The real Evie was sitting here sewing, eyes sparkling as she chattered and laughed, wincing as she accidentally stabbed her finger with the needle, then sucking it and fiddling with the end of her plait while she waited for the bleeding to stop.
‘I miss him,’ she said.
He rolled his eyes. ‘What is it with you and my dog? You haven’t known him that long – or intimately.’
She giggled. ‘I know. But sometimes you feel an instant connection.’
‘With a Dalmatian?’
‘With anyone or any animal! Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’ She laid the quilt aside and came and curled up next to him on the sofa.
He wrapped his arm around her, feeling a surge of protectiveness.
‘He’s just adorable,’ Evie went on, ‘so friendly and affectionate. And he worships you. I hate to think of him missing you while you’re away. Pining for you.’
‘He’s not pining, I assure you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Tell you what, why don’t we Skype Heidi now?’
‘Yes!’
They called, and sure enough Smoke was fine. They could see him with a Golden Retriever in the background, playing with Heidi’s son, who was rolling an old tennis ball around the kitchen for them to fetch. Evie smiled, reassured.
‘Better?’ asked Jake, when he’d hung up.
‘Much,’ she said.
Jake was thoughtful for a moment, then asked, ‘What do you say we stay here a few days longer than planned? Into the new year, maybe?’
‘The new year?’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Three extra days?’
He nodded. ‘Smoke’s happy, your shop is closed anyway, I don’t have anything to rush home for, and this is … good. I’m enjoying spending time with you, Evie.’ His voice was low, and heat simmered in him as he waited for her answer.
‘So am I,’ she said, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, her gaze darting to his lips, making his muscles tense, making him want to kiss her. ‘Yes. Let’s stay.’
Jake was smiling to himself as he listened to Evie singing in the shower. It was a song from The Lion King, and he chuckled to himself because she wasn’t just singing the melody, but all the musical accompaniments too. The sound of running water stopped, and he pictured her stepping out and rubbing herself dry. Perhaps he should go up there and help her—
A loud crash slammed through that line of thought.
He frowned at the silence that followed. No oops!, no singing or humming. Nothing.
‘Evie?’
No response.
Jake ran up, taking the stairs two at a time. He flung open the bathroom door, which, thankfully, she hadn’t locked.
She was on the floor, out cold. A towel lay crumpled beside her. Evie was wearing a bathrobe, but her feet were bare and there was a puddle of water on the tiles. He glanced at the hard, square edge of the marble washbasin. She must have slipped and banged her head.
Horror slid through him, a sliver of ice. ‘Evie!’ he shouted. ‘Evie!’
Nothing. He felt for a pulse.
It was strong – thank God. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at him. ‘What happened?’ she murmured.
Relief washed through him. ‘You banged your head. You must have slipped getting out of the shower.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, but stared past him, as if she couldn’t see him. Her pupils were tiny.
Something was wrong. Panic gripped him.
‘Help me get up,’ she said.
‘No. Stay right there. Don’t move.’
He reached for his phone, but his hand shook so badly he dropped it. With a crack like a gunshot it hit the stone tiles.
This was why he’d given up medicine. He didn’t trust himself any more: he couldn’t be relied upon when it mattered. The phone’s screen was shattered in the corner but it still worked. He called the emergency service and did his best to explain the problem. Fortunately, the operator spoke enough English to understand and told him an ambulance was on its way.
It couldn’t come soon enough. Her eyes had closed.
‘Evie, wake up!’ He took her hand. ‘Please, Evie.’
He couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t watch the worst happen, knowing he should have prevented it. Not a second time, not Evie. Memories flashed up in his mind, making it difficult to concentrate and sending his blood pressure rocketing. He heard the siren and jumped to his feet. He ran down to find the paramedics and explained what had happened, the symptoms she’d shown when she’d briefly woken. Then they took over.
He followed them into the ambulance, where he held her hand and kept up a string of meaningless words during the bumpy ride to hospital, hoping the sound of his voice might stir her back to life. When they arrived, the doctors took over and he was asked to wait while Evie was wheeled into a room for treatment. Only then did he sit down, head in his hands, drained and shaking, knowing there was nothing more he could do.
Minutes ticked into hours, and Jake stared at the poster on the wall opposite him, reading words that he didn’t understand. This was a strange hospital in a foreign country, but he’d been here before. The smell of disinfectant, the endless waiting, the uncertainty and fear and growing inevitability of what was to come were identical. It all rushed back to the surface: the ferocious emotion and self-loathing – and the knowledge that he could and should have prevented it …
Finally, the door opened, and a nurse appeared. ‘Evie’s come round now,’ she said, ‘but she’s very tired and needs to rest.’
She led him to the window where he saw Evie asleep, looking peaceful, her long hair fanned across the pillow.
‘Why don’t you go home and get some sleep yourself?’ suggested the nurse.
Jake blinked and looked at his watch. It was evening, already?
‘We’ll take care of her. Go home and rest. Come back in the morning.’
He did as he was told. But next morning he was back well before visiting hours. As soon as they opened the doors, he ran in and planted himself beside Evie’s bed. There, he waited silently for her to wake, and eventually his patience was rewarded.
She opened her eyes slowly and blinked. ‘Jake.’
Relief pummelled through him. And a barrage of other emotions, too, that hit him square in the chest. Unable to speak, he took her hand instead.
‘You’re wearing my scarf.’ She smiled.
‘Yes – well, it was cold this morning.’ He glanced down at the patchwork fabric nestled so comfortably against his skin. The temperature had plummeted last night. He’d felt icy lying in bed staring at the empty space beside him, gritting his teeth as all the memories and guilt of two years ago had returned to torment him.
‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Are you okay?’
He gave a dry laugh. A ghost. How appropriate.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Never mind me. You’re the one who’s been sick,’ said Jake. ‘How are you feeling?’
Evie remembered the nurse had spoken to her during the night and explained that she had concussion and must stay in for observation, but today she felt fine. Perhaps a little groggy, but fine. ‘I’d be better if you weren’t crushing the bones in my hand.’ She smiled.
He snatched his hand away with a muttered apology.
‘I feel completely fine,’ she assured him. ‘Just a bump on the side of my head – and that only hurts if I touch it.’
Jake, on the other hand, was pale as chalk, and she noticed the dark smudges beneath his eyes. ‘Jake, is something wrong?’
He shook his head. ‘You scared me, that’s all.’
He picked up the keys for the Alfa Romeo and they rattled as he rotated them through his fingers.
‘The nurse said you saved my life by calling an ambulance straight away. She said you knew exactly what to do. I don’t know why you gave up being a doctor – you’re brilliant!’
The keys became still, and his fingers were clenched so tightly around
them that his knuckles showed white.
‘Jake, what’s the matter?’ She sat up. ‘Is it the hospital? Is it bringing back memories? Is it—’
‘I was to blame for Maria’s death!’ The words exploded from him, rough and rasping.
‘You?’ She almost laughed, thinking he was joking in that dry, deadpan way of his.
But his expression was deadly serious, and her smile vanished.
‘I missed the signs,’ he said flatly. ‘I didn’t realise their gravity. I knew she was getting headaches, but I didn’t put two and two together.’ He hung his head. ‘I failed her.’
Evie stared at him.
‘My own wife, and I didn’t even realise she was ill,’ he went on. ‘What kind of a doctor does that make me?’
Self-loathing was etched into his face.
But everyone made mistakes – she knew that better than anyone. She was the queen of mistakes, be it the wrong job choice, catastrophic relationships, or driving her car into a ditch.
‘You’re only human, Jake,’ she said quietly. ‘And hindsight is a wonderful thing, but perhaps her symptoms weren’t so obvious at the time. I mean, everyone gets headaches …’
He shook his head, dismissing this. He’d retreated into himself. She recognised the distant look in his eyes, and it reminded her of the night they’d met during the snowstorm. Only now she understood what he was feeling, and her heart went out to him. ‘You’re being too hard on yourself. Maybe you were too close.’
‘How could I not see?’
‘Perhaps hers was a rare case where the symptoms weren’t obvious. Perhaps she played down her symptoms because she didn’t want to worry you.’
He glanced at her and she could tell by the way his brows lifted that he hadn’t thought of this. She went on: ‘Did her GP make the diagnosis?’
‘Not at first.’
‘And do you blame him for missing it?’
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘Do you blame the hospital for not being able to cure her?’
‘Of course not. I—’
‘Then why so hard on yourself, Jake? Doctors are only human. And you wouldn’t judge another doctor so harshly. Why are you any different?’
‘Because she was my wife! I lived with her. I loved her. I knew her better than anyone …’
Evie felt a needle of jealousy at the words I loved her, and it caught her off guard. She squeezed it out of her mind, telling herself she wasn’t being rational.
‘I should have seen the signs, but I didn’t. By the time anyone knew it was a brain tumour, it was too late. I might have saved her life.’ He jabbed a finger at his chest. Then the fight seemed to desert him and his arm dropped to his side. ‘But I let her down.’
He stared at his feet, consumed by memories and guilt, and under the harsh strip lights of that hospital room he looked so wretched that Evie wanted to reach out to him. Suddenly it all made sense. His pain, his grief had always seemed intense. Now she realised they had been underpinned by guilt. It had been eating away at him all this time. And it explained why he’d given up his job as a doctor and had a sudden change of career.
What could she do to make him see that beating himself up like this didn’t help? It only made him feel worse.
She sat up and touched his shoulder. He looked at her through haunted eyes. ‘If Maria had been knocked down by a car, would you hold the driver responsible for her death?’ she asked quietly, thinking of her sister.
He frowned. ‘I don’t know. It would depend on the circumstances, I suppose. If he’d been speeding or driving recklessly or over the limit, then, yes, I might. Why?’
‘The man who hit Zara was none of those things. Just a father of three on his way to work, driving along a busy London street at rush-hour. She was crossing the road, and he didn’t see her until it was too late.’
Jake blinked but didn’t say anything.
‘He had to have counselling after the accident. My parents didn’t blame him, and the inquest ruled it was an accident, but he found it difficult to live with what had happened.’ She took his hand. ‘Jake, there isn’t always someone to blame or a reason. Bad things happen, and we don’t understand why they’ve happened, but they do. And sometimes we can’t prevent them. It’s not always easy, but if we can accept events without holding anyone responsible, sometimes that’s better for all involved.’
Her throat was tight as she finished. ‘I’m glad that Zara died instantly. I’m glad she didn’t suffer.’
Jake saw the emotion well up and make her eyes shimmer. He covered her hand with both of his, and she smiled bravely. How typical of Evie, he thought, to see the positives in the bleakest of situations.
And perhaps she was right. Perhaps it wasn’t anyone’s fault that Maria had died. Perhaps if he had spotted the signs, her suffering would have been prolonged. There was certainly no guarantee that an early diagnosis would have saved her.
Something loosened inside him – something he’d been wrestling with for so long – and his shoulders dropped a little.
Evie lay back against the pillows and a solitary tear slipped down her cheek. She was brave: she talked openly about the sister she’d lost, but she felt the same grief that he’d been battling these last two years. She understood how it felt to lose someone irreplaceable. He sat on the edge of the hospital bed and held her against his chest, careful not to touch her head where it was sore, and wondered who was comforting whom right now. Her hands clutched him tight, and they became locked in each other’s warmth.
‘You speak wise words, Pollyanna,’ he told her, when she pulled back.
‘I know. Hold on to that thought.’ She grinned.
‘Were you always an optimist, or did Zara’s death make you that way?’
‘Always.’ Her sunny smile lit her eyes. ‘You know, you shouldn’t blame yourself. It won’t change anything. It won’t bring her back. And wouldn’t she want you to be happy rather than mourning her indefinitely?’
He felt an unexpected shift inside. It was like a kaleidoscope adjusting to reveal a new picture, a new perspective. What would Maria have wanted? He realised he’d never asked himself that question.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. Then certainty filled him. ‘Yes.’
‘So, let it go, Jake. Stop blaming yourself.’
He’d been punishing himself for his mistake, but Evie was right: it hadn’t changed anything. He was only human. He needed to accept that. The guilt and the blame would never bring his wife back. And his life would move on. It already had – moving to Willowbrook, meeting Evie. But rather than fighting this and staying stuck in the past, he saw now that it was all right to embrace the changes. And that realisation brought with it the sensation of a huge weight being lifted.
He shook his head and gave a dry laugh. ‘My sister’s been telling me for months that I need to move on. Maybe I should have listened instead of shutting myself off.’
Evie looked at him with understanding. ‘These things happen in their own time,’ she said, her voice tinged with sadness. ‘They’re not always within our control.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Evie, as Jake fussed around her, fetching her sewing, making her drinks, asking if she was warm enough and insisting that she didn’t leave the sofa. ‘Really I am. If I wasn’t, the doctors wouldn’t have discharged me, would they?’
He threw her a stern look, but she saw through his flinty expression to the concern that underpinned it, and if she was honest it was quite nice to be cared for with fleecy blankets and Jake’s grave solicitude. ‘I want to wrap you up in cotton wool and make sure you never get hurt again,’ he said, and she could tell he was only half joking. His aquamarine roll-neck sweater made the blue of his eyes even more intense.
‘That’s impossible. I’m always bumping my head and slipping, although this was—’ She stopped and listened. ‘Is that my phone ringing?’
It must be upstairs beside her bed, and she moved to get up, but he stopped her. ‘Stay there.
I’ll get it.’
He returned a couple of minutes later. ‘It was your parents. I rang them to let them know what had happened and I’ve been keeping them up to date with your progress. They said they’d call tonight to see how you are. I spoke to Natasha and Luc, too. They’re back in Willowbrook now, but they send their love.’
She took the phone. ‘Thanks. I’d better call Mum back.’
A little while later she ended the call. Jake was watching her. She didn’t need to say anything for him to ask, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘They want to come and see me when I get back.’
‘They’re worried about you?’
She nodded. ‘I told them I’m fine and I said I’d go and visit them instead.’
That way she could go when she was ready to face them. She felt guilty because she dreaded seeing them so much. But no one else had the power to make her feel as worthless and wanting. Reflecting on the conversation, she noticed they hadn’t said much about their time at Tim’s parents. No doubt they were saving it for when she was better, and then would undoubtedly follow all the usual adulatory praise of Tim.
‘Want me to come with you?’ asked Jake.
Her spirits lifted at the thought. ‘Why would you do that?’
Her parents would leap to conclusions. They’d assume that, having just been away together, she and Jake were in a relationship. A real one. Then again, if they thought that perhaps they’d get off her back about Tim.
‘To give you moral support.’
She smiled, touched by this. No one else understood her well enough to appreciate how much that meant to her, but Jake had proved he was the most dependable of friends.
It was funny because Tim had put a ring on her finger, yet he hadn’t respected her: he’d hurt her. With Jake, on the other hand, their agreement was strictly no commitment, yet he made her feel like the most special woman in the world. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone else and he listened to her, he believed in her. It was difficult to imagine somebody respecting her more, caring more, and she knew he’d never intentionally hurt her.
Perhaps she had been rash to rule out all possibility of finding love and her own happy ending. Perhaps one day she would meet a man who would accept her as she was and love and cherish her.
The Christmas Holiday: The perfect heart-warming read full of festive magic Page 25
