was packed. Even Eileen looked frazzled by the end of the night. Chris Andrews looked positively grey with fatigue when Beth bumped into him on her way to the office.
‘What a night!’ he declared. ‘Don’t folk know that it’s summer and that coughs, colds and other such nasties should have been left well behind by now?’
Beth smiled sympathetically. ‘It’s hard to believe that we could have an outbreak of flu at this time of the year. It’s the start of the hay fever season soon.’
‘Which means more running eyes and stuffy noses.’ Chris sounded really downhearted. ‘Sometimes I feel like packing in this job and going off beachcombing. There has to be more to life than this!’
‘It should get better now that Adam is here,’ she said, trying to sound encouraging because she could tell that Chris was down in the dumps.
‘It should. I only wish he was staying here on a permanent basis, but this isn’t his scene at all.’ Chris shrugged when she looked at him. ‘Adam has itchy feet and I can’t see him ever settling down in any one place. He prefers the nomadic life—no ties, no commitments other than to his work. Mind you, I’m starting to think he has the right idea. I must have been mad to opt for the life of a GP!’
Chris didn’t appear to expect her to say anything, thankfully enough. Beth went into the office and checked her list for the following morning, but she couldn’t help thinking about what she had just heard. Not that it had come as a surprise. She had guessed a long time ago that Adam Knight was the type of man who avoided any kind of commitment. It made it that more difficult to assess how he would react to what she had to tell him.
It was a worrying thought but she tried to put it out of her head as she went up to the flat and changed out of her uniform. She was a little later than usual so she didn’t waste time as she slipped on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then pulled the pins out of her hair and quickly ran her fingers through it.
The gleaming red-gold strands swirled around her shoulders as she opened the back door, catching the last rays of evening sunlight. The light was so bright that her eyes were momentarily dazzled when she stepped onto the balcony and she didn’t see the man who was sitting on the bench. It was only when he spoke that she realised he was there.
‘Hello, Beth. I wonder if you could spare me a minute.’
She gasped and pressed a hand to her racing heart. ‘You scared the wits out of me, Adam!’
‘Sorry.’ He stood up and looked pointedly at the door. ‘Perhaps we could go back inside?’
Beth swallowed hard, wondering what it was about the way he was looking at her that made her feel so nervous. ‘I was just on my way out. Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid not. We’ve wasted most of a day as it is.’ He sat back down on the bench although his eyes never left her face. ‘It was you who phoned me this morning, wasn’t it? I wish I had recognised your voice sooner but I was still rather hungover from the flight.’
He treated her to a cool smile when she didn’t reply. ‘If you’re wondering how I discovered it had been you calling then you have the wonders of modern technology to thank. I’d forgotten to set the answering machine before I left this morning, you see. A stupid mistake, bearing in mind I was hoping that the airline would phone about my missing baggage.
‘Anyway, I checked to see if there had been any calls by dialling one-four-seven-one, and there’d been just the one, first thing this morning. Aunt Mary keeps a list of numbers by the phone and, lo and behold, there it was—the number for the surgery flat. The bit of the puzzle I can’t solve is why you were phoning me. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you did say that we hadn’t met before today?’
‘No we hadn’t, but I…I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a while,’ she admitted shakily.
‘I see. And are you going to tell me why? Or are we going to skirt around it for another day?’ He laughed hollowly. ‘I told you earlier that I had a feeling there was something I was missing. You denied it then but I do hope that you aren’t going to try and deny it now?’
Her face stung at the mockery she heard in his voice. Maybe he didn’t realise how difficult this was for her but she resented the fact that he saw fit to ridicule her. ‘I apologise for lying to you. My only excuse is that it was a shock to have you turning up like that.’
She stared defiantly at him. ‘As I told you before, I had no idea that you had any connections with the surgery. Claire never told me that.’
‘Ah, yes, Claire. Funny how it all seems to come back to her. This is all to do with your sister, isn’t it?’
He leant forward and Beth could see the tension that had grooved deep lines on either side of his mouth. ‘I guessed that as soon as I worked out that it had been you phoning me this morning. It’s the only link you and I have. I knew your sister very well at one time, Beth, as you know. However, I haven’t seen her in years. So what possible reason could you have for seeking me out after all this time?’
Beth could feel her heart racing. The drumming beat was making her feel sick. So much hinged on how Adam took what she had to tell him that she was scared to death in case she made a mess of it.
She stared into his deep blue eyes, realising how familiar they were. Such a wonderful shade of blue, the thick black lashes that framed them simply highlighting the intensity of their colour…
She swung round and hurried back inside the flat then went straight to her bedroom. Adam was still sitting exactly where she had left him when she went outside again. The sun was lower in the sky now and his face was partly in shadow. It made it difficult to gauge his expression but she drove all thought of how he might react from her mind. She had to tell him the truth, no matter what happened afterwards!
‘I want you to take a look at this,’ she said huskily, her voice quavering because the tension was almost palpable at that moment. She handed him the photograph then turned away, not wanting to see his reaction.
The sky was red and purple now, streaked with gold along the horizon as the sun slid from the sky. Maybe Claire was looking down on them from that sea of glorious colour, and if she was then Beth prayed that her sister would understand why she had no choice but to break her word.
‘Who is she?’
She heard the tremor in his voice and her heart ached because she knew instinctively that he was going to find her answer painful. Maybe he had suspected why Claire had asked to see him all those years ago, but it was one thing to dismiss a suspicion and another to ignore a fact. There was a gentleness in her voice when she replied that she hadn’t expected to hear there because suddenly she cared how he took this news, cared not just because of Hannah but because of Adam himself.
‘Her name is Hannah and she’s six years old. She’s Claire’s daughter.’
She heard his swift intake of breath but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t let herself think of anything else at that moment except what had to be done. ‘She’s your daughter, too, Adam.’
Afterwards, she was never sure if the silence had lasted only in her imagination. It seemed to run on and on yet even though she was physically aching to say something, she couldn’t break it. She needed Adam to speak first so that she could decide how to handle the situation from that point on.
‘I
