Borrowed Wife by Patrícia Wilson Page B

busily
preparing dinner.
     
    ‘I’ll not
be long,’ Rose said comfortably. ‘You’re a bit late tonight but it’s only what
I expected, you’re safely in. Your father’s in his study, I think.’
    He would
be, Abigail mused. Going in there not avoidable, too. He expected a run-down on
the day’s events even when there was nothing to report. She stiffened her spine
and walked across the hall, opening the door of the study quietly.
    At first,
she thought he was not in the room and she called out to him but got no answer
at all. Abigail just about to leave when she saw him. He was lying on the floor
behind his desk. She could see his feet and when she ran round she could tell
at once that he had collapsed with no warning, had fallen before he could alert
Rose.
    She
dropped to her knees beside him, her hand coming to touch his face, and it was
cold, moist with sweat breathing was erratic, laboured and Abigail knew that
what she had dreaded for weeks had at last happened. It was his heart and she
raced from the room, calling to Rose and then getting to the telephone to call
an as ambulance. It might be too late. She just didn’t know, but he was so
cold—icily cold—his lips blue.
    Later it
seemed to Abigail that she had lived a whole week during the following hour.
Rose had been no help at all. Panic had been her reaction as usual but the men
had arrived with the ambulance more quickly than Abigail had expected. Even so,
things looked bad. Her father had come round on the way to the hospital but he
had not really been aware of his surroundings, not really aware of her.
    ‘You
should have someone with you,’ the sister at the hospital said now, and Abigail
phoned Martha, was no one else. She might have phoned Brian but she knew he was
in Germany, and even Martha was out.
    Abigail
left a message on her answering machine and then settled down to wait by
herself, to pace about and worry.
    Once again she had not
eaten. She was shaking, cold in spite of the warmth of the hospital. It seemed
like the final blow, the last fierce lash of destiny, aimed at her. She had
little hope because hope had gone a long time ago. Now everything bad gone
wrong and once again Abigail blamed herself, going over and over in her mind
the things she had done or not done these past few weeks, searching for some
way she could have avoided this.
    ‘Sit
down!’ A strong hand took her arm, propelling her to a seat, the sound of the
voice sending colder shivers down her spine.
    ‘What are
you doing here? How did you...?’
    Martha
Bates phoned me,’ Logan said shortly, his hand still forcing her to sit. ‘You
left a message on her answering machine and she rang me.’ He watched Abigail
grimly. ‘Apparently I should have anticipated this. She more or less ordered me
to rescue you. I’ve been roundly condemned and sentenced without a trial by
that staunch ally of yours.’
    ‘I never
asked her to phone you,’ Abigail protested unevenly. ‘I phoned her because I
had—had no one else and—’
    ‘Damn
you, Abigail! You’re my wife!’ Logan sat beside her and stared at her
ferociously. ‘Who else would you call but me?’
    ‘Please!’
Abigail began to laugh—a high, shaken laugh that showed how close to collapse
she was herself.
    ‘You’re the last person I
would want, the last person to come to my rescue at any time, and this is my
father! Did you come to see the final act?’
    Logan snarled something beneath his breath, stood and
walked away from her and she watched him panic-stricken eyes, he was just going
to leave and did need him here. She hadn’t meant to say those things because it
was not Logan who had brought this head attack on. It was her father’s own
attitude to everything, the way he drank, the way he drove himself and
everybody else. Whatever Logan had done it was not this.
    Her eyes
closed with sheer weariness and she sat with her head bowed, jumping nervously
when Logan grasps her arm and pulled her to her feel,