Alison Roberts - St Piran's - The Wedding!

And even if he did, this wasn’t the time. Or place.

He held her gaze for the briefest moment, however. He couldn’t help it. He knew his concern would be transparent but that didn’t matter either. He tried to send a silent message.

We’ll talk. Soon .

‘The babies …’ Claire’s voice wobbled. ‘Let me give them a kiss before I have to go.’

Megan’s heart was hammering in her chest.

How ironic would it be if she provided another cardiac emergency for Josh to deal with?

What had she expected to happen here? A moment of pure fantasy where the existence of anyone else—including his mother and children and colleagues—simply evaporated? And Josh’s face changing as though he was witnessing a miracle? That he would come towards her in slow motion and sweep her into his arms? Kiss her again just like he had that last time.?

Maybe some tiny, secret part of her had hoped exactly that.

It didn’t mean that she’d wanted it to happen, though. Or that she could have coped with going down that track. It was the last thing she wanted when she’d fought so hard to find her new direction. A completely different track.

Josh had done exactly the right thing. Been professional. Cold, almost. But then, when she’d been trying to process that, feeling dizzy and bewildered, he’d looked at her again. Really looked at her. And she’d known that this wasn’t it. This moment couldn’t count as their first meeting after a long absence.

That had been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Circumstances that were slightly chaotic right now, as staff bustled around, taking care of Claire and preparing to move her to the catheter laboratory even as Josh gave her the chance to kiss and cuddle each of the children. Max grabbed one of the wires attaching an electrode to the cardiac monitor and pulled it free, which set off an alarm. The sound frightened Brenna, who clung to her father and had to be persuaded to give her grandmother a quick kiss.

Meanwhile, Megan simply stood there, clutching the handles of the stroller. She could hardly walk out, could she? Not when these people were old friends. How rude would it seem to Ben and Anna if she just left?

Besides, she felt frozen. Watching Josh. Seeing the easy way he held his small children and talked to them. Knowing that his light tone and smile was an act. That the way those lines had deepened around his eyes advertised how much stress he was under right now.

And … he looked as gorgeous as he ever had. His palpable charm hadn’t changed either and it was being directed towards the twins right now and they looked as if they were being won over by that lazy smile as easily as she always had. He must have raked his fingers through his hair a fair few times to get it looking so rumpled, and to her horror Megan could feel the urge to smooth it with her own hands. To push that wayward lock back from his forehead and cup his face with both her hands so that she could really look and discover every tiny change that time had wrought.

She gripped the moulded plastic handles of the stroller more tightly. Forced herself to smile in response to Ben’s greeting.

‘We’ll have to catch up. I’d love to hear about Africa. You here for a while?’

No. She needed to escape as fast as she could.

‘I … I’m not sure yet.’

Ben’s pager sounded and he excused himself hurriedly. Megan wished she had one clipped to her own belt. A reason to disappear.

But she couldn’t leave quite yet. Anna needed to know that her dog was locked in the back of Claire’s car out in the car park and the cardiac surgeon had been busy on the phone for the last few minutes, juggling her responsibilities so that she could join the cardiologists and be involved in this emergency angioplasty case.

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