Morvena gave a snort of disgust and turned on her heel. There was a ripple of laughter through the ranks but it was short-lived. The residents had a project and Noah could see each and every one of them figuring how they could play a part.
Excellent.
And Addie?
She was smiling, too, and that was even more excellent.
His fast trip to the hardware store turned out to be not so fast because Bert and Ruby May insisted on coming with him. He had an SUV with roof racks—he had a kayak he used in his spare time—so he could fit wheelchairs, plus elderly companions in crime and still have room to accommodate the extensive shopping list.
‘How big is this playpen?’ he demanded, astounded, as piles of timber were loaded onto his roof rack, but Ruby and Bert just chuckled. ‘Leave it to us, Doc,’ Bert told him. ‘You fix people. We fix playpens.’
And the extra time was worth it, he decided as he unloaded the timber into the workshop and watched the residents’ delight. It was even worth the fact that he had to push back his evening ward round, and then cope with a farmer’s kid who’d got in the way of a cow with a mean kick.
By eleven that night he was exhausted but in a good way. The laughter, the enjoyment of Ruby May and Bert, the anticipation rippling through the nursing home were still making him smile. He headed back along the veranda to the doctors’ accommodation, pushed open the door and there was something else to make him smile.
An advantage of living in the doctors’ quarters was that cleaning was provided. Mrs Rowbotham came in every morning and bustled about, worrying about ‘her doctors’. She religiously cleaned the fireplace, set the fire and tut-tutted when he hadn’t used it.
Noah hardly did use it. The days were warm. Occasionally the nights got chilly but he tended to work late, eat dinner on the veranda and then crash. But the fire was being used now. Addie had piled cushions onto the rug and had nestled there with her pup. The main light was off, and her face was lit by the flicker of the fire’s embers.
Daisy was curled in the crook of her arm. She looked—they both looked—supremely, completely at peace. Neither of them stirred as he came in. He stood for a moment looking down at them, watching Addie’s face. She looked young and very vulnerable. She looked...beautiful.
She’d get cold if she stayed there as the fire died, he thought, trying to drag his thoughts back to practical. After all, she was his patient—or she had been. She wouldn’t be his colleague until next Monday when she officially started work again. So...if she was his patient it was his duty to look after her.
Should he wake her? Steer her to bed?
He didn’t have the heart. Instead he headed for the blanket box and fetched one of Mrs Rowbotham’s stash of fluffy comforters. He pulled out the softest, a pile of pink angora, and carried it silently back to the pair beside the fire.
He stooped and spread it gently across them. Daisy stirred, wiggled her tail gently and then closed her eyes again, as much to say, Don’t you dare disturb this, this is perfect.
It was indeed perfect. He tucked the rug in and stayed for a moment looking down at them.
Addie’s eyes flickered open. Met his. Smiled. It was a smile that reflected Daisy’s.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, as he tucked her in, and he could tell she was still ninety percent asleep. Dreaming? And as if in a dream, her hand came up and her fingers touched his face, a feather touch, maybe to see if he was real?
‘You are a very nice man, Noah McPherson. Has anyone ever told you that?’
There was no need to reply. Addie’s eyes fluttered closed. Her hand sank and he tucked it under the rug.
She smiled in her sleep. He had an almost overwhelming urge to stoop and kiss her goodnight.
He did no such thing. Once upon a time Noah McPherson’s heart had been open to beauty, to gentleness, to love. Now he stepped back and made a silent vow.
He’d given his heart once and it was still cracked wide open. Who was going down that road again?
Not him. He left the room and went to bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
ADDIE SPENT THE next few days catching up on work. The hospital had managed to get a locum while she’d been away but there’d been little follow-up with patients with long-term concerns. There were pap-smear reminders, follow-ups with gynae, making sure pre-term mums were up to date with what they needed. She settled into her office and worked methodically through her files.
Her life settled into some sort of order. With the addition of her puppy.
Daisy was like a battery-driven toy without an off switch. She woke at dawn, full on, tearing around the doctors’ house, chewing socks, chair legs, toes, anything she could get her teeth into before Addie did her regular lurch to save whatever precious thing she was trying to devour.
Every morning she pleaded to be allowed into Noah’s room, but even if Addie had allowed it, by dawn Noah was out. He’d kayak or maybe run. The first morning after her arrival, when she took Daisy outside, she saw him down on the beach. He was running hard, almost as if he was exorcising demons.
She wondered about him. She knew so little.
He’d been Gavin’s boss. In truth she’d been surprised when Gav had asked him to be best man as they hadn’t seemed close, but then Gav had been a bit of a loner. Or she’d thought he was. It turned out there’d been a whole other side...
Whatever, thinking about Noah...
She knew he’d been married. She’d known Rebecca, but where was his wife now? He was no longer wearing a ring but surely the grapevine would have known if she’d died. Rebecca had been in a wheelchair but that was down to being injured in a past car accident. Nothing presently life-threatening.
So where was she now? It wasn’t the sort of question she could easily ask. Excuse me, but what have you done with your wife?
And it was none of her business.
Their routine settled. Every morning Addie played with the pup in the back yard. By the time Noah returned from his run, Daisy was tiring. Noah sat at the kitchen table and ate cereal while Daisy snuggled onto his knee.
And every morning Addie thought... A guy who’d just run... Who’d showered and was still damp but looked...who looked...
Yeah, there was a route she wasn’t taking. He was none of her business.
After breakfast she scooped Daisy up and headed over to the hospital. Daisy slept in her office, and when she woke she’d let her out onto the veranda.
There was ‘stuff’ happening on the veranda. The oldies were building a ‘playpen’, with wide gates and a ramp down from the veranda with wheelchair access. They were wrangling Daisy as they worked. Until the playpen was built Daisy still needed to be on a leash but they were having fun, being busy, being happy...
Sometimes Noah was out there, in breaks in his surgery, popping out to check that all was well.
To be happy, too?
It might be none of her business but the questions still came at her. Why was he here? A six-month locum while he got his divorce sorted? There were much more challenging jobs he could be doing, in any of Australia’s cities. Why spend six months in such an out-of-the-way place as here?
Was he running, like she was? She’d come here after her wedding had gone wrong, after her mother’s death. She’d wanted to run from everything that had reminded her of pain.
As the days passed, she found her thoughts drifting back to that time pre-wedding. To Noah.
It was no crime to wonder, she decided.
She thought back to the woman who’d been Noah’s wife. She’d met Rebecca, both in her role as part-time receptionist at Sydney Central, and then at a couple of pre-wedding functions Gavin had arranged. Her impression had been that she was beautiful, opinionated and selfish, often seeming ready to manipulate her situation in order to get what she wanted.
Rebecca had summed her
up in a glance and had made it clear what she thought of the ordinary little woman who’d made medicine her life. Being a surgeon’s wife was much more important, Rebecca’s attitude implied. Addie thought Rebecca herself had seemed bored—and often patronising to the man who’d been her husband.
For the life of her Addie couldn’t see why Noah would be heartbroken at leaving such a marriage.
But that was her judgement, and her judgement only. Who could see what really happened inside a marriage?
And now...
Noah seemed a man in charge of his world, a man who had everything. But looking at him out on the veranda, watching him play with Daisy, helping the oldies put a gate into position...
There were shadows.
The shallow Rebecca must have had something she could only guess at.
Yeah, like sexiness and beauty and the ability to put people like her in her place, Addie thought, and tried to turn her attention back to her patient files.
But her attention kept straying to the man outside.
To Noah.
To none of her business?
* * *
Addie had brought the hospital to life, Noah thought as the week went on—and it wasn’t just her puppy.
While she’d been away, he’d been aware that she’d been missed, that there was genuine affection for her. Now... Watching her move through the hospital, taking time to talk to everyone who’d like to talk, including those who weren’t her patients, it was as if the hospital had regained something precious. Something good had returned.
With benefits, for Daisy was definitely a benefit. The pup was being snuck into the wards to visit those who couldn’t get onto the veranda, and Noah could pretty much guess where Addie and Daisy were by the laughter that echoed down the corridors.
On Friday night he met her coming out of the room of Edith Oddie, an elderly woman he’d operated on for oesophageal obstruction. Cancer was killing her fast. Noah had managed to clear the obstruction, but secondaries were appearing everywhere. For the last few days she’d been almost comatose, but as Addie emerged from her room with a suspiciously wiggly mound under an oversized cardigan, Noah was astounded to hear a crackly wheeze of laughter from the room she’d just left.
He stopped short and Addie looked up at him with a guilty grin. ‘Not guilty, your honour,’ she said before he could say a word.
‘So you’re not carrying a puppy under that cardigan?’
She gave a whirl like a three-year-old in a party dress, and the oversized cardigan flared out around her. It had moth holes in the hem.
‘Three bucks from the welfare shop,’ she told him. ‘You like it?’
‘Very nice. Moth holes being the new black. And bumps that wriggle...this season’s latest accessory?’
‘You guessed it.’
‘Morvena would have kittens if she saw...’
‘I bet she wouldn’t. Kittens... Ew, allergies! And saw what?’ she asked, all innocence. ‘That I’ve decided bumps and moth holes are the new me?’
‘I thought you’d decided on a whole new you when you came back here.’
Her face fell a bit. ‘That obvious, huh?’
‘Everyone’s talking about it. Addie of the makeover.’
‘I had to do something to cheer me up.’ She sounded defensive. The bump wriggled under her breast and she heaved it closer. ‘A makeover and Daisy. What else does a girl need?’
A baby, Noah thought, but he didn’t say it. It hung, though, between the two of them.
‘Don’t look like that,’ she said at last. ‘I’m okay.’
‘I know you’re okay.’ He smiled, pushing back an almost overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her. He didn’t, though. Instead he motioned to the door behind them. ‘Edith just laughed.’
‘And so did her kids and grandkids.’ She grimaced. ‘They’re a lovely family. I’m glad I got back before...’ She hesitated. ‘It’ll be soon, won’t it?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘Brian will be heartbroken. Do you know they’ve been married for fifty years? Fifty!’ She shrugged and made a visible effort to put away the greyness that went with the profession. ‘Me, I couldn’t even manage a day.’
‘I managed almost five before the divorce,’ he told her, trying to match her insouciance, but he obviously failed. Her face creased in sympathy.
‘I’m sorry. About you and Rebecca.’
‘Don’t be.’ The words came out harsh but there was no way he could stop it. ‘We should never...’ He stopped, appalled at what he’d said. This was personal.
But Addie didn’t appear to notice—or maybe she did. Her non-pup-wrangling hand came out and touched his arm.
‘There’s isn’t such a thing as should never where love’s concerned,’ she said gently. ‘I read that somewhere. You just...do.’ Then she stepped away, blushing, as if the words she’d spoken had been far too personal. ‘Like me and Daisy,’ she managed. ‘Love at first sight.’
‘And like you and Gavin?’
‘Love at first sight? That would have been when I was two.’ She peeped a smile that told him she was indeed over Gavin. ‘My judgement may not have been completely formed. My mother tells me he nobly offered to share his lolly and I was smitten.’
‘A true hero,’ Noah agreed.
‘And you and Rebecca?’
‘I was driving a sports car.’ He tried to make it sound like a joke. The words sounded hollow but she smiled.
‘She fell for your car?’
‘Like you fell for a lollipop.’
‘Lollipop versus sports car. That must explain the difference in the lengths of our marital harmony.’ They were both heading back to the doctors’ house. She tucked her arm conspiratorially into his, which felt a bit inappropriate—until he saw Morvena bearing down on them. Then he understood. The contact allowed their combined arms to disguise the bump.
Blessedly Daisy didn’t wriggle. Morvena passed with a cursory ‘Goodnight’ and the danger was past.
But then... Her arm was still in his. He didn’t remove it. Why should he? It felt... It felt...
‘I have a favour to ask,’ she said, and he forced his thoughts from the direction he most definitely didn’t wish them to go, and tried to focus.
‘Yes?’ he said, with caution.
‘And that,’ she said with asperity, ‘is the tone of a colleague expecting to be landed with a ward full of patients while I swan off for the weekend. Which isn’t true. I’m not swanning off anywhere. But, Noah...’
‘But...’ He couldn’t help it. He still sounded cautious.
‘I know this sounds daft.’ Her voice had suddenly lost all confidence. ‘And maybe it is daft. But you said...you emailed me when I was away and asked...’
And he knew. ‘I asked you what you wanted for your baby.’ He was with her now, understanding the hesitation. And the need for touch?
‘I... It was good of you. I know most hospitals...’
‘Most hospitals ask, if they can.’ Embryos at the stage of Addie’s pregnancy were so small there was often nothing to retrieve. But there had been something, and he’d made sure it hadn’t been discarded from Pathology—that it had been kept until she’d made her choice.
‘I said if it was possible...’
‘It was possible,’ he told her. ‘That’s why I emailed.’
‘I know. And thank you.’ Her voice broke a little but she forged on. ‘You found out. You said she could be buried in the section of the cemetery or that you could organise for a cremation. And I said, yes, please to cremation, and Mr Rowlins brought the ashes to me this morning. In a tiny box with a rose carved into the lid. Which I gather you organised? He said you paid, and of course I’ll pay you back. I’m so grateful.’
‘You don’t need to be grateful and you don’t need to pay.’
>
‘I do,’ she said, firmly now. ‘But now... I know it’s an imposition but I wondered... Noah, there’s a place where Currawong Creek meets the bay. I used to sit there and talk to her when I first found out that I was pregnant. I want her ashes there. And I thought... I wondered...’
‘You wondered if I’d like to come with you?’ And he got that, too.
Most people at funerals held onto someone. Most people needed someone.
But why had she asked him?
‘Addie, there’s no one else?’ he queried. She’d lived here for almost three years. She had so many friends. Family? He knew her mother had died. He’d never heard of anyone else but, then, he hardly knew this woman.
‘You were there for me,’ she said simply. ‘And you tried.’ She gave a tired smile. ‘And, yes, I have friends but they might...they might cry and I don’t think I’m up to crying. Not any more.’
He understood. She needed someone to make the emptiness less...empty, but she didn’t need to share her emotion. Well, he was good at that. Rebecca had been a world-class teacher. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said simply. ‘We can go there now if you like.’
‘Now?’
‘It’s not sunset for another hour. I’ve finished work for the day. Would you like that, Addie?’
‘I think so.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Yes. Yes, I would. Could you wait until I ask Heidi if she can look after Daisy for the evening?’
‘We don’t want her pouncing on ash,’ Noah said gravely, and she managed a smile, oddly warmed by his humour.
‘She would.’
‘She definitely would. Shall I meet you in ten minutes on the veranda?’
‘Yes, please. That would be...kind.’
* * *
Currawong Bay was a vast, sweeping spread of tidal flats, a sheen of sapphire water at high tide and a magnificent expanse of rock pools and glistening sand when the tide was low. It was a mecca for tourists, but mostly they gathered at the town end of the bay. If you want peace on a beach in Australia, walk a hundred yards from a car park, Noah thought as he and Addie walked silently along the path across the dunes. With so much beach space, few could be bothered walking further.
The Baby They Longed For Page 5
