‘Ah, here’s Mark with the coffee.’ Adam spoke briskly. ‘Magdalena and I are going in to see Ted now, Mark. Take care of Maria.’
Mark looked as startled by this turn of events as Maggi felt, grimacing as he put down the tray containing the plastic cups of coffee. ‘Oh, but—’
‘Just do it, Mark,’ the other man told him sharply. ‘You’re here to help, not add to the chaos!’
Maggi felt sorry for Mark, knew he must be absolutely furious at Adam’s treatment of him. But at the moment she couldn’t help him. She just wanted to see her father. With or without Adam!
She was grateful for the fact she had grown up a doctor’s daughter, otherwise the presence of the monitoring machines would have been more terrifying for her than it actually was. Although the situation was bad enough! Her father was only fifty-three; it was awful that something like this should have happened to him. She couldn’t get it out of her head that he had been talking to Adam when it had occurred…
Her father was still very pale but he looked a little brighter as Maggi approached the bed, his smile warm as he looked up at her.
‘Rather a dramatic way to get a holiday,’ he told her with self-derision.
‘Oh, Daddy!’ She gave a choked laugh at his attempt at humour, tears flooding her eyes.
‘Now don’t you go getting all emotional on me too.’ He spoke firmly. ‘Your mother has already made my chest all soggy and waterlogged!’
She blinked back her tears, knowing he was right; one of them had to remain strong. Her parents had been there for her for such a long time… ‘Personally I think you’re just trying to get out of all that end-of-summer gardening,’ she said dryly.
‘Probably.’ He smiled his relief that she wasn’t about to weep all over him too. ‘Adam.’ He turned his head. ‘I’m sure you know why I wanted to talk to both of you.’
‘Leave it for now, Ted,’ Adam told him gruffly.
Her father shook his head. ‘It’s been left too long already. I don’t—’
‘I’m afraid you will have to leave now.’ The nurse who had been standing so unobtrusively at the back of the room spoke to them softly. ‘Mr Fennell is becoming agitated,’ she explained with a rueful glance at the monitors.
Her patient glared at her fiercely. ‘I’m not agitated, young lady,’ he snapped. ‘I wish to speak to my daughter and her husband—’
‘Perhaps later,’ the nurse soothed, looking pleadingly at Maggi and Adam, asking for their cooperation as the lines on the monitors began to dip and swell in an irregular pattern.
‘I am a doctor, young lady—’
‘Then you should know she is just doing her job,’ Adam told him firmly. ‘Magdalena and I can come back another time.’
‘But I need to talk to Maggi—’
‘You have a lifetime to talk to Magdalena,’ Adam said. ‘And I’m not going anywhere either,’ he added. ‘We’ll both come back when you’re a little better.’
Maggi was still stunned by the fact that her father had called Adam her husband; for so long her parents hadn’t talked about him at all, and even recently, when he had begun to encroach on their lives again, he had only ever been referred to as Adam, or ‘that man’. Her husband… He wasn’t her husband!
‘Adam’s right, Daddy.’ It almost choked her to say it! ‘Mamá will come back and sit with you.’ She squeezed his hand, thinking how defenceless he looked lying there so weakly in the bed.
He looked as if he was about to continue arguing, and then he gave a weary sigh of capitulation as they looked at him so determinedly. ‘You’ll come back, Adam?’ he prompted.
‘I told you I would.’ He nodded abruptly. ‘You just concentrate on getting better. The rest of us can look after ourselves,’ he added pointedly. ‘I’ll make sure they’re both okay, Ted,’ he reassured the older man firmly.
‘Thanks,’ Maggi’s father accepted gratefully. ‘You always could be relied on in a crisis! With two headstrong females alone in the house, anything could happen!’ Once again he attempted to joke.
Maggi still felt dazed when she found herself outside in the waiting-room, only vaguely aware of her mother—who was much calmer—and Mark, as they sat there quietly talking together.
‘I think Ted would like you to go back and sit with him, Maria,’ Adam informed her gently. ‘He’s fine,’ he offered at her panicked expression, ‘but I don’t think too many people around him just now is such a good idea.’
‘The doctor has been in and told us the same thing.’ Mark was the one to answer him. ‘Perhaps it would be better, in those circumstances, instead of both of you getting exhausted—’ he spoke to the two women ‘—if you took it in turns to sit with him?’
‘Good idea, Mark,’ Adam agreed briskly. ‘I suggest you stay here with Maria so that you can drive her home later—’
‘I’m not leaving Ted,’ Maggi’s mother cut in adamantly.
‘No one is suggesting that you should,’ Adam replied kindly. ‘But if you sit with Ted now, while he’s awake, Magdalena can take over from you later. I’ll take Magdalena home now, for a few hours’ rest, and then we can come back later when you need a break.’
Her mother’s mouth set stubbornly. ‘I—’
‘Don’t you think that would be the best plan, Magdalena?’ Adam prompted her pointedly as he accurately predicted her mother’s objections to his suggestion.
She had to admit she wasn’t too keen on ‘I’ll take Magdalena home now’, or ‘then we can come back later when you need a break’, but she couldn’t argue with the sense of her mother and herself taking turns to sit with her father. Otherwise she would end up with both her parents in hospital—her father recovering from a heart attack, her mother suffering from exhaustion!
She moved to her mother’s side, putting a comforting arm about her shoulders. ‘Adam’s right, Mamá. You aren’t going to do Daddy any good if you make yourself ill.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘It’s four o’clock now; I can come back at nine.’
‘Make it midnight, Magdalena, and then we can sit with your father through the night while your mother gets some sleep.’ Adam looked at her challengingly as she bit back her reaction to his intervention.
His suggestion—if it had been a suggestion!—about returning at midnight was a practical one. Having him accompany her back to the hospital at midnight was not! But she wasn’t about to dispute the point in front of her already distraught mother…
‘I think that’s probably best, Mamá,’ she told her mother gently. ‘Or I could stay with you now, if you would prefer it,’ she offered as her mother still looked confused. ‘And—’
‘No! No.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘Adam is right. You go. Mark can stay here with me. Come back at midnight,’ she added distractedly, before going back into Maggi’s father’s room, all of them outside—and their conversation probably forgotten the moment she did so.
‘Maggi—’
‘Stay with Maria, Mark,’ Adam instructed him harshly, tightly gripping Maggi’s arm.
Mark shot Adam an impatient look before turning back to Maggi. ‘Maggi?’ he prompted huskily.
She was finding it difficult to think straight; her whole world seemed to have turned upside down in the last few hours. Her parents had always been there, always indestructible, never—
‘I’m taking her home, Mark,’ Adam told him determinedly. ‘Can’t you see she’s in shock?’
In shock? Was she? She couldn’t think straight, she knew that, was letting Adam make all the decisions. Which wasn’t like her at all! But her father had suffered a heart attack today—none of them really needed the results of the tests to know that—and she felt as if her world was falling apart.
‘Okay, Adam,’ Mark accepted quietly, having studied Maggi’s ashen face for several seconds. He moved to her side to put his arms about her and give her a hug. ‘It will be fine, Maggi, you’ll see,’ he assured her. ‘It doesn’t look as if it was too serious an attack. Keep your chin
up.’ He smiled with gentle encouragement.
She nodded, distracted. ‘It’s very good of you to help like this, Mark,’ she said gratefully.
‘I’m happy to do it. I’m almost one of the family anyway,’ he added.
That was true. Over the last three years Mark had become the son her mother and father had never had, and Maggi knew her mother was in safe hands with Mark at her side. ‘So you are.’ She returned his hug.
‘Very touching,’ Adam rasped as he strode forcefully at her side down the hospital corridor to the car park.
Maggi spared him only a cursory glance. Such was the depth of her worry and concern over her father that she couldn’t even be bothered to ask Adam to remove that proprietorial hold he had on her arm. It wasn’t important. None of it was important any more. Her father could have died today. If Adam hadn’t been there, hadn’t acted so promptly—
‘Don’t dwell on the “what ifs”, Magdalena,’ he advised as he helped her up into the Range Rover. ‘Believe me, it does no good whatsoever—except possibly cause you unnecessary heartache!’
Maggi watched him as he closed the car door, grimfaced as he walked around the front of the vehicle to get in behind the steering wheel. She had had so many ‘what ifs’ where this man was concerned: what if they hadn’t crashed that night? What if she hadn’t lost their baby? What if she hadn’t been told there would probably be no more children? What if she hadn’t been confined to a wheelchair? What if there had never been Sue Castle? What if Adam had really loved her…?
Tears blinded her, so that she could no longer focus on Adam’s face as he turned her towards him. She could feel the heat of those tears on her cheeks as a sob caught in her throat.
‘Oh, hell!’ she heard Adam mutter savagely, moments before he gathered her up in his arms and crushed her against his chest. ‘It will be all right, Magdalena.’ He smoothed her hair down the length of her spine. ‘It will be all right! Please don’t cry any more; I can’t bear it when you cry!’ he groaned.
But it seemed that once the tears had started they wouldn’t stop, sobs racking her body as she cried and cried. And not just for her father. For all those ‘what ifs’ too! She had thought she had no more tears left to cry where this man was concerned, had been sure she was all cried out.
But she cried for everything—the past, the present and the future. A future without the man she had once loved so completely. Because that man hadn’t really existed. And he never would…
The tears stopped as abruptly as they had started and she pulled determinedly away from Adam’s arms, unable to even look at him, huddling down into her seat now, a tight ball of stubbornly controlled emotion.
She could feel Adam looking at her for several long seconds, could sense his frustration with her, knew how he must hate her withdrawal from him, his inability to be in control of this situation. But she steadfastly refused to look at him, staring sightlessly out of the side window, lost in her own misery, uncaring of how Adam felt or what he wanted from her.
She felt numb, barely aware of the passing countryside as they drove back to her parents’ home, not seeing the houses as they entered Lowell, a town probably as yet unaware that one of the doctors in their local practice was at this moment a hospital patient himself. Maggi still found it difficult to accept herself. Parents were invincible, immortal—at least, she had thought hers were.
She shouldn’t have left the hospital, should have stayed with her father. Anything might happen to him while she was away.
‘Nothing is going to happen, Magdalena.’ Adam spoke firmly—making Maggi realise that she must have spoken her panic out loud. ‘Your father’s condition is stable. Your mother is with him. You’ll be better able to cope with sitting with him through the night once you’re refreshed from sleep.’
Sleep? She would never be able to sleep. She had only agreed to this arrangement in the first place so as not to put any more strain on her mother.
She didn’t want anything to eat or drink either, when Adam offered to get her something once they were inside the house. She just wanted to be alone.
‘I don’t think so,’ Adam told her grimly.
She had spoken her thoughts out loud once again! She didn’t even know what she was doing any more. Even more reason for her to be alone…
‘I’m not going anywhere, Magdalena.’ Adam spoke harshly. ‘So get used to the idea.’
‘I—’
‘I promised your father I would go back with you later,’ he reminded her abruptly. ‘I don’t intend letting him down.’
Adam had become morally correct! It would be funny—if she could find anything funny at the moment. But she couldn’t. And she was too emotionally weary to argue with him any more.
‘Do what you please, Adam,’ she told him tiredly. ‘You usually do anyway!’ She turned away, moving up the stairs like an automaton, just wanting the privacy of her bedroom.
‘You’ll be more comfortable if you get undressed and into bed properly,’ Adam told her as she lay on top of the bed fully dressed—the first indication she had that he had followed her up the stairs to her bedroom.
She gave him a startled look. Her bedroom, the bedroom she had occupied since she was a small child—except during her brief marriage to Adam—looked so small with his all-pervasive presence. She half rose off the bed.
‘Stay where you are.’ He halted her movements, crossing the room to her side. ‘Magdalena—’
‘Go away, Adam!’ She turned away from him, her face half buried in the pillow, her voice thick again with unshed tears, her throat aching with the effort it took not to break down completely. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t! Because this time she might not be able to stop…
The mattress sank a little as Adam sat beside her on the bed and took her into his arms again, holding her softness against his chest. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Magdalena,’ he reminded her against her hair. ‘I went once, against my better judgement; I’ll not be sent away again. By anyone!’ His arms tightened about her. ‘Get used to the idea, Magdalena; I’m staying right here!’
She didn’t know what he was talking about, didn’t care what he was saying. His warmth engulfed her as he lay full-length beside her on the bed. She lay stiff and unyielding in his arms, her eyes tightly closed, terrified, stricken by her unmistakable reaction to his closeness.
‘Relax, Magdalena,’ he instructed her. ‘Just what sort of man do you think I am? What sort of monster have I become in your mind?’ he added. ‘I’m only going to hold you, nothing else. Do you understand?’
Her eyes remained tightly closed, her body rigid and cold. Because there had been one ‘what if’ she hadn’t included in her thoughts earlier—because she hadn’t dared! What if she should find she still wanted Adam as desperately as she could feel that she did at this moment…?
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS dark when Maggi woke up. The bedside clock showed it was after midnight, and it took her several disorientated seconds to realise that the heavy weight across her breasts was in fact an arm. Adam’s arm. One of his legs was also draped across both of her legs.
Almost as if, even in sleep, he was ensuring that she wouldn’t escape him…!
Quite when—or how—she had fallen asleep in his arms she didn’t know; she had been utterly convinced she would never be able to do so in such close proximity to him. But somehow emotional exhaustion had been stronger than her desire to be free of Adam, and she had slept.
Emotional exhaustion…! Her father—
‘I telephoned the hospital a short time ago.’ Adam spoke softly in the darkness. ‘Your father’s condition is still stable and your mother is asleep. They advised that you delay going back in until later this morning.’
How had he known she was awake, let alone what she was thinking? As far as she was aware, she hadn’t so much as moved a muscle. How had Adam ever known? He just had…
‘I’m going back now.’
‘I told them that,’ Adam
assured her dryly. ‘We’ll leave shortly.’
‘I told you—’
‘Stop arguing, woman,’ he cut in wearily. ‘You never used to be so damned cantankerous! Believe it or not, I’ve always been very fond of your father, I have great respect for him. And that being the case, I intend going back to the hospital anyway. With you or without you,’ he added as she would have spoken again.
Once again she hadn’t the strength to argue. Adam could do what he liked—he usually did anyway!—and so would she. Except that his arm still lay across her breasts, his leg over both of hers… In fact, he was too damned close altogether!
He moved in the semi-darkness; a light was on in the hallway outside her slightly open bedroom door, showing him leaning up on one elbow as he looked down at her. Closer still!
‘You’re so beautiful, Magdalena,’ he told her, his hand moving to caress the silky darkness of her hair.
His voice was seductive in its softness, and Maggi felt that familiar fluidity in her body, that melting sensation in every bone. Her mouth tightened as she looked up at him. ‘I am now—’
‘You were always beautiful, damn it!’ he rasped harshly, his hand tightening briefly in her hair. ‘The way I thought about you, felt about you, that never changed, Magdalena. You’re the one who changed!’
‘I didn’t have any choice about it.’
‘Yes, you did, damn you.’ He was angry now. ‘You could have stayed my little blackbird, continued to fly—’
‘I couldn’t even walk, let alone fly!’ she returned as furiously, stung by his use of that name. ‘Blackbird’ was an endearment only used between them during their most intimate moments.
He rose up darkly in front of her. ‘I think your father was wrong three years ago,’ he ground out savagely, both hands grasping her shoulders now. ‘I should have stayed around, shaken you out of this self-pity that seems to have become such a part of you.’
‘How dare you?’ Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘You have no idea—’
‘I have every idea of what you’ve physically gone through,’ he interrupted. ‘Made it my business to know. But no one mentioned this monumental self-pity, this—I don’t think so, Magdalena.’ He moved easily—and swiftly!—to fend off the swinging arc of her hand as she tried to slap him. ‘I really don’t think so,’ he murmured, before his head lowered and his mouth claimed possession of hers.
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