The Midwife's Marriage Proposal (Lakeside Mountain Rescue 3)
Page 52
‘Not now, Tom.’
She dragged her arm away from his and walked down the corridor as fast as she could, determined not to make a fool of herself in front of him.
If there was one thing she’d learned over her lifetime it was that she could survive on her own.
And she knew that because she’d had to.
* * *
Tom cursed silently, watching with a sense of frustration as she hurried away down the corridor.
He knew that the incident had disturbed her and he understood why.
To help save James, she’d delved deep inside herself and bared wounds that she usually kept deeply buried.
And now she’d exposed them.
And she was hurting.
He shifted slightly, feeling her pain as acutely as if it had been his own.
Torn between his desire to go after her and the knowledge that Lester’s family was waiting for news in an agony of trepidation, his duties as a doctor won and he forced himself to turn and walk towards the relatives’ room.
He’d talk to the family, take them to the intensive care unit to see their son and then he was going after Sally.
And he wasn’t going to let her shut him out.
* * *
She was emotionally and physically exhausted.
Her bed beckoned, but her mind was too fretful and active to even think about sleeping and she didn’t want to lie still and allow her thoughts to overwhelm her.
She needed to keep busy.
Deciding that the answer was to start packing up her things, ready to move into her new flat the following weekend, she reached for some boxes that she’d put aside ready for that task.
She was halfway through filling the second box when she heard the throaty roar of a motorbike, followed by the sound of footsteps outside the front door.
She froze and stopped breathing for a moment.
It was Tom.
It could only be Tom and he was the last person she wanted to see at the moment.
She didn’t want company.
She just wanted to be on her own.
Judging from the impatient thump on the door, he had no intention of respecting that.
She stood still, determined not to answer, assuring herself that he couldn’t force her to answer the door.
Finally she heard the roar of the motorbike again and allowed herself to relax, ruthlessly quashing the tiny kernel of disappointment that hovered inside her.
What would have been the point of letting him in?
She didn’t intend to lean on Tom.