A Doctor to Remember (13 page)

‘But why would he do that?’

‘He’s obsessed with you. He must have followed you before. How was your other car damaged in a rear-end collision? Do you have any recollection of it?’

She nodded slowly, covering her face with her hands as the incident came back to her in bits and pieces. Getting herself together after a minute or so, she said, ‘It was when I wanted to finish things with him…he took to following me. When I wouldn’t stop the car, he drove me off the road.’ She looked at Matt. ‘He’s out of his mind, isn’t he? Perhaps we should have called the police after all, or tried to persuade him to get treatment?’

‘I doubt the police would do anything without proof. Were there any witnesses?’

She shook her head.

‘And when you fell down the stairs?’

‘No.’ It came out as a whisper, and she began to shake all over again. ‘He must have left me there at the foot of the stairs, knowing I needed help. But he did nothing. Apparently, it was Chloe who called for the ambulance when she arrived home from work. I don’t know how long I was lying there.’

He put his arms around her and drew her to him, gently stroking her silky hair. ‘It’s over now, Saffi. He won’t trouble you again.’ They stayed together that way for some time, and eventually he said softly, ‘It looks as though your memory’s come back in full force.’

She gave him a tremulous smile. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ She gazed up at him, her brow puckering. ‘But why did I lose it so completely? I can understand partial amnesia because it was a bad head injury, but such a total loss is unusual—people don’t often recover their memories after such a loss.’

‘There’s probably a combination of reasons. The head injury is one, as you say, but your mind could have been shutting out the bad things, all the emotional trauma that you didn’t want to face…like your relationship with Jason.’

‘And the end of my relationship with you. That has been the worst of all.’ She looked at him anxiously, passing her tongue lightly over her dry lips. ‘Matt—I spoke to Gina before I left work today. She told me that she’d lied to me.’ Her gaze meshed with his. ‘I’m so sorry I doubted you. You were right all along—I should have trusted you.’

‘We’ll have to start again, won’t we…and make a pact to always trust one another?’

‘Does that mean you forgive me?’ She looked at him in wonderment. ‘Do we have some kind of a future together?’

He looked into her blue eyes. ‘We’d better have a future. I’m not going to lose you again, Saffi. It’s been hell on earth for me these last few days…these last few years, even.’

‘But you don’t believe in long-term relationships, do you? Wasn’t that why you finished things with Gina, because you didn’t want any kind of commitment?’

‘I thought that was the reason at the time. It was what I told myself. But the truth is, Gina and I were never right for one another. She wanted to get serious, but I knew it would never work.’

He hesitated. ‘I never looked for commitment. But then I met you, and I could feel myself getting in deeper and deeper, knowing that you were the one woman I could love. But all the time I was afraid that it would go wrong, that it would end the way it always did with people I cared about…my parents, even my sister was lost to me when we ended up in separate foster-homes. I was afraid to love you in case I lost you. And then the very worst happened. You thought I’d cheated on you.’

He drew in a shuddery breath. ‘It made me even more wary of getting involved. When I met up with you again, here in Devon, I was so afraid of being hurt all over again. I told myself I needed to keep my distance, but it was too difficult and I ended up not being able to stay away. And after you remembered what had happened with Gina, I was devastated all over again. It was like my worst nightmare. I thought I’d lost you for ever.’

She lifted a hand to his face and stroked his cheek. ‘You haven’t lost me. I love you, Matt. I think I knew it almost from the first.’ She gently drew him towards her until their lips touched, and he gave a ragged groan, kissing her fiercely, with all the longing and desperation that had built up inside him.

‘Will you marry me, Saffi?’ His voice was husky with need. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you again.’

‘Yes…yes, I will…’ She wrapped her arms around him, loving the way he ran his hands over her body, over every dip and curve. She kissed him because she loved him, because she wanted him, because she needed him to know that she would be his for evermore.

When they at last stopped to gather breath, she said softly, ‘Aunt Annie thought we were meant for each other, you know. She knew how much I loved you and she always had faith in you, even when I was floundering. That must be the reason she left you part of the house. She wanted us to be together, and she knew we’d have to find some way of making it work if we both lived here.’

He chuckled. ‘Yes, I’d worked that one out. She was right, wasn’t she? I know she couldn’t have expected it to happen so soon, but her plans were all intact. She didn’t leave anything to chance.’

She snuggled into him, nuzzling his neck and planting soft kisses along his throat. ‘I love you so much.’

‘And I love you, beyond anything. That’s why I came to work in Devon. I knew, sooner or later, you would come to visit Annie and I would do everything I could to win you round. I just had to see you again.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘And then when you turned up and hadn’t a clue who I was, I thought maybe here was my chance to get you to love me all over again.’

‘Well, you managed that all right.’

‘I did, didn’t I? That must say something about true love lasting for ever.’ He kissed her again. ‘Are we too late for a summer wedding, do you think?’

She smiled up at him. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I’m sure we’ll manage to sort something out.’

‘That’s good…that’ll be perfect.’ He gently pressured her back into the cushions and eased himself against her, and after that neither of them had any inclination to move apart for a long, long time.

ISBN: 978 1 472 04525 6

A DOCTOR TO REMEMBER

© 2014 Joanna Neil

Published in Great Britain 2014

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

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