CHAPTER ONE

      IT COULDN’T be him.

      Not now, surely, when she’d got over him at last, stopped thinking about him every minute of the day, finally stopped caring if he was alive or dead.

      No. She hadn’t stopped caring. She’d never stop caring about that, but she’d stopped obsessing about it.

      More or less.

      And now here he was in front of her, as large as life and handsome as the devil, his face creased with laughter as always, and the sound of his deep chuckle sent shivers running through her. His long, rangy body was propped up against a pillar by the desk, and his pale blue theatre scrubs hung on his frame.

      He’d lost weight, she thought with shock. He’d never been heavy, but now he was lean, and amongst the laughter lines there were others that hadn’t been there before. Deeper ones that owed nothing to humour.

      He’s older, she reminded herself—three years. He must be nearly thirty-five. He was a little less than two years older than her, and she’d be thirty-three soon. How time passed. Gracious, she’d only been twenty-eight when they’d met, thirty the year Jack had been born.

      Jack.

      She swallowed the lump. Some things you never got over.

      He shrugged away from the pillar and turned towards her, and for a moment he froze.

      Then an incredulous smile split his face and he strode down the ward towards her, arms outstretched, and she found herself wrapped hard against the solid warmth of his chest.

      ‘Molly!’

      The word was muffled in her hair, but after a second he released her, grasping her shoulders in his big, strong hands and holding her at arm’s length, studying her with those amazing blue eyes.

      ‘My God, it really is you!’ he exclaimed, and hugged her again, then stood back once more as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

      Her defences trashed by the spontaneous warmth of his welcome, she smiled up at him. ‘Hello, Sam,’ she said softly. She could hardly hear her voice over the pounding of her heart, and she felt her smile falter with the strength of her tumbling emotions. She pulled herself together with an effort. ‘How are you?’

      So polite, so formal, but then they always had been, really. It had been that sort of relationship, of necessity.

      His mouth kicked up in a crooked grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and her heart stuttered for a second. Was something wrong? Something with Jack?

      ‘OK, I suppose,’ he said lightly. Too lightly. Something was wrong. ‘Busy,’ he added, ‘but, then,