Loe raamatut: «Marrying the Runaway Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

Dalverston: December

SHE was sitting on a bench outside the church. The wind was bitter as it blew down from the surrounding hills, but she seemed oblivious to the icy conditions as she sat there, lost in thought. Archie Carew paused as he drew level with her. Even though he knew it was none of his business what she was doing there, he couldn’t just walk away.

It had been pure impulse that had made him decide to spend the night in Dalverston, a bustling little market town on the borders of Lancashire and Cumbria. It was a long drive back to London from his family home in Scotland at the best of times, but at this time of the year, when everyone was out doing their Christmas shopping, the journey had been horrendous. The thought of being cooped up in the car any longer had been more than he could bear so he had left the motorway and booked himself into a hotel. Once he had taken his case up to his room, he had decided to go for a walk and that’s when he had seen her.

Archie sighed as he studied the expression on her face. He knew how it felt to sink to that level of despair. The past eighteen months had been a nightmare, several times he’d wondered if he would get through them. He had buried himself in his job in the hope that it would blot out the pain, but it had been inevitable that he would have had to deal with it at some point.

That’s what he’d been doing for the past three weeks, sorting out the mess that had been left behind after his brother’s death. The situation was far worse than he’d imagined, too. It would need drastic measures to put things right. Archie knew that his whole life would have to change and it was hard to accept that fact. However, for the moment he was more concerned about the young woman than about himself.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked and saw the start she gave. It was obvious that she hadn’t noticed him and it merely reinforced his suspicions that something terrible had happened. Although he wasn’t sure if he should get involved, he sat down beside her.

‘Is there anything I can do? Sometimes it helps if you talk about a problem.’

She gave a broken little laugh. ‘I don’t think talking will help in this instance.’

‘Maybe not, but why not give it a shot?’ He shrugged when she looked at him. ‘You’ve nothing to lose, and I promise you that I’m a very good listener.’

‘You’re very kind, but I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘The beginning is usually the best place,’ he said lightly, and she sighed.

‘That’s the whole point, though. Everything was fine in the beginning. I was so sure I was doing the right thing, and then last week, I started to wonder if I was making a mistake…’

She trailed off but Archie didn’t press her. He could tell that she was on the verge of tears so waited until she felt able to continue. After a few seconds had elapsed she carried on.

‘I’m supposed to be getting married tomorrow. Everything is all arranged. It has been for months—my dress, the cake, the service here at this church and the reception afterwards. There’s over a hundred guests coming and several of them are travelling some distance to get here, too.’

‘But now you’re having second thoughts?’ he suggested when once again she faltered.

‘Yes. I know it’s crazy. I mean, how on earth can I call off the wedding at this stage?’

‘I understand how difficult it must be,’ Archie said quietly. ‘But surely the question you should be asking yourself is how can you go ahead with it if you have any doubts.’

‘I know. And it’s something I’ve asked myself a dozen times, too, but it hasn’t helped. I just don’t know what to do for the best!’

Archie sighed when he saw her shoulders heave as she started to cry. Reaching over, he squeezed her hand. ‘A lot of people have last-minute jitters before they get married. That’s probably all this is, too. Why don’t you go and see your fiancé and talk it all through with him? I’m sure it would help.’

‘No.’ She ran a trembling hand over her face to wipe away her tears. ‘I need to decide for myself what I want to do. If I speak to Ross, I’ll only end up feeling guilty about letting him down.’

‘You aren’t letting anyone down,’ Archie said firmly. ‘You certainly can’t go ahead with the wedding just so you won’t upset him. You’d be letting yourself down then and that wouldn’t be right, would it?’

‘No, it wouldn’t.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Thank you. I needed someone to tell me that even though I already knew it deep down inside. I just wish I’d had the courage to listen to what my heart has been telling me before now.’

Archie didn’t say anything to that. If he listened to his heart then he wouldn’t be thinking about giving up the career he loved. All his life he had wanted only one thing and that had been to help sick children get better. Whereas most of his friends at med school had chosen their specialities towards the end of their studies, he had known from the outset what he’d wanted to do.

He had worked incredibly hard since he had qualified, too, but his efforts had paid off last year when he’d been appointed head of paediatric care at one of London’s top teaching hospitals. It was the job he had dreamed about and it was bitterly ironic that he was going to have to give it up now.

It was too painful to deal with that thought right then. He turned to the young woman again, wondering why it seemed so important that he should help her. Whatever decision she made would have little impact on his life, yet he desperately wanted her to make the right choice.

‘So what do you intend to do? If you don’t want to speak to your fiancé, is there anyone else you can talk to? A friend, perhaps, or your parents? What about your mother? Surely she could advise you?’

‘My mother’s dead. There’s just my dad now and he was thrilled about me and Ross getting married.’ She bit her lip and he could tell that tears were threatening again. ‘He’ll be so upset if I call off the wedding.’

‘You can’t let that influence you,’ Archie said decisively. ‘All right, so maybe it would have been better if you’d realised you were making a mistake before now, but it will be a whole lot worse if you go through with this wedding and regret it later.’

‘You’re right, of course you are. It will be much, much worse for everyone.’

She gave him a quick smile and Archie realised with a sudden jolt just how beautiful she was. With her soft brown hair curling around her heart-shaped face and those huge hazel eyes fringed by incredibly thick black lashes, she was truly gorgeous.

Quite frankly, the discovery was enough to stun any man into silence, but it was the fact that he had noticed how she looked that shocked him most of all. Since Stephanie had died in the same tragic accident that had claimed his brother’s life, he hadn’t looked at another woman, hadn’t been interested in looking either. However, all of a sudden he was so aware of the woman sitting beside him that he could feel his body thrumming with sexual tension.

He stood up abruptly, disgusted with himself for the way he was behaving. ‘I have to go. I hope you’ll think about what we’ve said, though, and not rush into a decision. You need to consider everything and make sure it’s not just last-minute nerves that’s causing you to have these doubts.’

‘I shall. Thank you. You’ve been very kind, letting me pour out my troubles like that.’

‘I was glad to help.’

‘Why?’ She gave a little shrug. ‘We’re complete strangers so why should you want to help me? Most people wouldn’t want to get involved, so what makes you any different?’

‘Let’s just say that I know how it feels to be forced into doing something you don’t want to do.’

‘Because it’s happened to you?’ she said softly, and he nodded.

‘Yes. And if there’s any advice I can give you, it’s to follow your heart. If it doesn’t feel right in here…’ he placed his hand on his heart ‘…don’t do it.’

‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ She stood up and there seemed to be a new resolve in her eyes when she looked at him now. ‘I’m going to follow my heart and see where it leads me instead of doing what I think is right all the time.’

‘Good.’

Archie couldn’t explain why he felt so choked up. Maybe it was relief because she seemed to have reached a decision, or maybe it was more complicated than that, but all of a sudden he was overwhelmed with emotion. He swung round, very much afraid that he would make a fool of himself if he lingered.

‘Thank you again…for everything.’

Archie felt his heart ache as he glanced back. She looked so vulnerable as she stood there that he was tempted to stay, but it would be wrong to influence her in any way. She had to decide for herself what she intended to do and all he could do was hope that she wouldn’t regret it in the future.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said huskily. ‘Good luck. I hope everything works out for you.’

He took a deep breath as he crossed the road, feeling the cold air biting deep into his lungs. For the past eighteen months he had been merely marking time, but now that period was over. Even though he might not be able to follow his heart, at least he could make amends for what he had done.

The thought made him feel better than he’d done for a long time, and he realised that it was all thanks to that woman, too. If she could find the courage to reassess her life, he could find the courage to make these changes.

London: March

‘We’ve been really short-staffed since Christmas. At one point we were working double shifts and it was no joke, I can tell you. If our departmental head hadn’t put his foot down, we’d have had to keep on doing them, too. He raised a real stink about it and that’s why we were given permission to hire agency staff.’ The ward sister laughed as she opened the staffroom door. ‘It’s not a good idea to get on the wrong side of him!’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

Heather Thompson smiled as she looked around the room. As hospital staffrooms went, this one wasn’t too bad. At least the chairs looked as though the springs weren’t all broken and there was actually a rug on the regulation blue composite floor. Compared to some of the hospitals where she’d worked in the last few months, this was quite luxurious, in fact.

‘It’s not too bad, is it?’ The sister must have noticed her taking stock. ‘It’s not exactly the Ritz, but it’s not the absolute pits either. We have our consultant to thank for that too. He insisted on them refurbishing the place when he took over last year, said it wasn’t right that staff had to put up with such appalling conditions when they were expected to work twenty-four seven.’

‘Really? I am impressed.’ Heather hung her coat in an empty locker. ‘Most consultants couldn’t care less about the staff, in my experience.’

‘Oh, he’s a real treasure, believe me.’ The other woman sighed. ‘It’s just a shame that he’s leaving—’

She broke off when an alarm sounded. Heather recognised the sound immediately and was already on her way to the door before the ward sister could tell her to follow her. Staff were appearing from all over the place, responding to the call. There were half a dozen people gathered by the time they entered the ward, and each and every one seemed to know what was expected of them.

Heather followed the convoy to the child’s bed, her heart aching when she saw how young he was. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old and he was desperately ill. One of the nurses had already started CPR, another had fetched the crash trolley, while a third was frantically working the controls on the bed to lower it into a horizontal position. It was obvious they had the situation covered so she turned to the boy’s parents.

‘Let’s leave the team to do their job,’ she said, urging the couple towards the door.

‘But I want to stay!’ the mother shrieked. ‘Charlie needs me—I can’t leave him!’

Heather grasped hold of the woman’s arm when she tried to force her way back through the group to get to her son. The last thing the staff needed at the moment was a hysterical parent hampering their efforts to resuscitate the child.

‘Charlie needs their help more than anything else,’ she said firmly, trying to lead her away.

‘Let me go!’

Heather gasped when the woman swung round and struck her across the face. She staggered back, but quickly recovered. Taking a firmer grip on the woman’s arm, she ushered her out of the ward, thanking her stars that the boy’s father followed them without a murmur. She wouldn’t have rated her chances if he’d clobbered her as well!

There was a family room next to the office and she took the parents in there. She managed to persuade them to sit down then got them both a cup of tea from the machine in the corner and sat down opposite them.

‘I know how worried you are but the staff are doing everything they can to help Charlie.’ She pressed a cup of tea into the woman’s hand. ‘Try a sip of this. It will help.’

The woman obediently drank a little of the tea. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her now as she sat huddled on the edge of the sofa. ‘I thought he was getting better. The doctor said he was, didn’t he, Darren?’

‘Yes.’ The father ran a trembling hand over his face. Heather’s heart went out to him when she saw that he was crying.

‘I only started working here tonight so I don’t know what’s wrong with your son,’ she explained quietly. ‘But I do know that everything possible is being done to help him.’

‘One of the nurses said that he’d had a heart attack,’ the father told her. He shook his head. ‘I know he’s been having pains in his chest but I didn’t think kids could have heart attacks. I mean, it’s something old people have, not eight-year-olds like our Charlie.’

‘It’s unusual, but it does happen,’ Heather said gently. ‘The main thing is that Charlie was already in hospital when it happened. That will certainly go in his favour.’

‘So you think he’ll be all right, do you?’ the mother said desperately.

‘Let’s hope so.’

Heather was too experienced to make promises she might not be able to keep. It was impossible to foretell what the outcome would be and all she could do was reassure the parents while they waited for news. It was almost half an hour before the door opened and she stood up when the parents leapt to their feet. Just for a moment she stared at the man who had entered the room, wondering where she had seen him, before all of a sudden it came rushing back and she gasped.

It was the man she had spoken to the day before her wedding! What on earth was he doing here?