THERE had been no mistaking the expression on Dan’s face that time, Sara thought while he drove her towards her flat in complete silence. That had definitely been more than disappointment on his face, it had been hurt.
‘Can you manage by yourself from here?’ he asked briskly, and she suddenly realised that he had pulled up outside the front of her house.
She sighed heavily, wondering when she was ever going to get anything right.
‘Dan, you saw how difficult it was for me to get into the car once I was out of the wheelchair. There are only two ways of getting up the four flights of stairs once I get in there, and that’s either on my bottom the whole way or if someone helps me.’
‘So why did you move back here, then?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘My place is eminently more suitable for someone in your position because it’s got a lift.’
Unfortunately, it had far more than a lift. It had Dan living there, too, and she just couldn’t cope with staying with him any longer.
‘And it’s Zara’s place, too, and with any luck it won’t be too long until she’s ready to come home to it.’
‘And?’ Those green eyes were far too astute. Sometimes she was convinced that he could read her mind.
‘And there’s no way that Zara and I can live in the same flat, not after what’s happened,’ Sara said bluntly. ‘She said she’s sorry and she didn’t mean to do it, but she said the same thing about this …’ She pulled her hair away from her race to reveal the first scar her twin had inflicted on her so long ago. ‘And she’s said it over and over again until … Well, let’s just say I don’t really trust her because the only one who matters to Zara is Zara.’
He reached his hand out towards her and gently laid it over hers where she’d unconsciously splayed it protectively over the hard curve of her pregnancy.
‘You don’t trust her to be too close to the babies?’ he asked, but they both knew it wasn’t really a question.
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath then opened them again and gave a brisk nod as if he’d just come to some momentous decision.
Rather than telling her about it, he released his seat belt and slid out of the car, leaving her feeling strangely dissatisfied.
‘Come on, then, let’s get you up those stairs,’ he said, and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet.
‘All I can say is it’s a good job you’re not coming into work for a few weeks yet, or you’d have to set off the previous day to get there in time for your shift,’ he teased when they finally reached the top floor.
That’s what you think, she mused as she lay in bed later that night and contemplated the prospect of weeks of sitting around, twiddling her thumbs.
‘It would drive me completely mad, just staring at the walls when I could be making myself useful at work,’ she continued aloud.
She tried to remember a precedent for a member of staff coming in to work a shift while they were sporting a cast and couldn’t, but … ‘There’s that doctor who uses a crutch on that American hospital drama!’ she remembered. ‘She can get up a fair turn of speed on it and still manages to take care of patients.’
She gave a quiet snort of laughter, trying to imagine herself using an actress in a fictional hospital to argue her case for an early return to work.
‘Well, that character may be fiction but I’m not. This is reality and the hospital is chronically short of staff. And even if I have to put up with weeks of being stuck in minors until the cast comes off, that’s what I’m going to do.’
An hour later she was still lying there wide awake, her brain going round and round the same scene, even now unable to believe that her sister could have wanted to harm the infant she was carrying. It was hard to drift off to sleep when all she could see in her mind’s eye was the harsh glare of the headlights bearing down on her.
‘Did I do the right thing in promising not to press charges?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Should I have made some sort of formal complaint so that, if at some time in the future something should happen to the babies, they’ll investigate Zara first?’
That hadn’t been the right thing to think about as she was trying to sleep. She felt sick at the very thought of something or somebody hurting them.
But what would she be able to do about it once they were born and she’d handed them over? On that day she would officially become their aunt rather than their mother and would have no legal say in what happened to them.
A feeling close to panic started to fill her and for several mad moments she imagined herself grabbing her passport and slipping out of the country. There was a whole wide world out there and in almost every country there were people crying out for doctors to treat their sick and injured. Surely she would be able to find a way to support herself and the two precious lives inside her?
Then she imagined how Dan would feel, knowing that somewhere in the world there were two children bearing his genes and he’d never seen them … beyond a fuzzy ultrasound picture.
Just the idea of the man she loved gazing longingly at that image year after year was enough to bring the hot press of tears to her eyes and she knew she couldn’t do it to him.
So, what was she going to do?
A strange sensation deep inside drew her attention away from that insoluble conundrum and she pressed her hand over the firm curve, remembering with a smile the way Dan had placed his hand over hers.
Oh, yes, he was going to be such a good father to this little pair. Kind and gentle and endlessly patient and …
What was that?
She froze into complete stillness and concentrated, aware that all the textbooks said it was far too soon but …
‘There it is again!’ she exclaimed aloud when she felt the faint fluttering, hoping it was something more than gas travelling through her gut.
When she felt it for a third time she was certain and wanted nothing more than to whoop with delight, no matter that it was pitch dark outside and everyone else in the flats was probably fast asleep.
But she couldn’t just lie here in the dark and savour it all alone. She had to share the news with someone else or it wouldn’t feel as if it was real. She had to speak to …
‘Dan? Did I wake you?’ she asked apologetically when he answered the phone.
‘No. I’m in bed but I haven’t gone to sleep yet. What’s the problem? Is something wrong?’
‘No. Nothing’s wrong,’ she reassured him quickly. ‘It’s just that I was lying there and … and …’ Suddenly, it felt so wrong to be telling him such momentous news when he was on the other end of the telephone. These were his babies, too, and he should have been here with her to feel …
‘There is something wrong,’ he said decisively. ‘I can hear you crying.’
There was the sound of a crash on the other end of the line and some muttered words that were probably unprintable, then he was back with her again.
‘I’m coming over,’ he announced in a don’t-argue-with-me voice. ‘I’ll need you to drop a set of keys down to me out of a window, because you’re not to come all the way down those stairs again.’
‘Drive safely,’ she said, worried about his state of mind, but he’d already broken the connection.
Suddenly, she remembered that he didn’t live more than a few streets away and in that powerful