Runaway Sister

by Ann Jennings

  “Bloody silly thing to do,” said Adam grimly. “Lucky I saw you leave the barge and followed you, otherwise goodness knows what might have happened to you.”

  “I should have made it to the bus stop without incident,” snapped Samantha, feeling better now. “If I hadn’t heard your footsteps behind me I shouldn’t have started running, and then I wouldn’t have fallen.”

  “And I wouldn’t have had to take you home,” interrupted Adam sharply, grasping hold of her elbow.

  “You have not got to take me home,” she replied, wrenching her arm from his grasp, a gesture she immediately regretted as it seemed rather churlish. “I would be grateful, though,” she conceded, “if you’d walk with me to the bus stop.”

  “I shall do nothing of the kind,” he rejoined firmly, taking hold of her arm again, this time in a grip that was not to be lightly shaken off. “I intend to drive you and stay with you until I’ve seen you safely delivered to your own front doorstep.”

  The tone of his voice was firm and positive, to the point, Samantha thought, of being completely domineering, and from the way he propelled her back along the lane by the canal she was left in no doubt whatsoever that he meant every word he said, and would not take no for an answer.

  Giving up any futile attempt at resisting, she walked meekly by his side. She stole a furtive sideways glance at his face, illuminated by the flickering lights of the streetlamps, casting their pools of light and shadow between the trees. He was staring straight ahead as they walked swiftly towards the line of parked cars, and Samantha was very aware of his straight, slightly prominent nose, high cheekbones and strong jawline. Altogether a ruggedly compelling profile, she decided, wondering why she hadn’t noticed how attractive he was before.

  Mentally she gave herself a shake. Stop it! she said to herself. You’ve only just been jilted by one man, now is not the time to start thinking some other man looks attractive. Anyway, he’s too damned sure of himself, and besides, you know nothing about him.

  The realization that she knew absolutely nothing about him hit her almost forcibly. Yet he had said, only this afternoon, that nothing was private in a hospital, so how was it he had remained so private? She didn’t even know if he was married, divorced or had a girlfriend, although she supposed an attractive man like Adam Shaw wouldn’t be short of women companions.

  Adam stopped by a large dark blue Rover 3.5 and unlocking the central locking system said tersely, “Get in.” No such thing as polite niceties like opening the door for her—just the command, “Get in.”

  Samantha obeyed still meekly; she was feeling very subdued by now. Her head was still throbbing, and the shock she had suffered by the fright she had had along the canal path was just beginning to take effect.

  The large automatic car purred smoothly off into the darkness. Adam said nothing, so Samantha felt obliged to say, “I’d better give you directions to where I live.”

  “No need—I know,” came the blunt reply.

  Samantha was startled. “You do?” she murmured, beginning to feel that everything, her whole life, was out of her control. It was ludicrous to feel that way, she knew, but at that moment nothing seemed to be real, everything that had happened in the last ten minutes had a slightly dreamlike quality about it.

  “Yes,” came Adam Shaw’s noncommittal reply.

  They drove in silence until they reached her flat, which was on the outskirts of the hospital complex, close to the perimeter fence. As they reached the block where her flat was situated, Samantha picked up her bag and started to open the car door. She was just about to thank Adam for bringing her home and make her escape when suddenly he said, “Did you leave the lights on in your flat?”

  “No…I…” Startled, she looked towards the flat. Yes, all the lights were on, in every single room. As she looked she suddenly saw Steve pass by the window. “Damn!” she muttered under her breath.

  “I thought you and Steve had split up?” Adam Shaw’s voice was totally expressionless.

  “We have, it’s just that…” She stared anxiously at the lighted windows.

  “Looks like he’s moving in!” This time his voice sounded mocking.

  Angrily Samantha turned to face him. “No, he is not moving back in, he’s moving his hi-fi out. I suppose I might as well tell you, since you seem determined to stick your nose into my business, that Steve only told me last night that he was going to marry someone else, not me. Tonight he’s moving out all his stuff that’s collected there over four years. So now you know.” She glared at him in the semidarkness. She hadn’t wanted to confess to Adam Shaw of all people that she had been jilted so suddenly, but the words had come tumbling out before she had been able to stop them.

  “I see,” came the steely reply, “and you didn’t really expect to find him still here when you got back?”

  “No,” agreed Samantha miserably, “I didn’t.”

  “Then we’ll just have to go somewhere for a couple of hours until he has gone, won’t we?” Adam’s voice was suavely noncommittal.

  Without waiting for her reply he turned the key in the ignition, started the engine and drove away, back towards the lights of the town.

  Chapter Two

  “But…” stammered Samantha, at a loss for words.

  “Did you eat anything at that party?” Adam interrupted abruptly.

  “Well, actually no, but then I wasn’t feeling very hungry,” she replied. The last thing she wanted to do at that moment was spend another two or more hours in the company of Adam Shaw. She was feeling pretty rotten anyway, and he had an uncanny knack of unnerving her at the best of times.

  “Then we’ll find a good restaurant and eat,” he said comfortably, taking it for granted that Samantha would automatically fall in with his plans.

  “But I don’t want to eat,” she protested, “and I’m not feeling in the mood for going out to a restaurant.”

  “All the more reason why you should go,” he said, adding, “I’m speaking as a physician now, of course!”

  “Oh yes,” Samantha retorted tartly, “I’d forgotten, you’re the expert on everything.”

  He turned his head slowly and looked at her as he pulled up at some traffic lights. His mouth curved in a sensuous, mocking grin. “Don’t forget it,” he said.

  Unable to meet his eyes, she stared woodenly ahead. She was a fool, she should have stayed on the barge. How on earth was she going to get through an evening with him? He probably thought she was fair game, now that he knew she had only just been jilted. It was all right saying she would send any junior doctors away with a flea in their ear, but Adam Shaw was quite a different matter. Anyway, there was a little voice in the deep hidden recesses of her mind urging her on, telling her that he was an attractive man after all, and that he was obviously attracted to her.

  No, damn it, I’m not going to run from one man to another, thought Samantha savagely, pushing these unbidden thoughts fiercely out of her mind.

  “I think I should tell you…” she started to say impulsively.

  “Yes?” came the soft reply.

  Suddenly it seemed stupid to say what was in her mind, and she hesitated.

  “Well, go on,” he said, turning the car down a small side street towards the lights of a classy-looking restaurant situated at the far end.

  Samantha took the plunge. “I think I ought to tell you that I have absolutely no intention of having an affair with you,” she said hurriedly, the words coming out in a rush.

  Adam threw back his dark leonine head and roared with laughter, making her feel very foolish indeed. His deep laughter echoed around the car.

  “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me,” she said defensively.

  Leaning towards her, he teasingly pulled her ponytail. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m twenty-seven,” she replied, “but that�
�s got nothing to do with it.”

  “I know it hasn’t,” he replied, still laughing, “but you look about seventeen with your hair done like that.” Even though he wasn’t being flirtatious, but was laughing at her, the mere fact that he was so close to her was like being within an electromagnetic field, she could almost feel herself crackling with tension. Jerkily she sat forward, pulling her hair out of his hand.

  “I just wanted to get things clear,” she said firmly, surprising herself at the calm positive tone of her voice.

  “I’ve asked you out to dinner, Miss Roberts,” he said smoothly, reaching across and opening the car door for her. “I haven’t proposed that we embark on an affair, and I have no intention of doing so.”

  “Good,” replied Samantha sharply, climbing with as much dignity as she could muster out of the car. “Just so long as that’s understood.”

  Was it her imagination or did she hear him say softly as he closed the door, “I have other things in mind.”

  Startled, she looked at him as he eased his long masculine frame out of the large car and locked the doors, but his face was an inscrutable mask as he came towards her and proffered his arm.

  Reluctantly she took the offered arm. Apart from feeling nervous, she didn’t feel that she was dressed smartly enough for this particular restaurant. Adam looked impeccable in his dark suit, but she had on slacks and a sweater. As they entered she could see that every other woman in the place was elegantly dressed, there wasn’t a pair of slacks or a sweater in sight.

  “I’m not suitably dressed,” she muttered to Adam, hanging back in the doorway.

  “Rubbish,” he replied firmly. “Anyone can wear anything these days, but if it will make you feel happier I’ll ask for a secluded table.”

  “No, no, don’t bother to do that,” said Samantha quickly. She would feel safer if they were sitting amidst a lot of other people, but Adam had already signaled to a waiter, who was showing them to a small table in an alcove, well screened from most of the rest of the restaurant. Uneasily Samantha sat opposite Adam, nervously brushing back strands of her silky hair that had fallen in becoming tendrils around her oval face.

  The waiter brought the menus and placed one before each of them, then hovered attentively by the table.

  “Do you fancy a sherry before the meal?” asked Adam, studying the menu.

  “Yes, that would be nice.” Samantha found that suddenly she was beginning to feel hungry; it must be the delicious aroma of food that was floating around the restaurant, she decided.

  “Two dry sherries,” ordered Adam. “I take it you prefer dry sherry?”

  “Oh yes,” said Samantha. “I can’t bear sweet sherry.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, looking at her with a slight smile playing about his lips, “I’m glad you’ve got an educated palate.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I think that’s just plain snobbery,” she said. “People are entitled to like whatever they choose. There’s no such thing in my book as having good or bad taste.”

  He pulled a wry face at her from across the table. “That puts me in my place,” he said, but the tone of his voice was amused, not annoyed.

  The waiter brought them their sherries and set down the glasses carefully before them. Picking up her glass, Samantha stared into the pale golden liquid, glinting in the glow of the small lamp on their table.

  “Well, what shall we drink to?” asked Adam.

  “I’m not sure I’ve got anything particular to drink to,” she replied truthfully. It was the truth, because at that moment in time she had absolutely no idea where her life would take her next. In fact she had her doubts that she would go anywhere in particular, she had a horrible feeling that she would end up as one of the ageing midwives on the Maternity Unit. She would either be sweetly dotty or miserable and embittered, because, certainly at her hospital anyway, the Princess Mary Maternity Hospital, all the older midwives fell into one or other of those categories.

  “What are you thinking about?” demanded Adam, his slate-grey eyes taking in the moods flitting across her expressive face.

  “Nothing,” lied Samantha. How could she tell him what she had been thinking? He would either laugh at her or perhaps even worse make some other suggestion! She could tell from his expression that he didn’t believe her for a moment, but to her relief he didn’t pursue the subject.

  “We shall drink to the future,” he said. “Your future and mine.”

  “My future is very uncertain,” said Samantha quickly, “I’m not at all sure that it’s…”

  “A good idea?” he finished for her with a query in his voice. Then he smiled, and suddenly for the first time since Samantha had met him she realized that she had never seen him really smile before. His darkly handsome face lit up, softening his rugged features, and his eyes sparkled with an irresistible charm. Samantha found herself involuntarily smiling back at him.

  “My future is as uncertain as yours,” he said. “So what harm is there in drinking to the future? After all, who knows, it could be very exciting.”

  Samantha laughed. “It could,” she replied, “but being a realist, somehow I don’t think it will be.”

  “I’d call that being a pessimist, not a realist,” he said, clinking his glass against hers.

  They sipped their sherry in silence for a moment, their eyes meeting in an easy shared intimacy. Samantha suddenly found she was enjoying herself after all, and the fact that she was the only woman not dressed up in the restaurant didn’t matter a jot. One thing for certain was that she was with the most attractive man in the restaurant, and she couldn’t help noticing that other women’s eyes strayed in their direction, or rather in Adam’s direction. It’s a good job I’m not his girlfriend, or I’d be jealous, she thought a trifle wryly. Not that Adam would have given her anything to be jealous about; he didn’t notice, or didn’t appear to notice. He concentrated on talking to Samantha, he was charming, attentive and relaxed, and she just couldn’t help responding.

  They had a deliciously leisurely meal—sweet corn soup, followed by veal scallops in sour cream and capers with a delicate fruit mousse for dessert, washed down with a dry white wine. Adam had port and cheese afterwards, but Samantha just couldn’t manage that, although he did persuade her to join him in a brandy and coffee at the end of the meal.

  Throughout the meal their conversation had never flagged. Samantha was relieved; she had thought it was going to be a difficult evening, but it had turned out to be completely the reverse. He had told her about his work in America where he had been working with heroin addicts. Samantha was amazed at what he told her, because in Britain, although there were some cases of heroin addicts giving birth, the numbers were very small, and she herself had never come into contact with any. She said she thought it must be rather depressing.

  “Yes, it was rather depressing,” confessed Adam. “The babies, poor little mites, show evidence of heroin withdrawal during their early days of life. This usually includes asphyxia, cerebral irritation and gastrointestinal disturbances, also there’s a high incidence of congenital abnormality among these babies.”

  Samantha shook her head. “I couldn’t do that work,” she said. “Those women would make me so angry.”

  Adam smiled, and she was struck by the compassion in his face. “No, you wouldn’t be angry with them,” he said. “You would be angry at the society that allows it to happen, that allows people to make fortunes out of peddling drugs.” His voice hardened. “I would have no mercy on those people if I could get my hands on them. I would sentence them to penal servitude for the rest of their natural lives. No punishment is severe enough for scum like that.”

  Samantha was silent. He had obviously seen some pretty dreadful things in the two years he had been away, things that had left scars.

  “Anyway,” Adam said, suddenly changing the subject, “what about you? I don�
��t know much about you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve led a very uninteresting life,” she replied. “I trained as an SRN at St. Luke’s in London, then I came here to Princess Mary’s to do the midwifery course, qualified as a midwife, and have been here ever since. I would have liked to have broadened my experience, but I was tied because we were waiting until Steve had finished his postgraduate exams and…” She trailed off, realizing that instinctively she had used the term “we” and that now she would have to get used to saying “I”.

  “Of course, all that’s history now,” she finished hastily, “as you know.”

  “Well, what are you going to do now?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t know,” replied Samantha slowly. “I haven’t really had much time to think about it, but I do think perhaps I’ll leave Princess Mary’s and do a bit of traveling. After all, with my qualifications it’s pretty easy to get a job almost anywhere.”

  “That’s one thing you mustn’t do,” cut in Adam sharply. “You mustn’t leave and just drift aimlessly.”

  “I have absolutely no intention of just drifting aimlessly, as you put it,” retorted Samantha angrily. “Give me credit for some common sense! I am twenty-seven, you know.” She tilted her head back angrily, glowering at him from beneath her long brown silky lashes, a faint pink staining her high cheekbones.

  Adam laughed. “You look very pretty when you’re angry,” he said, “but I do wish you wouldn’t bite my head off when I give you advice.”

  “And I wish you wouldn’t keep giving me advice,” snapped Samantha. “If I need any I’ll ask you!”

  Unrepentant, he raised his brandy glass to her in mock salute. “I’ll try to remember your wishes,” he said, a teasing look in his eyes.

  The meal had come to an end, and Samantha realized to her astonishment that it was way past midnight. The time had flown so quickly, they had found so many things to talk about, and except for the moment when he had annoyed her by giving her fatherly advice, she had thoroughly enjoyed herself. As they walked from the restaurant to the car, however, she realized that although they had talked of many things, and he had told her about his work, she still knew nothing about his personal life. He had managed to wheedle personal details of her life out of her, without giving anything away about himself. She wondered for a moment a trifle cynically whether perhaps he was married after all, then dismissed it. No, he seemed too nice, somehow she felt instinctively that he wouldn’t deliberately mislead or deceive anyone.