CHAPTER ONE
ANNIE paused halfway up the stairs of her pretty Victorian cottage, a softly tantalising smile curling her mouth in secret appreciation, a dreamy, distant look hazing the normal clarity of her widely spaced intelligent grey eyes. She had had the dream again last night, the one that featured ‘him’. And this time, last night, he had been even more deliciously real than ever before. So real, in fact…
As her cheeks pinkened betrayingly and her eyelashes modestly swept down to conceal the expression her eyes might inadvertently betray, Annie could feel the sharp thrill of remembered pleasure running hotly through her body. Last night when he had held her, touched her…A fierce shiver openly tensed her body and a little guiltily she hurried the rest of the way upstairs.
She only had an hour to get ready before leaving to collect Helena and her husband. The three of them were going out for a special celebratory meal, and by rights it was that she ought to be thinking about, not some impossibly wonderful and totally unreal man she had created out of her own imagination, her own dreams…her own need…
Her frown deepened a little. For a woman of twenty-three without a man in her life, without a lover in her life, the sheer intensity of the sensuality of the periodic dreams she had about the fantasy male she had mentally labelled her perfect lover, her soul mate and other half, were becoming increasingly explicit. A sign of her loveless, manless state, or an indication of the power of her imagination? Annie didn’t know. What she did know, though, was that since she had first started dreaming about him none of the real men she had met had had the power to compare with him, nor to touch her emotions.
She was looking forward to the evening ahead. Helena was not, after all, just her closest friend and a substitute mother figure to her; she was also the woman, the surgeon, who was responsible for saving her life. No, Annie corrected herself quickly, what Helena was responsible for in many ways was giving her life, giving it back to her after others, less determined, less compassionate, less seeing, had said that…
Tensely Annie swallowed. Even now, nearly five years after the event, after the accident which had so nearly cost her her life, the mere thought of how close she had come to death had the power to strike an icy chill of terror right through her.
Perhaps illogically, the fact that she had no memory, either of the events leading up to the accident itself nor the weeks when she had been in a coma, made her fear of how easily she might not have survived all the more intense.
As she pushed at her bedroom door the slight awkwardness of her arm, which was the sole physical legacy she now had left of the accident, showed itself in the way she had to open it. Her arm had been so badly crushed, so badly damaged, that the senior registrar on duty when she had been rushed into the accident unit had been on the point of having her prepared for an amputation when Helena, who had only dropped in at the hospital to see another patient, had happened to walk through the unit and had been called over by him for a second opinion.
As the hospital’s senior microsurgeon Helena had immediately taken charge, deciding it might be possible to save Annie’s arm.
Her face had been the first one Annie had seen when she had first regained consciousness, but it hadn’t been for many, many weeks after that that she had learned, not from Helena herself but from one of the nurses, how lucky she was that Helena had chanced to be in the hospital when she had been brought in.
It had been Helena who had spent hour after hour at her bedside talking to her whilst she lay in a coma, dragging her with the strength of her will and her love back to the world of the living, and Annie knew that she would never, never cease to revere and love her for all that she had done.
‘You aren’t the only one who has gained,’ Helena often teased her gently. ‘You have no idea how much higher my professional stock has grown since it’s become publicly known that my personal surgical procedure saved your arm. Your arm is worth more than its weight in gold to me, Annie…’ And then her face would soften as she’d add, far more tenderly, ‘And you, my dear, are more special to me than I can find the words to say. The daughter I never thought I would have…’
Both of them had cried a little the first time Helena had made this loving claim, the moment and the words especially meaningful to them both. Helena, the highly qualified and skilled surgeon who had lost her own womb and her chances of motherhood at a very young age, and Annie, the girl who had been abandoned as a baby and then grown up in a children’s home, always treated well but never loved in that special one-to-one way she had so often yearned for.
Two years ago, when Helena had finally accepted the proposal of marriage from her long-term partner Bob Lever, Annie had been more pleased for both of them than she had been able to find the words to say.
Previously Helena had always refused to marry Bob, claiming that one day he might meet a woman who could give him the children she couldn’t and that when that day came she wanted him to feel free to go to her, and it had taken the combined efforts of both Annie and Bob to persuade her to think differently.
In the end it had been Annie’s gentle reminder that since Helena had unofficially adopted her as her ‘daughter’ she no longer had any reason for refusing Bob’s proposals.
‘Very well. I give in,’ Helena had laughed, waiting until they had finished toasting her acceptance of Bob’s proposal before adding, tongue in cheek to Annie, ‘Of course, you know what this means, don’t you? As your “mother”, and at my time of life, Annie, I shall soon be urging you to find yourself a mate and produce some grandchildren for me.’
It had been after that, and relaxed by the excellence of the Christmas dinner she and Helena had cooked together and the wine that had accompanied it, that Annie had been able to
tell Helena the extraordinary intensity of the dreams she had been having.
‘When did they first start?’ Helena had questioned her, immediately very professional.
‘I’m not sure…I think I must have been having them for a while before I actually knew I was,’ Annie had told her, shaking her head and laughing at her own confusing statement.
‘You see, when I did start to realise I was having them they seemed so familiar, as though he had been a part of my life for always…It was as though somehow…I…I knew him…’ She had stopped speaking to frown and shake her head as she tried to grapple for the right words to describe the extraordinary complexity of the feelings within her dreams, to convey to her friend the reality of the man who featured in them.
Now, though, as she headed for her wardrobe to remove the new dress she and Helena had bought especially for this occasion the previous month, she caught sight of her reflection and gave another small smile. She had been so lucky that her face hadn’t been damaged at all in the accident. Small and heart-shaped, it still looked pretty much as it did in the few photographs she had of her childhood. Her hair was still the same blonde colour—an inheritance from her unknown parent, along with the elegance of her bone structure. Maturity, and the much stronger sense of self she had developed, meant that she no longer agonised over who and what her parents had been. It was enough that they had given the most precious gift there was—the gift of life itself.
All she knew of the accident was what she had been told, what had been said during the court case, which had resulted in the driver who had knocked her down on the pedestrian crossing she had been halfway over being convicted of dangerous driving and his insurance company being compelled to make a very large payment to her indeed.
Annie knew there were those who thought enviously that a weakened right arm and being out of action for almost a year were only minor inconveniences to have to put up with. Certainly the driver’s insurance company’s legal team had thought so, and Annie was the first to agree that because of the accident she had gained enormously—not because of the insurance company pay-out but because it had brought Helena and Bob into her life.
As the lawyers for the insurance company had been quick to point out, her injuries had not prevented her from going on to complete the degree course she had been just about to start when the accident happened, nor had it precluded her from obtaining a job. Indeed, for many people, the fact that she was only able to work part-time at the moment, job-sharing with another girl, would be a plus point and not a minus one.
Oh, yes, the lawyers for the defence had been very, very persuasive, but the evidence had been damning. There had been five witnesses who had each seen the way the car had been driven across the pedestrian crossing and straight into Annie. The driver had been drinking—a stress-related problem which he now had under control, according to his defence.
Annie sighed. There had even been a tearful appearance by his wife, who’d said that without her husband’s income, without his ability to earn a living, if he lost his licence for too long a period, the lives of her and her three small children would be made very hard indeed.
Annie’s tender heart had ached for them, and still often did, but, as Helena had told her robustly, she was not the one who was responsible for their plight.
Even so, she was glad that the driver of the car had been from out of town and that there was no chance that she was likely to bump into him locally—or his family.
It seemed odd to her now to think that she had not lived the whole of her life here in this small, sleepy cathedral city, with its history, its castle, its small university and its river—the river which had once, many, many years ago, been the major source of its wealth and position. Now, though, the boats that used the pretty marina were strictly pleasure craft; the merchant vessels which had once brought their exotic wares to the port belonged to another era altogether.
Annie couldn’t remember just why she had chosen to apply to Wryminster’s university for a place, nor when she had arrived in the city. She had clearly not had time to make any friends or to confide her dreams or ambitions to them. The accident had happened just before the week of the new term—her first week, her first term—and the only address the authorities had been able to find on Annie had been that of the children’s home where she had grown up.
According to what Helena had been able to find out she had been a quite clever child, and something of a loner. It had been Helena who had taken her home when at last the hospital had discharged her. Helena who had mothered her, cared for her, loved her. And Helena, too, who had encouraged her in her need to become properly independent, she and Bob helping Annie to find her perfect little home not too far from their own house.
As she slipped the new outfit she and Helena had bought together from its protective wrapper Annie expelled a small shaky breath. She had come so far to reach this day, had had to come so far…The outfit was a soft icy blue, a perfect foil for her skin tone and her eyes. She had fallen in love with it the minute she had seen it, although it had taken a lot of persuasion and coaxing from Helena before she had finally given in and bought it.
In soft fine wool crêpe the trousers showed off the slender length of her legs and the narrow delicacy of her hips whilst the almost full-length coat added a breathtakingly stylish elegance to the ensemble. Beneath the coat there was a pretty embroidered top to add a final touch of glamour.
‘I won’t get my money’s worth out of it,’ Annie had predicted, shaking her head as she’d paid for it. ‘I don’t go anywhere I can wear something so expensive.’
‘Well, perhaps you ought to start,’ Helena had smiled. ‘Sayad would do anything to get you to agree to a date.’
Sayad was a very, very dishy anaesthetist who had recently joined the hospital staff, and he had made a bee line for Annie the moment he had seen her.
‘He’s nice,’ she had responded, quickly shaking her head. ‘But…’
But not her dream man. Oh, no—nowhere even near her dream man. Where Sayad was merry and open-faced her dream lover was dark-browed and almost brooding; a man where Sayad was still in some ways, despite his age, part boy. Without knowing how she knew, she knew that her dream lover would have an air of authority and masterfulness, an aura of such strong maleness that Sayad could never in any way really compare with him.
Despite her reservations about the cost of her new outfit, she had given way in the end because tonight was a special celebration: her close friends Bob and Helena’s wedding anniversary and Bob’s birthday.
At Helena’s insistence, following the successful conclusion of the long drawn-out legal battle she had endured before winning substantial damages for her injury, she was taking a few months’ sabbatical from her job. Earlier in the week she had said her temporary goodbyes to her colleagues at the multinational petrochemical company, Petrofiche, whose head offices were situated in what had originally been a very large country house several miles outside the city, over a happy girlie lunch.
For this evening’s meal she had booked a table at the area’s most prestigious restaurant on the river, insisting that on this occasion she was going to treat Helena and Bob, and that she would pick them up in her newly acquired and rather swish Mercedes car.
The car had been a real step forward for Annie. She hadn’t been able to drive when she had had her accident, and for a long time afterwards she had remained terrified of even being near a car never mind driving one. But eventually she had forced herself to overcome her fears and she had successfully taken her test. The weakness in her arm meant that she felt much more comfortable driving an automatic car than a manual, and so, aided and abetted by Helena and Bob, she had finally given in and allowed herself the luxury of her new smart car.
It didn’t take her long to get ready; she preferred to use the minimum of make-up and, as Helena often told her enviously, she was lucky enough to have naturally good skin. If her mouth was a little too full for her own liking, well
, she had learned how to tone down its sizzling second glance male appeal with pastel-toned lipsticks. Her hair, silky and straight, she always wore long and simply styled, setting off her delicate bone structure.
Once on, the new outfit looked even better than Annie had remembered. She had finally, this last year, with the court case at long last behind her, started to put on a little extra weight and it suited her.
Giving her bedroom a proud appraisal, she walked over to the door. Her small Victorian cottage, bought out of the award the court had given her, had been very run-down when she had found it, and she had lived surrounded by builders’ rubble and very often the builders themselves whilst it was being restored and renovated, determinedly refusing Helena and Bob’s pleas for her to move back in with them until the work was finished. She had wanted to be on the spot, to prove her maturity and her independence and, most of all, to prove to herself that she was capable of managing on her own.
The large double bed which dominated the room couldn’t help but catch her eye. Even now she wasn’t quite sure why she had bought it, why she had so instinctively and automatically picked it out of all the beds in the showroom, heading for it almost like someone on autopilot, or someone who was sleepwalking.
All she had known was that it was the bed she had to have.
‘Well, it will certainly suit the house,’ had been Helena’s comment when she had taken her to see it, and she had admired its reproduction Victorian styling.