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‘I’m fine.’ The sound had caught Ellie’s attention. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted your party.’
The corner of Max’s mouth lifted. ‘Hey, if it had been a party there’d be a damn sight more than three lager bottles left over and they’d be empty, what’s more.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘No…this was…a toast, that’s all. A token one at that thanks to the guys having to work tonight. It’s a bit of an annual ritual, I guess.’ His voice softened into a sadness that tugged at Ellie’s heart. ‘An anniversary.’
She had been watching his face as he spoke. Such serious lines…His eyes were dark brown—a match for wavy hair that looked like it had been squashed under that helmet for some time. The odd, wayward end of a curl was valiantly poking out here and there, giving him a rather charmingly dishevelled look that was enhanced by the faint shadowing of his jaw.
She watched his fingers as he rubbed the uncompromising line of that jaw. Funny, but she could almost feel the catch of stubble on her own fingers. Just a little rough. As though he usually shaved at least once a day but hadn’t bothered on this particular occasion.
He had shadows under his eyes too and lines that looked emotional rather than age related. He couldn’t be much older than her. No more than his mid-thirties. The echo of his tone lingered.
‘Not a happy anniversary?’ The query was tentative. It was none of her business, after all, but she owed this man something. Rather a lot, actually, and if he wanted to talk about whatever was on his mind, the least she could do was take the time to listen.
He was watching her now. Warily. Then his gaze slid sideways and he sighed.
‘There used to be four of us,’ he said simply. ‘See?’
He was indicating a silver framed photograph that had pride of place on the bookshelf beneath the window. Four young men, probably in their early twenties, were lined up in front of four gleaming motorbikes. They all wore leathers and held a helmet under one arm and they were all grinning. The picture was resonant with the thrill of being alive and young and with the promise the future held. Ellie recognised Max and Rick and the one with the odd name—Jet. The fourth man was shorter than the others and had wildly curly hair. He looked younger. As though he was out with his big brothers.
‘Matthew died ten years ago today.’
‘Oh…’ Ellie stole this opportunity to let her gaze rest on his face again. The bond between the three men when they’d decided to protect her had been unmistakable. He was capable of caring very deeply for others, this man. He still cared about a member of their group who had been dead for ten years. He was also capable of very deep loyalty.
Heavens, he’d been prepared to protect her—a complete stranger. No wonder her instincts had told her so convincingly that he could be trusted.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
Max looked up. ‘Fate has the oddest little twists sometimes,’ he said with an attempt at a smile that came out with an endearing crookedness. ‘Matt died because there were people who were protocol police. A bit like your friend, Mr Jones.’
‘He’s not my friend,’ Ellie whispered fiercely, but Max didn’t seem to hear her. He had closed his eyes. He had the most astonishingly long, dark eyelashes.
‘There were rules in place and they had to be followed.’ He opened his eyes again but he was seeing a very different place from where he was sitting with Ellie on this quiet Sunday afternoon. ‘Their egos wouldn’t allow them to even consider they might be wrong. We were fresh out of medical school and what consultant would bend rules just because we had a hunch? Or let us juggle rosters so we could keep an eye on Matt? Even he said he was fine. It was just a headache. He’d sleep it off.’
Max paused to drag in a slow breath but Ellie stayed silent. She was happy to listen even though she knew this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
‘Didn’t help that we were legends for the way we partied but by the time we came off duty, Matt was in a coma from a ruptured aneurysm. They kept him on life support only long enough for his family to think about organ donation.’
Max was eyeing the bottles again as though he wanted a slug of something. ‘They didn’t want us around,’ he continued tonelessly. ‘And why would they? Any hint of trouble Matt had been in for the past ten years had been associated with us. His sister, Rebecca, was convinced we could have saved him if we’d tried a bit harder. It was the worst time ever. Finally, we got our bikes and took to the road for a good, hard blast. We came back to learn that they’d turned off the machines and Matt was gone.
‘Anyway,’ He shook his head, letting the memories go. ‘We figured that Matt had been pillion that day. Riding out in style. So we do it every year. Go for a blast on the open road and then finish off with a nice, cold beer.’
‘And I interrupted you.’ Ellie’s tone was full of remorse but Max smiled.
‘But don’t you see? We got the chance to play the heavies with one of them. Egotistical rule followers. The kind we didn’t know how to deal with way back then. Take my word for it, it was a bonus.’
Max’s smile was doing something very odd to Ellie.
This was the first time she had seen both sides of his mouth curl evenly. There was warmth there, unsullied by anything sad or grim. A warmth she could feel curling inside her, melting that hard knot of tension that was starting to make her back ache intolerably.
The adrenaline overload of the last thirty minutes or so was draining away to leave her utterly exhausted but that was OK because there was energy to be found in that smile, too. It really was quite extraordinary. It was just a shame she was too tired to smile back.
‘So, that’s my story.’ Max raised an eyebrow as his face settled back into rather more intent lines. ‘What’s yours, Ellie Peters?’
He knew her full name was Eleanor now but he was still calling her Ellie. She liked that. Did she want to tell him her story?
Oh…yes.
Would he think less of her when he heard it?
Quite likely.
Ellie didn’t want Max to think less of her so she didn’t say anything.
Max waited patiently as the seconds ticked past but he didn’t take his gaze off her face. Ellie shifted uncomfortably, the ache in her back getting worse. Her stomach felt odd, too. As if it was trying to decide whether there was enough in it to be worth ejecting. Fortunately, there probably wasn’t. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d had something to eat. Last night?
‘Was he right?’ Max asked evenly. ‘Is the baby his?’
Ellie recognised the new sensation as disappointment. She had no choice other than to let Max think less of her. She owed him honesty, if nothing else.
‘Yes.’
A whisper. A tiny word but, man, it hurt. If only it didn’t have to be the truth. Ellie’s eyes prickled with unshed tears but Max didn’t seem to react at all.
‘How did you meet him?’
‘I…I was his theatre nurse. In Auckland. He didn’t even know my name for the longest time but then he suddenly noticed me and he started being nicer to me in Theatre. Nicer to everybody, actually.’
An eyebrow as dark as those enviable eyelashes quirked. ‘He wasn’t usually nice, then? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.’ The padded elbows of the leather jacket were resting on the table and Max steepled his fingers as he spoke. ‘Bit of a temper?’ His thumbs and forefingers touched each other. ‘Instruments getting hurled around when he wasn’t happy?’ Ellie watched his middle and ring fingers make contact. ‘People getting verbally beaten up on occasion?’
Ellie’s gaze flicked up from watching his fingers. ‘How do you know?’
The steeple was gone, fingers curling into fists. ‘I know the type. Go on, what happened after this miraculous personality transplant?’
‘He…um…asked me out.’
‘And you fell into his arms?’ The words were just a little too bland and Ellie cringed.
‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I wasn’t interested but…’ She sighed. ‘Marcus was very persistent and…and he can be quite charming, believe it or not.’
‘Oh, I believe it,’ Max said grimly. ‘Control freaks are notoriously capable of charming the birds out of the trees if that’s what it takes to get what they want.’
Ellie took a deep breath. She wanted to get this confession over and done with. ‘I went out with him,’ she said in a rush. ‘But only twice.’
Max leaned back in his chair. The look on his face said it all and why should she be surprised? Two dates and she got knocked up? But then he frowned.
‘He’s not a man who likes to take no for an answer, is he?’
Ellie bit her lip. She really didn’t want to talk about this. To anyone. She didn’t even want to have to think about it again.
Maybe something of the shame, and fear, of that night was in her face. Max certainly saw enough to make him curse. Softly but, oh, so vehemently.
‘The bastard. Dammit, I wish we hadn’t let him go unscathed. If we’d had any idea…’
Ellie’s head shake was determined. ‘No. It would only have made things worse. He’d win in the end. Somehow. He always does.’
‘Not this time.’
Good heavens, he made it sound like a promise but, sadly, it wasn’t one that Ellie could afford to accept. Not for herself or the baby. Or for Max and his friends. They all had careers within the medical world. Damage could be done on all sorts of levels.
‘I’m going to get well away,’ she assured Max. ‘Out of the country. I’ll change my name and start again somewhere he’ll never find us.’
‘Uh-uh.’ The negative sound had a ring of finality.
‘What?’
‘You can’t let him win.’
‘I can’t fight. I tried. I even threatened him if he wouldn’t leave me alone and guess what? I lost my job. He managed to make me look totally incompetent in Theatre and laid an official complaint. Nobody would listen to my side and I got shifted sideways to work in a geriatric ward and even that wasn’t enough for him.’
Max said nothing but he was listening hard.
‘He was always there. Ready to make things better if I co-operated. There were apologies and promises and threats. Flowers and phone calls and endless text messages that all looked completely innocent on their own. He’d be waiting for me when I finished a shift sometimes and I’d never know whether he’d choose 6 a.m. or midnight. My flatmate, Sarah, got freaked out so I left town. I got a job in Wellington. Sarah left a few weeks later. Said she was still freaked because Marcus kept turning up, wanting to know where I was, and she couldn’t cope, not when she had Josh to think about.’
Max nodded. ‘I met Josh. Nice kid.’
‘Did you know he’s Sarah’s nephew, not her son?’
‘She did tell me. Her sister died in some kind of accident a couple of years ago?’
‘That’s right. Sarah was the only family member who could take him. He’s only nine so I didn’t blame her for being so worried. She blamed me, though, for the hassles Marcus caused. So much that she didn’t talk to me for months.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘Who would have listened to some nurse badmouthing a well-respected consultant surgeon? I’d already had a taste of his influence on people when I tried to defend my job in Theatre. I had a grudge. I had no evidence of anything other than romantic gestures and texts from a man most people considered charming.’
‘Did you know you were pregnant when you left?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘It didn’t even occur to me because I was taking a low-dose pill to control painful periods and it worked so well I often didn’t get them at all. It was months before I twigged and by then it was way too late to do anything about it…even if I…’ She trailed off with a sigh.
This was getting worse by the minute. He’d think she was weak in having gone out with Marcus in the first place. Stupid not to consider the possibility of pregnancy. Even more stupid not to go to the police and maybe he had a thing against terminations for any cause and she would have considered it very seriously, God help her, because…
‘Not the kind of man you would have picked to be the father of your baby?’ There was a wealth of understanding in Max’s voice and Ellie’s breath came out in a whoosh of relief.
‘No.’
‘Could be worse,’ Max said thoughtfully. ‘The guy’s not that bad looking.’
Ellie’s jaw sagged.
‘And he’s obviously got well above average intelligence.’
Was he trying to make a joke out of this? Unbelievable. Maybe her judgment of his character had been woefully misguided.
‘Bit on the short side,’ Max continued. His gaze rested on Ellie. ‘And you’re hardly a giant but…’ He nodded. ‘Maybe it’ll be a girl. Petite and pretty, just like her mum.’
He was smiling at her again. ‘Hey, if you’d gone to a sperm bank he would have looked pretty good on paper, wouldn’t he? I’ll bet his undesirable attributes are all due to nurture, not nature.’
The sharp flash of dismay—anger, even—that he could be belittling the nightmare she’d been living with for so many months gave way to something very different. Something rather wonderful. Something that made it OK that she loved this baby she was carrying. She didn’t have to feel ashamed. Or guilty. Or terrified of what the future might hold for her child.
He’d not only made her feel safe, this man. He’d given her…hope.
Ellie’s smile wobbled. ‘Thank you.’ ‘No worries.’ Max looked away. Was he embarrassed by the gratitude he might be seeing? ‘So, do you know if it’s a girl?’ ‘No.’
‘You weren’t tempted to ask the ultrasound technician?’
‘I haven’t had a scan.’
Too late, Ellie realised what she’d let slip as Max blinked at her. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I haven’t had a scan,’ she repeated. Did he not understand? ‘If I’d gone to an antenatal clinic my name would have been recorded. I knew Marcus was trying to find me and I couldn’t take that risk.’
‘But didn’t the hospital in Wellington get your details when you got a new job there?’
‘I didn’t get a job in a hospital. I went into the private sector. I had a job as a carer for a tetraplegic guy. I kept it up until very recently when the lifting got too much and then I finally managed to contact Sarah and she said she was going to the States and it seemed like the perfect solution so I sorted my passport and—’
‘Whoa!’ Max held up a hand. ‘Rewind. Are you saying you’ve had no antenatal care? Not even a scan?’
‘I’m twenty-eight,’ Ellie said defensively. ‘Young and healthy. I’ve had no problems. I’ve taken my own blood pressure at regular intervals and I even had the opportunity to test my own urine for protein and so on because the man I was caring for had dipsticks provided. I’ve taken all the recommended vitamin supplements and been careful with my diet. I had all the information I needed in my textbooks and I’m a nurse, for heaven’s sake. I can take care of myself. I would have got help if there’d been any indication it was needed. I’m not stupid.’
The way his eyebrows lifted suggested that Max was reserving judgement on that score. ‘How many weeks are you?’
‘Thirty-six weeks and two days.’
‘What position is the baby in?’
‘I…’ That was something Ellie had done her best to ascertain but would have to admit she hadn’t succeeded in finding out. A small bottom and a head were hard to distinguish by palpation.
‘You don’t know, do you?’
Ellie had to look away. She pressed her lips together and encouraged the small flare of resentment she could feel forming.
‘Where were you planning to give birth given your aversion to registering as a patient in a hospital?’
‘I can go to a hospital. Somewhere else. Under a different name.’
‘And if you happen to succeed in lying about your due date and actually get onto an international flight, how’s that going to work if you go into labour at thirty thousand feet? Hours away from the nearest airport?’
He was angry. With her.
And it was unbearable.
