His Emergency Fiancée (9 page)

‘I—I’m so sorry we’ve ruined your party.’

‘It’s not a problem.’ Kirsty hugged the older woman. ‘Marty’s the most important one right now.’

At last they heard the siren as the ambulance arrived. Marty was swiftly moved onto a trolley and then into the ambulance. Ellen climbed in behind him and the now subdued crowd from the village hall gathered outside and watched the taillights as the ambulance drove away.

Ben’s face was sombre. ‘How was Ellen?’

‘She wanted to know if Marty would be all right.’ Kirsty sighed. ‘Just pray he doesn’t go into VF on the way.’

‘Yeah.’ Ben bit his lip. ‘Why does it always have to happen to the nice ones?’

‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘The stats I read last week say MI figures are down so the healthy living message is getting through at last—but when it happens to someone you know it doesn’t feel like it, does it?’

‘Ah, Kirst.’ He slid his arm round her. ‘I wish—’

But she never did get to hear what he wished. Morag came over to them. ‘Are you two all right?’

Ben nodded. ‘But I think I ought to go to the hospital and find out how he is.’ He reached over to hug his grandmother. ‘Gran—thanks for the party. You’ve made it really special for us. And I wasn’t expecting anything at all like this.’

‘If I can’t make a fuss of my only grandchild and the girl he loves,’ Morag said, ‘then it’s a poor old world. I’m just sorry the party turned out like this.’

‘None of us were to know. And at least it was here where we could help him, rather than if he’d been behind the wheel of his car,’ Ben pointed out. He sighed. ‘Go back inside and enjoy the rest of the party. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘I think the party’s dispersing anyway,’ Kirsty said softly. ‘I’ll come with you—unless you’d rather I stayed with you, Morag?’

‘Go with Ben.’ He needs you, Morag’s eyes added.

CHAPTER SIX

B
EN
drove them to the hospital. Although it was still relatively early on a Saturday night, most visitors had obviously gone home because it was easy to find a space in the hospital car park. They had enough change between them to feed the parking meter, and at last they were striding down the corridors to the coronary care unit.

At first, the receptionist didn’t want to give them any information because they weren’t family members.

‘I understand your position,’ Ben said quietly, ‘but we’re here in a professional capacity. We’re both qualified doctors—we were there when Marty collapsed and we followed the ambulance in. I’m Ben Robertson, A and E registrar at St James’s in Southbay, and this is Kirsty Brown, surgical registrar at the same hospital.’

‘Ah.’ The receptionist sighed. ‘Then I’m sorry to tell you, Mr McAllister passed away in the ambulance.’

‘Marty’s dead?’ Ben blinked in disbelief. ‘No. No, he can’t be.’ He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. ‘I should have been able to do more for him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the receptionist said again.

Ben opened his eyes again. ‘Is Ellen still here? His wife?’

A doctor who was passing stopped dead. ‘Ellen McAllister, is that?’

‘Yes.’ Ben forced a smile to his face. ‘I’m—’

‘Ben Robertson.’ The doctor smiled back at him and pushed her near-black fringe from her eyes. ‘I thought I recognised you.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Forgotten me that quickly, eh? Shona Livingstone.’

‘Shona? Wee Shona? I didn’t know you’d become a medic.’

‘Hoping to be SHO in the next shift-round.’ Her blue eyes appraised him swiftly and approvingly. ‘I didn’t know you were home.’

‘Just for the weekend. I…’ He seemed suddenly to remember his manners. ‘Kirst, this is Shona Livingstone, an old schoolfriend. Well, she was three years below me, but we were, well, friends.’

He was blushing. He was actually
blushing
, Kirsty thought, shocked by the sudden stab of jealousy. Shona Livingstone had obviously meant a lot to him at some point. Had she been his first girlfriend or something?

‘Shona, this is Kirsty Brown.’

‘A friend from work?’ Shona asked.

Kirsty couldn’t stop herself saying it. ‘His fiancée, actually. We’ve just followed the ambulance in.’

‘Oh.’

Was it her imagination, or was there a sudden coolness in the young doctor’s manner towards her? And if Ben asked her why she’d said it, what on earth was she going to say? She shook herself. It was obvious. Shona knew Morag, so she had to believe in the fake engagement, too—the last thing they wanted was for someone else to tell Morag the truth.

‘I’m sorry to tell you both, he went into VF in the ambulance.’ It was what Kirsty had worried about. ‘They tried defibrillating him but…’ Shona shrugged.

The first few hours after a heart attack were critical. Kirsty and Ben both knew that. But it was still hard to register—the man who’d danced with them at the ceilidh to celebrate their engagement was dead.

‘Is Ellen still here?’ Kirsty asked.

Shona nodded. ‘In the relatives’ room, if you’d like to see her.’ She led them through to the room where Ellen was sitting next to a nurse, a cup of something hot and sweet in front of her, looking blank and disbelieving.

‘Oh, Ben. My Marty…I told your Kirsty, he was retiring next year, and now…’

‘I’m so sorry, Ellen,’ Ben said, hugging her. ‘If only I’d done something more.’

‘You couldn’t have done any more, lad. They’ve already told me that. They said even if Dr Cassidy hadn’t been out on call and had given him the drugs you asked for, Marty still might have had another attack in the ambulance.’

‘We’re so, so sorry,’ Kirsty said, sitting next to Ellen and putting her arm round the older woman. ‘If there’s anything we can do—anyone we can ring for you?’

‘Our Andy’s away at college in Newcastle—he’ll be out on a Saturday night so there’s no point trying to ring him now.’ Ellen shook her head. ‘And Marty’s mother doesn’t even remember his name most of the time. She’s been in a nursing home for years. Alzheimer’s,’ she explained. ‘I can’t face telling her tonight. No, it’s just me.’

‘We’ll take you home. Stay with you tonight, if you like,’ Ben offered.

‘No—I want to stay here a while yet. Anyway, it’s your party in the village. You can’t miss that.’

‘We’re not leaving you. We’ll stay until you’re ready,’ Ben told her. ‘We’ll wait for you in the cafeteria. Take as long as you need.’

Ellen’s face crumpled. ‘What am I going to do without him? He was my best friend.’

My best friend.
Just as Ben was Kirsty’s. And what would Kirsty do without Ben? Her arm tightened round Ellen as she thought about it. Yes, she’d be just as bereft.

* * *

They spent a couple of hours in the cafeteria waiting for Ellen. Ben rang Morag and left a message on the answering machine to let her know what was happening. He also rang Ellen’s neighbour, Linda Barrett, to make sure someone would be there when they brought her home. He and Kirsty sipped their overbrewed coffee while they waited.

‘Ben.’

‘Mmm?’

‘I’m sorry. You clearly thought a lot of him.’

Ben nodded. ‘I went through a bit of a wild stage in my teens. Marty straightened me out. He taught me to drive.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Before I was seventeen. On private land, so we weren’t breaking any laws. He taught me to fish, too.’ He sighed. ‘And even then he ate all the wrong things in the wrong quantities. The picnics he used to pack…they were a dietician’s nightmare. I should have made more time, Kirst. Come home more often. Talked to him.’ Which proved he was like Sarah. Never made the time, never came home, never talked. Not when it was important.

‘Ben, don’t blame yourself. His GP probably nagged him until he was blue in the face. Ellen herself said he sneaked out to get chocolate and chips if she put him on a diet. He wouldn’t have listened to you.’

‘He might have done,’ Ben said stubbornly.

‘It wasn’t your fault. You heard what Shona said. You couldn’t have stopped him going into VF.’

He clenched his fists until the knuckles showed white. ‘All the same, I should have been able to do something. I’m an A and E doctor, Kirst. I’m supposed to save people’s lives.’

She took his hand, rubbing his fingers until he unclenched his fist. ‘Ben, you
do
save people’s lives. But you know as well as I do that you can’t save everyone. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I should have been able to help.’

Distraction needed, she thought. ‘Tell me about Shona.’

He stared at her in surprise. ‘Shona?’

‘Shona. She obviously expected you to remember her.’

‘Yeah. She was three years below me at school. She, um, had a bit of a crush on me. Though I just thought of her as my schoolmate’s baby sister.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘One Valentine’s Day, the postman delivered the biggest card in the universe to Gran’s house. For me. Everyone in the village knew it was from her. It took me
years
to live it down.’

‘So that’s why you were blushing when you saw her again?’

‘I was
blushing
?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘Well. She’s the only girl ever to have embarrassed me to that extent.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You know how it is when you’re fourteen.’

‘You were fourteen?’

‘She was eleven,’ he confirmed.

‘And now you’re both grown up. Both doctors.’ Perfectly suited to each other. Shona was exactly Ben’s physical type—tall, slender, long legs, long hair—and her blatant appraisal of him had made it obvious she’d be happy to take up where they’d left off.

‘And I live on the other side of the country,’ Ben pointed out, as if he’d read her mind.

Plus, he had a fiancée. Though neither of them wanted to voice
that
fact.

* * *

Finally Ellen arrived, breathless and apologetic. They made her sit down to drink a cup of hot sweet tea, then drove her home. The neighbour Ben had phoned earlier was there waiting for them, so Kirsty and Ben returned to Morag’s house.

Morag had already gone to bed and had left them a brief note telling them they didn’t have to get up early in the morning.

‘I don’t know if I’m going to get much sleep,’ Ben said.

‘You’re not staying up all night, brooding. It won’t solve anything and it won’t bring Marty back,’ Kirsty told him firmly. ‘Bed. I get the bathroom first.’

This time she was the one modestly attired when he came to bed, still slightly damp from his shower.

‘Goodnight,’ she said quietly, and switched her light off.

Silence stretched out between them as they lay there, side by side, not touching, completely rigid. Both of them could remember the previous night—waking up to find themselves entwined.

And neither of them dared to broach the subject.

‘Kirst?’ Ben said finally in the darkness.

‘Mmm?’

‘I could do with a hug.’

A hug. That meant just lying in each other’s arms. She could cope with that—couldn’t she? They’d hugged plenty of times in the past. A hug. ‘Me, too,’ she said softly. She really, really could do with a hug.

And then they really were lying in each other’s arms. Holding each other. She could feel every beat of Ben’s heart—and she’d have bet good money that he could
hear
every beat of hers.

He moved slightly, and his cheek was against hers. Cheek to cheek. Just as if they were dancing together.

He moved again, and his lips touched her cheek. Soft. Tentative. Questing.

Her heartbeat got louder.

Another feathery kiss on her cheek.

Her heartbeat got louder still.

This time, just before he kissed her cheek again, she moved. His lips met hers. Very softly, very gently. He nuzzled his nose against hers. Kissed her again. And again. This time, she opened her mouth and touched the tip of her tongue to his lip.

That was when his kiss turned wild. Ravishing. Desperate, as if she were the only thing stopping him from being sucked under.

She wasn’t sure quite how he’d managed to remove her nightshirt—or how she’d managed to remove his pyjamas—but finally they were skin to skin. His hard body was pressing against hers. The hair-roughened texture of his skin grazed her nipples and she moved against him, her breasts starting to swell with desire. The butterflies in her stomach were going really crazy now.

‘Sweet, beautiful Kirsty…My Kirsty, my love…’ The words were so soft, she wasn’t sure she’d heard them. But she wasn’t in a position to think. Not when he was trailing kisses down the side of her neck like that. Gentle kisses—and yet demanding at the same time, demanding that she open her body to him.

She arched back against the soft feather pillows, lifting herself slightly, and Ben’s mouth slipped lower. Lower. Until finally he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked.

She shuddered with pleasure, and he transferred his attention to the other breast, moving from one to the other until her hips started bucking.

Then he moved lower.

No. Surely he wasn’t going to…? But as his lips grazed the soft inner skin of her thighs, she realised that was exactly what he was going to do. Something Luke had never done. He’d never been particularly concerned about her pleasure. She stiffened, nervous and unsure. Ben stopped what he was doing, sensitive to her mood, and moved to lie beside her.

‘Kirsty. Sweet Kirst. Don’t be scared. Not of me. I’m not going to hurt you.’

Oh, but, yes, you are, she thought. Because you don’t do commitment—and I don’t want to be your best friend any more. ‘I want…I want…’

His voice was deeper now, amused and aroused. ‘You want what?’

She went scarlet. Heavens, how much had she said aloud?

‘Kirsty. You just said, “I want,”’ he reminded her.

‘Mmm.’

He chuckled, a low, deep sound. ‘And you’re not going to tell me? Well, I know what
I
want, Kirst. I want you to touch me. I want to touch you. I want to taste you.’ His voice became even huskier as he added, ‘All over.’

‘Ben, I…’

He moved so he was no longer touching her. ‘Oh, hell, Kirst. I’m sorry. I hardly know what I’m saying.’

She didn’t have to be told. If he could turn down someone as beautiful and glamorous as Shona Livingstone, he’d have to be in a real state to pick plain little Kirsty Brown as his lover.