Unlike David, who’d apparently wanted every second of her attention every time he’d seen fit to come back into her life for a few days before jetting off back to his real world. He didn’t say that, though, just left her to fill in the gaps.
‘I know you’re not like that, but you deserve more,’ she said, her voice oddly choked all of a sudden, but he shook his head.
‘I don’t want more than that, Ellie. I don’t need you twenty-four seven. And wonderful though I’m sure they are, I don’t need to be part of your children’s lives. They’ve got a father, as you’ve pointed out, and I’ve done standing in for the real father with my own sisters and it didn’t go well. Really, I’m fine with it. It suits me. I’m pretty self-sufficient. I don’t mind being alone. I like it. It makes a refreshing change after a lifetime of caring, believe me.’
She turned her head and searched his face, and he held her eyes and smiled.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘Yes, Ellie. I’m sure. We’ll get together when we can, and it’ll be fine.’
‘But—what if it’s not enough?’
‘It will be.’
‘But what if it’s not? What if we want more?’
‘Then we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it,’ he said, and leant over and cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her gently. ‘Don’t worry, Ellie. We’ll make it work. Maybe not always, but as often as we can.’
‘Are you sure? Sometimes he’s away for four or five weeks at a time.’
He smiled and kissed her again. ‘Then we’ll have to find another way. And anyhow, we’ll see each other every day at work.’
‘Three days. I only work three days.’
‘Even so. Don’t worry, Ellie. It’ll be fine.’
He gave her a reassuring smile, restarted the engine and drove back to his house.
* * *
‘Tea?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Nick, I need to go home. I’m not sure what time Liz will bring them back. It varies between four thirty and well after their bedtime, and they never tell me. I think he must imagine I hang myself up on a hook in the hall cupboard and wait for them to come home.’
He chuckled and drew her into his arms. ‘Go on, then. You go home to your hook, and I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll walk so you can have the parking place, just in case they’re on the drag tomorrow. I think the forecast is rain anyway and you don’t all need to get drenched.’
‘You’re such a star,’ she said, looking up into his eyes, and they creased with his smile.
‘I aim to please,’ he murmured, and kissed her lingeringly, then lifted his head and stared down at her. ‘Go home, Ellie, before I cart you off to bed and make you late.’
Oh, she was so tempted to let him. ‘I wish,’ she said with a tired huff of laughter, and then she laid her palm against his cheek. ‘Thank you, Nick—for everything. It’s been such a lovely weekend. I don’t remember when I last laughed so much.’
His smile touched her heart. ‘No. Nor do I. It’s been amazing.’ He kissed her again, and let her go with a reluctant smile. ‘Go on, go home. I’ll call you later.’
‘Don’t call. Text me, just in case they’re late. I might be putting them to bed still.’
He nodded, and she picked up the bag with her change of clothes in it and made her way home, the warmth of his smile wrapped around her heart.
* * *
‘Mummy, Mummy, look what Daddy got us!’
She frowned at the two tablets in their childproof, supposedly indestructible cases, and met Liz’s eyes over their heads.
‘I thought we had an agreement about this stuff?’ she said under her breath, trying to keep a lid on her frustration. ‘They’re too young for electronic devices, David knows that. It’s not good for their developmental skills. If he wants to entertain them, he needs to try talking to them.’
‘But you know what they’re like, Ellie. All Maisie talks about is unicorns and mermaids, and Oscar just wants to run about pretending to be an aeroplane. He doesn’t know where to start.’
‘So get him to talk about unicorns and aeroplanes! Or take them to the park, or soft play or something, instead of buying them expensive electronic babysitters so he can spend the whole weekend on his phone checking on his investments!’
‘He doesn’t do that,’ Liz protested weakly, but she knew better and said so.
‘I lived with him for five years, Liz. I know what he’s like.’ She shifted the sleepy baby to her other hip and eyed her mother-in-law steadily over Evie’s head. ‘What did he get Evie?’
She looked awkward. ‘He didn’t. Even he agrees she’s too young for a tablet. And I did ask, Ellie, but he’s not easy to reason with and he doesn’t really understand babies.’
She stifled a growl of anger and called the children. ‘Come and say goodbye to Grandma, please. And say thank you for your presents and having you for the weekend.’
It took a minute more before she could close the door behind her and let out the sigh of frustration. There was a scream locked up behind it, but she kept that under control and took them into the sitting room and put Evie down on the floor with a box of her toys.
‘Mummy, I can’t do this unicorn game!’ Maisie wailed, but the wail only increased when she took the machines away from her and Oscar and told them they’d be rationed to half an hour a day maximum, and only at the weekends.
She asked them what they’d done with their father, and from what she could glean it was not a lot apart from the wretched electronic devices, which he’d known she didn’t want them to have. By the time she got them all to sleep that night it was almost ten o’clock, and she was exhausted and even crosser, if that was possible.
She was sitting down with a coffee wondering how the judge might react if she killed him when she heard the message tone on her phone.
Nick, as promised.
How are things?
She snorted softly and wrote, He got them tablets. Not pharma, obvs. I might have to kill him.
Oh, dear. Best not. Not great for your career... Want to talk?
She rang him, and just the sound of his voice was enough to calm her fury.
‘Why did he do it?’ she asked, frustrated. ‘He knows what I think. We’ve had this conversation several times. He just ignores me and goes over my head.’
‘So take them away and tell them they can only have them when they’re with him. Simple.’
That made her laugh. ‘I can tell you haven’t met my children,’ she said. ‘And anyway, that’s not the worst of it. The thing I’m most angry about is that he didn’t get Evie anything at all. It’s like she doesn’t exist.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Fifteen months—and I know she doesn’t know what she’s missing, but it won’t be long. She’s his, too, for heaven’s sake, and he knows that now. Why can’t he treat them equally? I just wish...’
‘What? That he was a reasonable human being? That you were a better judge of character? Don’t go there. I’ve been through all of this with Rachel, all the “what ifs”, and if you let it, it’ll eat you alive. Deal with the tablets, ration the screen time, put up with the protests. They’ll get over it, although it’ll probably take a while. And buy something nice for Evie.’
She could hear the smile in his voice, and the sympathy, and she sighed and settled back against the sofa.
‘You’re such a reasonable human being.’
‘I wasn’t always. Maybe he just needs to learn the hard way, whatever that is.’
‘If only. I’m sorry, it’s not fair of me to unload on you, especially after such a lovely weekend,’ she said wistfully. ‘Thank you so much for going to so much trouble for me. It was like living out a fantasy. Just idyllic.’
‘Hey,’ he murmured, his voice soft. ‘Don’t sound so sad
. We can do it again in two weeks. And anyway, it was no trouble, I seem to remember I wasn’t exactly left out of the fun.’
‘I just wish it wasn’t over. Don’t get me wrong, I love my babies to bits, but it was just so nice to be the other me for a while.’
‘I know. So what are you doing now?’ he asked.
‘Lying on the sofa, drinking coffee.’
‘Decaf?’
She smiled wearily. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t keep me awake. For some reason I don’t seem to have had very much sleep this weekend.’
‘I wonder why that could be?’ he asked, and she could picture his lazy, sexy smile.
‘I can’t imagine,’ she murmured back, and then yawned hugely. ‘Oh, sorry, I really am pooped. I need to go to bed.’
‘Me, too. Rufus is out for the count. I think that walk at Dunwich was a bit long for him. It was lovely, though. We ought to do it again when the heather’s out.’
‘We should.’
She yawned again, and he laughed and said goodnight and she put her phone on charge and headed up to bed, still frustrated about the tablets but wrapped around now by the sound of Nick’s voice and the warmth of his smile.
And in two weeks’ time, they could do it all over again...
CHAPTER FIVE
‘MORNING! KETTLE’S HOT.’
And not just the kettle. His voice was bright and breezy, but his eyes across the busy staff room held a different and far more personal message, and she felt her breath hitch. This was going to be much harder than she’d thought.
‘Morning!’
She’d conjured up her best cheery voice, to match his, and she picked up her mug and gave him what she hoped would look like a friendly and professional smile as she reached for the teabags. ‘Thank you for leaving me the parking space. The thought of trying to frog-march the children to nursery in the pouring rain is enough to bring me out in hives. I hope you didn’t get soaked?’
‘Only a bit. Don’t worry, I’m pretty waterproof. So, how were the little darlings today?’
She rolled her eyes, and he grinned.
‘That good.’
‘Oh, yeah. They were overtired, overstimulated by the electronics and properly grumpy last night, and they’re not much better today. I don’t envy nursery.’
He lowered his voice a fraction. ‘Sounds like you haven’t forgiven him yet.’
‘Absolutely not. I swear he does it just to annoy me.’ She turned round with her tea in her hand and smiled at the others. ‘So, how’s the day looking? Has the entire population of Yoxburgh gone down with the plague?’
Lucy chuckled and got to her feet. ‘Maybe not the whole population, but the phone hasn’t stopped ringing so we’ll all be pretty busy, I think. Better go and make a start if I want to get home tonight.’
‘Yeah, me, too,’ Nick said from behind her, and touched her back discreetly. ‘See you later.’
Much later, as it turned out, because the phone didn’t stop ringing and while they didn’t have the plague, what seemed like half their patient list apparently needed urgent appointments, and her surgery list was huge.
Please let them be nice, simple, straightforward cases.
Or not. The first was fine, but her second patient of the day was an asthmatic who was disturbingly short of breath. She gave him oxygen and medication and got Megan, one of the nursing team, to monitor him, but three patients later she had a call from her to say he was deteriorating, so she checked on him again and phoned the hospital, spoke to Lucy’s husband Andy in the ED at Yoxburgh Park Hospital, and the patient’s wife took him straight over there. It was the easiest and quickest thing to do, as the hospital was just across the park from the practice and it would save waiting for an ambulance and get him seen quicker.
She went back to her patients, only to be interrupted again by a call about a deteriorating terminally ill patient who urgently needed end-of-life medication. She said she’d authorise it and visit him as soon as she could get away, then called the pharmacist. It only took five minutes to sort out, but it was yet another interruption, and it was after twelve before she had time to review her pharmacy queries, deal with the sick note requests and make calls to patients who’d requested phone consultations.
She went up to the staff room at five past one and found them all gathered round having their daily catch-up and signing repeat prescriptions. Lucy handed her a stack for her own patients, and she sat down and worked her way through them as fast as she could.
A coffee appeared in front of her, and she glanced up and met Nick’s sympathetic eyes.
‘Oh, you’re a star. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure,’ he murmured, and hooked out the chair opposite her and sat down. ‘Can I have ten seconds?’
Really? She put her pen down and met his eyes again. ‘Sure. Fire away.’
‘I’ve just seen one of your patients—Judith Granger. She’s seen you a couple of times with query irritable bowel, but it’s flared up over the weekend and she’s feeling very tired and a bit breathless, and I’m a bit worried there’s something more going on. She’s lost weight, and she says it’s probably because she’s been too busy to eat as much and she hasn’t been that hungry, but she seemed quite happy about it.’
‘And you’re not?’
He shook his head. ‘She’s lost several pounds in the last two months, but it’s the tiredness that brought her in, and she looks tired, too. Tired and drained and a bit anaemic.’
‘You’re thinking bowel cancer?’
‘Maybe. I’ve sent her off to the lab for blood tests and a faecal sample, and we’ll see what comes back, but I think she needs an urgent referral to the colorectal team for further investigation. I just thought I should give you a heads-up.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Thank you. So when did I see her last? Did I miss this?’
‘No, I don’t think so. You saw her four months ago, and the weight loss has all happened since then, and she said she wasn’t too bad until the weekend.’
‘Any blood?’
‘Not that she noticed, apparently. Anyway, I told her I’d fill you in.’
‘OK. Thanks. I’ll look out for the results.’
He nodded and went back to his pile of prescriptions, and she put Judith out of her mind and went back to her own, eating the odd bite of her lunch as she worked, but then just as she was about to leave she had a call from the nurse with her terminal patient to say that he’d died quite suddenly.
She was gutted. She’d wanted to see him, to be there for his wife as much as him, and now it was too late. Damn, damn, damn. ‘OK, I’ll come now,’ she said, and stifled a sigh.
‘House call?’ he murmured, and she met his eyes and nodded.
‘Yes, I’ve got to certify a death.’
‘Want me to go?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Thank you, but no. He was my patient and I’ve built a relationship with him and his wife. It’s the last thing I can do for him.’
He nodded, gave her an understanding smile and went back to his admin, and she put her lunch back in the fridge. Maybe she’d get time to finish it later.
* * *
‘Hi.’
‘Hi, you.’ He could hear the smile in her voice, a quiet murmur over the phone, and he felt it warm him.
‘It sounds very peaceful your end,’ he said softly. ‘Are you good to talk? Are they in bed?’
‘Oh, yes. They were ready for an early night, thank goodness, because the last thing I needed after today was another fight about bedtime.’
‘So no fight over the tablets?’
He heard a little chuckle. ‘No. I’d hidden them, and I told Liz they couldn’t have them except at the weekends for a very limited time, so I don’t know if they said anything about them to her but they didn’t even mention them to me. I think they were to
o tired, to be honest. Nursery drains them. They keep them very busy.’
‘So how was your widow? Did you ever finish your lunch?’
‘No. Well, not till four. And as expected she was sad, resigned, glad it was over for him, a bit numb. She’ll be OK, but you know how it is. Even when you know it’s coming, it’s always so final, and we’re never ready for that.’
He thought instantly of Samuel, of how he’d thought he was ready and yet wasn’t, when the time came. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. So how was the rest of your day?’
‘Oh, busy, too much to do, not enough time. Yours?’
‘Mine?’ He stretched out on the sofa, one hand idly fondling the dog’s ears, and gave a quiet sigh. ‘Much the same as yours, I guess. Busy, not enough time. Your car had gone by the time I left, and I still hadn’t finished all the admin, so I’ll need to get in early tomorrow and nail it before I start. That’ll be a rude awakening for poor old Rufus.’
‘So what does he do while you’re at work all day? Does someone let him out?’
He glanced at the sleeping dog on his lap, and smiled. ‘No, he’s got a little dog-flap into the area of garden behind the utility room. There’s a bit of grass there and he seems quite happy to pop out when he needs to. He’s got toys, and he’s used to lying around all day, and he gets plenty of games and cuddles when I’m home. He gets a walk morning and evening, regardless of the weather, and he seems happy enough with that unless it’s pouring.’
‘I bet he wasn’t happy this morning, then,’ she said, and he heard the smile in her voice and chuckled.
‘Not especially. He has a coat I put on him if I have to walk him in the rain, but he did look at me as if I was mad this morning when I opened the door, and he was more than happy to go back to his blanket when we got home.’
‘Poor Rufus,’ she murmured, her voice rich with sympathy, and he laughed.
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