Welcome to the world of St Piran’s Hospital—

Next to the rugged shores of Penhally Bay lies the picturesque Cornish town of St Piran, where you’ll find a bustling hospital famed for the dedication, talent and passion of its staff—on and off the wards!

Under the warmth of the Cornish sun Italian doctors, heart surgeons and playboy princes discover that romance blossoms in the most unlikely of places…

You’ll also meet the devilishly handsome Dr Josh O’Hara and the beautiful, fragile Megan Phillips…and discover the secret that tore these star-crossed lovers apart.

Turn the page to step into St Piran’s—where every drama has a dreamy doctor…and a happy ending.

About the Author

MAGGIE KINGSLEY says she can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer, but she put her dream on hold and decided to ‘be sensible’ and become a teacher instead. Five years at the chalkface was enough to convince her she wasn’t cut out for it, and she ‘escaped’ to work for a major charity. Unfortunately—or fortunately!—a back injury ended her career, and when she and her family moved to a remote cottage in the north of Scotland it was her family who nagged her into attempting to make her dream a reality. Combining a love of romantic fiction with a knowledge of medicine gleaned from the many professionals in her family, Maggie says she can’t now imagine ever being able to have so much fun legally doing anything else!

Dear Reader

Writing is a solitary occupation. Normally it’s just you, your computer, or a pen and notebook for company as you set off on a new journey, a new story, so working as part of a continuity is a novelty—a decidedly nice one. It means you get the chance to ‘talk’ to fellow Medical™ Romance writers, to thrash out ideas, to create great linking characters, and to discover who has drunk the most coffee that day, or eaten the most sticky buns. Well, we writers need inner sustenance as well as imagination!

Being part of the St Piran’s Hospital series has been such a joy—not least because I grew to love both of my characters, even though there were times when I wanted to grab Connor by the lapels of his smart city suit and yell, ‘Talk to Brianna, you idiot! Just tell her how you feel!’

But he can’t talk to Brianna about what broke her heart, and she doesn’t know how to get through to him—until they are thrown together in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of St Piran’s Hospital in Cornwall, and then it’s decision time for both of them. Have they a future together, or will they go their separate ways?

You’ll have to read this book to find out, but I do hope you will enjoy reading about Connor and Brianna as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

Best wishes

Maggie Kingsley

ST PIRAN’S: TINY MIRACLE TWINS

MAGGIE KINGSLEY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication

I often wonder how my sister Elizabeth puts up with my many crises of confidence when I’m writing, without ever saying to me, ‘Maggie, get a grip!’ or strangling me, but she does. So thank you, little sister, and this book is dedicated to you, for your patience, forbearance, and all the times you’ve listened to me when I’ve said, ‘OK, do you think this would be better?’ without running screaming from the room.

ST PIRAN’S HOSPITAL

Where every drama has a dreamy doctor…and a happy ending.

In December we gave you the first two St Piran’s stories in one month!

Nick Tremayne and Kate Althorp finally got their happy-ever-after in: ST PIRAN’S: THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR by Caroline Anderson

Dr Izzy Bailey was swept off her feet by sexy Spaniard Diego Ramirez: ST PIRAN’S: RESCUING PREGNANT CINDERELLA by Carol Marinelli

In January the arrival of sizzlingly hot Italian neurosurgeon Giovanni Corezzi was enough to make any woman forget the cold! ST PIRAN’S: ITALIAN SURGEON, FORBIDDEN BRIDE by Margaret McDonagh

In February daredevil doc William MacNeil unexpectedly discovered he was a father in: ST PIRAN’S: DAREDEVIL, DOCTOR…DAD! by Anne Fraser

March saw a new heart surgeon who had everyone’s pulses racing in: ST PIRAN’S: THE BROODING HEART SURGEON by Alison Roberts

Last month fireman Tom Nicholson stole Flora Loveday’s heart in: ST PIRAN’S: THE FIREMAN AND NURSE LOVEDAY by Kate Hardy

This month, newborn twins could just bring a marriage miracle for Brianna and Connor ST PIRAN’S: TINY MIRACLE TWINS by Maggie Kingsley

And playboy Prince Alessandro Cavalieri honours St Piran’s with a visit in June ST PIRAN’S: PRINCE ON THE CHILDREN’S WARD by Sarah Morgan

CHAPTER ONE

People say time heals everything but it doesn’t, not completely, never totally. Sometimes all it takes is the overheard fragment of a song, a whispered comment, or an unexpected meeting, and the scab that time has so carefully placed over the old wound begins to come apart, leaving the pain just as acute as it ever was, just as raw.

‘SO, the rumours are true, then,’ Sister Brianna Flannigan observed as she sipped her coffee in the canteen of St Piran’s. ‘A troubleshooter really is coming to the hospital to see which departments should be closed?’

‘And not just coming, I’m afraid.’ Megan Phillips sighed. ‘He’s actually arriving some time today if the grapevine is correct.’

‘But this is a good hospital,’ Brianna protested. ‘The staff are dedicated, the quality of surgery is second to none, and it provides a much-needed medical resource for the people who live in this part of Cornwall.’

‘Agreed.’ Jess Corezzi nodded glumly. ‘But, according to the board, we’re leaking money like a sieve, and…’ She held up her hands and made pretend speech marks. ‘“Something Has to be Done”.’

‘But surely that doesn’t have to mean ward or—heaven forbid—complete department closures? ‘ Brianna demanded. ‘There must be some other way to save money.’

‘Canning my job will probably be the first thing on this auditor’s list,’ Jess said ruefully. ‘Counselling patients, and their families, as I do…’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t see him regarding that as necessary.’

‘But your job is vitally important,’ Brianna protested, her large brown eyes troubled. ‘The parents of my babies in NICU need you—’

‘As do the parents, and kids in Paeds,’ Megan chipped in, but Jess didn’t look convinced, and Brianna could understand why.

If the auditor had been drafted in to make economies he was bound to look at the non-nursing staff first, and though she and Megan might think Jess’s counselling role essential she had a horrible suspicion this money man would not.

‘What does Gio think?’ Brianna asked, thinking of Jess’s handsome Italian husband, a neurosurgeon who had arrived at St Piran’s the previous autumn and swept her friend off her feet.

‘He thinks like you, that the auditor will recognise how valuable my work is and recommend shelving the new specialist paediatric burns unit instead, but frankly…’ Jess shrugged. ‘I can’t see that happening. There is a need for that unit, plus the building is almost complete, and Admin have already asked that foreign prince to perform the grand opening in a couple of months.’

Brianna didn’t think Gio’s suggestion likely, either, and neither did Megan, judging by her expression.

‘At least both your departments will be safe,’ Jess continued bracingly. ‘No one in their right mind would shut down a neonatal intensive care unit or a paediatric ward.’

Brianna could think of one man who would. One man to whom statistics and efficiency had always been more important than people, and she shivered involuntarily.

‘You OK?’ Megan asked with a slight frown, and Brianna forced a smile.

‘I just don’t like all this talk of department closures. This hospital has been my…’ She came to a halt. She had been about to say ‘refuge’, but though she, Jess and Megan had become friends during the two years she’d been at St Piran’s there were areas of her life that were strictly off limits, and her past was one of them. ‘I’ve been so very happy here,’ she said instead.

‘Me, too,’ Jess replied, and Megan nodded in agreement.

‘Look, do we know anything about this man? ‘ Brianna asked. ‘Where he’s from, what other hospitals he’s been to?’

‘All we know is he’s from London,’ Jess replied, and the shiver Brianna had felt earlier became more pronounced.

‘London?’ she echoed. ‘Jess—’

The insistent bleep of a pager brought her to a halt. All three women instantly reached for theirs, but it was Megan who got to her feet with a groan.

‘Nothing wrong in Paeds, I hope?’ Brianna said, and Megan shook her head.

‘It’s Admin. They’ve got themselves in a real flap about this visitation. Yesterday they wanted everything in duplicate. Now they’ve decided they want everything in triplicate.’

With a rueful smile the paediatric specialist registrar headed off towards the canteen exit but, as Brianna and Jess watched her, the door suddenly opened and Josh O’Hara, the consultant from A and E, appeared. He clearly said something to Megan, actually put out his hand to stay her, but she pushed past him without a word, and Brianna and Jess exchanged glances.

‘The atmosphere’s not getting any better between those two, is it?’ Brianna said, and Jess sighed.

‘I guess it can’t. Not when Josh is married to Rebecca, and Megan’s most certainly not a home-wrecker.’

‘Has…?’ Brianna cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘Has she said anything to you about him?’

‘I only know there’s a past history there, not what it is, and I wouldn’t dream of asking,’ Jess replied. ‘My guess is they were an item years ago, before Josh got married, but as to what happened or why they split up…’ The hospital counsellor lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘I just wish he hadn’t taken the consultant’s job in A and E. OK, so he didn’t know Megan would be working at St Piran’s, but can you imagine how awful it must be, having someone you once loved reappear in your life like this?’

Brianna could. She didn’t want to imagine it, but she could, all too vividly.

Secrets, she thought as she watched Josh walk slowly across the canteen then stare unenthusiastically at the lunch menu. She, Jess and Megan, all of them had secrets. Maybe that’s what had drawn them together, made them friends. That, and the fact they never pried into one another’s private lives so she’d had no idea until a few months ago that Jess had HIV, or that Megan was nursing a badly broken heart, while neither of them knew she…

Don’t go there, Brianna, she told herself. Don’t go there, not ever.

‘The annoying thing is, I like him,’ Jess continued as Josh picked up a doughnut and coffee, then morosely went to sit at an empty table near the back of the canteen. ‘Whatever happened between him and Megan in the past, I still think he’s one of the good guys.’

‘And does your husband know you consider Josh “one of the good guys”?’ Brianna asked, her brown eyes dancing, and the counsellor laughed.

‘Gio knows I only have eyes for him,’ she replied. ‘I just wish…this situation between Megan and Josh…I just wish there was something I could do to help.’

Brianna wished she could, too, as she and Jess left the canteen and went their separate ways. She’d liked Josh O’Hara from the very first minute she’d met him. For sure he’d teased her when he’d discovered she was from Ireland as he was, had said that with her long, auburn hair she reminded him of the 1940s Hollywood actress, Maureen O’Hara, but she knew he hadn’t been hitting on her. He was just a natural-born charmer, adept at making people feel at ease. Unless, of course, that person was Megan Phillips, she thought with a deep sigh.

And she could have done with Josh at her side, dispensing a whole bucketload of his charm, she decided as she swiped her ID card to gain entry to NICU, only to walk straight into Rita, NICU’s ward clerk, and her least favourite member of staff in the hospital.

‘I’m not late back from lunch, Rita,’ Brianna said, consulting her watch pointedly, ‘the unit doesn’t appear to be on fire, I’m sure you would have paged me if any of the babies was giving cause for concern, so can I assume you want to report one of the nursing staff for some petty infringement?’

‘He’s here,’ the NICU ward clerk hissed. ‘The auditor. He arrived half an hour ago, and I’ve got him in my office, looking at some files, but I don’t know how long I can keep him there.’

‘Have you considered chains, manacles, possibly a straitjacket?’

‘This is not a laughing matter, Sister Flannigan,’ Rita retorted. ‘Mr Brooke is still in Theatre—’

‘Which is probably just as well,’ Brianna interrupted. ‘Letting Babbling loose amongst walking, healthy people…’ She shook her head. ‘Not a good idea.’

‘Neither is referring to our head of department by that stupid nickname,’ Rita protested, apparently conveniently forgetting that she called their consultant Mr Brooke ‘Babbling’ just as often as the rest of the staff in NICU did.

‘Rita—’

‘First impressions count, Sister, and we’ve already got off to a bad one with Mr Brooke not being here to meet the VIP.’

‘Yes, it really was very inconsiderate of little Amy Renwick to get so sick, wasn’t it?’ Brianna said dryly, but her sarcasm was lost on the ward clerk.

‘It certainly couldn’t have happened at a worse time,’ Rita agreed. ‘I only have two years left to work before I retire and the last thing I want is the unit closing down before I’m ready to go.’

Yeah, and you’re all heart, Rita, Brianna thought, but she didn’t say that.

‘I very much doubt anyone would ever contemplate shutting down a neonatal intensive care unit,’ she said, deliberately echoing Jess’s optimistic words, but Rita wasn’t placated.

‘We’re grossly understaffed,’ the ward clerk declared, her tightly permed grey curls practically bristling with indignation, ‘and this auditor is bound to notice. Lord knows, I’m not one to complain—’

You never do anything but, Brianna thought irritably. In fact, it would be a red-letter, stop-press, post-it-to-the-world-on-Twitter day if Rita managed to get through one day without complaining.

‘And no-one can say I’m not doing my best,’ Rita continued, ‘but, without a nurse unit manager, I’m fighting an uphill battle.’

Brianna was sorely tempted to tell the woman she might find her job considerably easier if she didn’t spend half her time prying into everyone else’s business and the other half spreading gossip, but the trouble was the ward clerk was right. They were finding it tough without a nurse unit manager, and though Admin had promised to advertise the post after Diego Ramirez returned to Spain, there had been no sign yet of them doing anything.

‘I’m sure the auditor will make allowances for us,’ she declared, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me—’

‘Selfish, that’s what I call it,’ Rita continued. ‘Mr Ramirez leaving us all in the lurch. In my day people had a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility, but nobody cares about standards nowadays. Look at all the unmarried mothers we get in NICU. Feckless, the lot of them. In my day—’

‘I’m sure every family behaved like the Waltons, and nothing bad ever happened,’ Brianna interrupted tersely, ‘but right now, if you’re so anxious about making a good impression, wouldn’t it be better if you simply got on with your job?’

Rita’s mouth fell open, she looked as though she’d dearly like to say something extremely cutting, then she strode away with a very audible sniff, and Brianna gritted her teeth.

She would undoubtedly pay later for what she’d said—Rita would make sure of that—but the ward clerk had caught her on the raw today. Actually, if she was honest, Rita always caught her on the raw with her ‘holier than thou’ attitude to life.

‘Walk a mile in my moccasins.’ It was one of her mother’s favourite sayings, and her mother was right, Brianna thought as she washed her hands thoroughly then applied some antiseptic gel to ensure she didn’t carry any bacteria into the unit, excepts…

She bit her lip as she caught sight of her reflection in the small mirror over the sink. ‘The country mouse’. That was what her colleagues had called her when she’d been a student nurse, but that had been fourteen years ago. She wasn’t a country mouse any more. She was thirty-two years old, the senior sister in a neonatal intensive care unit, and time and life had changed her. Especially the last two years.

Don’t, Brianna, she told herself as she felt her heart twist inside her. Don’t start looking back, you can’t, you mustn’t, not now, not ever.

And normally she didn’t, she thought as she took a steadying breath before tucking a stray strand of her auburn hair back into its neat plait, only to realise her hand was shaking. Normally she lived in the now, determinedly refusing to look back, or forward, and it was all the fault of this damned auditor. His arrival was upsetting everyone, turning what had been her refuge into a place of uncertainty, and she didn’t want uncertainty. She wanted the hospital to stay exactly as it was. Her haven, her sanctuary, her escape from all that had happened.

‘Blasted number-cruncher,’ she muttered as she used her elbow to push open the door leading into the NICU ward. ‘Why can’t he just go away and play on a motorway?’

‘You wouldn’t be talking about our esteemed visitor, would you?’ Chris, her senior staff nurse, chuckled, clearly overhearing her.

‘Got it in one,’ Brianna replied, feeling herself beginning to relax as the familiar heat in the unit enveloped her, and she heard the comforting, steady sound of beeping monitors and ventilators. ‘Anything happen over lunch I should know about?’

‘Mr Brooke’s not back from Theatre yet and neither is Amy Renwick.’

‘So Rita told me,’ Brianna replied. ‘It looks as though he’s had to remove part of Amy’s intestine after all.’

It was what they’d all been hoping the consultant wouldn’t have to do. Amy Renwick had been born twelve weeks premature, and scarcely a month later she’d been diagnosed with necrotising enterocolitis. The condition wasn’t uncommon in premature babies—their intestines were frequently insufficiently developed to handle digestion—but generally it could be controlled with antibiotics. In Amy’s case, however, the antibiotics hadn’t worked. Mr Brooke had thought he might only have to drain the infected fluid from her stomach, but, from the length of time he’d been in Theatre, it looked very much as though that solution hadn’t proved to be an option.

‘Is Mrs Renwick here?’ Brianna asked, and the staff nurse nodded.

‘She’s in the parents’ restroom—very upset, of course—but her family’s with her.’

And they’d been a tower of strength over the past few weeks for Naomi and her husband, Brianna thought as she lifted a file from the nurses’ station. Not all of their parents were so lucky. Some families lived too far away to provide emotional support, while other families simply couldn’t deal with the constant up-and-down pressures of having a very premature baby.

And sometimes the people, the person, you were so sure you could depend on let you down, she thought with a sudden, unwanted, shaft of pain.

‘You OK, Brianna?’

The staff nurse was gazing uncertainly at her, and Brianna manufactured a smile.

‘You’re the second person to ask me that today, and I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘I’ve just got a bad attack of Monday blues, not helped by the imminent arrival of this blasted auditor—’

‘Who, if I’m not very much mistaken, has just arrived with Babbling and Rita,’ the staff nurse warned in an undertone. ‘And, if that is him, he looks scary. Good looking in a designer-suited, high-powered sort of way, but most definitely scary.’

Quickly, Brianna glanced over her shoulder, and in that split second her world stood still. Dimly, she heard their NICU consultant introduce the man at his side as Connor Monahan, but she didn’t need the introduction. The six-foot-one rangy frame, the thick black hair and startling blue eyes, the expensive city suit and equally top-of-the-range laptop that he was carrying…It was the man she hadn’t thought about—had refused to allow herself think about—for the past two years, and the file she’d been holding slipped from her nerveless fingers and landed on the floor with a clatter.

From beside her she heard Chris’s small gasp of surprise at her unusual clumsiness, saw Mr Brooke’s glare of irritation, but what pierced her to the core as she quickly retrieved the file then straightened up was the way the familiar blue eyes had flashed instantly from recognition to anger. How those same blue eyes were now boring deep into her, tearing her heart apart just as it had been torn apart two years ago.

‘I can assure you my staff are not normally so clumsy, Mr Monahan,’ she heard Mr Brooke declare, and saw Connor shake his head dismissively.

‘Accidents happen,’ he replied, ‘and, please, everyone, call me Connor. I’m not here to judge anyone. My visit to this hospital is merely as an observer, to find out how a hospital like this serves its local community.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Chris muttered. ‘And like we don’t all know that he’s been sent in to find out which department should be closed, so he can give up on the “let’s all be friends” routine. And, oh, Lord, Mr Brooke is now insisting on introducing everyone,’ the staff nurse continued, rolling her eyes heavenwards. ‘What’s the bet he won’t remember half our names?’

Brianna didn’t care if the middle-aged consultant did or not. She was too busy keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the file in her hand, wishing she was anywhere but here, but, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the inexorable approach of a pair of mirror-bright black shoes, could smell an all-too-distinctive sandalwood aftershave, and she sucked in an uneven breath, willing this moment to be over.

‘And this is Sister Flannigan,’ Mr Brooke announced when he drew level with her.

‘Sister Flannigan,’ Connor repeated slowly, and Brianna winced as she reluctantly raised her head to look up at him.

Never would she have imagined anyone could put quite so much sarcasm into her surname, but Connor just had.

‘She’s only been with us for two years,’ Mr Brooke continued, clearly completely oblivious to the atmosphere, ‘but since then she’s become an indispensable member of the team.’

At any other time Brianna would have savoured the praise from the portly consultant, who never gave anyone any, but not today, not when she saw Connor’s left eyebrow rise.

‘So, you’ve been living here in Cornwall for the last two years, have you, Sister Flannigan?’ he said with deliberate emphasis, and Brianna clasped the file in her hands even tighter.

Don’t, she wanted to say. Please, don’t. Not here, not in front of everyone. But she couldn’t say anything, not with her boss listening, not with Rita’s eyes darting avidly between her and Connor, her mind clearly already whirring away with speculation.

‘Yes, I’ve been here for two years,’ she muttered, ‘and now if you’ll excuse me…’

‘Oh, absolutely not,’ Connor declared, his voice ice-cold and implacable. ‘In fact, I insist you stay.’

Had he always been quite so tall, so intimidating? she wondered as she involuntarily took a step back. Of course he had. He couldn’t possibly have grown since she’d last seen him, and he’d always possessed an air of authority and power, and yet she felt transported back in time to the little country mouse she’d once been, and she hated feeling that way.

‘I’m afraid you really will have to excuse me,’ she said, putting as much defiance into her voice as she could muster. ‘I have babies to attend to, and I also need to talk to the mother of one of our patients. Her daughter has just undergone major surgery—’

‘From which we are hopeful she will make a full recovery,’ Mr Brooke interrupted. ‘Of course, the next few days will be critical, as I will explain to Mrs Renwick myself.’

Which is exactly what I don’t want you to do, Brianna thought unhappily. Of course, all operations carried risks, but not for nothing had the nursing staff in NICU nicknamed their consultant ‘Babbling’ Brooke. Brilliant surgeon though he might be, he would persist in constantly—and at great length—giving parents the worst-case scenario possible, terrifying them witless in the process. Megan would have handled Naomi Renwick so much better, but Megan wasn’t here.

‘It would be no trouble for me to talk to Mrs Renwick, Mr Brooke,’ she said desperately. ‘I could go now—’

‘Not running away from me, are you, Sister Flannigan?’ Connor said, and she bit her lip savagely.

Had she been the only one in the unit who had heard the unspoken word again in his comment? She hoped she was, she prayed she was.

‘Of course not,’ she replied. ‘I just…I know Mrs Renwick very well…I’m her daughter’s primary carer—’

‘And I’m her daughter’s surgeon, and head of this department, so I will speak to her,’ Mr Brooke interrupted with a finality that told Brianna there was no point in arguing. ‘Now, Connor, I’m sure our ward clerk will be only too happy to let you examine more of our files—’

‘Which I’m sure would be absolutely fascinating,’ Connor interrupted, ‘but I’m only going to be in St Piran’s for the next six weeks so what I’d like to do in NICU, over the next few days, is interview all of your staff individually. Form an idea from them of how they think they fit into this unit, what their duties are, gain the bigger picture, if you like.’

Six weeks? Brianna thought, glancing from Connor to Mr Brooke with ill-disguised horror. Connor was going to be in the hospital for six weeks? Even if he only spent a few days in NICU, it was going to be a few days too many and Mr Brooke clearly thought the same.

‘I really don’t see why there’s any need for you to interview my staff when I can give you the bigger picture immediately,’ he said. ‘Sick babies come in here, my nursing staff and I attempt to make them better. End of story.’ Brianna could have kissed the consultant, but Connor merely smiled the smile of a man who had no intention of having his intentions thwarted.

‘I still want to speak to your staff,’ he insisted evenly. ‘My interviews will take no longer than half an hour, and after that I will simply be a silent observer. In fact, I doubt you’ll even notice I’m here.’

I’ll notice, Brianna thought, desperately praying their consultant would feel the same but, to her dismay, he had clearly become bored with the conversation and simply shrugged.

‘Fine—whatever,’ he said. ‘Just don’t get in my way, or the way of my staff. So, who do you want to interview first?’

Connor made a show of glancing over the assembled nurses, but Brianna knew who he was going to choose, just as she knew Connor knew it, too.

‘I’m sure Sister Flannigan and I will find a lot to talk about,’ he declared with a smile that didn’t even remotely suggest it would ever reach his eyes. ‘Mr Brooke, do you have an office or room I could use as a base while I’m here at the hospital?’

He wanted to use NICU as his base? Even when he was assessing other departments he would keep returning to NICU as his base? No, Brianna thought desperately, dear heavens, no.

‘I’ll get Maintenance to clear out the nurse unit manager’s office for you,’ the consultant replied vaguely. ‘It’s not in use at the moment, but there are confidential files in it that will have to be secured, so in the meantime you could use the nurses’ staffroom if you want.’

Connor nodded.

‘Sounds good to me,’ he said.

It didn’t sound good to Brianna, and neither did the way Connor shadowed her all the way out of the ward and down the corridor as though he was convinced she might bolt. And she would have bolted, she thought, if she hadn’t known that a pair of five-foot-two-inch legs could never have outrun the six-foot-one-inch legs of the man at her side.

‘Would you like some tea, coffee? ‘ she said, walking quickly over to the kettle as soon as they entered the staffroom, desperate to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. ‘There’s some herbal tea here, too, though I can’t vouch for it being drinkable, and hot chocolate—’

‘So, is it still Brianna Flannigan,’ he interrupted, ‘or did you change your Christian name as well as your surname?’

She stared at the cork board which one of the nurses had affixed to the wall above the kettle and cups. Postcards from far-away places were pinned to it, along with old birthday cards and congratulation cards, and there was also a whole array of cartoons that should have been funny but she had never felt less like laughing.

‘I…I kept my Christian name,’ she muttered, mechanically switching on the kettle and spooning some coffee into a cup, though she didn’t really want anything. ‘Flannigan was my mother’s maiden name.’

‘But not yours,’ he said. ‘You do realise I could get you fired for working at this hospital under a false name?’

He could, she knew he could, but suddenly she didn’t care. Suddenly she felt cornered, and defeated, and wearily she turned to face him.

‘OK, get me fired,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want to do, then go ahead and do it.’

‘Of course that’s not what I want!’ he exclaimed, tossing his laptop onto the nearest seat. ‘What do you take me for?’

I don’t know, she thought as she gazed up into his cold, rigid face. I don’t know because I feel like I don’t know you any more, and I’m wondering now if I ever did.

‘Look, can we sit down?’ she said. ‘You standing there—looming over me like some spectre of doom—isn’t helping.’

With a muttered oath he sat down, and, after a moment’s hesitation she abandoned the kettle and took the seat opposite him.

‘You really were determined I wouldn’t find you, weren’t you?’ he said, his blue eyes fixed on her, daring her to contradict him. ‘Changing your surname, moving to a one-horse town in the back of beyond in Cornwall.’

‘Connor, it wasn’t like that—’

‘Wasn’t it? ‘ he interrupted, his voice dripping sarcasm. ‘So how—exactly—would you interpret it?’

‘I wanteds…’ Oh, but this was so hard to explain, and she wanted to explain, for him to understand. ‘I just wanted…’ Her voice broke slightly despite her best efforts to keep it level. ‘Some peace. All I wanted was some peace.’

‘And to get that you had to walk out on me?’ he said incredulously. ‘Walk out without a word?’

‘I left you a letter,’ she protested, and saw his lip curl with derision.

‘“I need to be on my own for a while,”’ he quoted. ‘“I need some space, some time to get myself together”. That’s hardly an “I’m leaving you, and I’m never coming back”, dear-John letter, is it? ‘

‘Connor—’

‘You applied for this job without telling me, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You applied for it, and got it, and yet you never said a word to me about what you were planning to do.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’

‘So that’s why you only ever took three hundred pounds out of our joint bank account,’ he declared, fury deepening his voice. ‘You didn’t need any more money because you had this job to come to.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Why, Brianna, why?’ he demanded, thrusting his fingers through his black hair, anger, hurt and bewilderment plain on his face. ‘I thought we were happy, I thought you loved me.’

‘Things…things haven’t been right between us for a long time, Connor,’ she replied, ‘you know they haven’t—’

‘That’s nonsense,’ he retorted, and she clasped her hands together tightly, desperately trying to find the words that would make him understand.

‘I was going under, Connor,’ she cried. ‘After what happened—you wouldn’t talk to me, you wouldn’t let me talk, and I knew—if I didn’t get away—I was going to slide further and further into the black pit I’d fallen into, and if I kept on fallings’ She took an uneven breath. ‘I was scared—so scared—that I would never be able to get myself out again.’

‘And me—what about me?’ he exclaimed, his blue eyes blazing. ‘Two years, Brianna, it’s been two years since you left and in all that time you never once lifted the phone to tell me you were OK, never once even sent me a scribbled postcard to say you were alive.’

‘I was going to write, to tell you where I was,’ she declared defensively, but had she really been going to? It wasn’t something she wanted to think about, far less face. It was enough of a shock to see him sitting there in front of her. ‘Connor—’

‘You left your phone behind, the house keys, the police wouldn’t help me—’

‘You went to the police?’ She gasped, her eyes large with dismay, and he threw her a look that made her shrink back into her seat.

‘What the hell did you expect me to do? Did you think I’d simply stay home in our flat, night after night, watching TV, thinking, Well, I expect Brianna will come back eventually? Of course I went to the police. I thoughts…’ He closed his eyes for a second, and when he spoke again his voice was rough. ‘I thought you might have done something…stupid, but they said as you’d left a note, and your parents knew you were safe, it wasn’t a police matter but a domestic one.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I didn’t realise—I never imagined you’d go to the police—’

‘Can you imagine how that made me feel?’ he said, his lips curving into a bitter travesty of a smile. ‘When the police told me your parents knew where you were, but I didn’t? I went back to Ireland, to your parents’ farm in Killarney, thinking you might have gone there, and, when I discovered you hadn’t, I begged them to give me your address, even your phone number, so I could at least hear your voice, know you truly were safe, but they wouldn’t give me either. They said you’d made them promise not to tell me anything, that you would contact me when you were ready.’

‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ she repeated, willing him to believe her. ‘I didn’t…’ She shook her head blindly. ‘I wasn’t thinking clearly, not then. I just…’

‘Had to get away from me,’ he finished for her bitterly, and she bit her lip hard.

‘Connor, listen to me—’

‘Every time I heard on the news that a body had been found in some secluded spot I feared it was you,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Every time someone was pulled out of the Thames I thought, Please, don’t let it be Brianna, but, as time went on, God help me, I sometimes…’ He took a breath. ‘Sometimes I hoped it was you because at least then the waiting would be over. All I needed…all I wanted^was to know you really were safe, and yet you denied me even that, Brianna.’

‘I would have called you, I would have talked to you,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘but I knew talking to you wouldn’t help, that you wouldn’t listen.’

‘How can you say that?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Of course I would have talked, of course I would have listened!’

‘You didn’t before when I needed you to,’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘All you ever did was cut me off, change the subject, or you’d ask me…’ She swallowed convulsively, hearing the tears in her voice, and she didn’t want to cry…she so didn’t want to cry. ‘You kept asking me what was wrong, and I thought I’d go mad if you asked me that one more time because it was so obvious to me that everything was always going to be wrong, that it was never going to be right.’

‘You’re not making any sense—’

‘Because you’re not listening, just like you always don’t,’ she flared. ‘Whenever I try to talk to you, you never ever listen.’

‘Well, I want to talk now,’ he countered. ‘To talk properly with no lies, deception or half-truths, only honesty.’

She knew he was right, but talking honestly meant resurrecting everything that had happened, meant having to face it again. She hadn’t forgotten, she never would, but over the past two years she’d managed to come to a kind of acceptance, and to talk about it now…She didn’t think her heart could take that, and she shook her head.

‘Connor, this isn’t the time, or the place.’

‘Then when, Brianna?’ he exclaimed, and there was such a lacerating fury in his blue eyes that she winced. ‘When will be the time, or the place?’

She wanted to say, Never—nowhere. She wanted even more to say she wished he had never come, had never found her, but she didn’t have the courage.

‘I don’t know,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I don’t—’

She bit off the rest of what she had been about to say. The door of the nurses’ staffroom had opened, and Megan’s head had appeared hesitantly round it.

‘I’m really sorry,’ the paediatric specialist registrar began, glancing from Brianna to Connor, then back again, ‘but I’m afraid Brianna is needed in the unit.’

Brianna was hurrying towards Megan before she had even finished speaking, but when she reached the door she heard Connor clear his throat.

‘We have to talk, Brianna, and talk soon,’ he said.

She thought she nodded, but she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was she had to get away from him, and she was halfway down the corridor before Megan caught up with her.

‘Brianna—’

‘Is it Amy Renwick? Is she back from Recovery, and there’s a problem, or—?’

‘Actually, I’m afraid I lied, and you’re not needed in the unit at all,’ Megan interrupted, looking shamefaced. ‘It’s just…I was passing the nurses’ staffroom and I heard the auditor yelling at you. I wasn’t eavesdropping, honestly I wasn’t,’ she continued as Brianna stared at her in alarm. ‘It’s just the walls in this place are so thin, and you sounded…Well, you sounded really upset, and in need of rescue.’

‘I did—I was,’ Brianna said with a small smile.

‘I think you should make a formal complaint,’ Megan declared angrily. ‘It’s one thing to inspect a unit, to ask the staff questions about how it’s run, but harassing someone…’ She shook her head. ‘That’s completely out of order.’

‘Megan, I don’t want to make a complaint,’ Brianna replied. ‘My interview is over, done with, so let’s just leave it, OK?’

‘Not on your life,’ the paediatric registrar insisted. ‘If this Connor whatever his name is—’

‘Monahan. His name’s Connor Monahan.’

‘Thinks he can ride roughshod over the nursing staff, upset them, then he can think again. I can understand why you might be reluctant to make a complaint, but I’m not. I’m more than willing to march up to Admin right now, and tell them they’d better warn him to back off or they’ll have the nurses’ union on their doorstep.’

Megan would do it, too, Brianna thought, seeing the fury in her friend’s face, and it was the last thing she wanted. It was hard enough for her to deal with Connor’s reappearance in her life without having the staff in Admin gossiping about it after they’d been told all the facts, and she would have to tell them all the facts.

‘Megan, it’s got nothing to do with the nursing staff, or the unit,’ she said unhappily. ‘It’s me. It’s to do with me. You see, Connor Monahan and I…We know one another.’

Her friend gazed at her blankly for a second, then a look of horrified realisation appeared on her face.

‘Oh, lord, he’s not an ex-boyfriend of yours, is he?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, Brianna, I’m so sorry, what a nightmare for you.’

‘A nightmare, for sure.’ Brianna nodded. ‘But you see…’ She took a deep breath. ‘The trouble is, Connor isn’t an ex-boyfriend. He…he’s my husband.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘BUT Mr Brooke said yesterday—after Amy’s operation—that she might need another operation,’ Naomi Renwick said, her eyes dark with fear. ‘He said he wouldn’t know for the next seventy-two hours whether he’d successfully removed all of the infection, so you’d be keeping a very careful eye on her.’

‘Which I would be doing whether Amy had been operated on or not,’ Brianna replied, wishing the ever-pessimistic consultant to the darkest reaches of hell. ‘Naomi, your daughter is doing very well. We have no reason to think she will require another operation—’

‘But if she does…She’s so little, Sister, so very little, and if she needs another operation…’

‘We’ll deal with it just as we’ve dealt with all the other problems Amy has faced since she was born a month ago. Naomi, listen to me,’ Brianna continued, as Amy’s mother made to interrupt. ‘I can’t give you any guarantees—no one can, but, please, please, don’t go looking for bridges to cross. Amy’s temperature’s normal, her colour’s good. In fact,’ she added, ‘just look at her.’

Naomi Renwick gazed down into the incubator where her daughter was vigorously kicking her little legs despite the fine line of sutures across her stomach, and her lips curved into a shaky smile.

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ she said, and Brianna nodded.

‘She is, and right now she’s in the best possible place, getting the best possible care, so hold onto that, OK?’

Brianna hoped Naomi Renwick would, but she wished even more, as she turned to discover Connor standing behind her, that her husband would dog some other nurse’s footsteps, if only for a little while.

Twenty-four hours, she thought as she began walking down the ward, all too conscious he was following her. Just twenty-four hours ago her life might not exactly have been perfect, but at least she hadn’t felt permanently besieged. Now she felt cornered, under attack, and it wasn’t just by his presence, or his continual questions about the unit. It was the way he managed to somehow incorporate so many barbed comments into what he was saying that was wearing her down, little by little, bit by bit.

‘How many incubators does the NICU at Plymouth have?’ he asked, and she came to a weary halt.

‘Twelve,’ she replied, ‘which is double our capacity, but their hospital covers a far greater area and population than St Piran’s, so it’s bound to be bigger.’

‘I also notice from your ward clerk’s files that every baby has a primary carer,’ he continued. ‘That doesn’t seem to be a very efficient system in terms of time or personnel.’

‘Not everything can be measured in terms of time management, or personnel distribution,’ she said acidly. ‘Especially the care of very vulnerable babies.’

‘I see,’ he said, but she doubted whether he did as she watched him type something into his state-of-the-art phone, which could probably have made him a cup of coffee if he’d asked it to.

Figures, statistics had always been his passion, not people, and he didn’t seem to have changed.

‘Connor—’

‘Does this unit normally have quite so many unused incubators? ‘ he asked, gesturing towards the two empty ones at the end of the ward.

‘There’s no such thing as “normal” in NICU,’ she protested. ‘We’ve had occasions when only three of our incubators have been in use, times when we were at full capacity, and last Christmas we were so busy we had to send babies to Plymouth because we just couldn’t accommodate them. It was tough for everyone, especially the families.’

‘It would be.’ He nodded. ‘Christmas being the time when most families like to be together.’

And you’ve missed two with me. He didn’t say those words—he didn’t need to—but she heard them loud and clear.

‘Things don’t always work out the way we planned,’ she muttered, ‘and babies can’t be expected to arrive exactly when you want them to.’

‘Not babies, no. Grown-ups, on the other hand,’ he added, his eyes catching and holding hers, ‘have a choice.’

And you chose to walk away from me. That was what he was really saying, and she swallowed painfully.

‘Connor, please,’ she said with difficulty. ‘This is a good unit, an efficient unit. Please don’t make this personal.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘You think that’s what I’m doing?’

‘I know it is,’ she cried. ‘Look, I can understand you being angry—’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Rita interrupted, looking anything but as she joined them, ‘but I’m afraid we’ve had a complaint about your car, Sister Flannigan.’

‘A complaint?’ Brianna echoed in confusion, and Rita smiled.

A smile that was every bit as false as the sympathetic sigh with which she followed it.

‘You’ve parked it in the consultants’ side of the car park today instead of the nurses’. Easily done, of course, when you’re stressed—’

‘I’m not stressed—’

‘Of course you are, my dear,’ Rita declared, her face all solicitous concern, but her eyes, Brianna noticed, were speculative, calculating. ‘How can you possibly not be when you’re doing two jobs?’

‘Sister Flannigan has two jobs?’ Connor frowned, and Rita nodded.

‘Our nurse unit manager returned to Spain a few months back, and, as Admin haven’t yet appointed his replacement, Sister Flannigan has had to temporarily step into the breach, which is probably why we’re not as efficient as we should be.’

‘I can’t say I’ve noticed any inefficiency on Sister Flannigan’s part,’ Connor replied, attempting to walk on, but Rita was not about to be rebuffed.

‘Oh, please don’t think I’m suggesting Sister Flannigan is inefficient—’

Yeah, right, Rita, Brianna thought angrily, and this is clearly payback time because I chewed your head off yesterday.

‘But when you’re as much of a perfectionist as I am,’ the ward clerk continued, all honeyed sweetness, ‘I do like everything to be just so.’

‘Which makes me wonder why you’re still standing here,’ Connor declared, ‘and not back in your office, dotting some i’s and crossing some t’s.’

The ward clerk’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a second, then she clamped her lips together tightly.

‘Well, no one can ever accuse me of remaining where I’m not wanted,’ she said, before stomping away, and Brianna sighed.

‘Which, unfortunately, isn’t true.’ She glanced up at Connor hesitantly. ‘Thanks for saying what you did, for backing me up.’

For a moment he said nothing, then his lips twisted into something like a smile. ‘I thought I always did. I thought we were a team.’

They had been once, she remembered. There had been a time when she couldn’t have imagined her life without him, and then, little by little, things had changed, and two years ago…

‘I’m sorry, Connor,’ she murmured, ‘so sorry.’

‘Sorry you left, or sorry I found you?’

His eyes were fixed on her, and the awful truth was she couldn’t give him an answer, not without hurting him, and she backed away from him, afraid he would realise it.

‘The car,’ she said haltingly. ‘I have to…I need to move my car.’

She was gone before he could stop her and, when the ward door clattered shut behind her, Connor clenched his fists until his knuckles showed white.

She hadn’t answered him. He’d asked her a simple, easy-to-answer question, and yet she hadn’t answered him, and he needed—wanted—answers.

Dammit, she owed him that at least, he thought furiously. When he’d first seen her yesterday, his initial reaction had been to thank God she was safe, his Brianna was safe, but then anger had consumed him. A blazing, blinding, irrational anger that she could be standing in front of him looking better than he’d seen her look in a long time, had been living happily in Cornwall for the last two years, when he’d been to hell and back, fearing the worst. And she’d disappear out of his life again in an instant given half a chance. He’d seen it in her dark brown eyes, in the way she looked at him.

Well, she wasn’t going to walk away from him a second time, he decided. This time he wanted answers, proper answers, and not some nonsense about him never talking to her, never listening, and he headed for the ward door to follow her.

‘I’m really very sorry about this, Sister Flannigan,’ Sid, the hospital handyman, said uncomfortably after she’d moved her car out of the consultants’ bay and into the nurses’ part of the car park. ‘To be honest, I don’t think there should be any divisions in the car park, but some consultants…’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a status thing for them, you see.’

‘It’s all right, Sid, truly it is,’ Brianna said quickly. ‘I don’t know where my brain was this morning…’ Well, she did know—it was on Connor, she’d been thinking about Connor, and how she didn’t want to meet him again, but she wasn’t about to share that even with someone as nice as their handyman. ‘So could you please tell whoever it was who complained that it won’t happen again?’

The middle-aged handyman didn’t look any happier. In fact, she could hear him muttering under his breath, ‘Officious twit…that’s what he is,’ as he walked away, and she smiled, but, as she closed her car door, her smile vanished.

It would be so easy to simply get back into her car, and drive away. No one would miss her for a while, and if she kept on driving, and driving, she might eventually reach a place where Connor would never find her. She could start again, change her name again, and—

‘Don’t, Brianna,’ a feminine voice said gently. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and it won’t solve anything.’

‘It might,’ Brianna muttered, as she turned to see Jess watching her.

‘Megan told me about Connor being your husband. She wouldn’t normally break a confidence—you know she wouldn’t,’ the counsellor added quickly as Brianna stared at her in alarm, ‘but she’s worried about you.’

‘I know, but…’ Brianna shook her head. ‘Jess, have you ever wanted to run away? To just run away, leave everything behind, and start all over?’

‘I did—I have,’ the counsellor replied. ‘When the staff at the hospital I worked in before I came to St Piran’s found out about me having HIV…a lot of them cut me dead, crossed the street to avoid me—’

‘Oh, Jess!’

‘And I couldn’t bear it so I ran, and then…’ She sighed, a low, sad sigh. ‘Well, you know what happened. That reporter from the Penhally Gazette broadcast my condition all over his newspaper, and I wanted to run again, but I knew if I did, I would be leaving behind the people, the hospital I felt I’d become such a part of.’

‘And Gio,’ Brianna murmured. ‘You would have been leaving him behind, too.’

‘I had no guarantees he would stand by me when he found out the truth, Brianna. He could have walked away and, if he had, then I…’ Jess managed a watery smile. ‘I would just have to have lived with it.’

Brianna stared down at the car keys in her hand.

‘I don’t know if I’m as strong as you are.’

‘I think you are,’ Jess said softly, ‘but it’s your choice, Brianna. You can stay and confront your fear, or you can run, but if you do run don’t forget that whatever you’re scared of won’t go away. It will always be there, like a dark shadow hanging over you.’

Her friend was right, she knew she was. Running wasn’t the answer, but to stay and try to get Connor to talk to her, to really talk…

‘Jess…’ she began, only to look sharply round with a frown. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ Jess said in confusion. ‘I can hear the traffic, the birds in the trees—’

‘It’s a baby. A baby in distress, and it’s close by.’ Jess stared at her as though she was suddenly having grave doubts about her mental stability but, having worked with babies for most of her adult life, Brianna could recognise a baby’s cry from five hundred paces, and this baby was in trouble. Big trouble.

‘Maybe it’s a cat,’ Jess observed, following Brianna as she headed back to the consultants’ part of the car park. ‘Cats and kittens often make a sound like a baby.’

But it wasn’t a kitten or a cat. It was a baby who hadn’t been there when Brianna had moved her car just a few minutes ago. A baby lying wrapped in a white shawl beside Jess’s husband’s glossy Aston Martin. A baby whose face was blue, and who was breathing in tiny, rasping gasps.

‘Oh, my God! ‘ Jess exclaimed, as Brianna swiftly lifted the tiny bundle into her arms and cradled its head against her breast. ‘Who on earth would leave a baby here?’

‘It doesn’t matter who,’ Brianna replied. ‘This baby needs attention, and it needs it now.’

She was off and running before Jess could reply. Running so single-mindedly she didn’t see the tall figure walking towards her until she almost collided with him.

‘Brianna, we need to…’ Connor looked down, then up at her incredulously. ‘That’s a baby.’

‘Ten out of ten for observation,’ she replied, ‘and now can you please get out of my way because it needs help.’

NICU was the obvious place to go, she realised as she ran on with Jess and Connor following her, but she didn’t know if the bundle in her arms would make it that far, so she sighed with relief when she saw Josh walking across the entrance foyer of the hospital.

‘Hello, gorgeous, where’s the fire?’ He grinned as she raced towards him.

‘No fire,’ she replied breathlessly. ‘It’s a newborn, I found it in the car park, and it’s floppy, blue and breathing oddly.’

All Josh’s amusement disappeared in a second.

‘Jess, can you page Mr Brooke and tell him to come down to A and E immediately? And, if you can’t get him,’ he added as the counsellor turned to go, ‘page Megan. Brianna—you and the baby—A and E—now.’

‘My guess is respiratory distress syndrome,’ Brianna said as she hurried into A and E and placed the baby on one of the examination tables. ‘See how his skin and muscles are being pulled in every time he takes a breath?’ she added, carefully unwrapping the shawl. ‘How tight his abdomen is?’

‘It’s a boy?’ Connor said, his voice sounding slightly constricted, and Josh frowned at him.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘The baby’s father?’

‘I’m Connor Monahan, the hospital auditor.’

‘Which doesn’t explain why you’re here, so I suggest you go and audit something. OK, I wants sats, a ventilator, an umbilical line and a cardio-respiratory monitor,’ Josh told his staff. ‘And a face mask—the tiniest we’ve got.’

‘BP low, heart rate too high,’ one of the A and E nurses declared. ‘This baby is going to go into shock if we’re not careful.’

‘Not on my watch, he won’t,’ Josh said grimly. ‘Where’s that umbilical line?’

‘Josh, can’t you hurry up and stabilise him?’ Brianna said, her eyes fixed anxiously on the baby boy. ‘He needs the resources we have in NICU.’

‘Agreed, my beautiful colleen,’ Josh replied as he began to insert the umbilical line, ‘but, as you know very well, stabilising can’t be rushed. Poor little mite,’ he continued as he checked the cardio-respiratory monitor. ‘He can’t be more than a couple of days old, which means his mother must need medical attention, too.’

‘Yes—yes—whatever,’ Brianna said quickly, ‘but hurry, Josh, please, hurry.’

‘This respiratory distress thing,’ Connor said, ‘can it be cured?’

Josh looked round at him with irritation.

‘Why the hell are you still here? Run out of departments to audit already?’

‘I asked a question, and I’d like an answer,’ Connor declared, his voice every bit as hard as Josh’s, and a small smile curved the A and E consultant’s lips.

‘Are you quite sure you’re not the baby’s father? OK—OK,’ Josh continued as Brianna threw him an impatient look. ‘Yes, Mr Monahan, RDS can be cured. Premature, and very underweight, babies often don’t produce enough surfactant in their lungs to help them breathe, but we can give it to them artificially through a breathing tube.’

‘But only in NICU,’ Megan declared as she swept into A and E, pushing an incubator, ‘so can we have a little less chat and a lot more action?’

‘I’m simply answering Mr Monahan’s question, Megan,’ Josh answered mildly, but the paediatric specialist registrar was clearly not about to be placated.

‘A question we don’t have time for,’ she retorted.

‘Oh, I always have time for questions,’ he countered. ‘I don’t always give the right answers—’

‘Now, there’s a surprise—not,’ Megan replied, her voice cold. ‘Perhaps if you spent less time—’

‘Look, could the two of you park whatever problem you have with one another and concentrate on this baby?’ Brianna exclaimed, then flushed scarlet when she saw Megan’s hurt expression and Josh’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that—I’m just…’

‘Worried.’ Josh nodded. ‘Understood. OK,’ he added as he carefully lifted the baby boy and placed him gently into the incubator, ‘this tiny tot is good to go.’

Brianna instantly began pushing the incubator out of A and E towards NICU but it didn’t make her feel any better. She’d hurt Megan, she knew she had, and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t known Megan and Josh had some sort of history so to say what she had.

‘Megan, I’m sorry,’ she murmured when they reached the unit and Chris began hooking the baby to their monitors. ‘What I said—’

‘Forget it,’ Megan interrupted tightly. ‘OK, I want an ultrasound scan, more X-rays and the ophthalmologist.’

‘Do you want me to check the sats again?’ Brianna said uncertainly. ‘Josh’s staff did them in A and E, but…’

‘Double-check them. Josh’s staff aren’t specialists, we are.’

‘He is going to be all right, isn’t he?’ Connor asked as he hovered beside them. ‘That doctor in A and E—the one who was flirting with Brianna—seemed to think he would be.’

‘The doctor’s name is Josh O’Hara, and he wasn’t flirting with me,’ Brianna said swiftly, seeing Megan’s head snap up. ‘He was just being pleasant.’

‘Was he indeed,’ Connor murmured dryly, and Brianna could have kicked him for the dark shadow that suddenly appeared in Megan’s eyes.

‘Look, Connor, why don’t you wait outside?’ she said abruptly. ‘All you’re doing is getting in the way.’

‘I’ll stay,’ he said firmly, and, when she turned back to the baby with a shrug, he took a shallow breath.

He couldn’t leave, and it wasn’t just because he was genuinely concerned about the baby Brianna had found. When she’d almost collided with him outside the hospital he’d been unable to believe what she’d been carrying. The little form so motionless, the shock of thick black hair…For a moment it was as though the last two years had never happened, and then he’d blinked, had seen Brianna’s blue uniform, and the two years had rolled back again, bringing with them all the old pain and heartbreak.

He’d told himself that all he wanted from her was answers. He’d told himself she deserved to be punished for what she’d put him through, but he’d seen the pain in her eyes when that A and E consultant had been examining the baby. She was still in her own private hell, just as he was, and lashing out at her wasn’t the solution, not if he wanted her back. And he did want her back, he realised, feeling his heart twist inside him as he saw her gently touch the little boy’s cheek, because without her…Without her he had nothing.

‘Shouldn’t the police be alerted?’ he said. ‘If this baby is only days old, won’t his mother need help, too?’

‘Good point,’ Megan declared. ‘Did you see anyone hanging about the car park, Brianna?’

‘To be honest, I wasn’t looking,’ she replied.

In fact, Brianna thought with dawning horror, if Jess hadn’t turned up when she had, she would probably have been halfway up the motorway by now, and God knows when this baby would have been found.

‘Damn,’ Megan muttered. ‘Chris, could you try paging Mr Brooke again, see if we can track him down?’

‘There’s something wrong?’ Brianna said, her eyes flying to the baby in the incubator, and Megan shook her head.

‘“Wrong” is too strong a word. I’d just be a lot happier if this little chap wasn’t quite so inactive. Jess said he was crying when you found him, and yet now…’

‘Maybe he’s just cold? ‘ Brianna suggested hopefully, and Megan frowned.

‘Maybe, but I’d really like Mr Brooke to take a look at this little one. Which reminds me,’ she continued, ‘we can’t keep calling him “little chap” or “little one”, until his mother comes forward.’

‘How about Patrick?’ Chris suggested. ‘It’s March the seventeenth soon, St Patrick’s Day, and you’re Irish, Brianna, so I vote we call him Patrick.’

Brianna stared down at the baby boy in the incubator. He was so small, so very small, scarcely 5 pounds in weight, and, gently, she adjusted the pulse oximeter taped to his little foot.

‘Harry,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like…I want to call him Harry.’

She heard Connor’s sharp intake of breath, knew what he was thinking, but she didn’t turn round, didn’t acknowledge him, and Chris shrugged.

‘Personally, I still like Patrick, but, as you found him, Brianna, if you want to call him Harry, then Harry he is.’

Just until his mother comes forward, Brianna told herself as she carefully slipped a hat over the baby’s head to make sure he didn’t lose any more heat. He would only be Harry until his mother claimed him, she knew that, and the mother would come forward, she was sure she would, but until then…Until then she would make sure this little Harry always had someone to care for him, to watch out for him.

It was a very long afternoon. Mr Brooke might eventually have arrived, and announced that in his opinion little Harry was most definitely suffering from respiratory distress syndrome, but he departed again with the observation that he also couldn’t rule out the possibility of bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

‘Remind me never to be on a sinking ship with that man,’ Brianna observed with feeling, and Megan laughed.

‘Yeah, he’s a regular little ray of sunshine, isn’t he?’ She glanced down at her watch, and gasped. ‘Hey, shouldn’t you have been off duty hours ago?’

‘I know, I just wanteds…’ Brianna shrugged helplessly. ‘I wanted to stay until I was sure little Harry was OK.’

‘Well, in the time-honoured hospital jargon,’ Megan replied, ‘he’s doing as well as can be expected, and to be honest that’s about as much as we can expect in the circumstances.’

‘How old do you think he is?’ Brianna asked, and Megan frowned.

‘I’d say a day—two days at most. We’re still waiting for the results of the scans to confirm his gestational age, but I don’t think he’s premature, just very small, which would suggest his mother probably wasn’t eating properly.’

‘And she’s out there somewhere, needing help.’ Brianna sighed. ‘And I don’t have the faintest idea what she looks like. If I’d only kept my wits about me, looked about before I rushed her son into the hospital…’

‘Hey, don’t beat yourself up over it—Jess didn’t see anyone either,’ Megan replied, then glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘How’s it going with Connor?’

Brianna grimaced. ‘What do you think?’

‘At least he seems to have finally left for the day,’ Megan observed, ‘or maybe he’s just annoying the hell out of the staff in some other department. Whichever it is, I’d cut and run if I were you. And, yes, I’ll phone you at home if there’s any change in Harry,’ she continued as Brianna made to interrupt, ‘so go, will you? ‘

Brianna laughed and nodded, but, as she turned to leave, she paused.

‘Megan, what I said this afternoon in A and E…If I could take it back, I would. If I could reverse the clock, I’d do it in a minute. What I said was so thoughtless—’

‘But correct,’ the paediatric specialist registrar interrupted. ‘Josh and I should have been concentrating on little Harry. It’s just. I’m afraid the two of us only have to be in the same room together now and…’ She smiled a little unevenly. ‘Let’s just say it’s not good.’

Brianna knew exactly what Megan meant as she left the unit and drove home, but the trouble was she didn’t even have to be in the same room with Connor for her nerves to be on edge. Even when she got home to her cottage in the small fishing village of Penhally, and had changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Diversion, she thought as she picked up a book, only to just as quickly discard it. If she’d reached home at her normal time she would have gone for a walk on the beach to try to calm herself, but it was too dark for that now. What she needed was something—or someone—to channel her thoughts elsewhere, so, when her doorbell rang, a little after nine o’clock, she hastened to answer it. With luck it might be Jess who sometimes stopped by to discuss how the parents of a baby in NICU were—or weren’t—coping, and they could have a cup of coffee, and chat, but it wasn’t Jess on her doorstep, it was Connor.

‘If you’re here to talk to me about the unit,’ she said quickly, ‘it’s late, it’s been a long day, and I’m tired.’

‘I haven’t come to talk to you about the unit,’ he replied, putting out his hand to stop her as she began to close the door on him. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

And he had a suitcase with him, she noticed with dawning dismay. A suitcase that could only mean one thing.

‘Connor, you can’t think…’ She dragged her gaze away from the suitcase, and back to him. ‘You’re not expecting to move in here with me, are you? ‘

‘I figured it was stupid to keep staying in a hotel when you have a house within easy driving distance of St Piran, so I checked out of my hotel this evening.’

‘But you can’t,’ she protested. ‘People will talk. They’ll say—’

‘That a husband is living with his wife?’ he suggested, and she flushed, and regrouped hurriedly.

‘But won’t your impartiality be compromised if you stay with me?’ she exclaimed. ‘I know you would never shut down an NICU but people could think—might suggest—I had exerted undue influence upon your report.’

‘Then people would be wrong, wouldn’t they?’ he replied smoothly. ‘So, are you going to leave me standing on the doorstep, or let me in?’

He’d backed her into a corner. Her only way out would be to tell him the truth, that she didn’t want him in her home, prodding and poking at old wounds, but though he had asked her for honesty she knew she couldn’t be quite that honest with him.

‘You’d better come in,’ she said in defeat.

‘Nice house,’ he observed as he followed her down the narrow hallway into her sitting room, having to duck to avoid hitting his head on the old oak beams across the ceiling. ‘Very…compact.’

‘Tiny, you mean,’ she said. ‘I suppose it is, but I like it.’

‘And this is where you’ve been living for the last two years?’ he said, putting his suitcase down by the coffee table, and she nodded.

‘I lived in nurses’ accommodation at the hospital for a few weeks when I first came to Cornwall, but I wanted somewhere to call home so I rented this.’

‘You have a home,’ he reminded her, ‘in London. Our flat.’

But it isn’t mine, she thought. It never was mine, but I don’t think I’ll ever get you to understand that.

‘Would you like something to eat?’ she said, deliberately changing the subject. ‘I was just about to raid my kitchen.’

‘That would be nice.’

She didn’t know if it would be nice, but eating something would certainly be preferable to them simply staring at one another in awkward silence for the rest of the evening, or, even worse, talking about things she didn’t want to talk about.

‘Chilli, lasagne or beef casserole?’ she asked as she went into the kitchen and opened the freezer.

‘Lasagne was always my favourite.’

It had been. She couldn’t recall how many times she’d made it for him in the past but that had been then, this was now.

‘Lasagne it is,’ she said, and, as she placed it in the microwave, she prayed he would eat it quickly so she could retreat to the safety of her bedroom.

But he didn’t eat quickly. In fact, he seemed to be in no hurry at all.

‘This is lovely,’ he declared as he forked some lasagne into his mouth. ‘Every bit as good as I remember.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said, pushing her own lasagne around the plate without enthusiasm. ‘Would you like some wine to go with your meal?’ she continued, half rising to her feet, only to sit down again as he shook his head. ‘Connor…’ Get it out, she thought, just say it. ‘Why have you really come?’

‘Because we need to talk, and there’s never any opportunity at the hospital.’

Which was fair enough, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

‘That doctor at the hospital,’ he continued, ‘the A and E one who was flirting with you—’

‘How many times do I have to tell you he wasn’t flirting with me? ‘ she interrupted with a huff of impatience. ‘Josh is from Ireland, as you and I are, and the way he talks…It’s just his style. He does it with every woman he meets, whether she’s nine or ninety. And anyway,’ she added for good measure, ‘he’s married.’

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