Christmas Secrets Collection. Laura Iding

what had made her take this drastic action, so if the police needed to know why she’d done it, they would probably have to interview Zara’s friends and colleagues as well.

      ‘She’s stable now, so we’re transferring her up to ICU,’ the consultant said, and Dan suddenly realised just how much time had elapsed while he’d been lost in his thoughts.

      His superior patted his shoulder reassuringly, but there was something else entirely in the expression in his eyes, something that didn’t need to be put into words. They both knew that there was no guarantee of a happy outcome.

      ‘I’ve sent samples up to the lab, just to confirm what she’d taken to make sure we’ve done all the right things,’ he said quietly, then added, ‘Give them half an hour or so to get her settled up there,’ exactly the way he would have done had she been one of his patients.

      ‘How long before we know …? How badly is she …?’ He couldn’t finish a single question, knowing there were no real answers.

      ‘I’d love to be able to tell you that she’s going to be all right,’ the consultant said, patting Dan’s shoulder again. ‘But you know as well as I do that only time will tell. Shall I leave it to you to contact the other members of her family, or would it be better coming from me?’

      ‘I’ll do that now,’ Dan said, his voice sounding almost rusty as it emerged from a throat tight with too much emotion.

      How was he going to break the news to Zara’s doting parents?

       CHAPTER THREE

      SARA heard the all-too-familiar swoosh and creak of the door to her room as someone pushed it open, and barely managed to stifle a groan.

      Not another member of staff preventing her from sleeping! There couldn’t possibly be an inch of her body that hadn’t been examined, poked and prodded … or had a needle stuck in it.

      When nothing happened after several seconds of silence, she opened cautious eyes, wondering what was going on. Seeing Dan standing beside the bed, gazing down at her, immediately doubled her pulse rate, then she realised that the oversized gown she’d been given had slipped right off one shoulder. She had to stifle a groan of agony when she tried to hike it back into a more modest position with the wrong hand.

      ‘Dan?’ she croaked, trying for impatient but only managing to sound pathetic. ‘I thought you were going home. You don’t need to keep checking up on me, too. There’s an army of nurses doing that every two minutes and …’ She had to bite her tongue to stop herself delivering another tirade when she still owed him a massive apology for the first one. He’d come to see her just after she’d had her ultrasound scan to see if she and the babies were all right and she’d jumped right down his throat. It just wasn’t fair that she was taking all her fear for the babies out on him.

      ‘I didn’t come to check up on you,’ he said quietly, one hand going out to the chair beside her bed, then pausing.

      It was almost as if he wasn’t sure whether to stand or sit, and if it was sit, whether it should be on the chair or on the side of her bed. The whole incident took no more than a few seconds but it was totally uncharacteristic of a man who was usually decisiveness personified.

      Finally, he perched uneasily on the edge of the bed, his lean hip nudging against her bruised thigh … not that she would say a word. Secretly, she still revelled in every occasion that he was close to her … close enough to smell the clean soapy scent of his skin and see the tracks where his fingers had raked through his hair. Close enough to see the lines of strain that had grown deeper still since she’d seen him just an hour or two ago.

      ‘Dan? Is something wrong?’ Panic struck her and her hand flew to cover the precious duo nestling deep inside her. ‘Is it something to do with the babies? Has something shown up on one of the tests?’

      ‘No!’ he exclaimed, clearly startled. ‘I’m sorry, Sara, I didn’t mean to frighten you. As far as I know, everything’s still fine.’

      ‘So, what’s wrong?’ she demanded. ‘I can tell you’ve got something serious on your mind and … Is it Mum and Dad? I told you not to tell them about my accident. I was going to go and visit them as soon as I’m set free in the morning, so that they could see that I’m not—’

      ‘It’s not your parents,’ he interrupted, then sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘Sara, I’m sorry but there’s only one way to tell you this. When I got home this evening, I found Zara unconscious. She’d taken an overdose of barbiturates.’

      ‘Barbiturates?’ she gasped, reeling. ‘No! Not Zara. She wouldn’t.’ It was her turn to shake her head at the impossibility of what he was suggesting. Her sister might be selfish and egotistical but she wasn’t anyone’s fool. She’d seen far too many of her fellow models slide down the slippery slope of drug addiction, hooked when the desire for impossible slenderness came with an intoxicating high. With a few high-profile exceptions she’d seen it ultimately ruin their careers as model agencies and advertisers alike crossed them off their books.

      Anyway, barbiturates were usually prescribed for people having difficulty sleeping, so they wouldn’t be any use to someone wanting to get high. Deliberate overdoses were usually confined to people who were depressed and that definitely didn’t sound like her vivacious sister.

      ‘There was no name on the bottle and the drug name was generic … possibly bought abroad or over the internet … and the bottle was empty when I found it on the floor beside her,’ he said quietly, and she could see from his expression that he was already blaming himself.

      ‘How long ago …?’ she began, only to halt in mid-sentence as a sudden thought struck her. If Zara had been at home, taking an overdose, then her crazy suspicion that it had been her own sister driving the car that had run her down this evening must have been just that … crazy. Unless she’d gone home after she’d done it and taken the drugs in her remorse … but, no, that didn’t make sense either. Nothing made sense. Not the fact that she’d been absolutely certain that it had been Zara behind the wheel of the car that had deliberately aimed at her, or the fact that she would have access to barbiturates or would deliberately take an overdose.

      ‘She was in a pretty bad way when I found her,’ he said, answering the question she would have asked if her brain had been working well enough to formulate it. ‘She was already comatose, her breathing and pulse rate both depressed, but when her stomach was pumped, there were a fair number of undigested tablets, so she must have taken them some time this evening.’

      Sara’s relief that her sister couldn’t have been responsible for her accident faded with the realisation that there would still have been plenty of time for her to have returned home and swallowed the drugs before Dan had found her. But that begged the question: why would Zara do it, especially when Sara was expecting the child … children … that she’d begged Sara to carry for her?

      ‘Have you told my parents?’ Sara could only imagine the state her mother must be in, knowing that her beautiful perfect daughter had …

      ‘Not yet. I had to come and tell you first,’ he said simply.

      Pleasure that he’d wanted to break the news to her before notifying his in-laws flowered inside her, only to wither to dust when he added, ‘I didn’t want you to get a garbled version if the news reached you through the hospital grapevine.’

      That was more like the Dan she’d been working with for the last couple of years—logical and practical. Of course there hadn’t been a personal reason why he would have wanted to give her the news in person. When was she going to stop searching for traces of the connection they’d made when they’d first met? When was she going to come to terms with the fact that any feelings he’d had towards her had vanished the instant he’d met Zara?

      ‘Where is