job of it.’

The classy French restaurant that had opened recently at the top end of the high street had quickly made a name for its elegant ambiance and superb cuisine, but it certainly wasn’t the place she wanted to go after a stressful day like today … nor was Colin the company she’d ever choose.

‘Thank you for the invitation, Colin,’ she said, so perfectly politely that even the pickiest manners maven couldn’t have found fault, ‘but I’m really not in the mood for—’

‘Not in the mood!’ he interrupted angrily. ‘Do you realise how exclusive Pastorale is; how hard it was to organise a reservation at such short notice so I could stage the romantic—?’ He stopped himself suddenly, almost as if he’d said more than he’d intended, then continued, sounding angrier than ever. ‘And you’re standing there saying you’re not in the mood?’

‘Excuse me.’ It was Daniel’s turn to interrupt and Jenny almost giggled when the unexpectedness of it left Colin with his mouth agape.

It was tempting to allow the strong silent man at her back to take over for her, but she’d never been one to back down from a battle that was important to her, and this one definitely qualified.

‘Colin, there’s no point in trying to browbeat me into going for a meal with you, because it isn’t going to happen,’ she said firmly.

‘Well, I’d have been able to get hold of you to arrange it properly earlier on today if your phone had been working,’ he began again, but this time she interrupted him herself.

‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with my phone,’ she declared. ‘I’ve already told you that I won’t go out with you, several times, in fact. So I’ve had my phone programmed to refuse any of your calls. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s an enormous plate of tagliatelli carbonara with my name on it and I’m starving. Goodnight, Colin.’

Her knees felt rather wobbly as she forced herself to stride briskly past the man, but the matching echo of Daniel’s feet following close behind fanned the spark of defiance that kept her chin in the air and bolstered the confidence that her nemesis would never know how uncertain she’d been that she could cope with such an uncomfortable confrontation.

‘So there’s an enormous plate of carbonara with your name on it, is there?’ Daniel mused as he lengthened his stride to catch up with her as they set off across the vast car park to the other side of the hospital grounds. ‘I’m not certain that I’ve got enough ingredients for that. Perhaps we should detour to do a bit of shopping, just to be sure.’

Jenny had no idea why his teasing should suddenly make her feel like crying and laughing aloud at the same time, but it took a real effort not to do either … or both.

‘No shopping,’ she decreed imperiously, warmed beyond words that she had such a friend and overwhelmingly grateful for his ready sense of humour. ‘I need food now!’

A leisurely hour later they were both coming to the end of plates full of perfectly cooked tagliatelli smothered in the most delicious creamy sauce, and Daniel’s light-hearted banter had temporarily managed to push their concerns about their patients to the back of their minds. It had also all but banished the memory of that unfortunate scene at the entrance to the hospital’s main Reception. In fact, she was feeling so relaxed that that she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to summon up the energy to walk to her own flat, and there was a real danger that she would fall asleep where she sat if she stayed much longer.

Regretfully, she began to fish under the table for the shoes she’d kicked off soon after she’d arrived, trying to find the words to thank him, not only for the delicious meal but also for standing by her while she faced Colin down, yet still allowing her to deal with the situation herself.

She was just drawing a breath to bring the evening to a close when his mobile phone began to vibrate its way across the centre of the table.

‘Carterton.’ His brisk response told her she wasn’t going to have to eavesdrop on a one-sided private call and the resigned expression that came over his face was enough to tell her that Sheelagh Griffin’s baby had lost his fight.

‘Poor woman,’ she whispered, her heart heavy for the couple who would have to start the whole IVF process all over again if they were ever to have the family they wanted.

Before Daniel could comment his phone was ringing again, but this time the shocked way his eyes widened told her the news he was getting was totally unexpected and it wasn’t good.

Listening in on a call that largely consisted of one-word questions was both frustrating and frightening, especially when she saw the regret fill his face.

‘What?’ she demanded as soon as the call ended. ‘What’s happened? Oh, no! Is it Aliyah? How bad is it?’

He raked his fingers through his thick dark hair and swore ripely, something she very rarely heard him do.

‘It’s not Aliyah,’ he said but before she could let the relief flood through her he added, ‘it’s her husband. He coded in ICU and it took five tries to get him back.’

Jenny felt close to tears when she remembered what a lovely caring man Faz was and how concerned about Aliyah and their baby. ‘How long was his heart stopped? Do they know why?’

‘They’ve taken him back to theatre. There’s blood building up in the pericardium that’s stopping the heart from working properly. It nearly stopped it permanently.’

‘Surely they would have checked for other sources of bleeding when they were retrieving the bone fragments from the broken ribs and sorting out the collapsed lung?’

Daniel’s expression was wry because they both knew that such things could be missed when a patient presented with so many life-threatening injuries at once, especially if the damage was small enough to make any bleed insignificant amongst all the other gore.

Sadly, she realised that their almost idyllic evening was over—the outside world back with a vengeance—and suddenly her exhaustion made everything more than she could bear—the situation with Colin and their embarrassing confrontation, the worry that Aliyah might be losing her longed-for babies, Sheelagh Griffin’s accident right at the hospital’s gates and the loss of both of her precious babies. Now this! The horrible events still seemed to be piling up.

With barely a second’s warning her breath caught in her throat and her eyes burned as they filled with tears.

‘Oh, Daniel,’ she wailed, then whirled towards his door, wanting nothing more than to escape before he saw them start to stream down her face.

‘Hey!’ He caught her arm as she fumbled with the lock on the front door and swung her gently around. ‘Are you going without your shoes?’

The concerned frown pleating his forehead was the final straw, releasing the first sob from the dammed-up agony in her throat, and when he pulled her into the sanctuary of his arms the floodgates burst.

‘Shh!’ Daniel soothed helplessly as he awkwardly patted her back, realising wryly that, for all his extensive education, he had no more idea of how to deal with a crying woman than any other man.

And the fact that a large part of his brain was taken up with registering just how perfect Jenny felt in his arms wasn’t something he had any control over, either.

She was such an energetic person with such a lively personality that it was all too easy to forget just how slender she was, especially when she was swathed in a shapeless uniform or several bulky layers of off-duty clothing—one of the down sides of spending her working days in a heated building.

Now that he had her wrapped in his arms he realised that she was more than a head shorter than he was, easily able to burrow herself into the angle under his chin as she clung to him.

The hand that started stroking her back traced the perfect curve of her spine from the silky hair at the base of her skull all the way down to the top of her jeans, and he was almost certain that, had he tried, he could have wrapped both hands completely around her waist, fingertip to fingertip.

And as for her legs, those deceptively long legs, one of which he was bracketing with his own as she leaned against him, sparking his imagination to fill with images of how they would feel without the layers of fabric separating them, how it would feel if they were both naked with those endless legs wrapped around his waist as he.

‘Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry,’ she whimpered against his throat and he had to swallow a groan as the puffs of moist warmth on his bare skin ratcheted his pulse still higher even as he tried to remind himself that he was supposed to be supporting and comforting her, not wasting his time imagining impossible scenarios in which.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ he growled, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his voice betrayed the effect she was having on him.

‘I sh-shouldn’t be falling apart all over you,’ she hiccupped. ‘It’s not fair to you to have to m-mop me up.’

‘You let me worry about that,’ he reassured her, even as he tried to push to the back of his brain all the other things he’d be willing to do for her. To her. With her. ‘Everyone needs a friend they can let the barriers down with, otherwise we’d all go crazy in a high-stress job like ours.’

He rested his cheek briefly on the crown of her head just long enough to draw in the fresh scent of the shampoo she’d used earlier mixed with the indefinable something that belonged to no one but his little Jennywren.

‘It never seems to get to you,’ she complained. ‘Even when you came back up to tell us about Sheelagh Griffin’s babies.’ The thought sent her off into renewed sobs and he realised that, as it didn’t look as if she was going to be fit to leave any time soon, it was time to make them both more comfortable.

She was weeping so hard that she was probably almost unaware that he’d half-led, half-carried her back into his living room. In fact, she only reacted when he lowered himself into the corner of his oversized settee and tried to settle her on his lap.

‘Daniel, no,’ she objected, floundering in her attempts at getting her feet on the floor. ‘You don’t have to do this. It’s not. You can’t want. I shouldn’t …’

‘Calm down, sweetheart,’ he said, thwarting her halfhearted efforts by drawing her closer to his chest. ‘It’s not a problem.’ Well, that was a blatant lie for a start, because having her squirming on his lap was quickly becoming a big problem, and if she squirmed much more, she would discover just how big.

‘It’s difficult to calm d-down,’ she sobbed against his throat. ‘All I can think of is those poor people and everything they’ve l-lost and … and …’

She turned her head to look up at him just as he angled his to press his face against hers and somehow, accidentally, fleetingly, their lips brushed.

He froze, unable to breathe, convinced that even his heart had stopped beating for several timeless seconds as he savoured the softness of her mouth against his for the first time.

‘Daniel?’ she whispered huskily, and while he was utterly amazed that she hadn’t immediately broken the contact between them, he was intimately aware that he could taste the salt of her tears.

The last thing he wanted was to draw back, afraid of what he would see in her eyes. Shock? Rejection? Or worse, disgust if she thought he was taking advantage of her emotional state?

In the end it was Jenny who moved just the few inches that would allow them to see each other’s expressions, and the wide-eyed wonder on her face as her gaze flicked from his eyes to his mouth and back again jolted his heart into double time.

‘Jenny?’ It sounded more like a growl than a question and he wasn’t really sure what he was trying to ask her, but to his everlasting relief she seemed to take it as an invitation.

‘Please,’ she whispered as she angled her head and leant forwards just far enough to stroke her lips over his … once … twice. ‘Please, Daniel,’ she said again as she wreathed her arms around his neck, this time pressing not only her lips against his but the whole of her body, too. ‘Please, Daniel. I need you,’ she begged breathlessly before she plunged them both headlong into the kind of kiss he’d been dreaming of ever since he’d met the tantalising woman … only better.

CHAPTER THREE

DANIEL woke to find Jenny still in his arms and an unexpected image suddenly sprang into his mind.

He’d been sent to stay with his grandfather one summer, and every morning he’d been woken by the elderly man’s favourite cockerel that used to fly to the top of a big wooden gatepost and crow.

Now, for the first time in his life, Daniel knew exactly how Ruben the Rhode Island Red rooster had felt. After the night he and Jenny had just spent together, he almost believed he could leap to the top of the roof to shout to the world how good he was feeling.

Except …

Except there was a very honest part of him that was kicking himself for his loss of control. Guilt was telling him that he should have been stronger when Jenny had been falling apart; that he should have been able to comfort her without succumbing to the desire that had been building in him ever since he’d met her.

And while he was relishing the fact that he had this precious time with her in his arms, he was dreading the moment when she woke, afraid he would see the same expression in her eyes that she’d had when she’d spoken about Colin’s attempt to take advantage of her.

It was easy to push that thought to the back of his mind when he was looking down at her curled up trustingly at his side, her head nestled into his shoulder and her forehead against the curve of his neck. He couldn’t think of a more arousing way to wake up than with the warmth of her breath soughing over his chest, ruffling and teasing the hairs and tightening his nipples into hard points that were begging for more of her attention.

Even then, with the evidence all around him, the tumbled bedding, the scattered clothing, the musky, totally arousing scent that was partly his and partly hers … he still could hardly believe that it had really happened.

It wasn’t simply the fact that it had happened at all that had him reeling, either; it was the sheer scale of it that had been enough to blow his mind for the next millennium or so.

That hadn’t been the Jenny he had thought he was coming to know at the hospital. She was the calm, caring, concerned professional who could be counted on to go the extra mile for every one of their patients with sympathy and tact. It hadn’t been the off-duty Jenny, either; the cheerful, friendly young woman with a welcoming smile for everyone even while surrounded by an indefinable air that sometimes came across almost as naïveté.

No, the Jenny he’d discovered last night had been a complete revelation; an unbelievably arousing combination of uncertainty and boldness; of alternating shyness and daring that had rendered him speechless and breathless and utterly captivated.

Making love with her had been more—much more—than he’d ever imagined, and it was something he’d be delighted to repeat on a daily basis far beyond the foreseeable future but.

He drew in a controlled breath as he fought down a feeling of dread.

Yes, it had been, without exception, the most spectacular night of his life, and hers, too, if her eager reaction was anything to go by, but would he still be basking in this contented glow thinking the night’s pleasure had been worth it if it meant he’d lost her friendship?

He’d already admitted to himself the fact that there was little chance of anything permanent between them, but he’d hoped that at least in the time they spent together they could be friends as well as colleagues. Had he ruined that, now?

A glance at the alarm clock told him that it was still early. Too early to get ready for work. In fact, it was early enough for a leisurely repeat session that he was craving more with every second, even though he knew he couldn’t have it.

He should leave the bed, now. Leave her in the hopes that she wouldn’t be too angry that he’d taken advantage of her distress.

His mobile phone suddenly buzzed into life, the vibrate function making it rattle noisily on the chest of drawers beside the bed.

Daniel was glad that at least he’d had the presence of mind to switch off the noisy ring tone. Now all he had to do was silence the wretched thing quickly enough that it didn’t wake the sleeping woman in his arms. It was going to take a while longer before he’d be ready to face her.

But before he could untangle an arm to reach for the infernal gadget, her eyes flicked open, their hazel irises glowing with golden fire as they gazed straight up into his.

The phone buzzed again and she glanced fleetingly at it before her eyes returned to his, the slumberous expression in them almost making him groan aloud as his body started to respond.

‘Are you going to answer that?’ she prompted with a hint of a grin. ‘It doesn’t sound as if they’re going to give up.’

The impish curve of lips that had met his own time and time again during the night was almost enough to make him forget his name, but there was no way he could ignore his phone when there were vulnerable patients relying on him.

‘Car—’ he began then had to clear his throat before he could continue, the husky tone far more suited to the bedroom than his professional persona. ‘Carterton,’ he announced crisply on his second attempt, mentally switching gears. The last thing he needed to be thinking about was bedrooms when he was taking a call from the hospital.

‘Hello. I’m sorry to disturb you so early, Dr Carterton, but you wouldn’t happen to know where Jenny Barber might be?’

‘What?’ He could feel the unexpected heat of a blush searing up his throat and into his face, hardly able to believe that the woman in question was still curled sleepily against him as if she was totally unaware that the two of them were wrapped around each other, completely naked.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ the voice on the other end of the line exclaimed. ‘That must have come out of left field, especially this early in the morning. And I didn’t even tell you who I am … and I probably woke you up, too. I’m so sorry!’

‘You didn’t wake me,’ Daniel reassured the flustered woman. ‘How can I help?’

‘This is Fiona Tarbuck. I’m a Staff Nurse in Cardiac ICU and I’m trying to track down one of the nurses from your unit—Jenny Barber. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you? We’ve tried her landline in her flat and her mobile but there’s no answer on either phone. Either she’s switched them off, or else her battery’s …’

Daniel’s attention had been caught by the woman’s introduction.

‘CICU?’ he questioned, interrupting her rambling speculations.

‘Yes, that’s right. Unfortunately, her father was brought in during the night and her mother’s been trying to contact her to let her know. Apparently, their daughter’s not on duty, today, but one of your staff suggested she might have told you what she was going to be doing on her day off?’

‘No, she didn’t say, but—’

‘In that case, I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,’ she interrupted before he could find the words he needed. How could he say he’d pass the message on without ruining Jenny’s reputation for ever by revealing that she was here in his arms?

When the voice was swiftly replaced in his ear by the buzz of a finished call he was left with the task of finding a new set of words—the ones that would break the news that her father was in CICU.

‘Daniel?’ A concerned frown had appeared, deep enough to pleat the smooth skin of her forehead as she’d tried to follow his cryptic questions and answers. ‘You said CICU. That wasn’t about Aliyah’s husband, was it? Please tell me he hasn’t taken a turn for the worse,’ she begged, her empathy for their patient completely transparent.

He hated the fact that the news he had to break would cause this caring woman even greater stress, but he had no option. If her father’s condition was serious—and the very fact that he was in CICU was proof that it very well could be—then every moment’s delay could jeopardise her chance of reaching his bedside in time.

‘I’m sorry, Jenny,’ he began, desperately fighting the urge to wrap her tightly in his arms in an attempt to soften the blow. ‘That was CICU—as you probably gathered. They’ve been trying to reach you to—’

‘Me?’ she echoed, clearly startled, then panic flared in her eyes. ‘Who …? What …? Not Dad?’ she gasped in sudden comprehension, her body totally rigid against him.

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ he confirmed. ‘He was taken ill during the night.’

‘What happened?’ she demanded, suddenly frantically fighting her way out from under the cosy nest of bedclothes, still apparently uncaring of the fact that she was utterly, tantalisingly naked.

‘I’ve no idea of the specifics,’ he admitted, battling the urge to gaze his fill of her beautiful body in case it was the last time he ever got to see it—all those lean, slender curves that set his pulse throbbing anew with the urgent need to trace them and savour them and. ‘The Staff Nurse didn’t go into it,’ he admitted as he forced himself to drag his eyes away, turning to reach for clean underwear in the top drawer beside the bed. ‘All I know is that they haven’t been able to reach you on your landline or your mobile and wondered if I had any idea what you were planning to do today.’

He was already slipping his feet into his shoes while he thrust his arms into a clean shirt, having long ago perfected the knack of speedy dressing. When he turned back to her, Jenny was still trying to find the last of the clothing he’d tossed aside so cavalierly in his urgent need to have her in his arms and in his bed.

‘And I was here, with a flat battery in my mobile,’ she wailed, self-recrimination obvious in her voice. ‘Oh, Daniel …!’

‘Hey, Jennywren!’ he soothed, discovering her second shoe buried under the pillow that had been tossed to the floor some time after midnight and handed it to her. ‘She didn’t say the situation’s urgent, so don’t automatically assume the worst.’

‘But she was ringing round trying to find me … she rang my boss, for heaven’s sake!’ she exclaimed. ‘That hardly sounds like “Oh, it’s all right, Mr Barber, patients confuse indigestion for heart attacks all the time”,

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.