‘He’s bound to win,’ Jenna said. She was still chuckling. ‘I’d love to see it.’
‘So why don’t you come along?’ Mitch’s tone was casual as he stood up but he was holding her gaze carefully. ‘It’s on Wednesday. Didn’t I hear you tell someone on station that it’s your day off next week?’
Oh...it was one thing to find it perfectly natural to be talking to Mitch about his son but the prospect of meeting the little boy was something else altogether.
And Mitch clearly knew what a big ask it was. He didn’t say anything but he sat back on the edge of the bed and pulled Jenna, wrapped in the sheet, into his arms. He still didn’t say anything. He simply held her and pressed his lips against the top of her head.
It felt like an apology.
It felt like he understood exactly how hard that might be for her.
It also felt like he really, really cared about how she was feeling.
Mitch’s arms tightened around her. ‘Don’t say anything,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘Just think about it.’
* * *
Jenna hadn’t needed to be told to ‘think about it’.
It was hard to think about anything else, in fact. Especially when she had several hours’ drive ahead of her to get to Sheffield, where she was booked to take a FRAME refresher course for rural GPs. She’d had meetings during the day for final editing on the new set of clinical guidelines for their practitioners so it was mid-afternoon by the time she set off and it was only then that Jenna realised she’d missed lunch. Maybe that was why it was harder to focus on her driving and contributing to the reason her thoughts kept circling back to the invitation to attend Pets’ Day that Mitch had issued that evening last week.
Food might help. Coffee certainly would, so Jenna pulled in to the next service area off the motorway—one of those vast places that had everything from petrol stations to motels with enough restaurants, fast food outlets and even bars or supermarkets to cater for any possible refreshment travellers might desire. With coffee already on her tray, Jenna was heading for a place where you could choose your own sandwich fillings when she passed something far more tempting.
Potato skins. Hot, crispy, cheesy potato skins were exactly what she needed right now and Jenna ordered a plateful and then carried her tray to search for an empty table to sit and enjoy her meal. It wasn’t until after she sat down and took her first bite that she realised she might have made a bit of a mistake. For one thing, as soon as she tasted the potato skin, she was taken back to that night in the pub with Mitch and his classmates at the end of their course. The night that had ended with them making love.
The night that had changed her life.
The follow-on from that was, of course, remembering the last occasion they’d spent together in bed and how that had ended, with Mitch holding her so tenderly after inviting her to come on what could only be considered a family kind of occasion.
Actually, there was a third thing that Jenna noticed as she swallowed that first mouthful. The only available table she’d been able to find was on the edge of a children’s play area. Just outside, through wide, open doors there were seesaws and swings, a wooden fort with a slide from the highest point and climbing towers joined by swing bridges with rope walls. Inside, there were parents all around her, feeding young children or enjoying a coffee and break themselves as they watched their offspring let off steam in the playground.
It was Family Central. For a moment, Jenna considered loading her food and drink back onto the tray and going in search of another place to sit. Back in her vehicle, even? No, she told herself firmly. That was ridiculous. There was no reason to move. She’d been dealing with seeing families and children for years without falling apart so why would anything have suddenly become too difficult now?
Her gaze drifted to settle on a young mother who was breastfeeding a baby as she ate a hamburger and fries with one hand. Her partner was also eating his meal one-handed as he pushed a stroller back and forth with his other hand. The toddler in the stroller was sucking her thumb, her eyes almost shut, on the verge of falling asleep.
The clarity of the time-slip in Jenna’s head—and her heart—was startling. She could almost feel that soft, warm weight of Eli in her own arms as she breastfed him, sometimes dipping her head to kiss that wispy hair and just soak in the smell of him. That delicious scent of milkiness and warmth and baby shampoo. She could even feel the echo of the exhaustion of those days along with that extraordinary difference that going from a couple to become a family had created.
She could feel a poignant smile tilting her lips as she remembered how happy she and Stefan had been. How there were those moments when the love was so huge it was overwhelming. How, even then, when she’d had no idea of what was just around the corner in her life, she’d felt afraid of the idea of losing it all.
Jenna shifted her gaze to stare, unseeing, through the doors to the playground. She was remembering Stefan now and the way he would rock Eli to sleep in his pushchair while listening to music through his ear buds, or reading a book with one hand. A clever, quick, passionate young man, Stefan had loved to dance. And argue about almost anything. So different to Mitch, who was mature and thoughtful and had a kindness and empathy that could only come from experiencing the hard parts of life.
Mitch made her feel safe but Stefan...well, the light had gone out in her life when Stefan had died and what made it so much worse, if that was possible, was that she had to grieve for him as she sat, day after day, in the paediatric intensive care unit beside Eli’s bed as he slowly began to recover from his own injuries.
The potato skins were getting cold on the plate but Jenna had forgotten about her food. Her eyes were focusing on what was going on outside now. She could see parents holding young children on a seesaw where the seats were on the backs of large, wooden ducks. The toddlers were laughing with delight as they bounced up and down. Her journey with Eli had had moments like that as part of the rollercoaster. He could be a laughing, singing child one minute and then, in the blink of an eye, he would be unresponsive and on the ground or floor, convulsing. There had been a new fear to live with then, on top of what should have been the worst thing that could have happened when her fledging family had been ripped apart by losing Stefan.
Eli had only been four years old. Jenna found herself doing something she hadn’t done for years—letting her gaze search until she found a child that would be about that age. He’d be nearly nine years old now if he’d lived. That was the next automatic search mode and...yes...those boys who were scrambling across the swing bridges would be somewhere between eight and ten years old but she only watched them for a few seconds. It didn’t feel meaningful. Eli would be only four years old for ever in her head. And her heart.
Ollie was four years old.
If Jenna went to his school for Pets’ Day she would not only meet Ollie, she would be with a whole class of other children the same age. Could she really cope with that?
No.
Yes. Of course she could. In the same way she coped with the young patients she treated or played with the children of her friends. Or watched a random bunch of kids playing the way she was doing now.
Did she want to cope with that?
No.
Yes.
No, because it might be too hard if it came with this new clarity that felt like a filter, which prevented too much light or something being allowed through, had somehow been lifted. A clarity that felt like a direct connection to the past and all the pain that had come from losing the future she’d believed she had. With her very own family.
She wasn’t hungry any longer but Jenna sipped her coffee, looking back towards the young family she’d first noticed. Both the baby and the toddler were fast asleep now and the young parents were smiling at each other. For now, at least, they were coping with travelling with young children. They were winning.
> Jenna wanted that. The coping. The winning.
So, the answer was definitely ‘yes’. Because she really wanted to be able to cope and not to have to fear those memories. That would be a kind of freedom all by itself, wouldn’t it?
And, maybe, she wanted to go to Pets’ Day because it was Mitch who had asked her. He knew exactly what he was asking her to face and, as someone who knew all about facing ghosts from the past, he believed that she could cope. A part of her wanted to show him that he was right. Or perhaps she wanted him to be proud of her?
Taking another long look at the playground was deliberate. So was searching out a child of the right age so that she could pretend it was Ollie. She waited for the kind of jolt she’d experienced when she’d first found out that Mitch had a young son but it didn’t happen. The pain of Eli’s loss didn’t come at her like a runaway train either, so something had changed. The shift towards it being easy to talk about Ollie and accept him as part of Mitch’s life had taken weeks but this shift seemed to be happening with enough speed to be disconcerting. There was no mistaking it, however. The feeling that she could cope with something like Pets’ Day—if she had Mitch beside her. And that being able to cope could be the key to making life better.
Not that she’d ever choose to become a mother again. Or a stepmother, for that matter, but to be able to see life with this sort of clarity, with no need for protective filters to dull what she was seeing couldn’t be anything other than a good thing. Imagine if she could actually enjoy being around children instead of simply ‘coping’ with it? She’d been afraid of getting close enough to another man for a physical relationship, after all, and look at how she felt about Mitch now? She certainly couldn’t dismiss the comfort and pleasure and...and the sheer joy he’d brought back into her life.
Jenna already knew she didn’t need to hide anything from Mitch—the way she still hid her personal history from anybody new that she met or worked with and...and it felt like her life had been fragmented ever since it had fallen apart eight years ago. As if it had been so broken, it could never be put back together. But that’s what this new feeling was. As if Mitch—and Ollie—and maybe even Jet and Pets’ Day might somehow be a glue that could bring those pieces of her life back together. If she could be brave enough to trust where this feeling might eventually lead her, who knew how much better her life might become?
Pushing away the plate of cold food, Jenna reached for her phone to send a text message.
I’ve never been to a Pets’ Day. And I’ve certainly never seen a dog dressed up as a doctor.
Jenna took a deep breath before tapping in her next words.
I’d love to come if that invitation’s still open.
* * *
Andrew Mitchell was bursting with pride.
It wasn’t only because his son was standing in front of Allensbury Primary School’s Reception class of twenty pupils giving a talk about his pet, although he was doing a very good job of it.
‘Jet’s a black dog and he’s very, very old. He’s sixteen, which my dad says is like over a hundred years old for a person and...and that’s even older than my grandpa.’
Ollie’s grandpa, Michael Mitchell, was the first to laugh out loud. He shook his head and shared a resigned glance with some of the other adults packed into the back of the classroom. The closest person grinning back at him was Jenna, who’d arrived just in time for the ‘interesting things about my pet’ presentations—the preparation of which had been the children’s reading, writing and art projects for the week. Her gaze shifted to meet Mitch’s and the sparkle of amusement was still lighting up those golden brown eyes and making them even warmer than usual. She seemed to be enjoying this, which was rather a big relief because he’d known that, in introducing her to his son, he might be pushing her in a direction she really didn’t want to go. Not only that, she was in a classroom full of four-year-old children and that had to be making her heart ache on a level he couldn’t begin to know.
Ollie was wrapping up his talk. ‘Dogs need food and Jet’s favourite thing is toast and peanut butter. And cuddles. And that’s why I love my pet...’
Mitch’s gaze slid sideways without his head moving so Jenna didn’t realise he was looking at her again. He saw the way she caught her bottom lip between her teeth and he could almost feel the increased tension in her body, as if she was bracing herself, and he knew exactly what it was that she was afraid of.
The memories.
The echo of that devastating moment of loss.
But she was smiling again now and joining in the applause as Ollie tugged on Jet’s lead and took him to sit on the mat with him.
And that was when Mitch realised the pride that was filling his heart included Jenna as well. He knew how courageous she was—you only had to look at what she’d done with her life in the face of a double tragedy to know that—but she could have avoided this and she hadn’t. This was her first ever Pets’ Day at a school. Possibly the most full-on exposure to so many children who were the same age as Eli had been when she’d lost him but she was facing it. With dignity and humour and...and that determination to really live every moment of her life that was just one of the admirable things about this woman who’d fallen into his life.
He could feel that pride, laced with his understanding of how hard this might be for Jenna, tightening something in his gut and wrapping itself around his heart. It was a poignant feeling—wanting to take that pain away from someone because he cared about them. Kind of like the way he felt when Ollie got hurt, or sick. Or when he noticed his dad looking tired enough to make it hit home that his father was getting older and wouldn’t be around for ever.
People he loved...
This was more than that brief thought he’d had, when he’d seen Jenna with Kirsty at that accident scene, that perhaps there might be a future for himself that included her. Good grief...the way he’d just put his feelings about Jenna up there with Ollie and his dad made it seem as if he was falling in love with her. The thought was so out of left field—unwelcome, even—it could be dismissed in a nanosecond and Mitch could focus on what was actually real, as a small girl with a big smile, her hair in gorgeous cornrows with the braids decorated with beads, got up and carried a shoebox to the front of the class. She took off the lid and lifted out her pet.
‘This is my turtle. His name is Winston.’
‘That’s Mia,’ Mitch whispered to Jenna. ‘She’s Ollie’s very best friend.’
They had to sit through several more pet show and tell performances but they were all so cute, nobody minded the squeeze of it being standing room only for the adult audience. Things became a little more dramatic when a cat was making it very clear that it didn’t want to be in its carry box by hissing, yowling and trying to scratch its young owner through a gap in the door and a parent had to step in to rescue it. A rabbit got loose in the classroom and a small dog was sick on the carpet. Everybody was more than ready to go outside for some fresh air when they were told the last two class members had their pets tied up on the playing field.
‘Oh...’ Jenna’s jaw dropped as they rounded the corner of the school building. ‘Ponies?’
‘Allensbury’s the centre of a rural community. There are quite a few small farms and lifestyle blocks around here. One of the GPs I work with, Euan, has a smallholding where he keeps a Highland cow. A prize-winning bull, in fact.’
‘Really?’ Jenna blinked. ‘Is it somewhere around here, with one of his kids?’
Mitch shook his head. ‘Euan’s not remotely interested in having children in his life. Probably why he’s still single.’
It occurred to Mitch that Euan might think Jenna was the perfect woman and maybe he should introduce them to each other. The thought that followed, however, was a silent but incredulous huff of dismissal. As if...
Jenna was distracted again. ‘And there’s a donkey over there...’ She
crossed her hands on her chest in an enchantingly childish gesture of delight. ‘I love donkeys.’
‘I love donkeys too.’ Ollie, with Jet plodding patiently beside him, caught up with them, his grandfather right behind him.
‘This is Jenna.’ Mitch introduced her to his son and father.
Michael’s smile was warm and welcoming. Ollie’s eyebrows had almost disappeared under the spikes of his hair. ‘Are you Daddy’s girlfriend?’
Jenna hesitated for a second, shooting a quick glance at Mitch, as if unsure what he might have told Ollie, or more to the point, his father? He hoped his smile was reassuring. There was no pressure here. No expectations—just as they’d agreed.
‘A girlfriend is a bit different to a friend, Ollie. Jenna’s my friend. And I go and work with her sometimes.’
‘But she’s a girl.’ Ollie looked puzzled. ‘And she’s your friend. Mia’s my girlfriend.’
‘You’re right.’ Jenna was smiling now. ‘I’m Daddy’s friend. Just like Mia is your friend.’
Ollie nodded. He knew he’d been right. ‘He told me you were coming. Because you want to see Jet in the fancy dress competition.’
‘I do indeed. I can’t wait to see Dr Dog.’
Ollie turned to his father. ‘Can we put his clothes on now, Daddy?’
‘Not yet, buddy. We’re going to have lunch first. There’s a big sausage sizzle, remember? Don’t forget you promised not to let Jet eat too much. We don’t want him being sick like Aiden’s puppy.’ Mitch was looking around. ‘Where’s Mia?’
‘She had to put Winston back in the car. And her mummy said she had to have her puffer before she came near the ponies. In case she’s...’llergic.’
‘Ah...’ Mitch nodded. ‘Of course. Mia’s asthmatic,’ he told Jenna. ‘They haven’t sorted out what all her triggers are but she did have a serious attack and needed admission to hospital after she had a pony ride last year.’
Stolen Nights with the Single Dad Page 10
