Loe raamatut: «Reunited By Their Pregnancy Surprise»

CHAPTER ONE

HER HEELS CLICK-CLACKED down the hospital corridor, a hurried, tense staccato, as Emily headed for the familiar room that Sam had been moved to after his short stay in the ICU.

She cut a striking figure in her stylish clothes, her long honey-blonde locks held back by sunglasses on her head and her large expensive bag swinging from the crook of her elbow. Her face, beautiful without the aid of make-up, was today showing strain. Lines and dark circles framed her eyes. And those who saw her noted the way her fingers twisted and fidgeted at her wedding band.

The Beverly West Hospital was the biggest and most prestigious hospital in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California. Sam’s care here had been amazing. From the second he’d been scooped from their crumpled, steaming vehicle and blue-lighted to its doors, Emily had not doubted for one second the level of care they had both received. Apart from that split second when she’d first received her pregnancy test results...

Outside Sam’s room she could see Dr Waters and her team, standing discussing something in low voices, with the occasional glance at Sam’s notes on a clipboard. They looked serious. Concerned. But why? Hadn’t they just rung her with the news that he was starting to wake up? That was good, right?

Dr Waters looked up as she became aware of Emily’s approach and, meeting her by the door to the room, pasted a polite smile onto her face. ‘Mrs Saint—’

‘Is he awake?’ She bit her lip and again twisted the wedding ring on her finger.

This was it. Now or never. She would go inside her husband’s room and either find a man who was happy to be alive and willing to work on any problem, or the bear of a husband she’d been used to over the last few difficult months.

‘He is. He’s tired, and occasionally lapses back into sleep—which is normal considering the trauma his brain has been through. Coma patients usually take a day or two to wake properly.’

‘I can go in and see him? Talk to him?’

The call from Dr Waters had come in the early hours of the morning. The phone ringing had not woken her. She’d already been awake. Lying in her very empty bed, staring at the ceiling and trying—still—to decide what was best to do.

Leave Sam? Or stay and fight for their marriage?

She’d even pulled a suitcase out and laid it on the bed one day, stood staring at it in numb indecision. Her heart wavering. It had all seemed so very clear-cut before the car crash. But now...? Knowing that he was sick...knowing that she was pregnant?

She had returned the suitcase to its storage spot and closed the doors on it. Her mind ran back to the times when Sam had refused to talk to her about having children, clamming up the second she raised it. Why had he done that? Over and over again? What hadn’t he been telling her? There had to be something, but his refusal even to talk to her about it had been hurtful. They’d got to a point when they had barely been speaking to one another.

Her brain had almost torn itself in two, trying to figure out his secret. Thinking of one scenario and then another. None had seemed likely, and she’d begun to believe that maybe he just didn’t want to have a child with her.

Emily had stared at the closed closet doors, knowing that she would do what was right. And the right thing here was to give Sam time to recover and then let him know about the baby. Because then there was a small chance—a tiny, infinitesimal chance—that now the baby was no longer hypothetical but real and here he might change his mind.

She couldn’t leave him without him knowing the truth. And if he heard the news about the pregnancy and still didn’t want to be there for her and their child then she would go. Step out into the world on her own, even though doing so would break her heart. She didn’t want to leave Sam, but he’d made life unbearable—had backed her into a corner.

Dr Waters shifted, looking at her colleagues, who all understood the implicit suggestion that perhaps they should leave, allow her to talk to Mrs Saint alone. They gave her sympathetic smiles and scurried away.

‘Of course, but before you go in there’s something you need to know.’

Her blood ran cold. Was there a problem? Brain injury? Dr Waters had mentioned that there might be the possibility of something like that once before. But Sam had recovered so quickly! His coma had been short, the ICP had dropped to normal levels incredibly quickly...

‘What is it?’

Sam could have anything wrong. Be blind. Deaf. Find it difficult to talk or maybe swallow.

‘We spoke once before about the damage that might have occurred to Sam’s brain because of the injury to his head, and after a quick examination of your husband we believe that there seems to be some sort of memory deficit—mainly amnesia. It could be temporary, of course. He might remember everything after he’s had another good sleep. But right now Sam seems...confused about his own timeline.’

Emily let out a long, slow, measured breath. Amnesia? She’d been fearing the worst! Temporary amnesia they could deal with.

‘Is that all?’

Dr Waters frowned. ‘Amnesia is a significant condition. I’m not sure you understand the full—’

‘I’m going in to see him.’ She cut off the doctor and stepped into Sam’s room. She’d been waiting long enough for this moment. Ten long days. Nothing more could keep them apart.

Ten days. It had seemed like a lifetime.

Sometimes in those ten days she’d held his hand in hers, taking advantage of the fact that he was unconscious, remembering the happier times when they’d been close, pretending it was still that way. Sometimes she’d read to him from that day’s newspaper, hoping that the sound of her voice would bring him back. And sometimes she’d just sat and stared at him, mulling everything over in her head, thinking of where they’d gone wrong and how she could fix it. Imagining the day he would wake—the day his eyelids would flutter open and he would see her, sitting by his bedside like a sentinel. How he would smile and say her name, reach out slowly for her hand and kiss her fingertips...

Okay, so maybe she lived in a fantasy land at times, but surely a touch of escapism had never hurt anyone.

‘Sam?’ So much hope, so much need was in the pitch of her voice.

Her husband lay in bed, his face pale and relaxed against pure white starched hospital pillows, his blue eyes slowly opening, wincing at the light in the room before fixing his gaze upon her.

And smiling!

It’s been too long since you smiled at me like that...

It was like when they’d first been going out. The way he would look at her as if he was already in love with her. As if she was pure joy for him. Had no faults. Had not driven him crazy yet with endless requests to start a family. Okay, maybe not crazy, but she had tried to start that conversation lots of times. In the end even she had refused to talk. It had been too hard. Their conversations would always somehow end in arguments, and it had been easier just not to talk at all. She’d feared what would happen if they did.

Perhaps that had been a bad thing to do. Shutting down their communication. But she’d been trying to protect their relationship. She hadn’t wanted it to end.

Sucking in a breath, she rushed to his side, dropping her bag on the floor, not caring as she reached for his outstretched hand, stooping down to kiss him, feeling his bristles scrape her face as his lips met hers. Nothing mattered at that moment apart from the fact that he was alive. Awake. Back with her. She never wanted to go through those ten days ever again.

It didn’t matter that they’d been arguing. She was just happy that he was awake. Reacting. That he was looking at her and he was smiling and—

‘How are you feeling?’ She stroked his face, looking for clues, looking for any sign of discomfort that he might be trying to hide. Making sure that he wasn’t in any pain. Her professional skills as a nurse-midwife were coming to the fore.

‘Better for seeing you, Em,’ he croaked, squeezing her fingers, and she looked down at their entwined hands and smiled.

All those days she had sat holding his hands and he had never squeezed back. Never shown any sign of life in his fingers. They’d just lain there, limp. Breaking her heart. It felt so good to be touching him again. Gaining strength from him.

‘I’ve been so worried!’ She sat on the bed facing him and ran her thumb over the backs of his hands.

He closed his eyes briefly, as if he couldn’t stand the knowledge that she’d been so concerned for him. ‘The doc says we’ve been in a car accident?’

The confusion in his face was heart-rending, but Emily guessed that this was the amnesia that Dr Waters had mentioned. Sam couldn’t remember the crash. Sometimes people’s brains would exclude certain bad experiences or memories, to help prevent itself from feeling hurt. Like a safety mechanism. If that was all that had happened to him then they’d both got away from this lightly.

‘Yes.’

‘Were you hurt?’

The concern in his voice and the way his blue eyes darkened at the thought relieved her. He did care for her! He wasn’t angry at what had happened between them prior to this.

That was good, right? It took something like this to wake people up. To make them notice what was important in life. Each other. They were stronger together than they were apart. Even if they had been disagreeing. Giving each other the cold shoulder.

‘Not really. Just whiplash.’

He frowned. ‘Whiplash can be serious, Em. Have you been checked out by the doctors?’

He reached up to stroke her face, then his hand fell to her shoulders and neck to rub at her muscles, but he must be feeling tired because his hand dropped back to the bed, his eyes closing as he drifted in and out of sleep, before opening them again.

‘Look at me. Weak as a kitten.’

‘You need to rest. You’ve been out of it for ten days.’

‘Ten days?’ He looked upset.

‘They had to put you in an induced coma, Sam. Your brain got shook around in that hard skull of yours.’

He sighed and closed his eyes again and she realised with a sudden pang that he had drifted back to sleep. And she hadn’t had a chance to tell him their news, yet.

It can wait. It’s waited this long. What’s a few more hours?

Right now he was happy to see her. Relieved. All signs of their previous turmoil was gone. They were speaking to each other. Something they hadn’t done properly for weeks, and she’d missed that.

But it was odd, wasn’t it? That he should be so happy to see her? After the last few days of stony silences, the weeks of arguing and disagreement...

She liked it that he was being nice. Concerned about her whiplash, concerned about her health, but she wasn’t used to it. It was throwing her slightly.

Having to wait a little longer to deliver the news that she was pregnant was just fine. Because she had no idea how he would react to that. Probably not very well, and then they would be back to being at war with each other. She didn’t mind holding off on that for a while.

She liked what they had right now, thank you very much. The talking. The concern for each other’s wellbeing. The holding hands.

Emily stared at his hand in hers, lifted it to her mouth and kissed it, inhaling the scent of him, breathing it in like vital oxygen. Then she got up off the bed and settled into her usual chair, staring long and hard at her husband.

She was getting him back. He’d smiled at her!

She felt sure there was a chance...all this just might be okay.

* * *

Sam slowly came to. He had a wicked headache, but he appeared to be still in hospital, attached to God only knew how many wires and monitors and, beside him, her head slumped to her shoulder, asleep, was his beautiful fiancée Emily.

She looked tired. Exhausted, even. Her face was a little pale beneath wave upon wave of that gorgeous hair of hers. But then he assumed she would be. Hadn’t she, or someone, told him that he’d been out of it for ten days? After some accident he couldn’t even recall?

Ten days. What had he missed? Probably nothing too much. That serial he’d been watching on television had been scheduled to show its last episode the other week, so probably that. There was still another month or so before Emily’s birthday, so thankfully not that. He had a big surprise planned. He was hoping to take her to Las Vegas.

It was strange, though. Only ten days and he could swear that her hair seemed longer. A little more sun-bleached. Those honey tones were brighter than normal. And were those new clothes? He hadn’t seen them before. But then again, Em did enjoy shopping. Perhaps she’d gone out and treated herself whilst she’d been waiting for him to recover? A little pick-me-up?

He lifted his head off the pillow to check himself out. There didn’t appear to be any limbs wrapped in bandages, no plaster casts or anything like that. Had he just got a head injury? That would explain the headache, and the fact that he’d been out of it for a while. He hated it that he was laid up in hospital, because they still had so much to do. Not only did they need to tell everyone that Emily had accepted his proposal of marriage, but there was so much to do at work, too!

His idea, of building an exclusive five-star birth centre—the Monterey Birth Centre—was close to fruition. They’d toured the halls just last week and everything had looked perfect. Almost ready for their Grand Opening.

It was going to be massive. He wanted the Monterey to be the premier birthing centre in the whole of the US. He wanted people to aspire to have their babies there, to be treated as if they were royalty and enjoy the ultimate birthing experience, which he and his team would provide whilst their patients were being fed with delectable dishes provided by a team of Michelin-starred chefs in the kitchen.

It had taken a lot of planning. And sourcing funding. But he’d found people—mainly people whose babies he had already delivered safely—to sponsor and endorse the Monterey. He’d secured a great board of directors—along with himself and Emily, of course—and his excitement for this project had driven him onward like nothing he had ever experienced before. There’d been so much to think about! But he enjoyed that.

Asking Emily to marry him had been the icing on the cake. And she’d said yes. So he guessed now he’d be busy planning a wedding, too!

They hadn’t been going out long. Six months? But there was something about her—something that had reached out and grabbed him. She’d seemed so...vulnerable when they’d first met, and he’d been cautious not to scare her with his desire to be by her side. He’d not been able to pinpoint the source of that vulnerability and, to be honest, they’d both been so busy at work, and setting up the Monterey, that it hadn’t seemed all that important after a while.

Emily had blossomed by his side, driven on by their shared vision. She was everything he could have wished for and he loved her deeply. She cared for and loved delivering babies as much as he did.

But today she looked exhausted. She must have been handling any last hiccups at the birth centre, working and having to deal with his accident and their families all by herself. No wonder she looked shattered. Had they put off the Grand Opening whilst they’d waited for him to recover?

For a brief moment he just lay there and stared at her, his heart swelling with love for the woman at his side, but after a minute or so he couldn’t stand it any more and reached out to take her hand. Needing to touch her. To connect.

She blinked herself awake in seconds. ‘Sam?’

He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss upon it. ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

She glanced at her watch in confusion. ‘I’ve been asleep for three hours!’ She rubbed at her eyes and then glanced at him with concern. ‘How are you? Are you in any pain?’

‘Just a headache.’

‘Should I call a nurse?’

‘No, it’s fine. It’s understandable, considering my head got bashed. I’m sure there’s some morphine being dripped in to me somewhere...’ He looked up at the various drips and then smiled at her. ‘I’ve missed you.’ He squeezed her fingers, wishing he could be holding her in his arms. Wishing he could get her to come and lie beside him upon the bed. He needed to feel her next to him.

She looked a little apprehensive. ‘You’ve been in a coma.’

‘So you keep saying. But what about you? How are you doing? Any problems with Monterey I need to know about?’

Emily frowned and shook her head. ‘No. It’s all going very well.’

He let out a sigh. ‘That’s great news. How did Harry get on with the window treatments? Did he make the changes we asked him to?’

His fiancée looked at him, lines furrowing her brow. ‘What?’

‘The curtains and sashing in The Nightingale Suite. We decided to change them to that lighter gold colour. Has he done it yet? If he hasn’t we need to get on that—the Grand Opening is only a few days away.’

She continued to look at him with puzzlement. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The curtains were too dark. That suite is going to be our most prestigious—we want it right for the press tour. Think of the spread of pictures...’

‘Press tour? We haven’t had a press tour since...’ Her voice drifted away and she suddenly looked at him, her eyes searching his face as she sucked in a breath. ‘Sam, what day do you think it is?’

He closed his eyes and thought about it. He’d proposed on Friday, he’d been in a coma for ten days, so today had to be... ‘Monday? Tuesday, maybe?’

She shook her head, her choppy blonde locks shimmering around her shoulders. ‘No. I mean the month. The year.’

Month and year? What was she talking about? He’d been out for ten days, they’d said! He told her the date and watched as what little colour there was leeched from her face. She turned away from him, her curtain of honey-blonde hair hiding her face from his as she pulled her hands free of his grasp.

Her recoiling from him made him feel nervous. What didn’t he know? ‘Why are you asking? I’m not that much out of step, am I?’

He heard her sniff. Watched as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small hankie, dabbing at her eyes before she turned back to face him, bracing herself to prepare to say something she clearly thought he wouldn’t be ready to hear.

‘Sam... We’ve been married for eighteen months. The Monterey has been open and running for just over a year now.’

Sam stared at her hard. He swallowed painfully and his hands scrunched up the bedding as he made fists.

Eighteen months?

No! That’s ridiculous...

‘Why would you say that? Why would you even play a trick like that?’

A tear dripped onto her cheek and with clear-cut pain in her voice she said, ‘I’m not lying to you.’

‘Emily...’

‘Sam, please, listen—’

But he wasn’t listening. Not any more. Em was playing some cruel trick on him, and he didn’t know why, but the doctors would have to tell him the truth! The nurses would. He’d make them show him a newspaper or something. This was completely ridiculous. There was no way that he’d lost all that time. He’d know. There’d be signs!

Sam stabbed at the button that would call a nurse to his bedside and kept doing so, ignoring Emily’s pleas, her cries. She was standing now, her hand covering her mouth, looking at him with those wide, tear-filled eyes...

The door opened and a nurse he hadn’t seen before came in. She glanced at Emily in concern before turning to him. ‘Mr Saint?’

‘I need to see the doctor in charge of my care.’

The nurse kept on looking between the two of them, not sure exactly what had happened. ‘Dr Waters has gone home for the evening. I can get—’

‘Get someone! Someone who knows what they’re talking about!’ He glared at Emily, angry at her, and watched as she snatched up her handbag and ran from the room.

The nurse nodded and hurried out, and with both women gone he felt his anger deflate slightly.

Married eighteen months? Emily was crazy. Perhaps she’d had the bump on the head and not him!

He lay in the bed, fury surging through him, and waited for someone who knew what they were talking about to come and tell him the truth.

There was no way he had lost that amount of time.