The following morning, Anna joins her parents at breakfast and fields their enquiries into her health and well-being. Her mother’s queries all bemoan the lack of a partner in Anna’s life, but she remembers her mother’s embarrassing enthusiasm for Tolly when he was dating Eleanor, so she remains tight-lipped about her interest in him. Her father asks more practical questions about her career, her home and her pension and investments. Lily is on church duty, so Anna doesn’t see her until lunch. Lily is markedly keener on representing the family at the Sunday morning services than Anna ever was. Anna was always last in – often after the service had begun – and first out. Lily obviously stays for tea and biscuits after and helps with the clear-up.
It is Lily who drives her to the station, though, chattering cheerfully away about the gossip she has picked up at church. At one point Anna asks, “Doesn’t it drive you mad, Lils? Don’t you ever want to run away from here?”
But Lily turns wide eyes towards her. “No,” she says. “I love it. I hated it when I was studying in London. There was always noise. Even at three o’clock in the morning, there’s traffic and sirens and people shouting. I love the peace here. I love the people. I don’t want to go anywhere else. And if Robert was right last night about that job opening where he works, I can even stay here and work locally.”
“Robert? Was that the name of the wet fish you brought to the table?”
“Our cousin, Robert? My friend is called Richard.”
“I hope you are not serious about him because Jasmine will eat him for breakfast.”
Lily laughs. “He is a bit ‘Eton’, isn’t he? But he’s just a friend.”
Lily pulls up at the drop-off point outside the station and Anna grabs her bag. She gives her sister a hug. She can almost feel Lily deflating with the goodbye. But she drops her arms and turns to enter the station. She half-turns once to wave before she disappears inside to begin her journey back to her London home.
The rain has returned by the time Anna makes her way to work the next day. She had expected her conversation with Eleanor to clear her mind of Tolly, but it has done the opposite. She has not stopped thinking about him, yet she is no closer to a decision. She is hurrying across the road to the main entrance of the hospital when her hood blows back and the heavens open, dumping a sluice of water on her head. She is cursing not having stolen an umbrella from Larkford Hall when she hears a call: “Anna!”
Her head whips around, expecting to see another medic, but standing in the rain, a baseball cap protecting his head and a soft fur of scruff around his face, is the Sexiest Man Alive.
If Only
Anna has never had a problem making herself heard, even in the noisiest environs of a trauma room, but Tolly has an uncanny ability to leave her mute. A cascade of emotions thrill through her. Incredulity for one.Howis he here? Disbelief. It cannot be him. She is hallucinating. Tolly is asleep in his home in Los Angeles. This must be some other bearded man she is mistaking for him.
But then he repeats his call, softer, shaded with traces of hope and longing: “Anna.”
She knows beyond doubt it is him. She stands stock still even as an errant raindrop snakes its way down her spine, soaking into the waistband of her trousers. He smiles and Anna’s heart flutters. Disbelief is swept away by joy. Effervescent, earth-shaking joy. It is truly him, standing in front of her. The misery she has felt since they parted disintegrates with his presence. She can no longer pretend the arguments against being with him are valid. She is overset by love.
“Tolly,” she croaks her reply, but it is a weak response, the word barely audible. She wants to lift her hand, to cup his chin, to stroke down his face, but she dare not. She can only stand in the pouring rain, drinking in his eyes.
He is grinning, his teeth showing a bright white that has no place in this grey, rain-soaked landscape. Faint lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes, feathering out and disappearing into his hair, each one a testament to his pleasure in seeing her. His eyes are wide – with surprise, yes, but also, she thinks, with hope.
She tries again, her voice stronger this time. “Tolly?” And into the word she puts all her questions. Is he truly here? Why is he here? How is he here?
But all he says is “Yes”.
A gust of wind throws another spit of rain into her face, but she ignores it. She rouses enough to say something – she may never get another chance. “I’m sorry I left. I said I would stay with you and I didn’t. You woke up alone.”
His brow furrows. “I woke up with Ryan,” he points out. “I would rather it had been you.”
“Me too,” she admits. She can feel damp leaking into her shoes. She may be standing in a puddle, but she dare not move in case it breaks the spell keeping him here. Now he is in front of her, she doesn’t want him to leave. She can just see him clearing his throat and making some inane excuse about his presence being required elsewhere. She needs to speak, to say something to hold him.
Except she has nothing more to say. All her thoughts, all her words, are gone. They stand in silence, each facing the other, the rain splattering on the paving around them.
“I wanted to speak to you,” he says finally.
“I know.” How can she explain? She had thought it would be simpler, easier, but she knows now it was a false belief. Tolly wasn’t going to disappear from her heart just because he was no longer in front of her.
“But you asked me not to.”
She dips her head, breaking the contact. She is shamed. “I know.”
It made so much sense at the time, but with him here, it all seems vaguely silly now. All the arguments against them which seemed so weighty are revealed as flimsy.
“I thought I would never see you again. I’m only here by chance. This is fate, us meeting like this.”
She bites her lip. She is not a great believer in fate, but she can see the pain she has already caused him.
“As I couldn’t message you, I didn’t know how to find you. I don’t even know your name.”
