‘Fraser, seriously, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be running the Breckenridge Practice in Edinburgh?’
‘Things change.’ He lowered his voice. This wasn’t the place to explain about that.
A voice called out behind him. ‘Watch out, mister!’
‘Sorry, man!’ Fraser had almost caused a deck hand to crash into them. The young lad was carrying a heavy crate of what looked like fruit towards them.
Pulling Sara against the wall with him, to make room, Fraser covered her hand with his against the smooth wooden wall and squeezed it tight.
‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he found himself saying. ‘I like your hair like that.’
He swore he felt her shiver. For a second he saw a glimmer of the old her, the way she’d been before she’d taken it upon herself to end things just six months after they’d started something really good. The last time they’d exchanged any words at all she’d been just twenty-five, and he twenty-six.
‘Let’s go somewhere and clear the air,’ he said, seizing his chance as the elevator doors opened. ‘Sara, you never really let me have my say back then. I understand you were grieving for your mother, but a lot was going on and—’
‘A lot is going on now,’ she said.
Her walls were back up, clearly.
‘Listen, I’m getting my stuff, then I’m going to see if Esme and I can be put on another cruise. This is beyond unprofessional Fraser. What makes you think you can trap me on a ship and tell me you’ve missed me, and expect me to just—’
‘Trap you on a ship?’ He smiled in spite of it all. The door shut behind them. The deckhand pressed the button reading ‘Deck Four’ with his elbow, still holding the crate. ‘I would never trap you anywhere, Sara. I let you go six years ago, didn’t I?’
She chewed on her cheek, looking at the floor. ‘We let each other go, Fraser. The past is the past and it’s where it should stay. I have Esme to think about now.’
‘I never even knew you had a daughter.’
‘She was a surprise for me, too.’
He frowned internally at this new information. ‘I’m so sorry—about the dialysis, I mean.’
‘We don’t need your pity.’
‘That’s not what I...’ He shut his mouth, seeing she was clearly uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as the deck hand, now staring at his crate. What a tragedy for the family, though—as if Sara losing her mother hadn’t been tragic enough.
Sara had been inconsolable after her mother had died. It had been extremely sudden. Cancer, stage three, terminal. After it had happened he’d flown to London to be with her. He’d skipped classes and his duties to stay beside her, then he’d invited her back to Scotland.
His father had been less than impressed.
He’d been under so much pressure back then, to help his parents secure the future of the practice. Remodelling had been needed, and new equipment, more staff. They’d needed money—his money, from the family trust fund.
He’d been juggling extra studies with extra work for his father, in order to qualify faster, when Sara had ended their relationship out of nowhere, citing the need to focus on her own family back in London. When she’d left him it had hit him like an avalanche.
The elevator doors were flung open. The deck hand shuffled off with his crate, without a word.
‘Stop following me,’ Sara huffed as he followed her down the corridor. She swiped her ID, which doubled as a key card, and went to shut the cabin door after herself.
He was ready for it. He wedged a foot in the door to stop it closing. ‘Have you thought about Esme upstairs, all excited about this trip, while you’re down here thinking about leaving? ‘We have a job to do, here, Cohen.’
‘Have I thought about Esme? She is all I think about!’
He regretted his words. ‘I’m sorry. I just... God, woman, just let me in.’
She tutted loudly as she moved from blocking the door, and he squeezed into the cabin after her.
Looking around, he let out a small laugh that he stifled before she got even more annoyed. ‘This is where they put you?’
‘Why? Where did they put you?’ Sara looked confused now, forgetting her anger for a second.
He bit his tongue. It probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that he’d been given a double suite all to himself. He had a leather couch, a balcony, a mini-bar and a TV, complete with a shelf full of DVDs. One of them was Titanic. He couldn’t imagine anyone watching Titanic on a cruise ship...
Sara was gathering up items from the tiny bathroom to put in her suitcase. ‘Wow... OK, Cohen, you’re serious.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘I always call you that—it’s your name, isn’t it? Unless you’re married.’ He feigned indifference. Anton had told him she was single—as far as he knew, at least.
‘I’m not married,’ she confirmed quickly. ‘I never was. Esme’s father is long gone.’
He saw her cast a glance to his finger—checking for a ring, perhaps?
‘I’ve been too busy to date much, never mind get married. The practice takes a lot of work,’ he explained.
‘I’m sure it does. It always did.’
Her dig stung.
‘Don’t you think it will look a wee bit strange to our patients if one of their trusted dialysis nurses disembarks before we’ve even gone anywhere?’ he pointed out. ‘You’ve come a long way for this, Sara. You both have.’
Sara ignored him, though she’d started packing more slowly already. She knew she had no intention of leaving—not really. She was just feeling put on the spot, out of her depth.
‘So, how long has Esme been on dialysis?’ He lowered himself onto the single bed and noticed two knitting needles and a ball of red wool sticking out of the case before she pulled a sweater on top of them.
‘Too long. She was eight months old when she got E. coli. It got worse and turned into HUS.’
‘Haemolytic uremic syndrome?’ He was well aware of how such a disease could destroy the kidneys.
‘She’s on the transplant list but there’s never been a match for her. I tell her it’s because she’s special—which she is. She’s so special that none of her family can help her with a new kidney.’
The tone of her voice made him reach a hand to her arm again, briefly. ‘That must be tough, Sara.’
She studied his long fingers. ‘It’s OK. We live with Dad and he helps out at home. We have things under control...most of the time. So where exactly is your cabin, hotshot?’
She clearly wanted to change the subject. ‘Hotshot?’ he said out loud. Sara was pretty hot too, from what he remembered.
They’d met in Edinburgh, where she’d been in training for an advanced nursing degree. At the time he’d been in and out of St Enid’s hospital, in his last year of a three-year residency, and he’d noticed her at first because of her knitting. Sara Cohen had knitted whenever she’d had a spare moment. Baby clothes, she’d told him later, on their first date, for the kids on the children’s ward.
He’d only really taken notice of her that time in the treatment room, when she’d done some tests on him ahead of a marathon he’d been