‘No.’ But maybe they had. The hospital had its own generator and by the time he’d left work-at midnight-the power had been on again.

Work. That was the way to go, he thought. Get back to work and get a grip on your emotions. But to leave her here alone seemed wrong.

But maybe there was an alternative.

‘I do need to go back to work,’ he told her. ‘But I also want to check on Judith and Grace. The ambulance was taking them to Sydney South. Would you like to come with me? I can put you in a cab to come home afterwards.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, picking up her purse.

Just like that. ‘Yes?’

‘I’d decided I’d go before you offered,’ she admitted. ‘I know I should be professionally detached, but you’re looking at a woman who’s so undetached she just sobbed her naked heart out on your manly chest. And you know something? I might have sobbed even if it wasn’t manly so let’s not get too personal here. So, yes, please, Dr Ashton, I need to find out how they are.’

‘You should rest,’ he said, belatedly.

‘So I should,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m never going to rest until I know.’

‘Maggie…’

‘No more sobbing,’ she promised. ‘No more chests. Just two doctors checking on two patients. Let’s go.’

CHAPTER NINE

SO ONCE again Maggie got to ride in his seriously sexy little car, but despite her bravado she wasn’t feeling sexy, or brave, or anything other than totally disoriented. She was feeling disconcerted by the way she’d reacted over the last couple of hours. She was feeling…bereft.

Because she wanted this to be different?

For her mind had moved on from drama and was now playing tricks. Max was driving her to the hospital to see how two people they’d helped were faring. That was all that was happening but she was feeling sensation of warm wind in her hair, she was watching Max’s strongly boned hands-surgeon’s hands, she thought-on the steering-wheel, and she was feeling like she was part of a couple again. She felt cared for. She felt like she was a woman beside the man she loved.

The sensation was insidious in its sweetness-and it was a lie.

For Max was being efficient and kind. Nothing else.

But it didn’t stop her soaking it up. True or not, she was holding to the moment, thinking if this was all she had then she’d enjoy every minute of it.

But sadly it was only a short drive. At the hospital Max pulled into his personal parking place-impressive!-and her illusion of togetherness dispersed. It was back to being Maggie on her own.

But still she hesitated before getting out of his car, holding back for just a moment but long enough for him to come round to her side. He was holding the door wide for her, looking at her in concern. Proffering his hands to help tug her unwieldy body upward.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked uneasily. ‘Maggie, this is too much. Shall I take you home again?’

‘I’m fine. It’s just this car’s too low. I need a crane.’ She looked at his hands-thought about how she should refuse his aid. Contact with this man was doing dumb things to her head-and then she thought, no, dumb or not she’d take any contact she could get. She took his hands, he tugged her to her feet and she came too fast.

She was hard against him. Only she wasn’t. Her bump was in the way.

She had to get herself under control. Max was on the other side of her bump, holding on, waiting for her to steady herself. Looking at her in concern.

She steadied. Took a deep breath. Tugged her hands away.

Then… ‘Spike,’ she said.

This was exactly what she needed. Not to look at Max. Not to let him see her need. Spike was on the far side of the car park, accompanied by a couple-a man in paint-spattered overalls and a woman in the uniform of one of the local supermarket chains. They looked about to climb into a battered family sedan.

‘Spike,’ Maggie yelled, and then, as he didn’t respond, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

Max hadn’t seen Spike, and he hadn’t expected it. He was a whole eighteen inches away from Maggie, and the whistle came close to bursting his eardrums. It was a whistle a farmer might use to call a dog in the next county.

‘It’s Spike,’ Maggie said happily, and headed across the car park.

He followed. Bemused.

‘Where did you learn to whistle like that?’

‘Betty,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Great legacy, huh?’

Maggie had Spike’s attention now. Of course she did. He-and his parents?-stood by their car, immobilised by Maggie’s whistle.

The whole car-park looked immobilised by Maggie’s whistle, but Maggie’s sole attention was on Spike.

The kid still looked pale and subdued, dressed in the nondescript clothes that emergency departments give out after accidents. His spiked hair was sagging at the tips and he looked…smaller? But Max watched his face as he recognised Maggie, and thought this was a kid who’d had a life-or-death situation thrust at him and who’d reacted with courage and honour. It had left its mark.

Like Maggie, sobbing her heart out on his chest. Life’s tragedies were something that affected both them deeply.

‘Spike,’ Maggie said joyfully as she reached him, and she hugged him before he knew what had hit him.

‘I’m C-Colin,’ the kid managed, trying to sound defiant. ‘Not Spike.’

Maggie grinned and turned to Max. ‘He’s Colin,’ she said happily. ‘Our hero’s Colin.’

‘Hero?’ the woman beside Spike said faintly.

‘Hero,’ Maggie said definitely. ‘Is Colin your son?’

‘I… Yes,’ the woman said. ‘And this is his father.’

‘I’m really pleased to meet you,’ Maggie said warmly. ‘We helped at the accident, with your wonderful son.’

‘The hospital called us,’ the man told them, glancing at Spike as if the thought of Colin as wonderful was clearly ludicrous. ‘They said Colin had been in an accident.’

‘We were so scared,’ the woman added. ‘Only then we found out he wasn’t actually in the accident. He’d just seen it and fainted.’

Someone needed to explain, but even as Max thought it, Maggie was on the case. She was like a lioness with a cub, he thought, bemused. Maggie, fierce and loyal and true. He watched the indignation on her face and he thought this was a woman who, once she gave her heart, would give it for ever. Spike had earned her loyalty and she’d repay it a thousand times over.

And he wondered suddenly-out of left field-whether he could find the courage to ask for that commitment to himself.

‘Is that what Colin told you?’ she was demanding, indignation personified. ‘That he’d seen an accident and fainted?’

‘What else is there?’ his father asked.

‘Did he tell you he saved a lady’s life?’

The couple stared. ‘He just said he saw an accident,’ Spike’s mother said. ‘He said he had to give his T-shirt to the doctor and the ambulance guy said he fainted.’

‘Not until he wasn’t needed any more,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Tell them, Max. This is Dr Ashton, by the way. Dr Ashton, tell them about how Colin was just plain wonderful.’

So Max told them, while Spike’s parents looked bemused, and then disbelieving, and finally awed. Spike flushed and looked like he didn’t know where to put himself, but he didn’t have a choice. Like it or not, Maggie hugged him again, and then his mother was lining up for her share.

And suddenly, fiercely, Max was wishing he was somewhere in the middle of that hugging. It was dumb but there it was. Things were shifting inside. A huge hunger he’d ignored for years was suddenly refusing to be ignored.

The abyss of emotional connection seemed suddenly no abyss but something wonderful. Something that if he dared move forward could be his again.

If he dared.

Maybe…maybe that abyss was simply a blockade that had to be battered down. It was a blockade built from fear and loneliness but on the other side…

‘You must be so proud,’ Maggie declared, as Max’s world shifted, while Spike’s mum took over hugging duty.

‘An’ the doctor said they’ll live,’ Colin said, muffled by the closeness of his mother. ‘I asked. But I can’t believe I fainted. Bloody sook.’

‘You didn’t faint until the drama was over,’ Max said firmly, putting his arm round Maggie and holding her against him. Finally taking a hug for himself. The hug felt good. No, it felt excellent. It felt right.

But somehow he had to keep talking to Spike and his parents. Maggie expected it of him, he knew. This was a lady who’d expect a lot of her man.

‘Colin, I fainted for the first time when I was a medical student,’ he told him. ‘It was during the first Caesarean birth I ever attended. The mother was conscious-she told the nurse she thought I was going to faint. She even told her to help me. Colin, you did better than the average medical student. You did what had to be done, and you kept your personal, emotional reaction until afterwards. That took guts.’

And beside him Maggie nestled closer and beamed up at him. He had her approval, he thought, and maybe what he was feeling was corny and clichéd and soppy, but corny or not it felt right.

‘Did he really do that?’ Spike’s father demanded, staring at his son like he’d never seen him before.

‘He was the only one in the crowd with the courage to help,’ Maggie declared, and Max could feel her wanting to hug Spike again. He was doing Spike a favour by holding onto her, but that certainly wasn’t the reason he was holding on. He was holding on for himself alone. ‘Maggie and I are trained medical professionals,’ he said, hugging her tighter to solidify the ‘Maggie and I’ connection. ‘Colin came in cold and did brilliantly.’

‘Hey,’ Spike’s dad said, and his eyes were filling. ‘Hey.’

‘Weren’t nuthin’,’ Spike said.

‘It was everything,’ Max said.