His Very Special Bride

by Joanna Neil

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Sarah told him. ‘I rang the hospital to see if I could find out what had happened to them. It turns out that Ben was right when he said Alex must have broken his ankle. It was put in a cast and it’s just a question of checking up over the next few weeks to make sure that it’s healing OK.’

  She helped Jamie to secure the stretcher in place. ‘As to Matthew, they’ve done quite a few tests, and it looks as though he has a condition that means he might at any time suffer dangerous arrhythmia. They’ve stabilised him for the time being, but they’re going to give him an implant that will regulate his heartbeat and stop him from suffering any more nasty episodes.’

  Jamie adjusted the position of the saline bag. ‘I’m glad that he’s all right.’ The paramedic gave her an approving look. ‘I think you’re doing really well in this job. I know that you’re only meant to be reporting on the use of the equipment and the difficulties of doing the job, but you’ve become part of the team.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘Thanks.’ His comment caused a warm glow to surge inside her.

  They stepped down from the ambulance, and Jamie was thoughtful for a moment or two as he pushed the ramp back inside the vehicle and shut the doors. ‘It must be difficult for you, working in emergency medicine and looking after your little girl. My wife has trouble juggling work and child care, and our children are older than your Emily.’

  Sarah gave a faint grimace. ‘I’m only working part time. It would be more of a problem if I had to come out every day. At least I can do my reports and some of the newspaper work from home, and I get to be with Emily for a good part of the week.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ He smiled and gave a slight wave of his hand as he moved to the front of the vehicle.

  A second or two later the ambulance moved off along the road, and Sarah went back to the car with Ben. She was subdued, lost in thought, and it was only when she was settled in the passenger seat beside him and they were on their way to the hospital that Ben said, ‘Something’s troubling you, isn’t it? You’ve been quiet ever since you spoke to Jamie about the boys.’

  She gave a diffident shrug. ‘I think it was something he said, about it being difficult for me, working in emergency medicine. It seemed to strike a chord somehow, but I don’t have any problems right now, so it must be to do with something from the past.’

  ‘You obviously haven’t discovered what it was that bothered you.’ His gaze ran over her. ‘Perhaps you should just let it be for the moment. Sometimes you can think too hard about a problem, and the answer keeps evading you. Then, when you least expect it, it pops into your head.’

  ‘You mean that I should let my subconscious go to work on it?’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I think my subconscious has been working overtime for months.’

  ‘You’re right.’ His mouth twisted. ‘And now things are beginning to come to the surface. Give it time…and remember that I’m here to help you if there’s anything you can’t handle. A problem shared, as they say.’

  ‘Thanks, Ben. You’ve already done so much for me.’

  He smiled. ‘I think what you need is a day out, a chance to unwind. Perhaps we could take Emily to visit one of the local nature reserves at the weekend.’

  ‘I think she would like that. I would, too.’

  His glance meshed with hers. ‘Good. That’s what we’ll do, then.’

  At the hospital, they went straight into the A and E department where they were scheduled to be for the rest of the day, and Ben went to liaise with his colleagues about the patient. ‘His skin is very cold and pale now,’ he said, ‘so I think we should give him more epinephrine, but intravenously this time in a dilute solution.’

  The other doctor agreed, and the epinephrine was given right away, but there was no reaction. ‘Let’s try another dose,’ Ben’s colleague suggested.

  The second dose of epinephrine was administered, and a moment later, to the wonder of everyone in the room, the patient opened his eyes. ‘What happened to me?’ he said, his fingers going to the oxygen mask.

  Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and Ben grinned crookedly. ‘You’re in hospital,’ he told the man. ‘You were found slumped at the wheel of your car. Can you tell me your name?’

  ‘Martin…Martin Sims.’ Sarah noticed that he had developed a slight tremor, and a glance at the monitor showed that his heart rate was very fast. She guessed that was a response to the epinephrine.

  ‘We think you must have had a reaction to something that you’ve eaten or something that you’ve come in contact with. Can you think of anything you’ve had that you wouldn’t normally eat or drink?’

  Martin shook his head. ‘I just had cereal for breakfast, and at lunchtime I picked up a cheeseburger from the corner café, but there’s nothing else I can think of. I haven’t been feeling too well lately, and the doctor said I had a chest infection, but I didn’t want to take time off work. I was on my way back to the office when I started to feel ill, but I thought it would pass because I took the first of my antibiotics with my drink at lunchtime.’

  ‘What antibiotics would they be?’ Ben asked. ‘We didn’t find any tablets or capsules on you.’

  ‘No, I left the bottle at home, and just brought one tablet with me. It was penicillin.’

  ‘Ah…’ Ben let out a long sigh and light gleamed in his eyes. ‘I think we may have our answer. I imagine that you may well be allergic to penicillin.’

  Martin stared at him in shock. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.

  The rest of the day went by smoothly enough, and at the end of his shift Ben drove Sarah back home. They picked up Emily from Carol’s house, and as he drove away from the village Ben said, ‘Would you like to come straight round to my place and I’ll make dinner for us? I thought I might do a quick spaghetti Bolognese. I always make far too much for one, and I would love you to share it with me.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Sarah said with a smile. ‘That sounds wonderful. It’s one of Emily’s favourites.’

  In his kitchen, he went to find paper and a pencil, along with shapes for Emily to draw round, then he teased the little girl about the fluffy owl on her T-shirt.

  ‘Will he bite me if I touch his beak?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Emily said, laughing. ‘He doesn’t bite.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He tentatively ran a finger over the owl’s fluffy head. ‘Ouch!’ he said, jumping back. ‘He did bite me… Look, he bit my finger. Where’s the end of my finger gone?’ He hid his index finger from view.

  Emily gave him a quizzical look from under her lashes and began to prise his fingers open. ‘’Tisn’t gone. It’s there, see?’ she said in triumph a moment later.

  Ben looked astonished. ‘Where?’

  ‘There.’ She waggled his finger. ‘It’s there.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Well, I never. So it is.’

  She giggled. ‘Silly Ben. You didn’t know where your finger was.’

  He laughed with her. ‘It’s a good thing you’re here to find it for me, isn’t it?’

  Emily was still giggling as she went to sit at the breakfast bar to do her drawing, and Sarah said softly, ‘You’re the best thing to happen to Emily in a long time. You’re so good with her.’

  ‘She’s a lovely child. It’s easy to get along with Emily.’ He started to heat a pan of water for the spaghetti. ‘Sit yourself down while I get the food started.’ He pointed to a chair.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ she said, but he shook his head and waved her to the seat.

  ‘Tell me how it felt, being in A and E today. Was there anything that reminded you of how things used to be?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Her face took on a perplexed expression. ‘It all seemed vaguely familiar somehow. I remembered a lot of the procedures, the medicines and the equipment, and I found that I was predicting the course of action the doctors would take.’

  She watched him toss onions in a heated pan, and then add minced meat and sauce. ‘I was surprised that no one minded me being there.
No one seemed to object to me standing by and watching what they were doing.’

  He reached for salt and added a pinch to the mix in the pan, then sprinkled herbs over the simmering sauce.

  ‘That smells good,’ she murmured. ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’

  ‘I’m quite sure.’ He put plates under the grill to warm. ‘I think you’ll find that most of the people who work in our A and E department are easygoing and ready to accept newcomers. Anyway, they must have seen you from a distance when we’ve handed over patients into their care before now.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t think they were all like that where I used to work. I remember someone used to tell me that some people were uptight and picky because they weren’t sure of themselves, and they felt threatened by bright young doctors.’ She struggled to grasp the elusive threads of memory. ‘He was trying to comfort me, I think. He said it didn’t matter.’

  ‘He?’

  Sarah looked up. Ben had stopped what he was doing and was watching her closely, a cautious, almost vigilant expression on his face.

  ‘I… Yes… I remember there was someone.’ She frowned.

  ‘Someone close?’

  All at once her throat was aching and her eyes stung with the sudden surge of unspent tears. Why was this happening now? She didn’t want this memory, not here, not now, when everything was going so well, when she was here in Ben’s home and he was the whole world to her.

  ‘I think so.’ The words came out as a whisper, and she wished she could take them back, but he was asking her, and she knew that for both their sakes nothing but the truth would do. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ His jaw was rigid, as though it was locked in a spasm of regret, and his whole body was still. ‘Do you recall anything else about him?’

  ‘I… He said he would come and join me.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples as she fought to regain the images and words that flitted in and out of her mind. ‘I was going away and he said he would come and be with me.’

  Ben pulled air into his lungs and then stiffly turned back to the hob. He didn’t say anything more for a long time, but concentrated on preparing the meal, and Sarah wished that there was something she could do to put things right.

  To keep busy, and to stop herself from thinking, she began to set the table, laying out cutlery and serviettes.

  ‘There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge and glasses in the cupboard over there,’ Ben pointed out, glancing over to her as he drained the spaghetti. She nodded and went to fetch them.

  ‘OK, this is ready,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Come and tuck in.’ He put out plates of spaghetti Bolognese on the table, and then busied himself pouring wine for himself and Sarah.

  Sarah watched him and briefly pressed her teeth into her lower lip. He was behaving perfectly normally. It was as though she had never mentioned the man she had worked with in A and E—the man who had felt strongly enough about her that he had said he would come after her when she left. Her mind was in a whirl. Was it possible that he might have been Emily’s father?

  Emily was still busy drawing her pictures, and Sarah went to bring her over to the table for her food. ‘I’ll cut up the spaghetti for you,’ she said. ‘It will be easier for you to manage.’

  ‘I done picture for you, Mummy,’ Emily told her, waving the paper under her nose. ‘It’s a picture of you.’

  Sarah studied the pencilled egg shape that had squiggles for eyes and a mouth, with thready arms and legs protruding from the sides. ‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘What a beautiful picture.’

  Emily was clearly pleased with Sarah’s comments, and didn’t seem at all inclined to go and eat. ‘Did you been work today, Mummy?’ she asked. ‘Carol said you been to work at the hospital. I draw picture of people in their beds.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I went to see the poorly people.’ Sarah gathered up the pencil as Emily would have started on another drawing. ‘You can do more later.’

  Emily nodded. ‘Mummy was poorly in hospital.’

  ‘Yes. But Mummy’s getting better now.’

  Emily frowned, as though she didn’t quite understand, and Sarah said softly, ‘See if you can eat your dinner all up. It will help you to grow big and strong.’

  ‘I already strong.’ Her eyes grew large. ‘I can lift my toy box up.’

  ‘So you are,’ said Ben, joining in. ‘But Mummy’s right. You need to eat up, and then you’ll be even stronger.’

  ‘Stronger than Joseph?’ Emily thought about that. ‘He pusheded me out of the home corner, so I pusheded him back, and Mrs Pearson telled us to stop it.’

  Sarah smiled wryly. ‘Well, Mrs Pearson was right. Neither of you should have been pushing.’

  She looked up at Ben and saw that he, too, was smiling. He picked up his fork and twirled spaghetti around it. Sarah followed his cue and began to eat her meal.

  ‘Perhaps the man in A and E was just a colleague,’ she ventured in a low voice after a minute or two. ‘In my mind, I can see his face, but there isn’t a lot more that comes to mind. Perhaps I didn’t remember correctly.’

  Ben paused to take a sip of his wine. ‘It’s possible. I still can’t figure out why he didn’t actually come and find you. He must have known where you were heading.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  For the rest of the meal they talked about other things, about how he was going to search for her parents and the work that they did in A and E, anything rather than dwell on the man who might be part of her life.

  ‘I thought we might go out to the bird sanctuary at the weekend, if that’s all right with you,’ Ben murmured. ‘There aren’t just birds there. There’s a pet corner as well and a play area for Emily. I think you would both enjoy it.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘We’ll look forward to it.’

  After dinner, Sarah helped Ben to clear the dishes away, and settled Emily in the living room in front of the television for a while. A travel programme was being shown, and Emily was entranced by the beach scenes and the seagulls noisily searching for food in the rock pools.

  ‘Your living room is so beautiful,’ Sarah told Ben, as they finished sipping their wine in the kitchen. ‘The sofas are really comfortable and I love the fabric and the soft patterns. And as to that glass table, I’ve never seen anything so lovely. It must be unique.’

  ‘My father had it made for us,’ he said. ‘He was a doctor himself, but he had a creative streak and loved to design things. He had an eye for painting, too, and I have a couple of his landscapes, one in the living room and one in the study. My mother has the rest.’

  ‘He was a very talented artist,’ Sarah murmured. She remembered the landscape on the wall of the study. It showed a house overlooking the wide curve of a bay, and in the distance, close to the horizon, there was a sailing ship.

  Ben nodded, his mouth curving into a wry grin. ‘I often thought that he might make a living from it, but you hear about artists starving in garrets, so it’s probably just as well that he stuck with the medical profession.’

  Sarah smiled with him, and for a blissful moment, as they stood close together by the French doors, it was as though they were linked by invisible bonds. They were so close to one another that she could feel the warmth coming from him.

  Then Emily called out, a shocked cry that instantly had Sarah’s attention.

  ‘Mummy…Mummy…’ There was an urgency in the child’s voice, a note that had to be responded to right away, and Sarah glanced briefly at Ben, sliding her wineglass down onto the table before she hurried out of the kitchen to see what it was that was provoking her child to call out.

  Emily was sitting on the carpet, her eyes as wide as could be as she gazed at the television screen.

  ‘What is it, Emily?’ Sarah glanced around the living room, not knowing what to expect. ‘Why were you shouting?’

  ‘Mummy, look. Come see.’ There was a note of agitation in the childish voice.

  Sarah came
further into the room and sat down on the sofa close by the little girl, aware that Ben had followed and was standing by the door. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Emily didn’t answer. Instead, she continued to watch the programme that was being played out on television.

  On the screen the camera was following the progress of a yacht as it set out from the harbour. It was a ketch, with a main mast and a shorter mizzen mast aft. On board was a man and a woman, though their faces were out of focus to Sarah.

  ‘Daddy,’ Emily said, pointing the finger at the screen. She wagged the finger up and down. Her voice became louder and more excitable as she watched the sailing boat move across the water. ‘Daddy on boat. And Mummy.’ By now, it wasn’t just a finger that was pointing. Her whole hand was extended towards the screen, the fingers splayed out, her concentration intense.

  Sarah frowned. ‘What do you mean, Emily? They are just people on holiday.’ Why would Emily be saying that? ‘They can’t be your mummy and daddy. I’m your mummy. You know that, don’t you? I’m here with you now.’

  Months ago the child had watched a traumatic event unfold, seeing Sarah injured. Could it be that she was linking the pictures on the screen with something that played on in her mind?

  ‘Daddy not go on boat again. Not go.’ The child glared at the television, and Sarah was at a loss to know what was going on. She glanced across the room at Ben, and her bewilderment must have been clear on her face, but he looked equally baffled.

  She turned her attention back to the TV programme, searching for clues as to what had prompted this explosion of anguish on Emily’s part. The little girl’s expression was fierce, as though the picture on the screen held within it all the bad things that could cause her harm.

  ‘Emily felled down.’ She was becoming more and more distressed as she gesticulated towards the television. ‘Emily not go in water…never, never.’ She sucked in a noisy breath. ‘Emily not like wet.’

  Sarah watched the sailboat skim across the water, trying to make sense of what Emily was saying and how the programme was linked to it. And suddenly, as the boat began to list to one side as the wind caught its sails, the whole, sorry episode began to unfold in her mind. All at once she knew exactly what was going on in Emily’s mind because the sight of the boat and the water triggered something horrifying deep in the recesses of her brain.