Miracle Times Two

‘There’s something wrong with your phone,’ he announced bluntly. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day to tell you I’d be picking you up at the end of your shift.’

Jenny swallowed hard, tempted to close her eyes tightly to pretend that the obnoxious man wasn’t standing there, clearly unconcerned that he was about to cause a scene in front of goodness knew how many colleagues, patients and visitors.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my phone,’ she said quietly, not certain whether she was glad to have Daniel’s silent presence at her back or embarrassed that he was a witness to the result of her stupidity in ever agreeing to go out with Colin in the first place.

‘There must be something wrong because I haven’t been able to get through,’ Colin argued with a pointed glance at his watch then a disparaging look at her favourite pair of well-worn jeans. ‘You’ll need to get yourself tidied up enough to go somewhere decent like the Pastorale. I’d better give you a lift to your flat or you’re not going to have enough time to make a good job of it.’

The classy French restaurant that had opened recently at the top end of the high street had quickly made a name for its elegant ambiance and superb cuisine, but it certainly wasn’t the place she wanted to go after a stressful day like today … nor was Colin the company she’d ever choose.

‘Thank you for the invitation, Colin,’ she said, so perfectly politely that even the pickiest manners maven couldn’t have found fault, ‘but I’m really not in the mood for—’

‘Not in the mood!’ he interrupted angrily. ‘Do you realise how exclusive Pastorale is; how hard it was to organise a reservation at such short notice so I could stage the romantic—?’ He stopped himself suddenly, almost as if he’d said more than he’d intended, then continued, sounding angrier than ever. ‘And you’re standing there saying you’re not in the mood?’

‘Excuse me.’ It was Daniel’s turn to interrupt and Jenny almost giggled when the unexpectedness of it left Colin with his mouth agape.

It was tempting to allow the strong silent man at her back to take over for her, but she’d never been one to back down from a battle that was important to her, and this one definitely qualified.

‘Colin, there’s no point in trying to browbeat me into going for a meal with you, because it isn’t going to happen,’ she said firmly.

‘Well, I’d have been able to get hold of you to arrange it properly earlier on today if your phone had been working,’ he began again, but this time she interrupted him herself.

‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with my phone,’ she declared. ‘I’ve already told you that I won’t go out with you, several times, in fact. So I’ve had my phone programmed to refuse any of your calls. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s an enormous plate of tagliatelli carbonara with my name on it and I’m starving. Goodnight, Colin.’

Her knees felt rather wobbly as she forced herself to stride briskly past the man, but the matching echo of Daniel’s feet following close behind fanned the spark of defiance that kept her chin in the air and bolstered the confidence that her nemesis would never know how uncertain she’d been that she could cope with such an uncomfortable confrontation.

‘So there’s an enormous plate of carbonara with your name on it, is there?’ Daniel mused as he lengthened his stride to catch up with her as they set off across the vast car park to the other side of the hospital grounds. ‘I’m not certain that I’ve got enough ingredients for that. Perhaps we should detour to do a bit of shopping, just to be sure.’

Jenny had no idea why his teasing should suddenly make her feel like crying and laughing aloud at the same time, but it took a real effort not to do either … or both.

‘No shopping,’ she decreed imperiously, warmed beyond words that she had such a friend and overwhelmingly grateful for his ready sense of humour. ‘I need food now!’

A leisurely hour later they were both coming to the end of plates full of perfectly cooked tagliatelli smothered in the most delicious creamy sauce, and Daniel’s light-hearted banter had temporarily managed to push their concerns about their patients to the back of their minds. It had also all but banished the memory of that unfortunate scene at the entrance to the hospital’s main Reception. In fact, she was feeling so relaxed that that she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to summon up the energy to walk to her own flat, and there was a real danger that she would fall asleep where she sat if she stayed much longer.

Regretfully, she began to fish under the table for the shoes she’d kicked off soon after she’d arrived, trying to find the words to thank him, not only for the delicious meal but also for standing by her while she faced Colin down, yet still allowing her to deal with the situation herself.

She was just drawing a breath to bring the evening to a close when his mobile phone began to vibrate its way across the centre of the table.

‘Carterton.’ His brisk response told her she wasn’t going to have to eavesdrop on a one-sided private call and the resigned expression that came over his face was enough to tell her that Sheelagh Griffin’s baby had lost his fight.

‘Poor woman,’ she whispered, her heart heavy for the couple who would have to start the whole IVF process all over again if they were ever to have the family they wanted.

Before Daniel could comment his phone was ringing again, but this time the shocked way his eyes widened told her the news he was getting was totally unexpected and it wasn’t good.

Listening in on a call that largely consisted of one-word questions was both frustrating and frightening, especially when she saw the regret fill his face.

‘What?’ she demanded as soon as the call ended. ‘What’s happened? Oh, no! Is it Aliyah? How bad is it?’

He raked his fingers through his thick dark hair and swore ripely, something she very rarely heard him do.

‘It’s not Aliyah,’ he said but before she could let the relief flood through her he added, ‘it’s her husband. He coded in ICU and it took five tries to get him back.’

Jenny felt close to tears when she remembered what a lovely caring man Faz was and how concerned about Aliyah and their baby. ‘How long was his heart stopped? Do they know why?’

‘They’ve taken him back to theatre. There’s blood building up in the pericardium that’s stopping the heart from working properly. It nearly stopped it permanently.’

‘Surely they would have checked for other sources of bleeding when they were retrieving the bone fragments from the broken ribs and sorting out the collapsed lung?’

Daniel’s expression was wry because they both knew that such things could be missed when a patient presented with so many life-threatening injuries at once, especially if the damage was small enough to make any bleed insignificant amongst all the other gore.

Sadly, she realised that their almost idyllic evening was over—the outside world back with a vengeance—and suddenly her exhaustion made everything more than she could bear—the situation with Colin and their embarrassing confrontation, the worry that Aliyah might be losing her longed-for babies, Sheelagh Griffin’s accident right at the hospital’s gates and the loss of both of her precious babies. Now this! The horrible events still seemed to be piling up.

With barely a second’s warning her breath caught in her throat and her eyes burned as they filled with tears.

‘Oh, Daniel,’ she wailed, then whirled towards his door, wanting nothing more than to escape before he saw them start to stream down her face.

‘Hey!’ He caught her arm as she fumbled with the lock on the front door and swung her gently around. ‘Are you going without your shoes?’

The concerned frown pleating his forehead was the final straw, releasing the first sob from the dammed-up agony in her throat, and when he pulled her into the sanctuary of his arms the floodgates burst.

‘Shh!’ Daniel soothed helplessly as he awkwardly patted her back, realising wryly that, for all his extensive education, he had no more idea of how to deal with a crying woman than any other man.

And the fact that a large part of his brain was taken up with registering just how perfect Jenny felt in his arms wasn’t something he had any control over, either.

She was such an energetic person with such a lively personality that it was all too easy to forget just how slender she was, especially when she was swathed in a shapeless uniform or several bulky layers of off-duty clothing—one of the down sides of spending her working days in a heated building.

Now that he had her wrapped in his arms he realised that she was more than a head shorter than he was, easily able to burrow herself into the angle under his chin as she clung to him.

The hand that started stroking her back traced the perfect curve of her spine from the silky hair at the base of her skull all the way down to the top of her jeans, and he was almost certain that, had he tried, he could have wrapped both hands completely around her waist, fingertip to fingertip.

And as for her legs, those deceptively long legs, one of which he was bracketing with his own as she leaned against him, sparking his imagination to fill with images of how they would feel without the layers of fabric separating them, how it would feel if they were both naked with those endless legs wrapped around his waist as he.

‘Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry,’ she whimpered against his throat and he had to swallow a groan as the puffs of moist warmth on his bare skin ratcheted his pulse still higher even as he tried to remind himself that he was supposed to be supporting and comforting her, not wasting his time imagining impossible scenarios in which.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ he growled, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his voice betrayed the effect she was having on him.

‘I sh-shouldn’t be falling apart all over you,’ she hiccupped. ‘It’s not fair to you to have to m-mop me up.’

‘You let me worry about that,’ he reassured her, even as he tried to push to the back of his brain all the other things he’d be willing to do for her. To her. With her. ‘Everyone needs a friend they can let the barriers down with, otherwise we’d all go crazy in a high-stress job like ours.’

He rested his cheek briefly on the crown of her head just long enough to draw in the fresh scent of the shampoo she’d used earlier mixed with the indefinable something that belonged to no one but his little Jennywren.

‘It never seems to get to you,’ she complained. ‘Even when you came back up to tell us about Sheelagh Griffin’s babies.’ The thought sent her off into renewed sobs and he realised that, as it didn’t look as if she was going to be fit to leave any time soon, it was time to make them both more comfortable.

She was weeping so hard that she was probably almost unaware that he’d half-led, half-carried her back into his living room. In fact, she only reacted when he lowered himself into the corner of his oversized settee and tried to settle her on his lap.

‘Daniel, no,’ she objected, floundering in her attempts at getting her feet on the floor. ‘You don’t have to do this. It’s not. You can’t want. I shouldn’t …’

‘Calm down, sweetheart,’ he said, thwarting her halfhearted efforts by drawing her closer to his chest. ‘It’s not a problem.’ Well, that was a blatant lie for a start, because having her squirming on his lap was quickly becoming a big problem, and if she squirmed much more, she would discover just how big.

‘It’s difficult to calm d-down,’ she sobbed against his throat. ‘All I can think of is those poor people and everything they’ve l-lost and … and …’

She turned her head to look up at him just as he angled his to press his face against hers and somehow, accidentally, fleetingly, their lips brushed.

He froze, unable to breathe, convinced that even his heart had stopped beating for several timeless seconds as he savoured the softness of her mouth against his for the first time.

‘Daniel?’ she whispered huskily, and while he was utterly amazed that she hadn’t immediately broken the contact between them, he was intimately aware that he could taste the salt of her tears.

The last thing he wanted was to draw back, afraid of what he would see in her eyes. Shock? Rejection? Or worse, disgust if she thought he was taking advantage of her emotional state?

In the end it was Jenny who moved just the few inches that would allow them to see each other’s expressions, and the wide-eyed wonder on her face as her gaze flicked from his eyes to his mouth and back again jolted his heart into double time.

‘Jenny?’ It sounded more like a growl than a question and he wasn’t really sure what he was trying to ask her, but to his everlasting relief she seemed to take it as an invitation.

‘Please,’ she whispered as she angled her head and leant forwards just far enough to stroke her lips over his … once … twice. ‘Please, Daniel,’ she said again as she wreathed her arms around his neck, this time pressing not only her lips against his but the whole of her body, too. ‘Please, Daniel. I need you,’ she begged breathlessly before she plunged them both headlong into the kind of kiss he’d been dreaming of ever since he’d met the tantalising woman … only better.

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