The Fiancé He Can't Forget by Caroline Anderson Page A

twenty-seventh.’
    â€˜That’d be good. Let’s see how it goes.’
    â€˜OK. You take care.’
    â€˜And you.’
    He ended the call and watched a blackbird scratching in the fallen leaves under the bird feeder. Winter was setting in, the nights cold and frosty, even here in London.
    He turned the television on and put his feet up, but he couldn’t rest. Talking about Amy had unsettled him, and he’d suggested going up there—to see her?
    Idiot. Idiot! It had taken him weeks to get over seeing her last time, so why on earth did he think it would be a good idea to go up to Yoxburgh in the hope of seeing her again?
    He must be nuts. What the hell did he hope to achieve?
    Maybe she’s pregnant .
    He stamped on that one hard. If she was pregnant, she would have told him weeks ago. Or Ben would. Yeah, Ben definitely would. Anyway, she was on the Pill, and she’d probably moved on, got herself another lover. He ignored the burn of acid at the thought. Maybe he should do the same, he told himself firmly. There was a new midwife who’d been flirting with him the past few weeks. He could take her out for dinner, see where it went.
    But she’s not Amy .
    â€˜You’ve lost Amy, get over it,’ he growled. He had work he could do at the hospital, and anything was better than sitting here going over this again and again andagain, so he turned the television off again, pulled on his coat and headed out of the door.
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    â€˜Matt sends you his love.’
    Amy felt herself stiffen. ‘You didn’t tell him?’
    â€˜No, of course I didn’t tell him. I promised you I wouldn’t.’
    She let her breath out, and asked the question she’d been longing to ask. ‘How is he?’
    â€˜OK, I think. We didn’t talk for long. He asked how you were.’
    â€˜And what did you say?’
    He smiled wryly. ‘I told him you were fine and didn’t want to see him again.’
    It wasn’t quite true. She’d been thinking about little else for the past two days, but he was right, she didn’t want to see him again at the moment, because if she did, she’d have to tell him, and then…
    â€˜We were talking about Christmas,’ Ben went on. ‘We’re both working on Christmas Day and we’ve got Florence on Boxing Day, but he might come up afterwards. What are you doing?’
    He might come up afterwards…
    â€˜I haven’t decided. They want me to work, so I’ll probably do the day shift—’
    â€˜So spend Christmas night with us,’ Daisy urged. ‘We’ll have a great time.’
    It was tempting, but she shook her head. ‘You want to be on your own—it’s the last time you’ll be able to. I’ll be fine, really. Christmas Day is usually a lovely shift.’
    And it would stop her worrying about her baby.
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    Ben scanned her the next day. They’d gone down to the big scanner in a quiet moment, and for the first time sheactually acknowledged her baby’s existence, dared to think about it, to see it as a real baby.
    She watched the beating heart, saw the little arms and legs flailing around wildly, counted hands and feet, saw the fine, delicate column of its spine, the bridge of its nose, the placenta firmly fixed near the top of her uterus.
    My baby , she thought, reaching out her hand and touching the image tenderly, and through her tears, she smiled at it and fell in love.
    She pressed her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes as Ben turned off the scanner. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
    â€˜My pleasure,’ he said, his voice roughened, and she realised he was moved, too, because this was his brother’s baby, and he must have felt the loss of their first one keenly for Matt.
    â€˜Did you take a photo?’ she asked, not sure she could bear to look at it. She still had the photo—
    â€˜Of course I did. I took one for us, as well,