Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit Read online

  Plans are one thing but, in reality, avoiding Oliver was difficult when he catapulted down the stairs behind her as she was leaving for work the next morning.

  ‘Wait up. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘And asking so politely too!’

  Okay, so snapping at him was petty, but after a week of unadulterated tension, she was desperate for a little Oliver-free time.

  ‘It’s about our daughter,’ he growled, his voice telling her he probably wanted to see as little of her as she wanted to see of him.

  She shrugged off the sniping comment.

  ‘Was any explanation given for the PDA? According to the file she was slightly premature but four weeks is nothing these days. Did the paediatrician who saw her think it might have been genetic?’

  Clare sighed.

  ‘I really, really don’t want to think about that time,’ she muttered. ‘You might not believe it, but it wasn’t exactly a high point in my life. I’ve given you the file, what more do you want?’

  She was striding up the road, trying not to get ahead of him but to escape the relentless awareness that stirred her senses whenever he was close.

  ‘I want to know the nitty-gritty stuff. If we have another child, should we be prepared that this could happen again.’

  ‘If we have another child?’

  The words came out so loudly three pigeons nodding to one another on the roof of a nearby house took flight, the whirring flutter of their wings echoing in Clare’s head.

  Along with a lot of other confusion.

  ‘Why on earth would you suppose we’d have another child? How’s that likely to happen? Immaculate conception?’

  He didn’t touch her, but he was walking far too close to her, invading her space in a way she did and didn’t like, her body and mind set on different paths.

  ‘I told you I thought we should get married, and having met Emily I’m more convinced than ever that it would be the right thing for her.’

  ‘For her?’

  Forget pigeons, now she was causing the heads of the pedestrians waiting at the lights to swivel towards Oliver and herself.

  ‘And what about me? Where do I come into it?’

  Fortunately the lights changed so the pedestrians moved off the kerb while she and Oliver were still approaching, but she did mute her voice as there were people everywhere.

  ‘We’d be doing it for Emily,’ Oliver muttered at her, but it was too late—she’d taken off across the road, although the signal was already flashing. And with those words following her like a trailing streamer, she fled into the hospital.

  She had to keep out of his way!

  Oliver checked the patients in the cardiac PICU, then collected his outpatient list from Becky.

  ‘I’ve got four more staff members from our unit willing to be in the pantomime,’ she told him.

  Pantomime? That’s where his tumultuous week had really taken off.

  ‘I’m only telling you because I know you’re on duty Wednesday night and won’t be able to make the meeting, but I’m sure someone will tell you all about it. And Friday night, there’s a staff welcome party. I’ve put a notice on the board in the staff lounge. Alex likes everyone to be there because it’s a chance to meet staff from other departments.’

  ‘If I can’t make it I’ll explain to Alex,’ Oliver told her, thinking that on Friday afternoon he’d be going with Clare to collect their daughter from school. Or was this Friday the party Emily had been chattering on about?

  He’d have to ask Clare.

  Given the rage she’d been in when they parted, this wasn’t an appealing idea, but surely, eventually, she’d see the sense of his suggestion.

  But asking Clare anything proved difficult when he couldn’t track her down. From time to time, he did see her at the hospital, but never in a situation where he could discuss the very personal matter of their daughter.

  ‘It will have to come out sometime,’ he said when he did meet her in an elevator one day.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she demanded.

  ‘Exactly what I said. Everyone will eventually know we have a daughter, so now she knows about me, would it be so bad if people overheard us discussing her here at the hospital?’

  She threw him a glance that would have melted rock and exited the elevator, although he was sure she’d have no patients on the orthopaedic floor.

  And catching her at home was impossible. He’d been on duty himself for two nights, and when he knocked on her door on Thursday evening there was no response. Unless she was living in the dark like a mole, she wasn’t at home.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she told him coolly when he caught up with her on Friday and, rudely he supposed, asked her where she’d been. ‘But there are on-duty rooms at the hospital, and there’s been a very fragile baby on ECMO. Where else would I have been last night?’

  Embarrassed, but still unreasonably angry, he was searching for a reply when her pager buzzed and she was whisked away. No doubt to the fragile baby on ECMO.

  He could follow. He knew the baby in question and there was no reason why he shouldn’t go into the cardiac PICU, but he also knew he’d be better off stepping back a bit, working out what was really upsetting Clare—apart from marrying him—before he blundered in again.

  He all but growled. He didn’t blunder. His relationships with women usually ran smoothly. They were well-planned campaigns, mutually satisfying, and ending in if not friendship, then definitely with accord.

  Except, of course, his relationship with Clare.

  Clare woke on Friday morning, aware her days of avoidance were over. This afternoon she would have to go home to the flat, to make sure things were ready for Emily for the weekend.

  Thank heavens she’d had the forethought to ask Angus if he’d mind accompanying her to the staff party that evening, using the excuse that she hated walking into functions on her own. She’d sweetened the request by offering to buy him dinner at Scoozi first, and she hoped that Oliver might take the innocent outing as a date and so let go of the ridiculous idea that they should marry.

  She shivered at the thought, aware after the kiss they’d shared that while her body might ache for the satisfaction only Oliver could give it, the dark memories in her mind would always make her draw away from him.

  Now she sighed.

  Her heart had been telling her she loved Oliver—whether still or again—since shortly after he’d walked back into her life, but the reality of it was now gaining ground in her mind. And loving him, as she was reasonably certain she did, she couldn’t possibly marry him. She refuted the damaged-goods label her head kept

  throwing at her, but she had been damaged, physically and emotionally, in the past, which meant she definitely wasn’t good marriage material.

  Oliver was contemplating knocking on Clare’s door to ask her if she’d like to have dinner with him before the staff get-together when voices from the footpath made him glance out the window.

  Clare and Angus?

  Had they met by accident? Oliver was vaguely aware that Angus also lived somewhere on this street, although closer to the hospital, he thought.

  So why was he down here? Crossing the road with Clare? Walking into the park?

  Oliver spun away from the window. What was he doing, spying on his neighbour like this?

  The knot in his gut told him the answer. He was jealous. Jealous that Clare was walking and talking with another man.

  And why?

  He couldn’t answer that one, but he knew it was unreasonable to be feeling like this. For all that he still thought they should marry for Emily’s sake, Clare had walked out of his life a long time ago and was under no obligation to be faithful to him.

  Not that he could assume she was being unfaithful with Angus—a man she barely knew!

  And if that wasn’t the epitome of confused thinking, he didn’t know what was. He took himself off to the kitchen, fixed a toasted sandwich, ate it in front of the tele
vision news and told himself he wouldn’t go to the party.

  After which he told himself to grow up!

  Poor Angus. Had their dinner conversation been as boring to him as it had seemed to her? Clare wondered about this as they entered the hospital, relieved when Kate joined them in the foyer.

  ‘Your hair looks great,’ Clare said, admiring the gloss and gleam of Kate’s carefully straightened hair.

  ‘Thanks,’ Kate replied. ‘It takes such an age to straighten, I don’t do it often.’

  And although not one cell of Clare’s body had responded to Angus, good-looking though he was, she was suddenly intensely aware of him—of his tension.

  Was he interested in Kate?

  Had she, Clare, unintentionally bumbled her way into something she hadn’t understood?

  Confused and a bit embarrassed, she continued to chat with Kate about hair as they entered the elevator together.

  Angus didn’t follow!

  ‘Are you with us?’ she asked, and he moved in to stand beside her, although she was sure most of his attention was on Kate.

  At the door of the function room, Clare realised she’d once again lost Angus. Kate had plunged into the crowd, but what was the point, Clare thought, of coming with Angus if they didn’t walk in together?

  She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm as they moved towards a cluster of their colleagues, ducking to avoid Christmas decorations, Clare muttering to herself about the tinsel but smiling at the team members.

  Then not smiling as she realised Oliver was part of the cluster. But at least she had Angus as backup, for all he seemed to be very distracted.

  They stood and chatted for a while, Oliver disappearing as Becky told a doctor joke, then Angus, too, drifted off. Clare took a drink from a tray and looked around the room, hoping it appeared that her gaze was wandering casually over the throng, rather than looking intently to see where Oliver had gone. She was considering another circuit when her heart gave an excited little blip and she realised it was the back of his head she could see, over by the buffet laid out for their supper.

  But in spite of the urge to talk to him—so much for keeping her distance—wouldn’t it look too obvious if she just wandered over there?

  Angus was not far away, so she’d grab him first.

  ‘Let’s go get something to eat,’ she suggested, and although Angus looked slightly startled—he’d seen the dinner she’d eaten—he fell in with the plan.

  So he could see Kate, who was also by the buffet?

  Clare shook off the confusing thoughts and took Angus’s hand, all but dragging him along.

  ‘Well, hi, you two—fancy meeting you here.’

  Was she making a point? Oliver wondered. Why else was she holding hands with Angus?

  Or was she using him as a shield? Protection?

  ‘I knocked on your door,’ he said as she drew close.

  ‘I left early,’ Clare replied, their conversation so stilted it hurt her to think they’d come to this.

  Kate was talking about taking their supper up onto the roof, suggesting all four of them went.

  ‘Won’t it be windy up there?’ Clare protested. ‘It’ll blow your hair.’

  Kate shrugged off the comment, but before Clare could speak again, Oliver had made the decision for her.

  ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye on Clare for you while you’re gone,’ he said, probably to Angus, although Clare was sure the words were also meant for her.

  She shouldn’t have avoided him all week. Avoidance didn’t solve anything, especially when there were things of major importance to sort out.

  They were adults. They could discuss things rationally.

  Well, almost rationally—just standing near him right now was sending all the wrong messages to her body.

  ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’ he asked, speaking her thoughts and so confusing her a little more. Was he feeling what she was feeling? Would this talk be personal?

  ‘About Emily?’

  He shook his head, answering two of her questions, one asked and one unasked.

  ‘About you,’ he said, then he reached out and tucked a swatch of hair behind one ear. ‘About you,’ he repeated, but so softly it was little more than a breath of air puffing from his lips.

  ‘We can’t leave yet,’ she managed, although now he’d asked she wanted nothing more than to talk to Oliver, to let out so much of the poison she had bottled up inside her. Once he knew about her past he’d stop pressing her about the marriage thing and they could have a good relationship with each other and their daughter.

  ‘But soon,’ he said, then he turned away as Alex tapped him on the shoulder, asking him to come and meet a surgeon from the general ward.

  Clare watched him go. She was aware of feeling nervous yet relaxed—two diametrically opposite emotions existing side by side within her.

  She chatted to various members of the team, met people from other wards and disciplines, but was aware all the time of Oliver’s presence in the room, as if her sensory receptors were tracking every move he made.

  ‘So, now can we leave politely?’ He came up to stand behind her, and she turned towards him, smiling as she nodded her response.

  Oliver doubted he’d ever been as aware of anyone in his life as he was of Clare through that seemingly endless evening. Was it her beauty that stirred him so deeply, the outward serenity of her even features, the tumbling mane of hair, swept up off her neck tonight, though tendrils had escaped to trail against the golden skin?

  She slipped her hand inside his elbow, his arm crooking to tuck her fingers into place.

  ‘Didn’t you have a date?’ he asked as they wove their way towards the door.

  She raised dark eyebrows at him.

  ‘Been spying on me?’ Then she shrugged. ‘I came with Angus. I asked him, not the other way around. It was stupid—infantile—thinking if I avoided you we wouldn’t have to talk, but Em deserves we do the best we can for her, so maybe if we get all the talk out of the way we’ll see a path ahead more clearly.’

  ‘What kind of talk?’ Oliver asked cautiously. They were alone in the foyer outside the reception room, most people still enjoying the hospitality provided.

  She pulled a face, gave another little shrug.

  ‘The other night—I can explain…’

  But she was looking pale again so he put his arm around her and ushered her into the elevator, keeping his arm there so she was tight against his side.

  ‘Let’s wait until we get home,’ he murmured, nodding to the people entering on the next floor down.

  She didn’t argue, but he could see the lines strain had drawn on her face, and feel the unhappiness tightening her body.

  What could he do to ease her pain? At least alleviate it slightly so the walk down their road wouldn’t be so agonising for her. They were back to ground level now, and the foyer was as busy as it always was.

  But usually—

  ‘Here,’ he said, and drew her into one of the small rooms that were part non-denominational chapels and part simply quiet spaces where people could release emotions and regain their fortitude before facing again some of the horrors they had to deal with in a hospital situation.

  And in that private space he kissed her, not passionately, but gently, carefully, trying to tell her without words that he was there for her. She nestled closer, not responding to the kiss intensely, but responding nonetheless.

  Was it because this room had held such emotions that images of how Clare’s life must have been seemed to flash across his mind? First discovering she was pregnant, not hearing from him, hurt beyond words that he should care so little for her news—alone with her misery at what should have been a time of excitement and delight. Then Emily’s birth, alone again, and frightened, when she discovered her baby had a problem.

  He folded his arms around her and held her close, not kissing now, but wanting to say so many things.

  ‘You need never have to face things alone
again,’ he murmured against her hair which was tumbling down from its clasp and feathering against her shoulders.

  She snuggled closer for a moment, then drew away, lifting her hand to touch his cheek.

  ‘If only it was that easy,’ she whispered, then she took his hand and led him out of the room. ‘Let’s go home. We’ll talk there.’

  Chapter Eight

  FOR a flat that had much the same furnishing as his, Clare’s place was so distinctly different. It had the feeling of a home, something he’d never achieved in any of the rented apartments he’d had over the years.

  He didn’t for a moment believe that only women could make a place homely, so…

  ‘I guess I never really cared about where I lived, not in the sense of wanting it to offer anything more than shelter and a certain amount of comfort and security,’ he said as Clare led him into the living room and continued on to throw open the bay windows.

  She turned and looked at him, eyebrows raised in query.

  ‘This place—I didn’t take much notice at the weekend, with Emily here—but it looks homely,’ he explained.

  ‘You mean messy and untidy,’ Clare said, coming forward and picking up a magazine from the arm of one chair and tossing it into a wicker basket on the floor by the couch. ‘Call it rebellion, or perhaps it’s just the natural outcome of having a child around the place. There is always stuff hanging around.’

  Oliver nodded. He could see the evidence of Emily’s existence, a handpainted card on a side table, a hair ribbon tied to the stem of the large-leafed plant in one corner of the room, a butterfly on a stick stuck into a smaller pot plant on the windowsill.

  But though these snatches of his daughter’s life caught his eye, his mind was back on the first thing Clare had said.

  Rebellion.

  ‘Rebellion?’

  He repeated it out loud and saw her shoulders lift as she took in a deep breath.

  ‘Do you want coffee or tea, a drink? I have some wine, but no spirits.’

  He shook his head.

  Another deep breath, then she gestured to the armchair.