The Doctor's Destiny Read online

  She turned away to blink back unexpected moisture in her eyes, while Jason went to the front door and opened it, no doubt to go in search of his missing uncle, returning only to poke his head through the door to announce, ‘We’re off!’

  ‘Have fun,’ Alana and Gabi chorused, then, as they heard the ping on the lift doors closing, Alana sank into a chair, looked at her friend and smiled.

  ‘See how it is?’

  Gabi nodded.

  ‘But all he needs is time. Once he’s settled and secure, surely then he’s not going to resent Rory and you getting together.’

  ‘Who knows what might have happened?’ Alana replied. ‘It’s not something that’s going to be put to the test, Gabi. Rory was told to expect an early date for the custody hearing, possibly as soon as next week. And part of it could be a psychological evaluation of Jason. If they go into it with any hint that Jason might be emotionally unstable then Rory stands a good chance of losing the case.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s just too horrible to contemplate.’

  ‘But the father never saw the boy—why should he have rights?’

  Alana sighed again.

  ‘He can argue that Alison never allowed contact and that he didn’t take her to court because he thought it would be harmful for the boy to have two parents squabbling over him. The unexploded bomb in all of this is that if Rory decides to get married but chooses Rosemary over Drusilla, which is logical as they’ve already had a relationship, then Drusilla will probably swap sides and back her brother in his lies. A woman scorned and all that.’

  ‘Maybe he needs a third option,’ Gabi mused. ‘I wonder what Daisy would say to a marriage of convenience?’

  The thought of one of her friends marrying Rory made Alana feel nauseous, so she changed the subject, asking Gabi how she was enjoying the Children’s Hospital, talking shop in an effort to block out her heartache.

  Jason’s second week at school proved even better than his first. He developed a special friendship.

  ‘And he’s asked me to stay this weekend,’ he told Alana. ‘His father builds go-carts and there’s a big go-cart race this weekend so I could go to that with them.’

  They were both involved in the Thursday cage clean, and excitement bubbled out of him, like champagne froth from a hastily opened bottle.

  ‘It means I’ll miss cleaning out the animals on Saturday because I’ll go straight from school on Friday and go back to school with him on Monday.’

  The radiance dimmed slightly as he added, ‘You don’t mind? You’ll be OK here on your own?’

  Alana assured him she’d manage, and though she should have felt relief that she’d be getting her old life back, if only for a weekend, what actually struck her was that she’d miss having him around.

  Although there was a concert on Saturday night.

  But even that failed to thrill—she’d keep looking at the empty seat and imagining Rory there.

  Funny how he hadn’t ever recognised her…

  Though perhaps he had and hadn’t said anything—just as she hadn’t said anything to him…

  Or maybe it hadn’t been him at all, you great dope!

  As usual these days, her head was arguing with itself—and getting nowhere.

  ‘Hey, I’ve just put clean paper in that cage.’ Jason’s protest jolted her back to what she was supposed to be doing.

  ‘Is this weekend away OK with Rory? Has he spoken to the people involved—Marcus, isn’t that your friend’s name? Has Rory spoken to his parents?’

  ‘Rory talked to them last night and he met them at the school. Marcus started late, like me. It was just lucky we ended up in most of the same classes. He’d been at another school, but when they shifted house to be closer to the go-cart track, he had to change.’

  ‘You’ll have to pack tonight,’ Alana reminded. ‘Just make sure you have enough clothes for the whole weekend and a clean school shirt for Monday.’

  ‘I know that stuff,’ Jason told her, and she had to agree. He was far more self-sufficient than she had been at the same age.

  Alana left for work before Jason was up the following morning, and returned home to a flat that seemed intolerably empty. If it hadn’t been for the concert, she’d have packed up herself and gone to her grandparents’ for the weekend. Looking on the bright side, a Friday night had been restored to her, and she could spend most of it in a deep bubble bath, with a glass of wine and a good book.

  Boring!

  She did it anyway, and spent Saturday on necessary grocery shopping then seeking out the perfect pair of shoes to go with an outfit she’d only worn once, to the wedding of a cousin she didn’t like.

  The stilted, stifling occasion had put her off the softly fitted trousers and silky black top but, trying them on the previous night, they’d looked good, and she’d decided to get some mileage out of them.

  The rest of the day was spent avoiding the phone, though forty-seven times she’d weakened and walked towards it, thinking a casual call to Rory to find out if he was going to the concert couldn’t be misconstrued as anything else.

  But each time she’d resisted. He’d wonder about her sanity if she suddenly phoned to ask if he’d sat next to her in a concert a whole month ago.

  Or if he intended going again tonight!

  Of course, she realised as she was picking her way carefully towards her seat that evening, then looked up and saw him there, she was going to feel even more stupid if it did turn out to be him—it was—and she hadn’t asked.

  ‘I thought it might have been you.’

  A duet of the words, soprano and bass.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ Alana.

  ‘Did you know and not say?’ Rory’s line.

  Then they simply looked at each other, and all the skittish emotional vibes Alana had been battling for a month burst their floodgates, and with a soft, ‘Oh Rory,’ she leaned forward and kissed him very gently on the lips.

  They were close enough for her to feel a shudder rip through his body, for her ears to catch the echo of a despairing groan. Then he touched her lips with his finger—a don’t-speak kind of gesture—and took her hand, holding it tightly in his, his thumb running over her skin, telling her all kinds of things his lips could never say.

  And right then, with the violins tuning up in the least melodious manner, she knew that tonight would be their night. A one-off, one and only, but theirs no matter what. Had he sensed her thoughts that his fingers tightened, that he changed hands and put his free arm around her shoulders?

  On her other side, Mrs Schnitzerling must be puce with outrage over such licentious behaviour at a concert, but it felt so good—so right. Alana rested her head against Rory’s arm and gave herself up not only to the music but to the mind-blowing delight of enjoying it with Rory.

  ‘Do you want a drink—stretch your legs?’ he asked, when the intermission lights came on.

  ‘Not really,’ Alana told him. Was he mad? Getting up and going out to the foyer would mean letting go of his hand and losing the heavy arm around her shoulders—the fingers that had fiddled with her hair while the music and his presence had swamped her soul with happiness.

  ‘Strange that,’ he said, turning and pressing his lips against her cheek. ‘Neither do I.’

  So they sat, saying nothing, but Alana guessed he might also be feeling some of the elation buzzing in her body. And some of the very sexual tension that was rising to tightening the muscles in her abdomen, making her nipples harden and peak into tiny nubs of longing.

  Tension that could only be released one way…

  With Jason away, her flat was entirely hers. They’d have tonight—possibly tomorrow night as well. Then—

  ‘The custody hearing’s set down for Wednesday.’ Rory put her thoughts into words.

  ‘So we’ve got tonight.’

  She felt Rory stiffen, and saw the shock in his eyes as he turned towards her.

  ‘You’re saying?’ he demanded hoarsely.


  ‘That at least we’d have something to remember—to hold onto. That we’d at least have one night…’

  She couldn’t go on—the idea was too difficult to put into words.

  ‘Come on!’ He hauled her to her feet. ‘We can hear Dvorak any time. We’re going home.’

  Alana knew she was trembling because she could barely organise her legs enough to walk sideways out along the row of seats, but Rory’s hand sustained her and somehow she made it to the end.

  Where Mr and Mrs Schnitzerling were waiting to edge back to their seats.

  ‘Medical emergency,’ Alana said to them, though she was blushing so furiously they probably didn’t believe her.

  ‘Did you drive here?’ Rory demanded, still striding out and towing Alana behind him like a boat tender.

  ‘No, I hate the parking. I always get a bus and cab it home.’

  ‘Good. I’ve got my car.’

  They were out of the theatre now, charging along a city footpath.

  ‘Just around here.’

  Car lights flashed as he used a remote to unlock the navy saloon, then he opened the passenger door, almost thrust Alana inside, strode around the bonnet and slumped in beside her.

  ‘Hell! I didn’t think I’d make it,’ he said, flopping his head back against the headrest for a moment. ‘I thought I’d have to ravish you right there and then. Talk about an agonising month! Seeing you every day—seeing Jason joking and laughing with you, wanting to kill him because he was close to you and I wasn’t.’

  He paused for a moment then turned to her and added, ‘And even now I daren’t kiss you—I’m terrified of even touching you—in case the dam walls burst and I end up behaving like a sex-crazed adolescent in the front seat of the car.’

  Sexual heat and hysterical laughter vied for supremacy in Alana, the laughter winning, though she risked a touch, reaching out to clasp her hand around Rory’s fingers and squeeze them in silent apology.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when she’d finally recovered enough breath to speak. ‘But it’s so stupid, the whole thing. First we sit next to each other at a concert, and neither of us mention it for a month, then this—this together thing—rushing out of the theatre because we can’t wait to get to bed. It’s like some crazy romantic comedy.’

  ‘Except it isn’t funny,’ Rory said quietly, then he started the car and eased out from the kerb.

  Was it her laughter that had killed the mood between them?

  Alana didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted him, and if she couldn’t have him for ever, which would be any living, breathing woman’s first choice, then she’d make do with one night.

  Perhaps two?

  Rory tried to concentrate on driving, but it wasn’t difficult enough to keep his mind off any segment of the dog’s breakfast that was currently his life. He doubted microsurgery on a newborn’s heart would have been complicated enough to blank out his problems.

  The most prominent of which, right now, apart from a bit of his anatomy, was the woman sitting right beside him.

  Over the past month Alana Wright had shifted from being a thorn in his side at work, and a woman to whom he was attracted, into the only person in the world who occupied his thoughts as much as Jason did. And occupied his body even more!

  The more he saw and learnt of her, the more he realised she was the woman of his dreams—or would have been had he ever been foolish enough to indulge in such fancies. She was bright, beautiful, intelligent, efficient at her job, an expert in handling patients, as well as the friend and confidante Jason needed at this time in his life.

  The realisation that he loved her had come to him in such a blinding flash—had it only been a week ago that he’d been waiting to take Jason to the school social and had watched Alana handle the lad’s extreme teenage reactions so calmly? He’d had to mumble an excuse about seeing Daisy and get out of the room, needing time to consider the implications.

  Time to accept the impossibility of it all!

  ‘We shouldn’t even be thinking about this,’ he said. ‘It will only make things harder.’

  ‘I know,’ she said—he’d forgotten to add ‘attuned to his thoughts’ to his list of her attributes.

  ‘So we shouldn’t?’

  He didn’t look at her—couldn’t—simply steered the car carefully down the drive at Near West, inserted the card to open the garage security grill, then watched the grill rise as if it were the most fascinating sight in the world.

  ‘Of course we shouldn’t,’ Alana said, and his gut contracted with the blow. ‘But let’s do it anyway. We’re both mature, consenting adults. Look at it as a last fling before marriage. It’s not as if you’d be cheating on either one of your women—or would you?’

  The question caught him as he was reversing into his parking space, and he messed up the angle and had to pull out to try again.

  ‘I don’t know how you could even think that—let alone ask it,’ he said savagely. ‘As if I could—with either of them—when a long-haired blonde is driving me insane with the kind of desire I didn’t think thirty-something-year-olds could possibly experience.’

  She smiled at him, then, as he turned off the engine, took his hand, lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss into the palm.

  His skin tingled and his body jolted back to attention. The ‘should we’, ‘shouldn’t we’ argument hammered in his head, but he’d stopped listening. He squeezed her fingers in a silent promise that he’d soon be holding them again and positively leapt out of the car. He was around the boot in time to catch the passenger door as she swung it open, and hold it for her as she climbed out.

  Long, long legs in slinky black trousers that clung to them, then she was standing beside him, shadowy breasts revealed in the V of her demure black top.

  ‘Alana!’ He barely breathed her name, his chest so tight with tension it was hurting.

  ‘Upstairs,’ she whispered, brushing her lips against his. ‘And cross your fingers, toes and anything else crossable that there’s no one in the lift or in my foyer or anywhere else along the way.’

  ‘We could walk up,’ he suggested.

  ‘And be exhausted when we get there?’ Her laughter rippled in the air around him, making him feel light-headed with excitement.

  The lift doors opened, and they stepped into the empty cubicle.

  ‘If anyone gets in on the ground floor I’ll go up and come back down,’ Rory murmured as they stood, circumspectly apart, while the lift rose.

  Past the ground floor, stopping on two—no one in sight.

  ‘Stupid, isn’t it?’ Alana said, then she swept away the maudlin sentimentality threatening to overwhelm her and unlocked her door.

  Rory must have guessed how she felt, for no sooner had he shut the door behind her than he took her in his arms and held her close. An asexual embrace of total comfort.

  ‘It’s not stupid when you consider why we’re doing it—why we’re being cautious and secretive. If we want this night, that’s how it has to be, my beautiful Alana. But I’ve brought you enough unhappiness—by putting you in this position—so it’s up to you to decide if you want to take it further, or say goodnight and we’ll never mention it again.’

  ‘I can’t imagine not taking it further,’ she said, pushing out the words that held equal measures of love and despair. ‘But it has to be our night—with no thought for the future, no mention of other options, nothing but the joy of giving pleasure to each other.’

  She felt his heart thump against his chest as he held her even more tightly, then, as their bodies’ subliminal messages grew more urgent, he kissed her and she shifted so her lips replied with all the passionate longing she’d kept leashed for so long.

  Words no longer necessary, they clung to each other, lips and hands exploring, heated murmurs encouraging, giving and receiving promises of the pleasure to come.

  ‘Have you decided what to do about the custody case?’ Alana asked as, replete at last, they lay, li
mbs tangled together, exhausted but not willing to waste time with sleep. ‘About the marriage thing?’

  ‘Marriage thing!’ Rory repeated, with a huff of bitter laughter. ‘That’s all it will be—a thing, a bit of paper. What I can’t believe is that either Rosemary or Drusilla would want to do it. They both know I’m not in love with them.’

  ‘But if you marry, you should do it properly,’ Alana said, tightening her arms around his chest. ‘For Jason’s sake, make a proper go of it. Imagine how terrible it would be for him to grow up knowing you’re unhappy.’

  Rory pressed a kiss against her forehead.

  ‘How can I do it properly when I love you?’ he said, his voice so husky with emotion she shivered in the warmth of his embrace. ‘It wouldn’t only be me going into a loveless marriage—I’d be dooming either Drusilla or Rosemary to one as well. No, Alana, I know I’ve been dithering about it, and listening to too many people’s advice, but I think I’ve got to risk going to the hearing as I am and admitting I’m likely to remain single for some time.’

  ‘But if you lose?’

  There was silence for a moment, then he moved away from her, sitting up on the edge of the bed and leaning forward, elbows on knees, his head propped on his hands.

  ‘I can’t even contemplate it,’ he said. Then he turned and kissed her.

  ‘And now I’ve got to go. It’s late but not so late I mightn’t have been at a bar or club after the concert. I daren’t make matters worse than they already are by spending the night with you. I can’t afford to give the opposition any ammunition to use against me, and both Rosemary and Drusilla would become the opposition if they thought it would help their cause.’

  He shook his head and an odd smile twitched across his lips.

  ‘That sounds appallingly conceited, doesn’t it? As if I fancy myself as irresistible to women. But it’s not me, it’s the money that attracts them. Jason told you about it. It’s quite a lot.’ There was a pause before he added with a bitterness she’d never heard in him before, ‘For what it’s worth.’