AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
SHE HADN’T CHANGED. Tall and slender, her red-gold hair coiled into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, Bella English looked as beautiful today as she had done the last time he had seen her. On her wedding day.
‘Mac! I heard you were back. Good to see you, mate. How are you?’
‘Great, thanks, Lou.’
James MacIntyre—Mac to all who knew him—turned and grinned at the elderly porter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bella move away from the desk but he kept his attention firmly focused on the other man. After what his old friend Tim had told him, he wasn’t all that eager to speak to her.
‘You’re looking well, I must say, Lou. Obviously, moving to the new paediatric A&E unit has done you the power of good. You look a good ten years younger than the last time I saw you!’
‘I wish!’ Lou’s grizzled face broke into a wry smile. ‘It’d take major surgery to turn me into Dalverston’s very own version of George Clooney.’ He glanced over Mac’s shoulder and grimaced. ‘Anyway, I’d better get going. Catch you later.’
‘Yep.’
Mac didn’t need to check to see what had caused Lou to beat a hasty retreat. He could smell her perfume, that subtle fragrance of freesias that Bella always wore. She had told him once that it was made especially for her and that had fitted perfectly with everything he knew about her. Bella was the sort of woman who would have her very own perfume. Nothing about her was ordinary or commonplace.
Mac turned slowly around, taking stock of all the details he had missed before. Although Bella had always been slender, she was verging on thin now, he realised. And even though her complexion was as creamy as ever, there were dark circles under her green eyes that hinted at far too many sleepless nights. Was it guilt that had kept her awake? he wondered a shade bitterly. A noisy conscience clamouring to be heard, even if it was too late in the day? After all, even Bella must feel some degree of remorse about ending her marriage to Tim.
‘Hello, Mac. I heard you were back. How are you?’
The greeting was almost identical to Lou’s, but Mac had to admit that it made him want to respond very differently. He experienced an uncharacteristic urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her, demand to know why she had done such a cruel thing. She had ruined Tim’s life—didn’t she care? Didn’t she care either that she had broken all those promises she had made three years ago to love, honour and cherish the man she had married? He had sat through the ceremony, listened to her cool clear voice swearing a lifetime’s devotion, and had believed every word. If he was honest, he felt almost as let down as poor Tim must do.
The thought shocked him so that it was a moment before he answered. He and Bella had never been anything more than friends—he had made sure of that. So why should he feel so disillusioned? He blanked out the thought, knowing it was foolish to dwell on it. If he and Bella were to work together for the next few months, he couldn’t allow recent events to stand in the way.
‘Fine, thanks. Looking forward to working in the new unit.’ He glanced around and nodded. ‘It looks great, I must say. Obviously, no expense has been spared.’
‘No. Everything is state of the art. We’ve been open for almost a month now and I still have to pinch myself when I come into work. I can’t believe that we have such marvellous facilities to hand.’
She gave a husky laugh and Mac tensed when he felt the tiny hairs all over his body spring to attention. He had forgotten about her laugh, forgotten how soft it was, how sexy. It had been her laugh that he had noticed first, in fact. He had been standing in the lunch queue in the university’s refectory when he had heard a woman laugh and he had turned to see who it was...
He ditched that thought as well, not needing any more distractions. He knew where his loyalties lay, knew that if he had to take sides then he would be firmly allied to Tim. Tim had poured out the whole sorry tale, told him what had happened from start to finish, and whilst Mac was realistic enough to know that it was rarely all one person’s fault when a marriage ended, it was obvious that Bella was more at fault than Tim. No, Tim’s biggest mistake had been to love Bella too much and be too soft with her. The thought firmed his resolve and he smiled thinly at her.
‘Is that what brought you to Dalverston, the chance to work in a wonderful new facility like this? I must confess that I was surprised to learn you had moved out of London.’
‘It was one of the reasons, yes.’
Bella’s expression sobered and Mac’s heart twisted when he saw the pain in her eyes. Maybe Tim was hurting but Bella was hurting too, it seemed. The idea affected him far more than it should have done, far more than he wanted it to do. It was an effort not to let her see how he felt when she continued.
