CHAPTER ONE

      SHE HADN’T CHANGED. Tall and slender, her red-gold hair coiled into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, Bella English looked as beautiful today as she had done the last time he had seen her. On her wedding day.

      ‘Mac! I heard you were back. Good to see you, mate. How are you?’

      ‘Great, thanks, Lou.’

      James MacIntyre—Mac to all who knew him—turned and grinned at the elderly porter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bella move away from the desk but he kept his attention firmly focused on the other man. After what his old friend Tim had told him, he wasn’t all that eager to speak to her.

      ‘You’re looking well, I must say, Lou. Obviously, moving to the new paediatric A&E unit has done you the power of good. You look a good ten years younger than the last time I saw you!’

      ‘I wish!’ Lou’s grizzled face broke into a wry smile. ‘It’d take major surgery to turn me into Dalverston’s very own version of George Clooney.’ He glanced over Mac’s shoulder and grimaced. ‘Anyway, I’d better get going. Catch you later.’

      ‘Yep.’

      Mac didn’t need to check to see what had caused Lou to beat a hasty retreat. He could smell her perfume, that subtle fragrance of freesias that Bella always wore. She had told him once that it was made especially for her and that had fitted perfectly with everything he knew about her. Bella was the sort of woman who would have her very own perfume. Nothing about her was ordinary or commonplace.

      Mac turned slowly around, taking stock of all the details he had missed before. Although Bella had always been slender, she was verging on thin now, he realised. And even though her complexion was as creamy as ever, there were dark circles under her green eyes that hinted at far too many sleepless nights. Was it guilt that had kept her awake? he wondered a shade bitterly. A noisy conscience clamouring to be heard, even if it was too late in the day? After all, even Bella must feel some degree of remorse about ending her marriage to Tim.

      ‘Hello, Mac. I heard you were back. How are you?’

      The greeting was almost identical to Lou’s, but Mac had to admit that it made him want to respond very differently. He experienced an uncharacteristic urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her, demand to know why she had done such a cruel thing. She had ruined Tim’s life—didn’t she care? Didn’t she care either that she had broken all those promises she had made three years ago to love, honour and cherish the man she had married? He had sat through the ceremony, listened to her cool clear voice swearing a lifetime’s devotion, and had believed every word. If he was honest, he felt almost as let down as poor Tim must do.