Emergency: Wife Lost and Found by Carol Marinelli Read Free Book Online

car that had crashed that day, her whole world had. If May had pressed a tissue in her hand and told her to calm down it would have been better, but instead she was stroking her hair and patiently telling her to let it out. ‘You have a good cry, pet.’ So Lorna did, for the first time since she had awoken to this strange, confusing world. When she had finished and May asked if there was anything she could do for her, Lorna felt so much better she was tempted to ask if May didn’t mind going to buy some decent pyjamas for her, but thought that might be pushing it.
    ‘I’ll let him know you’ll see him.’
    It wasn’t exactly the look one hoped for when you had to meet one’s ex, Lorna thought, wishing she had the energy to drag a comb through her hair and trying frantically not to think of the bigger picture, wondering what he’d look like, what they’d say to each other, what she’d say to him if he asked why she’d walked out on him all those years ago.
    But nothing, not an hour lying thinking about it and racking her brains as to how she would feel, came close to the sweep of emotion as he pushed open the door and for the first time in a decade she came face to face with him.
    ‘Lorna…’
    She couldn’t speak, just had no idea what to say as he stood there. His voice was just as deep, his shoulders just as broad, his eyes just as green. She’d thought she’d finished crying with that nice Irish nurse, but the second he walked into the room Lorna started again.
    Ten years of pain came bubbling to the surface as the man she loved, the man she had always loved, walked towards her once more.

Chapter Five
    H E’D had no idea what he would say, or do. He didn’t know if he was angry, bitter, hurt, or simply no longer cared any more. Very deliberately James hadn’t examined those feelings in years and certainly he’d tried not to these past few days. But seeing the way the tip of her nose went red, just as it had back then, seeing those huge amber eyes well the second he walked into the room, seeing the black, swollen eyelids and the glimpse of her badly bruised chest peeking out from her pyjamas and hearing her sob, knowing all she had just been through—it was entirely right that gently, very gently, he took her in his arms.
    How could he not?
    ‘It’s okay, you’re okay…’ He said it over and over, to himself not just to her. He held her and breathed her in, because the last time he’d held her he’d thought she must die or, worse, live with a mind that wasn’t hers. He let her go only when the nurse came in to do her obs. He watched Lorna blink as she correctly stated where she was but she faltered on the date.
    ‘Do you know what day it is?’
    ‘Wednesday…’ Lorna blinked. ‘I mean…’ She shook her head.
    ‘It’s Friday,’ the nurse said. ‘Don’t worry Lorna, it will all come back. Do you need anything?’
    ‘Just some water, please.’ James frowned at the full jug and tumbler on the table beside them, wondering why she didn’t get it herself, but he watched as the nurse poured her a drink and peeled open a straw, holding the cup for Lorna, who took a couple of sips.
    Only then did James realise just how fragile she was.
    ‘My hands.’ Lorna explained a bit sheepishly. ‘They’re still a bit numb, I keep dropping things.’
    ‘You’ll get there.’
    ‘So everyone keeps saying.’
    ‘So how are you?’ James asked once they were alone.
    ‘Not bad, considering.’
    ‘Considering what?’ James asked shrewdly, seeing the nervous dart of her eyes as he gently confronted her. ‘How are you really?’
    ‘Scared.’ Lorna admitted it for the first time. Not wanting to create waves while her parents had been there, she’d been the model patient, had tried to answer all their questions without asking any of her own, but somehow to James she could admit the truth. ‘I don’t actually know what I’m doing here.’
    ‘Has anyone told you what happened?’
    ‘I don’t