The Bridesmaid's Baby by Barbara Hannay Page A

she wasn’t scared any more.
    ‘How many pythons’ lives have you saved?’ Will asked as they waited for the anaesthetic to take effect.
    ‘This is the first.’
    He smiled. ‘I can remember your very first patient.’
    She frowned at him, puzzled. ‘You were in Argentina when I started to work as a vet.’
    ‘Before that. Don’t you remember the chicken you brought to school in a woolly sock?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’ She grinned. ‘The poor little thing hatched on a very cold winter’s morning and I was worried that it wouldn’t make it through the day.’
    ‘You kept it hidden under the desk.’
    ‘Until Mr Sanderson discovered it during biology and turned it into a lecture on imprinting.’
    Their eyes met and they smiled and for a heady moment, Lucy was sixteen again and Will Carruthers was…
    No, for heaven’s sake.
    Shocked by how easily she was distracted by him, she centred her thoughts on cleaning the outside of the python’s wound with alcohol wipes and foaming solution. Then, when her patient was completely under, she began to debride the damaged tissue.
    All the time she worked, Will was silent, watching her with a curious smile that she tried very hard to ignore.
    ‘I guess this isn’t quite how you expected to spend your evening,’ she said as she finally began to suture the delicate skin together.
    ‘Wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You have to admit, it’s a unique experience. How many guys have watched a barefoot bridesmaid stitch up a python at midnight?’
    Lucy couldn’t help smiling. ‘You make it sound like some kind of medieval witches’ ritual.’
    ‘The rites of spring?’
    ‘Maybe, but then again, how many vets have been assisted by a hun—a guy in best man’s clobber?’
    Lucy thanked heavens she’d retracted the word hunk. For heaven’s sake. It was the dinner suit factor. Stick the plainest man in a tuxedo and his looks were improved two hundred per cent. Will in a tuxedo was downright dangerous.
    But she was grateful for his help. Working side by side with him again, she’d felt good in a weirdly unsettled-yet-comfortable way. They’d always worked well together.
    ‘You’re a tough cookie,’ Will told her. ‘You were white as a ghost and shaking when I came in and yet you morphed into a steady-handed snake surgeon.’
    ‘It’s my job,’ she said, trying not to look too pleased.
    She dropped the suture needles into the tray and snapped off her sterile gloves, removed the paper apronand rolled up the disposable sheet she’d used to drape over the wound.
    ‘So where will we put this fellow while he sleeps off his ordeal?’ Will asked.
    ‘He’ll have to go in one of the cages out the back.’ Carefully, she peeled away the masking tape that had kept the snake straight.
    ‘Shall I do the honours?’
    ‘Thanks, Will. There’s a cage in the far corner, away from the other patients. If you give me a minute, I’ll line it with thick newspaper to keep him warm and dry.’
    By the time the python was safely in its cage it was long past midnight but, to Lucy’s surprise, she didn’t feel tired any more. She tried to tell herself that she’d found working on a completely new species exhilarating, but she knew very well it had everything to do with Will’s presence.
    She’d felt relaxed and focused and it had been like stepping back in time to their student days. But, dear heaven, it was such a long time ago and they couldn’t really go back, could they?
    ‘Let’s go through to the kitchen,’ she said once they’d cleaned up.
    She snapped the kitchen light on and the room leapt to life. She was rather proud of the renovations she’d made to this room, painting the walls a soft buttercup and adding hand painted tiles to the splashback over the sink. And she’d spent ages hunting for the right kind of cupboards and shelving in country-style second-hand shops.
    ‘I’d better let the boys in.’
    As soon as Lucy opened the