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That was how she left them, with Cormack holding the baby in the classic rocking position. Now that was one for the family album, she thought wistfully.
She took her jeans, shirt and underwear into the bathroom with her, since she did not want to get dressed in front of Cormack—and she didn’t want to disturb him and Simon by asking him to leave either.
When she had dressed, Triss went and rescued him, taking the baby from him even though he made a half-serious sound of protest.
‘We’ll be down in the kitchen,’ she told him. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’ she asked, and then wished she hadn’t, for in the early days she had asked him that very question and the answer had always been the same—‘You!’
The brief clouding of his eyes told her that he had remembered too, but the careless smile which followed drove all other thoughts from Triss’s mind.
‘What does Simon have?’ he murmured.
‘I thought I’d give him scrambled eggs this morning,’ she told him, feeling strangely shy. Something seemed to have happened between the two of them, and some of the old ease and magic was back. And she liked it. She liked it very much.
Cormack gave a roguish smile. ‘Then I’ll have the same as Simon, please.’
Triss went down and put Simon in his high chair, only her hands were shaking so much that she could barely crack the eggs into the bowl. As it was, some of the mixture plopped onto the shiny linoleum floor, and Triss moved to the sink to find a sponge to mop it up with.
She was just rinsing out the sponge under the tap when Simon leaned right over his tray at such a precarious angle that Triss was certain he was going to go hurtling to the floor.
‘Simon!’ she yelled, and rushed from the sink towards the high chair, not seeing the egg white where it lay in an innocently transparent pool.
Her foot went from under her as it collided with the sticky mess and Triss was caught off balance, too startled to have the presence of mind to put her hand out to save herself.
Her last thought before she hit the floor was her baby—nothing must happen to her baby.
‘Cormack!’ she called out, in a thin, reedy voice. ‘Oh, please... Cormack...’ And then the whole world went black.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN Triss came to she was lying down. Not on the kitchen floor, but stretched out on one of the sofas in the sitting room with Cormack hovering over her, his ashen, worried face barely recognisable.
At the sight of her eyelashes fluttering. open he heaved a huge sigh of relief.
‘Triss! Thank God! Oh, thank God!’
‘Wh-where’s Simon?’ came her automatic response.
‘In his pram. Outside.’
‘Outside where?’ she demanded in alarm. She tried to sit up, but with a firm, decisive hand he stopped her.
‘Just there. Look.’ He pointed out through the window. ‘In the sunshine. Babies need fresh air. He’s fine.’ He knitted his black brows together furiously and a look of sweet concern came over his face. ‘But it isn’t Simon I’m worried about—it’s you! Darling, how’s your head?’
Darling? Triss wondered if hearing things was a well-known side-effect of banging your head. ‘What happened?’
‘You slipped on the kitchen floor. You must have spilt something—’
‘Egg,’ she put in, as if in a trance, and saw him frown at her rather dreamy response.
‘You were only out a couple of minutes,’ he continued, his gaze scanning her face closely. ‘But I called Michael and Martha immediately. Michael is on call at the hospital, but Martha is on her way over. She’ll be here shortly. She’s going to look after Simon while I take you to the hospital.’
‘Hospital?’ Triss protested. ‘But I don’t need to go to hospital!’ She tried to sit up again, but waves of nausea washed over her and she slumped back against the pile of cushions which Cormack must have built up into a small mountain behind her head.
‘Oh, yes, you do!’ he retorted swiftly. ‘Martha says that as you lost consciousness—’
‘Only for a few seconds!’ she pointed out.
‘A few seconds or a few hours—either way, you still need an X-ray.’
