The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011

by Catherine Mann

  “A request? What the hell? What sort of request?”

  “One identical to yours, mate. Since the file’s still active, I wasn’t sure if we should take her on.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.” Connor thought for a minute. Why on earth would Holly be investigating herself? “Keep the enquiry open, and keep me posted on the results.”

  “And Miss Christmas?”

  If Connor told them not to take her on as a client he knew they wouldn’t, but then she’d probably go elsewhere and for some reason that filled him with unease. No, he wanted to find out why she was doing this. “Keep her on, too, but I want to see whatever you find first, okay?”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  Connor snapped his phone shut and pushed it back in his pocket. What the heck was Holly up to now?

  “Coffee, sir?”

  “Thanks, I need it. Miss Christmas will be down shortly. She’s a little indisposed.”

  “Ah, yes, good morning, miss.” Thompson stared over Connor’s shoulder, a polite smile of greeting pasted on his face. “Your usual tea and dry toast?”

  Holly stood at the door, wearing a suit Connor recognised from the office. The stark navy blue, broken only by the slash of her soft cream blouse at the lapels, drained her of colour. She’d scraped her hair off her face in a tight twist that would probably leave her with a headache by lunchtime. Still who was he to care? So long as the baby was okay, that was all that mattered. At least, that’s what he told himself. He refused to consider that anything or anyone else mattered as much.

  “Thank you, Thompson,” Holly answered as she skirted around to the far side of the small, circular table in a clear attempt to put as much physical distance between them as she could, given the cosy bay-window setting of the breakfast room.

  “Might I suggest water crackers, miss?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Water crackers?”

  Holly’s response only just beat his own. What was Thompson on about?

  “I’ve been doing a little reading. It might give you some relief if you eat a dry cracker or two when you first wake. I’ll arrange for a container by the bed for you.”

  “Thank you.” Holly looked uncomfortable. A tiny blush of colour stained her cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Christmas, we’ll look after you.” With a pointed look at Connor, Thompson slid a plate of dry toast onto the table in front of Holly.

  Connor snapped open the pages of the daily newspaper loudly enough to make her flinch. Fine, if they wanted to be buddies, so be it. He had one agenda and one agenda only. A strong and healthy child. This time there would be no mistakes.

  Holly resolutely munched her way through the dry toast and tea, pleasantly surprised that it seemed to want to stay down. She took her empty dishes to the kitchen bench with a grateful smile. “That was just the ticket, thank you.”

  “Let me know when you’re up to eating something else and I’ll make sure it’s ready for you. My late wife was quite the treat when she was expecting. Went from one extreme to the other.”

  If she wasn’t mistaken there was a little more than an answering smile on Thompson’s face. Compassion now lit his severe features, instead of the frigidly aloof demeanour she’d been subjected to since she’d arrived. A tiny spark of warmth kindled in the pit of her stomach. For what it was worth, she had discovered an ally in hostile territory.

  “When you two have finished playing happy families, we need to get on our way.” Connor’s voice intruded into the atmosphere of the kitchen with the chill factor of a southerly blast of wind direct from Scott Base.

  “I’ll freshen up and be back down in a few minutes. We have plenty of time,” Holly answered defensively. She would show him he didn’t call quite all the shots.

  Connor had barely said a word during the entire visit to the obstetrician, who’d confirmed Carmen’s diagnosis and concurred with her recommendations. They’d set up an appointment schedule, at first monthly, then later fortnightly, for Holly’s checkups, but the details had swirled past her like wisps of fog on a winter morning. She couldn’t afford to be too interested in what was happening within her body. She couldn’t afford to care. She’d take no active part in the procedure for as long as she could help it.

  Holly twisted her handbag strap between restless fingers as they approached the helipad where the Agusta waited to fly her back to the island while Connor returned to his office. He was acting like her gaoler, escorting her to the chopper as if he expected her to run away.

  She barely acknowledged him as he handed her the headset, then with a curt nod walked back to the building. She caught a tiny glimmer of his silhouette behind the glass, backlit by the door to the elevator, and then the elevator doors slid shut and he was gone. She knew she shouldn’t feel so suddenly bereft, it was exactly how she’d insisted it be. Yet for some strange reason tears pricked at her eyes.

  The rotors were putting up more vibration than normal, she thought as she gripped her handbag tightly in her lap. Realisation dawned. It wasn’t the chopper blades. It was her bag that was vibrating. Her pager. A cold shiver racked her body. There was only one reason that pager would be buzzing. She shoved shaking fingers deep into her bag, her breath catching in her throat as they finally closed around the small, oblong box. She identified the number on the small screen. Andrea’s hospital.

  The whine of the rotors began to change in pitch. It was now or never.

  “Dave! Stop!”

  “Are you all right back there, Miss Christmas?”

  “No, I need to make an urgent call. Can you wait a few minutes?”

  “I’ll call Mr. Knight back.”

  “Don’t bother him just yet. I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  She ducked and raced from the chopper the instant Dave came around to open the door.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Mr. Knight?” he yelled at her retreating back.

  Clear of the helipad, Holly waved in response and headed straight for the elevator, punching the call button as if her life depended on it. Her heart pounded as the doors opened down in the lobby less than a minute later.

  “Miss Christmas, can I help you?” Stan, one of the day security guards rose from behind his console at the side of the foyer.

  “Stan, I need to use a phone. It’s urgent. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all, miss. Do you know the number?”

  “Off by heart.” She gave him a small tight smile and took the handset off the cradle, pressing in the numbers in swift succession.

  Two minutes later, Holly replaced the receiver. A knot tightened in her chest. The doctor had come to the phone immediately. He’d been waiting for her call, in itself a bad sign. He’d imparted the news Holly had dreaded most since Christmas. Andrea was slipping away.

  “Is there something wrong?” Stan’s voice penetrated the silent case of shock that enveloped her.

  “I need a taxi.” Her voice wobbled as tears threatened to choke her throat.

  “Come with me, miss. I’ll get one for you from the rank outside.”

  A belt of hot, humid air hit her like a wall as they left the air-conditioned sanctuary of the lobby and approached the taxi rank outside. Stan pulled open the taxi’s door, pushing a validated, prepaid taxi voucher into her hands, and Holly slid into the back seat. As the Knight Enterprises Tower disappeared behind her, she murmured the private hospital’s address to the driver, then began to pray as she’d never done before in her life.

  Please, please let me not be too late.

  “What do you mean she isn’t there?” Connor paced his office, shouting at the speaker phone on his desk as if that would refute Thompson’s calm information that Holly wasn’t back at the island.

  “They haven’t arrived yet, sir.”

  “Arrived? Dave should have returned here by now. I’ll call you back.” Connor buzzed down to the front desk security in the lobby.

  “Did you see M
iss Christmas leave the building a short time ago? … You did? Find out what taxi company and call them to see where they took her.”

  What the hell was she up to? Why hadn’t she called him? He slapped his hands on his desk and fought the urge to swipe everything off its cluttered surface and to the floor. Their agreement had been quite specific. She wasn’t to go anywhere without his okay. He should have known better than to trust her. Once he found her, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  If he found her.

  He sank into his chair. She couldn’t go missing completely, he rationalised. He would find her. He would find his baby. No matter what. She didn’t have the means or the support to disappear for long.

  “What?” he roared as Janet peeked her head around the doorway. A pang of guilt punctured his foul temper as she flinched. “I’m sorry, what is it?” he asked in a level tone, banking the fury that roiled inside him.

  “Security didn’t get the name of the cab company that you wanted, but Stan said she made a call on his phone before she left. No one’s used it since. Do you want him to redial it?”

  “I’ll do it myself. Make sure nobody touches that phone.”

  Who could she have called? Dozens of possibilities, none of them making any sense, raced through his mind before he arrived at the ground floor and covered the short distance to the front desk.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know she wasn’t—” Beads of perspiration stood out on the elderly security guard’s forehead.

  “Don’t worry, Stan. It wasn’t your fault.” He reached across the desk and pulled the telephone toward him. “This was the one she used?”

  “Yes, sir. No one has used it since.”

  “Haven View Hospital.” The disembodied reply at the other end brought him up sharply. She’d gone to her foster sister? But why? “Hello?” The voice enquired down the telephone line.

  He gathered his thoughts together, relieved it had been so easy to track her down. “Has Holly Christmas arrived yet?”

  “Yes, she has. Would you like me to bring her to the phone?”

  “No, don’t worry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  He swiftly replaced the receiver and bolted for the emergency stairwell that led to the basement car park. The BMW’s tyres squealed in protest as he roared up the garage ramp.

  Haven View was Auckland’s most exclusive hospital, he knew that from his own personal experience. After all, the last time he’d set foot in there had been to say a final farewell to his mother when he was eight years old. Despite its lavish surroundings and the expansive gardens outside, it was first and foremost a place where people went to die. He thought he’d forgotten the smells, the atmosphere, the fear. Yet it all came rushing back, as current and clear as if it had been yesterday.

  Snap out of it! he growled fiercely at his reflection in the rearview mirror. You’re thirty-one years old—not a boy of eight filled with terror. Not some little kid who’d cried to be allowed to go outside and play in the sunshine rather than stay with his father and brothers in the room with a mother he barely knew as anything more than a frail bedridden woman. He’d been too young to understand the cancer that had destroyed the vibrant woman she’d been. He could still see the look on his mother’s face, of compassion tinged with sorrow, the sweet smile she’d given him as he’d run from the room the instant his father had given him reluctant permission to go.

  His oldest brother, Declan, had found him in the garden a short time later, and the look in his brother’s eyes had told him it was too late to ever say goodbye. He’d lost his chance forever. His mother was gone.

  An air horn sounded a strident warning from in front, snapping him from the past with an urgency he couldn’t ignore. Connor swore and swung his car to one side, narrowly missing the container truck headed through the intersection towards the docks. Focus. He had to focus. He had to find Holly.

  The entrance to the hospital had changed, and he almost overshot the driveway in his haste. As he got out of his car and walked up the path to push through the front doors, he fought down the memories that rushed back through him of that other day. He’d never dreamed he’d have to set foot in here ever again.

  His unexpected presence commanded immediate attention as the two ladies at reception both approached him at the same time.

  “I’m looking for Holly Christmas, I understand she’s here?”

  “Oh, yes, in the Rose room, second down the hall to your right. Are you family?”

  Before Connor could reply, a keening sound struck his ears—so inconsolable it cut through to his nerve endings and made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. A shiver ran the length of his spine. Holly!

  He flew down the short hallway, coming to an abrupt halt at the door to a room where Holly lay, sobbing, across the inert form of a young woman. The painfully thin figure in the bed, although clearly ravaged by illness, bore a serenity on her face that gave evidence to the battle she’d borne, and finally won, with her release from life.

  The room was cluttered with photo frames on every available surface, yet Connor couldn’t tear his eyes from Holly’s grief-stricken form as she wept—her sorrow a physical force in the room. Desperate helplessness slammed into him with the power of a freight train. He didn’t do emotion. Not this kind. Every muscle in his body tensed with the effort not to leave. One way or another Holly needed him right now. He had to stay. He couldn’t walk out on this—on her.

  A sudden flurry of activity at the door saw the hurried entrance of two other people, a doctor and a nurse. They spared him a cursory glance, their attention on Holly and Andrea’s lifeless form. The nurse gently pulled her away, wrapping Holly in strong arms and holding her tight, while the doctor swiftly examined the dead woman.

  “Holly, I’m so sorry,” the doctor said in a voice that cracked with emotion. “She’s at rest now.”

  “She was all I had left. All I had.” A fresh wave of tears swamped Holly’s face as she lifted her head from the nurse’s shoulder. Suddenly she became aware of Connor standing by the bed. “You! What are you doing here?” The words shot from her mouth like gravel from beneath a spinning tyre. “Can’t you ever leave me alone? You don’t belong here. Get out. Get out!”

  “Sir, if you could wait outside for a moment, and give Holly a little time to say goodbye to her sister?” The doctor guided him back out the door, closing it gently behind him, a sympathetic look on his face.

  Connor stared at the closed door as helplessness seeped into every cell in his body. He should be in there, with her. Providing comfort. Yet he was the last person on earth she wanted to see.

  His acknowledgement of that fact scored deeper than he wanted to admit.

  Ten

  Wherever Holly turned he was there. At night he held her close to him and cradled her in his arms as she cried herself to sleep, despite her every attempt to remain apart.

  Through the mind-numbing fog of loss, she sensed his strong quiet presence behind her, acting as a shield, a support, whatever she needed at any given point in time. Ensuring she had everything.

  Everything except Andrea.

  The funeral arrangements had been taken care of with the precision of a military engagement. Even Thompson had attended the brief but poignant graveside service, his presence swelling the scant number of staff from the hospital who could make it, together with herself and Connor.

  The unfairness that Andrea, who’d been so full of life as a teenager, should be so forgotten emphasised with driving, painful clarity just how alone Holly now was.

  Somehow, in the past couple of days, she had learned to lock in the pain of saying goodbye to Andrea. It was better not to love. Not to need. Not to want.

  She was alone. Utterly and completely alone.

  She thought fleetingly of the child she now carried. Not her baby … Connor’s. Under the circumstances it was for the best. It was easier not to flay herself open again.

  At the island, Holly drifted aimlessly
through the house, before wandering upstairs to the bedroom. In the private sitting room off the master suite, she curled up in a deep armchair that faced the window looking back out to the sea. She’d never thought she’d ever feel so abandoned again, yet the pain and the suffering continued. Andrea’s illness had cut her to the bone, but it was nothing compared to the raw screaming pain inside her now.

  “Holly?”

  She turned at the uncharacteristic hesitance in Connor’s voice. He carried a large archive box under his arm. Surely he didn’t expect her to work now? He’d assured her that she could take up her duties when she felt ready but that Janet was managing brilliantly in the meantime. With her visits to Andrea and the overwhelming tiredness the pregnancy had wrought she hadn’t been in any hurry to take on any more.

  “I thought you might like these. You know, to have around you. You can put them around the house if you like.”

  He put the box in her lap and lifted the lid. Inside, wrapped in layers of tissue, were the photo frames that had filled Andrea’s room with the history of their all-too-short time together. Slowly Holly extracted each one and stood them on the long coffee table in front of her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Connor shifted uncomfortably, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers. “Do you want to talk about her?”

  “What’s to tell? She’s gone.”

  He squatted down in front of her, taking the frame she clutched in numb fingers and setting it beside the others before wrapping his hands around hers. The heat of his skin enveloped her chilled hands, warming them through and sending the heat in a slow gentle wave up her arms. She didn’t want to feel. It was better to stay numb. Holly tried to pull her hands away, but his hold on her firmed.

  “Tell me,” he coaxed. He hated seeing her like this—empty of fire, of life. It was as if she’d given up on everything. He’d already spoken at length to the obstetrician, concerned about the effect of her mental distress on the baby, and despite the specialist’s assurances, he had to do something to chip her out of the frozen block of ice she’d locked herself into.