For Christmas, Forever: The Yuletide Engagement / The Doctor's Christmas Bride / Snowbound Reunion. Barbara McMahon
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moment Ellie had to admit she was disappointed that they weren’t to be alone again, too.
‘Never mind.’ She squeezed Patrick’s arm lightly. ‘It can’t be helped,’ she added ruefully.
‘You’re right. There will be other occasions.’ He nodded before getting agilely out of the car to come round and open her door for her.
Ellie felt as if she were floating on air as they walked over to the house; Patrick had said there would be other occasions. That must mean he was going to ask to see her again.
To her surprise, Toby was nowhere to be found once they were inside the house.
‘He must have gone to bed.’ Ellie shrugged dismissively.
Patrick moved so that he was standing very close to her. ‘Does that mean we’re alone after all?’
‘I suppose it must do. I—’ Ellie broke off as she heard the sound of feet descending the stairs. ‘Perhaps not,’ she added ruefully, turning expectantly towards the doorway that led out into the hallway.
Except it wasn’t Toby who came into the kitchen!
But Ellie had no trouble placing the other woman as the one who had looked so interestedly at Toby at the party on Saturday evening. And if she had been upstairs with Toby…!
‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ the other woman burst out agitatedly.
Although it wasn’t to Ellie that she spoke…
‘What is it?’ Patrick was instantly alert and left Ellie’s side to go to the other woman, the languid intimacy that had existed between the two of them all evening instantly broken.
‘Toby,’ the woman choked emotionally. ‘I think it must be something he’s eaten—I had to drive him here. He felt too ill even to drive home.’ She looked distraught. ‘Oh, Patrick, I’m so worried about him!’ She launched herself into Patrick’s arms, the tears starting to fall down her creamy cheeks.
Ellie looked at the two of them in total stupefaction. The other woman appeared to have spent the evening with Toby, and yet she and Patrick obviously knew each other rather well too. Of course, this woman had been at the party on Saturday evening, so the two might be related. Even so…
But for the moment she was too concerned about Toby herself to try to puzzle this one out, turning wordlessly to hurriedly leave the room and run upstairs to her brother’s bedroom.
Toby looked awful. He lay weakly back against the pillows, his face waxen, his eyes dull with discomfort and pain as he looked up at Ellie.
‘I’m going to call the doctor,’ she told him decisively.
‘Fine,’ he nodded. ‘Tell him to bring something with him to put me out of my misery!’ he called after her as she hurried from the room.
Ellie turned to give a strained smile at his attempt to joke. At least, she hoped he was joking! ‘I’ll tell him.’ She nodded before running down the stairs again. The fact that her brother hadn’t argued about her calling in the doctor told her just how ill he must feel; Toby, like most men, absolutely hated the necessity of ever seeing a doctor.
‘Food poisoning, do you think?’ Patrick prompted economically as he came out into the hallway where she stood telephoning.
‘I think so.’ She nodded, frowning as she waited for her call to be answered. ‘I—perhaps you could make some coffee for all of us?’ she suggested distractedly.
‘Teresa is already doing that,’ he informed her grimly. ‘Who are you calling?’ he added frowningly.
Ellie stared him speechlessly. Teresa? The young woman who was at this very moment making coffee in the kitchen, the woman Toby had obviously spent the evening with, was Patrick’s young sister, Teresa?
What—?
‘Ellie, who are you telephoning?’ Patrick repeated firmly.
‘The doctor—’ She broke off as Patrick shook his head grimly.
‘I’ll ring my own doctor and get him to come out.’ He took the receiver from her hand, disconnecting her call and putting through one of his own.
Ellie could only stand by dazedly as Patrick spoke decisively with whoever had answered his call, not asking the doctor to come out and see Toby, but giving him the directions to do so.
The young woman in the kitchen—the same woman who had looked so interestedly at Toby on Saturday evening—was Patrick’s sister, Teresa. Teresa? Tess…? That was a shortened version of the name Teresa, wasn’t it? Could Patrick’s sister possibly be the Tess that Toby had told Ellie he’d been dating the last couple of months?
And, if she was, why hadn’t Toby ever told her that it was Patrick’s sister he was dating?
Why hadn’t Patrick told her?
Because she was absolutely positive, from the fact that Patrick hadn’t looked in the least surprised to see his sister here, that he had known about the relationship before this evening!
What did it all mean?
Chapter Nine
‘WOULD you like one or both of us to stay with you for the rest of the night?’ Patrick asked Ellie some time later. The doctor had been to see Toby, and diagnosed—as they had all suspected he might—that her brother had food poisoning.
It had been an extremely traumatic couple of hours for Ellie, worried about Toby and completely puzzled by his relationship with Teresa/Tess.
But the idea of either Patrick or his sister staying for the rest of the night did not appeal to her. It also wasn’t necessary. The doctor had given Toby an injection to stop him vomiting, and although her brother was still pale, he was now fast asleep.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Ellie answered Patrick distantly. None of the tension she had felt earlier, at discovering Toby’s girlfriend Tess was in fact Patrick’s sister Teresa, had evaporated.
In fact, if anything it was worse, all sorts of suspicions and conclusions having popped into Ellie’s head over the last couple of hours. Most of them too depressing to contemplate for long!
‘I’m very grateful for your help in getting a doctor here so promptly,’ she added as she realised she probably sounded less than polite.
‘But now you want us to leave?’ Patrick guessed ruefully.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning. She was incredibly weary from the worry over Toby, and her head ached from the circles her thoughts were going round and round in. So, yes, she wanted him—and his sister—to leave now.
She glanced at the younger woman, Teresa, sitting dejectedly at the kitchen table staring into a cup of cold coffee, her face pale.
Ellie could see a faint family resemblance between the brother and sister now—both were dark, with those magnetic grey eyes—but where Patrick’s face was all ruggedly sharp angles Teresa’s was softened into gamine beauty.
Why hadn’t she seen that resemblance on Saturday evening?
Because she hadn’t been looking for it! Because no one had told her that Toby’s girlfriend Tess was Patrick’s young sister!
That was what really bothered Ellie about all this; why had no one told her of the relationship?
Until she had the answer to that, she felt the more distance she put between Patrick and herself the better.
‘If you don’t mind,’ she answered Patrick evenly. ‘I wouldn’t expect Toby in to work tomorrow either, if I were you,’ she added dryly; she doubted her brother would be strong enough to get out of bed in the morning, let alone anything else!
‘I wasn’t,’ Patrick dismissed impatiently, looking down at her frowningly.