CHAPTER ONE

      AARON LEWIS was smiling as it was announced that the aircraft was preparing for landing. The last two weeks spent touring foreign hospitals and noting different techniques had been absorbing, but here was where his heart was. In the English city where he worked in a large children’s hospital and lived in a rambling, red-brick house with what was left of his family.

      His smile deepened as he envisaged them waiting for him at the airport. His mother, her round pink face alight with pleasure at the sight of him, with Lucy beside her, dancing with excitement because he was back. They were his world and every time he saw a sick child he gave thanks for his daughter’s good health.

      Ever since the day when his wife had gone into the sea in a Cornish cove to go to the assistance of his father, who’d been caught in a fast and dangerous current, there’d been just the three of them—his mother, his daughter and himself.

      He’d gone back to the hotel that day with Lucy, then a toddler, for something they’d forgotten, and by the time he’d got back to the beach his wife and father had both been swept out to sea.

      There’d been a huge search, with the lifeboat and air-sea rescue services involved, but to no avail, and when their bodies had been washed up with the tide a couple of days later, both he and his mother had been faced with the knowledge that half of a close, loving family was gone.

      Eloise had drowned trying to save her adored father-in-law and as Aaron had stood gazing bleakly out to sea on the golden sand where they’d been picnicking on that terrible day, his mother had said, ‘Life has to go on, Aaron, for Lucy’s sake if nothing else.’

      That had been four years ago and they’d coped. As long as he didn’t look back too much, life had been reasonably good. His mother had taken Eloise’s place in Lucy’s young life, while he’d done his best to take care of them both. In a very short time the threesome would be reunited.

      As he waited for his luggage to come round on the carousel Aaron was imagining his daughter’s face when she saw what he’d brought her back from the trip. He’d spoken to her every night while he’d been away but it hadn’t been the same as holding Lucy in his arms.

      Yet there was only his mother waiting to greet him when he’d gone through the formalities. No Lucy, and her grandmother’s face was pinched and grey. He could smell trouble a mile off. It went with the job, and he’d only seen his mother look like this once before.

      As Mary Lewis watched her son approach she knew she was about to blight his homecoming. He was a commanding figure, striding towards her amongst the other travellers. Tall, straight, with dark hair curling above his ears, his eyes were like soft brown velvet when they rested upon his family and his small patients. They could also be as hard as flint if he came across a situation that did not please him....

      She saw his brisk stride falter and swallowed hard.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked the moment he reached her side. ‘Where’s Lucy?’

      Her smooth cheeks were crumpling, but her voice was steady as she told him, ‘She’s in Barnaby’s, Aaron. Lucy fell off the climbing frame in the garden yesterday and instead of landing on the grass cracked her head on the lawnmower that I’d left nearby while I went to answer the phone. She must have fallen awkwardly. By the time I got to her she was unconscious. I sent for an ambulance. They took us to the General and from there they transferred Lucy to Barnaby’s.’

      ‘Why?’ he questioned tightly as his worst nightmare took on form and shape. ‘Why did they transfer her? And why didn’t you let me know?’

      He’d taken hold of his mother’s arm