that it had to be Aidan who had sent the flowers. The cynical choice of blooms, deliberately matching the ones that had made up her wedding bouquet, and the delivery planned for the exact time of the aborted wedding service a year ago had left no room for hope that they could have been from anyone else. But, after all this time, how could he be so cruel, so vindictive? How he must hate her—and all over one rather silly, thoughtless declaration!
‘I’ll take these to the hospital tonight,’ she said stiffly, knowing that to keep the bouquet in the house would be more than she could bear. ‘Someone there will appreciate them.’
‘But...’ Gary looked bewildered, his frown one of confusion. ‘They were meant for you—to wish you a happy...’
‘They weren’t meant to wish me a happy anything, Gary. And right now I’ve got too much on my plate to concern myself with the fact that today’s my birthday.’
Wearily she ran a hand through her hair, raking the blue-black strands back from a face that strain had made pale and drawn.
‘Mum’s staying at the hospital again, so it’ll just be you and me for supper tonight. But it’ll have to be something out of the freezer, I’m afraid. I haven’t got time to make anything from scratch before Jim comes to pick me up for another stint at Dad’s bedside.’
‘Is there any change?’ Her brother’s voice was sharp with anxiety. ‘Any sign of Dad coming out of the coma?’
‘None, I’m afraid, sweetie.’
The sight of Gary’s troubled face, his teeth digging hard into his lower lip and his eyes suspiciously bright, had India moving to his side. Gently she put one hand on his arm, knowing from past experience that the small gesture was all the sympathy his spiky young masculinity could accept at the moment.
All thought of the hateful bouquet was pushed from her mind. Instead, her thoughts were filled by the memory of the scene she had just left in the hospital—the hushed atmosphere of the intensive care unit, the machines and tubes attached to her father’s motionless body.
‘But he is breathing on his own, at least—that’s something. All we can do is wait.’
‘But they’ve said that for days now!’ Gary’s voice was rough with distress. His father’s stroke had devastated him, and he had found it difficult to come to terms with events.
‘I know, love.’
India’s green eyes were dull and clouded. Like Gary, she found it almost impossible to accept that her father—who, at barely fifty, she had believed still in the prime of life—could have been felled so completely by the illness that had struck without warning just a week ago.
‘But there’s nothing else to do. He’s in good hands, and all we can do is wait—and pray.’
Wait and pray. The words still echoed inside India’s head some hours later when, feeling physically and mentally drained, she arrived back at the Grange after yet another trip to the hospital.
‘Thanks for bringing me home, Jim.’ She sighed, turning with a tired smile to the man at the wheel of the car. ‘I don’t think I’d have been up to driving myself, so I really appreciate it.’
‘No trouble.’ James Hawthorne smoothed a tidying hand over the light brown hair that the breeze from an open window had ruffled as he smiled back at her, blue eyes warm. ‘You know I’m only too willing to help.’
India glanced towards the house, noting the darkened windows, the single light left burning in the hall.
‘It looks like Gary’s already gone to bed, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you in for coffee.’
‘Nothing to forgive,’ her companion returned easily as she pushed open her door. ‘I wouldn’t have accepted anyway. You look as if you need to get straight to bed.’
‘Oh, I do!’ India sighed. ‘I feel as if I could sleep for a week. Some birthday, huh?’
‘We’ll make up for it when things get better,’ James assured her. ‘Now, you get off and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
India was halfway out of the car when an impulse had her turning back and pressing a spontaneous kiss on his left cheek.
‘You’ve been so good to me. I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘No problem,’ was the smiling response. ‘You know I’d do anything for you. You only have to ask.’
From the look on his face it was plain that he wanted more than just the friendly kiss she had given him, and the realisation twisted her nerves sharply. Hastily she backed out of the car again, with rather more speed than grace.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Drive carefully, please.’
It wasn’t Jim’s fault that she couldn’t feel anything for him, India reflected sadly as she watched his car move off down the drive and disappear into the darkness of the night. She doubted if she could feel anything for any man ever again. Aidan Wolfe had cured her of that foolishness.
‘Oh, how sweet!’
‘What...?’
A sharp cry of shock escaping her, India jumped like a startled cat as a voice sounded suddenly from the deep shadows cast by the house.
‘“You’ve been so good to me”.’ The cynical tones echoed her words but gave them a dangerously different emphasis. ‘“I don’t know how to thank you”.’
After her initial panicked reaction, the sound of that terrifyingly familiar, husky intonation had India freezing in horror.
‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to thank him, won’t you, Princess?’
And the use of that once familiar teasing nickname drove all hope of redemption from her head. One person had invented that name for her, playing on the fact that India had once been part of the British empire, and only one person had ever used it—affectionately at first. It was only later that she had been able to see the other, less complimentary undertones in it.
There was no hope now that she could be mistaken, she told herself, turning slowly with a sense of dreary resignation. At last she found that her tongue had loosened enough for her to croak, ‘Hello, Aidan.’
He had been in her thoughts so much that if he had appeared as some unearthly apparition, conjured out of the air by her bleak memories earlier in the day, then she wouldn’t have been surprised. But, of course, Aidan Wolfe was solid flesh and bone, six feet two of toned muscle over a powerful frame. There was nothing in the least ethereal about him.
His feet were planted firmly on the stone flags that lay before the heavy wooden main door, his hands resting loosely on lean hips, his head slightly to one side. His whole stance was one of mocking challenge as his dark eyes, eyes that were just pools of black in the shadowed planes of his face, met her stunned green ones in open provocation.
‘What are you doing here?’
Aidan stepped forward into the light of the lamp that illuminated the courtyard. His smile was just a hateful, cruel curl of his lips that made her blood run cold.
