About the Authors

EMILY FORBES is an award-winning author of Medical Romance for Mills & Boon. She has written over twenty-five books and has twice been a finalist in the Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award, which she won in 2013 for her novel Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist. You can get in touch with Emily at emilyforbes@internode.on.net, or visit her website at emily-forbesauthor.com.

SUE MACKAY lives with her husband in New Zealand’s beautiful Marlborough Sounds, with the water on her doorstep and the birds and the trees at her back door. It is the perfect setting to indulge her passions of entertaining friends by cooking them sumptuous meals, drinking fabulous wine, going for hill walks or kayaking around the bay—and, of course, writing stories.

Also by Emily Forbes

Falling for His Best Friend

Reunited with Her Brooding Surgeon

Rescued by the Single Dad

Taming Her Hollywood Playboy

London Hospital Midwives collection

Cinderella and the Surgeon by Scarlet Wilson

Miracle Baby for the Midwife by Tina Beckett

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter

A Fling to Steal Her Heart by Sue MacKay

Available now

Also by Sue MacKay

The Italian Surgeon’s Secret Baby

Redeeming Her Brooding Surgeon

Taking a Chance on the Single Dad

The Nurse’s Twin Surprise

London Hospital Midwives collection

Cinderella and the Surgeon by Scarlet Wilson

Miracle Baby for the Midwife by Tina Beckett

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter by Emily Forbes

A Fling to Steal Her Heart

Available now

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter

Emily Forbes

A Fling to Steal Her Heart

Sue MacKay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90227-8

REUNITED BY THEIR SECRET DAUGHTER & A FLING TO STEAL HER HEART

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter © 2020 Emily Forbes A Fling to Steal Her Heart © 2020 Sue MacKay

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

A Fling to Steal Her Heart

Back Cover Text

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Reunited by Their Secret Daughter

Emily Forbes

Her three-year-old secret…

…is about to be revealed!

Between her job with Queen Victoria’s Air Ambulance and raising her three-year-old daughter, midwife Chloe Larson’s too busy to find love. Only maybe love has found her… Xander Jameson—the gorgeous Australian doctor she had a fling with and who disappeared without a trace—has joined her team! The attraction is definitely still there. But first, Chloe must tell Xander he’s a father.

For Scarlet, Tina and Sue,

my fellow London Hospital Midwives authors.

What a team. We did it!

Love

Emily

CHAPTER ONE

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR LILY! Happy Birthday to you!’

Chloe Larson blinked back tears as Lily blew out the candles on her birthday cake. She couldn’t believe she had a three-year-old daughter.

She pulled the candles from the cake and picked up the knife. ‘Shall I help you cut it up?’ she asked.

‘I want Granny to help me,’ Lily said.

Chloe tried not to be hurt. Ever since Chloe had found out she was pregnant at the age of twenty-four and had chosen to be a single mother, her own mother had been supportive. Chloe knew she couldn’t have raised Lily without her help, and she tried not to mind when Lily turned to Susan as easily as she turned to Chloe, but sometimes she wished that life had been different.

She held back a sigh as she passed the knife to her mum. There was no point in wishing for something that wasn’t to be.

‘Make a wish, Lily,’ Susan said as she guided her granddaughter’s hand to slice through the rainbow cake.

‘Don’t touch the bottom, Lil,’ Chloe’s brother Tom prompted.

Lily carefully lifted pieces of cake onto pink paper plates. ‘Uncle Tom gets one first,’ she said as she handed cake to her guests. ‘When will Uncle Guy get here?’

‘You saw him this morning, Lil. He’s working tonight. We’ll have to save him a piece.’

‘Can you take me for another ride now, Uncle Tom?’ Lily asked as she put a final piece of cake aside for Guy.

Chloe’s brothers had given Lily a pink bike, with streamers dangling from the handles and a set of stabilisers on the back, for her birthday and Lily had spent most of the day riding up and down the driveway with Tom close behind.

‘Sure.’

At twenty-one, Tom had plenty of energy, despite his job as a paramedic, and he doted on Lily as all Chloe’s family did. Chloe knew how lucky she was. People said it took a village to raise a child, and Chloe was grateful to her mother and brothers for their support. And to her girlfriends. She had a lot to be thankful for.

‘Come and watch me, Granny.’

Lily skipped outside followed by Tom and Susan, leaving Chloe inside with two of her best friends.

‘Okay, who will join me in a glass of wine or a G&T? Esther?’

‘Wine, please,’ Esther replied as Carly, who was in the early stages of pregnancy, said, ‘No wine for me, but I wouldn’t say no to another piece of cake.’

‘What would you wish for, Chloe, if it was your birthday?’ Esther asked her when she returned with the wine and Carly cut more cake. ‘How about your own happily ever after?’

Chloe looked sideways at Esther. The three women had been friends since they’d undertaken their midwifery training at the Queen Victoria together, and along with Isabella, who was currently overseas, the four of them had formed a tight-knit unit and sometimes Chloe was sure they could read each other’s minds. But surely Esther wouldn’t have guessed that Chloe was wishing for a different life?

‘I’m already happy,’ Chloe replied. She always insisted that she was happy with her life. She’d made a choice and she didn’t regret it, even if it hadn’t always been easy.

‘How about satisfied, then? Couldn’t you do with a white knight to come riding into your world?’

That was the trouble now that Carly and Esther had each found their perfect match and were deeply in love—they were both soon to be married and wanted everyone else to have their own happily ever after. But serious relationships were not for her; in her experience they only led to heartache. She’d be happy for Esther and Carly—she was happy for them—and she’d be a supportive friend, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of believing she could have her own happily ever after again. She’d been in love once before and it hadn’t ended the way she’d hoped.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted.

Her life was busy and she was rarely alone even if she was sometimes lonely. Her days were spent either at work in Accident and Emergency at the Queen Victoria Hospital where she was surrounded by patients and colleagues or at home with her daughter. Home was her childhood house where Chloe’s youngest brother, Tom, and her mother also lived. Chloe had never moved out, although that had been her intention. She’d finished school and stayed home while she completed her nursing and then midwifery training but her unexpected pregnancy had derailed her plans and here she was, three years later, still living in her mother’s house.

It sounded depressing, it sounded as if she hadn’t achieved a great deal, but she paid rent and her share of the bills. She was a flatmate in a sense, not a free boarder. Plus she had a good relationship with her mother and Lily benefited from having family around—she loved her granny and her uncles. The arrangement suited everyone and Chloe was happy enough. She couldn’t deny that sometimes she wished for companionship, and yes, sometimes she wished for more sex too, but she didn’t believe in one-night stands and she didn’t believe in people’s ability to maintain long-term monogamous relationships so she was caught between a rock and a hard place. It would take someone pretty special to make her believe in happily ever after again. She thought she might have missed her chance at finding her ‘one.’

‘How long since you’ve been on a date?’ Esther asked.

‘It’s been a while,’ she admitted.

‘Can you be more specific?’ Carly asked with a smile.

‘November.’

‘November! It’s already March!’

‘I know. But everyone is busy over Christmas and then, in the middle of winter, I can’t be bothered going out.’

‘Maybe you should try online dating,’ Carly suggested. ‘At least that way you can start the process from home. You can peruse the menu in your pyjamas, so to speak.’

But Chloe had heard too many bad stories about online dating. She wanted to feel that spark of attraction from seeing someone in the flesh. She knew that existed. It had happened to her before. She didn’t want to flick through online sites judging people on their photoshopped looks or their fabricated profiles and she certainly didn’t want people judging her anonymously. She shook her head.

‘You should think about it, Chlo,’ Esther said. ‘I’d love you to bring a date to my wedding.’

Esther had told her on numerous occasions she was welcome to bring a guest but Chloe couldn’t imagine where she’d find someone she wanted to be her ‘plus one.’

‘I could ask Harry if he knows anyone or maybe you’ll meet someone at the wedding,’ Esther said before turning to Carly. ‘Or maybe Adem has some nice single friends?’

Chloe’s blood ran cold at the idea of being paraded around to all the single men. ‘I know you mean well, but I’m okay on my own. Really.’

Esther and Carly both looked a little sheepish. ‘Sorry. You know we love you and we just want you to be happy.’

‘I am,’ she insisted again. ‘Don’t say anything to Harry or Adem on my behalf but I’ll let you know if I change my mind about a date. Okay?’

Maybe she should take a date with her, even if it was just someone to provide a shield, some protection, if necessary. But she had no idea where she would find such a person.

Chloe put Lily’s favourite bedtime story book down and wriggled carefully out of her daughter’s bed, trying not to disturb her. She pulled the covers up and took a moment to watch her sleeping.

Lily was the spitting image of her at the same age. Her riot of strawberry blond curls fanned across the pillow framing her round face. A scattering of freckles ran over her nose, little dark spots on her pale skin. She had one arm thrown up beside her head and Chloe knew there was a graze on her bony elbow and another one on her knee. She reached out and touched one of Lily’s curls. Chloe had always hated her own hair, especially as a teenager, and the minute she could afford to she had bought a straightening iron and had dyed her hair blond, but now she loved her daughter’s strawberry curls. Chloe still dyed her hair, although she had given up straightening it except on occasion. Straightening her hair took time and that was a luxury she didn’t have much of any more.

The only differing feature between her and her daughter at the age of three was the colour of their eyes. Chloe’s were dark brown, Lily’s were grey, and in Chloe’s opinion Lily’s were far more striking especially in contrast to her pale auburn curls.

She searched her daughter’s face looking for any resemblance to the man who had fathered her. She liked to think there was something of him in Lily but as more time passed it was becoming harder to remember all the little details. Lily definitely had her father’s grey eyes but she couldn’t see those while Lily slept. She wondered if Lily ever wished that her father was around. Was something missing in her life? She seemed happy enough and she had good male role models but was that the same thing?

Chloe knew it wasn’t. Chloe and her younger brothers had been raised by their mother after their father had died when Chloe was seven. Chloe loved her mum and she knew she’d done a brilliant job raising three kids on her own but that had never stopped Chloe from missing her father. Lily had never met her father; maybe that would be enough to stem those feelings of loss, but Chloe doubted it. It might not matter to Lily now but what about when she got older?

She wondered for the thousandth time what had happened to Lily’s father. To Xander.

To the man who had captured her heart in the Australian outback four years ago.

He had looked like a blond Nordic god and she’d known from the moment she’d met him that he was damaged, wounded, but he was gorgeous, irresistible, and she’d been certain she could handle him. She’d been on a study exchange with the Australian flying doctor service and hadn’t been looking for anything more than a holiday romance.

Initially everything had been fine. Manageable. On paper, their affair looked perfect. She was young and footloose and Xander had just been through an acrimonious divorce. Neither of them had been looking for anything serious and they’d both been happy to have a light-hearted liaison, something to satisfy their mutual physical attraction and desires. Their time together had lasted less than four weeks. That was all the time she had left in Australia. It was enough time to have some fun but not long enough for heartache.

At the end of the month she hadn’t been ready to leave but she figured she’d forget about him in time. A holiday romance wasn’t meant to be for ever. She missed him but she figured she’d get over it.

She would focus on her career, on getting a contract with the Air Ambulance Service, and Xander Jameson would become part of her past. A memory to take out and relive from time to time.

But she hadn’t expected the emptiness that gnawed away at her. The ache that felt like a lump of lead in her chest. She’d never fully given her heart to anyone—in her experience men had a wandering eye and had trouble staying faithful, and she protected her heart zealously, careful not to give it away—but Xander had caught her by surprise.

She certainly hadn’t planned to fall in love. In her experience love didn’t last. Her parents’ marriage had crumbled under the weight of her father’s infidelity and Chloe’s one semi-serious relationship at the age of twenty-one had suffered the same fate. In her experience falling in love only led to heartache. But that didn’t stop it from happening to her.

She hadn’t counted on meeting Xander.

And she hadn’t counted on falling pregnant.

She had been back in London for a month before she realised. At least that situation explained her unexpected feelings. She wasn’t in love, she told herself, just overwhelmed by a flood of hormones.

She tried to contact Xander—she knew it was the right thing to do—but he’d disappeared.

She’d wanted to find him; despite her strong views on serious relationships and their longevity she let herself get carried away with a fantasy, creating all sorts of happily ever afters in her mind, and part of her hoped for a miraculous happy ending even though she knew there were no such guarantees.

She only realised when she was trying unsuccessfully to find him how little she really knew about him. They hadn’t spent much time talking about anything important. She knew he’d grown up in Adelaide in South Australia but he had no social media identity and his work colleagues had either been unable or unwilling to give her any useful information. Her letters had been returned to sender, unopened. He seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

But she had never stopped wondering if her life would have been different if she’d found him.

Would he have wanted to make them a family?

He had told her his marriage had ended because his wife had wanted children and, although he’d never voiced the words, Chloe took that to mean that he didn’t.

She’d been relieved in a way not to find him. What would he think of Lily? She was glad she hadn’t had to find out. The decisions about her pregnancy were hers alone to make and her dreams of a happily ever after remained just dreams.

Once Lily was born she’d had no time to continue her search and she’d doused the flames of her dreams and focused on the job of raising her daughter. But she’d never forgotten him.

She sighed.

How could she forget him when she was reminded of him every day? Every time she looked into her daughter’s eyes.

She’d tried to forget and she’d tried to convince herself she hadn’t been in love with him. If anything, her experience with Xander was just more proof that everlasting love was not meant for her.

She had her daughter, her miracle, her precious Lily. That would have to be enough.

She left Lily’s night light on and the door ajar as she slipped out of the room while her mind continued to wander. If she’d realised the consequences of their affair would she have been more cautious?

She loved her daughter and she had absolutely no regrets about having her. She was always going to keep the baby—her mum had raised three kids with minimal help and Chloe knew she could raise one. She had never considered giving Lily up. She had no regrets about the choices she had made but she did sometimes wonder about a different future.

Maybe the fact that Esther and Carly were both about to settle down and join the ranks of the happily married was making her reassess her own life. Maybe she did need to get out on the dating scene. Maybe she would like some company. Now that Lily was three maybe Chloe’s life would calm down, perhaps she would get some time to herself, a day that wasn’t all consumed by motherhood and her career. Perhaps there would be some time for her to have a social life beyond an occasional drink or dinner with Carly and Esther. Nothing serious—casual dating would be fine. She wasn’t going to dream of anything more than that. She and Lily were fine on their own and she wasn’t prepared to settle for anyone ordinary. It was better to be single than to be with someone who wasn’t perfect for her. And for Lily.

Still she wondered if Xander could have been that person.

She had been on a few dates since Lily had been born but no one had lived up to her memory of Xander. She was sensible enough to realise that her memory may have altered over the years. She was remembering all the good things, looking at him through rose-tinted glasses, but he couldn’t be perfect. Four weeks just hadn’t been long enough for her to get annoyed by his flaws.

But what if she had found him?

Where would they be now?

She shook her head. She couldn’t survive on ‘what ifs.’ Even if she’d found him, he might not have been the person she wanted him to be. They’d had amazing chemistry but who knew if that would have been enough to sustain a happy, long-term relationship. She was certainly none the wiser.

She was sure there was a simple explanation to Xander’s apparent disappearance but, whatever it was, she’d never been able to find him and now, here she was, almost four years later, still single, and Lily was still without a father.

Should she let her girlfriends set her up? Chloe wondered as she hurried through A&E to fetch another bag of saline. Was that the answer?

The idea of going on a date wasn’t completely unappealing but the logistics of it wasn’t as simple. Most days after a long shift at work and then coming home to a toddler, she barely had the energy for housework. She couldn’t imagine having the energy to get ready and dressed up for a date.

She returned to the treatment cubicle and her patient, pushing all thoughts of dating aside.

‘All right, Penny, this should help you feel better,’ she said as she connected the bag of saline to the drip.

‘Can you tell me again what the doctor said is wrong with me?’ Penny asked.

‘You have a condition called hyperemesis gravidarium,’ Chloe told her as she updated Penny’s chart. ‘It’s a medical term for severe morning sickness that unfortunately doesn’t just hit you in the morning. I know you feel awful and while it can be serious it’s not life-threatening and it will pass.’

‘When?’

‘It’s usually much better by about halfway through your pregnancy.’

‘That’s another three months away,’ Penny groaned, and reached for the bowl and proceeded to vomit again. She’d presented to A&E in the late afternoon, badly dehydrated, having vomited all day.

Chloe held Penny’s hair back from her face and took the bowl from her when she finished, swapping it with a cool, damp flannel.

‘Is there anything I can do to make it stop?’ Penny asked.

‘Some expectant mums find that drinking your food instead of eating it can help,’ said Chloe. ‘Making shakes and smoothies for example and a diet high in protein and carbohydrates is better than a fatty diet. Ginger and vitamin B6 can also help.’

Scans had shown that Penny was pregnant with only one baby and blood tests hadn’t detected a virus or anything else untoward. She had low blood pressure and a rapid pulse but the nausea and dehydration were the main concern.

‘Does the vomiting harm the baby?’

‘Vomiting itself isn’t harmful but it is important not to ignore the symptoms. If you’re unable to keep food down, then you’re not getting the nutrition you need and neither is the baby and sometimes this can cause a low birthweight. You do need to take care of yourself.’ Chloe didn’t want to frighten Penny unnecessarily but it was important to stress that she needed to monitor her condition. ‘A lot of pregnant women with this condition find they need regular fluid top-ups to combat the dehydration. Anti-nausea medication as well and, very occasionally, hospital admission. I’m going to give you the details for the Early Pregnancy Unit here at the hospital. It’s open every day during office hours. That’s the place to go if you’re feeling unwell. You’ll get seen faster than here in A&E and you’re less likely to pick up any bugs. I think you should pop in there for a check-up in the next day or two as they will be able to suggest some strategies to help you through this.’

Chloe pulled a notebook from the pocket of her scrubs and wrote down the phone number and details for the EPU as well as the scientific term for Penny’s diagnosis. As she tucked it into Penny’s bag the A&E manager stuck her head into the cubicle.

‘Chloe? The air ambulance has called for a midwife. Can you go with them?’ Shirley asked. ‘I’ll reassign your patient.’

Chloe nodded. ‘Penny’s notes are up to date. She’s all set for the moment.’

Chloe was one of three midwives who worked with the Air Ambulance Service on an as-needed basis. The service had their base on the top floor of the Queen Victoria Hospital with a rooftop helipad, and Chloe had applied for a position at the hospital specifically to work with the service. She loved the work and wished she could do it full time but that would mean doing general nursing and not midwifery. She didn’t want to give that up so this was the compromise; she felt it gave her the best of both worlds.

She threw her gloves into the bin and hurried to the lift, not wanting to waste time. Protocol dictated that the crew would aim to take off within four minutes of receiving a call.

She got out one flight before the roof and stepped into the pair of orange overalls that were handed to her. She zipped them up over her scrubs and ran up the stairs and out onto the roof. She jogged across to where the helicopter sat on the helipad, its rotors turning. She ducked her head instinctively even though she wasn’t tall enough for the blades to hit her and climbed into the chopper and took her seat. Neil, one of the two fire officers on deck, slid the door closed behind her.

She reached up and unhooked a helmet that was hanging above her head. She tugged the elastic band that tied her unruly curls into a ponytail lower down on her neck so she could pull the helmet on. Sitting opposite her was Rick, one of the service’s paramedics.

She hadn’t been called for a job in over a month and she felt the familiar thrill of nervousness and anticipation as she fastened her helmet strap and reached for her harness. She worked quickly, not taking the time to glance at the other seat where one of the doctors would be sitting, as she knew the pilot was waiting to lift off.

‘Chloe, this is Dr Alexander Jameson.’ She slid one arm into her harness as she heard Rick introduce her to a new doctor. ‘He’s covering for Eloise while she’s off after her knee surgery.’

Chloe felt a shiver down her spine and her heart rate increased even as she told herself she’d misheard. She must have misheard. She’d been thinking about Xander and must have imagined Rick had said his name because why would he be here? She kept her head down, taking longer than usual to click her harness together.

‘He’s just come down from Wales.’

Chloe breathed out. He was Welsh. Not Australian. It wasn’t him.

But when she lifted her head she was looking directly into a pair of familiar grey eyes.

It was him.

Xander.

Her vision blurred as everything around her shifted. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her vision, but when she opened them she found Xander still looking straight back at her.

His eyes ensnared hers and held her motionless and she felt the air rush from her lungs as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

She stared at him. At the helmet that covered his head but not his perfect oval face with its angular, high cheekbones. At his full lips that were outlined by designer stubble and at his forehead that was slightly creased. She remembered that expression; so often serious, he usually looked either like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders or was deep in thought.

She wanted to reach over and smooth the crease from his brow.

His grey eyes, which still held a trace of sadness, were wide, framed by thick, dark blond lashes, and they stared straight into her soul.

How could she have forgotten how gorgeous he was?

She was immediately transported back to a hot Australian day, to the first time she saw him. He had the same effect on her today as he’d had then. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t stop staring at him. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on him almost four years ago she’d fallen hard and she could feel herself tumbling again.

How could she have forgotten the intensity of her feelings?

She felt light-headed, dizzy, and was grateful that she was already sitting down.

She had spent months trying to find him. Months thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to him and here he was, apparently fit and well, sitting in her chopper.

CHAPTER TWO

‘XANDER, CHLOE IS one of our on-call midwives.’ Rick was still introducing them as if they didn’t already know each other. As if Chloe’s world hadn’t just tipped on its axis.

Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking. She tucked them into her lap, hoping Rick and Xander didn’t notice her reaction.

‘Chloe.’ He nodded. Once. Briefly.

He didn’t deny that he knew her and he didn’t pretend that he was meeting her for the first time but he certainly didn’t appear too thrilled. He gave her nothing. She consoled herself with the fact that it wasn’t the time or place for a personal conversation.

Would he be expecting one?

He probably hadn’t thought about her once in four years. He would have no idea that she thought of him daily. He would have no idea of the impact he had made on her life.

She studied him fleetingly, trying not to stare again. The orange jumpsuit that was the uniform for air ambulance medical staff was not the most flattering shade but Xander wore it well. His face was slightly tanned, making her wonder where else he’d been. Surely he hadn’t got a tan in Wales? His shoulders were still broad, his legs long and lean. He looked thinner than she recalled and she wondered if his hair, beneath the helmet, was as thick and blond as she remembered. Four years ago he had worn it swept to one side, always looking as if he’d just finished running his fingers through it.

When she had left him behind, they’d had no plans for anything to go beyond a brief holiday fling. He had no idea that she’d spent months trying to find him.

She pushed the memories of their time together aside, before they could come flooding back. She couldn’t afford to be swamped by the past. She had a job to do.

She could be professional. She was professional.

She’d waited years to speak to Xander. She’d given up on ever finding him. She could wait a few more hours to catch up.

She turned to Rick, hoping he was the one with all the information about the job and focused on the task at hand.

‘Where are we headed?’ she asked.

‘Stabbing. Domestic dispute. Thirty-year-old woman, fourth pregnancy, thirty-eight weeks. Paramedics are on site. The woman and her partner are both being treated for injuries. The woman is in labour.’

Chloe digested the scant information. Details about the job were relayed to them by the co-pilot, Jeff, and were usually minimal. She knew the job was likely to be complicated but that was normally the case. The air ambulance wasn’t called for simple incidents. But they wouldn’t be the first pre-hospital team at the scene and she knew more information would be forthcoming once they arrived. The team had plenty of emergency medicine experience between them and were used to gathering information as they went.

Out of habit she checked the supplies stashed in the seat pockets beside her while her mind wandered.

She could feel Xander’s eyes on her but she didn’t dare meet his gaze. She needed to collect her thoughts before she connected with him and checking the supplies gave her something to occupy her throughout the short flight.

She needed to control her nerves. She concentrated on counting supplies, willing her hands to stop shaking. She was equal parts excited, nervous and worried.

She needed to focus but she was dying to know what he was thinking. What had he been doing? How was he? Did he ever think of her? And what did his arrival mean for her? For them? For Lily?

It was only a few minutes before she felt the helicopter begin the left-hand bank turn and knew they had reached their destination. The pilot, Simon, would be giving Jeff a chance to identify a safe landing site.

The house was easy to find; from her seat Chloe could see an ambulance, a police car and a police van parked out the front.

The chopper landed on a vacant block that looked as if it may have once been a tennis court. A few kids scattered to the footpath as it descended but then hung around, mouths open and eyes wide, to watch the scene unfold.

Rick slid the door open as the chopper touched down. Chloe reached for one of the kit bags only to find Xander had reached for the same one. Their hands touched and as Xander’s came to rest on top of hers she jerked hers away as if she’d been scalded. Her skin was on fire, her breathing rapid. She kept her gaze averted and picked up a second bag as she tried to get her nerves under control.

She strode off, carrying the bag, quickly putting some distance between them. She needed to keep him out of her line of sight while she pulled herself together.

Two policemen emerged as they approached the house and between them Chloe could see a man in handcuffs. The husband? The police officers pushed on his head, forcing him into the back of their van before slamming the door. She gave him a cursory glance as she walked past before following Rick into the property.

The house was identical in appearance to several others in the street. A small front garden in need of some attention separated the house from the street. A short flight of steps led to the front door set in a narrow two-storey building. Chloe knew the floor plan—she’d been to many houses just like this one—and there was nothing to indicate from the outside what went on behind closed doors. Houses where domestic violence occurred could look like any other from the outside.

The front door opened into a tight hallway. There was a staircase on their right, an empty lounge on the left. Looking past Rick’s shoulder Chloe could see a kitchen at the end of the hall. The air ambulance crew crowded into the small room.

A woman lay on the floor. Her shirt was ripped and bloodied and blood pooled on the linoleum. Her skin was pale and her breathing laboured. Two paramedics knelt on either side of her and one looked up as the team entered the room.

‘This is Shania. Stab wound to the right chest.’

The paramedics had cut through the woman’s top and the one who spoke was just finishing applying a dressing to the lateral side of the woman’s chest.

‘We’ve only just been able to get to her,’ the paramedic continued. ‘We had to wait for the police to subdue her partner.’

‘She is complaining of difficulty breathing. She’s hypoxic, absent air sounds,’ the other paramedic said as he lifted the stethoscope that he’d been holding against the woman’s chest. ‘Rapid heart rate and sharp stabbing chest pain. I think she may have a tension pneumothorax.’

The air ambulance team all had their job roles emblazoned on the front left of their overalls. The paramedic holding the dressing reached into the kit that was beside her with her free hand and passed gloves to everyone before handing a stethoscope to Xander.

‘She’s thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Fourth pregnancy.’ The paramedic repeated the information that the air ambulance team had already been given. ‘She’s in labour but we haven’t had time to assess that.’

Xander knelt beside the woman. He placed the stethoscope against her chest and listened. Chloe was happy to defer to him. She knew there was no point asking the woman any questions about her labour until her chest pain was sorted. If she was having trouble breathing, she wouldn’t want to talk. The woman’s labour wasn’t the priority. A tension pneumothorax was life-threatening.

Xander lifted his head. ‘I need a large-bore needle, fourteen-gauge,’ he said.

The paramedic handed him an angiocath along with an alcohol wipe. Xander swept the wipe across the woman’s ribs and Chloe watched as he palpated for the intercostal space in the mid-clavicular line with slender fingers. His blond head was bent over the woman, the smooth skin on the back of his neck exposed as he leant over his patient.

He was talking to the woman, explaining what he was about to do.

He was calm and methodical. He worked quickly but smoothly. There was no panic, no hurried movements, nothing to alarm or frighten the woman, who was already on edge.

Chloe watched his profile as he worked, noting the angle of his jaw, the blond stubble that covered it, the sharpness of his cheekbones, his flat, shell-shaped ears. She remembered how much she’d learnt from him when they’d worked together in Australia. His calmness, experience, patience and bedside manner were some of the many things that she’d found attractive but they hadn’t been the first things she’d noticed about him. She hadn’t even known he was a doctor, let alone that she’d be working with him, when she’d first seen him. It had been one of those moments you read about: their eyes had met across a room and she was done for. She’d fallen hard and fast.

She blinked and cleared her mind as she took a deep breath and told herself to focus. There were more important things to think about than what had happened between her and Xander. Those days were long gone. She was a different person now, no longer carefree, no longer independent. She had a job to do and other things to consider. She needed to get herself under control. She couldn’t let her hormones unsettle her. She needed to take stock of the situation—even if she couldn’t make sense of it yet.

She had to try to ignore the fact that Xander was kneeling just inches away from her. She had to resist the temptation to reach out and place her hand on the back of his neck. To feel the warmth of his skin under her fingers. She had to pretend he was just another colleague, not the man who she’d once thought could be the love of her life.

She forced her attention back to the tableau in front of her, concentrating on the woman’s chest instead of on Xander.

He’d found the space he wanted and she watched as he inserted the needle between the woman’s ribs. They all heard the air as it flowed out of the chest cavity. He removed the needle after a few seconds, leaving the plastic tube in situ, and reviewed the woman’s observations. Her oxygen sats improved as her chest re-inflated. Xander listened for breath sounds before taking a chest seal from Rick and applying it.

Rick and Xander worked smoothly together, inserting a drip, administering pain relief and hooking an oxygen mask over Shania’s nose and mouth while Xander kept up his explanations.

They didn’t need Chloe’s help but she kept herself busy, finding the things she might need for a delivery and making sure they were close to hand. Focusing on anything but Xander.

‘How are you feeling now, Shania?’ Xander asked. ‘Do you have any pain? Can you tell me where it is?’

‘Ow!’ Shania clutched at her stomach and Chloe could see the tell-tale ripple of a contraction pass across Shania’s abdomen. Treating a tension pneumothorax always gave immediate relief and Xander had relieved Shania’s chest pain so successfully that she was now complaining about her labour pains.

Xander caught Chloe’s eye and gave her a quick smile, uniting them in their treatment of their patient. But his smile did more than that. Chloe thought he was handsome when he wore his usual brooding expression but when he smiled he was something else altogether. No longer wounded, or sad, the shadows in his eyes disappeared and it was like watching the sun come out after a long winter. His smile instantly transformed his face and made Chloe’s world tilt. It had been almost four years since she’d seen his smile and it knocked the wind out of her all over again.

‘Looks like it’s your turn,’ he said as he stood preparing to swap places with Chloe. Space was at a premium and Chloe was very aware of how close to her Xander was standing. How she had to brush past him in order to reach their patient.

She took a deep breath and mentally shook her head as she knelt on the floor.

‘Shania, I’m Chloe. I’m a midwife. Let’s see what’s going on with this baby of yours, shall we?’ She strapped a foetal heart rate monitor around Shania’s belly and waited anxiously for the reading, hoping it would fall between one hundred and ten and one hundred and sixty beats per minute.

One hundred and two…

‘We need to get her to hospital,’ Chloe said. The baby appeared to be in distress and Chloe was concerned about oxygen deprivation given Shania’s injuries.

‘I’m not going to the hospital,’ Shania protested.

‘We need to transfer you,’ Chloe insisted. ‘You have a chest wound and you’re having a baby. This is for your safety. And your baby’s safety.’

‘Who will look after my kids?’ Shania asked as another contraction gripped her.

‘Where are they?’ Xander asked.

‘With one of the neighbours.’ A policewoman stood in the corner of the kitchen. Chloe had barely been aware of her until she replied to Xander’s question.

Xander looked over to her. ‘Can you see if the neighbour is happy to keep them for a while?’

The policewoman nodded and left the room and Chloe indicated to Rick to follow her. She needed him to fetch the stretcher.

She bent her head and resumed her examination. ‘Let me have a quick look to see how far along your labour is.’ The contractions were less than a minute apart and Chloe was worried. She looked up at Xander. ‘I don’t think we’re going anywhere right now. She’s fully dilated.’

The baby’s head was crowning. There was nothing Chloe could do now to slow down Shania’s labour. This baby was coming whether they were ready or not.

‘I want to push!’ Shania cried out.

‘Okay, Shania, ready when you are.’ The pain relief Xander administered was enough to lightly sedate Shania, enough to calm her down but not enough to make her unable to push.

Shania bore down and Chloe eased the baby’s head out. ‘Well done, Shania. Take a breath now,’ she said as she felt for the cord. Everything seemed clear. ‘Wait for the next contraction and I’ll get you to push again.’

The baby came out in a slippery rush. A girl. She didn’t appear to be injured but everything was silent. No crying and Chloe didn’t think she was even breathing. She quickly wrapped her in a soft cloth and rubbed her vigorously and was rewarded with a muted cry.

‘Congratulations, Shania. You have a daughter.’

Chloe clamped and cut the cord and did a quick Apgar assessment. The baby’s hands and feet were blue, her respiration slow, but she scored an eight out of ten, which was great, all things considered.

Chloe wrapped her against the cold and slid a cap onto her head to retain warmth. ‘Do you have a name for her?’ she asked as she handed her to Shania.

‘Tonya.’ Shania was gazing at her daughter, all pain forgotten.

Shania was oblivious to her surroundings now as Chloe delivered the placenta and put it into a bag. Shania still needed to go to hospital and Chloe needed to take the placenta with them.

Rick returned with the stretcher followed by the policewoman. Chloe could see the surprised look on her face. The baby had arrived faster than anyone anticipated. The policewoman spoke to Shania. ‘Shania, your neighbour will mind the children while you go to hospital.’

Shania was too tired to argue as Chloe took the baby and Rick and Xander transferred her to the stretcher.

Chloe did another quick check of the baby and increased her Apgar score by one. Despite the dramatic circumstances surrounding her birth she was doing remarkably well. Chloe carried Tonya out to the chopper and held her as Shania’s stretcher was loaded on board and Rick connected Shania to the monitors. Simon lifted the chopper into the air as soon as Rick gave the all clear.

‘The police asked me to let you know you’ll need to make a report,’ Xander said to Shania. ‘They want to know if you want to press charges.’

Shania shook her head. ‘I’m not going to press charges.’

Xander looked incredulous. ‘What? Why not?’

‘If I’m in hospital I need Greg at home to look after the other kids. I can’t have him locked up overnight. They’ll keep him until he sobers up and then they’ll let him go. I just hope he goes home and not back to the pub.’

‘The police have arrested Greg. I don’t think they’re going to be too quick to let him go.’ Xander was speaking slowly, as if he was worried that Shania wasn’t understanding the situation. ‘Has he been physically violent towards you before?’

‘I started it,’ Shania replied, and Chloe noticed she avoided answering Xander’s question.

‘How do you figure that?’

‘I was going to the next-door neighbour’s. I was going to ask her to drive me to hospital because Greg had been drinking, but Greg got angry. He didn’t want the neighbours to know he was in no state to drive and he insisted he was okay to take me. I knew he wasn’t and when I tried to get past him he blocked my way. I grabbed a kitchen knife and threatened him but he took it off me and, when I tried to push past him, the knife stabbed into me. I shouldn’t have taken the knife in the first place and then none of this would have happened.’

Chloe could see by Xander’s expression that he wasn’t pleased with Shania’s answer. She also knew he wouldn’t be pleased that there was nothing he could do about the situation. She knew he was driven by the same overwhelming desire to help people, to fight for the underdog, to improve people’s lives, as she was. ‘Shania, the knife didn’t stab you, your husband did. That is not okay.’

‘Do you have kids?’ Shania asked.

Chloe should have anticipated the question. It was one she got asked by almost every labouring mother when they were looking for some common ground or reassurance that Chloe knew what they were going through, but she hadn’t been prepared to have to answer that question in front of Xander. Her heart rate spiked but thank God she didn’t have to answer as fortunately Shania was addressing Xander and not her.

Xander shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’ He kept his head turned away and Chloe wasn’t able to see his expression. When she’d last seen him four years ago he hadn’t wanted kids. Had anything changed? Would he want Lily?

‘I have three kids,’ Shania continued. ‘Four now. I don’t work. Where would I go?’

Xander looked up and Chloe took over from him. She knew he’d be wanting to offer advice but she guessed he wasn’t sure how the system worked in the UK.

‘There are options,’ Chloe said. ‘I can organise for a social worker to come and see you and we can see what measures we can put in place.’ It was often a difficult process. Resources were scant and Chloe knew that a lot of mums preferred not to uproot their children. It was a catch-22. She’d start with getting the social worker visit while Shania was in hospital but she knew from experience that there was little they could do if Shania wasn’t on board with the idea. She was sure Shania had heard it all before but she was pleased to see her give a very slight nod of agreement just as the large red H of the hospital helipad came into view beneath them.

The hospital roof became a hive of activity as the helicopter door slid open. Surgical and neonatal teams were on hand to meet them and transfer the patients and Chloe lost sight of Xander as she went with baby Tonya to the neonatal unit.

Her hands shook as she transferred Tonya to the neonatal stretcher. Her heart rate was still elevated and she knew some of it was due to adrenalin from the job but the rest was wholly and solely because of Xander.

She remained on tenterhooks for the rest of her shift waiting to see if Xander would appear in A&E even though she knew his shift must have finished well before hers. The air ambulance helicopter only operated during daylight hours and it was long since dark. Once the helicopter was out of action, road crews took over and Xander would have gone home. The only reason he would have to come to A&E would be to see her.

She was partly relieved and partly disappointed when her shift ended with Xander nowhere in sight.

Xander sat at the bar and nursed his drink as he mulled over the day’s turn of events.

He wasn’t thinking about work or Shania. He was thinking about Chloe. Seeing her had completely blindsided him and had brought back memories he’d thought long buried.

He hadn’t let himself consider the possibility of seeing her again even though he was in London. But was it really such a surprise?

They’d met when she was on a study exchange, working with the flying doctor, and he knew that the London air ambulance was the UK equivalent but he’d had no idea she was working with them. He hadn’t let himself hope that he’d see her again.

But here she was.

It had been almost four years but she’d barely changed. Maybe she wasn’t quite as thin but, if anything, the few extra pounds suited her. She still looked young—she was seven years younger than him so she must only be about twenty-seven—but there was a maturity about her now. In both looks and manner. He saw it in her eyes and he’d seen it in her work today. She’d been confident, assured and capable.

He closed his eyes as he pictured her.

Her thick blond curls had been pulled back into a ponytail today, but he could remember how it had felt to slide his fingers into her tresses, how her hair had felt splayed across his bare chest. How she’d felt lying nestled into his side, how he had felt when she’d taken him in her arms. The cool, silkiness of her skin, the softness of her lips and the smell of shampoo and sun in her hair. He recalled it all.

It had been almost four years but he remembered her as if it was yesterday.

She had been a good distraction, an excellent distraction, at a time of his life when he’d needed distracting.

He’d had a tumultuous two years and he had still been trying to process what had happened when she walked into his life. He’d encountered two of life’s major stresses simultaneously. A serious health scare and a marriage breakdown. His cancer diagnosis had been a shock, his wife’s infidelity equally so. Going through chemotherapy had been confronting and exhausting without the additional stress of a divorce. A divorce that he hadn’t seen coming. Those past two years had left him shattered and numb and he had been struggling to find his new identity in a future that didn’t hold marriage or fatherhood. His dreams had been crushed, leaving him with nothing except his career.

He had been physically and emotionally exhausted when he’d met Chloe. He’d been through the wringer and, although he knew a stranger would look at him and suspect nothing, he felt a shadow of his former self.

She’d made him feel better but she hadn’t been able to mend him.

Chloe had given him a chance to forget about the previous two years. Some respite. She’d allowed him a chance to ignore what had happened but, he could admit this now, that hadn’t helped him to deal with it. Denial and acceptance were two completely different things.

But he did know that the last time he’d been truly happy had been when he’d been with Chloe. She had calmed his soul and brought peace and happiness to his life at a time when he’d desperately needed it. And then taken it all away with her again when she’d left.

He hadn’t anticipated that her departure would leave such a big hole in his life—after all, they’d only known each other for four weeks—but the loneliness he felt had surprised him and it was only after she’d gone that he wondered if he should have confided in her. Could they have had something more if he hadn’t been so emotionally wounded? So damaged.

He would never know.

Confiding in her would have meant talking about what had happened, talking about his feelings, and he wasn’t ready to do that. He was happier in denial. They’d shared a bed but not their minds. His wife, ex-wife, whom he’d known for ten years, had betrayed his trust and he hadn’t been in a position where he could bring himself to trust anyone else with his story. Not even a virtual stranger.

He’d needed time.

And time was something they didn’t have then.

He may have denied them the opportunity of getting to know each other better but he consoled himself with the knowledge that Chloe was only ever in Australia temporarily. He told himself that nothing he could have said or done would have changed that but it didn’t stop him from sometimes wishing that things had turned out differently.

They’d had no plans for a future together, although he had found himself imagining one, but he knew he wasn’t in a position to offer her anything permanent. The future. Permanency. They were words that he’d been afraid to consider. His fate was still uncertain. He’d enjoyed Chloe’s company but he’d known, in his soul, that he wasn’t what she needed even while he thought she might be exactly what he desired.

But he had to sort himself out first. He had to find some level of acceptance for what had happened to him. To his life. He couldn’t move forward until he’d done that.

He didn’t know what his future was going to be, so instead of searching for her he’d gone searching the world, looking for a substitute. Looking for something to fill the space she’d left behind.

He’d thought he would find something to fill that void but today, seeing her again, he wondered whether his search had been in vain. Could anything fill that void or could it only be filled by someone?

She’d been the perfect tonic for him at one of the lowest points of his life but what about now?

Was he in a better place?

Four years on and he’d thought he was better but his feelings today took him by surprise. He’d felt an extraordinary sense of calm when he’d seen her today. As if, for the first time in years, he could breathe deeply and fully.

He’d considered asking her out for a coffee or a drink but had hesitated at the last minute. He needed some time to understand what this chance meeting could mean. Was it just that? A chance. It didn’t need to mean anything. He didn’t need to act on it. He needed time to digest this situation. To figure it out.

Being in the same place again was just a coincidence and he didn’t believe in coincidences.

But he couldn’t deny that it had been good to see her again.

He swallowed a mouthful of beer as he recalled the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

He’d been sitting by himself at the bar in the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill—some things never changed, he thought wryly, although he had been waiting for a colleague. He’d been drinking too much, blocking out the previous two years. He’d already had one beer and was on to his second when she walked in.

The late-afternoon sun had silhouetted her in the doorway of the hotel and her golden curls had shone like a halo around her head. She was slim and elegant with a dancer’s posture and a graceful walk.

He’d sat, mesmerised, as she’d walked towards him. He hadn’t stopped to wonder why she was heading his way; at the time it had made perfect sense, as if his mind was willing her to come to him, as if she could read his thoughts. It was only when she joined him at the bar that he noticed that Jane, a Royal Flying Doctor flight nurse and one of his colleagues, was with her.

Jane introduced them and the news that this vision, Chloe, was going to be working with him for the next month was the best thing he’d heard in a long, long time. From that moment on he was scarcely aware of other colleagues and patrons coming and going around them. He was struck, not only by Chloe’s natural beauty but by the joy that seemed to radiate from her. He’d been enthralled by her smile, her lips, the light in her brown eyes and her exuberance.

He had no idea of how long they’d stayed in the bar. All he knew was that he wasn’t leaving until she did and eventually it was just the two of them, alone. One by one the others had left but Chloe had stayed on and, therefore, so had he.

She didn’t have anywhere she had to be.

She’d flirted with him. Touched him on the arm. The thigh. Playing with her glorious hair. He thought he was too old for her, he was about to turn thirty but he’d felt ten years more than that; he was old but not so old that he didn’t recognise the signs of mutual attraction.

He’d wondered, briefly, if it was a bad idea to let her know he was interested too but he hadn’t wanted to resist. Hadn’t been able to. Chloe had been very convincing and he hadn’t fought against her for too long. He had behaved for one night but they both knew what was going to happen.

He remembered the anticipation.

Being with Chloe was the first thing he’d looked forward to for months.

He had been working with the Royal Flying Doctor Service for six months. It had long been a dream of his that had been squashed by his ex-wife, but when he’d finally made it to the service he’d felt a sense of relief that he was starting to put the past behind him rather than the sense of excitement he’d always hoped for. Chloe turned out to be the first bit of excitement he’d had in a long time. They’d had a brief but passionate affair. His head wasn’t in the right place for anything more and she was only in town for a month, but it had been a bright point in an otherwise dark period of his life.

Their affair had burned bright. Their chemistry overshadowing conversation. Chloe was young, carefree, on a working holiday; she wasn’t interested in anything deep and meaningful. He was jaded; he didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm for life with his tales of woe. That wasn’t what she needed. It wasn’t what he needed. He wanted to forget about his troubles and she allowed him to do that.

She was addictive.

Restorative.

And then she was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

CHLOE FOLDED HERSELF into a seat on the Tube. She was tired—it had been a long day and a busy shift—but her mind was buzzing. Memories of Xander, snippets of the past, filled her thoughts.

The subway tiles whizzed past as the train zipped through the stations. The press of bodies, the fluorescent lighting and the blackness of the tunnels suffocated her. She closed her eyes against the glare of the lights and let her mind drift back to four years ago.

The London Underground couldn’t be further from the Australian outback. The close confines of the flying doctor plane had been replaced by the trains on the underground and the occasional helicopter flight. Going to the pub in Broken Hill or the races had been replaced with an occasional girls’ night out and trips to the park with Lily. The feel of the sunlight on her skin and the smell of the eucalyptus trees and dirt had been replaced with the hospital air-conditioning and the polluted air of London.

Even in the outback there had never been complete darkness but instead of artificial lighting it had been the stars overhead. Instead of the press of bodies sometimes it was just her, Xander, the pilot and a patient. Four people in thousands of square kilometres.

Sometimes it had just been her and Xander under the night sky.

It had been such a short period in her life but she’d never forgotten it. How could she?

Her mind drifted back to the night she’d met Xander. To the night that changed her life.

She had just arrived in Broken Hill, in the Australian outback. It was her third and final month on a study exchange program with the flying doctor service. She’d already completed stints in Adelaide and Port Augusta and had loved every minute of it but she was hugely excited about being in the real outback. Broken Hill was what she’d pictured when she’d applied for the exchange. It was so totally different to anything she would ever experience back home and she couldn’t wait.

Jane, one of the flight nurses, had taken her to drinks at the Palace Hotel. It was tradition for any newcomers to the service. The imposing two-storey redbrick hotel with its unusual internal artwork—murals that covered not only the walls but the ceilings too—had featured in several popular Australian movies and Chloe had been keen to visit the iconic hotel. But when they’d walked into the bar her attention had been captured, not by the architecture or artwork, but by a man sitting alone at the bar.

She couldn’t remember anything else.

Tall, blond, long, lean and tanned. He was physically perfect. In Chloe’s opinion he had not even one flaw.

He was wearing pale cotton trousers that moulded to his backside and a dark T-shirt that clung to his chest and showed off muscular arms. Every blond hair on his head was perfectly in place.

His skin was flawless, not a freckle to distract attention. His nose was straight, his jaw square, his shoulders broad. His eyebrows, a slightly darker blond than his hair, framed a pair of grey eyes. Physically he was perfect but there was something wounded in his expression. Something lost in his grey eyes. He cut a solitary, lonely figure and Chloe couldn’t resist.

She’d always been drawn to the damaged, the wounded. She had seen the pain her father’s treatment of her mother had caused. It had affected Chloe and her brothers too, and as the eldest child she had always felt a responsibility and desire to try to fix things for everyone. She wanted to make the world a better, happier place and she’d been fascinated by the solitary man at the bar, by his sense of loneliness and touch of despair. She’d been immediately interested and desperate to know more.

She couldn’t remember whether Jane had led her to him or if she’d made a beeline herself. Either way, it didn’t matter. She’d been captivated. She’d stayed long after Jane and the other flying doctor personnel had left. Talking to Xander.

She’d known instinctively that she would sleep with him. It wasn’t a case of ‘if’ but ‘when.’

It had been an amazing four weeks, a magical month, a pocket of time that she’d expected she would wrap up in her bank of memories. Something to be taken out and relived when she needed something to smile about. She hadn’t expected to relive it every time she looked into her daughter’s eyes.

But despite the way things had turned out she wouldn’t change anything. Well, maybe a few things. It had been a simple time in her life with no one to think about except for herself. That had certainly changed and she wouldn’t go back to a time before Lily but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something to be said for an uncomplicated life.

Unfortunately, she felt in her bones that her life was about to become decidedly more complicated with Xander’s unexpected appearance. And she needed time to work out what she was going to do about it.

‘That’s enough riding for now, Lily, why don’t you go on the slide.’ Chloe felt like a bad mother, cutting short Lily’s ride on her new bike, but she was tired; she’d slept badly, and she needed a break from running after Lily to give her a little push every time she needed to restart her bike.

‘Is everything all right?’ her mother asked as Chloe wheeled the bike back to the park bench and Lily scampered off to the slide. ‘You look tired.’

‘I didn’t sleep well,’ Chloe admitted to her mother.

‘Problems at work?’ Susan was a nurse too; she was familiar with the pitfalls of the job, with those days that you couldn’t leave behind at the hospital, with those patients who continued to live in your head even once your shift was finished.

‘Sort of. We have a new doctor at the air ambulance.’

A doctor whose arrival meant that Chloe had tossed and turned all night but still hadn’t been able to figure out what she was going to do about him.

‘Was he or she difficult to work with?’

‘No.’ She needed her mother’s advice. ‘It’s Xander.’

‘Your Xander?’

Chloe nodded. Her mother and Chloe’s brothers were the only people who knew about him. ‘He’s not mine, but yes.’

‘What is he doing here?’

‘He’s covering sick leave. He’s only here for a few weeks.’

‘So you think it’s just a coincidence?’

‘What?’

‘That he’s turned up here, working with the Air Ambulance Service?’

‘It must be.’ Chloe didn’t believe in coincidences—she always thought things happened for a reason—but it had to be. He couldn’t have come looking for her. She had only started working at the Queen Victoria Hospital after coming home from Australia. She’d applied to work there because it was the base for the Air Ambulance Service but Xander couldn’t know that.

‘Does he know about Lily?’

Chloe shook her head. ‘How could he?’ Chloe hadn’t even put his name on Lily’s birth certificate. She hadn’t been able to without his consent.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll have to tell him. I looked for him for six months.’ She’d only stopped when Lily had been born—time and money had made it impractical to keep searching for someone who seemed to have completely disappeared. ‘I just don’t know when. That’s why I’m tired. I’ve been awake all night thinking about what to do.’

Chloe had long since accepted that she would raise Lily as a single mother. Perhaps it wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t impossible and she was managing. What effect would Xander’s reappearance have?

‘It’s been four years. How do you think he’ll react to the news?’ she asked her mother.

‘I have no way of knowing. Some men will rise to the challenge, others may not—every one is different and so is every situation—and unfortunately, he’s disappeared once before. But there’s only one way to know for sure.’

Chloe sighed. ‘He has never looked for me. He must have been happy to let me go.’

Her mother raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know that. And that doesn’t mean he won’t want to be a father. That’s two very different relationships.’

‘I don’t think they’re that easy to separate. My father couldn’t do it.’

‘Your father left me but he never intended to leave you children. Our marriage was over—his actions damaged it irreparably—but he didn’t abandon you. He wasn’t planning on dying.’ Her mother looked over to where Lily slid happily down the slide. ‘You owe it to Lily to tell Xander about her. You owe it to him too. There probably isn’t going to be the perfect time. You’re probably better off just getting it out in the open.’

‘No.’ Chloe shook her head. ‘I need to find out more. I need to know why he’s here. What’s been going on in his life? What if he has a family of his own? He might not thank me for disrupting his life.’

She wondered if he’d changed that much. If he’d finally decided he wanted children. Or if he was still convinced he didn’t. He might not want to know about Lily. Or worse, he might want Lily but not Chloe. ‘There are far too many questions and you know how I hate asking a question that I don’t know the answer to.’

Chloe didn’t believe in coincidences and she didn’t like surprises. She needed to collect the facts before she started disseminating information that could change everyone’s lives.

She didn’t really know him. She didn’t know how he would react to this news. She hadn’t known four years ago and she was no wiser now. The truth was, after Lily was born and she’d come to terms with the fact that Xander was gone, a part of her had been secretly relived that she hadn’t been able to find him. It meant she didn’t have to deal with any unpleasantness. Fantasy and reality were rarely the same thing.

She still needed to find out why he was here. What did his arrival mean for her? And for Lily?

Did he have a family? He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. What were his thoughts on fatherhood and commitment now? Four years was a long time. Things may have changed but she didn’t want to tell him about Lily if he wasn’t going to love her. Life was hard enough without being unloved or unwanted. She wouldn’t expose her daughter to that.

‘I think you’re making excuses,’ her mother told her.

Chloe knew she was but she was scared.

She knew she had to tell him about Lily, but when?

And what if someone else told him first? Shania had almost asked the question and her air ambulance colleagues knew she had a daughter. They never had a lot of time to chat about their personal lives when they were on a job; the flights were never more than eleven minutes in duration and they were either preparing for a job or often caring for a patient on a return. It wasn’t often that they came back empty-handed. But what if one of her colleagues said something?

Thank God she wouldn’t have to spend hours with Xander. Not that she’d minded four years ago but until she worked out what she was going to do about the situation she was better off keeping her distance. Luckily, she didn’t spend her days in the air ambulance unit waiting for a call; she was only ever an additional team member, called in specially for certain jobs.

Her mother gave her a hug. ‘There’s only one way to know how this will turn out, Chloe, and that’s to tell him the truth. You’ll soon find out what he thinks then.’

Her mind and the discussion went around in a never-ending circle and by the time Lily got bored with the playground Chloe was no closer to a decision about what to do. No closer to figuring out how to deal with Xander’s unexpected appearance.

Xander was edgy. It was a busy shift, most of them were. On average the air ambulance attended five call-outs each day but it wasn’t the caseload that had him unsettled. Each time they received a call he was on tenterhooks, waiting to see if they would need a midwife, waiting to find out if he would see Chloe. He felt like he’d thought of nothing and no one but her for the past three days and he was determined to ask her out next time he saw her. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But at the end of his shift he knew he couldn’t continue just to wait for fate, or an emergency, to intervene. He was going quietly crazy. He’d have to go and find her.

He changed out of his orange flight overalls and headed down to A&E only to be told she was up in the maternity wards.

As he stepped out of the lift Chloe’s golden curls caught his eye. Her back was to him as she pushed a wheelchair down the corridor. He could see she had a patient with her and he waited to see where she was going. He didn’t want to have this conversation in public. She stopped at the door to the NICU, swiping her card and letting herself in. It was only a minute or so before she reappeared, by which time he was walking casually towards her.

‘Xander! What are you doing here?’

‘I thought I’d drop past and see how Shania was doing,’ he said, improvising quickly to explain his presence.

‘Physically she’s doing well and she also had an interview with a social worker. She hasn’t made any major decisions yet but at least she’s looking at her options.’

‘And the baby? Tonya?’

‘She’s doing brilliantly too. I’ve just taken Shania to the NICU to see her. They’re both doing well.’

‘In that case I won’t interrupt,’ he said as he fell into step beside her. ‘Have you finished your shift?’

‘No, not quite. Why?’ she asked as she pressed the button to call the lift.

‘I wondered if you’d like to have a drink with me? Tonight, after work?’

‘Why?’

He hadn’t expected her to question his reasons. ‘To catch up,’ he said simply. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you. It was a nice surprise and I’d like to hear about what you’ve been up to.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can’t tonight or can’t full stop?’ he asked as Chloe’s phone buzzed in her pocket.

She took her phone out and looked at the screen as the lift arrived and the doors slid open. She stepped into the lift and turned to face him. She said, ‘I’m sorry. I need to go,’ but didn’t answer his question.

The lift doors closed, leaving him standing in the corridor. Alone.

He was an idiot. Just because he was still single, confused by his feelings and out of his depth, didn’t mean she was still in the same position. Of course she’d be busy. She had a life. He’d noticed she didn’t wear a wedding ring but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a significant other. It had been four years.

Four years ago she’d brought light back into his life and he’d been searching for it again ever since. But that didn’t mean she felt the same way. They’d had undeniable chemistry but that didn’t mean to say she hadn’t found that with somebody else.

He should leave her alone. He was old enough to know one shouldn’t go back. But he didn’t want to give up. Not yet.

He’d given her up once before.

Chloe tried to resist the temptation to look at her watch. Again. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to let Esther set her up on a date with one of Harry’s friends. She had hoped that the date would help keep her mind off Xander’s reappearance but it wasn’t working.

She tried to be a bit more engaging. It wasn’t Stephen’s fault she wasn’t giving this date her full attention. He was pleasant enough but he wasn’t the one she wanted to spend an evening with. She should have cancelled the date or at least rescheduled—she knew she was wasting his time and hers—but it was too late now. She found herself constantly comparing Stephen to Xander and he was falling short.

She knew it wasn’t Stephen per se. In the past four years no one had given her the same feeling of excitement and anticipation that she’d experienced with Xander and she was worried that her four weeks with Xander had ruined her chances of finding someone else whom she could fall in love with.

Her thoughts drifted as Stephen tried gamely to engage her in conversation. She wondered what Xander was doing right now. She’d had to turn down his invitation, not only because she’d already agreed to this date but because she hadn’t worked out what to tell him. She’d panicked when he invited her out. Her first thought had been, Did he know about Lily? Was that what he’d wanted to talk to her about? And despite telling herself there was no way he could know anything she’d gradually worked herself into a state.

She’d hoped her date with Stephen would be a good distraction, would give her something else to think about other than Xander, but it was not going well. If she was honest, it was a disaster. She wondered at what point it wouldn’t be considered rude to make her excuses and leave.

‘Harry said you work with him at the Queen Victoria. You’re a nurse?’

‘A midwife. In A&E.’ Chloe made a concerted effort to tune back into the conversation. ‘I work with the air ambulance service too,’ she added. Most people found that aspect of her job interesting. Maybe Stephen would ask enough questions that she could focus on that.

‘How did you get into that?’ he asked, almost on cue.

‘I spent some time in Australia on a study exchange working with their flying doctor service. I loved it so much that I applied for the air ambulance when I got back. It’s the closest thing we have.’

‘And what did you think of Australia?’

‘I loved it. Have you been there?’

He nodded. ‘I spent twelve months there as a Fellow. Couldn’t stand it. The heat was terrible and those awful flies, not to mention the endless discussions about sport.’

Chloe had loved her time in Australia. Not the flies—she’d have to agree with him on that—but she’d loved everything else. She’d loved the relaxed lifestyle. She’d loved the weather. She’d loved the people. She’d loved Xander.

She sighed. Other than their careers as medical professionals she knew she and Stephen had nothing else in common and she figured there was absolutely no point in wasting any more of the evening for either of them. Thank God she hadn’t agreed to dinner.

She excused herself from the table. She’d go to the ladies’ and call her mum. She’d get her to text and say Lily was running a temperature and needed her. She knew a normal person would see that for the excuse it was but she didn’t care. She’d be doing both of them a favour by cutting the night short.

Chloe slipped her phone back into her bag as she left the toilets and returned to the table telling herself she could manage another five minutes until her mum called with a reprieve.

She had taken two steps in that direction when she heard her name.

‘Chloe!’

She closed her handbag and looked up into a pair of familiar grey eyes.

Xander.

She stopped in her tracks, incapable of moving. She could feel her heart racing in her chest and wondered if he could see it beating beneath her shirt.

Why was he here? Was he meeting someone? Had he invited someone else for a drink when she’d turned him down or was this just a coincidence?

‘What are you doing here?’ he continued. ‘Did you change your mind about that drink?’

Chloe shook her head. ‘No. I’m on a date.’

‘Oh. Of course.’

Chloe tried to read his expression, to decipher his tone. Was he disappointed? And what did he mean by ‘of course’? She hardly ever went on dates; this was the first one this year, the second one in four months. But she couldn’t explain her reluctance to date and the reason why her opportunities were limited without divulging her secret. Or should that be secrets, plural? That no one measured up to her memory of him and that she was a single mother.

‘Are you meeting someone here?’ she asked.

‘No.’

Was his presence here just a coincidence?

‘It’s good to see you but don’t let me keep you,’ he said, leaving her free to go.

Maybe she would have to start believing in coincidences, she thought as she reluctantly returned to her table and her date.

If she could get rid of Stephen perhaps she could salvage her evening?

He watched her walk away before taking a seat at the bar.

What was it about Chloe? he thought as he nodded to the barman and held up one finger, indicating his usual, as he took a seat. He was a sensible, intelligent man but whenever he saw her, whenever she was near, all logical thoughts seemed to evaporate. Of course, she wouldn’t have known he would be at that pub. It was close to the Queen Victoria Hospital but it wasn’t the closest and it wasn’t the local for the hospital staff. It was, however, near the short-term rental apartment where he was staying and he’d got into the habit of stopping in for a beer and something to eat. It was simpler to be fed than to cook and it gave him some company.

He’d just swallowed the first mouthful of his beer when Chloe reappeared.

‘Is this seat taken?’

She was smiling and his heart leapt. Had she ditched her date? For him? He couldn’t help the feeling of excitement as she sat on the bar stool next to him. The anticipation was familiar. She was familiar.

‘What happened to your date?’

‘He left.’

‘What?’

She laughed and the sound was so familiar, so comforting, that it lifted his spirits even when he hadn’t realised his spirits needing lifting. He hadn’t realised a lot of things. Once again, Chloe brought light into his life, only this time he hadn’t been aware of the darkness. Four years ago he’d known he was in a dark place and Chloe had got him out of it. He slipped back after she’d left and despite his concerted efforts to find happiness and make peace with the world he knew now he hadn’t been successful.

‘I told him that it wasn’t working for me and I didn’t want to waste more of his time.’

‘Are you leaving too?’

‘No,’ she replied as she shook her head. Her bright golden curls glowed in the light as she shook her head. She was striking, vivacious, a beacon.

‘Good. Will you have that drink with me now?’

‘Are you sure you’re not meeting friends?’

‘No.’ He had a few friends in London—acquaintances, really, all in the medical field—but most were now married with children and they didn’t have the flexibility or luxury of being able to meet for a mid-week dinner. He’d caught up with a few for a drink or two on occasion but, ultimately, they all had to go home to their wives and families. ‘And even if I was, you’d still be welcome to join us. But I’m here because I’m staying just around the corner. I’m just grabbing some dinner and a beer,’ he said as the barman handed him a wooden board with a burger and a side of fries on it. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘No. I’m not hungry but I’ll stay for a drink.’

‘A gin and tonic?’

‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said as she reached over and pinched a chip off his plate. That was familiar too. He remembered she would order own her meal and then prefer to eat his.

‘So the date went badly.’

‘It wasn’t the worst one I’ve ever had but it was close.’ She was grinning. She didn’t look too upset. In fact, she didn’t look upset at all—she looked amazing.

‘What seemed to be the problem?’

‘He wasn’t my type.’

‘You have a type?’

‘I guess so.’

The barman served Chloe’s gin, placing it on the bar. She couldn’t believe Xander had remembered her favourite drink and the idea that he had pleased her. She was glad she’d come back to find him after making her excuses to Stephen. She’d put Lily to bed before heading out and her mum wasn’t expecting her home anytime soon. She had plenty of time to have one drink with Xander. Just to catch up on what he’d been doing.

He picked up her drink and put it in front of her. His leg brushed against hers and the contact made her jump. It was nothing, really—his knee brushed the outside of her thigh—but she could feel his body heat even through her trousers and her body responded to his touch.

‘So, your type,’ he said as she stirred her drink, ‘describe him to me.’

She took a sip of her drink, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. ‘Someone with a bit more energy. Someone who makes me feel excited. Filled with possibility. Someone who makes me wonder what happens next.’

Someone who made her feel like Xander did.

‘You’re talking about chemistry,’ he said.

She nodded and put her glass back on the bar and tried to ignore the fact that his leg was still resting against hers.

Sitting at the bar with Xander felt the same but different.

Familiar but strange.

Things had changed. At least for Chloe. She was no longer young and carefree. She was a single mother with responsibilities. But the chemistry was still there. She was still drawn to him. She longed to touch him properly, to see if her memories were real.

He was still gorgeous. Still a Norse god. His grey eyes still held a trace of melancholy. She’d always attributed that to his divorce but surely that couldn’t still be the case. He’d been divorced almost five years now. He must have put that behind him?

She forced herself to focus on the present. She couldn’t dwell in the past.

‘How long have you been living in Wales?’ she asked when she recovered her power of speech. She was desperate to know where he’d been and what he’d been doing for the past four years but she couldn’t ask such a direct question.

He frowned, his grey eyes cloudy. ‘I don’t live in Wales.’

‘Oh, I thought Rick said you had come down from Wales to cover Eloise’s sick leave.’

‘I’ve been working in Wales with their air ambulance unit but it wasn’t permanent. It was a six-month rotation. I was glad to get out of there, to be honest. I didn’t mind Wales but it wasn’t the smartest move, spending winter there. I should have timed it better.’

‘And what are your plans when you finish with us?’ she asked. She needed to find out where he was going next. Did she need to tell him about Lily if he had no plans to stay in England? Was there any point in disrupting everyone’s lives? She and Lily were fine—they’d been fine for years on their own. They didn’t need Xander and he might not need them.

He might not want them.

He might not want her.

The drink he had bought her could be for old times’ sake. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a wife or significant other waiting for him somewhere.

‘I haven’t worked it out yet.’

‘Are you travelling with family?’ she asked as the barman cleared the remnants of Xander’s dinner away.

‘No. We’re both still single. What are the chances?’

‘Coincidence?’ she said with a smile.

‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’

‘Me either.’

He was holding her gaze and she was lost. She couldn’t think. She could only feel.

He reached for her and the clocks stopped.

He tucked a stray curl behind her ear and Chloe’s knees trembled. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said as she held her breath. ‘It’s good to see you. Did I mention I’m staying just around the corner?’

The invitation was unspoken but there was no mistaking it. But she couldn’t accept. She had to get home. To her daughter. Their daughter.

‘You did.’

‘Would you like to come back for a coffee?’

Chloe smiled. ‘You know I don’t drink coffee at night.’ She wondered if he remembered that too.

‘I do.’

Her smile got wider. ‘Will you take a rain check? I’m on an early tomorrow.’

‘I will.’

She slid off the bar stool and picked up her coat. She needed to get out of here while she still could. Before she made a hasty, hormonal decision that she would more than likely regret when her head overtook her heart again.

‘I’ll walk you out to a cab.’

‘It’s okay, I’m taking the Tube.’

Xander shook his head. ‘No, it’s late. That doesn’t sound safe.’

‘I do it all the time after work.’

‘Really?’

She nodded as he held the door for her.

She stopped on the footpath, reluctant to walk away but knowing she had to go. A cab pulled up on the street beside them.

‘Please, let me pay for a cab,’ Xander offered. ‘I’ll feel better.’ He reached out and opened the door, ensuring the cabbie couldn’t drive away, but then he took her hand, holding her back before she could step inside.

She turned to him. Instinctively. Her breath caught in her throat as he stroked the palm of her hand with his thumb. She was pinned by the force of his grey eyes. Held immobile by the intensity of his gaze. She couldn’t breathe. The air was thick with tension. Her mouth was dry, her skin warm, her cheeks flushed. Her heart was beating quickly and her stomach was fluttering.

‘Are you sure you have to go?’

She nodded.

He bent his head until his mouth was next to her ear. His breath was warm on her cheek as he repeated her earlier words back to her. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to find out what happens next?’

She knew what was coming and she was powerless to resist. She didn’t want to resist. She turned her face towards him and whispered, ‘I know what happens next.’ And then his lips were on hers. Warm, soft. Then harder.

She parted her lips and tasted him. He tasted familiar. He tasted sweet.

Her body remembered his touch. Her skin remembered the softness of his mouth. Her tongue remembered his taste.

The years fell away as the memory of him returned.

Xander’s fingers were on her face, on her bare arms. Her skin was on fire and she melted against him as her body responded to his touch. She was aware of nothing else except the sensation of being fully alive. She wanted for nothing except Xander.

One hand was pressed to her spine, holding her close, and she could feel the heat of his palm through the thin fabric of her shirt. She felt her nipples harden as she pressed herself against his chest instead as she kissed him back. All her senses came to life and a line of fire spread from her stomach to her groin. She deepened the kiss, wanting to lose herself in Xander.

‘Do you want the cab or not?’

She jumped as the cab driver’s voice interrupted their moment. Her eyes flew open as Xander straightened up. He was studying her face as if committing each of her features to memory.

He smiled as his fingers trailed down the side of her cheek, sending a shiver of desire through her. Her heart was racing in her chest and her breaths were shallow.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come back to my apartment?’

She hesitated. The kiss was wonderful. Magical. She felt as if time had stood still and brought her back to Xander, back into his arms, but she couldn’t stay with him. She had responsibilities.

‘I can’t,’ she said as she stepped back, breaking their connection. ‘You promised me a rain check, remember?’

She waited for him to agree before she made herself get into the taxi. Made herself leave him.

He closed the door and blew her a kiss.

Chloe gave the driver her address but scarcely recalled getting home. Her world suddenly felt full of possibility but she needed to be sensible. She needed to be careful not to get carried away.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHLOE JOGGED ACROSS the helipad. This time she could see Xander’s familiar figure in the chopper. She was looking for him and her heart rate increased. The memory of his kiss was still fresh in her mind. She could almost feel the imprint of his lips on hers still.

She smiled in greeting as she climbed aboard. Was it only a few days ago that he’d re-entered her life? She felt lighter. Happier. Full of hope.

Since he kissed her some of her doubts had vanished. She knew she was being fanciful; just because he made her toes tingle and her pulse race didn’t mean he’d want to be a part of her life. It didn’t mean he’d want to be a father but she couldn’t help the lifting of her spirits. It was amazing what a good kiss had done for her frame of mind. The dark clouds had lightened a little.

She was remembering how she’d felt all those years ago. How he made her feel. It was a long time since she’d been kissed senseless. Since she’d felt as if she could lose control.

But she needed to be careful. Last time she lost control she wound up pregnant.

But that thought still couldn’t wipe the smile from her face as she fastened her harness and strapped herself into her seat as she listened to the situation report.

He smiled back at her and she imagined the shadows in his eyes had eased a little.

She blushed and looked away, focusing on the information being dispersed.

‘We’re attending a two-car MVA,’ Rick said. ‘Paramedics and fire service are at the scene. There are four patients. Two victims trapped and unconscious, a third with minor injuries and a fourth is a pregnant woman, thirty-six weeks’ gestation, in cardiac arrest. Paramedics are giving ALS.’

Chloe translated the report in her head. Four victims of a motor vehicle accident: two status unknown, one conscious and mobile, one in a critical condition receiving advanced life support.

‘We’ll need to triage on arrival,’ Xander instructed. He was back to business.

Chloe knew the order of treatment would be determined by a few things. Whether or not the fire crew had managed to extricate the trapped victims and what injuries they had sustained. Whether or not the paramedics had managed to resuscitate the woman and, if they hadn’t, were they still trying or was she deceased. There were a lot of unknowns but this wasn’t unusual. The job this time though was complicated by the number of victims. They’d been told four but, in Chloe’s head, she was counting five. At thirty-six weeks’ gestation the baby was potentially a fifth casualty.

Nine minutes after take-off Simon banked the helicopter over the M25. Beneath them Chloe could see the accident site on one of the approach roads. Flashing lights of the emergency vehicles lit up the grey and drizzly day and bounced off the reflective panels on the uniforms of the emergency teams. Debris was strewn across the road and she could see the fire service still working on one of the crumpled cars, trying to free the victims.

Police had cordoned off the road and Simon brought the chopper down on the bitumen as Chloe pulled on a pair of gloves. Rick had the door open as soon as they touched down and Chloe, Rick and Xander grabbed their kits and sprinted to the scene.

A woman lay on a spinal board on a stretcher, two paramedics in attendance. Between them Chloe could see the mound of her pregnancy. The woman had been intubated and was being manually ventilated by one of the paramedics.

A pair of ambulances had stopped on the hard shoulder. In the back of one sat an older woman. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as a third paramedic cleaned her head wound. Chloe wondered if she was related to the pregnant woman. Someone must have given the first responders some background information.

Xander paused beside the stretcher and Chloe heard him introduce himself.

‘What’s the situation?’

‘Thirty-year-old woman, thirty-six weeks’ gestation, suffered a cardiac arrest, non-responsive. I’ve administered three milligrams of atropine and eight milligrams of epinephrine via IV. Intubated on the first attempt and manual ventilation continuing. She has a head trauma, most likely the cause of the cardiac arrest, a facial cyanosis and an abdominal seat-belt hematoma. I’m concerned about an abdominal haemorrhage.’

‘We can do an abdominal ultrasound on board the chopper if she can be moved.’

The paramedics nodded and the woman was transferred to the helicopter. It took all of the first responders working in unison. Four to lift the spinal board while Chloe held the drip.

Xander cut through the woman’s clothing while resuscitation attempts continued around him. Her exposed belly was tight and drum-like. Chloe had the ultrasound ready. She handed Xander the transducer and squeezed the aqueous gel onto the patient’s abdomen.

There was a heartbeat but it belonged to the foetus.

‘There are signs of an abdominal haemorrhage but the bleeding has slowed.’

‘How long since ALS commenced?’ Xander asked as he wiped off the ultrasound gel.

‘Fourteen minutes.’

‘And the delay between the cardiac arrest and treatment?’

‘Several minutes.’

‘We could lose them both at this rate.’ Xander looked at Chloe. ‘Do we try to save one?’

She knew he was talking about saving the baby.

She nodded.

‘What are you going to do?’ Rick asked.

‘If you can continue ventilation, we can perform a C-section to deliver the baby.’

‘Here?’

It was Xander’s turn to nod.

‘Have you done this before?’

‘Once.’

Xander’s grey eyes were dark. Chloe suspected from his expression that the last time didn’t go so well. She hoped he’d learnt from the experience.

‘Are you okay to help me?’ he asked her.

She nodded. She was prepared to support him in this decision. She knew he wouldn’t be suggesting this option if he thought the baby would survive any other way. They may even be able to save both patients.

They pulled a fresh pair of surgical gloves on over the first.

Chloe tore open sterile packages containing surgical instruments and laid them on the seat beside her. She poured disinfectant liberally over the woman’s abdomen, spreading it across her skin.

Xander picked up a scalpel and made a deep incision, slicing through the woman’s abdomen from her umbilicus to her pubic bone. Blood was pooled in her abdominal cavity obstructing their vision. Chloe packed gauze into the abdomen, soaking up the blood, as Xander tied off an artery.

The blood was dealt with quickly and no more appeared. The woman remained unresponsive. Without a pulse she wasn’t able to bleed.

Xander had his hands inside the woman’s abdomen. He palpated her uterus, looking and feeling for signs of trauma.

Chloe knew he was making the right decision. If they didn’t deliver this baby they would have two fatalities.

‘The uterus is intact,’ he said but it didn’t remain that way for long.

Xander cut the uterus open and swiftly lifted the baby from the womb.

A boy.

He handed him to Chloe.

The whole procedure had taken less than four minutes.

‘No meconium, cord intact and free, placenta intact,’ Xander recounted while Chloe focused on her patient.

The baby was pink but flaccid. He wasn’t crying. Or breathing. He had no reflexes on stimulus and his heart rate was well below ideal at just sixty beats per minute. He had a one-minute Apgar score of three out of ten. He was not out of danger yet.

Chloe dried the baby, rubbing him vigorously to warm him up and hopefully stimulate respiration. When that didn’t work she wrapped him to keep him warm and prepared to suction his airway.

Xander was stitching the woman’s abdomen but she saw him glance over at her.

‘Do you need help?’

She nodded. ‘He’s not breathing. Pulse only sixty. Can you get ready to bag him?’

Xander ripped off his gloves before pulling on another clean pair. He grabbed a mask and attached the bag, placing the tiny mask over the baby’s face when Chloe removed the suction tube.

The baby’s heart rate remained low, despite the oxygen that was now being pumped into him.

‘Swap places with me,’ Xander instructed.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Administer epinephrine.’

Xander didn’t bother looking for a vein on the tiny struggling baby. He used an intraosseous needle, injecting the drug directly into the bone marrow in the tibia in an attempt to stimulate his heart.

Chloe kept bagging the newborn, holding her own breath as she waited for signs of improvement.

The five-minute Apgar score was three points better. The heart rate was above one hundred and the skin was pink-coloured. The reflexes were still absent and there was no grimace but there was spontaneous, albeit irregular, respiratory drive.

Chloe relaxed slightly but monitored the baby closely as Simon flew them to the hospital.

It was a flurry of activity from the moment they touched down on the helipad. The neonatal team whisked the baby away to the neonatal intensive care unit and Chloe followed. He wasn’t her patient any longer but she needed to know he was going to be okay.

She waited while the neonatal team assessed the baby. It seemed wrong to leave him alone with no one to watch over him. His mother hadn’t made it—she’d been declared deceased on arrival—and Chloe’s heart went out to the tiny newborn who’d had such a traumatic introduction to the world.

Who was going to be responsible for this baby?

Her mind returned to the older woman she’d seen sitting in the back of the ambulance at the scene of the accident. She wondered where she was. Who she was. The grandmother? Had anyone told her what had happened to her family?

Chloe’s mind drifted to her own daughter. Who would be there for Lily if something happened to her? Her mother? Her brothers?

Her mother was a young grandmother but raising another child on her own at her age? Chloe knew she’d do it but it wasn’t right. And her brothers had their own lives to live.

Lily had a father. Chloe had Xander listed in her will. If anything should happen to her, she’d asked that he be found. But four years ago he hadn’t wanted a family. Had things changed? Would he want Lily now?

Her thoughts were maudlin. Triggered by the day’s events.

One life taken, one life saved. Chloe didn’t know whether it had been a good day or a bad day.

It could have been better.

It could have been worse.

By the time the baby had been checked and given a relatively good prognosis her shift had ended and she could go home. She was surprised to find she was still wearing her flight overalls. They were covered in blood—she must look a complete mess. She couldn’t leave the hospital like that.

She went upstairs to the air ambulance unit to change. Her hands were shaking as she stripped off the jumpsuit and tossed it into the laundry hamper. She stood still, gathering her thoughts, searching for the energy to turn around and go home.

She made it outside but couldn’t make it much further than a bench overlooking the river. Her vision was blurry and her legs were weak.

She sat, letting the London commuters flow around her as they made their way home. She needed to give her wobbly knees a chance to rest and her brain a chance to reset. Her thoughts were disturbed, her mind circling. She couldn’t seem to separate the baby’s fate from her own past.

‘Chloe, are you okay?’

She turned at the sound of his voice. Xander was standing beside the bench, his grey eyes shadowed, his brow furrowed with concern.

‘Not really.’ Her voice wobbled and her eyes filled with tears.

‘Is it the baby?’

She shook her head. ‘No, he’s okay, but the mother didn’t make it.’

‘I heard.’

Chloe wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her face was wet with tears. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m upset.’ But she did know. She was finding it hard to separate her life from their patients’ today. She wasn’t usually so affected by her work. By the tragedies. Normally she could compartmentalise.

Perhaps it had something to do with Xander’s reappearance. She’d found herself unsettled, off-kilter, for the past few days. Her personal and professional lives were colliding. And today’s events reminded her that she’d grown up without a parent and she’d put her daughter, Lily, in the same position.

‘Don’t apologise,’ Xander said as he sat down next to her. ‘Some jobs just get to us more than others.’ He wrapped his arm around her, completely unaware of the direction of her thoughts.

Chloe leaned into him. She fitted perfectly into his side.

‘You’re freezing. Come on, you need to get out of the cold.’

Despite Xander’s body heat she wasn’t warming up. There was a breeze coming off the river and the spring evening was getting chilly now that the sun was setting.

He pulled her to her feet but kept his arm wrapped around her.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To get you warmed up. My flat is about five hundred metres along the river.’

She didn’t argue. Her brain was too cold to stage a protest.

He walked on the river side of her along the Albert Embankment, keeping her sheltered from the wind, and guided her into a large, modern building overlooking the Thames. He kept her tucked against his side as they went up in the lift, almost as if he was afraid she would vanish if he let her go. He had no idea she was incapable of making any decisions at the moment. She had her eyes closed as she rested her head against his chest and listened to the sound of his heartbeat. Its steady rhythm was soothing, helping to settle her anxious mind.

She matched her steps to his, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps, as they crossed the corridor to his apartment. He swiped his card and held the door for her. A small entry foyer led into an open-plan living, dining, kitchen area on the left with, she assumed, a bedroom and bathroom to the right.

Xander switched on the lights and steered her towards a small couch. It was the only seating option aside from the dining chairs. She heard Xander flick the heating on and fill the kettle but her gaze was drawn to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. The apartment was modern, generic, impersonal but the view over the river was spectacular. She curled up on the couch and let her gaze wander over the London skyline. The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye were spread out before her as the city lights began to glow as dusk deepened.

Xander placed a mug of coffee on the table in front of her but poured a nip of brandy into it before he passed it to her. He placed a plate of sweet biscuits on the table and sat beside her.

The couch seemed even smaller once Xander was sharing it with her. His thigh brushed against hers as he sat down and Chloe was tempted to climb into his lap. She made conversation to fill the silence, which she felt was becoming a little awkward.

‘Did you notice the older lady at the scene of the accident?’ she asked as she wrapped her hands around the mug to stop the shaking. Her hands felt like blocks of ice and she wondered if she’d ever feel warm again. ‘The one who was in the back of the ambulance? Do you know who she was?’

‘She was the baby’s grandmother.’

‘I wonder if she knows what has happened.’

‘Is that what’s bothering you?’

‘Not just that.’ Chloe shook her head. ‘I’ve been wondering who is going to look after the baby. Does he have a father somewhere? Family. What if his grandmother is all he has?’

‘At least he’ll have someone.’

‘He should have a mother. Better yet, he should have two parents.’

‘We did everything possible, Chloe.’

‘I know that. I’m not blaming anyone. It’s just not the way things are meant to be.’

‘There’s absolutely no point worrying about things you can’t change. I learnt that lesson a long time ago.’

‘And I learnt the hard way that it’s better to have two parents.’

‘You did?’

Chloe nodded. ‘I grew up without my father. He died when I was seven.’

Xander wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. He held her quietly and his touch was reassuring. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’

‘He was a policeman, killed while on duty.’

‘Oh, Chloe, that must have been tough.’

‘It was.’ She’d been angry at her father. He’d had an affair and had left her mother and his children. Chloe hadn’t been able to understand how he could leave them all, how he could abandon her, and she hadn’t forgiven him. And then he’d been killed responding to an armed robbery and she’d never had the chance to forgive him. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Xander the full story right now; she still felt guilty about her anger. She didn’t mention that he’d already abandoned them, had already walked out on them all to move in with his girlfriend, when he was killed. She tried not to think about that. She tried to forget that he’d chosen to leave them. She didn’t subscribe to her mother’s theory that he had left her but not his children. Her father had made a choice and she’d been left behind. ‘Mum has raised us on her own.’

She had never told him any of this and talking about it now reminded her of how little they knew of each other. She had based her memories on a man who she’d possibly created in her imagination.

She went to sip her coffee and realised she’d finished it. She stared into her empty cup.

She was warming up but now she was restless. She jiggled her feet, making her knees jump up and down. She didn’t like talking about her past. She should go home but she was reluctant to leave just yet.

Xander reached over and took the mug from her hands, placing it on the coffee table. ‘You’re still cold.’ There was a small throw rug draped over the end of the couch. He pulled it towards him and wrapped it around her shoulders. She leant into him as he draped the blanket over her. She couldn’t help it. She was drawn to him. She’d always been drawn to him.

‘It’s the one thing I can’t get used to,’ he continued as he held her hands. ‘The cold. And the sense of space.’

‘That’s two things.’

‘So it is.’ He smiled and her feeling of hopelessness lifted.

‘How long have you been away for?’ she asked.

‘Four years. On and off. Before Wales I was in Canada and in South Africa before that. I’ve been home on a couple of occasions but I’ve been gone for over twelve months this time. I was thinking about heading home once I finished here but…’

‘But?’

He was rubbing her hands between his, warming them up. He stopped rubbing when she asked the question but he didn’t let go of her.

‘Now I’m not sure.’ He was looking at her intently, his grey eyes serious and considerate. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences but I do believe in fate.’

She believed in fate too but she knew it could bring both good and bad fortune. Fate had introduced her to Xander and then taken her away from him.

Fate had given her Lily when she’d needed someone to love.

‘I’m wondering if there’s a reason we’ve found ourselves here together again,’ he said.

Chloe was convinced there was a reason that Xander was back in her life. She just wasn’t sure if he was going to like the reason. She had no idea if he was going to want to be a father. She knew this was an opportunity to tell him about Lily but she couldn’t bring herself to start that discussion. She was exhausted, emotionally worn out, and she didn’t think she could do justice to this conversation tonight. Xander seemed happy to talk so she stayed silent. She knew she was being a coward but it was the easier option.

He lifted her legs and rested them in his lap. He picked up her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘I’ve missed you.’

She wanted to tell him she’d missed him too. That she’d thought of him every day. But her voice caught in her throat. She was too afraid.

Her eyes filled with tears.

Had they wasted four years? Could they still be together? Could they have lasted?

He misunderstood her tears but she didn’t care as he gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair. ‘It’s okay. It’s just been a bad day. Everything will look better in the morning.’

It’s the sort of thing she would say to Lily. The sort of thing her mother would say to her. The sort of thing a father might say.

But he didn’t want children.

She let him comfort her anyway.

‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’ he asked. ‘I’ll order something in.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t.’ She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t risk it. There was too much at stake now.

She hadn’t told her mother she’d be late and both Susan and Lily would be expecting her home soon if she didn’t call. She wanted to be home in time to put Lily to bed. Lily was her priority. As much as she wanted to stay, Lily came first.

She had a daughter to get home to. Their daughter.

She was going to have to figure out how to tell him he was a father. She couldn’t let this attraction go any further without telling him first. And she wanted to take this further. She knew it would happen. It was inevitable. Just like four years ago. Was her memory distorted by rose-tinted glasses? Tainted by her feelings for him as Lily’s father? She didn’t know but she knew she couldn’t resist him. She didn’t want to resist him.

‘Can I see you over the weekend, then?’ Xander’s question jolted her out of her thoughts.

‘One of my girlfriends is getting married in a couple of weeks. I’m a bridesmaid and we’ve a full day of preparations planned for tomorrow.’

‘How about on Sunday?’

‘I have a family thing.’ But she couldn’t leave without knowing that she’d see him again. ‘I’d love to make plans—can I call you later and we’ll sort something out?’

He nodded and said, ‘Pass me your phone. I’ll put my number in it.’

He stored his number in her phone and walked her out to hail a cab.

‘I’ll sit by the phone,’ he said as he kissed her goodbye, ‘waiting for your call.’

‘You have a mobile. You can keep it with you.’

He grinned as she climbed into the cab. ‘I’ll still be waiting.’

Xander watched the tail lights of the cab fade into the distance, taking Chloe away. The ball was in her court now. Would she call him? Their chemistry hadn’t faded; the spark between them was still bright. She had to feel it too. Would he get another chance?

He wanted a chance to get to know her again but this time he knew it would be different. Four years ago he hadn’t been prepared for a serious relationship. He’d been emotionally, mentally and physically battered and bruised. A bit of a mess. She had been a bright light…one he hadn’t wanted to dim by subjecting her to his tales of woe. She had lifted him out of his funk.

She’d changed his life in the short time that he’d known her. She’d brightened up his life, but he hadn’t expected her to take some of that hope and light with her when she’d left. He’d expected that they’d have a brief affair and they would both move on with their lives. He hadn’t been looking for anything more than what they’d shared. A brief physical encounter. It hadn’t been until she’d gone that he’d realised how much he missed her. But he still hadn’t been in a position to offer her anything.

She had changed him. But not enough.

He wished he hadn’t let her go but, even now, he knew that had been the right thing to do.

Four years ago he hadn’t been capable of getting into something where there would be an expectation of a long life. A family. All the things that normal people dreamt of. He had been looking short term then. Five years ahead. Not fifty.

But what about now? His life was different now. He was different.

He knew he had changed. He was in a better place emotionally. Not as wrung out. He’d recuperated and he was able to look to the future again. He was five years post-chemotherapy, four years divorced. He’d made peace with what had happened to him.

But peace was not happiness and he wanted to be happy again. The last time he’d been happy had been with Chloe.

He’d travelled the world since then searching for something. Searching for something to replace what she’d given him.

Happiness and hope.

He didn’t have either of those things any more but was he expecting too much to hope that Chloe could or would give them back to him?

‘How did your date go?’

Chloe pushed open the door to the bridal salon and was immediately accosted by Carly. For a moment she thought Carly was asking about Xander. She could still feel the imprint of Xander’s hands on her skin, his lips on hers, and she could feel herself blushing before realising Carly was talking about Stephen. ‘Are you bringing him to Esther’s wedding?’

Chloe glanced at Esther. She had texted her to tell her that the date was a disaster. She mustn’t have shared that information with Carly.

‘I’ve given Esther the sack as a matchmaker.’

‘Oh. What was the problem?’

She was blaming Esther, although she knew it wasn’t her friend’s fault. Stephen had been pleasant enough but he hadn’t set her world on fire. In short, he hadn’t made her feel like Xander did. ‘We weren’t compatible and I didn’t want to waste his time, or mine.’

‘You don’t think you were being hasty?’ Carly asked.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘But it wasn’t all bad,’ she said as the shop assistant brought out armfuls of bridesmaid’s dresses and arranged them on a rack.

The girls moved into one large change room and continued their conversation while they tried on the dresses, attempting to find something in a colour that suited them both and a style that flattered their figures.

‘I actually ended up having a good night,’ Chloe said as she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt.

‘What? You went home alone. Has that become your definition of a good night?’

‘I didn’t go straight home.’ She could see Carly’s raised eyebrows as Esther zipped her into a pink dress. This was news to her.

‘You didn’t tell me that!’

‘I figured you deserved to be fed information in small doses after the date you subjected me to,’ Chloe told her. ‘But then a guy at the bar offered to buy me a drink and I said yes.’

Chloe stepped into a bias cut, emerald green silk dress. Esther zipped up the dress. ‘That colour isn’t bad and the cut is flattering,’ she said as Carly asked, ‘Did you get his number? Will you see him again?’

Chloe nodded. ‘Yes. He’s just started work with the air ambulance. He’s a doctor.’ She didn’t mention that he was from Australia. That she knew him before. That he was Lily’s father. She wasn’t ready for that conversation.

‘I don’t think I like the pink,’ Esther said as she flicked through the racks and discarded anything floral or lace. ‘I don’t want anything that bright.’ She turned back to Chloe. ‘So, apart from work, will you see him again?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve got his number. I have to work out a time.’

‘I’m organising drinks for Harry’s birthday this Thursday,’ Esther said. ‘Why don’t you invite him to that? I’ll make sure not to invite Stephen.’

Chloe had planned on having a date, just the two of them, but perhaps a social event was a good idea. She could get to know him again a little better first, have a casual conversation, and she wouldn’t feel pressured to mention Lily.

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said before she turned her attention back to the task at hand. ‘Now, what are we going to wear?’

‘How about this?’ Carly pulled a navy dress off the rack and held it up.

Esther smiled. ‘Yes, that’s perfect. I love it. Try it on.’

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