Abbey looked up too, and saw Ryan’s face set. Ryan had heard it, then. The love and the pride. The ties that went far beyond duty letters. And Abbey saw in his face that Ryan was feeling just dreadful.

The old Ryan wasn’t completely gone.

OK. She’d let Ryan off the hook. Take the blame herself. Let Sam keep on thinking that his son was wonderful.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Abbey squeezed Sam’s hand. ‘Did Ryan tell you it was all my fault he was late? First I smashed my bike into him. Then I demanded he put my dislocated knee back into place, and finally he had to milk my cows. And all the time you were waiting and not knowing he was even in the district. I’m so sorry.’

‘There’s no damage.’ There was damage, Abbey knew. Sam’s voice was a weak whisper, but there was no way he’d conceded anything to his dicky heart in the past. He wasn’t about to start now. ‘I might have known Ryan was needed. He wouldn’t have been late otherwise. My Ryan’s a great boy.’

‘He is, too.’ Abbey ventured a smile up at Ryan and found his face still looked as if it were carved in stone. Pain was washing over her in waves. Soundlessly Ryan held out the ECG reading. Abbey checked it carefully, and nodded.

‘It’s OK, Ryan,’ she told him. ‘Not much different to last time.’ A little worse. Not much.

‘What the hell…?’ Ryan’s voice was full of pent-up emotion. ‘Dad… you’ve got a heart that’s as dicky as this and you haven’t even told me?’

‘Now hardly seems the time to yell at him for being a bad letter-writer,’ Abbey said mildly. She smiled affectionately at Sam. ‘I’ll yell at you in the morning, if you like. For now I’ll ring Janet and let her know you’re OK. She’ll be worried so I’ll thank you kindly to stop scaring her. If Ryan’s done all he needs maybe you should get some sleep.’

‘I don’t need all these wires,’ Sam said fretfully, and Abbey fixed him with a look.