Her shoulders were shaking with silent sobs and she couldn’t stop them.
This was crazy.
But maybe she should cut herself some slack.
She’d hardly slept since she’d received the news last week. The journey here had been arduous—where were decent connections when you needed them? Victoir had bombarded her with information she’d had no hope of getting her head around but she knew she had to. And then the dark, the bang, the shock and the loss of blood. She was overtired, overwrought, drugged and still in pain. And finally here was Leo, looking at her like she was something the cat had dragged in.
Leo, whom she’d once loved with all her heart.
She was buried under a wad of tissues but she needed more. She made a desperate swipe for the box but she didn’t connect.
And then a wad of dry tissues was tucked into her hand. The sodden ones were removed.
She could hardly thank him. She blew her nose again and struggled to stop the stupid tears.
Everything was shaking.
Stupid drugs. Stupid head. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
And then there was a heavy sigh and she felt a weight on the side of her bed. And arms came around her and gathered her into a warm, strong hug.
It needed only this.
The sensible part of Anna should react with horror. Sensible Anna should shove him away, tell him to take his prejudiced, judgemental self anywhere but here. The sensible part of Anna would…what? Walk out of here, bloodstained and woozy. Call Victoir to come get her?
But right now the sensible part of Anna wasn’t big enough to mount a coherent argument. The rest of her was mush, and that mush was being held fast by arms she knew.
She was being held against a chest she loved.
She didn’t love. She didn’t! But right now she needed. She let herself fold against him, feeling the strength of his arms, the warmth, the solidness.
He was wearing a clinical coat, a bit stiff. It felt okay. More, it felt good. Medicine and Leo, they were a solid combination of safety, surety. Home…
Where had that word come from? Home was England, the dogs, her village, her people.
She could feel his heart beating. Strong. Steady. Leo.
The shaking was easing. Whatever was happening, this helped. She had no strength to draw away and she didn’t want to. Drug-free medicine… A hug…
She let her mind stop its useless spinning and focus on just being held.
By Leo.
There was no pressure. He didn’t push her away, even as her sobs subsided. He simply sat and held her, letting her take as much time as she needed to get herself back together.
Letting her take as much comfort as she needed.
And she did need it. She didn’t want to draw back.
This was an illusion, a memory of times past, a comfort that shouldn’t be any kind of comfort at all.
Oh, but he felt…
‘Dressing tray.’ The female voice… Maria’s?…came from the doorway. And then there was an apologetic reaction as the nurse saw what was happening. ‘Whoops, sorry, back in a moment.’
‘It’s okay.’ Finally—to her regret—Leo pulled back. ‘Bring it in, Maria. Anna, are we all right to get these stitches in?’
‘I… Of course.’ The tears were gone. She was bloodstained, puffy-eyed and mortified, but somehow she hauled together what was left of her rag-tailed dignity. ‘Stitches and then twelve hours of obs and I’m out of here.’
‘That’s what we both want,’ Leo said, and, comfort or not, the old resentments surged back.
This man was her treating doctor. She needed him to help her. He’d comforted her with a hug.
She still wanted to slap him.
IT WAS A long night, and it wasn’t just medical need that made it so.
The sweet-eating toddler and Anna’s laceration were the last simple cases Leo saw. The birth Carla was attending did turn into a Caesarean and a dicey one at that. Greta was diabetic. She’d been desperate to have a natural delivery, had persuaded Carla to let her try, but by the time they’d bailed out her sugar levels had been all over the place. Carla took over the baby’s care and Leo was left trying to stabilise mum.
Then there were three injured teens from a street brawl. It wasn’t unusual. The kids here were bored. There were few jobs and little to aspire to.
And the woman responsible was in his hospital.
That wasn’t fair, he conceded as the night wore on. He snatched a couple of hours’ sleep but it was a disturbed rest, interspersed with thoughts of Anna. She hadn’t personally been responsible for her family’s greed.
But she was now. That one person could inherit such wealth, controlling the misery of so many lives… It made something inside him cold with fury, an anger he’d carried all his life.
Dawn saw him back on the wards. The teens were safe, their injuries relatively minor. Knife wounds, bruising, a couple of fractures, but he could cope with those. Ideally one of the boys should be sent to an orthopaedic surgeon, but where were the funds for that? He’d have to balance cost to the family against using the skills he had.
Breakfast was a fast cruise past the hospital kitchen. Carla found him there. She’d been home and slept. She was sixty but she usually chirped like she was about twenty years younger than Leo felt. This morning she was rubbing her temple, though, and looking tired.
‘Headache?’
‘I need aspirin,’ she conceded. ‘Though why I should have a headache when it’s you who was up most of the night… Rough?’
He nodded, swigging lukewarm coffee. If there was one thing he wanted more than anything it was to replace the coffee machine.
A new steriliser for Theatre came first. There were always things that came first.
‘No deaths?’ Carla queried, and he wondered if that was how he looked. Maybe. Anna’s arrival had jolted his world.
‘No one’s dead,’ he told her. ‘Though there are three kids who tried. Knives, alcohol…’ He shook his head. ‘Seventeen years old and not a job or a prospect between them. It’s a disaster, Carla.’
‘So talk to the heiress.’
‘You know the rules. The money’s tied up in the castle. Even if I could persuade her…’
‘You
