Emergency Doctor and Cinderella
Page 16
The doorbell rang and she left the treat on the carpet next to Molly and went to answer the door.
Eamon was standing there with a huge bunch of red roses. ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he said, swooping down to plant a lingering kiss on her mouth. ‘How’s my girl?’
Erin could feel herself glowing at being ‘his girl’. It made her feel secure in a way she had never felt before. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, feeling a shy blush steal over her cheeks.
He brushed one of her cheeks with his fingertips. ‘God, I love it when you do that,’ he said. ‘It’s so adorably sweet.’
Erin placed her hand over his and held it against her face. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
He turned over her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to the middle of her palm. ‘It’s good to see you too, sweetheart.’ He put the roses down and pulled her into his arms, kissing her until she was breathless.
‘Wow,’ she said as she leaned back in his arms. ‘That was certainly worth waiting for.’
‘Erin.’ His hands slid down her arms and encircled her wrists as if he was physically warning her that what he was about to say would be painful to hear. ‘I got word back from my mate in the police force.’
She felt her breath screech to a halt. ‘And?’
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Someone has been forging your signature. Just a couple of times, but it’s a serious offence, given the circumstances.’
Her stomach felt queasy as she saw the gravity of his expression. ‘You know who it is, don’t you?’
He gave a single nod. ‘I went through every roster, hoping I would find something to narrow it down, and then I saw it. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it the first time I looked. You know when you abruptly changed to night duty?’
She nodded.
‘Well, that first day—in the morning, actually—your signature was on a patient’s file for pethidine. But you weren’t at work that day. I went through the duty roster and finally it came to me. I was about to confront the person when they came to me and confessed. That’s why I was late. She came to my office just as I was leaving.’
Erin’s heart gave a little lurch. ‘She?’
‘Lydia Hislop,’ he said.
She swallowed tightly. ‘Lydia?’ She swallowed again. ‘Lydia?’
‘I’m sorry, Erin, I know you are fond of her. And she’s a damn fine nurse. But it seems she didn’t do it to bring any disrepute on you. Your signature was the only person’s she felt she could successfully imitate.’
‘But why?’ Erin asked in a cracked voice. ‘Is she using? She doesn’t seem the type. She’s so competent. I’ve never seen her miss a step. Not once.’
‘They weren’t for her,’ Eamon said soberly. ‘Her mother has MS. She’s in the advanced stages of the disease. Her mother made Lydia promise to assist her suicide. Lydia has been stockpiling vials of pethidine. She’s been very careful, and may well have got away with it if Arthur Gourlay hadn’t made such a fuss over the patients who came in under him.’
‘But I saw her give Mr Yates an injection.’ Erin was still trying to get her head around it all. ‘I was there. I saw her administer it.’
‘She swapped the vial with saline,’ Eamon said. ‘She felt terrible about Mr Yates almost dying. She never intended something like that to happen. She tried to select patients who would not be adversely affected, but in this case she got it horribly wrong.’
Erin felt ill. Lydia. Of all people! It was so hard to believe, and yet was it? Lydia was a compassionate nurse. Perhaps watching her mother’s agonising decline had tipped her over. The emotional ties had blurred her judgement. How tragic that she had felt that was her only option to ease her mother’s suffering. ‘What will happen to her?’ she asked.
‘It will now become a police matter,’ Eamon said. ‘Lydia at least had the courage to come forward. She said she heard a couple of nurses talking about you in the restrooms this afternoon. They apparently saw you heading towards my office and thought you must have been called in over it. Some rumours must have already been circulating. She didn’t want you to get the blame. It’s sad, but that’s the law. She will be prosecuted, but who knows? The courts may take into account her mother’s plight. The irony is in some countries assisted suicide is legal.’
‘Poor Lydia,’ Erin said. ‘I feel so sorry for her. I wish I’d known about her mother. I wish I’d been more supportive.’
‘Erin, you’re not responsible for everyone you work with,’ he said. ‘But then maybe that’s what I love about you—the way you try to hide how much you care. You pretend to hold people at arm’s length when deep down you’re just as compassionate, if not more so, than anyone else.’
Erin blinked at him and then blinked again. Had she heard him correctly? No, of course not. She was imagining it. She had to be. She had heard what she wanted to hear. She longed to hear he felt something for her, but how could he? They had only known each other such a short time.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ he asked.
She snagged her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘Um…I’m not sure what I’m meant to say.’
‘Did you even hear what I said?’
‘What did you say?’
‘I love you.’
Erin stared at him, her mouth falling open. ‘I thought I’d imagined it.’
He stroked her cheek with his thumb, his eyes meltingly soft as they held hers. ‘You didn’t.’
Erin was still lost for words. She just stood there, looking into his eyes, wondering if she was dreaming. He loved her. For all her faults, all her insecurities, in spite of her difficult background, he loved her.
She didn’t hesitate to reciprocate. ‘I love you, too.’
His eyes twinkled. ‘Well, that’s a very fine start. When did you decide that?’
She smiled back at him. ‘I think it happened the very first moment I met you. I didn’t believe in love at first sight. I didn’t even really believe in love, period. But now I believe it all. I want it all.’
Eamon’s thumb stopped moving mid-stroke. ‘You mean if I were to ask you to marry me and have my babies, even though we’ve only known each other a ridiculously short time, there’s a remote possibility you might say yes?’
Erin felt her smile widen. ‘I guess you’ll have to ask me to find out.’
He got down on one bended knee and took both of her hands in his. ‘Erin Taylor, will you marry me?’
Erin felt her heart swell to three times its size. ‘Yes. Yes Yes!’
He rose and pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her, holding her against him as if she was the most precious thing on earth. ‘What changed your mind?’ he asked.
She looked up into his eyes again. ‘You. Your parents. Your sisters. Your little niece. You most of all. Just you.’
He kissed her tenderly, lingering over her mouth as if he never wanted to let her go. ‘My beautiful, brave little Erin,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait until you’re wearing my ring and carrying my child.’
‘Me too.’ Erin wrapped her arms around his waist, her face pressed against the fortress-like wall of his chest. She felt safe for the first time in her life, safe and loved and protected.
And happy.
Blissfully, deliriously happy.
Her life might not have been easy, and the struggles with her mother were certainly not over yet, but somehow Erin knew that with Eamon’s strong support and unwavering love they would make it.
And they did.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5566-5
EMERGENCY DOCTOR AND CINDERELLA
First North American Publication 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Melanie Milburne
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