A Very Special Proposal

by Josie Metcalfe

  There was more than a suggestion of a swagger in his walk as he strode directly towards her former colleague and for the first time Amy found herself battling the urge to giggle.

  Quickly pulling the helmet over her head to hide the fact, she grasped the edge of the door again and widened it in a silent invitation for the man to leave.

  ‘I told you I already had plans,’ she said firmly, when he looked as if he was going to try to argue, and with the two of them advancing on him like extras out of a science fiction film he finally gave up and stumbled hastily out of her flat.

  ‘I could come back later,’ he began, clearly unhappy with the way his plans were being thwarted, but Zach advanced on him, looming over him in an almost menacing way.

  ‘You do that, mate,’ he invited with obviously false friendliness. ‘But make sure you leave it at least half a century before you do because she’s just not interested. OK?’

  Amy managed to stay silent as they left the house, glad she’d decided that she only needed to take her keys with her when she just managed to fit them in her pocket. There was no need for conversation as Zach directed her to climb on the back of the bike, neither did she need directions to wrap her arms securely around him, revelling in the fact that it was happening at last.

  It wasn’t until the powerful engine had roared into life beneath them that she allowed herself to chuckle aloud at what had just happened in her little hallway.

  ‘Babe!’ she snorted softly, feeling a renewed surge of response to the unexpected endearment. Who would have thought…?

  ‘Well?’ said a voice in her ear, and she gave a little shriek of shock.

  ‘Hang on…babe!’ teased Zach, his voice coming from the speaker that was part of the helmet he’d given her, but sounding so intimately close that it felt as if he was whispering in her ear. How could she have forgotten that he’d told her about the bike’s sophisticated intercom system?

  His deliberate repetition of the endearment made her laugh aloud.

  ‘Well, you can hardly blame me,’ he grumbled as he steered the machine between the slalom of cars parked on either side of her road. ‘I was looking out of your window while I was waiting for you and I saw your slimy visitor arrive in front of the house. He didn’t know it, but I watched him spray breath freshener in his mouth and try to suck in his gut as he walked up the path to ring the bell.’

  There was certainly no spare gut on Zach’s body. She could feel the taut muscles of his abdomen even through the thickness of his leather jacket.

  ‘I had a choice,’ he continued with a slightly rough edge to his tone that had nothing to do with their smooth passage out of the town and into the dark roads leading into the surrounding countryside. ‘I could either come out into the hallway—incognito—and whisk you away, or…’

  ‘Or…?’ she echoed, suddenly realising just how much she was enjoying herself. It wasn’t just the fulfilment of a long-ago fantasy, neither was it the fact that she had her arms around this virile man. It wasn’t even the sensation that she was flying through the star-bright night. No, for the first time she was actually enjoying just being with a man, with no expectations on either side and…

  ‘Or I could strip off my clothes before I dragged you into the sitting room, so that he’d know once and for all that you weren’t interested…You aren’t, are you?’ he tacked on, but she nearly missed the question, every hormone she’d ever possessed suddenly clamouring for attention at the very thought of Zach stripping off. There certainly wouldn’t be much need for him to drag her anywhere, and if that didn’t give the lie to her earlier ‘no expectations’ thoughts, then…

  ‘Oh, Lord, did I put my foot in it?’ he groaned, throttling back. ‘Would you rather have gone out with him than—?’

  ‘No way!’ Amy exclaimed hastily. ‘I would be utterly delighted if I never saw the man again. He’s married, for heaven’s sake, apart from being a loathsome toad—with apologies to all toads worldwide for the comparison.’

  It was Zach’s turn to laugh and she not only heard the husky sound filling her helmet and her head but felt it through her hands over his stomach and through his chest where she was plastered against his back. In fact, the only way she could have experienced his laughter any more intimately was if they’d been…

  ‘So, what’s the story?’ he prompted as he set the bike in motion again, and somehow the fact that she wasn’t having to face him made the telling just that much easier.

  ‘Nothing earth-shattering. Just a slimy married man seeing a widow as fair game for his lechery…after all, we must be panting for it now that we’re not getting it from our husbands.’ Not that she’d ever had any regular attention from Edward when he’d been alive. His progression up the ladder of success had been far more important once he’d taken care of the minor chore of securing an acceptable mate to carry his eventual heir.

  ‘But he was one of your superiors, wasn’t he?’ Zach demanded, clearly incensed. ‘Didn’t you report him for sexual harassment?’

  ‘I didn’t want to put his wife through that. She has enough problems being married to the man. Anyway,’ she added lightly, ‘by the time he was ready to progress beyond heavy hints, I’d already decided to hand in my resignation. I was lucky enough to land a job here, on home turf.’

  Zach was silent for so long that Amy was sure she must have bored him with her pathetic tale. These days, a career-woman was supposed to be able to take care of herself in the workplace, without resorting to crying foul when her male colleagues stepped out of line. In spite of the fact that there were now legal rules to prevent harassment, a woman who reported such things could always be left with a black mark on her record as a trouble-maker.

  Absorbed by her thoughts, it took several moments before she realised that Zach was slowing the bike and signalling a turn, the engine muted now to nothing more than a throaty purr.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, not recognising anything of their surroundings in the near-darkness.

  ‘You’ll see in a minute. Hang on,’ he warned, before he accelerated gently down a rough track that seemed to lead directly into an impenetrable wall of greenery.

  Amy gave a squeak as he plunged straight into it, burying her face in his back to avoid having her face scratched by the whipping branches, completely forgetting that she was protected by the visor on her borrowed helmet.

  ‘It’s safe to look now,’ Zach teased gently, as the bike came to a halt, his voice lilting with laughter in her ears.

  She peered over his shoulder and gasped at the beauty of the moonlit scene in front of them.

  ‘Where are we? I’ve never seen this place before,’ she murmured wonderingly, as she took in the way the moonlight caught the ripples on the river almost at their feet. The opposite bank was barely visible but shelved just as steeply as the one on their side, both banks lined with such thick greenery that it almost formed a secret corridor on either side to enclose the water.

  She took off her helmet and shook out her hair, only then realising just how quiet and isolated this place was with the engine silenced. It was so peaceful, with only the soft sibilance of the passing river and the soughing of the breeze through the encircling trees surrounding them. They could have been the last people left in the universe, so great did their isolation seem.

  ‘This is somewhere that I used to come when I needed to think,’ he said softly when he’d removed his own helmet, as if he, too, was averse to destroying the peaceful scene. ‘It was somewhere that no one could find me.’

  ‘I wish I’d known about it when I was at school,’ Amy sighed, remembering with a clench of remembered tension the unrelenting pressure to do well that had permeated the very fabric of her house.

  ‘You didn’t need anything like this—a place to escape to,’ he scoffed. ‘You had the perfect life of a princess.’

  Amy snorted softly. ‘That’s what it looked like from the outside, did it?’ She smiled wryly. ‘Well, I suppose there wer
e certain similarities, if you mean having to put up with your every move being organised and supervised by someone else—all for my own good, of course.’ And if her parents had their way, that’s exactly what her life would become again, now that she’d moved so close to them.

  ‘I used to envy you,’ she continued softly, remembering the independent young man he’d been, even as a teenager. ‘You could do what you wanted, when you wanted and you still got good enough grades to go to med school.’

  ‘Only because I spent so many hours studying…a lot of it just here, in fact…and even then I wouldn’t have made it without your help.’

  ‘My help?’ Amy was startled. ‘What help? We never saw each other outside school hours.’

  He shook his head. ‘If you hadn’t been my lab partner, I doubt I’d ever have got good enough grades. In fact, I’m certain of it, because my essay work was dreadful.’

  ‘But…’ Amy frowned. There was something wrong here. That wasn’t how she remembered things. Their teachers had all complained that if he’d only spend less time gadding about on his motorbike and more time on his written work, he’d get better marks, but Zach was saying that he had put in the hours of effort, so…

  ‘I don’t understand. If you were studying…’

  Her tortuous thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone or something crashing through the undergrowth a little way away from them.

  Amy jumped and whirled to face in that direction, but there was nothing to be seen. It was far too dark and, anyway, she didn’t really know what she was looking for.

  Her biggest disappointment was that her train of thought had been interrupted, probably by nothing more than an animal going about its nocturnal business. And just when she’d felt as if she was about to discover a hidden truth about the man who had never left her thoughts.

  ‘So…’ She turned back to face him, hoping they could recapture the reminiscent mood between them, but suddenly there were several angry shouts, this time from the other side of them. There was some more crashing about, seemingly all around them now, followed by several sharp cracks and the sound of something heavy falling in the water.

  The next thing Amy knew was that she was on the ground, shoved off her feet and almost squashed flat by the weight of Zach’s body landing on top of her.

  Even though the impact had driven all the breath from her lungs, she instinctively started to struggle, trying to roll him off, but when that proved impossible she was struck by a sudden fear that something terrible had happened to him.

  In a blinding flash of revelation she realised that the sharp sounds she’d heard could have been the sound of shots and blind terror seized her in a paralysing grip.

  Zach! Had he been shot? Was he dead?

  ‘Zach!’ she keened breathlessly, redoubling her frantic efforts to roll him off. If he’d been shot, the damage might not be fatal yet. There could be something she could do to save his life…if only she could move him far enough off her to examine his injuries…stem the bleeding…

  ‘Shh! Stay still!’ he hissed right beside her ear, clamping a hand over each of her wrists to stop her struggles. ‘I don’t know who they are, but we’re caught between them and we could get killed if they see us moving.’

  ‘What?’ she squeaked in disbelief, her brain unable to cope with the sudden switch from fear for Zach’s life to relief that he was all right. To contemplate the prospect that both of them were in danger was a step too far.

  ‘Shh!’ he breathed again when she would have demanded an explanation, then silenced her in the most efficient way possible.

  His lips were softer than she’d imagined all those years ago…and warmer…and, oh, so potent as he slanted them over hers, taking possession as though this was something that they’d done every day for years, rather than being the first time ever.

  ‘Amy…’ She felt his ragged groan reverberate through her, his broad chest pressing her more slender frame into the solid earth as she reached blindly to capture his mouth again. She’d dreamed of this for so long, and just in case this was nothing more than another dream, she was going to make it last as long as she possibly…

  ‘Hey! Over here!’ came a shout from close by, and the world reappeared around them. ‘I’ve found a ruddy great bike hidden away, and there’s…Oof!’

  The owner of the voice obviously wasn’t looking where he was going because, before Amy had a chance to surface from that mind-blowing kiss, he’d fallen over the two of them and landed heavily beside them.

  She heard a sickening crack and was wincing even as the man bellowed with pain.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Zach ordered quickly, his voice cutting sharply over the man’s curses. ‘You’ve broken something.’

  ‘No kidding!’ the man swore caustically. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ But by that time Zach had knelt at his side, reinforcing his order with a restraining hand on the man’s chest.

  It took Amy several seconds longer to get her head in working order and before she could join Zach, several other burly figures encircled them in the darkness.

  ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ demanded one, as another figure shone a bright torch into Amy’s face.

  Amy threw a hand up to protect her eyes in the vain hope that she would still be able to see enough to help Zach with their unexpected patient. She was shocked speechless when her questioner grabbed hold of her arm and wrenched it unceremoniously behind her back.

  ‘I said, who are you?’ His threatening tone ended in a yelp.

  Amy hadn’t seen Zach move, but in the blink of an eye he was on his feet and had a choke hold on her assailant.

  ‘Remove it or lose it,’ he said in a dangerously quiet voice, and Amy breathed a sigh of relief as her arm was instantly released.

  ‘Hey! You can’t do that!’ exclaimed one of the others.

  ‘I can if you want your mate taken care of,’ Zach growled, his tone unlike anything Amy had ever heard from him before. ‘He’s injured and we’re both doctors. Whoever you’re after, it isn’t us.’

  As if to underline his staccato sentences, there was a sudden commotion among the trees a little further along the river bank, and almost without another word being spoken they all set off in pursuit.

  A groan at their feet brought Amy’s attention back to the immediate task.

  ‘If you’re doctors, I hope you’ve got some king-sized painkillers with you,’ the man muttered as he struggled to roll over.

  ‘I haven’t got anything that would touch the sort of pain you’re in,’ Zach admitted candidly, once more preventing him from sitting up. ‘I heard something go, and your collarbone’s intact, so it’s either your arm or your shoulder.’

  ‘Hell!’ the man groaned through gritted teeth. ‘Couldn’t you have given me some good news instead?’

  ‘The good news will be that you didn’t break your neck, falling like that,’ Amy pointed out, trying to ignore the throbbing in her shoulder after her recent rough treatment.

  ‘And we won’t be sure of that until we’ve seen an X-ray, so just lie still until we can get a paramedic here to put you in a collar,’ Zach added. He turned to Amy. ‘Could you get my phone out of my pocket and give them a call?’ He leant away from her to give her access and she suddenly realised that the phone wasn’t in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Which pocket?’ she asked as she picked her way around the injured man, grateful for the light thrown across the clearing by the abandoned torch that helped her to avoid treading on him.

  ‘Shirt,’ he said, and she wasn’t certain whether she was relieved or disappointed that she wasn’t going to have to do the clichéd hunt in his trouser pocket.

  Not that her hormones were reacting any more sensibly with the fact that she could feel the firm slab of his pectoral muscle through the thin cotton of his shirt, and as for the heat radiating from his body…

  ‘You’d better speak to them,’ she said, as she pressed the button to connect the call. ‘You
’ll be able to describe how to get here.’

  Even as Zach was reporting their need for an ambulance, there was another sudden volley of shots and a shriek of pain.

  ‘You’d better make that two ambulances and send the police,’ he amended dryly before he cut the connection, and Amy wondered how he could be so cool while she was rapidly turning into a quivering wreck.

  ‘Doc! Hey, Doc!’ a voice called urgently from further down the bank. ‘We need one of you here. Now!’

  Amy met Zach’s eyes, midnight dark in the limited light, and suddenly realised that he was concerned about leaving her unprotected.

  ‘Go! I’ll keep my head down,’ she promised. ‘Shout if you need me.’

  He muttered something under his breath and with one last glance at the man groaning softly beside them loped swiftly into the darkness.

  ‘We’re water bailiffs,’ her patient announced suddenly, startling her out of her concern for Zach’s safety. ‘There’s been salmon poaching on this river…’

  ‘Salmon poaching?’ Amy gave a slightly hysterical giggle at the unexpected explanation for what had happened to destroy the peace of this beautiful spot. ‘That sounds like something that happened in the Middle Ages.’

  He gave an answering bark of laughter that ended in a wince of pain as he inadvertently moved his arm. ‘The difference is that these days it’s big business…worth many thousands a year…And when they over-fish at the wrong time of year, they can wipe out the fish stock in a river so it never recovers.’

  ‘Amy! I need you!’ Zach called.

  ‘Be still, my beating heart!’ she muttered wryly under her breath, wishing that the first time he said those words to her had been under vastly different circumstances, and her patient laughed again.

  ‘Promise me you won’t move,’ she demanded fiercely, knowing that Zach wouldn’t have asked her to abandon the man if the situation hadn’t been dire. ‘If you’ve broken your neck and compromise your spinal cord, you could be paralysed for life.’