proof that it wasn’t my sister who tried to … to …’ She choked on the press of tears and couldn’t say another word but, then, she’d already said more than enough if his expression was anything to go by.
There was an agonisingly long silence in the car while she tried to concentrate on keeping the tears back. Crying was one of Zara’s favourite weapons and all her life Sara had consciously fought against them for just that reason.
‘Well, then, there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?’ Dan said suddenly as he released his seat belt. His voice was so frighteningly devoid of any emotion that Sara felt sick.
‘W-what?’ she stammered as he threw his door open and prepared to slide out. ‘What are you going to do, Dan?’
He didn’t answer until he reached her side of the car and pulled the passenger door wide. ‘Find some answers, of course,’ he said briskly. ‘Now, leave your crutches in the car because they’re no use to you till your shoulder’s a good deal less painful, and let me give you a hand out of there. You need to get some proper clothes on if you want to travel in my car again.’
Her startled grin must have been the reason he’d added that last proviso, and it had worked. In fact, it had worked so well that she didn’t even think of objecting when he virtually carried her up the four flights of stairs that led to her little flat up under the eaves.
‘Hop to it,’ he joked as she did just that with one hand against the wall on her way to her minuscule bedroom. ‘Give me a shout if you need any help.’
‘As if,’ she growled as she unwrapped herself from the grubby coat and shed the hospital scrubs in short order.
Clothing for her upper half wasn’t a problem, barring the twinges from multiple bruises and pulling scabs while she put them on. All she had to remember was to put her injured arm in first because the strapping didn’t allow for very much mobility.
Unfortunately, her underwear didn’t come with a tie waist and the cast wouldn’t fit through the appropriate hole when she did manage to get her foot through it and pull it up with her other toes, even though it was a pair designed for halfway-through-pregnancy mums.
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ she muttered as she pushed the stretchy fabric off with the other foot and heaved herself up off the end of the bed for another trawl through her underwear drawer.
‘Sara, I’m not being funny but … You must be very stiff and sore this morning and I can imagine that it’s almost impossible to manoeuvre things over that cast,’ Dan said at the very moment that she unearthed the black lacy thong that she’d bought to cheer herself up shortly after Zara had made that fateful visit to A and E. It was testament to how well it had worked that it still sported a dangling price tag.
Well, she thought with a fatalistic shrug as she tugged the tag off and flicked it towards the bin in the corner, it was probably the only underwear she possessed that would work. As for outer clothes, the only ones to hand that were wide enough to encompass the cast without having to resort to splitting a seam was a pair of heavy silk loose-fitting palazzo pants with a drawstring waist, not unlike the scrubs she’d just taken off, now that she came to think about it.
‘I could keep my eyes closed and take directions if you need a hand,’ he offered, and the suggestion was so sensible, so helpful, so considerate, so Daniel that she felt the threat of tears again. And he wouldn’t even have to see her bruises, scabs and bulges if he kept his eyes shut.
‘You promise to keep your eyes shut?’ she demanded as a strange thrill of excitement shot through her that he would offer to do such an intimate thing for her.
‘I promise,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, is it safe to come in?’
‘No! Wait!’ she shrieked as she saw the door start to swing open, and grabbed for the nearest thing to cover her naked lower half. ‘Now it’s safe,’ she announced, all too conscious of the slight quiver in her voice and hoping like mad that Dan couldn’t hear it.
‘So, what do you want me to do?’ he offered, and suddenly a whole X-rated scenario leapt into her head and she could feel the heat of a deep crimson blush move up her throat and over her face. ‘Which bit do you want to do first and how do you want to play it?’
Her imagination leapt into overdrive and it was only the patient expression on his face and the interrogative eyebrow sending creases over his forehead that reminded her he was waiting for an answer.
‘Um, if I put my … my underwear on the floor and step into it, could you pull it up for me—just as far as my knees?’ she added hastily, and was treated to one of Dan’s most devastating grins.
‘Spoilsport!’ he complained with a long-suffering air. ‘OK, where is this … underwear?’ She knew his hesitation was a deliberate copy of her own but was determined to ignore it. It was enough that she had to sort out which way the thong needed to be placed on the floor without having to cope with the soft wolf-whistle Dan gave when he caught sight of them.
‘Well, well, well!’ he murmured as he bent to position the scrap of fabric at her feet. ‘Who would have thought it?’
‘And why shouldn’t I wear something pretty?’ she demanded, stung by his reaction.
‘These aren’t just pretty,’ he said, his voice sounding strangely husky as he began to slide them up past her ankles and on towards her knees, every inch a sensual torment as her eyes followed them all the way. ‘Pretty is lace and flowers and pink and white. This scrap of nothingness is something else entirely!’
‘That’s far enough,’ she said hurriedly, embarrassed all over again when her voice ended on a squeak. ‘I can manage from there,’ she assured him, and he gave another sigh and shook his head.
‘What’s next, then?’ he asked, nearly catching her settling the slender elastic straps over her hips.
‘Those trousers, please.’ She pointed at the silky pile on the corner of the bed. ‘You might need to feed them up my legs a little way before I can stand up without treading on the bottoms of them.’
‘Hey,’ he said brightly as he got the job right the first time. ‘I’ve just realised that this is good practice for when I’m helping those children in there to learn how to dress.’
And that was just the reminder she’d needed, she told herself when she was sitting in his car a few minutes later.
It had been absolute agony to try to keep some distance between them on the way down the stairs when she had needed his help every step of the way, but that was what she’d had to do. It had been so wonderful to slip into the light-hearted banter that had been so much a part of their relationship, even in those early days, but that was all in the past.
She couldn’t believe what the two of them had been doing up in her room. They’d almost been flirting with each other and there was no excuse for that. Dan was a married man and he was married to her sister. To allow anything to happen between them would be the worst sort of betrayal and she just couldn’t be a part of it.
The trouble was, her love for him hadn’t died when he’d married Zara, no matter how much she’d prayed that it would. Yes, he was the father of the babies she carried and, yes, she would love nothing better than that he would be at her side as together they guided them through childhood and into adulthood, but it wasn’t going to happen.
