wished to hell it weren’t. But she wasn’t going to pay truth back with a lie.
‘Anna...’ He took her hand and eased them off the path and into the dark shadows of a nearby bench.
She sat down, before she fell down. His voice... She would recognise that tone anywhere. He sat beside her, still holding her hand.
‘You’ve changed,’ he said.
‘So have you. You seem...’ She shook her head, unable to put words to her earlier thoughts. Or maybe it was that she wasn’t sure she should.
‘That bad, huh?’
‘No. Not at all.’
He grinned, the flash of his teeth sending a shiver over her. ‘That good, then, huh?’
Annabelle laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. ‘You wish.’
‘I actually do.’
When his fingers shifted from her hand to just beneath her chin, the shiver turned to a whoosh as all the breath left her body, her nerve endings suddenly attuned to Max’s every move. And when his head came down, all she felt was anticipation.
* * *
Max wasn’t sure what had come over him or made him want to leave the safety of the bar, but the second his lips touched hers all bets were off. The fragrance of her shampoo mixed with the normal sterile hospital scents, and it was like coming home after a long hard day.
His fingers slid up her jawline, edged behind the feminine curve of her ear and tunnelled into her hair. Annabelle’s body shifted as well, turning into him, her arms winding around his neck in a way he hadn’t felt in far too long. Or with any other woman.
The truth was that simple. And that complicated. No woman would ever be able to take Anna’s place—so he’d never even tried to find one.
He deepened the kiss, tongue touching her lips, exulting in the fact that she opened to him immediately. No hesitation.
They’d always been good in bed, each instinctively knowing what the other wanted and each had been more than willing to oblige. Soft and sweet or daring and adventurous, Anna had always been open to trying new things. Until it had become all about...
No. No thinking about that right now.
Not when she was clutching the lapels of his jacket as if she could tug him into her very soul.
He angled his head, thrusting a little deeper into the heat of her mouth. Maybe they should just forget about the cold park and head back to the warmth of his cottage and the heat they’d find in his bed. There were taxis on practically every corner.
That was what he wanted: to have her. In bed. Skin to skin. With nothing between them but fire and raw need.
Just as he was getting ready to edge back enough to ask her to go with him, the sound of voices broke through the haze of passion.
Not Anna’s voice, but someone else’s. Close enough that he could tell they were man and woman.
Annabelle beat him to the punch, pulling back so suddenly that it left him reeling for a few seconds. She glanced at him and he looked back at her. They both smiled. Young medical students caught necking. It had happened before, when they’d been dating. Only that had been a police officer, who’d not been quite as amused by their antics.
‘Caught again,’ he murmured.
‘So it would seem.’
He looked over to see who was walking past and his smile died, icy fingers walking up his spine. It was indeed a man and a woman, but they were pushing a pram. Bundles and bundles of blankets were piled on top of what had to be a young infant. And their faces.
God. They were happy. Incredibly happy.
His gaze went back to Anna’s to find that all colour had drained from her skin, leaving her pasty white. The young man threw them a smile and a quick hello.
Somehow Max managed to croak something back, but the mood was spoiled. He could tell by Anna’s reaction that she’d been thrown back to the tragedy that had been their shared past. At least that was what he took her stricken gaze to mean—the way her hungry eyes followed that pram as it went past and disappeared into the darkness.
His teeth gritted together several times before he had the strength to stand up and say what needed to be said. ‘I think we’ve both had a little too much to drink. Maybe it’s time to call it a night.’
Anna’s one glass of wine and his two weightier beverages did not constitute drunkenness by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you considered being drunk on memories of the past as over-imbibing. It had to be all the reminiscing they’d done in the restaurant and the way her face had softened as she’d looked across the table at him. He’d always had trouble resisting her, and tonight was no exception. After one smile, he’d been putty in her hands. But he’d better somehow figure out how to put a stop to whatever was happening between them before one of them got hurt.
He’d opened his heart to her once before only to have it diced into tiny pieces and handed back to him. Never again. He would do whatever it took to keep that stony organ locked in the vault of his chest.
Far out of reach of her or anyone else.
‘I JUST HEARD. There’s a heart. Get to the hospital.’
It took several seconds before a still-groggy Annabelle realised who was on the phone and what he was talking about. Once she did, she leaped to her feet, glancing at the clock on her nightstand to see what time it was. Three a.m.
Once a donor organ was located time was of the essence. It had to be transplanted within hours. ‘I’m on my way.’
Scurrying around as fast as she could, she found clothes and shoved her limbs into them, not worrying about how she looked other than a quick brush of her teeth and putting her hair up into a high ponytail. Then she was out of the door and on her way to Teddy’s. It was pitch black as she pulled her car out onto the roadway, and there were almost no other vehicles out this late. Blinking the remaining sleep from her eyes, she thought about the tasks she needed to do once she arrived.
Max evidently wasn’t at the hospital yet, since he’d said he’d just heard. Which meant they’d tracked him down at home. Wherever that was.
Last night after that disastrous kiss, he’d seen her home in a taxi, before giving her a tight wave as the driver pulled away. What had she been thinking letting him kiss her?
Letting him? More like her yanking him to her as tightly as she could. Once his lips had made contact with hers, he’d have been hard pressed to get away from her. She’d been that desperate to have him keep kissing her on into eternity.
Only that hadn’t happened.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. No, that couple with the baby had walked by ruining everything. It hadn’t been their fault, nor could they have known that Max’s face had hardened instantly, reverting back to the mask she remembered from the end of their marriage. Was he remembering how badly he’d wanted what she couldn’t deliver? No, he’d told her he no longer wanted children—maybe he didn’t want to see reminders of what could have been.
And the way he’d looked at her after the young couple had walked away...
As if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. He’d pulled her up from that bench so fast her head had spun. And no mention of when they would see each other again.
They wouldn’t, obviously. Not outside the hospital. Or outside surgical suites. Last night had been a mistake. A remnant of embers long since extinguished. Except for one tiny spark...
Wasn’t that what he’d called it? A spark?