‘She asked, “Was there much wrong with it?” and the mechanic said, “Nah, just crap in the carburettor.”‘ Hannah had to swallow. This was so hard. How could anything be funny at a time like this? The punchline might fall like a lead balloon and she would seem shallow. Flippant. Uncaring. The things she had once accused Ryan of being. The last things she wanted to be seen as right now.
‘And … and the blonde thought about that for a minute and then she nodded and she said, “OK … how often do I have to do that?”’
For a heartbeat, and then another, Hannah thought her fears were proving correct. The stone statue that was Ryan was still silent. Unmoving.
But then a sound escaped. A strangled kind of laughter. To Hannah’s horror, however, it morphed into something else.
Ryan was crying.
Ghastly, racking sobs as though he had no idea how to cry but the sounds were being ripped from his soul.
Hannah felt tears sliding down her own face and there was no way she could prevent herself touching him now. She wrapped both her arms around him as tightly as she could, her face pressed against the back of his shoulder.
Holding him.
Trying to absorb some of the terrible grief that he seemed to be letting go.
Maybe it was Chloe’s case that had caused it or maybe she’d been the straw to break the camel’s back. The reason didn’t matter. Ryan was hurting and if Hannah hadn’t known before just how deep her love for this man went, there was no escaping that knowledge now.
She would never know how long they stayed like that. Time had no relevance. At some point, however, Ryan moved. He took Hannah’s arm and pushed her away.
He couldn’t bear it if Hannah felt sorry for him.
Adding weakness to the list of faults she already considered him to have.
He had to push her away. However comforting her touch had been, he didn’t want her pity.
Searching her face in the darkness didn’t reveal what he’d been afraid to find. The shine of tears on Hannah’s face was unexpected.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because …’ Hannah gulped. ‘Because you’re crying.’
Why would she do that? There was only one reason that occurred to Ryan. She cared about him. Cared enough to be moved by his grief, even if she didn’t know where it was coming from.
A very new sensation was born for Ryan right then. Wonderment. He had revealed the rawest of emotions. Exposed a part of himself he’d never shared with another living soul and Hannah had not only witnessed it, she had accepted it.
Was sharing it even.
Oh, man! This was huge. As big as the storm currently raging over their heads.
Bigger even.
Ryan sniffed and scrubbed his nose with the palm of his hand. He made an embarrassed kind of sound.
‘First time for everything, I guess.’
‘You mean this is the first time you’ve ever cried?’
‘Yeah.’ Ryan sniffed again and almost managed a smile. The grief had drained away and left a curious sort of peace. Had the crying done that? Or Hannah’s touch? A combination of both maybe. ‘Well, since I was about five or six anyway.’
‘Oh …’ And Hannah was smiling back at him. A gentle smile that was totally without any kind of judgement. ‘I’m glad I was here.’
‘Yeah …’ It was still difficult to swallow but the lump in his throat seemed different. A happy lump rather than an agonised one. How could that be? ‘Me, too.’
They listened to the wind for a moment. Felt the fat drops of rain ping against their bare arms.
‘I’m sorry, Ryan,’ Hannah said.
‘What for?’
‘Lots of things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that we couldn’t save Chloe.’
‘We could have, if we’d only known.’ Ryan felt the weight of sadness pulling him down again but he knew he wouldn’t go as far as he had. Never again. Hannah had stopped his fall. Made something right in the world again. ‘It shouldn’t have happened.’
‘No, of course it shouldn’t, but I can see why it did. If there hadn’t been so many injuries it would have been standard protocol to check her out a lot more carefully. To collar and backboard her until X-rays were done, given the mechanism of injury. But she was part of the walking wounded group. She only complained about her sore arm.’
‘Tunnel vision.’
‘Not entirely. With so many to care for, you don’t have time to think outside the square. Tick the boxes that don’t seem urgent. Anyway, it happened and it’s dreadful and I know how you must feel.’ A tentative smile curved Hannah’s lips. ‘I’m available for a spot of wallowing.’
Ryan shook his head. ‘I don’t do wallowing, you know that.’ He snorted softly. ‘Hell, if I went down that track with the kind of material I’ve got to keep me going, I’d end up like a character in some gloomy Russian novel. Chloe did get to me more than usual, though. Too close to home.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Of course she didn’t. Why had Ryan thought that keeping his private life private would make things easier?
‘I’ve got a niece,’ he told her. ‘Michaela. She’s six and blonde and it could have been her in there instead of Chloe. Not that there’s anything that could save Mikki so to have another little girl that didn’t have to die and still did seemed just too unfair to be acceptable.’
‘Mikki has to die?’
‘It’s inevitable. She’s got neuroaxonal dystrophy. It’s an autosomal recessive genetic disease and it’s incredibly cruel. They seem perfectly normal at birth and even for the first year or two, and then there’s a steady deterioration until they die a few years later. Mikki can’t move any more. She can’t see or talk. She can still hear and she can smile. She’s got the most gorgeous smile.’
When had Hannah’s hand slipped into his like that? Ryan returned the squeeze.
‘I love that kid,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s got a couple of older brothers but she was special right from day one.’
‘And she lives here, in Australia?’
‘Brisbane. She’s my older brother’s child. He’s taking it hard and it’s putting a big strain on the marriage. He’s a bit like me, I guess—not good at sharing the hard stuff in life. Easier to bottle it up and have a laugh about something meaningless.’
‘Like a joke.’ Hannah was nodding.
‘Yeah. Shallow, isn’t it?’
‘You’re not shallow, Ryan. You care more than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve just been good at hiding it.’ She cleared her throat. ‘So Mikki’s the reason you come back to Australia so often?’
‘Yeah. I try to be there whenever things get really tough or when she has a hospital appointment. I can explain things again to her parents later.’
‘It’s a huge commitment.’
‘I would have moved there to make it easier to be supportive but my parents live in Auckland. Dad had a stroke a couple of years ago. Quite a bad one and Mum’s finding it harder to cope. So there I was in Sydney, commuting one way and then another. The travel time was playing havoc with my career so I had to choose one city and the job in Auckland happened to come up first. It doesn’t seem to take any longer to get to Brisbane from Auckland than it did from Sydney and I’m only doing half the travelling I used to do.’
Hannah’s smile was rueful. ‘And I was thinking that Michaela was a girlfriend. Or an ex-wife.’
Ryan snorted. ‘For one thing, any wife of mine would never become an “ex”. For another, I haven’t had time in my life for a relationship for years. Who would, with the kind of family commitments I’ve got?’
‘But you go out with everyone. You never miss a party.’
‘I’m in a new city. I need to find friends. Sometimes I just need to escape and do normal, social things. I still feel lonely but if you can’t find some fun somewhere in life, it takes all the sense out of struggling along with the bad bits.’
‘I can’t
believe I accused you of being shallow, Ryan. I’m really, really sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I can see why you did. I’ve never told anyone at work what goes on in my private life. I had a feeling that if I started I’d never be able to stop and it would be too hard. I’d end up a mess and people would just feel sorry for me. I’ve got too much pride to take that on board.’
‘I don’t feel sorry for you.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’
‘What do you feel, Han?’
‘I … feel a lot.’ Hannah was looking down, avoiding his gaze. ‘I’m … in love with you, Ryan.’
There.
She’d said it.
Opened her heart right up.
Made herself as vulnerable as it was possible to get, but what choice had she had? There was no escaping the truth and she couldn’t live a lie.
And hadn’t Ryan made himself just as vulnerable? He hadn’t cried in front of anyone in his adult life. He could have hidden it from her. Stormed off and shut her out before he let himself go. He’d been exercising control over his emotions for year after year. He could have done the same for a minute or two longer.
But he hadn’t. At some level he had trusted her enough to show her who he really was.
An utterly amazing, caring, committed man.
How could she have been so wrong about him?
Ryan deserved nothing less than the absolute truth from her, no matter how painful the repercussions.
She was too afraid to look at him. It was too dark to be able to interpret expressions accurately enough in any case.
She didn’t need to be able to see, though. She could feel the touch under her chin as Ryan tilted her face up to meet his.
Could feel the touch of his lips on her own, the rain-slicked smoothness of her skin against the grating stubble of a jaw that hadn’t been near a razor since what was now yesterday.
The kiss was as gentle as it was powerful.
It told Hannah she didn’t need to be afraid. Ryan understood that vulnerability and he wasn’t going to break her trust if he could help it.
The first words he spoke when he drew away had to be the most important Hannah would ever hear.
She wasn’t disappointed.
‘I love you, too, Hannah Jackson.’
The rain was pelting down now. Ryan smoothed damp strands of hair back from Hannah’s forehead.
‘We need to find somewhere dry,’ he said.
Hannah laughed. Incredible as it seemed, in the wake of what they had just been through and with the prospect of more gruelling hours of work ahead, there was joy to be found in life. In each other.
‘Where have I heard that before?’
‘We’re on a break. We’ve got two hours to escape. To forget about the world and be dry. And warm. And safe.’ Ryan kissed her again. ‘You’ll always be safe with me, Hannah. I promise you that.’
She took his face between both her hands. ‘And so will you be,’ she vowed. ‘With me.’
She let Ryan pull her to her feet and she smiled. ‘I’d like to go somewhere dry with you. Very much.’ Her smile broadened. ‘Even though I already know how good our rapport is.’
‘Yeah …’Ryan growled. ‘I’m fun.’
‘I didn’t mean that, you know. It was so much more than that. I was just trying to protect myself.’
‘From me?’ Ryan sounded baffled.
‘Yes. I thought it was far too dangerous to fall for someone like you.’
‘Who, exactly, is someone like me?’
‘Oh, you know. Someone fun. Clever. Exciting. Great looking. Too good to be true.’
‘I’m someone like that?’ Now he sounded very pleasantly surprised.
‘Someone exactly like that. A bit too much like the man my mother fell head over heels in love with. And the one that Susie fell in love with. And they both got bored or hadn’t been genuine in the first place, and it was me who had to pick up all the pieces. Do you know how many pieces you can get out of two broken hearts?’
‘No. How many?’
‘Heaps,’ Hannah said firmly. ‘Way too many.’
Ryan pulled her to a stop. Pulled her into his arms. ‘Your heart’s going to stay in one piece if I have anything to do with it,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m going to make it my mission in life.’
The promise was too big. Hannah didn’t want anything to make her cry again. She had to smile and try to lighten the emotional overload. ‘Could be a full-time job.’
‘I intend to make sure it is.’
‘It might be a lifetime career.’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘Of course, there’s always the prospect of promotion.’
‘Really? What kind of promotion?’
Why had she started this? Suddenly it didn’t seem like a joke. ‘Oh, maybe being an emergency department consultant?’
‘I might not get that job. I’ve heard that I’ve got some pretty stiff competition.’
Hannah’s heart was doing some curious flip-flops. ‘I might not mind very much if I don’t get that job.’
‘Why not?’
‘I might have more important things in my life than my career.’
Ryan was smiling. ‘Such as?’ He raised a hopeful eyebrow. ‘You mean me?’
Hannah nodded shyly. ‘Maybe even … How would you feel about a promotion to being a father?’
‘Dr Jackson! Is that a proposal?’
‘I don’t know.’ Hannah caught her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Would you like it to be?’
‘No.’
Hannah’s heart plummeted. But then she saw the gleam of Ryan’s teeth.
‘I’m old-fashioned,’ he announced. ‘If there’s to be any proposing going on around here, I’ll do it.’
And that’s exactly what he did. In the heart of a tropical storm, in the middle of a garden, just beside a sundial, Ryan got down on one knee, holding both of Hannah’s hands in his own.
‘I love you.’ He had to shout because the wind had risen again to snatch his words away and the rain was thundering down and the wail of a siren close by rose and fell.
‘I love you, Hannah. You are the only person in existence that I can really be myself with. The only time in my life I felt no hint of being alone was when I had you in my bed. You make me whole. I don’t ever want to live without having you by my side. Will you—please—marry me?’
‘Oh, I think so.’ Hannah sank to her knees on the wet flagstones of the path. ‘I love you, too, Ryan.’ It was easier to hear now that their heads were close together again. ‘You are the only person in existence that I’ve ever … had such a good rapport with.’ They were grinning at each other now, at the absurdity of choosing this particular place and time to make such declarations. Then Hannah’s smile faded. It had just happened this way and because it had, it was perfect. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I would love to marry you.’
Ryan shook the raindrops from his hair after giving Hannah a lingering, wonderful kiss.
‘Can we go somewhere dry now?’
Hannah nodded but the wail of the siren was still going and she hesitated when Ryan helped her up and then tugged on her hand.
‘What’s up, babe?’
‘I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘The bus crash? The cyclone that’s on its way that we’d better find some shelter from pretty damn quick?’
‘No … the shoe.’
‘Did Chloe really tell you there was a boy on the bus?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you believe her?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’d better find Harry or someone, then, and let them know.’
Hannah nodded. ‘I’d feel a lot better if we did. Do you mind?’
‘Why should I mind?’
‘It’ll take a bit longer to find somewhere dry. To have that break.’
‘Babe, we’ve got all the time in the world to work on our rapport.’ Ryan had his arm around Ha
nnah, sheltering her from some of the wind and rain. They had to bend forward to move against the force of the elements and get themselves back towards Crocodile Creek Base Hospital’s emergency department.
But it felt so different than when Hannah had been going in the opposite direction on her search for Ryan. With his strength added to her own, she knew there was nothing she wouldn’t be prepared to face.
Ryan paused once more as they reached the relative shelter of the ambulance bay. ‘It is real, isn’t it?’
‘What, the cyclone? Sure feels like it.’
‘No, I mean, how we feel about each other. The love.’
‘As real as this storm,’ Hannah assured him. ‘And just as powerful.’
‘What happens when the sun comes out?’
‘We’ll be in a dry place.’ Hannah smiled. ‘Having fun.’
Ryan looked over her shoulder through the doors into the emergency department. ‘I don’t think fun’s on the agenda for a while yet.’
‘No.’ Hannah followed the direction of his gaze. Chloe was still somewhere in there. So were a lot of other people who needed attention. And when the aftermath of the bus crash had been mopped up, they could be on standby for the first casualties from a cyclone.
‘It’s not going to be easy.’
‘No.’
‘Are you up for it?’
‘With you here as well? Of course I am. We can do this, Ryan. We’ll be doing it together.’
‘Together is good. Oh, and, Han?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I have that blonde joke? The one about the carburettor? It was great.’
‘You can have anything and everything I have to give,’ Hannah told him. ‘Always.’
Ryan took hold of her hand once more and they both turned towards the automatic doors. Ready to step back into a place that needed them both almost as much as they needed each other.
‘Same,’ Ryan said softly. ‘For ever.’
The Nurse He’s Been Waiting For
Meredith Webber
MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, ‘Some years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills & Boon were looking for new medical authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession, though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’
The Australian's Proposal (Mills & Boon By Request): The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For Page 33
