‘I don’t know. I’m contented with my work and my friends, Callie. Since seeing Nathan again—’ She broke off, running a hand through her hair. ‘I’m so confused.’
‘Annie, your advice when I came here made me realise that I couldn’t live in the past or let it rule the rest of my life—that sometimes we have to take a risk to win the prize. You were right. I faced the fear, leaped off the precipice, and Frazer caught me. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.’ Callie paused a moment and bit her lip, her eyes full of concern. ‘Don’t you think you should do the same?’
Annie opened her mouth to say no, to voice the pain and resentment that still clenched inside her, to protest that Nathan had rejected her, wounded her, hadn’t loved her, but the words wouldn’t come. Doubt assailed her as the uncomfortable knowledge that maybe it hadn’t all been Nathan’s fault tormented her. She had blamed him for so long, had used her anger and hurt as a shield against him and the rest of the world as her only means to cope, to go on, blanking out many of the details. In consequence, had she at best embroidered the truth, at worst altered reality?
‘I’ve only just met Nathan tonight, but I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at each other. An almost electric connection shimmers between you two. It’s obvious how he feels about you. And you about him. You’re both hurting, stubborn, anxious. But you have a second chance, Annie. If Nathan means anything to you, don’t waste it,’ Callie finished, echoing Will’s words from the other day.
As Frazer hit another strike, winning the evening’s competition for the air ambulance crew over the fire service team, Callie raced across to fling herself into her husband’s arms and give him a congratulatory kiss. Annie watched them, happy for them and yet envious, too, aware of the black hole inside her that nothing seemed to fill.
Her thoughts and emotions disturbed her. And she had no answers to the endless questions plaguing her, leaving her feeling torn in two and impossibly confused. The idea that she might never have got over Nathan was frightening, giving the lie to her so-called recovery. Quite why the prospect of talking to Nathan made her so afraid she couldn’t put into words. She just knew that the very idea of remembering those terrible last moments with him made her recoil, a tight knot of ice-cold anxiety clenching inside her. Not to mention the way she remained so vulnerable and open to more hurt.
And she was all too aware that almost from the first moment she had seen him again—certainly from the time she had run from their explosive kiss in panic—she had been lying to him. That was hardly a good basis for renewing any kind of…what? Friendship? Relationship? Just what did Nathan want?
‘The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.’
Silently agreeing with Will’s comment, Nathan sank into an old but comfortable armchair in the staffroom. ‘The “it-will-never-happen-to-me” syndrome,’ he murmured, cupping a mug of hot tea in his hands.
‘Ain’t that the truth?’ Will agreed with a grimace.
‘Well, the idea that a group of parents would take young teenagers up into the hills in this weather, with so little preparation, protection or planning, makes me furious,’ Gail grumbled, her customary calm flustered by the events of the morning. ‘Thanks,’ she added, accepting the tea Will offered her and taking a couple of cookies from the tin before sitting on the three-seater sofa. ‘I need this. Then I’m out of here—and not a moment too soon.’
Nathan couldn’t agree more. After a hectic run of three night shifts, he was looking forward to some down time. Since the ten-pin bowling evening he had still not managed to talk to Annie. Despite his dislike of social gatherings, he had enjoyed the get-together—partly because he had talked with some of Annie’s friends and learned more about her life in Strathlochan. Five years of her life he had unwillingly missed out on.
He had also enjoyed meeting Thornton Gallagher and the other staff from the drop-in centre, and he’d followed up an invitation to spend part of the time on his days off looking round the place. He’d been impressed with what they were doing there, and were he to stay for any length of time in Strathlochan he would definitely volunteer there.
Despite his visit to the centre, and spending hours reading and studying to increase his medical knowledge and prepare for making up to specialist registrar status, the time had dragged before he could return to the hospital and see Annie again. Her avoidance tactics were wearing his patience thin. And the bone-deep weariness from this last shift wasn’t helping, he admitted, knowing the events of the last hours had made everyone short-tempered.
With a tired sigh, Will sat next to Gail and took a long drink from his own mug. Only the three of them were left in the staffroom. Nathan was lingering out of pure stubbornness, determined to wait for Annie—to wait out Annie. Which seemed to be his lot in life this last week. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, allowing Will and Gail’s conversation to drift around him.
Work had been the only thing that had kept him busy and his mind off his troubles. And this morning had been manic, making them all late leaving. Reports had begun to come in the early hours about a party missing overnight on the hills. The mountain rescue team, complete with a couple of search-and-rescue dogs, had been out for ages in atrocious conditions—biting winds, snow and freezing temperatures—attempting to find them. There had been no proper notification of the route the party had planned to take, and, once finally found, their lack of equipment, protective clothing and common sense had baffled everyone. They had also split into three small groups, which had complicated the search further.
Once they had been located it had taken time to bring them safely off the hills. The most seriously injured had been air-lifted by helicopter—precarious in the conditions—while the rest had been ferried to Strathlochan by a small fleet of road ambulances. The A and E department had been on full alert to receive them, and everyone had worked hard to cope with the influx. Several adults and young teenagers had suffered moderate hypothermia and had required careful attention, investigation and rewarming to raise their core body temperature. A couple of the party had fallen—one adult male had nasty fractures to both arms and an ankle, one young woman had broken ribs and a punctured lung, and a teenage boy had shoulder injuries.
Nathan looked up as the door opened and Annie came in. He couldn’t stop watching her. And he couldn’t fail to note the fatigue on her face, the dark shadows under her blue eyes. To him she still looked stunning, and his whole being filled with the inevitable mix of love and longing, pain and uncertainty. Her gaze met his, and for an endless moment they stared at each other. It was as if the room faded away and no one existed but them. Then Annie bit her lip, her movements jerky as she moved to the counter and busied herself making a hot drink.
‘All finished out there, Annie?’ Gail asked, finishing her tea.
‘With the hill walkers.’ Nathan heard the tension and tiredness in Annie’s voice as she answered. ‘Robert is with a serious accident victim in Resus, and minors is filling up again. Thank goodness it’s not our problem and the next shift have taken over.’
Gail rose to her feet and crossed to the sink to wash her mug. ‘Amen to that. I’m away, then. I’ll see you all in three days. Enjoy your time off.’
They said their goodbyes, and after Gail had left Nathan returned his attention to Annie.
‘How’s the boy with shoulder injuries?’ he asked, as much to keep her talking as anything else.
Turning, she leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee. ‘He has a grade three acromio-clavicular injury. The ligaments have ruptured and the joint was dislocated. I’ve referred him for possible internal fixation.’
As she spoke, she walked across to join Will. Nathan’s gut clenched and his throat tightened as she attempted to snuggle up on the other man’s lap, but he was puzzled when Will looked uncomfortable, throwing her a speaking look as he shifted her from him and on to her own seat on the sofa. Alert to everything about Annie, Nathan couldn’t help but wonder if something was
wrong. And, while he didn’t want her hurt, everything in him urged that he stake his claim.
At that moment the door opened and Holly stepped inside. The young nurse looked even sadder than usual, her face pale, her eyes almost haunted, and Nathan’s concern for her increased.
‘Annie, can I have a quick word?’ she asked with a wobbly smile.
‘Of course.’
As Annie rose and moved towards the door, Nathan couldn’t help but follow her every step, his gaze lingering on her until she disappeared from view. Silence stretched for a few moments. When Nathan refocused his attention, it was to find Will watching him, a speculative glint in his eyes.
‘You’re still in love with Annie.’ The statement was made with candour, but no hint of confrontation.
‘Yes,’ Nathan agreed, deciding to be equally up-front and straightforward, so that there were no misunderstandings about his intentions. ‘I came to Strathlochan because I needed to find Annie and deal with the past.’
A small smile played at Will’s mouth. ‘And to win her back?’
‘As soon as I saw her again I knew the chemistry and the feelings were still as strong as ever. I can’t walk away.’
‘I’ve seen a photo of the two of you—you looked good together,’ Will admitted, surprising him.
‘The only time in my life I’ve known happiness was when I was with Annie.’
Will drained his mug and set it aside. ‘So why did you dump her?’
‘Is that what Annie told you?’ New pain piled on top of old hurts. ‘I didn’t dump her, Will. I never wanted her to go—never stopped loving her. Annie left me.’
‘She did? Why?’
Frowning, he tried to mask his emotions. Discussing this with Will made him uncomfortable, and he was confused at the other man’s manner. ‘I think you should askAnnie that.’
‘I will.’ This time Will’s smile held sympathy.
‘I made mistakes. I don’t deny that.’ Nathan paused, dragging his fingers through his hair, his agitation increasing. ‘But Annie’s formed her own reality of the past. I’d hoped by this time that we could at least talk, that she could acknowledge her part in what happened, but she refuses to listen, to discuss anything.’
There was no triumph in Will’s expression, just understanding. It made Nathan feel worse. That the man Annie was now involved with saw his pain and knew how he loved her, even felt sorry for him, was hard to bear.
‘Hang in there, mate,’ Will advised.
Nathan’s frown deepened, and he tried to read the expression in the other man’s grey eyes. ‘Sorry?’
‘Things are not always as they seem.’ Will winked before rising to his feet and crossing to switch the kettle back on. ‘Do you want another cuppa?’
‘No, thanks.’
He watched in bewilderment as Will fixed himself more tea. He’d never been as confused in his life as he had this last week. What did Will mean? That he might give Annie up? But Will professed to love her, and she loved him, so what was going on here? Nothing made sense any more.
Before he could gather his thoughts, Annie returned, followed by Holly, who had changed out of her uniform and was ready to go home.
‘I just stopped in to say goodbye,’ she said with a fractured smile, nodding at Annie, who gave her a quick hug. ‘Well, not goodbye, as such. But this was my last shift in A and E. I’m moving up to the children’s ward.’
A moment of silence greeted her announcement, then Will found his voice. ‘Are you sure, Holly?’
‘Yes. I need to do this. It’s been great working with you all. And I’ll still be around,’ she added, forcing another unconvincing smile.
When Holly had gone, Nathan turned to the others in surprise. ‘Did you know she was planning this?’
‘No.’ Will’s usually smiling face was sombre. ‘It’s a real shame… and the department is losing a great nurse.’
Nathan couldn’t agree more. He had enjoyed working with Holly, and found her to be skilled, compassionate and eager to learn.
‘It’s too hard on her to be around Gus all the time,’ Annie explained, sitting back down on the sofa.
Cradling his second mug of tea, Will leaned against the counter, his legs crossed at the ankles. ‘Holly really cares about Gus. I’m not sure what happened, but they were attracted to each other when Gus first came here in the summer. They were going to go out, but there was some misunderstanding, and Holly’s sister Julia stepped in and ensnared him.’
‘Ensnared?’ Nathan queried.
‘Julia makes Olivia seem like Mother Teresa,’ Annie filled in, her tone derisive. ‘She’s done this to Holly before, and is a real bitch to her.’
Will nodded, taking up the story again. ‘This time Julia managed to marry the man Holly wanted.’
‘Only because she trapped him by getting pregnant without his knowledge. He did the decent thing, but Julia doesn’t give a damn about Gus…and you can see how miserable they all are. I just don’t understand how Julia could do such a thing,’ Annie raged, her disgust and indignation evident.
Nathan felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. As sympathetic as he was for Holly’s situation, it was his own remembered pain and confusion that was uppermost in his mind once more. Aware of the quiet in the room, he stood up, his gaze focused on Annie, on the puzzlement in her face as she looked at him. Could she really not know? Had she buried her memories so deep that the irony just didn’t occur to her?
‘Don’t you, Annie?’ he asked, keeping his voice deceptively soft, managing to mask the sudden anger licking through him if not the welling of hurt. ‘I would have thought you’d understand perfectly. It’s what you planned to do to me, after all.’
CHAPTER SIX
SHE was a coward. That was the only explanation, Annie admitted, as she lay alone in the dark bedroom at her old family home in Yorkshire, listening to the wind rattle the roof slates and the darts of rain dash against the window. She had run away—again.
After Nathan’s devastating bombshell, she had no longer been able to suppress the truth—the reality she had somehow managed to twist around in her mind in order to survive the full horror of what had happened five years ago and her part in it. Overwhelmed with confusion, and swamped by guilt as Nathan had walked out of the staffroom, she had been left alone with Will, who had all but marched her from the hospital and taken her home.
The conversation that had followed made her groan even now.
‘Annie, you know I want to help you, but this can’t go on. It was one thing pretending we were a couple for a day or two, but things are getting out of hand,’ Will stated, sitting her down, his expression serious. ‘How long are you going to punish Nathan? You are deliberately hurting him, and it’s just not like you to be cruel. It’s time to deal with it. What happened? You told me Nathan dumped you, rejected you.’
‘It felt like that.’ She cringed inside at the lameness of her answer, hating that she sounded so juvenile and knowing Will wouldn’t let her get away with it.
‘Come on, hon. Nathan wouldn’t have said what he did in the staffroom if you hadn’t hit a nerve with your comment about Julia.’
A flush warmed her face and she looked away, finding it hard to come to terms with her actions, shocked by the way she had so successfully blanked out her own selfish mistakes and blamed Nathan for everything. ‘I felt a desperate need for security. I panicked and demanded that he marry me. I urgently wanted commitment and… God, Will, I threatened to stop taking the pill and get pregnant,’ she whispered, forcing the horrible confession out into the open, ashamed it had taken Nathan’s painful accusation to make her acknowledge her responsibility.
‘Where did that desperation come from?’ Will asked, sitting close and taking her hand in his.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before. My father had died six months earlier…’ She paused, affected even all this time later, pained to remember that her rock throughout that terrible time of g
rief had been Nathan. His support and understanding and care had been unwavering. And how had she repaid him? ‘I was devastated. Lost.’
‘Oh, Annie…’
‘I loved Nathan. I told him that if he really loved me he’d agree to what I wanted.’ She closed her eyes, embarrassed to even look at Will as she faced the truth she had avoided for five years. ‘Nathan said it was too soon—that we couldn’t get married and start a family.’
‘You were just on the point of qualifying, weren’t you? Surely it was better for Nathan to be honest than to take such an important step for the wrong reasons? What did he say?’ Will prompted with damnable calm.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sorry?’
Annie bit her lip. ‘I was hurt, and I saw Nathan’s refusal as a rejection of me and what we had together. I left—him and the hospital—and I never saw him again until this week.’
‘So you never gave him a chance to explain?’
‘No.’ The edge of censure in Will’s voice had stung, even though she’d known she deserved it.
She felt guilty when she recalled Nathan’s efforts to talk to her these last days—efforts she had blocked at every turn. Deep in her subconscious she must have known she was at fault and was evading dealing with it. How or why she had behaved in such a way was a mystery to her, but seeing Nathan again had made things she had buried for so long inexorably rise to the surface. Now that they had, and she could no longer ignore them, she felt even more frightened, even more uncertain about what to do.
‘I think we’ve become too comfortable with each other,’ Will had said then, his words shocking her from her troubling thoughts.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re best friends, and I love you to pieces, but whilst we may have started out with the best of intentions we’ve let the situation drift and become convenient.’ Will wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. ‘I think it’s time for us to re-evaluate things.’
Six Sexy Doctors Part 1 (Mills & Boon e-Book Collections): A Doctor, A Nurse: A Little Miracle / The Children's Doctor and the Single Mum / A Wife for ... / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal Page 66