by Becky Wicks
But when he’d gone to London to see her, shortly afterwards, to tell her that he missed her and ask if they could figure things out somehow, he’d seen her with that...that guy.
‘So, you live at home with your dad?’ he asked her now. ‘Because of Esme?’
He dropped her hands, took a bottle of water from his pack and took a swig, then splashed some against his face and chest.
‘That’s one of the reasons,’ she said.
He noticed her eyes giving his abs an appreciative glance through his open shirt. He handed her the water.
‘Haven’t you ever moved in with a boyfriend, or...fiancé or anything? What about Esme’s father? I saw you with him once, you know.’
Sara’s eyes grew wide. She paused with her lips to the bottle and he realised he probably shouldn’t have admitted it.
‘You saw us?’ she said. ‘When?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m assuming it was him. I came to see you in London a couple of weeks after you left. You’d already made it obvious you wanted to move on, but I guess I thought I could change your mind. I saw you with him outside that restaurant in your street...’
‘You really did that? Came to London to see me?’ She looked grief-stricken all over again for a moment. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
He could see he’d upset her, but he had to ask. ‘Would it have made a difference? If you’d seen me?’
She was quiet. ‘I don’t know. That was the one and only time we met, Fraser. We spent one night together and then he left the country for a job without ever knowing I got pregnant. It was a stupid thing to do, but I was still grieving for mum, and missing you, and for once in my life I’d had way too much to drink...’
‘You don’t have to explain.’
‘So Esme wasn’t exactly planned—not that I have any regrets.’
‘Of course not. She’s incredible, Sara.’
‘She really is. I never knew I could love another human so much after...’
She trailed off, but he knew what she was going to say. After him. He’d never understood why she’d felt compelled to cut him out of her life so completely.
‘Living with my dad seemed like the best way to care for him and Esme,’ she continued. ‘My grandparents lived in that house for over sixty years before they died. Did I ever tell you how the ceiling is peppered with marks from popped champagne corks? Over the years it’s become a sort of map of my family’s celebrations.’
‘That’s beautiful.’
He meant it. He’d been raised in a pristine house, where a champagne mark on a ceiling would have meant arguments, shouting, and a week of interior decorating right after.
Sara cast her eyes to the butterflies, swirling around another bush. ‘I suppose I keep on hoping that one day soon we can pop another champagne cork to mark Esme’s new kidney, and another for her sixteenth birthday, and one more for her wedding.’ She let out a disgruntled sound. ‘I just can’t think of ever celebrating anything again until that first one happens. Sorry—I know that’s weird.’
‘It’s not weird at all.’
Fraser kept his eyes on the ocean. To hell with the pain this woman was still going through, and the way it took the light from her eyes. It made her doubt herself and everything she did.
He took her face in his palms and she drew her hands over his impulsively. ‘It will happen. We’ll find a donor for Esme,’ he told her resolutely.
‘Help! Oh, my God, please help—is anyone there?’
The anguish in the voice caused them both to scramble up.
‘Help!’ The female voice came again. ‘Over here!’
Springing into action, Fraser grabbed his bag and scrambled down the rocks with Sara, making sure she didn’t slip. They raced further down the trail towards the sound until they found themselves face to face with a sight Fraser had never seen before.
Marcus, the kid in the green board shorts. who’d been mean to Esme on the beach, was lying on his stomach on the dusty ground. He was writhing around in pain with half a damn cactus sticking out of his backside.
Sara hurried to unfold a towel from their pack, so they could move him away from the dirt.
‘He fell on it—he was running too fast!’ his mother cried. Can you pull it out of him, Doctor? Should I?’
Fraser clasped her wrist. ‘No, don’t touch it!’
The woman in short blue dungarees and that giant sun hat was crouching over her son on the ground now, trying to hold him steady. ‘It’s not poisonous, is it?’
‘It’s not poisonous,’ Fraser told her, spotting some fabric from Marcus’s board shorts impaled on the offending cactus, just metres from two abandoned bicycles. ‘Just try not to move,’ he told the lad. ‘We don’t want these little suckers going any deeper—and don’t put your hands near your mouth if you’ve touched the cactus at all, OK?’
‘OK...’ Marcus was sobbing. ‘It hurts!’
‘I know it does.’ Sara’s voice was soothing as she took tweezers from a small case. ‘Luckily it looks like the glochids are mostly in one area, so just keep still like Dr Fraser said.’
Fraser readied the gauze and antiseptic as Sara went to work on Marcus’s poor inflamed skin. His backside was so swollen it resembled a bright red beach ball. It was very lucky they’d been so close.
Back on the Ocean Dream, they whisked a sore Marcus to the medical centre. He and his mother were both adamant that they didn’t want to leave the cruise, and Fraser tried to make them laugh by telling them all the things Marcus could still do standing up—like fishing, or tennis, or painting standing at an easel.
‘You can also help me make my video, if you like,’ Esme interrupted from the doorway, just as Fraser was handing Marcus’s mother a prescription for painkillers. The kid now had a significant amount of gauze taped to his behind.
Marcus’s cheeks flamed almost as red as his backside when he saw her.
‘Esme, why are you here?’ Sara walked over to her quickly. ‘Where’s Jess?’
‘In there,’ Esme said, pointing to the coffee house next door. In her long denim shorts and star-patterned shirt she walked past Sara and pointed at Marcus. ‘What happened to you?’
Marcus wrinkled his nose. ‘I fell on a cactus.’
Esme’s little brow furrowed as she took in all the gauze. For a second Fraser thought she might laugh, or say something mean. Marcus had been mean to her, after all.
‘That must have hurt,’ she said instead, her eyes narrowed in concern. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m OK.’ Marcus sniffed. ‘Sorry I called you an alien.’
Esme grinned. ‘I suppose I do look a bit like an alien sometimes. Do you want me to show you my robo-kidney when you’re better?’
Fraser stood next to Sara as Esme explained how she needed the dialysis machine for her kidney to function. He could practically feel Sara swelling with pride as Esme offered to play with Marcus, so he wouldn’t feel like the only funny-looking one on the ship.
‘She’s as compassionate as someone else I know,’ he whispered to her, nudging her arm. Sara looked up at him.
‘If only that was enough to make us a match.’
He felt his chest tighten. ‘I told you, Cohen,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s going to happen.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SARA TAPPED HER toes to the music as she relaxed against her headboard, keeping one ear out for the radio. Knit one, pearl one, knit one, pearl one, she mouthed, feeling herself sink into her project as though it were some kind of meditation.
A meditation on Fraser.
She’d been thinking about one of their first encounters. She’d agreed to do some tests on him, prior to a marathon he was running for charity—not the sexiest introduction, by anyone’s standards, but he’d made it so. Maybe they both had. She’d seen him around St Enid’s but he’d never ta
lked to her before...never looked at her like that before.
Three nights later they’d been laughing over hospital politics in a posh Italian restaurant and she’d never been so smitten in her life.
‘Are you in here?’
The voice behind the door made her heart lurch. He had a knack of showing up whenever she was thinking about him...which probably wasn’t surprising, considering he’d been on her mind since the second she’d seen him again.
She shoved her knitting under the pillow. She had a sneaking suspicion Fraser had thought she was a geek, always glued to her needles like some kind of grandma. Smoothing down her ankle-length baby blue dress, she opened the door.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You found me.’
‘Looks like I did.’ His handsome face looked even more tanned after their time outside at the beach. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m OK.’
She was grateful for his attention, of course, though the slow burn of a fire that should have died a long time ago still made her weak and nervous. His blue eyes were searching. He’d sensed the thin ice she was standing on with Esme—the fear that came with never knowing when or if it would break—and his compassion was switching on that thing again inside her. He’d vowed to help, and he certainly knew a lot of important people. His family knew a lot of people. The more people on her team the better.
‘I thought you’d be up on deck,’ he said.
‘Why?’ She trailed her eyes along his triceps as he brought a hand up to rest it on the doorframe. His muscles flexed beneath his snug blue shirt. He was wearing khaki cargo shorts down to his knees, revealing toned and shapely calves.
‘The tribute band?’ he reminded her. ‘They just did a pretty good job of Adele. I thought I’d come look for “someone like you”.’
She groaned at his pun, even before he started singing the song. He’d always sung in the shower. Sometimes she’d joined in.
‘Come up and listen,’ he cajoled. ‘You’ve been working so much, and you shouldn’t be cooped up in here alone.’
‘I like the quiet,’ she insisted, but his big hand on the doorway was moving towards her now, and seconds later he was pulling her out into the corridor, dancing with her down it towards the elevators as she laughed despite herself. Damn him.
The air up on deck was thick and muggy, hinting at a storm. It stuck to her skin like another layer of clothing as Fraser pulled out a chair at a table near the band. He slid her chair back in after she sat and offered to get her a drink.
‘Let me guess—vodka and cranberry, minus the vodka?’ His eyes were twinkling in the soft lights around the deck.
She was impressed. ‘You remember.’
‘I remember lots of things about you, Cohen. Wait right here.’
She watched his firm ass in his shorts as he made his way over to the bar; observed the way he walked, the way he turned heads wherever he went. He’d always been handsome, but over the last six years he’d grown even more so.
She’d insisted on staying professional and she had to stick to her guns—though she really, really wanted to run her hands over his guns. She groaned at her own thoughts.
When she turned back to the table Dr Renee Forster was heading towards her. She took the seat next to Sara.
‘How’s it going?’ Renee crossed her long legs. ‘You seem to be doing a great job with the dialysis patients. Did I see Dr Breckenridge playing with your daughter on the beach before?’
Sara cast her eyes to Fraser. He was still at the bar. ‘Yes, they seem to have formed quite a connection.’ She cleared her throat as she realised it was true. It was rare that Esme took to men as she’d taken to Fraser. She couldn’t stop filming his ‘funny faces’ with her camera either.
‘He’s a good man,’ Renee said. She placed a slim, manicured hand on top of Sara’s and smiled. ‘I always wondered who it was that stole his heart.’
She excused herself and sidled off again, just as Fraser placed a drink down in front of her and resumed his position on the chair.
‘What did Renee want?’
‘She told me you’re a good man.’
‘Well, she’s got that right.’
Sara took a sip of her drink. He’d ordered the same. Fraser, as far as she knew, had always been teetotal. And she hadn’t had a real drink in years—although right now she was pretty tempted to order one. Renee’s words were nice enough, but how much did she know about her and Fraser? How much did anyone on this ship know about their past?
She’d been thinking about their conversation on the rocks, when he’d told her he had come to London. What might have happened if she’d seen him there? She would have crumbled. But nothing would have changed in the end.
Then again, maybe everything would have changed.
‘Nurse Cohen?’ She turned in her seat to find Marcus standing there.
‘How are you doing now, buddy?’ Fraser asked. His arm was draped along the back of her chair.
‘I’m feeling better,’ Marcus said shyly. ‘My mum said I should ask Nurse Cohen for a dance.’
He was looking at the floor now. Fraser’s hand had found the back of her neck through her hair and she struggled to keep her face straight. She couldn’t move—couldn’t let her head sink back into the familiar comfort of his palm.
‘I’d love to dance,’ she said quickly, getting to her feet.
She put her hands on Marcus’s shoulders. His head reached her belly button, half a metre away. He started shuffling his feet awkwardly on the deck and somewhere on the periphery of her vision she saw his mother take a photo on her phone.
Sara’s eyes found Fraser, still at the table. He was sitting in shadow but his gaze was as piercing as if it was in full sunlight. If he’d come to see her in London he must have been more devastated over her leaving him than she’d assumed. Considering he’d been about to break up with her anyway, why had he done it?
When the song came to an end she was about to excuse herself from Marcus when Fraser strode over purposefully. His shadow seemed to fill the deck for a moment, his corded muscles even more defined in the low light and the fitted fabric of his blue shirt.
The lazy notes of a saxophone curled around the soft chatter as Marcus stepped aside.
‘I was getting jealous over there,’ he whispered into her ear, drawing her close.
She held her breath. The stars were twinkling above them. She’d never seen so many stars.
Her head came up to his chin, clean-shaven now. As he placed his hands on her waist she breathed in invisible clouds of his aftershave and that other scent, the one that was only Fraser... And with it came the memories—rolling in the bed, tumbling to the floor, laughing hysterically, then reconnecting, their backs being scratched by the carpet, the sheets over their heads.
He drew her close. ‘I know how much you love this song,’ he said, and she realised he was laughing softly.
They were playing their song—a slow, more provocative version of Never Gonna Give You Up.
She pressed her hands to his chest, laughing into his shirt. ‘You asked them to play this?’
‘Just for old times’ sake. You smell incredible, by the way.’ His fingers trailed slowly down the open back of her dress, leaving tingles in their wake.
‘I was thinking the same about you.’
They started to dance. She pictured his shoes moving carefully around hers and wondered if they would ever find their feet together again. Her mind kept slipping from the strange here and now to his bedroom back then, at the start of it all.
The day they’d taken that undignified tumble from the bed to the carpet when they’d been listening to this song. They’d been cracking up at the fact that it had turned their sensual lovemaking into an instant eighties disco.
; Her arms were circling his shoulders now. They were one night away from Grenada, and she couldn’t wait to feel the sand there beneath her toes; beneath her back, as she made love to Fraser—maybe just once, for old times’ sake.
She pulled away slightly. What was she doing?
‘What were you knitting, back in your cabin?’
She could hear the smile lurking in his deep Scottish accent. His fingers had hardened at her retraction, refusing to let her get too far away.
‘How do you know I was knitting?’
‘I could hear the click, click, click through the door. I found it strangely arousing.’
Sara buried her face in his shoulder for a second as he repeated the clicking sound with his tongue.
‘I used to imagine you sitting there knitting things for our kids. They’d either be too big or too small, and we’d have all these teddy bears and toys all over the house, all wearing your tiny knitted socks.’
‘What would we do with the bigger ones?’ she dared to ask him, though she wanted to ask when exactly he’d decided they’d have kids together one day.
‘I’d save them for cold days...for protection,’ he said into her ear.
‘Is that right?’
His hair brushed her face softly as they danced, and she caught herself pressing closer against him, heart to heart, breathing in the steadying presence she’d missed and letting it claim her completely in the moment. God, they had been so good together—seriously good. They’d just...fitted.
She smiled against him as he moved with her to the music, but her thoughts refused to untangle.
She couldn’t have Fraser and Esme. She had to focus on finding Esme a donor. Fraser was going home at some point anyway—back to Edinburgh, back to the life his father had planned for him from the start.
‘She’s no good for you, son. You’re in danger of screwing it all up. What about your career? What about everything you’ve worked so hard for?’
His father’s voice had been concerned, full of foreboding. It had made her shiver in her hidden place on the stairs. She’d saved Fraser the trouble of breaking it off—she’d barely waited till bedtime to get in there first. Pity the fool who came between members of the Breckenridge family, she’d thought.