Amy's Touch Read Free Page A

pips on his coat that he was a lieutenant, as he hurried to the pages, picked them up and came up onto the verandah to return them to her.
    He was tall and wide-shouldered, and the few strands of straight black hair that protruded from beneath his cap were wet with rain. His eyes, so dark a brown they were almost black, were large and wide set, she noted as he gave her the sodden pages. In their dark depths she recognised a hint of amusement and something else, dark and haunting. Amy considered herself reasonably good at reading people’s faces, gauging their character in an instant or two—her work as a nurse had taught her to do that. This officer had seen things, done things alien to his nature, she was sure of it. And, even more curious, there was something familiar about him. Did she know him?
    Then she saw the resemblance. He was a taller, more severe version of Private Danny McLean.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said.
    ‘I’m sorry your pages got wet and…You see, I’m at a bit of a loss…’
    Politeness made her respond with, ‘That’s all right. You’ve come to see your brother, I presume. Private McLean?’
    ‘Correct. I believe he’s in Ward Twenty.’ His dark brown eyes crinkled up as he smiled. ‘I guess we do look a bit alike, Danny and I.’
    Amy checked her wristwatch—a parting gift from her father, envied by many of the nurses—after which she screwed the top back on her ink bottle and stood up. ‘I’m due to go on duty. If you’ll wait a moment while I put these things away, I’ll take you there.’ She could just give him directions, she realised, but an unusual sense of curiosity to see how Private McLean would react when he saw his brother took hold of her. Not many wounded soldiers got visits from relatives. She watched a dark eyebrow arch up in surprise.
    ‘That’s kind of you. I’ll wait.’
    ‘Who’s that?’ Nurse Jessie Mills hissed as Amy came into the room to put her writing implements on the highboy.
    ‘He didn’t say. He’s visiting someone in Ward Twenty,’ Amy responded as she put her headgear on and fastened it with bobby pins. Her co-worker and roommate—they’d shared accommodation for several months, since Jessie had replaced one of the nurses—was a character, but Amy liked her. Jessie had a reputation for being the nursing staff’s greatest flirt, and all the women knew, because Jessie had told them, that her goal in life was to ‘snaffle’ a doctor or a recovering officer, fall in love, and marry him.
    ‘He’s rather nice.’ Jessie gave Amy a knowing wink.
    ‘Is he? I hadn’t noticed,’ Amy returned, tongue-in-cheek. She donned her gloves, picked up her valise and headed for the door. In all truth, she had noticed; she would have to have had impaired vision not to. He was handsome, but in a severe, serious way. The corners of her mouth tucked in as she thought he was probably the no-nonsense, do-as-I-say type. Which was doubtless why he was an officer.
    ‘Find out if he’s married or engaged,’ Jessie said in a whisper.
    ‘Jessie, he’s just come to see a patient. There’s not likely to be an opportunity for you or anyone else to pursue an interest in the lieutenant,’ Amy said in her common-sense way.
    Jessie made a huffing noise. ‘Oh! I suppose you’re right. Still,’ she sighed plaintively, ‘he is rather yummy.’
    Shaking her head, Amy collected herself and made for the front door. Jessie Mills was incorrigible when it came to her quest to find a husband, a fact that Amy found amazing. She, at twenty-one, was in no hurry to settle into married life, to run a household, prepare meals and raise children.
    As she moved down the steps towards Lieutenant McLean, curiosity, of which she had more than her share, made her wonder about the horrors he must have seen, the number of German soldiers he might have killed. Was that why he looked so serious? She firmly believed, after her time in Britain, that no one could go through what the Allied