Can he fix the past...

...by giving her daughter a future?

Six years ago, Dr. Fraser Breckenridge allowed Sara to walk out of his life and has always regretted it. He seizes the opportunity to employ her on board a Caribbean cruise ship for dialysis patients, but Sara now has an adorable little girl who urgently needs a new kidney. Can Fraser uncover why Sara left and give her—and Esme—a reason to stay?

Born in the UK, BECKY WICKS has suffered interminable wanderlust from an early age. She’s lived and worked all over the world, from London to Dubai, Sydney, Bali, NYC and Amsterdam. She’s written for the likes of GQ, Hello!, Fabulous and Time Out, a host of YA romance, plus three travel memoirs—Burqalicious, Balilicious and Latinalicious (HarperCollins, Australia). Now she blends travel with romance for Mills & Boon and loves every minute! Tweet her @bex_wicks and subscribe at beckywicks.com.

Also by Becky Wicks

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From Doctor to Daddy

Becky Wicks

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08990-6

FROM DOCTOR TO DADDY

© 2019 Becky Wicks

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

FRASER STOPPED TO rest his arms on the ledge at the top of Edinburgh Castle. Brick houses, trees, and in the distance sparkling water shone like a painting under a clear blue sky. He inhaled a lungful of fresh Scottish air. The city was so damn beautiful when the sun shone.

The surgery was crazy, as usual, and he’d taken a morning walk to prep himself, but someone needed him already. He could tell by the vibrations in his pocket.

He pulled out his phone, turning his face to the rare sun. ‘Hi, Anton.’

‘Fraser, good morning. I came across a file that might be of interest for the Ocean Dream, if you’re still looking for a dialysis nurse.’

‘I am.’ Fraser smiled at two kids running around a cannon, pretending to shoot each other.

He couldn’t really remember which positions had been filled and which hadn’t—he’d been so busy. In truth, he hadn’t had time to think much about working on the cruise ship at all this year. That was why he’d put Anton in charge of recruiting the medical team.

‘I’ve found a great dialysis nurse in London who fits the bill. But—get this. She also has a five-year-old daughter who’s on the kidney donor list. Rare blood type. The kid’s never been on a ship before, so naturally I thought...’

‘Sounds great.’ Fraser held the phone closer as the kids ran shrieking around him. He really needed all this in an email, otherwise he’d forget, but he asked anyway. ‘What’s the nurse’s name?’ He started walking across the court towards the gate.

‘Her name is Sara...’

Anton paused, obviously to look at something.

‘Sara Cohen—and her kid’s name is Esme.’

Fraser stopped abruptly and gripped the phone tight in his hand. A tourist almost walked into the back of him.

‘Sara Cohen?’ The name brought a thin sheen of sweat to his forehead. The cool breeze blew over it, giving him goose bumps. How long had it been since he’d heard that name? Six years? After a while he’d stopped counting.

He mouthed an apology to the lady he’d stopped in front of. Her eyes swept his tall frame, in jeans, a fitted shirt and blazer, and she blushed.

He stepped aside. ‘Anton, when is the cruise, exactly—remind me?’

‘A month from today,’ Anton said. ‘Her daughter is pretty pumped for it, as you can imagine. Sara’s just waiting on the go-ahead from St Gilda’s, where she works, but between you and me I think we’ve found our fit.’

Fraser’s head was still reeling. Sara Cohen had a five-year-old daughter? Maybe it was a different Sara Cohen. ‘What’s her background?

He forced his legs to continue down the hill, through the crowds of tourists, past the bagpipe player in his kilt at the bottom.

Anton described the nurse’s profile, some of which he knew, some of which he didn’t. It was definitely the same Sara Cohen.

Six years had come between them. Six years of no contact... Aside from that one time he’d flown to London to talk to her and seen her with that other guy. The sight had made his insides burn. He’d regretted going there instantly, and hadn’t attempted contact with her since. Not that she’d made any attempt with him either.

‘What about the father?’ he said now, trying not to sound as if he was fishing. ‘Esme’s father—Sara’s husband?’

‘It’ll just be the two of them,’ Anton said. ‘She’s single, as far as I know.’

In the car on his way to the surgery, Fraser’s brain ran on overdrive. He could still see her face, standing in his bedroom, telling him they should go their separate ways. She’d never even let him have a say.

He could also vividly picture her standing with that guy, outside the restaurant at the end of her street. She’d been in a nurse’s uniform. Had that been Esme’s father? Why had he left them?

Think about this, he told himself sternly as he drove. He’d been about to cancel his work on the cruise—send someone else in his place. The Breckenridge Practice was busier than ever. Plus, living away from his mother in the new apartment still left him with enough of a twinge of guilt without him heading off to sea. His parents had run the practice from an extension of the huge family home for fifteen years. It still felt empty without his father.

But this was Sara Cohen. The woman he’d sworn six years ago he would one day make his wife.

Maybe he should rethink working on one more cruise.

CHAPTER ONE

NO SOONER HAD Sara heaved her suitcase onto her single bed and flung it open than a voice sounded out over the Tannoy, making her jump.

‘Could all renal care specialists report on Deck One for orientation in five minutes’ time? Thank you.’

She swept the back of her hand across her clammy brow and caught sight of herself in the tiny mirror, visible through the open bathroom door. Calling it a bathroom was a stretch, and already a source of amusement. She’d never been in a bathroom that looked this much like a cupboard before.

Running the tap and splashing cold water onto her face, she considered that she shouldn’t have taken that call from her father back at the hotel, which in turn had caused them to board the Ocean Dream at the very last minute. Now she had barely any time to change before she was due upstairs to join Esme and her new on-board carers, plus all the other patients she’d be sailing through the Caribbean with.

‘Anything can happen at sea. You’d better look after each other.’

She recalled the gentle warning in her father’s words. She hoped he needed no real reassurance that Esme would be fine. She was in her care after all.

She also hoped Esme wasn’t too scared, up on deck. This was a big deal for a five-year-old—let alone one like Esme. Not only was this the first time she’d been on a ship, or a boat of any kind, it was her first time away from the dialysis clinic.

She hurried to reapply her lipstick in the tiny mirror.

Esme was the lucky one here, really. She got to share a big cabin on another floor with several other kids—like a giant fun sleepover, complete with two carers on shift at all times. Sara was going to have to work night shifts, so sharing a cabin with her daughter just wouldn’t have been an option.

Applying her mascara, she thought of her sister, and their conversation the night before they’d left London for Fort Lauderdale.

‘I still can’t believe you’re working on a cruise. I thought you hated the ocean,’ Megan had said.

‘I don’t hate the ocean. You think I hate the ocean because I didn’t want to go snorkelling with you and your Latino lover. You were all over each other out there—I’m surprised the fish didn’t throw up.’

They’d laughed, but they’d both known it was still a bit of a sore point that their last ‘girls’ holiday’ together—almost a year ago now—had wound up with Megan frolicking in the waves for a week with a Mexican guy called Pedro, while Sara read the entire Game of Thrones series on her sun-lounger, feeling guilty about leaving Esme.

‘It’s not for pleasure this time anyway—it’s for work.’

‘I know...’ Megan had sighed.

Megan knew all about the haemodialysis patients, of course, and how much Sara cared for every single one in her charge.

If it hadn’t been for Esme’s illness, Sara would probably never have thought about adding dialysis training to her medical repertoire, but she was thankful now, more than ever, that she had.

‘Can you believe I get to introduce her to this new world, Megan? I get to help all these people see places they never thought they’d see.’

‘I think it’s amazing, what you’re doing,’ her sister had told her sincerely. ‘But just make sure you have some fun yourself this time, OK?’

‘I know, I know.’

The dialysis care was just part of Sara’s new position on the ship. She’d been hired as a member of the Ocean Dream’s wider medical team.

While she’d signed up for Esme’s benefit, and for whomever else might need her expertise on-board, she knew that during their free periods the ship’s staff were permitted to hang out on the main deck, where a lot of activities were set to take place.

They would be able to mingle with the guests and even go shore-side if the ship was in port. It was pretty much all-expenses-paid travel with a salary on top, and an opportunity she hadn’t been able to refuse when that nice recruitment guy Anton had called.

Draping her ship ID on its lanyard around her neck, she hurried out of the cabin and made her way down the narrow corridor to the elevator, smoothing her blonde shoulder-length waves of hair as she went.

She observed again the opulence of the ship. Paintings depicting landscapes and seascapes hung on the walls of the dark wood-panelled corridors. The golden railings beneath them warned of potential bumpy waters. But she was more excited than nervous.

The Ocean Dream’s dialysis team involved a handful of dedicated professionals from the UK, who would be caring for individuals on dialysis. Most of their patients were travelling with their families from Port Everglades.

She’d been told some of the regular medical staff on board rotated around various ships throughout the season. It sounded like a fascinating lifestyle. But for her this was a one-off. She could never contemplate it long term while she had Esme’s illness and her schooling to contend with.

‘It’s so fancy, isn’t it?’ An elderly lady giggled as she passed a painting of a golden-tailed mermaid.

‘It’s “a five-star hotel on the ocean”,’ Sara replied, quoting the website and hurrying on towards the upper deck, her green summer dress swishing at her ankles.

Passengers were still wheeling cases into staterooms on both sides of her and she felt another spike of exhilaration. The Ocean Dream was a luxurious beast, packed with almost five thousand regular customers, all paying top coin for, also quoting the website, A unique combination of first-class accommodation, live entertainment, exceptional cuisine and a wide choice of restaurants, bars, lounges and clubs.

Bermuda, Aruba and Antigua were all on the itinerary. And Sara was still grinning at the prospect of introducing Esme to the joys of sandcastle-building in the Caribbean when she reached the deck.

The harsh Florida sun launched at her head and shoulders, blinding her for a moment to the crowd gathered round a makeshift stage where Dr Renee Forster, the highly regarded leader of the dialysis team and one of the two practising nephrologists on board, was already speaking.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she whispered to Esme’s official carer, Jess.

Esme, standing at her knee height in denim shorts and a purple T-shirt, seemed concerned.

Sara took her little fingers. ‘How are you doing, baby girl?’

Esme shrugged at the floor.

‘We’re so excited to have you all on board today!’ Dr Forster, a tall African American woman with a hard New York accent, was beaming. ‘As you can see, the weather is perfect, and our captain assures me that our departure and our days at sea en-route to Aruba will be plain sailing. Plenty of time for us all to get to know each other.’

Sara squeezed Esme’s small hand reassuringly. She looked around her. It seemed her own daughter was set to be her youngest dialysis patient, which wasn’t unusual.

Perspiring porters in white and blue uniforms were still loading crates and bags and boxes from ramps onto the ship. Palm trees were waving from the port like jealous passengers.

She noticed a kid in green board shorts far across the deck—not part of their group. He was whispering something to his mother, who looked away quickly when Sara met her eyes.

Instincts primed, she knew the young boy had been asking about the bandage over Esme’s catheter, poking out above the neckline of her T-shirt. It was either that or the camcorder Esme wouldn’t put down. It was practically glued to her hand these days.

‘What a ship, huh?’ she whispered, concerned that her sweet daughter might see the boy and feel embarrassed. Esme was already more than aware of how different she was from other children. ‘Are you as excited as me right now?’

Esme just shrugged again. Something twisted in Sara’s gut. It wasn’t straightforward, bringing a kid on dialysis on holiday.

Dr Forster was still speaking. ‘Remember, our nurses are experienced, licensed dialysis nurses, so you’re in good hands. We’re all here to ensure your exact dialysis prescriptions are met, and also that your special dietary needs are accommodated with the help of the ship’s dining staff. That’s them over there.’

Sara turned to where she was pointing. The line-up of catering staff raised their hands in greeting. They scanned the faces of the roughly twenty patients they’d be caring for, their eyes all lit up in excitement.

‘I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the wonderful Dr Fraser Breckenridge, our Chief Doctor and Head of the Ocean Dream’s Medical Department. He’ll be overseeing all the medical issues aboard the ship, so chances are you’ll see him around. Can you come up here for a second, Dr Breckenridge?’

Sara blinked. Maybe she’d misheard.

No, she hadn’t misheard.

Time stopped and then started moving backwards.

Fraser Breckenridge, in all his gym-honed glory, was striding from her vivid memory bank, right into her present. She watched in shock as he took his place on the stage.

It can’t be...

Dr Forster handed him a microphone. Sara scanned his muscled six-foot-three frame as his presence immediately dominated not just the stage, but the entire deck of the ship. It was really him. Why? And why did he have to look so good?

She couldn’t help but stare. From where she was standing he looked exactly as he had the night she’d left him in his giant family home that doubled as the Breckenridge Practice in Edinburgh. She hadn’t heard from him since—not that she blamed him for that entirely. She’d never thought she’d see him again.

She considered sneaking away from the orientation, but Esme still had hold of her hand. Besides, the second Fraser’s thick, unmistakably Scottish accent filled the air with its sticky heat, her legs turned to jelly. God, she had loved this man. Just the sound of his voice brought it all rushing back.

‘Thank you so much, ladies and gents,’ he said with gravelly familiarity, towering over Dr Forster in spite of her own height, and sweeping a big hand through his mane of thick black hair.

Sara could picture his eyes too, up close, and the honest blue of them she’d been happy to swim in for hours. She swallowed as the deck seemed to close in on her.

‘I’m privileged to be able to join you on this special adventure. I know that for some of you this is the first time you’ll have been on a ship—am I right? Who’s never been on a ship before?’

To Sara’s surprise, Esme released her grip on her and raised her hand tentatively. Her throat dried up as Fraser’s eyes travelled to her daughter and then landed right on her. A tiny trail of perspiration began its descent down her lower back. She raised her hand at him slowly, in greeting. He did the same—like a Martian making contact with another planet. A flicker of a smile crossed his lips.

‘Well, it looks like we’re going to have some fun on this cruise,’ he said, after a pause.

Sara wasn’t entirely sure if he was still talking to Esme, or to her. She was picturing his lips now, too. The way they’d used to seem to melt against hers.

She hadn’t read the staff list. She kicked herself. She’d had every intention of running her eyes over it, along with the plethora of other information she’d been sent, but Esme had been in a panic over a missing shoe when it had arrived in her inbox and she’d been side-tracked.

‘Let me tell you: this weather is a tad nicer than it is in Edinburgh right now. I hope you won’t be too horrified if this pale white Scottish skin turns as red as a lobster’s!’

Esme giggled at Fraser’s words, as did most of the crowd. Sara just felt hot and bothered. She was back in that huge Scottish house now, standing stunned on the stairs, hearing his father tell Fraser what he really thought about their six-month relationship, hearing Fraser do nothing to defend it—or her. They hadn’t known she’d been listening.

Fraser was still talking, introducing the other staff—introducing her. ‘Please also welcome Sara Cohen, one of our excellent dialysis nurses.’

She tried not to flinch as everyone turned to her and applauded, while Esme leaned into her shyly, clutching her camera. Annoyance was quickly overriding shock.

How dared he rock up here, on her adventure, six years after he’d let her go? OK, so she’d chosen to end their relationship herself that night, after overhearing their little family conversation. But if she hadn’t done it Fraser would only have done it himself. She’d simply been saving him the bother and herself the heartbreak.

She hadn’t needed any more heartbreak back then. Her mother had just died and her father had completely fallen apart. She’d been exhausted from taking care of him, all whilst dealing with her own grief. She’d been at Fraser’s place for the weekend to cry in his arms, to let someone take care of her for a while. And then...

‘Now, I’m sure you’re all excited to get going and see what’s planned for you. I’ll hand you over to our events co-ordinator to tell you more.’

Fraser still had the audience enchanted.

‘I’m looking forward to getting to know some of you over the next few weeks—although, let’s be honest here, most people seem to have a better time on this ship if they never get to see me at all, if you know what I mean!’

Jess took Esme’s other hand. ‘Ready to meet the other kids?’ she asked her daughter cheerily.

Sara dropped a kiss on Esme’s cheek. Her heart was thudding as they walked away. A guy with a topknot called Tony was already on the stage, talking of tropical island walks and buffet lunches. And Fraser was heading straight through the crowd towards her.

She turned quickly towards the exit. She needed space to think. Maybe she and Esme could transfer ships. There was another one leaving in a few days’ time; perhaps they could switch and avoid this. It was the last thing she needed—dredging up her painful past in the middle of the ocean, with no escape.

‘Sara Cohen! Come on—don’t walk away from me, lass.’

Fraser’s voice was a powerful lasso, stopping her in her tracks. She closed her eyes as her hand found the smooth cool steel of the door handle. So surreal.

‘After all this time,’ he said, putting a big hand to her shoulder and causing goosebumps to flare on her hot skin. ‘Weren’t you even going to say hello?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT ARE YOU doing here?’

‘You didn’t know I’d be on board?’ He ran his eyes over her green dress, noting the way it nipped in at her slender waist. She’d barely put on a pound. In fact, maybe she’d even lost weight. Her bronzed cheekbones were sharper than he remembered. Perhaps her hair was shorter...

She bit her lip. He still remembered the feel of his tongue running along that lip.

‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘Please, Fraser, not here.’

She turned from him quickly again, pulled the door open and headed down the top floor corridor of the ship.

He followed her and caught her arm gently. ‘Sara, come on.’ He forced his voice to remain calm. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’

A look of discomfort verging on pain flashed across her features before she pulled away from him. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said, standing against the wall in the corridor. ‘But I’m here with my daughter and I’m here to work. This is just...’ She folded her arms. Then she closed her eyes, appearing unnerved by his proximity. ‘This is just not what I was expecting.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He stepped closer anyway, on the anchor-patterned carpet, till his feet were almost touching hers. ‘I thought you knew I’d be here,’ he said honestly. ‘I assumed you’d have seen the list of medical staff and would have called me, or not taken the job if you had a real problem with it.’

He could smell her perfume—different from the one he remembered. It was like an extra layer to her he’d never known, and it served to widen the gap that had clearly grown between them over the years.

‘How would I have called you?’ she challenged him. ‘I don’t have your number any more.’

‘I never changed it. You also know where I work. Remember? It’s the house you walked out of with no credible explanation?’

Flecks of amber flickered around her pupils, launching him straight back to those nights when he’d spent for ever just lying in bed next to her, observing the colours in her eyes.

‘Well, maybe I would have tried calling you if I’d known what was coming,’ she said. ‘But for now I suppose I should just try and transfer ships. If you’ll excuse me?’

She continued towards the elevator at the end of the corridor. He followed her. He hadn’t expected that. ‘Cohen, we need to talk about this like adults.’

‘Why?’

Her arms were still folded as she waited for the elevator. She scanned his tall frame as she dug her own nails into her flesh, exhaling a harried sigh.

‘Fraser, seriously, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be running the Breckenridge Practice in Edinburgh?’

‘Things change.’ He lowered his voice. This wasn’t the place to explain about that.

A voice called out behind him. ‘Watch out, mister!’

‘Sorry, man!’ Fraser had almost caused a deck hand to crash into them. The young lad was carrying a heavy crate of what looked like fruit towards them.

Pulling Sara against the wall with him, to make room, Fraser covered her hand with his against the smooth wooden wall and squeezed it tight.

‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he found himself saying. ‘I like your hair like that.’

He swore he felt her shiver. For a second he saw a glimmer of the old her, the way she’d been before she’d taken it upon herself to end things just six months after they’d started something really good. The last time they’d exchanged any words at all she’d been just twenty-five, and he twenty-six.

‘Let’s go somewhere and clear the air,’ he said, seizing his chance as the elevator doors opened. ‘Sara, you never really let me have my say back then. I understand you were grieving for your mother, but a lot was going on and—’

‘A lot is going on now,’ she said.

Her walls were back up, clearly.

‘Listen, I’m getting my stuff, then I’m going to see if Esme and I can be put on another cruise. This is beyond unprofessional Fraser. What makes you think you can trap me on a ship and tell me you’ve missed me, and expect me to just—’

‘Trap you on a ship?’ He smiled in spite of it all. The door shut behind them. The deckhand pressed the button reading ‘Deck Four’ with his elbow, still holding the crate. ‘I would never trap you anywhere, Sara. I let you go six years ago, didn’t I?’

She chewed on her cheek, looking at the floor. ‘We let each other go, Fraser. The past is the past and it’s where it should stay. I have Esme to think about now.’

‘I never even knew you had a daughter.’

‘She was a surprise for me, too.’

He frowned internally at this new information. ‘I’m so sorry—about the dialysis, I mean.’

‘We don’t need your pity.’

‘That’s not what I...’ He shut his mouth, seeing she was clearly uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as the deck hand, now staring at his crate. What a tragedy for the family, though—as if Sara losing her mother hadn’t been tragic enough.

Sara had been inconsolable after her mother had died. It had been extremely sudden. Cancer, stage three, terminal. After it had happened he’d flown to London to be with her. He’d skipped classes and his duties to stay beside her, then he’d invited her back to Scotland.

His father had been less than impressed.

He’d been under so much pressure back then, to help his parents secure the future of the practice. Remodelling had been needed, and new equipment, more staff. They’d needed money—his money, from the family trust fund.

He’d been juggling extra studies with extra work for his father, in order to qualify faster, when Sara had ended their relationship out of nowhere, citing the need to focus on her own family back in London. When she’d left him it had hit him like an avalanche.

The elevator doors were flung open. The deck hand shuffled off with his crate, without a word.

‘Stop following me,’ Sara huffed as he followed her down the corridor. She swiped her ID, which doubled as a key card, and went to shut the cabin door after herself.

He was ready for it. He wedged a foot in the door to stop it closing. ‘Have you thought about Esme upstairs, all excited about this trip, while you’re down here thinking about leaving? ‘We have a job to do, here, Cohen.’

‘Have I thought about Esme? She is all I think about!’

He regretted his words. ‘I’m sorry. I just... God, woman, just let me in.’

She tutted loudly as she moved from blocking the door, and he squeezed into the cabin after her.

Looking around, he let out a small laugh that he stifled before she got even more annoyed. ‘This is where they put you?’

‘Why? Where did they put you?’ Sara looked confused now, forgetting her anger for a second.

He bit his tongue. It probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that he’d been given a double suite all to himself. He had a leather couch, a balcony, a mini-bar and a TV, complete with a shelf full of DVDs. One of them was Titanic. He couldn’t imagine anyone watching Titanic on a cruise ship...

Sara was gathering up items from the tiny bathroom to put in her suitcase. ‘Wow... OK, Cohen, you’re serious.’

‘Stop calling me that.’

‘I always call you that—it’s your name, isn’t it? Unless you’re married.’ He feigned indifference. Anton had told him she was single—as far as he knew, at least.

‘I’m not married,’ she confirmed quickly. ‘I never was. Esme’s father is long gone.’

He saw her cast a glance to his finger—checking for a ring, perhaps?

‘I’ve been too busy to date much, never mind get married. The practice takes a lot of work,’ he explained.

‘I’m sure it does. It always did.’

Her dig stung.

‘Don’t you think it will look a wee bit strange to our patients if one of their trusted dialysis nurses disembarks before we’ve even gone anywhere?’ he pointed out. ‘You’ve come a long way for this, Sara. You both have.’

Sara ignored him, though she’d started packing more slowly already. She knew she had no intention of leaving—not really. She was just feeling put on the spot, out of her depth.

‘So, how long has Esme been on dialysis?’ He lowered himself onto the single bed and noticed two knitting needles and a ball of red wool sticking out of the case before she pulled a sweater on top of them.

‘Too long. She was eight months old when she got E. coli. It got worse and turned into HUS.’

‘Haemolytic uremic syndrome?’ He was well aware of how such a disease could destroy the kidneys.

‘She’s on the transplant list but there’s never been a match for her. I tell her it’s because she’s special—which she is. She’s so special that none of her family can help her with a new kidney.’

The tone of her voice made him reach a hand to her arm again, briefly. ‘That must be tough, Sara.’

She studied his long fingers. ‘It’s OK. We live with Dad and he helps out at home. We have things under control...most of the time. So where exactly is your cabin, hotshot?’

She clearly wanted to change the subject. ‘Hotshot?’ he said out loud. Sara was pretty hot too, from what he remembered.

They’d met in Edinburgh, where she’d been in training for an advanced nursing degree. At the time he’d been in and out of St Enid’s hospital, in his last year of a three-year residency, and he’d noticed her at first because of her knitting. Sara Cohen had knitted whenever she’d had a spare moment. Baby clothes, she’d told him later, on their first date, for the kids on the children’s ward.

He’d only really taken notice of her that time in the treatment room, when she’d done some tests on him ahead of a marathon he’d been about to run. He recalled it again now—that day the sparks had first flown—and couldn’t help smiling ruefully.

‘My cabin’s up on the second deck,’ he told her, picturing them both in his bed as he said it. He couldn’t help it.

The Tannoy cut in.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be leaving port in approximately fifteen minutes. Please do join us on the top deck for your welcome drink and to wave goodbye to land for a couple of days. We wish you all a safe and happy journey!’

‘I have to go.’ Sara dragged her suitcase off the bed, narrowly missing his foot with it.

Fraser took it from her hands with ease. ‘Give me a break, Cohen. You know you don’t really want to go.’

‘I told you to stop calling me that.’

She flung the cabin door open and heaved the suitcase from his hands, hauling it out into the corridor. She made it to the elevator again, panting, and pressed the button.

Part of him was impressed. ‘You’re seriously going to get off this ship? In front of everyone up there?’ he asked in the elevator. The mirrors reflected an infinite number of Saras. He didn’t miss her looking at him, though.

‘Yes, Fraser, that is exactly what I’m going to do.’

‘I can’t wait to see this.’ He could tell she thought she’d gone too far with her dramatics to back down now. As stubborn as ever.

Back on deck, he held his hand up to stop a porter rushing to help her. Esme wandered over to them. She was holding a camcorder. He noticed her catheter now, the pink of her cheeks.

‘Well, hello again, you.’ He bent down to her height, held out his hand. ‘We never officially met.’

The kid had Sara’s eyes—almond-shaped pools filled with questions. What kind of father would abandon his kid? He didn’t know the full story, of course, but he couldn’t imagine it was a happy one.

‘Are you having fun?’ he asked her.

‘Kind of. What’s my mum doing?’

Sara was trying her hardest to stop three men from pulling in a walkway that led down to the pier. Someone blew a whistle. People were waving goodbye to others below.

‘Your mum’s just processing some new information. She’ll be fine. I see we have the ship’s film-maker on board already. Have you got any good stuff yet, Miss Spielberg?’

She giggled. ‘Some.’

‘Maybe we can take you behind the scenes sometime? Show you the kitchens and the bridge?’

Her eyes lit up. ‘Yes, please! Can I get some film of you?’

‘Only if you capture my good side. Which side do you think that is?’ He turned his head from side to side, pulling different faces as he did so, and Esme giggled again, her whole face lighting up.

From the corner of his eye he saw Sara watching them. He stood straighter and took Esme’s little hand as the ship juddered. It was too late for her to make her exit.

‘No luck? You can always swim for it,’ he teased as she approached them.

She rolled her eyes, but he didn’t miss the slight smile on her lips. Esme skipped off to view the ship’s departure through the railings.

‘Thanks for that—she seems a bit happier now, at least,’ Sara said with a sigh.

Her green dress blew against his legs. ‘She’s going to have a great time,’ he assured her.

‘She’s bullied, you know. The kids call her names because of the central line in her neck. I got her the camera so she could make a video diary—show people she can live a normal life, doing stuff like this. I thought she could put it on her donor page.’

Sara swept her blonde hair behind her ears, following Esme with her eyes. Fraser thought again how messed up it was that they hadn’t found a donor for her yet. ‘That’s a great idea.’

‘I don’t want anything to ruin this trip for Esme, Fraser.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘What’s this doing here?’ Dr Renee Forster had walked over and was pointing down at Sara’s suitcase in the middle of the deck. ‘Everything OK?’

‘She spilled some water on it downstairs,’ Fraser said quickly. ‘She thought the sun would dry it off faster.’

Sara held up her hands. ‘Silly me. But it worked; it’s already dry.’

Renee raised her eyebrows. ‘I see. Good to have you both on board. You know each other well, I take it?’

‘We did a long time ago.’

Sara shifted uncomfortably on the spot and he tried not to smirk.

‘We dated for six months, actually,’ he said. ‘We’re in a kind of the-one-that-got-away situation.’

Sara turned to him in shock, but he shrugged his shoulders. Staff on these cruises had no secrets. And anything that needed to be addressed was bound to come out, one way or another.

As the ship finally pulled away to the cheers of the crowd, the thought made him anxious almost as much as it thrilled him.

CHAPTER THREE

‘CAN I HAVE pizza tonight?’ Esme asked. ‘Because we’re on holiday?’

Sara finished unhooking her daughter from the dialysis machine. ‘Sorry, sweetie, but you already know that’s not a good idea. Your diet should stay the same, so you’re not poorly.’

Esme groaned and laid her head down heavily on the pillow.

‘I know it’s hard,’ Sara sympathised. ‘There’s a lot of great food on this ship.’

That was an understatement. The food on the Ocean Dream was unlike anything she’d ever seen or tasted. Each buffet was like a dream, with everything from lobster sushi rolls to king crab soufflé, to marinated steaks and more cakes than she could count.

‘If I can’t have pizza, can I have ice-cream? Just a bit?’

Sara turned off the dialysis machine and readjusted the lines from Esme’s catheter. ‘We’ll see. You have to stop pointing that thing at me!’ She play-swiped at the camcorder lens that was pointed at her face.

‘Dr Fraser doesn’t mind being on camera.’

‘Yes, well...’

Sara snapped off her gloves a little too loudly. She was burning to know more about Fraser—why he’d left the family practice, how often he did these cruises, whether he’d met anyone else since her. Especially that. But she didn’t want to appear as if she was invested in anything Fraser Breckenridge had going on any more.

She’d meant what she said. Esme came first. She was all that mattered. Besides, they were professionals, and Renee was already looking between them like Cupid eyeing up the perfect target for an arrow.

Fraser had asked if they could talk privately once they reached Aruba and left the ship. She’d refused, maintaining she was there to concentrate on her work and Esme, not dwell on their past relationship. But a mish-mash of memories had kept her up the last two nights—things she hadn’t thought about in years.

‘Code Blue. Is anyone close to the casino? Can we get help in the casino, please?’

The Tannoy was practically screaming. Jess stood up from her chair in the corner. ‘Code Blue in the casino? That’s just next door!’

‘Take Esme to the playroom, will you?’ Sara unhooked another dialysis patient beside her and hurried outside.

The flashing lights and jingling slot machines in the ship’s casino launched an attack on her senses. She gripped her Ocean Dream branded medical case harder as she started down an aisle, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

‘Sara! Over here.’

People were being ushered away by a security guard wearing the ship’s smart grey uniform. Fraser was crouched on his haunches over a large balding gentleman in his mid to late fifties.

‘What happened?’ She dropped to her knees beside him. It could have been the sight of him, knee-deep in an emergency, but her heart immediately upped its pounding.

‘Cardiac arrest. Help me intubate him. I’ve already called for a stretcher.’ He paused for a beat to meet her eyes. ‘They said he won some pretty big money. He obviously got so excited he collapsed.’

Sara felt stabs of adrenaline, as if she was hot-wired to Fraser as he started CPR. Nosy onlookers in cruise ship attire and enough bling to sink the ship stood out against others who were happily still playing on the slot machines, only feet away.

She finished fixing the Ambu-bag and an oxygen cylinder, then quickly lifted out the nasal tubes. Fraser took over. His Adam’s apple rose subtly above the collar of his white shirt and she followed it up to the dark line of stubble around his jaw as he pumped on the rich man’s hairy, tanned chest. A Rolex watch caught her eye. A golden wedding band.

Fraser held the man’s head back so she could help, and she lifted his puffy eyelids, noting the pale green irises. Behind her a slot machine dispensed more coins with a happy jingle. So bizarre.

She inserted the tube into the man’s trachea slowly, while the efficient blur that was Fraser administered more CPR. His biceps flexed through his shirt. Sweat glistened on his neck. Someone was talking about a stretcher. It was close. But she could barely hear a thing against the pinging and spinning and chinking of the coins.

‘Go again!’

Holding the man’s head on her lap, she put two fingers to his neck as Fraser commenced with another set of compressions. His hair was falling almost into his steely blue eyes. He was completely focused.

She held her breath. Still no movement under her fingers. Fraser watched her shake her head and used the Ambu-bag for rescue breaths. Their shoulders were touching. A stretcher was being carried down the aisle.

‘Everyone move aside, please. We have a medical emergency. Move aside, please.’

People responded quickly to Fraser, reading the waves of urgency in his words. Where was this man’s wife? Sara wondered. Was she on board too? Maybe he’d come here without her? Lots of people came on cruises alone—some kind of escapism, she supposed, from whatever they hoped could be left on shore.

They lifted the man onto the stretcher together.

Was Fraser Breckenridge escaping something out here? He’d tried to call her after she’d left him six years ago, but she hadn’t answered. When she’d fallen pregnant, after an out-of-character, grief-stricken, vodka-fuelled one-night stand, she’d seen it as one more sign that she and Fraser were truly over—especially when he’d stopped trying to contact her. Even if Fraser had wanted to be with her, there was no way she would have asked him to help raise another man’s baby.

‘Let’s get him on life support,’ Fraser said, jolting her back to the moment.

The medical centre, which was more like an infirmary, was located on the second deck. The smell of disinfectant was an extra punch to her swirling gut as they hurried in, and she clicked onto autopilot as they passed oxygen masks and pads and the IV.

Fraser arranged the patient on one of the few beds. It was just the two of them in the room. She started tugging the man’s shirt open even further, noting the soft gleam on his bald forehead, the dents around his ears from his glasses. Where were his glasses?

She prepped him for the defibrillator, just as Fraser rushed to hook it up. She watched him administer the jolts at one-fifty, eyeing the defib screen for signs of life, and noticed, despite herself, the faint lines on Fraser’s face that hadn’t been there six years ago—extra layers of thought around his forehead.

There was still no pulse.

‘Give me more,’ he instructed.

She obeyed and prayed it would work. The room was getting hotter. It felt as if hours had passed in the tiniest space she’d ever had to work in, packed with lab test equipment, immobilisation boards, X-ray and EKG machines and bottle after bottle of pills. Through the window land was now in sight, shimmering green under bright sunshine.

It was still a whole new world to her. It clearly wasn’t to Fraser.

‘We have a pulse!’ she announced finally, and relief flooded her veins.

A knock on the door minutes later made her jump, and she found her hand on Fraser’s arm. He steadied her, and at his touch she felt something inside her waking from a deep slumber.

‘Is he alive? Oh, God, please don’t tell me he’s dead. He always said he wanted to die on a cruise ship... He blimmin’ well said that before we left...’

A busty, tanned woman was talking at the speed of an auctioneer as she tottered over on high heels and placed two leathery brown hands on their patient’s cheeks, peering with squinty eyes into his big round face.

‘He’s breathing,’ she stated.

Sara couldn’t tell specifically if the woman thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.

‘You’ll be happy to know he has more than a few years left in him yet,’ Fraser told her.

Sara watched the woman pull something from her glossy designer handbag. ‘I’m so sorry, Harry. I was in the wine club with the ladies.’ She placed a pair of glasses on his face before dropping a tender kiss on his forehead.

Maybe she really did love poor old Harry, Sara thought, glancing at Fraser, who promptly shot her a wink. Love wasn’t always black and white, after all. Perhaps she should give Fraser a chance to say his piece. What had happened between them hadn’t all been his fault, after all; maybe they owed it to each other at least to get the past out, so that they could put it behind them and work together without it hanging over them.

Right?

No. Bad idea.

Hearing Fraser explain himself might mean she’d open a door that was better off closed. No matter the attraction that would never go away, everything was different now. Esme needed her mother’s full attention. What if they couldn’t find a donor for her?

Oh, God, she couldn’t lose Esme.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT’S THAT THING stuck to your body?’ The kid in the bright green board shorts was pointing a finger at Esme’s catheter. ‘Are you an alien?’

Fraser’s brow creased where he sat three feet away on a beach chair, but Esme dropped the spade she was carrying and turned on her camcorder.

‘What do you know about kidneys? Three, two, one—go!’ She was challenging the kid, with five years of confidence behind her words. ‘I bet you don’t know anything.’

The boy’s face scrunched up. He put a hand over the lens as his mother called out from beneath a giant sun hat in the shallows. ‘Marcus! What are you doing?’

‘You’re weird,’ Marcus told Esme loudly, and ran off.

Sara was off her chair in a flash.

‘It’s OK, Mummy.’ Esme sounded tired. ‘I know he just doesn’t understand.’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

Fraser watched Sara reapplying her daughter’s sunscreen, listened to her chatter, trying to make her smile. She made a great mother. He’d always known she would make a good mother, and there had been a time when he’d actually thought they’d make a great team as parents some day—not that he’d ever told her that.

Sara had her work cut out for her, though. Esme was smart and resilient and beautiful, and who knew her fate, exactly? Some people on dialysis lived a long time. Others didn’t.

He stood and got them both to pose with their backs to the ocean for a photo. Jess, the carer, took the camera and urged him into the shot.

‘That’s OK,’ he told her, but Esme had other ideas.

‘Dr Fraser, come and be in our photo!’

He waded into the shallows, eyes on Sara. Her expression gave nothing away. The hot sun was playing on her blue bikini top as Esme clung to their hands in the middle of them and demanded to be bounced up and down in the waves.

‘Again!’ she cried as they lifted her up and down.

‘You’re a bossy little Spielberg,’ Fraser told her, picking her up and putting her on his shoulders in the surf. He pretended he was about to dunk her, lowering himself down into the water and then standing again quickly.

Esme screeched with laughter. When he caught her eye, Sara was laughing too.

‘Where is this place?’ Sara asked him later, taking his hand and letting him help her off the scooter he’d hired. He gestured widely in front of him, to the brownish-red boulders standing tall like fallen pieces of a distant planet in the middle of the desert.

‘I thank you, fine lady, for accompanying me to the Casibari Rock Formations.’

He helped her unbuckle her helmet and held it as she shook out her hair. The sky was a deep blue, the scalding sun was trying its best to break through his sunscreen, and all around them cactuses sprang like gnarly hands from the dusty ground.

They’d left Esme playing on the beach with Jess and some other kids, and he’d seized his chance to get Sara alone—finally.

‘They’re so smooth and weird-looking,’ she said about the rocks, stepping forward along the dusty path.

He couldn’t help but see her bikini bottoms through her sarong; the curve of her ass. ‘How did they get here?’

‘No one really knows,’ he said. Some people think aliens brought them here.’

She smiled. ‘“ET phone home”?’ Her fuchsia sarong was billowing softly around her in the breeze. God, she was so beautiful. He could tell she didn’t really know it. He wondered if there had been anyone serious in her life, since Esme’s dad, and felt a sharp twinge of jealousy.

Sprinting onto a nearby rock ahead of her, he held a hand down. On the top of the huge, flat boulder, he watched Sara’s face as she looked at Aruba, stretching out beneath their feet. They were about three kilometres from the capital, Oranjestad, where the ship was docked.

‘On a clear day you can see Venezuela from here,’ he told her, taking in the dusty browns, and then the emerald-greens and clear blues of the waters beyond. ‘The first inhabitants from the Arawak tribe used to climb on these boulders and watch for storms on the eastern horizon.’

Sara lifted her sunglasses to her head and looked at him. ‘You always did absorb this kind of stuff like a sponge. No wonder you took this job.’

He smiled, ran his eyes over her lips. ‘How long did you say you’ve been doing these cruises?’

‘This is only my second.’

He brushed a strand of hair from her face, gently. It coiled around his fingers. She didn’t move, but she averted her gaze. Did he make her uncomfortable out here? Memories were funny things. He wanted to say he remembered the curves of her body, the way she’d used to moan when he pressed kisses on her ticklish tummy. But she’d made it quite clear that she wanted things to stay professional between them. He had to respect that.

‘I know you love to see the world, but I still don’t get why you’re here—working, I mean.’

Sara lowered herself onto the rock and he did the same. She hugged her sarong-wrapped knees to her chest.

‘You were pretty married to your family’s practice, from what I recall.’

He was quiet for a moment and the birds sang in the silence.

‘My father died two years ago,’ he told her, watching a warbler flit from a tall bush. ‘I put a locum in—just to get away for a while, you know? I did the cruise and really enjoyed it, and they asked me back for a second this year.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Sara put a hand to his on top of his raised knee. Her voice was tight. ‘About your dad. Fraser, I didn’t know.’

‘It was a heart attack.’

He missed his father, of course—he’d grown up worshipping the guy—but he’d never come to terms with the fact that his dad had resented his and Sara’s relationship six years ago. Dr Philip Breckenridge had been an excellent doctor, but managing the finances of the practice had never been his strong point.

The money Fraser’s late grandfather had left in trust for him was to have been released to him when Fraser qualified, on the proviso that he spent it to further his career. By pumping it back into the practice, Fraser would appease the practice trustees and save his parents from an uncertain retirement.

But when he’d gone to tell Sara he needed some time to concentrate on qualifying, so the money for the practice could be released, even knowing it wasn’t great timing because her mother had just died, she’d already made her mind up.

‘We should just call it a day, Fraser. It’s too crazy right now; everything is changing.’

Her movement beside him startled him back to the present. Sara had turned to face him, cross-legged on the rock.

‘I mean it, you know; I really am sorry about your dad, Fraser.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I know what it’s like to lose a parent.’ She curled her fingers around his, holding both his hands in the space between them.

His mind flashed back to them walking hand in hand around Edinburgh Castle, taking photos of each other on the cannons. She’d known grief herself then, of course, and he’d wanted to keep on helping her through it. He’d wanted her with or without all the problems surrounding them at the time.

But when he’d gone to London to see her, shortly afterwards, to tell her that he missed her and ask if they could figure things out somehow, he’d seen her with that...that guy.

‘So, you live at home with your dad?’ he asked her now. ‘Because of Esme?’

He dropped her hands, took a bottle of water from his pack and took a swig, then splashed some against his face and chest.

‘That’s one of the reasons,’ she said.

He noticed her eyes giving his abs an appreciative glance through his open shirt. He handed her the water.

‘Haven’t you ever moved in with a boyfriend, or...fiancé or anything? What about Esme’s father? I saw you with him once, you know.’

Sara’s eyes grew wide. She paused with her lips to the bottle and he realised he probably shouldn’t have admitted it.

‘You saw us?’ she said. ‘When?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m assuming it was him. I came to see you in London a couple of weeks after you left. You’d already made it obvious you wanted to move on, but I guess I thought I could change your mind. I saw you with him outside that restaurant in your street...’

‘You really did that? Came to London to see me?’ She looked grief-stricken all over again for a moment. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

He could see he’d upset her, but he had to ask. ‘Would it have made a difference? If you’d seen me?’

She was quiet. ‘I don’t know. That was the one and only time we met, Fraser. We spent one night together and then he left the country for a job without ever knowing I got pregnant. It was a stupid thing to do, but I was still grieving for mum, and missing you, and for once in my life I’d had way too much to drink...’

‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘So Esme wasn’t exactly planned—not that I have any regrets.’

‘Of course not. She’s incredible, Sara.’

‘She really is. I never knew I could love another human so much after...’

She trailed off, but he knew what she was going to say. After him. He’d never understood why she’d felt compelled to cut him out of her life so completely.

‘Living with my dad seemed like the best way to care for him and Esme,’ she continued. ‘My grandparents lived in that house for over sixty years before they died. Did I ever tell you how the ceiling is peppered with marks from popped champagne corks? Over the years it’s become a sort of map of my family’s celebrations.’

‘That’s beautiful.’

He meant it. He’d been raised in a pristine house, where a champagne mark on a ceiling would have meant arguments, shouting, and a week of interior decorating right after.

Sara cast her eyes to the butterflies, swirling around another bush. ‘I suppose I keep on hoping that one day soon we can pop another champagne cork to mark Esme’s new kidney, and another for her sixteenth birthday, and one more for her wedding.’ She let out a disgruntled sound. ‘I just can’t think of ever celebrating anything again until that first one happens. Sorry—I know that’s weird.’

‘It’s not weird at all.’

Fraser kept his eyes on the ocean. To hell with the pain this woman was still going through, and the way it took the light from her eyes. It made her doubt herself and everything she did.

He took her face in his palms and she drew her hands over his impulsively. ‘It will happen. We’ll find a donor for Esme,’ he told her resolutely.

‘Help! Oh, my God, please help—is anyone there?’

The anguish in the voice caused them both to scramble up.

‘Help!’ The female voice came again. ‘Over here!’

Springing into action, Fraser grabbed his bag and scrambled down the rocks with Sara, making sure she didn’t slip. They raced further down the trail towards the sound until they found themselves face to face with a sight Fraser had never seen before.

Marcus, the kid in the green board shorts. who’d been mean to Esme on the beach, was lying on his stomach on the dusty ground. He was writhing around in pain with half a damn cactus sticking out of his backside.

Sara hurried to unfold a towel from their pack, so they could move him away from the dirt.

‘He fell on it—he was running too fast!’ his mother cried. Can you pull it out of him, Doctor? Should I?’

Fraser clasped her wrist. ‘No, don’t touch it!’

The woman in short blue dungarees and that giant sun hat was crouching over her son on the ground now, trying to hold him steady. ‘It’s not poisonous, is it?’

‘It’s not poisonous,’ Fraser told her, spotting some fabric from Marcus’s board shorts impaled on the offending cactus, just metres from two abandoned bicycles. ‘Just try not to move,’ he told the lad. ‘We don’t want these little suckers going any deeper—and don’t put your hands near your mouth if you’ve touched the cactus at all, OK?’

‘OK...’ Marcus was sobbing. ‘It hurts!’

‘I know it does.’ Sara’s voice was soothing as she took tweezers from a small case. ‘Luckily it looks like the glochids are mostly in one area, so just keep still like Dr Fraser said.’

Fraser readied the gauze and antiseptic as Sara went to work on Marcus’s poor inflamed skin. His backside was so swollen it resembled a bright red beach ball. It was very lucky they’d been so close.

Back on the Ocean Dream, they whisked a sore Marcus to the medical centre. He and his mother were both adamant that they didn’t want to leave the cruise, and Fraser tried to make them laugh by telling them all the things Marcus could still do standing up—like fishing, or tennis, or painting standing at an easel.

‘You can also help me make my video, if you like,’ Esme interrupted from the doorway, just as Fraser was handing Marcus’s mother a prescription for painkillers. The kid now had a significant amount of gauze taped to his behind.

Marcus’s cheeks flamed almost as red as his backside when he saw her.

‘Esme, why are you here?’ Sara walked over to her quickly. ‘Where’s Jess?’

‘In there,’ Esme said, pointing to the coffee house next door. In her long denim shorts and star-patterned shirt she walked past Sara and pointed at Marcus. ‘What happened to you?’

Marcus wrinkled his nose. ‘I fell on a cactus.’

Esme’s little brow furrowed as she took in all the gauze. For a second Fraser thought she might laugh, or say something mean. Marcus had been mean to her, after all.

‘That must have hurt,’ she said instead, her eyes narrowed in concern. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m OK.’ Marcus sniffed. ‘Sorry I called you an alien.’

Esme grinned. ‘I suppose I do look a bit like an alien sometimes. Do you want me to show you my robo-kidney when you’re better?’

Fraser stood next to Sara as Esme explained how she needed the dialysis machine for her kidney to function. He could practically feel Sara swelling with pride as Esme offered to play with Marcus, so he wouldn’t feel like the only funny-looking one on the ship.

‘She’s as compassionate as someone else I know,’ he whispered to her, nudging her arm. Sara looked up at him.

‘If only that was enough to make us a match.’

He felt his chest tighten. ‘I told you, Cohen,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s going to happen.’

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