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They stepped into the canteen, which was bat
hed in the usual bright hospital lights. Amy squirmed, looking around at the deserted tables and chairs. ‘Are you sure we can get something to eat?’
Lincoln nodded, smiling at her again as though his moment of discomfort had passed. ‘Sure we can. They’ve got to feed the nightshift, remember?’ He ducked behind the counter and into the kitchen beyond. Amy could hear the happy chattering inside and looked at the empty canteen around her. Even this was strange. She was used to sitting in hospital canteens in her uniform, not in a patient gown. On past occasions when she’d had her surgery and treatments she’d never even made it down to the hospital canteens. At that point food had been the last thing on her mind. A few minutes later Lincoln came out, clutching a tray with a teapot and cups.
‘Food will be out in a minute,’ he said as he set the tray down on the nearest table. Amy gave him a smile. ‘I didn’t know you were a tea drinker.’ She lifted the cups from the tray.
He wrinkled his forehead. ‘Generally I’m not. But I didn’t want to come out here with a double-shot coffee when you probably aren’t drinking it right now.’
His eyes rested on her extended abdomen and she nodded knowingly. ‘It’s been a slow, hard fight to stop the addiction to the double shots we used to drink.’
His face broke into that easy grin again. The grin he’d given her when it had just been the two of them, standing in the dim E.R. He lifted the lid of the teapot and gave the water a little stir.
The door clanged open behind them and a little grey-haired lady appeared with a plate in either hand. The delicious aroma of food swept around them and Amy’s stomach responded by rumbling loudly.
‘Oh, wow!’ she said as the plate was set before her. ‘Thank you so much.’ She beamed. The steam was rising from the freshly made pancakes on the plate, with a pile of sausages and scrambled eggs on the side. ‘You must have read my mind,’ she said accusingly at Lincoln. ‘I was dreaming about these earlier.’ Better than telling him what else she’d dreamed about. She picked up the pepper pot and sprinkled pepper over her scrambled eggs. ‘I am so-o-o hungry.’
He sat for a few seconds, watching her. The way her hair fell over her eyes, one delicious auburn curl just begging to be tucked behind her ear. Sitting like this, her extended abdomen was tucked under the table. For a few seconds he could actually forget she was pregnant. Forget she was here, looking for his help because she was afraid she was about to have a premature baby. He could forget the questions spinning in his head about the pregnancy, the conception, the father. All the things he wanted to ask her about. Right now, the clock was spinning backwards in his head. Back to those six precious months when she’d been his Amy. Back when they’d been in the first flush of heat and passion. When they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. When stifling hot long days had turned into even hotter and longer nights.
The pale green colour of the hospital gown reminded him of the scrubs they’d worn on the boat. A colour that seemed to reflect the darker green of her eyes, drawing his attention to them from the first second he’d seen her.
Damn! He could kick himself. Was there something else he could have done to find her? Why hadn’t he insisted on getting her phone number?
The last six years could have been entirely different.
She leaned back in her chair with a contented and relaxed look on her face, her extended abdomen becoming visible again and jolting him back to the here and now. ‘Oh, wow, Linc. I don’t know who made those pancakes but we should wrap her up, steal her and take her home with us.’
Her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright. Had she just said that out loud? Oh, no! ‘I didn’t mean… I mean I wasn’t suggesting…’ She couldn’t find the words, her brain was scrambled at her ridiculous faux pas. Fatigue and irritability had definitely got the better of her. It didn’t help that Linc was sitting staring at her with his fork poised frozen just outside his mouth. But he didn’t look shocked. He didn’t look upset. He looked…amused.
‘Relax, Amy,’ he said in a teasing tone. ‘Don’t get wound up. I know what you meant and we certainly don’t want your blood pressure getting any higher.’ The gleam in his eyes spoke a thousand words that he wasn’t saying out loud.
And then he couldn’t stay silent any longer. The frustration from earlier in the day came bubbling to the surface and he wanted to hear the words coming from her lips—not read them in her medical records. ‘Why didn’t you come back? You left for a two-week holiday and never came back. What happened?’
The question jolted her back to reality. No pleasantries. No niceties. What had happened to playboy, sexy Linc? This was right at the heart of the matter.
And she’d known at some point he’d ask her. And she’d practised what she would say in her head. Words that she’d rehearsed a hundred times in the cab on the way here. Words that just seemed to stick in her throat.
‘Well?’ He was still staring at her. With those big dark blue eyes. She’d seen eyes like that on a model advertising aftershave once. Everyone had commented on them. But that guy’s eyes weren’t a patch on Linc’s. That guy didn’t have a dark blue rim encircling his bright blue iris. Something that pulled you right in and didn’t let go. Her hand ran down his arm and her fingers intertwined with his. She needed to do this. She needed something familiar. Something to give her strength right now. It didn’t matter if he had a wife outside. They were friends. Or they had been friends. And right now she needed her friend’s support.
She needed to make him understand why she hadn’t come back to the boat. And she already knew how he’d respond—he’d want to know why she hadn’t told him at the time. But those were all questions she could field. She needed his skills right now, and his expertise for her baby.
‘I was sick, Linc. I couldn’t come back.’ The words were faint, almost whispered, and his head jerked upwards from its focus on their intertwined fingers.
This was where he could make it easy on her and tell her he’d read her notes. But he didn’t want to, he wanted to hear her say the words. ‘What do you mean, you were sick?’
She shook her head, a watery sheen across her eyes. She gave his hand a little squeeze. Why did she have to tell him here? In this hospital canteen in the middle of the night? Why couldn’t they be sitting somewhere in private, looking out over that wonderful cove?
She took a deep breath. ‘I had breast cancer.’ There, she’d said it. The words that no one liked to say out loud. The words that people normally whispered around about her.
His face didn’t change. And she almost wished she hadn’t told him. But she had to. She had to make him understand why this baby was so important to her. Why this baby was her only chance.
Then he did it. The one thing he used to do all the time. He rubbed his thumb lightly along the palm of her hand. The softest of touches. The most delicate of touches. Like he’d used to do when they’d had a stressful day on the boat. When there had been too many patients and not enough staff. When they hadn’t been able to treat everyone they’d wanted to. When patients had got really sick, and some had even died.
His face was serious now. And in amongst all this madness—the press pack outside, the security staff everywhere, him looking after the First Daughter—she knew she had made the right decision. Linc was one of the good guys. He would help her. She could feel it.
He cleared his throat. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She sighed. ‘How could I tell you that, Linc? I went home for a holiday. I had the first proper shower in months and felt a lump under my breast. And I’d no idea how long it had been there. Two days later I had a fine-needle biopsy that told me I had cancer.’ Her finger reached up and twiddled one of her long red strands of hair, her other hand still intertwined with his. ‘I’d only known you six months. You were on a boat on the Amazon, thousands of miles away. How could I phone and tel
l you I had cancer and needed treatment?’ She flung her arms in the air in an act of exasperation. ‘Let’s face it, Linc, I was your yearly summer fling.’
He winced at the harshness of her words. So she had heard about his reputation. He’d always hoped no one had mentioned that fact that each year he’d had an affair with a colleague on the boat. He wanted to shout out, Of course you should have told me! But he understood the futility of the answer. Amy was right. They had only known each other a few months. And life on the Amazon was all-consuming—you lived in each other’s pockets and had very little time off. Everything was about the work and the people. Lots of medics had relationships on the Amazon boats, but when they got back to normal life the relationships tended to fall apart as they found they had nothing in common any more. What would he have done if she’d told him? Left the boat? Gone to find her? Would she even have wanted him there?
His anger from earlier felt misplaced. If the shoe had been on the other foot and he was one who had been sick, would he have told Amy?
He wasn’t sure and he hated to admit that. Would he really have wanted to put that responsibility onto her? He would have hated it if she’d felt obliged to help him out of an innate sense of duty, especially when he didn’t know how she felt about him.
His lips tightened and he gave her hand another squeeze. ‘So what happened, Amy?’ Although he couldn’t help it, his eyes went automatically to her breasts. The professional in him knew better than that. But the personal element kept distracting him. He’d had his hands all over those beautiful breasts. And as for the pink rosy nipples…
He saw her shift uncomfortably, her hands rising to her chest. ‘I had a mastectomy on one side.’ The words were simple, but they masked how they made her feel. What would Linc think of her body shape now if he could see it? The two of them had danced naked around his little cabin and the memories of that now could make her cry. She could never do that now. Never feel that confident in her body.
