LITMIR.BIZ

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he had arrived home early for once and along with his anguished regret for letting a situation develop where his wife had been forced to make an appointment to see him, he’d brought flowers, a huge bouquet made up of all the blooms she loved the most.

      But no one on the staff at the surgery knew much about her, and for the moment she was happy to keep things that way. As far as they were concerned, she had taken up the job on Gordon Jessup’s recommendation.

      Though she’d carefully kept details of her private life to herself it seemed as if her new colleagues assumed that her marriage had suffered a split, and it was altogether easier to let them continue to think this, at least until she had some idea herself of where things were going with Gabriel.

      Still, her new workmates had been very welcoming. The two Gallagher doctors had invited Laura and the children round for afternoon tea one Sunday as a welcoming gesture and Toby and Josh, of a similar age, had hit it off immediately, while Sophie, who was the proud owner of a pink mobile phone, had received a call and chatted non-stop to the caller on a bench in the garden while the boys kicked a ball around close by.

      ‘That was Daddy,’ she’d said with cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling as they’d walked home, unaware of her mother’s heartache because Gabriel hadn’t had anything to say to her. How could they ever hope to mend their marriage if Gabriel wasn’t even prepared to talk to her? Or for him was it simply too late? Did he want out of the marriage once he got out of prison?

      They’d gone in the ambulance to A and E on that dreadful day, with Gabriel and paramedics watching over Jeremy Saunders, and she huddled beside them in a state of shock brought on by what had happened to him and the knowledge that Gabriel, who had been her joy and her life no matter how much he was absent from it, had thought her capable of infidelity.

      If he’d arrived just a few seconds later he would have seen her pushing the other man away and sending him packing, but after what had happened earlier in the day he’d been in no state for coherent thought after his wife had come to see him as a patient who might or might not have cancer because she hadn’t been able to get his attention any other way.

      The police had been waiting at the hospital when they’d got there, having been notified by the ambulance crew of the circumstances of the emergency they were bringing in, and while the injured man was being treated Gabriel had been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.

      She would have gone to the police station with him but he had insisted that she stay with their neighbour, who lived alone and as far as they knew had no close relatives, and there had also been the matter of their children due out of school soon.

      ‘Phone the school, Laura,’ he’d instructed, as, still in shock, she had stood by white faced and trembling. ‘Ask them to keep the children there until you can pick them up.’ As he’d been led away she’d nodded mutely and done as he’d said.

      In the early evening, with Gabriel still at the police station, his secretary had phoned to say that his solicitor had been on the phone with a message from his client to say that her husband was insisting that she keep the appointments that had been made for her the following day and that he would be back as soon as possible.

      ‘Whatever is wrong, Mrs Armitage?’ Jenny Carstairs had asked, mystified at the unusual turn of events.

      ‘It is something that we got involved in this afternoon, Jenny,’ she’d told her, ‘and knowing how Gabriel likes to have all ends neatly tied he’s sending me a reminder about the scans, that’s all.’

      As soon as the secretary had gone off the line she’d rung the hospital to check on Jeremy’s condition, knowing that if it had been someone other than Gabriel who had struck him he might not have survived the terrific blow to the head on the marble fireplace.

      Jeremy was responding to treatment, she’d been told, there was no bleeding inside the head but he had sustained a skull fracture that was being dealt with, and his heart was being monitored all the time.

      So it had seemed that Gabriel’s quick response to what he’d been responsible for had probably saved the other man’s life and she’d had to be satisfied with that, knowing that her husband was in police custody because of his angry reaction at finding her in the arms of another man.

      Jeremy had seen her arrive home in tears and had been quick to step in to offer the comfort of his arms to his attractive neighbour in her moment of weakness. He’d been holding her close and stroking her hair, and at the moment that Gabriel had arrived he had been taking advantage of the situation and kissing her, and Gabriel had misunderstood what was happening.

      As he put his key in the lock of the London house, the feeling of unreality that had been there all the time he’d been serving his sentence didn’t lift. He was free of the punishment he’d received for loving his wife too much, he thought grimly, but what now? He looked around a hall that smelt musty from the lack of fresh air, and as he opened a window wondered if maybe that was how he smelt, for the same reason.

      Would Laura ever forgive him for doubting her? She’d visited him dutifully while he’d been in that place but every time he’d seen her he’d known that the bonds that had always held them together had been broken and it had been due to his neglect.

      After her appointment as a patient on that never-to-be-forgotten day almost a year ago, he’d sat staring into space as the reality of what was happening to their marriage had hit him. The woman he loved had been reduced to consulting him as a member of the general public. They’d lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, yet that was what she’d had to do to bring his attention to something that could have been serious.

      Laura hadn’t known at that moment that he’d passed all his appointments for the day to his second in command when she’d left and in the early afternoon had gone home with the intention of telling her that in future his dedication to the sick and suffering wasn’t going to take over his life as much as it had been doing, that they were going to be a proper family again.

      With that in mind he had arrived to find her being kissed and cuddled by the guy who lived next door, who was the laziest devil he’d ever come across and considered himself to be irresistible to women. Of independent means, he spent his days socialising with the city ‘jet set’ while he, Gabriel, was often operating for twenty-four hours non-stop, and in those first few seconds of rage it had seemed to him as if the sloth from next door had turned his attentions to Laura.

      When his case had come up in court he’d been sentenced to nine months in prison for grievous bodily harm and been told it would have been twelve if it hadn’t been for the fact that as well as endangering the other man’s life he had also saved it in those first few moments of realising the horror of what he’d done, otherwise he might have been facing a charge of manslaughter. The marble fireplace had played its part, but he had been the one who’d struck the blow and his life and Laura’s had never been the same since.

      In the weeks prior to his case coming up they had slept in separate rooms, discussed only household matters and the children’s welfare, and though he was no weakling mentally or physically the thought of being shut away from her and the children for any length of time had been agony. The only bright spot had been that Laura’s test results had come back negative for cancer. The swelling was benign.

      The first thing he did in the silent house was strip off and wash away the smell of where he’d been, and then got dressed in some of his own casual clothes that had hung unworn over the months.

      When he opened the fridge it was well stocked and he wondered when Laura had found time to drive up to London to do that. He had the answer when a few seconds later the phone rang and Jenny, his secretary, was on the line, welcoming him home and asking if the food she’d bought him was all right.

      ‘Laura rang and asked me to do a shop for you,’ she explained.

      ‘It is fine, Jenny,’ he told her, ‘and many thanks for taking the trouble’

      ‘It was no trouble. I’m just glad to know you’re home,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Everyone on the unit wants

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