Runaway Sister Read Online Free

be?”
    Samantha looked at Jennie, puzzled. What were they talking about? Jennie shuffled uneasily and looked at her feet, and John for once was strangely silent.
    â€œWhat are they congratulating you two about?” asked Samantha, although in her heart she was pretty sure she already knew.
    â€œOh, Samantha.” Jennie was near to tears. “I wanted to be able to tell you first. But when I came round to your flat last night to tell you, Steve had just told you that everything was off between you two, and somehow it just didn’t seem the right time to break the news to you.”
    â€œOh, Jennie, John, I’m so glad for you!” Samantha flung her arms round them both and hugged them. “Of course, I can see you felt awkward last night, but you shouldn’t today. That was yesterday, today is another day. Here’s to you both.” She raised her glass in salute to them.
    John mopped his brow. “Thank goodness you know at last! Jennie was afraid it would upset you, coming right on top of your own bad luck.”
    Samantha forced a laugh; it sounded hard and brittle in her ears, but it appeared to fool everyone around her. “It’s not bad luck, it had to come sooner or later. I wish Steve every happiness, and as for me—off with the old, on with the new, as they say.”
    Jennie looked a little suspiciously at her as they all sipped their wine. This wasn’t the Samantha she knew.
    â€œBut who will the new be?” came a deep voice from behind Samantha that she recognized in an instant. Startled, she spun round to meet the mocking gaze of Adam Shaw’s slate-grey eyes. She hadn’t expected him to be here, it was mostly junior hospital doctors, not consultants.
    â€œI didn’t think you’d be here,” she blurted out without thinking.
    â€œWhy not? I was invited. I’ve known Tommy Smart for about ten years, so I think I’m entitled to come to his send-off.”
    â€œOh yes…why, of course,” stammered Samantha, at a loss for words. His eyes seemed to bore right through her, she had an uncanny feeling that he could read every thought in her head, and it gave her an extremely uncomfortable feeling.
    â€œDo you know Jennie and John?” She rattled the words out quickly, desperate for something to say, something that would take Adam Shaw’s eyes away from her.
    It had the desired effect, for Jennie and John were duly introduced, and John and Adam began animatedly talking shop. It appeared that they had both been involved with the same patient, Adam Shaw first surgically and John, who was an anesthetist, working in Intensive Care with the patient when she had to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit unexpectedly.
    Samantha took the opportunity to slip away. She could hear John saying as she left, “Yes, I’ve been in close touch with the hematologists and it appears she’s got some really obscure form of anemia. Her clotting time is all to pot, which would account, of course, for the excessive blood loss, but the strange thing is…” John’s voice faded and became swallowed up in the general hubbub as Samantha merged herself in with another group.
    She sipped her wine and joined in the general chatter, her eyes bright and sparkling, her smile wide—so wide, in fact, that she felt if she didn’t stop smiling soon her face would crack in two. Almost everyone at the party knew, of course, that she and Steve had broken up after so many years together, but they all studiously skated around the subject of Steve, for which Samantha was grateful.
    It was becoming excessively hot, as Samantha had feared, the long room in the barge was overcrowded, and the monotonous beat of the loud music became like a pounding sledgehammer in her head. She felt she just had to get out of the noise at least for a few moments, so she squeezed her way through the throng of people and made her way to the stern of the