to him from that day’s newspaper, hoping that the sound of her voice would bring him back. And sometimes she’d just sat and stared at him, mulling everything over in her head, thinking of where they’d gone wrong and how she could fix it. Imagining the day he would wake—the day his eyelids would flutter open and he would see her, sitting by his bedside like a sentinel. How he would smile and say her name, reach out slowly for her hand and kiss her fingertips...
Okay, so maybe she lived in a fantasy land at times, but surely a touch of escapism had never hurt anyone.
‘Sam?’ So much hope, so much need was in the pitch of her voice.
Her husband lay in bed, his face pale and relaxed against pure white starched hospital pillows, his blue eyes slowly opening, wincing at the light in the room before fixing his gaze upon her.
And smiling!
It’s been too long since you smiled at me like that...
It was like when they’d first been going out. The way he would look at her as if he was already in love with her. As if she was pure joy for him. Had no faults. Had not driven him crazy yet with endless requests to start a family. Okay, maybe not crazy, but she had tried to start that conversation lots of times. In the end even she had refused to talk. It had been too hard. Their conversations would always somehow end in arguments, and it had been easier just not to talk at all. She’d feared what would happen if they did.
Perhaps that had been a bad thing to do. Shutting down their communication. But she’d been trying to protect their relationship. She hadn’t wanted it to end.
Sucking in a breath, she rushed to his side, dropping her bag on the floor, not caring as she reached for his outstretched hand, stooping down to kiss him, feeling his bristles scrape her face as his lips met hers. Nothing mattered at that moment apart from the fact that he was alive. Awake. Back with her. She never wanted to go through those ten days ever again.
It didn’t matter that they’d been arguing. She was just happy that he was awake. Reacting. That he was looking at her and he was smiling and—
‘How are you feeling?’ She stroked his face, looking for clues, looking for any sign of discomfort that he might be trying to hide. Making sure that he wasn’t in any pain. Her professional skills as a nurse-midwife were coming to the fore.
‘Better for seeing you, Em,’ he croaked, squeezing her fingers, and she looked down at their entwined hands and smiled.
All those days she had sat holding his hands and he had never squeezed back. Never shown any sign of life in his fingers. They’d just lain there, limp. Breaking her heart. It felt so good to be touching him again. Gaining strength from him.
‘I’ve been so worried!’ She sat on the bed facing him and ran her thumb over the backs of his hands.
He closed his eyes briefly, as if he couldn’t stand the knowledge that she’d been so concerned for him. ‘The doc says we’ve been in a car accident?’
The confusion in his face was heart-rending, but Emily guessed that this was the amnesia that Dr Waters had mentioned. Sam couldn’t remember the crash. Sometimes people’s brains would exclude certain bad experiences or memories, to help prevent itself from feeling hurt. Like a safety mechanism. If that was all that had happened to him then they’d both got away from this lightly.
‘Yes.’
‘Were you hurt?’
The concern in his voice and the way his blue eyes darkened at the thought relieved her. He did care for her! He wasn’t angry at what had happened between them prior to this.
That was good, right? It took something like this to wake people up. To make them notice what was important in life. Each other. They were stronger together than they were apart. Even if they had been disagreeing. Giving each other the cold shoulder.
‘Not really. Just whiplash.’
He frowned. ‘Whiplash can be serious, Em. Have you been checked out by the doctors?’
He reached up to stroke her face, then his hand fell to her shoulders and neck to rub at her muscles, but he must be feeling tired because his hand dropped back to the bed, his eyes closing as he drifted in and out of sleep, before opening them again.
‘Look at me. Weak as a kitten.’
‘You need to rest. You’ve been out of it for ten days.’
‘Ten days?’ He looked upset.
‘They had to put you in an induced coma, Sam. Your brain got shook around in that hard skull of yours.’
He sighed and closed his eyes again and she realised with a sudden pang that he had drifted back to sleep. And she hadn’t had a chance to tell him their news, yet.
It can wait. It’s waited this long. What’s a few more hours?
Right now he was happy to see her. Relieved. All signs of their previous turmoil was gone. They were speaking to each other. Something they hadn’t done properly for weeks, and she’d missed that.
But it was odd, wasn’t it? That he should be so happy to see her? After the last few days of stony silences, the weeks of arguing and disagreement...
She liked it that he was being nice. Concerned about her whiplash, concerned about her health, but she wasn’t used to it. It was throwing her slightly.
Having to wait a little longer to deliver the news that she was pregnant was just fine. Because she had no idea how he would react to that. Probably not very well, and then they would be back to being at war with each other. She didn’t mind holding off on that for a while.
She liked what they had right now, thank you very much. The talking. The concern for each other’s wellbeing. The holding hands.
Emily stared at his hand in hers, lifted it to her mouth and kissed it, inhaling the scent of him, breathing it in like vital oxygen. Then she got up off the bed and settled into her usual chair, staring long and hard at her husband.
She was getting him back. He’d smiled at her!
She felt sure there was a chance...all this just might be okay.
* * *
Sam slowly came to. He had a wicked headache, but he appeared to be still in hospital, attached to God only knew how many wires and monitors and, beside him, her head slumped to her shoulder, asleep, was his beautiful fiancée Emily.
She looked tired. Exhausted, even. Her face was a little pale beneath wave upon wave of that gorgeous hair of hers. But then he assumed she would be. Hadn’t she, or someone, told him that he’d been out of it for ten days? After some accident he couldn’t even recall?
Ten days. What had he missed? Probably nothing too much. That serial he’d been watching on television had been scheduled to show its last episode the other week, so probably that. There was still another month or so before Emily’s birthday, so thankfully not that. He had a big surprise planned. He was hoping to take her to Las Vegas.
It was strange, though. Only ten days and he could swear that her hair seemed longer. A little more sun-bleached. Those honey tones were brighter than normal.
