'Damn you, what makes you think I will?' he muttered furiously, then got out of the car to greet the other two. A moment later they were in the rear seats and the limousine was sliding away from the kerb. There were still lights on in the little terraced house; no doubt Rick's parents were up now and distressed over the events of the past few hours.

Nothing was said on the long drive back, along the motorway, passing very few cars, the wide road unwinding in a strange yellow glare while overhead the starlit sky had a melancholy beauty. Sian leaned back and listened to the brooding silence in the car. Beside her Cass drove without a flicker of expression on his lean face; his hands resting lightly on the wheel, his gaze fixed always ahead. In the back, Annette seemed half asleep, but every now and then she made a sound which wasn't quite a sob, yet wasn't ordinary breathing either. Each time Sian felt Rick stir, felt him move, tightening his hold on her, half murmuring to her.

It was not a comfortable drive, and Sian was relieved to see the dark bulk of the New Forest looming up. It had certainly never entered her head when she set out from here this morning that she was going to be driving back again quite so soon. It was probably just as well that human beings couldn't see into the future.

Cass swung the car round a corner suddenly, and Sian leaned forward to glimpse a hospital just ahead of them at the end of a drive. It blazed with lights even at this hour; she saw an ambulance standing on a forecourt, saw two nurses in dark capes going through swing doors, their white uniforms shown up by the light from a window.

'Will they let me see him?' Annette suddenly whispered.

'You may have to wait a while,' Cass told her quite kindly, and she gave another of those funny little sobs.

'He'll be OK,' Rick muttered, his arm round her and his chin on her hair. 'You'll see. They can do wonders these days.'

Cass pulled up on the hospital drive outside a double-doored entrance. 'I'll go and park—you had better get out here,' he said, and they all began to get out. Annette didn't really need Sian, but somehow Sian was reluctant to leave her. She had become inextricably involved in this; she felt she had to stay, see it through. Annette had Rick to lean on for the moment, but she might still need another woman around, especially as Cass was there, too. The two men weren't overtly hostile, but on the other hand they had a guarded wariness which came close to out-and-out hostility. At any moment they could start acting belligerently, and that was the last thing Annette needed. It would help if Sian was there to stop any trouble before it became serious.

Cass was wrong; Annette did not have to wait to see her father. As soon as they arrived she was taken upstairs to the ward in which he lay, while Rick and Sian sat in a glass-walled waiting-room. When Cass joined them he asked if either of them wanted a drink of coffee or tea.

Rick shook his head, his face averted, but Sian said she wouldn't say no to some coffee—it would help

her to stay awake.

'I'll show you where the machine is,' Cass said, turning on his heel, and she followed him along the corridor. When he reached the vending machine he just leaned on the wall beside it, his grey eyes sharp as he watched her read the instructions.

'I was so preoccupied with Annette that it didn't impinge on me that you had somehow managed to stay with us,' he said coolly. 'Let me warn you, if you have some notion of getting further copy out of this, you're mistaken. You've taken advantage of Annette once, you aren't doing it again while I'm around.'

Sian ignored that, hunting for a coin in her purse. His hand suddenly shot out and grabbed her wrist.

'Do you hear?' he snarled, and she looked up, icy with affront.

'Let go of me, you big bully! I'm not deaf, I heard, and I'm here to help Annette, not make copy out of her, so leave me alone.'

She shook his hand off and he pushed it into his trouser pocket, his face grim. 'I have half a mind to make you go.'

'You and whose army?' mocked Sian furiously. 'I'm staying and there's nothing you can do about it.'

'Don't provoke me,' he said through his teeth, black-browed. 'If I choose to have you thrown out of here, you will be, don't worry, but Annette may need to have another woman around, it's true. For the present, you can stay, but take one step near a telephone and you're out.'

She gave him a seething look, but merely asked, 'Have you got any change? This machine wants coins I haven't got.' She offered him a pound coin and he pushed it aside, producing some smaller coins which he fed into the machine. Sian got her black coffee and stalked back to the waiting-room without another glance in his direction.

She sat down next to Rick, but Cass stayed outside in the corridor where she could see him pacing up and down, head bent, his hands thrust into his pockets and his face shuttered, unreadable. This must have been a hard day for him; Sian had to admit he was taking it pretty well on the whole. Few men could be trusted to behave generously after they'd had the sort of kick in the teeth which Annette had inflicted on him this morning. Sian might find him overbearing, if not downright unbearable. He might be under some delusion about his right to push people around. But he had some good qualities.

Two nurses, hurrying past with their caps a little askew and flushed faces, gave Cass a curious, grinning look, then giggled at each other. It wasn't often that they saw a man in full morning dress with a wilting buttonhole, stalking their hospital corridors like Hamlet's father on the battlements!

Cass was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice them; his jaw showed stubble deepening and his brows were heavy with a frown. What was he thinking? Nothing cheerful, by that expression.

Rick was watching him, too, and seemed to like what he saw even less than Sian did.

'I wish he'd clear off!' he burst out suddenly, and Sian looked at him, green eyes sympathetic.

'He seems genuinely concerned about Annette's father. I think that's why he stays.'

Rick scowled, but shrugged. 'Oh, maybe. Her dad was at school with his, you know. Old Mr Cassidy died a few years back, but he and Annette's father were always good friends; they used to play chess once a week. Her dad worked for the firm when it only employed a handful of people; he worked there all his life, until he retired early. He was only fifty-six, but I think he took voluntary redundancy. He was a bit aimless once he'd stopped work. No wonder he had a heart attack when Annette ran away. He had nothing in his life but Annette, and that's Cassidy's fault. He must have asked Mr Byrne to retire early, and now he probably feels guilty.'

Sian frowned. 'I gathered that this heart condition was already known—are you sure that isn't why her father retired early?'

'Who told you that?'

'Mr Cassidy.'

Tags: Charlotte Lamb Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net