A Very Special Proposal

Unable to help herself, she cast a quick glance across, her eyes finding him at the side of the road just in time to see him finish pulling his helmet on over that sleek dark hair while the engine rumbled powerfully between his thighs.

‘Drat!’ she muttered crossly as she fastened her seat-belt, realising that she’d only just missed her chance to see his face.

As she set her car in gear and threaded her way through the tangle of vehicles and strobe-type lights ringing the accident site, she had to suppress the old pang of regret that she’d never been brave enough to ask Zach to take her for a ride on his bike. She’d wanted to, desperately. She’d even dreamed about it, imagining how it would feel to have her hair flying out behind her as they outraced the throaty roar of the engine with her arms wrapped tightly around his lean waist and her head pressed against his shoulder…

‘Just another fantasy, of course,’ she muttered wryly as she manoeuvred her car into a tiny corner space left near the light that would illuminate this part of the staff car park as soon as dusk came. She wriggled out of the door that was so close to the next car that it could only open halfway, grateful that she was still slim enough to do it, and set off at a brisk walk towards the main entrance to the hospital. ‘The reality would probably have been very different,’ she scolded herself. ‘My ears would have got so cold that they made my teeth ache and I’d have got a collection of dead flies in my teeth and up my nose.’

‘You made it, Amy, girl,’ said a softly accented voice as she arrived at the admissions desk, her belongings hastily stuffed in her locker and a white coat pulled on over her clothes to try to disguise the grubby scuffs that had appeared on the knees of her trousers.

‘With a minute and a half to spare, Louella,’ Amy pointed out to the colleague waiting to hand over and get back home to her children before they had to leave for school. ‘I would have been here earlier, but there was an accident—’

‘On the crossing by the supermarket,’ Louella finished for her. ‘Yes, Harry told us when he brought her in. He told us it wasn’t his fault if you were late because you’d volunteered to hold his hand.’

‘As if!’ Amy scoffed. They both knew that Harry was a very happily married man whose paramedic expertise didn’t need any hand-holding either. ‘Who’s looking after the lady he brought in?’

‘Ben Finchley and the new guy starting today.’

Ben was one of the best in the department so she didn’t have to worry that her little lady was getting anything but first-class treatment.

‘New guy? Remind me,’ she demanded as she cast an eye over the multicoloured annotations on the grid of the whiteboard and stifled a groan at the sheer number of patients waiting for attention. ‘I hope he’s not someone still wet behind the ears or we’ll never get through this lot.’

‘Hardly!’ Louella exclaimed as she signed off on the last of the patients she’d treated with a flourish. ‘Apparently, he’s just finished a six-month stint in a huge A and E somewhere in Africa. I think it might have been that big hospital in Johannesburg.’

Amy blinked in surprise at the information, then wondered with her usual feeling of uneasiness if he was one of the doctors who’d been lured to Britain to prop up the ailing health service. When were the bean counters ever going to realise that it would be far more economic to retain their own staff by paying them properly, rather than robbing the rest of the world of their indigenous and desperately needed medical staff.

But there was no point voicing her thoughts here, in an A and E department that was frequently rushed off its feet. She’d be preaching to the converted, both about the effect of poor levels of pay on staff retention and their general dislike of poaching staff from other countries.

‘So, you think he’s going to be worth having on staff?’

‘Even if he isn’t able to pull his weight, he’ll be worth having around,’ Louella said with a decidedly lascivious grin. ‘He’s definitely what the kids would call eye candy!’

‘Louella! What would Sam think if he heard you talking like that?’ Amy chided with a spurt of laughter. Life was never dull with Louella around.

‘Sam knows I’m married, not dead!’ the Caribbean woman declared robustly. ‘And he knows I’ve got good taste because I chose him! Now, let me tell you what you’ve got waiting for you, then you have a good day, girl, and don’t get up to too much mischief.’ A few minutes later, the relevant information listed, she blew Amy a jaunty kiss as she bustled eagerly out of the department, clearly anticipating the welcome waiting for her at home.

For just a second, the lack of anything like a welcoming family in her own home made Amy aware that her life wasn’t quite as perfect as she liked to pretend, but there were too many patients waiting for attention for her to spend any more time bewailing the things she didn’t have any more. She had her health and a satisfying job, she reasoned as she reached for the first file, and that was more than many could boast.

She’d dealt with more than half a dozen assorted cases before she caught up with Ben Finchley as he came out of one of the treatment rooms.

‘Hey, Ben, what happened to that little lady? Broken leg and head impact first thing this morning?’ she demanded, thoughts of the poor woman having haunted her ever since the ambulance had whisked her away from the scene of the accident. ‘Were you able to do anything for her, or…?’

‘You mean Ruth?’ he said with a chuckle that shocked Amy. The woman had looked so fragile that she’d been trying to prepare herself for a worst-case scenario all morning, certainly not laughter. ‘If ever there was a case of being fooled by first appearances, it was that little lady,’ Ben said, gesturing towards the staffroom then walking beside her as she took the hint that she looked as if she was overdue for a break. ‘She looked so frail that we were convinced she must have shattered half of the bones in her body, but when we X-rayed, the only major things we could find wrong were a broken femur and a collection of spectacular bruises.’

‘But…’ Amy blinked. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same patient? You can’t mean the woman who had to throw herself backwards to avoid being run over. Her legs collapsed under her and she hit the ground so hard…’

‘The very same,’ Ben confirmed with a broad grin. ‘Like you, we were convinced we were going to find a fractured skull, at the very least, and we were half expecting her to peg out before we could do anything for her. Instead, she’s already conscious and it looks as if she’s going to pull through and come out of it with colours flying, once the orthopods patch her leg up with a shiny new joint.’ He lifted the jar of coffee and a questioning eyebrow and Amy nodded, still bemused by the incredible tale he was telling.

‘Mind you,’ he continued, as he poured in the hot water and added a splash of milk to each when she nodded again, ‘that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t got the mother and father of all headaches at the moment, but when we tried to give her some morphine to take some of the pain away while she waited to go to Theatre, she told us in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want any of that nasty stuff because it made her sick the last time she was given it—when she had her appendix taken out as a teenager.’

He turned to hand her the steaming mug and offer her a giant glass jar of sugar when he caught sight of someone over Amy’s shoulder. ‘Hey, here’s the man who was working on Ruth with me. Have you met our new colleague? He’s just joined us from a hospital on the other side of the world where the sort of thing we deal with here would be nothing more than a walk in the park. Amy Willmott, meet Zach Bowman.’

CHAPTER TWO

WITH a strange sense that fantasy and reality had just become inextricably entwined, Amy’s heart almost forgot how to beat.

It felt almost as if she was turning in slow motion until she finally faced the man who’d been standing behind her.

There was a weird feeling of inevitability as she looked up into those newly familiar dark eyes but it wasn’t until she caught sight of that sleek dark hair cut close to his head, when once it had curled rebelliously almost to his shoulders, that the pieces fell into place.

‘It was you!’ she breathed when she recognised the motorcyclist from the scene of the accident that morning, the broad shoulders she’d admired earlier in the day so much wider and more muscular than those of the teenage boy she remembered so clearly. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘It wasn’t the time or the place and, anyway, I didn’t know if you’d even remember me,’ he said, then she caught a glimpse of that old familiar gleam in his eyes. ‘So, ABC, how have you been?’

‘ABC? Do you two know each other already?’ Ben was trying to keep up with this unexpected development but Amy barely heard him, every atom of her concentration focused on the man she’d nearly looked up on the internet just last night, the man she’d been convinced that she’d never see again because he was probably in prison or dead. Zach was a doctor? In her hospital?

‘Amy Bowes Clark was my lab partner for sciences when we were at school together,’ Zach explained with a slightly dismissive air, as though the matter was hardly worth mentioning, and Amy was struck by a pang that felt almost like disappointment.

‘You know very well that I never used the Clark, and I regretted ever telling you about it,’ she added crisply, remembering the way it had given him ammunition for teasing her about being far too upper crust for an ordinary state school. But at the same time it had also caused a strange sense of connection with him that he’d actually felt at ease enough with her to tease her about her family name and what it did to her initials. It had been more than he ever had with the other members of their class.

‘Dr Bowman?’ called a voice from the door, and all three of them turned to see one of the younger receptionists there. Her eyes were bright with appreciation as they travelled over Zach’s lean frame and Amy was startled to feel the sharp claws of possessive jealousy rake her when he smiled back at the young woman.

‘The police just phoned through and I thought you’d like to get the message as soon as possible,’ she said with an ingratiating smile that clearly telegraphed her availability. ‘They said to tell you that they ran that licence plate you gave them, and they’ve tracked the car down. They found clear evidence that it had been involved in a recent accident and wanted to know if it could have struck the patient. They’ll want to compare DNA from your patient.’

‘Did they leave a contact number?’

‘Oh, yes! Here,’ she purred as she offered him a piece of paper, then added in a blatant attempt at seduction, ‘And I put my number on there, too…in case you needed it for…anything.’

‘Thank you for passing the message on so promptly,’ Zach said blandly, tucking the piece of paper in his pocket unread. He turned to Ben and Amy. ‘What are the protocols in the hospital for getting permission for taking DNA samples?’

There was a silence that went on just a beat or two too long as the woman left the room, clearly crestfallen that Zach hadn’t responded to her invitation with something more personal, but as soon as the door closed behind her there was a definite response from the rest of the males in the room.

‘Hey! You’re in there, Zach!’ called one.

‘Way to go!’ hooted another. ‘That’s quick work.’

‘You haven’t even been here for a day and they’re already panting after you. You’ll have to tell us your secret,’ said a third.

‘It’s probably just that I’m new,’ Zach said dismissively, and when Amy saw the darker colour seeping over the lean planes of his face she suddenly realised that he was genuinely uncomfortable with the attention.

‘It always happens with fresh meat, male or female, or can’t you remember that far back, John?’ she teased one of the older consultants who’d joined in the catcalls. ‘Give it a day or two for her to see him haggard and unshaven at the end of a long shift and she’ll soon turn her sights on someone else.’

‘Now I don’t know whether to thank you for taking the heat off me or feel insulted that you were so dismissive of my charms,’ Zach said so softly that his voice probably didn’t reach even as far as Ben’s ears.

He’d leaned closer to her, close enough for her to see every one of those absurdly long eyelashes and the start of creases at the corners of his eyes put there, in all probability, by six months of squinting into fierce African sunlight. He was also close enough for her to be able to feel the warmth emanating from his body and smell the hint of soap or shampoo that still lingered on his skin in spite of several hours of hard and often messy work.

It wasn’t anything with a strong perfume—she couldn’t ever remember him smelling of anything other than plain clean soap and water—and when it was underscored by the individual musky scent of his skin, it made her body react more strongly than Edward’s expensive colognes ever had.

His raised eyebrow reminded her that she hadn’t replied to his last comment but her brain was so overloaded with his proximity that she couldn’t even remember what he’d said.

Luckily, her blushes were spared by a head appearing around the door to announce the imminent arrival of several ambulances and she was left with the choice of scalding her mouth, trying to finish her coffee too fast, or abandoning the mug. She abandoned it with one last longing look and a mental note to try again soon. Her brain would soon slow down if she became dehydrated.

The brain is a perverse thing, she mused an hour later as she ducked a flailing fist as she tried to position an IV.

The patient on the table was suffering from multiple injuries from a car crash, yet, in spite of the fact he desperately needed their help, insisted in trying to fight them off.

Her own brain was no more logical.

Her first response to having to leave Zach to get to work on the unending influx of patients was relief. But, at the same time, her brain seemed to be silently counting the seconds until she could see him again, desperate to know whether her initial reaction to his presence had just been the result of shock.

It must be, she told herself reassuringly. It couldn’t be anything more than a knee-jerk reaction to meeting the man she’d been thinking about just last night. She’d got over that silly crush years ago.

Really? taunted the voice inside her head. Then why are your eyes searching him out every time you walk to your next patient and why are you straining your ears for the sound of his voice?

‘That’s just because…because I want a chance to find out what happened to turn his life around,’ she justified defiantly under her breath as she pulled on a second pair of gloves to treat one of the department’s ‘regulars’—a young drug addict whose HIV had already developed into full-blown AIDS.

‘What happened this time, Tommy?’ she asked gently as she took in the battered face. The way he was hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his ribs told her that they were probably in the same state.

‘Some people don’t seem to like beggars,’ he mumbled painfully through split lips.

‘I think you just can’t stay away from me,’ she teased as she slowly helped him to take off the clothing hanging on his skeletal frame, hoping she wouldn’t find anything more than bruises. She didn’t know whether he had enough reserves in his system to cope with broken ribs or, even worse, a punctured lung.

‘Sorry, Doc. You aren’t my type,’ he retorted with an attempt at a smile that ended in a wince as he opened up the cut on his lip again. ‘On the other hand, that is someone I could really go for…’ There was an unexpected gleam of appreciation in his least swollen eye as he nodded at something he could see beyond her shoulder.

Amy turned to find out who had caught his eye, and there, through a gap in the curtains, was Zach, a quizzical expression on his face as he watched…what? Tommy? Her?

Their eyes met and when her heart felt as if it turned a complete somersault in her chest she realised that this was something more than the lingering memory of a teenage crush.

‘You and me both,’ she muttered with feeling, and her hands tingled with more than a remembered longing to explore the clean lines of his face and the strength of his powerful body.

Tommy laughed aloud. ‘Down, girl!’ he teased as Zach responded to the sudden burst of sound, his dark eyes seeming to find hers unerringly. ‘It wouldn’t be a fair contest…I’m in no condition to fight you for him.’

The reminder that the young man was her patient and had potentially serious injuries snapped her back to what she should be doing with a guilty start, but she still had to force herself to drag her eyes away from the man outside the curtain.

‘So, let’s see what we can do to get you back in fighting form,’ she suggested, and began to palpate the darkly bruised ribs.

‘I dunno about fighting form,’ he said around a groan of pain. ‘I’d be grateful just to have a good summer. I’d rather not be around when winter comes.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, concerned. There had been such resignation in his tone…far too much for someone who hadn’t even reached his twenties yet.

‘I won’t make it through another winter on the street,’ he said bluntly. ‘And to tell the truth, I don’t really want to.’

‘Oh, Tommy…If you had a place in a hostel…’ Amy began, but he was shaking his head before she could complete the sentence.

‘They’ll only take you in if you’re clean—off drugs,’ he clarified, in case she didn’t understand.

‘But I’m sure we could find you a place on a programme to—’

‘Not a lot of point, is there, Doc, with me in this state? Anyway, I’m not too keen on going back into the system, seeing as how it was the system that did this to me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said quietly while she systematically cleaned up his wounds one by one, taping steristrips over the cuts that would heal without stitches and leaving the worst until last for suturing. This was the most she’d ever heard Tommy say about his life but she’d known that there were dark shadows in his background—she could tell by the expression in his eyes. They held the same fathomless, wary depths that she’d first seen in…Zach?

‘I was put into care when I was about four, when my mum dumped me at the social services office, and the system was so glad they’d found somewhere to put me that they forgot about me.’

He fixed her with eyes that were uncannily like Zach’s for the amount they kept hidden, but suddenly she realised that there was also a banked inferno of emotions raging underneath his apparent apathy.

‘By the time someone thought to check up on why I kept trying to run away, the bastard who was supposed to be looking after me like a father had been abusing me for years and I was HIV positive.’

‘Oh, Tommy…’ Amy breathed, her heart breaking for all the misery he’d suffered in his life…was still suffering, she realised, confronted with the evidence of his latest assault.

‘Hey, I’m cool,’ he said with an awkward shrug, even though the slight flush of colour in his pale cheeks told her he’d been touched by her sympathy. ‘If I’m lucky, it’ll be a good summer. I’ve got no job to go to so I’ll be outside in the sunshine with plenty of time to listen to the birds and smell the flowers while I stick my hand out for money for my next fix. By the time winter comes…who knows?’ he finished with another shrug and a corresponding grunt of pain when the manoeuvre jarred his ribs.

‘Have you been taking any anti-retroviral medications?’ Even as she asked, Amy realised that Tommy’s drug abuse would probably preclude his adherence to any regular preventative treatment.

‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, obeying her silent gesture to turn his head for the next set of stitches to close the wound in his scalp. ‘They made me feel worse than coming off dope, and it was already too late to have any real effect. Anyway, if I was given a supply of drugs…any drugs…I’d more than likely be mugged for them.’

Amy couldn’t argue with that. Tommy was the expert when it came to conditions on the streets.

‘Well, you probably already know that one of the dangers now is developing an infection that your body can’t fight.’

‘So they tell me, but I’ve been lucky so far—apart from having the crap kicked out of me. Haven’t had anything more than a cold.’

The conversation died for a few minutes while Amy concentrated on making a neat job of his scalp, grateful that he’d chosen such a brutally short hairstyle as it made the task so much easier.

Finally, as she handed over to the nurse to tape a protective dressing in place, she positioned herself so that she met his gaze head on, her pen poised over the clipboard that held his notes.

‘So, Tommy, if I give you a course of antibiotics, will you promise me that you’ll take the whole course?’

‘How long is a course?’ he parried warily.

‘Just until you come back to have your stitches taken out?’ she bargained, her heart aching that there was so little she could do for him. ‘A week? Would you be able to keep them out of sight for a week?’

‘Make it five days and I’ll do my best,’ he countered, then grinned cheekily. ‘And that’s only because you asked nicely.’

‘They break your heart sometimes, the way they’ve had to survive,’ said a quiet voice just behind her, and when Amy looked over her shoulder and up into Zach’s dark eyes she realised that he understood far more about the hell Tommy had gone through than she would ever know.

‘So, who is Mr Willmott?’ said that same voice right behind her in the cafeteria queue, and Amy gasped, dragged out of her pessimistic thoughts about young Tommy’s chances of surviving into his twenties by the man who could have ended up just like Tommy, if his teachers had been right.

‘Dr Willmott,’ she corrected automatically, only remembering as she said it that, of course, it had reverted to Mr when Edward had climbed up the next rung of the promotion ladder. Not that it was relevant any more.

‘Really,’ Zach said as he took a tray from the pile and kept pace with her slow shuffle in the queue towards the hot meals. ‘I presume he works here. Is he in A and E, too, or one of the other departments?’

‘No, he doesn’t work here.’ Suddenly she felt strangely guilty to be talking about her husband with Zach, but couldn’t find a way to end the conversation without sounding rude. ‘He’s…He was killed. A year ago. On the motorway.’

The words emerged in jerky lumps. Uncomfortable. Unpractised.

After the initial ‘getting to know you’ enquiries, the other A and E staff had tactfully refrained from asking for any more painful details and she certainly hadn’t volunteered. The only people who talked about Edward any more were her parents, bewailing the loss of her handsome, successful husband every time she set foot in their house, and his parents, endlessly, when she made her duty visits.

And yet…for the first time, she actually wanted to talk about what had happened. Did this mean that she was actually coming to terms with her loss, or was it because it was Zach she was telling?

Almost as soon as they were sitting down she found the stark details pouring out of her as if she needed to purge herself of the words. Somehow, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t seen him for so many years—and hadn’t really known him well even then—she knew that she could trust him with her confidences.

‘There was a pile-up in bad weather…dozens of cars involved…a woman had been thrown out of a vehicle. Apparently, Edward saw it happen. He pulled over and got out to help and was hit by another car. He was killed instantly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Zach said, visibly shocked and clearly at a loss for what to say.

‘He was on his way back from a conference,’ Amy went on, the words coming easier now that she’d started. ‘I didn’t even know it had happened…that he was dead…until the police came to tell me.’ She shuddered at the memory of the late-night knock at the door.