Читать книгу The Nurse's Christmas Gift - Tina Beckett, Tina Beckett - Страница 10
Оглавление‘ELLA, LET’S NOT have this discussion right now.’
‘What discussion is that?’ Her best friend batted her eyes, while Annabelle’s rolled around in their sockets. ‘The prodigal returns to the scene of his crime?’
‘That doesn’t even make any sense.’
‘It doesn’t have to. So spill. I haven’t seen you since I heard the big news. Not from you, I might add. What’s up with that?’
She tried to delay the inevitable. ‘What news are you talking about?’
Ella made a scoffing sound as she leaned against the exam table. ‘That a certain ex has crashed back onto the scene.’
Crashed was a very good word for what he’d done. ‘There’s nothing to tell. He showed up yesterday at the hospital.’
‘Out of the blue? With no advance notice?’ Her friend lifted the bottle of water she held, taking a quick drink. She then grimaced.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine. Just a little tummy trouble. I hope I’m not coming down with whatever everyone else has. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful Christmas present?’ She twisted her lips and then shrugged. ‘Anyway, you had no idea he was coming?’
‘Of course not. I would have told you, if I’d known.’ And probably caught the next available flight out of town. Annabelle sighed, already tired of this line of questioning. When had life become so complicated? ‘I’m sure someone knew he was coming. I just never thought to ask because I never dreamed...’
‘That Max Ainsley would show up on your doorstep and beg for your forgiveness?’
‘Ella!’ Annabelle hurried over to the door to the exam room and shut it before anyone overheard their conversation. She turned back to face her friend. ‘First of all, he did not show up on my doorstep. He just happened to come to work at the hospital. I’m sure he had no idea I was working here any more than I knew that he was the one taking Sienna’s place. And second, there’s no need for him to apologise.’
‘Like hell there’s not. He practically abandoned you without a word.’
Oh, Lord, she’d had very little sleep last night and now this. As soon as she’d finished lunch with Max yesterday, she had got out of that canteen as fast as she possibly could. Even so, he’d come down to the special care baby unit a couple of hours later to get even more information on Baby Hope. Clinical information this time about blood types and the matching tests they’d done in the hope that a heart would become available.
She’d been forced to stand there as he shuffled through papers and tried to absorb any tiny piece of information that could help with the newborn’s treatment. With his head bent over the computer screen, each little shift in his expression had triggered memories of happier times. Which was why she’d lain in bed and tossed and turned for hours last night. Because she couldn’t help but dissect the whole day time and time again.
Sheer exhaustion had finally pulled her under just as the sun had begun to rise. And then she’d had to get up and come into work, knowing she was going to run into him again today. And tomorrow. And three months from now.
How was she going to survive until his contract ended?
‘He didn’t abandon me. It simply didn’t work out between us. We both had a part in ending it, even though I asked him to leave.’
It was true. She couldn’t see it back then, and Ella had had to listen to her long-distance calls as she’d cycled through the stages of grief, giving sympathy where it was needed and a proverbial kick in the backside when she was still wearing her heart on her sleeve six months after the separation.
