Their Twin Christmas Surprise

‘There was no name on the bottle and the drug name was generic … possibly bought abroad or over the internet … and the bottle was empty when I found it on the floor beside her,’ he said quietly, and she could see from his expression that he was already blaming himself.

‘How long ago …?’ she began, only to halt in mid-sentence as a sudden thought struck her. If Zara had been at home, taking an overdose, then her crazy suspicion that it had been her own sister driving the car that had run her down this evening must have been just that … crazy. Unless she’d gone home after she’d done it and taken the drugs in her remorse … but, no, that didn’t make sense either. Nothing made sense. Not the fact that she’d been absolutely certain that it had been Zara behind the wheel of the car that had deliberately aimed at her, or the fact that she would have access to barbiturates or would deliberately take an overdose.

‘She was in a pretty bad way when I found her,’ he said, answering the question she would have asked if her brain had been working well enough to formulate it. ‘She was already comatose, her breathing and pulse rate both depressed, but when her stomach was pumped, there were a fair number of undigested tablets, so she must have taken them some time this evening.’

Sara’s relief that her sister couldn’t have been responsible for her accident faded with the realisation that there would still have been plenty of time for her to have returned home and swallowed the drugs before Dan had found her. But that begged the question: why would Zara do it, especially when Sara was expecting the child … children … that she’d begged Sara to carry for her?

‘Have you told my parents?’ Sara could only imagine the state her mother must be in, knowing that her beautiful perfect daughter had …

‘Not yet. I had to come and tell you first,’ he said simply.

Pleasure that he’d wanted to break the news to her before notifying his in-laws flowered inside her, only to wither to dust when he added, ‘I didn’t want you to get a garbled version if the news reached you through the hospital grapevine.’

That was more like the Dan she’d been working with for the last couple of years—logical and practical. Of course there hadn’t been a personal reason why he would have wanted to give her the news in person. When was she going to stop searching for traces of the connection they’d made when they’d first met? When was she going to come to terms with the fact that any feelings he’d had towards her had vanished the instant he’d met Zara?

‘Where is she? What treatment is she receiving? When can I visit her?’ she demanded briskly, forcing herself to be equally logical and practical. She tried to push herself up in the bed and fell back with a groan when every muscle and joint complained.

‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere yet,’ he growled as he carefully slid one arm under her shoulders and effortlessly lifted her up, supporting her while he positioned the pillows behind her.

Sara shivered. Every tiny hair had suddenly stood up in reaction to the warmth of his arm surrounding her. Not that her hospital room was cold. If anything, it was far too hot. But somehow it was different when it was Dan’s body heat in a wide swathe across her back where his strong arm held her, and as for the soft wash of his breath stirring her hair against her face and neck …

‘But …’ It was hard to get her thoughts in order when he was so close. Thank goodness they never did any more than brush against each other when they worked together, or she’d never be able to do her job properly. Still, she didn’t dare to take a full breath until he laid her gently back against the pillows and released her to step back a little from the bed. The last thing she needed was another lungful of that familiar mixture of soap and musk to contend with.

‘Sara, I’ll let you know as soon as they say she’s stable enough for visitors,’ he promised, his green eyes darkly serious. ‘At the moment she’s so deeply unconscious that she wouldn’t even know that you were there, and you wouldn’t be doing yourself any good either. You need to give your body time to heal.’

‘But you’re going to have to tell Mum and Dad tonight, aren’t you … about Zara, I mean?’

‘And that means I’ll have to tell them about what happened to you, too,’ he pointed out.

‘No! I’ll tell them, when I—’

‘Sara, think about it,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re going to want to see you … they’ll be expecting to see you when they arrive at the hospital, waiting outside ICU until Zara’s consultant allows you in to see her.’

‘But …’ She closed her eyes in defeat. He was right, of course. And she wasn’t in any fit state to be sitting around in the little relatives’ room all night.

‘Which would you rather—that they knew that you’d been involved in an accident or that they thought you couldn’t be bothered to be with them when they need you?’ he challenged, and she slumped back against the pillows, knowing that she couldn’t argue against that sort of logic.

‘You will tell them that the babies are OK, won’t you …? Oh!’ she exclaimed with a shadow of her usual smile. ‘They don’t know that it’s twins yet!’ She groaned as she tried to reach into the bedside locker for the precious picture of the scan. ‘Could you get the photo for me, so you can show it to them?’

‘Actually …’ He paused a second and she was startled to see a soft wash of colour sweep across the lean planes of his cheeks as he reached into his pocket to take his wallet out. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the technician to print an extra copy.’

For Zara. Of course.

‘I should have thought of that … to get one for the two of you. After all, they’re going to be your babies, so you actually have more right to a picture than I do.’

‘Sara, don’t,’ he said swiftly, and startled her by trapping her hand in the warmth of his, the green of his eyes darkening as they gazed intently down into hers. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult the whole process is for you, but you have every right to a picture of the babies that are developing inside you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’re doing. An extra picture of an ultrasound scan is nothing in comparison.’

His sincerity was obvious and actually managed to soothe some of the ache that had been filling her heart ever since she’d been persuaded along this path. The last thing she’d wanted to do was carry the children of the man she loved, only to have to give them away. The fact that he genuinely seemed to appreciate the sacrifice she was making was like balm to her soul. All she had to do was make sure that he never had any idea of her true feelings towards him.

It had been every bit as dreadful as he’d thought it would be, Dan thought wearily as he propped himself against the wall of the ICU waiting room several hours later.

Unfortunately, it had been his mother-in-law who had answered the door of their smart suburban home, and when she’d realised that Zara hadn’t been with him, something in his face must have told her that he was the bearer of bad news.

‘She’s had an accident, hasn’t she?’ she wailed. ‘I knew something must have happened. I just knew it! I’ve been waiting all evening for Zara to call to let me know she’d returned home safely. I told her she should have asked you to drop her car off at the garage.’

As he ushered her through to her smartly decorated lounge, trying vainly to calm her down, a small corner of Dan’s brain registered the odd snippet of information. What had been wrong with Zara’s car that it had needed the attention of a mechanic? Both their vehicles had only recently been serviced.

‘What’s the matter? What’s going on?’ his father-in-law demanded gruffly from his favourite seat at one end of the settee. He fought to fold the newspaper that had spread itself across his lap and tried not to look as if he’d fallen asleep in front of the television.

‘Our Zara’s had an accident!’ his wife keened. ‘I told her she shouldn’t be driving in London traffic. Danny should have looked after her. He should have taken her car to the garage if there was something wrong with it.’

‘Is that true, lad? Is she hurt? How bad is it?’ Frank might not be so openly emotional as his wife but it was plain that he was immediately worried about his precious daughter.

‘Can we sit down?’ Dan suggested, still uncertain just how much he should tell them. The results hadn’t come back from the lab by the time he’d left the hospital, so he still wasn’t certain what level of concentration the drugs had reached in Zara’s body and what that would mean for her prognosis. If they had depressed her respiration and starved her brain of essential oxygen long enough to cause permanent …

‘She’s dead! My baby’s dead!’ Audrey cried hysterically, and for a moment he almost relished the idea that he might need to slap some sense into the woman.

‘No! She’s not dead!’ he contradicted firmly, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. He took hold of both her shoulders and guided her until the backs of her knees met the edge of the settee and she collapsed next to her husband. ‘Neither of your daughters is dead,’ he said firmly, desperately praying that he was telling the truth.

‘You mean, something’s happened to Sara?’ Frank demanded. ‘But I thought … I’m confused. Did Zara ask you to come and tell us? Why didn’t she come herself, or is she staying with Sara?’

‘Is it something to do with the baby?’ his wife demanded sharply. ‘Zara will be so disappointed if anything’s wrong with …’

Between the two of them he was having a hard time getting a word in edgeways. It looked as if he was going to have to abandon any idea of breaking things to them gently.

‘Sara was knocked down by a car this evening as she was walking home from work,’ he announced bluntly. Too bluntly? he wondered when it looked as if the pair had stopped breathing.

‘No!’ He should have known that their mother would recover the power of speech first. ‘Oh, Danny … how? Oh, tell me she hasn’t lost Zara’s precious baby.’

‘She was knocked unconscious, her leg was broken and she’s badly bruised, but she had a scan to see if she had any internal injuries—’

‘She didn’t have any X-rays, did she?’ Audrey demanded sharply. ‘I don’t want my first grandchild being born deformed because it had X-rays.’

Not a word of concern about the injuries Sara had suffered, Dan noted, even as he had to stifle a smile when he remembered Sean O’Malley telling him just how fiercely Sara had objected to having X-rays. He could just imagine that she’d been the very picture of a lioness defending her cub.

‘Actually,’ he said, sidestepping the issue of X-rays entirely to focus on the news that still sent his spirits soaring, in spite of all the trauma of the last few hours, ‘the scan showed us something we weren’t expecting to see—that Sara’s carrying twins.’

The momentary silence had a completely different feel this time, but even as they began exclaiming in delight he despised himself for his cowardice. He should be telling them about the much more urgent situation confronting their younger daughter.

His reprieve was all too brief.

‘What did Zara say when you told her?’ his father-in-law demanded with a beam. ‘I bet she was delighted.’

‘Well, I was very late getting home, after making sure that Sara and the babies were going to be all right,’ he began, even as a voice inside his head jeered at him for trying to assuage his guilt for arriving home so much later than he’d intended. The outcome would have been very different. ‘I thought she was asleep, but when I went to tell her the news, I couldn’t wake her and had to call an ambulance to take her to hospital.’

‘Hospital?’ his mother-in law shrieked in disbelief. ‘Zara’s in hospital, too? Why? What’s the matter with her?’ She began to struggle to her feet, slapping viciously at her husband’s hand when he tried to stop her. ‘I’ve got to go to her straight away. You’ll have to take me,’ she declared with a glare at Dan.

‘Why wouldn’t she wake up? What’s the matter with her? Do you know?’ Frank demanded, clearly dumbfounded by the news.

‘It looks as if she’s taken an overdose of drugs … barbiturates,’ he said, and was nearly deafened by the howl of denial.

‘Drugs! That’s a lie! My Zara wouldn’t touch the filthy things.’ Audrey was sobbing with rage now. ‘Why would you say such a dreadful thing about your own wife? You should know she’s the most beautiful, most perfect—’

He ignored the start of the familiar litany, interrupting bluntly. ‘The bottle was found beside her, and some of the drugs were found still in her stomach when we got her to the hospital and pumped her out.’

‘But—’ Frank began, but as ever his wife’s voice overrode his tentative attempt.

‘Then you got them all out and she’s going to be all right?’ she demanded shrilly, in spite of the fact that her certainty about her daughter’s convictions had been summarily destroyed. ‘Did she tell you why she took them? It must have been a mistake … a … a …’

‘They pumped out as many as they could, but she’d already absorbed enough to send her …’ At the last moment he paused, wondering if the mention of the word ‘coma’ would be the final straw. Instantly, he knew that his mother-in-law would definitely have hysterics if he so much as mentioned the possibility, and sidestepped the prospect by choosing a less emotive word.

‘Zara’s deeply unconscious, so she’s been taken into Intensive Care where she’ll be monitored constantly until the drugs wear off and she wakes up.’

He hoped they were too shocked to notice the guilt he was trying to hide, but no way was he mentioning the very real chance that the drugs might have already caused significant damage. He knew that, as her parents, they had a right to information about their daughter, but he was hoping that he wouldn’t have to be the one to tell them. It was bad enough that he knew that Zara might never wake up again, at least not in any meaningful way.

It might be cowardly, but he was intending to leave it to the consultant to tell them that, even when the effect of the drugs she’d taken did wear off, the daughter that the two of them idolised might already be lost to them for ever.

Sara was a different matter. There was no way he could have left her to find out what her sister had done, not after the shock her system had already sustained this evening.

He stifled a weary sigh as he assisted his sobbing mother-in-law into his car, knowing that there would be very little chance that he would be seeing his bed tonight.

Hoping that his silence could be taken as the result of navigating the busy streets, he tried to get his thoughts in order.

He would definitely have to contact Human Resources as soon as possible to notify them that he wouldn’t be in for his shift the next day … or for the foreseeable future, at least until the drugs had left Zara’s system and he had some idea what sort of prognosis they were looking at.

He would also have to see if there was a relatives’ room free for the Walkers to use. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would be able to persuade Audrey and Frank to leave the hospital until their daughter was out of danger, but they might be persuaded to rest in between the short visits they would be permitted by her side.

Then there was Sara.

Bruised, bloodied and broken her body might be, but her spirit appeared even stronger than ever if the way she’d confronted him was any gauge.

He found himself stifling a grin when he remembered the way she’d turned on him like a spitting cat. It was the closest she’d ever come to telling him exactly what she thought of him, although he had a pretty good idea.

He’d barely admitted to himself how much of his time had been spent thinking about her, even in those first few weeks. Then he’d been stupid enough to allow himself to be snowballed into marriage with her sister, committing the oldest blunder in the book when he’d allowed his hormones to overrule his heart.

Then, when he and Zara had been unable to conceive, he’d been amazed and delighted when his in-laws had told him that Sara had volunteered to act as a surrogate mother for them.

How stupid could he have been? He should have known that her parents’ desire to give Zara everything she ever wanted would have made them resort to any means to persuade her soft-hearted sister to agree.

No wonder she had so little time for him, even when he was concerned about her welfare. No wonder she’d been convinced that his only interest was that his child had been unharmed.

Children, he reminded himself with a surge of mingled joy and terror.

He’d been amazed and delighted to see not one but two hearts beating strongly on the ultrasound screen, evidence that they were both still snugly ensconced in their rightful environment and supremely unaware of their narrow escape. One side of him was ecstatic to see the evidence that his precious children weren’t just a dream but a miraculous reality. It was the other side—the doctor side of him—that knew enough to be afraid; the doctor half of his brain that knew just how much more dangerous the existence of that second baby was, both to the pregnancy and to Sara herself.

Bearing a child was already one of the most dangerous things a woman could put herself through, and to carry twins …

He shook his head when he realised that he was already planning a session on the computer to access all the relevant statistics, irrespective of the fact that knowing the figures would worry him even more.

‘What’s the matter?’ Audrey demanded in a panicky voice as she entered the relatives’ room at exactly the wrong moment. ‘Why did you shake your head? Did the doctor say something to you while we were in with Zara? She’s not going to …? Oh, no! Please! She can’t die. Not my beautiful girl!’

Dan swore silently as her voice rose shrilly with every word, his head thumping unmercifully.

‘No one’s told me anything,’ he said firmly as he took her by the shoulders and leant down to force her to meet his gaze. ‘Audrey, the only time I’ve spoken to Zara’s consultant was when you were with me. The situation hasn’t changed. We’ve just got to wait and see how her body copes with whatever it is she’s taken. We’ve just got to be patient.’

‘How can I be patient?’ she demanded angrily, shrugging his hands off and whirling away. ‘I’m her mother! You have no idea how dreadful it is not being able to do anything. Just waiting …’

‘You could visit Sara,’ he suggested. ‘She must be wondering what’s happening down here, worrying about—’

‘If she were that worried she’d be here with us,’ Audrey interrupted sharply. ‘I can’t believe how selfish that girl is, to be lying in bed when she should be down here with her sister … with us …’

‘Sara’s in no fit state to go anywhere,’ Dan snapped, rapidly reaching the end of his tether. It was unbelievable that parents could be so concerned about one of their daughters and so dismissive of the other. They seemed to care so little for Sara and were so unappreciative of her and everything she’d achieved that it bordered on emotional abuse.

It certainly wasn’t something that he would ever do to his children. His heart missed a beat when he visualised the flickering evidence of those two tiny beings that would one day look up to him and call him Daddy. It was an awesome responsibility and he would make certain that they both knew that their father loved each of them as much as the other.

‘Mum? Dad?’ said a hesitant voice from the doorway, and Dan spun on his heel, his eyes widening with disbelief when he saw the shaky figure sitting in the wheelchair.

The bruises on her face looked livid and angry already, especially against the stark white of the dressing covering her stitches. He could only guess how many other injuries were hidden under the back-to-front gown she wore as a wrap, but nothing could hide the ungainly cast stabilising her broken leg.

‘Sara!’ He strode towards her when he saw her struggling one-handed to propel herself further into the room, her face so pale it seemed almost bloodless. He didn’t know whether to be angry with her for being crazy enough to make the journey when every inch of the distance between her room and ICU must have been agony for her, or proud that her determination was enough to bring her here in case her parents needed her support.

All he knew was that he was suddenly filled with an overwhelming need to protect this valiant woman from anything that might cause her any more pain.

CHAPTER FOUR

DAN was still seething when he finally took half an hour to race home for a shower and a change of clothes.

‘Those parents of hers are unbelievable!’ he growled as he leaned wearily against his front door, almost too tired to make his way to the bathroom.

He was sure his mouth must have gaped when there hadn’t been any evidence of sympathy at the shocking extent of Sara’s injuries, not a single word of concern that she must have escaped death by the merest whisker, to say nothing of the possible loss of their grandchild … grand-children, he corrected himself and felt that crazy grin creep over his face again, banishing his bad mood at a stroke.

He reached for his wallet and extracted the precious image printed from Sara’s first scan and awe joined his feeling of delight. Not one but two tiny beings were still growing safely inside her womb, in spite of their close brush with death. He could still feel that first surge of emotion when he’d seen the image of their minuscule hearts, the beats so rapid that they’d almost seemed to flicker on the screen.

‘My babies,’ he whispered as he outlined their precious images with a visibly trembling fingertip and was shocked to feel the hot press of tears behind his eyes.

This … these … were the one good thing that had happened in such a very long time. These two tiny beings made everything worthwhile.

Even the knowledge that your wife is lying dangerously ill in ICU? asked a disapproving voice inside his head. That brought him up short for a moment and guilt struck him hard that he was feeling such delight while Zara’s health—her very life—hung in the balance.

His shoulders slumped still further when he realised that even though her situation was serious, with no guarantee for a happy outcome, he found it strangely hard to care any more than he would if Zara were just another patient brought into A and E in the course of his working day.

‘That certainly took the smile off your face,’ he muttered as he strode across the lounge towards the bathroom with the weight of a very long day pressing down on his shoulders again. At the last moment he veered towards the mantelpiece to prop the precious image in full view, torn between the desire to replace it in his wallet to keep it close to him and the equally strong need to keep it safe.

His first step inside the bedroom was like a punch to the gut. He and Zara were both reasonably tidy people so it was a real shock to be confronted with the shambles that remained from his efforts to keep her body functioning until the paramedics arrived.

The bedclothes straggling onto the floor were mute testimony to the way he’d hastily pulled her down onto the firmer surface, and there certainly hadn’t been time to straighten anything up before he’d leapt in his car to follow the ambulance to the hospital.

He stepped forward and reached out to gather up the bedding then let it fall again, unable to find the energy to care that the bed needed making or, more to the point, the inclination to sleep in it at all when he thought about what had so nearly happened there.

He needed sleep. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he was nearly out on his feet with exhaustion, both with the stresses of a long hard shift and then the double shocks of first Sara’s and then Zara’s admission to hospital. Even so, he couldn’t face the thought of climbing into that bed, not when he didn’t know whether its last occupant was going to survive.