Hanna was already halfway down the steps, reaching the child at the same time as his mother. Lucy was now crying as well.

  ‘Oh, my God... Thomas...are you all right?’

  Mac joined them. ‘Making this much noise is usually a good sign,’ he told her.

  Hanna was watching as Thomas threw himself into his mother’s arms. ‘His movement’s not restricted in any way. And I couldn’t see any bumps on his head.’

  Both children were still wailing. Hanna held out her hand to Lucy. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I know it was an accident. Do you need a cuddle, too?’

  She did. Hanna sat on the step beside the mother with Lucy in her arms. Thomas calmed down enough for Mac to give him a quick check.

  ‘Can you wiggle all your fingers for me? Like this? Does anything else hurt?’

  Thomas wiggled his fingers and shook his head.

  ‘Let me see if I can feel any bumps on your head.’

  Hanna could actually feel how gentle his touch was as he examined Thomas for any sign of a head injury. Not that she needed any confirmation of the kind of skills he had as a doctor, but it was heart-warming to see how good he was with small children.

  Thomas wasn’t crying any longer but he was clinging to his mother like a small monkey. ‘I think I need an ice cream, Mummy.’ There was still enough of a wobble in his voice to persuade his mother.

  ‘Thank you so much for your help,’ she said, as she prepared to leave with both her children. ‘I knew that sightseeing in a church probably wasn’t the best idea with these two. We’ll go ice cream hunting instead.’

  Mac sat down beside Hanna on the step. ‘Would you prefer an ice cream, too?’

  Her smile made him an accomplice in her reprieve from the tour group. He liked that. Rather a lot, in fact.

  ‘Can we go for a walk instead? Over there?’

  ‘You’re good with kids,’ Mac said, as they walked towards a patch of forest on the far side of the car park.

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘But you really like them, don’t you? If you were Thomas and Lucy’s mother, you’d probably be giving them a holiday adventure in this forest, not dragging them into an ancient church.’

  Hanna laughed. ‘Yep. That would be much more fun for me, too.’

  The patch of forest was cool and green and deserted. After the busy flow of tourists and the noise of crying children, the peace and quiet of being amongst the trees was more than welcome. It also had the invitation of a private, almost intimate, space. It was peaceful. Safe. Mac remembered the moment when he’d begun to feel this safe in Hanna’s company—when she’d told him that she wasn’t interested in marriage or kids. There was a note of sadness in the thought that she’d never be that amazing mother providing adventures for small people, though.

  ‘Have you never wanted any kids of your own?’

  ‘Can’t have them.’ Hanna’s tone was dismissive. ‘I had an emergency hysterectomy when I was sixteen so that I didn’t bleed to death.’

  ‘Good grief...what happened?’ Mac was taken aback by what must have been a traumatic, life-changing injury. It also seemed somehow disappointing that such a vibrant, warm person was never intending to create a family of her own.

  ‘It was an ectopic pregnancy,’ Hanna said quietly. ‘My gran might have been right to think that only ballet or ballroom dancing was okay. I got pregnant to someone I met in a salsa class.’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to have happened... I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ Hanna offered him a smile. ‘It happened a very long time ago and, on the plus side, I spent so long in hospital I discovered that I really, really wanted to become a nurse. I also discovered that I didn’t actually want to have kids at all. The whole idea of parenthood was so scary it was a relief to know I’d never have to go there. It felt like a “get out of jail free” card.’

  ‘Of course it was scary. You were no more than a kid yourself.’

  ‘But I haven’t changed my mind since then. Even when it turned out to be a dealbreaker for the guy I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with and I tried to change my mind, I couldn’t. We talked about surrogacy and adoption and all the different ways it’s possible to create families these days.’

  ‘You can’t change how you feel about something that big because someone else wants you to.’ Mac blew out a breath. ‘And if you have to change that much to try and make a relationship work, it’s doomed anyway. It might not have felt like it but it would have been far less painful to find that out, make a clean break and move on.’

  ‘Wow...’ Hanna’s glance was curious. ‘Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’

  ‘You could say that.’ Mac drew in a long, slow breath. ‘Coincidentally, it was an accidental pregnancy that made me realise I didn’t want kids, either.’

  Hanna blinked at him. ‘No way... How old were you?’

  ‘Nineteen. In my first year of med school.’ Like telling Hanna about his unknown sister, this was something else Mac had never shared with anyone but this was a connection that was on a very different level. How many people could understand how confronting it was to be faced with parenthood when you were barely out of childhood yourself?

  ‘There was no choice about accepting it,’ he told her. ‘Not for me. Not when it was my first serious relationship. I was in love. I thought we could make it work but my girlfriend had other ideas. She wasn’t going to give up her career or her life for a baby she wasn’t ready to have. She only told me she’d gone and had an abortion on the day she broke off our engagement. That was when I made my real choice.’

  ‘That you didn’t want to have kids?’

  ‘That I was the only person who was going to make any decisions that might change my own life. And the only way to be sure of that is to do it by yourself.’

  Any relationship was dangerous. Because if you loved someone and you wanted to be loved, you were handing control of a significant part of your life over to them. If they didn’t feel the same way, they could destroy too much.

  Hanna was nodding slowly. Of course she got it. She wasn’t chasing any dream of marriage and kids. She was living her life exactly how she wanted to, wasn’t she? Independently. Adventurously.

  And maybe it was the opposite side of the coin to the way he’d chosen to keep his life meticulously organised and predictable but, on a fundamental level, it felt like they were kindred spirits. How lucky were they to have this unexpected time to enjoy being with the company of someone who could understand and accept them for who they were?

  ‘This works, though, doesn’t it?’ Mac said softly. ‘I think I approve of holiday flings.’

  Sunlight was filtering through the canopy of the trees in visible, misty rays that caught Hanna’s eyes. It lit up the sunburst of colour around her pupils, before her iris became a mix of gold and brown and green that collided with that dark rim.

  Extraordinary eyes.

  Eyes that were as unique as Hanna Peterson.

  He remembered her looking up at him like this last night, when they’d finally reached his room. When he’d caught her wrists and held her captive, like some sort of caveman, pushing her up against the wall and giving in to the desire to kiss her until a lack of oxygen forced him to stop long enough to take a breath, only to start again and, this time, to hold her wrists with one hand so that he could use his other hand to find her most intimate point of pleasure...

  What was it about this woman that made him totally unaware of the kind of inhibitions he’d always had when it came to sex because giving in to desire like this was its own form of losing control? Good grief...he was thinking of doing it again, right now. Backing her up against the trunk of a tree in broad daylight when they could be discovered by anyone at any moment.

  Just a kiss would be okay, though. Wouldn’t it?

  Hanna seemed to think so. And it wasn’t until they could hear the blaring of a loud horn that they finally remembered where they were.

  ‘Is that the bus?’

  ‘I think so.’ Mac could see the way Hanna was trying to blink off the drugging effect of their kissing. ‘We’d better run. I didn’t hear the bell, did you?’

  ‘No. Oh, dear... Katarina is not going to be happy.’

  Katarina was, in fact, furious. ‘It is entirely unacceptable to disrupt the timetable of everyone else on a tour they have paid for,’ she told them. ‘And I will not allow the reputation of my company to be tarnished. If this happens again, the bus will not be waiting for you.’

  Katarina wasn’t the only person who was less than happy. Mac and Hanna had to get past the highly annoyed glares of everybody already well settled in their seats as they made their way to the back of the bus.

  It should have been highly embarrassing.

  It really shouldn’t have made Mac feel as if he was finally tapping into a teenaged rebellion he’d completely missed out on experiencing.

  Would it have been this much fun back then?

  As he slid into his seat and caught Hanna’s gaze, he decided that the answer to that was a resounding ‘yes’—it would have been, if she’d been his partner in crime.

  A little while later, when they were on their way to the next stop on their tour and Hanna’s hand once again crept over to take hold of his, Mac squeezed back without hesitation.

  Yes...this felt like coming home. To something familiar and beloved.

  And then it hit him.

  Was he breaking what had become an ironclad barrier and falling in love with someone again? Was it because Hanna didn’t seem to have emotional barriers of her own that it hadn’t occurred to him to ensure that his own were firmly in place?

  And, if he was in danger of falling in love with Hanna Peterson or it had happened already, was it really something to be worried about when he was enjoying himself this much? It was only for a few days, after all.

  A mere blink in his lifetime.

  * * *

  ‘I’m really sorry, Mac.’

  They had both known the bus would have long since left without them but staring at Mac’s suitcase and Hanna’s backpack, abandoned by a stone wall in a corner of the parking area and under the amused gaze of other tourist bus drivers, made it all too clear that Mac’s holiday was in ruins.

  ‘This is my fault,’ Hanna added. She bit her lip as she sat down on the top of the wall. ‘We should have stayed with the rest of the group and Katarina and gone shopping in the marketplace.’

  ‘To buy souvenir lederhosen or cuckoo clocks?’ Mac’s snort was dismissive. ‘I doubt that we would have been welcome at the restaurant they were all having lunch at, either. We weren’t the most popular people on board, were we? We were the disruptive latecomers.’

  Was it her imagination or was there a note of pride in Mac’s voice? Hanna couldn’t imagine that being punished for unacceptable behaviour was something that he was familiar with. That glimpse into his childhood of being so captivated by the meticulous workings of a clock suggested that he had been a very intelligent and probably extremely tidy and well-behaved youngster. Was he looking at this as part of his new experience of travelling with company?

  An adventure?

  Thank goodness he didn’t seem to be furious with her. Or was he skilled at hiding how he really felt?

  ‘Will you be able to get your money back?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Mac shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It is my fault,’ she said. ‘It was me who suggested that a balloon ride would be fun.’

  ‘And my choice to make it happen.’ Mac met her gaze and...yes...there was definitely a hint of amusement making his eyes sparkle. ‘We’re equally at fault, here.’

  That was true. Hanna would never have spent so much money on a short ride in a hot air balloon to see the sights of this city, like the castle and other historic buildings lining the riverbanks, from above. She should have protested more but, to be honest, she’d loved that look in Mac’s eyes that told her he wanted to pay for it—that it would be a pleasure to give her something she would enjoy. It also looked as though it was meant to happen, because there was a balloon that seemed to be getting ready to take off and...well, why not see if they had the space to take another couple of passengers?

  By skipping the group lunch, they would still be back in plenty of time to catch their bus, so they bought their tickets and climbed into the basket, clutching each other’s hands as flames roared and ropes were dropped and they rose slowly into the air. It was certainly the best way they could have seen the sights and, really, it was no one’s fault that wind conditions unexpectedly changed and blew them off course so that they ended up in a farmer’s field some distance away and had to wait for the balloon company’s van to come and collect them.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ Hanna asked.

  Mac laughed. ‘I was hoping you’d tell me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been expelled from a bus tour before. Didn’t you tell me how much you liked to arrive somewhere and follow your nose?’

  ‘Mmm...’ Hanna took out her phone and opened a browser. ‘Nuremberg airport is only about fifteen kilometres from here,’ she told him. ‘That seems like a good place to start. I can call a taxi to get us there.’

  ‘Where do you want to fly to?’

  Hanna caught his gaze. ‘Where would you like to fly to?’

  ‘I’m something of a beginner in nose-following.’ Mac was showing nothing on his face, but his gaze was holding hers with that intensity Hanna was starting to love. ‘Surprise me.’

  Did that mean Mac was not only happy to let her take the lead but that he was still happy to spend the next few days in her company? She needed to make her choice a good one, then. Hopefully, an experience Mac would remember for the rest of his life and one that would erase any of her own guilt about her part in ruining his bus tour. She clicked to open another window and began scrolling.

  ‘There are direct flights from Nuremberg to quite a few destinations,’ she told him. ‘It’ll be up to chance what seats are available but today, it looks like we could potentially end up in Cyprus, Athens, Istanbul or Barcelona.’

  ‘And we just go? Without even a hotel booking?’

  ‘Nose-following.’ Hanna nodded, her tone serious. ‘I’ve never ended up sleeping on the streets,’ she added. ‘But there’s always a risk that adventures might not turn out to be quite what you expect. Are you up to taking that chance? Living a little dangerously for a few days?’

  He was holding her gaze again, so intently it felt as if he was searching her soul, as he was deciding whether to take that risk. It was obvious that behaving so impulsively was totally out of character for Mac but she knew that already about him. And she knew why he’d learned that he needed to have as much control as he possibly could over his life. He might not have been ready to be a husband or father when he was only a teenager but it must have been an absolute betrayal to have the future he’d chosen to accept torn away from him. She could understand why he had never trusted another woman that much again but...but she wanted him to trust her. Just for a little while, at least. For the few days they had planned to have together before they both returned to their real lives and never saw each other again.

  Hanna couldn’t make any promises about how things might turn out by taking him on an unplanned adventure but she could hold her own breath and hope that he would choose to come with her. Choose to trust her...

  Maybe that hope was showing in her eyes because Mac’s gaze softened as his lips curved.

  ‘What is it about you?’ he murmured. ‘That makes it impossible to say “no”?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  THIS WAS A new planet for Mac.

  A world away from a well-run emergency department or even the kind of rules that kept his personal life organised and efficient. This was a world where responsibilities could be abdicated, and rules ignored. You could eat whatever you liked without considering its nutritional value, take a few days away from reality and not feel guilty about ignoring almost every email and dismissing increasing tension from any approaching commitments and deadlines. You could even give someone else the control of where you might go and what you might do when you got to the mystery destination.

  The destination chosen at Nuremberg airport had ended up being Barcelona and they’d arrived so late that evening there was only time to find a hotel, but it became clear the next morning that there were going to be small adventures they were going to find each day and more rules that could be broken.

  Okay...there did seem to be one rule that was unbreakable and that was that time—like life—was short and it had to be made the most of. A large part of that process appeared to involve living in the moment and Mac was learning that he’d never quite known how to do that before meeting Hanna Peterson.

  Perhaps it had been something he’d learned not to do when he was too young to understand what a protective mechanism was and how to use it. And then it became something to juggle in his work life when he had to be aware of every single thing happening in each moment of a medical emergency but he also needed see a bigger picture of what could have happened to lead up to this situation and how to manipulate what was going to happen next in order to provide an acceptable outcome.

  He’d never learned to simply be in the moment and savour it. To feel things on an emotional level and find joy that made that moment something to treasure. Like the taste of his chocolate and mint ice cream that he’d almost finished by the time Hanna finally found the perfect patch of sand to sit on and dropped the sandals she’d been carrying in her hand.

  ‘How good is this?’ She beamed. ‘I had no idea that train was going to bring us to the beach.’