More Than A Gift

The fact that she could see her surroundings a little better led her to crane her neck towards the back of the car. She’d flung the two small bags that had contained all her worldly goods for the past year into the back seat when she’d taken off this morning. If they were within reach, perhaps she’d be able to get an extra layer or two of clothing to drape over herself while she waited for someone to find her.

There was one bag nearby, unfortunately the one with the tiny items she’d lovingly stitched and knitted in preparation for her baby’s arrival.

‘Perhaps I could put a mitten on each finger,’ she mused with a watery chuckle, trying to fight off the first waves of real fear.

She knew that the rescue services always recommended staying with the vehicle rather than wandering off and getting lost, and she was wearing a thickly padded jacket, but that still left a large amount of her too poorly covered to preserve her body heat.

Over the space of a night, at these sorts of temperatures, she could soon be looking at the onset of hypothermia. And if the temperature dropped still further outside…

From her time on the neonatal ward, she knew only too well how critical temperature could be to tiny babies fighting for their lives. She had no idea what effect hypothermia had during pregnancy and was now praying fervently that she wouldn’t have to find out.

She pulled the collar of her jacket closer around her cheeks so that the warmth of her breath was deflected down inside her clothing then tucked each set of fingers inside the cuff of the opposite sleeve.

‘What if…?’ she mumbled into the cocooning layer, slipping into a favourite childhood game.

Whenever Robert Wainwright had been at his most abrasive and domineering, she’d retreated into her own private make-believe world.

One of her earliest memories was of telling her favourite doll that she was really a princess and one day her father and mother, who were king and queen of a beautiful kingdom far away, were going to come for her, and then they’d all live happily ever after.

The scenarios had changed over the years, probably influenced by whatever books she’d been reading at the time, but one theme had remained constant. Finding a way to escape the Wainwright sphere of influence.

How paradoxical it was that when she’d finally achieved her most enduring dream she should end up in such danger.

‘But that doesn’t mean that I can’t imagine my way out of it,’ she murmured, and set her imagination to work.

‘If only…’ Suddenly a pair of liquid silver eyes appeared in her mind’s eye and it felt as if a hand squeezed around her heart. That was almost too easy.

‘If only I hadn’t had to leave Dmitri like that,’ she whispered, feeling the hot press of tears behind her eyes. She closed them tight, refusing to give in to them. She knew she’d had no option when she’d seen that black car and recognised that all-too-familiar figure behind the wheel.

But in her game, Laurel could imagine that the car that had seemed to slow when it had passed the gateway a little time ago had been Dmitri’s car.

She’d even imagined earlier on today that she’d seen the metallic sapphire of Dmitri’s beloved sports car coming up beside her on the motorway, but by the time she’d looked again, all she’d been able to see had been nondescript saloons and high-sided lorries.

Anyway, there was no way it could have been Dmitri. It was so many months since she’d left him that he’d probably gone back to Russia by now and forgotten all about her.

But that couldn’t happen in her fantasy.

In her mind she could imagine the way he’d see the damaged wall beside the road and instantly recognise it as the place where she’d tumbled down the hillside.

She could almost see him phoning for assistance then scrambling over the wall to help her out of the car and swear his undying love…

She snorted as her fantasy took off into the realms of impossibility. The last few years had left her with too few illusions about real life to be able to immerse herself in her make-believe world the way she had as a child.

‘If only I hadn’t left, I probably wouldn’t even have been on that road at that time. I’d have been working on the ward and waiting to catch a glimpse of him…’

Another sharp jab in her ribs brought reality crashing through the fantasy.

Even if she’d been able to stay, she certainly wouldn’t have been at work today, not at this stage of her pregnancy. She did a quick mental calculation of the number of days until her due date.

‘Fifteen days to go, provided you arrive on time,’ she murmured with a sudden burst of excitement at the prospect. She couldn’t wait to hold her child in her arms for the first time.

Of course, the baby books all warned that first babies were notoriously slow to arrive, so she could still be waiting in a month’s time.

‘But only if I get out of here safely,’ she said with a shiver of dread. She couldn’t bear to think that, after all these months, she might never see the tiny being she’d been nurturing for so long.

‘It’s not going to happen like that,’ she said, trying to sound positive, but even with her mouth buried inside the collar of her jacket she could hear the quiver in her voice. She ignored it.

‘Any minute now, some kind person is going to catch sight of the damaged wall and is going to organise a rescue party. Then you and I will be taken to…Hey!’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘We’ll probably be taken to the hospital at Edenthwaite to be checked over. I don’t imagine there’s one closer than that and I already know there’s an accident and emergency department there.’

That information had been easy to find, unlike her sister’s whereabouts. She’d moved about so often that it had been like trying to nail jelly to a wall, trying to pin her down. Even when she was standing face to face with her she wouldn’t be certain that she’d found the right person. She hadn’t been able to find out whether they were identical twins or fraternal, so she didn’t even have the certainty that they’d look alike to go on.

‘But when they’re certain that you’re all right,’ she mumbled around a sudden jaw-cracking yawn, ‘then I’ll be able to ask if she’s on duty, and ask to see her, and…and then…’

She was vaguely aware that she’d begun to ramble but it didn’t really matter. The car was steadily getting colder and she was shivering hard enough to rattle her teeth, but her eyes were so heavy she just couldn’t keep them open any longer.

It had been such a stressful day that she was tired out. Perhaps when she woke up her brain would be clearer and she could work out a plan…find a way to get out…

CHAPTER THREE

DMITRI raked his fingers through his hair as he waited for the call to be answered, marching impatiently up and down in the narrow space between the two beds in his hotel room. It felt as if he’d had the phone glued to his ear for hours.

‘Hello? Can you help me?’ he said, launching straight into his prepared speech. ‘I need to know whether you have a guest called Laurel Wright staying with you. She would have arrived earlier this afternoon by car.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t give out information about our guests,’ said a snippy voice on the other end, and he could have groaned aloud. He could understand people’s right to privacy but this was something different.

‘She wanted me to join her,’ he continued quickly, sticking to his improvised story and sure that the woman was going to cut the connection at any moment. ‘I didn’t think I’d be able to get away from work, but now that I have, I’ve discovered that I’ve lost the name of the place she’s staying.’

‘Hmm,’ she said dubiously. ‘That’s as may be, but we haven’t anyone of that name staying here, anyway. You said the name’s Wright?’

‘Yes. Laurel Wright,’ he confirmed eagerly, not allowing himself to think that she might have booked in under another name. How would he ever trace her then? This was a phenomenally popular tourist area with hundreds of hotels and guest-houses dotted about, right down to the smallest farmhouse bed-and-breakfast. The fact that it was close to Christmas, rather than the high season between Easter and autumn, meant that many places would be closed, but he wouldn’t know which until he asked each one individually.

‘She’s slim with long blonde hair and honeycoloured eyes,’ he added hopefully. ‘And she’s got the most beautiful smile.’

‘She sounds lovely,’ the woman said, her tone almost sympathetic now. ‘Unfortunately, she’s not booked in here. We’re not open for Christmas. Our next guests aren’t due until around Easter-time.’

Dmitri thanked her for her time and rang off, only then giving in to the urge to swear ripely in his native tongue.

‘This isn’t getting me anywhere,’ he said with a discouraged sigh. He wandered across to the window and gazed out into the brightly lit square.

There was a Christmas tree laden with coloured lights in the middle by some sort of monument and most of the buildings had decorations of some sort in their front windows. A few hardy souls were scurrying around with armfuls of shopping, their heads bowed to protect their faces against the whirling snow.

He felt a momentary pang of homesickness, then did a logical comparison between his home in Russia and this picturesque little town. This weather was relatively bearable, with temperatures just cold enough to freeze water where it lay. At this time of year in his home town he could be dealing with dozens of degrees of frost that could snap fingers off like dry twigs if he ventured too far without gloves.

People certainly wouldn’t be loitering to admire the tree like that couple over there, the woman laughing at her male companion as she tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

There was something about the light-hearted innocence of the game that made him look closer at her.

He’d grown accustomed over the last eight months or so to the momentary shock of seeing women who reminded him of Laurel. With one it had been the free and easy way she’d walked, with another the colour of her hair or her spontaneous, slightly husky laughter.

With this woman it was…

Suddenly she turned to face directly towards him and his heart nearly stopped.

‘Laurel!’ he called out in disbelief when he saw the face he’d been searching for so long.

For several disbelieving seconds he stood transfixed by the sight of her, unable to drag his eyes away.

She was so beautiful.

How could he have forgotten the way she came alive when she laughed like that? It was almost as though there were another person hidden inside her, under her more serious professional side. A person she’d only become when she was with him…until now.

Suddenly he realised that she and her companion had begun walking across the square together and he whirled towards the door.

He barely remembered to grab his coat and the key to his room on the way out and ignored the lift in favour of the stairs for speed.

His heart was pounding with a mixture of exertion and anticipation as he burst out of the hotel’s main doors, scanning the rapidly whitening square as he thrust his arms into his sleeves.

‘She’s gone!’ he whispered in disbelief when there wasn’t a single person in sight, neither Laurel nor the man who had been with her.

It felt as if a hand tightened around his heart when he finally realised the significance of her companion.

He had spent months thinking about her and wondering why she’d left that way, while she…Well, it looked as if she’d blithely gone on with her life, forgetting him as if he’d never existed in the first place.

He closed his eyes against the sting that could only be caused by the whirling snow—it certainly couldn’t be tears for a woman that fickle—and drew in a shaky breath. Reflexively, he wrapped his arms around himself, needing to do something to contain the pain inside.

It hurt, far more than he’d thought it would, and he finally had to admit that he’d been living on foolish hope. Against all odds, he’d somehow convinced himself that, when he found her, there would be some logical explanation for her sudden departure and she would admit that she’d missed him every bit as much as he’d missed her.

In his imagination, laughter and tears mingled as she threw herself into his arms, vowing never to leave again.

He gave a snort of derision as he turned back towards the hotel entrance, suddenly aware of how cold and wet he’d become in spite of the milder climate.

He was halfway up to his floor when something inside him brought him to an abrupt halt.

‘No!’ he said fiercely, turning to make his way down again, a quick check telling him his car keys were still in his pocket. ‘I’m not going to slink away without confronting her. Otherwise I’ll never know why she went like that.’

It only took a moment to sweep away the thin layer of snow that had accumulated on his windscreen since he’d parked the car and then he was on his way.

‘Denison Memorial, maybe,’ he muttered as he followed the signs for the local hospital. He knew, from his laborious tracing over the last few weeks, that she’d worked at several hospitals, never staying very long in any job before suddenly taking off again. Perhaps the reason why she’d come to Edenthwaite had been to take up her next post. It would be easy enough to check, providing she was still using her own name.

He was pleasantly surprised when he caught his first glimpse of the hospital. It was far more modern than he’d been expecting, without looking in the least out of place in its surroundings. The fact that everything was highlighted by the lights gleaming across an untrampled layer of snow only made it look more picturesque.

As if he was interested in picturesque! he thought grimly as he followed directions for the hospital manager’s office.

The man’s identity was a major surprise. The last time he’d seen him he’d been laughing down at Laurel while she’d tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

‘Please, come in and take a seat. What can I do for you, Dr Rostropovich?’ the man said when Dmitri had introduced himself.

‘I’m hoping you can help me identify one of your staff,’ he said bluntly, his heart heavy in his chest because he already knew the answer. ‘I’m looking for Laurel Wright.’

He had to give the administrator his due—he’d barely blinked at the name.

‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone of that name on the staff here,’ he said politely. ‘However—’

‘But I saw her,’ Dmitri interrupted brusquely, all too aware that his tone was almost accusatory. ‘You were with her in the square in Edenthwaite less than an hour ago.’

Silently, the man held up a hand to silence Dmitri’s outburst while he reached for the phone.

‘Ah, Sister Fletcher, are you free for a moment?’ he asked, then gave the sort of husky chuckle at her reply that hinted at a close relationship between the two of them. ‘No, but I have a visitor here who would like to have a word. Five minutes?’

There didn’t seem any point in indulging in small talk but Dmitri couldn’t sit still, leaping to his feet to prowl backwards and forwards like a caged animal.

He hadn’t expected the end of his quest to come quite so suddenly and his thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. Before she arrived it was time to put the facts he knew into some sort of logical order.

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