Page 114 of Wedding Crasher

Gabe had never known relief like the moment when a flurry of nurses crowded in and took charge of Emily. One look at her contorted face had been enough to galvanise them into action. In a blink, Cecilia, Gabe and Emily were hurried down a corridor into a room full of scary-looking lights and metal equipment strapped to the walls. A small woman in a dark blue uniform looked him over expectantly.

‘Right then, Dad. Let’s get Emily up on the bed so we can check what’s going on down there.’

‘Oh, I’m not the father,’ Gabe said, thoroughly alarmed.

‘No, I am.’

Everyone turned at the sound of a new voice in the room.

‘Thanks Gabe. I’ll take it from here.’

Emily burst into noisy tears.

‘Tom. Thank God.’

Snowflakes settled on Gabe’s shoulders as he leaned against the wall outside the maternity unit. He was frozen, but it was preferable to the cloying heat of the waiting area and having Cecilia snoozing on his shoulder.

Why did things never go as he expected them to around here?

This was the first time he’d set foot near Beckleberry since the day after the fire, and already his well-laid plans had been ripped to shreds. His phone bipped in his pocket, and he grinned as he scanned the predictable message from Dan. Everything else in his life might shift like quicksand, but Dan would always be Jack the Lad.

Pub. Now. Wall 2 Wall totty.

In the hot pub, which was packed out with tinsel-draped revellers, Dan felt his mobile vibrate in the back pocket of his jeans. He reached down for it without disturbing Trisha, the comely barmaid, who at that very moment was in the process of delivering his Christmas snog with considerable tonsil-probing skill.

He flicked the message onto the screen and squinted at it over her naked shoulder.

Sorry Bud. Sink a Guinness for me. Mercy dash to the hospital with Emily.

Dan read it twice over then shrugged Trisha off unapologetically and shouldered his way through the crowd, his jacket and cigarettes forgotten on the table behind him.

He had to get to the hospital.

Gabe stood in the shadows and watched Marla skate across the snowy car park towards him. He shook his head at her thoroughly unsuitable choice of footwear. Did the woman possess anything else except high heels? Her hair swirled around her pink cheeks, and her laugh danced on the crystal-cold air as she clung to Jonny’s arm – not that he was much of an anchor for her in those ridiculous cowboy boots.

He liked Jonny a lot, but at that moment he’d have loved nothing more than for the man to disappear in a puff of smoke. For it to behisarm that Marla clutched, andhisjokes that brought out that big laugh.

She drew closer, and he could so easily have stepped out of the darkness and called her name, but fear held him still as she rushed by. Besides, it was bloody freezing. Romantic as the notion was, he didn’t want to say what he needed in an icy car park.

Marla spotted her mother straight away. She was difficult to miss, snoring and resplendent in her gold dress, with her shoes kicked off underneath her chair. She was cuddled up against the water cooler, and behind her, a rather sparsely decorated Christmas tree flashed in time with the piped Christmas carols.

‘Christ. It seems the world’s oldest fairy has fallen off the top of the tree,’ Jonny tittered, but Marla was too distracted to laugh with him. Her eyes skittered around the room in search of a familiar dark head, her entire body braced with the anticipation of seeing Gabe again. The disappointment of his absence felt rather like the entire hospital had crumbled on her head.

She touched her mother’s shoulder.

‘Mom?’

Cecilia woke up and detached herself from the side of the water cooler in an undignified manner that involved drool and lopsided hair.

‘Marla, darling, you’re here.’

Her eyes slid from Marla to Jonny, and then flickered around reception.

‘Where’s Gabriel gone?’

Jonny glanced at Marla’s stricken expression and came to her rescue.

‘I was just about to ask you the same question.’

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