“There isn’t going to be any divorce!
“Not if I have any say in the matter, and certainly not before I’ve had a face-to-face meeting with Callie to find out why she’s taken off like this.”
Con scrubbed his free hand over his face, wondering when he was ever going to get a good night’s sleep again. He’d already spent months lying in the darkness beside Callie, listening to her toss and turn. He’d tried to comfort her in the days after she’d come out of hospital, but she’d still been totally overwhelmed by the disaster. While she had often gravitated toward Con during the brief hours she’d slept, the rest of the time she had pushed him away—physically and mentally.
“Where are you Callie?” he muttered aloud.
Dear Reader,
The more I look around me, the more I realize that even in the happiest of marriages there can be secret tensions, unspoken longings and regrets. In such situations it would be frighteningly easy for a simple misunderstanding to lead to broken hearts and shattered dreams.
Callie is certain she knows what Con wants, what he needs to make his life complete, and she finally admits that it’s the one thing she can’t give him: a family. She loves him so much that she knows she has to be unselfish and set him free.
Con is distraught when the woman he loves disappears from his life without a word of warning, but he’s not the sort of man to give up without doing everything he can to find her. His love is so deep that it’s an essential part of everything he is, and he’s determined to persuade Callie that their relationship is more important than anything else.
Each of them in their own way is convinced that love is what matters most, but first Con has to find Callie.
I hope their journey touches you the way it absorbed me when I was writing it.
Happy reading,
Josie
A Marriage Meant to Be
Josie Metcalfe
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
‘WHAT on earth’s wrong with Con?’ demanded one of the junior nurses as she entered the staffroom.
‘Sue and I just saw him in the car park and said hello,’ said her companion as she shrugged out of her coat, ‘but he walked straight past us without a word…and he looks dreadful.’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ someone said in hushed tones that still somehow managed to carry to everyone in the room. ‘Callie lost their baby…a stillbirth.’
‘No! Oh, she must be devastated!’ Sue said with a gasp of dismay. ‘It’s taken them so long to get pregnant, and just when everyone thought it was all going to be fine this time…’
‘Only the other day I overheard Con teasing her about how much the baby was kicking. He said something about this one being the start of their five-a-side football team,’ someone else piped up. ‘Why do such rotten things happen to such nice people? The two of them would be wonderful parents.’
‘To say nothing about what gorgeous children they’d produce,’ said another. ‘They’re both slim and elegant-looking and they’ve both got that beautiful dark hair. The only toss-up would be whether the kids got his blue eyes or her grey ones.’
‘How long will it be before they can start another round of IVF?’ Sue asked the room at large.
‘Months, I expect,’ her friend said grimly. ‘They’ll probably have to wait for her body to recover from the pregnancy before they can try again.’
‘That’s if they can face going through it another time,’ a fresh voice said coolly. ‘It must be frustrating for him to know that he’s firing on all cylinders and could have had his football team by now if he were married to someone else.’
With that comment there was a distinct change in the atmosphere of the staff room—a sour note that hadn’t been there before—and it wasn’t long before everyone was hurrying off in their different directions, leaving the nurse who had made the comment all alone.
‘Well, I was only saying aloud what everyone else knows,’ she muttered, tight-lipped. ‘He’s a good-looking man in a good job with the prospect of being made consultant in the not-too-distant future. Of course he wants a family…and a wife who can give him that family.’
She turned towards the mirror, watching herself with a calculating smile as she fluffed her blonde hair around her face.
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHERE are you, Callie?’ Con muttered aloud, his concern increasing by the second as he put the phone down again. ‘What on earth’s happened to you?’
It wasn’t like her to let people down like this. She should have turned up for her shift nearly two hours ago, and it didn’t matter how many times he’d tried to contact her, there had been no answer, not at home or on her mobile.
‘Con, can you come and have a look at Mrs Fry for me?’ said an all-too-familiar voice at his elbow, and he sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair with frustration.
‘Isn’t there anyone else free, Sonja?’ he asked as he turned to face the willowy blonde nurse who seemed determined to dog his every step these days. ‘I’m trying to make some phone calls.’
‘She’s an elderly lady who’s had a fall,’ Sonja said earnestly, clutching his arm with a determined hand. ‘She’s obviously broken both wrists but it’s the wound on her head I’m worried about. She must have hit it pretty hard to gash it like that. We’ve stemmed the bleeding but she seems very confused. I need to know whether she should go for an MRI.’
He sighed again, knowing he was going to have to look at the poor lady, even though his concern for Callie was growing by the minute.
‘Which cubicle is she in?’ he asked, resigned to the few minutes’ delay before he could contact their neighbour.
Jan should be home any minute if she’d followed her usual routine of doing her shopping when she finished her shift, and he was certain she wouldn’t mind going next door for him. If there was no answer, she had an emergency key to let herself in. If Callie had been taken ill or had some sort of