Priority Care

by Mary Hawkins

  She nodded, a little shamefaced.

  He chuckled. 'Well, something like that would take several millions, my love,' he said cheerfully.

  'But I ‑'

  'Jean,' he interrupted her firmly, 'I love you just as you are, but you . . .'

  She felt his arms tense around her. She looked up at him. He was studying her face anxiously.

  'And you, Jean? You . . . you do love me, don't you? You haven't actually said . . .'

  Her eyes widened with amazement at the uncertainty in his usually confident face.

  'I haven't? What on earth do you think all . . . all this has been about?'

  She felt him relax a fraction, but he remained silent, only the flash of his eyes demanding more. Her trembling hand went up and combed his tousled curls back from his forehead. She saw him close his eyes briefly and catch his breath.

  'I . . . I've never been involved with any man except Tony. Ever. I ... I could never trust anyone before. They . . . only George has never let me down. Until now.'

  'The man your mother married,' he said softly, 'their relationship, the way they neglected and abused you.'

  She nodded. 'I love you, Chris. So much. You got under my guard, but I couldn't believe I would ever be as important as your work . . . your dreams . . .'

  He stifled her last words with his eager lips. Yet it was the gentlest, most loving kiss of all.

  'And now . . . now we'll be able to reach out to our dreams together. You will marry me, won't you, Jeanie? I don't think I've ever longed for anything so desperately in my life as I did for you to be having our child the night Bill was such a cot-case. Please, my darling. . . my darling "Jeanie of the light brown hair",' he whispered against her mouth. 'I know George approves of my loving you.'

  She pulled back. 'How . . . ?'

  'When he asked us that day if we loved each other, I nodded to him.' Admiration filled his face. 'He doesn't miss much, does he?'

  'No, he's wonderful,' she said simply, almost absent-mindedly, watching his lips. His child! Married! Her dreams would be realities. She reached up and pulled those lips on to hers again.

  But he pulled back this time. 'You haven't said yet whether you'll marry me.' His voice was tense.

  She started to nod as she beamed up at him, then thought of something.

  'On one condition,' she started to say as firmly as she could in a voice that was quivering with delight.

  'Condition?'

  'That you never, ever tell our children I knocked you out the first time I saw you!'

  'But you didn't.' His face and voice were suddenly full of laughter.

  'Oh, yes, I ‑'

  'You punched my nose and made it bleed, but I slipped and knocked myself out!'

  'Same thing!'

  'Never ‑'

  It was Jean who grabbed him, swallowing his laughter into her, plundering his mouth, kissing him, and, as he started to deepen the kiss, suddenly pulled back to say a little nervously, 'About your dream, my darling. I. . . I've been thinking that the acres that our two houses are on would make a lovely site for starting on your dream. And . . . and there's rather a ... a lot of my money worrying quite a few people because I don't know what to do with it, and I . . .'

  He was looking at her with a vague, dreamy expression on his face, his eyes half closed as he watched her lips moving.

  'I suppose we could apply for a government grant to help, and there's your dream to finish your nurse's training one day,' he said carelessly, adding firmly, 'But that's the last thing we want even to think about at the moment. You'd better learn to put first things first, my beautiful darling.'

  Jean started to laugh softly. He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her, but she was so thrilled by his appalling lack of interest when she was trying to tell him how easily his ambitions could be translated into reality that she willingly let him stop any further words and laughter with his lips, and the touch of his hands.

  One day soon she would have to tell him that there should be enough millions so that they wouldn't have to be bothered too much by government officials. That there would be enough love, as well as the money, so that many others like George could share his dedicated expertise.

  But not now.

  Right now, nothing mattered except the love that was flowing between their pulsing bodies, uniting them, enriching body, soul and spirit.