No More Lonely Nights Read Online Free PDF Page B

she said hurriedly to William Cassidy, who turned a blank face to her and didn’t answer.
    Sian realised it was early for him to begin to get over the first blow of finding out that Annette had run away from him, but this was no time for him to say anything to Annette. She would have enough problems coping with guilt over her father’s heart attack. Sian had learnt during their drive up from the New Forest to London just how close father and daughter were, how attached Annette was to her father, and how much he, in turn, cared about her.
    ‘She’ll blame herself,’ Sian told William Cassidy as Annette and Rick came towards the car. ‘She mustn’t; it could haunt her for the rest of her life if her father dies now. Don’t make it harder for her.’
    ‘Damn you, what makes you think I will?’ he muttered furiously, then got out of the car to greet the other two. A moment later they were in the rear seats and the limousine was sliding away from the kerb. There were still lights on in the little terraced house; no doubt Rick’s parents were up now and distressed over the events of the past few hours.
    Nothing was said on the long drive back, along the motorway, passing very few cars, the wide road unwinding in a strange yellow glare while overhead the starlit sky had a melancholy beauty. Sian leaned back and listened to the brooding silence in the car. Beside her Cass drove without a flicker of expression on his lean face; his hands resting lightly on the wheel, his gaze fixed always ahead. In the back, Annette seemed half asleep, but every now and then she made a sound which wasn’t quite a sob, yet wasn’t ordinary breathing either. Each time Sian felt Rick stir, felt him move, tightening his hold on her, half murmuring to her.
    It was not a comfortable drive, and Sian was relieved to see the dark bulk of the New Forest looming up. It had certainly never entered her head when she set out from here this morning that she was going to be driving back again quite so soon. It was probably just as well that human beings couldn’t see into the future.
    Cass swung the car round a corner suddenly, and Sian leaned forward to glimpse a hospital just ahead of them at the end of a drive. It blazed with lights even at this hour; she saw an ambulance standing on a forecourt, saw two nurses in dark capes going through swing doors, their white uniforms shown up by the light from a window.
    ‘Will they let me see him?’ Annette suddenly whispered.
    ‘You may have to wait a while,’ Cass told her quite kindly, and she gave another of those funny little sobs.
    ‘He’ll be OK,’ Rick muttered, his arm round her and his chin on her hair. ‘You’ll see. They can do wonders these days.’
    Cass pulled up on the hospital drive outside a double-doored entrance. ‘I’ll go and park—you had better get out here,’ he said, and they all began to get out. Annette didn’t really need Sian, but somehow Sian was reluctant to leave her. She had become inextricably involved in this; she felt she had to stay, see it through. Annette had Rick to lean on for the moment, but she might still need another woman around, especially as Cass was there, too. The two men weren’t overtly hostile, but on the other hand they had a guarded wariness which came close to out-and-out hostility. At any moment they could start acting belligerently, and that was the last thing Annette needed. It would help if Sian was there to stop any trouble before it became serious.
    Cass was wrong; Annette did not have to wait to see her father. As soon as they arrived she was taken upstairs to the ward in which he lay, while Rick and Sian sat in a glass-walled waiting-room. When Cass joined them he asked if either of them wanted a drink of coffee or tea.
    Rick shook his head, his face averted, but Sian said she wouldn’t say no to some coffee—it would help her to stay awake.
    ‘I’ll show you where the machine is,’ Cass said, turning on his heel, and she