Prescription-One Husband

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FERN woke to despair.

She opened her eyes to find herself in a room she knew well. Jessie’s room.

She’d slept here before.

It was different from last time she’d been here. Now there was a hospital bed where the low bed-settee had been before.

Someone had wheeled a hospital bed in here-and Fern was in it.

She didn’t want to be in Jessie’s room. She didn’t want to be anywhere at all.

Her head hurt.

It hurt like crazy, actually, aching with a steady, pulsing throb. She put a hand up to her hair and felt bandages.

What had happened?

She didn’t care.

Quinn had gone to Jess. There had been danger and Quinn had gone to Jess. Of course. Jess was his wife. No matter what he told Fern, when there was danger he’d turned to his wife.

The rest-whatever he professed he felt for Fern-was nonsense.

Fern moved her eyes a little and the movement brought the room into focus.

There was someone sitting by the bed.

Jess…

‘Hey, Fern.’ Jess smiled gently and Fern could see relief wash over her face. ‘Welcome back.’

She didn’t want to be back.

‘What…what happened?’ she whispered.

‘You were shot,’ Jess told her. ‘Do you remember?’ Only too well. It made her feel ill.

‘You do remember?’ Jess asked anxiously. ‘Quinn thought you’d just been concussed.’

‘I remember. The man on the headland…’ Fern winced. ‘Was anyone else…was anyone else hurt?’

‘The man doing the shooting was,’ Jess told her. ‘The sergeant had his gun-do you remember? Sergeant Russell hit him in the shoulder and he’s under police guard in the next room right now. Not that he needs to be. Quinn’s bandages look just like a strait-jacket.’

‘But…’ Fern swallowed. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No.’ Jess smiled, and her smile was one that Fern had never seen before. She seemed young and happy and…and somehow free. As though a huge burden had been lifted from her. ‘I guess you don’t. But there’s someone who’s aching to explain the whole thing himself. He’s next door now, checking your attacker, and I bet he’s not being very gentle with the Elastoplast. I’ll call him…’

‘Quinn…No!’

It was a cry from the heart and it stopped Jess dead. Jess had risen and taken two steps toward the door. Now she turned.

‘Why not, Fern?’ she said gently.

‘Because…Because…Jess, you know why not.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Jess told her. ‘Quinn has some explaining to do, Fern Rycroft-but he’ll murder me if I do it for him.’

‘Not murder…’

It was a deep, gravelly voice from the door and it made Jess jump. The young vet swivelled to find Quinn watching.

‘Quinn…’

There was no mistaking the affection in her voice.

‘I’ll not murder you, Jess,’ Quinn said severely. ‘There’s been enough of that lately.’ He walked over to the bed and looked down at Fern. His eyes were lit by love and laughter-and, incredibly, it was all directed at Fern.

This man had dumped her…

‘You’re awake, my love,’ he said gently and bent to kiss her. ‘Thank God.’ The relief came straight from the heart.

‘N-no.’ Fern twisted her face on her pillows, trying to turn away from the kiss. There were tears coursing down her cheeks and she could do nothing to stop them.

‘Yes,’ Quinn told her. He held her face still in his hands and settled a kiss on her lips. He kissed away her tears-and then released her and held out his hand to Jess.

To his wife.

‘Fern, it’s time we told you who this is.’

‘Who…?’ Pain and weakness were making Fern feel giddy. Quinn saw it on her face and swore.

‘It’s not the time for this, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘You’re weak as a kitten. But you need to know. Fern, this is not my wife. This is Jessica Harvey. Jess is my cousin.

‘Eight months ago she started dating someone who-well, for want of a better description-turned out to be a thief and a murderer. He’s also a highranking lawyer. She went out to dinner with him twice and on the third occasion he invited her back to his flat for a meal. He was charming and she saw no reason not to go.

‘As she arrived, so did someone else-and Jess saw the man she’d gone out with murder the new arrival in cold blood.’

‘But…but why?’ The pain in Fern’s head was receding. Only the dizziness stayed.

‘Drugs,’ Quinn said briefly. ‘John Talbot was in them up to his ears. Anyway, Jess saw him fire and John Talbot saw that Jessie had witnessed the whole thing. He beat her up, badly, and threatened her with murder if she went to the police.’

‘So I went to Quinn,’ whispered Jess. ‘Because he was like my brother. He was my friend. And Quinn went to the police.’

‘But before the police reached him, Talbot disappeared,’ Quinn said grimly. ‘I’d promised Jess she’d be safe if she let me go to the police-but that night someone fired at Jess through her bedroom window.’

‘Because she’d seen…’

‘She’s the only one who can convict Talbot,’ Quinn said heavily. ‘And he’s ruthless. So…so Jess had to hide and she had to hide well. The police arranged papers so that Jess could work under my name. The charade had to continue until Talbot was caught.

‘When you reported the gunman to the police, Sergeant Russell guessed who he was, though heaven knows how Talbot found Jess. We’ve been watching Jess like a hawk since you sighted him and I guess Talbot shot the dolphin in sheer frustration. We tried to stop Jess from going to the beach-but a wounded animal is like a homing device for her. She can no sooner refuse help than she can stop breathing. So all we could do was go with her.

‘And maybe…maybe it was for the best. At least now it’s finally over.’

It’s finally over…

The lightening of the tension was unbelievable. Jess and Quinn stood smiling down at her with hands linked and Fern blinked and blinked again.

‘You’re not…You’re not…’

‘Quinn is my very best friend,’ Jess said simply. ‘But he’s not my husband.’ She bent to kiss Fern on the cheek.

‘And he is not my love, nor will he ever be. When Quinn saw Talbot on the cliff he assumed Talbot was aiming at me. I guess he was-but he was too far away to see properly. So while Quinn was doing his cousinly best to save me, the love of his life was getting herself close to murdered.’ She twinkled up at Quinn.

‘And my dear, calm, sensible Quinn nearly went crazy.’

‘Jessie…’ Quinn’s voice was a warning.

Quinn was smiling at his cousin but his eyes were giving her an urgent message.

Jess laughed.

‘I know,’ she twinkled. ‘I can see when I’m not wanted. I’ll just get back to the loves of my life then, shall I? Two wallabies, one parrot and one echidna.’

And she walked out, laughing.

Fern and Quinn were left facing each other.

There was a long silence. All of a sudden Fern felt absurdly shy.

And as if nightingales were starting to sing, somewhere in the region of her heart.

‘Can you forgive me, Fern?’ Quinn asked softly. He sat down on the bed and gathered her two hands to his chest. ‘If you knew how I wanted to tell you…But it was crazy. If I broke…If I broke and told you, then I couldn’t keep appearances up with Jess-and Jessie’s life was forfeit. And I’d persuaded her to go to the police in the first place.’

‘I…There’s nothing to forgive,’ Fern whispered.

The nightingales were singing louder and louder. The dizziness was there in force, washing over her in lovely, misty waves that were all about drowning.

Drowning in Quinn’s dark eyes.

‘Then you’ll marry me, my heart?’

‘I don’t…’ Fern shook her head. This was crazy.

‘Quinn, I can’t…’

‘Can’t marry me?’ Incredibly, his eyes were anxious.

‘Can’t decide.’ Fern dredged up dignity with a superhuman effort. ‘I’m not supposed to get married.’

‘Yes, you are. You were getting married the first time I saw you, if you remember. You were just getting married to the wrong man.’

‘But not…’

‘Not to the man you loved.’ Quinn took her in his arms with a tenderness that took her breath away. ‘No, my darling. Not to the man you loved. Or the man who loved you. The man who loves you is right here, Fern, my darling girl, my crazy, crazy doctor bride.

‘And I know I shouldn’t pressure you when you’re still suffering from concussion but if I don’t then I’m afraid I’ll go away and you’ll think up all those sensible reasons why you shouldn’t marry someone who loves you more than life itself. So…’

‘So?’ Fern whispered.

He put her away from him and held her at arm’s length.

‘So if you want to put your head on the pillows then you have to do what the doctor orders.’

Fern’s lips curved into the beginnings of a smile.

‘And the prescription?’

‘One husband,’ he said solemnly. ‘Slightly used. I’ve had a practice run, you might say, but then so have you. You were a practice bride. Now it’s your turn to be a real one…’

‘Oh, Quinn…’ She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘That’s not what you’re supposed to say,’ he told her severely.

‘What…what am I supposed to say?’

He smiled then, his lovely, laughing smile that was a caress all by itself.

‘Just say “I will”, my lovely Fern,’ he said gently. ‘Nothing else matters.’

Nothing else matters.

And suddenly it didn’t.

Fern looked up at the man she loved and she found the answer to all her questions in his eyes.

She was loved.

She was home.

‘I will,’ she whispered, but Quinn hardly heard.

Fern’s eyes had said it all.