Читать книгу Christmas Secrets Collection - Laura Iding - Страница 16

‘I ’M GOING to go mad if I have to stay here any longer,’ Sara told the four walls of her borrowed bedroom.

She was spending yet another day in Dan’s spare room … Dan and Zara’s spare room, she corrected herself, although it was getting harder and harder to make herself remember that fact.

Because of the continuing staff shortages, Dan had returned to work full time. He was, however, being allowed time to go up at intervals to visit Zara.

Each evening, when he returned to the flat, Dan gave Sara a full report on the latest test results, but Zara’s body seemed to be struggling to rid itself of the toxic metabolite of the paracetamol she’d taken.

‘No doubt it’s because her liver had reduced glutathione stores as the result of her years of drastic dieting,’ he said soberly.

‘But the liver can regenerate itself,’ Sara reminded him. ‘Surely the paracetamol hasn’t done that much damage that it can’t be repaired.’ She shook her head and pushed her plate away, unable to eat any more even though it was her favourite tagliatelli carbonara.

‘Oh, Dan, I’m in such a muddle. Half of me desperately wants her problem to be the result of taking the drugs earlier in the afternoon, which would mean Zara couldn’t possibly be the person driving the car that hit me. But the other half wants just as desperately for it to have been her in the car, because that means the drugs hadn’t been in her system so long and she’s more likely to recover.’

There was a strange shadow in Dan’s eyes but he didn’t comment on her dilemma, choosing instead to tell her about one of the department regulars who’d turned up again after an absence of several months showing all the usual signs that she’d fallen off the wagon again.

‘Somebody hadn’t remembered to flag her name, so the new junior registrar went sailing into the cubicle to find dear old Alice lying there with all her worldly goods piled around her on the bed and snoring her head off.’

‘Oh, dear! He didn’t touch any of her bags, did he?’ Sara chuckled. ‘And she woke up and yelled the place down?’

‘She started shouting “Fire!” then realised it was a male doctor in the cubicle with her and changed it to “Rape!” with all-too-predictable results.’

‘Poor chap!’ Sara laughed even louder, remembering her own noisy introduction to Alice and her obsession with her bags. ‘I bet he got an even bigger shock when it took less than thirty seconds for the cubicle to fill with half the hospital’s security personnel.’

‘He was shaking and as white as a sheet and looked as if he couldn’t decide whether he was going into cardiac arrest or giving up his medical career on the spot.’

‘The trouble is, rules and regulations are so tight these days about what you can write on a patient’s notes, it’s difficult to leave a message on them saying, “Treat with extreme caution. Liable to explode,” or the hospital legal department would go into orbit. I take it you managed to smooth things over?’

‘Well, eventually,’ he said, and she was intrigued to see a wash of colour travel over his cheekbones.

‘What did she do this time?’

‘Oh, she was just her usual outrageous self,’ he said with a self-conscious shrug.

‘You may as well tell me,’ she pointed out, her imagination in full flight. ‘It will only take a single phone call to find someone else willing to spill the beans, and who knows how much bigger the story has grown in the meantime?’

‘Don’t remind me,’ he groaned. ‘I was counting on the fact that you’re not fit to work at the moment so that particular bit of gossip would pass you by.’

‘So?’ she prompted, ignoring the comment about her fitness to work in pursuit of the punchline of the story. Her upcoming return to work was a topic she didn’t intend to discuss with him. ‘Tell me, tell me. What did she do?’

‘It wasn’t so much what she did as what she said,’ he muttered, looking seriously uncomfortable. ‘In front of half the damn department and heaven knows how many patients and relatives she told me she loved my green eyes and invited me into the cubicle to give her a damn good … um … bit of passion.’

Sara burst out laughing. ‘Knowing Alice, I bet she didn’t use such a genteel phrase.’

Those gorgeous green eyes were sparkling now. ‘You’d win that bet,’ he conceded. ‘The trouble is, I’m never going to hear the end of it.’

‘Oh, you will,’ she reassured him. ‘As soon as the next juicy bit of gossip comes up, that little proposition will all be forgotten … by the rest of your colleagues, at least.’

And it was relaxed conversations like that one last night that were making life so difficult for her. It was becoming harder and harder to stop herself from doing or saying something that would reveal her secret … the fact that she was falling deeper and deeper in love with him the longer she shared his flat.

‘Well, enough is enough,’ she said firmly as she pushed herself up onto her one good foot and reached for a single crutch.

She’d been practising getting around over the last couple of days. There had been so many empty hours while she’d waited for Dan to return that she’d worked out for herself how she could manoeuvre without needing a pair of them because her shoulder was still too sore to take the weight, even with elbow crutches.

It wasn’t an elegant way of getting around, more of a stumbling lop-sided lurch, in fact, and definitely required the presence of a nearby wall as a last resort to stop herself losing her balance completely. The one good thing about it was that she’d almost perfected a way of getting around unaided, and that meant she could leave the danger zone of Dan’s spacious flat and take herself back to her own far humbler one.

‘It will probably take me a couple of hours to go up all four flights of stairs,’ she muttered, feeling exhausted just thinking about it. She stuffed her belongings into a carrier bag, resolutely ignoring the fact that the packet of granny knickers hadn’t even been opened, tied the handles to her crutch, then phoned for a taxi. By the time it arrived, she was waiting in the entrance with just a short hop across the pavement left to do.

‘Hang on a minute, love,’ called the cabbie and heaved his considerable bulk out of the driving seat to give her a steadying hand to climb inside. ‘You’re in a right mess, aren’t you?’ he commented soothingly, his eyes meeting hers in the rear-view mirror once he was back in his seat. ‘Finally decided to get away from him before he does any worse? You’ve made the right decision, love. I’ve got no time for men who think it’s OK to knock women about. Need someone to give them a bit of their own medicine.’

‘Oh, good grief, no!’ Sara laughed. ‘It was a car that did this. I nearly got run over the other night.’

‘That’s right, dear. Get a good story ready to tell people so they won’t twig what’s really going on. Most of them will probably believe you, but me?’ he shook his head and drew in a breath through his teeth. ‘I’ve seen too much of the rough end of life and I can tell the difference, but don’t you worry—even if he gets the police out looking for you, I’ll never tell where I take you.’

He straightened up in his seat and put the engine into gear. ‘Right, now, where do you want to go? To one of the refuges?’

‘That’s very kind of you, and I’m so glad that there are people like you who will help battered women, but I’ve been staying with my sister and brother-in-law—’ she didn’t see the harm in stretching the truth a little, just to put the man’s mind at ease ‘—ever since I came out of hospital. If you could drop me off at my flat, that will be great.’ She gave him the address and was certain that he was quite disappointed he wasn’t going to be a brave knight coming to the aid of a maiden in distress.

Except when he drew up outside the multi-storey Victorian building, all his protective instincts seemed to resurrect themselves.

‘I hope you’re on the ground floor, love,’ he said as he lent her a hand again.

‘I wish!’ she joked, and looked right up towards the very top windows. ‘That’s me, all the way up there.’ And then, no matter how much she tried to reassure him that she could manage, he insisted on keeping her company all the way up all four flights, carrying her bag of belongings in case they unbalanced her and steadying her when her poor overworked leg began to tremble with overuse.

Sara was close to collapse when she finally got the key in the lock and swung the door wide, screwing her nose up at the shut-in smell that seemed to gather even in the space of a couple of days. Then she had a battle to make the man accept the proper fare for bringing her home, and when she tried to add a tip to thank him for spending the time to help her all the way up the stairs he drew himself up with an air of injured dignity.

‘I didn’t do that for money, love. I did that because you were someone who needed a helping hand. Now, you take this.’ He handed her a business card. ‘If you need to go anywhere, you ring that number and ask them to send George.’

‘Oh, that’s just perfect,’ she said with a little quiver. ‘Just like St George killing the dragon, you came to the aid of a lady in distress.’

He snorted and went a bit pink. ‘I don’t reckon my missus thinks I’m any sort of saint, but I know what you mean. Now, you take care of yourself.’

He was just about to shut her front door behind him when she remembered what she’d planned to do that evening.

‘Oh, George,’ she called. ‘You don’t go off work before seven, do you? Only I’ll be needing a taxi to get to the hospital for visiting hours.’

‘I told you, love, you need me, I’ll be here,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Will a quarter to seven be early enough for you?’

‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’

It was just after seven o’clock when the lift chimed to announce its arrival on Zara’s floor.

This time, thank goodness, she wasn’t trying to get about with her single crutch because as soon as she’d arrived in A and E, courtesy of George, she’d been whisked off by a bevy of colleagues and given the loan of a wheelchair.

‘At least my immediate welcome in the department seemed to put his mind at rest,’ she mused as she wheeled her awkward one-handed way towards Zara’s room, then an alternative suddenly struck her. ‘Or perhaps he took it as proof that they know me well because I’m always in here for treatment.’

She was still smiling at that thought when she tapped on Zara’s door and began to push it open.

‘There she is!’ Zara announced, her face twisting into an unattractive scowl. ‘And look at that smirk on her face. She just couldn’t wait to get her foot in the door, could she? All this time she’s resented the fact that Danny chose me and she waited until I’m too ill to do anything about it to move in with him and—’

‘Zara!’ Dan’s voice cracked over her increasingly hysterical rant like a whip. ‘That’s enough! You’re talking nonsense.’

‘It’s not nonsense!’ she argued fiercely. ‘How could you have let her move into my home after all the trouble she’s caused? Didn’t you read my note? It’s all her fault. Everything is Sara’s fault.’

‘Ah, yes. The note,’ Dan said, and Sara seemed to be the only one who noticed a strange edge to his voice.

‘You mentioned it before,’ he continued. ‘Remind me, when did you write it and where did you put it?’

‘I wrote it the afternoon I took the tablets, of course, and I put it on my bedside cabinet, where you’d see it when you came in … And I’m so sorry for doing that to you, but if you’d read the letter you would know how desperate I was … that I just couldn’t cope any more with Sara wanting to keep the baby and …’

‘Shh, sweetheart,’ Audrey soothed, reaching for one of her daughter’s flailing arms. ‘It can’t be good for you to get in such a state. Perhaps it would be better …’ She turned with a scowl on her face to send a meaningful glance between Sara and the door.

Sara hadn’t known whether to leave so that her sister didn’t upset herself any more, but Dan had already drawn the wheelchair fully into the room and shut the door for some semblance of privacy so she was completely trapped when he drew a slightly crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket.

‘I take it that this is the letter you’re talking about?’ he said, and Sara felt sick when she saw the malice in Zara’s glance across at her.

‘You found it!’ she exclaimed. ‘So now you know exactly—’

‘“My darling Danny,”’ he read flatly, interrupting her without an apparent qualm. ‘“I can’t bear it any more. You know how hard we tried to have a baby and what a wrench it was for me to have to have my sister being a surrogate for us. I know that she’s always wanted you for herself and I’m just so afraid that she’s going to steal our precious baby and there’s nothing I can do about it. I just can’t bear it any more, Your loving Zara.”’

Sara felt the blood drain from her face then flood back in a scalding blush when he read the note for all to hear. Didn’t he realise how humiliating it was for her to have her unrequited love spoken about like that? Didn’t he realise that, even if she hadn’t loved him, she would still have loved the children she was carrying because they were an intrinsic part of her?

And the letter was a complete lie because even though she desperately wished that she was carrying Dan’s babies for the two of them, there was no way that she would have broken her promise to him to give him the family he wanted. He was going to be a wonderful father and Audrey would spoil her grandchildren at every opportunity and provide the feminine touch that Zara would probably be too busy for.

She really didn’t need all this extra emotional stress, to say nothing of the embarrassment of having her private feelings paraded for all, not when all the pregnancy books advised calm and serenity for the sake of the baby. After all, she was still recovering from her injuries and had, admittedly voluntarily, just gone through the exertions of moving out of his flat and back into her own.

And going from mind-blowing topics to the merely petty, there was the fact that she wasn’t certain her smart-enough-for-work trousers would ever recover from her decision to come all the way down four flights of stairs on her bottom.

‘Look at her face!’ Zara demanded shrilly, pointing straight at Sara. ‘At least she has the honesty to look guilty.’

With everyone’s eyes directed at her, Sara had felt the heat of embarrassment flooding into her face. She was unused to being the centre of attention at any time, least of all when she was in the same room as her twin.

She hated what Zara was doing to her but she had known for far too many years that there was no point protesting her innocence. Zara’s position as everybody’s favourite was unassailable. The thing that hurt worst was the fact that Dan was privy to all Zara’s spiteful lies. At least in the past it had been kept within the family.

‘You ask her, Danny,’ her sister demanded, with every evidence of being on the verge of tears. ‘You ask her if she hasn’t been thinking about keeping the kid for herself.’

Of course she’d been thinking about it, Sara admitted silently as she reached for the rim of the wheel to turn herself around. She was carrying the babies of the man she loved so it was obvious that she would long for the chance to bring them up with him, and there was no way she was staying in this room to allow her sister to make something shameful about a normal human response.

‘Sara, stay,’ Dan said in a low voice, his lean fingers resting on her wrist to dissuade her from opening the door. ‘Please?’

There was something in those amazing green eyes that told her she could trust him, that he wasn’t asking her to stay to have more humiliation heaped on her head. And even though she had no idea where this dreadful conversation was going, she knew that she could trust him, implicitly.

She missed the warmth of his touch when he took his hand away, but then he reached into his pocket again and pulled out a plastic bag.

Walking over to the side of Zara’s bed, he tipped out a piece of plastic onto her lap.

‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked in a quiet conversational tone.

Sara almost gave herself away with a gasp of surprise. The last time she’d seen a piece of plastic like that had been in the garage when they’d been asking about the damage to Zara’s car.

‘Of course I don’t know what it is,’ she said with a dismissive shrug. ‘It’s just a bit of scrap plastic.’

‘Actually, it’s a bit more than that,’ he said with a noticeably sharper edge to his voice as he retrieved it and put it back in the bag, without touching it with his fingers. ‘It’s part of the light from your BMW—the one you broke when you ran your sister down and left her lying in a side street, not caring whether she was alive or dead.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Audrey gasped, clearly shocked out of her unaccustomed bystander’s role. ‘That’s a wicked, wicked lie. Danny, why are you doing this to Zara? She’s your wife and she’s ill. You should be supporting her, not spouting this ridiculous nonsense that Sara’s been feeding you.’

‘Audrey—’ Dan said forcefully, trying to break into her tirade.

‘I know why you’re doing it,’ she continued, condemnation in every stiff inch of her. ‘The two of you have got your heads together and made the whole thing up to cover up the fact that you’ve got a thing going between you. You’re an adulterer and she’s no better than a …’

‘Mrs Walker,’ Dan barked, apparently reverting to formality as nothing else seemed to be getting through. ‘If you dare say one derogatory word against Sara, I shall assume you’re hysterical and slap you.’

‘What?’ Her eyes and mouth were wide with shock but she must have seen something in his face that made her believe he would do what he’d threatened because she subsided ungracefully into the chair on the other side of Zara’s bed.

‘As I was saying,’ Dan continued, apparently calm again, but from her position Sara could tell from the way his veins were distended that his anger must have sent his blood pressure up. She would have to suggest that he have it checked, but for now she was still amazed that he would have sided with her against the rest of her family. No one had ever done that before. ‘Unfortunately, it’s the truth. I took that piece of plastic from the BMW and gave it to the police because I saw that there were fibres caught in it. Their forensic labs have confirmed that they were strands of top-quality vicuna and that they were an absolute match for the fibres in Sara’s coat—the one you gave to her and that she was wearing when you knocked her down.’

There were several seconds of horrified silence at the end of his recitation and Sara almost felt sorry for her parents when she saw the way they were staring at their beloved daughter … almost as if they didn’t recognise her any more … as if she’d suddenly grown a second head, or something.

‘All right!’ Zara snapped. ‘So it all went a lot further than I expected, but I still didn’t get what I wanted, and that was to get rid of the kid.’

It was all too much for her mother to cope with and she burst into noisy tears, unwilling even to be consoled by her husband.

‘Why did you have to go poking around? Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? After all, bones heal and she’s still carrying your precious baby … Oh, I’m sorry, it’s babies, isn’t it? There’s two of the ghastly ankle-biters in there, gradually bloating her body until she’s going to look like a hippo.’

‘Why, Zara?’ Frank demanded, obviously completely confused. ‘What went wrong? You seemed so happy until you couldn’t have children, but then Sara offered—’

‘Sara didn’t offer,’ she interrupted rudely. ‘Mum virtually blackmailed her into it because I said I couldn’t get pregnant.’

‘Well, there was very little likelihood that you’d be able to while you were taking the Pill,’ Dan supplied dryly.

Zara blinked, as though surprised that he knew that she’d been lying to him, but he was already moving on. ‘What I don’t understand is why you went through the whole pantomime in the first place.’

‘Typical man!’ she scoffed, tossing her head in a wellpractised move that sent her hair tumbling over one shoulder. ‘It’s obvious. It was all a game, just a bit of fun seeing how easy it was to take you away from Sara, especially when I could tell that she had already fallen head over heels for you. I didn’t love you—never really wanted you, if you want the truth—I certainly never had any real intention of going as far as marriage.’

Her mother gave a little whimper of distress but that only seemed to enrage Zara further and she turned her fury on her parents. ‘If you two hadn’t been so bloody eager to put on the big flashy fairy-tale wedding, none of this would have happened. I’m a successful model and there’s a possibility that I might get a part in a Hollywood film. The last thing I want is to be stuck at home, nothing more than a housewife with two brats.’

‘So, let me get this right,’ Dan said icily. ‘Everything you’ve done—married me, almost killed your sister because she’s pregnant with the child you said you wanted, and taken an overdose of drugs—which, by the way, you carefully timed so that, if I hadn’t been taking care of Sara, I would have found you before they’d had time to get into your system—all of that is somebody else’s fault and beautiful Princess Zara is the innocent victim? I think not.’

He took a step closer so that he positively loomed over her and his words had the precision of surgical steel.

‘The police are waiting for me to report back before they charge you with the attempted murder of your sister and her unborn children. If you’re found guilty … which I hardly think is in doubt … you can expect to be sentenced to a minimum of twelve years in prison, but it’s more likely to be eighteen years.’

‘Eighteen years!’ Audrey wailed, but Zara didn’t say a word, at last speechless now that she’d been confronted with the probable consequences of her actions. ‘She didn’t mean to do it.’ Audrey turned pleading eyes on Sara, as ever protective of her favourite daughter. ‘You couldn’t possibly send your own twin to prison.’

‘I really didn’t mean to do it,’ Zara said suddenly, the subdued tone of her voice and the ghastly pallor of her skin telling Sara that perhaps she really was telling the truth this time. ‘I’ve had a couple of photo shoots on the West Coast—of America,’ she added, in case they weren’t following. ‘And when the possibility of this acting job came up and then became a probability, I suddenly felt trapped because the baby … babies,‘ she corrected herself, ‘weren’t due until a couple of weeks after filming’s due to begin.’

‘That still doesn’t explain why you would decide to run your sister over. Why on earth would you want to kill her?’

‘Why? Because she’s too bloody perfect,’ she snarled. ‘She got all the brains in the family and just sailed through school and medical training, and she got the beauty as well.’

‘That’s why you did this,’ Sara murmured as she traced her original scar, the one Zara had given her so many years ago. ‘I thought it was because you wanted people to be able to tell us apart. I never dreamed it was because you hated me.’

‘No!’ It was the first time that her sister hadn’t rushed to claim that it had been an accident and the fact that her first instinct had been to deny that she hated Sara thawed something deep inside her that had been frozen for a very long time. ‘Oh, everything just got so muddled in my head, probably because of the tablets one of my friends gave me.’

‘Tablets?’ Dan demanded instantly. ‘What tablets? Where did you get them from?’

‘My friend said she got them from America, on the internet. They call them designer drugs. They’re gone now,’ she added hastily. ‘I flushed them when I got back to the flat after I … after …’ She shook her head and started to shed what were probably the first genuine tears in years. ‘My friend and I were high on them when she said my only option was to get rid of the baby, then I wouldn’t have to be stuck in England, and my head was so messed up that it seemed to make perfect sense. Then, when I was driving towards Sara in that lane and her first thought was to save the baby … I was just so angry that she always … always did the right thing that I … that I aimed straight at her and … Oh, God, I’m sorry, Sara,’ she gasped. ‘And I’m just so glad that I didn’t … didn’t k-kill you …’

One part of Sara’s brain must have been registering the changing figures on the electronic monitors because somehow she wasn’t in the least surprised when Dan reached for her sister’s wrist to feel for himself just how fast her pulse was beating.

‘What’s wrong?’ Audrey demanded. ‘What’s the matter with Zara?’

‘Probably nothing more than too much stress in the last half-hour,’ he said soothingly.

‘It’s not her liver, is it?’ her father suggested fearfully. ‘It’s not packing up completely, is it?’

‘It’s unlikely that it will pack up.’ This time his tone was reassuring. ‘That was one of the reasons why I started investigating Sara’s accident, because if it had been Zara responsible for running her over, then it meant the drugs probably hadn’t been in her system long enough to do serious permanent damage.’

‘So, what’s the matter now?’ That was her mother again, holding onto Zara’s hand as though it was a lifeline. ‘Why are the monitors peeping and pinging like that?’

That, in far more clinical terms, was Mr Shah’s first question when he appeared in the doorway a few seconds later, obviously alerted by the member of staff at the unit’s central monitoring station.

‘Her pulse and respiration were probably elevated by a family discussion,’ Dan said blandly.

‘In that case, I think I will have to ask you to leave,’ the consultant said formally. ‘There has been a slight improvement in my patient’s condition and I don’t want anything to reverse it. Please, if you could return at the next visiting hour?’

Her mother obviously knew from the man’s quiet air of command that there was no point trying to persuade him to change his mind and she bade her daughter a tearful good bye before leaving the room with her husband’s arm supportively around her shoulders.

She was so wrapped up in her misery that she barely glanced in Sara’s direction, so nothing had changed there.

‘You, too, please,’ Mr Shah said to Dan and Sara. ‘I know you are both doctors in this hospital so you will know how important proper rest is for a body when it is recuperating.’

‘Of course, sir,’ Dan said respectfully, and walked round behind Sara to take charge of the handles of her wheelchair.

At the last moment before she left the room, Sara glanced back over her shoulder to meet the golden hazel eyes that were the absolute double of her own.

‘The authorities will not be informed,’ she said cryptically, and saw from the dawning relief on her sister’s face that she had understood what Sara was trying to tell her.

‘I take that you meant you won’t be preferring charges against your sister,’ Dan said in a low voice meant for her ears alone.

‘I’m presuming that you didn’t give those authorities enough information to work out what happened with the car?’ she countered.

‘So you’re just going to let her get away with it?’ he asked in a voice that was as unreadable as the face in front of her in the lift.

‘As there was no permanent damage done …’ she agreed, very conscious that they had a captive audience. ‘The penalty seems out of proportion.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he admitted with a fleeting glimpse of a grin. ‘I made that bit up.’

Sara nearly choked trying to subdue her sudden laughter. ‘Remind me not to play poker with you.’

‘Shame,’ he teased as he pushed her across the reception area. ‘I was thinking of suggesting a game after we eat tonight. What do you think?’

What she thought was that she’d completely forgotten to tell him that she’d moved out of his flat today.

‘Um … Actually, Dan, I’ve moved back into my own place, so I won’t be—’

‘What? When?’ he demanded, clearly startled, and just for a moment she tried to persuade herself that he looked disappointed, too. ‘And how did you get there?’

‘St George rescued me from the dragon,’ she said, opting for laughter rather than tears as she suddenly realised that she had absolutely no idea where she stood with him any more.