Twins for a Christmas Bride

by Josie Metcalfe

  How was he going to break this latest news to her family? It had been bad enough when he’d been contemplating the best way to tell them that Sara had been knocked down, but this …

  ‘We’re going to have to put her on IPPV,’ the consultant warned when a monitor suddenly shrilled a warning that her oxygen saturation was falling dangerously low in spite of the mask. Dan’s eyes flew open and he blinked in disbelief. How had he managed to convince himself that Zara was dead when the room was filled with the sound of all those monitors?

  ‘Her respiratory effort is so badly depressed by the drugs …’ his superior continued, almost apologetically.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Dan reassured the man, immeasurably relieved that all was not yet lost. ‘Just do what you have to do. You don’t have to talk me through every step. I trust you.’

  More than he would trust himself at the moment, he admitted silently. The whole scene seemed totally unreal, especially coming so soon after Sara’s narrow escape. How many disasters could one family cope with in a single evening?

  At least he’d given in to Sara’s request not to inform her parents what had happened to her. He’d been reluctant, knowing how excited they were about the pregnancy, but Sara had promised that she would go straight to them when she was released in the morning, confident that hearing about the accident would be far less traumatic if they could see with their own eyes that she was perfectly all right.

  Well, more or less, he temporised, imagining just how badly bruised she must be after such an event. Her pale skin would soon be all the colours of the rainbow, and as for the pain … that must be considerable, especially as she’d refused any further analgesia.

  His respect for his sister-in-law couldn’t have been any higher, as a colleague, as a person and as the temporary mother of his children. Sara might not always get along with her twin—an understandable case of sibling rivalry, perhaps?—but she’d certainly proved how much she loved her sister by putting herself through the traumas of a surrogate pregnancy.

  Behind his closed lids he saw a flash of another image—that of two tiny hearts beating side by side. And he could picture equally clearly the fiercely protective emotions in Sara’s eyes. It had been obvious just how much it had meant to her to see the babies for the first time and to know that her accident had apparently left them untouched.

  A secret regret hit him afresh, one that he’d been living with for several years now.

  He knew that he’d behaved stupidly when Zara had set out to entice him, had already realised, even then, that Sara had been more than halfway in love with him. He’d probably been heading in the same direction until her sister had started her determined pursuit.

  And he’d been stupid enough to be flattered and intrigued by the prospect of being desired by a woman so confident in the power of her beauty. Had it been the fact that she was the twin of someone to whom he was already attracted that had made him believe he had been in love with her?

  Enough!

  Enough rationalisation! Enough excuses! Whatever the truth had been then, now was a different matter entirely.

  He straightened his shoulders and deliberately opened his eyes to gaze directly at the woman he’d married, confronting his blame head on.

  It had been his responsibility to protect her, and he’d obviously failed if she hadn’t felt able to come to him with her problem—be it depression or a dependency on drugs. He had no idea when it had started or how long it had been going on … no idea whether her brush with death had been an accidental overdose or a deliberate one.

  No doubt the police would have to be involved and would doubtless grill him at length about the state of his marriage.

  How much worse would it have been if she’d died while he’d been hovering around Sara until she had been settled on the ward?

  As it was, even if she did recover fully, it would be some time before Zara was in any fit state to answer questions. He certainly had no idea what had made her take this drastic action, so if the police needed to know why she’d done it, they would probably have to interview Zara’s friends and colleagues as well.

  ‘She’s stable now, so we’re transferring her up to ICU,’ the consultant said, and Dan suddenly realised just how much time had elapsed while he’d been lost in his thoughts.

  His superior patted his shoulder reassuringly, but there was something else entirely in the expression in his eyes, something that didn’t need to be put into words. They both knew that there was no guarantee of a happy outcome.

  ‘I’ve sent samples up to the lab, just to confirm what she’d taken to make sure we’ve done all the right things,’ he said quietly, then added, ‘Give them half an hour or so to get her settled up there,’ exactly the way he would have done had she been one of his patients.

  ‘How long before we know …? How badly is she …?’ He couldn’t finish a single question, knowing there were no real answers.

  ‘I’d love to be able to tell you that she’s going to be all right,’ the consultant said, patting Dan’s shoulder again. ‘But you know as well as I do that only time will tell. Shall I leave it to you to contact the other members of her family, or would it be better coming from me?’

  ‘I’ll do that now,’ Dan said, his voice sounding almost rusty as it emerged from a throat tight with too much emotion.

  How was he going to break the news to Zara’s doting parents?

  CHAPTER THREE

  SARA heard the all-too-familiar swoosh and creak of the door to her room as someone pushed it open, and barely managed to stifle a groan.

  Not another member of staff preventing her from sleeping! There couldn’t possibly be an inch of her body that hadn’t been examined, poked and prodded … or had a needle stuck in it.

  When nothing happened after several seconds of silence, she opened cautious eyes, wondering what was going on. Seeing Dan standing beside the bed, gazing down at her, immediately doubled her pulse rate, then she realised that the oversized gown she’d been given had slipped right off one shoulder. She had to stifle a groan of agony when she tried to hike it back into a more modest position with the wrong hand.

  ‘Dan?’ she croaked, trying for impatient but only managing to sound pathetic. ‘I thought you were going home. You don’t need to keep checking up on me, too. There’s an army of nurses doing that every two minutes and …’ She had to bite her tongue to stop herself delivering another tirade when she still owed him a massive apology for the first one. He’d come to see her just after she’d had her ultrasound scan to see if she and the babies were all right and she’d jumped right down his throat. It just wasn’t fair that she was taking all her fear for the babies out on him.

  ‘I didn’t come to check up on you,’ he said quietly, one hand going out to the chair beside her bed, then pausing.

  It was almost as if he wasn’t sure whether to stand or sit, and if it was sit, whether it should be on the chair or on the side of her bed. The whole incident took no more than a few seconds but it was totally uncharacteristic of a man who was usually decisiveness personified.

  Finally, he perched uneasily on the edge of the bed, his lean hip nudging against her bruised thigh … not that she would say a word. Secretly, she still revelled in every occasion that he was close to her … close enough to smell the clean soapy scent of his skin and see the tracks where his fingers had raked through his hair. Close enough to see the lines of strain that had grown deeper still since she’d seen him just an hour or two ago.

  ‘Dan? Is something wrong?’ Panic struck her and her hand flew to cover the precious duo nestling deep inside her. ‘Is it something to do with the babies? Has something shown up on one of the tests?’

  ‘No!’ he exclaimed, clearly startled. ‘I’m sorry, Sara, I didn’t mean to frighten you. As far as I know, everything’s still fine.’

  ‘So, what’s wrong?’ she demanded. ‘I can tell you’ve got something serious on your mind and … Is it Mum and Dad? I told you not to tell them a
bout my accident. I was going to go and visit them as soon as I’m set free in the morning, so that they could see that I’m not—’

  ‘It’s not your parents,’ he interrupted, then sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘Sara, I’m sorry but there’s only one way to tell you this. When I got home this evening, I found Zara unconscious. She’d taken an overdose of barbiturates.’

  ‘Barbiturates?’ she gasped, reeling. ‘No! Not Zara. She wouldn’t.’ It was her turn to shake her head at the impossibility of what he was suggesting. Her sister might be selfish and egotistical but she wasn’t anyone’s fool. She’d seen far too many of her fellow models slide down the slippery slope of drug addiction, hooked when the desire for impossible slenderness came with an intoxicating high. With a few high-profile exceptions she’d seen it ultimately ruin their careers as model agencies and advertisers alike crossed them off their books.

  Anyway, barbiturates were usually prescribed for people having difficulty sleeping, so they wouldn’t be any use to someone wanting to get high. Deliberate overdoses were usually confined to people who were depressed and that definitely didn’t sound like her vivacious sister.

  ‘There was no name on the bottle and the drug name was generic … possibly bought abroad or over the internet … and the bottle was empty when I found it on the floor beside her,’ he said quietly, and she could see from his expression that he was already blaming himself.

  ‘How long ago …?’ she began, only to halt in mid-sentence as a sudden thought struck her. If Zara had been at home, taking an overdose, then her crazy suspicion that it had been her own sister driving the car that had run her down this evening must have been just that … crazy. Unless she’d gone home after she’d done it and taken the drugs in her remorse … but, no, that didn’t make sense either. Nothing made sense. Not the fact that she’d been absolutely certain that it had been Zara behind the wheel of the car that had deliberately aimed at her, or the fact that she would have access to barbiturates or would deliberately take an overdose.

  ‘She was in a pretty bad way when I found her,’ he said, answering the question she would have asked if her brain had been working well enough to formulate it. ‘She was already comatose, her breathing and pulse rate both depressed, but when her stomach was pumped, there were a fair number of undigested tablets, so she must have taken them some time this evening.’

  Sara’s relief that her sister couldn’t have been responsible for her accident faded with the realisation that there would still have been plenty of time for her to have returned home and swallowed the drugs before Dan had found her. But that begged the question: why would Zara do it, especially when Sara was expecting the child … children … that she’d begged Sara to carry for her?

  ‘Have you told my parents?’ Sara could only imagine the state her mother must be in, knowing that her beautiful perfect daughter had …

  ‘Not yet. I had to come and tell you first,’ he said simply.

  Pleasure that he’d wanted to break the news to her before notifying his in-laws flowered inside her, only to wither to dust when he added, ‘I didn’t want you to get a garbled version if the news reached you through the hospital grapevine.’

  That was more like the Dan she’d been working with for the last couple of years—logical and practical. Of course there hadn’t been a personal reason why he would have wanted to give her the news in person. When was she going to stop searching for traces of the connection they’d made when they’d first met? When was she going to come to terms with the fact that any feelings he’d had towards her had vanished the instant he’d met Zara?

  ‘Where is she? What treatment is she receiving? When can I visit her?’ she demanded briskly, forcing herself to be equally logical and practical. She tried to push herself up in the bed and fell back with a groan when every muscle and joint complained.

  ‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere yet,’ he growled as he carefully slid one arm under her shoulders and effortlessly lifted her up, supporting her while he positioned the pillows behind her.

  Sara shivered. Every tiny hair had suddenly stood up in reaction to the warmth of his arm surrounding her. Not that her hospital room was cold. If anything, it was far too hot. But somehow it was different when it was Dan’s body heat in a wide swathe across her back where his strong arm held her, and as for the soft wash of his breath stirring her hair against her face and neck …

  ‘But …’ It was hard to get her thoughts in order when he was so close. Thank goodness they never did any more than brush against each other when they worked together, or she’d never be able to do her job properly. Still, she didn’t dare to take a full breath until he laid her gently back against the pillows and released her to step back a little from the bed. The last thing she needed was another lungful of that familiar mixture of soap and musk to contend with.

  ‘Sara, I’ll let you know as soon as they say she’s stable enough for visitors,’ he promised, his green eyes darkly serious. ‘At the moment she’s so deeply unconscious that she wouldn’t even know that you were there, and you wouldn’t be doing yourself any good either. You need to give your body time to heal.’

  ‘But you’re going to have to tell Mum and Dad tonight, aren’t you … about Zara, I mean?’

  ‘And that means I’ll have to tell them about what happened to you, too,’ he pointed out.

  ‘No! I’ll tell them, when I—’

  ‘Sara, think about it,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re going to want to see you … they’ll be expecting to see you when they arrive at the hospital, waiting outside ICU until Zara’s consultant allows you in to see her.’

  ‘But …’ She closed her eyes in defeat. He was right, of course. And she wasn’t in any fit state to be sitting around in the little relatives’ room all night.

  ‘Which would you rather—that they knew that you’d been involved in an accident or that they thought you couldn’t be bothered to be with them when they need you?’ he challenged, and she slumped back against the pillows, knowing that she couldn’t argue against that sort of logic.

  ‘You will tell them that the babies are OK, won’t you …? Oh!’ she exclaimed with a shadow of her usual smile. ‘They don’t know that it’s twins yet!’ She groaned as she tried to reach into the bedside locker for the precious picture of the scan. ‘Could you get the photo for me, so you can show it to them?’

  ‘Actually …’ He paused a second and she was startled to see a soft wash of colour sweep across the lean planes of his cheeks as he reached into his pocket to take his wallet out. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the technician to print an extra copy.’

  For Zara. Of course.

  ‘I should have thought of that … to get one for the two of you. After all, they’re going to be your babies, so you actually have more right to a picture than I do.’

  ‘Sara, don’t,’ he said swiftly, and startled her by trapping her hand in the warmth of his, the green of his eyes darkening as they gazed intently down into hers. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult the whole process is for you, but you have every right to a picture of the babies that are developing inside you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’re doing. An extra picture of an ultrasound scan is nothing in comparison.’

  His sincerity was obvious and actually managed to soothe some of the ache that had been filling her heart ever since she’d been persuaded along this path. The last thing she’d wanted to do was carry the children of the man she loved, only to have to give them away. The fact that he genuinely seemed to appreciate the sacrifice she was making was like balm to her soul. All she had to do was make sure that he never had any idea of her true feelings towards him.

  It had been every bit as dreadful as he’d thought it would be, Dan thought wearily as he propped himself against the wall of the ICU waiting room several hours later.

  Unfortunately, it had been his mother-in-law who had answered the door of their smart suburban home, and when she’d realised tha
t Zara hadn’t been with him, something in his face must have told her that he was the bearer of bad news.

  ‘She’s had an accident, hasn’t she?’ she wailed. ‘I knew something must have happened. I just knew it! I’ve been waiting all evening for Zara to call to let me know she’d returned home safely. I told her she should have asked you to drop her car off at the garage.’

  As he ushered her through to her smartly decorated lounge, trying vainly to calm her down, a small corner of Dan’s brain registered the odd snippet of information. What had been wrong with Zara’s car that it had needed the attention of a mechanic? Both their vehicles had only recently been serviced.

  ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on?’ his father-in-law demanded gruffly from his favourite seat at one end of the settee. He fought to fold the newspaper that had spread itself across his lap and tried not to look as if he’d fallen asleep in front of the television.

  ‘Our Zara’s had an accident!’ his wife keened. ‘I told her she shouldn’t be driving in London traffic. Danny should have looked after her. He should have taken her car to the garage if there was something wrong with it.’

  ‘Is that true, lad? Is she hurt? How bad is it?’ Frank might not be so openly emotional as his wife but it was plain that he was immediately worried about his precious daughter.

  ‘Can we sit down?’ Dan suggested, still uncertain just how much he should tell them. The results hadn’t come back from the lab by the time he’d left the hospital, so he still wasn’t certain what level of concentration the drugs had reached in Zara’s body and what that would mean for her prognosis. If they had depressed her respiration and starved her brain of essential oxygen long enough to cause permanent …

  ‘She’s dead! My baby’s dead!’ Audrey cried hysterically, and for a moment he almost relished the idea that he might need to slap some sense into the woman.

  ‘No! She’s not dead!’ he contradicted firmly, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. He took hold of both her shoulders and guided her until the backs of her knees met the edge of the settee and she collapsed next to her husband. ‘Neither of your daughters is dead,’ he said firmly, desperately praying that he was telling the truth.