The emergency doctor claims his wife

by Margaret McDonagh

  Annie had forgotten how incredible Nathan’s seductive, erotic kisses were. No, that was wrong. She hadn’t forgotten…she had blanked the memories out, because they caused her so much pain and hopeless longing. But her body remembered his taste, the perfection of his touch, the earth-shattering pleasure only he brought her. For an endless moment she ignored everything but the here and now. Unable to help herself, she moved in closer still, craving tighter contact, feeling the delicious jolt as her breasts pressed against the wall of his chest, stimulating the hardened peaks of her nipples. A moan escaped as Nathan’s free hand cupped her rear and drew her against him. His hips rocked into her, making her all too conscious of the hard length of his arousal, and an answering hollow knot tightened deep inside her in response. She rubbed herself over him, desperate to assuage the empty ache of need.

  The hungry kiss deepened, turning almost feral in its urgent intensity. Their raging passion was immediately rekindled, flaring hotter than ever. Annie met and matched Nathan’s every move, every stroke, every suck…her teeth nipping, her tongue duelling, twining and teasing with his. She wallowed in the sense of being reborn, of coming home, her body primed, begging for the fulfilment only he could give her.

  Then, somewhere below them, the sound of a door closing reverberated in the stillness. Footsteps echoed on the concrete stairs, snapping Annie back to the reality of where she was, what she was doing and who she was doing it with. With a cry of distress she wrenched away, fighting against Nathan’s hold.

  ‘Stop!’ she gasped.

  She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t allow Nathan’s potent sex appeal to sweep away all the pain, anger and despair of the last five years as if nothing had happened. It was over. It was! As Nathan reluctantly released her she stepped away, her legs feeling too weak and rubbery to hold her up. She’d chosen to take the back stairs in an attempt to avoid him, yet had only succeeded in trapping herself alone with him in a secluded spot for long enough to forget every powerful reason she must keep him at a distance.

  ‘There’s unfinished business between us, Annie. Somehow, somewhere, we are going to deal with it,’ he warned her.

  His intent was clear, and it scared her, because she couldn’t handle seeing him or raking up the past, knowing she was still vulnerable to him.

  ‘You didn’t want—’

  ‘You have no idea what I wanted…you never did,’ he interrupted heatedly, dragging a hand through his wayward hair. ‘And you certainly didn’t stay around long enough that last day to listen to my point of view. Then you refused to see or speak to me. I loved you, but you ripped out my heart and stomped all over it, turning your back on everything we were to each other, tossing it away as if it was nothing.’

  Tears filled her eyes and she held up a hand, backing away. ‘You’re wrong!’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ His tone was uncompromising and he refused to allow her retreat, despite the footsteps coming closer up the stairs. ‘I deserve my say—you owe me that much at least.’

  ‘I have to go,’ she insisted, shaking her head, denying his words, anxiety tying her nerves into knots.

  ‘I’m not letting you run this time, Annie.’

  But that was just what she did. Ran from him. Shaking, scared and confused, she pushed past him and rushed down the stairs as fast as her wobbly legs could carry her, deaf to the greeting of the admin assistant she passed on the flight below. The woman’s presence had brought a much-needed return of sanity, preventing her from something even more reckless than the explosive kiss. She had to get away from Nathan—had to have some time alone to regroup and restore her shattered equilibrium.

  With one touch, one kiss, the barriers she had thought impenetrable had been rent asunder. Despite everything that had happened, all the pain he had caused her, Nathan still brought her to her knees and sent her hormones crazy with insatiable desire. She had to do something to prevent herself from falling for him and being hurt all over again.

  Slipping unnoticed through a side fire exit, Annie hurried outside the hospital building, moving around the corner out of sight of anyone coming and going from the car park, the A and E department, or the separate building nearby that housed the maternity unit.

  Oblivious to the cold, she leaned against the wall, her whole body trembling. As she drew in several deep breaths in an effort to compose herself the fingers of one hand strayed to her mouth. Her lips, puffy and sensitised from the wildness of the kiss, still tingled in reaction, and she could still savour Nathan’s taste on her tongue. Closing her eyes, she groaned, reliving the last few minutes in Technicolor detail.

  Dear heaven, what had she done?

  And what on earth was she going to do now?

  All she could think about was the urgent need to protect herself against Nathan’s potent effect on her. He had stormed back into her life and clearly planned to turn it upside down, demanding that they confront their painful past. Why now? What did he hope to achieve? And why couldn’t she put his accusations that she had broken his heart out of her mind? There had been no denying the hurt in his eyes. And his suggestion that she had never given him the chance to explain his point of view nagged at her. She squared her shoulders, struggling to maintain her own sense of being wronged. What was there to explain? Nathan hadn’t wanted her. He’d made that obvious when he’d rejected her. How could he now try to turn it around and imply she was at fault?

  But he had—and he was here for reasons of his own, refusing to let it go.

  Somehow she had to erect a façade that even Nathan couldn’t penetrate. It was the only way she could survive. There certainly couldn’t be a repeat of what had just happened on the stairs. Her instant surrender to his kiss had proved just how vulnerable she was to him.

  But what could she do?

  A sudden plan came to mind.

  Desperate, she pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket, turned it on and sent an SOS message to the one person she could trust to save her from herself and stop her from making a monumental mistake.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘IS THE damage very bad, Doctor?’

  Nathan looked up from his examination of the burns on the elderly woman’s hand, hoping to ease the pain and anxiety reflected in her cloudy blue eyes. ‘You did the right thing getting your hand under cold water straight away, Mrs Mooney, and wrapping it in clingfilm before coming to the hospital gave further protection against infection. Not doing so could have made the resulting injuries worse.’

  ‘Lucky I took note of all those television programmes,’ she offered with a brave smile.

  ‘You did well. Aside from the blisters, there are a couple of partial thickness burns, but nothing that appears to be deeper,’ he reassured her, gently turning the injured hand over again and reassessing the situation, carefully checking between the fingers. ‘We’ll give you some pain relief, then we’ll clean things up and remove any dead skin, drain the blisters, and put on some cream before dressing the hand. Do you have someone at home with you?’ he asked, concerned that the woman wouldn’t manage alone.

  ‘Yes, I live with my daughter and her children.’

  ‘Then you’ll be able to go home when we’re done.’ He gave her non-injured hand a squeeze. ‘But you’ll need to come back to the outpatient clinic tomorrow, to have the dressing changed and the hand reassessed. After that your GP surgery will be able to manage your aftercare. Is your tetanus cover up to date?’

  Mrs Mooney’s lined face creased further as she frowned. ‘Goodness, I can’t remember when I last had a vaccination.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll give you another injection to be sure. Could you take care of that please, Holly?’ he requested, glancing up at the quietly efficient young staff nurse.

  ‘Of course, Dr Shepherd. No problem.’

  The pretty blonde manoeuvred a trolley next to him, on which she had laid out all the items he required to treat and dress Mrs Mooney’s hand. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Your grandchildren are quite a handf
ul, are they, Mrs Mooney?’

  Nathan heard Holly’s question, grateful to her for keeping the worried patient’s mind occupied as he checked that the pain relief had done its job so he could begin to clean and dress her wounds. Concentrating on his task, he listened with half an ear as Mrs Mooney responded to Holly’s calm friendliness.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Nurse.’ She gave a raspy chuckle. ‘You need eyes in the back of your head with those boys. That’s how this happened. I only turned away for a moment to pick up the youngest, who had fallen on the floor. When I looked round his brother had climbed onto a kitchen chair and was pulling the kettle towards him.’

  Mrs Mooney’s hand trembled at the memory, and Nathan paused until she settled again before inserting the needle to aspirate the first of the blisters, drawing fluid into the syringe.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I set the baby down, rushed to the counter and managed to pull Johnny aside before he hurt himself. Unfortunately my other arm caught the kettle, spilling the boiling water on my hand.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Holly tutted in sympathy.

  ‘I’m just glad the children weren’t burned. I didn’t even think what I was doing. I just acted on instinct and couldn’t help myself. Do you know what I mean, Doctor?’

  As he finished cleaning, aspirating and debriding the damaged areas of the hand, Nathan nodded. ‘I do, Mrs Mooney.’

  Hadn’t he done the very same thing himself a few hours ago? Despite knowing the timing was wrong, he’d kissed Annie with all the desperation and urgency clamouring within him. He’d been unable to stop, even though he’d known it was too soon to push her to face what remained between them. It had been foolish, but inevitable. And he’d been burned in a very different kind of way, succeeding only in spooking Annie, causing her to strengthen the barriers she had erected against him.

  But the need and longing to touch her and taste her had tormented him for five years. When presented with the opportunity, after being deprived of her for so long, the temptation had been too great for him to resist. Now he had set his cause back even further, making the goal he had come here to achieve harder than ever.

  Smothering a sigh, he glanced up at the clock on the cubicle wall. His shift had officially ended half an hour ago, but he’d never been one to clock off to time. His presence was determined by his patients’ needs. A few doctors and nurses might walk off and hand their patient over to another member of staff coming on duty, but that had never been his way. The nature of accident and emergency medicine involved a rapid turnaround of multiple patients, but within that he believed in giving the best continuity of care possible, and he tried to see each case through to the end.

  Annie had held the same philosophy. He could only hope that hadn’t changed, and that he would still have a chance to catch up with her before she left for home. Seeing her was a necessity—as was pinning her down so they could talk away from the lack of privacy and the pressures of the hospital.

  Returning his attention to Mrs Mooney, grateful that she appeared less distressed, and knowing that was as much due to Holly’s expert care as anything else, Nathan applied some silver sulphadiazine cream to the injured hand before using sterile non-adherent dressings and covering the whole hand with a special glove which was secured around the wrist. That done, he stripped off his surgical gloves and tossed them in the bin.

  After prescribing some analgesia and anti-inflammatory medication for her to take at home for any pain, and a precautionary antibiotic to stem any infection, he left Holly tidying the cubicle and escorted Mrs Mooney out. Her worried daughter waited with the two boisterous boys. Nathan gave them some reassurance, and a few last-minute instructions for her care, then returned to finish up the notes and have a word with Holly before leaving.

  ‘You’ve been great, Holly…thanks for all your help today.’

  Surprise and gratitude were evident in the young woman’s expression. ‘Thank you, Nathan.’

  Her shy smile failed to lift the lingering sadness that shadowed her eyes, and he paused a moment, unsure whether to say anything more. Several times during the day he had sensed tension between Holly and junior doctor Gus Buchanan, and he had wondered what the story was. He hated to see anyone unhappy, but at the same time didn’t feel he had been in the department long enough to intrude—not without knowing more about the dynamics, anyway. Shaking his head, he said goodnight and made his way towards the staffroom. He’d keep an eye on Holly just in case. Being there for other people was the story of his life—something he had long resented when it had been forced upon him, but a trait he was unwilling to break when it came to patients, colleagues and friends. Right now, however, he had enough problems of his own to sort out, and for once he had to put himself first.

  There were several people in the staffroom. Thankfully, the predatory Olivia Barr was not one of them, but then neither was Annie. He’d checked when returning the notes on his final patient and knew she was only minutes ahead of him. A few discreet queries and he discovered she was in the women’s locker room, changing. Feeling nervous and uncomfortable, he loitered in the corridor, pretending to read the messages pinned higgledy-piggledy on the staff noticeboard. Knowing he couldn’t give Annie too much time to think and harden her heart even further against him, he was determined to catch her before she left the hospital.

  As he waited, he thought back to the moment he had first seen Annie. He would never forget it.

  By the time he had negotiated a temporary escape from the ties of home and managed to get to medical school he had found himself a few years older than the other students in his intake. Having always felt alone, never having connected with or been part of a group, he had approached those early days at medical school with a mix of intense apprehension and an unbelievable sense of freedom. At last he had been doing what he wanted with his life, and he had been able to put himself first—at least for part of the time. In medical school he’d had no one else depending on him, making demands on him, holding him back.

  From day one he had been drawn to Annie Webster. Young and full of life, something about her had reached out to the lonely man inside him, the hidden part of him no one knew but which craved someone to love…yearned even more for someone to love him. One look at Annie’s captivating face, laughing blue eyes and widely smiling mouth and he’d lost his heart. During the first months of training she had still been involved with a boyfriend from home, so Nathan had smothered any hopes of more between them. But they had formed a deep friendship. The first of his life. Her enthusiasm and determination to be a doctor had matched his own, but she’d struggled with some of the study demands. He’d been pleased to help, receiving so much more back by basking in Annie’s sunshine, her joyousness and zest for life.

  Then she’d been free, her relationship having failed to survive the distance, and having grown apart from her school sweetheart as their lives went in different directions. She had been sad, but not heartbroken, and after a decent interval Nathan had plucked up the nerve to ask her out. To his amazement she’d said yes. Head-over-heels, they had soon moved in together. Annie had made his world whole for the first time ever—only to destroy it four years later, when he had refused to immediately agree to her unreasonable demand. His own plea to discuss it further had fallen on deaf ears. She had left him—and the hospital—with no warning and without a backward glance.

  He had made a mistake by not confiding more in Annie about his past and his home life. He could acknowledge that now. But she had never asked anything about him. She had accepted him for who he was and, addicted to her, enjoying the novelty and freedom to be himself, he’d never volunteered the information. It had been as if there were two Nathans—the one weighed down with the responsibility and shackles of home, forced to grow up years before his time, and Annie’s Nathan, happy, loved, following his dreams. He hadn’t wanted sad, dour, friendless Nathan to spoil what he had with Annie, and so he had followed her example to live each day as it came, embracing life and enjoy
ing the moment.

  And so they had gone on, as emotionally and physically close as two people could be. Yet while Annie had been open, exposing every part of herself and drawing him into her life and her family, he had revealed little about the man beneath the surface. That was his fault. Had she known of his background it might have made a difference that last day. It might have made her understand his instinctive reaction to her demand. But she had never asked or given any sign she wanted to know anything more about him as a person. And he had been insecure, scared—a part of him always waiting for her to tell him he wasn’t good enough for her, in his own heart believing he didn’t deserve her.

  Now, five years on, he had been released from the burdens of his past and could face life as he wanted to, with no one else to think about or provide for. It was time to reach for his own goals and needs. And so he had come to find Annie, to discover if they could reclaim what they had lost or, if it was truly over, to lay it to rest so he could move on once and for all. Today had made it clear that his feelings had not diminished and he loved Annie as much as ever. She was as essential to his life as breathing. It was equally clear that Annie had woven her own view of the past—one that would be hard to challenge because, however distorted from reality, she believed it. He had to try to open her mind and her heart.

  And so he was here, waiting, hurting, needing…hoping against hope for a second chance with the only woman he had ever loved. The woman who held his fate and the shattered fragments of his heart in her hands.

  ‘Damn.’

  Annie cursed under her breath as she cracked open the door of the locker room and peeped out. Spying Nathan waiting near the noticeboard, blocking her route towards the exit, she carefully closed the door and leaned back on it, barely resisting the urge to bang her head against the adjacent wall. She should have known she couldn’t evade him so easily.