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The Unexpected Father
Kathryn Ross
Title Page (#uba7470bc-6de3-5402-871f-5d23a81ea90f)CHAPTER ONE (#uc39be647-aa41-52b5-99e7-01d47dd82bee)CHAPTER TWO (#ub871c417-8cf4-5d62-92cd-f3d75acd93e1)CHAPTER THREE (#ue1dc67c5-f56f-5e6e-9084-49a38f9488ab)CHAPTER FOUR (#u61fb1fb4-936b-551b-bc4b-1c2f905dc845)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Josh!”
She tried to sit up, but as she moved she was struck with a pain deep down inside. She gasped, and instinctively her hand moved to her stomach.
“Sam, what is it?”
His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance away as another pain struck.
Her eyes lifted to his, filled with fear. “It’s the baby...Josh. I think I’m going into labor.”
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The Unexpected Father
Kathryn Ross
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN Samantha found out that she was pregnant she could hardly believe it. Once she had recovered from the shock, the delight and excitement set in. Although she knew a baby would change their lives radically, she never for one moment suspected that her husband would be anything other than ecstatic about the news.
Even now, as she lay in a hospital bed drifting between consciousness and the depths of darkness, his reaction haunted her. Their marriage had been a whirlwind affair, and their relationship tenuous at times. Yet even through all the insecurities of loving Ben she hadn’t been prepared for the truth. He just didn’t love her. It was a bitter twist of fate that she should find out now, when she was just six weeks pregnant.
Through a mist of confusion people were saying her name over and over again, but she was too tired to open her eyes; she just wanted to sleep and sleep into oblivion. The bomb blast that had hit the hospital might have bruised and battered her, but it was nothing compared with the ache deep in her heart.
She opened her eyes once and saw a man standing beside her; he was just a hazy, blurred shadow.
‘Ben?’ She murmured his name, her voice sounding strange to her ears. ‘Ben?’
Someone called for a nurse; it didn’t sound like Ben’s voice. She closed her eyes, too weak to think any more.
When she opened her eyes next it was like coming through a thick fog. Then gradually things became clearer and she could see Sister Roberts looking down at her, her expression concerned. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked gently.
It took a moment even to be able to find her voice. ‘As if I’ve been run over by a steam train,’ she murmured at last. Her eyes moved past the nurse. She recognised the general care unit where she had worked for the last two years, though now she was viewing it from a very unfamiliar angle. She tried to sit up, and winced as pain shot through her body.
‘Don’t try to move.’ Sister Roberts put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
‘I don’t think I can.’ Samantha swallowed rawly. Then her eyes sought the nurse’s anxiously. ‘Am I still pregnant? Is...is my baby all right?’ She held her breath as she waited for the woman to answer.
The sister nodded. ‘Perfectly all right...you were very lucky.’
A wave of relief washed through Samantha’s body. If Ben had previously given her any doubts about whether or not she wanted this baby, they were gone for ever now. She wanted her baby with all her heart; that much was certain.
‘Try and get some rest,’ the sister urged as she watched a tear trickle down the girl’s cheek. ‘You are badly bruised but there is no permanent damage.’
Samantha shook her head restlessly. She could hear the distant sound of gunfire—not an unusual sound in the remote African township of Chuanga. For four years now civil war had torn the beautiful little country of Nuangar apart. Samantha had been here with the aid agency for two and a half years, but she still hadn’t got used to the tragic futility of it all.
‘What happened?’ Her voice was hoarse and strained as she remembered the direct attack on the hospital—the first of its kind. ‘I remember running through the ward and out into the corridor to see what was happening, then the explosion...’ Her voice wavered alarmingly at the memory. ‘Were many people killed...? Where’s Ben...is Ben all right?’
‘We’ll talk about Ben later...when you’re feeling stronger.’
Cold, clammy hands felt as if they were squeezing Samantha’s heart as she looked up at the woman. She had been a nurse for too long not to recognise the expression in her colleague’s eyes, in her voice.
Regardless of the pain, she hoisted herself up from the pillows. ‘Ben’s dead...isn’t he?’ Her voice wobbled precariously.
The sister hesitated before answering truthfully. ‘The ward he was working in got a direct hit, Sam... He wouldn’t have known any pain.’
For a moment Samantha seemed to take the news stoically, then she collapsed back against the bed.
Josh watched the sleeping woman with a deep, brooding gaze. Something about Samantha Walker got to him. He couldn’t have said what it was...the air of vulnerability... the fragile, almost ethereal beauty...just something about her.
His eyes moved over the pallor of her skin, made even paler by the mass of dark hair that framed the delicate oval of her face. She had incredibly long dark lashes, and soft lips that were tinged with gentle colour. In sleep she had a childlike, extremely vulnerable quality about her.
She moved in a fretful way and murmured something incoherently. Then suddenly she looked directly at him.
Her eyes were an unusual shade of deep hyacinth-blue, an arresting contrast with the darkness of her hair. There was confusion in the wide gaze. ‘Ben?’ she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.
‘It’s Josh.’ He corrected her gently. ‘Josh Hamilton.’
Her eyes closed and he thought she had drifted back to sleep again. He was surprised, therefore, when she spoke quite clearly to him after a moment’s silence, an edge of derision in her voice. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘There’s no need to sound quite so disappointed,’ he answered laconically.
‘You mean you want me to sound grateful?’ She couldn’t help the bitter note, though why she felt so strongly against this man she couldn’t have said. She had met him only once, just before the bomb blast that had destroyed part of the hospital. According to Sister Roberts, he had risked his life to save hers. She should say some words of thanks.
‘I’m not here for gratitude,’ he said abruptly. ‘I just wanted to see if you were all right. I thought I owed Ben that much at least.’
Guilt flooded through her. She lifted her eyes and looked up at him again. ‘I’m sorry...I do appreciate what you did.’
He waved her words aside impatiently. ‘I told you, I’m not here for that.’
Her gaze moved over the darkness of his hair and the tanned, rugged contours of his face. He had light green eyes, she noticed absently, and his lithe frame was powerfully built. He seemed to personify the outdoor, strongly masculine type. Perhaps it was that aura of strength that unnerved her so much.
‘Sister tells me that you have been in to see me nearly every day.’ She pushed her hair away from her face with a self-conscious hand. ‘Haven’t you anything better to do?’ She wondered if that had sounded rude. She hadn’t meant it to, it was just that she felt disconcerted by Josh Hamilton’s presence. The knowledge that he had sat next to her while she slept made her feel embarrassed; she didn’t like the thought that he might have watched her closely while her defences were down. ‘I thought you were a busy reporter who was in a hurry to get out of this place.’
‘I am.’ His mouth twisted in a rueful smile. ‘I should have been out of Chuanga last week.’ He held up his left wrist, which was heavily bandaged. ‘Unfortunately this has put paid to my travelling for a while.’
‘How did you do that?’ She struggled to sit up further and he stretched across with his right hand and helped her adjust the pillow. The sudden closeness made her visibly flinch away from him before she could check the impulse.
‘All right now?’ He sat back as if he hadn’t noticed the awkward moment.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Her voice held a slight tremor, and for a second her eyes collided with his direct, steady gaze. Hurriedly she looked away. For some reason Josh made her feel completely ill at ease. ‘You... you were about to tell me how you hurt your arm. Did it happen during the raid on the hospital?’ she forced herself to continue lightly.
He hesitated. He could have told her that it had happened when he had gone down into the debris of the hospital corridor to drag her out. Instead he shrugged. ‘No—got out of the war without a scratch.’ He grinned. ‘Got this arm-wrestling with Sister Roberts...she’s some lady.’
Samantha didn’t smile; there was a part of her that felt she would never laugh at anything again. She shuddered. ‘I still can’t believe that anyone could be so evil as to attack a hospital.’
‘It’s beyond comprehension.’ He hesitated before continuing gently, ‘Ben will be a sad loss.’
Dark lashes closed over her eyes. She wasn’t able to talk about Ben, not yet...and certainly not to Josh Hamilton.
‘Samantha?’ His voice was gentle.
Her eyes opened, their beauty lit by an inner light, an inner pain. ‘It’s OK,’ she told him awkwardly, then changed the subject abruptly. ‘If I hadn’t delayed you that evening in the ward you would probably be back in Salanga now.’
‘Maybe.’ His lips curved in a wry grin. ‘I knew you were trouble the minute I set eyes on you. I should have heeded my instincts.’
For a moment Samantha’s mind veered back to the nightmare of that evening.
Josh had been just another patient in her ward. He had been injured on the way in to Chuanga when the supply convoy he had been travelling with had come under attack. Luckily he had escaped with just a minor wound to the side of his head.
She remembered that she had found him extremely infuriating. He had sat on the edge of his bed fully dressed, and had made it plain that he was in a hurry to get out of the place because he had a deadline to meet for a story. Samantha couldn’t have cared less and had told him so in no uncertain terms.
She had been stretched to the limits of her endurance, with a full ward, a shortage of staff and a feeling of sickness curling around in her stomach. She hadn’t been sure if that feeling had been due to pregnancy or the fact that her husband had told her that morning that their marriage was definitely over. Whatever it had been, she had felt that Josh Hamilton was the final weight to tip the balance of her temper.
The other nurse who had been on duty with her had had no such reservations. She had fluttered around him, flirting with him flagrantly.
Even now the memory made Samantha cringe with embarrassment. Joanne had made it very clear that she was attracted to him and Josh had looked lazily amused, as if he was used to women throwing themselves at him.
Samantha had stopped next to them and told them in a clear, icy tone that if there had been such a thing as a bucket of cold water in Chuanga she would have thrown it over them.
Joanne had looked totally disconcerted. Josh had merely laughed, and his eyes had moved in an assessing way over Sam’s slender figure with a gleam of male approval that had completely thrown her.
‘Anyone ever tell you that frosty manner of yours is sexy as hell?’ he had drawled outrageously.
She had known he was deliberately taunting her, and her cheeks had flared with furious colour.
‘Did anyone ever tell you that there is such a thing as a common line of decency, and you have just crossed it?’
‘You mean I’ve offended you.’ He was totally unperturbed. ‘Tell you what—the sooner you check the stitches on my forehead, the sooner I can be out of here and out of your way.’ He gave her an exaggerated salacious wink. ‘How about it?’
‘I’m sorry, but no matter how outrageous you are I am not going to let you jump the queue. I have other people to attend to and so has Joanne.’ She gave her colleague a meaningful look. ‘Mr Hamilton will just have to wait his turn—’
‘Mr Hamilton is out of here.’ Josh interrupted decisively. ‘I’ve never liked waiting in queues anyway.’
She watched him gathering up his things with a feeling of intense annoyance.
‘I want to go across and have a word with Ben Walker before I leave, anyway.’
Samantha had been in the process of turning away from him.
She swung back with a frown marring her smooth features. ‘What do you want to see Dr Walker for?’
‘We’re old friends.’ He bent to put his shoes on. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not putting in a complaint about you,’ he added with a tinge of humour.
‘I’m not in the slightest bit worried.’ She glared at the top of his dark head, hardly able to believe that she could feel such strong antagonism towards a total stranger. ‘For one thing I’m doing my job well, for another Dr Walker is my husband.’
He straightened then, his expression incredulous. ‘You are Ben Walker’s wife?’
‘Yes.’ She met his gaze steadily.
He looked down at the wedding band on her finger as if noting it for the first time. ‘He never mentioned a thing about being married,’ he said after a moment. ‘I spoke to him this morning for about half an hour and he didn’t mention you once.’
Ordinarily Samantha would just have laughed. She had a sunny nature, and usually a smile came readily to her lips. The situation with her husband, however, had changed all that.
She couldn’t say she was surprised that Ben hadn’t mentioned her, but nevertheless it still hurt. ‘Well, he’s never mentioned you either,’ she muttered sharply.
His eyes swept over her in a long, leisurely appraisal. ‘Ben always did have good taste in women,’ he remarked reflectively. ‘Never thought he would get married, though. Didn’t think he was the marrying kind.’
Those words rang hollowly inside her now. She was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to cry. Ridiculous to cry now, she told herself sternly. She hadn’t cried when Ben had made his feelings clear to her. She hadn’t cried when the sister had told her that Ben was dead. Now, remembering Josh Hamilton’s words, she wanted to break down.
She breathed deeply. She had to get a grip, think logically. She had decisions to make—decisions that were painful.
Her head turned towards the table next to her, searching for a glass of water.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Josh asked immediately, stretching to pick up the glass for her.
‘Thank you.’ Her throat cracked slightly as she controlled the emotional storm inside.
