‘I married Rebecca because I thought…’ He let out a long, shuddering breath. ‘I thought we wanted the same things, but I don’t think we ever really understood one another, whereas you and I…’
‘You and I what, Josh?’ Megan said her voice tight.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this very well—’
‘You think you can just take up where you left off, don’t you?’ she interrupted, disbelief plain in her voice. ‘You think that because your wife has walked out on you, I’ll be only too ready and willing to leap back into your bed again despite what you did, despite.’ Her voice broke slightly. ‘Despite you taking everything of any value from me.’
‘No, of course I didn’t think that,’ he protested.
‘Then why is it so all-fired important to you that I should know?’ she demanded. ‘Why do you think it would matter a damn to me whether your wife has left you, or if you’re still happily married to her?’
He took a step towards her, and saw her back away still further.
‘Look, I’m saying this all wrong,’ he faltered. ‘It’s coming out all wrong.’
‘Oh, I think it’s coming out just right, Josh,’ she retorted. ‘Thanks for the update on your private life, but there was no need for you to hurry up here to tell me. I could have waited like everyone else until Rita spread the word.’
And she walked away from him, leaving him gazing in despair after her.
‘You want me to be the new nurse unit manager?’ Brianna gasped as Mr Brooke beamed benignly at her. ‘But…why?’
‘Because you’re not only my most qualified member of staff, you’re also the best,’ he replied as she gazed at him, open-mouthed. ‘And—believe me—those two things don’t always necessarily go together.’
‘But…’
‘I know it’s going to mean getting to grips with a whole lot of unfamiliar paperwork, but the job’s yours, if you want it. You do want it, don’t you?’ he added as Brianna stared at him uncertainly.
Nurse Unit Manager. It was her dream job, the job she’d always wanted. Of course she knew it wouldn’t be easy. The post carried a huge amount of responsibility, and she’d seen how many hours Diego Ramirez had needed to put in just to keep on top of all the paperwork, but she wanted it, she really did, except. If she accepted the post it would mean there was no possibility of her going back to Connor. He was a city man, with a high-powered city job. He’d never move to Cornwall in a million years, which meant, if she accepted the job, she would be accepting that her marriage was over.
Well, it is, isn’t it? her mind whispered, and she took an unsteady breath.
‘Mr Brooke, I’m flattered—immensely flattered—you think I can do this—’ she began, and Richard Brooke put up his hands quickly.
‘I can hear a “but” coming and I don’t want to hear a “but”. Look, I’ve put my neck on the line here by telling Admin I want it to be an in-house appointment, so will you at least think about it? I can’t give you too long to make up your mind, because we desperately need a replacement for Nurse Ramirez, but—frankly—I can’t see why you’re hesitating.’
Neither could Brianna as she walked slowly out of Mr Brooke’s office. It was what she’d always wanted, to be in charge of the nursing staff in a unit, and if the consultant had only asked her last week she wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant, but now. Now she didn’t know what to do, and the last person she could talk to it about was Connor.
At least she was able to avoid his far-too-acute gaze for the rest of the day. When she got back to the ward, Megan told her he’d gone to Men’s Surgical to interview the staff there and, for a moment, Brianna considered confiding in the paediatric specialist registrar, but one look at Megan was enough to tell her that her friend was struggling with her own private demons. Whatever Josh had so desperately wanted to talk to Megan about, it had obviously upset her greatly, but her closed face did not invite conversation and, for once, Brianna was relieved when her shift was finally over.
‘He’s still going to be here tomorrow, you know,’ one of the night nurses said with a chuckle when Brianna made her customary stop at Harry’s incubator to check on him before she left.
‘I know,’ Brianna replied, ‘but I just like to say goodnight to him. He doesn’t have a mother so…’ She shrugged awkwardly. ‘Silly of me, I guess.’
The night nurse said nothing, but Brianna knew what the woman was thinking. That she was breaking the cardinal nursing rule of ‘Never get too close, never become too involved, with a patient’ but she wasn’t getting too close. She was simply doing her job, doing the best she could for little Harry, and if a small voice in the back of her head was whispering its own warning, that small voice was just overreacting.
Exactly as Connor was, she thought ruefully when she eventually got home, and found him pacing up and down in front of her cottage.
‘I was beginning to think your car had broken down,’ he said. ‘That I was going to have to come out and rescue you before the storm breaks.’
Actually, he was right about the storm, Brianna realised as she squinted up at the sky. Ominous black clouds were rolling in from the west, the wind was picking up, and small drops of rain were already beginning to fall.
‘I thought you might be tired when you got back,’ he continued, hovering behind her as she trudged wearily into her cottage, ‘so I tossed a coin, and put some chilli in your microwave when I heard your car.’ He glanced anxiously at her. ‘I hope that’s OK?’
‘Sounds good,’ she said with an effort. ‘Have I time to shower and change? I always think I smell so overpower-ingly of disinfectant when I get back from the hospital.’
‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘You’ve plenty of time. In fact, take all the time you need. I’ve already set the table, and put on the fire, so there’s nothing for you to do.’
She wished there was as she went upstairs, and showered, and changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater. She wished even more that he would stop being so helpful, so thoughtful, when she didn’t want him to be any of those things. It just made everything so much harder.
‘You seem a bit preoccupied tonight,’ he observed after they’d eaten a largely silent meal. ‘Nothing wrong at the hospital, I hope?’
‘Everything seemed pretty quiet when I left,’ she murmured. ‘Megan’s going to chase up little Harry’s blood tests results. They generally take seventy-two hours, so they’re not late, but I know she’ll be a lot happier when she sees they’re normal.’
And if they’re not?
The unspoken words hung between them, and neither of them voiced them.
‘What did Mr Brooke want to see you about?’ Connor asked as he began to collect their dirty dishes.
‘Oh, nothing important,’ she said evasively. ‘Just boring stuff like paperwork.’ He didn’t believe her, she knew he didn’t, and quickly she went over to the sink, and turned on the tap. ‘I’d better get these dishes done. It’s getting wilder out there, and we might get a power cut.’
And it was getting wilder, she thought as she stared out of her kitchen window into the darkness. The wind was now buffeting the house, and squally rain was battering against the windows. She loved it when it was like this, so wild and tempestuous. It always made her feel like a small bird in its nest, listening to the elements raging around her, but Connor clearly didn’t share her feelings.
‘Not very seasonal weather, is it?’ he observed with a grimace as he picked up a tea towel. ‘March. You think of daffodils, and crocuses, and spring approaching, not howling gales and rain.’
‘You can get wild weather at any time of year,’ she replied, and he nodded.
‘It rained a little on our wedding day, didn’t it? Your mother said June would be a lovely month to get married in, and it rained.’
‘Rained?’ she exclaimed. ‘Connor, it poured solidly all day, and we had hailstones, and a gale-force wind.’
‘Oh, come on,’ he argued. ‘There might have bee
n the odd shower or two—’
‘I don’t know whose wedding you’re remembering, but it certainly isn’t ours.’ She chuckled as she added some washing-up liquid to the water in the sink. ‘The train at the back of my dress got completely soaked when my father and I had to make a mad dash from the car to the church, we had to have all the wedding photographs taken in the reception hall instead of outside the church because nobody could stand upright, and Ellie Warburton, my flower girl, fell in a puddle, and cried for the duration of the reception.’
‘Lord, so she did.’ He grinned. ‘Why was Ellie one of your flower girls anyway? She didn’t seem to know you from a bar of soap.’
‘She didn’t, but my mother insisted because she’s some sort of cousin of mine, twenty zillion times removed, and her family would have been deeply offended if she hadn’t been asked.’
‘Right,’ he said, clearly none the wiser as he began drying their plates. ‘OK, so the weather was bad, but everything else was perfect.’
‘You corrected Father Driscoll during the ceremony.’
‘I did not!’
‘You did too,’ she declared. ‘When he said, “Do you, Connor, take Brianna Kathleen to be your lawfully wedded wife?” you said, “I, Connor, take Brianna Kathleen O’Donnell to be my lawfully wedded wife.” You’re not supposed to say the bride’s surname.’
‘I didn’t want there to be any mistake,’ he protested. ‘I thought there might be dozens of Brianna Kathleens in the world and I wanted to make sure I was marrying the right one—my one.’
‘My mother was mortified.’ Brianna smiled as she remembered. ‘She said she’d never be able to look Father Driscoll in the face again when he told her afterwards that he’d never been corrected in church before.’
‘Well, like I said,’ Connor declared defensively, ‘I wanted to be sure I was marrying my Brianna Kathleen.’
‘And then my Uncle Joe sang his party piece at the reception,’ Brianna continued with a shudder. ‘My father promised faithfully not to let him, but halfway through the evening he said, “Sure, Brianna, a wedding’s not a wedding unless Joe sings Delilah.”’
‘Does your Uncle Joe ever remember the right words?’ Connor asked, and Brianna shook her head.
‘Never.’ She laughed.
Laughed with such genuine amusement and happiness that he put down the tea towel and caught her soapy hands in his.
‘Do you know what I remember most about our wedding day?’ he said softly. ‘It was turning round when I heard the wedding march and seeing you coming down the aisle towards me. You looked. Oh, you looked so beautiful it took my breath away, and I thought, Connor, lad, how in the world did you ever get so lucky to win this angel?’
‘Flatterer,’ she said shakily, trying to pull her hands free without success.
‘Gospel truth,’ he said huskily. ‘All I could think was, Please let her reach my side quickly, before the gods or the fairies snatch her away and keep her all to themselves.’
‘Connor, I’m getting soap suds all over the floor,’ she protested, completely unnerved by the intensity of his gaze, but he ignored her.
Instead, he reached behind her, and, before she could stop him, he’d unplaited her hair and spread it out over her shoulders.
‘Your hair was loose,’ he murmured, ‘just like it is now, and you had flowers threaded through it. Flowers that matched your bouquet, all the colours of the rainbow they were, but paler, and the scent…’
‘Freesias…’ she whispered, feeling her heart rate pick up. ‘They were freesias.’
‘And when I said I would honour and keep you, in sickness and in health, until death us do part, I meant every single word.’
She had meant those words, too, but it hadn’t been his death, or hers, that had parted them, it had been Harry’s.
‘Connor…’
‘You never told me you were going,’ he said, sliding his hands down her back. She could feel his hands trembling—or perhaps she was. She couldn’t be sure. ‘How could you do that, Brianna? How could you just disappear, never telling me where you were, whether you were safe?’
‘I was wrong,’ she said unevenly. ‘I see that now, but all I could think was if…if I could just get away from you, from London, from everything that reminded me of Harry, I’d be all right.’
‘But why Cornwall—why here?’
‘Because…’ She closed her eyes, and took a shuddering breath. ‘Nobody would know me. Nobody would be able to point their finger and say, “She’s the one whose baby died. She’s the mother whose baby died,” and because they couldn’t I thought—not that I would forget—I won’t ever forget—that it might be…easier.’
‘Bree, I have missed you so much,’ he whispered, his voice constricted. ‘Missed seeing you, missed hearing your voice, and I have so missed holding you.’
He was holding her now. He’d wrapped his arms around her, and then, gently, oh, so tenderly, he kissed her, and when she sighed against his mouth she heard him groan. A groan that seemed to come from deep down inside him, and it felt so good to be held, so good to be kissed, that she kissed him back, and felt him shudder, but as his kiss became more insistent, and he pulled her even closer to him, she suddenly felt the patent evidence of his arousal, and she flinched. She didn’t intend to, didn’t mean to, but she flinched, and she knew he felt it because she could see the pain of rejection in his eyes as he drew back from her.
‘Connor, I’m sorry,’ she said unevenly, ‘so sorry, I don’t know why I—’
‘I understand,’ he interrupted bleakly.
How could he, she wondered, when she didn’t understand her reaction herself? That she’d wanted to be held by him, she’d wanted his arms around her, but, the moment she’d realised that just holding her wasn’t enough for him, something inside her had frozen, something within her had screamed, No.
‘It isn’t you,’ she said. ‘It’s me.’
‘It’s all right, a chuisle mo chroí,’ he said with an effort. ‘You’ve had a long day and you’re tired. You should get some sleep. I’ll finish clearing up in here,’ he continued when she tried to interrupt. ‘You get yourself away to your bed.’
‘But—’
‘Goodnight, Bree.’
He had turned back to the sink, and slowly she walked away from him but, when she reached the kitchen door, she half turned.
A chuisle mo chroí.
Pulse of my heart.
It was what he’d called her on their wedding night, when they’d made love for the very first time, and she wanted to say something, knew she should say something, but no words would come. No words that would explain what she couldn’t explain, and, as a tear trickled down her cheek, she slipped away, leaving him gazing out of her kitchen window, his face in shadow.
CHAPTER FIVE
RITA was smiling. It was never a good sign when Rita smiled. Either the ward clerk had discovered a new and particularly juicy piece of gossip, or she was about to dump someone in a very large pile of manure, and, whichever it was, Brianna knew she wasn’t up for it today—she really wasn’t.
‘Something I can help you with, Rita?’ she said with an effort as the ward clerk sidled up to her, her face distinctly conspiratorial.
‘It’s about your husband, Sister Flannigan…’
Don’t go there, Rita, Brianna thought. If you value your life, don’t ask me why I’ve been living alone in Cornwall for the last two years while I have a husband in London, because, if you do, you’re dog meat.
‘What about my husband?’ she said coolly.
‘Just that it’s such very good news that he is your husband.’ Rita beamed. ‘I mean, I think we can now safely say my job is completely secure because he’d never shut down any department you worked in.’
Incredible, Brianna thought as she stared at the ward clerk. The woman was completely incredible, but she wasn’t about to let her get away with it.
‘I don’t think we can say that at all,’ she rep
lied. ‘In fact, I can assure you my husband would never allow any personal bias to influence him.’
Rita tapped the side of her nose, and winked.
‘Of course you would have to say that, wouldn’t you, Sister, but enough said, message understood, and I won’t say another word.’
Which will be a first, Brianna thought grimly, but as Rita bustled away, her anger swiftly faded.
She had such a headache this morning, such a blinding, thumping headache. She’d scarcely slept last night, had spent every hour tossing and turning, reliving what had happened in her kitchen. At least Connor hadn’t appeared in the unit yet, and she wondered if his absence was deliberate. She wouldn’t have blamed him. She’d allowed him to kiss her, allowed him to hold her, and then she’d rejected him. Rejected him for no reason she could fathom except, perhaps, her body had been telling her that she no longer wanted him, that there was nothing left of their marriage.
‘You OK?’
She half turned to see her staff nurse, Chris, regarding her with concern, and grimaced slightly.
‘I have a thudding headache this morning,’ she replied. ‘And before you ask,’ she added, ‘I’ve taken something for it, so I can’t take anything else.’
It had been Connor who had pressed the aspirin into her hand, she remembered. He’d taken one look at her face this morning, made her breakfast, pressed the pills into her hand, then suggested she should consider taking the day off, but his solicitude had only made her feel worse.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to add to your headache,’ Chris declared. ‘Vermin’s here.’
Brianna swore under her breath.
‘If that low-life thinks he can get another interview with me—’
‘Actually, he wants to speak to Mr Brooke, though why he thinks our consultant will be able to give him any more information than you did is anyone’s guess.’
‘Where is he—Vermin, I mean?’ Brianna asked.
‘I’ve left him cooling his heels in the corridor.’
‘The hospital sewer would have been better,’ Brianna replied, then frowned slightly. ‘You did tell him Mr Brooke has a clinic later on this morning, after his ward rounds, so he’s not going to be able to see him any time soon? ‘
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