Hijacked Honeymoon

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RYAN was away for five days.

For those five days Abbey hardly had time to blink. She was thrust back into her old workload with a vengeance.

Steve Pryor was undergoing massive reconstruction of his thigh. He wouldn’t lose his leg, but it would take months before he was able to use it in anywhere near a normal fashion.

Caroline, the night sister who’d spent the day at the beach with him, travelled to Brisbane so there’d be someone with him during major surgery. It turned out Steve had no family. Caroline was it. And, by the look of her haggard face as she arrived back in Sapphire Cove, Abbey knew Caroline wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘He’s such an owl,’ Caroline sniffed into Abbey’s arms. ’Such a gentle, loving person. And he saved those kids. I don’t think I can bear it.’

‘You’re in love with him,’ Abbey said on a note of discovery, and that produced more sniffs and a fast retreat into a handkerchief.

‘Yes. but now… I mean it all happened so fast. I only went out with him the once and how’s he supposed to believe I love him already? And now he’s in Brisbane and I’m here and he was only here on a locum anyway and I’m never going to see him again.’

‘Let’s see what Steve has to say about that when he’s feeling a bit better.’ Abbey smiled. And then asked what she most wanted to know. ‘Now, tell me. How’s Leith? Is Ryan still with her?’

Caroline hauled herself together and blew her nose. And managed a watery smile.

‘Dr Henry assisted at the operation. The surgeons down there asked him to. Oh, Dr Wittner, they think he’s wonderful. No one thought she’d walk again but there’s some new technique Dr Henry knew was being trialled.

‘The surgeons here did a video conferencing session with some of Dr Henry’s colleagues in the States-paediatric orthopaedic surgeons, the best in the world. Dr Henry organised it so it seemed like they were actually in the theatre while they were operating on Abbey. And now they say there’s a really good chance she will walk.’

Well, well.

Abbey took it all in and hugged it against her heart. It helped. It helped that even if she couldn’t marry Ryan the Ryan she knew and loved was still going strong.

She was proud of him. She ached for him. She loved him.

It had to be shoved aside for the moment. There’d be time to be really miserable later. There were all sorts of after-effects from the accident on the beach. Paul, the child who’d been riding the jet ski, had been admitted to hospital, suffering from shock, and it would take all her skills to pull him out of it without serious emotional scars. His parents were almost as bad. Basically good-hearted people, they were deeply distressed at what had happened.

The police sergeant wasn’t helping. He wanted blood, and when Abbey counselled him strongly about taking it further he broke down and wept and needed help himself.

The small child with the gashed arm was the least of her worries. Wendy was proud of her stitches but her parents were upset. Then the local school teacher wanted Abbey to come and speak to the children at assembly as the children were desperate to know what was going on.

And there was her ordinary hospital work. Abbey asked the farmers to take over her cows again and Marcia kept on helping with Jack, but still she finished each day exhausted. And missing Ryan.

Janet was still recovering, following her exercise regime with stoic determination. With reason.

On the fifth day after the accident Abbey walked into Janet’s ward to find her sitting up in bed with Sam at her side. That didn’t surprise her. Sam had been a constant visitor. What did surprise her were the silly grins on both of their faces. They sat hand in hand on the bed and they looked for all the world like two teenagers caught having an illicit cuddle.

Abbey lifted her eyebrows and smiled a query.

‘Sorry, guys. You want me to come back later?’

‘No.’ Janet blushed and looked at Sam. And blushed again.

‘We have something to say to you,’ Sam said seriously. And it was his turn to turn pink.

And Abbey knew.

‘You want to ask for Janet’s hand in marriage,’ she said in delight. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Well…’ Sam’s smile deepened in quiet satisfaction. ‘I should ask someone.’

‘Have you asked Janet?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she said?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said bluntly. ‘She said she’ll marry me if you’ll marry Ryan.’

Abbey frowned. ‘I like the marriage idea,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t agree with the if part of the deal. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘That’s what I told her,’ Sam said, ‘but she won’t leave you by yourself.’

‘I’m not by myself.’ Abbey took a deep breath. ‘So… you two love each other?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said firmly, and put his arm around Janet’s waist. ‘We do.’

‘Then I’m walking out of here right now and announcing it to the world,’ Abbey told them. ‘Sam and Janet are getting married. And there’s no conditions applying. Not one!’

She hugged them both. ‘And don’t you dare stuff this up by stupid quibbles, Janet Wittner,’ she ordered. ‘You’ve got your Sam. And I have my little Jack. I won’t be lonely.’

Only it wasn’t quite true. Jack was here, but anywhere without Ryan was lonely.

Where was he? He’d been away for five days. Why didn’t he return?

Half of her was starting to think that the next thing they’d hear from Ryan would be a phone call from New York to say that his career had reclaimed him, and it was time to get on with his life.

At two the next morning someone knocked hard on Abbey’s door.

Abbey flicked on her bedside light and looked blearily at the clock. Two?

People telephoned in an emergency. They didn’t come here.

For a moment she felt a pang of alarm. This little cottage was set back far from the road and, apart from Jack, she was alone. Still, if it was an emergency…

She hauled a wrap around her flimsy nightgown, went to the door and opened it a crack.

Ryan.

She shut it again. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

‘Abbey!’

‘Go away, Ryan Henry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s two in the morning. I’m not… I’m not dressed to receive visitors.’

‘I’m not a visitor. I’m me.’

‘Ryan…’

‘Twenty years ago, when I came at midnight to take you turtle-hunting, you never had maidenly quibbles.’

‘You want to go turtle-hunting?’ she demanded with her back to the door, and Ryan laughed.

‘No, Abbey, I don’t. I’m looking for something much more precious. Let me in.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I love you.’

Silence.

The words echoed round and round Abbey’s little living room.

This was dangerous.

‘Ryan…’

‘Abbey, I’m not here to demand you leave everything you love,’ Ryan pleaded. ‘I promise. Let me in.’

Abbey took a deep breath. This was mad. Crazy. But there was nothing else to do but let him in.

She’d expected to open the door and have him sedately step inside. No such thing. She opened the door an inch, it was shoved wide with ruthless force and she was swept right up into Ryan’s arms and kissed so thoroughly that there was no possible way she could protest.

And after the first millisecond she didn’t try.

Abbey wound her arms around his neck and kissed him right back.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

But sense was for tomorrow. Crazy was for now.

Ryan was for now.

He swung her round and round the room, his kiss intensifying as he whirled. Abbey was laughing and dizzy and so madly in love her feet wouldn’t have touched the ground even if she’d been standing.

There was only Ryan. There was only this love.

And finally-somehow-they were in her bedroom, falling onto the soft covers. And Ryan’s mouth left off claiming hers. He lay with Abbey in his arms and he pulled away so he could see her. His hand reached up and switched off the bedlight and there was only the light from the full moon, glimmering onto the land and through the open window from the sea.

‘Woman, you are driving me crazy,’ Ryan groaned. ‘You know that? Five days… Five days since I’ve seen you and I haven’t had you out of my head for one minute. Abbey, you must marry me. To save my sanity, you must… ’ And he hauled her tighter to him, tighter-until his need was her need and the world was fusing in a mist of love and desire and the coming together of two people who were right for each other.

But they weren’t. They couldn’t be.

Somehow Abbey made herself push away. She held Ryan at arm’s length and she looked into his eyes in the dim light. And what she saw there told her that she was truly loved.

But it wasn’t enough.

In the next bedroom lay her little boy. And there was a hospital five minutes down the road that depended on her. And Janet?

No. Janet had sorted out her own loneliness. But there was no way Abbey could find the same happiness.

‘Ryan, this is crazy. We can’t…’ Her breath broke on a sob. ‘I can’t…’

‘You can.’ Ryan’s hand held her and he smiled-a smile that made her heart do crazy things inside her breast. ‘Abbey, for the past five days I’ve been thinking. Really thinking. Leith’s injury…’

‘Leith…’

‘It’s touch and go whether she’ll walk again.’ Ryan told her. ‘She needs expert rehabilitation. More than just swimming lessons now. And I thought, if I went back to the States I’d never know that it was done properly. I’d walk away and it would be up to others to see that she had the right treatment.’

‘But-’

‘Hush,’ he told her. ‘Listen. Over the past five days, I’ve been seeing Sapphire Cove at its best. I’ve watched how surrounded Leith’s parents have been.

‘And Steve… He’s down there in Brisbane and he has no family at all but I don’t think there’s a family in Sapphire Cove who haven’t sent him flowers or chocolates or fruit or something! The local primary-school children have sent him pictures to decorate his walls. His bedroom’s packed, he’s touched to the core and he wants to come back.

‘Steve’s been a loner all his life, trying to find roots, and he’s found them here. He wants to work here.’

‘What-permanently?’

‘Yes. He wants to marry Caroline and stay here.’

‘Are you saying I could go because of that?’ Abbey asked slowly. ‘Go with you? To the States?’

‘No.’ He kissed her then, lightly, on the nose. ‘I’m not. At first that’s what I thought but then… the more I thought about it the more jealous I grew. Jealous of Steve. His decision seemed so right. To stay here with the woman he loved. To live long term in a community like this. To bring his kids up where they could hunt for turtles.’

‘S-so?’

‘So, if it’s OK with you, I’ll rearrange my life,’ Ryan said seriously. ‘Steve and I have it figured.’

‘Steve and you…’

‘Steve and I. And my co-researchers in the States. The reason I’ve come here so late is that this is the only reasonable time I can talk to New York and I’ve been trying to organise everything so I can hand you a deal on a platter.’ He hauled her close again and kissed her.

‘A deal, Abbey Rhodes. Abbey Wittner. Abbey soon-to-be-Henry. You want to hear my deal? It’s taken me days and days to organise it so it’s worth a listen.’

And he kissed her again, so deeply that there was no way in the wide world that she could hear anything at all.

Then he managed to pull away. Ryan was laughing down at her in the moonlight, triumphant and loving. And Abbey’s heart was turning somersault after somersault, so fast she could hardly breathe.

‘Want to hear?’ he demanded again, and Abbey managed a shaken laugh.

‘Oh, Ryan, of course I want to hear. Of course.’

‘My plan is this.’ He held her at arm’s length and groaned. ‘Hell, Abbey, stop looking so damned beautiful. I can’t make myself think here.’

‘Think,’ she told him severely. ‘You need a bucket of cold water, Ryan Henry.’ Then she reached out and touched him on the lips with her finger. And laughed with joy. ‘I need a bucket of cold water myself. Tell me fast, Ryan,’ she begged. ‘Fast.’

‘I’m moving here to live. Permanently.’

That stopped her. The laughter died.

‘Ryan, you can’t,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Your career…’ She shook her head. ‘Ryan, you’d be like me in the States. A fish out of water.’

‘Nope.’ He pulled her to him again and kissed her hair. ‘Not a fish out of water.’ He held her close and spoke thickly into her curls. ‘It’s all organised. Steve’s interested in my research areas. He’s bright and young and keen as mustard. Cairns is only an hour and a half away and it has an international airport. We’re going to keep on with our research. I’m going to keep on with my teaching commitments in the States-via video conferencing.

‘I’ll be working here with Steve, intermittently in Cairns and Brisbane, and twice a year I’ll have to fly back to the States for two-week stints at the hospital where I’m based now. But ninety per cent of the time I’ll be based here, Abbey Wittner. Here!’

‘But… but how?’

‘The world is getting smaller,’ Ryan told her, holding her close. ‘With video conferencing, the Internet, e-mail-hell. Abbey, I spend my life in the States on the end of a modern, talking to doctors two rooms away. Now I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll be half a world away.

‘And I’ll keep my feet on the ground by indulging in a little general practice. As will Steve. So, between us, we’ll give Sapphire Cove three part-time doctors. You and me and Steve. And we’ll all five happily ever after.’

Then the laughter in his voice died and his eyes became a trace uncertain. Anxious. ‘How does that sound, my lovely Abbey? Will it work? Will you mind me going back to the States-leaving you for two weeks twice a year? I’ll give up my research if I must-to win you. If it’s not enough.’

‘Oh, Ryan…’

‘Tell me, Abbey.’

‘No,’ Abbey said breathlessly, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. ‘It’s not enough, Ryan Henry. Eleven months of a year are not enough as a basis for a marriage…’

‘Abbey…’

‘I’ll only marry you on one condition, Ryan Henry,’ Abbey murmured joyfully, and she put her arms around him and held him close. So close she thought she’d never let him go again. Not ever.

‘Condition?’ Ryan’s voice was slurred by love and desire. Abbey’s body was curled into his and his hands were sliding under her wrap. Feeling the delicious contours of her body. Pulling her against him.

A man and a woman, becoming one.

‘On condition that when you go back to the States for your month every year I’m going too,’ Abbey told him. ‘Me and Jack. Your family. Whither thou goest, I go, my love. My home is your home, Ryan Henry. My heart is your heart.’

Ryan closed his eyes. In any man’s life there should be this pinnacle of joy, he told himself. This was it. This was the moment he’d been waiting for all his life, and now he was here he couldn’t believe he’d reached it.

‘You want to wake Jack?’ he asked, and his voice was as unsteady as he’d ever heard it. As unsure. ‘Tell him he’s got a new daddy?’

But Abbey was shaking her head and her hands were moving down… down… In a gesture of pure wifely possession.

‘Let’s not,’ she whispered as her fingers found what they were looking for.

‘Let’s do something else.’