Bride by Accident. Marion Lennox

to arrange it. She was such a slip of a thing, too thin, her eyes too big for her pinched face, heavy with pregnancy, yet what she’d achieved…

      He’d find her. As soon as possible he’d find her.

      There was no one at the nurses’ station. Where was everyone?

      Where was Emma?

      There was a sound of distant sobbing. Kyle’s family? Margaret came round the corner and met him, her face a mix of uncertainty and concern.

      ‘Kyle’s parents?’ It must be.

      ‘Kyle’s in Room 5,’ she told him.

      He frowned. The last time he’d seen the child’s body the orderlies had been carrying it into the morgue. ‘Why?’

      ‘Emma…the doctor…asked me to put him in there so his parents could spend time with him. I hope it’s OK. Do you want me to come with you?’

      ‘No,’ he told her. ‘Do you know where Emma is?’

      ‘She’s with them. Or she was.’

      What the heck was she doing there? She should be in bed. He needed to check her baby. He…

      ‘You’ve had a hell of a day,’ Margaret was saying. She put a hand on his arm.

      He grimaced. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly, and listened to the sobs. ‘But not as hellish as some.’

      ‘I hope I did the right thing, letting Emma bring him from the morgue.’

      ‘Of course.’ She seemed to expect it so he gave her a swift hug. She smiled, and then pulled back, smoothing her uniform.

      ‘Not here.’

      ‘No.’

      Enough. He had to face Kyle’s family.

      He turned towards room 5, thinking through the decision to move him. A private room and a bed rather than a stretcher in the morgue. Good call.

      Here she was again. His phantom doctor, springing up where he least expected her.

      She wasn’t very good at lying down and dying, he decided. Thank God.

      ‘OK. It’s a good idea,’ he told Margaret. ‘So you’ve been talking to her. Do we know anything about her other than her name’s Emma?’

      ‘She’s bossy,’ Margaret said, and gave him a half-smile. ‘Almost as bossy as I am. She washed Kyle and made him look…normal. She did a lovely job.’

      He winced at that.

      A lovely job. Bad choice of words, he told Margaret silently. Was there any such thing as a lovely job where Kyle was concerned?

      Kyle was the fourth kid of a family of six and a real little daredevil. Dev had been stitching him up and putting casts on fractured limbs ever since he’d started practising medicine here.

      That Kyle was dead was unthinkable.

      He was in Room 5. She’d done a lovely job.

      Deep breath.

      Margaret gave him a questioning look, asking him mutely if he wanted her to accompany him, but he shook his head. This was something he had to do by himself.

      She left him to it.

      He turned into the next corridor—and then paused.

      The door to Room 5 was slightly ajar and through the open door he could see Kyle’s mother. And Kyle. The woman had lifted her son into her arms and she was cradling him and weeping into his copper curls. Her husband looked on helplessly. Kyle’s brothers and sisters were there, too, huddled around their little brother. A family united in grief. A family saying goodbye to their Kyle.

      And outside, on the seat outside the door, just out of sight of the family, sat Emma.

      She was huddled over, bent at the waist as if she was in pain, and she was weeping silently into her open palms. Her shoulders were racked by silent sobs.

      It seemed that Emma had finally stopped.

      How long had it been since he’d cradled a woman in his arms?

      Never?

      Sure, he’d kissed a woman. He and Margaret had a very satisfactory relationship and he thoroughly enjoyed kissing her. But as for cradling her…

      He never had. The lines of professional detachment meant that he’d never cradled a patient.

      But this…

      This was suddenly an overwhelming need. He stooped to pull Emma’s hands from her face, he saw the despair etched deep in her eyes, he saw the lingering horror, and he saw the shuddering sobs rack her body—he couldn’t bear it. He took her in his arms. When she slumped against him, helpless in the face of her grief and shock and exhaustion, he simply lifted her up and cradled her against him and rocked her as if she were a child.

      He held her while the shuddering sobs went on and on. He simply held her.