it would also be the time when her pregnancy made moving about more difficult.
‘So, this is what my life is going to be like for the next few months,’ she grumbled, then subdued a shriek of horror when she caught sight of herself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
‘Talk about the wreck of the Hesperus,’ she moaned as she dragged a brush through the tangles put there by her restlessness. At least she wasn’t having to do it with her injured arm. If she’d dislocated her right shoulder she would have been strapped up and completely out of action for several weeks yet.
And as for what she was wearing … this old T-shirt hadn’t just seen better days, it had seen better years, and was so worn out that it really was translucent in places.
Before she could strip it off, she heard the deep purr of one of the more expensive makes of car outside the front of the house and her heart did a crazy little tap-dance at the knowledge that Dan had arrived.
‘The keys! What did I do with …? Ah!’ She pounced on them and hobbled over to the window, steadying herself against the furniture. ‘Catch!’ she called in a stage whisper as she lobbed them in a gentle arc towards him, then fastened the window as fast as she could and went back to changing her clothing.
He must have taken all four flights two at a time because he was already at her front door and fitting the key to the lock before she’d pulled a fresh, slightly less disreputable T-shirt on while balancing on one leg.
‘Very fetching!’ he teased, and she knew he’d caught sight of one of the packet of thongs she’d bought with him the morning after her accident.
‘A gentleman wouldn’t have looked, and if he accidentally caught sight of something he shouldn’t, he certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it,’ she said sternly.
‘Whatever made you think that I was a gentleman?’ he said with one of those cheeky grins that never failed to turn her inside out, right from the first time she’d met him.
Oh, how hard it had been, day after day, forcing herself to keep a strict distance between the two of them and making herself treat him the same as all the other A and E staff.
‘So, tell me,’ he said as he guided her back to the side of her bed, the rumpled covers mute evidence of her lack of sleep. ‘What had you so upset that you were crying?’
‘I wasn’t upset,’ she denied, then had to blink as her eyes began to fill with tears again. ‘I was lying in bed and I was resting my hand on the bump—’
‘You do that a lot,’ he interrupted seriously, once more resting his much longer, much broader hand over hers. ‘I’ve seen you doing it around the department, and when you’re sitting having a break you sometimes stroke your hand backwards and forwards and round and round.’
For a moment she lost the power of speech. How had he managed to see so much when she hadn’t even noticed him looking?
‘I’m sorry. I interrupted you,’ he said, sliding his fingers between hers so that their sensitive tips were stroking her, too. And even though there was a layer of soft stretchy fabric between them, his fingers were so warm that she could feel each one of them and the tracks they made on her skin as clearly as if she’d been naked under his touch.
‘You were saying that that you were lying with your hand on your bump, and.’ His voice was deeper and huskier than before, almost as though he was as affected by the contact between them as she was.
‘And I felt them move,’ she finished in a whisper, and saw his eyes flare wide in response.
‘Are you sure?’ Now he was staring down at the curve that was still almost small enough to be spanned by fingers as long as his. ‘Surely it’s still far too early?’
‘That’s what I told myself,’ she agreed, ‘but then it happened again, and a third time and … and I thought you would want to know and …’
He drew in a shuddering breath and she was stunned to see the bright sparkle of tears gathering in his eyes.
‘Oh, thank you, Sara,’ he said, so softly that she almost had to lip-read the words. ‘I can’t tell you how much …’ He shook his head, obviously moved beyond mere conversation.
‘I don’t know if they’re still moving, but do you want to …?’ She slid her hand out from under his and lay back across her bed, leaving his much larger hand spread across her.
It was so silent in the room that she could hear the numbers click over on the radio alarm beside the bed, so silent that both of them seemed to have forgotten to breathe while they waited for something to happen.
‘What did it feel like?’ he murmured so softly that it was almost as if he was afraid of frightening them, as if those tiny forms were timid wild animals.
She concentrated for a moment, recalling the movement deep inside her.
‘It felt like a cross between a flutter and a squiggle,’ she said in the end. ‘It wasn’t quite as delicate as a butterfly’s wing—it was slightly too substantial for that. But it wasn’t strong enough to be called a—’
‘There!’ he exclaimed with a look of awe on his face as he stared down at the place covered by his hand. ‘Was that what you felt?’
Sara concentrated for several long seconds and was growing worried that they’d reached the end of the performance when she felt the strongest movement yet.
‘Yes!’ she agreed joyfully, overwhelmed to be sharing this special moment with him. ‘That’s exactly what I felt. What do you think?’
‘What do I think?’ he asked seriously, a hint of a frown drawing those straight dark eyebrows together. ‘I think it’s boys, because that was definitely the sort of kick that will score goals.’
‘Idiot.’ She chuckled, delighting in his nonsense, but when she thought he would take his hand away again, he didn’t, propping himself on one elbow on the bed beside her so that he could leave it just where it was.
‘I was being serious,’ he said with a deliberately solemn expression, then asked, ‘What do you think they are? Identical or fraternal? Girls or boys?’
‘Or one of each?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve never understood some people being adamant about the sex they want their baby to be. I’ve always believed that it’s far more important that it arrives as healthy and as safely as possible.’
Their undemanding conversation had drifted from topic to topic, all loosely connected with pregnancy, labour and the care of newborns, and it was some time before Dan realised that Sara had fallen asleep.
For some while he lay there watching her, glad that the room was still warm enough so that he didn’t need to cover her with the bedclothes just yet, not while he was enjoying looking at the changes this pregnancy was causing to her body.
She’d never been as artificially slender as Zara and the soft curves of her burgeoning breasts and the full curve of her swelling belly were so naturally sexy that he’d been hard from the moment he’d walked into her flat and caught a glimpse of that skimpy purple thong.
Oh, what a fool he’d been, to be taken in by Zara’s spiteful games. How could he not have seen while he’d been reaching for the paste imitation that he’d already had a diamond within his reach? Sara wasn’t just a gifted and hard-working doctor, she was also one of the most genuinely good-hearted people he’d ever met. And, unless some sort of miracle happened, he’d lost her for ever.
So you’d better make the best of this special time, then, said a stern voice inside his head, and he took the words to heart. It might be the only opportunity he ever had to spend the night with her and he wasn’t going to waste a moment of it.
In the end, exhaustion got the better of him and the next thing he knew he was waking up with Sara’s softly curvy form wrapped firmly in his arms as if he was never going