The Marry-Me Wish (6 page)

‘It's okay. It's fine.' He didn't want her to be sorry because it might mean she wanted to take back what she'd said.

‘No. No, it's not. I'm…' Anne was pushing at him. He had to fight the urge to tighten his hold. He had to let her go.

‘I'm
so
sorry.' She was scrubbing at her face. ‘I don't know what's wrong with me.'

‘You've got a lot going on. Mentally and physically.' She wasn't herself. He had to remember that. She'd said she'd missed him like she'd meant it but she wasn't herself so it didn't mean anything. ‘You're not…well.'

‘I'm not sick.' Anne gave her head a shake. ‘Childbirth is a natural process, not some kind of disease.' She gave her face a final wipe, pushing her hair back and then holding it in a ponytail with one hand behind her neck. It made her look much more in control.

‘I'm fine, really,' she said as she stood up.

David watched her. He could almost see the way the strength it had taken to stand up ebbed from her body. The way her eyes, made so much darker by her pale face, seemed to glaze over. He was on his feet by the time she began to sway. He had scooped her into his arms by the time she lost consciousness.

Ignoring the horrified stares of people on the riverbank, he strode back towards the emergency department of the hospital. He was barely aware of the weight in his arms and it certainly didn't slow his pace.

 

She was waking up from the deepest sleep.

Or maybe she was still dreaming. She could feel the strength of a man's arms around her and feel the warmth of his skin close to her face. Anne's eyes flickered open. It was his neck. Her head was cradled on his shoulder and he had one arm around her back and the other under her knees.

Her bones had melted away. She had never been this relaxed. So secure she didn't want to move in case she broke the spell. The ground was moving fast beneath them and it made her feel sick so she closed her eyes again, rolling her head a little so that her mouth and nose were even closer to that skin.

She could even imagine she recognised the smell of this man. That the arms around her were David's. That he was carrying her somewhere safe where nothing could hurt any more and she would never feel lonely ever again.

The rocking continued. Even more comforting was
the murmur of his voice, telling her she was going to be fine. That she would be looked after. That
he
would look after her because he cared. He'd missed her
so
much. The words weren't all that clear, maybe, but she could understand them perfectly.

But the movement changed and became jerky. The words became clearer.

‘Complained of abdominal pain…'

‘Gave birth three days ago. Twins.'

A new voice then. ‘She's lost a fair amount of blood.'

The security of those arms was loosening. Anne felt herself being tipped. Put down on something firm and cool. Felt the softness of a pillow next to her face. The loss of those arms was enough to make her groan in distress.

‘You're all right, Anne. You're in the emergency department now.'

‘W-what?' She forced her eyes open and blinked, trying to focus on the face close to hers. ‘What happened?'

‘You've had a bit of a postnatal bleed. You fainted, down by the river. You don't remember?'

‘I…' How much had been reality and how much a dream? Had David really been telling her how much he'd missed her? How much he still cared? It would be safer to assume that those impressions had been the workings of an unconscious mind. ‘No,' she said softly. ‘I don't remember much of anything.'

Surely that wasn't disappointment she could see in his eyes? She tried to hang onto the contact so she could interpret the fleeting expression properly but David was standing up now. And the sharp pain in her arm was distracting.

‘Ouch!'

‘Try and keep still.' David had a hand on her arm. ‘We're just getting IV access. Your blood pressure's well down and you need some fluids. Possibly a transfusion.'

She heard orders being given. For blood tests that needed to be done. For an urgent call for an ultrasound technician. The blood-pressure cuff she hadn't been aware of tightened on her other arm. Someone was hanging a bag of saline overhead. An oxygen mask was being slipped onto her face and someone was peeling away her clothing.

Anne shut her eyes. This no longer bore any resemblance to a dream. It was far more like a nightmare.

Except that David was still here. Looking after her. He didn't have to be because Anne had heard someone sounding very surprised that he was here at all because his shift had finished ages ago.

‘I'm staying,' he told whoever it was. ‘Anne and I go back a long way. We're…friends.'

Friends?

Were they?

It didn't feel true but it would be nice if it was. Friends cared about each other and made life less lonely. Anne didn't have many close friends. She had her work and colleagues and she had her family and…not much else.

Fighting a strong need to sleep, Anne pushed her eyelids open, hoping to find David amongst the people crowding around her bed. A technician was squeezing gel onto her stomach.

‘Sorry, this is a bit cold.'

Anne ignored the apology, looking from one person
to the next. If David was there, she could smile at him, maybe, to let him know that she liked what he'd said. That she wanted the statement about being friends to be the truth.

But she couldn't see him anywhere.

 

He could have been home again by now.

Why on earth had he said he'd stay? That he and Anne were friends. An unfortunate distortion of the truth…or wishful thinking?

David was pacing back and forth in his office. He'd said he would stay but that didn't mean he had to be in the room with her the whole time, did it? She was safe. The doctors on duty were taking good care of her and treatment was under way. He could go and check up on how she was doing and then go home.

He wanted to leave.

He wanted to stay.

No. What he really wanted was to be in that room with Anne. Beside the bed. Holding her hand.

How stupid would it be to get sucked even further into what was going on in her life?

It wasn't going to happen.

So what if the attraction was still there? That it had hit him like a brick that moment he'd first seen her again, looking so rounded and luscious and glowing with her pregnancy. There had been nothing sexual about the way he'd held her as she'd cried today but it had revealed something a lot deeper. That he still cared. A lot. Too much. Carrying her towards medical help like that, not knowing what was wrong or how serious it might be, had
smashed through more than one of those defensive barriers he'd carefully constructed. Or maybe that first wall had fallen when she'd said she had missed him.

With a sound rather like a growl of frustration, David circled his office again, ramming his fingers through his hair as he tried to think through the turbulent mix of emotions tearing him apart.

There was absolutely no point in this agonising and he'd done far too much of it already. He knew the way forward, he just had to pull himself together. He could deal with this. The whole purpose of coming back here had been to tie up loose ends. The end of his relationship might have seemed like a tight knot but it had completely unravelled in the last week. There were loose ends all over the place, snapping at him like tiny emotional whips.

David left the office only a minute or so later. Much calmer.

In control.

He would check up on Anne's condition—as any friend would. He would offer support if she needed it because there was very little danger of her accepting, and then he could escape. Never mind that daylight was fading fast. He would go home, ignore his aching muscles, and find something that needed doing with a pickaxe in his garden.

 

The feeling of safety that being carried here in David's arms had engendered was long gone.

Anne was in a side room now, with the kind of privacy a consultant automatically received if it was available.
A privileged space that should have been a peaceful refuge from the bustle of the emergency department.

But there were two tiny babies cocooned in their car seats on the floor beside Anne's bed and they were both whimpering. Their mother wasn't any happier.

‘I still can't believe you didn't call when you were feeling so lousy. My God, Annie…'

‘Don't fuss, Jules. I'm all right.'

‘You might not have been. We should never have let you go home by yourself. The plan was stupid.'

‘No.' Anne shook her head wearily. The whimpering of the babies was increasing in strength and the sound felt like a chainsaw inside her head. ‘I was doing fine.'

‘Are you kidding? Mac's at your house right now, collecting the stuff you'll need. You left the stove on, Annie.
And
the tap.'

Anne winced. Again. ‘I know. I'd been planning to make some lunch before I went for a walk. I…must have got distracted, that's all, and forgot I'd turned anything on.'

‘You're lucky the house just flooded and didn't burn to the ground with you lying unconscious on the floor.' Julia was shaking her head in consternation but then her chin jerked up. ‘David!'

‘Is that true?' came the familiar voice from the doorway. ‘Anne flooded her house?'

‘Tried to burn it down as well. It's my fault. I should never have agreed to let her go home by herself.'

David was staring down at the babies. ‘Are they hungry?'

‘I'll feed them in a minute. I had to come and see
Anne first. We just threw everything and everyone in the car when they rang to say Anne was in here. Someone found her down by the river, would you believe? Carried her here, unconscious.'

‘Mmm.' David's glance towards Anne held a sparkle of amusement. ‘I would believe it. It was me that carried her.'

‘Oh…' Julia's jaw dropped and she dragged her gaze from David back to Anne. ‘You didn't tell me that.'

‘You haven't given me a chance to say much at all.'

Julia ignored the implied reprimand. ‘Mac's gone to collect Annie's stuff,' she informed David. ‘We'll be taking her home with us.'

‘No.' Anne managed to find the strength to sound decisive. ‘I'm not going home with you, Jules.'

‘But you
have
to.'

‘No, I don't.' The babies were howling now. Anne closed her eyes in a desperate attempt to shut out her surroundings, but not before she caught sight of a nurse entering the room, closely followed by Mac who was carrying a suitcase.

‘Dr Bennett really needs some peace and quiet to rest,' the nurse told Julia.

Mac looked at David and then at Anne. He put the suitcase down and picked up a handle of a car seat in each hand. ‘Come on,' he ordered his wife. ‘Let's go and deal with these two. We can come back when they're quiet enough not to be upsetting anybody.'

The nurse nodded her approval. ‘I'll take you to the relatives' room.' She closed the door behind the noisy procession.

Anne cautiously opened her eyes. David was still here.

‘How are you doing?' he asked.

She gave a tiny huff of sound. ‘Better now, thanks.'

David glanced at the door as though still seeing the babies being taken away. His face was expressionless as he turned back.

‘I hear the final verdict was a patch of retained placenta.'

Anne nodded. ‘Probably a succinturiate lobe that didn't get missed at the time, being an extra bit. Hardly surprising when they had two to check in somewhat unusual circumstances.'

David ignored the reference to her surrogacy. ‘But you're not up for a D&C?'

‘No.' Anne's sigh of relief was heartfelt. ‘Not that they'd do one immediately anyway, with the uterus being so friable, but Emily thinks that bleed I had when I fainted must have cleared the last of it. Going by the ultrasound, it's all good.'

‘Infection? You looked a bit feverish.'

‘Yeah, I've been cooking a few bugs. Nothing that the antibiotics I'm on now won't fix.'

‘And your haemoglobin?'

‘Down a bit but not enough to warrant a transfusion, thank heavens. I'll be a bit wobbly for a day or two, that's all.'

‘So you'll go and stay with your sister?'

Anne shook her head slowly. ‘I'd prefer not to.'

‘Why?' The word was crisp. Cool, even. ‘Because you'd rather not see the babies?'

Anne bit her lip to stop the prickle of tears. She
couldn't expect him to understand, so why did it hurt so much? She might have won the battle with the tears but she couldn't help the tremor in her voice.

‘It's more that I want to see them
too
much.'

David's face went very still. It was impossible not to let her gaze rest on him. Tracing lines she knew so well while she tried to gauge whether he was prepared to try and understand. Those tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The deep furrows that joined his nose to the corners of his mouth that would deepen when he smiled. Not that he was smiling right now. He seemed to be returning her gaze with equal intensity.

‘They're not my babies,' she explained softly. ‘Not even part of them. Jules had her eggs collected and Mac's sperm fertilised them. I had the embryos implanted. My head knows perfectly well that they're not
my
babies but…but my body's not quite singing from the same hymn book yet.' Her smile was even more precarious than her voice. ‘I'm a bit of a mess emotionally, to tell you the truth.'

An eyebrow quirked on David's forehead. ‘Really? Can't say I noticed.'

His smile was as gentle as his humour. It was the kind of smile that Anne hadn't seen since way back…way before things had begun to fall apart. It touched something deep inside her. Something that brought tears to her eyes that were even harder to control this time.