‘Oh. OK. I’ll have to check with Sam—’
‘I’ll do that, I’ll see him in a minute. Are you in Minors? There’s a man in there I’m not happy about. Ryan Jarrold. He’s got abdominal pain, but nothing showed on the ultrasound so we’re waiting for a CT. Can you keep an eye on him and page me if you’re concerned? I’ll be back in a bit to check on him. And hustle CT.’
‘Sure. Will do.’
It turned out that he was right to be worried, because five minutes after she arrived at Ryan’s bedside, he broke out in a cold, clammy sweat and was rushed into Resus.
‘He said he’s been feeling rough for a couple of weeks,’ she told James. ‘Especially if he’s hungry or after he’s eaten a big meal.’
‘Could be a bleeding ulcer. Right, let’s get some fluids into him stat and see what we can find out.’
* * *
It was a perforated duodenal ulcer that, left neglected, had given him peritonitis and a massive intra-abdominal bleed, so the surgeon had told James later that afternoon, but they’d managed to save him.
‘He was a lucky man,’ James said. ‘If that had happened at home, he might not have made it, and if Kate hadn’t spotted the change in him so fast, we could still have lost him.’
‘It was pretty obvious,’ she said, but it still made her feel good to know she’d been appreciated.
They were standing in the garden of James and Connie’s house, the sea at their backs and a renovation opportunity in front of them, and Kate was massively glad they hadn’t taken on anything drastic like that.
‘And I thought my boat was bad,’ Sam said, eyeing it warily.
‘It’ll be fine. We can take it bit by bit,’ Connie said placidly. ‘At least it’s clean now and we can live in it and work out what to do. Anyway, enough. Tell us about your wedding! It’s much more interesting. When’s it going to be?’
‘Four weeks on Saturday,’ Sam said. ‘We’re getting married at the Register Office at five, and then going down to Zacharelli’s for the party. We’ve booked the function room, and I think we’re going to have a buffet and an open bar.’
‘Yowch. Do you trust your friends that much?’ James said with a laugh, and Sam chuckled.
‘It’ll be fine. I’ll make sure they’re not too well stocked.’
‘So, what are you going to wear?’ Connie asked, looking at Kate. ‘You’ll need a wedding dress.’
Sam frowned slightly. ‘I thought you didn’t want a lot of fuss?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Oh, come on, she’s got to wear something, Sam! It doesn’t have to be a meringue with foaming acres of tulle, but she’ll still need a dress.’
Kate was hardly listening, because something about Sam’s face was making her uneasy. Because of Kerry’s wedding dress? She could hardly ask him, though, especially then and there, so she filed it for later.
‘I doubt if it’ll be a traditional one,’ she said to reassure him. ‘I’ll be six months pregnant by then.’
‘There are loads of pregnant brides these days,’ Connie said, flapping her hand. ‘They make some fabulous dresses.’
But Sam was still looking uneasy, and she changed the subject.
‘Talking of babies, will you be upset if we paint the nursery?’ she asked Connie.
‘Of course not! He’d outgrown it anyway. Do you know what you’re having?’
‘A girl.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely! So are we!’
‘Well, it balances Annie’s two boys,’ she said with a laugh, and the conversation moved on and Sam seemed to relax again, but she still had an uneasy feeling, and she tackled him about it when they got home.
‘Talk to me about the wedding dress,’ she said gently as he was getting into bed.
He froze for a second, then turned off the light and lay down on his back, staring at the ceiling. She rolled towards him.
‘Sam?
‘It’s nothing.’
‘No, it’s not nothing. Tell me.’
‘She never got to wear it,’ he said, after a pause that seemed to stretch out into the hereafter. ‘It was hanging in the wardrobe in the flat, and I gave it to the funeral directors. She was wearing it when we buried her.’
‘Oh, Sam.’ She wriggled closer, resting her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t wear a dress.’
‘No. You can wear whatever you want to, Kate. It doesn’t matter. Just—maybe not lace.’
His eyes were closed, squeezed shut, and in the light of the moon she could see the thin, silver trail of a tear running down into his hair.
She wiped it away and kissed him, and he turned towards her and made love to her with a desperation that broke her heart.
* * *
The next four weeks flew by.
Annie and the babies came home from hospital, and she and Sam went over there for a barbeque so they could meet him properly. Ed of course had already met Sam at work, but they started talking boats and that was that, so she and Annie talked babies and discussed the wedding.
‘I don’t think I want my foster parents to come,’ she confessed. ‘It’s a part of my life I want to forget.’
‘Maybe your wedding’s not the right time,’ Annie said sagely. ‘Why not leave it till afterwards, and contact them then.’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, that makes sense. You will be able to come, won’t you?’
Annie laughed. ‘Just try and keep me away. Do you want to stay here the night before? You can get ready here—and you can keep the dress here, when you get it.’
She didn’t want to talk about the dress, not with Sam in earshot, so she just nodded and thanked her, and let it go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DAY OF the wedding dawned bright and clear and sunny.
A good omen? She wasn’t sure. There was a tightness in her chest, an unnamed fear that wouldn’t go away, and it stayed with her all day.
She’d stayed at Annie and Ed’s because she was traditional enough to want to do it properly, and she’d spent the morning having a lovely facial that should have been relaxing, and her nails were painted in readiness, and then that afternoon the hairdresser had come to Annie’s to put her hair up, but it didn’t feel right.
Nothing felt right.
Not the hair, not the nails—certainly not the dress that she’d agonised over so much.
She’d gone shopping for it alone, because it was such a difficult issue what with Sam’s feelings being so intricately involved in the subject, and it certainly wasn’t lace, but it was still unmistakeably a wedding dress.
She stood at the bedroom window in Annie’s house, staring out across the clifftop at the sea and thinking about Sam. Was he staring at it, too, down in their house by the harbour? What was he thinking about this, the wedding day that never should have been, or about the wedding that had never happened?
Annie tapped on her bedroom door. ‘Can I come in?’
She opened the door, and Annie took one look at her face and hugged her.
‘Oh, Kate, sweetheart, what’s the matter? I thought you were happy?’
‘I was, but now...I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think he’s ready, Annie.’
‘Nonsense. If he wasn’t, he would never have asked you.’
‘Yes, he would. He asked me on the day he found out I was pregnant, only the second time I’d ever met him. He’s just being noble, doing the right thing, ticking the right box. He says he’s old-fashioned and thinks a baby’s parents should be married. I said no the first time he asked me, and the second, just a few weeks ago, and then when we found out it was a girl, and it all seemed real, I just said let’s get married, but it was only a few days later, and maybe it really was too soon. Nothing had really
changed, and when we talked about the dress—’
‘What about it?’ Annie prompted, so she told her what Sam had said about Kerry, and Annie sighed softly and hugged her.
‘Darling girl, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, just that he loved her, too, and it was desperately sad, what happened to him. It doesn’t stop him loving you.’
‘But he doesn’t! He’s had endless opportunities to tell me that he does, and he hasn’t. Not once. And I can’t bear to marry him when he doesn’t love me,’ she said, and the sob that was jammed in her throat broke free and she sank down onto the floor and cried her heart out.
* * *
Sam was standing in their bedroom gazing blindly out to sea and wondering how he’d got to be so lucky when his phone rang.
He stared at it, a feeling of foreboding creeping into him and chilling him to the bone. ‘Hello?’
‘Sam, it’s Annie. You need to come.’
Fear coursed through him. ‘Why? What’s happened? Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine,’ Annie said quickly, and he hauled in a breath. ‘She’s fine, but—Sam, she needs to see you, to talk to you. She’s having a wobble about the wedding.’
‘What? OK, OK, I’ll come. Just—don’t let her go anywhere.’
He ran downstairs, grabbed his car keys, locked the door as an afterthought and drove the two minutes up the road to Annie and Ed’s in a minute flat, abandoning the car on the drive.
Ed opened the door and let him in. ‘They’re upstairs in the front bedroom on the right. Take a deep breath.’
He paused, catching his breath, trying to slow his heart but it was still racing, the dread clinging to him like a mantle.
‘Why?’ he breathed, and Ed laid a hand on his shoulder.
‘I think she just needs your reassurance.’
He nodded, hauled in another breath and forced himself to walk slowly up the stairs. Annie was on the landing, standing by the open bedroom door, and she patted his shoulder and left him to it.
Kate was sitting on the floor in a puddle of pale grey silk, and the sight of her nearly broke his heart.
He reached out his hands and pulled her gently to her feet. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and she had a wad of crumpled, soggy tissues in one hand. He took them from her, steered her to the bed and sat down beside her, her hands held firmly in his.
‘Kate, whatever’s the matter, sweetheart? Talk to me—tell me what’s wrong.’
* * *
Where did she start?
‘I can’t do it,’ she said, blinking away tears and trying her hardest not to cry. ‘I can’t marry you, Sam. You’re just doing it to be noble, because you’re that sort of man, kind and decent and honourable, and you think this is all your fault, but I can’t let you do it, because it won’t work, and when it all goes wrong and you leave me—’
‘I won’t. I’ve told you that and I don’t renege on my promises.’
‘But you can’t know that. What if it gets unbearable? Or is it that you’re so dead inside that you don’t really care what happens because you can’t feel it anyway?’
Emotions flickered over his face so fast she couldn’t read them, but she recognised enough to know it might be true.
She eased her hands away from him and stood up, walking over to the window and clinging to the frame for support. ‘Sam, I can’t. I can’t marry you when I know you don’t love me, can’t marry you just to ease your guilty conscience. I don’t want to be your consolation prize, someone there for you to distract you from your grief while you go through the motions, while all the time you’re secretly wishing I was Kerry.’
She turned and met his shocked eyes.
‘I’m sorry I’m not her, I’m sorry it’s not her here in her lovely lace dress, having your baby, planning a future with you in your lovely new house, but I’m not her, I’m me, and I can’t marry you just so that you can play happy families and pretend to yourself that it’s all OK. Even I know I’m worth more than that.’
‘But—Kate...’
‘Kate nothing, Sam,’ she said heavily. ‘I’m not going to enter into a loveless marriage. I’ve seen enough of them in my life, and I don’t intend to be part of one. I’m sorry—’
‘It’s not loveless. Not on my part, at least.’
He got up and walked over to her, taking her hands again, staring down at her with eyes so sincere she almost believed him. ‘I didn’t expect this. When you told me you were pregnant, all I could think about was doing the right thing. You were right about that. But in the last few weeks, somehow—I don’t understand how, because I never thought it would ever happen to me again, but I’ve grown to love you. I think I started to love you when you decided to keep the baby, because it was such a hard decision for you, a really difficult and courageous choice to make, and I had to ask you to trust me when you really didn’t know me, and yet you did it. You put your future in my hands, and in doing so you gave me a future, too, something to look forward to where there’d been nothing.
‘Do you know, I woke up this morning feeling happy, with everything I’d ever wanted? Marrying a beautiful woman who I love, who’s carrying my child, a job in a fabulous place, a stunning house overlooking the sea we both love—the only fly in the ointment is that you don’t love me. I always knew you were going for the safe option out of fear and a need for security, and I can’t blame you, not with your childhood, but I can work with that and hope that, given time, you’ll come to love me, too, as much as I love you.’
She stared at him, wanting so much to believe it, unable to dare. ‘No. You love Kerry, Sam,’ she said sadly. ‘You can’t let her go.’
‘I can. I have. Yes, Kerry will always be a part of my past, and she’ll always hold a part of my heart, because I did love her, and I can’t just turn that off, but it doesn’t hurt any more in the way it did. I’m still sad for her that her life was cut so cruelly short, but you’re my life now.
‘I love you, Katherine Ashton, and I love our baby, too. I’ll love you both to the end of my days, whether you marry me or not. That won’t change. But I won’t force you to do something you’re unhappy about, and if you really feel that you don’t love me, and my love isn’t enough to make this work for you—’
‘Why haven’t you told me? If you love me, why haven’t you told me?’
He gave a sad little laugh. ‘I only really realised it today. I was going to tell you right before we got married. It was stupid of me. I should have told you before, I should have rung you. I’m sorry. But you haven’t told me, either, and maybe that’s why I was holding back.’
‘Oh, Sam—of course I love you, but I was afraid to say so. I didn’t want to give too much of myself away because I thought you weren’t ready to hear it, and I was trying to save myself from any more hurt—’
His arms closed round her, crushing her against his chest.
‘Silly girl,’ he said raggedly, and his chest heaved with emotion as he held her there and told her, again and again, that he loved her.
And finally she believed him.
She eased away, trying to smile at him through her tears. ‘Well, if we’re going to do this we’d better hurry,’ she said, and he pulled her back into his arms for one last, quick hug before he let her go.
‘You need to sort out your makeup,’ he said with a wry grin, and she ran over to the mirror and wailed, dabbing at her tear-stained face.
‘I look a wreck!’
‘You look beautiful. Just a little streaky.’
He smiled at her in the mirror, and she smiled back, dabbing at her cheeks.
‘Give me two seconds.’
It took a little more than that, mostly because her hands were shaking, but then she turned to him and smiled unsteadily.
‘There. How do I look? Will I do?�
��
He pressed his lips together hard, and swallowed.
‘You look lovely,’ he said gruffly. ‘Absolutely beautiful. I’m so proud of you.’
His voice cracked, and she put her arms around him and hugged him. ‘Oh, Sam. Are you OK?’
He nodded, looked down at her and smiled tenderly.
‘Never better. I love you,’ he said again, just in case she hadn’t quite got it yet, and then, taking her by the hand, he led her out of the house.
* * *
The wedding was wonderful.
Quiet, of course, with so few guests, but they were the people who mattered. James and Connie, Ed and Annie, Sam’s parents and his brother, a few old friends—and her foster parents, who she’d finally contacted just a few days before, because of all the people in her past, they were the only ones she loved and who loved her.
They’d hugged her and cried, and Sam had to find a box of tissues to mop them all up, and then they moved to Zaccharelli’s for the party. She was standing outside on the balcony overlooking the sea when Sam came up behind her and slid his arms around her, resting his hands on the baby.
‘OK?’
‘Definitely. You?’
‘Mmm. Only one thing could make it better.’ He turned her into his arms. ‘The car’s here. Ready to go home?’
‘Absolutely.’
They ran the gauntlet of the confetti, scrambled into the car and snuggled up in the back for the short journey to the house.
He helped her out, tipped the driver and led her up the veranda steps, then he unlocked the door, swept her up into his arms and kissed her.
‘Sam!’ she squealed, wrapping her arms firmly round his neck for safety. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What I should have done weeks ago,’ he said, and he carried her over the threshold, setting her carefully back on her feet in the hall.
‘Welcome home, Mrs Ryder,’ he said gruffly, and she went up on tiptoe and kissed him.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for everything. I never thought I could ever be this happy. I love you, Sam. I love you so much.’
Their Meant-to-Be Baby Page 16
