The Surgeon's Family Wish

by Abigail Gordon

  Once she was over the operation and feeling less frail, she’d begun to question Aaron about the Carters. She felt sorry for them both, even though Roy Carter had been to blame for a night of horror and her ending up in hospital.

  Janice had been very foolish not to tell him that she couldn’t hold the baby properly, and knowing the long hours that he worked in the boiler room he wouldn’t always have been on hand to witness her difficulties. He had hotly denied any harm coming to the child from himself and Janice, and when she’d been taken from them he’d flipped.

  Knowing who Aaron was from working at the hospital and having no trouble in finding where he lived, Roy had seen him as the villain of the piece when actually he had only been doing his job and had been right in saying that the child’s injuries had not been accidental.

  Their little one had been returned to them at Aaron’s and Annabel’s request, and Janice’s mother had moved in with them for the time being while her daughter was having tests for multiple sclerosis. A daunting thought, but to the relieved Janice a justification for what had gone before. Roy had forgiven her and now it remained for the two doctors to decide if they wanted to press charges.

  ‘What do you think?’ he’d asked one evening when he’d gone to visit her. ‘Carter has much to answer for. I know he didn’t hurt Lucy, but he hurt you, Annabel, and gave me some of the worst hours of my life. Do we prosecute?’

  She’d shaken her head. ‘Not as far as I’m concerned. That poor woman had brought it all upon them through fear that she would be found an unfit mother, and the irony of it is that is exactly what happened. She triggered off a set of circumstances that sent her husband over the edge, turned your life into a nightmare, put Lucy at risk...’

  ‘And you nearly got yourself killed,’ he’d pointed out grimly. ‘I think the police will take him to court even if we don’t.’

  ‘Well, if that happens we’ll have to plead for him.’

  ‘I don’t believe what you’re saying,’ he’d exclaimed, ‘but if that’s what you want, that’s how it’s going to be. You know that the WPC who was at my place had you down as prime suspect. She encouraged you to go back to the flat to see if Lucy was there because she thought you were meeting an accomplice. I told her she was crazy but she still rang the sergeant and that’s why we were all there at the moment of truth. I’ll bet she saw promotion on the horizon when she saw you with Janice Carter outside the hospital, deep in conversation on that bench.’

  ‘Maybe it was as well that she did suspect me,’ she’d said laughingly, ‘as after what Roy did to me I would have been in no fit state to fetch help.’

  Serious again, she’d said, ‘I can forgive him for what he did to me. Can you forgive me for letting him take Lucy away?’

  He groaned.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive. If my past behaviour has made you think I’m a person who bears grudges, I’ve only myself to blame. But did you really think that I thought what had happened was your fault?’

  ‘Yes, because all the time we were searching for Lucy you never said anything. Never told me that you didn’t blame me.’

  He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently as he said, ‘It never occurred to me. You were hardly likely to expect someone to be lurking in the garden, and as you said at the time Lucy had been only a few feet away from you.

  ‘She wasn’t entirely blameless, you know, ignoring all the times I’ve told her not to go with strangers. But as she’s only five years old and couldn’t resist the temptation of going to see a lot of robins, I haven’t said too much to her. Carter would probably have snatched her if she had resisted and then she would have been terrified. As it was, she saw the whole thing merely as something different, and it was certainly that. But I don’t think she’ll do it again.’

  It didn’t make the incident any less horrendous but to know that Aaron didn’t think her incapable of looking after Lucy was like a bright star in her sky.

  Yet nothing else was said. There was no mention of the sham engagement and what was going to come after it. When he left she felt deflated because she was no nearer to knowing what was in his mind.

  It was the following day when they said at the hospital that she could go home on Sunday. When she told Aaron he said immediately, ‘You do know that you’re coming to us, don’t you? So that I can look after you? Mum has your room all ready and Lucy can’t wait.’

  She swallowed hard. He’d said that he wanted to look after her. What did Aaron mean by that? As a doctor? A friend? Or a lover? It wouldn’t be that, she thought. There were still things not said between them.

  * * *

  And now Sunday was here and the hospital was slow at giving the word to go. The consultant was late on his rounds and as it would soon be dark Aaron was in a fever of impatience for some reason. But at last they were off, with Annabel wrapped in a warm shawl beside him.

  It was wonderful to be in the outside world again, she thought. Or at least it would be if all things were equal between them. But Aaron had said nothing since the other night and today he was on edge.

  Maybe he was regretting having to repay what he saw as his debt to her and so she kept silent, thinking that if she hadn’t felt so weak and purposeless she would have insisted on going back to the flat.

  When they reached the house he went round to her side of the car to help her out, and as he did so there was the noise of a light plane flying overhead. At the sound of its engine Aaron looked quickly upward. Following his gaze, she did the same. Her eyes widened as she read the string of words on a banner trailing behind it.

  I LOVE YOU ANNABEL they said for all the world to see. WILL YOU MARRY ME?

  As she turned slowly to face him he was watching her, waiting for her reaction, and she said in dawning wonder, ‘So that is why you were in such a hurry to leave the hospital before it got dark. Someone wants to marry me, Aaron. Have you any idea who it could be?’

  Taking her in his arms, he said softly, ‘I might have. But come inside out of the cold first.’

  The lounge was empty and with his arms still around her he took her into the room and closed the door.

  ‘It’s a man who loves you more than life itself,’ he said softly as his hold tightened. ‘Who wants to waken each morning with you there beside him. You will marry me, won’t you, Annabel?’

  ‘I have just one thing to say to that,’ she told him, her mouth curving softly.

  ‘And what is it?’

  ‘What took you so long, Aaron? Of course I’ll marry you.’

  With a whoop of joy he lifted her high in his arms.

  ‘Welcome home, my love,’ he said, and she knew with a sweet and magical certainty that he meant it beyond any shadow of a doubt.

  There was a tap on the door and when he opened it his mother and Lucy were outside in the hallway, Mary’s glance questioning and hopeful and the small figure by her side dancing with excitement.

  ‘Yes!’ Aaron cried, drawing Lucy into their embrace. ‘Annabel is going to marry me! What do you think about that?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ his mother said as she observed the glowing woman in his arms.

  ‘Super,’ said Lucy.

  * * *

  On the day after the plane had flown over with its incredible message Aaron told Annabel, ‘Richard has a pilot’s licence and when I asked him for a favour he was only too pleased to oblige. Now, after such a successful outcome, he’s hinting that he expects to be best man at our wedding and I’ve told him that it goes without saying.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said happily. ‘I don’t mind who does what, just as long as you and I are the ones to be joined together.’

  The words had a magical sound—joined together, for always. She hoped that somewhere Eloise and the man she’d given her life for might be smiling down on them when that day dawned.

  * * *

  She’d watched a radiant Mary walk down the aisle on Aaron’s arm on a cool crisp morning, with Lucy close behind scattering r
ose petals, and had rejoiced to see the happiness of the older bride and groom as they’d left for a honeymoon in the Seychelles. And now her own big day had arrived.

  The night before Aaron had said huskily, ‘I can’t believe that tomorrow you’ll be mine.’

  ‘I’ve been yours ever since the night you came rushing into the children’s ward, desperate to be with Lucy after the operation,’ she’d told him. ‘I thought that you were the most attractive man I’d ever seen and the bossiest. I told your mother so.’

  ‘And what did she say to that?’ he’d asked laughingly.

  ‘She said, ‘‘That’s my boy.’’’

  ‘And, of course, I lived up to my name, didn’t I?’ he’d said, suddenly grave. ‘By preaching the gospel according to me, instead of taking you as I found you, honourable, caring and clever.’

  ‘Shush,’ she’d told him gently. ‘No looking back, I should have told you the truth from the start.’

  When he’d finished kissing her until she was breathless he’d said, ‘I’m going to give you babies, Annabel. Brothers and sisters for Lucy, to make up for the one you lost.’

  She’d nodded dreamily. ‘Yes, please, but for the moment I have all that I want. You and Lucy, a family at last.’

  * * *

  The organ was playing the bridal march, and a pale sun was filtering through stained-glass windows as Annabel walked up the aisle. This time Mark was giving the bride away and an excited Lucy was doing the rose petals bit again.

  For the man waiting at the altar, his lonely days were over. Life was beginning again. And the smiling, brown-haired bride, walking sedately to meet him in a cream silk gown that rustled as she walked, knew that with Aaron by her side the future was opening out into a walkway to happiness.

  ISBN-13: 9781460376379

  THE SURGEON’S FAMILY WISH

  Copyright © 2015 by Abigail Gordon

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