thinking about that right now.
Not when she was clutching the lapels of his jacket as if she could tug him into her very soul.
He angled his head, thrusting a little deeper into the heat of her mouth. Maybe they should just forget about the cold park and head back to the warmth of his cottage and the heat they’d find in his bed. There were taxis on practically every corner.
That was what he wanted: to have her. In bed. Skin to skin. With nothing between them but fire and raw need.
Just as he was getting ready to edge back enough to ask her to go with him, the sound of voices broke through the haze of passion.
Not Anna’s voice, but someone else’s. Close enough that he could tell they were man and woman.
Annabelle beat him to the punch, pulling back so suddenly that it left him reeling for a few seconds. She glanced at him and he looked back at her. They both smiled. Young medical students caught necking. It had happened before, when they’d been dating. Only that had been a police officer, who’d not been quite as amused by their antics.
‘Caught again,’ he murmured.
‘So it would seem.’
He looked over to see who was walking past and his smile died, icy fingers walking up his spine. It was indeed a man and a woman, but they were pushing a pram. Bundles and bundles of blankets were piled on top of what had to be a young infant. And their faces.
God. They were happy. Incredibly happy.
His gaze went back to Anna’s to find that all colour had drained from her skin, leaving her pasty white. The young man threw them a smile and a quick hello.
Somehow Max managed to croak something back, but the mood was spoiled. He could tell by Anna’s reaction that she’d been thrown back to the tragedy that had been their shared past. At least that was what he took her stricken gaze to mean—the way her hungry eyes followed that pram as it went past and disappeared into the darkness.
His teeth gritted together several times before he had the strength to stand up and say what needed to be said. ‘I think we’ve both had a little too much to drink. Maybe it’s time to call it a night.’
Anna’s one glass of wine and his two weightier beverages did not constitute drunkenness by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you considered being drunk on memories of the past as over-imbibing. It had to be all the reminiscing they’d done in the restaurant and the way her face had softened as she’d looked across the table at him. He’d always had trouble resisting her, and tonight was no exception. After one smile, he’d been putty in her hands. But he’d better somehow figure out how to put a stop to whatever was happening between them before one of them got hurt.
He’d opened his heart to her once before only to have it diced into tiny pieces and handed back to him. Never again. He would do whatever it took to keep that stony organ locked in the vault of his chest.
Far out of reach of her or anyone else.
‘I JUST HEARD. There’s a heart. Get to the hospital.’
It took several seconds before a still-groggy Annabelle realised who was on the phone and what he was talking about. Once she did, she leaped to her feet, glancing at the clock on her nightstand to see what time it was. Three a.m.
Once a donor organ was located time was of the essence. It had to be transplanted within hours. ‘I’m on my way.’
Scurrying around as fast as she could, she found clothes and shoved her limbs into them, not worrying about how she looked other than a quick brush of her teeth and putting her hair up into a high ponytail. Then she was out of the door and on her way to Teddy’s. It was pitch black as she pulled her car out onto the roadway, and there were almost no other vehicles out this late. Blinking the remaining sleep from her eyes, she thought about the tasks she needed to do once she arrived.
Max evidently wasn’t at the hospital yet, since he’d said he’d just heard. Which meant they’d tracked him down at home. Wherever that was.
Last night after that disastrous kiss, he’d seen her home in a taxi, before giving her a tight wave as the driver pulled away. What had she been thinking letting him kiss her?
Letting him? More like her yanking him to her as tightly as she could. Once his lips had made contact with hers, he’d have been hard pressed to get away from her. She’d been that desperate to have him keep kissing her on into eternity.
Only that hadn’t happened.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. No, that couple with the baby had walked by ruining everything. It hadn’t been their fault, nor could they have known that Max’s face had hardened instantly, reverting back to the mask she remembered from the end of their marriage. Was he remembering how badly he’d wanted what she couldn’t deliver? No, he’d told her he no longer wanted children—maybe he didn’t want to see reminders of what could have been.
And the way he’d looked at her after the young couple had walked away...
As if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. He’d pulled her up from that bench so fast her head had spun. And no mention of when they would see each other again.
They wouldn’t, obviously. Not outside the hospital. Or outside surgical suites. Last night had been a mistake. A remnant of embers long since extinguished. Except for one tiny spark...
Wasn’t that what he’d called it? A spark?
Why had he even called her about the heart? He could have operated on Hope in the middle of the night, and she would have known nothing about it until the next morning. Had he been worried about how upset she would be that he hadn’t told her?
Or was it simply the courtesy of a doctor to another member of a patient’s medical team?
That was probably it.
Well, it didn’t do any good to think about it now. This call was what Annabelle had been waiting for during the past two weeks. News that this particular baby might have a chance to live and grow.
She could put aside any discomfort working beside Max might bring. He and Sienna were both top in their field. She halfway wondered if the other doctor would be performing the transplant surgery. But Sienna had turned the case over to Max. Which meant he would be doing it.
Would he let her in the operating room? She wasn’t a surgical nurse, but she had done a rotation in the surgical suite. And she wanted to be there for Hope, even though the baby would have no idea she was there. And wouldn’t care.
She reached the hospital and made her way to the staff car park area. From the looks of the empty spaces, people still hadn’t recovered from the virus. Hopefully Max would be able to find enough healthy bodies to be able to perform the surgery in the middle of the night. Well, by the time things were all prepped, it would probably be closer to six o’clock in the morning. Still early, but not so far out that it would be hard to talk people into coming in to assist.
Hurrying to the main entrance, she was surprised to find Max waiting for her. ‘I
