A Wife for Dr. Cunningham

by Maggie Kingsley

  There probably would be, she thought wryly, leaning over him to retrieve the Micropore. ‘OK, I think I’ve got all the glass out, but I’m afraid your arm and wrist are going to be pretty sore tomorrow.’

  They were pretty sore right now, but that wasn’t what was making him twist uncomfortably on the edge of the bath. It was the feel of her warm breath against his throat as she bent over him, the caress of her hair against his cheek as she tilted her head in concentration.

  God in heaven, what was the matter with him? he wondered, gritting his teeth as he felt his body unmistakably stirring in response. He scarcely knew this girl. His traitorous body shouldn’t be responding to the rapid rise and fall of her small, high breasts. His hands shouldn’t be trembling with the urge to reach for her, to slide her onto his lap, to…

  ‘I really don’t think you should drink any of that,’ Hannah protested as he reached for his glass of whisky and took a gulp from it.

  She was right, he shouldn’t, but because he didn’t know how to deal with the conflicting emotions her nearness was provoking, he took refuge in the simplest—anger.

  ‘What I choose to drink is none of your damn business!’ he retorted, getting to his feet so abruptly that she banged back against the bath.

  ‘I know it isn’t, Robert, but drinking isn’t going to solve anything. I know about your wife—’

  ‘You know nothing about my wife!’ he roared, making her jump. ‘What do you know about love, and loss, and heartache? Little Miss Muffet with your big brown eyes and bouncing curls. Little Miss Muffet who’s probably never been properly kissed by a man, far less been made love to by one!’

  Hot colour flooded her cheeks. He was wrong, but she wasn’t about to tell him about Chris. She wasn’t about to tell him anything.

  ‘I think I’d better go.’

  ‘Running away, Miss Muffet?’ he mocked.

  ‘Will you please stop calling me that?’ she protested.

  ‘But that’s what you are,’ he said, his voice brutal, biting. ‘Little Miss Muffet, who thinks she has the answer to everything. Little Miss Muffet without a care in the world.’ He leant towards her, his gaze suddenly sharp. ‘But you do have a care, don’t you? Or more precisely a secret. What’s your deep dark secret, Hannah? Come on, let’s trade. I’ll tell you why I fully intend to get blind drunk tonight, and you can tell me what made you leave Edinburgh.’

  She stared up at him silently. She wished she hadn’t come. She wished she’d waited until morning to apologise like any other sensible person. But most of all she wished she didn’t feel the quite ridiculous urge to reach out, take him in her arms and somehow comfort him.

  Quickly she retrieved her handbag. ‘I think I should go home.’

  ‘Go on, then—run away!’ Robert jeered, and she would have done if the bathroom hadn’t been so small, and he hadn’t been so big, and she hadn’t tripped in her haste to get past him.

  And he would have let her go if she hadn’t stumbled straight into his arms and the touch of her hands on his bare chest hadn’t sent a jolt through his body like lightning.

  For a second he froze. Let her go, his mind urged, get her out of the house, but his body wasn’t listening to his mind. His body wanted her. Wanted to bury itself in her soft sweetness, and forget at least for a time the bleak emptiness that lay inside him. And he surrendered to those demands.

  His lips came down on hers with a bruising intensity, his arms crushed her to him, and a groan escaped him as he felt her small high breasts against his chest, a groan of desperate, desolate need.

  God, but he wanted her, wanted her so much. His head was spinning with desire as he covered her face and throat with searing kisses. His body was hard, aching, desperate for release as he slid his hands up her sides to cup her breasts, and the result would have been inevitable if the wailing sound of an ambulance siren in the street outside hadn’t suddenly penetrated his brain and brought him to his senses.

  What was he doing? he wondered as he shuddered and drew back from her to stare with inward horror at her flushed face, her swollen lips and dazed eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered thickly. ‘So sorry. What I just did…Unforgivable…Completely unforgivable—’

  ‘Robert—’

  Her eyes were dark, confused, bewildered, and jerkily he grabbed her by the elbow, thrust her coat and bag into her arms and propelled her to the front door. ‘Go home, Hannah. Go home now.’

  ‘But, Robert—’

  He couldn’t bear to hear any more. Couldn’t bear to even look at her and realise what he’d almost done. With a muttered oath he shut the door, and leant his forehead against it, and heartily wished that he’d never been born.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I CAN quite understand why you thought he might have gallstones,’ Robert observed as he accompanied Hannah out of the cubicle. ‘The acute pain in his upper abdomen, his extreme pallor and nausea—’

  ‘And all he’s got is plain, old-fashioned indigestion,’ she interrupted, completely mortified.

  ‘Stomach pain is one of the hardest things to diagnose, Hannah,’ he said gently. ‘There can be so many reasons behind it, and I did advise you to always think the worst. Just remember in future not to become so convinced you’ve got a zebra that you forget all about the donkeys.’

  ‘The donkeys?’ she repeated, puzzled, and he smiled.

  ‘It’s something one of my old professors used to say. In medicine we can all too easily become so hung up on our own knowledge that we can forget the commonplace, and go looking instead for the exotic.’

  ‘And you certainly can’t get much more commonplace than dyspepsia,’ she sighed ruefully. ‘I feel like such an idiot.’

  ‘Don’t. It might well have been gallstones, and you were right to ask for a second opinion.’

  She nodded without conviction. ‘Thanks for helping, and I’ll remember what you said about the donkeys and zebras.’

  He smiled again, and she fully expected him to go, but to her surprise he didn’t.

  ‘It’s very quiet in here today,’ he observed, glancing round the treatment room.

  She supposed it was if you considered thirty patients still waiting out in Reception a quiet day.

  ‘In fact,’ Robert continued, ‘for a Thursday, it’s quite amazingly quiet.’

  He glanced down at his watch, adjusted his name tag, then to her acute dismay he cleared his throat awkwardly.

  Oh, no, he was going to talk about what had happened in his flat. He was obviously trying to get up the nerve to do it, and it was the last thing she wanted. What could she possibly say in reply? Forget it? It meant nothing? Men are always kissing me?

  ‘Hannah—’

  ‘Did you hear about the homeless man I sent up to ward 12—the one with the gangrenous leg?’ she said, beginning to edge casually away. ‘They had to amputate eventually.’

  ‘Did they?’ he murmured, following her.

  She nodded. ‘I don’t know how he’s going to manage. Life on the streets is hard enough for someone fit and healthy, but for a man with one leg…’

  ‘If you’re really worried about him, why don’t you contact the hospital social services department?’ he asked. ‘They might be able to find him hostel accommodation, though I’ve got to say that many men who’ve lived rough for years can’t bear to have a roof over their heads. They feel shut in, trapped.’

  ‘Do they?’ She risked a quick glance up at him, decided it was a very bad idea and transferred her gaze to his shirt buttons instead.

  ‘Hannah—’

  ‘I didn’t know so many people slept rough until I came to London,’ she told the shirt buttons, knowing perfectly well that she was babbling but wishing only that he would go away. ‘We have homeless people back in Edinburgh, but nothing on this scale.’

  ‘I suppose not. Hannah—’

  ‘It might be quieter today than normal, but there are still quite a few people waiting to be seen, and I really shoul
d—’

  ‘Get back to work,’ Robert finished for her, his voice oddly flat.

  Idiot, her mind whispered as she peeped over her shoulder in time to see him disappearing into the office. He probably hadn’t even been going to talk to you about what happened in his flat at all, and now he thinks you’re some sort of lamebrain half-wit. Good grief, it happened three days ago, and as he hasn’t even hinted about it before, the likelihood of him doing so now—in the middle of the treatment room—is pretty remote. In fact, considering he told you that he had every intention of getting blind drunk, he probably doesn’t even remember.

  But she remembered.

  Oh, yes, she remembered. Remembered the bruising intensity of his kisses. Remembered how her initial surprise had quickly given way to desire. How she’d wanted him to keep on touching her with those unbelievable hands, to satisfy a hunger she hadn’t even known she’d possessed.

  And it was crazy. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to Robert Cunningham. No woman in her right mind could possibly be attracted to a man who in the space of five short weeks had ignored her, clucked round her like a manic broody hen, then suddenly kissed her with a desperation that had taken her breath away.

  No, she wasn’t attracted to him, she told herself firmly. She felt sorry for him—who wouldn’t? And that night she’d been a bit low herself. Low, and a little bit lonely, and as for Robert…

  He’d been lonely, too, grieving for his dead wife, and his solution to his loneliness had been sex. Sex with anyone, and she’d just happened to be there, available. She mustn’t read any more into it than that. If she did she’d only be hurt again, and that was the last thing she wanted.

  ‘You seem a bit preoccupied this afternoon, Hannah,’ Jane observed after they’d arranged for a porter to take the elderly man in cubicle 4, who had fractured his forearm, to the plastering department. ‘Something troubling you?’

  ‘I was just thinking about Elliot,’ she lied, gesturing towards the SHO who was quite mercilessly teasing their student nurse.

  ‘Dangerous occupation, that,’ the sister declared, her grey eyes sparkling. ‘Thinking about Elliot.’

  ‘I know.’ Hannah laughed. ‘And there’s no need for you to get worried. I mean, I like him—I do—but…’

  Jane rolled her grey eyes expressively and nodded. ‘It’s an awfully big but, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think he’ll ever settle down with just one girl?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Not a hope, I’m afraid. The trouble with Elliot—though you’d never ever get him to admit it—is that with one failed marriage behind him he’s terrified of being hurt again and so he simply flits from girl to girl. Some men are like that. Others, like Robert, fall in love once, and can’t ever fall in love again.’

  ‘Can’t they?’ Hannah said, wondering why she should find that opinion so deeply depressing.

  Jane shook her head. ‘It’s quite sad, really. Robert was never a great lady’s man—in fact, we all thought he was married to his work—but when Laura joined the department he fell for her, hook, line and sinker. Mind you, so did every other red-blooded male in the hospital,’ she added with a chuckle.

  ‘She was very pretty, then?’ Hannah murmured, her eyes following Robert as he came out of the office.

  ‘And how. Think Marilyn Monroe but with red hair. And clever! Boy, was Laura clever. Top grades at med school, a gold medal prizewinner in obstetrics and physiology. She was consultant material for sure.’

  Hannah sighed inwardly. Nobody had ever said she was consultant material. Nobody had ever said she looked like Marilyn Monroe either—with or without red hair. Minnie Mouse perhaps, but not Marilyn Monroe.

  ‘Jane—’

  ‘If that’s Admin on the phone again about those requisition forms, I swear I’ll rip the damn thing off the wall,’ the sister groaned as the phone in the treatment room began to ring. ‘Honestly, Hannah, you’d think we had nothing better to do with our time than fill in bits of paper!’

  Hannah laughed, but she felt anything but amused later that afternoon when Elliot caught her by the arm and hustled her to the side of the treatment room after she’d finished treating a young girl with a dislocated shoulder.

  ‘Elliot, this had better be important,’ she protested as he gazed down at her, his blue eyes gleaming. ‘The waiting room’s filling up again—’

  ‘And I’ve just realised I’m an idiot!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I thought Jane had already told you that,’ she responded, torn between irritation and amusement. ‘In fact—’

  ‘I should have recognised your name immediately,’ he continued. ‘Charles Blake, the eminent Edinburgh gynaecologist. Charles Blake, whose wife Hannah tragically died in childbirth. Hannah, you’re Charles Blake’s daughter!’

  ‘Elliot, will you keep your voice down?’ she cried, glancing nervously round in case anyone had heard him.

  ‘But your father’s written more award-winning books on gynaecology than I’ve had hot dinners! He’s a legend in his own lifetime. He’s—’

  ‘Absolutely wonderful,’ she finished for him tightly. ‘Yes, I know. And I’m just his plain, ordinary daughter instead of the brilliant, prizewinning son he always wanted.’

  Elliot gazed at her uncertainly. ‘Hannah, you’re not plain, and you’re anything but ordinary—’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said cynically. ‘So what are you wanting? An autographed copy of my father’s latest book—an introduction to him?’

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ he protested. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you—’

  ‘Of course you haven’t upset me,’ she said with spurious brightness. ‘Why should I be upset because you admire my father? Everyone admires my father.’

  Including Chris, she remembered with an unwanted shaft of pain. Chris who’d said he loved her, and she’d believed him, until she’d found out he’d only wanted to marry her to fast-track his own medical career.

  ‘Hannah—’

  ‘Please, don’t tell anyone about my father,’ she begged. ‘I know everyone will find out eventually, but—’

  ‘What do you take me for?’ Elliot exclaimed, clearly deeply hurt by her suggestion. ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, but as she turned to go he touched her arm sympathetically. ‘Hannah, love…I’m really sorry. I thought…well, I assumed you’d be thrilled to bits, so proud—’

  ‘So does everyone,’ she said with a slightly crooked smile, and neither of them noticed Robert watching them from across the room, his eyes bleak, his hands bunched tightly by his sides.

  Why had he done it? Why had he kissed her? Even now he could neither understand nor explain his behaviour. OK, so he’d been deeply unhappy, remembering the good times he and Laura had shared before it had all gone disastrously wrong, but if that ambulance hadn’t gone by, if its wailing siren hadn’t brought him to his senses…

  He closed his eyes tightly. What must Hannah think of him? All too vividly he could remember the concern in her deep brown eyes, her belief, he now realised, that he’d been attempting to slash his wrists. And how had he repaid her kindness?

  He wanted to apologise to her again. He desperately wanted to apologise again, but what good would it do? She was already tiptoeing around him, clearly deeply uncomfortable in his presence. Better by far that she believed he couldn’t remember what had happened than resurrect an incident she so obviously longed to forget.

  But he remembered.

  Yes, he remembered all too vividly the feel of her body against his. Her tiny waist, so small his hands could span it, the gentle curve of her breasts, surprisingly full under his fingers, and the odd little cry she’d given when he’d crushed her to him—the cry he’d echoed with a groan, wanting her, wanting her so much.

  His lips twisted bitterly. Wanted, not loved. Lust. An old-fashioned word, but an accurate one, he thought as he gazed across at her, and felt his groin tighten as he saw her smile at s
omething Elliot had said. And as an adult, mature male he had to deal with it, conquer it.

  But that didn’t mean he had to stand by and watch Elliot talking to her so intimately, he decided, striding grimly across the treatment room before he had time to rationalise his thoughts.

  ‘Care to tell me what’s so important that it’s had your heads together for the past ten minutes while we have patients waiting?’ he demanded, his eyes flicking coldly from Elliot to Hannah.

  ‘I…um…It wasn’t really that important,’ Hannah muttered, all too aware that the blush she could feel creeping across her cheeks suggested otherwise.

  ‘Then if you’ve both finished whatever world-shattering topic you’ve been discussing,’ Robert snapped, ‘I suggest you get yourselves back to work!’

  And with that he strode away, leaving Hannah staring unhappily after him.

  ‘I really seem to have the knack of making him angry, don’t I?’ She sighed.

  ‘He’s not angry with you, love,’ Elliot said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe about you, but not at you.’

  ‘You mean, he heard what we were talking about?’ she said with dismay.

  He shook his head. ‘If Robert had heard you admitting to being Charles Blake’s daughter, half of London would have heard his roar.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know my father—’

  ‘He doesn’t need to. Robert’s parents had to make a lot of sacrifices to put him through med school, and he’s got no time for the children of rich consultants pulling strings to get posts.’

  ‘But I didn’t pull any strings,’ she protested. ‘My father doesn’t even know where I’m working.’

  ‘Really?’ Elliot exclaimed in surprise. ‘But surely—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Elliot,’ she interrupted quickly, though in truth she wasn’t one bit sorry to put a stop to a conversation she would far rather not have had. ‘I have to go. Jane seems to want me.’

  And she did. Calm, implacable Jane, who never flapped, was in a flap now.