A Proposal Worth Waiting For. Lilian Darcy

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      It was a term of endearment, damn it!

      Find another one, he decided. Whether she’s right or wrong, play it safe, take the line of least resistance, for Josh’s sake. And for his own?

      It was what he’d been doing for far too long.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘THEY’LL be closing the flight in twenty minutes, Miranda,’ Benita said. ‘What do you think has happened to Josh and his dad? They wouldn’t have just wandered into a shop to buy postcards?’

      ‘I’m getting worried,’ Miranda admitted. Nick and his son had been absent for fifteen minutes—enough time to administer the first dose of Ventolin and assess its effect. If it wasn’t working…

      It often didn’t. Despite long-term treatment to develop Josh’s lungs, on top of a regimen of preventative action which Anna stuck to like a monk’s ritual, Josh’s sudden attacks had progressed three times in the past year to the point where hospital admission had been the only option.

      If that happened now…

      She felt a surge of disappointment on Josh’s behalf. He’d been looking forward to this trip so much. Possibly too much. Miranda had privately wondered if any place in the whole world could match the paradise of Crocodile Creek Kids’ Camp and Wallaby Island as they existed in little Josh’s energetic imagination.

      He’d said to her at his last check-up, ‘There’ll be waterfalls and birds and lakes teeming with crocodiles, and rides and surf and the best food, and toys and campfires and singalongs, and I’m going to swim all day, except when I’m feeding the crocodiles. I’m not going in the water with them! They’re in a lake, they’re not in the ocean or the pool. And I think the lake is going to be purple. And fireworks. There has to be fireworks.’

      And Miranda had smiled at him and nodded, ‘Purple, huh?’ And, of course, it was good that he was looking forward to it so much, but kids could make themselves sick with excitement, and then Nick had had to come on the holiday instead of Anna, which added a level of stress and uncertainty to the excitement, and—

      ‘I’m going to go and hunt them up,’ Miranda told Benita. ‘Can you handle things here, and guard Nick and Josh’s luggage? If I can’t get them to the check-in in the next twenty- five minutes at the outside, bad luck. We can’t have the whole group miss the flight because of two people.’

      Even if one of them was one of her favourite patients, and the other one was…

      Well, was Nick Devlin.

      A very memorable ship passing in the night, practically scraping her all down the starboard side like the Titanic and its famous iceberg, and pushing her off course for far too long.

      She hurried through the terminal, found the parents’ room and knocked on the door. ‘Nick? Josh? Are you still in there?’

      Nick opened the door. He looked anxious, jittery and too light on his feet. He wanted action and control and to get on that plane now. Miranda was shocked at the way she could read his emotional state. No, not just read it, feel it as if it was happening inside her own body. As soon as he saw her, he gave a frowning glance at his watch and she knew what he must be thinking.

      Can we do this?

      Behind him Josh sat on a bland vinyl chair. Still wheezing. Not noticeably better, but not worse. Could they do this, with time squeezing them as tight as Josh’s lungs?

      Miranda felt steely determination set in.

      Could they? Just try showing her any other option!

      ‘Time for a second dose,’ she said. ‘Let’s not have you two miss the flight. There isn’t another connecting hop out to the island until tomorrow afternoon.’

      ‘We’ve just done a second lot,’ Nick muttered, blocking the conversation from Josh’s ears with the bulk of his body in the half-open doorway. His open-necked shirt showed a fine mist of perspiration across his collar-bone. He was literally sweating this—the tight timing, Josh’s breathing, the potential disappointment. ‘What do you think? Is there any point hanging on here for a third, or should I give up now and cancel our flight? Give up on the whole thing?’

      She couldn’t keep back a stricken sound. Cancel Josh’s trip?

      ‘I’m asking you as a doctor, Miranda,’ he added, as if he knew that she was operating far too much on emotion right now. ‘Not as someone who wants my little boy to have his holiday. Should we really push this? Is it a sign that I’m not the right person to be…? No, hell, I can’t think straight about any of this. You need to be the one to make the decision.’

      He met her gaze, jaw tight, expression rigid, fighting himself. She wasn’t imagining the appeal reflecting from deep within his brown eyes. It was there, even though he’d never been the kind of man to show any weakness easily or willingly.

      Somehow, his look cut to the heart of her just as the whole of him had cut to the heart of her ten years ago, during their one night together, without him apparently even knowing it. Or if he had known, back then, he hadn’t cared.

      At some level he trusted her on this, she decided—trusted Anna’s assessment of her as a professional, or his own more personal memories. The fact warmed her too much and she had to push the feeling away. She should remember that after their night of talking and making love, which she’d believed in so much, he’d never phoned…

      ‘Has he improved at all?’ she asked quickly.

      ‘A little. More after the dose I gave him a couple of minutes ago. I—I don’t think he trusts me. Is he psyching himself out because I’m here, not his mother? Maybe at some level this is happening because he doesn’t want to go to camp with me.’

      He was being incredibly careful not to let Josh hear. Miranda had to step closer and keep her eyes fixed on that barely moving mouth but still she strained to hear him. At this distance, she could see more clearly the lines on his face that hadn’t been there ten years ago, and she had a totally unacceptable urge to soothe them with her fingers.

      ‘Let’s not think that way. Let me take a look at him,’ she suggested.

      ‘He knows you almost better than he knows me, I guess.’ The words, barely more than a mutter, cut Miranda to the heart.

      She came fully into the parents’ room and dropped to Josh-level. He was sitting in the room’s one chair. ‘Can you talk, Josh?’

      ‘A bit.’

      ‘You said the second dose helped?’ She could feel Nick behind her, a ball of strong and very male tension and distress. He really didn’t want to cancel this trip.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘So we’ll just sit here, shall we, and then we’ll give a third dose and that’ll do the trick.’ She spoke as if there was no other possibility, and Josh smiled at last.

      While Nick let out a sigh that she didn’t dare to think came from relief.

      Not СКАЧАТЬ