The thing she’d hit wasn’t quite as tough.
She’d ripped the side off the sports car.
Oliver Evans, gynaecologist, obstetrician and in-utero surgeon, was gathering his briefcase and his suit jacket from the passenger seat. He’d be meeting the hospital bigwigs today so he needed to be formal. He was also taking a moment to glance through the notes he had on who he had to meet, who he needed to see.
He vaguely heard the sound of a car behind him. He heard it turning from the ramp …
The next moment the passenger side of his car was practically ripped from the rest.
It was a measure of Em’s fiercely practised calm that she didn’t scream. She didn’t burst into tears. She didn’t even swear.
She simply stared straight ahead. Count to ten, she told herself. When that didn’t work, she tried twenty.
She figured it out, quite quickly. Her parking spot was supposed to be wider but that was because she shared the two parking bays with Harry the obstetrician’s bike and Harry had left. Of course. She’d even dropped in on his farewell party last Friday night, even though it had only been for five minutes because the kids had been waiting.
So Harry had left. This car, then, would belong to the doctor who’d taken his place.
She’d just welcomed him by trashing his car.
‘I have insurance. I have insurance. I have insurance.’ It was supposed to be her mantra. Saying things three times helped, only it didn’t help enough. She put her head on the steering wheel and felt a wash of exhaustion so profound she felt like she was about to melt.
His car was trashed.
He climbed from the driver’s seat and stared at his beloved Morgan in disbelief. The Morgan was low slung, gorgeous—and fragile. He’d parked her right in the centre of the bay to avoid the normal perils of parking lots—people opening doors and scratching his paintwork.
But the offending wagon had a bull bar attached and it hadn’t just scratched his paintwork. While the wagon looked to be almost unscathed, the passenger-side panels of the Morgan had been sheared off completely.
He loved this baby. He’d bought her five years ago, a post-marriage toy to make him feel better about the world. He’d cherished her, spent a small fortune on her and then put her into very expensive storage while he’d been overseas.
His qualms about returning to Australia had been tempered by his joy on being reunited with Betsy. But now … some idiot with a huge lump of a wagon—and a bull bar …
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ He couldn’t see the driver of the wagon yet, but he was venting his spleen on the wagon itself. Of all the ugly, lumbering excuses for a car …
And it was intact. Yeah, it’d have a few extra scratches but there were scratches all over it already. It was a battered, dilapidated brute and the driver’d be able to keep driving like the crash had never happened.
He wanted to kick it. Of all the stupid, careless …
Um … why hadn’t the driver moved?
And suddenly medical mode kicked in, overriding rage. Maybe the driver had had a heart attack. A faint. Maybe this was a medical incident rather than sheer stupidity. He took a deep breath, switching roles in an instant. Infuriated driver became doctor. The wagon’s driver’s door was jammed hard against where his passenger door used to be, so he headed for its passenger side.
The wagon’s engine died. Someone was alive in there, then. Good. Or sort of good.
He hauled the door open and he hadn’t quite managed the transition. Rage was still paramount.
‘You’d better be having a heart attack.’ It was impossible to keep the fury from his voice. ‘You’d better have a really good excuse as to why you ploughed this heap of scrap metal into my car! You want to get out and explain?’
No!
Things were already appalling—but things just got a whole lot worse.
This was a voice she knew. A voice from her past.
Surely not.
She had to be imagining it, she decided, but she wasn’t opening her eyes. If it really was …
It couldn’t be. She was tired, she was frantically worried about Gretta, she was late and she’d just crashed her car. No wonder she was hearing things.
‘You’re going to have to open your eyes and face things.’ She said it to herself, under her breath. Then she repeated it in her head twice more but her three-times mantra still didn’t seem to be working.
The silence outside the car was ominous. Toe-tappingly threatening.
Maybe it’d go away if she just stayed …
‘Hey, are you okay?’ The gravelly voice, angry at first, was now concerned.
But it was the same voice and this wasn’t her imagination. This was horrendously, appallingly real.
Voices could be the same, she told herself, feeling herself veering towards hysteria. There had to be more than one voice in the world that sounded like his.
She’d stay just one moment longer with her eyes closed.
Her passenger door opened and someone slid inside. Large. Male.
Him.
His hand landed on hers on the steering wheel. ‘Miss? Are you hurt? Can I help?’ And as the anger in his voice gave way to caring she knew, unmistakably, who this was.
Oliver. The man she’d loved with all her heart. The man who’d walked away five years ago to give her the chance of a new life.
So many emotions were slamming through her head … anger, bewilderment, grief … She’d had five years to move on but, crazy or not, this man still felt a part of her.
She’d crashed his car. He was right here.
There was no help for it. She took a deep, deep breath. She braced herself.
She raised her head, and she turned to face her husband.
Emily.
He was seeing her but his mind wasn’t taking her in. Emily!
For one wild moment he thought he must be mistaken. This was a different woman, older, a bit … worn round the edges. Weary? Faded jeans and stained windcheater. Unkempt curls.
But still Emily.
His wife? She still was, he thought stupidly. His Em.
But she wasn’t his Em. He’d walked away five years ago. He’d left her to her new life, and she had nothing to do with him.
Except she was here. She was staring up at him, her eyes reflecting his disbelief. Horror?
Shock held him rigid.
She’d wrecked his car. He loved this car. He should be feeling …
No. There was no should, or if there was he hadn’t read that particular handbook.
Should he feel grief? Should he feel guilt?
He felt neither. All he felt was numb.
She’d had a minute’s warning. He’d had none.
‘Em?’ He looked … incredulous. He looked more shocked than she was—bewildered beyond words.
What were you supposed to say to a husband you hadn’t seen or spoken to for five years? There was no handbook for this.
‘H-hi?’