gown, that they all wore on the ward, she could see one of the brightly coloured ties he had taken to wearing every day.
The sight of him revealing the day’s fashion faux pas with a magician-like flourish to Emmy never failed to make Lily’s throat tighten. Today it made her howl.
His face contorted as he held out his arms. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
Her normal mantra of Don’t rely on him, he might not be here tomorrow failed. Today she was too emotional, too giddy with relief to show the normal level of caution. Instead, crying out his name, she flew into his arms.
Enfolded in his strength, her head against his chest, it took her a few moments to realise what he was saying as he stroked her hair... ‘Sorry...sorry.’
She pulled back, catching his big hand between the two of hers as she looked up into his face shaking her head. ‘No...no... I’m crying because I’m happy.’ She sniffed, loosening his hand and pressing both of hers to her face.
‘Happy?’
Her hands fell away; her lovely eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot from many sleepless nights, glowed as though lit from within.
‘It’s taken. Emmy is going to be all right—the transplant has taken. You know the last results were—’ she lifted her hands and sketched ironic inverted commas in the air ‘—promising? Well, the latest results are back and they are conclusive—the transplant has taken.’
Ben didn’t do anything, he just stood there staring at her, much the way she had done when the doctor had taken her to his office to break the good news. Barely aware of what she was doing, she grabbed one of his hands and, lifting it, pressed her cheek to his palm before pressing a kiss to it.
Laughing, she barely registered his expression as she turned and hugged her mother before swinging back to Ben. ‘It’s taken, Ben, it’s really taken.’ Her voice cracked and broke with emotion.
Ben watched the tears spill from her eyes. His entire body felt as a frozen extremity did when the circulation returned...feeling had burned away the protective layer that had enabled him to function, stripping his emotions bare. With a painful stab of self-awareness he knew there would be no going back. A man could walk around with a void inside him once he recognised it for what it was—fear.
Lily was laughing and crying, squeezing his hand again. He struggled to respond, to match her bubbling happiness.
‘I thought—’
‘Sorry, I know.’ She took a deep steadying breath. ‘I have to say thank you. If it wasn’t for you Emmy might not be here. You’ve been kind even when I... I will never forget what you did.’
Ben pulled his hand away, suddenly annoyed. ‘I didn’t do it for that. I don’t want your gratitude.’
If she asked him what he did want, what would he say?
She didn’t ask him, she just looked at him, clearly puzzled by his reaction, so he asked himself. What did he want?
His eyes widened as the answer surprised him.
Lily tentatively touched his arm. ‘Are you all right?’ Well, that was what she’d intended to say, but she wasn’t sure whether it all came out because quite suddenly her knees went, there was a loud buzzing in her head and the floor came up to meet her.
Ben stepped forward and caught her before she hit the ground. Grunting softly, he hefted her higher into his arms. ‘Could we have a doctor here?’ Looking down at the pale face of the woman in his arms, he felt emotions he had spent weeks struggling not to acknowledge break free. ‘The place is full of bloody doctors, so where are they when you need one?’
‘Is she breathing?’ They all had their breaking point and this was obviously Elizabeth’s. ‘She’s not breathing.’
‘She is,’ he assured her. ‘She’s just fainted. Exhausted probably.’
‘Thank God, thank God, I knew this would happen!’ Maternal concern found release in a shrill string of loving criticism as Elizabeth patted her unconscious daughter’s head. ‘I knew it! You have no idea how stubborn she can be! She just can’t accept help, it’s always I don’t want to be a bother... Bother? She’s my little girl. I want to help. I need to help.’
Her words resonated. I need to help. He totally understood the sentiment. It remained one that he was unable to articulate. After he had done his part, he could have walked away. He knew that Lily had expected him to. She probably would have preferred him to walk away.
His jaw muscles locked tight as he looked down at this fiercely independent woman, half her face hidden in his shoulder. He struggled to poke his anger into life but instead experienced an overwhelming surge of protectiveness. It was primal and illogical, a throwback to hunter-gatherer days.
It was love.
They were right. Love did set you free. In his case the prison bars had been of his own making.
‘She’ll be fine, Elizabeth, just let...’ Blocked in a corner, he tried to ease past the woman, calling out, ‘In here, she fainted!’ Relieved to finally see assistance in the form of a nurse and a doctor, he reluctantly passed Lily onto the trolley that arrived.
As a child she had always been cynically sceptical of those scenes in films when the swooning heroine lifted a hand to her head and said in a faltering voice, ‘Where am I?’
As she opened her eyes and mumbled, ‘Did I faint?’ she felt some sympathy for those heroines.
‘Yes.’
Her eyes flew wide at the sound of his voice. Ben, she discovered, was standing beside the bed she lay on looking stern and—she gave her head a tiny shake—he was wearing what she thought of as his closed look.
‘Well, I suppose I did it in the right place,’ she said, struggling to pull herself upright, only to find her progress hindered by a large hand in the middle of her chest. ‘Will you stop that? I have to—’
‘You have to stay there and sit up gradually. Then you will drink this vile cup of tea the kind nurse made you, while I will go and reassure your mother that you are all right. Then I am taking you back home, where you will sleep.’
Out of the list Lily could see herself doing one: the cup of tea sounded good.
‘I’m—’
‘Let me guess, fine?’ he drawled, sounding bored.
‘Well, I am.’ She directed a pointed look at his hand planted on the middle of her chest. ‘But I won’t be if I can’t breathe.’
The pressure immediately lessened, which did not help the breathless feeling, suggesting it had more to do with than his proximity. She pressed her eyelids closed and breathed in the scent of his skin. Blindfolded, she could find him in a room of a hundred people; it was terrifying how fine-tuned all her senses were to him.
‘Can I get up now?’ Unaided, Lily, she reminded herself. Despite all
