‘Not only the unit,’ he said with a hint of pride, ‘but also the start of a series of clinics throughout the country so that little ones could be seen more quickly and easily than having to travel all the way to the capital. Then only if an operation was necessary would the family have the expense of that journey.’
‘And the explosion?’ She hated to push him to recall such distressing events, but she was discovering that she needed to know what had happened to the man she loved every bit as much as he needed to tell her.
‘The world believes that it was caused by a group of rabid fundamentalists—those who object to all things that come from outside the traditions of our country.’
‘But?’ It was anger she had heard in his voice just then, fierce and raw.
‘None of these groups claimed responsibility for the atrocity, the way they usually do, and there were other people who had their own reasons…’ He shook his head. ‘It is complicated…politics…but I believe that it was someone who used the threats by the fundamentalists to hide their own agenda. And they almost succeeded…except
I
didn’t die. It was my wife and son who were destroyed because I didn’t protect them.’
‘
Didn’t
protect them or
couldn’t
protect them?’ she asked, remembering the fact that he’d been badly injured, too.
‘There can be no difference because I failed them. They died that day and I lived,’ he said, voicing the torment that sounded as if it would never leave him.
It was almost as though a light bulb switched on inside her head.
‘And is this why you hold yourself aloof from everyone…why you won’t let anyone get close to you?’
‘Why would anyone want to?’ he asked, those broad shoulders slumping in the closest she’d ever seen him come to defeat. ‘I am a man who has nothing to give…who deserves nothing…because I have not proved myself worthy.’
Those lean fingers she’d watched, mesmerised while they’d performed their magic for his little patients, were knotted into white-knuckled fists now.
Emily wanted so very much to reach across and soothe those fists with gentle fingers, but she knew he was in no mood to accept such a gesture from her.
‘So, in Xandar there’s no such thing as someone being granted a second chance?’ she asked quietly, knowing he was intelligent enough to get her point.
‘Of course there is, if the person deserves a second chance,’ he retorted. ‘But how can I have a second chance when they never will?’ His dark eyes almost burned her with their intensity as he continued.
‘Leika was twenty-four when she died, young and beautiful and with so much life in her.’
‘Leika?’ Jealousy sank its claws deep into her soul.
‘Zuleika,’ he clarified. ‘She was my wife, chosen for
me by my family to cement a political alliance, and the price I had to pay for agreement to my plan for the specialist unit.’
The fact that Zayed was important enough to Xandar that he could be coerced into such a match was almost irrelevant to Emily when all she felt was a selfish relief that it hadn’t been a love match between them.
‘Neither of us really wanted to marry,’ he continued in a low voice full of regret. ‘Leika wanted to pursue a career in law, specialising in what are called
women’s issues
, so when Kashif was born a year later, she almost resented him because everyone expected her to do the traditional thing…the
right
thing…and give up her work to stay home with him.’
‘So when the unit was going to open—the unit that her marriage had allowed—she was determined to be there,’ Emily said, reading between the lines.
‘And when the explosion came, I couldn’t save them.’ His dark eyes were full of torment as they stared right through her, and she knew that he was seeing the horrors in his memory instead. ‘I’m a doctor but I couldn’t do anything for them. I just…just lay there and watched them die, right in front of me.’
Probably because you were too badly injured to get to them,
she reflected, knowing with absolute certainty that he would have done everything in his power to help them if he’d been able.
Not that she could say any of that, she knew as she allowed her eyes to drift around his room again.
The barrenness of his surroundings was still a shock. When he’d invited her into his private space, she’d been expecting to see a little bit of Xandar transported to
Penhally. Fabrics with a rich variety of textures and colours, perhaps even the luxury of silk on his bed. She certainly hadn’t imagined this…this monk’s cell.
And when she’d mentioned the lack of family photos, she’d actually seen him shut down to avoid the pain, but hadn’t known why until now.
Except…she didn’t really understand.
‘Why did you decide to travel so far away…to cut yourself off from the rest of your family?’ she demanded. ‘When Beabea…when the time comes…I’ll be completely alone in the world. I’d give anything to know that there were other people who were going to be there for me…uncles and aunts and cousins who would be feeling the same loss when she’s not there any more.’
‘There are reasons,’ he began stiffly.
‘I’m sure there are, but why punish yourself unnecessarily?’ she demanded, her own heart aching for his loss and wishing she could ease it for him. ‘
You
didn’t set the explosion, so why are
you
feeling guilty and putting yourself in exile? You should be in Xandar, showing those fundamentalists—or whoever it was that did it—that they aren’t going to win. You should be organising the rebuilding of the unit for all those children that need it…all the Abirs and Neelas and Jasmines who can’t come to a small unit in Cornwall, no matter how good it is.’
Emily believed so passionately in what she was saying that Zayed could almost see sparks flying off her as she took him to task.
She was an amazing woman, so open and generous…and magnificent in her fierceness.
If they had met in another place, another time…an
other life, he would have done everything in his power to make her his, because with a woman like her at his side there was nothing he couldn’t accomplish.
Just look at all the things she managed to cram into each and every day.
Not content with a busy and demanding career, she was arriving early for her shift each day to spend extra time with their little patients so that their bewildered parents would be relaxed enough with her to voice their fears. Then she was hurrying back to Penhally to spend time with her grandmother, often returning several times during the evening to take advantage of the increasingly brief spells between her morphine-induced sleep.
She hadn’t even bothered to ask for permission to visit his home after that first time, simply assuming that she would be welcome to join in the nightly mayhem of story time and lingering long enough to give every child a moment or two of gentle attention, playing with them and cuddling them while they settled down for the night so that their parents and carers could have time for a little adult conversation.
And then there was her determination to be present on the beach each evening to watch over him.
He sighed inwardly, still unable to work out how he felt about that insistence.
His male pride wanted to be offended that she was implying that he might be unable to take care of himself, even as his common sense told him that it was taking unnecessary risks to swim alone, no matter that the beach at Penhally was hardly a remote location.
The one emotion that he hadn’t allowed himself to examine was the feeling of pleasure that came over him at
the thought that she might care enough about him as an individual to be concerned about his safety, and that was crazy.
The last thing he should want was for Emily to grow to care about him, knowing that he couldn’t offer her anything in return. He just didn’t have it in him any more and she was a person who deserved the best of everything.
So, even though she was sitting on his bed, close enough to touch, close enough to breathe in the sweet musky scent of her body that never completely disappeared even under the tang of sea water, even though he would like nothing more than to pull her into his arms and never let her go, he had to try to keep a professional distance between them, for both their sakes.
But that didn’t mean that he could help himself from loving the way she related to every one of the children, and the quietly steadfast way she showed her love and care for her grandmother, even though having to watch her die by inches was devastating her.
The last couple of days he’d even timed his departure from St Piran’s so that he could follow her to the hospice, then waited out of sight until she emerged to make her way to the beach with the few stray tears that escaped her steely control already streaking her cheeks.
He’d discovered by accident just how close she was to tears after each visit and wanted to be there for her, but unless she granted it to him, he had no right to intrude on her private misery.
‘Zayed?’ The uncertain tone in her voice and the shadows that were gathering rapidly in the room were the only things that told him that he’d allowed the silence to stretch between them for far too long.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Your words made me think and my thoughts took me in many directions…the explosion…the unit…your grandmother.’
‘Oh, I forgot!’ she exclaimed. ‘Beabea asked particularly if you would come to visit her tonight. She seemed fairly insistent but, of course, only if you have the time. It might mean waiting until she wakes up because she’s pretty much drifting in and out at the moment, and—’
‘Emily, it is all right. I would be honoured to visit her again,’ he interrupted with a smile. He enjoyed her grandmother’s spiky sense of humour, which even terminal cancer couldn’t take away. It didn’t matter that he felt wary of the keen way she watched him each time he visited, as though she were dissecting him right to the bone. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if she possessed the facility for reading minds, the way his own grandmother had seemed to.
‘When did you want to go?’ he asked, relieved to have a chance to draw some sort of a line under their emotionally fraught conversation this evening. He had never spoken of those events to anyone before and the painful experience had left him feeling drained and on edge.
Then there was the danger that the longer he spent in Emily’s company, the more likely it would become that he’d make a slip and reveal how he really felt about her. ‘We could leave now, if you like,’ he offered, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.
The expression in those clear green eyes told him that she knew exactly why he was so keen to go, and left him with the uncomfortable feeling that yet again he was guilty of cowardice.
His first look at her grandmother’s face told him that the end was very close and for a moment he wondered whether he ought to excuse himself and leave the room to give the two of them some precious private time together.
Then she opened her eyes and fixed him with a surprisingly alert gaze, almost as if she’d known what he was thinking.
‘Come…closer,’ she mouthed faintly, beckoning with a single skeletal finger to make the point.
When he would have demurred, directing Emily to stand closer instead, a glimmer of the fire he’d seen so often in her granddaughter’s eyes flashed at him, telling him without words that
he
was the one she wanted to talk to first.
She started to speak, but her voice was so insubstantial that he could barely hear it.
Frustrated, she stabbed an imperious finger into the bedclothes, letting him know in no uncertain terms that she wanted him to sit close beside her.
‘You…’ she breathed when he leaned as close as he could without crowding her, concerned that she was already struggling for breath, even with the assistance of supplemental oxygen. ‘You are…a good man,’ she declared in a way that forbade him to argue with her, no matter how much he might want to set the record straight. ‘You’ve…been hurt…’ she continued laboriously, ‘been sad…but it’s time…’
‘Time?’ He knew that Emily hadn’t had a chance to tell her grandmother anything of their conversation this evening, and was uncomfortable with the idea that the older woman could tell so much about him. Perhaps she
could
read his mind, but he certainly couldn’t read hers.
‘Time…to forgive…yourself,’ she whispered. ‘Time…to go on…with your life.’ She fumbled for his hand, her own feeling almost as weightless as a baby bird in his as she trapped his gaze with a fierce intensity that he wouldn’t have believed she was still capable of. ‘Promise me…’ she said. ‘You must promise…you will…take care of…my Emily…’
Those simple words sent fear flooding through him, choking him so that he couldn’t utter a single word to deny her.
But he couldn’t be responsible for taking care of Emily. It wasn’t right that she should ask him. He couldn’t take care of anyone—he’d already proved that when he’d let Leika and Kashif die.
‘Promise me…’ she demanded with all the energy she could summon, and suddenly he knew that, no matter how much he wanted to…no matter how much he should…he couldn’t refuse what might be her dying wish.
‘I promise,’ he said, even as despair crept into his soul with the realisation that he had just vowed to do the impossible.
B
EABEA
beckoned Emily to her then and, regardless of the fact that it meant she was almost plastered against Zayed’s side, she hurried forward and leant as close as she could.
‘I…love you…darling girl,’ she managed, but Emily could tell that it was becoming harder and harder for her to form the words. She seemed to be so desperately tired that everything was becoming a real struggle.
‘I know, Beabea,’ she reassured her, stroking the tissue-paper-fine skin on the back of her hand and trying to ignore the unhealthy yellow colour of the jaundice that signalled the severity of her liver failure. ‘I’ve always known. And I love you, too. Now, you get a good night’s sleep and we can talk again in the morning.’
She bent to press a kiss to her grandmother’s cheek and when she straightened up, she noticed that those faded blue eyes were focusing first on Zayed’s face, then on hers.
A sweet smile just lifted the corners of her mouth as she closed her eyes.
‘No more…talk…I’ve said…all that needed…to be
said,’ she managed with what sounded almost like satisfaction before her hand relaxed its grip in Emily’s.
‘She’s asleep,’ Zayed whispered, and Emily realised that her sudden panic must have shown in her face. ‘Her heart is still beating,’ he pointed out, indicating the pulse still beating at her grandmother’s throat. But not for long, was the silent rider that he didn’t need to say aloud.
Emily waited until they were outside the hospice wing, standing by their respective cars, before she tackled him about the private conversation he’d had with her grandmother.
‘Beabea was speaking so softly that I couldn’t hear what she was saying to you,’ she said, suddenly realising that she sounded quite stiff with the resentment that he’d taken up some of her precious time with her grandmother. ‘What were the two of you talking about?’
Zayed’s eyes looked almost black in the shadows this far away from the security lights and his expression was totally unreadable as she waited for him to speak.
Instead, there was a sudden call from the door they’d only recently exited.
‘Emily!’ called the sister on night duty who had only just wished them goodnight as they’d passed her desk. She beckoned. ‘You’d better come in, quickly. Your grandmother’s taken a turn for the worse.’
‘Beabea!’ Emily exclaimed frantically as she whirled and started to run.
It was a short corridor but it felt as if the faster she ran the further away her grandmother’s door became until Zayed caught her hand and ran beside her.
Emily wasn’t quite sure how he came to be beside her or how she came to be holding his hand so tightly, but
she was very aware that having Zayed with her was her only comfort at that moment.
Unfortunately, by the time they hurried through the door they were just in time to see the nurse release her grandmother’s wrist with a shake of her head.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, and seemed genuinely upset that the end had come so quickly—just moments after Emily had left her grandmother sleeping peacefully. ‘She was a lovely lady.’
Emily’s legs refused to hold her for a second and she was even more grateful that Zayed was there willing to lend his strength to lower her safely into the familiar chair at the side of Beabea’s bed.
At first glance Beabea didn’t look any different to the way she’d been when Emily had glanced back at her from the doorway just minutes ago. But there
was
a difference—in some indefinable way it was obvious that her grandmother just wasn’t
there
any more.
Emily had expected to cry bitterly when this moment finally arrived, but she was too stunned for tears, overwhelmingly aware of an enormous feeling of loss and emptiness.
‘Emily? You are all right?’ Zayed asked gently, his arm tightening supportively around her shoulders. ‘Do you want me to drive you home?’
Home?
That
nearly broke through the strangely echoing distance that had appeared between her and the rest of the world.
The little cottage that she’d shared with her grandmother ever since her parents had died was
Beabea’s
home, and now that she was gone, it felt to Emily almost as if
she
didn’t have a home any more.
‘I can’t leave yet,’ she said in a voice that felt as if it scratched her throat on the way out. ‘There are the formalities to see to and…and…’
‘Shh,’ he soothed, as if he knew she was just seconds away from flying apart into a million pieces. ‘First you just need to sit here quietly with your grandmother to say your last farewell.’
He was so understanding of the churning chaos inside her that she only just held onto her control, but the dark shadows in his eyes reminded her that the reason why he knew what she needed was because he had suffered so much worse.
At least Beabea’s life had been long and full. Zayed’s son had hardly begun to live when his life had been snuffed out like an ephemeral candle flame.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, and hoped that the smile she managed looked a little more convincing than it felt. But she had to try. It wasn’t fair, after all the sadness he’d suffered, for him to be burdened with her unhappiness, too. It could only bring back the memories that haunted him. ‘I expect that someone on the staff here will have telephoned the surgery for someone to certify the death. Once that’s over, I’ll go home.’
‘Are you sure that is what you want? I do not mind waiting with you,’ he offered, and sounded as if he really meant it.
She was so tempted to accept, knowing that just to have him by her side would make everything so much more bearable, but Beabea hadn’t raised her to be a coward.
‘I’m sure,’ she said quietly, and he nodded, accepting her decision.
‘Ring me on my mobile to tell me when you leave,’ he suggested, and when he took that first step away from her she was already wishing she could change her mind, especially when he added, ‘If you want me to come over, I will come—so you are not alone.’
‘Dr Tremayne’s arrived,’ Nan Yelland murmured softly, and Emily blinked. She’d completely lost track of time while she’d been sitting there, her mind wandering over so many happy memories in the years since she’d come to live with Beabea.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, her voice sounding as rusty as if it hadn’t been used in a long time.
‘Nearly three o’clock,’ said a male voice in the doorway.
For just a second her heart leapt with the hope that it would be Zayed standing there, but it was only the very tired and rumpled figure of Nick Tremayne.
Emily smiled at him, feeling a sense of rightness that he should be the one to see Beabea for the last time. He’d been her GP ever since he’d started the practice in Penhally and her grandmother had always had a great deal of faith in him. It just wouldn’t have been the same if a stranger had performed this last duty.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any earlier, my dear,’ he said, as he placed his bag very precisely on the bedside table and released the locks. It only took him a second to find the relevant paperwork. ‘There was an accident out at the junction of Penhally View and Dunheved Road. Youngsters going too fast and one didn’t make the corner.’ He looked up with a wry twist to his mouth. ‘You’d think local lads would grow up knowing that you
can never win in an argument with a Cornish stone hedge.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ Emily seized on the topic to take her mind off the fact that he was treating her grandmother so impersonally. Although he was being perfectly respectful, it seemed almost as if she was no longer a person to him any more, just a routine job to be done.
Did it seem that way simply because he was exhausted at the end of a long, traumatic day or was it perhaps a defence mechanism, his way of dealing with seeing his patients when they were no longer alive, by shutting a part of himself away inside?
Would she ever be able to do that if they lost one of their little charges? Would that be the way she could cope with the feeling that she should have been able to do something more for them?
‘The passenger was trapped and it took a while to cut him free,’ he continued. ‘He’ll probably be on crutches for a while when they get his leg reassembled, but the driver was unconscious at the scene—a depressed skull fracture. We’ll just have to wait and see what St Piran’s can do with him. If it’s as bad as it looked, he might never come out of ICU, even if he makes it out of Theatre.’
The sharp click of locks drew her attention to the fact that he’d just closed his oversized briefcase again.
‘I’ve done the necessary,’ he said as he turned towards her. ‘Of course, you know that there’ll be no need for a post-mortem. It wasn’t as if her death was unexpected or that the cause is in any doubt.’
‘No.’ Somehow Emily forced her voice to work. ‘Thank you for coming out so late,’ she added, the manners that Beabea had always insisted on a totally au
tomatic part of her life even when everything else had been turned on its head.
‘Nan told me you were sitting with her and I couldn’t leave you here all night.’ He reached out an avuncular hand to pat her on the shoulder. ‘She was a lovely lady and it was always a pleasure to see her. I’m sure you’ll feel better when you’ve had a good cry, my dear. Just concentrate on the fact that she’d had a good innings—and that she was tremendously proud of you—but if you’d like me to organise some grief counselling…’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said firmly, not seeing the point. No amount of counselling would bring her grandmother back and she would rather deal with this loss the same way she’d dealt with the loss of her parents—in her own way and in her own time.
Still, it was kind of the man to spare the time to talk to her like this, especially when he must be longing to get back home to his bed. But all Emily could think was that it was wasted on her when she would far rather that it was Zayed comforting her. And it could have been, except she’d been stupid enough to send him away.
‘The sky’s always darkest just before the dawn,’
she could hear Beabea’s voice saying as she drove slowly down the driveway, but it seemed as if this night was never going to end in the bright promise of a new day.
She halted at the junction with Mevagissey Road, knowing she ought to turn left to go back to the cottage, but suddenly she couldn’t face going there.
There was only one place she could go while her emotions were in such turmoil and that was her secret thinking place on the beach, the hidden nook among the
rocks that had played host to almost every decision she’d ever made about her life—whether she really cared at thirteen years of age that stuck-up Melanie Philp didn’t want to be her best friend any more; whether to cut her waist-length hair really short before her school leavers’ Ball to make herself look more grown-up and ready for the big wide world; whether to specialise in paediatrics or surgery, and so many other milestones, great and small.
She parked her car at the top of the cliff in the car park near the steps and made her way down to the beach, glad of the thick cardigan she’d grabbed off the back seat. September was going fast and even though the weather was still beautifully warm by day, at this time of the morning, she could feel that autumn was not so far away.
Beabea had always said that autumn was her favourite time of the year, the season that showed the fulfilment of all the promise of spring and the burgeoning of summer in harvests of fruit and vegetables to sustain them through the winter. She’d especially loved the fabulous displays of colour as the deciduous trees began to shut down for their winter rest.
‘I’m sorry you missed the leaves turning colour,’ she whispered into the breeze, her heart heavy at the thought that she’d never again come home to a kitchen table covered in a display of brilliantly hued leaves that her grandmother had collected on her walk that day. But even though she hated the thought that she was now all alone in the world, she couldn’t in all conscience have wanted Beabea to linger long enough to see the leaves one last time, not with the level of medication it had taken at the end to control her pain.
‘Emily,’ said the voice she most wanted to hear, and
she closed her eyes tightly against the imagined sound, wishing it were real and regretting again that she’d sent Zayed away.
Why had it seemed so important that she show the world that she had the strength to deal with this loss alone? Why couldn’t she simply have admitted just how good it would have felt to lean on him and borrow his strength for a little while?
She was sitting here feeling frozen inside, hardly daring to allow herself to imagine what the days and weeks ahead would be like because she was afraid to.
There! She’d admitted it.
It was all very good saying that she’d coped with loss before and had dealt with it, but the last time she’d had Beabea there to hold her while she’d fallen apart and put herself back together. This time she would have no one because she’d sent away the only person she wanted near her.
In fact, she needed him to be with her so much that a moment ago she had even imagined that she’d heard his voice swirling around her in the chill of the early morning breeze.
‘Emily?’ The sound of those liquid syllables couldn’t belong to anyone else, and she opened her eyes to peer eagerly into the darkness, knowing with a sudden leap of joy that Zayed had come to find her. Was there enough light for him to be able to find this place again? Would he be able to find her in the darkness?
‘Zayed. I’m here,’ she managed with a rusty croak to her voice as tears of relief began to threaten. She couldn’t even get to her feet as the events of the last few hours finally overwhelmed her. ‘I’m here,’ she repeated, but he
was already there in front of her, darker than the darkness surrounding them, arms strong and shoulders broad as he wrapped them around her and invited her to rest her head against him.
‘Oh, Zayed,’ she whimpered as she burrowed into him, finally knowing that she had found a safe refuge before the storm broke, and with that thought the tears started to fall.
Even as he wondered what on earth he was supposed to say to her, Zayed ignored the brief flash of panic and simply tightened his hold on the sobbing woman in his arms.