She was curled up on a couch in the waiting room in Casualty, and she was fast asleep.
Ryan stared down at Abbey for a long, long moment.
The same Abbey. She looked a real waif here. Dirty, bedraggled and her leg in the huge white dressing…
His mother had called her trash.
Abbey was no such thing.
Abbey was
What would his life have been if he’d stayed at Sapphire Cove? Ryan found himself wondering. In the background he heard his newly delivered baby start to cry. A nurse moved swiftly down the corridor. There were coos and chuckles and a low conversation between die young father and the nurse.
They all knew each other here.
This hospital was about as different from the hospital where Ryan worked as he could possibly get.
He’d go crazy working for a week here, he told himself. No research. No colleagues, bouncing ideas off each other. No social life outside the hospital. No concerts, art galleries or restaurants. How could Abbey stand it?
He looked down at the sleeping girl on the couch and a shaft of pain shot through him-a pain so fierce he almost staggered. A pain of sheer, absolute want. He wanted to gather her to him. Protect her from the pain he saw on her face. Take a load off her shoulders that seemed too heavy for any woman to bear.
It wasn’t on. This was crazy thinking. Ryan wasn’t about to walk away from a fantastic career and lifestyle just because he was being sentimental about an old friend.
There was a soft step behind him. Ryan turned to see Ted lurking in the doorway. Ghoul-like.
‘She looks at death’s door,’ Ted said with a certain amount of relish. ‘You’re not going to take her home now, are you, Doc?’
‘She’ll fight me if I don’t.’
‘Seems to me there’s not a lot of fight left in her,’ Ted said morosely. ‘Now, if I was a young fella I’d just gather her up and take her to bed.’ Then he coloured. ‘I mean… put her to bed, like…’
Ryan smiled.
He turned to look down at Abbey and his smile faded. A sudden image of what that might be like pierced his senses. To take Abbey to bed…
No way. That was the last thing he needed. The last thing Abbey needed. He was an engaged man. Abbey had responsibilities.
Bed, pure and simple-bed in the old-fashioned sense-was what this lady needed. With a wrench, Ryan forced his mind to practicalities.
‘Will Janet cope if Abbey doesn’t come home?’ he asked dubiously.
‘I’ve already rung Janet,’ Ted told him. ‘When I found our Doc Wittner asleep, like. She won’t worry. Janet’s a good ‘un.’
‘But the baby… And I’ve told her I’ll do the milking but she’ll panic…’
‘Janet says young Jack’s asleep. Janet can cope with the little ‘un’s breakfast, and the milking don’t need to get done again till morning,’ Ted told him. ‘And I’ve got ideas about that. So let’s worry about the morning in the morning. Sister’s got a bed made up in Room Four for Doc Wittner and one in Room Seven for you. So go tuck her in and then hit the sack yourself.’ He eyed Ryan shrewdly. ‘Looks to me you need a bit of shut-eye almost as much as Doc Wittner.’
He did, Ryan acknowledged.
The pressures of the day were crowding in, threatening to overwhelm him. With the time change in international travel, he’d missed two nights’ sleep. He’d hit Abbey’s bicycle and hurt Abbey. He’d coped with his father’s heart attack. He’d delivered a baby.
It was time to call it quits and do as he was told. But first…
He nodded acknowledgement to Ted, and stooped to lift Abbey into his arms. She was feather-light-far too slim for a woman of her age. He half expected her to wake when he lifted her, but the after-effects of the morphine and shock from the accident were taking their toll. There was no argument from Abbey. She sighed in her sleep and nestled easily into his arms, her breasts moulding themselves against his chest as if she were meant to lie there. As if she were part of him…
Ryan strode down the corridor with his sleeping burden, knowing that things were changing inside him that he had no idea how to set right again.
Worry about it in the morning, he told himself firmly. These feelings… the feel of Abbey against him… the trace of perfume in her hair… the way her breasts curved in against him as she lay in his arms in total trust… What he was feeling was just a result of a crazy two days.
He had to sleep. In the morning he could go back to being Ryan Henry, hugely successful orthopaedic surgeon and future husband to Felicity, all over again.
In the morning…
CHAPTER FIVE
ABBEY woke to breakfast.
There was a smell of bacon, wafting around her, and her nose twitched in appreciation before she opened her eyes. When she did lift a cautious eyelid the first thing she saw was a breakfast tray.
The second was Ryan Henry.
‘Well, well.’ Ryan was lifting the lid from her eggs and bacon and nodding his approval of what lay underneath. ‘You’ve decided to join the land of the living. Excellent. I’d have let you sleep longer but I wanted to bully you into breakfast before clinic. I’ve heard you should always eat a big breakfast on the first day of your honeymoon. It’s medically recommended.’
‘I… You…’ Abbey winced and stirred-and then stared. This was crazy. Last night she’d settled down on a couch in the waiting room. Now… She cast a wary glance at Ryan and then cautiously lifted her bedclothes.
And yelped.
‘Is something wrong?’ Ryan enquired blandly.
‘My clothes…’ Abbey hauled her bedcovers up to her nose and glared. ‘What happened to my clothes?’
‘You sound as if you’re naked,’ Ryan complained. ‘Which, considering the amount of trouble Sister and I had getting you into a hospital gown, is a tad unappreciative. I know for a honeymoon you really should have something sheer and sexy-preferably black-but I’m afraid hospital green was all we could come up with.’
Abbey was no longer listening. She couldn’t care less what she was wearing. It was the identity of the person who’d dressed her-or rather who’d
‘Sister dressed me?’ she asked cautiously, sitting up with her bedclothes still up to her neck.
‘I helped, but only as far as was decent.’ Ryan smiled. ‘You don’t remember? Your clothes were disgusting. I was afraid they’d infect your scratches if we left you in them any longer.’
‘My T-shirt…’
‘I didn’t like it,’ Ryan said, as if that clinched the matter. ‘And your shorts were torn already.’
‘What have you done with my T-shirt and shorts?’ Abbey demanded in a voice that was loaded with portent For answer, Ryan pointed to a pair of scissors on the bedside table.
‘All gone.’ It was an imitation of Ted’s voice that he used when discussing a death. Pull of ghoul-like relish. ‘We disturbed you less by cutting them off. Ted took ‘em away to use as dusters down in the morgue. We figured that’s the best place for them. Now, if I were you, I’d eat some breakfast before it gets cold. Considering the amount of trouble Cook’s gone to on your behalf, letting this lot get cold would be a real shame.’
‘Ryan, I want my clothes.’
‘They’re in a million pieces.’ Ryan handed her a slice of toast. ‘Bite.’
Abbey bit. And glared.
‘Problem?’ Ryan enquired politely. He stood back with his arms folded and watched her-doctor watching interesting specimen. Ryan was dressed in fresh trousers and an open-necked, short-sleeved shirt. His wavy brown hair was neatly brushed. He looked like he’d had about twelve hours sleep instead of a scant six and he was
