Hijacked Honeymoon

CHAPTER SIX

RYAN appeared at about nine the next morning with a youngish, scholarly man in tow. It didn’t take a genius to work out this was Ryan’s new locum. There was a stethoscope around the young man’s neck and an owlish look of anxiety on his face.

Abbey wasn’t in her ward. Ryan tracked her down in the children’s ward.

‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ Ryan glowered from the doorway and then relented enough to smile at the little girl in the bed. ‘Hi, Leith. Still feeling better?’

Leith Kinley managed a wan smile. She was a regular here. A chronic asthmatic, she’d been admitted into hospital more times than Abbey could remember, and each time her attacks seemed to worsen.

At the other end of the hospital, Abbey had slept though Leith’s admission last night, but the nurses had told her this morning that Ryan had had a hard time getting her stabilised.

Ryan had been up all night. Abbey wouldn’t have thought it to look at him now. He seemed bright and alert and raring to go.

‘Hey, Leith, I’ve brought another doctor for you to meet.’

Ryan gave Abbey a smile but he spoke directly to the little girl in the bed. Leith Kinley was terrified of her asthma attacks and, as Abbey watched the way Ryan treated her, she knew Ryan was aware of the child’s terror. ‘Leith, this is Dr Steve Pryor. Dr Pryor, this is Miss Leith Kinley and the lady beside her is an escapee from another ward, Dr Abbey Wittner.’

To Abbey’s astonishment and pleasure, Steve Pryor leaned over and solemnly shook Leith’s hand first

Amazing! A locum who treated patients-even child patients-as humans. And greeted them on a needs basis.

Where on earth had Ryan found someone like Steve? ‘Are you ready to go, Abbey?’ Ryan’s dangerous smile twinkled out ‘Or do I have to carry out my threat?’

‘Despite your threats, I’m going nowhere in a hospital gown,’ Abbey said with dignity, and Ryan nodded.

‘Of course not. There’s a dress on your bed. I chose it myself.’

‘You chose a dress…’

‘I mean, from your wardrobe,’ he said sanguinely. ‘Janet was busy supervising milking when I dropped in. You could go and put it on,’ he added politely.

Then Ryan turned back to Leith. Ignoring everyone else, he stooped and took Leith’s two little hands between his bigger ones while Abbey watched, still hornswoggled.

‘Leith, I know last night’s asthma attack scared you. It scared all of us. This morning I’ve been doing some hard thinking about how we can improve matters, and I’ve been talking to your mum and dad.’

This morning. Abbey glanced disbelievingly at her watch. Ryan had been up all night with an asthmatic child. He’d been out to the farm to find her a dress. Then he’d talked to an ill child’s parents and finally found time to meet a new doctor. All this by nine o’clock. Also she’d heard Ryan doing a ward round at about seven.

‘Your mum and dad agree that we need to do something more than just give you medicine,’ Ryan was saying. ‘Leith, we need to improve your lung capacity. Make your lungs bigger, if you like, so you can get more air.’

Leith frowned. ‘How do I do that?’ she whispered. ‘Swimming,’ Ryan said promptly. ‘And, if you agree, your first swimming lesson is this morning. I’m taking Dr Wittner to the beach and, if you like, you can come too. You can have a gentle swim with me showing you what to do to build your lungs, and then I’ll bring you back here.’

‘I can’t go home?’

‘I’ll bring you back to the hospital for lunch and a really good sleep. Then, if your breathing is OK, your mum and dad will take you home tonight. And we’ve agreed that your mum and dad will take you swimming every day for a month. After a month we’ll think about whether it’s doing you good or not.’

Abbey stared. She’d suggested this. First rule for asthmatics was to attempt to increase lung capacity. But Leith had been reluctant to try swimming lessons and Leith’s parents had always been adamant that they hadn’t time.

Something had changed.

Ryan had said Leith’s parents had agreed.

He’d bulldozed them, Abbey decided. He’d bulldozed them in the same way he bulldozed everyone else. He got his own way just by going in with force.

Well, it had worked. And something else had changed. Leith’s reluctance. Leith was looking up at Ryan with a tremulous smile. ‘I can go swimming with you now?’

‘With me and with Dr Wittner. And maybe with Dr Winner’s baby, Jack, and Jack’s grandma. Is that OK?’ Ryan turned to Abbey and pointed to his watch. ‘What are you hanging around here for, Dr Wittner? Be ready in five minutes or face the consequences.’

Ryan’s honeymoon retreat was the kind of paradise Abbey had never dreamed of.

The sign at the end of the beach road simply said ‘Bliss’, the word painted with small black lettering on a cream sign and discreetly tucked in between the coconut palms. Abbey had heard of this place, but had never been here. Few locals had, and for one good reason.

They couldn’t afford it.

From the time Ryan nosed his car into the wide, white sweep of the entrance the place screamed money at its most tasteful.

Reception was vast-a cavern of pale grey marble with great wooden ceiling fans, stirring the warm air straight from the sea, and huge cane chairs and settees with cushions that just begged to be sat on. The whole of Reception was open to the sea breeze, like a vast canopy. On one side was the white sandy road leading into the place. Once up the gracious, curving steps-assisted by doormen who knew just the right welcoming touch-all you could see was the sea.

Sapphire Cove was lovely, and ‘Bliss’ showed it off at its loveliest.

Abbey refused point blank to use the wheelchair Ryan produced. She hopped up the steps on crutches and gazed in awe out to sea as Ryan booked in. Even Reception wasn’t your standard hotel counter. A sleek and beaming lady, immaculately groomed and wonderfully welcoming, tactfully led Ryan to a small cane desk while Abbey and Leith gazed around in awe.

‘You wait until I tell my sister I’ve been here,’ Leith breathed. ‘One of the kids at school said his brother tried to come here and got kicked out. Oh, Doc Wittner, do you think Dr Henry can afford it?’

‘He must be able to,’ Abbey said doubtfully. ‘I wonder where Janet-’

‘They’re waiting for us in our villa,’ Ryan said, appearing at their elbow like a benevolent genie. He looked down at Abbey’s tight face in concern. ‘Are you tired? Would you like me to carry you?’

‘No. Ryan, we can’t… I can’t…’ Abbey gazed around in consternation. ‘Ryan, this place will cost you a mint. I can’t possibly pay you back for this.’

‘Maybe you already have,’ Ryan said gently, and he cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face, forcing her eyes up to meet his.

‘Abbey, we both practise medicine. You choose to practise here for peanuts, and because of you people like me are free to practise elsewhere for sums of money that would probably seem to you to be obscene. Quite simply, that’s what I earn, Abbey. It isn’t fair but that’s the way it is. As a doctor, you’ve cared for my father for the past four years, and I’m grateful. You work a damned sight harder than I do for a lot less. So shut up now and let me balance the books a little.’

And, without waiting for another protest, he simply swung her up in his arms and headed down the path towards the sea. ‘Come on, then, young Leith. Let’s see if we can hang ten before lunch.’

They didn’t hang ten. Hanging toes over the end of a surfboard here would have meant an immediate bellyflop into the water. Sheltered from open ocean by the Great Barrier Reef, the surf at Sapphire Cove was non-existent.

The water was as calm as a mill pond, but it was far more lovely than any mill pond could ever be. Sparkling blue and stretching on for ever…

The farmer who’d done the milking for Janet had, at Ryan’s request, brought Janet and Jack here straight afterwards. Janet met Abbey with a look of wonder. Abbey’s mother-in-law was so stunned that she was almost ready to enjoy herself. To Abbey’s astonishment, she donned a pair of faded black bathers and was the first to hit the water, whooping with a delight Abbey had never heard from her.

‘Ryan says I’m to enjoy myself or he’ll take you home,’ she told Abbey. She grinned. ‘And he says if you go home you’re headed for a breakdown. So, with a threat like that hanging over my head, what’s a woman to do?’ She abandoned her walking stick at the water’s edge, forgot her arthritic hip and prepared to follow orders to the letter. She and Jack whooped and splashed in the shallows like two children instead of one staid grandma with grandchild.

And Abbey?

Ryan showed her to their unit, which was right on the water’s edge and unbelievably luxurious, allowed her two minutes to change into her bathing costume and then carried her to the shoreline. Here he set her down in the shallows on a cut-away seat-a seat with no legs-and organised another seat for her foot to rest on. His coup de grâce was a large green garbage bag which he taped over her massive bandage.

‘There. You can’t get your bandage wet if you try.’

And then he was off, scooping up the wondering Leith and carrying the little girl out on her first ever serious swimming lesson.

Abbey was left with her mouth open. Stunned as a beached whale.

For a transformation, a genie in a bottle could hardly have done better. She gazed about her in awe. The beach resort was unobtrusively netted, way out There was no threat of marine stingers here. Janet was lying full length in the shallows, her grandson crowing in delight as he crawled all around her. It was impossible to tell who had the biggest smile, Janet or Jack.

And Leith… The wan little girl was listening seriously to what Ryan was telling her and then putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles. Not such a big deal maybe-but Abbey knew how frightened the little girl was of new experiences and she also knew Leith wasn’t accustomed to water.

All of them-Janet, Jack and Leith-were putting their trust absolutely in Ryan Henry. Ryan had told Janet she must drop her isolated grieving and here she was, doing just that. He’d told Leith to leave her terror behind and the child had obeyed.

And what of Abbey?

It was Tuesday morning, for heaven’s sake. If anyone had told Abbey the week before that this Tuesday she’d be lying on the beach with her feet up she would have laughed in disbelief. Yet here she was…

She lay back and watched them. Her Jack. Her beloved Janet.

Her Ryan.

The thought brought her up with a jolt.

What had her heart meant by that? It had been an involuntary thought but it stayed, insidious in its appeal.

Her Ryan?

He was no such thing. Once upon a time she’d been proprietorial about Ryan Henry. ‘He’s my friend,’ she’d told her mother, and when Ryan had gone off with the big boys to play cricket or football or other boy stuff it had been all Abbey could do not to appear jealous.

Well, he wasn’t her Ryan now. He was engaged to be married to a lady called Felicity who, Abbey gathered, could appear at any minute. To claim her own. And Abbey certainly couldn’t let her jealousy show then.

Jealousy?

Abbey examined the word from all angles. How could she possibly be jealous of Felicity? After all, she hardly knew Ryan any more. He had left here almost twenty years ago. He was rich and successful and… and practically American.

But she looked out to where Ryan’s tanned, muscled body was glistening in the morning sun, the water running in rivulets down his broad back and catching the rays of the sun across the sea. He looked across and laughed at her, his eyes crinkling in just the same way they had when he’d first met her. A long time ago…

Some older girls had been teasing the tiny Abbey on her way to school, and one of them had tipped her lunch out into the dirt. Abbey had sat down, tear-stained and angry, trying to separate the dirt from her sandwiches. Then, all of a sudden, Ryan had been there.

‘Kid, I have six whole sandwiches, two chocolate bars and a game of football at lunchtime,’ he’d told her. ‘I can’t possibly manage to eat everything in the time available and if I did I’d get fat. Let’s feed your sandwiches to the seagulls and divvy up my lunch between us.’

Abbey had looked up through tears at this big, kindly boy with the twinkle and laughter behind his eyes, and her heart had been his ever since.

And, damn, the man just had to look at her now…

‘Penny for them.’

Abbey’s head jerked up. She’d been playing with a trickle of wet sand as she’d been thinking and hadn’t seen Ryan, splashing up through the shallows. Lesson over, Leith had gone to join the fun. Grandma, grandson and now Leith, all pretending to be whales.

‘Penny?’

‘What are you thinking, Abbey?’ Ryan sat himself beside her, and his broad, wet shoulder touched hers. Skin against skin. A shudder of sensation ran though her and Ryan saw it.

‘You’re cold.’

‘No. No, I’m not. How… how did the lesson go?’

‘Brilliantly.’ He smiled and put his arm around her. A gesture of affection. Nothing more. ‘You saw. I have her doing dead man’s float already. I had to take things easy because she’s exhausted from last night and I don’t want a recurrence, but she’ll be swimming like a dolphin in no time.’

‘Or a whale.’ Abbey smiled over to the silly game being played out nearby and tried hard to ignore the sensation of Ryan’s arm around her waist.

Ryan grinned. ‘As you say.’

‘Ryan…’ Abbey’s voice sounded stiff. ‘I want to thank you-’

‘There’s no need,’ Ryan said roughly, and the arm around her waist tightened. Possessively. ‘No need at all.’

‘But-’

He put his hand up and pressed a finger against her lips. ‘Abbey, I said no.’ Then he paused.

It was as if he’d suddenly realised how close they were.

And how much was between them.

The glimmers of light that had been dancing all around them suddenly seemed to intensify. Ryan’s finger stayed where it was. There was an electric current running between them-running through Ryan’s finger on her lips-from Ryan’s hand on her waist-from his body straight to hers.

And both of them could feel it. Abbey’s eyes flew up to Ryan’s and her heart gave a jolt stronger than any gained from a defibrillator.

Ryan…

There was suddenly only Ryan.

Out in the shallows, Janet and the two children were wholly engrossed in their game. Their laughter rang across the water, heightening the sense of delight. Heightening the joy…

And Abbey felt the joy flood through her. Through and through. Ryan holding her. Ryan touching her. It felt so right.

Abbey’s face tilted upward to the sun. Lifted compulsively-so her lips were just where Ryan’s lips could meet them, if he would only bend his head a little.

And he did.

Ryan stared down at Abbey for a long long moment but he could no more resist the force pulling them together than she could. He couldn’t even try.

Ryan’s lips met hers as if the two of them were pieces of a puzzle now joined. His chest touched her breast, and her scant bikini bra was no shield at all. Skin against skin. Mouth against mouth. Body against body.

Heart against heart.

That was how it felt, Abbey thought in wonder. As if, by that single touch, Abbey’s heart had found a channel to escape-from her body to his. Her lips touched and felt and explored and her whole body yearned to be closer. Closer to this man who made her feel as no man on earth had ever made her feel…

As if she were part of a whole and the other part of her was the man whose lips were claiming hers. And if she drew away she’d be tearing herself in two.

This was crazy. Somewhere in the back of Abbey’s head her common sense was screaming at her. Mistake. Huge, earth-shattering mistake. On a scale of one to ten, this ranked about a hundred and forty.

Because the kiss changed everything.

Or, rather, it made everything the same again. It reminded Abbey of what she’d known for most of her life. That she loved Ryan Henry absolutely. Totally. Without question. At eight years old she’d handed her heart over to Ryan and she’d never taken it back again.

Sure, she’d loved John, but her love for John had been different. John had been her beloved friend and he and his mother had been Abbey’s family. John and Abbey had built something that was totally satisfying, but there had never been this instant linking of heart to heart, this knowledge that this was where she belonged. That she was part of this man.

Only she didn’t belong. She was no part of Ryan Henry.

The kiss was deep and wonderful and lasting, but it couldn’t last for ever. A tiny wave splashed up further than the rest, breaking over Ryan’s legs, and he drew away as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown at him rather than the tropical warmth of the sea.

As if he was shocked to the core.

‘Abbey…’

It was a hoarse whisper, full of total bewilderment, and all Abbey wanted to do was reach out and put her arms around Ryan’s broad, wet shoulders and draw him to her again. To claim him as her man.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. This man wasn’t hers. Ryan’s life was half a world away, and the woman he was about to marry was probably on a plane, heading here, right now.

So Abbey gave a choking little laugh and managed to smile.

‘That’s… that’s enough of that, Ryan Henry,’ she faltered. ‘I know… I know it was only a kiss of friendship but even though this is a honeymoon resort your Felicity would never approve… ’

Your Felicity.

The confusion in Ryan’s eyes faded. Felicity. His future. Felicity was his life. His future had nothing to do with this waif of a doctor, sitting here in her cute little bikini with her elfin-like cuds and too-big eyes and her leg stuck out before her, covered with white bandages and a green garbage bag.

Felicity was his love. Not Abbey.

Felicity was his future.

Ryan closed his eyes for a long, long moment and when he opened them his face was resolute.

‘You’re right. Felicity would have pink kittens. She’d never understand that we’re just friends.’

Just friends. How hollow did that sound?

Ryan flicked Abbey’s white face with a long finger and rose to stand looking down at her. His eyes were blank and uncomprehending.

‘I’d best take Leith back to the hospital,’ he told her in a voice that was none too steady. ‘I need to check there are no problems with Steve, and then get down to see Dad in the hospital in Cairns tonight.’ Ryan bit his lip and stared out to sea, as if reluctant to leave. As he was. Who would want to leave this magic place?

Who would want to leave Abbey?

‘I’ll be back Thursday if I can,’ he told her. ‘If Steve’s managing, I’ll come and see you then. Look after yourself.’

And then, without so much as glancing at Abbey again, he walked over, collected the reluctant Leith and strode away up the beach.

End of one crazy interlude.

Before Ryan left for Cairns he managed to contact Felicity. She was just leaving one meeting and about to enter another.

‘I can ring back later,’ Ryan told her.

‘It’s OK, Ryan. There’s never going to be a good time here. I’m so busy you wouldn’t believe it. What is it?’

Ryan briefly outlined what was happening and heard Felicity frown down the phone line.

‘I guess the best course might be for us to just make our own way back to the States,’ Ryan suggested. ‘I don’t want to tie you here. We can do the marriage bit next vacation.’

More frowns. And then a decision.

‘No. I’ll come anyway,’ Felicity said decisively. ‘Let’s just get this marriage bit over fast, Ryan. It’s been hanging over us long enough. I’ll be there on Thursday. If you’re in Cairns with your father, we can meet there and take it as it comes.’

She rang off and headed for her meeting, leaving Ryan staring down at his mobile phone.

This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? That Felicity still came? That the wedding went ahead?

It had to be. It was his future, all mapped out. The future as he and his mother had planned it since he was fifteen years old.

Then why the hell did he feel so damned bleak?