His Emergency Fiancée (11 page)

By the time Kirsty returned to their room, dressed but with a towel wrapped turban-style round her wet hair, Ben was up, clad in faded jeans and an old rugby shirt, and was in the middle of packing. ‘Gran’s at church, but she’s left a casserole in the oven.’

Kirsty frowned. ‘We should have gone, too.’

‘No one expects it, Kirst. We were at the hospital until late last night, remember?’

And then…Her face heated. No wonder they’d slept in so late this morning. ‘Yes.’ Embarrassed, she turned to her packing.

‘I’ll go and make us some coffee,’ Ben said.

‘Thanks.’

She finished packing, combed her damp hair, then stripped the bedding ready for washing. When she went downstairs, Ben had put two mugs of strong coffee on the table and was steadily munching through a pile of warmed rolls with heather honey as he read the sports section of the Sunday paper.

Relieved he was letting her take the coward’s way out of facing him, Kirsty sat down at the table, buttered herself a roll and took the news section. She glanced at him covertly a couple of times over top of the newspaper. Why had she never noticed how gorgeous his hands were? Well shaped, with long, strong fingers that felt…

Stop right there, she told herself crossly. You’re not supposed to be thinking about what he did with those hands last night. Annoyed with herself, she tried to concentrate on the news.

* * *

She looked so serious, Ben thought as he watched her covertly over the top of the newspaper. Calm and graceful and very, very serious. No one would ever imagine that this woman had spiralled out of control in his arms the previous night. He wondered how she’d looked then. Had her eyes flashed gold fire? What did her face look like when it was flushed with passion?

Stop right there, he told himself. The light was off and there’s no way you’re going to repeat what happened, let alone repeat it with the lights on. And he buried himself back in the rugby reports.

* * *

‘Good morning,’ Morag greeted them as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I saw Ellen McAllister at church. She asked me to tell you how grateful she was to both of you.’

‘Nothing to be grateful about, Gran. We didn’t save him,’ Ben said quietly.

‘His time had come,’ Morag said simply. ‘But you did all you could—and you waited for her at the hospital. She appreciated that.’

Bon nodded grimly. ‘I’ll pop in and see her before we go.’

Kirsty was about to add, Me too, when she realised that this was the perfect opportunity to talk to Morag and find out the truth about her condition.

But then Morag pre-empted any plans. ‘Ellen won’t be there. She’s going down to Newcastle to pick Andy up.’

‘Should she be driving?’ Ben asked.

‘No, but she’s from tough stock and she says it makes her feel better that she’s actually doing something, not waiting around for things to happen.’ Morag was matter-of-fact. ‘Now, do you two want to get some fresh air before lunch? You both look as if you need it.’

Kirsty flushed to the roots of her hair. Was it so obvious what she and Ben had been doing, last night? ‘I—er…’

Ben came to her rescue. ‘Thanks, Gran. We’re both used to late nights at work, but I suppose the travelling hasn’t helped.’

‘What time’s your flight?’

‘Four.’

‘So you need to check in at three—I’ll have lunch ready for one,’ Morag said.

‘We’ll do the washing up first,’ Kirsty offered.

‘You’ll do no such thing, young lady. Off with the pair of you,’ Morag directed.

‘Never argue with a Scots granny. They’re always right,’ Ben said wryly. He stood up, stretched, then drew Kirsty to her feet and slid his arm round her shoulder. ‘Come on. See you in a bit, Gran.’

It was colder than the previous day, cold enough for them both to need warm jackets. To Kirsty’s relief, he dropped his arm from her shoulders as soon as they left the house. Having his arm round her was torture, because she knew he didn’t mean it. At least, not in the way she wanted him to mean it.

She just hoped that he hadn’t guessed how she felt.

And it seemed as if she was a better actress than she thought, because Ben gave her a guided tour of the village, showing her where he’d gone to school and taking her round the tiny church where he’d been christened. A church much like the one she’d imagined the previous evening, its plainness showing the sheer beauty of the ancient building.

‘The forest’s something else,’ he said as they headed out of the village and into the woods above it. ‘There used to be hundreds of red squirrels scampering around all over the place. But, even better…’ He left the tantalising promise hanging in the air, refusing to be drawn about the surprise he clearly had planned.

And then she saw it. A carpet of bluebells, stretching as far as she could see. The flowers were all shades of blue, verging through into lilac and even into pink. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘Like a loch within the forest. I remember my dad—’He stopped abruptly.

Kirsty knew not to push. Ben rarely spoke about his parents. She knew that his father had died young and assumed that Ben’s mother had died soon after, as he’d gone to live with Morag when he was five. Even now, it clearly still hurt him too much to talk about his mother, because Kirsty had never once heard him speak about her.

‘Hey. It’s OK,’ she said softly, taking his hand and squeezing it.

* * *

Why on earth had he brought her here? Here, to his special place, the place his father had shown him the year before he’d died, the place Ben always went to think? Now he’d always associate the place with Kirsty, too. And the way she was holding his hand…It was almost as if she knew. Knew how he was feeling, understood—just letting him know that she cared, that she was there for him.

And she did care for him.

Just as friends.

All the same, he didn’t release her hand. Worse still, he laced his fingers through hers and continued walking through the forest hand in hand with her.

They found a clear stream that was narrow enough for them both to step over; and Kirsty exclaimed in delight when she found a patch of tiny, sweet-smelling violets. ‘I know you’re not supposed to pick them, but your gran would love them,’ she said wistfully.

‘She’d love them more in the forest,’ Ben told her gently, tightening the pressure of his fingers against hers.

Sensible. He was being sensible. So why didn’t he just stop holding her hand? Because, he told himself, he was still shocked about Marty. It was a need for comfort, nothing more, that made him want to hold her hand like this.

* * *

Eventually they went back to the cottage, where the chicken casserole smelt wonderful. The light, fluffy mashed potato and swede Morag served with it—‘You can’t possibly come to Scotland without tasting neeps and tatties!’ as she put it—was gorgeous, complementing the spring greens and the mustard-based sauce of the casserole.

Kirsty only just managed pudding—Morag’s homemade ice cream, made with raspberries and cream from the local organic dairy, with tiny crunchy honey biscuits—and sat back with a sigh of contentment. ‘I could quite happily curl up and go to sleep,’ she admitted. ‘You know, lazy Sunday afternoons.’

‘Except we’ve got a plane to catch,’ Ben reminded her.

‘Then I’ll make a start on the washing-up.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Morag said. ‘I’ll do it after you’ve gone.’

‘I’ll do it, then,’ Ben said, clearly guessing what Kirsty intended to do.

‘The same goes for you, young man,’ Morag informed him. She remained adamant—quashing any hopes Kirsty had of talking to the old lady and finishing their conversation about her health.

It seemed, Kirsty thought, that she’d have to do it by phone, when she was back in Southbay.

Finally, they took their leave of Morag and Ben drove them back to Inverness. Kirsty tried not to close her eyes this time—he’d already proved over the weekend that he was a careful driver, pulling into the passing places and managing to avoid the deer that wandered onto the road, too. And, because Ben clearly wasn’t in the mood for talking, she ended up watching the loch.

‘Did you see it?’ Ben enquired as they reached the first suburbs of Inverness.

‘What?’

‘Nessie,’ he teased.

‘No.’

‘Maybe next time.’

Except there wouldn’t be a next time—would there?

CHAPTER EIGHT

M
ONDAY
morning saw life back to normal. Kirsty was on a late and Ben was on an early, so she did the supermarket run before she went to work and whizzed round with the vacuum cleaner, leaving Ben a note under the salt-cellar to say it was his turn to clean the bathroom.

On her way in to work, she thought about the engagement plan. She’d kept her part of the bargain: she’d convinced Morag that her grandson had settled down. But did she really want Ben to keep his part of the deal? As soon as word leaked out that Kirsty was engaged to Ben Robertson—and, given how efficient the grapevine was at Jimmy’s, that wouldn’t take long—there would be a lot of coolness underlying the congratulations. Most of the single women in the hospital had set their sights on Ben, even the ones that hadn’t thought about it, whether they admitted it or not! She really didn’t want a miserable working environment with everyone disliking her. On the other hand, she already felt as if she’d got that, with the Chambers situation. And if Ben’s theory was right and the engagement ring kept the consultant surgeon off her back…

In the end, she decided to leave the ring where it was rather than slide it onto the chain round her neck. And it took Jenny all of forty seconds to spot it when Kirsty set foot on the ward.

‘Kirsty Brown, is that what I think it is?’

‘Um—what?’ Kirsty asked, playing for time.

‘Left hand, ring finger, huge rock?’ the surgical ward sister said meaningfully, tapping her own finger.

‘Ye-es.’

‘Who?’

Kirsty held her breath.

‘Who?’ Jenny demanded again.

‘Ben,’ Kirsty muttered.

‘Ben, as in
your
Ben?
Ben Robertson?
’

‘Uh-huh.’

Jenny’s shriek of delight brought the rest of the nursing staff running. Two minutes later, the whole ward knew that Kirsty was engaged to Ben and everyone in sight was congratulating her. Just as Kirsty had suspected, a couple of the younger members of staff were rather cool towards her, but most people seemed genuinely pleased for her.

‘Might I enquire what all the fuss is about?’ an icy voice said behind them.

‘Our Kirst flew up to Scotland this weekend and got engaged,’ Jenny said, her smile daring Chambers to rain on Kirsty’s parade.

‘Indeed.’ His gaze met Kirsty’s, but she refused to quail under it. ‘Remember that this is a surgical ward. Patients need quiet to recuperate from surgery. And I trust you’re not going to wear your ring in Theatre, Brown.’

‘Of course not.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to add a sarcastic ‘sir’, but she resisted. Just.

‘As long as you observe hygiene precautions.’

Who did he think she was, a wet-behind-the-ears first-year med student? ‘Of course,’ she said sweetly.

At least he didn’t ask who she’d got engaged to, she thought with relief. Unless he thought she’d made it up. Well, he’d find out soon enough. She and Ben were officially engaged. And no one else needed to know that it was a fake engagement. ‘I’ll get scrubbed up,’ she said, removing her ring and placing it on a chain around her neck.

‘Do that, Brown.’ Chambers spun round on his heel and stalked off.

‘Is that man always so rude to you?’ Jenny asked.

‘Yes,’ Kirsty said simply. ‘But leave it, Jen. I might try getting a transfer elsewhere.’

‘A and E, perhaps?’ the nurse suggested with a grin.

‘You never know.’

Almost as if on cue, Kirsty’s pager went. She glanced at the display. ‘A and E. I’d better ring and find out what they want.’

‘I’ll tell Sweetness and Light where you are, if he grumps in here after you,’ Jenny said.

‘Thanks.’ Kirsty rang the number on her pager. ‘Kirsty Brown—you paged me?’

‘I’ve got a real lulu of an accident for you,’ Ben said. ‘Sorry, but it’s a sooner rather than later.’

‘I’ll be down.’ She replaced the receiver and left the ward, obeying her training to walk swiftly rather than run.

‘So what’s the story?’ she asked Ben when she arrived.

‘Josh Blake, aged twelve. Decided to skip school so he could mess about in the park on his skateboard with his mates. Showed off and came a cropper. Unfortunately, he landed on a railing. They managed to cut most of the railing away, but there’s some left embedded. We’ve done X-rays and it’s dangerously close to a lung.’ He drew her over to the light-box and showed her the X-rays.

She whistled. ‘We need that out, fast.’

Ben swiftly filled her in on the details of the pain relief he’d given the boy and the checks he’d already done. ‘Blood’s being cross-matched.’

‘Has anyone paged an anaesthetist?’

Ben nodded. ‘Ten minutes and he’ll meet you in Theatre Six.’

‘Thanks. Parents?’

‘On their way. I’ll talk to them as soon as they come in.’

‘Right. Let’s get him prepped. I’d better ring Jen and let her know what I’m doing.’ She hoped she didn’t end up talking to Chambers. Right now, she didn’t have time to argue with him when a child’s life needed saving—and, knowing Chambers, he’d want to argue the point and bang on about priorities. Fine in its place, but right now wasn’t the place.

‘I’ll do it. It’ll save you time,’ Ben offered.

‘You’re an angel.’ She beamed gratefully at him. ‘I’d better be off.’

‘Kirsty, have you got a second?’ Nina, one of the senior nurses on A and E, came into the cubicle as Kirsty was about to leave.

‘Sure.’ As long it was really only a second.

‘I believe congratulations are in order.’

Did the grapevine at Jimmy’s
really
work that fast? Kirsty wondered. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

‘You know, the pair of you have just broken about a million hearts,’ Nina continued. ‘But congrats anyway.’

‘Thanks, Nina.’ Ben smiled at her. ‘I’ll get the cream cakes in later, OK?’