“I wanted to ask you if there’s any other way I can make up for—”

“There isn’t,” she snapped. “Short of offering to marry me yourself.”

Dylan laughed. It was a rich, confident sound. In any other circumstances she would have wanted to join in. “Perhaps that’s exactly what I should do,” he said. “The only thing that would really make the grade, right?”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“I dare you, Annabelle.” There was a light of challenge and determination in his expression that made her uncomfortable. “I dare you to consider the proposition.Think about it….”

Dear Reader,

Even after writing over fifty books, this one was a “first” for me. For the first time, the idea came to me in a dream. I popped awake, and there it all was, already sitting in my mind—the harried and cynical surgeon hero arriving late at his colleague’s wedding; the nervous yet lovely bride heroine, whom the hero has never truly noticed before, even though he works with her for hours every week; the sudden, crazy impulse that leads him to interrupt the ceremony….

That, of course, was only the beginning. I happened to be making a train journey that day, and I spent most of it scribbling down my ideas about what was to happen next. Does Annabelle swoon into Dylan’s arms, realize that he’s the man she really loves and marry him at once, instead?

No! Of course not! She’s absolutely furious! Meanwhile, although questioning his own sanity in relation to the timing of his dramatic gesture, Dylan remains utterly convinced that he’s done the right thing.

Who’s right? You’ll just have to read the book!

Lilian Darcy

The Surgeon’s Proposal

Lilian Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘ARE you on your mobile, Dr Calford?’

‘Yes, but don’t worry. I’ve only moved three car lengths in the last ten minutes, so I’m not exactly a danger to other road users.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Calford, I didn’t catch that.’

‘Never mind, Lesley.’ Dylan Calford raised his voice above the background noise of peak-hour traffic. ‘There’s nothing that can’t wait. We’ll pick it up next week, OK?’

‘Enjoy the wedding,’ the orthopaedic clinic secretary carolled cheerfully.

Dylan swallowed the dampening response that sprang to his lips, saying instead, ‘And you enjoy your weekend, Lesley.’ He knew that, like most working women with a family, she deserved to.

He flipped his phone shut and concentrated on the traffic. Brisbane roads were like tangled spaghetti at the best of times, and five o’clock on a Friday afternoon was not one of those. Being January, it was a hot Friday afternoon, too. With the sun pouring through Dylan’s front windscreen, the car’s air-conditioning couldn’t keep up, and he felt sticky all over.

He was already late. Didn’t know why he was going to this wedding in the first place. He was cynical about weddings at the moment. He didn’t altogether want to feel this way, but after the debacle he’d endured with Sarah…There really was something too incongruous about proceeding directly from a meeting with his divorce lawyer to a ceremony designed to shackle two more innocent people together in the dubious bonds of wedlock.

‘Like lambs to the slaughter,’ he muttered. A crucial three metres of space opened up ahead and he was able to crawl forward far enough to turn left into a quiet side street which should cut through in the direction of St Lucia.

Not that Dr Alexander Sturgess remotely resembled a lamb, of course.

Traffic lights ahead. Red, naturally. Dylan had chronic bad luck with traffic. As a result, he’d learned to be alert and super-competent in the way he navigated the sprawling city. That was a plus. All the same, he would have preferred to have been one of those fortunate souls for whom green lights, empty lanes and parking spaces appeared in his path like magic.

The sun was spearing into his eyes, half blinding him and making him sleepy. He and Alex had both been in emergency surgery half the night, putting a nineteen-year-old motorbike rider back together after a horrific crash. Head injury, complicated fractures, internal injuries. It was one of those times when you didn’t know whether to even hope that he would live. The metal plates and pins now keeping the young man’s bones in place were the least of his problems.

As befitted a senior orthopaedic specialist and a man about to get married, Alex had then taken the rest of the day off. Dylan, in contrast, had tackled his senior’s scheduled surgical list, done a three-hour fracture clinic, which had run late, made hospital rounds and met his lawyer. The man was probably on the phone with Sarah’s lawyer right now, presenting the details of the proposed settlement he and Dylan had worked out together.

Would it pass muster? Dylan suspected not. Sarah apparently valued the support she’d given him during his past two years of specialist orthopaedic training more highly than he did.

‘Thank God we didn’t have kids!’ he muttered.

Were children on the agenda for Alex and Annabelle? He imagined so. Alex would want to perpetuate the Sturgess dynasty. And Annabelle, aka Theatre Sister Annabelle Drew…Didn’t she have a child already? Yes, he was sure she did. Not hers, but one she’d had dumped on her a year or so ago. Her sister’s little boy, or something.

Dylan didn’t know the exact circumstances. Sister Drew didn’t splash her personal life around during surgery like antiseptic solution, the way some people did. She was one of the few women who, in many ways, actually suited the anachronistic title of ‘Sister’ that was still used for senior nurses in Australian hospitals.

She was composed, contained, warm and highly competent. Polite. Honourable. Good. The kind of woman men didn’t swear in front of.

Except Alex, Dylan revised. Alex swore during surgery the way he used a scalpel—deliberately, and with precision.

And Annabelle laughs at dirty jokes, he thought. As long as they’re actually funny.

She had a lovely laugh. It was gurgly and rich, and came from deep inside her diaphragm.

So perhaps I’m wrong about the swearing thing. Perhaps it’s just me who doesn’t swear in front of her. That goodness thing…I probably don’t have the slightest idea about who she really is at all.

The thought discomfited him a little, for some reason. This marriage to Alex, for example. Unlikely, wasn’t it, if Annabelle Drew was the woman Dylan believed her to be?

The light turned green and he made a little more progress before getting stopped on a steep hill, which necessitated a noisy handbrake start once the car ahead began to move. Dylan’s shirt was glued to his back, and it felt far too limp for a garment he’d only put on an hour ago.

Up ahead. Was that it? At last, yes!

Except that three circuits of the parking area revealed that there were no spaces, which forced Dylan into the next street and delayed his arrival by a further five minutes.

Now I really am in a foul mood! Dylan realised. I wish I’d turned down the invitation.

But his senior colleague would have read more into this than was intended. Alex had a tendency to do that.

Dylan hurried through the entrance of the elegant function centre and asked, ‘Sturgess-Drew wedding? I’m late.’

‘Straight through.’

‘Thanks.’

He opened one half of a double, frosted glass door, slid through the gap, narrowly avoided colliding with a potted palm directly ahead, and discovered that he’d arrived halfway through the ceremony itself. A string quartet waited patiently on a large, draped dais. Guests, seated in neat rows, listened politely as a civil marriage celebrant droned out a syrupy poem.

It was almost impossible to hear. In the front row, a little boy was squirming energetically in the arms of a rather frail-looking woman and yelling, ‘No! Don’t want to sit down! Don’t want to sit down!’ He looked to be around two years old.

There were barely any empty seats. Just one, in fact, at the end of the same short row where the little boy was refusing to sit. Dylan edged his way along the side aisle towards it, hoping Alex wouldn’t notice his terrible timing.

Again, it was the kind of thing that Dr Alexander Sturgess, MB, BS, M.Sc., FRACS, FA Orth. A., would take personally. Alex never considered that other people might have vindictive ex-wives and verbose divorce lawyers, late-running clinics and bad luck with traffic.

Dylan admired Alex Sturgess as a surgeon, which was why he’d returned to Coronation Hospital to train with him after a couple of rotations in hospitals elsewhere in Queensland. As a man, however, Alex wasn’t exactly a role model he strove to emulate.

Easing into the seat, Dylan could hear a little better. The celebrant intoned more flowery words about love. Alex looked as if he’d forgotten to paint an expression on his face—other than, perhaps, a faint mist of approval—and Annabelle looked very, very nervous. The pale grey suit that the groom wore was wrong. Expensive, but wrong. It made Alex’s skin tone look washed out, and stressed the fact that his once blond hair was heavily greyed. He was actually a much better looking specimen of manhood than he appeared today.

Oh, shut up! Dylan told himself. Who are you, to be this critical? Just sit through it, wish them every happiness and let them get on with it!

No.

No.

Annabelle’s dress was lovely. She had resisted the current vogue for strapless wedding gowns, in which most brides looked as if they had a single, log-shaped breast plastered across their chest. Dylan suspected, too, that she had an unsuitably freckly back and shoulders. Instead, she wore some draped confection in warm cream silk.

Portrait neckline, was it called? Anyway, it gave her a classic, regal aura and made her curvy figure look perfect. Her shoulder-length dark hair was piled up in glossy curlicues and tendrils. Her brown eyes were huge. Her freckle-dappled skin looked warm and peach perfect. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had something.

He wasn’t wrong about her, Dylan decided. She was going to be miserable with Alex.

The toddler was still struggling and yelling. He was an attractive child, with brown eyes and light brown curly hair, but clearly he wasn’t suited to this formal setting. The woman who held him—presumably Annabelle’s mother as there was a resemblance—looked grim-faced and at the end of her rope, on the verge of giving up and carrying him out.

Dylan could hear her laboured, wheezy breathing, and remembered overhearing Annabelle talking to another nurse about ‘Mum’s health’. Emphysema, he thought.

Meanwhile, the little boy was ruining the occasion. Alex clearly thought so. He glared in the child’s direction, then frowned tightly. The celebrant reached the meat-and-potatoes part of the ceremony. Traditional and churchy, this bit. Alex’s idea? It didn’t really fit, after those chintzy poems.

‘If anyone here present knows any reason…’

The celebrant raised his voice, struggling to be heard above, ‘Put me down, Gwanma!’

‘May they speak now, or forever hold their peace.’

‘Yes,I do!’ Dylan muttered darkly but very distinctly. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake!’

They’d heard.

Not the whole congregation, but the ones who counted. Annabelle’s mother and Annabelle herself. Alex. The celebrant. The bridesmaid and the best man. The first two rows of guests. Lord, had he said it that loudly?

Apparently.

It didn’t help that the little boy had suddenly gone quiet. A plastic lollipop stick protruding from his mouth explained this unlikely development.

Dylan began to sweat. Again.

Alex and Annabelle had both turned in his direction. Alex was looking slack-jawed and appalled, Annabelle startled and bewildered. The bridesmaid was gulping in air, and had a hand pressed to her ribcage. The best man was staring in horror.

Even Annabelle’s little boy was watching him, happily sucking on his lollipop, while ‘Gwanma’ looked as if she had fully expected some kind of ghastly last straw at some point during the afternoon, but hadn’t thought it was going to be this.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan barked. Instinctively, he stepped forward. This was another mistake. He was standing just a foot or two from Annabelle now, and right beside her. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ But he had meant it. ‘It was…’ a moment of indulgent madness ‘…a joke. It was nothing. Please, uh, carry on.’

Alex wasn’t buying it. The slack jaw had hardened. The washed-out complexion had refined to white around his nostrils.

‘A joke?’ His voice rasped. ‘That’s ridiculous! People don’t joke in the middle of a wedding. You have a reputation as a loose cannon in some circles, Dylan, and I’ve chosen to ignore it, but this…What do you mean by it?’

He looked from Dylan to Annabelle and back again, and the action seemed to link the two of them together, standing shoulder to shoulder, as they now were.

‘Dylan? Annabelle?’ His voice rose.

It was obvious that he suspected an affair. Annabelle had gone bright red. The first two rows of guests were watching in strained silence, like the audience at an amateur play in which the cast have forgotten their lines. Further back, there was whispering, as those who hadn’t heard Dylan’s words tried to fathom what was going on. On the string quartet’s dais, the cellist let her fingers slip and the strings of her instrument squawked.

‘Nothing,’ Annabelle said. ‘Nothing, Alex.’ She clasped her hands together. The gesture could have meant either ‘Believe me’ or ‘Forgive me’. Dylan knew it was the former, but Alex clearly wasn’t so sure.

Taking another edgy step forward, which brought the billowing skirt of Annabelle’s dress washing around his trouser-clad legs, Dylan said, ‘Really, Alex, I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking and it’s my fault, but, no, it’s…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Nothing like that.’

Annabelle’s bridal fragrance enveloped him, evocative and sweet.

‘It isn’t, Alex. Honestly,’ she echoed. Shaking, she laid a hand on her groom’s arm. From this perspective, Dylan could see the slope of her right breast where the neckline of her dress gaped a little with her movement. Too many heartbeats passed before he looked away. ‘You can’t possibly believe—’

‘It doesn’t matter what I believe,’ Alex said. ‘It’s what other people believe, and it’s fairly obvious what they’ll believe about this!’

‘Garbage!’ Dylan put in helpfully.

‘Then, please, let’s just…get on with it,’ Annabelle begged, ignoring him. ‘The way you’re reacting is only making things worse. People are whispering, and—’

‘Oh, it’s my fault?’ Alex’s nostrils flared again.

‘No, I’m not saying that, but—’

‘It’s my fault,’ Dylan interposed. ‘That’s clear. Annabelle’s right. Please, just get on with it.’

But Alex had a look on his face now. It happened in surgery very occasionally if he was tired and absently asked for the wrong size of clamp or something. Most surgeons would simply correct themselves and go on, but Alex could never do that. He would doggedly proceed with a piece of equipment that was less than ideal, rather than lose face by admitting to a mistake. Fortunately, he was a good enough surgeon to carry it off, but this wasn’t surgery, this was his wedding.

For heaven’s sake, get over it, Dylan wanted to tell him. Don’t lose your sense of proportion. But he knew it was already too late.

‘No, I won’t get on with it,’ Alex said coldly. ‘Are you coming, Peter?’

‘Yes,’ said the best man, who had to be Alex’s younger brother. He blinked, like an animal caught in a bright light. ‘Yes. Right. Of course.’

Without another word, Alex spun neatly around, strode down the centre aisle and out the glass door through which Dylan had entered just a few minutes earlier. Peter hurried after him. In the dead silence that had now fallen over the assembled guests, just two sounds could be heard—the squeak of the door as it swung closed again, and the lusty sound of one little boy slurping on a red lollipop.

The silence didn’t last for long.

In seconds, the sound of voices had swelled from a buzz to a roar. Annabelle’s silk skirt swished against Dylan’s legs again as she whirled to face him. She was furious.

‘Why did you do it? A joke? You can’t think I’ll swallow that! It was malicious! You know Alex as well as I do, Dylan Calford. You must have known he’d take it as a personal insult or worse. Why did you do it!’

In hundreds of hours of working together during surgery, Dylan had never seen her brown eyes blaze that way before. Her chest was heaving. The dress had slipped a little, and one creamy shoulder was bared. Her cheeks were still fiery red. She looked electric and wild and more stunningly attractive than he’d ever have thought she could…but, then, he’d never seen her dressed for her own wedding before. A dangerous new awareness stirred inside him.

‘Why?’ he echoed. ‘Why?’

As fast as a computer scanning its hard drive, he ran through all the possible placatory falsehoods at his disposal and rejected every one of them. He was left, therefore, with the bald truth, so he said that, aware even as he spoke the words of how inadequate they sounded.

‘Because I knew you wouldn’t be happy.’

Annabelle was not grateful for the insight.

In a low voice, she said, ‘I wanted this marriage. I needed it. I was going to give up work and take Duncan out of child-care. He hates it, and it’s not good for him. I was going to spend more time with my mother, who isn’t well, who isn’t going to get better, and who needs me, too.’

‘Is that what marriage is—?’

She rode right over the top of him. ‘I was going to relax, for once, with a man I respected and cared for—care for—at my side, a man who’s made it clear that I’m important to him, and that we can create a good partnership together. I had faith in that partnership! How dare you impose your own shallow definition of marital happiness? And how dare you presume to make that sort of judgement about us?’

‘Not Alex,’ Dylan corrected. ‘Just you.’

‘How dare you imagine you know me that well? No wonder Alex thought we were having an affair!’

The bridesmaid squeaked and covered her mouth with her hands.

‘Darling…’ came a shaky, smoke-damaged voice.

Annabelle turned. ‘Yes, Mum?’

‘Can you take Duncan now? He won’t go to anyone else, and I just…can’t. I need my oxygen from the car, and my inhaler. I shouldn’t have thought I could get by for so long without them.’

‘Oh, Lord, Mum, I’m sorry!’ Annabelle muttered. She blinked several times, and Dylan realised it was because she was fighting tears. She reached out for the little boy, but he’d had enough, lollipop notwithstanding, and wriggled immediately to the ground.

‘Splore!’ he said.

‘No, we can’t explore now, love.’ She bent to him, and Dylan got a serious and spectacular view of her breasts, as smooth as ivory and as plump as fresh-baked rolls. His groin tightened unexpectedly, and he felt as if someone had barged into him and knocked him sideways. Now was not the moment to have this happen.

‘Want to explore with me, Dunc?’ the bridesmaid offered tentatively, just behind Annabelle.

Too late. Duncan was already off and away, through the crowds of guests, who were milling uneasily in aisles and between rows of seats. The bridesmaid followed him, way too slowly. Dylan was still rooted to the spot. For several reasons. Annabelle straightened, and a sigh escaped between her teeth.

‘He’ll come back, won’t he?’ Annabelle’s mother said.

‘If he doesn’t head straight for the street and get mown down by a car, the little monkey-love.’

‘I meant Alex.’

‘Oh.’ Annabelle sighed again. ‘No, Mum, I don’t think he will. Alex is…not the type who cools off quickly.’

‘But surely he’ll realise—’

‘I’d better go after Duncan, Mum. Linda’s had no experience with kids. I’ll bring your oxygen and your inhaler, and I’ll tell everyone that they’re welcome to stay. You can pass the word around, too. Get the music playing, perhaps? There’s no sense all this food and planning going to waste. And then I’d better phone and cancel our hotel…’

Gathering up the folds of her dress, she smiled distractedly at several guests and began to make her way down the aisle. Following her, Dylan spotted Duncan at the back of the string quartet’s dais, and pointed him out to Annabelle.

Again, she wasn’t grateful.

‘You won’t be staying to eat, I don’t suppose,’ she said. It was an order rather than a question, and her chin was raised. ‘But perhaps you’d care to mention, on your way out, that cocktails and dinner are still on for those who want them?’

‘Sure. Of course,’ he agreed, knowing how completely inadequate it was.

He did as she’d asked, heading gradually towards the beckoning glass doors. After fielding several questions along the lines of ‘What on earth did you say?’ and ‘Oh, was it you, then?’ he was finally able to make his escape. He’d never been so relieved in his life.

At home, once he’d peeled off his limp clothing and had a cold shower, a message on his answering-machine awaited him.

It was from Sarah.

‘I’ve heard your offer, and it’s insulting. We’re preparing a counter-offer over the weekend, and your lawyer will hear from mine on Monday.’

Am I that out of touch with reality? Dylan wondered, after he’d erased the message. We were only married for two years. I was working. She was working. We employed a cleaner. We ate take-away meals, or I cooked. We kept separate bank accounts, and split the mortgage payments. For six months of that time, I was on rotation in Townsville and we only saw each other every second weekend.

In fact, they’d been far too scrupulous about maintaining a degree of separation in their lives, he now considered. Sarah hadn’t wanted to come to Townsville. Perhaps their marriage would have lasted longer, and been happier, if they’d joined themselves to each other more completely. And perhaps he would then have felt that Sarah was entitled to the top-heavy percentage of their assets that she was obviously planning to claim.

Still stewing over it, and over the wedding fiasco, he made himself some salad and one of those nutritionally challenged instant dried pasta meals that people took on camping trips. Then he bored himself with television for several hours and dropped into bed at eleven, seeking oblivion.

It didn’t come. He felt like a heel and resolved to himself, I’ll make it up to Annabelle. That’s the least I can do.

Go and see Alex, try and explain. Cover the cost of the reception. Ring each and every guest personally. Anything. Whatever Annabelle wanted.

Had this whole mess happened because of the divorce, or because he was a really terrible person? Until things had gone pear-shaped with Sarah, he’d have said his life was in an impeccable state. Priorities in order. Heart in the right place. Career on track. Judgement damn near flawless.

Hang on, though! Had he lost that much faith in himself? Rebellion began to stir inside him.

Annabelle Drew, I saved your backside this afternoon, no matter how you twist your definition of marital happiness.

Poking at his feelings a little more, he discovered, to his surprise, that he was angry with her. Disappointed, too. Somehow, she was a woman of whom he would have expected better. Better priorities. Better principles. Better sense.

I will make it up to her, if she’ll let me. But she’s wrong to blame me for this!

Rolling onto his stomach in a twisted sheet, Dylan slept at last.

‘Thank heavens that’s over!’ Helen Drew said to her daughter, as the final straggle of wedding guests headed for their cars, later than both of them had hoped. She had her portable oxygen close beside her, and really should have been using it more tonight. Her breathing sounded terrible, despite the use of her inhaler, and she looked even worse. ‘You did a fabulous job, darling. I was proud of you.’

Annabelle felt her mother’s arms wrap around her like a comfortable quilt. On the dais vacated by the departing string quartet, Duncan had fallen asleep at last, about fifteen minutes ago. And Linda had gone, too, thank goodness. She was a good and loyal friend, great at helping Annabelle with tax and finance questions, but was useless, and knew it, with kids, the elderly and sick people. Her ineffectual offers of help had, in the end, been something of a strain.

‘You mean the fact that my face felt as if it was about to drop off didn’t show from the outside?’ Annabelle said to her mother.

‘Well, of course it did, but people expected that. They knew you were upset.’ Annabelle’s mother hesitated for a moment. ‘Life will go on, you know.’

‘Oh, I know that, Mum.’ Although she couldn’t quite imagine it at the moment.

She felt like one of those cartoon characters who stepped off a cliff, but didn’t start falling until the gravity of their situation hit home. Her mind ticked and rattled like an engine out of tune.

Cancel the hotel for this weekend. Cancel the two-week honeymoon, planned for just over a month from now, at a time when Alex had been able to make some space in his schedule. Thank goodness she hadn’t handed in her notice at the hospital yet! Where was Alex right now? At home?

‘And anyway, you and Alex, I’m sure, will patch things up,’ Helen said. ‘It would seem silly not to get married just because some idiot of a man decided to get clever during the ceremony.’

Which of those misconceptions, if any, to tackle first? Annabelle wondered.

First misconception—she and Alex weren’t going to patch things up. She knew that. Their relationship was over.

He had put so much thought and time and money into making theirs a perfect, elegant wedding, befitting the strong and sensible partnership they had hoped to create together. He’d wanted a ceremony and reception that would set a benchmark for friends and colleagues to aspire to, the sort of occasion that people would talk about for years. Well, they’d achieved the latter goal! Unfortunately, not in the way he’d wanted.

And he was a very stubborn man. Slinking off next week to a sparse little ceremony in a bureaucrat’s office wouldn’t make the grade, even leaving out the question of Alex’s loss of face.

Which Alex would never leave out. And he was probably right—people would gossip.

Second misconception—Dylan Calford wasn’t an idiot.

She’d known him, on and off, for three and a half years now. In some ways, she knew him better than she knew Alex, since there wasn’t such a gap in status between them. She knew what he looked like first thing in the morning, fresh from a snatched sleep in the doctors’ on-call room. She knew what he ate for lunch, and the places he’d been to for holidays since his marriage. They called each other by their first names.

He was proving himself as a fine surgeon, he was good to work with, and by all scales of character measurement, he was a pretty decent man. What Annabelle knew of him, she liked—had liked until today—and along with the rest of the hospital staff who worked with him, she felt for him over the issue of his divorce. He wasn’t quite the same person he’d been a couple of years ago. Harder. More cynical, and less patient.

And, finally, he hadn’t ‘decided to get clever’. He hadn’t intended his words to be overheard. Possibly, he hadn’t intended to speak them out loud at all.

Which means he genuinely thinks our marriage would have been a mistake.

How could something be a mistake when you needed it so badly? Annabelle knew that she and Alex weren’t in love the way most couples believed themselves to be when they married. They’d talked about that, seriously and at length.

Alex had exhibited his worst qualities today—as he sometimes did in surgery—but in their private time, he was thoughtful and interesting. They respected each other. He approved of her. They could talk about plans without friction. He was a tender, undemanding lover, and he worked hard at his relationship with Duncan.

And, oh, dear Lord, she’d needed their marriage! She needed to be able to give up work for a few years in order to focus her attention on caring for her mother and Duncan. She needed Alex’s financial support, not for herself but for the people she loved.

When they’d started going out together four months ago, it had been like being rescued from a dragon’s lair by a white knight. She’d started sleeping again. She’d seen light at the end of the tunnel.

Whereas now…

Suddenly, she felt sick. Anger towards Dylan Calford rose in her throat like bile. The concern he evidently had about the dire possibility of her making a mistake in marriage, of her ‘being unhappy’, was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

‘I wouldn’t have let it be a mistake!’ she muttered to herself. ‘I would have made it work, no matter what it took. I would have been happy! Imposing his cynical stance on other people just because he’s having a bad divorce is unforgivably arrogant!’

‘Are you angry with him?’ her mother asked.

‘Yes. Absolutely and utterly furious!’ Annabelle said aloud.

‘Don’t let it get in the way when you talk.’ Mum put out her hand and rested it heavily on Annabelle’s arm. ‘And try to talk to him soon. He acted out of pride. He’ll make it up to you. I’m sure you can work it out.’

‘Oh, Mum, no, I’m not angry with Alex. I understand why he walked out. It’s Dylan Calford I’ll never forgive for all this!’ Annabelle said.

CHAPTER TWO

DYLAN appeared at Annabelle’s house at nine-thirty the next morning.

Duncan had awoken, as usual, at six. No matter how late he stayed up, he never slept in. Right now, he was running wildly around the back garden, pushing a big toy truck, and he would barely slacken his pace all day. Annabelle often wondered what sort of a child his father had been. This active? This unstoppable? There was no one to ask about him.

‘Hello,’ she said coolly to Alex’s registrar at the front door of her little weatherboard Queenslander.

‘Uh, yeah, hi…’ he answered.

‘I suppose you want to come in,’ Annabelle prompted him, not sure why she was taking the trouble to help him out, even to this limited extent.

She had never seen him so at a loss for words. Had never seen him dressed so casually either. His body was one hundred per cent male. Broad shoulders, strong legs, dark hair and darker eyes, football player’s waist and hips. Orthopaedic surgeons had to be strong.

Since this was Brisbane in January, he wore shorts—navy blue and topped with a polo shirt subtly patterned in a beige and khaki print. He was freshly showered and shaven, and radiated an energy that was only partly physical.

He looked good, and he’d recovered his equilibrium already. He was intimidating, if she’d been in the mood to feel intimidated by anyone. Right now, she wasn’t.

‘Look, I won’t apologise again,’ he said, his tone that of a man who was sure of his ground.

‘No, don’t,’ she agreed. ‘But, please, don’t stay here on the veranda. It’s cooler out the back, and I need to keep an eye on Duncan.’

‘Sure.’ The word sharpened his slight American accent. Annabelle knew he had been here since his early teens, had been a star rugby player at Brisbane’s most illustrious boys’ school and held Australian citizenship, but sometimes his Chicago origins still showed.

She led the way through the house and he spoke behind her. ‘But I do want to do what I can to make this whole thing less difficult for you.’

‘Sure.’ She turned her head and smiled as she echoed the word he’d used, but the smile didn’t do much to soak up the pool of dripping sarcasm in her tone. There was nothing he could do to make this ‘less difficult’!

He didn’t reply, yet somehow this time his silence was much stronger than some bleating protest would have been. Her spine prickled suddenly.

They reached the back veranda, which was shaded by the riot of tropical growth that threatened to encroach upon it. Along the paved path, Duncan was still making truck sounds, while the small and securely fenced swimming pool beckoned invitingly in a patch of sunshine. Hibiscus and frangipani gave bright and sweetly scented accents of colour, and the wooden floor of the veranda was cool and smooth under Annabelle’s bare feet.

From somewhere, as she invited Dylan to sit in one of the cane-backed chairs, came the thought, At least now I don’t have to move. To Alex’s large, air-conditioned and professionally decorated river-front house. They’d been planning to sell this place, or rent it out as an investment.

‘You have a nice little place,’ Dylan observed.

‘I’m fond of it,’ she agreed.

That was an understatement. She loved this small eighty-year-old cottage, perched on an absurd patch of land that had a cliff for a front garden and a crooked walkway of twenty-seven steps up from the street to the front door. This was one of the older areas of Brisbane, just a few kilometres from the city centre.

She didn’t mention to Dylan that the mortgage on the house was stretching her finances far too thinly, now that she had child-care fees for Duncan on top of it.

Change to night shifts if I can. Mum’s health is only going to get worse, but hopefully she’ll have a few good years yet, and by then Duncan will be at school. As for the money…

The repetitious thoughts droned on in her head. Cutting them off, she offered, ‘Would you like tea or coffee? Or something cool?’

‘Coffee would be great.’ The cane chair creaked a little as he shifted his weight.

‘Can you keep an eye on Duncan for me while I get it?’

‘Of course.’

Mad. She had been stark, raving mad to invite him in, Annabelle decided in the kitchen. He didn’t particularly deserve a fair hearing, she considered, so why give him one?

Habit.

This was how she’d first become involved with Alex. He had been particularly brutal during surgery one day several months ago. Had had her on the verge of tears, which not many surgeons could have done. And he’d invited her out to dinner as an apology. ‘And to prove to you that what you see in surgery is only a small part of who I am. I should probably invite the entire theatre staff in rotation!’

Although it had seemed a little out of character, she had taken the invitation at face value, and had been surprised at the ultra-expensive restaurant he’d chosen. She had been even more surprised when he’d kissed her at the end of the evening. She hadn’t picked up on his intention until it had happened.

It probably hadn’t been until their fourth or fifth date that she’d gone beyond the fair hearing thing and had really started to appreciate Alex for who he was. His clever mind, his knowledge of wine and food, his informed opinions and the fact that he’d made his approval of her very clear.

It had been like an audition, or a job interview. She’d realised that. He’d been making sure she was suitable. He had been impressed to discover that her mother was that Helen Drew, the widow of Sir William Drew, QC, and when he’d then heard from Annabelle that her father’s finances had been in a disastrous state on his death several years ago, it hadn’t put him off.

At the same time, Annabelle had been assessing Alex in a similar way. For a start, they’d got on well. Always had something to talk about. Never yelled at each other, if you didn’t count surgery. Annabelle didn’t like the way Alex behaved in surgery, but he defended himself.

‘Sorry. It’s bloody hard. I’m a prima donna, I know. But there’s too much at stake, Annabelle, during a difficult operation. I’m going to swear if something goes wrong, and I’m going to yell at whoever’s responsible. That, by the way, is never me! Don’t try and get me to change.’

OK. Fair enough. She could tolerate it.

More importantly, from her point of view, Alex realised that Duncan was a permanent fixture in her life, and always took him into consideration. He was happy about supporting both of them, and understood that her mother required a huge amount of Annabelle’s time and care as well. He actively preferred that she give up work.

‘If you never go back at all, that’s fine with me.’

This wasn’t quite how she felt. She loved her career but, even leaving aside Mum’s needs, Duncan just wasn’t the kind of child that did well in the structured environment of a child-care centre, and she couldn’t ignore that. She had begun to see unpleasant shifts in his developing personality that upset her deeply, and she knew that the overworked and underpaid child-care centre staff breathed sighs of relief when he went home each day.

Duncan had been carelessly conceived during a holiday fling with a Greek barman, carelessly brought into the world and casually abandoned by his mother, Annabelle’s sister Victoria. Vic hadn’t intended to abandon him permanently, of course. She’d simply left him in Annabelle’s care when he was ten months old, while she went on an adventure holiday in Borneo.

‘Eleven days. You don’t mind, do you, Belle?’

No, she didn’t mind. She loved her baby nephew, and she had days off work owing to her.

Six days into the trip, Victoria had been killed in a landslide on the side of a jungle-clad mountain. It was an exotic end to an exotic life, and a difficult start for a little boy. He deserved better, and he was going to get it in future, Annabelle had vowed.

Only now, because of Dylan Calford, he wasn’t.

The electric jug boiled and she poured steaming water onto the little mounds of shiny granules at the bottom of each mug, creating a hissing sound. The coffee smelled good and rich and fresh, but unmistakably like instant. She had real ground beans, and a whiz-bang Christmas-gift coffee-machine, but wasn’t going to waste either the coffee or the machine on Dylan Calford today. The coffee took longer to make that way, and might give him the mistaken impression that she wasn’t furious.

‘Here.’

She handed him the muddy black brew, and plonked a plate of sweet biscuits onto the coffee-table. There wasn’t much room on it at the moment. Duncan was running back and forth between his toy chest and the table, depositing his trucks and cars there one by one in a long, snaking row. His sound effects were loud.

‘Active little boy,’ Dylan commented.

‘He doesn’t have ADHD,’ Annabelle said.

‘Did I say—?’

‘A lot of people have said it. The manager of his child-care centre wanted him assessed.’

‘But you didn’t think it was necessary?’

‘No. Because when he’s with me, he’s fine. Active, yes. Top-of-the-chart active, but I read up on the subject when the issue was first raised, and he doesn’t show any of the other signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The psychologist I finally took him to agreed. His concentration is fully engaged when he’s interested in something. He’s not aggressive, unless he’s handled aggressively first.’ Or not often, anyway, she revised inwardly, thinking of a couple of recent incidents at child-care. These were the reason she’d consulted the child psychologist, and she’d found his ideas on the issue very sensible. She summarised them briefly to Dylan.

‘He can’t express his feelings very well yet. His language skills aren’t good enough. So he gets frustrated in a situation where he’s not happy, and there have been a couple of incidents of biting and kicking at his child-care centre. A lot of young children go through a similar stage, and they grow out of it, if it’s handled in the right way.’

If. A big ‘if’, in this case, when Annabelle herself couldn’t be with him, and the staff at child-care didn’t have the resources to give him the extra attention he needed.

Knowing she could talk for minutes on end about Duncan, his difficulties and her feelings, she finished, ‘He just likes to be on the go, to head for the horizon and explore.’

Like Vic had. Perhaps he had received his temperament from her.

‘Parents usually know best,’ Dylan said.

‘I am his parent!’ She glared at him. ‘Or the closest thing he’s got to one, anyhow.’

‘Yes, that’s what I meant. You’d know, and I’m guessing you’re not influenced too much by wishful thinking either. Or not usually.’

He frowned, and Annabelle flushed. Was that a reference to Alex and their marriage plans? It was! She’d blurted out far too much to Dylan yesterday in her anger.

‘Why are you here, Dylan?’ she asked him coldly.

‘To make an offer. Some kind of compensation. I want to cover the cost of the reception at least.’

‘Alex is the one to approach about that, although I doubt he’d accept it. I wouldn’t!’

‘And ask you if there’s any other way I can make up for—’

‘There isn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Short of offering to marry me yourself.’

It had to be one of the most ill-thought-out suggestions she’d ever made, a product of fatigue and stress, and disappointment and anger, and something else she didn’t have a name for. Something new. She didn’t usually come out with wild statements like that.

Dylan laughed. It was a rich, confident sound. In any other circumstances, she would have wanted to join in. ‘Perhaps that’s exactly what I should do,’ he said. ‘The only thing that would really make the grade, right?’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Thanks. You’ve made me feel better.’ He was still grinning at her, his dark gaze sweeping over her like a caress. It disturbed her.

‘How?’

‘By proving to me that I did the right thing. The insane thing, under the circumstances, and I hadn’t realised it would be the show-stopping announcement that it was, but if you could propose me as a substitute husband—’

‘I wasn’t serious.’

‘One day later.’

‘I wasn’t serious!’

‘Even as a joke, then doesn’t that tell you—?’

‘Nothing.’ She shook her head sharply, clenched teeth aching. ‘It was a stupid, meaningless thing to say. It doesn’t tell me anything.’

‘I dare you, Annabelle.’ There was a light of challenge and determination in his expression now that made her uncomfortable. He was leaning forward in his seat, his strength casually apparent. ‘I dare you to consider the proposition. I’ve got just as much to offer you as Alex does. Not exactly the same things, perhaps, but equivalent. Better, possibly, in some areas. Think about it.’

And suddenly, graphically, she was.

She was thinking about a wedding—symbol of solved problems—and a wedding night, and a bed with Dylan Calford in it. Naked. Or possibly not quite naked yet, but with some snug-fitting black stretch fabric across his groin. And smiling. The way he was smiling now, with a challenge glinting in his eyes, and a wicked, delicious expression that said, I can read your mind.

She went hot all over. My sainted aunt! She’d never thought of Dylan Calford that way before! He’d been engaged or married or absorbed in his divorce for the entire three and a half years she’d known him, and that had meant he’d been off limits. Not just in her eyes, but in his own.

He didn’t give off the knowing, overtly sexual vibe that available, good-looking men so often exuded. And, anyway, they rarely encountered each other outside the demanding environment of surgery, and never away from the hospital. When they worked together, there was always too much else to think about.

Today was different. There were no patients, no colleagues. His property settlement was at the negotiation stage, with the one-year anniversary of his separation already past. The vibe was there, singing and throbbing like the strings of an instrument. Two contradictory feelings warred inside her.

The first was instinct more than thought, and insisted, You’ll learn more from this than you ever learned from Alex. The second was an impatient need to reject the whole thing as dangerous, untrustworthy and insignificant.

The second feeling won.

‘You don’t mean it,’ she told Dylan flatly.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, she wrapped her arms across her body to try and stroke away the goose-bumps that had risen on her arms. Her nipples ached, and deep inside her there was a heaviness and a heat that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Definitely, she didn’t want any of it. Not now.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You’re right. I don’t. But you thought about it, didn’t you?’ His eyes were still fixed on her face.

‘Not in the way you mean.’

Or, possibly, exactly in the way he’d meant.

Had he been aware of the vibe he’d given off? The potency of it? The delicious wickedness of it? The fact that she’d absorbed it, wrapped herself in it and reflected it right back at him? Or was he giving it off unconsciously?

‘Well, think about it some more,’ he said. Or, rather, ordered.

He took what had to be a scorching gulp of his coffee, without apparently noticing the heat. If he had a tendency not to notice heat, that was good, a relief…and a reprieve.

‘There’s no need to think about it any more,’ she said sharply. ‘Not for a second.’

‘I wonder.’

Meanwhile, Duncan had become bored with the car and truck game, and every vehicle he owned was now lined up on the coffee-table like a peak-hour traffic jam. ‘Go inna pool, Mummy?’ he said hopefully.

‘In a little while, love,’ she answered.

A swim would be great. Bruising, with the way Duncan liked to hurl himself off the edge and into her arms in the water. His eager little legs always collided painfully with her thighs as he held her tight and instinctively kicked like a frog beneath the water. But it would cool her down. The building heat in the air was extra sticky today.

Duncan had already run off in search of towels. He’d probably come back with six of them.

As soon as he had gone, Dylan asked curiously, ‘He calls you that? Mummy?’

Annabelle went on the defensive at once. ‘Mum and I talked about it. We agreed it would be best at this stage. He has no memory of Vic—my sister. We haven’t decided when we’ll tell him.’

‘Tell me how it happened,’ he invited quietly. ‘Do you mind?’

She stifled a sigh. Sometimes she did mind, especially when the questions were nosy, tactless or judgmental. But somehow Dylan Calford seemed to be in her life now, since yesterday. Arrogant in his presumptions, dictatorial in his advice. She was still angry about it, yet at the same time felt her usual over developed need to be fair. Beyond the arrogance, his desire to make amends as far as possible was apparently genuine.

Not that he can make amends, she considered inwardly. Is it the thought that counts? Aloud, she said, ‘No, I don’t mind. She’d gone trekking, and there was an accident. In Borneo. It was in the news. You might have read about it.’

He thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Mmm, yes, I remember now. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that was your sister.’

‘I didn’t want to talk about it much at work.’

‘It must have been hard. For you and your mother.’ They weren’t flowery words, but she appreciated the depth of sincerity behind them.

‘Still can’t believe it sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I—’ She broke off and shook her head.

Sometimes she’d hear a voice in a crowded shopping mall and instinctively turn her head because it sounded like Vic. Sometimes, with news or a funny anecdote to tell, she’d pick up the telephone and stop with her finger poised over the first digit of Vic’s old phone number, her whole body frozen and a stabbing pain in her stomach.

But she didn’t want to tell Dylan Calford about any of that. He didn’t prompt her to finish, and she felt a small stirring of gratitude for the fact.

‘And there was no father around?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Not one that we could trace. Vic never even told Mum and me his last name. He didn’t know about Duncan and wouldn’t have cared, Vic said. It was a holiday romance. She travelled a lot.’

‘The adventurous type. Like her son.’

‘I’m starting to see that, yes, although at the end of a long day, I always blame his father for the high energy levels!’

‘How do you deal with it? How do you know that your full-time care will be better than a child-care centre?’ Evidently he remembered exactly what she’d said to him yesterday.

‘Because I love him. I…’ she searched for the right word ‘…champion him, in a way those very nice girls—really, they’re very nice—at child-care just don’t have time for, with their ratio of one adult to five kids.’

‘That high?’

‘It’s standard,’ she answered. ‘I believe in him, and know him well enough to bring out the best in him. I understand what he’s trying to tell me, which some people don’t. His speech isn’t very clear yet, and that frustrates him. I have the time and care to head off his difficult behaviour, and I know when he’s overdosed on other kids and needs some time to himself. We go to the park for hours, and just run each other down as if we were two little toys in one of those battery commercials on television. He sleeps well, if an hour or two less than most kids his age. And I’m pretty fit, as a result!’

‘Hmm,’ Dylan said. There was a pause. ‘And what will happen now?’

‘He’ll stay in child-care. Unless I can juggle my shifts at the hospital, which, of course, I’ll try to do.’

Which doesn’t deal with the mortgage. There must be some other areas where I can save. If I get an increase on my credit-card limit…

‘There’s no other choice? Your mother—’

‘Has emphysema, as you may have realised. She’s tired and breathless, gets asthma attacks quite often, and can’t do much for herself. She could sell her little unit and come and live here, yes, but she’s too ill to help with Duncan, other than overnight babysitting, and really too ill to live under the same roof as such an active little boy.’

‘Yes, I can understand that.’

‘She loves him, but she wouldn’t be happy here. Can you stop asking these questions, Dylan? Marrying Alex wasn’t just about solving my current family problems. There was a lot more. You mean well. I can see that. But you’re trivialising my life, and my choices. It’s not helping. Don’t try and help, please.’

She lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily, still far more conscious of their two bodies than she wanted to be. What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell. His dark eyes were clouded and thoughtful, and he was frowning.

At that moment, Duncan ran back out to the veranda, as expected, with his arms full of towels. One dangling end was dangerously close to tripping up his eager little feet. Turning away from Dylan, Annabelle took the bundle from Duncan quickly, and asked, ‘What about your cozzie? Know where that is?’

‘Onna line,’ he said confidently, and rushed off again, to the far corner of the crowded garden where the rotary clothesline stood, hung with pegged-up garments.

‘I should go,’ Dylan said, and Annabelle didn’t argue. ‘Please, think a little more about what I said.’

She laughed. ‘The marriage proposal? You didn’t mean it. I’m not going to think about it for a second.’

‘You’re right. I didn’t mean it. But think about it anyway.’ His dark gaze collided with hers again. It seemed to trap her, making her hot.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she told him.

‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘Although I wonder…Maybe one day we’ll both understand what it meant.’

Then he shrugged, smiled and stood up, looking long and strong and sturdy. Not at all the kind of man who should make whimsical marriage proposals that he admitted he didn’t mean but still wanted her to take seriously.

‘Enjoy the pool,’ he said, and touched her bare shoulder.

His hand left a warm imprint there, and was gone again in a second. Annabelle’s awareness of his touch was unsettling and unwanted. She took him quickly back through the house, and they got through a few last polite phrases, then she closed the door behind him and listened with relief to the confident sound of his feet as he loped down the twenty-seven steps.

She spent a shrieking half-hour in the pool with Duncan, got him dried and dressed and settled him with a video.

Then she phoned Alex.

‘I was wondering when you’d call,’ he said stiffly.

‘It’s just on eleven. I wasn’t sure whether to…’ She trailed off, feeling the phone line between them heavy with stony silence. She tried again, newly determined that there had to be a way to get through this. It was ridiculous to call off a marriage permanently because of one meaningless intrusion during the ceremony. They were both mature adults. Alex was almost forty, and she was thirty-two. ‘I really wanted to talk, Alex, but I thought we both needed to cool down after last night. I’m just as angry with Dylan as you are.’

Silence.

‘And if you still think I gave him any cause to make that idiotic objection, then I’m not sure what to do next, because I didn’t, and I’ve told you that, and he’s told you that…’ She paused expectantly.

Silence.

‘Which makes me start to wonder if you were just looking for an excuse.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

‘So we’ll get married. A small, discreet ceremony, with—’

‘That’s impossible. I’m not going to rehash it again.’

‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Alex!’ she begged him desperately. ‘Just blustering like this, stonewalling anything I say, it’s not telling me anything.’

Silence.

‘Shall I come over to your place, or do you want to come here?’ she suggested.

Silence.

‘Dylan wants to pay for the reception. I told him to talk to you about it.’

‘So you’ve seen him? When have you seen him?’

‘He came round just now. He obviously feels bad.’

‘I can’t believe you’re defending him, and that you talked to him before you talked to me.’

‘I’m not defending him.’ Am I? ‘I’m just letting you know that he’ll probably phone you, too. I don’t know why he came to me first.’

Silence.

‘So, should we talk about—?’

‘There’s absolutely nothing to talk about at all,’ Alex snapped. ‘It’s out of the question to have him pay for the reception.’

‘Well, yes, that’s what I thought, but since it was your money, I didn’t want to—’

‘And it’s out of the question to talk about scheduling another ceremony. I won’t get over this in a hurry, Annabelle. You’re the last person I would have thought the type to trail chaos and melodrama in your wake, but now I’m wondering how many other ex-boyfriends—’

‘Dylan Calford isn’t an—’

‘Or would-be boyfriends I can expect to crawl out of the woodwork. I was embarrassed to the core last night. People, no doubt, are already talking and making conjectures. And I don’t even think I could look at you at the moment, Annabelle.’

The reproachful crash of the slamming phone invaded Annabelle’s left ear, and stinging tears flooded her vision. Today, this hurt in a way it hadn’t hurt last night. Last night she’d been angry, and in shock. Now came the full realisation that Alex had dropped her like a hot coal, as if she were tainted in some way.

He’d almost said as much. He’d called her a ‘type’. Not the type to attract scandal. Not the type to compromise his reputation and his ambitions. Political ambitions. She knew he had them. President of the Australian Medical Association. Queensland State Minister for Health. But she’d believed herself to mean much more to Alex than a suitably well-bred and stain-resistant political wife, just as he meant more to her than a way out of her family problems.

Annabelle stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and sobbed wildly, until she remembered Duncan in the next room. He would be worried and confused if he saw her like this—red-eyed, swollen-nosed. He had a caring little heart, when he stood still long enough for it to show.

She heard the clatter of his feet as he bounced off the couch to come looking for her, and quickly turned to the kitchen sink to wash away the worst of the mess her face was in. By the time he appeared, she was wearing a smile.

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