A Very Special Proposal

‘Did you have any children?’ he asked, a perfectly ordinary question but one that caused a familiar pang for lost opportunities.

‘No. We hadn’t got as far as starting a family,’ she admitted sadly. ‘It’s still just me and my parents.’

For a second she thought she saw something dark in his eyes at that information, but couldn’t be sure—it was gone too soon.

She knew it couldn’t have been put there by her mention of her family, because he’d never met them, but that didn’t stop her speculating that she might have reminded him about something painful in his past.

How many relationships had he had since the days when she’d sighed over him in their biology and chemistry lessons? Probably far too many to count, with his bad-boy good looks…and why the thought of all those women should cause something painful to tighten around her heart…

‘Do you still live in the same place?’ he asked. ‘The big stone house near the top of the hill?’

‘I’ve got my own place now, not far from the hospital, but…How did you know where I lived?’

There was a glimpse of that shadow in his eyes again but then it was gone, hidden behind those thick dark lashes that he still seemed to have a habit of using to camouflage his thoughts.

‘How did I know where the princess’s castle was?’ he teased, looking up from the coffee he’d purchased to finish his meal, but there was an edge to his voice that was all too reminiscent of the old Zach. ‘Everyone knew where the Bowes Clarks lived. It certainly wasn’t any secret.’

And how Amy had hated the fact that, all too often, as soon as people realised who her parents were, they treated her differently, as though family wealth made her something other than just another teenager trying to get good exam results. Unfortunately, her parents still had some sort of crazy idea that their family was somehow inherently ‘better class’ than their neighbours and that their daughter should automatically—

Her thoughts were cut off by the simultaneous shrilling of their pagers.

‘Well, we almost managed an uninterrupted meal,’ Zach said as they both hastily piled the debris onto a single tray, depositing it in the appropriate place as they hurried towards the door, knowing that the ‘multiple trauma’ message could be anything from a small handful to dozens that would require all available staff.

‘Sorry to interrupt your meal break,’ the co-ordinator said as they appeared in the department, her gaze taking on a speculative air as she saw them arrive together. ‘We’re taking in the overflow from a major motorway incident. Initial estimates of ten vehicles involved seems to be going up every time the emergency services speak to us. The last person I spoke to said it could be as many as thirty.’

‘So, where do you want us, Liz?’ Amy offered, not envying her the major logistical nightmare she was going to have to deal with over the next few hours.

‘Could you both start off processing the walking wounded to keep the decks clear for the major injuries coming in? At some stage you’ll have to be redirected to Resus as the more serious patients start arriving, but—’

‘Has someone warned the patients already waiting that they could be about to be pushed to the back of the list again?’ Zach asked with a glance towards the grid on the whiteboard that was heavily populated with the names of the people already signed into the department and waiting for attention.

‘I’m just about to do that,’ the co-ordinator said with a grimace. ‘I wanted to get my troops organised first.’

‘Bang goes the department’s performance targets,’ Amy said grimly. ‘Those politicians who think they can sit at a desk and tell a doctor how many minutes it should take to treat a patient should try coming down here and seeing what it’s like living in the real world. It couldn’t be less like a production line in a factory.’

‘Don’t get me started!’ Liz warned. ‘If they’d only pay the staff properly we’d have enough of them willing to stay to do the job. As it is, all the money seems to be swallowed up by employing more and more administrators to carry stopwatches for the politicians.’

‘I heard that there are now more administrators in the hospital than there are patients!’ offered one of the staff nurses as she moved a patient’s name from one place on the board across to the list signifying that they were now waiting their turn for X-rays.

‘Don’t depress me!’ Liz groaned with a shake of her head as Amy hurried after Zach, her voice carrying along the corridor. ‘I wouldn’t mind if the extra staff were actually doing some of the real work…cleaning floors, delivering meals or spending time with patients. As it is, it seems as if their only function is to draw eye-watering salaries for shuffling unnecessary papers…’

‘Oops! I’m sorry I spoke!’ Amy murmured with a wry grin as she and Zach stationed themselves in adjoining stations in a three-bay treatment room, donning gloves and disposable aprons in preparation for their first patients. ‘I didn’t mean to set her off like that.’

‘It’s such a sore spot with medical personnel that it’s difficult not to,’ Zach said sombrely. ‘When you apply to medical school, they certainly don’t warn you just how demoralised you’ll be by the time you finish your training. You’ve just spent years piling up debt while you slog your guts out to qualify, and you…we…can see what’s wrong and how to fix it, but they bring in someone from big business who hasn’t a clue what medical priorities are and he builds an empire of bean counters trying to run it like…like…’

‘Perhaps you should think about something else, too, or your blood pressure will be astronomical,’ Amy teased, even as she appreciated the fire in his eyes as he voiced his views.

They barely had time to treat one patient apiece before the floodgates opened and from that point on there certainly wasn’t time to conduct a debate about the shortcomings of the health service. There was time, though, for Amy to realise that Zach’s impassioned pronouncement showed a different side of his character to the Zach she’d known all those years ago.

Then he’d mostly kept his head down below the parapet, limiting his subversion to the length of his hair, his leather jacket and his motorbike. Even so, the teachers had seemed to target him for scorn and derision, belittling his work in front of his peers and denigrating his chances of ever making anything of himself.

‘If they could only see him now!’ she breathed into her disposable mask as she hurried to lend him a hand putting in a drain when a patient collapsed spectacularly with a previously undiagnosed flail chest. Every movement was swift, decisive, accurate and, in its own way, beautiful to watch. There was absolutely nothing of the juvenile delinquent in this caring, dedicated man.

‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, the slightly gruff tone to his voice her only clue to the fact that he’d been worried whether he would be able to sort out the problem before it resulted in brain damage and heart failure.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said with a smile that answered his relief, and suddenly knew that there was more to the words than their social meaning.

It had only been a matter of hours since she’d been tempted to try to track him down on an internet website. Not wanting to destroy her teenage fantasies, she’d decided against finding out what had happened to him but, as if by magic, he’d reappeared in her life.

‘So, where do I go from here?’ she murmured, groaning as she tried to stretch the kinks out of her neck and shoulders after long minutes spent retrieving far too much of a shattered windscreen from a child’s face. It was going to take the expert techniques of their most experienced plastic surgeon to minimise the scarring that would be a permanent reminder of this day. In the meantime, she could step out of the way while the cubicle was cleared of debris and readied for the next patient and lean back against the nearest wall to allow her spinal muscles to recover. She didn’t even have the energy to remove her gloves or apron.

‘You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?’ Zach demanded, his shoulder almost touching hers as he joined her against the wall. ‘I thought you were settled in the area?’

Amy blinked at the unexpected questions, belatedly realising that she must have spoken her own thoughts aloud.

What could she say? I was just wondering whether I had any more chance of attracting you now than I did as a teenager?

‘I am settled, I think. I’m close enough to my parents so that visiting them doesn’t have to be a major time-consuming trek, yet far enough away so I can call my life my own…’…More or less, she added silently, hoping she hadn’t grimaced at the thought of the way the two of them still tried to organise her life for her.

Which reminded her, she thought with a barely stifled groan.

There had been a message on her phone earlier, reminding her that she was supposed to be attending some ‘do’ this evening. She certainly couldn’t remember what it was about—with her father a stalwart member of so many prestigious committees and boards of governors, there was usually something at which it was ‘imperative’ she show her face.

She also had a sneaking suspicion that, now that a year had passed since she’d been widowed, her mother was trying to be surreptitious about using the events to introduce her to a selection of ‘suitable’ men from whom she would be expected to choose another husband.

Not that her parents could ever find fault with her first choice, as they told her ad nauseam, but if she was ever to provide them with the grandchild they needed if they were to pass on their inheritance…

For just a second she toyed with the idea of inviting Zach to go as her partner, but it was definitely a less shocking idea than it would have been when he’d sported his unruly hair and an attitude to match. He might still ride a motorbike, but as a fully qualified doctor, the rebel was now well and truly part of the establishment.

Anyway, if she did ever get up the courage to invite Zach to go out with her—or vice versa—the very last place she’d want to go to fulfil her fantasy would be anywhere under her parents’ eagle eyes.

She glanced up at the clock, hoping for a moment that the current workload would give her the excuse to phone and cancel, but no such luck.

‘Clock-watching?’ Zach asked while she was still trying to work out some way of avoiding an evening of tedium. ‘Got a hot date this evening?’

‘Hardly!’ She laughed. ‘Just a command performance at some semi-formal function—some committee or other—and the very last thing I want to do after a shift like this. I can’t imagine anything worse than being herded into a room full of people spouting inanities, plied with white wine so acid that you could use it to clean drains and offered very pretty-looking “nibbles” that are totally tasteless unless they’ve been overloaded with salt and artificial flavourings when I’d far rather have a hearty plate of spaghetti Bolognese or carbonara.’

Zach chuckled. ‘I remember that about you—the way you could always put away about twice the calories of any other woman and still stay so slim. And you had the best brain in the class. No wonder the other girls were jealous of you.’

Simultaneously embarrassed by the praise and delighted that he’d noticed anything personal about her, she forgot to keep a tight rein on her tongue.

‘If they were jealous of me it was because I had the sexiest boy in the class as my lab partner,’ she countered, then groaned in humiliation, mortified that she couldn’t remember what she’d last touched with her gloved hands and so couldn’t even cover her red face. Furious with herself for putting her foot in her own mouth, she stripped the gloves off and flung them into the bin then made a performance about donning a clean pair.

‘The sexiest boy in the class?’ he repeated with a dawning grin. ‘Really? If only I’d known!’

‘You must have known!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s why you always grew your hair so long, wore the leather jacket and rode the motorbike…a motorbike, by the way, that everyone in the class, male or female, wanted an invitation to ride.’

‘Ready for your next one?’ prompted Liz in the doorway behind them while Amy was still desperately wanting to call back her words. If only there was a way of turning the clock back just one minute. ‘We’re down to the last few who were delayed by the influx from the motorway.’

‘Wheel them in,’ Zach invited in a resigned tone that completely disappeared as soon as Liz’s head did from the doorway. Then he took several long strides to bring him close enough that their shoulders touched as he leant against the wall beside her, his broad muscular one against her more slender one.

Below the short sleeves of their faded green scrubs his firm flesh was hot and darkly tanned against her cooler, paler skin, but she shivered at the intimacy of the contact, overwhelmingly aware that he was doing it deliberately.

‘One day,’ he murmured for her ears alone, ‘I might tell you why I really dressed that way.’

CHAPTER THREE

ZACH leant back into the corner of the wooden bench, swung his feet up onto the other end of the seat and sighed with relief.

It felt as if it had been days since he’d last had time to sit down and it wasn’t just his feet doing the complaining.

He took a cautious sip of the outsized mug of coffee, then a deeper draught when he found it had cooled enough on his journey out to this little courtyard area hidden in an angle of the building housing the A and E department.

His view of the night sky was disappointing. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but many of the stars would always remain invisible because there were so many streetlights around.

It hadn’t been like that at the refugee camp. There, when night had fallen, the only light to break the complete darkness had been the occasional flickering of firelight or the generator-powered lights in the operating theatre. There, the sky had been full of billions of points of starlight, all so clear and bright that it had seemed as if he could almost reach out and grab a handful of them.

Fanciful nonsense, of course, just like his dream last night that Amy was riding on the back of his motorbike, her arms wrapped around his waist and her body pressed tightly against him as they sped through the night together.

Had his subconscious somehow known that she was about to reappear in his life? Had it been warning him, or was it that age-old wishful thinking? If he’d known that the elegant woman bending over the elderly hit-and-run victim had been his ABC he might have managed to introduce himself in an adult manner. As it was, he’d had a hard time trying not to swallow his tongue as all those old feelings had flooded over him in a maelstrom.

‘Ha!’ he snorted into the darkness. ‘Even my dreams are stuck in an adolescent time warp. You’d think I’d manage to come up with something new in the last fifteen years!’

It wasn’t as if he’d received any encouragement from her, then or now. She would always be the princess to his pauper, something that was obvious even when they were both wearing unisex scrub suits. She would never look anything less than cool and elegant while he…

He glanced down at the crumpled state of the shapeless garb and chuckled at the thought of covering the top half, at least, under his leather jacket. That was the way he’d coped at school, camouflaging the fact that although they were perfectly clean, his clothes were disintegrating with age because there was so little money to replace them.

Anyway, it wasn’t as though smart clothing would have made any difference at school. According to his teachers, he had been thick and stupid and on the fast track to oblivion. Amy had been the only one who’d spoken to him as if he’d had more than two brain cells between his ears. She’d been the one who’d made him think that, perhaps, there might be another road to travel than the one to perdition, that, maybe, she would be interested in him if he were to ask.

He’d soon found out that the princess’s interest had been anything but personal, and for a week or two had gone into self-destruct mode. Luckily, that hadn’t happened until after he’d taken all his exams, and by the time his successful results had come through he’d got his head on straight again and his eyes fixed on that distant goal.

‘And it’s staying that way!’ he declared into the darkness, even as the alarm on his watch reminded him that it was time to get ready for the hospital fundraiser he’d been conned into attending.

He swung his feet to the ground and levered himself upright with a groan. ‘So, just you remember that you learned your lesson the first time around,’ he reminded himself sternly. ‘Princesses and paupers don’t mix.’

Except the reminder didn’t stop his pulse rate rocketing into the stratosphere when he saw Amy enter the room an hour later, her honey hair freshly coiled in some elegant arrangement high on her head and her slender body draped in a fluid column of something dark blue shot with shimmering strands of silver that instantly made him think of stars in a midnight sky.

‘Fanciful nonsense,’ he muttered under his breath as he turned his back on her and accepted a glass from the brimming tray offered by a smiling waiter. But, even though he set off to circulate in the opposite direction, somehow he always seemed to know exactly where she was, the pale gold of her hair attracting his gaze like a candle flame across a dim room.

Finally, with an audible groan that startled the heavily bejewelled matron beside him, he gave in to the inevitable.

‘Dr Willmott, I presume?’ he said when he joined her at one side of the crowd. ‘You look a little different.’

‘Zach!’ The pleasure in her eyes when she caught sight of him gave his spirits a nitroglycerine lift, as did the subtle widening of her pupils when her eyes travelled over his evening suit. ‘You scrub up well, too. I’ve never met a man yet who didn’t look good in a DJ—a bit like James Bond, all suave and sophisticated.’

‘Suave and sophisticated?’ he repeated with a blink, never having thought of himself that way. ‘I think I like that.’

‘Not that I didn’t like your old leather jacket and your snazzy motorbike leathers this morning,’ she teased.

‘Zo, tell me,’ Zach said in a heavily faked Germanic accent. ‘How long have you had zis leather fetish?’

Amy chuckled aloud, the serene grey of her eyes gleaming with her appreciation of his nonsense, and his spirits lifted still further.

‘If I’d known you were coming to this thing, too, perhaps we could have come together,’ he suggested, deliberately stifling the logical voice in the back of his head that was telling him to walk away now, while he still could. ‘That way I wouldn’t have had to dread standing around all by myself in a room full of strangers.’

‘You needed someone to hold your hand?’ she teased, and for just a moment he was tempted to do just that. He’d done nothing more than accidentally brush against her when they’d been tending a patient today, and the contact had felt electric. Had it been some sort of fluke reaction, or merely static electricity? Or had the awareness that had caused his teenaged self to spend endless hours fantasising survived fifteen years intact?

‘Amy, dear,’ said a cultured voice behind them. ‘Do introduce us to your friend.’

The hairs went up on the back of his neck. It had been fifteen years since he’d last heard that voice but he’d never forgotten it…probably never would.

‘Father,’ Amy said with a smile as they turned to face the older couple standing behind them, but he took petty delight in the fact that it was a far less carefree one than those she’d bestowed on him. ‘Hello, Mother. I’ve always loved that colour on you.’

‘Amy.’ The well-preserved woman returned her daughter’s hug with such a restrained gentility that it seemed to Zach as though she was more worried about their greeting creasing the burgundy fabric of her dress than embracing her only child. ‘Darling, why aren’t you wearing the dress I sent over for you?’

‘I’m sorry, Mother, but I didn’t see it until I was almost ready to leave the house. If I’d stopped to change at that point, it would have made me late,’ Amy said with every appearance of regret, but somehow Zach knew it was faked. There was a definite subtext to this conversation that was probably far more interesting than what was actually being said. He would have to get Amy to explain it later.

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