Penmort Castle (40 page)

Abby had no
time to deny her love for Cash or thank her or give her the hug she
probably desperately needed as the others arrived.

Honor’s hand
dropped from her arm and Abby watched as the guard slid back over
her expression.

“Cash’s whole
house is gorgeous!” Fenella shrieked.

“It’s
impersonal,” Mrs. Truman announced. “This is the only room that’s
homey.”

Nicola’s eyes
were on Abby, her face soft, and she said, “I think the house is
lovely but you’re right. This room is definitely the most
welcoming.”

Abby watched as
Nicola’s hand reached out and her fingers touched a hyacinth on the
bar. Then she smiled at Abby, indicating she knew exactly why the
rest of the house was cold and this room was warm.

Abby, still
reeling from her conversation with Honor, gave Nicola a weak smile
and quickly looked away.

As Honor
started handing out drinks, Abby stiffly started to make Jenny’s
Manhattan, her mind awhirl with an all new set of earth-shattering
worries.

“You okay?”
Jenny whispered and Abby, not having noticed her friend had gotten
close, jumped.

“No,” Abby
whispered back and then continued, “we’ll talk later.”

Jenny opened
her mouth to speak but Abby’s mobile, lying on the counter, started
ringing.

“I’ll finish
this,” Jenny said, taking the cocktail shaker from Abby and Abby
moved across the kitchen and grabbed her mobile.

The display
said, “Unknown Caller” and Abby was disappointed it wasn’t Cash.
She was beginning to get worried.

She slid it
open and put it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Is this
Abigail Butler?” an efficient female voice asked.

“Yes,” Abby
replied, ready to launch into her kind, but firm and very short “no
thank you” speech that she delivered to all telephone
marketers.

Then the female
voice spoke and what she said opened a hole under Abby through
which Abby fell, plummeting uncontrollably toward the painfully
blazing molten core at the centre of the earth.

“This is Emma
at Mr. Fraser’s offices. There’s been a car accident and Mr.
Fraser’s at hospital.”

“What?” Abby
breathed, clutching the phone to her ear so tightly, pain shot
through her fingers and it was a small miracle the phone didn’t
fuse to her ear.

“A car
accident. Mr. Fraser’s at hospital,” Emma repeated.

“What
hospital?” Abby asked sharply, her voice overloud, cracking through
the air like a gunshot and the hum of conversation in the room
silenced.

“Royal United,”
Emma answered then went on speaking but Abby didn’t listen, she
slid her phone shut with a snap, dropped it on the counter and shot
to the oven, turning it off. She didn’t look at anyone as she ran
to her purse and grabbed it.

“Cash has been
in a car accident. He’s at the hospital. I’ve got to go,” she
announced, hearing the gasps and murmurings of surprise but she
kept going, mind blank, her body’s functions performed through an
acute but focused panic.

She moved
swiftly, taking the stairs two at a time. In the distance, she
heard her mobile ring again but she didn’t go back for it.

She was in the
foyer, her coat in the crook of her arm, when she was swung back
with a firm hand on her arm.

It was
Jenny.

“Abby –” Jenny
began.

Abby yanked her
arm free. “I’ve got to go.”

“Abigail!” Mrs.
Truman barked.

Abby swung to
the older woman and screamed, “
I’ve got to go!
”

Mrs. Truman
wasn’t trying to detain her and she wasn’t wasting any time. She
had her purse and was putting on her coat as she started to issue
orders.

To Jenny she
said, “You drive. Abigail’s car is right outside. I’m coming with
you. I know where Royal United is.”

She shoved
through Jenny and Abby and pulled open the door, looking back.

“Nicola, blow
out the candles and make sure the house is safe. We’ll meet you
there.”

Then she leaned
forward, grabbed Abby’s hand and tugged her gently out the door to
the car.

Abby gave Jenny
the keys, threw her coat through the door and got in the backseat
of her car, buckling up. Mrs. Truman sat up front with Jenny. She
listened as Mrs. Truman softly gave directions and Jenny drove
safely, efficiently, but very quickly.

Abby sat in the
back, her body feeling strangely numb considering she was breathing
heavily but her mind was flashing from thought-to-thought.

Or, more
accurately, image-to-image, sound-to-sound and
feeling-to-feeling.

She saw Cash
sitting at the table in the pub the first time she laid eyes him,
so handsome he took her breath away at the same time he scared her
so much, she almost turned around and left.

She heard
Cash’s deep, rich laughter that first time in his car after he met
Mrs. Truman.

She heard his
beautiful voice on the phone telling her he was thinking about
their first, full-on kiss.

She felt his
warm, strong hand on her neck.

She saw his
eyes when he’d warned her she’d made a promise he was going to make
her keep.

She saw him
casually tossing her shoes across the room.

She felt the
strange, moving, tender touch of his lips last night.

She heard his
voice telling her they had all the time in the world.

Her hands came
up and curled around the back of Jenny’s seat and she pleaded
urgently, “Jenny, go faster.”

Jenny didn’t
take her eyes from the road as she muttered softly, “I’ll get you
there, honey.”

Mrs. Truman
twisted toward Abby and her face, usually composed, sometimes
angry, other times grouchy, was now filled with unhidden
concern.

“Abigail,
breathe,” Mrs. Truman ordered gently.

Abby’s eyes
shifted to the older woman, her breath coming in short pants. “I
am.”

Mrs. Truman
shook her head. “Deep breaths, dear,” when Abby didn’t obey, Mrs.
Truman repeated, “Deeply, Abby. Breathe deeply.”

Abby nodded and
took in a deep, shuddering breath. Mrs. Truman watched her as she
took in another one then another. Only when Abby’s breathing became
controlled did Mrs. Truman turn back to the road and continue with
her directions.

What felt like
a year later, Jenny turned into the A&E entrance of Royal
United Hospital and Abby released her seatbelt in preparation for
exiting the car.

When she
straightened from the belt, out the front window she saw Cash
standing with a man outside the doors to A&E.

Standing. Eyes
open. Body intact. There was no blood. There were no cuts. No
gaping wounds. No bandages. No slings. No limbs in casts. No
crutches.

Just tall,
handsome, beautiful, breathing Cash.

Abby threw open
the door the minute Jenny came to a halt. She shot out of the car
and ran on her high-heeled shoes like she’d been told she had only
one second to reach him, to get her hands on him or he’d disappear
forever.

The man he was
with saw her, his face registered surprise and Cash’s glance
followed his. Abby watched Cash’s brows draw together as he saw
her. He started approaching but stopped because Abby didn’t slow.
He only had a moment to brace before she hit him, full-body,
full-velocity, full-weight. On impact, his arms came around her and
he went back on a foot.

“Abby, what on
–” he started but Abby shoved her face in his neck and wrapped her
arms so tightly around him she felt her muscles strain with the
effort to hold on.

She felt Cash’s
arms tighten as his voice murmured in her ear, “Darling, what’s
happened?”

Abby didn’t get
a chance to respond, not that she would have. Her mind was blank
and she had no faculties left to her but the ability to hold on
tight.

“What’s the
meaning of this?” Mrs. Truman demanded from somewhere behind
Abby.

“I was hoping
you could tell me,” Abby heard Cash reply.

“She got a
call. She was told you were in a car accident and at the hospital,”
Jenny informed Cash and at her words Cash’s body went still but his
arms constricted.

Then she heard
him mutter a terse, “
Fuck,
” before he hesitated and she
actually felt him forcing his body to relax before he called,
“Abby.”

Abby didn’t
move.

One of his arms
still tight around her waist, the other hand came into her hair as
he urged, “Darling, look at me.”

Abby still
didn’t move.

He gave her
hair a gentle tug. “Abby.”

Her head came
back, she looked at him and the minute her eyes locked on his, hers
filled with tears.

He saw it, his
face went soft and he muttered, “Darling.”

“You’re all
right,” she whispered, her voice sounding husky and choked but
filled with blissful relief.

“I’m fine,” he
murmured, his hand going from her hair to stroke her spine. “I
wasn’t in an accident. Moira was.”

“Moira, who’s
Moira?” Mrs. Truman wanted to know but Cash didn’t answer, his eyes
were on Abby.

“Moira?” Abby
asked.

“Yes, darling,”
Cash told her.

Abby blinked,
reality beginning to intrude, the black nightmare slowly edging
away.

However, not
enough for Abby to move even a centimetre away from Cash’s hard,
warm, living body.

“Is she okay?”
Abby queried.

“Banged up but
they’re releasing her. We’d both just left the office. I was behind
her when it happened. I stayed while we waited for the ambulance
and then came to the hospital to wait until Glyn got here.” He
shifted their bodies so she could see the man he’d been standing
with. “This is her fiancé, Glyn.”

Abby’s eyes
moved to the man, shorter than Cash by several inches, he was fair,
blue-eyed and he looked a mixture of worried and stunned, the
former for Moira, the latter, likely, at Abby’s behaviour.

Reality crashed
in and Abby’s arms loosened their hold but Cash’s didn’t.

He held her
close as Abby said to Glyn, “I’m so sorry. I thought it was Cash.”
She took in a shaky breath and repeated, “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,”
Glyn said and his eyes moved to Cash. “I’d better get back to
Moira. Thank you for staying.”

“Not a
problem,” Cash returned and Glyn nodded, his gaze swung around the
assemblage and then he turned back to the A&E and walked
in.

“Cash Fraser,”
Mrs. Truman’s curt voice came at them and Cash let one arm drop as
he turned both Abby and himself to face the older woman when she
went on, “would you care to explain how this could happen?”

Abby took one
look at Mrs. Truman and knew that in all her bad moods, this one
was the worst. She looked outraged.

“Mrs. Truman –”
Abby started, knowing exactly how it happened.

She’d panicked
and overreacted, she hadn’t let Emma tell her the whole story
before she freaked out and took off.

She was so
stupid. Stupid, stupid,
stupid
.

Cash’s voice
talked over hers. “I don’t know but I’m sure as fuck going to find
out.”

He was reaching
in his inside pocket of his suit jacket and Abby’s fingers curled
around his wrist.

“It was me,”
she whispered when his hand stilled and his head tilted down to
look at her. “It was me. I think Emma was going to explain, but I
heard ‘car accident’ and you at the hospital and I –”

“That still
doesn’t explain why Fraser didn’t call himself,” Mrs. Truman
snapped.

“I did. Four
times. Her mobile was going directly to voicemail,” Cash returned
and Abby knew why this happened, she’d been on and off the phone
with Jenny and Fenella several times, giving them the complicated
directions through Bath to Cash’s house. Cash went on. “I had to
follow the ambulance to the hospital so I called my office and told
them to phone Abby and explain that I’d be late.” His eyes came
back to Abby’s and a muscle was working in his jaw. “Obviously,
they didn’t perform that simple task very well.”

“Please don’t
be angry at anyone, it was me. I –” Abby started.

“Abby, there’s
a big fucking difference between ‘Mr. Fraser will be late due to
his PA having a car accident’ and ‘There’s been an accident and Mr.
Fraser is in hospital’,” Cash replied, his voice holding a sharp
edge of anger.

“Cash, really
–” Abby started to protest but Cash cut her off.

“Abby, a minute
ago you were staring at me with tears in your eyes and I could feel
your heart beating through my fucking clothes,” he clipped, the
sharp edge of anger became blunt and heavy. “I don’t employ staff
to terrify my girlfriend. I employ them to be professional and know
how to fucking communicate.”

“Cash!” Abby
cried, worried she’d gotten the Unknown Emma into serious hot water
but he ignored her and looked at Jenny.

“I’ll take Abby
home,” he informed Jenny and Abby’s eyes moved from being narrowed
in annoyance at Cash to Jenny.

Abby saw her
friend was staring at her. Jenny’s face was pale, her eyes were
knowing and her lips were pulled in between her teeth. This last
was probably to stop herself from speaking, as in asking Abby what
in
the heck
was going on in her screwy, messed up head.

“Oh thank God,
you’re safe!” Nicola called, rushing forward with Fenella on her
heels, Honor and Cassandra striding up quickly behind them.

“Jesus,” Cash
muttered.

Mrs. Truman
turned toward them and waved both hands in the air.

“It was a
mistake. Someone named Moira was in a car accident. Cash was being
a good employer. All’s well,” she announced then turned back to
Cash, silently conveying it was his fault if her next words were
true, “except, maybe, the chicken.”

“I’m so sorry,
it’s all my fault, I –” Abby started but stopped when Cash’s arm
gave her a non-too-gentle squeeze that stole her breath and her
ability to speak.