for now, for always
by
josie metcalfe

"You!"  she breathed as her eyes finally focused on the tall
dark-haired man in front of her.  "Dr.  da Cruz."


Josie Metcalfe lives in Cornwall now with her long-suffering husband,
four children and two horses, but, as an Army brat frequently on the
move, books became the only friends who came with her wherever she
went.  Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends and
hates saying goodbye at the end of a book--but there are always more
characters in her head clam outing for attention until she can't wait
to tell their stories.

Recent rifles by the same author:

WORTH WAITING FOR

LOUD AND CLEAR

FORGOTTEN PAIN

BOUND BY HONOUR

A VOICE IN THE DARK

SEEING EYE TO EYE

HELL ON WHEELS

SECRETS TO KEEP

NO ALTERNATIVE

FOR NOW,

FOR ALWAYS

BY

DID YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK WITHOUT A COVER?

If you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was
reported unsold and destroyed by a retailer.  Neither the Author nor
the publisher has received any payment for this book.

~411 the characters in this book have no existence outside the
imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone
bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired
by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents
are pure invention.  411 rights reserved including the right of
reproduction in whole or in part in any form.  This edition is
published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises H B. V The text of
this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval
system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the
publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent.  resold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the prior consent of the-publisher in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.

MILLS & BOON.  the Rose Device and

LOVE ON C. 4LL are trademarks of the publisher.

Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited.

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey T~F9 ISR

ISBN 0 263 79856 9

Set in Times 10 on 12 pt.  by Rowland Phototypesetting Limited Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk

Made and printed in Great Britain

CHAPTER ONE

"WHEN will the pain end...?"

Leo sat down heavily-on the edge of the luxurious king-sized bed and,
lifting the glass to his lips, threw the contents to the back of his
throat.  He grimaced at the unaccustomed taste even as he welcomed the
fiery bite of it sliding down.

With a rock-steady hand he poured another generous inch into the
hand-cut crystal, not appreciating the quality of the glass or the
brandy in his search for anaesthesia.

"Here's to you, Andreas, with my grateful thanks," he toasted his
absent friend with the beautiful glass which had accompanied the
expensive brandy to his hotel room, hardly noticing the gleams struck
from the facets by the last rays of the dying sun as he sent the
contents swiftly after the first dose.

He reached for the jacket of his silvery grey suit, dragging it towards
him across the bed with no regard for the excellence of the
tailoring.

"Where is it...?"  he muttered as he fumbled one-handedly for the
inside pocket to retrieve his wallet, letting the jacket drop
heedlessly to the floor between his feet as he flipped the dark leather
open to slide out a small photograph.

A sad smile barely lifted the corners of his mouth and came nowhere
near his steely grey eyes.

"Happy birthday, Nico," he whispered as he traced

 FOR NOW, FOR ALWAYS

the smiling face with a trembling finger and a solitary tear slid down
his cheek.

Maria couldn't remember when she'd ever felt this tired.  Not even
during the nightmare years of her training had a week piled on the
agony like this.

The taxi lurched round the corner, almost seeming to tilt onto two
wheels before the driver began weaving in and out of the other traffic
again, the oncoming headlights glaring into eyes already sore from lack
of sleep and at least one bout of weeping.

As her purse slid off her lap and on to the floor, Maria grabbed for
the door-handle just in time to prevent herself joining it.

"Please, God," she murmured through gritted teeth, nearly at the end of
her tether.  How she was supposed to be able to concentrate in the
morning if she didn't get to the hotel soon, she didn't know, but there
was no way she could have made the right flight; no way that she could
have left any earlier when Cara had needed her there.  As they finally
drew up outside the entrance to the hotel she surreptitiously crossed
her fingers that her room would still be available in spite of her late
arrival.

She dredged up a tired smile for the rather flustered-looking elderly
man behind the desk, knowing she looked less than her best.  Her skin
felt shiny and she could tell that her dark hair had begun!  :~ to
straggle untidily down the back of her neck.

"Good evening."  She deposited her suitcase grate- fully at her feet.
"My name is Maria Martinez.  I'm terribly sorry I'm so late but..."

"Scusi, Signorina.  Non par la ingle se He was shaking his head
dolefully, his large dark eyes making him look almost like one of those
toy dogs she sometimes saw in the back windows of cars.

"And I don't speak Italian..."  For a moment Maria was astounded that a
hotel of this size would have staff on Reception who couldn't speak
English and then she dragged her concentration back to her predicament.
Her shoulders slumped as she tried to cudgel her tired brain into
life.

It took several minutes of pantomime and the comparison of the name in
her passport with the list of reservations he held at the counter
before the penny seemed to drop and he let loose with a barrage of
Italian that hit her aching head like bullets from a machine-gun.

The only sense she could make of it all was that the room she had
booked was no longer available but, if she didn't mind, there was
another one she could have elsewhere in the hotel.

At least that was what she hoped he was saying.  When he seemed to be
trying to tell her that there was some problem with this other room,
too, she hastily held both hands up as she shook her head.

"No problem.  No problem," she assured him, too tired to try to work
out what he was saying and too tired to care, even if he was offering
her the broom cupboard.  All she needed was somewhere to sleep before
she fell down where she stood.

"Grazie."  She murmured the sum total of her Italian vocabulary as she
hastily scribbled her name in the register and prepared to follow him
to the lifL

When she finally managed to shut the door on his voluble attempts at a
further explanation Maria

slumped back against its welcome support and blearily tried to
focus.

"Wow," she breathed, her tired eyes widening in disbelief as she
surveyed her sumptuous surroundings.  "Talk about luxury..."  Her gaze
slid from the mouldings on the ceiling, highlighted by the subtle
positioning of the peach-shaded lamps, to the acres of thick cream
carpet.

The bed itself must have been nearly the size of her whole flat back in
England and just the sight of the mountain of soft peach-coloured
pillows was enough to make her yawn.

She deposited her solitary suitcase on the ornate stand at the foot of
the bed and flipped the lid open to retrieve her washing kit, stumbling
as she kicked off her shoes on the way to the, bathroom.

With a mental apology to her foster-mother for the untidy pile of
clothing she dumped beside the shower she climbed under the soothing
stream.  For several minutes she allowed the warm water to pound the
stiffness out of her neck and shoulders before she shampooed her long
hair with practised ease and rinsed her body off.

She didn't have the energy to do much more than towel-dry the dark mass
and run a wide-toothed through it, even though she knew that she was
aging it to revert to its natural wild curliness.

A quick glance confirmed the fact that she'd forgot~ ten to bring her
nightdress to the bathroom with her but she couldn't focus her
concentration enough to worry about it.

"The hotel's warm enough for me not to catch a cold and VII sort my
hair out properly in the morning," she~

mumbled around her toothbrush.

Within seconds she was reaching out to turn off the light as she opened
the door to her room.

"Oh."  She paused in the darkness, her hand searching for the light
switch while she strained her eyes to get her bearings.  "I don't
remember turning the lights out..."

Catching sight of the corner of the bed in the gloom, she gave up her
quest for the switch and padded silently across the velvety soft
carpet.

The covers appeared to have been turned back in her absence and she
felt a momentary pang of guilt for the poor maid who'd had to stay on
duty so late before she slid bonelessly under the covers.

Maria just had enough time to be grateful that her exhaustion would
enable her to sleep in spite of the events of the day before the world
faded into oblivion.

She must have been sleeping very deeply because the dream slid so
gently into her mind that she wasn't aware of the beginning.  She knew
that she felt warm and comfortable, the way she had the first day she'd
met her new foster-mother and had been swept up against Anna Martinez's
pillowy bosom in a loving hug.  She'd been seven years old and it had
been the first time that she'd ever remembered anyone wanting to hold
her.  This dream was different because she wasn't wearing the slightly
dingy pink dress which was all the orphanage could find to fit her tall
thin body.  This time she wasn't wearing any clothes at all but instead
of feeling cold she felt warm .  as warm as if she was curled up in
front of a fire with the flickering fingers of firelight playing over
her shoulders and arms and warming her breasts.

"Mmm," she murmured her approval as she stretched out and arched as
languidly as a basking cat to allow the heat to play over the rest of
her body.  "Nice..."

The fire was getting hotter, even seeming to reach inside her,
spreading, growing fiercer and wilder until her whole body turned to
searing liquid like molten lava consuming everything in its path as the
volcano erupted.

Maria drifted in strange peace after the explosion, for the first time
feeling totally content and without a trace of the lingering loneliness
which had always permeated her life.

"Thank you."

The sound of the husky voice in her ear was enough to drag her out of
her drowsy lethargy and back to full consciousness in a hurry.  Every
muscle tensed in terror, her horrified eyes flying wide open to stare
blindly into the darkness trying to see the owner of that voice--trying
to see whose body was pinning hers to the bed.

This wasn't just a dream brought on by this was really happening to
her.  There was a man in her bed and she had no idea who he was or what
he was doing there.  "Oh, God, thank you..."

Her frantic thoughts scattered as his husky heartfelt words were
followed by the gentle touch of his lips' tracing the outline of her
features with the delicacy of butterfly wings.

"You'll never know how much this means to There was such agony in his
deep voice that Maria paused even as she braced her fists against the
powerful male body looming over her in the darkness, the frantic scream
trapped in her paralysed throat.

"Sometimes it feels as if the pain will go on for ever ... as if I'll
never escape the memories..."  His husky voice broke on that desolate
note, the spicy heaviness of expensive brandy on his breath playing
over her face as she felt his fingers spear through her hair and fan it
out across the pillow.

"So silky," he whispered in a wondering tone.  "So healthy and full of
life..."  His hands traced the shape of her head, his fingertips
hesitantly outlining the curves of her eyebrows and cheek-bones before
he slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss of such stunning sensuality
that Maria was mesmerised, hardly able to remember why she had been
prepared to fight him.

All she knew was that in his words, in the very tone of his voice, she
had heard all the agony of emptiness and loneliness that she felt
inside.

In the end the only thing that counted was that he shared the same pain
as she did.  It didn't seem to matter that she was going against a
lifetime's convictions--all she wanted to do was comfort him and draw
consolation in return.

Instinctively she uncurled her hands to run her fingers through his
curls and over the warm, smooth skin of his chest and up around his
neck, exploring the warmth and strength of the powerful muscles and the
heavy silk of his thick hair.

Her tentative response drew an answering groan from deep in his throat.
Convulsively his powerful arms wrapped around her and she delighted in
the physical contact after the emptiness of this awful day.

Fleetingly she remembered the situation that she'd dragged herself away
from back in England.  It had been little comfort to the' grieving
parents to know that everyone had done their best for their beautiful
daughter.  Maria knew, intellectually, that it was true.  But she also
knew that it was her emotional response to losing a favourite patient
that was turning her inside out; that, in spite of everything she'd
been able to do for Card, her frail body hadn't been able to take any
more.

Despite all their antibiotic armoury Card hadn't had the reserves to
fight off that last overwhelming infection.  "Sometimes it seems as if
death always wins..."  she whispered through an aching throat as she
empty arms around him and relished the warm male body against hers,
strong and full of life.

"Not always," he vowed.  There was desperation in his tone as he
gathered her tightly against himself.  "Sometimes life is too
compelling to deny..."

This time Maria knew where the searing heat was coming from; knew that
the touch of his hands and his body on hers were an undeniable
primitive affirmation of the triumph of life over death turned her to
liquid fire until all she could do was hold him tight as the world
exploded around them.

"I've overslept!"

Maria sat bolt upright in the middle of the bed, heart pounding
furiously as she tried to sort frantic thoughts.

She was in Italy to take part in a conference she didn't get moving
she'd be late for the of the first paper.

She'd swung her feet over the side of the taken several steps towards
the en suite before the subtle aches in her hips and thighs brought the
memories of what had taken place last night flooding over her.

She stopped in her tracks as if she'd hit a brick wall and swung round
to stare back at the bed.

"Oh, my God!"  Her hands came up to cover her horrified mouth as she
took in the rumpled state of the bedclothes.

The fact that half of the sheets were hanging off the side of the bed
could have been put down to a bad night's sleep but the imprint of a
second head on the pale blue pillows was something that she couldn't
ignore.

"Who...?  Where...?"  Her eyes feverishly examined every corner of the
room and her brain didn't know which question it wanted answered
first.

This wasn't her room.

She gazed at the pale, mossy-green carpet and the blue draperies
accenting the room.  The decor was just as opulent but the colour
scheme was totally different.

Her heart was racing unevenly as she searched for some evidence of what
had happened during the night.  She knew that it had happened; knew
that she had contributed to the disarray of that luxurious bed with a
man she'd never seen.

There was no time to check around the room but, as far as she could
see, he didn't seem to have left anything behind, There was certainly
no note and not a trace of his belongings---nothing to suggest who he
had been or where he had gone.

Heat seared her cheeks as she realised that in the dark of the night
she had shared the most intimate of delights with a stranger and she
wouldn't even recognise him if he stood in front of her.

The sound of a car horn somewhere outside the hotel window brought her
back to her present concerns as she glanced at her watch.

"Oh, no!"  she wailed as she dived towards the bathroom.  "Five minutes
to go..."

Her shower was so swift that the water hardly had time to land on her
body before she was switching it off.  There wasn't time to do anything
with her hair except drag a comb through it and subdue it at the back
of her neck with an ornate clasp and she had the feeling that her face
would never need blusher again.  This time she took note of the fact
that there were two doors leading into the bathroom and left by the one
which took her back to the peaches-and-cream room she remembered from
last night and the familiar suitcase waiting at the foot of the
pristine bed.

"Where have you been?  "Lena Harper hissed when Maria finally slid into
the empty seat beside her.  "You've missed the first session
completely."

"I can't have!"  Maria muttered to her colleague as she checked her
watch.  Tm only ten minutes late.  "

"Add an hour," she was advised wryly.  "You forgot to change your
watch."

Maria groaned and rectified her mistake immediately.

"What did I miss?"  she demanded under her breath while she tried
simultaneously to listen to the venerable gentleman who was reading an
introduction to a slide presentation.  "What did he cover in the first
session?"

"Not him.  It was Leo da Cruz.  Thalassaemia," her friend supplied
cryptically.

"Damn," she swore under her breath as she realis that she had missed
one of the key presentations s had wanted to attend.  "Was he good? Did
you mana to get any notes?"

"Superb in a very intense kind of way.  He's we much into early
diagnosis and counselling..."  The was a brief delay as the lights were
dimmed and Le~ took advantage of it to flick back several pages in h
spiral-bound notepad to show Maria the notes she taken.  "I'll let you
have what I've got at the next brea~

The first slide flicked up onto the giant screen at the front of the
specially appointed conference room at as the professor began to point.
out the salient featur, Lena and Maria turned their attention towards
the purpose of their attendance.

By the time they joined the stream of people making their way towards
the dining-room they were deep a discussion of what they'd seen, hardly
noticing the press of bodies around them as they reached for trays. 
and filled them with food from the selection availabl

Maria was halfway through her meal before she h~ the uncanny feeling
that someone was staring at he The fine hairs at the back of her neck
began to prickl as they stood on end in the classic warning of dange

"Do you know any of the other delegates?"  Le~ broke into Maria's
distracted thoughts.

"Apart from the names of some of the people presenting papers, I don't
think so," she frowned qui: zically, her fork halfway to her mouth.
"Why?"

"Are you certain?  Only Leo da Cruz has been watcl ing you ever since
he sat down."

"Has he?"  Maria blinked.  "Which one is he?  Perhag he's miffed that I
missed his lecture this morning."  Sk allowed her eyes to scan the
section of the dining-room she could see but didn't immediately
reeognise anyone.

Suddenly her gaze was caught by a pair of steely grey eyes set under
frowning dark brows.  A strange shiver slid its way along her spine,
lifting all the hairs to attention as she was trapped by their
intensity, almost unable to drag herself away.

"Do you know him?"  Lena's voice broke into the frozen tableau and the
spell was broken.

"Who?"  Maria's brain seemed to be moving at half-speed.

"Leo da Cruz," Lena repeated in an exasperated tone as though she was
talking to a particularly dim-witted child.

"Which one is he?"  She gratefully seized the opportunity to look
around the rest of the room, careful not to let her eyes meet a certain
pair of steely grey lasers.

"Obviously you don't know who he is or you'd know that Leo's the
gorgeous one with the dark curly hair," Lena teased as she nodded
towards the very table that Maria had been carefully avoiding looking
at.

"H-he was the first speake~ this morning?"  She was certain that Lena
would see through her pathetic attempt at nonchalance, especially as
she had no idea why she was reacting in this way.  It wasn't as if she
was totally unfamiliar with the fact that men found her attractive and
she could hardly have gone through all her years of medical training
without learning how to cope with the occasional brush with male
appreciation.  Except, somehow, his interest didn't seem quite like
appreciation.  Maria was strangely aware that in spite of the fact that
he appeared to be observing her like a cat watching a mouse he didn't
seem to be re gar ing her as juicy prey.

~ There was more than a hint of disapproval in h attitude towards her
and she wondered if Lena had at idea why.

"Lena...?"

"Are you sure you haven't met him?"  the old~ woman interrupted as she
murmured out of the corner of her mouth, a familiar matchmaking gleam
in h, dark eyes.  "He certainly seems to be interested in you

"Lena!"  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks as st prayed that her
friend's voice hadn't carried as far ~ the other table.  "It's all very
well joking like that ba( on our own turf but you could end up
embarrassir everyone if we're overheard here!  What if he's a married
man?  You could start all sorts of rumours wi comments like that."

"He's not married; he hasn't been tamed yet," Len continued
incorrigibly.  "You mark my words.  You' better be ready because he'll
make a move on yo before the conference is over."

Maria wasn't certain whether the sudden leap in h{ pulse was as a
result of anticipation or trepidation ~ the thought of being confronted
at close quarters by man with such a powerful presence.  Lena was
certainl light about the fact that he.  didn took tame.  What if he was
the man in the room next door?  Th thought flashed through her brain
like a lightning strik as her eyes fixed helplessly on his handsome
face.

She felt the colour leave her face as she frantic all traced his
features one by one.  Was that the 'thick silk hair that she'd run her
fingers through?  Were they tin cheek-bones she'd explored-~the lips
she'd kissed

Was that the powerful body that she'd held in her arms and allowed--no,
actively encouraged--to perform intimacies that she'd never known
before?

"I'm sorry," she gasped as she stumbled to her feet.  She couldn't bear
to stay under his stern grey gaze for another minute, especially when
there was a chance that he might be the one who.  "I ... I left
something in my room.  I'll see you in a minute..."  and she fled from
the dining-room, desperate to get to the suite.

The lifts were all occupied when she reached them but she couldn't face
waiting in the small group.  The emotions inside her were so strong
that she felt that the whole world must be able to read them on her
face.

Until she had herself under control again she needed to be alone so she
whirled towards the stairs and sped swiftly up the first flight until
she was out of sight at last.

For a second she thought she could hear an echo of the deep voice she'd
heard in the dark of the night but she shook her head violently and
started up the next flight of stairs, concentrating on putting one foot
in front of the other until she was finally able to shut her door
behind her.

There was a fatal fascination in the way her eyes were drawn towards
the connecting bathroom and she was powerless to prevent her feet
taking her in that direction.

Would the room on the other side still be as empty as it had been when
she'd left it this morning or would he be there?  Perhaps, this time,
the door would be locked so that she would never find out who the
mysterious stranger was.  She hesitated in the quiet coolness of the
bathroom,

her hand hovering fearfully over the doorhandle f several long seconds
before she silently turned it.

The door swung easily on well-oiled hinges and the sight that met her
eyes made Maria draw in a shaq breath.

The room was pristine.  Everything looked as fresl and clean as if it
was new-~-as if it had never beel used at all, never mind as recently
as last night.

She was shaking her head as she slowly backed out of the bathroom,
pulling the door shut again and turninl the key.

She knew, now, that there was no pointin trespassinl any further into
the other room.  If there had been an: evidence to point to the
identity of the man who slept there last night the very efficient
chambermaid would have removed it while Maria had been attending the
conference.

Suddenly the enormity of the situation hit her she realised for the
first time the possible long-term consequences of what had taken
place.

Her legs were trembling as she sank down onto the edge of the bed that
she should have occupied alone last night and she clasped her hands
'together tightly o~ her lap to still the nervous fidgeting of her
fingers.

As she'd never had the time nor the inclination to indulge in any form
of promiscuity she'd never needed to worry about such things as
contraception or 'safe' times.  Now, with the speed of a bullet, her
armour had been shattered and she was left trying to remember whether,
in the heat of unexpected passion, her lover had thought to take any
precautions of any sort.

Her lover.  Maria's shudder was partly due to the unwilling arousal
that her memories brought with them and partly the result of
self-disgust that she could have behaved in such a thoughtless way. She
knew better than to take stupid risks with her precious health. Think. 
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she tried to cudgel her brain
into action.

The most important thing was to find out the name of the man who had
shared the other half of this very luxurious suite last night.  Without
his name she had no way of asking those vital questions.

Unfortunately she also needed to find a way to make her enquiries
without anyone knowing why she wanted the information.  In spite of the
more relaxed attitude towards doctors' private lives, if so much as a
hint of what had happened last night became public knowledge it could
still have disastrous repercussions on her professional reputation.

Maria waited impatiently until the rest of the delegates were all on
their way towards the conference suite before she approached the
reception desk.  She was dreading the difficult task she would have in
making herself understood if the day staff were as ignorant of English
as the elderly man had been last night.

"May I help you, madam?"  The young man at the desk smiled whitely as
he pronounced the attractively accented words and she breathed a sigh
of relief.

"I wonder... Could you tell me who is occupying the other half of the
suite I'm in?  They seem to have left some things in the bathroom
and..."  She bit her tongue as it threatened to run away with her.  She
never had been able to look someone in the face and tell a lie.

"And your name, madam?"  He turned towards the hotel register.

"Martinez.  Maria Martinez.  I've come here for the conference..."

"Ah, yes.  You're in room number... No..."  Hi eyebrows drew together
as he bent forward to deciphe the writing.

"I arrived late last night," Maria volunteered help fully, "There was
an older gentleman at the desk but I'm afraid I don't speak any Italian
and I couldn' understand what he was saying..."

"My father," the young man smiled widely.  "He cam~ in to sit at the
desk while I took my wife to hospital We had a baby boy last night."
There was immens~ pride in the pronouncement and Maria couldn't hell
congratulating him on their good fortune.

"As for your room--' he finally remembered the reason for their
conversation '--my father has writte~ the new number of your room
against your name and there is no one occupying the other half of the
suite."

"Not today," Maria agreed.  "But last night there was a man ... someone
who left some things in the bathroom..."  It was so frustrating having
to think carefully about.  every word in case she gave any hint o! what
had happened.

"There is no record of anyone being in that room fox the last couple of
days, madam," he said soothingly.  "Ii the room is going to be empty
for a while now I'll gel the chambermaid to check the bathroom and
remove anything which shouldn't be there."  He smiled again, his teeth
very white in his darkly tanned face.  Tm sorry if you've been
inconvenienced.  "

"But..."  Maria realised that there was no point in pursuing it any
further.  "There's no urgency," she smiled wanly.  "Tomorrow morning
when she comes to clean the room will be soon enough."

In spite of the importance of the conference Maria was unable to
concentrate properly for the rest of her stay, every fibre strained by
the tension that filled her.

It seemed as if every few minutes her mind would return to the
well-worn groove as she tried to solve the problem of finding out who
the stranger was.

It seemed impossible.

She wasn't even able to take any pleasure in the fact that Lena's
prediction had come to nothing.

"Well," her motherly colleague was still trying to justify herself as
they boarded their return flight together.  "I still say he would have
approached you if he hadn't had to leave the conference early."

Maria laughed.  She'd been so concerned with her failure to find out
the identity of her mystery man that she'd almost forgotten Lena's
words.

She made a joking reply as she settled back in her seat ready for
take-off but was surprised to feel a lingering disappointment that she
hadn't had a chance to meet the elusive Leo da Cruz.

In the last few years he had become something of an authority on the
diagnosis and treatment of inherited haematological diseases and it
would be at least another year before she could reasonably expect to
hear him speak at such a conference again.

The thought of next year's events stopped her thoughts in their tracks.
Who knew where she would be by then or what she would be doing?  It
would all depend on what happened in the next few weeks.

CHAPTER TWO

"MARIA!  '

The sharp concern in the voice was the only thin which helped her to
hang on to consciousness as she gripped the edge of the desk, a piece
of paper crack lit against her clammy palm.

"I've got you."  The words coincided with an an wrapped around her
shoulders.  "You can let go now~

Maria concentrated on releasing her fierce grasp c the desk and sank
gratefully onto the chair whic nudged the backs of her legs.  She
didn't think her shak legs could have held her up much longer.

"Don't tell me this damn flu has got you, too.; Pc Mulholland's voice
surrounded her as she sat with her eyes tightly closed.  " You look
dreadfully white.  I thin you'd be better off at home.  "

"No," Maria whispered when she realised that sha[ ing her head only
made the ache worse.  "Ian Stanto didn't make it in last night so I
ended up workin straight through and then..."  She stopped abruptly a
her hand tightened convulsively around the piece c paper and she felt
the cold sweat beading her fore heat

"Well, you're in no fit state to stay here," Peg sai decisively, the
caring side of her nature showin through.

Mafia heard the familiar sound of the buttons on the telephone then
listened while her friend organised fe a taxi to be ready for her in
fifteen minutes.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been a quiet night.  She could
have coped if she'd been able to snatch .  a few hours' sleep just to
recharge her batteries but there'd been no time for that.

Within hours of each other there had been an admission from a car crash
to set up on traction after Orthopaedics had finished patching him up
and drips and analgesia to regulate in the sterile side ward for two
young burns victims from a house fire.

She'd never managed to work out why it always seemed to take ten times
longer to get everything organised at night when they were trying not
to disturb the rest of the patients already on the ward.

Then, when she finally thought she could curl up and close her eyes,
one of her special patients had spiked a temperature during a blood
transfusion and she'd spent several hours sitting beside her bed to
keep her company while her mother snatched some sleep.

"Are you feeling faint?"  Peg's voice demanded.  "If it's safe to leave
you I'll get your things and the porter can bring you a wheelchair."

"No."  Maria'~ voice sounded rusty as she forced the sound through her
dry throat.  "I'll be all right in the lift."  She pushed herself up in
the chair, straightening her shoulders and lifting heavy lids.  There
was nothing to be gained by giving in to the overwhelming load that had
landed on her shoulders.  The only thing she could do was what she had
always done--grit her teeth and keep going.

"You look as if a puff of wind would blow you away," Peg frowned.  "Are
you sure it isn't this bug?"

"I'm sure," Maria smiled wanly.  "I'll go straight to bed when I get
home and sleep the clock round.  I'll be better by the morning."  She
couldn't meet Peg's eyes, certain that a ward sister with her
experience would be able to tell that her near collapse had been caused
by something far worse than mere tiredness.  Would she be able to
detect the guilt and shock which Maria was sure must be written across
her face?

"Well, you'd better not come anywhere near my~ ward if you aren't in
better shape tomorrow," Peg warned sternly.  "I can't have you giving
things to my patients."

"It isn't anything contagious."  Maria was seized with the desire to
laugh wildly at the thought then felt the ominous prickle of tears
building up behind her eyes.  "I'm sorry to leave everyone in the lurch
like this.  Can I get you to notify the appropriate administrators?"

"Of course you can," Peg agreed briskly.  "You just concentrate on
taking yourself out of here and getting some sleep.~

' Maria slumped back in the corner of the lift and closed her eyes,
mentally counting the floors as she waited for the quiet ping which
would tell her that she'd arrived at the ground floor.

She was only halfway there when the lift slid to a halt and the doors
swished open to admit someone else into her quiet space.  The best way
she'd found to discourage conversation was to.  avoid making eye
contact so she kept her eyes tightly closed and waited for the journey
down to continue.

"Are you all right?"  a deep voice demanded and for several seconds
Maria's heart seemed to stop beating, all the tiny hairs on the back of
her neck shivering to attention.  Slowly she raised her eyelids,
unwilling to believe what she was hearing.  It had been over three
months since she'd last heard that voice but it had haunted her
mercilessly.

After all her efforts at tracking him down had failed in Italy she had
believed that she would never know who he was.  It was impossible that
he should suddenly step into the same lift.  ~ and on today of all
days.

"You!"  she breathed as her eyes finally focused on the tall
dark-haired man in front of her.  "Dr.  da Cruz."

She'd never been able to forget those steely grey eyes boring into her
that day at the hotel but she'd never dreamed that they belonged to the
tortured soul she'd held in the night.

"Dr.  Martinez," he nodded curtly.  "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"Talk?"  Maria echoed weakly.

"Are you on your way to the staff canteen?  Perhaps I could get you
something to cat."  There was a frown on his face as his glance slid
over her as though he disapproved of the weight she had lost in the
last three months.

"No, I'm not... I mean..."  Her stammered reply was halted by the final
jerk as the lift arrived on the ground floor.

"Come," he ordered as he grasped her elbow firmly in one lean hand and
drew her out of the path of the people trying to enter the small space,
leading her towards the cafeteria which the hospital provided for
visitors.

"I'm on my way home," Maria objected as she tried to pull her arm out
of his grasp.  Tve got a taxi waiting for me outside.  "

"So much the better," he pronounced as he altered direction and marched
her towards the entrance doors.  "We can share the taxi."

"I... But... You..."  Maria spluttered in his wake but she might as
well have saved her breath for all the notice he took.

It wasn't until he released her to open the door that she was able to
stand her ground.

"We can't share the taxi," she said fiercely, all too aware of the
interested gaze of a group of staff leaving the hospital at the end of
their shift.  She knew just how quickly gossip could spread in their
enclosed world.  "Everyone will think that I've invited you to come
home with me."

"We shared more than a taxi in Italy," he growled in a low voice as he
leant towards her.  "The least you can do is allow me to apologis~ for
for what happened."

To Maria's astonishment she saw a tide of dusky red wash over the lean
planes of his cheeks and she was certain that she was witnessing a rare
occurrence.

"Please?"  his dark lashes lifted suddenly and she was speared by the
brilliance of his gaze.  "I need to speak to you.  To explain."

She hesitated only briefly before she nodded her agreement and ducked
inside the waiting vehicle, sliding all the way across the seat to
leave a space between them when he joined her.  Even in her exhausted
state she was aware of the electric current which seemed to pulse
between them and she knew that it was imperative that she kept a clear
head.  Too much depended on it.

"Alma Road," he directed the cabbie and Maria drew in a sharp breath.

"How did you know where I live?"  she demanded, an uncomfortable
feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.

"I asked your colleague, Lena Harper," he said with a reminiscent
frown.  "She seemed only too willing to tell me---as if she'd been
expecting me to ask."

The words were almost an accusation and Maria subsided into a guilty
silence.

Now it was her turn to feel the heat build in her cheeks as she
remembered Lena's knowing looks and her prediction that the
good-looking doctor was interested in her.

The fact that she wasn't speaking didn't mean that her brain wasn't
working.  Questions were multiplying in her head faster than the flu
virus currently decimating her colleagues but before she could sort
them out into any kind of coherent order the taxi was drawing up in
front of the house where she rented the ground-floor flat.

"Have you got your key?"  He paused with one foot on the doorstep and
held out his hand.

"I'm perfectly capable of opening my own door, thank you."  Maria fixed
him with a steady gaze, the key held tightly in her hand.  She had the
instinctive feeling that the next few minutes were going to be very
uncomfortable and she needed to feel that she had some measure of
control over the situation.

With a brief nod he conceded and stepped aside to allow her to reach
the door and followed her into the flat.

"Would you like a drink?"  Maria walked straight through towards her
compact kitchen, desperate to have~ something to occupy her hands.
She'd always thought that the hallway of her little domain was
pleasantly spacious but as soon as she closed the front door she had
the impression that there wasn't enough air to breathe.

At a shade under six feet and with a slim, agile build, it wasn't the
size of her visitor that made the space seem crowded; it was the
powerful presence of a man driven by silent demons which was making her
flee.

"I've got tea or coffee," she called over her shoulder.  "I don't think
there's anything stronger--I only have brandy in at Christmas..."  She
bit her tongue but it was too late.  The memory of the taste of brandy
in, his kisses must have been so close to the surface of her mind that
the words came out by themselves.

"Coffee will be fine, thank you."  He paused, then added quietly, "I
very rarely drink alcohol."

The flat tone of his voice drew her eyes towards him in time to see his
mouth twist in a grimace of self-disgust.  "I don't suppose that's
something you find easy to believe after our last encounter."

Maria was silent while she finished placing their cups on a tray but
her mind was busy.  Finally she turned to face him, her chin raised
just a little higher than usual.

"Actually, i would find it very easy to believe," she said as she met
his combative gaze calmly.  "I think you were under a great strain for
some reason and had a little more brandy than you should.  If I hadn't
come into your room by mistake you'd have slept it off with little more
than a hangover to show for it."

She turned away and drew in a shaky breath before she picked up the
tray and led the way through to her tiny lounge.

As she settled herself in her favourite armchair she had time to marvel
at the resilience of the human body.  An hour ago she had been so tired
that she was close to collapsing.  A hefty shot of adrenaline in the
shape of Dr.  da Cruz and she was even alert enough to cross swords
with him.

"Thank you for your generosity."  The deep voice interrupted her musing
as he lowered himself onto one end of the settee and reached for his
cup.  "Not many women would be so calm about what happened."

Maria hoped that her shrug conveyed nonchalance.  There was no way she
was letting him know how desperately she had wanted to find out who he
was and how frustrating it had been not to be able to find out.

First she had been blocked by the hotel manager's insistence that the
room had been unoccupied and then there had been her concern that she
would only be drawing attention to what had happened if she'd asked him
to check further.  "Tell me," he began, 'why didn't you say anything
when you saw me the next day?  "

"Because I didn't know who you were," she replied, pm,.  z. led by his
question.

"Do you mean to tell me you were waiting for a formal introduction?"
His laugh was incredulous.

"No," she drew in a calming breath, "I mean, I had no idea who you
were."

"Your friend knew," he pointed out.  "I heard her tell you my name."

"But she didn't know what had happened the night before and I didn't
know that you were the person in the other room."  Her patience was
becoming a little framed.  She wasn't accustomed to having her word
doubted.  "I did try to find out who it was but the hotel didn't seem
to have any record of anyone being booked there that night."

His steely grey eyes travelled over her face as though he could see
inside her head, and she didn't like vulnerable feeling that his
intensity caused.

"Is it my turn to ask a question?"  She relinquisl her cup and wove her
fingers together on her lap she turned the spotlight on him.  "If you
knew wh was, why didn't you say something the next day?"

"Because..."  He hesitated, his dark eyelas] sweeping down to hide his
eyes from her for a more before he continued, almost belligerently,
"Becau~, thought you'd been paid to come to my bed."

"What...?"  For several seconds Maria could breathe with the shock of
his words.  She could ~ the colour draining from her face and her eyes
g~ impossibly wide.  "How dare you suggest such a thing about me?  I'm
not a ... I would never..."

"Please!"  His own cup clattered as he hurrie, deposited it on the
tray.  "I know it isn't true now."

"What do you mean?  " Now"?"  Indignation m~ her voice rise.  "It's
never been true."

"But I only found out a few days ago when I cam up with Andreas."

"And who's Andreas?  Your pimp?"  She poured sc~ into the word as the
acid of betrayal ate away at h How dared he think that she would stoop
to sucl thing?  She was no prostitute--to be paid for 1 favours.  "He's
the friend who supplied me with the bra~ that night."  He hurried into
speech as though he kn what course her thoughts were taking.  "Then,
whe turned over in the middle of the night and I found ~ next to me in
the bed, I thought he'd arranged that, too Look--' he sat forward on
the edge of the settee 'soon as I found out that I'd completely misread
situation I set out to track you down."

"Why?"  Maria was deliberately blunt.  "If you didn't think it
important enough to speak to me the next morning why bother to look me
up now?"

"Firstly because I wanted to apologise."  He was strangely vulnerable
in his embarrassment, unable to meet her eyes.  "As you've gathered,
I'd had too much to drink and I know I don't hold alcohol well.  I was
afraid ... I didn't know how ... forceful ... I was.  I doubt that I
was capable of much finesse..."  His words died away as he gazed down
at his hands linked together between his knees, the colour darkening
over the tanned skin of his cheekbones.

No finesse?  Mafia could have laughed aloud.  Even on a bad performance
it seemed that this man could exceed all her wildest fantasies about
sex.  And he'd been worried about it.  "No," she murmured, her own
cheeks flaming at her vivid memories of the pleasure he had brought
her.  "You weren't too forceful."

"I'm glad," he said softly.  "I would have hated for you to think that
I didn't appreciate.  ~ ."

"Please!"  If her face grew any hotter she would burst into flames.
"You said there was another reason why you came..."

"I just wanted to reassure you that you didn't have to worry that you
might have caught anything from me:' There was a gravelly tone to his
voice.  " I hadn't been wit ha woman since .  for a couple of years so
you were quite safe.  "

There was a grim irony to his words and for a moment Maria contemplated
asking him to explain.  But that would imply that she was willing to
tell him her own secrets and she couldn't face that yet.  The
realisation was too new.  too fresh to reveal to someone who was, after
all, little more than a stranger.

Suddenly her tiredness returned with full force and her eyelids felt
weighted with lead.  With her brain function slowed to near zero, she
knew that she wasn't fit to cope with the problems that talking to him
would cause.  Not today.

"I'm sorry, Dr.  da Cruz," she began as she dragged herself to her
feet.

"Leo," he prompted as he stood up effortlessly and offered her a
helping hand.  "I'm sorry we had to have such a traumatic first
meeting, especially as we're bound to be running into each other."

"Are we?"  Maria blinked owlishly.

"Speeialising in the same field, it seems inevitable."  He smiled
briefly and Maria blinked again at the differ-enee the change in
expression made to his face.  "Especially," he continued, 'over the
next year or two while I'm based just a few miles down the road.  "

With those innocent-sounding words he'd delivered a bombshell.

Maria's pulse began thudding uncomfortably at the base of her throat as
she contemplated the difficulties which could arise if she kept bumping
into Dr.  da Cruz--Leo--for the next couple of years.  There was no way
that she could avoid seeing him--not if she wanted to take advantage of
his expertise in their special field.  Her shoulders slumped as she
caught a glimpse of the scale of the problems ahead of her.

"I'm sorry, Dr.... I mean, Leo.  I'm dead on my feet; I've got to get
some sleep."  She rubbed both hands over her face.

"I'll leave you in peace, then."  He led the way to her door, turning
back towards her at the last moment just as she reached out to release
the catch.

Suddenly they were mere inches apart, her eyes on a level with the
mobile perfection of his lips as he opened his mouth to say goodbye and
a strangely intimate silence grew between them.

"Maria?"  The huskiness in his voice drew her eyes up to meet his. "I'm
sorry we met the way we did but I'm not sorry that we met."  She
watched as his gaze flicked from her eyes to her mouth and back again
and she felt the heat as clearly as if he'd touched her.  Her own
fingers ached to trace the features that she'd only known in darkness
and she had to clench her hands into fists inside her pockets to make
sure that she didn't succumb to temptation.

There was a subdued crackle as she found the piece of paper that she'd
deposited in one pocket before she left the hospital and suddenly she
remembered what was written on it.

She didn't know whether he expected her to say anything further but her
head was so full of the knowledge of what was contained on that piece
of paper that it was empty of words.  She contented herself with a nod
of acceptance as she finally opened to door for him.

TII be back in a couple of weeks," he said as he stepped out onto the
front path.  " A semi-official invitation to visit your department. "

Through the racing thoughts filling her head Maria vaguely remembered
being told about the visit.  At the time she had thought of it as a
golden opportunity to ask the questions she'd never had a chance to in
Italy but now the whole significance of that had altered, too.

"We've been looking forward to it."  She managed dredge up a polite
smile for him but the effort needed maintain a calm front was getting
greater every minute

"I'll see you, then."  He gave a mock salute and final set off down the
road.

Maria pushed the door shut and leant back again it, her legs so robbery
that it almost felt as if she'd hE the bones removed.  ~,

Slowly she took the piece of paper out and smoothe it carefully between
her fingers to flatten the creases-not that she needed to read the
words to know what said.  The message was burned into her brain for
ev{

It had taken months for her to finally admit that the was something
wrong with her since her trip to Ira but with her steady weight loss
the lab result was la thing that she had expected.

"Pregnant," she whispered, the thought still enough~ of a shock to set
her pulse racing as she looked down at the too-slender flatness of her
body.  "I'm over three months pregnant."

"He's arrived."  Ian Stanton beamed as Maria stuffi her heavy coat in
her locker.  "The whole departme] is in a flap.  The poor nurses are
just about falling ow their feet trying to be helpful!"

"What on earth for?"  Maria demanded crossl, "He's only a man.  It's
what's inside his head that" important.  "

She dragged a comb through the straggly mess the wind had made of her
hair and swiftly subdued it into a tight coil at the nape of her neck.
A quick glance i the mirror showed her that her pasty complexion was
paler than ever.  It could do with a liberal applicatia of blusher and
some lipstick to make her look as if she was at least halfway alive but
she refused to take the time to do it.

"He'll only think I did it for his benefit," she muttered under her
breath, knowing, deep inside, that he would have been right.

It had been a full month since she'd last seen Leo da Cruz, his visit
having been postponed twice in the interim, and she was very much aware
that the time hadn't been kind to her.

She'd heard that some women sailed through pregnancy glowing with
health and energy but you couldn't prove it by her.  The intermittent
nausea which had eventually led to the discovery of her condition
hadn't gone away when she'd completed her first trimester.  In.  fact,
"it seemed to have worsened.  Even her dark, honey-coloured eyes seemed
dull when set in a face that looked permanently grey and drained.

She compromised over.  her refusal to resort to cosmetics by biting her
lips and pinching each of her cheeks but the effects, while they
lasted, left her looking like a badly painted doll.

The only good thing about her poor health, she thought wryly as she
made her way towards the paedi-attic ~ward, was the fact that she was
now halfway through the pregnancy and her condition was still
unnoticeable enough to be a secret between herself and her
obstetrician.

As she half mined to shoulder her way through the first set of double
doors she pushed her hands into the pockets of her fresh white coat so
that the unbuttoned edges were drawn together as a form of
camouflage.

"Good morning, Doctor."  Peg Mulholland looked up to greet her from the
bedside closest to the door as Maria closed the child-proof doors
behind her.  " If you'd like to go straight through Dr.  da Cruz is in
my office waiting for you."

Maria raised her hand in acknowledgement, knowing that Peg would be
joining them as soon as she had finished supervising the junior nurse's
work.

Meanwhile she altered direction, swallowing hard and drawing in a deep,
steadying breath before she entered the room.

He hadn't heard her come in and for several seconds she was able to
gaze down on the closely trimmed, thick, dark curls on the head angled
towards her as he concentrated on the paperwork spread out on the desk
he'd appropriated.

"Good morning, Dr.  da Cruz," she said quietly as she sat herself in
one of the extra chairs which had been brought through for this initial
meeting.

She smiled inwardly as he jumped with surprise at the unexpected sound
of her voice and looked up.

"Maria?"  The smile he wore when his eyes met hers faded slowly as his
gaze travelled swiftly over her.  "My God, what have you done to
yourself.9 Have you been ill?"  He straightened up out of the chair so
fast that it scraped noisily over the floor and rocked back onto the
back legs before righting itself.

"What's happened?  Have you seen a doctor?  Are you fit enough to be at
work?"

By the time he had finished firing questions at her he had circled the
desk and had reached the other side of the room, dropping suddenly to
one knee beside her so that he could look at her more closely.

Maria found the proximity almost suffocating and couldn't stop herself
leaning away from him in spite of the fact that her first impulse had
been to throw herself into his arms.

Tm fine," she said, her voice sounding too quiet when heard through the
thunder of her pulse.  " The hospital's had a particularly nasty flu
bug going round.  " She shrugged one shoulder as though that
half-answer was enough to explain her -pale face and limp hair and the
fact that she could count her ribs in the mirror of her bathroom.

"At a guess you've been filling in for sick colleagues and then
conveniently forgetting to take time off for your own recovery," he
hazarded.  "You look as if you could do with a large meal and a week's
sleep."

"I'd heard Italian men were good at sweet-talking women but I don't
think thaCs quite what they meant," she teased, hoping that the humour
would persuade him that she was well.

"Perhaps it doesn't work when only half of you is Italian," he returned
as he straightened up again, the smile he gave her not entirely hiding
his concern.

"And which half is that?"  She drew in a surreptitious breath of relief
that he was putting a little more space between them.

"The half that isn't Greek."  The smile was wider that time,

"So, how much of you is English?"  She frowned at the mathematics.

"None of me."  He held his hands away from his sides.  "Before you you
see a pure-bred Mediterranean mongrel."

Their wary laughter was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the
group and their meeting got under way.

"With co-operation between our various disciplines--' Leo was drawing
the hour-long discussi to a close '--we can look forward to the time w~
not only are all babies routinely checked for sickle c disorders at
birth, so that parents can be informed a proper follow-up arranged, but
all mothers are rout ira checked for the disorders during pregnancy to
pick any who don't know that they are at risk.  "

"One of the difficulties with population migrati is that many people
these days don't know what their genetic inheritance is because they
don't know whe their ancestors came from," one of the registrars co~
men ted "You can't tell just from a person's eolouril whether they're
from a high-risk Eastern Europe~ background with excellent spoken
English or wheth they're low-risk English with a taste for foreign ho
days and suntans."

There was a round of laughter but they all knew tk he'd pointed out a
valid problem.

"I sometimes think the American idea of having have a blood test before
you can apply for a marria~ licence is a very good idea," one of the
midwives con men ted "Except, of course, not everyone waits un~ they're
married before they start producing children.

"In the end it all comes down to the individual Maria contributed.  "
We can take the blood tests ar tell the parents that they're both
carriers of, for example, sickle cell trait and arrange counselling.
they then decide to take the one-in-four risk of havir a child with the
disease we can do the various tests t to the twentieth week of the
pregnancy to find out it's a sufferer.

"But, even if we find out that the child has inheritc sickle cell
disorder, it's still the parents' choice if they want to continue with
the pregnancy."

The meeting broke up soon after that but her thoughts were still on
Marco, her little brother who'd been born with the form of sickle cell
disorder called beta thalassaemia major.

"You're looking sad."  The deep voice spoke softly beside her and Maria
looked up to discover that they were the last two left in the room.

"I'm sorry.  That was very rude of me."  She avoided looking at him by
concentrating on closing her notepad and capping her pen.  "My mind
must have wandered."

"It didn't seem like a very happy thought..."  His tone invited her to
explain but it was something that she was wary of speaking about.  She
still became emotional, even after all this time.

"Just some old memories," she said as she dredged up a smile.
"Sometimes I make the mistake of allowing the work I do to become too
personal."

"I don't think anyone can avoid it when they're working with children,"
he said quietly.  "Especially something potentially lethal such as the
sickle cell disorders.  From the first moment of conception the child
is doomed to go through years of pain and medical intervention, with
some form of limitation on nearly every aspect of their lives."

"It doesn't all have to be doom and gloom," Maria objected.  iWith the
advances in early diagnosis and improved blood transfusion, and
especially now that we can remove the accumulated iron, many of them
can lead a nearly normal life.  Many of them are going on to marry and.
"

"Normal," he scoffed, unexplained bitterness colour JOSlE METCALFE 41
ing his voice.  "I sometimes wonder if they would agree?  If they knew
that they could have been spared the unremitting pain of the condition,
let alone the treatment--all the transfusions, all the injections and
medicines and all the restrictions.  Would they have preferred their
parents to have terminated the pregnancy?  Would it be fairer if they'd
never been born?"

CHAPTER THREE

MARIA was very subdued during the rest of her shift.

She still managed to smile for her patients, cheering up their newest
patient by drawing happy faces on the plaster casts immobilising both
of her broken legs.

"Have you thought of names for them?"  she queried with a serious
expression.

"Names for what?"  Five-year-old Jemma was mystified.

"For your casts, of course," Mafia replied as though the answer was
obvious.  "You can't moan about them if you haven't given them names.
How will they know which one you're telling off?."

As she continued on her way around the ward she left a more cheerful
child trying out the names of her favourite television characters to
see which she preferred--and a pair of very bemused parents.

"Hello, Dr.  Maria," piped up a cheeky young voice from the next bed.
"I'm beating Hussein this time.  Look."

Hassan Rehman's big dark eyes beamed up at her, his hand clutching one
of the controls for the computer game they were playing.

"No, you're not," his identical twin brother denied from the next bed.
"You cheated when the nurse was checking the blood."

Hassan and Hussein were two of her regular patients~ eight-year-olds
whose thalassaemia meant that they had to come in regularly each month
for transfusi of washed, packed red cells to correct their ana em

Just a few minutes in their lively company, enough to reinforce her
feelings that the life of a c] with beta thalassaemia was far from the
gloomy p~ pect that Leo had painted.

As she glanced back at the two of them on her v out of the ward she was
determined that she was go to introduce them to him at some time before
they w due to go home later in the afternoon.

She was just reaching out her hand for a plate salad when a familiar
sandalwood fragrance warned her that Leo was there just before he
spoke.

"You'll never put weight on with that."  One le tanned hand reached
past her for the roast meal on el and tried to slide it onto her tray
before she could put salad there.  "This would give your system
something fight back with," he advised.

When Maria turned to let him know that she v perfectly capable of
choosing her own meals she caul a look of open concern on his face and
was so surpri.  " that the sharp words remained unspoken.

"I haven't got my appetite back yet."  She made I explanation vague,
aware that his weren't the only e. which could be listening.

"Will you give it a try if I entertain you while y eat as much as you
can manage?  You'll never keep t pace up without cracking if you don~t
get a bit me meat on your bones."

"That depends what you mean by " entertain"."  S chose her words
carefully for maximum effect.  "I you sing or dance?  Perhaps you tell
jokes?"

"Smart alec," he muttered in her ear as he reach for a large glass of
orange juice with one hand and her elbow with the other, escorting her
across to the table where his own food waited.

"Ah!"  Maria smiled, the bubble of pleasure that he was going to be
eating with her lifting her spirits.  "I hadn't realised this was an
invitation to dine out' in style...!"

She managed to eat half of the ~meal in the time he cleared his own
plate before she suddenly remembered the Rehman twins.

"Leo, have you got a few minutes free this afternoon?"  She crossed her
fingers surreptitiously under the edge of the table.  "Or have the
powers that be managed to arrange back-to-back meetings right
through?"

"Let me check," He slid a clipboard across the table towards himself.
"Any particular time?"

"Before six o'clock this evening?"  She knew the twins' parents would
be coming to collect them at that time so it would be too late for her
purposes.

"It looks as if I'm getting some time off for good behaviour at about
five-thirty.  Was it something special you wanted me to see?"

"Yes," she smiled secretively.  "Very special.  But I'm not giving you
any hints."

The rest of the afternoon flew by with a full outpatients clinic to
attend and the usual mountain of paperwork to complete before she could
hurry back up to the ward.

"Right on time."  His deep voice reached her as she released the
child-proof catches and he followed her through the doors and into the
ward.

"As you know," Maria prefaced his visit with a brief resume, 'we
already do a sickle cell check on ew patient who comes in for surgery
in case ofproble~ with anaesthetics and cross-matching and we al check
all pregnant women and their newborns.  "

"And your counselling service is absolutely fir: rate," he commented
approvingly.  "If only there we more like it..."

"We also see a number of children with the vario~ sickle cell disorders
on a regular day-care basis f blood transfusions and when they have
crises and we teach their parents how to cope with setting up the drugs
regimen at home.  Also, with the advent of bo~ marrow transplants..
~'

She watched as his expression changed, the smile almost disappearing as
his eyes took on the pained expression that she'd seen before.

"Leo--' she paused and reached out her hat spontaneously to touch his
wrist '--I know yo~ specialisation means that you've seen far more of
t~ problems than I have and I know there are some eas( where the
children go through hell but, you must admi they're far fewer these
days..."

She stopped, knowing that all the words in the world wouldn't have the
impact of the' Rehman brother "Come with me," she invited and led the
way aero: the ward~

"Hassan.  Hussein.  I would like you to meet E da Cruz."

Two pairs of identical dark eyes swung away fror the electronic mayhem
they were creating to look u at him, their ready smiles as broad as
ever.

"Hi."  It was cheeky Hassan who spoke first.  "At you Dr.  Maria's
boyfriend?"

"Hassan!"  Hussein's horrified voice brooke in before Mafia could find
her tongue.

"I don't know," Leo countered, managing to sound suitably worried.  "Do
you think she'd like me to ask her out?"  Maria saw the sly wink he
shared with the two boys, drawing attention to her rapidly pinkening
cheeks.  "She's very pretty, isn't she?"

"She's beautiful," Hassan corrected Leo then tilted his head to one
side in a considering way.  "I don't know if she'd go out with you,
though.  She might not have time.  She has to look after all us kids
cos we're special.  '

"Why are you special?"  His smile told Maria that he was enjoying his
encounter with these pint-sized charmers.

"Because--' Hussein took over the conversation '--we're some of her
regular customers."  He rolled the syllables around on his tongue as
though he enjoyed using the phrase.

"That's cos we have to have blood transfusions," the irrepressible
Hassan butted in, pointing up to the IV stands at the sides of their
beds.  "We've both got beta thalassaemia."

Maria watched as Leo's smile dimmed but there was no time for the fact
to register with her charges as their parents arrived just then.

"Dr.  Martinez."  Mr.  Rehman greeted her with a smile.  "How have they
behaved today?  Are you desperate to get rid of them yet?"  He tousled
their thick dark mops of hair affectionately.

"They've been good as gold," she confirmed.  "In fact, I've just been
introducing them to Dr.  da Cruz who's a specialist in sickle cell
diseases."  She stood back to allow them to shake hands and watched as
Rehmans' open pleasure in their sons and their c tinued good health
worked their own special me, on Leo.

It wasn't until the nurse came to remove the IVs t Maria caught sight
of the clock on the wall at the ~ of the ward.

"Look at the time!"  she exclaimed, grabbing Le sleeve.  "You're
supposed to be going to another me ing in a minute,~ aren't you?"

"And you're supposed to be going off duty," responded with a meaningful
glance at his watch.  looks as if you're just as poor a timekeeper as I
am ~ we're both going to be late.  "

There was a smiling round of farewells and pro mi to 'see you next
month' from the two boys as the family left the ward and then they were
left standing togeft just outside the double doors.

"Well..."  Maria clenched her hands into fists insi her pockets '. I
suppose you'd better be on your w to your next meeting.  Where is this
one?  "

"That rather depends on you," Leo said quietly.

The?  " Maria's voice came out as an undignifi squeak.

"I'm hoping I can persuade you to have dinner w me."  He paused as a
visitor walked past them to herself through the double doors into the
ward.

"Well, I suppose there hasn't been very much time~ for the two of us to
discuss the ramifications of..."

"Maria..."  The single word silenced heLfrantic ba ble and she bit her
lip as their eyes met.  "I don't want to have a business meeting; I
want to take you out f a meal."

"Why?"  The word came out as a breathy whisper as her heart caught in
her throat.

"Several reasons."  He settled his shoulders against the wall as though
he was prepared to stay as long as it took to persuade her, one foot
nonchalantly crossing over the other.  "First, as those imps in there
said, because you're a beautiful woman and, second, because I enjoy
your company but mostly because we haven't had anything to eat since
that cafeteria meal at lunchtime and I'm starving but I don't like to
eat alone,.."

He attempted to look pathetic but failed miserably, his eyes far too
full of devilment to carry it off, and Maria couldn't help laughing.

"Well, in the face of such overwhelming logic how can I possibly
refuse?"  She tucked her hand in the crook of the elbow he offered, her
fingers relishing the heat of his muscular arm through the fine cloth
of his suit.

The warmth inside her owed little to the scant physic, al contact
between them, being a direct result of the glow' that she'd felt when
he'd called her a beautiful woman.  It might have been a throw-away
line echoing what Hassan had said but it was something that she'd
needed to hear something every woman craves to hear from the man who
has lathered her child.

Her footsteps faltered as the thought registered.  God!  How could she
have forgotten?

Her obstetrician had explored with her the possibility that her
continued malaise during her pregnancy was due in part to the mental
stress she was under.  Maria had to admit that she thought he was
right, her stomach tying itself in knots every time she remembered that
at some stage she was going to have to tell Leo that she was carrying
his child.

"Do you need to go home before we eat?"  Leo's voice drew her back to
the present and she was torn between running as far and as fast as she
could to avoid the inevitable and getting the job over withe

"We might as well eat straight away," she said decisively, raising her
chin and squaring her shoulders as though preparing for battle.  She'd
never been brought up to be a coward and had no intention of starting
now.

The restaurant that she directed him to was just around the corner from
the hospital.  She'd walked past it almost every day on her way to and
from her flat and had heard from other members of staff that it was
well worth a visit.

This evening, because of the unfashionably early hour, they were
unlikely to encounter any colleagues who might have raised eyebrows at
their apparent intimacy.

Of course, she thought as they were seated in a quiet corner in the
nearly deserted room, it could be a positive boon to have the place
empty if his reaction to her news was too violent.

A squadron of butterflies began formation-flying in her stomach as she
tried to concentrate on making her selection from the menu.

"Need some help deciding?"  Leo teased when the waiter returned to take
their Orders and she still hadn't chosen.

"I only want something fairly light," she said faintly, worried that
the morning sickness which had plagued her morning, noon and night
might make a disastrous appearance if she had anything too rich.

"Would Madam like some melon for a starter and then perhaps chicken
breasts poached in white wine sauce to follow?"  The waiter's smile was
nearly as wide as his waistline.

"That sounds wonderful," Maria replied and managed to return his smile
as the decision was made for her and she drew in a steadying breath
while Leo ordered his own meal.

"So," he turned his attention on her as soon as they were alone again.
"What made you decide to go into medicine?  Is it a family thing?"

"I don't know," she admitted openly, having long ago come to terms with
the events of her childhood.  "I was fostered when I was seven by a
wonderful couple called Anna and Luiz Martinez.  Over the years they
had a round dozen of us and the love they gave us just seemed to grow
the more there were."  She couldn't help the warmth of the smile which
took over her face at the happy memories.

"They must have been very proud of your achievement.  It's a long haul
to qualify as a doctor."

"They always told us that the only thing they wanted was that we were
the best we could be.  Dustman or doctor didn't matter to them as long
as we did the best we could."

"Why the interest in haemoglobinopathies?  Inherited disorders of
haemoglobin structure aren't a particularly common specialisation."

"Because my brother, Marco, had beta thalassaemia."

"Had?"  he questioned softly, his silvery eyes intent on hers across
the candle-lit, linen-clad table.

She nodded.  "He died when he was eleven."

"So, first you lost your parents and then your brother."  His soft
voice spoke of sympathy but she couldn't allow the misapprehension to
continue.

"We didn't lose our parents so much as they lost us," she said wryly.
"When Marco was born my father had the son he always wanted.  He was
devastated when he found out that his precious son had beta
thalassaemia and when it was confirmed that it was incurable he made my
mother dump the two of us in a hospital waiting-room.  Apparently they
were on their way to the airport on their way back to Italy for
good."

"Couldn't the authorities do anything?"  He sounded appalled.

"They did," she smiled.  "They took us to Anna and Luiz."

"But what about your parents?  They should have taken responsibility
for their own children," he insisted.

"I think Marco and I had the best deal," Maria said confidently.
"Feeling the way they did, our parents wouldn't have done nearly as
good a job of raising us and loving us as Anna and Luiz did."  She
smiled as she remembered her foster-parents' pleasure when she'd asked
to be allowed to adopt their surname.

"So, what happened to Marco?  Was he particularly badly affected by the
disease?"

"I was too young at the time to realise the full extent of what was
going on but apparently our parents tried for a long time to deny that
there was anything wrong with him.  By the time he reached Anna's care
his whole system had been weakened by neglect, although I didn't
realise the implications of what I'd seen until I began my medical
training."  She looked off into the distance as she called the details
to mind.

"He was severely anaemic so he had no energy; his spleen was massively
enlarged so he had very little appetite; his bone-marrow was
hyperactive and this had caused deformities to his skull and his long
bones--virtually all the classic complications of untreated
thalassaemia."

She looked up at him and caught sight of that same haunted expression
that she'd seen before.

"What about you?"  she prompted before he had time to hide behind his
self-protective barriers, intuition telling her that his pain went even
deeper than her own.  "What made you speciali se in this field?"

He was quiet for so long that Maria began to think that he wasn't going
to answer.

"It's a similar story," he said at last, his voice a low rasp as his
eyes focused on the design he was tracing with the tines of his dessert
fork.  "But, instead of a brother, I lost a son."

"Oh, Leo," she breathed, her heart going out to him in sympathy.  "Why?
What happened?"

"There are so many similarities with Marco's story that it makes me
feel ill," he murmured in a deep rumble, the fork abandoned as he
linked his fingers tightly together.

"No!"  Maria was surprised into an instinctive denial.  "I don't
believe you would ever abandon your child."  She reached out her hand
and laid it over his tortured knuckles to reinforce her support but he
drew his hands away and raised his eyes to meet hers.

"I might just as well have," he said harshly.  "I was so busy being a
doctor that I hardly had time to see him.  He was just a little bundle
asleep in bed."

"What about your wife?  Wasn't she there to look after him?"

"Just until he was six weeks old.  Then she organised for someone to
stay in the house with him so that she could go back to work.  She told
me she was only going back part-time but that was another of her lies.
By the time I realised there was something wrong..."  He shrugged
helplessly.

"What about the blood tests?  Why weren't they done?"  Maria frowned.
Something didn't seem quite right.

"They were but, as a haematologist, it was my dear wife who did them
herself and didn't bother to tell me what she found."

"But..."

"He had a stroke and died in my arms on his first birthday."  Leo's
eyes were liquid with unshed tears as he gazed at her.  "I didn't know
that I was a carrier of beta thalassaemia trait and Sophia had never
bothered to tell me she was.  Between us we doomed that little child to
hell on earth..."  His voice died away as his throat closed up and
Maria felt her own eyes stinging in sympathy.

"Do you want to stay for dessert?"  Maria murmured into the fraught
silence.  "I can offer you some coffee back at my flat if you'd rather
leave now."

"Thanks."  He drew in a deep shuddering breath and nodded.  "I don't
think either of us is in the right frame of mind to enjoy any more
food.  I'm only sorry I spoilt your meal."  He signalled to their
waiter for the bill.

"You didn't spoil it."  She took a chance and covered his hand as it
lay on the table, his tanned skin seeming even darker against the stark
contrast of the white cloth.  "Sometimes the only time you can talk
about the things that really matter is when you meet someone who's gone
through similar experiences.  I doubt if you've told anyone else what
you've told me tonight."  She threw the words at him as a challenge and
saw him blink then shake his head.

"You're quite right," he admitted.  "My colleagues knew that my son had
died but I couldn't bear to tell them any more than that.  I just felt
too guilty."

He held her chair for her with innate good manners and they left the
restaurant to find a thin cold rain falling.

"Let's go back in and call a taxi.  It's miserable out here."  He
leaned protectively over her to shelter her from the misty drizzle as
he directed her back towards the door of the restaurant.

"It's not worth it," she said impulsively.  "It's only a couple of
minutes away.  Let's walk."

"Are you sure?"  He turned towards her and carefully pulled the collar
of her coat up around her ears to protect her from the weather, his
hands coming to rest on her shoulders.

Maria nodded, glad that he wasn't able to read her mind as she admitted
to herself that she was grasping at any opportunity to spend a little
more time with him.  Somehow she had to tell him her secret tonight.
There was no knowing when she might have some time alone with him
again.

She'd hoped that having a chance to talk to each other over a meal and
learn a little about each other's lives would help her to find the
perfect opportunity would give her an idea how to go about it.

The only problem was that now she felt that she had even less idea how
he'd react to her news.

All she could do was hope that, in spite of the shock, he would see
that the child she was carrying could help to heal the scars of the
past.

"Maria?"  His voice was a low rumble in the quiet wetness of the
deserted streets.

"Yes?"  Tiny drops of water sparkled on her eyelashes as she angled her
head to look up at him in the glow of the street-light, her arm tucked
securely in the crook of his elbow as they made their way steadily
through the darkness.

"Is there...?"  He paused and she saw the droplets of rain in his dark
hair strike pinpoints of diamond fire as he angled his head towards
her.  "Are you seeing anyone from the hospital?"

She felt the tension in his body through her contact with his arm and
wondered for one heart-stopping moment whether he had guessed why she
had gone to see the obstetrician.

"Seeing anyone?"  she repeated.  "What for?"

"A boyfriend, for want of a better word."  He pulled a face at the
inappropriate phrase.

"Oh."  Relief that he hadn't guessed made her laugh breathlessly.  "No.
As Hassan said, I don't really have time for much of a social life."

"You must find it rather lonely---to go from the responsibility of the
hospital to the quiet of your little home without anyone to talk to
about what's happened during the day."

She thought about it for a moment, playing his words~ over in her head
and hearing his own loneliness behind them.

"I hadn't really thought of it like that before," she admitted.  "I'm
surrounded by so much hustle and bustle all day that the silence when I
got home was like an oasis where I could recuperate."

"And now?"  he prompted.

"I suppose you're right about the lack of contact,"

she said slowly.  "Sometimes it would be wonderful to unwind after a
particularly gruelling shift by being able to talk to someone who
understands what I'm talking about."

"Would I do?"

His words hovered in the air in from of them and sheer surprise made
Maria stumble over the edge of a paving slab.

Instamly Leo pulled his elbow to his side, trapping her arm against the
warm security of his ribs to steady her.

"Do?"  There was a quiver to her voice as she tried to keep her
emotional responses under control in the face of his physical closeness
and his apparent wish to be with her when she wasn't at work.  ~

What exactly did he mean?  Was he suggesting that the two of them
should become 'an item', as the current phrase went, or did he just
mean.

"I could be the person you could talk to," he clarified, then cominued
swiftly before she could answer almost as if he was afraid of hearing
her reply.  "Now that I'm moving just a few miles down the road I'll be
close enough to phone for a chat-or for the two of us to go out for the
occasional meal.  We could act as a sort of safety valve for each other
for when the pressure becomes unbearable,"

"A safety valve," she repeated as her heart sank at the anti-climax.
Why on earth had she leapt to the conclusion that he might be
suggesting the start of a relationship between them?

"Well," his voice sounded so calm and logical that she could have
screamed, "I know you aren't interested in a serious relationship at
the moment--you're too wrapped up in your career.  And I won't be
making any commitments--not after my last disaster.  Perhaps we could
just start off with a sort of..  friendship?"

What irony!

Maria was tempted to laugh out loud.  Here she was walking arm in arm
through the misty drizzle of a winter evening with the most attractive
and interesting man she'd ever met and he was suggesting that they
could develop some sort of friendship between them.  The only trouble
was that with her vivid memories of the most erotic night--the only
erotic night--of her life there was little chance that she could ever
see him as just a friend.

Still, she gave a swift sigh of regret, it was unlikely that his offer
of friendship would survive the announcement that she intended to make
before they parted company this evening so the whole question was all
rather academic.

"No answer?"  he prompted as he drew her to a halt outside her front
door and she realised that her silence had stretched out too long.

"It's,..difficult to know exactly what to say."  She found herself
fumbling for words to convey her thoughts.  "After the way we met do
you think it's feasible that we could start as if we'd only just
met?"

He was silent for a morn era his eyes scanning her face as if he was
trying to see her very thoughts and she found herself unable to look
away, her own gaze locked on the planes and shadows of his enigmatic
expression.

"I know what you mean," he murmured at last, his voice sounding deeper
in the hush as the rain finally stopped falling.  "I only have to hear
your voice and I ~remember the sound of it the first time we met--your
soft words in the darkness.  I see you and my hands remember how
unbelievably silky your skin felt against them and I want to take your
clothes off to see if it feels as good as my memories tell me; to see
what you look like in the light..."

"Leo...!"  Suddenly her heart was in her throat, strangling any hope of
speech as it beat out a frantic tattoo.

So, she wasn't the only one who remembered that night with pleasure;
who remembered the soft words and softer caresses.  "Maria..."  His
voice was little more than a whisper as he drew her unresisting body
towards him and circled her with his arms.  "I remember your kisses..."
His lips were moving against hers as he spoke.  "After so long alone
their softness brought me back to life with their sweetness and
generosity."

His palms cradled her chilled cheeks, his long fingers spearing the
damp curly tendrils of hair as he tilted her face up for the full power
of his kiss.

Maria melted against him, her arms circling his lean body when her legs
refused to support her any longer and her hands unconsciously tracing
the long muscular back she had first explored in all its naked glory so
many weeks ago.

"Ah, sweetheart."  There was a trace of laughter in his voice as he
tore his mouth away from hers and he captured her hands with his and
she suddenly realised that she had feverishly begun to unfasten the
'buttons on his shirt.

When had she become so desperate to feel the supple heat of his body?
She didn't know.  All she did know was that she was standing on her
front doorstep under the glare of a nearby street light in full view of
any neighbour who.  happened to glance out of their window, trying to
take Leo's clothes off.

"Oh, my God."  She drew her hands away as fast as if they'd touched a
live wire.  "I'm sorry ... I didn't mean... " I'm not," Leo said firmly
as he recaptured her hands and drew them back to his chest, holding
them over his pounding heart with his own hands, " The only thing I'm
sorry about is that we have to stop long enough to get inside the front
door.  "

The increasing huskiness of his voice was proof enough that he meant
every word but by the time she'd rummaged in the bottom of her bag for
the key and turned it in the lock Maria had begun to regain control of
her senses and turned to face him in the softly lit narrow hallway.

"Leo... We can't just..."  Her words were lost in the renewed passion
of his kiss as soon as the door closed behind them and Maria was
overwhelmed by the heat of her response.

Never had she responded this fast or this wildly to any man but, with
Leo, he only had to kiss her; only had to look at her to raise her
temperature to flashpoint.

It was several moments before she realised that the heat she was
feeling wasn't just due to her reaction to Leo's kiss.  She'd been
chilled by their leisurely walk in the drizzle and the sudden
transition to the warmth of her centrally heated flat was too much for
the disturbed equilibrium of her system.

"Leo," she wailed distantly as everything slipped out of focus and the
world went black.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAmA swam slowly to the surface of a dark ethel well.  In her ear was
the deep rumble of indecipheral words, the tone one of worry as they
gradually sep ated themselves out into speech.

"Maria?  Sweetheart, what's the matter?"  She felt ~ warmth of his hand
on her forehead and his fingert at her wrist as he checked her
temperature and pulse

The hint of a smile crept over her lips as she ha2 took note of the
care he was lavishing on her and a frown pleated her forehead as she
tried to work, what was going on.

"Leo?"  She tried to lift her head but his hand cradled  her cheek and
persuaded her to lie back again.

"Stay still for a minute," he ordered softly.  "You' still very white."
His fingers smoothed the wildly em tendrils of hair away from her
temple as she gazed at him out of puzzled, dark honey eyes.

He must have carried her through from the hallw to lay her down on her
bed she knew that she h been in no fit condition to walk here herself.
"You're not taking proper care of yourself."  Th{ was an undertone of
anger in his voice but I expression was gentle as he finished
unfastening 1 coat and helped her to slip her arms out of the sleev,
"You shouldn't let yourself get to the stage where y pass out from
exhaustion."

"I think it was the heat," she offered in a shaky voi,

remembering how hot the hallway had felt when she'd walked into the
flat.  "It was too much of a contrast afler the cold outside."

"It's a lot warmer than this in the hospital and it didn't seem to
affect you."  There was a frown pulling his dark brows together as he
returned from draping her coat over the back of her chair and sat down
on the side of the bed.  "And you were fine in the restaurant..."

He took possession of her wrist again, his keen grey eyes scanning her
face as he noted the rapid tripping of her pulse, and Maria found
herself unable to meet his gaze, afraid that he would be able to read
her guilt over the secret she still had to tell him.

"What's going on, Maria?"  He turned her back to face him with an
unrelenting hand on her cheek, his eyes boring insistently into hers.
"What's the matter with you?"

She was peripherally aware that there was a strange note of fear in his
voice, as if he thought that there might be something seriously wrong
with her, but she dismissed the idea as fanciful as she finally found
her tongue.

"Actually," she began and had to clear the huskiness from her throat
before she could continue--an awful premonition of disaster suddenly
seizing her.

"Leo, there's something I should have told you.  Something that
happened ... that's happening... It doesn't mean that I'll expect you
to do anything ... that I want you to be there when I..."

"Mafia."  He was laughing at her incoherence as he captured the slender
hands which were alternately wringing each other and waving agitatedly
about.

"Slow down.  I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, Leo," she subsided with a sigh and worried her lower lip between
her teeth but there seemed to be no way to lead up to the subject, not
when his silvery grey eyes were concentrating so hard on her.  "I'm
pregnant," she whispered at last.

She might as well have screamed the words at him for the effect they
had.

"What!"  His eyes darkened with a mixture of shock and dismay as he
gazed rapidly from her face to her all-but-flat belly and back again,
the shaking of his head signalling his disbelief as he began to fire
questions at her faster than she could answer.

'when?  I mean, how far.  I&'ho?  " This question was more
insistent~lmost an accusation.  " Who's the father?  You said you
weren't going out with anyone.  "

"I wasn't.  I'm not."  She felt terribly vulnerable, lying there under
his angry gaze, but there was no way she could have found the energy to
sit up; no way she could have with his broad shoulders looming over her
that way.  "I'm four and a half months pregnant," she said quietly and
left him to draw his own conclusions.

"No...!  Dear God, no!"  His voice was filled with horror as he leapt
up from the side of the bed to glare down at her and then began to pace
furiously backwards and forwards across the width of the small room
like a caged panther.

His instant rejection was so much more violent than anything she had
imagined and her eyes filled with anguished tears as they followed him
helplessly, each passage making the walls seem to crowd in closer
together and the atmosphere grow more tense.

"Why didn't you tell me?"  he demanded as he paused briefly at the foot
of the bed, throwing the words at her like weapons before he continued
on his agitated way.  "You knew about this months ago.  You must have
known last month when I came to find you and apologise..."

"That was the day I found out," Maria imerrupted bravely.  "It never
occurred to me that the reason I wasn't feeling well was..."

"Why didn't you say something?  I was here in your house--you should
have told me then."  His glare was accusing as he stood over her, one
clenched fist planted adamantly on each hip.

"Too much had happened that day."  Maria closed her eyes, unable to
cope with the sight of his shirt stretched tautly across the broad
chest she'd been exploring such a Short while ago.  She had to
concentrate to remember what had happened that other day or he'd never
understand.  "I'd just had the shock of finding out I was pregnant by a
man I'd never seen and had no means of finding when you turned up out
of the blue.  All that was on top of thirty-six hours of duty and
covering for sick colleagues.  I wasn't in a fit state to think
straight," she pleaded in the face of his closed expression, "I needed
time to sort out my..."

"Time!"  he exploded.  "If you're already eighteen weeks pregnant time
isn't a luxury we can afford!"

"W-what?"  Maria frowned as she struggled to push herself up against
her pillows, heartily sick of lying there like a stranded fish.  "What
has time got to do with anything?  I've still got another four and a
half months before the baby's due.  That should be plenty of time to
make all the arrangements for..."

"You've got beta thalassaemia trait?"  The sudden question sounded far
more like an accusation and stopped her reassuring words instantly,

"Yes," she confirmed.  "I probably mentioned that when I told you about
Marco..."

"So have I," he barked.

"I gathered that when you told me about your son's..."

"Have you been tested?"  be demanded abruptly.

"I've had all my antenatal checks, if that's what you mean.  I went
along as soon as I was told I was..."

"No.  I mean the chorionic viii us sampling before you reached the
tenth week;' he interrupted her again.

"I didn't even know I was pregnant until the twelfth week and, anyway,
the CVS couldn't be done without a blood sample from both parents."

"And you didn't know who I was."  He grimly nodded his understanding;
"What about foetal blood sampling?  Have you had a percutaneous
umbilical blood sample taken yet to find out whether the baby's
positive?"

"No."  "

"But you've arranged for it to be done in the next two weeks."  The
words weren't intended as a question.  "No," she repeated steadily.

"No?  why on earth not?"  His growing anger was evident in the
clenching and releasing of his fists, his eyes cold steel as they
pierced her accusingly.  "You must realise how irresponsible that is.
You know more about the curse of beta thalassaemia than most."

"There's no point in being tested just for the sake of it," she
returned spiritedly, her chin coming up at the attack.  She didn't like
the way that he was constantly interrupting her.  "For a start there's
always a chance that the test could cause a spontaneous abortion
but..."

"What do you mean, " just for the sake of it"?  There's a damn good
reason for testing the baby and you know it."  He looked as though he
wanted to shake her.  "We both carry the trait and, because of that,
there's a one-in-four chance that the baby has inherited the
disorder."

"And a three-in-four chance that it hasn't but..."  she held up a shaky
hand to prevent him breaking in, determined that this time she would
finish what she wanted to say 'it doesn't matter either way because I
wouldn't even contemplate an abortion.  "

Her fierce avowal silenced him but only momentarily.

"That's totally selfish and irresponsible," he raged, his face quite
white in the subdued light of her bedroom and his eyes dark coals just
waiting to spit fire at her.  "Have you thought for a minute about the
child's rights--about my rights as the child's father?"

There was just time for Maria to register a pang that the first time
Leo mentioned his role as her baby's father was in an argument over his
right to decide whether it would be allowed to live at all when her
staunch beliefs flooded in to support her.

"Of course I've thought about the baby--I've spent the last month
thinking about it constantly."  Suddenly she was the epitome of a
lioness defending her cub.  "As far as your rights are concerned--' she
allowed scorn to weight her tone '--not long ago you were at great
pains to tell me that you're not interested in any permanent
relationships.  Well, that might be all right for you--it sounds as if
a one-night stand is about as much as you can handle but whether it
lives for a da3 or a full lifetime a baby is permanent."

She saw the dark colour surge into his cheeks at he~ slighting
reference to what had occurred between then but it hardly slowed the
speed of his renewed attack.

"Have you thought about how you're going to cop~ if the baby is born
with the disease?"  he demanded putting the ball straight back into her
court.

"I'll probably cope just as well as any other mothe~ will--probably
marginally better.  Considering the nature of my job, I know more than
most about the physical anti' emotional needs of a child with beta
thalassaemia."

"Except you're not in the same position as any other mother, are you?"
he accused coldly.  "You're not mar.  tied so you won't have anyone
there to help share the burden; to take their turn at sitting through a
crisis s you can catch up on your sleep.  If the way you collapsec this
evening is any indication you aren't managing to take care of yourself
properly before the baby arrive.~ so how can you hope to do so
afterwards?"

Maria gazed at him silently, holding all the hurl inside the way she'd
learned to do so long ago when it had been her parents attacking her
for her defence of her sickly little brother.

"So much for your offer of friendship," she mutterec' under her breath
as she rolled over and swung her feel to the floor.  "I can do without
fair-weather friends."

The sadness inside her heart was overwhelming but  there was no way
that she was going to let him know how much he'd wounded her.

She straightened up to her full height, swaying briefly as she got her
balance rather than acknowledge the hand he reached out towards her.

"I think it's time you left," she said quietly as she led the way
towards the hall on shaky legs.  "I need to catch up on my sleep."  It
was a petty dig at him but she wasn't feeling very noble at the moment.
"Maria..."

"No doubt we'll be bumping into each other at intervals."  She took
great delight in cutting across his attempts at speech to deliver her
final challenge.  "I shan't bother passing on any bulletins about the
baby--unless you particularly want me to?"

She didn't know how she managed to keep her voice so calm and
unemotional when all she wanted to do was scream and rail at the
unfairness of it all.

It wasn't that she'd expected him to greet her sudden announcement with
cries of joy---how could he when they barely knew each other and the
whole situation had come about by accident?  But she hadn't anticipated
his demand that she have the baby tested to see whether he wanted it to
be aborted, nor the attack on her capabilities as a mother.

She felt very small and alone as she stood in the hallway holding the
front door open for him, shivering as the chilly wind whipped her
clothes around her and teased out the newly dried strands of hair while
she stared stonily out into the night.

"For God's sake, woman.  We've got to talk about this.  Throwing me out
doesn't solve anything."  His frustrated voice came from a point right
behind her shoulder but she refused to turn and face him, not certain
how well she would be able to hide her feelings from him if he didn't
leave soon.

"Neither does ranting at me," she said softly as

JOSIE METCALFE ~ she tightened her chilly fingers around the catch
"Especially when I won't be changing my mind."

"Well, neither will I,?  his voice grated over her raw nerves, his
words a heartbreaking mixture of de term nation, frustration and
despair.  " Dammit, I've air cad been through this once.  I couldn't
bear to see it a happen a second time.  "

Maria watched silently as he stepped past her an out of her flat,
turning his shoulders so that there was no chance of any contact
between them.  She waite for him to turn back; waited for some sort of
far ewe before he left but he strode away from her, his shouldeJ
hunched defensively inside his jacket as he disappeare into the shadows
of the night.

"Dr.  Martinez?"  the young nurse hailed her just as she was making
her~ way out of the ward and Maria sigbe, tiredly.

"Yes, Nurse?"  She waited by the door, unwilling t walk any further
than she had to on her aching feet.

"There's been a message up from Emergent) Shabana Saleh is on her way
up."

Maria nodded, her shoulders slumping in spite o her best efforts as she
realised that there was now n~ chance of getting home early.  Shabana
was one of he 'special' children and the only reason she would b coming
in like this when she wasn't due for a trans fusion was that she was
having a sickle cell crisis.

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you're here."  Mrs.  Salel managed a small
smile but most of her attention was on her little daughter,

"How is she?"  Maria asked while she began he

FOR blOW, FOR nLWAYS

examination.  "Have you any idea what brought the crisis on this
time?"

"It's all my fault," the poor woman wailed softly as she comforted the
little girl on her lap.  "But all her new friends at school had been
invited to the party, too, and I hated to have to say no."

"What sort of party was it, Shabana?"  Maria questioned while she noted
the six-year-old's paleness in spite of her raised temperature.

"A birthday party for Amy," she whispered weakly.  "We went to the
swimming pool."  She paused to wince as Maria examined her painful
joints and then continued gamely.  "Then, afterwards, we had cake with
candles."

"In the swimming pool?"  Maria demanded in careful mock amazement. "How
did you get the candles to stay alight?  '

"Not in the water!"  She pulled a face at Maria's silliness.
"Afterwards.  When we finished swimming."

"Did you all get dressed up in party dresses to have your cake?"  she
prompted.

"No.  We had our swimming costumes on."  Her eyes closed as she rested
her head against her mother's shoulder, a small grey rabbit clutched
tightly in the crook of one arm.

"So," she murmured to the worried parent.  "It was a case of too much
strenuous exercise and excitement, followed by standing around and
getting chilled."

"Yes, Doctor.  If only I'd realised that they weren't going to get
dressed straight away... She never has this problem after her swimming
lessons because the teachers make sure she doesn't stand around.  They
send her off to change straight away then go to her next lesson."

Maria saw the woman's eyes stray to a point just behind her but she had
no need to look to see wl was there.  Even if she hadn't recognised the
individ~ mixture of soap and musky male which had been imprinted on her
memory for ever one dark passion~ night the tiny hairs on the back of
her neck had lift, at his proximity in spite of her determination not
respond.

"Well, Mrs.  Saleh, we'll get Shabana on a dri straight away to dilute
her blood and we'll give h, something to take the pain away.  If I
could get you~ make sure that she drinks plenty of fluids?"  :

"What would be best to give her?"  The poor mother was only too willing
to help,

"Whatever she wants--fruit juice, water, milk the same as you would
give her at home.  Just ask the nurs~ and they'll get whatever she
prefers to make sure she' drink plenty to get her levels up."

"Have you found anything in particular that helg your daughter to cope
with the pain?"  Leo's deep voic joined in the discussion.  "Some
children prefer to lie still with the painful areas supported on soft
pillow: others need to be distracted by someone reading t them or
watching a favourite film."

' Shabana likes me to rock.  her and sing to her.  " Marl watched,
unsurprised as Mrs.  Saleh responded shyly t Leo's charisma.  " She
just likes to curl up on my la with her rabbit and wait for the pain to
go away while she listens.  "

"She's a lucky girl to have a mother who can sinl her pain away," he
said with a gentle smile for the tw~

of them and Maria's heart ached at the evidence of a gentler side to
his nature.

It was another half-hour before Maria felt happy about leaving the ward
but Peg Mulholland had come on duty and she trusted her to know when to
call for assistance if Shabana didn't respond as anticipated.

She half expected to find Leo waiting for her outside in the corridor
but it was nearly as deserted as the rest of the hospital corridors at
this time of day as she walked towards the main entrance and out into
the dark evening.

As she made her weary way home she tried to remember what she'd been
doing during the day to make her feel so exhausted but couldn't
pinpoint anything out of the ordinary.  As far as she could see there
were only two major differences in her life these days~-her slowly
progressing pregnancy and her lack of sleep~ither one of which could be
responsible for the fact that she just wanted to curl up on the nearest
flat surface and sleep for a week.

Unfortunately, as soon as she closed her eyes she was plagued with
thoughts of Leo da Cruz; with memories of the incredible pleasure he'd
brought her interspersed with his fury at her refusal to consider that
the baby they'd created might not be worth carrying.  "What the hell do
you think you're doing, woman?"  an angry voice sounded in her ear as
she turned towards her front door and she uttered a strangled shriek as
she-nearly leapt out of her skin.

"Leo!"  she breathed as her pulse thundered in her ears.  "You startled
me.  What are you...?"

"You shouldn't be wandering about the streets on your own at this time
of night.  Haven't you got the sense God gave a goose?  Where's your
car?"

"What car?"  she snapped back, her sudden surge of pleasure at seeing
him totally destroyed by his autocratic attitude.  "I only live a few
hundred yards from the hospital.  What on earth would I need a car
for?"

"But ... what do you do when it's raining?"  He sounded nonplussed by
her logic.

"I'm not made of sugar--I don't dissolve," she pointed out
sarcastically.  "And walking's good for the baby."

She turned away from his steely gaze and concentrated on getting her
key out, pausing directly in front of him until he stepped aside for
her to reach the lock.

"Has your purpose in coming here been satisfied by shouting at me or do
you want to say something more?"  She throw the barbed question over
her shoulder as she entered the hallway.

"Of course I want to say something more," he ground out through gritted
teeth.  "I told you last time that we needed to talk,.."

"And I told you there was nothing to talk about," she reminded him as
she walked calmly towards the kitchen, leaving him to close the front
door for her.

He must have paused in the hallway to regain control of his temper
because the kettle was almost boiling by the time he arrived in the
doorway.

"Tea or coffee?"  Maria offered without looking up from the mugs she
was setting on the tray.

"I haven't come here for a tea party he said in a voice that was a
chilling mixture of ice and gravel.  " I came to talk some sense into
you.  "

"Well."  She threw a bland smile at him as she opened a packet of
biscuits and fanned them into an expert semicircle on a matching plate.
"I'm sure you'll feel far better if you get something warm inside you
first.  You must have got quite chilled waiting for me on the
doorstep."  She poured water onto instant decaffeinated coffee granules
in each of two mugs.  "Milk and sugar?"  she demanded brightly.

"For God's sake!"  he exploded, throwing both hands theatrically up in
the air in one of the first really 'foreign' displays Maria had seen
from him.  She smiled as it drew to mind fond memories her of her
foster-father in one of his volcanic Italian tantrums---the sort that
his wife had been able to defuse with nothing more than a kiss even
when she was the cause of it.

For all that Leo had told her that he was half Italian and half Greek
until~ now the only evidence she had seen of it was his Mediterranean
colouring and his charm.  She found it fascinating to discover this
whole new facet of his personality.  "I'm glad you find the situation
so amusing," he snapped as he reached for the tray.  "I presume you
want this taken into the lounge?"  He turned and marched out, leaving
Maria hovering over the milk jug and sugar bowl.

"Blow it," she muttered.  "He can just have his black," and she
followed him through to the other room.

He'd made himself comfortable at one end of the settee~ the tray on the
table he'd pulled in front of it.  When she collected her mug and
settled herself in her usual chair on the other side of the room he
scowled blackly but refrained from making any comment, even when he
tasted his coffee and pulled a face.

The silence between them took on a life of its own, growing denser and
more menacing the longer it went on.  Finally Maria couldn't bear it
any longer and took the initiative.

'you said you wanted to speak to me?  " she prompted as she curled her
feet up under her on the seat.  For the first time she was aware that
it wasn't quite as easy to fold herself up so small and she realised
that aRer months of being a secret presence inside her the baby was
finally making his or her presence felt.

Her heart gave a little lift as she realised that any day now she would
be able to feel real signs of movement not just the faint flutters
she'd been aware of for the last few weeks.

"What...?"  She suddenly realised that Leo had been speaking and in her
preoccupation with the development of the baby she'd completely missed
it.

"I said," he repeated drily, 'have you thought any more about what I
said?  "

"What in particular?"  Maria enquired, refusing to rely on any
guesswork.  This whole situation was far too important to disintegrate
in misunderstandings.

"About having the baby's blood tested," he said, his voice sharp with
tension.  "No."

"But..."

"Leo," she broke in firmly before he could get in his stride, "I will
not be having the baby tested for beta thalassaemia before it's born.
That is my choice and it's my right to make that choice."

"And what about my rights?"  he countered.  "What if I go to court to
make you have the test?"

"You could try---and you might even be able to persuade a judge that
the tests are a good idea."

She wrapped both hands round the mug of rapidly cooling coffee to
steady her shaking fingers as she watched the surprised expression
cross his face.

"Of course I would oppose the idea on several grounds, the first being
that the test could provoke premature labour."

"You know as well as I do how rare that is these days."  There was open
disgust in his voice.

"But do the solicitors and judges?  Would they want to be responsible
for forcing me to have a nonessential medical procedure which
precipitated the death of my baby?"

"It wouldn't take long to produce the statistics to prove my
case---both for testing the baby's blood and for the safety of the
technique."

"It might not take long but would it take too long?"  she threw the
words back at him.  "Every day that it takes to persuade a judge to see
your point of view is a day closer to the legal deadline.

"Then," she continued inexorably, 'when you add in the length of time
it takes to do the necessary tests on the blood sample you've still got
to go back-to court if it turns out to be positive and persuade the
judge that it's your right to kill the baby that I'm carrying inside my
body.  "

She was trembling all over by the time she finished, her knuckles
gleaming white under the central light as they clenched tightly around
her mug.

"You make a pretty good case, based on emotions," he admitted bleakly.
"But, luckily, the law doesn't care about that.  It's more concerned
with justice and legal rights."

He stood up suddenly, as though he couldn't bear to sit still any more,
his long legs eating up the space backwards and forwards between her
furniture.

"Oh, don't think I couldn't put forward an emotional argument just as
heart-wrenching as yours," he said bitterly.  "Apart from my
professional evidence I could tell them at first hand what it's like to
watch your son die of the complications associated with beta
thalassae-mia; of the agony and frustration of watching his pain and
holding him in my arms as he died."

"But that isn't a fair comparison with what would happen to this
child," she objected furiously as she protectively cradled the slight
bump below her waist with one palm.  "He didn't receive the treatment
he should have had..."

Like a cornered panther, he turned on her with a snarl.

"And can you give me a guarantee that the baby won't have a stroke or'a
heart attack or its lungs won't collapse?  By what right do you decide
unilaterally that you will put an unborn innocent through that?  Half
of his genetic inheritence comes from my genes and that means I have
the right to share in making the decisions that concern him."

"What right?"  she demanded very softly, knowing that her next argument
would make him more angry than ever.  "If I cast doubt on the
possibility that you're the father of the baby you can't prove it
without testing the baby's

DNA.

"That," she stressed, 'will take you back even further than where you
started because unless you can prove you are the baby's father you have
no right to demand anything and if I deny it you'll have to wait until
the baby's born before I agree to the DNA testing.  "

He stared at her in silence, his face nearly grey with shock that she
would go so far.

"That would be professional suicide for you," he whispered in horror,
obviously realising for the first time just how determined she was.
"The publicity the case would collect would guarantee that the
newspapers would drag your name through the mud."

'"Promiscuous paediatrician" ," Maria mimicked a tabloid headline.  "
Respectable lady doctor in a series of one-night stands.  Doesn't know
who her baby's father is.  "

"It's not a bloody joke," he snapped furiously.

"Matters of life and death rarely are," she said soberly and sighed.
"So, where does that leave us?"

"God only knows."  He ran his fingers through his hair and cradled the
back of his neck as though it ached.  "Who would have thought that a
few minutes of forgetfulness could cause such upheaval?"

Maria snorted.  "I wonder how many people have said the same thing when
they discover an unexpected pregnancy?"

Leo's attempt at a smile was more like a wry grimace but it was
evidence that he was beginning to calm down a little.

"Look..."  he paused to extract his wallet and take out a small white
card 'this is the number for an answering service.  If you need to get
hold of me they'll know where I can be contacted.  " He started to hold
it out towards her then changed his mind and put it down on the table
beside his empty coffee-mug as though he didn't want to get any closer
to her.

"Where will you be?"  Her voice was strangely husky as she looked up at
him and contemplated the very real possibility that this might be the
last time that she would see him in anything other than a professional
context.

"I need to do some thinking," he said sombrely, his hands pushed ~deep
into his trouser pockets as he contemplated the muted pattern on the
carpet.  "I've got about a month to go on my present contract; then I
was going to do a couple more lectures before I took a holiday.  You
can expect to see me back at St.  Augustine's in about six weeks--if
you don't hear from me in the meantime."

He paused briefly on his way out of the room and looked back at her as
she sat in her chair, stunned by the speed of events.  Her eyes
travelled greedily over him, trying to store his image as clearly as
possible so that she could recall it over the next six weeks, and then
he was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE

"C~lAos," panted Peg Mulholland as she helped one of the more junior
nurses moving the ward furniture around.

"All in a good cause, though," Maria reminded her.  "It will mean that
Katy and Laura Johnson can be in adjacent beds."

Peg's expression softened.  "Poor kids," she murmured, making sure that
only Maria could hear her.  "One of them in for leg, lengthening and
the other has her leg broken in an accident on her way here to vis{t
her.  " No wonder they'rs desperate to stay close to each other.  "

Maria had spent a frustrating aRe moon trying to sort the problem
out.

After the~ ward round to review the children hoping to go home she'd
spent a long time between the computer and the telephone trying both to
empty beds and to move children around to enable the Johnson sisters to
share one side of the little four-bedded ward.

It had been just one more task at the end of a crippling day, the fact
that it had been her turn to be on call today meaning that she'd been
up and down between the ward and the accident department answering
bleeps more times than she could remember.

It hadn't helped that the closest bank of lifts to the paediatric ward
was undergoing major safety repairs.  After the first circuitous
journey around the rabbit

8O

warren of corridors and down to the ground floor she decided that it
was faster to use the stairs than take t long way round to the next set
of lifts.  It was only no hours later, that she was realising just how
exhaustin!  was to spend so much time running up and down stairs

The one thing that was keeping her going was t hope that Leo would
contact her soon.

Each morning she woke up with the conviction t~ today was the day that
she'd look up from tendin~ patient or reassuring worried parents and
there he'd t smiling his heart-stopping smile just for her.

Unfortunately it hadn't happened yet and, as a rest she still wasn't
managing to get a good night's sle and the drain on her system was
beginning to tell.

Then, last night, she'd ended up staying on so long at the hospital
with one of her 'special' children that!  wasn't worth going home at
all. She'd only got throul by snatching a couple of hours' sleep on the
narrc bed in the on-call room before it was time to st~ another day.

Meals were another problem which weren't helpi her situation, with her
erratic visits to the cafeteria the staff canteen sometimes forgotten
altogether.  Ev when she did manage to get her food on time there w no
guarantee that she wasn't going to lose it all another episode of
lingering morning sickness.

"You're not looking so good," Peg commented her usual outspoken way as
Maria made her shaky w: into her office after her latest bout of nausea
had robb her of her tea.  "If you don't put on a bit more weig we'll
have to start nailing your feet to the floor or you blow away in the
breeze."

"Jealousy gets you nowhere," Maria teased, knowi~

the ward sister was fighting a permanent battle with her weight.

"Seriously, though," Peg insisted after she'd stuck an impudent tongue
out at her.  "Have you been for a check-up?  You look as if you could
do with some vitamins or something."

"If the " or something" is an all-expenses-paid trip to somewhere warm
with nothing to do but laze around in the sun I might take you up on
the prescription."  Maria smiled then pulled a wry face as her pager
bleeped yet again.  "If you want to know why I don't put on any weight
blame this thing."  She waved the offending electronic gadget aloft as
she reached for the telephone.

' Another trip downstairs," she sighed.  Child without a seat belt in a
multiple car shunt.  See you later."

She let herself out of the ward and set off along the corridor at a
fast clip, the journey towards the echoing stairwell second nature to
her by now.

"Jeremy?  Can you hear me, love?  Can you give my fingers a squeeze?"
Maria smiled her relief as she felt the distinct increase in pressure.
"Good boy," she praised as she went on with her examination, detailing
one of the casualty staff to warn the appropriate department that
Jeremy would shortly be coming up for a scan.

"Do we know who's on duty in Neurosurgery?"  she demanded as she
checked the child's pupil dilation again, her mouth pursing with worry.
"Depending on the results of the scan, this young man might have to pay
him a rapid visit."

"Do you want to have a quick word with the parents?"

Staff Nurse looked at her hopefully.  "I put them in the little
interview room."

"There's not much I can tell them yet but I'll give them what I've
got," Maria agreed, waiting until Jeremy was on his way for the scan
before she went out to find them.

"Mr.  and Mrs.  Tolliver?  I'm Dr.  Martinez."  She shook hands with
each of them, knowing how important that brief physical contact could
be to terrified parents.  "I've just examined Jeremy but he needs to
have some tests done before I can be sure whether there's any
damage."

It took some time to calm the pair of them down, their guilt at not
insisting that their spoilt only son stayed strapped in his seat belt
making them alternately aggressive and apologetic.

By the time she'd managed to track the neurosurgeon down for an opinion
on the brain scan and checked to see that Jeremy had been settled
safely into I. C. U she had begun to feel quite strange, her head
almost feeling as if it was floating several inches above her body as
she made her way, yet again, up the stairs.

She'd nearly reached the top when her pager went off, the bleep
startling her as it echoed eerily off the bare walls so that she almost
missed her step.

In slow motion she watched her hand reach out for the hand-rail and
grasp it and felt her feet tread almost silently from one step to the
next until she got as far as the landing.

By concentrating all her energy she succeeded in touching the
doorhandle leading to the corridor beside the lifts and even managed to
pull it open part-way and step into the opening.

The last thing she remembered going through her bewildered mind was
that there was a black hole opening up at her feet.  Suddenly she was
convinced that somehow she had managed to open the wrong door--that,
instead of walking out into the corridor, she had stepped into the lift
before the men had finished the repairs and she was about to fall to
the bottom of the empty shaft.

"Maria...?"

She knew that she must be dreaming because that was Leo's voice and
these days he only ever spoke to her in her dreams.  She squeezed her
lids tightly shut, knowing that if she allowed herself to wake up
properly it would be the start of just another day without him.  "Come
on, Maria.  Open your eyes."

This time she felt gentle fingers smoothing the unruly tendrils of hair
away from her face and she breathed in the indefinable mixture of soap
and man that was Leo's alone.

"Leo?"  she croaked as she looked up at him.  "What ... what are you
doing here?"

She couldn't see his expression--his head was outlined against a bright
light as he leaned over her and gazed into her eyes with professional
detachment.

"I'm checking you over, you stupid woman," he muttered under his breath
out of deference to the nurse hovering just behind him.

"What are you checking me over for?  I'm perfectly all right."  She
glared indignantly up at him, feeling like an upturned beetle under a
microscope.

"Ha!  So perfect that you passed out in the corridor," he scoffed.

"That's ... that's only because I ran up the stairs from the accident
department.  I ... I must have taken too fast."

"For God's sake, woman.  Why didn't you take the lift?  It's not as if
you need the exercise."  She could almost feel the lightning glance
over her body.  "You' nothing but skin and bones."

"I would have taken the lift if it was working," sl returned with an
air of long suffering.  "As it is it tak longer to go around to the
next bank of lifts than to 1 down the stairs."

"Couldn't you have sent one of the nurses instead " Hardly.  I'm on
call today.  "

"On call?  You mean you've been dashing up and down those stairs all
day?"  He sounded appalled.

"It feels as if I've been doing it for a month," sl admitted wryly.
"Thank God, tomorrow's my PA: day---consultant ward round in the
morning and be the clinic in the afternoon."

"That's if you're fit enough to come in at all," t said grimly.

"What do you mean?"  She batted away the ha~ resting on her shoulder so
that she could roll berse over and sit up.  "Of course I'll be
here--I'm on duty

"We'll see about that."  He nodded to the silent nur.  " that she
wasn't needed any more and she left the rooxq her reluctance to leave
the fascinating discussion ev dent as she looked back over her
shoulder

"For goodness' sake," Maria hissed as she watchc the door swing closed
on her avid face.  "The who hospital will be talking if you carry on
like an owe protective husband.  What are you doing here, anyway'

"Taking care of you as you don't seem to be doin a very good job of it
yourself."  He paused to stead her as she slid off the high bed and
fumbled her feet into her shoes.  "If you tell me where to find your
bag you can wait here while I fetch it and then I'll take you home."

"You certainly will not!"  Maria glanced at her watch.  "I've still got
several hours of work to do before I go off duty.  In case you've
forgotten I'm on call today."

"That's all taken care of," he said firmly.  "Now, just tell me where
your..."

"What do you mean, it's " all taken care of"?  What have you done?"
There was an awful sinking feeling in her stomach.  So far only her
obstetrician knew about the baby.  Had he unwittingly broadcast the
reason why her health seemed to be so precarious at the moment.

"I spoke to the registrar--Ian Stanton?  He said he was only too
willing to take over for you said he owed you for several fay ours
you've never let him repay."

"But..."

"No more."  He held up both palms to stop her arguments.  "I'm going to
be taking you home as soon as we collect your belongings and you're
going to smile and say, " Thank you, Leo," with your best party
manners."

Maria subsided with a heavy sigh.  As she ungraciously told him where
her coat and bag were she resigned herself to being the object of the
latest round of gossip and speculation.  As long as the hospital
grapevine never got to hear about what had happened in Italy she would
be able to ride it out but if that ever became public knowledge.  She
cringed at the thought, only then wondering whether Leo was going to
insist that she go all the way around to the next bank of lifts and if
he would try to force her into the indignity of using a wheelchair.

As is the way with such things by the time she was ready to leave the
department the repairmen had finished their job and the lift was back
in full operation, whisking them swiftly and silently to the ground
floor.

Once outside, instead of the waiting taxi she expected, he led her
towards the consultants' car park, stopping beside a gleaming white

BMW.

"Whose is this?"  She gazed admiringly at the powerful lines of the
car, thinking how well it suited him.  "Is someone lending you their
car to take me home?"

"It's mine."  He opened the passenger door~ for her and waited until
she was settled before he closed it again and went round to get behind
the wheel.  "You wouldn't have seen it before because it was being
serviced last time I came down."

He secured his seat belt and flicked a glance across at hers before he
switched on the engine and pulled out.  ~"Maria,

I. "

"Leo, you..."

They began simultaneously then broke off and laughed.

"Ladies first," he offered, concentrating on the traffic as he turned
towards Alma Road.

"You said you weren't coming back for six weeks..."  She allowed the
words to die away, hoping that he would take it as a hint to explain
why he had come so much sooner.

"I wasn't going to but when I heard that you'd collapsed I came
straight..."

"Just a minute," she interrupted indignantly, "What do you mean?  How
did you find out?"

He pulled a wry face, like a young boy caught out in a mischievous
prank, but her blood began to boil and she pressed for an answer.

"You haven't been near the hospital for weeks so how have you been
keeping tabs on me?  How could you possibly know I'd been taken ill?" A
sudden thought struck her.  "You've set someone to spy on me!"  she
cried, horrified at the very idea.

"I asked someone to let me know how you were in case you needed me," he
said stiffly, colour darkening his cheek-bones.  "I wasn't certain that
you would call me yourself."  He drew the car up outside her house and
leant forward to turn off the engine.

"You needn;t bother doing that," Maria sniped.  "I'll get out and you
can be on your way."  She released her seat belt and swung the door
open but he was there before her, his hand outstretched to assist her
out of the contoured seat.

"I can manage," she snapped, motioning his hand away.

"I'm sure you can but why not take advantage of the help when it's
there?"  He grasped her elbow and steadied her with an encircling arm
when she found that her legs were still unsteady.

Her half-formed plan to be inside her flat before he'd finished
locking.  the car came to nothing when he pointed a little gadget and
the locks clicked simultaneously.

"Go through and put your feet up while I put the kettle on," he ordered
when he'd closed the door behind himself and turned towards the
kitchen, for all the world as if he was the host.  "Decaffeinated
coffee or tea?"

"Please, do make yourself at home!"  Maria muttered sarcastically as
she slid her feet gratefully out of her shoes and padded towards her
favourite chair.

If she was honest it was wonderful to have someone there to make her a
drink while she waited for her batteries to recharge.  It was a novelty
that she could grow quite accustomed to.  "Maria?"

"Oh."  She'd completely forgotten to answer.  "Tea, please.  Not too
strong and no sugar."

"Are you sure you don't want some sugar to boost your energy?"  His
head appeared around the corner, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Not if you want me to be able to drink it.  I can't stand sweet tea."
She shuddered at the thought.  "There's a packet of chocolate biscuits
behind the..."

"Found them," he interrupted.

"How did you find them?  They were hidden away so I'd have something in
case of visitors."

"I think it's a system rather like radar," he called back, his voice
coming closer as he brought the tray through.  "Only in my case it
works on chocolate biscuits!"  The accompanying grin was infectious and
Maria had a glimpse of how he must have been as a boy.

With' a sudden leap she wondered if their child--the.  boy or girl she
was nurturing inside her as they spoke had inherited that grin.  She
found herself hoping fervently that they had, in spite of the fact that
it would make it very hard to forget Leo once he had gone out of their
lives.

"How's the tea?"  his deep voice floated into her thoughts and she
glanced down at the half-empty cup in her hand, suddenly aware that her
mental meanderings hadn't prevented her from accepting the tea and
beginning to drink it.  "Perfect."  She smiled distractedly, her mind
still half-occupied with thoughts of the uncertain future.

"Maria?"

Once again she was called back to the present by his deep voice and
this time she made an effort to pay attention.

"I'm sorry.  I was woolgathering."

' Are you feeling any better?  " There was honest concern in his voice.
" Peg Mulholland said you were unconscious for a good half-hour.  "

"Probably the best sleep I've had in a long time."  She pulled a wry
face.  "But I still don't understand how you got there so fast.  You
must have been sitting in your car just waiting for something to
happen."

"Not quite."  He laughed, his teeth gleaming whitely against the
permanent tan of his Mediterranean ancestry.  "I had decided to pay a
visit to the hospital and was just about to leave when the phone
rang."

"And who is your mole?  Is it someone I know?"  She had calmed down
enough to smile at the cloak-and-dagger feel to the situation.

"Yes, but I promised I wouldn't be the one to tell you.  They want a
chance to tell themselves--if you'll excuse the scrambled grammar--I
don't want to give away the person's gender."

Suddenly she was secretly glad that whoever it was had contacted Leo.
Now that she'd had time to think about it it had been a wonderfully
comforting feeling to be taken care of and cosseted this way.

"Leo?"  She spoke before she could get cold feet.

"Thank you for coming.  It's nice to know that someone cared."

"I think you'd be surprised exactly how many people care about you," he
said seriously.  "Not just your " special" kids and their families but
everyone on the ward, too.  They're worried about you."

"Worried?  But why?"

"Because they can see there's something wrong with you and don't know
what to do or what to say."

"And I don't know how I'm going to tell them."  She busied herself
putting her empty cup down on the table and then reached out to switch
on the corner lamp.  The evening had become quite dark while they were
sitting talking.

"I think the bigger problem is going to be when you tell them," he
suggested.

"Why?  The pregnancy's hardly showing yet and I've still got several
months before I start my maternity leave."

"If you carry on the way you're going it'll be much sooner than that,"
he warned seriously.

"But I can't afford to leave any sooner.  There are all those patients
who..."

"Unless you don't care about the baby's health?"

The open challenge in his words made her subside instantly.

"Of course I care about the: baby" she said softly, gazing at him
steadily across the room, 't wouldn't have dared to stand up to your
bullying last month if I hadn't cared.  "

They were both silent for a moment, remembering the confrontation,
before she continued in a worried tone.

"But, Leo, I don't want to have to leave work early.  I'd probably go
mad with boredom if I just had to sit here for several months waiting
for the baby to arrive--apart from the fact that the hospital won't
have had a chance to find a replacement for me.  And it wouldn't be
fair to my colleagues or the patients if I leave them without adequate
notice."

"Can I offer a suggestion?"  He was watching her closely as if trying
to judge how she would take his words.  'i could take some of the
pressure off you by arranging a temporary job-share.  I'm sure the
hospital management won't mind as long as they're getting the same
number of hours' work for the same pay.  "

"It couldn't possibly work," Maria objected, after taking a startled
moment to think about it.  "You'd end up killing yourself if you had to
drive all those miles backwards and forwards day after day.  It's a
wonderful idea but it just wouldn't be practical with you living so far
away?

"It's a little over ten miles," he said quietly.  "Ten...?  But..." Her
brows drew together in confusion as she tried to remember exactly how
far away the Waverley hospital was.

"I moved into a place of my own last week from the staff flat.  It just
happens to be on this side of the Waverley."

She pinpointed the area in her head.  "Soyou're actually living between
the two hospitals," she confirmed.

"That's right.  And the roads are quite straightforward so,
logistically, it could work, especially as I've also got some holiday
time coming up."

"But what would we say to St.  Augustine's?  What reason could we
give?"

"I take it you still haven't told anyone yet?"

She looked down at her fingers and found herself twining them together
in her lap, unable to meet the laser intensity of his eyes as she shook
her head.  "I don't know how," she whispered.  "I know it happens all
the time these days and people hardly take any notice but..."  She drew
in a shuddering sigh.

"But Anna and Luiz didn't raise you that way."  He supplied the missing
words then he, too, fell silent.

Maria was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the fierceness of his
gaze when he abraptly straightened out of the corner of the settee and
began to pace.

As she watched him travel backwards and forwards she smiled inwardly.
She'd watched him doing this before and recognised his action as
evidence of stress.

Suddenly he stopped in front of her, leaning forward to place one hand
on each arm of the chair as he fixed her eyes with his.

"We could get married," he said without.  warning and her heart leapt
into her mouth as she gazed up at him so close in front of her, a
strange warmth spreading inside her at the thought of marriage to
Leo.

"It would protect your reputation from the gossips," he continued
persuasively, unaware that those extra words were the icy blast that
killed the little blossom of hope she hadn't been aware of nurturing
along with the baby deep inside her.

"You can't get married just to stop gossip.  Marriage is too precious
to treat it like a coat of whitewash."  Her voice was harsh in her
sudden disappointment and, even as she spoke, she realised how stupid
she was being.  There had never been any question of a permanent
relationship between them so why should she be feeling cheated that he
was making a suggestion based on logic?

"It would also give the baby a name so it wouldn't be born
illegitimate," he pointed out soberly, straightening away from her to
resume his pacing.

"But..."  Her thoughts were whirling.  "You don't want to get married.
You said you wouldn't go through it again and you don't want to have
anything to do with the baby."

He was on the other side of the room when he stopped pacing and stared
across at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.  A whole
range of emotions crossed his face as she watched, the mixture far too
complex for her to decipher.

"The s~tuatmn has change , he said at last, his voice strangely rough.
" Whatever the rights and wrongs of how we arrived at this point,
you're carrying my baby and it's up to me to take care of you.  "

In his words Maria heard the echo of his insistence that it had been
her parents, responsibility to stay to take care of Marco and herself
and she felt another fragment of her dreams shatter.  Once shed longed
to be a part of a real family---a family that loved each other and
cared for each other because of that love.

Leo's offer, generous though it was, didn't have the same ring to it.

"I need to think about this," she said into the stillness of the room
and watched his shoulders stiffen, his face becoming expressionless as
if he'd just put shutters up to stop her looking in.

"Maria, you..."

"Please~ Leo," she silenced him.  "Too much has happened today for me
to think clearly.  This has come at me out of the blue and I don't want
to say anything for a few days.  You might go home and re~ilise that
there are other, less drastic, solutions to the problem."

"All right," he agreed.  "If you think we need a short cooling-off
period I'll back off but, while you're doing your thinking, don't
forget that the baby needs a healthy mother and not one who's
permanently exhausted.  Whatever you decide the present situation can't
go on for much longer."

He'd left soon after, apparently unable to relax with so much unspoken
tension between them.  His final words before he let himself out of the
front door were an order to get herself into bed as soon as possible to
catch up on some of the sleep she needed.

"As if I'm going to be able to go straight to sleep after he delivers a
bombshell like that!"  she complained aloud as she tried to relax in a
deep soothing bath filled with her favourite bubbles.  "Right out of
the blue without a single word of warning.  " We could get married," he
says, as calmly as if he was offering me another cup of tea."

The indignation had long gone by the time she was curled up in bed and
she rested her hand over the gentle curve of her belly.

"What should I do, little person?  I don't know what's the best course.
If we have given you beta thalassaemia between us, would it be better
for you to have two parents to help to take care of you, even though
one of them is only going to be there out of a sense of duty?  Or would
it be better if it was just the two of us---our own little loving
family?"

She heard the echo of her wistful words and it reminded her of all her
long-ago dreams

Oh, she and her brother had started off with all the right ingredients
for the perfect family but how quickly that had fallen apart.  Then,
such a short time later, she'd lost Marco, too, and it was only Anna's
and Luiz's care that had helped her to survive.

The trouble was that she'd had to share them with so many others and,
for all their loving attention, they hadn't been her own family.

She pulled a face in the dark as she realised that since Anna and Luiz
had died she'd all but lost contact with the other members of their
'family'-~but somehow it was hard to feel guilty.  They'd been brought
up to be strong and independent so it was hardly surprising that they
had all gone their separate ways.

Now she was expecting a baby of her own--the start of her very own
family but the joy was tempered by the gap in the circle where a loving
husband should be.

Leo had offered to marry her and, if she accepted, that would go
part-way towards completing the circle but how could it be the same
without love to bind them together?

"Peg?  What's Dr.  da Cruz doing here?"

"He's cheering the Johnson girls up," Peg said far too innocently as
she glanced across the ward.  "With the two of them under the weather
and their parents both working they need the extra attention."

Maria could hardly argue with that but why was Leo the one doing the
visiting?  She'd been expecting to hear from him so that they could
arrange to have their talk but for over a week there'd been no message
and she'd begun to wonder if he had changed his mind after all.

9 /

Her pager bleeped as she was halfway across the ward and she had to
leave the tall, dark-haired man sitting comfortably on the edge of one
bed while he chatted easily to the two enthralled young girls.

It was her day on call again but at least this time the closest lift
was working properly and it was easy enough to go backwards and
forwards to the accident department without exhausting herself.

Luckily the awful lingering sickness seemed to have disappeared at last
and, with it, the drained greyness of her face.  At last she was able
to look in the bathroom mirror and see that she was beginning to look
more like her old self--just before she finally lost her figure.

The only trouble was that while she was steadily regaining all the
weight she had lost the progress of her pregnancy meant that she was
also feeling more and more exhausted by the end of each day, especially
the days when she was on call~ and hardly had two minutes to sit
still.

That afternoon it was especially frustrating, with Leo always just too
far away for her to talk to him before she had to dash off somewhere
else.

It wasn't until she was called back downstairs three times in
succession without even reaching the ward in between that she began to
admit to herself that Leo had been right.

"I can't go on like this," she muttered breathlessly, her white coat
flapping as she trod swiftly along the corridor towards the paediatric
ward, Her stomach was complaining loudly that she hadn't fed it for far
too long and she was beginning to feel distinctly lightheaded.

"Here."  Peg held out a cup of tea and a slice of freshly buttered
toast as she slipped back into the ward.  It was almost as though she
had known that Maria was on her way.  "Sit down and get that inside you
before you end up on the floor again.  At least, this time, the poor
man wouldn't have so far to come..."

She stopped speaking but it was too late.

"It was you, wasn't it!"  Maria pounced, speaking round a delicious
mouthful before swallowing hurriedly.  "You told him."

"Well, someone had to."  Her chin came up defensively.  "He said you
were heading for a disaster and he was right."

"But ... I thought you were my friend, Peg," Maria said, her voice a
mixture of puzzlement and hurt.  "Why did you have to tell him I'd
collapsed?"

"Because I'm your friend," she replied staunchly.  "You give so much to
everyone else and never expect anything in return.  When he asked me if
I'd be willing to keep an eye on you I was only too glad that someone
else cared about you too."

Maria felt the swift sting of tears gathering and blinked hard to
control them as she managed a watery smile.  "Ah, Peg, my friend.  What
would I do without you to...?"

She never finished the sentence as her pager cut in yet again with its
shrill summons.

"Enough!"  The deep voice startled her as it growled fiercely in her
ear, two hands settling firmly on her shoulders to stop her getting up.
"You can just sit still and finish your tea while I take this call' for
you."  He straightened up and, out of the corner of her eye, Maria saw
him take in Peg's bemused expression.  "Well..."  he smiled roguishly
in her direction '. I can't have my wife collapsing through overwork,
can I?  "

CHAPTER SIX

"WIFE?"  Peg squeaked as soon as he left the room, her eyes growing
enormous.  "And you thought I'd been keeping secrets!"

After its initial startled leap into her throat Maria's heart sank into
her aching feet.  She only had to look at her friend's expression to
know that she wasn't going to be allowed to escape until Peg had heard
everything.

The only trouble was that there was nothing to tell and she had a
strong suspicion that Leo's parting comment had been a deliberate
manoeuvre designed to force her hand.

"Come on, Maria' Peg coaxed excitedly, 'tell me what's been going on.
When did the two of you get married?  Why didn't any of us know before
now-~or am I the last to know?"

The fleeting look of hurt in her friend's eyes made Maria want to curse
out loud at autocratic Dr.  Leo da Cruz.  How was she supposed to
answer her?  If she told Peg the truth it would make Leo look a fool
for claiming that they were married but if she supported Leo's claim it
could destroy her friend's trust in her.

"Sister Mulholland?"  The tentative voice was accompanied by a knock on
the partly opened door and Maria breathed a silent sigh of relief at
her temporary reprieve when Jeremy Tolliver's mother answered the
invitation to come in.

"Hello, Mrs.  Tolliver," Maria greeted her with a

J ~. ~ne, Ml:, 1 UALI~!  ~ 1~/1

heartfelt smile.  "I'll just get out of your way."

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Doctor."  The poor woman became flustered when
she recognised the white coat.  "I can wait outside if you're busy
talking to Sister."

"No need."  Maria was on her feet.  "Sister Mulholland has just saved
my life with a cup of tea and some toast so I've got no excuse not to
get back to work now."

As she left the room she looked back just long enough to wave silently
to a frustrated Peg and mouth the word "Later'.

Hidden in the depths of the pocket of her white coat she crossed her
fingers in the hope that before she saw Peg again she'd have a chance
to grab Leo by the throat and find out what game he was playing.

"Laura's been telling me about her leg-lengthener," Leo told Maria as
she joined him in the ward at the end of her shift, her coat and bag
clutched in the crook of one arm.

He was smiling at the shy youngster and, as Maria watched, the pale
blue eyes begin to sparkle with new light.

"Dr.  da Cruz said he hasn't seen one working before so I had to tell
him how it works."

"And did he understand?"  Maria prompted, feeling guilty as she
determinedly ignored the surreptitious beckoning signals she could see
Peg making from the.  door of her office.

"He wanted to know why I only needed to have one leg done.  He asked if
I was going to live on the side of a hill so I needed one leg longer
than the other."  She giggled as her cheeks became coloured a pretty
pink.

"And then I thought it was because she wanted to walk round in
circles," Leo added and Katy Johnson joined in her sister's laughter.

"I told him that I had my leg broken when I was pushed over by a bully
just after I started at school," Laura continued when she'd regained
her breath.  "And when it was in plaster the other leg started growing
so the broken one got left behind and it couldn't catch up."

"And, then," Katy joined in, determined not to be left out of the
telling, 'they put her to sleep and one of the doctors broke her leg
again.  "

"Ah~ but he put pins either side of the break to join it to the
fixators, didn't he?"  Maria smiled at the younger girl's gruesome
delight in telling her part of the tale.

"And now we have to turn the screws one millimetre each day to stretch
my bones where they're mending."  Laura pulled a face.  "It makes my
leg ache like toothache, especially after the physiotherapist makes me
do my exercises to stretch my muscles."

"I don't have to do fizzy-ferapy," her little sister gloated with a
grin.

"You will," Laura warned.  "Won't she, Doctor?  Otherwise her leg won't
get strong again."

"Then Katy might be the one walking round in circles," Leo pointed out.
"Or she might have to move to a house on the side of a hill..."

There was the familiar sound of the ward doors opening and they all
turned in time to watch Mr.  and Mrs.  Johnson hurry through.

"Mummy.  Daddy," the two girls chorused through their renewed laughter
and Mafia watched the worded expressions on their parents' faces
disappear in an instant.

J ~11~ Mi~ I [5ALI~I~

"Hello girls.  Katy.  Laura.  You're looking happier this evening..."

Leo and Maria had moved aside so that the little family could share
hugs and kisses and, with the briefest of farewells, Leo made their
excuses and grabbed Maria by the elbow.

"Quick," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, 'before Peg sees
you're free," and they scooted out of the ward door like a pair of
truants.

"Hey, slow down."  Maria panted to a halt when they turned the corner
by the lifts.

"I'm sorry."  Leo was immediately penitent, apologising under his
breath as they joined the small knot of people so that his voice
wouldn't carry.  "I'd forgotten about the baby."

"It's got nothing to do with the baby."  Mafia whispered the words
fiercely as the doors slid shut, thankfully enclosing the two of them
in a private box for the few seconds it would take to reach the ground
floor.  "My legs aren't as long as yours.  And, anyway," she added, 'it
was your fault we're running away from Peg in the first place.  What on
earth possessed you to say such a thing?  "

"You mean about getting married?"  He raised one dark eyebrow
imperiously.

"You implied that I was already your wife," Maria reminded him
breathlessly as he hurried her out of the lift and across the reception
area.  "How could you say something like that when we haven't even had
time to talk about it, let alone make a decision?"

"Well, it was only a little premature.  You will be my wife as soon as
we can arrange it."  The words were reaching her over his shoulder as
they made their way towards his car, his tone as decisive as ever until
he abruptly turned to face her in the middle of the consultants' car
park and took her hands in his, capturing her with his shadowy silver
gaze.  "Won't you, Maria?"

It was the first time that Maria had seen him show .  a sign of
uncertainty and suddenly she realised that the revelation of this facet
of his character had just sealed her fate.

Just those few words spoken in that hesitant husky voice had made her
realise that she was falling in love with him--this outwardly
contained, self-confident man whose intimidating manner hid a battered
heart of gold which only his patients were allowed to know.

"Yes," she whispered, knowing that there was no longer anything to
think about.  She wanted to be with this man who was the father of her
unborn child for however long she could.  "Yes."  Her voice was
stronger now that the decision had been made.  "I'll marry you, Leo."

All the way home the cacophony in her head grew louder as doubt piled
on doubt.

She'd just agreed to marry Leo but what did she know about him?  Only
the barest minimum, apart from his excellent professional reputation
added to what she'd seen of him with her own eyes in his time at St.
Augustine's.

By the time he drew up outside her flat in Alma Road she was shaking,
convinced that she must have lost her mind.  Just because she had
realised that she was falling in love with him was no reason to suppose
that he had changed his mind about anything.

A sudden black thought struck her and she tensed in horror, feeling the
blood drain from her face just as he

JL}~IE M E'I'f~ALI~"E IO3

opened her door and offered her a helping hand.  "

"Maria?  What's the matter?"  He crouched down beside the open door so
that he could see her more clearly, his hand automatically reaching for
her wrist and checking her pulse.  "It's racing... Are you feeling
ill?"

She shook her head dumbly, unable to voice the awful thoughts which
filled her head.

"Can you move?"  He released her seat belt, his arm almost enclosing
her in an embrace as he reached across her for the catch.  "We'd better
get you inside."

Maria felt like an old lady as he supported her all the way into her
sitting-room.  She was furious to find that she couldn't even control
her fingers well enough to unfasten.  the buttons on her coat and had
to stand like a helpless child while he took it off for her.

The whole time one strong arm was wrapped around her shoulders until
she was safely seated in her favourite chair.

"You need a cup of tea," he decided and whisked her coat away to hang
it up before she heard him moving about in her kitchen.

While she listened to him setting cups out on the tray she concentrated
on breathing deeply and slowly, pleased to feel her pulse rate grow
steadier and the tremor in her hands calm down until it was barely
noticeable---until Leo came back into the room.

"Here."  He moved a small table beside her chair and carefully placed
her cup within easy reach.  "I suppose recent events finally caught up
with you," he said with an understanding air.

If only that was true, Maria thought as she flicked a nervous glance
towards him.  What would he say if he knew the real reason I've got a
fit of the shakes?  She reached out for the cup, carefully cradling it
between her palms as she absorbed the warmth and gratefully accepting
the brief respite before she had to voice her fears.

"When would be the best time to organ is this wedding?"  His deep voice
broke into her muddled musings.  "Have you got a couple of days off in
the near future or will we just have to take our chances on getting
away together later on?"

Mafia found herself silently shaking her head, unable to think about
dates and time away when her head was still too full of panic.

"I don't."  .  I can't.  Oh, Leo, I don't think we're doing the right
thing.  " She looked up at him fearfully, expecting an explosion but he
began laughing softly.

"I think you've got a bad case of cold feet."  He smiled easily, his
voice calm and unworried.  "I promise it will all be all right.  We've
got So much in common that..."

"How do you know?"  the words burst out of her.  "You don't know
anything about me.  Not really.  So, how can you possibly know that
everything will be all right?"

"But, Mafia..."  She ignored his attempted interruption and forged
on.

"It was only a few weeks ago that you were determined to go to court to
force me into having tests done on the baby to try to make me have an
abortion."  She could hear the shrill tone to her voice but she was no
longer in control, the words spilling over like water out of a breached
dam.

"Now you're saying that we're going to be successful at playing happy
families just because we work in the same field of medicine and have so
much in common.  It's such a radical about-face that it makes me wonder
if you've got an ulterior motive behind all your tender attention."

She ended the accusation with a glare and saw the invisible shutters
come down to hide his startled expression.  For just a fleeting second
she thought that she'd seen hurt in his eyes but it was the brief blaze
of anger which had lingered longest before he ruthlessly controlled
it.

"And what motive might that be?"  he said quietly, the air in the room
seeming to grow chilly around her.

"Well, how should I know?"  she blustered, already regretting her
outburst.  "First you say you don't want to get married, then you do;
then you say you don't want the baby and the next moment you're going
to take care of it--or are you...?"  She left the final words hanging
in the air.

"And what, exactly, do you mean by that?"  he said very precisely, his
eyes spearing her like twin lasers as he sat as immobile as a bronze
statue,

"Perhaps it was just a coincidence that soon after I threaten to deny
that you're the baby's father you suddenly came up with the idea of
marriage.  You can hardly deny that if we were married it would give
you far greater legal power over what happens to the baby.~

"So," he acknowledged coldly, his face drawn into a scornful mask, 'you
think I suggested that we get married so that I would have a better
chance of forcing you into having the baby tested?  "

"It's perfectly logical," Maria said defensively, quivering in the face
of his obvious fury.  "I suppose it is--apart from one fundamental
fact."

There was a sting in his voice like the lash of a whip as he spoke.
"Even if I did want to force you into having the baby tested as soon as
we were married there would be no point because it would now be illegal
to perform an abortion."

Maria felt sick.

She had completely forgotten that time had been marching on at an
alarming rate while she'd waited for Leo to contact her--all she had
been worried about was why he hadn't spoken to her.  It hadn't occurred
Co her to remember that she had now entered the third trimester of her
pregnancy.

If only she'd taken a moment to think things through before she'd
spoken .  but she'd been too panic-stricken at the sudden realisation
that she'd become so emotionally vulnerable; too afraid that she was
racing blindly into a relationship too fast to see the pitfalls.  "I'm
sorry," she whispered.  "Oh, Leo, I..."

"At least we won't be going into this arrangement with our eyes shut,"
he said crisply as he stood up and fished in his pockets for his car
keys.  "Although I must admit I hadn't realised you thought me quite so
devious."

"No," she cried, suddenly scared.  He was so angry--angry enough to
walk out of her life?  "Leo, please let

"Don't worry about it, Maria," he interrupted as he tossed the small
bunch of keys up in the air and caught them again with a vicious swipe
of his hand.  "As you said, we don't know a great deal about each other
but at least we'll have had the opportunity to remedy that by the time
the baby arrives--that's if you still want to go ahead?"

Maria gazed numbly at his composed face but there was no expression
there to give her a clue as to his own feelings.

All she knew was that he was more important to her than any other man
in her life and she had hurt him deeply with her suggestion that he
would have married her just to have the power to decide the baby's
fate.

"Yes," she whispered, her eyes falling to her entwined fingers lying so
still and silent in her lap, hoping to hide the gathering moisture
behind her thick dark lashes.  "I still want to go ahead."

"Good," he said briskly, as though this was some mundane business
discussion drawing to a close.  "If you let me know when you're next
due for some time off I'll make the arrangements.  Any preference as to
where it takes place?"

For just a second she had a mental vision of the wedding she had once
dreamt of, the way most young girls do--of walking up the aisle in a
white dress to join the man she loved.  "Well..."  She paused.  Old
dreams died hard.  "Would you have any objection...?  No."  She shook
her head dismissively.

~What?  " he demanded.

"It doesn't matter--I'd forgotten for a moment that you'd been married
before."

"What difference does that make?  Ah--' he suddenly realised the
significance '--you wanted a church blessing?"

"It doesn't matter.  The registry of tice will probably be able to fit
it in more easily."  She hid her disappointment behind logic.

He was silent for a moment, the power of his gaze reaching her right
across the room, before he gave a little nod as if he'd come to a
decision.

"Right, then.  As soon as you let me have a list of suggested dates
I'll get back to you and let you know which one."

He left her sitting in her chair feeling as if she'd been run over by a
juggernaut, her brain so scrambled that she couldn't think straight.

"Where are we going?"  Maria fished inside her cuff for her
handkerchief and wiped her hands.  She didn't dare touch the skirt of
the outfit Leo had insisted on buying for her or the beautiful
ivory-coloured fabric might spoil.  "Isn't the registry office back the
other way?"

"Don't worry about it," Leo said calmly, capturing one clammy hand
between the warm strength of his and pressing it reassuringly.  "I'm
sure the cabbie knows where he's taking us."

"But what if we're late?  Would the registrar wait for us?"  There were
a million butterflies in her stomach and the baby must be reacting to
her tension because she was certain that she was going to have bruised
ribs from the frantic activity going on inside her.

"Maria."  He hooked one lean finger under her chin and tilted her face
up so that she was looking straight into his silvery grey gaze.  "There
isn't going to be a problem so relax."

"I'm sorry, Leo.  It's just ... I'm still not sure we're doing the
right thing..."

"Shh..."

He touched her lips with the tip of one finger and she went silent,
savouring the gentle contact.

"You look beautiful and everything will go

smoothly," he repeated as the car slowed down.

She missed the warmth of his finger when he took his hand away and
turned hurriedly to hide the wash of heat in her cheeks, gazing blankly
out at the building they were drawing up outside.

"Leo?  What are we doing here?  What's happening?"  She stared out of
the window in bewilderment then looked back at him.  "We've stopped
outside a church.  My church..."

"This was what you really wanted ... wasn't it?"  His dark brows were
drawn together as an uncertain expression filled his eyes.

"Oh, Leo, yes," A fragile smile trembled on her lips as she suddenly
realised what he had done.  She had no idea how he'd managed to arrange
it, especially in such a short time, but her heart filled with pleasure
that he'd even thought of trying.  "Oh, yes.  This is what I wanted."

"Well, then.  What are we waiting for?"  He reached forward and flung
the car door open then turned back to help her to the path.  "We've got
an important appointment in there so let's get moving!"

Suddenly her heart felt as light as a helium-filled balloon and,
tucking her hand in the crook of his arm, she walked beside him into
the little church.

It wasn't until hours later that her head stopped spinning long enough
to sort out all the impressions that had bombarded her as they'd walked
together into a church full of guests.

Peg had been waiting for them just inside the door with a spray of
freesias and fern and Leo's friend, Andreas, had arrived from Italy in
time to stand up as his best man.  She didn't have time to look at the
rest of the guests in the few seconds it took to reach the altar steps,
their faces just a blur as she Walked the short distance at L o's
side.

And then they didn't matter.  As far as Maria was concerned, she and
Leo could have been the only two in the church as she concentrated on
the heart-stirring promises they were making to each other.

In the brief pause after Leo was told that he could kiss his new bride
she wondered mistily if fate would be kind enough to make him fall in
love with her, too, but then his hands were on her shoulders-as he
turned her to face him.

"Hello, Dr.  da Cruz," he whispered intimately, his grey eyes very
serious as his glance roved over her face.

"Hello, Dr.  da Cruz," she returned as a smile blossomed under the
touch of his eyes.  She was certain that her feelings must be as
obvious as words on the open pages of a book but then he was
concentrating on her mouth.

Although it had been months ago that she'd experienced them, she
remembered all too clearly what his kisses were like and her lips
tingled in anticipation so that the tip of her tongue flicked out to
moisten them.

"Maria," he murmured with a tiny groan as he touched his lips to hers
and her heart leapt at the contained passion in his voice.

His arms slid round her shoulders and pulled her into the sheltering
curve of his body.  As her softness yielded to the hard-muscled power
of his lean frame the gentle swell of her belly pressed against him
just as the baby gave an enormous kick.

Leo tensed as if he'd been stung, his eyes suddenly dark with
comprehension as they gazed down into hers.  Under the cover of her
edge-to-edge jacket he slid

one hand over her and was immediately rewarded with another violent
contortion of the little person contained inside.

"And hello to you, too, baby da Cruz," he whispered and Maria's heart
sank when she saw the solemn expression on his face.

How could she have allowed herself to forget the reason why this
marriage was taking place?

As Leo released her and stepped back the organist began the first few
bars of Maria's favourite hymn but all the excitement and anticipation
had gone, even when he took her hand and led her through to the
sacristy to sign the register with Peg and Andreas as witnesses.

At a small hotel nearby Leo stood with his arm around her shoulders as
they greeted their guests but this time she knew better than to allow
herself to think foolish thoughts about love and for ever.  This time
she knew that the gesture was just for the benefit of their guests.

When she'd seen them in the church it had looked as if there were
dozens of them, especially as Maria had expected to find just their two
witnesses waiting at the local registry office.

She had already counted twenty people when Leo's arm tightened
reflexively around her and she glanced towards the latecomers just
entering the room

"Theo.  Sophia," he said coldly to the elegant couple who stood in
front of them, every inch of his bearing telling Maria that he didn't
want them here.

She shifted briefly in his hold and he seemed to remember that she was
beside him, his fingers stroking her shoulder almost in apology as he
lessened the pressure of his arm.

"Maria.  May I introduce my brother Tbeo and his wife Sophia?"

Maria had known from his startling good looks that Tbeo must be some
relative of Leo's but, although he might be aesthetically more handsome
than his brother, he didn't have the indefinable aura of power that
made Leo stand out in a crowd.

Sophia, too, was beautiful, uncannily like a haute couture picture,
everything about her so perfect that when she turned towards Leo Maria
almost expected her to be a cardboard cut-out just millimetres thick.

"Leo, darling," she greeted him in a saccharine voice, her smile never
reaching her coldly calculating eyes.  "When Andreas told us you were
getting married we just had to be here to wish you well."

There was nothing overt in anything that the three of them had said or
done but there was a terrible tension between them, the atmosphere so
electric that Maria quite expected to see sparks fly.

"Thank you," she murmured politely, taking the initiative when she
realised that Leo wasn't going to reply.  "I'm glad you could be with
us today.  If you'd like to go over to the other side of the room
there's a drink waiting for you."

She watched a strange expression cross Sophia's face when Leo calmly
allowed his new wife to dismiss the two of them but, although her
perfectly painted mouth tightened into a hard straight line, with a
room full of other guests waiting to speak to Leo and Maria there was
nothing she could do but take her leave of them.

"Leo?"  Maria had waited until they were finally alone for a minute
before she spoke in an undertone, keeping

a smile on her face for the benefit of their guests.  "What's the
matter?  Didn't they let you know they were coming?"

"I deliberately didn't invite them," he said through gritted teeth, his
eyes as cold and hard as granite.

"But...?  He's your brother..."  Maria was puzzled.  There had
obviously been more than a passing argument between them something far
more serious.  But what.

"And she's my ex-wife," he said in arctic tones.  Now Maria understood
the tension between the three of them.  This was the woman who'd borne
Leo a son and then, even though her medical knowledge had told her that
he needed special care, had knowingly neglected him until he was so
weakened by the disease he'd inherited that he'd died on his birthday
in his father's arms.

"Well."  She threaded her fingers through his and gripped his hand
tightly as she spoke, her voice calm and quiet enough just to reach his
ears.  "It would give their presence today far more importance than it
warrants if we bothered to throw them out."  She tilted her chin to
meet the chilly grey of his eyes with the warmth of her own, a fugitive
smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

"After all your hard work I'm not going to let anything spoil today so
let's just make our way around the room talking to the p~people you did
invite."

He gazed silently into her eyes for long seconds before a smile creased
the tiny lines at the corner of his eyes.

"That sounds like an excellent idea."  He leaned forward to deposit a
brief kiss on the end of her nose.

"Let's start off as we mean to go on, concentrating on the important
things in life--like champagne..."

He reached out towards the tray carried by a passing waiter and
relieved him of two glasses.

"Leo...?"  she began doubtfully but he shook his head.

"One glass, sipped slowly, won't do the baby any harm.  It might even
send the little blighter to sleep so you can enjoy some food without
indigestion."

He chimed their glasses and they drank together, their eyes focused
intently on each other almost as though they were making a pact with
each other in spite of the circumstances of their marriage.

"Hey, you two," Peg's voice broke teasingly into the silent communion.
"You ought to be circulating so we all get a chance to speak to you.
There'll be plenty of time for gazing soulfully at each other when
we're gone."

"Peg!"  Maria muttered, mortified that several of the other guests had
overheard and were chuckling at her humourously outspoken comments.

"Sister Mulholland."  Leo bowed gravely in her direction.  "We stand
corrected."  He looked across the room and beckoned to his friend.  "I
must introduce you to Andreas."

"Oh, there's no need..."  Peg began and Maria had to hide a smile when
she saw the heightened colour in her friend's cheeks as Leo made the
introductions.

His best man was about the same age as Peg and looked devastating in
his dark suit and white shirt but the thing which caught Maria's eye
was the intensity with which he listened to Peg when she spoke and the
unmistakable interest in his eyes as he surreptitiously

took in how well she looked in her elegant new outfit.

Later she would have to ask Leo if there was any chance of matchmaking.
Whether he thought that his friend might be a suitable match for her
friend.

They continued around the room, spending time with each of their
guests,-the new ease between herself and Leo allowing her to smile
openly,

Unfortunately Maria was also uncomfortably aware that, although they
seemed to be taking care not to allow their paths to cross, Theo and
Sophia were following them the whole time with their eyes.

Finally Maria couldn't put off a visit to the bathroom any longer.

"I think it must have been the champagne," she murmured to Leo.  "It's
gone straight through me."

"Not very comfortable in view of the activity of a certain little
lodger."  He smiled wryly.

The facilities were 'quite sumptuous and Maria paused a moment before
she rejoined Leo and their guests to take advantage of the well-lit
mirror over the basin to tidy her hair and renew her lipstick.

One disadvantage of the fact that she hadn't had a hand in the planning
of the event meant that she had no idea how much longer it would be
before their guests started to leave.

Leo hadn't said whether they were going to be transferring their
belongings straight away or leaving the job until the morning.  Now
that she came to think of it they hadn't even decided whose home they
were going to be living in.  All he had told her was that she wasn't on
duty this evening.

She took a half-step back from the mirror to take a look at the overall
picture she made, pleased to see how much better she was looking these
days.  Her dark hair was gleaming with good health and her eyes were
bright with happiness now that some of her uncertainty had been
relieved.

She was just straightening the front edges of her jacket, enjoying the
sumptuous feel of the supple ivory silk between her fingers, when the
door opened behind her and she glanced up at the reflection.

Her heart began to thump uncomfortably as she saw Sophia walk in, dark
eyes settling on Mafia as though she'd expected to find her there, her
whole bearing full of the tension she was trying to hide.

"So," she drawled as she leant back against the door.  Her pose was
apparently nonchalant but Maria recognised that she had positioned
herself deliberately, preventing anyone else from joining them.  "Leo
finally managed to get someone else to marry him.

she covered her brightly painted mouth with matching talons in reigned
remorse '--I suppose he has told you that I was your predecessor.  "

"Of course," Maria said as calmly as though the whole topic was boring.
"He's told me everything."  Without turning, she had managed to fix
Sophia's gaze in the mirror and she saw her grow pale.

"Well," her tone grew venomous, 'with a name like yours and your
colouring it's odds-on your family's from the Mediterranean region so I
hope you've had all your blood tests done.  "

"Of course."  Maria had a feeling that she knew what was coming next
and busied herself putting away her lipstick and closing her bag before
she turned to face her.  "Didn't you know that Leo and I met as a
result

of our work with children who have the inherited anaemias?  "

"What about you?"  Sophia probed, her eyes narrowed into glittering
slits.  "Do you carry any of the traits?"

"Beta thalassaemia," she confirmed quietly.  "I had a brother who died
of beta thalassaemia major."

"Well, you'd better make sure you don't get pregnant or you'll be
risking losing a child of your own as well--Leo has told you that he's
a carrier, hasn't he?"

"Of course," Maria repeated.  "He told me about his son, too."  She
caught hold of the edge of her loose jacket and pulled it aside,
curving her hand deliberately over the cleverly concealing folds of her
outfit to reveal the growing evidence of the child inside her.  "But
obviously some things are worth taking a chance over..."

She'd thrown the words at Sophia like a challenge, secure in the
knowledge that her new sister-in-law would never hear the true story
behind her pregnancy.  To her surprise she watched the perfectly
made-up face drain of colour, the artful shading over her cheekbones
standing out grotesquely as her dark gaze stared with glassy-eyed
horror.

"Oh, God," she whispered, her eyes like ugly bruises in her white face.
"Oh, my God."  She scrabbled for the handle behind her, apparently
unable to drag her eyes away until the last moment as she stumbled her
way out of the room, the door sighing softly shut behind her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"WHAT happened in there?"  Leo muttered when she fir lally rejoined
him.

"In where?"  Maria stalled for time, still unable to understand why
Sophia had reacted the way she had to the revelation that she and Leo
were expecting a baby.  A~though she would have preferred to have been
married before she started a family, Maria was well aware that her
situation was hardly the sort of occurrence to cause so much shock.

"Mafia."  There was a warning in his tone.  "Peg tried to go after
Sophia when she followed you but the door was blocked.  Then, a couple
of minutes later, Sophia came out of there as if she had a devil on her
tail.  She grabbed Theo and dragged him out of the hotel without so
much as waving goodbye."

"Well, it certainly hasn't been a boring afternoon," she began
brightly, only to subside when Leo glowered at her.  "All right.  If
you must know, she introduced herself as your ex-wife-just in case you
hadn't told me--and warned me not to get pregnant."

"And?"  he prompted, obviously knowing that there was more.

"I showed her my bump and I thought she was going to pass out but
before I could say anything she was gone."  A sudden thought struck
her.  "Do you think it brought it all back to her?  Losing her own
child?  Was she worried for us?"

"Unlikely," Leo snorted.  "The only person who matters to Sophia is
Sophia."

"So, we won't be seeing much of them?"  In spite of the discomfort of
the situation she couldn't help a trace of wistfulness creeping into
her voice.  Ever since Marco had died she'd had an unsatisfied longing
to belong to a family.  "They don't spend much time in England.  Theo's
the chief executive officer of the family holdings in Italy and Greece
and the lifestyle over there suits Sophia better."

Having seen the way the woman dressed, Maria could well believe that
her social life was normally somewhat different to this intimate
wedding reception.

"In that case I don't understand."  She shook her head.  "I can't see
why the two of them even bothered to come, especially as they weren't
invited.  Then, when she deliberately followed me to speak to me, I
thought she was genuinely worried that I might not know that you were
carrying beta thalassaemia trait but her reaction to the baby was ...
well, it was weird."  She pulled a face and laughed when he tapped his
finger on the end of her screwed-up nose.

"That's not important now."  He smiled down into her dark honey eyes.
How could she ever have thought his silvery grey eyes cold?  They
carried all the heat of molten metal.  He flicked a glance at the slim
watch circling his wrist.

"It's time to go, Dr.  da Cruz," he announced, raising one hand to
attract Peg's attention.

"Do we have to go so soon?"  She was conscious of a feeling of
disappointment.  Until that strange episode with Sophia she'd been
thoroughly enjoying the unexpected party--the whole unexpectedly
magical day.

"If we're going to get to the hotel in time for a meal this evening, we
do."

"Hotel?"  The leap of pleasure at the thought that there were still
some surprises in store for the day brought the smile back to her face.
"You let me think we were going to be doing removals this evening!"

"Hey.;' Peg arrived, closely followed by Andreas, just as Maria thumped
Leo's arm in retribution.

"I don't think you're supposed to start beating him before you leave
the wedding reception," the best man's attractively accented voice was
accompanied by a wide grin.  "It won't do his macho reputation any
good."

"You Latin men!"  Peg exclaimed hotly.  "Surely it's more important to
have a good reputation with those who know you than to preserve
appearances with people who don't matter!"

"Ah, but who's to know which chance acquaintance would have turned out
to be someone important in your life if only you hadn't blotted your
copybook with them on first meeting?"  Andreas picked up Peg's hand and
ostentatiously kissed the back of her fingers.  "It could be those
first impressions which make all the difference, couldn't it?"

Maria knew that Leo's friend was only bantering with Peg, the way a man
does when he meets a woman who sparks his interest, but she felt her
cheeks grow warm as his words struck a personal chord.

Who could tell how the relationship between Leo and herself might have
developed if they had been introduced to each other as colleagues on
the first day of the conference?

As it was she was afraid that whenever he looked at her he would always
remember that when he'd first seen her he had thought she was a
prostitute; had believed that she was willing to sleep with him because
Andreas had paid for her time.  "Maria?"  Leo's deep voice broke into
her unhappy thoughts.  "Are you feeling all right?"

They had decided not to tell any of her colleagues about her pregnancy
until after the wedding so she was grateful for his careful choice of
words.

He wrapped one strong arm around her shoulders and she allowed herself
to lean against him, drawing comfort from the contact even though she
knew it was all for show.

"I'm fine."  She smiled up at him, her eyes travelling over his
handsome face in open enjoyment, secure in the knowledge that the
guests would see what they expected to see---a new wife in love with
her husband~

It was ironic that the only one who wouldn't believe it was Leo.  He
would be convinced that she was merely playing a part for their
audience.

"Andreas?"  Leo's call drew his friend's liquid gaze reluctantly from
Peg's flustered face.  "Have you ordered the car?"

"It should be waiting on the forecourt already," he confirmed, "All
you've got to do is make your farewells and you're on your way."

"Well, then."  Leo put a guiding hand to the small of Maria's back to
usher her towards the door.

They passed the scant remains of the sumptuous buffet and Leo reached
out for the small package the hotel caterers had left in readiness for
him beside the elegant stand which had held their beautiful cake.

"Peg's suggestion," Leo said as he held it up.  "She said that the
bride and groom never have the chance to enjoy the food at their
reception so the caterer saved some cake for us,"

"I suppose those are the emergency rations in case we don't reach the
hotel in time for a meal tonight!"  Maria teased under the cover of the
calls of good wishes which surrounded them as they reached the door.

"Oh!"  She stopped suddenly and turned to face the happy throng.  "I
nearly forgot..."  She drew back her arm and flung her bouquet over the
heads of the assembled group.

One long, dark-suited arm rose out of the reaching forest to pluck it
in mid-flight and Maria saw Andreas smile wickedly as he presented his
trophy to a furiously blushing Peg before Leo finally managed to escort
her out to the waiting car.

"Are we going back to my flat to pick up some things first or will we
do that after we've been to the hospital?"  Maria had sunk blissfully
into the soft upholstery, grateful that at last she could take her
weight off her feet.  She'd hardly regained her pre-pregnancy weight
but her feet were complaining as though she was carrying an elephant
around.

"Neither," Leo murmured as he angled himself towards her, his long legs
taking full advantage of the space in the back of the taxi as he leant
back into the corner.  "Peg took care of your packing."

"But..."

"Her original idea was to pick up a new toothbrush for each of us from
the shop in the hospital foyer," he continued with a twinkle in his
eyes, 'but I pointed out that it was always a good idea to take some
sort of robe as well--in case of emergencies.  "

For several seconds Maria was speechless, her eyes fixed hungrily on
his lean body as her mind was flooded with images of spending the night
with him in a hotel bedroom with no more luggage than a new toothbrush.
She suddenly realised that he was watching her expression and her
cheeks instantly grew warm.

"But we are going to go to the hospital before we go on to the hotel,
aren't we?"  she said confidently, desperate to distract him from his
present train of thought.  "I need to check up on one of my special
children and the little boy who came in last night with..  ?

"It's all taken care of, Maria," he broke in, then reached out to
capture her hand while she spluttered indignantly, lacing his fingers
comfortingly between hers.  "It won't be a problem.  Ian was only too
happy to oblige and Ross agreed that you needed a couple of days..."

"A couple...?  You spoke to Ross MacFadden without telling me?"  She
drew in a horrified breath as she visualised the consultant's reaction.
She knew only too well that he wasn't noted for his respect and
consideration towards the female members of his staff.  "Now there's no
way he'll ever write me a decent reference when I want to go for a
consultancy."

"On the contrary," Leo soothed, gripping her hand tighter when she
would have snatched it out of his grasp, 'he had some very
complimentary things to say about your dedication to the job.  "

"He ... did?"  She subsided incredulously, all the wind taken out of
her sails.  "I've never heard him say anything nice about anyone."

Leo leant towards her as though he was going to tell her a secret.  "It
might have had something to do with my volunteering my services for a
presentation at the series of lectures he's giving," he murmured with a
chuckle.

"That's bribery," Maria objected in mock outrage.  "Who cares if it got
us what we wanted?"  He brought her hand up to press a kiss on her
knuckles and she felt the warmth go right through her.  ~ '

"Did we?"  she whispered, her eyes growing wider as they were caught in
the clear silver of his gaze, her brain becoming impossibly scrambled
by his nearness.

"Of course we did," he confirmed as he repeated the kiss on each of her
slender knuckles.  "We couldn't invite all those people to our wedding
without going on a honeymoon, could we?"

Maria shivered as his meaning dawned on her and leant back into her
corner of the seat so that she broke the contact between them.

She had so nearly been tempted into beYs eying that he had arranged for
the two of them to have a weekend together because he wanted to go away
with her.  Thank heavens he had reminded her in time that the whole
event was just a charade being played out for their friends and
colleagues before she had a chance to say something to embarrass both
of them.

As the taxi drew up outside the front door of the hotel a little while
later Maria thought that she couldn't have imagined a hotel more
different from the one in Italy where she and Leo had first encountered
each other.

JOSlE METCALFE IL

Where the other one had been quite grand' and the, rooms they'd
occupied sumptuous, this one was cosy with low beamed ceilings and
uneven floors covere~ by antique carpets.

"It's like something out of-a story-book," she, exclaimed in a nervous
voice once they'd been show~ to their room, her gaze fixed firmly out
of the window "It looks as if it's old enough to be Jacobean at
least.

"Well, I hope the mattress is a little newer than that!  Leo teased,
finally drawing her eyes back to the four poster bed which dominated
the room.

She'd been transfixed by her first sight of it, blockinl the doorway as
her feet refused to take her any fur the into the room until Leo's
presence behind her forced her to enter.  "In a panic she'd made an
unnecessarily thorougl inspection of the rest of the room and its tiny
adjoinin~ bathroom.  finally resorting to looking out into the dus] at
the nearly invisible view to avoid looking at the bed again.

"Maria..."

"Is it getting very late?  Surely it's time we well down for our meal?"
She found herself gabbling in he nervousness, edging her way around the
room to make

her escape when Leo started walking towards her.

"Maria."  One lean hand appeared in front of her fac~ holding the solid
wood door closed when she would, have pulled it open.

She froze, hardly daring to breathe as she felt the

warmth of his body so close behind her.

"Please, Maria, turn around."

The soft words persuaded her to turn towards him even though she wasn't
sure what he wanted.

"What are you afraid of?  That the sight of a bed will make me leap on
you?"  One dark eyebrow was raised quizzically.

"I'm not exactly ... afraid," she murmured evasively.  She was too
nervous to hold his gaze in case her true feelings were as obvious as
she feared.  Unfortunately when she looked away her eyes encountered
the rich splendour of the tapestry curtains draping the bed behind him
and she didn't know where to direct her eyes.

"Well, if you aren't afraid what is the matter?"  His fingers cupped
her chin and turned her back to face the quicksilver intensity of his
eyes.

"I suppose I'm embarrassed," she burst out suddenly, knowing that she
had to give him an answer even if it wasn't the whole answer.

"Embarrassed7' he repeated.  " About what?  " " About the situation .
you and me .  everything!  "

"Well, that's pretty comprehensive.  Could you try to be a little more
specific?"

"No... Yes... Well, look at me!"  she wailed and pulled a face as she
gestured down at herself.

"I've been looking at you ever since I picked you up to take you to the
church," he murmured.  His expression softened as his eyes travelled
over her from the ~dark curls framing her delicate face, skimming over
the creamy fabric of her outfit and down to the elegant matching shoes
on her slender feet.  "Beautiful," he added in a husky voice.

"But I'm pregnant!"  She gestured impatiently towards her elegantly
camouflaged waist, all too conscious that the last couple of weeks had
at last seen a marked increase in her waistline.

"Beautifully pregnant," he began soothingly, taking her hand to lead
her towards a softly upholstered chair.  "The last few weeks you've
really begun to look so much better--much healthier..."

"Oh, Leo!  You don't understand!"  She batted his hand away angrily and
stomped across the carpet before she turned back to face him from the
safety of the other side of the room.

"I'm over seven months pregnant and I'm on my honeymoon with a man I've
never seen."  She threw the words at him like an accusation, then found
herself worrying her lower lip between her teeth as she waited for his
reply.

"What do you mean?"  His forehead was pleated into a frown.  "Is this
an example of hormones scrambling your brain during pregnancy?"

"Don't be patronising," she snapped, planting one fist on each hip
belligerently.  "It's obvious what I mean--you just have to look at
me."

His frown grew deeper as he shook his head.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!"  She threw her hands up in the air.  "We've
made this baby but we've never even seen each other naked."

The final word seemed to reverberate around the room for hours as she
folded her arms defensively across her body.

"That's not quite true."

His quiet words stopped her breath in her throat and the reminiscent
smile which followed them nearly stopped her heart too.

"W-what do you...?  When have you...?"  The words wouldn't come.

"When I woke up that morning."  He answered the question she couldn't
frame.  "You were still fast asleep, your hair spread out across the
pillow like strands of ebony silk..."

His voice had sunk to a husky murmur and she was mesmerised by the
intensity of his gaze.

"The sun was slanting through a gap in the curtains and falling across
your body, painting it with liquid gold.  I'd never seen anything so
beautiful.  before..."

"Oh, God."  Maria covered her face with her hands.  "That makes
everything worse."

"Because I saw you and you haven't seen me?"  he questioned with a wry
smile as he reached for his tie.  "If that's the problem it's easily
remedied."

"No!"  She shook her head wildly.  "Because you saw me then when I was
was pretty and now I'm all.-..  pregnant!"  She whirled round and sped
towards the seclusion of the compact bathroom but he moved faster,
blocking her way effortlessly.

"Maria, Maria," he crooned as he cupped her shoulders with his palms
and massaged the tense muscles at the angle of her neck with sensitive
fingertips.  "I know this is very awkward--for both of us.  And I
apologise for being so slow to understand your concerns."

She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh as she leant
tiredly back against the frame of the door.  "Where do we go from here,
then?"  she said uncertainly.  "It's still more than two months until
the baby's born and we can hardly go round pretending it's not
there..."

"But I can make sure I give you enough space to make you feel
comfortable."

~"How?"  Her eyes flew to the bed behind him.  With only one bed in the
room.

"Easily."  He smiled reassuringly.  "Until you feel mo~ comfo~able with
the situation I just have to m~c sure that you have plenw of time to
yourself first thing in the morning and last thing at night."

"But... Woul~'t it ~ easier if you just asked they've got another more
for you or ... or a room wit~

~in beds?  "

As she watched his smile faded ~d his eyes emptie(

of expression.

"I didn't realise you discs ted me so much," he sai~

c~11y.  His lips were tight with displeas~e ~d suddenly realised that
she had h~ him deeply.

' If that's what you would prefer," he continued,

ing tow~ ds the door.

"No."  She ~bbed his sleeve as he s~ed to move away.  "I'm so~.  I'm
being Stupid... It must be those mood swings I w~ wined a~ut..."  she
offered apologetically then stopped, her eyes fixed on his as she
mentally crossed her fingers "The ... the ~d's plen~

big enough for the ~o of us.  It's .  it's not as ifeithe~

of us is ~y ~eat size~ yet

~ere was a long silence as his eyes proud hers she ~ed m fill them with
the a~1o~ he would never~

accept~ he apolo~ for h~ing his male pride.

"Well," he said finally, clearing his thraot before he continued, 'if
you'll give me a minute in the bat~oom

I'll get out ofyo~ way so ~at you c~ ~e your time.  "

He stepped past her and she noticed with a si~in~

heart that he made cemin that he didn't touch her on his way.  "I can
wait for you in the lodge until you're ready to come down for dinner,"
he added in toneless voice,

"Da~.  D~.  D~," M~a muttered angrily' as soon as she heard the latch
of the bathroom door click into place behind him.  She had been
concentrating so hard on her own embarrassment at the prospect of
sharing the room with him that she hadn't realised how insulting the
implication of her words would be.

The last thing she'd wanted to do was hurt him, especially now that
she'd realised just how much she was coming to care for him.

She turned to the small weekend case which had been deposited on the
gleaming wood of the linen chest at the foot of the bed and twisted the
locks open.

The case was hers she hadn't even realised it was missing; hadn't even
thought to look for it when she didn't know that Leo was arranging for
the two of them to go away together.  But while she recognised the
piece of luggage as the same one that had accompanied her on that
fateful trip to Italy she didn't recognise the clothing lying inside
it.

"What on earth...?"  She gingerly lifted out a fragile drift of silky
chiffon and it slithered like a midnight blue waterfall to hang in
softly gleaming folds from the slender spaghetti straps in her hands.
"Where did this come from?"

She caught sight of a flash out of the corner of her eye as a silvery
gift tag fluttered to the floor and she bent to retrieve it.

"Happy honeymoon.  Enjoy!"  she read, followed by Peg's familiar
signature.

"Oh, Peg.  You idiot."  The fond words were half laugh, half sob as she
remembered that even her closest friend at St.  Augustine's didn't know
the full story behind this apparently fairy-tale wedding.

In spite of her preoccupation she heard the sound of water draining
from the basin and she just had time to thrust the incriminating item
under the nearest pillow as the bathroom door opened.

"See you later," Leo confirmed as he made his way towards the door with
hardly a glance in her direction.  "Take your time."

"Take my time?"  Maria muttered at the door when he closed it gently
behind him, her stomach growling hungrily into the quiet of the room.
"Not likely!  I'm starving!"

It was less than five minutes before she was following Leo down to the
ground floor, her make-up hastily retouched and her hair released from
bondage and given a thorough brushing to lie in a gleaming mantle over
the ivory shoulders of her wedding outfit.

She paused as she entered the room, her eyes flicking around the cosy
groups of armchairs and settees to find Leo.  As her eyes fastened on
him in a secluded corner she surprised a startled expression on his
face as he watched her walk towards him.  Maria felt an answering leap
and her hopes rose again that everything would be all right.

"That was quick," he commented blandly as he stood up and Maria had to
stifle a groan of disappoin~nent as he continued to speak as though she
was just a chance-met colleague.  "Can I get you something to drink?"
he offered politely, 'or would you rather go straight through to the
dining-room?  "

"Straight through, please," Maria confirmed calmly and raised her chin
a notch even though his cold civility felt like a rebuke.  "If I don't
get something to eat soon I'm going to start gnawing on a table-leg."

The creases beside Leo's eyes deepened briefly as

I~.  ~K NI,.  ~W, I*UK ALWA]f~

he gave a short laugh.  "That makes a change.  It wasn't long ago you
weren't eating enough to keep a sparrow alive."

"It's amazing the difference it makes to your appetite when you know
the food is going to stay with you when you've eaten it," Maria
explained wryly as he held out her seat for her, his manners impeccable
in spite of the strained atmosphere between them.

n the surface the meal went well.  The f~oci and service were excellent
and, providing they spoke of medical matters, the two of them were
never at a loss for conversation.  But underneath the politeness Maria
could feel the tension building.

When she couldn't help yawning for the third time, nearly spilling the
cup of tea she'd chosen instead of the coffee she'd rather have had,
Leo rose to his feet.

"Time for bed," he prompted avuncularly as he offered her his hand to
help her out of the comfortable armchair she'd taken root in after
their meal.

Maria's heart leapt stupidly at his words until she mentally dragged it
under control again, reminding herself that there was nothing salacious
in his pronouncement.

Even so she couldn't help the wistful daydream that teased her mind as
he escorted her into the lift and up to their room.

If, instead of a sham, this had really been their honeymoon would he
still be standing there in the ornate glory of the lift with a careful
six inches between them?  Would he merely take her elbow to guide her
along the eccentric steps and turns of the corridor or would he have
put his arm around her shoulders?

While her thoughts had been meandering they'd reached the door of their
room and he was opening it, pushing the dark polished wood wide with
one hand while he pocketed the key with the other.

"I'm going to have another cup of coffee before I come up so there's no
need to hurry with the bathroom."

He'd turned away as he began speaking and was already part-way along
the short corridor before Maria realised that he wasn'~ coming into
their room with her.

She watched his retreating figure with stunned amazement and his long
strides had taken him as far as the corner which would take him out of
sight before she hastily managed to find her voice.

"Leo," she called softly, mindful that there might be others already
settled for the night in the nearby rooms.  He paused momentarily to
glance at her over his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Goodnight," she whispered into the silence that stretched between
them, her heart in her mouth as she waited hoping to hear him say that
he'd be' back before she went to sleep.

For a long moment he stood wordlessly, his eyes brooding and shadowed
in the subdued light of the corridor.

Finally, "Goodnight," he echoed, and disappeared, leaving her to close
the door on the last of her fragile hopes.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LEO was as good as his word.  He'd said that he was going to organise a
job-sharing scheme which St.  Augustine's would accept and he'd done
it.  The only trouble was that Maria found it impossible to limit
herself to the part-time work she was now expected to do.

"What are you still doing here?  You should have gone home an hour
ago."

Maria jumped when Peg's voice sounded behind her and she swung round to
face her.

"I've just finished a session with Julie Turton's parents and
grandparents.  I think I finally managed to get through to them that
they're actually doing her harm when they give her '~special treats" of
biscuits and sweets to "make up" for becoming diabetic.  "

"Poor kiddie," Peg murmured as she busied herself pouring boiling water
into the tiny teapot she kept ready on a tray in the corner.  "I've
lost count of how many times they've had to rash her in with a hyper
since she was diagnosed.  You'd think no one had explained it all to
them the way they ignore all the rules and advice."

"That's why I had them come in together this afternoon," Maria 'said
tiredly as she used both hands to brash the straggly wisps of hair away
from her face.  "I thought if I went over it again with all of them in
the same room they would all know that they were getting

the same information and had to obey the same set of rules.  "

"But they had you in there for over an hour and a half and you've come
out looking like a limp dishrag," Peg began militantly as she advanced
on Maria like an avenging angel with only a steaming cup of tea as a
weapon.  "Anyone would think the hospital didn't have any trained
counsellors the way you take on the stubborn ones,"

"Don't you start lecturing me again, Peg Mulholland," she said as she
sank gratefully into the chair and, ignoring the saucer, wrapped her
hand around the proffered cup.  "I'll be fine as soon as I've had this
tea."

"Providing you don't take your bottom out of that seat for at least the
next half-hour when you've finished it," Peg replied trenchantly, her
look as severe as her tone.  "You might have got away with overworking
when I didn't know about the baby..."

Maria groaned.  "I wish I'd kept my big mouth shut," now.  I'd have had
several fewer weeks of persecution.  "

"That's another thing," Peg jumped in.  "How on earth did you get to
seven months without anyone noticing you were pregnant?  In an ordinary
office I could understand it but even in a hospital where we're
supposed to be trained observers no one had a clue."

"Partly it was because I lost so much weight in the early stages with
morning-, noon- and night-sickness, Then it took me a long time to put
it back on..."

"But you've got a real football-sized lump there, now."  Peg nodded
towards Maria's recently nonexistent waist.  "You can hardly say that
that looks like a hernia!"

"Hardly!"  Maria chuckled helplessly, nearly spilling her tea.  "But
being a doctor does help--we get to wear this voluminous white
camouflage outfit."  She picked up the edge of her coat to show what
she meant and the stethoscope started to slide out of the pocket.

"Oops!"  She made a grab for it but missed.  "I can't move quite so
fast nor fold up quite so far in the middle these days," she said
ruefully as she accepted the offending article from Peg.  "I'm
beginning to feel quite bloated."

"In comparison with a stick-insect," Peg retorted rudely, glancing down
at her own far more rounded figure.  "You should try battling with my
inches.  At least yours will all disappear once junior arrives."

"With any luck."  Maria crossed her fingers then a sly smile crept over
her face.  "Anyway, what are you complaining about?  I have it on good
authority that a certain handsome doctor is rather smitten with
you--curves and all.  Hospital gossip has it that he's flown over from
Italy three times in as many weeks just to see you."

"Rubbish!"  Her friend turned away swiftly but not before Maria had
seen the tide of colour staining her cheeks.  "He came over to attend
the presentation that Leo did for the lecture series."

"And the other times?"  Maria taunted.

"Oh, hush!"  Peg flounced towards the door, "You sit quietly and finish
your tea."

"Yes, Sister.  Of course, Sister," she mocked with a grin as she
toasted the rapidly retreating back with her cup.

She sighed deeply once Peg had gone and let her head drop back to rest
against the high back of the chair.

Now that she was alone she could admit just how tired she really was.
She'd thought that job-sharin with Leo would have taken the pressure
off her but almost seemed as if it had made things worse.

Ever since they'd returned from their weekend awa: he'd been at great
pains to treat her like fragile chinz More often than not she'd get
ready to go into the hospital and find that he'd ordered a taxi to take
her t, work and when her duty was over and he came to tak over for her
there would be a taxi waiting to take he home again.

The time they actually spent together was minimal in the last few weeks
it had been barely more than the time it took to hand over
responsibility for the patient,.

It was the off-duty times that she found most difficult.  If they were
both home at the same time their conversation seemed to be confined
solely to medic~ topics, almost as theough they were afraid to loosen
th tight hold they had on the situation.

When each evening had finally dragged until the3 were both yawning and
bed was the only option, Marie found herself clinging desperately to
the edge of the mattress in an attempt to stay on her own side of the
bed

She was disgusted to note that Leo didn't seem t find any difficulty in
falling asleep, his breathing growing deep and even within minutes of
his head touchin~ the pillow.

Night after night Maria watched the numbers or her alarm clock click
monotonously around while she~ remembered the first night they had
spent in eact other's arms and each time her eyes sheened with tear: as
she compared it with the nights they'd spent together since.

The first night of their 'honeymoon' had passe without so much as a
memory to hold on to.

After a brief tussle with her self-consciousness she'd 'finally donned
the silky nightdress Peg had given her, grateful for the concealing
folds as she slipped nervously between the crisp cotton sheets.

Remembering Leo's pleasure in threading his fingers through her hair,
she'd deliberately left it loose, innocently expecting it to invite his
attention when he returned to their room.

Unfortunately, before he arrived the events of the day had caught up
with her and the next thing she'd known was a knock on the bedroom door
as room service delivered her breakfast on a tray the next morning.

The times when she was at home alone weren't any better.

After the frantic activity involved in moving her belongings into his
new flat halfway between their two hospitals she found that she
couldn't settle to anything and the thought of trying to catch up on
her sleep when he wasn't there was laughable.

She'd tried it once, lying down in the centre of the bed early one
evening with a light blanket over her legs.  Several attempts at
courting sleep, following, the methods taught at her prenatal
relaxation classes, had been no help.

Trying to find a more comfortable position had her rolling over onto
her other side but with her first deep breath she drew in the
unmistakable mixture of soap and male musk which told her that she was
lying on Leo's pillow and all thought of sleep fled.

Finally she had decided that her only alternative, if she was to retain
her sanity, was to keep busy at the hospital.

She sighed heavily as she reached out one hand to deposit the empty cup
on the corner of Peg's desk then paused to gather her thoughts.

It had taken some careful arrangement but she was slowly managing to
fill the empty hours by scheduling appointments such as the meeting
this aRe moon with Julie Turton's family.  When she had been working a
full timetable it would have been impossible to spend such a long time
with them but, in spite of the fact that she felt exhausted, she
honestly felt that she had achieved something this time.

"What are you still doing here?"  a familiar deep voice demanded as Leo
entered the room.  "The taxi was supposed to have taken you home a
couple of hours ago."

"That's just what Peg said and in exactly the same tone of voice,"
Maria told him, her words covering the leap in her pulse which happened
every time she saw him.

- "Well, we're both right.  You Shouldn't be spending so many hours on
your feet."

"I've been sitting down for most of the afternoon," she said
self-righteously.

"In between walking from floor to floor and bed to bed with a couple of
forays to interview rooms and intensive care," he detailed
all-too-accurately.

"Peg's a rotten sneak," she muttered sulkily.  "I'm taking good care of
myself.  My last check-up was perfect."

"Apart from a slight rise in blood pressure and too little weight
gain."  Maria blinked in surprise.  She hadn't realised that

Leo knew that she'd been for her regular visit to the antenatal clinic,
nor that he'd made a point of finding out about the state of her
health.  The thought that he'd bothered shocked her into silence and
made her feel all warm inside.

"Come on, Drda Cruz.  Time to go home."  He walked over to stand in
front of her and hold out both hands, towering over her as she sat in
the chair.

Tentatively she placed her own in them and saw their pale slenderness
disappear in his broader palms as they touched for the first time for
so long.

As she'd lain awake in the darkness she'd often wondered if she'd
imagined the electricity in the contact between the two of them but she
hadn't.  Pulling her out of the soft upholstery was a mundane
occurrence but it had her pulse racing and her breathing irregular
enough to suggest that she'd been using the stairs instead of the lift
all day.

"Ready?"  he prompted when she didn't move, her feet apparently glued
to the floor.

"Oh.  Yes.  I've got my bag..."  Her voice trailed away in surprise
when he placed a solicitous arm around her waist to usher her towards
the nearest bank of lifts.  In silence she revelled in the unaccustomed
contact, hoping that it might signal a change in the atmosphere between
them.

It wasn't until they were waiting for a lift to arrive that she saw a
couple of the ~junior nurses nudging each other and smiling that she
wondered at his actions.

Suddenly her heart sank as she realised that the staff grapevine would
expect such things from the couple who had married after such a'
whirlwind romance.  Obviously Leo was making certain to provide the
show.

With all her pleasure in his display of concern g~ she waited stoically
until they were out of the build before she turned slightly so that his
arm would away, her pride forcing her into conversation.

"How was young Steven in intensive care?  Any p gress?"  She was
referring to their latest emerger patient.  "Did anyone find out what
had hap per to him?"

"According to his older brother he'd run away hide from a group of
bullies and made the mistake trespassing on a building site. Apparently
there was old house in the process of being demolished to m~ way for a
new development and part of a wall collap~, on him."

"That explains all the cuts and bruises all over h' poor kid."  Maria
winced as she remembered the doz~ of cuts and grazes and the depth of
some of the bruisi "Why didn't the building company make sure this of
thing couldn't happen?  If it's dangerous surely site should be made
secure from trespassers?"

"It's an ongoing problem, apparently.  It doesn't matter how carefully
a site is boarded up children squatters always seem to find a way
in."

"You didn't say whether he'd made progress yet?"

"Not so far.  He's obviously still heavily sedated till we get another
scan and find out if his brain is s swelling."

"So it could be days or even weeks before his pc family know what
permanent damage he's suffered.

As ever when they were talking about the pa tie they had in common
there was no lack of conversatl between them but by the time Leo was
parking the in his designated space by the flats they'd grown silent,
the tension once more like a living presence between them.

Mafia had gathered her belongings together and was already swinging her
legs out of the car door by the time he reached her.

"Here, let me help."  He held out one hand towards her.

She longed to accept his assistance and just an hour ago she would have
done.  Not just because it helped her to avoid the struggle of getting
to her feet but also because she enjoyed what she had thought were
little displays of consideration

Except they weren't, were they?  she thought, angry at her gullibility
as she disregarded his outstretched hand and scrambled out unaided.  It
was all display and precious little consideration for her feelings, at
least.

She marched self-righteously up to the door and across the entrance
hall towards the flat, totally ignoring his presence beside her~

"I'll unlock the door for you," he offered as he flicked through the
small bunch of keys to select the correct one.

"I'm perfectly capable of unlocking a door," Maria snapped pettishly as
she opened her bag to get her own keys out and promptly dropped the
contents all over the floor.

Cross with her own clumsiness, she tried to stoop swiftly to gather
everything up again but there was an unexpected argument between her
knees and her expanding waistline.  For several seconds she flailed her
arms wildly, trying to regain her balance before she collapsed in an
ungainly heap at his feet.

"Maria!  Are you all right?"

He was there instantly, his strong hands lifting t effortlessly to her
feet and turning her around as checked her for any signs of injury.
"Did you h~ yourself?"  he demanded, his brows drawn together ov his
patrician nose as he frowned.  "Let's get you insi~ quickly and I'll
take a proper look at you."

"It's all right, Leo.  You can relax."  Mafia foro the words out
through the constriction in her thro~ "There's no one here to watch the
show."

'"Show" " he repeated coolly, taking a step bac wards in the face of
her refusal to be helped.  " What a you talking about?  "

"Oh, come on!  We're both reasonably intellige people."  She finally
found her key and twisted viciously in the lock before she flung the
door wi and marched in.  "We both know the real reason wh we got
married and while it makes good PR to a~ like the caring husband when
we're surrounded by o~ colleagues you hardly need to keep the charade
up K my benefit."

She dropped her bag disdainfully on the coffee-table in the middle of
the understated elegance of the livinl room and the catch burst open,
spewing her belonging out all over the floor for the second time.

"Dammit!"  She swore through gritted teeth as she stood staring down at
the mess, blinking furiously t,

hold back the threat of tears.

"Maria..."

"Don't!"  she cut him off, whirling away from him approaching figure to
stare out at the fading light, he arms wrapped defensively around her
fibs.  "Don't saI anything.  I'm not in the mood to put up with a lot
of... " Maria.  Stop it.  " His hands grasped her shoulders and he spun
her back to face him, the speed of the movement rocking her back on her
heels so that she had to clutch at his arms to steady herself.

"What's going on?"  he demanded, his eyes boring deep into hers as she
felt the first betraying tear spill onto her cheek.  "What on earth's
got into you today?"

"N-nothing."  She sniffed and opened her eyes wide in a futile attempt
at stopping any more tears falling.  "It's just... You didn't..."  She
gave up the attempt with a shake of her head.

"That's not good enough."  He gave her a little shake.  "You accused me
of playing charades and I want to know what brought that on."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"  She glared defiantly up at him.  "Today,
in the hospital, you were playing the caring husband escorting his wife
for an audience of nurses."

"If you want to put it like that, I suppose I was," he agreed tightly
and she watched his lips draw into a narrow disapproving line.  "Of
course, it didn't occur to you that I am your husband and I might
actually want to care for you, did it?"

"Why should it?"  She tilted her chin up.  "I'm nothing to you, except
the woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up
pregnant with a baby you don't want."

"That's not true!"

"Ha!  Which part?"  she challenged.  "Can you deny that you wanted me
to get rid of the baby?  Can you deny that until Andreas told you I
wasn't a prostitute he'd paid for you'd forgotten all about me?"

"Yes."

The forceful whisper cut through her tirade like~ scalpel blade,
stunning her into silence.

"Yes," he repeated, his steely grey eyes intent on h "I do deny that
I'd forgotten about you.  You never crossed my mind."

"If that's true why did it take you three months come looking for
me7'

"Because I didn't know how to make contact..."

"Oh, please!"  she said in disgust.  "You knew wh~ was the very next
morning at the conference.  If I w so memorable you could have walked
straight up me and introduced yourself."

"So could you," he retorted.  "This is the nine tit You were just as
much at liberty to approach me-after all, you did the night before."

"But I didn't know who you were.  I didn't ew know I was in the wrong
bed..."

"How was I supposed to know that?"  he said, I logic infuriatingly
correct.  "You appeared in my be made earth-shattering love with me and
then didn't much as speak to me the next morning.  What was I supposed
to think?"

"Oh, God!"  Maria covered her face with her ban.  to hide her
embarrassment.  "I never thought about he it must have appeared to
you..."  She sighed.  "So that why you glared at me in disgust."

"Glared at you7'

"While you were eating.  You were staring at ~ across the tables and
you glared."

"The only reason I glared was because I had j~ been told I had to cut
my time at the conference sho: I'd been planning on finding out about
you--whe you came from and why you were forced to supplement your
income in such a way."

"Supplement my income...!"  she gasped, her hands curling into
vicious-looking claws.  "You..."

"Shh!"  He clasped his own hands over hers and brought them up to his
chest where he cradled them against his warmth.  "I know it isn't
true--in fact I think I knew it long before Andreas told me he'd had
nothing to do with your presence in my room."

"Then, why...?"

"I couldn't forget you," he said sincerely.  "I couldn't forget what
you'd done for me that night when I was so depressed and had no one to
turn to."

"But I didn't do anything.  I only..."  She blushed, quite unable to
continue, and shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other.  Finally
she stepped away from him so that he had to release his hold on her
hands and perched herself on the edge of the settee, reaching out to
switch on a small table lamp in a vain attempt at distracting him.

"Ah, Maria, if you only knew," he murmured as he joined her and coaxed
her into leaning back more comfortably.  "You brought life and light
into my soul at a time when I thought there wasn't any left in the
world."  He stroked one hand over her dishevelled hair then cradled her
hot tear-stained cheek against his shoulder.  "You were sweet and
lovely and you seemed to know exactly how I was feeling~ow desperate
and depressed."

"Oh, Leo, I was feeling the same way too."  Her expression was wry at
the memory of that day and she rubbed her face against the fine fabric
of his suit jacket just to enjoy the sensation of being so close to
him.  "It was the sort of day that makes you question why you ever
became a doctor in the first place and then you were there, as warm and
comforting as a log fire in a cold world."

"You were wrong, you know."  He tilted her face towards his
insistently.  "I do care about you; I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Maria's heart leapt at the sincerity in his tone, her pulse beginning
to race.  Did he mean that his feelings for her were deepening?  Was
he, too, starting to fall in love?  Was he going to tell her.

"I can't forget that I should bear the major part of the blame for your
pregnancy," he continued, his eyes darkening with self-reproach as his
arm tightened around her shoulders, "I should have remembered to take
some sort of precautions for the sake of my own safety, never mind
yours."

"Well, if you believed my profession made it likely that I could be
carrying VD or HIV, or whatever, why didn't you?"  Maria demanded
shakily, stiffening against him as she realised with a sickening jolt
that his only driving force was guilt.

"I'll admit that partly it was the brandy I'd had.  I don't drink much,
as a rule, and it was potent stuff but it was also because I wanted to
believe that what was happening was all just a beautiful illusion---the
sort of erotic fantasy that every man dreams about."

"Do they?"  Maria couldn't help the unwilling fascination in her voice.
This was a topic she'd never discussed before barely even thought about
in her drive to achieve, to excel.

"What do you think?"  His voice had grown husky and a darker hue
appeared in the lean planes of his cheeks and he looked away from her
curious gaze for a moment.

When he met her eyes again there was a different expression in the
depths of his, almost as though he was lost in his memories, and Maria
held her breath, a strange electric excitement running through every
nerve as she waited for his deep husky voice to continue.

"I turned over in the darkness and found a sleek, naked body in the bed
beside me, all soft and warm with a mane of silky hair spread out
across the pillow."  He paused for a moment as his eyes travelled over
her face, his fingers rising to release her wild curls from their
customary bondage.

"It was too dark to see you but my hands transferred a picture directly
into my mind as I ran my fingers through this abundance."  He suited
his actions to his words, spreading her hair out across her shoulders
like a mantle.

Maria shivered, awareness of his touch spreading right through her
body.

"Then, when you turned sleepily into my arms and our bodies met for the
first time..."  his words faltered gruffly, as though he was
unaccustomed to speaking about his feelings 'it was sheer heaven and I
never wanted to wake up.  "

Silence fell in the room but this time there was no rough edge to it,
with Maria trying desperately to find something innocuous to talk
about.  This time she was perfectly content to stay just where she was,
surrounded by Leo's strong arm with her head resting on his shoulder.
This time she knew that whatever happened between them they had managed
to open up lines of

communication and would be able to talk about it.

At one point Leo insisted that she stayed put on the settee while he
went out to the kitchen and microwaved a potato each to go with the
cold meat and salad waiting in the fridge but as soon as their meal had
been cleared away he put on some more of the soft piano music that had
accompanied their meal and rejoined her on the settee.

She hadn't realised just how long they had been sitting there until her
eyes began to grow heavy and she glanced down at her watch.

"It's getting late," she said regretfully, not wanting this magical
interlude to end.  "And you're due in the hospital tomorrow morning."
She angled her head so that she could look up at him without having to
lift it from its comfortable position and for the first time was able
to examine his face at close quarters.

"You're looking tired," she said sadly, recognising that the stress of
their situation had been taking its toll of him, too, in spite of the
fact that he seemed to have been sleeping so well.  "I'm not
surprised."  He pulled a wry face.  "I've only just finished my lecture
tour; I've got a couple of papers I'm trying to edit ready for
publication and, on top of that, I'm job-sharing with my wife and not
getting a lot of sleep."

"You're short of sleep?"  Maria demanded in amazement.  "You must be
joking!  You drop off as soon as your head hits the pillow.  I can hear
your breathing alters'

"Ha!"  Leo's laugh was dryly ironic.  "I might have fooled you into
thinking I was sleeping but I can't fool my body or my brain.  I'm
shattered..."

Maria chuckled.  "What a pair of idiots," she commented as she began
the increasingly arduous business of getting out of the soft
upholstery.  "I think we both need our heads knocked together."

"Better than that."  Suddenly Leo's hands were there to pull her to her
feet.  "I think we both need a good night's sleep.  I don't know about
you but I feel as if a great weight's been lifted off me."

"Yes."  Maria stood for a moment while she explored her feelings.  "I
really feel as if I'll be able to sleep tonight."

As always, Leo ceded the bathroom to Maria first -and she made her way
towards the bedroom as he carried their empty cups out to the
kitchen.

She was too tired and too relaxed to do much more than stand limply
under the shower, her hair wound up inside a protective towel so that
it didn't get wet.  She'd taken to wrapping herself up in Leo's spare
to welling robe for the transition to the bedroom, changing into her
nightdress while he took his turn in the bathroom so that she was
tucked safely out of sight under the covers before he reappeared.

She realised that tonight was different when she walked into the
bedroom swathed in his robe to find a midnight-blue slither of silk
draped across her pillow,

Her eyes flew over him as he lounged back against the headboard.  He
seemed perfectly relaxed, his jacket gone and his unbuttoned shirt
gaping open casually to reveal his broad, darkly furred chest, his long
legs crossed at the ankle as he stretched out lazily on the
bedspread.

Finally their eyes met across the width of the room and she knew that
he could read the question in her own dark honey depths without a word
being spoken.

"I never saw you wear it," he murmured huskily, one lean hand reaching
across to trail sensitive fingertips over the delicate fabric.  "Peg
told me she'd packed it for you but..."  He shrugged.

"Why would Peg tell you about my nightdress?"  She felt herself grow
pink at the thought of Leo discussing her nightwear with another
woman-~even her friend, Peg.

"Why wouldn't she when I asked her to get it for you?"  he replied
simply and she was delighted to see the teasing glint in his eyes
directed at her at last.

"What did you do--ask her to choose something she thought I'd like?"
Maria was intrigued.

"No."  He paused as though debating whether to say any more then
continued, almost bashfully.  "I'd actually seen that one in a window
and I thought it would suit you but the shop wasn't open at the time. I
just told Peg where it was."

For a moment Maria was thrilled at the thought that he wanted her to
wear the nightdress he'd chosen for her but then she remembered how
different her shape was from the first time he'd seen it and hedged
shyly.

"As long as you don't expect me to model it for you," she stipulated.
"I'm not exactly lithe and lissom any more."

He shook his head as he slid his legs off the bed and straightened up
to his full height, walking towards her with a gentle smile on his
face.  "But still very beautiful," he murmured persuasively as he
stopped right in front of her.

"I mean it," Maria warned him sternly, a smile trying to lift the
corners of her mouth at his blatant attempt at changing her mind. "I'll
wear the nightdress if you want me to but I'm not putting it on until
you take yourself off to the bathroom."

He pulled a face but Maria was sure it was just for show as he
muttered, "Spoilsport," on his way to the shower.

She finished her own preparations for bed, sliding the deep blue silky
fabric over her pale powder-dusted skin before she settled into her own
side of the bed.  She smiled in lazy amazement at the changes that had
occurred in the last few hours, hardly able to believe that she and Leo
were the same two people who had driven away from St.  Augustine's in
such an icy atmosphere.

For the first time she actually believed that the two of them might
develop a friendship strong enough to sustain them through the tensions
of the next few weeks and, who knew, even beyond.

The bathroom door opened and Maria's heart stumbled frantically as Leo
stepped into the bedroom with nothing more than a towel wrapped around
his hips.

Suddenly she realised that it was the first time since their abortive
honeymoon that she'd actually seen him in their bedroom.  Ever since
she'd moved into his flat she'd made certain that the light was turned
out by the time he finished in the bathroom and that she was settled
onto her side, facing away from the door.

"What big eyes you've got," Leo teased and Maria flushed as she
realised that she was staring at him, her eyes helplessly travelling
over him, admiring the lean muscular power of his chest and thighs. Her
hands clenched reflexively at the memories of what the dark whorls of
body hair felt like to her fingertips.

"D-do you wear p-pyjamas?"  she heard herself stammer and wished that
she could disappear into thin air when Leo laughed delightedly.

"No, I don't wear p-pyjamas," he mocked gently, one hand reaching for
the tucked edge of the towel.

"Oh!"  Maria gasped, turning away rapidly when she realised that he was
about to remove his towel, then listening with feverish intensity to
the rusfiing sounds as he lifted the covers on his side of the bed and
slid in behind her.

"It's safe to look now," he taunted her gently when the mattress
stopped moving.

"Don't want to," she said, trying to sound aloof but only managing to
sound like a disgruntled child.

"Ah, Maria," he chuckled and she felt the bed move again as he turned
towards her, his voice continuing from right beside her ear. "Sometimes
it's hard to remember that you're a fully trained doctor--you get
embarrassed so easily and you rise to the bait so fast when I tease
you."

She could feel the warmth of his breath on her shoulder, the thin
spaghetti strap doing little to conceal her shiver of awareness as he
stroked the tendrils of curly hair away from her neck.

"Are ... are you going to turn out the light?"  she faltered.  "It ...
it's getting late and ... and..."

There was a long silence behind her before she heard the rustle of
bedclothes and the click of the switch that plunged the room into
darkness.

"Goodnight."  His words emerged on a tired sigh and Maria was suddenly
afraid that her shyness and inexperience had destroyed all the progress
they'd made this evening.

"Leo?"  she whispered tentatively, her heart feeling as if it would
jump out of her throat it was beating so hard.

"Yes?"

The unadorned word was without expression and she could only hope that
she had found her courage in time.

"Would you...7' She swallowed, her mouth suddenly so dry that she could
hardly speak; could hardly force out the words she needed so badly to
say.  " Will you .  hold me?  "

Her heart sank when the silence in the room went on and on with no sign
of movement and no reply.

Finally she heard the sound of a deep inhalation and his taut murmur,
"Are you sure?"

For a second she was fighting the tears that burned behind her eyes at
the aching echo of emptiness in his voice.  It was the realisation that
he was just as prey to loneliness and uncertainty as she was that drew
the word from her.

' Please.  "

CHAPTEK NINE

LEo's arms were still cradling her possessively agail~ the warmth of
his body when she woke up early the next morning and for the first time
since that night Italy she felt absolutely content.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," a deep voice mmbh up from the depths of the
chest she was using as pillow and she tilted her head to look up at him
shy in the pearly morning light.

"Good morning," she echoed.  "How did you know, was awake?"

"I thought you might be when you started stroki~ me."  He glanced down
towards his chest and Mar froze when she realised that her fingers had
been rhyfi mically smoothing over the dark pelt between his fl~ male
nipples.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, snatching her hand away.  didn't realise I
was.  "

"Come back here."  He grabbed her hand and replace it exactly where it
had been.  "Don't stop--I w~ enjoying that."

"Oh!"  She ducked her head as memories assailed he of the way she had
explored his body once before an she marvelled at how fearless she had
been then an how timorous now.  Surely it couldn't all be a result c
her pregnancy---the knowledge that although she was still enthralled by
the magnificence of his body he own was less attractive to him.

"What's the matter?"  He coaxed her chin up with one hand until she had
to meet his eyes.

"I'm... You're... Isn't it time you were getting up?"

"Ah, Maria, you're so sweet and so transparent!"  He leant down to
plant an unexpected kiss on her parted lips then retreated again until
he could watch her face, smiling at her as she felt a blush steal up
from her throat.

"Now.  Tell me what's worrying you," he demanded.  "You might as well
because I'm not letting you out of this bed until you do."

"But... You're joking!"  she laughed.  "You've got to go on duty this
morning."

"Just think how guilty that will make you feel that you were solely
responsible for me not turning up on duty because you wouldn't tell me
what's bothering you."

His nonsense was sufficient to break the tension just enough for her to
speak about her fears.

"You.-look just the way I thought you would," she burst out, her eyes
flashing down to where her pale hand was spread out against the
perennial coppery tan of his chest, the dark flu-ring of his silky hair
curling up between her fingers.  "Even better than I imagined," she
added candidly.

"Thank you," he said gravely and she was grateful that he didn't tease
her, his eyes holding hers steadily as he waited for her to continue.

"It's just ... I'm not.  The way I was, I mean," she added at last, the
words emerging in a jumble as she tried to unravel her thoughts.  "You
look so good..."  she gestured wordlessly towards his sleek, fit body
with one hand 'and I'm all.  " she grimaced.

"And you're all ... what?"  he prompted.  "All beauti JOSIE

METCALFE

fully lush and ripe with your glorious hair rich an shiny and your skin
glowing with health?  "

"Hardly," she objected.  "I'm over seven monte pregnant!"

"And you're still the sexiest woman I've ever seen he growled as he
tipped her away from him to lie o her back.  " Your body has a timeless
slender eleganc which will look just as good in thirty years as it dot
now and your pregnancy does nothing to detrac from it.  "

Maria snorted her disbelief.

"You honestly don't understand, do you?"  H sounded amazed.  "You don't
realise that the taut curv, of your belly over the baby and the extra
fullness o your breasts is a blatant advertisement of your fertilir.
and an aphrodisiac for the man responsible for you condition."

"But they're heavy and cumbersome," she objecte~ as she tried to pull
the sheet up over herself.  "I'm heavy.  and cumbersome."

"Not to me," he said quietly as he gently release, her tight grip on
the edge of the sheet and drew it awa' from her.

She watched in nervous embarrassment as his eye, travelled over her
body and saw them linger on the recently acquired bounty of her breasts
like a physica caress and she was startled to see her nipples react
though he had actually touched them, tightening s~ that the silky
fabric of her nightdress outlined their proud crests.

"Ah, Maria," he groaned.  "Your body is just a: responsive as I
remember."  He stroked the betrayin~

peaks with the tip of one finger and she arched helplessly towards his
hand.

"Leo," she whimpered.  "You can't ... we can't..."  She stopped on an
indrawn breath as he cupped one breast in his hand and anointed her
with his tongue before he blew softly on the clinging fabric.  The
sudden chill tightened her nipple still further, making her long for
his mouth again.

"But you want to," he murmured persuasively as he trailed his fingers
up the slender length of her thigh, gathering the hem of her night
dress as he went.  "You want to see if it feels as good as you remember
when I stroke your satiny skin and when you find out that it feels even
better than you remember you'll want to find out how much else will be
better still."

"But Leo.  You... Ahhh..."

"You see," he encouraged as he cupped her intimately and she
surrendered, powerless to resist his skilfully arousing fingers and the
equally arousing murmur in her ear.  'l told you it would be better
than ever.  "

Maria found herself filled with a new confidence in the following few
weeks and she finally recoguised in herself the 'glow' of pregnancy
she'd scoffed at when she was being so sick.

She'd resigned herself to the fact that she was soon going to have to
stop work entirely but, with Leo's full agreement, she'd promised her
'special' patients that she would be calling in to visit them when they
came for their regular transfusion sessions or when, God forbid, they
had a 'crisis'.

Her heart had lightened when she'd seen how much

JOS1E METCALFE

more relaxed Leo had become over the traumas of their young charges.

His skills as a physician had never been in doubt but it was his old
burden of guilt over his son's death which had caused the destructive
scarring on his soul.

Now Maria was looking forward to the birth of their child with a new
assurance that, whether the baby had the misfortune to inherit beta
thalassaemia disease or the good luck just to carry the trait, she and
Leo would be able to cope with it together.

She smiled secretlyely as her thoughts strayed to the special
gentleness he had brought to their lovemaking as her pregnancy grew
more advanced, always more concerned with her enjoyment than taking his
own pleasure.

"You've got that soppy grin on your face again," Peg's voice
interrupted her thoughts and Maria was fiercely glad that she couldn't
read them as well.

"You mean the soppy grin like the one you get when you hear that
Andreas is on his way to England again?"  Maria retorted, not to be
outdone.

"Huh!"  Peg flounced over to the kettle in the corner.  "With a little
more effort you could become really insufferable.  When am I going to
get rid of you for a while?"

"I'm due in about four weeks now," Maria confirmed, 'so I could have
started my maternity leave a fortnight ago.  but I've been so well. "

"That you decided to stay on and make my life a misery," Peg completed
for her and they both laughed with the ease of long friendship.

"Seriously, though.  What have you got for me today, Peg?  Any problems
crop up in the night?"

Suddenly Peg, too, was all business;

"We've had one little mite transferred to us this-morning from
intensive care.  She was badly savaged by a neighbour's dog."

"She's still being special led

"Until she settles down with us and you're happy with her obs," Peg
confirmed.  "I've put Dawn with her.  She's got the experience and
she's calm enough to cope with panicky parents."

"Any others you want me to take a look at?"  Maria slid herself forward
in her seat preparatory to heaving herself upright.  There was still
little obvious evidence that she was so far through the term of the
pregnancy and many of the other staff had no idea that there was a baby
due at all.

As far as Maria was concerned her little passenger almost seemed to
have doubled in size and weight in the last couple of weeks, making her
usual energetic suppleness a thing of the past, so she'd be glad when
the waiting was finally over.  "We've got a new one of your " special"
children."  Peg smiled as Maria's attention was caught.  "The family
have recently come here from abroad staying with relatives."

"What form are we dealing with?  How much history have they brought
with them?"

"It's another beta thalassaemia and they don't seem to have much
information about her treatment.  I don't know whether they just didn't
bring it with them or what."  Peg put the new file on top of the small
pile and handed them to Maria.

"Right, then.  Let's start with Rashna Besharati," she said decisively
after she'd read through the sparse information available.  "Are her
parents with her?"

"Her mother and an aunt, if you're lucky, because mum is Gujarati and
doesn't speak any English and the aunt acts as interpreter for them."

"In that case, if she isn't here we'll have to get one of the volunteer
interpreters up here.  Gujarati is Kumar's speciality, isn't it?  Can
you find out if he's on duty today?"

"Will do," Peg confirmed as they made their way into the ward,

In the event they found just one visitor beside Rashna's bed and had to
wait until Kumar was found to interpret for them.

Maria had to content herself with smiling a lot while she checked the
listless little girl over and read through the notes in her file so
far.

When Kumar finally arrived there was another wait while he conducted a
rapid-fire conversation with the frightened-looking woman who
compounded the problems by bursting into tears.

"What on earth's going on, Kumar?"  Maria was only just beaten by Peg
when she stepped forward to comfort the woman.  "What did you say to
her to get her into such a state?"

"It's not me," he denied with both palms held out towards her.  "She
was talking to me about her daughter's illness and she let slip that
she and her husband engineered this visit to her sister to try to get
help for the girl.  Now she's afraid that we'll make them leave without
any treatment."

"Please, tell her that the rights and wrongs of her presence here are
nothing to do with me," Maria directed.  "I'm a doctor and I'm here to
try to help Rashna.  '

It was obvious that her calm words and reassuring smile had already
begun to work their magic even before Kumar had finished translating
them and Maria was showered with a torrent of grateful thanks.

"Please make sure she knows that I don't know how much I'll be able to
do for Rashna.  She's in a pretty bad way."  Maria sat down on the edge
of the bed and picked up the little hand not connected to drips and
stroked it gently.

The young woman's eyes turned to Maria as Kumar spoke, their liquid
darkness filled with sorrow as she spoke again.

"Mrs.  Besharati asked me to tell you that she has already lost one
child this way and just when she has been told that she is carrying
another, Rashna has become so much worse."

"Ask if she's had any tests done to show whether the baby she's
carrying has the same illness?"

The ensuing conversation was fast and furious, neither of them allowing
the other time to finish a sentehce properly before they began speaking
again.  Finally Kumar reported back.

"She says she didn't know that such a test could be done.  Apparently
she lives in a very rural area where medical attention is sparse and
they couldn't afford to go to the nearest city for such things."

"Well, before you go, will you get one of each of the leaflets in
Sister's office.  You'll find a set in Gujarati published by the
Thalassaemia Society in London.  In the meantime, her home situation
explains why Rashna is in such a bad way.  She's very anaemic and
jaundiced;

her legs are ulcerated and her spleen is huge.  " Maria's hands were
moving gently over the apathetic child, pointing out each of the
features as she spoke about them.

Kumar was translating her words carefully, holding up a hand at
intervals to halt Maria when Mrs.  Besharati needed clarification.

"Her bone marrow has been hyperactive and this has caused thickening of
the cranial bones," she continued.  "If we were to take X-rays we'd
probably find she'd suffered pathologic fractures."  She paused while
Kumar translated, watching the sadness deepen on the young mother's
face as he catalogued the problems.

Maria began again, knowing that a mother who had already lost one child
would understand all too clearly the implications of what she was about
to say.

"According to the case history she's had just enough blood transfusions
to keep her going but the resulting build-up of iron has been deposited
in her heart muscle and that is what's causing her heart to
dysfunction."

Maria watched the mother's narrow shoulders slump even as she tried to
smile at her daughter and Maria knew that she was prepared for the
worst to happen.

By the time Leo arrived' on the ward to take her home all Rashna's test
results were back but in spite of the fact that she was hooked up to
the complete panoply of what western medicine could do for her
condition she hadn't shown any improvement.

"It's not that I don't trust the rest of the staff to look after her,"
Maria murmured as she stood holding the rail at the end of Rashna's
bed.  "It's just that I hate to go while she's in such a bad way."

When Leo's hand covered hers in a gesture of

FOR NOW, }OR ALWAYS

support she was filled with a feeling of warmth.

"We could always treat ourselves to a meal in town," he suggested.
"Then we could call back in to have a look at her before we go home."

"You're sure you don't mind?"  Maria smiled gratefully up at him,
loving him all the more for his understanding nature.

"Of course not.  I know you'd only be sitting at home worrying about
her."  He accompanied her to collect her few belongings and escorted
her out to his car.

"There's a little Italian restaurant not far away," she suggested.  "It
wouldn't take long to walk there."

"I think you've done quite enough walking for one day, pregnant lady.
Remember our agreement?  You're only staying on at work as long as your
obstetrician is happy with everything.  If you go and get yourself
over-tired you'll be back home and off your feet so fast..."

"All right, all right!  I'll get in the car," Maria submitted hastily,
laughing impishly up at him as she settled into the plush leather
seat.

In spite of the light-hearted mood at the beginning of the meal the two
of them gradually grew more sombre as they discussed Rashna's prospects
for recovery until neither of them could eat any more.

The poor waiter was upset by the amount of food they had left on their
plates and when they refused even to look at the sweet trolley he was
devastated.

"I feel so guilty," Mafia muttered out of the side of her mouth as she
and Leo slunk quietly out of the restaurant.  "He looked as if he was
going to cry when you wouldn't even have a coffee."

"We'll have to make sure to starve ourselves for a

week before we go there again so we can do the food justice," Leo
suggested as he unlocked the car doors

They were both silent on the return journey to the hospital and Maria
was very conscious of just ho much Rashna's situation must remind Leo
of his son's illness.

"You don't have to come up with me," she suggest~ when they arrived in
the staff car park.  "I only want~ to look in on her for a minute."

"So do I," he said sombrely, 'just in case there' anything I can think
of that might help.  " His voi died away and they both knew what he w~
thinking about.

"Any change in Rashna's condition, Ian?"  Mari demanded hopefully when
the first person they when they reached the children's ward was the
registr~ coming out of Sister's office.

He shook his head wordlessly, his grim expressic needing no further
explanation.

"Damn," she heard Leo mutter explosively and she surreptitiously
reached for his hand and threaded he fingers between his to hold on
tight.

"How is her mother coping?"  Maria's heart was heavy with sympathy.
"You did know that this is he second child to go this way?"

"Yes.  I saw the note on the file,?  Ian Stanton confirmed.  " God, I
hate this feeling of helplessness.  "

There was a sudden commotion inside the ward will the shrill sound of a
monitor and the swift passag of feet.

"Quick!"  Maria whirled towards the door ant released the catches to
allow them entry.

"It'll be her heart."  Leo's voice was clearly audible over the swish
of curtains and the clang as equipment was swung into position and one
part of Maria's brain registered that he sounded very calm--almost too
calm.

Mrs.  Besharati had backed away from her daughter's bedside when the
medical staff descended on her and Maria put a consoling arm around her
slender shoulders as they watched the frantic activity together for a
moment.

She stiffened when she saw her daughter's pate body arch up off the bed
as they tried to restart her heart, a gasp of distress leaving her
throat at the savage sight.

She grabbed Maria's hand and started speaking rapidly, her eyes full of
tears as she shook her head in denial.

"They're trying to make her heart beat again," Maria said, her words
slow and clear as she tried to mime over her own heart what was
happening.

When the poor woman only became more agitated Maria wished that there
was Someone--anyone--who could translate for them to save her having to
do so much guessing.

"Mrs.  Besharati, please.  ,."  Maria grasped hold of both of her hands
and turned her away from the bed where her daughter lay.  "Can you tell
me what you want?"  She made eye contact with her and slowly began to
mime--first, that her daughter's heart started heating again and her
eyes opened and then that Rashna's heart stayed silent and her eyes
stayed closed.

"Yes?"  she questioned at the end of the pantomime and the young woman
nodded her understanding before she copied Maria's mime for Rashna's
eyes opening and followed it with a shake of her head, then mimed her
heart staying silent and nodded her head--while the tears streamed down
her cheeks.

"Leo?  Ian?"  Maria called but the two of them we~ so intent on what
they were doing that they bar el heard her.  "Leo," she repeated
louder.  "Please, list el Mrs.  Besharati wants you to stop."

For a moment the two men were so still that the scene around the small
child's bed was almost like posed tableau then, at a nod from Leo, Ian
continue the interrupted heart massage.

"Are you certain?"  Leo was the first to find his voi ~ "How did she
tell you that?  She doesn't sl~ak an English and you certainly don't
know Gujarati."

"Watch," Maria said and touched the woman' elbow, gesturing for her to
repeat her mime.

There was a simple dignity to the young woman a she stood beside her
child's bed with tears streaming down her face and showed them that she
didn't want them to fight for her daughter's pitiful life any more.

"That's enough, Ian."  Leo's voice was gravelly as h touched the
registrar on the shoulder.  Ian had bee watching the by-play while he
automatically maintained the little child's circulation but at Leo's
direct io he lifted his hands away and stepped back.

Leo reached across to pull the sheet up to Rashna': chin and Maria saw
the slight tremble in his hand wheJ he gently smoothed several
straight, dark strands ofhai away from her forehead before beckoning
the child': mother to make her own farewells.

Maria didn't know what had woken her but it was stil dark outside.  It
wasn't until she went to turn over that~ she realised that Leo wasn't
beside her in the bed.

She listened for a minute but when she couldn't hear any sign of
movement in the flat she began to worry.  He'd been very quiet when
they'd driven home from the hospital and she'd tried to let him know
that she was there for him if he wanted to talk but even when they'd
gone to bed he'd been silent, holding her in his arms with a quiet
desperation.

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep until she had
reassured herself that he was all right, she donned the silky wrap
she'd bought to cover her burgeoning shape and padded out towards the
kitchen.

The whole flat was in darkness so she had no idea where he might be
until she walked into the lounge and felt his presence.

"Leo," she whispered softly, not wanting to wake him if he'd
accidentally fallen asleep in his reclining chair.

A slight flash of movement drew her eyes to the settee and then.  she
saw the darker shape of his h~ad and shoulders outlined against the
pale upholstery.

"You should be in bed," he murmured gruffly into the darkness.  "Did I
disturb you?"

"I don't think so.  I woke up and you weren't there so I came to see if
you were all right."

She heard his deep sigh in the darkness, her hearing somehow more acute
because she couldn't use her eyes.

"I couldn't sleep," he admitted at last when she had grown accustomed
enough to the darkness to see him shrug.  "I was thinking about that
little girl this evening."

"Rashna," Maria murmured in confirmation of her fears.  She had known
that Leo must be hurting inside as all the painful memories of his
son's sad life were resurrected.

She shivered as her body began to lose the heat from the bedclothes and
wrapped her arms around herself.

"You're getting cold," he commented disapprovingly.  "Go back to bed.
I'll be all right."

"Will you come with me?"  she appealed.  "I won't be able to go back to
sleep, knowing you're out here and ... and I need you to warm the bed
up again."

She heard his brief huff of laughter.  "I knew I had my uses," he
murmured as he straightened up and came towards her.  "Do you want me
to get you a drink?"

"I'd love one but I'd be dashing backwards and forwards to the bathroom
if I have anything now."

She felt as if the silent battle was half won when she heard him
following her into their bedroom and she slid quickly into her side of
the bed.

He was slower to get in, sitting silently on the side of the mattress
for several minutes before he finally discarded his robe and joined her
under the covers.

"Do you want to talk?"  Maria said into the darkness when it was
obvious that neither of them was ready to go to sleep.  "Perhaps it
would help if you tell me what you're thinking..."

He was silent for a long time but Maria felt that she knew him well
enough now to know that he would only speak if and when he was ready.
All she had to do was be patient.

"She's expecting another baby," he said suddenly, his voice taut with
suppressed tension.  "She'd already lost one child and her second one
was desperately ill but she's going to have a third..."

The mixture of anguish and disbelief in his voice made it necessary for
Maria to swallow hard before she could speak.

"Perhaps she and her husband are hoping that they'll be lucky this
time-~that the percentages will be on their side for a change.  Perhaps
they think it's worth the risk..."

"But what if it's a third child with beta thalassaemia?  How could they
bear to go through it all over again?"  he burst out.  "It's the bloody
uncertainty of it all.  How can they bear the uncertainty...?"

For the first time Maria regretted her decision not to have any tests
done when it was the right time to find out about their baby.  She just
hadn't imagined when she'd made the decision according to her own
feelings and beliefs that it would have such an effect on Leo.

"I'm sorry, Leo," she whispered through a throat full of tears as she
turned towards him.  "I didn't realise..."

CHAPTER TEN

MARIA felt guilty.

The more she thought about it the more she realised that she should at
least have considered Leo's point of view when he'd first heard about
the baby.

Once he'd told her about the loss of his son to the same set of
circumstances as surrounded her own child she should have had the
sensitivity to understand that he was going to spend the remaining
months of the pregnancy under enormous pressure.

"It's the uncertainty..."  she repeated, hearing the anguish in his
voice when he'd said it.

Oh, it had been easy enough to steel herself against his appeals when
he was a stranger but now that she loved him the guilt at her blind
obstinacy was taking its toll on her.

"If there was only some way to turn the clock back so I could have the
tests," she murmured into the emptiness of the lounge as she knitted
furiously, her needles moving as fast as her thoughts.  "Or if there
was some way of finding out now without risking the baby..."  She
sighed, knowing that she could mutter and wish as much as she liked for
the rest of the pregnancy and it wouldn't make any difference to the
outcome.

The saddest part about the whole situation was that just as she and Leo
should have been drawing closer together in preparation for the arrival
of the baby they were being pushed further and further apart by his
tension and her guilt.

"It was Rashna's death that brought it all to a head," she said aloud,
needing to hear the words that had been circling inside her brain for
the last for might "On the surface it seemed as if everything was all
right but underneath..."

The telephone shrilled and she saw several stitches slide off the point
of the needle as she dropped the knitting on the table beside her
seat.

"Dr.  da Cruz?"  Maria frowned as she heard the voice on the other end.
It sounded familiar.  "This is Kumar at the hospital."

"Yes, Kumar."  She recognised his voice now.  "What can I do for
you?"

"Do you remember telling me to give the Gujarati leaflets about foetal
testing to Mrs.  Besharati?"

Did she remember?  Of course she remembered.  She'd done little else
but think about the whole episode ever since it happened.

"I remember," she agreed calmly.  "Is -there a problem?"

"No problem, except she's desperate for you to be with her when she has
the foetal blood sampling done."

The?  " Maria was startled.  " But she hardly knows me.  "

"She says she trusts you," he replied.  "You took the trouble to find
out what she wanted to say and made the doctors listen."

"But what about her family."  They.  " For a moment Maria was going to
continue her objections but then she remembered that the two of them
might share a far deeper kinship than the poor woman did with her
sister-in-law.  A bond of inheritance.

"When is she booked to have the test?  Has she been given a date
yet?"

"She's here now," Kumar said, his tone slightly harrassed.  "She
wouldn't let them proceed until I'd spoken to you."

"Oh, Lord!"  Maria glanced down at her watch and calculated travelling
times.  "My husband isn't home yet so I'll have to get a taxi.
Hopefully I'll be with you in half an hour."

With Kumar's assurances that he'd let everyone know she was on her way,
Maria pressed the button to disconnect the call and pressed another one
that Leo had programmed to dial the local taxi company automatically.

She just had time to don a clean maternity smock and comb her hair into
some sort of submission before the taxi arrived, only remembering just
as she was about to pull the door closed behind her that she hadn't
left a note for Leo.

"Gone to St.  A's," she scribbled on the message pad beside the phone.
"Obs and Gyn Dept.  Foetal blood sampling."

She dropped the pen, conscious that time was passing but couldn't
resist picking it up to add a final message.

"Love you," she scrawled, knowing that it was the first time she had
ever dared to let him know how she really felt about him.  For a second
her courage nearly failed her and she was tempted to scribble over the
words but in the end she let them stand.  Perhaps letting him read it
first was the coward's way but it was time she told him the truth.

The obstetrics and gynaecology wing was a little world all of its
own--a strange mixture of calm waiting and frantic activity staffed by
a special breed of people.

Here everyone was linked by a common purpose--to help women conceive
healthy children and bring them safely into the world.

Maria smiled wryly as she sat beside Azra Besharati.  No one had batted
an eyelash when she'd arrived in the department, thinking that she was
just another one of their expectant mums.  It was when she donned an
over-size gown to accompany the frightened woman that they looked
askance at her--~until she produced her hospital credentials and
explained the special circumstances surrounding her presence.

This time it was one of the midwives who offered to translate for them
but it seemed to be enough for Azra that Maria was with her.

By the time the procedure was completed and Azra had been told when to
return for the counsel lot to discuss the results with her it was
several hours since Maria had left her hurried note for Leo.

She knew that it was common for him to arrive home late and had
regretted not being able to catch him at the hospital to cadge a lift
home but there was always the possibility of a taxi for the return
journey if Leo didn't turn up.

In the distance she'd heard the ululating wail of several ambulances
and knew that there must have been a nasty accident somewhere in the
catchment area of St.  Augustine's.  She spared a thought for the poor
souls involved and hoped that she wouldn't be hearing about any of them
from Leo after his next spell of duty.

She was just making her way out of the department on her way to the
bank of telephones in the main reception area when she heard the muted
buzz of the telephone at the nurses' station.

"Dr.  da Cruz?"  a puzzled voice called after her and she let the door
close again as she made her way back towards the young nurse.  "I don't
know if I got the message right but there was a man on the other end
who told me to tell you not to do anything.  Just wait until he
arrives.  He said he was Dr.  da Cruz."  She frowned in her confusion
until Maria laughed and explained.

"Dr.  da Cruz married Dr.  Martinez so now they are Dr.  da Cruz and
Dr.  da Cruz."

"Well," the young woman laughed.  "I only hope you don't both work in
the same department or everyone would be confused."

"We do," Maria told her, and they laughed together.  "Did my husband
give you any idea how long he'd be?  Did he say where he was?"  She
glanced down at her watch, wondering when she would ever get a chance
to eat this evening.

"He's down in the accident department," she volunteered.  "There was a
big accident on his way to the hospital..."

"Oh, my God," Maria breathed in horror.  Her heart thumped heavily with
shock as she remembered the sound of all those sirens.  Leo had been on
his way to fetch her and he'd been involved in an accident.  Suddenly
she was running, her feet flying over the smooth expanse of the
corridor in spite of her ungainly bulk, the frantic sound of the
nurse's voice lost in the urgency to see Leo; to find out how badly he
was hurt; to see if there was anything she could do for him; to tell
him face to face that she loved him:

The lift seemed to be moving in slow motion, stopping at every floor
while people took their time about getting in or getting out until
finally she couldn't stand it any more and pushed her way swiftly past
a group of chattering youngsters to make for the stairs.

There was a strong sense of d~jti vu as she made her way towards the
emergency department via the echoing stairwell but never before had she
felt such urgency.

She was quite breathless by the time she arrived and had to pause a
moment before she could speak.

"The accident victims who came inca little while ~go.

Where is Dr.  da Cruz?  " she demanded shakily.

"And you are?"  the receptionist queried.

"His wife," she said, feeling a new sense of pride in saying the words
aloud.  "Also Dr.  da Cruz."

"Oh.  Well, in that case I suppose it's all right to let you go
through."  She looked dubiously at the pretty smock which only partly
camouflaged Maria's swollen body.  "One of the mens' gowns should fit
you."

To be perfectly honest Maria couldn't have cared if she'd been told to
dress up as Father Christmas as long as she could see Leo.

As soon as she was through the staff-only doors she grabbed a gown and
was forcing her hands into the sleeves as she walked towards the trauma
rooms.

"Maria?"  Leo's husky voice came from behind her and was full of
disbelief.  "What on earth are you doing down here?"

"Leo!"  She whirled to face him, her heart in her mouth as she looked
for his injuries, but.  "You're not hurt!"  she exclaimed with delight,
her eyes running over his green-clad figure with relief.

"Why should I be hurt?  I only stopped to help--I

was first on the scene and followed the wounded in.  " " But .  you
sent a message up saying you'd been in a big accident on your way to
the hospital!  "

"Oh, God, sometimes this place is worse than playing Chinese whispers
in a maze," he muttered while he reached up to release the ties on his
gown.  "Come on, let's go.  They don't need me any more..."  He stuffed
the gown in the laundry bin and sent hers to join it, his voice
suddenly clipped.  "I don't think you should be charging around like
this after what you've been through this afternoon."

"Oh, Leo," she smiled up at him, almost floating with the euphoria of
relief.  "I'm all right now that I know you weren't one of the
injured."

"That wasn't what I meant," he retorted grimly as he gripped her elbow
and ushered her along the corridor towards the main entrance.  "I was
talking about your message."  He stood back to allow her to precede him
through the door then continued briskly across the parking area towards
his car.

Maria hurried to keep up with his much longer strides, hardly daring to
ask him to slow down.  He seemed to be so angry.  Had it been her
admission on the note which had upset him so much?  Had she spoiled
everything?

"Dammit!"  He stopped in his tracks, swinging her to face him.  "What
on earth made you do it?  It's only two weeks until it's due.  Where
was the sense in risking everything?"

"I didn't take any risks," she objected, mystified by his strange mood.
"I phoned for a taxi to bring me here and I've been sitting down for
most of the afternoon."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," he muttered through gritted
teeth as he grabbed her elbow again and thrust her towards the car.
"You were so dead set against it so what on earth made you decide to
have it done now?"

"Do what?"  Maria demanded as he unlocked the doors and glowered at her
until she gave in and slid into the seat, grateful for the support when
her knees began to quiver with delayed reaction.

"It's my fault, isn't it?"  he continued as soon as he joined her in
the car.  "It's because I let you know how hard it was living with the
uncertainty.  That's why you went to have the test done."

Maria felt her jaw drop open with amazement when she finally realised
what he meant.

"No!"  She shook her head.  "You've got it all wrong."

"Oh, you needn't spare my feelings," he interrupted, obviously not
listening to her.  "I've been an idiot and I realise it."

"Yes, you're an idiot," she agreed, changing tack in an effort to make
him listen to her and it worked, his eyes darting to meet hers when his
words stopped.

"You are an idiot if you think I'd risk our baby like that."

"But ... your message..."

"Another version of Chinese whispers, I'm afraid.  And this time it's
my fault."  She explained about the phone call and spending the
afternoon keeping Azra Besharati company.  "I never' thought you'd read
the message and believe I'd gone to have the test done on our baby."

"Oh, God, thank you."  The whispered words were like a prayer as his
eyes closed and he dropped his head

back wearily against the headrest, seemingly drained by the relief of
tension.

"Leo?"  she said, tentatively putting her hand on his arm.

"Shh."  He covered it with his own and rolled his head to fix her with
a steely, intent gaze.  "No more talking until I get us home.  All
right?"

She was silent for a moment while her eyes travelled over his face,
searching for the hurt and anger which had filled it just a short while
ago but they were gone without a trace.

"Yes," she said through a weak smile of relief.  "Let's go home," and
she settled back into her seat.

The journey was over in no time and they had hardly got as far as the
sitting-room before Leo was pulling her into his arms.

"Oh, Maria," he breathed into her hair as he held her tightly.  "I'm
sorry I didn't trust you.  I should have known after the fight that you
put up before that you'd never do anything to risk the baby."

Maria closed her eyes to savour the sensation of holding her husband in
her arms after the fright this afternoon.  She'd been so afraid that
just as she found the courage to tell him that she loved him he was
being taken away from her.

"I wrote the note in a hurry," she said, pulling back to look up at him
when she finally managed to get her brain working again.  "The taxi was
waiting outside to take me to the hospital and I didn't have time to
phone you but I didn't want you to arrive home in my absence and not
know where I was."

"And I turned jumping to conclusions into an

Olympic event," he admitted, guiding her towards the settee.

When he'd drawn her once more into his arms and settled her head on his
shoulder he continued, his voice a deep velvety purr beside her ear.

"All I could think about on the way to the hospital was that you'd
never have thought of doing it if I'd talked to you told you what I'd
been thinking."

"But you did..."  she began, her objection ending when he put one
finger to her lips to silence her.

"If I'd told you that I finally understood what you meant about it all
being worth the risk.  If I'd told you that I trusted you; that I knew
that if our baby was born with beta thalassaemia disease you would
never neglect it the way Sophia did... Dammit!  I should have told you
that I love you!"

"Only if you mean it," Maria whispered through quivering lips,
wondering how much joy she could stand before she simply exploded with
it.

"Of course I mean it!"  He sounded stung that she could doubt him.  "I
think I started to fall in love with you when I turned over in bed one
night in a hotel in Italy and found a naked, long-haired nymph beside
me who set the world on fire and brought me back to life."

"Ha!"  she scoffed.  "You thought I was some sort of over-sexed
courtesan."

"No."  He shook his head and smiled gently.  "Not once I met you.  You
were too innocent-looking, too sweet for that."

"So soft that you thought you could bully me into doing what you
wanted?"  she reproached him with the memory.

"Thank God you turned out to have a core of steel."

He tightened his arms around her.  "Otherwise I'd never have had an
excuse to get you to marry me."

"You didn't need an excuse," she said simplyl "All you had to do was
ask..."  She stopped with a gasp.

"Maria?"  He drew back a little to look down at her.  "What's the
matter?"

She held her breath for a moment then released it slowly, concentrating
on the new sensations inside her body before she glanced at her
watch.

"Maria?"  he prompted.  "Talk to me.  What's the matter?"  "

"I'm sorry, Leo," she smiled up at him wryly.  "I know you've been
going backwards and forwards all day but would you mind driving the car
again?"

"You want to go for a drive?"  He was mystified.  "I' thought we were
going to have a quiet evening at home?"

"So did I," she agreed, 'but it appears the baby has other ideas.  "

"The baby...?  Oh, my God, the baby!  It's early..."  He leapt off the
settee as though he'd been shot from a gun and ran agitated fingers
through his hair.  "Where did I put the keys?  Have you got your case
packed?  Can I do anything to help?"

"Yes.  You can calm down," she laughed.  "Your keys are in your right
hand trouser pocket where you always carry them and my case has been
packed for weeks.  Now all you have to do is get me on my feet--I feel
like a beached whale!"  She held both hands out to him so that he could
haul her upright.

"Oh, Maria, what did I ever do to deserve such luck?"  he breathed as
he pulled her up and wrapped his arms

I~UK N~)W, I~UK AL, WAY~5

around her.  'if you hadn't climbed into my bed that night.  "

During the long hours that followed they had time to talk.

For the first time Maria felt comfortable asking him about his son. She
knew, now, that over the last few months Leo had gradually been coming
to terms with the tragedy of his short life and his own part in it.

This time, instead of guilt and anger, she heard joy and love in his
voice as he talked about Nito's impish sense of humour and the way he
would always greet his father with a hug.

"Did you have any idea that you and Sophia had beta thalassaemia
trait?"

"I didn't.  Not until she tested me after he'd been diagnosed."

"She tested you?"  Maria queried in surprise, vaguely remembering that
he'd mentioned it before.

"Being a haematologist, She said she would be able to short-circuit the
usual rigmarole," he explained.  "If I remember rightly Theo heard what
was going on and that was when she persuaded him to be tested at the
same time..."

Maria felt a prickle of unease but couldn't put her finger on it
immediately and by the time her next contraction had ended she'd
forgotten about it, the midwife telling her that she was in transition
and it would soon be time to start pushing.

"At least," she panted a while later as she rested for a few seconds
between bouts of mind-boggling effort, 'we know that St.  Augustine's
will be testing this baby as a matter of course.  ~

"Yes."  He wiped her face gently with a cool damp cloth and then held
her hand again, his support unwavering.  "This one will be taken care
of from the moment it's born."

Suddenly things started moving very quickly and it seemed as if it was
only minutes before Leo tenderly passed her a tightly wrapped little
wrinkled bundle.

"A girl," Maria breathed, dragging her eyes away from the tiny features
to gaze mistily into Leo's tear-filled eyes.  "Oh, Leo; she's perfect.
Look..."  and she offered their baby up to him.

"If she's anything like her mother she's bound to be perfect," he
murmured huskily as he stroked one hand over the tiny head.  "Just as
she's bound to be beautiful and kind and caring..."

"And if she takes after her father she'll be bossy and self-confident
and kind and caring..."  She reached out one hand to cup his cheek and
drew him towards her for the kiss that would complete the circle.

"Oh, Maria, thank you for fighting me," he said, his voice sounding
almost rusty.  "Thank you for sticking to your guns, otherwise this day
would never have happened."  He gazed at her with clear grey eyes,
their warmth soothing and healing and without a trace of the old hurt
and bitterness.

"If it hadn't been for you," he continued, "I would never have had the
courage to try again, not once I knew that it had been my fault that
Nico died."

"It took two of you with the trait to produce him," Maria reminded him
and she had a momentary flash of the venom in Sophia's face when she'd
cornered her at the wedding reception and warned her not to get
pregnant.

Maria had been moved into the ward, her bed beside the windows with a
view out over a small rose garden when it happened again--as though her
subconscious was trying to tell her something.

Suddenly the unease that she'd felt whenever the topic of Sophia came
up grew into a nasty suspicion and she carefully composed a question in
her mind before she spoke.

"When Sophia ran the tests did Theo test positive?"  she asked, keeping
her tone casual.

"No."  Leo pulled a face and looked down at the hand he was cradling
between his own, one finger tracing the delicate gold band she'd chosen
to wear.  "I always thought that was why Sophia married him-~because he
could give her children without the fear of them inheriting anything
more than the trait."  His tone became musing.  "Actually, I was
surprised that they didn't start their own family straight away."

"I'm not," Maria said candidly as everything suddenly became clear and
watched the shock enter his eyes.  "Theo's not happy with her because
he doesn't love her.  He knows she's only interested in the lifestyle
he can give her."

"How can you possibly know that?"  Leo objected.  "You only spoke to
them for a minute or two."

"Call it feminine intuition if you like but I'd like you to do
something for me."

"What?"  he blinked at the apparent change of topic, "Have yourself
tested for beta thalassaemia trait," she challenged.

"Is that a joke?"  he demanded with a frown as he straightened up out
of the chair beside her bed.  "I told you, I've already been tested..."
His voice faded away as the implications of her request sank in.

"Oh, my God," he breathed and sat down again, hard.  "You think she
switched the results."

"It would certainly explain the hold She has over Theo," Maria
suggested.  "She'll never need to lift a finger all the while she's
married to wealthy Theo da Cruz and he'll never get rid of her all the
time she's threatening to tell his brother that the baby wasn't his."

"Poor Theo," he murmured.  "I knew she wasn't happy when I insisted I
wasn't going to be the figurehead for the family holdings~ that always
been Theo's strength in spite of his apparent laziness.  If she set her
sights on him as my replacement he probably didn't stand a chance.  It
was just everybody's bad luck that she got pregnant--with such tragic
results for poor Nico caught in the middle."

"You realise what this means, don't you?"  Maria demanded with a wicked
grin.

"Uh-oh," Leo murmured.  "Why do I think I'm going to regret asking?"

"I'll tell you, anyway," she said sweetly as a bubble of joy began to
swell inside her.  "If, as we suspect, your test shows that you aren't
positive that means that none of our children can suffer from beta
thalassaemia disease.  The most that can happen is that they inherit
the trait."

"And?"  he prompted warily.

"That means there's no reason why we shouldn't have as many children as
we want," she declared triumphantly.

"Oh, God."  Leo sank his head in his hands, his elbows propped on the
edge of the mattress.  "It's only minutes since she gave birth to the
firs~ baby and she's already planning a houseful!"

"Leo...?"  Maria touched his head with a tentative hand.  "We don't
have to have any more if you don't want to.  It's just ... every time I
see you with children it's obvious how much you love them..."

When her voice trailed away miserably he lifted his head from his hands
and she could see his face.

"You rat!"  She tightened her fingers in the thick silk of his hair and
tugged.  "I thought you were upset and didn't want any more children
and there you are grinning like the Cheshire cat."

"Owl" He lifted her hand away and rubbed his scalp.  "Leave me some
hair!  I'll be pulling my own out soon enough if we end up with a house
full of children."

"A house full?~ she questioned with longing in her eyes as new hope
blossomed into life.

"Whatever the tests show," he confirmed.  "As you said, each pregnancy
for a couple who both carry the trait has a one-in-four chance of the
baby having the disease but you've taught me to realise that it's a
three-in-four chance that they won't.  And if I'm clear..."  He
shrugged easily.

He captured both of her hands and leant forward to pin them on the
pillow, either side of her face.

"I love you, Maria," he murmured as he hovered protectively over her.
"For now, for always."

"For now, for always," she echoed, her heart full to overflowing as she
gazed up into eyes that radiated happiness.  At last the bitterness and
pain had disappeared without a trace and she offered her lips to him to
seal their pledge.