Hijacked Honeymoon

CHAPTER TWO

IT TOOK an hour and a half for Abbey to reach the hospital, and by the time she did Ryan was practically going round the twist.

Not medically.

Sapphire Cove had a beautiful little hospital, with every piece of modern equipment he could hope for. The nursing staff, forewarned by Abbey via mobile phone, greeted him with efficient courtesy, and there was little more Ryan could have done for his jellyfish victim if he’d been back in New York.

Less, he thought grimly. There wasn’t a lot of call for jellyfish antivenom on Long Island.

For the first half-hour after he arrived at the hospital his hands were full. The boy took all of his attention. He stopped breathing twice more. Finally, though, the antivenom took effect, his breathing stabilised and a few moments later his eyes flickered open.

His mum burst into tears and, as the boy showed signs of recognising everyone and didn’t appear as if he would suffer long-term effects, Ryan felt like doing the same himself. It had been some afternoon.

So where the hell was Abbey?

‘She rang in five minutes ago to check everything was OK,’ the hospital matron volunteered. A slim, competent woman in her early thirties, Ryan could vaguely remember Eileen McLeod as being a bright spark in his class at school. Only now she was Eileen Roderick.

Like Abbey Rhodes was now Abbey Wittner.

‘You told her everything here was OK?’

‘Yes. And she’s been delayed. Apparently, they had to dig your car out of the sand.’ Eileen grinned. ‘The tide was coming in and they only just got it free in time. The lifesavers wanted to carry Abbey across to another car, but Abbey wouldn’t hear of it and supervised operations from the back seat.’ She grinned again. ‘That’s our Dr Wittner! Bossy to the core.’

‘So where is she now?’ Ryan asked in a voice of foreboding. He put his hand up to run long surgeon’s fingers through his thick brown hair. He was tired to the point of exhaustion. He had to fix Abbey’s leg. And he still had to face his father.

‘Rod-the head of the lifesavers-is driving her in, but she wanted to make a house call first.’

‘To Mrs Miller, I’ll bet!’ Ryan exploded. He crashed one hand against the door of the nurses’ station, making Eileen jump. ‘For Pete’s sake-the woman’s got a dislocated knee, if not a broken leg. She’s had a thump on the head that’ll give her a headache for a week, if not longer, and she’s haring round the country like there’s nothing wrong.’

‘She’s tough, our Abbey,’ Eileen said quietly, and then cast Ryan a doubtful glance. ‘She’s had to be.’

Ryan didn’t take it up. He didn’t care how tough Abbey was. Twenty-six hours in the air-a car accident-a neardeath-and now…

‘She realises I’m waiting to set her leg,’ Ryan said darkly.

‘I don’t think she realises anything of the kind.’ Eileen looked at him doubtfully. Eileen was the same age as Ryan and she remembered him from childhood, but she’d always been a bit in awe of Ryan Henry, even when he’d been fifteen.

Tall and dark, clever and aloof-that was how Eileen remembered him. His strong bone structure, dark skin and good looks, combined with the almost astounding intelligence and sportsmanship he’d displayed at school, had made him stand apart It had only been Abbey who’d refused to be intimidated by his solitary air.

Ryan Henry…

Fancy him coming back. Eileen chewed her bottom lip, trying to think how Ryan’s presence could help Abbey. Eileen and Abbey ran this hospital as a tight-knit team, and maybe only Eileen knew just how hard-pressed Abbey really was.

But local gossip had it that Ryan was here on his honeymoon. That figured. The wonder of it was that Ryan hadn’t married years ago. Ryan Henry was tall, dark and rangy. Despite his lean frame, he was strongly muscled and obviously used to the outdoors. His brown eyes crinkled in warm understanding.

His twinkling eyes had even made the boy’s unfortunate parents smile a while back, and Eileen had been astounded. Ryan’s deep brown hair ran backwards in waves that almost made you want to put your hand up to touch it…

Good grief! Eileen pulled herself up with a start. She was a married lady. What on earth was she thinking of?

‘Who does Abbey expect will set her leg, then?’ Ryan was saying savagely, and Eileen hauled her thoughts back to Abbey with a visible effort.

‘Oh…’ Eileen sighed. ‘I expect we’ll do it together.’

‘We?’

‘She and me. Or is that-I and her?’ Eileen frowned. ‘You tell me, Ryan Henry. You were always better at English than me. Than I.’

Eileen tossed him her cheeky grin again, and Ryan stared. A nurse who threw back schoolday memories wasn’t something he was used to. He expected deference in the hospital where he worked-and he got it.

But Eileen was smiling and he couldn’t take offence. Anyway, he had to concentrate. What Eileen was saying didn’t make sense.

‘Abbey said she stitched her arm herself,’ he said blankly, thinking it through.

‘She did,’ Eileen said. ‘Even I was a bit shocked at that one. There was a car smash. Abbey went with the ambulance to the scene and helped get them out. She cut herself badly but didn’t let on. There was so much blood no one noticed some of it was hers. She just wrapped it up, didn’t say a word and kept on working.

‘Afterwards, when we were all exhausted-there were two deaths, you know, and they were locals-Abbey just quietly went away and stitched herself up. It was her right arm, too, and she’s right-handed. She didn’t do too bad a job either, though it has scarred.’

‘Eileen… Sister Roderick.’

‘Eileen.’ Eileen smiled. ‘Heck, Ryan, we go back too far to be formal.’

‘Yeah. Eileen.’ What was it about calling a nurse by her first name that made him so uncomfortable? ‘Eileen, are you saying you approve of Abbey setting her own leg?’

‘Well, no. But there’s no alternative.’

‘She could go to Cairns.’

‘An hour and a half’s drive?’ Eileen shook her head. ‘No way. It’s crazy if, as you say, the knee is just dislocated. Between us we’ll get it back in. What happens here if there’s an emergency while she’s away? Abbey will refuse point blank to go. Bluntly, Ryan, Abbey hasn’t time to waste on herself. She has a baby, there’s cows to milk, her mother-in-law needs her-’

‘Stop!’ Ryan put up a hand, as though fending off something he couldn’t cope with. ‘You’re saying Abbey’s responsible for all those things?’

‘That’s right.’ Eileen paused and the hospital matron let her smile slip as a thought struck home.

Abbey shrugged her responsibilities off lightly but there was no reason Eileen should do the same for her.

‘It’s not easy for Abbey, though,’ she admitted, looking hopefully up at Ryan. Hey, Ryan was a doctor, after all, and he was planning on being in town for a while. Eileen thought some more, came to sudden urgent conclusions and then she made her voice deliberately doleful. ‘And if her leg’s as bad as you say it is I have a feeling it’ll be impossible.’

‘So what will you do while she’s laid up?’

‘Find her a darned good set of crutches, I guess.’ Eileen put her hands on her hips and fixed Ryan Henry with a look. ‘Ryan, this place runs because of Abbey Wittner. I don’t know if you remember the medical facilities here when you were a kid…’

‘I don’t remember there being anything here at all,’ Ryan confessed, remembering a dreadful car ride to Cairns late at night when his appendix had burst.

‘There wasn’t anything,’ Eileen said bluntly. ‘Since Abbey got her medical degree she’s organised everything. Galvanised the locals into building this hospital. Restructured the home-nursing service. The medical services in this town are wonderful now-but without Abbey they’ll fall apart.’

‘But, whether you need her or not, she’s just dislocated her knee,’ Ryan said faintly. ‘Even when we get it back in place she’ll have to spend the next week with it up. It’ll be so bruised and swollen she won’t be able to use it. She’ll have to take some time off.’

‘She never has before,’ Eileen said darkly. ‘Not when she had her baby. Not when… Well, not ever. I don’t see why she should now. As long as the leg’s not broken then I’ll help her get it back into place, we’ll shove on a Robert Jones bandage to protect it and we’ll go on from there.’

‘Well, I knocked her off her damned bicycle,’ Ryan growled. ‘I’ll at least have to fix the leg.’ Then he met Eileen’s suddenly hopeful look and he could read her thoughts as clear as day. ‘I am an orthopaedic surgeon, after all,’ he said bluntly, ‘but that’s all I’m doing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Eileen said meekly, but she gave him a very long look before she headed back to her work.

An orthopaedic surgeon. Well, well…

Abbey arrived at the hospital half an hour later to find Ryan, pacing. When Rod finally drove Ryan’s hire car into the casualty entrance, Ryan grabbed a trolley and almost flung it at the back seat.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

There was a note of raw anxiety in his voice but Abbey didn’t hear it. All she heard was anger.

‘Busy,’ she said crisply, hiding the pain in her own voice. She wasn’t letting this man know she’d been silly. She’d thought she could do the house call. But the morphine had worn off and in the end it had been all she could do not to pass out from the pain. ‘How’s the boy? Eileen says you have him stabilised and the antivenom’s working.’

‘Yes. Abbey, did you do that damned house call? Are you crazy?’ Rod, the head of the lifesavers, had climbed out of the driver’s seat and was watching Ryan and Abbey with interest, but Ryan only had eyes for Abbey.

‘Mrs Miller wanted to see me,’ Abbey said defensively.

‘Abbey, she wanted you to dress her ulcer. For heaven’s sake…’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Abbey said flatly. ‘At least, that wasn’t the main reason she wanted to see me. She wanted to tell me something.’

‘What?’

‘I still don’t know,’ Abbey confessed. ‘Rod was there-well, he had to be-and she clammed up.’

‘So you’ve been wandering round the country-Abbey, you were knocked cold when you came off that bike-and you’ve been sitting, drinking tea-’

‘How did you know I’ve been drinking tea?’

‘Haven’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but-’

‘I guessed,’ Ryan said, goaded beyond belief. ‘I remember Margaret Miller. Abbey, you are ill and Marg Miller isn’t.’

‘No, but there’s something wrong.’

‘But you don’t know what?’

‘No. But I’ll find out.’

‘She made me carry her into the kitchen so she could have a cup of tea with the old lady,’ Rod said blankly, helping Ryan lift Abbey onto the trolley. ‘Doc Wittner propped her leg up on a kitchen chair and went at it like there was nothing wrong. The old lady had the whole thing set up-best china, scones and jam and cream-’

‘And I suppose you ate them?’ Ryan barked.

‘Of course I did.’ Abbey glared. ‘Marg would have been hurt if I hadn’t.’

‘And what if I have to give you a general anaesthetic?’

‘No one’s giving me a general anaesthetic.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me.’ Abbey glared again. ‘Ryan Henry, are you going to take me into the hospital or do I sit here, looking stupid, on this trolley for the rest of the afternoon? I have things to do, even if you don’t.’

Ryan ran his hand through his hair.

‘Let’s push her inside,’ Rod said helpfully, ‘otherwise she’s just as likely to hop off and push the trolley herself. She knows what she wants, our Doc Wittner.’

He gave Ryan a sympathetic man-bossed-by-women grin, and helped the near-speechless Ryan take Abbey into X-Ray.

The bones were intact.

Thanks be, Ryan thought, and Abbey echoed his thought aloud as she stared at the X-ray.

‘That’s great. I’ll have Eileen dose me up with morphine and we’ll get it back into position. It’ll hardly slow me down at all.’

It was hurting like crazy now but she wasn’t admitting to that.

‘No way.’ Ryan shook his head. ‘I’m putting it back into position. Abbey, I’m an orthopaedic surgeon so lie back, shut up and let me get on with it’

‘An orthopaedic surgeon…’ Abbey’s face cleared. Despite her bravado, the thought of trying to tell Eileen how to manipulate her leg back into place had had her feeling faint. And she just had to look at Ryan to see he was competent.

She closed her eyes. ‘Thank you, Ryan. That’d be great. If you could patch me up before milking…’

Ryan stared. ‘Milking…? Abbey, I’ll patch you up before bed. That’s where you’re going and nowhere else.’

‘I’m not going to bed.’

‘Yes, you are. For a week!’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘What’s the alternative here, Abbey?’ Ryan demanded. ‘You produce another bicycle and pedal off into the sunset? You won’t even be able to drive.’

‘I will.’

‘Not while the Robert Jones dressing is on. For a start, the bulk of the thing will hinder you and, bluntly, Abbey, the leg will just be too painful. When we get it back into position you’ll be left with residual swelling that’ll take a week to go down.’

‘I guess.’ For a moment Abbey looked worried and then her face cleared. ‘Well, I’ll just have to cut down on house calls. The ambulance boys can take me out if they need me.’

‘Abbey…’

‘I’ll be fine, Ryan,’ she said firmly. ‘I have to be.’

‘Now that,’ Ryan said, in a voice that was just as firm, ‘is something I don’t understand.’ He turned to the matron, who’d just entered the room behind them. ‘Eileen, can you prepare me a Robert Jones dressing?’ The Robert Jones dressing was a bulky, padded dressing, used to protect the knee and hold it firmly in position.

‘Yes, Doctor,’ Eileen said primly, casting Abbey a sideways glance, and left Abbey, still arguing.

‘Ryan, I am perfectly capable-’

‘You’re not.’ Ryan sat on the edge of the examination couch and caught Abbey’s hands. They felt rough. He looked down at her fingers and frowned.

Abbey’s hands were work-worn hands. Farmer’s hands.

Felicity’s hands were silk-smooth, made even more so by expensive moisturisers. Abbey’s hands felt like they’d never seen moisturiser in their lives.

Odd how good Abbey’s hands felt. How right…

He’d always looked after Abbey.

‘I’m fixing this damned leg and cleaning up your face,’ Ryan told her gently. ‘And then I’m driving you home. And home is where you’ll stay. Twenty-four hours’ absolute bedrest, Abbey, followed by a week off work with your leg up. Doctor’s orders.’

Abbey stared. She looked down at her hands, resting in Ryan’s, and something suspiciously like a lump rose in her throat.

Which was stupid. She didn’t cry. Not for something as trivial as this.

It must just be the shock of the accident, followed by the drama of the afternoon, she told herself. It certainly wasn’t weakness. It certainly wasn’t the fact that Ryan might be right.

She closed her eyes and hauled her hands away. When she opened her eyes again she had her facts right.

‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not ill and I don’t have a choice here, Ryan. I work.’

‘Get a locum,’ he said brutally. ‘And don’t tell me you can’t.’

Abbey sighed and shook her head. ‘That’s just it-I can’t. It’s November. There’ll be no graduating medical students wanting fill-in jobs yet-not until next month when they finish their finals. There are only the professional locum services and they cost an arm and a leg.’ She managed a rueful smile. ‘And I don’t have a leg, Ryan.’

‘Well, maybe you can find one who just charges an arm…’ Ryan smiled back but shook his head. ‘Abbey, that’s silly. With this hospital… well, you must be making enough to pay a locum.’

‘No.’ Abbey’s smile faded and her face set. ‘And it’s none of your business how much I earn. I can’t pay a locum and that’s that.’

Eileen entered the theatrette again with her hands full of bandages. And her eyes full of mischief.

‘What we need is a doctor who’ll work for nothing,’ she said cheerfully-innocently. ‘Maybe someone with local background. Someone with a spot of time on his hands. And someone whose fault it was that our own doctor is out of service…’

Ryan stared.

‘Hey, just a minute…’ It didn’t take Einstein to see what Eileen was on about. ‘I’m here on my honeymoon.’

‘So we heard, but where’s your bride?’ Eileen arched her eyebrows. ‘Did you leave her sitting by the side of the road when you knocked Abbey off her bike?’

‘No. She’s still in Hawaii-’

‘And she’s arriving here later today?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then what’s the problem?’ Eileen smiled at Abbey and then smiled at Ryan.

Abbey stared-and Eileen stared right back.

‘Don’t you dare say we don’t need him, Abbey Wittner,’ Eileen said firmly, ‘because we do. If I can persuade him…’ She turned again to Ryan. ‘Well, Dr Henry?’

‘Eileen, you can’t do this,’ Abbey said weakly.

‘Watch me! Dr Henry will do the right thing. Won’t you, Dr Henry?’

Both women looked at Ryan like they expected a rabbit to appear from his hat. And Ryan was left with nowhere to go.

‘Hey, if you think you’re hijacking my honeymoon,’ Ryan expostulated. ‘I haven’t had a holiday in a year.’

‘Dr Wittner hasn’t had a holiday for as long as I can remember,’ Eileen said solidly. ‘And you knocked her off her bike.’

‘Eileen, leave him alone,’ Abbey said wearily. ‘We don’t need him.’

‘Oh, yes, we do.’ Eileen fixed Ryan with her very hardest glare. ‘You damaged our doctor, Dr Ryan. Provide us with a replacement model!’

‘Eileen!’ Abbey was half laughing, half horrified.

But Ryan looked down at Abbey and his protests died. He didn’t see her laughter. He saw weariness and pain and need. In fact, he saw absolute exhaustion. Until now he’d thought of himself as tired. This girl was bone-weary.

And she was way too thin. Abbey’s eyes were ringed with shadow. Her hands were aged beyond their years with hard physical work.

He saw what Eileen’s defiant glare was telling him. And there was no way he could get out of this one.

What on earth would he tell Felicity?

Well, Felicity had already sabotaged the first part of their honeymoon. And now circumstances and these two women were hijacking the rest.

A man knew when he was beaten.

‘Very well,’ he said wearily. ‘I know when I’m licked. Lie back, then, and let me put this damned leg into position, Dr Wittner. From now on it seems you’re on my honeymoon! ’

Abbey stared up at him. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean I damaged your leg and I’m on holiday,’ Ryan said bluntly. ‘Or I was on holiday. It seems that now we just swap roles.’

If Ryan had thought Abbey would accept his offer with open arms he was very soon put right Abbey protested the whole time he and Eileen carefully cleaned, positioned and dressed her leg. In the end, Ryan took drastic measures.

‘One more word out of you and we administer a general anaesthetic,’ he told her. ‘Shut up and keep still.’

Abbey gasped. ‘You can’t administer a general anaesthetic against my will.’

Ryan sighed and looked across at Eileen. ‘Sister Roderick, would you say this patient is behaving unreasonably?’

‘I surely would.’ Her problems solved, Eileen was now enjoying herself immensely.

‘Maybe caused by the bump on her head?’

Eileen nodded. ‘Could be.’

‘So we-as caring, professional providers of emergency treatment-would be justified in doing whatever we need to administer appropriate treatment.’

Eileen’s grin widened. ‘Sounds good to me. Short of a sledgehammer, Dr Henry, I’m with you all the way.’

‘So shut up, Abbey,’ Ryan said kindly. ‘You’re beaten.’ He took the leg carefully between his hands and checked Abbey’s face. Abbey had been given a sedative and as much morphine as Ryan thought she could tolerate. He watched her face carefully for signs of pain. None.

With one fast, decisive click, he rotated the lower leg to the right.

Abbey gasped. Her eyes widened in shock-and then she stared down and her pale face creased into a smile. Underneath the swelling the patella looked normal again. One kneecap back in position.

‘Well done,’ she whispered-and then she went right back to arguing.

‘Now let’s think this through. If you think I’m lying back and doing nothing-’

‘Sister, how far up do you think we should wind this bandage?’ Ryan asked. ‘How about somewhere near her armpits?’

‘Mouth sounds better.’ Eileen chuckled.

‘Know when you’re beaten, Abbey,’ Ryan told her, and kept right on winding.

And there was absolutely nothing Abbey could do. So Abbey Wittner finally shut up.

She hardly said a word until Ryan had her in his car, driving northwards towards her home. The jellyfish victim was recovering nicely. Eileen had Ryan’s mobile phone number to contact him in an emergency and the transfer of authority was complete. But Abbey didn’t like it one bit.

‘You don’t need to do this,’ Abbey told him in a voice that was subdued. In fact, she was tired almost beyond belief. The pain and the shock of the accident was taking its toll, and Ryan’s offer to take her home to bed was sounding so good that she wanted to give in to it.

Only she couldn’t.

‘I do,’ Ryan told her. Abbey was stretched out on the back seat of his car again and he was talking to her over his shoulder as he drove. ‘Believe me, Abbey, I’ve looked at it from every angle and I don’t see that I can get out of it. You said yourself that the accident was my fault. I was driving too fast.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t look-’

‘And you now have a massively bruised leg and I have a guilty conscience. So let’s fix both, shall we?’

‘By letting you be a martyr?’ Abbey’s voice was sharper than she’d intended and Ryan winced.

That was just how he was feeling-a martyr. Another twinge of guilt hit home.

Should he call what he was doing here martyrdom? This was his home town after all. And he had just squashed the local doctor. Well, Sapphire Cove had been good to him as a child. He owed it something so maybe he could give it, without calling himself a martyr.

‘It’s not martyrdom, Abbey,’ Ryan said, in a voice that was gentler than any he’d used before. ‘Let me do it. Please.’

‘Be doctor here for a week?’

‘Or longer, if you need me.’

‘But… you are here on your honeymoon,’ Abbey said cautiously. ‘Everyone knows that. That’s why your dad said you were coming.’

‘You still know my father?’

‘Of course I still know your father.’ Abbey cast him a strange look. ‘He’s a good friend of my mother-in-law. He spends a lot of time with us, and as far as knowing how he is-well, I’d imagine I know him better than you do.’

Ryan’s face set. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning he’s my friend and he’s also my patient.’

Ryan frowned, thinking this through. And accepting, reluctantly, that she was right. She’d have to know his father better than he did. But Abbey as his father’s doctor? That took some getting used to.

‘Is there anything wrong with him?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you know how his health is?’ Abbey demanded. ‘He tells me you write to each other’

‘Of course we write.’

‘Hmm.’ Abbey compressed her lips and Ryan could see judgement, standing out a mile. And condemnation. ‘So,’ she asked, changing the subject, ‘where’s your bride, then, Dr Henry?’

‘In Hawaii.’

‘Oh.’ Abbey thought this through and then nodded wisely. A doctor-of-the-world nod. ‘I see. Separate honeymoons. That’s very… very modern.’

‘Abbey!’

Abbey hadn’t changed one bit, Ryan thought bitterly. Abbey had always said exactly what she’d thought. She’d always told him. And he’d loved her for it.

‘Did you get together for the wedding?’ Abbey continued, in a voice that was dispassionately interested. Nothing more. ‘Or can you do a wedding via teleconferencing these days? Or maybe via the Internet?’

Despite his darkening humour, Ryan couldn’t suppress a smile. A teleconferenced wedding! That would be just Felicity’s style. Now why hadn’t she thought of that?

Abbey’s bright eyes were watching him, gently mocking. His smile faded. He went into defence mode. With Abbey, defence had always been a good idea.

‘We haven’t married yet. We’ve organised to be married in Sapphire Cove when Felicity gets here.’

‘Oh.’ To Ryan’s surprise, Abbey’s face softened. ‘Oh, Ryan, your father will like that.’

‘I wouldn’t imagine he’d care very much.’

‘Oh, he’ll care,’ Abbey said grimly, almost to herself. ‘You can’t imagine how much.’ Then she leaned forward and pointed to a turn-off. ‘Here, Ryan. Turn here. This is where I live.’

Ryan stared.

Where Abbey was pointing was to a farmhouse, but it wasn’t what you’d call the home of the landed gentry. The farmhouse was a simple cottage, set back among encroaching tropical wilderness. It looked as if it had been built a hundred years ago and nothing much had been done to it since.

There’d been a sugar plantation here once, but not now. Straggling lantana grew wild almost right to the door. There were a few cows in the paddocks around the house. As Ryan turned up the drive poultry scattered in all directions, and a red-headed toddler was pedalling a tricycle along the verandah, scattering hens and feathers in the process.

As the car drew to a halt the toddler stared openmouthed, bolted inside and reappeared, clutching the hand of someone who had to be his grandma.

The lady he’d produced was in her seventies, still with traces of the child’s red hair but bent and weathered with age and Queensland’s fierce sun. The woman came down the verandah steps slowly, hobbling with the aid of a walking stick and clutching the small boy to her side in the manner of someone expecting disaster.

This woman had seen disaster, Ryan thought fleetingly as he watched her face. The suffering he saw there was a deeper version of what he saw behind Abbey’s eyes. Who was she? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anyone living on this place when he was young.

The expression on the woman’s face had given way now to open fear. Ryan turned off the engine, but Abbey had the door of the car open before Ryan could move.

‘It’s OK, Janet,’ she called urgently. ‘I’m OK. I dislocated my knee but it’s fine now.’

Ryan was right. The woman had been expecting trouble. The elderly woman’s face cleared, as though she’d just won a reprieve, and she limped the last few steps to the car with a tread that was as close to a bounce as someone who obviously had a damaged hip could manage.

‘You’ve what?’

‘I dislocated my knee.’ Abbey grinned up at both the woman and the little boy at her side, and only Ryan-who knew how much pain Abbey must still be in-could know what that grin was costing her. ‘Hi, Jack. Look what Mummy’s done.’ Abbey pointed to the bulky bandage which made her leg look three times its size. And then she turned back to the woman. ‘Janet, you must remember Ryan Henry. He just knocked me off my bicycle.’

‘Ryan Henry…’ Janet stared and then her elderly face creased into a smile. ‘Of course. Sam’s son, Ryan. I remember you as a youngster. You were a bit older than my John. Welcome home. Though…’ She looked doubtfully down at Abbey’s leg. ‘Did you say Ryan knocked you off your bicycle, Abbey?’

‘I did.’

Janet frowned. ‘Then I’m not sure whether we should welcome you or tar and feather you and drive you back out of town.’

‘There’ll be no driving him anywhere,’ Abbey said firmly, hauling herself backwards to the edge of the seat ‘Ryan’s offered us his honeymoon. Can you give me a hand inside?’

‘He’s what?’ Janet Wittner took a step back. Ryan promptly moved forward and lifted Abbey effortlessly out of the car.

She really was ridiculously slight.

He straightened, holding Abbey in his arms, the hot sun blazing down on them. At their feet the chooks cautiously returned, squawking and fussing in the dust.

‘I can’t work until this blasted swelling’s gone down,’ Abbey told Janet from the safety of Ryan’s arms. ‘Ryan’s offered to work for me instead of taking a honeymoon.’ She grinned up into Ryan’s face and then her smile slipped a little. It felt very strange to be carried against this man’s chest. This man whom she’d once known so well. This man whom she’d wept over for months when he’d left her.

‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Ryan,’ Janet told him. ‘But won’t your wife have something to say about that?’

‘He hasn’t got a wife yet,’ Abbey told her. ‘He’s left his bride in Hawaii. Ryan, put me down. I can hop.’

‘You can’t hop anywhere. Except over very flat ground when you can use your crutches, you’re to be carried everywhere you need to go for the next few days. Where’s your husband?’

Silence.

And Ryan knew that Abbey’s husband wasn’t in Hawaii. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Abbey’s next words confirmed he’d just put his foot, right in it.

‘John’s dead,’ Abbey said wearily, her brave front suddenly disappearing entirely. ‘Thank you, Ryan. If you could just carry me inside then we’ll be right now. Thank you for your help.’