St Piran's: The Wedding!

‘Who said?’ Josh could feel the tension of this whole situation spiralling upwards. They couldn’t let Claire get any more upset because there was still a definite risk of her rhythm degenerating into a fatal arrhythmia. Who had his children? Where were they?

‘She does.’ Claire’s lips were trembling. ‘The doctor.’

‘What doctor?’

‘The one who … looked after them … when they were born.’

‘Megan Phillips? But that’s impossible. She’s in Africa.’

‘Not any more.’

Josh froze as he heard the voice coming from behind Ben and Anna on the other side of the bed. Everybody turned to see who was at the entrance to the room. Holding the handles of the double stroller that contained the twins.

‘Daddy.’ Both Max and Brenna’s faces lit up with smiles as they spotted their father. They held up four little arms.

But Josh didn’t even see the plea. His gaze was locked on the woman behind the stroller.

Oh, my God.

Megan.

For just a heartbeat, the world stood absolutely still.

Nothing else mattered.

That his mother was dangerously unwell. That he had two tiny, defenceless children calling for him. That he was the head of a department of St Piran’s Hospital that was gaining widespread recognition as a centre of excellence in emergency medicine.

None of those things could even exist in the space Josh was sucked into for just a second.

A space of such intensity, it pulled the oxygen from the air around him and made it feel impossible for him to breathe.

The space he’d been in on that New Year’s Eve party when he’d met Megan properly for the first time. When he’d sensed the power of truly falling in love. The power that had held his mother captive and broken her life.

He’d been there again in the trauma of that emergency when it had looked as though Megan might die. When he’d sensed the power of what a parent’s love for a child could be as well, and had vowed never to let that power control him either.

During the course of that one, incredible night when he’d shared her bed for only the second time—just before he’d found out he was going to become a father.

On the day he’d had to do the hardest thing in his life, and tell her it was all over.

In that moment when he’d had to beg her to do her best to save the lives of Rebecca’s and his children.

Daddy.

The echo of the word penetrated the space. Grounded Josh instantly. He was where he needed to be. Living his life the way it had to be lived.

The way he wanted to live it.

Nothing could be allowed to change that. Somehow, he had to resist the incredible pull that that space could exert. It felt like his life was depending on it. It was almost ironic to have his mother in the same room. The example he’d grown up with of the damage that that kind of love could inflict.

Stepping towards the newcomers, Josh was aware of the tension around him. The kind that came from a collective holding of breath, waiting to see what was going to happen.

Their story was hardly a secret, was it? Not that Anna or Ben knew that he’d slept with Megan while he’d still been married. While his wife had been in the early stages of pregnancy with the twins. But everybody knew their early history by now. And if anybody had missed the way they’d been drawn back to each other when he’d first come to St Piran’s, the hospital grapevine would have filled them in. Maybe everybody did know about that night in the on-call room.

Oh … Lord … Tash knew everything. How much did his mother know?

Josh pulled the barriers of his professional image around him like a force field.

‘Megan … What a stroke of luck you were there for my mother when she got sick. And thank you so much for taking care of my children.’

He stooped to release the safety straps around the twins. Not that he squatted down fast enough to miss the change of expression on Megan’s face. Had she been holding her breath like everyone else in here? Hurt by his deliberate focus on his own family? Himself?

He hadn’t even asked her how she was despite some alarm bell ringing faintly in the back of his head. As he stood up, with a twin under each arm, he couldn’t help taking another look at her. That warning bell hadn’t been a false alarm. She looked … terrible.

So thin. So pale. Something was wrong. Her emerald-green eyes looked dull enough to be frightening.

Except that Josh had no right to have an emotional stake in Megan’s wellbeing any more.

And even if he did, this wasn’t the time. Or place.

He held her gaze for the briefest moment, however. He couldn’t help it. He knew his concern would be transparent but that didn’t matter either. He tried to send a silent message.

We’ll talk. Soon.

‘The babies …’ Claire’s voice wobbled. ‘Let me give them a kiss before I have to go.’

Megan’s heart was hammering in her chest.

How ironic would it be if she provided another cardiac emergency for Josh to deal with?

What had she expected to happen here? A moment of pure fantasy where the existence of anyone else—including his mother and children and colleagues—simply evaporated? And Josh’s face changing as though he was witnessing a miracle? That he would come towards her in slow motion and sweep her into his arms? Kiss her again just like he had that last time.?

Maybe some tiny, secret part of her had hoped exactly that.

It didn’t mean that she’d wanted it to happen, though. Or that she could have coped with going down that track. It was the last thing she wanted when she’d fought so hard to find her new direction. A completely different track.

Josh had done exactly the right thing. Been professional. Cold, almost. But then, when she’d been trying to process that, feeling dizzy and bewildered, he’d looked at her again. Really looked at her. And she’d known that this wasn’t it. This moment couldn’t count as their first meeting after a long absence.

That had been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Circumstances that were slightly chaotic right now, as staff bustled around, taking care of Claire and preparing to move her to the catheter laboratory even as Josh gave her the chance to kiss and cuddle each of the children. Max grabbed one of the wires attaching an electrode to the cardiac monitor and pulled it free, which set off an alarm. The sound frightened Brenna, who clung to her father and had to be persuaded to give her grandmother a quick kiss.

Meanwhile, Megan simply stood there, clutching the handles of the stroller. She could hardly walk out, could she? Not when these people were old friends. How rude would it seem to Ben and Anna if she just left?

Besides, she felt frozen. Watching Josh. Seeing the easy way he held his small children and talked to them. Knowing that his light tone and smile was an act. That the way those lines had deepened around his eyes advertised how much stress he was under right now.

And … he looked as gorgeous as he ever had. His palpable charm hadn’t changed either and it was being directed towards the twins right now and they looked as if they were being won over by that lazy smile as easily as she always had. He must have raked his fingers through his hair a fair few times to get it looking so rumpled, and to her horror Megan could feel the urge to smooth it with her own hands. To push that wayward lock back from his forehead and cup his face with both her hands so that she could really look and discover every tiny change that time had wrought.

She gripped the moulded plastic handles of the stroller more tightly. Forced herself to smile in response to Ben’s greeting.