A Very Special Proposal

by Josie Metcalfe

  The frantically flashing light on her answering-machine told her that this was probably one of several calls she’d made, and Amy stifled a groan when she realised just what the messages would be about. The hospital grapevine had obviously outdone itself.

  ‘I’ve been at the hospital and I’m fine, Mother,’ she said in her most soothing voice. It didn’t work.

  ‘What do you mean you’re fine?’ her mother demanded with an edge of hysteria in her voice. ‘You’ve been shot at! You could have been—’

  ‘No, Mother,’ Amy interrupted sharply. She really didn’t want to have to deal with this now, but there was no option. ‘I was not shot at. I just happened to be nearby when there were shots fired, but I was never in any danger.’ Not with Zach spreadeagled on top of her to protect her…

  ‘I would never have forgiven that man if anything ever happened to you,’ her mother bulldozed on. ‘And what on earth you were doing with him in the first place is beyond me. It was bad enough when you disappeared at that charity thing, but to spend any more time with him is just—’

  ‘Mother, I work with Zach. All day. Side by side,’ she said, deliberately stretching the point. ‘And we get on as well now as we did when we were at school together.’

  ‘Well, that’s as maybe, but I still don’t understand why you’d want to see any more of him than that. And as for getting on that great dirty smelly motorbike of his—’

  ‘Mother,’ Amy interrupted again, her patience rapidly unravelling. ‘You’ve spent months telling me I need a life outside my work and dragging me out to innumerable boring social functions. And just because you want grandchildren, you’ve wasted my precious free time while I’m bored rigid by yet another man with a calculator for a brain.’

  ‘But, Amy—’

  On the other end of the line it was her mother’s turn to try to interrupt, but it was Amy’s turn to be the bulldozer.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what lurid stories you’ve heard, but this evening I went out with a man…willingly…because I enjoy his company. Now, whether he’ll ever be a candidate to sire all those grandchildren you want, I don’t know yet…’ just the thought of Zach siring her children was enough to turn her knees to porridge ‘…but it’s really none of your business.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued, metaphorically burning her bridges, ‘you can’t have it both ways. Either you want me to remain faithful to Edward for ever, or you want me to choose someone I can fall in love with and make a family.’

  There was a strangely ominous silence from the other end of the line and a shiver ran up Amy’s spine when she realised that her mother must have relinquished the phone and that she had just aimed her final salvo at her father.

  ‘Young lady, that is no way to talk to your mother!’ he roared, forcing her to pull the receiver sharply away from her ear for the sake of her eardrum.

  For just a moment she almost reverted to the automatic submission that had been ingrained in her from childhood, but then a spark of pride had her firing back.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if you think I’m being discourteous, Father, but sometimes the two of you seem to forget that I’m a fully qualified doctor in my thirties, not a schoolgirl any more. I don’t need the two of you watching my every move and I certainly don’t need you organising my social life.’

  ‘Well, you might be in your thirties, young lady,’ he snapped belligerently, clearly incensed that she’d had the temerity to answer back, ‘but you still haven’t got any more sense than when you were in your teens if you’ve let yourself get tangled up with that Bowman character again.’

  It was almost like entering some sort of science-fiction time warp, with her father laying down the law exactly as he had when she’d been a little girl.

  Almost.

  Except this time there was something inside her that told her it was finally time for her to follow her deepest instincts, even though they went completely against what her parents wanted.

  ‘That Bowman character, as you call him, is actually a highly qualified accident and emergency specialist,’ she said quietly, silently squashing the thought that she would have been equally well qualified if her career hadn’t taken second place to Edward’s. She had absolutely no idea whether there would ever be anything more than friendship between herself and Zach but…’ He’s someone with whom I have a lot in common and I enjoy his company—’

  ‘Rubbish!’ her father exploded furiously. ‘You have absolutely nothing in common with that lout. And, furthermore, I have serious doubts that he—’

  Amy reached the end of her tether and, for the first time in her life, quietly put the phone down on her father.

  For a moment she contemplated leaving it off the hook so that he couldn’t phone back, but her sense of responsibility wouldn’t let her do it. If she were needed in A and E for a major incident, it was important that the hospital should be able to contact her, even though she wasn’t officially on call.

  ‘But I can turn on the answering-machine so I can screen my calls,’ she muttered, suiting her actions to her decision just in time before the phone began to ring again.

  Braced to hear her father’s voice, she was certain her heart turned a complete somersault when it was Zach’s deeper, sexier voice that filled the room.

  ‘Uh, hi, Amy,’ he said diffidently and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth with the realisation that, at that moment, he didn’t sound so different to the teenager she’d lost her heart to all those years ago. ‘I just wanted to…to check that you’re all right and—’

  ‘You sound as if you hate talking to these things as much as I do,’ she said, her breathless voice nothing to do with the fact that she’d had to walk all of three paces to reach the phone.

  ‘Amy! You’re there! When I heard the machine I wondered if you’d decided to go out.’

  She could hear the smile wrapping around his words and felt an answering one stretching almost from ear to ear.

  ‘No, I was using it to screen my calls.’

  ‘You’re having problems?’ Now she could hear that the smile had dimmed, his tone full of concern. ‘You’re not being bothered by a stalker or something? Is it that slimy toad?’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ she reassured him quickly. ‘Just avoiding speaking to my father. The hospital grapevine’s been at work and he’s somehow got the idea that I got caught up in the middle of gang warfare.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

  ‘Not that again! How on earth is it your fault?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Did you know the water bailiffs were going to be there? Did you know the poachers were going to be armed? For heaven’s sake, it’s bad enough having my father sounding off without you wearing a hair shirt!’

  He was silent for so long that she began to wonder if he’d put the phone down on her, then she heard a husky chuckle from the other end.

  ‘That told me!’ he exclaimed. ‘And all I really phoned about was to say…well, I enjoyed tonight.’

  ‘In spite of the drama?’ she managed, even though his admission made her feel as if she was floating.

  ‘And in spite of the dreadful coffee,’ he agreed with a chuckle. ‘And I just wanted to ask if you were all right about everything…? I mean…’

  ‘About what?’ she prompted when he paused, wondering if he felt as uncertain about where all this was going as she was. ‘The fact that our peaceful evening was ruined, that our bike ride was cut short or that I’m aching from head to foot—and no, you aren’t allowed to take the blame for any of the above.’

  ‘Well, if I’m not allowed to take the blame, how about if I take responsibility for trying to get it right next time?’ he asked and her heart flipped into a double somersault.

  ‘Next time?’

  ‘I’m a man who likes to keep his promises, and I don’t think that short jaunt counts as the bike ride we agreed on,’

  he announced. ‘So, when are we both free again for an eve
ning?’

  Amy didn’t know. She couldn’t remember what her duties were, couldn’t think much beyond the fact that the two of them were going out on his bike again and that she didn’t want to wait any longer than absolutely necessary before they could spend some time together…alone.

  ‘Unless you’d rather not?’ he added, and she realised that he’d taken her silence for lack of interest.

  ‘You can’t get out of it that easily,’ she teased, even as the more rational side of her brain was telling her that it would be more sensible not to put herself in danger again. ‘If I’m going to be stuck with the nickname “Biker Chick” then I’m darned well going to earn it. Some parts of the evening were definitely worth repeating.’ Even if every second of being plastered around his gorgeous body was a fight to control my hormones, she finished silently.

  Such close proximity was going to test her powers of control to the limit, but she was determined to enjoy every minute.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN a whole week went by without a single one of their shifts coinciding, paranoia began to creep in.

  It didn’t seem to matter how sternly she told herself that she was imagining it, all Amy knew was that she’d barely set eyes on Zach since their disastrous trip to the river.

  They’d caught each other’s eye several times at handover and she’d been almost certain that there was something more…something special in his expression since they’d worked together against the odds the other night.

  Had she been seeing what she’d wanted to see?

  Had he thought better of any involvement with her, no matter how platonic? Was he deliberately avoiding her? Or had her father somehow stuck his oar in?

  ‘See? Paranoia,’ she whispered to herself, knowing that there was no way that her father could have any say in the drafting of staff rosters, even if he became the chairman of the hospital board of governors.

  Not that he wouldn’t have liked to have that power, she admitted with a wince, remembering the last ear-blistering message he’d left on her machine.

  Her mother had tried to pour oil on troubled waters by inviting her for a meal one evening and Amy’s feeling of guilt had almost made her give in until she’d remembered the latest in the line of chinless wonders she’d been slated to meet at the fundraiser. She had better things to do with her time.

  ‘Like fight my way through traffic to get to the hospital on time,’ she grumbled, as the lights turned against her yet again. It had been like this ever since she’d turned out of her own quiet cul-de-sac. She glared at the enormous supermarket lorry at the head of the queue. She’d been stuck in the queue of traffic behind it as it tried to manoeuvre its way along a street that had never been intended for anything so huge, and now it was completely blocking the junction ahead in all four directions.

  She shared a commiserating smile with the young woman on the pavement beside her, three young children aged from about four to seven gathered around her as she waited for a safe moment to cross the road with them.

  ‘Things that big ought to be banned from town centres,’ Amy fumed as she put her car into reverse and took her turn to move back to give the lorry room to come back out of the intersection.

  She set her brake and pressed the speed dial on her mobile to connect her to the phone in A and E, needing to warn them that she was definitely going to be late this morning. And she’d been looking forward to it, knowing that Zach was actually rostered for the same shift.

  She was drumming her fingers on the steering-wheel while she waited for someone in the department to pick up the phone when she saw the driver immediately in front of her impatiently slam his vehicle into reverse and power his bulky four-by-four back towards her without even glancing over his shoulder.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and with a sudden sick feeling just knew that it was one of those little children.

  Time seemed to stand still for several horrifying seconds but there still wasn’t enough of it for her to slam a warning hand on her horn as the child darted off the pavement.

  ‘No! Stop!’ Her scream blended with the young woman’s as her son froze in the middle of the road just seconds before the powerful vehicle slammed into him.

  Amy was out of her car and running, the door left wide open as she sprinted towards the shiny vehicle that was still reversing, apparently oblivious to what had happened.

  ‘Stop!’ she shrieked again, slamming the side of her fist repeatedly into the vehicle’s side panel as she dropped to her knees, dreading what she would see when she looked underneath the chassis.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is a new car!’ snarled the owner, the door he flung open only just missing Amy’s head in his fury.

  ‘And that was a child you just ran over with it,’ she shrieked back, barely sparing him a look, her eyes already focused on the ominously still figure crumpled on the unforgiving road.

  One glance had been enough to tell her that even if he wasn’t unconscious—or dead—he wasn’t going to be moving any time soon.

  ‘A and E staffroom,’ said a voice in her ear, and she suddenly realised that someone had answered the phone call she’d placed before all this had happened.

  ‘Amy Willmott here,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m involved at an accident. I’ll be late.’ She rang off and immediately dialled for the emergency services.

  ‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’ The female voice sounded eerily similar to the one that had just answered in A and E.

  ‘Police and ambulance,’ she said crisply. ‘A child’s been run over by a four-by-four at the crossroads by the Royal George Hotel. The traffic’s jammed by a supermarket lorry so tell them to come round from the by-pass end of the Shalford Road. I’m a doctor. I’ll do what I can till they get here.’

  Even as she’d been speaking she’d been edging forward on her knees, reaching under the vehicle to try to find a pulse, but her arm wasn’t long enough. Having said all she needed to, she rang off and immediately lay flat in the road, barely sparing a grimace for her torn tights and ruined clothing in her efforts to determine the child’s injuries.

  There! A pulse!

  ‘He’s still alive, so far,’ she muttered, and a keening cry of relief from somewhere behind her told her that the child’s mother must be close enough to hear what she was saying. She would have to be more careful to keep her thoughts to herself, especially as she noted the growing pool of blood spreading underneath the lad’s head and the trickle of fluid that had appeared in his ear.

  His breathing was shallower than she would have liked, but he was still breathing unaided. Now, if only the light were better, she’d be able to check his eyes to see if they were equally reactive.

  A quick inspection all around the area told her that the vehicle above her was high enough off the road that none of it was touching the child. In fact, as far as she could see, there was no reason why it couldn’t be moved so that she could make a proper assessment of the youngster’s condition.

  She slid out again, the rough surface of the road snagging on her skirt again and dragging it halfway up her thighs before she could regain her knees and rectify the situation.

  ‘You!’ she snapped at the offending driver. ‘Get in your car and drive it straight forward—slowly and carefully this time,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘But…’ He blinked at the order, dithering over whether to do as she said and clearly shocked by what had happened.

  ‘You’re not supposed to move it till the police get here,’ announced a bystander officiously, further confusing him.

  ‘The vehicle isn’t touching the boy, but there isn’t enough room underneath it for me to be able to help him,’ Amy said sharply. A sudden thought flashed through her mind and she delved in her pocket for her phone, glad that she’d taken the time to familiarise herself with its various functions when she was swiftly able to set it up to take several photos and a brief video clip of the situation.


  ‘There, I’ve got a photographic record for the police, so you can move it—now,’ she prompted urgently, only too aware that she still didn’t know the full extent of the child’s injuries. Impatience at his lack of instant action had her adding, ‘I’ll move it, if you aren’t capable.’

  His male pride visibly dented, the man meekly climbed in and drew the car forward as far as he could go.

  Amy didn’t even bother waiting for him to switch off the engine before she was on her knees again.

  ‘Oh, my God! Davey,’ wailed his mother, clearly torn between her need to comfort her injured son and hang onto her terrified daughters.

  As if in answer to the sound of his mother’s voice, the child whimpered.

  Amy felt a surge of delight at his response, but when he started to struggle, the vision of unstable neck injuries and the possibility of paraplegia had her reaching rapidly for him.

  ‘Stay still, Davey. There’s a good boy,’ she urged soothingly, with one hand on his chest and the other on his forehead. ‘You’ve had a bit of a bump and I just want to have a look at it. Don’t move your head. Do you understand?’

  There was only an unintelligible whimper when she framed his little face between her palms to stabilise his head and neck, but he wasn’t struggling any more.

  ‘I need some help here,’ she announced, quickly realising that she couldn’t hold him still and check him over at the same time. ‘Has anyone had any first-aid training?’ she demanded of the rapidly growing circle of bystanders.

  ‘I have,’ volunteered an outlandishly dressed teenager with an alarming number of facial piercings and purple-streaked porcupine hair. ‘I did it at work, in case there were any accidents.’

  ‘Good,’ Amy said with a swift smile. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Dee…well, it’s really Deirdre, after my aunt.’ She pulled a face that told Amy exactly what she thought of her given name. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you put your hands exactly where mine are, Dee?’ Amy said, the quiet self-assurance in the young woman’s eyes giving her confidence in the youngster’s abilities completely at odds with her first impression.