‘Yes. My parents,’ Amy agreed. ‘Not my jailers! I respect you both, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I don’t need you supervising my every move any more. You’re stifling me!’
‘But if we see you making a mistake, it’s our duty to stop you,’ her father blustered with his usual conviction that he was unquestionably right. ‘It’s no different from when you were a teenager and had to work with that ne’er-do-well the first time.’
Amy blinked in astonishment. Working with a ne’er-do-well? Who on earth…?
‘You mean Zach? Zach Bowman?’
‘Of course I mean him,’ her father snapped. ‘He’s trouble and always has been. I was on the board of governors of your school so I knew all about him. If the teachers could have found a way of getting him transferred to another school…That would’ve stopped him sniffing around you. You certainly shouldn’t have had to be mixing with that sort of riffraff.’
‘Riff-raff?’ she echoed, incensed. ‘He became a doctor, the same as I did, Father. Does that make me riff-raff, too?’
‘And that’s another thing,’ her father interrupted, ignoring her question as irrelevant. ‘That boy was so thick that there’s no way he could be a doctor…not legally. I fully intend to instigate an inquiry into the hospital’s policies for checking up on applicants’ references. Can you imagine what the press would make of it if it was uncovered that we’d employed an unqualified doctor in the A and E department?’
‘No! Father, if you dare to do that, I will never speak to you again!’ Amy said through gritted teeth, horrified that he could even think of such a thing and barely restraining herself from screaming with frustration. What he was proposing doing could utterly destroy Zach’s reputation. ‘Zach is not thick and never has been. He’s dyslexic’
‘He’s what?’ At least that medical-sounding term had stopped her father in his tracks for a moment.
‘He’s dyslexic, but that doesn’t stop him being extremely bright…which he is…or a superb doctor…which he is, too. And…What did you mean when you said he’d been ‘sniffing around’ when I was a teenager?’ Her father’s assertion had finally penetrated the haze of anger surrounding her brain but she certainly couldn’t remember any occasion when one of her contemporaries had dared to invite her out, least of all Zach. They had all been too much in awe of her powerful father to chance it.
‘Just what I said,’ he said shortly. ‘The arrogant pup actually came right to our front door, wanting to talk to you about taking you to some dance or other. So I told him you wouldn’t be interested. You were just months away from going to medical school. The last thing you needed was to get involved with some local yob. And I was right,’ he crowed in self-satisfaction. ‘You met Edward and—’
‘Edward!’ she exploded, flinging both arms up in the air. ‘Oh, yes, I met Edward, your perfect, precious Edward.’ She snorted when she saw their open-mouthed shock at her outburst. ‘Let me tell you about a visitor I had just before you arrived this evening. She’s a young nurse who came all the way here to say that she knew that Edward and I had an open marriage and that she certainly wasn’t the first person he’d had an affair with, but…just before he died, she discovered that she was pregnant.’
There wasn’t a peep out of either of her parents now. They were staring at her positively goggle-eyed with shock.
‘And so, my wonderful husband Edward, of whom you were so proud, was going to organise a speedy abortion to get rid of his unfortunate little mistake, but then he died and she couldn’t bear to get rid of the baby. Unfortunately, she never realised it was going to be so hard, coping on her own, because she hasn’t got any close family left.
‘And then I remembered how upset Edward’s parents had been that they were never going to have a grandchild now because I hadn’t been ready to give Edward the child he’d wanted so badly.’
That jolted her mother visibly. Amy had actually confided to her that she’d been trying to persuade Edward that it was surely time to start their family, only to have him put her off yet again.
‘Only my respect for their grief made me bite my tongue and keep the truth to myself, but this evening, when I saw that little boy, and how much he resembled Edward…’
‘But we couldn’t have known he would do that to you,’ her mother pointed out weakly. ‘We were only doing what was best for you.’
‘So you say,’ Amy conceded, needing to draw this draining meeting to a close before she collapsed with exhaustion. She needed to stay strong because any hint of weakness would give them the excuse to take over again. ‘But you had your chance at organising a perfect life for me, and I ended up with a womanising husband who was more interested in climbing the career ladder as fast as possible than in spending time with me or starting a family. So, now it’s my turn.’
‘So, what are you going to do?’ her father demanded belligerently. ‘Not spend time with that—’
‘Father, I don’t intend discussing it with you because it’s none of your business,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘You are free to offer me as much advice as you like, but I am every bit as free to ignore it. I will go out with whomever I please, and if at some time in the future I decide to marry again, I promise to let you know in time to send your suit to the dry-cleaner’s and for Mother to buy a new hat. Other than that, my private life is just that—private. Now, if you don’t mind, I went off duty nearly two hours ago and I’m due to meet someone in about half an hour.’
‘If it’s that…’ her father began, only to subside when her mother gave him a totally uncharacteristic dig in the ribs with her elbow to silence him, before rising elegantly to her feet.
Amy gave each of them a hug as she ushered them out of the room but, as usual, it was barely more than a brushing of cheeks with her mother, out of deference for her immaculate make-up, and was accompanied with a fulminating glare from her father.
‘Well, that went swimmingly,’ she muttered wryly, as she thrust her arms into her jacket and retrieved her keys. Her expression lightened when she remembered that tonight was when Zach had suggested taking her ice-skating…before he’d started avoiding her. Now, full of new determination, she was going to call on him at home, using that original invitation.
They may not have had any long heart-to-heart talks about their feelings towards each other, but she certainly knew that there was something there between them, something that had its origins in a science lab all those years ago. All she had to do was go to him and find out if there was any possibility of a long-term relationship…whether he could love her as much as she loved him.
Her brain was still on overload as she began driving around the car park, joining the steady stream of cars trying to exit onto the busy road at the main entrance.
‘Could anything more be crammed into a single day?’ she mused aloud then chided herself. ‘Bite your tongue, Amy. Whenever anyone in A and E says something like that, it’s the signal for all hell to break loose!’
But it had been fraught, right from the moment she’d opened that letter that morning. And it still wasn’t over yet. She desperately needed someone to talk to while she was waiting for the results of the second collection of cells and the thought of confiding in her mother…well, it just wasn’t an option. Not only did she want to spare her mother the worry, they just didn’t have that sort of relationship. In fact, the one person she felt that she could really pour her heart out to was Zach.
As if thinking about him was enough to make him appear, there was a familiar scarlet motorbike roaring towards her along the main road as she waited for the traffic to clear to allow her to emerge from the hospital’s main entrance.
She was already smiling at the thought that she should be able to follow him all the way home when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a car approaching from the other direction, going far too fast as it indicated that it was going to turn into the hospital entrance, apparently oblivious of any other road user.
As if in slow motion,
she saw the car turn to cut right across the motorbike’s path; saw the rider’s frantic manoeuvres as he tried to avoid a collision; saw the bike veer towards her own car, then away again and finally lose traction on the rain-slick street to plough into the side of her car, just in front of her feet.
In spite of the fact that he’d been braking fiercely, the rider’s momentum was enough to catapult him off the bike and send him cartwheeling over the front of her car to land with a sickening thud on the road.
‘Zach!’ she screamed, fighting to release her seat-belt even as she speed-dialled the emergency number to report an accident right outside the hospital’s main entrance, then having to fight to open her door, the hinges obviously deformed by the force of the impact.
It seemed to take far too long for the call to go through and for ever for her to reach his side…an eternity in which he could be bleeding to death or breathing his last breath. She couldn’t bear to think about the possibility that his neck had been snapped or his skull shattered.
She should have spoken to him sooner, she thought with a flash of agony for missed opportunities. She should have told him that she’d fallen in love with him years ago…that she had never really stopped loving him since those days when they’d been partners in the science lab.
‘Zach…’ she whimpered, as she finally fell to her knees beside his crumpled form, hardly even daring to touch him in case she caused more injuries. She stripped off her suit jacket to lay it over him to protect him from the rain and was instantly soaked to the skin. ‘Can you hear me, Zach? Can you talk? Where does it hurt?’
She desperately wanted to cradle him in her arms but she daren’t move him or even touch his helmet in case she paralysed him. At least the ambulance didn’t have far to come and then he’d be in safe hands.
‘Everywhere!’ The word was muffled by his helmet and halfway between a groan and a growl as he gingerly moved first one arm then the other then tested each leg in turn. ‘Help me sit up,’ he demanded, and Amy’s medical training finally overcame her emotional response.
‘Don’t you dare move anything else until you’ve been checked over properly,’ she ordered fiercely, gripping his shoulder to prevent him disobeying her. ‘If you’ve got spinal injuries, you could end up paralysed.’
‘No chance of that, love.’ He shrugged her hand off and rolled away from her, regaining his feet with a lithe economy of movement that totally belied the fact that he’d just been thrown off his bike at speed. He reached up with one hand to flip up the visor on his helmet just as another voice reached her from the other side of the car park.
‘Amy! My God, Amy!’ Her head spun to face the man racing across the hospital car park towards her in the familiar hospital scrub suit, his long legs moving so swiftly that his feet barely seemed to touch the ground.
‘Zach?’ She would know that voice anywhere.
Bewildered, she turned back to the man now looking down at her from the confines of his helmet to see unfamiliar pale grey eyes returning her gaze.
‘Mistaken identity?’ he queried lightly. ‘Sorry to have given you such a fright but it honestly wasn’t deliberate.’ He grimaced towards his bike, now embedded up to the front forks in the side of her car. ‘I wouldn’t do that to a decent bike on purpose—unless I was being paid for it.’
‘Paid for it?’ Amy parroted with a frown, her brain obviously not processing information properly after such a shock. She’d honestly believed that it was Zach’s bike and that he…
‘It’s my job,’ her patient explained, and she could just see the attractive crinkles at the corners of his eyes that told her he was smiling inside his helmet. ‘I’m a stuntman. Josh Harnett. Pleased to meet you.’ He held out a gauntleted hand then drew it back to take the tough leather glove off and offered it again.
‘And you,’ Amy responded rather incoherently, automatically noting that Zach had nearly reached them, his scrubs already drenched by the steady rain and clinging to him like a second skin. She forced herself to concentrate just a moment longer, holding onto his hand for emphasis. ‘But, please, I don’t care if you do this sort of thing on a daily basis, please go into the A and E department and let them check your neck and your head before you take that helmet off.’
‘Anything for you, beautiful lady with the once beautiful car,’ he teased, charm personified, but it had absolutely no effect on her pulse rate, unlike the man sprinting towards her.
‘Amy! Are you all right?’ Zach demanded when he reached her, his chest heaving after his effort. His hands almost felt as if they were shaking as he held her by her shoulders, his dark eyes skimming over every inch from head to foot, looking for signs of injury.
‘I’m fine, Zach,’ she reassured him quickly, warmth flooding through her at this evidence that he cared whether she’d been hurt. ‘My car protected me. It was Josh who bore the brunt of it, coming off and landing like that, but he’s a—’
‘Help us!’ called a panic-struck male voice, and Amy suddenly realised that she’d completely forgotten about the occupants of the car that had caused the accident in the first place. As they hadn’t been involved in the crash, she’d assumed that they had escaped unscathed.
‘Are you hurt, sir?’ she asked, striding swiftly across and bending down to peer inside the car, knowing that Zach was right behind her.
What she really wanted to do was give the crazy driver a piece of her mind for driving so dangerously that he’d nearly cost a man his life. If Josh hadn’t been trained to know how to fall…
‘My wife’s in labour! Help her, please!’
Hysteria. Panic. Fear. They were all combined in the man’s voice as Amy hurried to open the rear door of the car. There on the back seat, completely out of sight until this moment, his wife lay panting and moaning.
‘Hello. I’m Amy and I’m a doctor,’ she said reassuringly. She braced one knee on the edge of the seat to lean inside the car far enough for the woman to see her and to make a primary assessment. She was barely aware of the whoop of an ambulance arriving on the edge of the rapidly developing traffic jam at the hospital’s main entrance. ‘How long have you been in labour?’
‘I’m Joyce and I don’t know how long. I only had backache and then my waters broke and…It’s coming! I can feel it!’ She wailed suddenly and Amy saw the prominent bulge of her belly change shape as it grew hard with a contraction.
Taking her at her word, Amy started to reach into the car, only to have a hand—Zach’s hand, she knew, without needing to look—grasp her elbow to stop her, reaching round her with the other to present her with a pair of disposable gloves, no doubt provided by the ambulance paramedic.
‘Don’t take any more chances,’ he murmured in her ear, and for just a moment she allowed herself the luxury of feeling surrounded by warmth and concern before he was gone again.
Joyce moaned and it was time to act, but before she could snap the gloves in position and reach in to unceremoniously strip Joyce of her damp underwear, Zach was back again, literally covering her back to protect her from the increasing ferocity of the rain as he handed her a sterile towel to lay on the car seat under the woman’s hips, followed by another to drape over her upraised knees to provide at least the semblance of modesty and privacy.
‘You’re right, Joyce!’ Amy exclaimed when she saw the evidence in front of her. ‘The baby’s head is already crowning.’ There wasn’t going to be time to make any more preparations. This baby was in a hurry.
‘Is that bad?’ the poor woman panted as the contraction faded, wide-eyed with terror.
‘Not at all,’ Amy soothed. ‘It’s good. Very good. It means your baby’s nearly here.’ There certainly wasn’t time to get her to A and E, let alone up several stories in a lift to a delivery suite. It looked as if it was up to her to make sure the little one arrived as safely as possible.
‘Entonox?’ Zach suggested, letting her know it was available in case the mother-to-be needed something to take the edge off the pain,
but she was already pushing again, totally focused on bringing this precious new life into the world and clearly oblivious to any incidental suffering.
‘Good girl!’ Amy praised when the head emerged completely with the next long push, the little face screwed up into a disgusted grimace. ‘Now, Joyce, can you stick your tongue out for me and pant like a dog for a minute?’ she suggested, knowing that it would be almost impossible for the labouring woman to push with her mouth open like that. She needed enough time to check that the cord wasn’t around the baby’s neck before Joyce pushed again.
‘Please…I want to push! I need to push!’ she begged, just as Amy confirmed that all was well.
‘Just a little push, Joyce,’ she said, supporting the baby’s head gently and allowing it to rotate naturally so that first one shoulder then the other emerged, swiftly followed by the slither of the rest of the body straight into her waiting hands.
‘Here you are, Amy,’ Zach said, his deep voice right beside her, his breath warm on the side of her face as he handed her a soft cellular cotton blanket to wrap the tiny body, its little mouth already opened wide in an angry wail.
‘Thanks.’ She glanced up at him as she took it from him and saw that his eyes were just as moist as hers were with the emotion of the moment. They didn’t see very many deliveries in A and E, much less in the back seat of a car in the car park, but every one of them was special.
‘You’ve got a little girl, Joyce,’ she said with a smile as she laid the little bundle on her mother’s stomach and guided her willing hands to hold her precious baby safe, knowing that her own part in this little drama was almost over. She would cut the cord to separate the two of them to make transporting them into the hospital easier, but the delivery of the afterbirth could be dealt with by more experienced staff now that the baby had been born and mother and child were safe.
‘You two really will have to stop doing our job for us,’ Harry complained, as the paramedic took her place at the open car door. ‘Especially when it’s the exciting things like delivering babies.’
A Very Special Proposal Page 14