A Wife for Dr. Cunningham

by Maggie Kingsley

  Just who did Elliot think he was? Handing out advice like some third-rate, half-baked agony aunt. He didn’t need any advice. He knew the score. Hannah hadn’t trusted him, and she’d used him. That was it. End of story.

  And do you truly believe she was using you? his mind demanded. Do you honestly think she’s nothing more than a pampered rich kid who decided that some sex with a bit of rough would make her life at St Stephen’s more bearable?

  He groaned aloud as he forced himself to remember the nights he’d spent with her. Hannah didn’t possess the experience or the guile to use anybody. Emotionally she’d still been a virgin when he’d first made love to her, and it had been a wonder and a joy for him to watch her blossom in his arms, to see her grow in confidence, to…

  And he didn’t want to remember any of this, he realised, clenching his hands into hard, tight fists. It didn’t alter anything, it didn’t change anything. OK, so maybe she hadn’t been using him and, OK, so she had a huge inferiority complex because of her father and what had happened with this Chris—damn him for all eternity—but nothing could excuse or alter the fact that she’d lied to him, deceived him. Dammit, he’d asked her for honesty, and if she couldn’t even be honest about who her father was, there was no future for them.

  ‘That man’s going to burst a blood vessel if he doesn’t get rid of what’s eating him soon,’ Floella observed as she watched Robert disappear into cubicle 8.

  ‘We have patients to attend to, Flo,’ Hannah said brusquely. ‘And I’m sure Dr Cunningham is both big enough and old enough to sort out his own problems.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ The staff nurse nodded, but as they walked together towards cubicle 2 Hannah couldn’t help noticing that Flo was shooting her a very puzzled, thoughtful glance.

  And to her dismay it was a glance Jane began to mirror as the rest of their shift sped by in an exhausting round of even more broken limbs, angina attacks and minor road accidents. Jane and Flo had clearly found time to put their heads together, and this time they’d come up with the correct answer.

  Oh, how she wished it was already the end of December, she sighed wearily when her shift finally ended and she went along to the staffroom to collect her coat and handbag. Actually, make that January 1st, she amended with a sinking heart as she opened the staffroom door and found Robert waiting for her, his face a mixture of anger and bewilderment.

  ‘Mr Mackay’s just told me you’ve handed in your resignation, that you’ve taken a post with Médicins Sans Frontières?’ he announced without preamble.

  ‘That’s right,’ Hannah replied, amazed at how calm her voice sounded when she felt anything but.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ he protested. ‘Hannah, doctors who work for Médicins Sans Frontières go into war zones, famine and flood areas!’

  ‘There’d hardly be any point in setting up an organisation to help the victims of such catastrophes if the doctors they employed never travelled any further than Watford Gap, would there?’ she pointed out, opening the door of her locker only to see him bang it shut.

  ‘Hannah, you could get killed—you could catch any number of life-threatening diseases!’

  ‘They’re going to give me shots for typhus and cholera—’

  ‘I don’t give a damn if they inoculate you against every communicable disease known to mankind, you can’t possibly do it!’

  ‘You mean you don’t think a pampered rich kid like me will be able to hack it?’ she said tightly, opening her locker again and taking out her coat.

  ‘I never said you were a pampered rich kid.’

  ‘No, but you thought it, didn’t you?’ she retorted, and saw a betraying flush of colour darken his cheeks. ‘And you’re right—I was pampered as a child. So pampered that my father gave over the whole top of our house to me and my nanny when I was born, with a separate entrance and exit so that he wouldn’t be disturbed by my presence. So pampered that I was able to keep a special calendar of the days when I actually saw him, when he remembered to talk to me.’

  He stared at her, horrified. ‘Hannah—’

  ‘And I became even more pampered when I grew up,’ she continued bitterly. ‘He didn’t send me away to boarding school as he could have done. Oh, no. He kept me home so that whenever I was lucky enough to see him he could ask how I’d got on at school, dissect my exam results and tell me how he’d always wanted a brilliant, talented son to follow in his footsteps and how disappointed he was to have fathered a dumb-cluck daughter instead.’

  Robert was appalled. Appalled and furious, fit to kill. How could anyone treat another human being—let alone their own flesh and blood—like that? How could anyone be so self-absorbed that the feelings of their own child meant nothing to them?

  ‘Hannah, I’m so sorry—’

  ‘It’s in the past now,’ she said dismissively. ‘I haven’t seen my father in over two years, and I don’t intend to. I have my own life to live, and that’s what I mean to do.’

  He stared down at his hands, then up at her. ‘Hannah, this job you’ve accepted…Are you sure it’s what you want?’

  ‘It will be challenging, and I think that’s what I need right now,’ she replied slipping on her coat.

  ‘Working at St Stephen’s is a challenge,’ he pointed out. ‘Dealing with the constant stream of people who come through our doors is a challenge. Hannah, you’re an excellent doctor, you fit in well with the team, you’re a natural for A and E—’

  ‘And with a glowing testimonial like that I could get a job in any A and E department in the country,’ she interrupted. ‘So why should I stay at St Stephen’s?’

  His gaze locked with hers for a second, then fled. ‘Hannah…Hannah, you must know how I feel about you.’

  ‘Must I?’ she said, her heart suddenly beginning to race.

  ‘Dammit, you should!’ he flared. ‘We were lovers in case you’ve forgotten. You’re important to me, and I…I care about what happens to you.’

  She was important to him. He cared about what happened to her. Perhaps a month ago that would have been enough. Perhaps a month ago she would have fallen happily into his arms again, and into his bed, but it wasn’t enough any more. She wanted more. She wanted him to tell her he loved her.

  ‘How much do you care, Robert?’ she said through a throat so tight it hurt.

  Say it, damn you, she thought as he stared down at her, his face unreadable. If you’d only say those three little words I’d phone the headquarters of Médicins Sans Frontières right now and ask them if I could possibly withdraw my acceptance.

  But he didn’t say them. He merely muttered, ‘I have no right to try to run your life for you, Hannah, and if this is what you truly want…’

  I want you, you big, stubborn idiot, she longed to yell back at him, but she didn’t. Instead she quickly walked towards the staffroom door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Robert.’

  She half thought he would try to stop her. She definitely thought he might come after her, but he did neither, and tears welled in her eyes as she walked along to the waiting room.

  Look, does it really matter if he doesn’t say the words? her mind whispered. You know deep down that he really loves you. But it does matter, her heart answered back. If Robert can’t say ‘I love you’ then maybe she’d been right when she’d told Elliot she’d be better off without him.

  ‘I’m afraid it seems to be getting worse out there, Hannah,’ one of the secretaries on Reception called as she passed. ‘Would you like me to call you a taxi?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She managed to smile back. ‘It’s not as though I have very far to go.’

  At least not yet, she thought when she stood outside the hospital and quickly unfurled her umbrella, but in a month’s time…

  In a month’s time all this would be a distant memory. St Stephen’s, the A and E department, all the staff who worked in it. And Robert. Would he become a distant memory, too?

  No, he would never be that, she realised. She would al
ways love him, always want him, and because her eyes were blurred with a mixture of tears and snow as she began crossing the road, and because her head was bent against the icy wind, she didn’t see the car coming round the corner until it was too late. Didn’t hear the screech of its brakes until it hit her, and then all she felt was a searing, agonising pain in her leg as she was dragged along the road.

  Faintly she heard the sound of a car door opening, then a man hoarsely repeating that it hadn’t been his fault, that she’d simply stepped out in front of him, but when she tried to raise her head, to tell the frightened voice that she was perfectly all right, hands began to lift her. Hands that belonged to worried faces. Hands that were making the pain in her leg worse, much worse, and when she fainted for the first time in her life, her last thought was that at least it didn’t hurt any more. Nothing hurt any more.

  So she didn’t see Elliot’s shocked face as they carried her into A and E. Didn’t feel Jane’s hand gently lifting her wrist to take her pulse, her expression horrified, and didn’t hear the deep, guttural cry Robert gave when he realised who it was.

  ‘I think I should handle this one, don’t you?’ Elliot said, striding towards him to bar his way.

  ‘Like hell you will,’ Robert exclaimed. ‘I’m the special registrar—’

  ‘And this is personal for you. She’s our colleague, our friend, but to you—’

  ‘Elliot, if you don’t get out of my way, I swear I’ll knock you from here into the waiting room!’ Robert exploded. ‘Jane, I want an ECG, CBC, guiac and urine tests.’

  ‘Chest, pelvis and leg X-rays?’ the sister queried, quickly inserting an IV line into Hannah’s arm, then linking her to the heart monitor.

  ‘Everything. I want X-rays of everything.’

  Jane glanced across at Elliot, her eyebrows raised, and he nodded. ‘You heard what the man said. He wants X-rays of everything.’

  ‘BP 130 over 90, pulse 80 beats a minute,’ Floella announced.

  ‘Pretty good for someone who’s just been dragged along the road by a car,’ Elliot murmured, listening to Hannah’s chest through his stethoscope. ‘In fact, I think it looks a lot worse than it actually is.’

  Robert hoped that it was. He prayed that it was.

  She looked so fragile and white lying on the trolley, her only vestige of colour the trickle of blood running down onto her cheek from the graze on her temple. If he should lose her…Oh, God, if he should lose her the same way he’d lost Laura, he knew he wouldn’t want to go on living.

  ‘What idiot demanded X-rays of everything?’ Craig Larkin protested as he came through the cubicle curtains. ‘Radiology isn’t some branch of your local photographer’s, you know.’

  ‘Craig…’ Jane caught him by the arm, and nodded her head in the direction of the trolley.

  He looked across, gasped out loud, then muttered tightly, ‘Fine. Right. X-rays of everything.’

  ‘Guiac and urine tests normal, Robert,’ Floella declared. ‘ECG a little fast but not worryingly so, CBC perfect.’

  Which only left the X-rays, he thought, unclenching his fingers slightly. ‘Jane, could you—?’

  ‘Well, hello there, sleepyhead,’ the sister said with a smile as Hannah’s eyes suddenly fluttered open. ‘Honestly, the things people will do to get a few weeks off work!’

  ‘Robert…?’ she said faintly, and he was at her side in an instant. ‘The car driver. It wasn’t his fault—’

  ‘Never mind about that now,’ he interrupted. ‘How do you feel?’

  She tried to move and decided that was a very bad idea. ‘Like a herd of elephants have trampled over me, then returned for a repeat performance.’

  ‘That bad, eh?’ he said softly, smoothing her hair gently back from her forehead.

  She nodded. ‘And worse.’

  ‘One fractured left leg, and absolutely no other damage that I can see,’ Craig declared, beaming at her. ‘Hannah Blake, I want you to know you’ve just taken ten years off my life.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, then winced.

  ‘What is it—what’s wrong?’ Robert demanded. ‘Have you a pain in your chest, difficulty in breathing?’

  ‘No, I haven’t got a pain in my chest, or difficulty in breathing,’ she replied crossly, ‘though I have to say it’s a miracle that I don’t, considering some idiot’s got me wired up like a prize turkey!’

  ‘I think we can safely say that Hannah’s feeling better.’ Elliot grinned, relief plain in his face.

  She wasn’t feeling better. Her leg hurt, her side hurt, and she felt a quite overwhelming desire to burst into tears, but she managed a wobbly smile. ‘Please, won’t somebody take all this paraphernalia off me? You heard what Craig said. I’ve just broken my leg.’

  Elliot glanced enquiringly across at Robert and he nodded reluctantly, but when Jane and Floella had removed the ECG stickers, and Jane grasped the end of the trolley, ready to wheel Hannah to the plastering department, Elliot suddenly motioned to Robert to follow him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Robert said as soon as they were standing outside the cubicle. ‘Do you think we might have missed something?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t think we’ve missed something,’ the SHO replied. ‘I want to know when you’re going to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what?’ Robert said in confusion.

  ‘That the local supermarket is doing a special this week on Christmas puddings!’ Elliot exclaimed in exasperation. ‘That you love her, of course, you idiot!’

  ‘Elliot—’

  ‘Robert, she could have been killed tonight, and then you’d never have had the chance. All you have to say is, “I love you, Hannah.” Why is that so very hard for you to say?’

  ‘Elliot—’

  ‘All that crap you gave Hannah about her not being honest with you. Have you been honest with her? Have you?’

  He hadn’t, Robert thought as the SHO hustled Floella and Jane out of the cubicle, muttering something garbled about needing to discuss something in private with them, then throwing him a meaningful look. He’d condemned Hannah for her failure to be honest with him, but he’d been anything but honest with her. All that rubbish about caring for her, about her being important to him. Damn it, he loved her, so why couldn’t he just say it?

  Because I’m afraid, he suddenly realised. I’m like Hannah, afraid to trust my own feelings. Afraid that, having made one mistake, I might be wrong again.

  But he wasn’t wrong this time, he knew he wasn’t. He loved her, he always would, but after doubting her honesty, hurting her so badly, would she believe him?

  There was only one way to find out.

  ‘Where’s everybody gone?’ Hannah protested when he stepped back through the cubicle curtains. ‘I was beginning to think I really did have something seriously wrong with me, and no one was willing to tell me.’

  ‘You’re fine, but I’m not,’ he murmured, sitting down on the edge of the trolley and gently taking her hand in his. ‘I’ve just found out I have an incurable affliction that only you can heal.’

  ‘An incurable—’

  ‘Hannah, when Laura died I swore I’d never fall in love again,’ he continued as she gazed up at him in confusion. ‘And then you came into my life. Little Miss Muffet, so eager and keen. Little Miss Muffet, with her big brown eyes and determination to put the world to rights.’

  ‘Robert, I’m not Laura,’ she began hesitantly. ‘By all accounts I don’t have the figure, the height or the brains to be Laura even if I wanted to.’

  ‘And I’m not Chris,’ he said softly. ‘I have neither the personal ambition nor the capacity to toady to anyone even if I wanted to.’

  She stared down at the sheet covering her. ‘I really do trust you, you know. I can see that it didn’t look that way—’

  ‘Hannah, I love you.’

  ‘Y-you what?’ she stammered.

  ‘I love you, and I want to marry you.’

  She gazed up at him in disbelief, then shook
her head. ‘I know what you’re doing. You feel sorry for me because of this accident—’

  ‘Hannah, I’m an A and E doctor,’ he protested. ‘If I proposed to every female accident victim I’d ever seen, I’d be a serial bigamist by now.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Hannah, I love you. Do you want me to buy a megaphone—stand outside the hospital and shout it to all of London? I’ll do it if it will convince you. I love you, Hannah Blake, and I want to marry you, if you’ll have me.’

  ‘You mean it?’ she whispered, her eyes fixed tremulously on his face. ‘You’re not simply saying it because I’ve been hurt? Robert—Robert, where are you going?’ she added quickly as he got off the trolley and began to stride towards the cubicle curtains.

  ‘To find a shop that sells megaphones! Hannah, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life,’ he declared as she began to laugh. ‘So, will you marry me, have my children, grow old with me?’

  She opened her mouth to tell him she’d like nothing better, only to gasp as she suddenly remembered something. ‘Robert, I’m supposed to be leaving for Botswana at the end of the month. I know I can’t go now until my leg heals, but my contract’s for two years. Once I leave Britain, I won’t see you again for two years.’

  ‘You will if Médicins Sans Frontières would be interested in employing a husband-and-wife team,’ he said. ‘One enthusiastic junior doctor married to a somewhat old and battered special registrar.’

  ‘You’d do that for me?’ she said huskily. ‘Give up your career here at St Stephen’s for me?’

  He cupped her face gently in his hands. ‘Hannah, don’t you realise even now that you’re more important to me than anything else in the world? I admit it will be a wrench to leave here. Elliot, Jane, Flo and myself, we’ve made a good team—but you and I could help so many people, working with Médicins Sans Frontières. People who desperately need us and our skills.’

  ‘And we could come back,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Once we’d fulfilled our contract, we could come back again and work here at St Stephen’s, couldn’t we?’