Christmas Secrets Collection. Laura Iding

to go anywhere yet,’ he growled as he carefully slid one arm under her shoulders and effortlessly lifted her up, supporting her while he positioned the pillows behind her.

      Sara shivered. Every tiny hair had suddenly stood up in reaction to the warmth of his arm surrounding her. Not that her hospital room was cold. If anything, it was far too hot. But somehow it was different when it was Dan’s body heat in a wide swathe across her back where his strong arm held her, and as for the soft wash of his breath stirring her hair against her face and neck …

      ‘But …’ It was hard to get her thoughts in order when he was so close. Thank goodness they never did any more than brush against each other when they worked together, or she’d never be able to do her job properly. Still, she didn’t dare to take a full breath until he laid her gently back against the pillows and released her to step back a little from the bed. The last thing she needed was another lungful of that familiar mixture of soap and musk to contend with.

      ‘Sara, I’ll let you know as soon as they say she’s stable enough for visitors,’ he promised, his green eyes darkly serious. ‘At the moment she’s so deeply unconscious that she wouldn’t even know that you were there, and you wouldn’t be doing yourself any good either. You need to give your body time to heal.’

      ‘But you’re going to have to tell Mum and Dad tonight, aren’t you … about Zara, I mean?’

      ‘And that means I’ll have to tell them about what happened to you, too,’ he pointed out.

      ‘No! I’ll tell them, when I—’

      ‘Sara, think about it,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re going to want to see you … they’ll be expecting to see you when they arrive at the hospital, waiting outside ICU until Zara’s consultant allows you in to see her.’

      ‘But …’ She closed her eyes in defeat. He was right, of course. And she wasn’t in any fit state to be sitting around in the little relatives’ room all night.

      ‘Which would you rather—that they knew that you’d been involved in an accident or that they thought you couldn’t be bothered to be with them when they need you?’ he challenged, and she slumped back against the pillows, knowing that she couldn’t argue against that sort of logic.

      ‘You will tell them that the babies are OK, won’t you …? Oh!’ she exclaimed with a shadow of her usual smile. ‘They don’t know that it’s twins yet!’ She groaned as she tried to reach into the bedside locker for the precious picture of the scan. ‘Could you get the photo for me, so you can show it to them?’

      ‘Actually …’ He paused a second and she was startled to see a soft wash of colour sweep across the lean planes of his cheeks as he reached into his pocket to take his wallet out. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the technician to print an extra copy.’

      For Zara. Of course.

      ‘I should have thought of that … to get one for the two of you. After all, they’re going to be your babies, so you actually have more right to a picture than I do.’

      ‘Sara, don’t,’ he said swiftly, and startled her by trapping her hand in the warmth of his, the green of his eyes darkening as they gazed intently down into hers. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult the whole process is for you, but you have every right to a picture of the babies that are developing inside you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’re doing. An extra picture of an ultrasound scan is nothing in comparison.’

      His sincerity was obvious and actually managed to soothe some of the ache that had been filling her heart ever since she’d been persuaded along this path. The last thing she’d wanted to do was carry the children of the man she loved, only to have to give them away. The fact that he genuinely seemed to appreciate the sacrifice she was making was like balm to her soul. All she had to do was make sure that he never had any idea of her true feelings towards him.

      It had been every bit as dreadful as he’d thought it would be, Dan thought wearily as he propped himself against the wall of the ICU waiting room several hours later.

      Unfortunately, it had been his mother-in-law who had answered the door of their smart suburban home, and when she’d realised that Zara hadn’t been with him, something in his face must have told her that he was the bearer of bad news.

      ‘She’s had an accident, hasn’t she?’ she wailed. ‘I knew something must have happened. I just knew it! I’ve been waiting all evening for Zara to call to let me know she’d returned home safely. I told her she should have asked you to drop her car off at the garage.’

      As he ushered her through to her smartly decorated lounge, trying vainly to calm her down, a small corner of Dan’s brain registered the odd snippet of information. What had been wrong with Zara’s car that it had needed the attention of a mechanic? Both their vehicles had only recently been serviced.

      ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on?’ his father-in-law demanded gruffly from his favourite seat at one end of the settee. He fought to fold the newspaper that had spread itself across his lap and tried not to look as if he’d fallen asleep in front of the television.

      ‘Our Zara’s had an accident!’ his wife keened. ‘I told her she shouldn’t be driving in London traffic. Danny should have looked after her. He should have taken her car to the garage if there was something wrong with it.’

      ‘Is that true, lad? Is she hurt? How bad is it?’ Frank might not be so openly emotional as his wife but it was plain that he was immediately worried about his precious daughter.

      ‘Can we sit down?’ Dan suggested, still uncertain just how much he should tell them. The results hadn’t come back from the lab by the time he’d left the hospital, so he still wasn’t certain what level of concentration the drugs had reached in Zara’s body and what that would mean for her prognosis. If they had depressed her respiration and starved her brain of essential oxygen long enough to cause permanent …

      ‘She’s dead! My baby’s dead!’ Audrey cried hysterically, and for a moment he almost relished the idea that he might need to slap some sense into the woman.

      ‘No! She’s not dead!’ he contradicted firmly, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. He took hold of both her shoulders and guided her until the backs of her knees met the edge of the settee and she collapsed next to her husband. ‘Neither of your daughters is dead,’ he said firmly, desperately praying that he was telling the truth.

      ‘You mean, something’s happened to Sara?’ Frank demanded. ‘But I thought … I’m confused. Did Zara ask you to come and tell us? Why didn’t she come herself, or is she staying with Sara?’

      ‘Is it something to do with the baby?’ his wife demanded sharply. ‘Zara will be so disappointed if anything’s wrong with …’

      Between the two of them he was having a hard time getting a word in edgeways. It looked as if he was going to have to abandon any idea of breaking things to them gently.

      ‘Sara was knocked down by a car this evening as she was walking home from work,’ he announced bluntly. Too bluntly? he wondered when it looked as if the pair had stopped breathing.

      ‘No!’ He should have known that their mother would recover the power of speech first. ‘Oh, Danny … how? Oh, tell me she hasn’t lost Zara’s precious baby.’

      ‘She was knocked unconscious, her leg was broken and she’s badly bruised, but she had a scan to see if she had any internal injuries—’

      ‘She didn’t have any X-rays, did she?’ Audrey demanded sharply. ‘I don’t want my first grandchild being born deformed because it had X-rays.’

      Not a word of concern about the injuries Sara had suffered, Dan noted, even as he had to stifle a smile when he remembered Sean O’Malley telling him just how fiercely Sara had objected to having X-rays. He could just imagine that she’d been the very picture of