Christmas Secrets Collection. Laura Iding

hearts on the ultrasound screen, beating so valiantly in spite of the recent trauma, it had brought the reality of her pregnancy home to her the way no amount of reading pregnancy books had done. She felt so connected to those tiny beings, so protective, that the thought of deliberately scouring them out of her womb and flushing them away was anathema.

      ‘So.’ She lifted her chin and stared her mother right in the eye. ‘What if I refuse to do it?’

      ‘You can’t refuse because they’re not your babies, they’re Zara’s, and if she needs them to die so that she can live—’

      It was Sara’s turn to interrupt and she did so without a qualm.

      ‘They might be babies I’m carrying for Zara, but they’re growing in my body and from my eggs … and what’s more, it’s my liver you’re talking about and no one can have it if I don’t want to give it.’

      Her mother broke into noisy sobs and no matter what her father said she wouldn’t be consoled.

      Sara felt dreadful.

      She now knew firsthand just how fiercely a mother would defend her child and couldn’t really blame her own mother for wanting to do everything she could to give her daughter a chance of being well again.

      But she was a mother, too—at least while those two helpless innocents were still inside her—and she was going to fight every bit as hard for their survival.

      Poor Mr Shah didn’t seem to know what to do for the best. Her parents were clearly beyond listening to anything he said, even though he repeatedly tried to reassure them that Zara’s condition hadn’t yet reached the point of no return.

      While Dan …

      Suddenly, Sara realised that the one person with the most to lose in this whole disastrous situation was the only one who hadn’t said a single word.

      A single glance in his direction was enough to tell her that he’d retreated behind what she’d privately dubbed his ‘stone’ face. There wasn’t a single emotion visible, until she happened to see the way his hands were clenched into tight fists inside his trouser pockets.

      As if her mother had sensed that her attention had wandered she turned a tear-ravaged face to her son-in-law. ‘Danny, do something,’ she pleaded. ‘You have to tell Sara to save my precious girl … You must make her give Zara a new liver!’

      ‘No,’ he said quietly with a reinforcing shake of his head. ‘It’s not time for that discussion, Audrey. Listen to what Mr Shah’s been trying to tell you. Eighty per cent of patients with even severe liver damage eventually recover on their own, so it’s just a case of waiting to see if Zara’s liver is going to do the same.’

      ‘But the transplant,’ she persisted. ‘Because they’re identical twins it would be a perfect match and—’

      ‘And it might only give her another year of life,’ Dan finished brutally, and literally robbed her of the breath to argue any further, her mouth and eyes open like a gasping fish. ‘That’s the average survival rate for liver transplants at the moment,’ he told her with an air of finality.

      Sara knew from reading medical journals that some patients had survived considerably longer. It was probably the poor survival rate of liver cancer transplant patients that brought the overall rate down, but it wasn’t accurate statistics that she cared about, it was the fact that he had managed to take her completely out of the firing line … for the moment at least.

      ‘Now,’ said Mr Shah, looking unusually flustered by the open warfare he’d just had to witness, ‘I think it would be best if you were all to go home and have some rest.’

      ‘Oh, but we haven’t seen—’ Audrey began, but was totally ignored as he continued inexorably, drawing a line in the sand.

      ‘You may come back at visiting time this evening, but no more than two of you may visit at a time. That will ensure that my patient will have what remains of the day to rest and hopefully give her body a chance to start to recover.’

      It was beautifully done, Sara acknowledged wryly as they filed silently out of the consultant’s office, but it had left all of them in no doubt who was wielding the power in his unit.

      ‘Would you like a lift?’ Dan offered quietly, when they’d watched her parents scurry out of the unit before he began to push her in the same direction.

      ‘Don’t you have to go to work today?’ she asked, desperate to spend what time she could with him but knowing it wasn’t a sensible idea. ‘You don’t have time to keep ferrying me about.’

      ‘Actually, I’ve got all the time in the world, having just been banned from visiting until evening visiting hours,’ he contradicted her as he pushed the button for the lift that was just taking the Walkers down to the main reception area.

      All Sara hoped was that it would deliver the two of them to the ground floor before it returned for Dan and her. She didn’t think she could bear to be shut up in such a small space with her parents, even for the short time it would take to travel a couple of floors. Mr Shah’s office had been bad enough with all that animosity flying around.

      ‘Anyway …’ Dan continued, breaking into her silent replay of the moment when her mother had glibly talked about aborting the precious pair already making their presence felt under her protective hand, the curve of her belly already noticeably bigger than it would have been for a single baby at the same number of weeks. ‘As I’m on compassionate leave until we know what the situation is with Zara, you can just name your destination.’

      ‘You’re going to regret that offer when you find out where I need to go,’ she warned, suddenly immeasurably grateful that the rest of the day didn’t stretch out in front of her like an arid desert.

      ‘Don’t tell me!’ Dan said with a groan as he pushed the chair into the waiting lift. ‘You need to go shopping!’

      ‘All right, I won’t tell you … but that doesn’t mean that I don’t need to go.’

      ‘All right,’ he said with an air of long-suffering that caused several smiles on the faces of the people sharing the lift. ‘I offered so I’ll take you. Just tell me where you need to go and let’s get it over with.’

      ‘What is it with men that they don’t like shopping? Is it a genetic thing?’ Sara mused aloud, drawing a few smiles of her own, then relented. ‘It shouldn’t take very long because I only need to do some grocery shopping while I’ve got someone to carry the bags for me,’ she added with a grin, then another thought struck her.

      She hesitated for a moment, wondering if there was some other way she could achieve what she wanted and feeling the increased warmth in her cheeks that told her she still hadn’t grown out of the habit of blushing. ‘I’m sorry but I’ll also need to do a bit of clothes shopping.’

      He groaned as he waited for their companions to exit first then pushed the wheelchair out into the spacious reception area, thronged as ever by a constantly changing stream of visitors going in and out of the hospital. ‘My absolute favourite occupation … not!’ he complained in tones of disgust. ‘If you’re anything like your sister, that will take the rest of the day.’

      His assumption stung her more than she had a right to feel and loosened the leash on her tongue. ‘Apart from the obvious physical resemblance, over which I have no control, I am absolutely nothing like my sister!’ she snapped. ‘And furthermore, far from taking the rest of the day, my shopping should take me no more than five minutes because I only need some comfortable underwear that I can pull on over my cast.’

      The words almost seemed to echo around the whole reception area—probably right around the whole of the hospital if the gossip grapevine was operating in its usual mysterious way.

      ‘Oh, good grief!’ she moaned, and covered her face when she saw just how many inquisitive faces were turned in their direction, and