Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 03 (li

  If it hadn’t been for him…

  ‘If you’d rather I didn’t go to your house, just say so,’ Emily said suddenly. ‘Beabea did rather Shanghai you into making the invitation.’

  By that time they had made their way around the curve of Penhally harbour wall and the row of shops, cafés and hotels that faced the tightly enclosed bay. They were approaching the turning for the car park by the lifeboat station by the time she finally broke the silence in her little car.

  ‘Do you not want to see where the children go when they leave the hospital?’ He was suddenly disappointed that she might not want the guided tour he’d been looking forward to. There was something about her sheer enthusiasm for everything she did that seemed to lift the spirits of everyone around her, and he certainly wasn’t immune.

  ‘Of course I want to see it!’ she exclaimed impatiently, and he had to suppress a satisfied smile at the thought that he was coming to know her so well. ‘Apart from anything else,’ she continued as she pulled neatly to the kerb, ‘Beabea would never forgive me if I didn’t come back to her with all the details.’

  ‘Why do you call her Beabea?’ He’d been curious ever since he’d heard the name. ‘Is it the Cornish word for grandmother?’

  ‘No.’ She chuckled, a delightful sound that wrapped intimately around him in the semi-darkness of her car. ‘If I remember rightly, grandmother is henvamm or henvammow.’

  ‘So, why Beabea?’ he persisted.

  ‘Because her name is Beatrice,’ Emily said simply, then decided to give him the full explanation. ‘At the time I came to live with her, she had two friends…twins…who always did everything together, but one was always half a beat behind the other. So when they called her Bea, it sounded as if they were saying Beabea. I imitated them and it just stuck.’

  ‘Do they still call her Beabea?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘They’re both gone now; so many of her lifelong friends have gone. That’s one of the reasons why she’s so delighted when I bring her visitors.’

  Zayed thought about his own family—the remnants of it, at least—and suddenly realised just how long it had been since he’d seen them. His grandfather and the collection of great-aunts had all been well when he’d last seen them, but who knew what toll the years had taken? Any one of them could be in the same situation as Emily’s grandmother.

  Not that he could do anything about it. He was the very last person they would want to see on their doorstep.

  ‘So, do you want me to drive you up to the house, or shall I follow you?’ Emily asked, and he realised with a start of surprise that he must have been sitting lost in his thoughts for several minutes.

  ‘You could follow me up there,’ he suggested, releasing his seat belt and unfolding himself from the cramped position, grateful to find that his back hadn’t seized up in the time since he’d climbed into her little car. ‘Then you will have transportation to escape when you are too bored.’

  ‘I’m still not certain I should be going anywhere when I look such a mess,’ she complained with a despairing flick at the damp tangled ends of her hair. ‘I haven’t even got a comb with me and it looks like a rat’s nest…a salty rat’s nest. I should have stopped off at the cottage on the way past and done something about it.’

  ‘You will not find any of the patients complaining,’ he promised as he ducked back down to look at her, lit only by the courtesy light inside the car. ‘Most of them will probably think you are some kind of exotic sea creature with your long wavy hair and your green eyes.’

  He wasn’t immune either. She looked perfectly stunning without a scrap of cosmetics on her skin, fresh and youthful and…and everything he had no right to be looking at.

  ‘If you’re sure?’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘I am sure.’ He closed the car door to stride across the car park to his own vehicle.

  It only took a few minutes to turn up past the surgery and climb the hill onto the top of the cliffs, and from there it was a relatively short run to the driveway leading to the strikingly modern house with the commanding view over both town and sea.

  The security lights came on as soon as they approached the house and he signalled for Emily to draw up beside him, close to the front entrance.

  ‘A word of warning,’ he said as he reached for the door, suddenly unaccountably nervous about taking her inside. For some crazy reason, it really mattered what this young woman thought of the facility he was setting up here. ‘Because they have a sleep in the middle of the day, not all of the children will be in bed yet, and it can be a little noisy.’

  ‘A little noisy?’ Emily echoed a few minutes later when she could almost hear herself think, again.

  When Zayed had opened the door there had been a couple of seconds of absolute silence as everyone had looked to see who had arrived, and then the place had erupted into chaos, with every child shrieking for attention at the same time, each one with a smile from ear to ear as soon as they saw him.

  Emily realised that she may just as well have been invisible as far as his little charges were concerned, and she slipped in quietly and closed the door, quite content to stand to one side and watch what was happening.

  Those who were mobile had mobbed him and he’d rapidly disappeared under a maul of bodies, arms and legs, many sporting casts of varying lengths and colours. Those unable to join in had been forced to shout for attention in what was obviously a regular occurrence, while a scattering of their carers and parents looked on indulgently.

  For a moment Emily had been worried that the children might be in danger of re-injuring themselves until she saw just how gently Zayed was treating them in spite of his blood-curdling growls.

  ‘He should have children of his own…lots of children,’ said a middle-aged woman who was obviously from Xandar, too, her accent full of the same liquid syllables as her countrymen that Emily had met on the unit at St Piran’s. ‘Taking care of other people’s children is good but it will never fill the empty space inside him.’

  Emily had an instant vision of dark-haired children with cheeky grins and the same gold-shot dark eyes that she saw over Zayed’s mask every day, then ruthlessly shut the images away, refusing to let herself think about his eventual children. There was so little likelihood that they would be her children, too, that the thought of him surrounded by them was sharp enough to cause a physical pain around her heart.

  ‘I am Reza Saleh,’ the woman introduced herself, and settled herself comfortably against the wall beside Emily. ‘I was one of those who worked with Zayed in our own country, before tragedy struck. Then, when I heard he needed staff over here in Penhally…’ She shrugged eloquently. ‘I learned English so I can come here to help him.’

  ‘Reza! Come and save me from these terrible children!’ Zayed called, then used exactly the same inflection when he said something in his own language, so it wasn’t just the children’s hilarity that told her he’d said the same thing again.

  ‘Time for bed, children,’ Reza said firmly with a clap of her hands, and copied Zayed in translating the order to their little charges.

  ‘Not bed! No!’ called several voices, obviously not tired of their game yet.

  ‘No bed, no story,’ Reza decreed in no-nonsense tones, and the children clearly understood that threat without the need for any translation.

  Zayed was still helping the last of the children to their feet when someone caught sight of Emily for the first time.

  Within seconds they were all staring at her as though she were an alien from another planet, their sudden silence erupting into a welter of incomprehensible questions.

  ‘OK! OK!’ Zayed called, putting both hands up in the air to call for silence as he made his way across to her. To her surprise he took her hand in his to lead her forward into their midst, then apparently forgot to let go because she ended up standing there surrounded by inquisitive children and adults with the warm strength of his hand wrapped around hers.

  ‘This is Emil
y Livingston,’ he said slowly and clearly, while she tried to work out exactly why it felt so right to stand there like that. ‘She is a doctor at the hospital. She helps me to fix bones.’ He repeated the simple sentences in their language to make sure they had all understood, but one little girl began shaking her head.

  ‘No! No dotor!’ she insisted, wide-eyed, then reverted to her own tongue for several impassioned sentences.

  Several of the adults chuckled, including Zayed.

  ‘What did she say?’ Emily demanded softly.

  ‘That you are too beautiful to be a doctor,’ he said with a definite twinkle in his dark eyes. ‘That you are really a princess who will wave your magic over them to make them well.’

  ‘If only it were that easy,’ Emily murmured, even as her pulse responded to his expression. ‘Hello,’ she said to the little girl, finally forcing herself to break the connection between their hands so that she could crouch down to bring them to more or less the same height. ‘My name is Emily. What is your name?’

  This time it was Reza who translated for her, and supplied the dark-haired moppet’s name in return.

  ‘This is Leela, and I don’t think she’ll ever believe you’re not a princess,’ she said with a grin. ‘Just look around the room and see if there are any other people here with blonde hair and green eyes.’

  Blonde hair full of dried seawater so that it was as stiff as baler twine and green eyes with the most attractive dark shadows under them, either from too many hours spent worrying about Beabea or from too many nights spent dreaming about a certain dark-eyed consultant, to say nothing about coping with a demanding job.

  Most attractive, she thought wryly, except that to one little girl, it was obviously good enough.

  Reza clapped her hands again. ‘Bed or no story,’ she reminded her little charges, but little Leela wasn’t going to be hurried, planting herself right in front of Emily to pose an urgent question.

  ‘Leela has decided that she wants you to tell them the story tonight,’ Zayed informed her with a grin as he gently lifted the little girl up to his shoulder.

  Emily was barely aware that her feet were automatically taking her in his wake. ‘Me? I can’t tell them a story. I don’t know any stories.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure you will think of something,’ he said airily as he led the way into what looked like an extremely well-appointed paediatric ward, albeit one that would have the most fantastic panoramic views once the sun came up in the morning.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Emily breathed as she looked around. There was everything any of the children might need to make life easier while they were hampered by casts and frames, but the decoration of the room and the colourful bedding and piles of toys gave it a very different feeling. And with the combination of the high staffing level and parents eager to do anything they could to help, it wasn’t long before everyone was in pyjamas and nightdresses and smelling of toothpaste.

  ‘Story,’ Leela said eagerly, as she held up a slim book for Emily to see.

  ‘“The Little Mermaid”,’ she read on the cover, and when she heard Zayed choking back laughter she knew where that suggestion had come from. ‘Oh, I’m sure we can think of something else.’

  ‘You do not want to tell the story of the little mermaid who falls in love with the handsome prince?’

  Emily had an uncomfortable feeling that it wouldn’t just be a story in a book if she didn’t get herself under better control. Seeing him by Abir’s cot that first morning had definitely had an unexpected effect on her heart, but learning about this other side to the man had pushed her dangerously close to falling in love with him.

  For all the good it would do her, she admitted wryly. He was definitely every inch the elegant gentleman good enough to be a prince, but she was a long way from being the mermaid he would fall in love with.

  Anyway, that sort of thing only happened in fairytales.

  Looking at the books on the bookshelf, her eyes fell on several old favourites from her own childhood and she exclaimed with delight before pausing for a moment, wondering how on earth she was going to tell any story when she couldn’t speak a word of the children’s language.

  ‘There is a problem?’ Zayed asked when she scanned the titles, some in English and some in Arabic, and her shoulders slumped when she realised that the task would be all but impossible.

  ‘There are so many wonderful stories, but I have no way of telling any of them,’ she mourned.

  ‘So simplify the story and tell it to me, and I will translate it for them,’ Zayed suggested. ‘Come. Sit here and begin.’

  Emily hesitated when he beckoned her towards the seat beside him, knowing she ought to be sensible, but the temptation to be that close to him was suddenly too great to resist.

  ‘Leela is very insistent that you read this one,’ Reza said with a twinkle in her eye as she handed Emily the copy of The Little Mermaid.

  The picture on the cover was the traditional one with the fish’s tail replacing the young woman’s legs, but Emily was sure she’d never noticed before that she was shown with long blonde hair curling over her shoulders to disguise the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bikini, or that she was quite so well endowed.

  ‘You also swim like a mermaid,’ said a husky voice in her ear, and Emily turned shocked eyes towards a face that was suddenly as full of mischief as one of their young audience.

  Was he implying that she had looked like the illustration, too, down on the beach this evening?

  And if ever there was an inappropriate thought to have when surrounded by a dozen sharp-eyed strangers…

  ‘Once upon a time…’ Emily began, firmly refusing to acknowledge Zayed’s presence beside her in anything other than his current role as translator.

  Several pages in, she had the sneaking suspicion that his translations bore little relationship to what she was reading, especially when most of them were greeted with gales of laughter.

  Leela seemed to be the only one who didn’t appreciate his version and there was a decidedly militant look on her little face when she finally closed the book that told Emily that the story definitely hadn’t ended the way she wanted it to.

  ‘No! No!’ she insisted even as the rest of their audience was applauding.

  The sparkle of tears in those big dark eyes was more than Emily could stand.

  ‘What is she saying?’ she demanded, turning to face Zayed when Leela voiced her vehement disapproval. ‘Why is she so upset?’

  Zayed had the grace to look a little sheepish. ‘She is not happy that I…took a few liberties with the story.’

  ‘So, what does she want? Shall I start reading again?’ Emily offered.

  ‘It is not so much the story that is the problem,’ he admitted. ‘It is the ending.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What ending? There is only one ending.’

  There was a hint of colour tingeing his cheeks as the little girl stood right in front of him, obviously telling him in great detail where he’d gone wrong.

  ‘She says that the prince has to fall in love with the mermaid and give her a kiss so they can live happily ever after.’

  ‘And that wasn’t the way you translated it.’ Emily could all too easily understand the reason for all the laughter before. She fixed him with a stern gaze, then suggested sweetly, ‘So, tell the story that way, Mr Consultant. It’s not worth upsetting her just before she goes to bed.’

  If anything, his embarrassment deepened and Emily suddenly became aware that the two of them were the focus of some hilarity from their adult audience, too, and not a little horrified fascination.

  ‘I have tried to tell her, but she has convinced herself that you are the mermaid princess and that I should…’

  Emily stared at him when the full import of what he wasn’t saying poured over her.

  Suddenly she was very aware of the fact that their bodies were touching from shoulder to knee and could almost swear that she could feel the temperature rising around
them. Any hotter, and the settee would burst into flames.

  She couldn’t drag her eyes away from his, totally aware of everything from the sinful dark length of each individual eyelash to the way his pupils were dilating in evidence of his own awareness.

  This was crazy. There was absolutely nothing between the two of them other than their professional relationship, but as the seconds stretched out it felt like something else entirely, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or run away and hide.

  What she did know was that all of a sudden she couldn’t wait to see what Zayed was going to do. Was he going to find some other way of calming Leela down, or was he actually going to lean over and press his lips to hers…an act that she was almost certain would be forbidden in his own country.

  One dark eyebrow rose, almost as if he’d read her thoughts, and a wicked smile teased the corner of his mouth as he reached for her hand.

  ‘Oh, beautiful mermaid princess,’ he intoned, then turned to Leela, obviously providing the enthralled youngster with her own personal translation, as though the rest of the room wasn’t waiting breathlessly to see what would unfold.

  ‘I am the handsome prince and I have found you at last,’ he continued, staring soulfully into her eyes with enough simulated heat to set her tangled, salty hair on fire before switching the expression off to break into translation mode.

  ‘Tell me you will give me your hand and we will live happily ever after,’ he finished with a dramatic flourish, bringing her hand up to his lips to press a kiss to the backs of her fingers.

  Emily barely heard his voice as he translated his final declaration. All she was aware of was the lingering heat and unexpected softness of his mouth where it had touched her.

  ‘It is your turn,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes sparkling with glee, almost as if he knew how badly he’d scrambled her nerves.

  ‘Oh, handsome prince, of course you can have my hand,’ she said with a simpering smile and fluttering eyelashes, only to add under her breath, ‘As long as you remember to give it back before I need it to drive home.’