The Doctor's Bride by Sunrise

by Josie Metcalfe

  She tried to listen in on their conversation but the reception wasn’t clear enough. She couldn’t even tell from the tone of their voices whether the news was good, bad or in different, and had to wait impatiently until he came back to her.

  In the meantime, she was left wondering just what he would have said about his wife if he hadn’t been interrupted. Were he and Caroline divorced? She felt a pang of guilt that she should feel the remotest bit happy that he should have gone through that sort of misery. But it would mean that he was no longer married, a small voice inside her head pointed out.

  Or perhaps they were merely separated, each resigned to the other’s peccadilloes, uncaring that they were breaking their sacred vows. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t change the situation as far as she was concerned. She believed that married was married, and only death—or divorce for those who believed in it—would change that.

  ‘Maggie?’ Adam’s voice brought her out of the realms of speculation and the new energy that flowed out of the radio was almost visible. ‘Someone’s unearthed a map.’

  ‘A map?’ She couldn’t see quite what the excitement was about. Most people might have completely forgotten that this mine had ever existed, but it was bound to have been marked on old maps.

  ‘Young George used a few of his contacts,’ Adam continued, and Maggie smiled the way she always did when she heard the old man’s title, knowing it had been bestowed on him when his father and grandfather had both been alive.

  ‘So how does that help anything?’ she asked, frustrated that their conversation had been interrupted for something so unimportant. ‘We already know where the mine is.’

  ‘Ah, but this isn’t the sort of map you’re thinking about, with roads and railways marked on it,’ he explained. ‘This is a map that shows all the tunnels and whether they were adits, drifts, winzes and so on, and what level they all are in relation to each other.’

  Suddenly she felt a spark of excitement, too. Did this mean that there was a chance they could find another way in to her living tomb?

  ‘So, what have they found out?’ she demanded eagerly.

  ‘Not a lot, yet,’ he admitted. ‘But I didn’t want to keep you in the…um…I just wanted to let you know that even though it might not seem like it at the moment, things are happening.’

  ‘You nearly said you didn’t want to keep me in the dark,’ she pointed out with a quiver in her voice, not certain whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

  For just a moment she’d thought it was all going to be easy, that with this old map they’d found there was another way to get her safely out of there, another adit coming into the mine from the other side of the hill perhaps.

  Adam’s narrowly averted slip of the tongue would have been funny under any other circumstances. It was only now, when she was so close to the edge, that it had nearly been enough to break her control, and that was the last thing she wanted.

  If…when…the inevitable happened, he was bound to feel guilty for having persuaded her to go into the mine in the first place. He would probably ignore the fact that she’d willingly gone back down after she’d brought the three boys out, and take all the blame on his own conscience. He certainly didn’t need to hear her fall apart, too. The least she could do was show the world some composure in the face of adversity.

  ‘So…’ She had to pause to clear her throat and pray for some inspiration. The one thing she did need was to have Adam close to her, because hearing his voice was enough to make her feel a little less alone. All she had to do was think of a topic.

  ‘Did you ever hear what happened to the girl under the train? Joanna?’ she asked, her brain instantly connecting the present situation with the first time she’d been in a cramped and dangerous situation with him. Then it had been his deep voice washing over her, instructing, calming, encouraging, that had helped her to cope with the whole thing on a minute-by-minute basis.

  ‘I went to visit her a few days later on Orthopaedics, after she’d had some reconstruction work done,’ he said, and as soon as she heard the smile in his voice she knew that there had been a successful outcome even before he told her. ‘They’d managed to pin and plate her arm and done some microsurgery on blood, tendons and nerves, but she knew she was going to be looking at several more procedures to maximise function before plastics would make it look prettier. But she still had her arm and they were very optimistic about the outcome.’

  ‘Did she tell you what had happened?’ she demanded. ‘All I heard was the rumour on the platform—that she’d screamed and jumped, and he was a good-Samaritan by stander that she dragged off with her—but while we were under the train, she didn’t sound in the least bit suicidal. She was begging us to save her life.’

  ‘Apparently, the man was an ex-boy friend who wasn’t taking the “ex” part very well,’ Adam said. ‘She said she’d realised just in time that he was a complete control freak who was systematically taking over her life, cutting her off from all her friends and family. She’d told him it was all over, but he didn’t want to let her go.’

  ‘So he decided that if he couldn’t have her then no one could, and he pushed her under the train?’ Maggie couldn’t believe it. ‘And to think I felt sorry for him!’

  ‘She was just amazingly lucky that she landed between the rails without touching the live one. He had wrapped his arms around her before he jumped so even though she was struggling, he actually kept her fairly safe.’

  ‘Except for her arm,’ she said with a shudder, remembering the extent of that injury. When she’d first seen it, she’d been convinced that the wheels had gone completely over the arm and severed it. It had only been when she’d been trying to staunch the arterial bleeding that she’d realised that it had only been a particularly bad open fracture.

  ‘As near as they could make out, the back of his head was hit by something under the train. The blow destroyed the dens on C2—you probably know that’s called the hangman’s fracture—and he was dead almost instantaneously. Her arm was caught by part of the machinery underneath, too, but it wasn’t a total traumatic amputation so the surgeons were able to salvage the hand.’

  ‘So it was all worthwhile, being shoved under the train when I just wanted to run screaming into the distance,’ she said wryly. ‘The London underground system was hard enough to cope with, especially at that time of day with so many commuters packed onto the platform, but climbing down onto the track and seeing the tiny space I was going to have to squeeze into…’ She shuddered at the memory.

  ‘But you did it, because there was no one else small enough with the right knowledge to be able to save her life in the few minutes there was left to make a difference,’ he said quietly. ‘And I don’t know whether I ever told you but I was so proud of you for being able to make yourself do it.’

  ‘The way I remember it, you didn’t really give me much option,’ she grumbled, to cover up the delight flooding through her at his words. She’d been delighted that Joanna had still been alive by the time the air ambulance staff had arrived with replacement fluids and the pain relief that she’d needed. At least she could console herself that her efforts had kept the young woman going until her care had been placed in other hands.

  Once their help was no longer needed, Adam had suggested that she might like to avail herself of his bathroom to clean herself up a bit and that had been the moment when she’d realised that she had been covered in so much of Joanna’s blood that she’d looked like a victim herself.

  Of course, that wasn’t the only reason why she accepted his offer so readily. If she was being honest, a large part of her eagerness was due to the incredible attraction that had been drawing the two of them together all day.

  From the first moment that she saw him walk into the lecture room Maggie knew that Adam was still the only man for her. It may have been years since he’d left Penhally but she’d never forgotten him, measuring every man she met against his impossible standard.

  It was hard to co
ncentrate on the lectures while she watched him pace back wards and forwards at the front of the room, his body more heavily muscled than when he’d left as a teenager so that his shoulders looked broader than ever, his stride long and smooth. And those stunning eyes! She’d never seen another pair such a deep sapphire colour, or any eyes that held the sparkle that his did when he smiled at her.

  Looking back on it, there had probably been several disgruntled women on the course, upset that he’d made it obvious that he’d wanted to spend his break times only with her. At the time all she’d been aware of had been the fact that she had actually been there, sitting next to Adam Donnelly, and that he’d seemed every bit as pleased to see her.

  So when he suggested that she come home with him, there was no thought in her head that she would turn the offer down. In fact, it was quite possible that her brain ceased working altogether, handing over control of the evening to her heart.

  The maisonette was bigger than she’d expected, bearing in mind the cost of housing in London, but other than that, inside it seemed like a typical bachelor’s abode, with that morning’s dishes washed but left on the drainer and a pile of opened mail on the table. The bathroom was no better, with the towel he’d used slung over the shower door rather than hung on the rail and the toothpaste and brush left on the back of the basin.

  ‘At least I put my dirty laundry away,’ he muttered defensively as he did a lightning tour, picking things up and putting them away before he found a clean towel for her and left the bathroom.

  Her clothes had disappeared by the time she finally turned the shower off and she shivered at the knowledge that he might have seen her through the screen while she had been under the shower, hoping that he’d liked what he’d seen. Her only regret was that she hadn’t known he was looking so that she could have invited him to join her.

  Just the thought of being so wanton made her blush and she groaned at the fact that she’d had so little experience, afraid that it might turn Adam off. The trouble was, she’d never been so attracted to another man that she’d wanted to share her body with him. It had always been Adam for her, first, last and always.

  The pale grey sweats he’d left just inside the door were far too long for her, but that was the perennial problem for her when she bought clothes, too. Anyway, she thought as she picked her shoes up while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest, she was hoping that she wouldn’t be wearing them for very long. If the expression in his eyes was anything to go by, Adam was every bit as excited as she was to be there together at last.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the life-or-death events on the underground, making the two of them feel that they had to celebrate the fact that they were alive and well in the most basic way possible, but she’d barely stepped out into the hallway when he appeared from the tiny kitchen.

  ‘Can I get you anything while your clothes are in the washing machine? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger? Or would you rather have something to eat?’ he offered, but she barely heard him, her eyes feasting on the naked chest displayed to perfection above jeans worn white in prominent places.

  She was struck dumb by his sheer masculine beauty and all she could think was that she only wanted to feast on him.

  ‘Maggie…!’ he groaned, and she knew that he was every bit as des per ate for her as she was for him.

  Suddenly it was so easy and so bliss fully simple as she walked into his arms and offered her mouth for his kiss.

  Within seconds he’d swept her off her feet and into his arms but she had no idea where he was taking her, only that his kisses were even better than she’d remembered, sweeter, deeper, more exciting, stirring her to her depths and reverberating with all the emotions she’d been storing up for just this moment.

  She’d thought that she would be shy the first time a man explored her body with love-making in mind, knowing that her slenderness was far from most men’s ideal, but this was Adam touching her, stroking all the way up her shower-warmed belly as he pushed the borrowed sweat top up until her naked breasts were revealed.

  ‘At last,’ he breathed as he lavished attention on them, stroking and kissing and suckling them the way she’d longed for him to do that far-off summer. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this for so long. You’ve no idea how hard it was for me to resist you back then.’

  ‘So why did you bother resisting?’ she demanded, while her brain was still in command of her mouth. ‘You must have known that it was what I wanted, too, and once I was sixteen…’

  ‘That’s far too young to start a sexual relationship,’ he growled, momentarily distracted from feasting on her. ‘I was already eighteen and my hormones were driving me crazy, but even then I knew that it was too soon. You were too young to know…much too young for me to tie you down.’

  She knew that he was right. Logically, sixteen was far too young, but in her heart she knew that if you met the right person at that age, there was no point in looking any further. All those years ago she’d been absolutely certain that he was the right person as soon as she’d got to know him, and now, finally, they were going to be together the way they always should have been.

  He groaned as she arched her body up against him and tilted her hips, pure instinct telling her that he would find the pressure and friction against his aroused body impossible to resist.

  She was right.

  It took him only seconds to strip those jeans away and her eyes widened at her first look at his aroused masculine perfection before he returned to her and drew her into his arms.

  She offered her mouth for his kiss but he hadn’t finished speaking and touched a gentle fingertip to her lips while he met her gaze. She was disappointed for a moment, but the tension she felt thrumming through his body told her that this was just a brief delay. Well, she’d waited for years to experience his possession for the first time, so a few more minutes wouldn’t make any difference, not when every inch of his body was silently shouting its intentions.

  ‘Maggie, you do understand, don’t you? I had to give you the chance to see something of the world…’ he said with a concerned frown drawing his brows together, but she was far more interested in the fact that his dark eyes were slumberous with arousal and that the pulse at his throat was racing while he tried to continue their conversation. ‘You deserved to have the opportunity to achieve the goals you’d set for yourself before you were tied down to a permanent relationship. I didn’t want you to resent me for taking that away from you.’

  ‘Stupid man,’ she whispered lovingly as she rubbed her naked breasts against the dark silky hair across his chest. ‘We could have done it all together, helping each other through it. Just think of all the years we’ve wasted because you didn’t think I was old enough to know my own mind.’

  ‘You’re sure you know it now?’ he challenged as he plucked at the sleeves of her borrowed top, helping her to slide her arms out one at a time. ‘No doubts about what you’re doing?’

  ‘None!’ she declared triumphantly, and flung the sweat top aside.

  A sudden clatter told her that she’d knocked something over on the bedside cabinet and, afraid that it might have been broken, she craned her head to look as he reached out to pluck the garment now draped over the bedside light.

  ‘Did I damage anything?’ she asked, mortified that she’d been so clumsy. Had she completely ruined the mood with her awkwardness?

  ‘Nothing’s broken and nothing’s touching the light to be set on fire,’ he confirmed, setting a silver picture frame on the surface again.

  From the corner of her eye she caught sight of the two sets of images frozen in time. One was obviously a photo of Adam and his mother taken on his graduation day, both of them smiling widely, but the other… She gasped in shock when she’d realised what she was looking at.

  ‘W-who is that?’ she demanded through suddenly chattering teeth, all thoughts of seduction gone as she focused on the bride and groom cutting the cake in the photo, each of them smiling w
idely for the camera.

  The groom was undeniably Adam, impossibly handsome in his dark suit and white shirt with a blood-red rosebud in his lapel, and the tall elegant blonde beauty with the wealth of tumbling blonde hair…?

  ‘That’s Caroline,’ he said heavily. ‘My wife.’

  Maggie didn’t remember much of the next few minutes.

  She knew that Adam had pleaded with her to stay, just long enough for him to explain…but he should have known that no explanations would excuse what he’d nearly enticed her into doing.

  Yes, she’d been only too willing to go to bed with him, but that had been when she’d believed that he was as free as she was to give her love—she hadn’t known that he was married and that she was about to commit adultery.

  The next thing she remembered was slamming the door of his house behind her with her handbag in one hand and her shoes in the other, dressed in nothing more than borrowed sweats.

  Maggie never knew whether he’d tried to come after her that night once he’d put some clothes on, but presumed that he couldn’t be bothered when there was no further contact from him, even though he knew she was going to be returning to Penhally.

  That had been the last time she’d seen him until that afternoon, when she’d had to turn to face her nemesis.

  The Penhally grape vine being what it was, she’d heard that he was returning to work as a locum and had been dreading their first meeting, expecting to hate him or, if not that, to at least despise him for the fiasco a year ago.

  Instead, she’d found that her body and her heart didn’t care what he had done, they still loved him as much as ever and desired him more than any other man.

  She stifled a sob at the realisation that it was all too late.

  Even if she’d been able to overcome her scruples, she was never going to know what it felt like to be possessed by him in that ultimate pleasure. The chances that she would be able to escape from the mine were so slim as to be negligible and the chances that she would ever fulfil the dream that had haunted her for half her lifetime were non-existent.