The Doctor's Unexpected Family

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘In the pasta. I thought we’d eat it all in the living room. I’ve lit the slow combustion stove in there, and it’s already making lovely glowing coals.’ She blushed, looking nervous and expectant at the same time. ‘Which is a dead giveaway of my intentions.’

  ‘I love your intentions. I share them, one hundred per cent.’

  They smiled at each other, and she reached around to close the door behind him. He captured her and kept her there, loving the soft give of her curves against his body, but she told him, her voice a little fluttery, ‘Don’t kiss me. I have to turn down the hotplate. Go and sit by the fire.’

  ‘No, let me hang out in the kitchen with you. I’ll pour us some wine. Can I stir something?’

  Just me, Caroline thought. You can just stir me. But you’ve already done that.

  He’d stirred her to depths she hadn’t even had when she’d married Robert at twenty.

  They stayed in the kitchen for as long as it took to drink half a glass of wine, then moved in front of the fire with their creamy orange soup in mugs. They still hadn’t kissed. Somehow, they both seemed to know that once they did that, they wouldn’t stop.

  The expectation was intense, sizzling, almost scary, and Caroline felt it in every sense—in the flicker of the fire’s heat on her skin, in the richness of the meal in her mouth. It would have been hard to set up a more encouraging atmosphere, but atmosphere wasn’t always enough.

  ‘You’re really showing off with this mousse,’ he told her.

  They’d both lost track of time. Around eight, she thought, or a bit later. The fire had blazed down to a spreading mass of coals that glowed through the window of glass at the front of the stove. The fan flooded the fire’s warmth through the whole house.

  ‘Not showing off,’ she answered. ‘It’s just more of those sinful intentions.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He smiled at her, waiting for her answer. Shifting closer on the carpet, he put down the wineglass that had been filled with mousse ten minutes ago and was now empty. He’d finished his coffee, too, and an hour ago, or more, he’d shed his tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves and unbuttoned his collar. He looked rakish like this.

  ‘I kept imagining the taste of the chocolate and coffee in your mouth,’ she said, not taking her eyes from his for a second, trying to keep her voice steady. Seductive, even.

  ‘Sweet heaven, Caroline,’ he muttered.

  Their mouths met moments later, impatient and giving and greedy all at the same time. There was no reason to stop, and they didn’t. There was no reason to hurry either, but holding back was harder. The need and the intense response that Caroline had dammed back inside herself for weeks built like fire in a eucalyptus forest, volatile and explosive and impossible to control. Talk about fighting losing battles!

  She’d never wanted a man like this before. She’d never been so aware of her own sensuality, so open about it, so comfortable with it. If it could only continue like this…They’d already turned the lights down low. The curtains were closed. The fire was their only witness.

  ‘Sit up,’ he murmured. ‘Let me take this off.’

  She knelt, sitting back on her heels and he peeled the soft angora up over her head, then reached round and unhooked her bra. She had a couple of frantic thoughts about her weight, then made herself let them go, flooding with heat when she saw his reaction to the sight of her breasts.

  ‘Can I copy you?’ she asked.

  ‘Please.’

  She unbuttoned his shirt, slid it from his shoulders, found a hard pattern of muscles like ripples on sand, and tiny brown nipples in a clean, even nest of hair. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Tell me your exercise routine.’

  ‘So are you. Gorgeously gorgeous. No exercise required.’

  ‘Silly.’

  ‘Very. Kiss me again, Caroline.’

  ‘Your mouth?’

  ‘Anywhere you want.’

  Her nipples brushed his chest and he groaned. She ran her nails lightly down his back, then arched against him, inviting his mouth lower. They dragged themselves, somehow, out of the rest of their clothes, and the fire’s radiance seared their skin to the point just before pleasure turned into pain.

  They kissed and touched and explored each other, communicating everything they hadn’t let themselves feel over the past few months. It seemed like a miracle to Caroline that he was actually here, looking at her like this, wanting her like this.

  The guilty fantasies about him that she’d tried to repress couldn’t begin to compare to the reality, the wonderful, frightening, unexpected reality.

  She felt a familiar twist of self-doubt. Would it work? Was there any chance that it might build, and last? That he might not leave her hurt and broken at some point in the not very distant future? Maybe even tonight? Stilling her hands on his body, she brought them up to his face and cradled the barely perceptible roughness of his jaw on each side. He had his eyes closed. It made him look vulnerable, but she didn’t think he was.

  ‘Declan?’ she whispered.

  ‘Mmm?’ His dark lashes swept up, and the incredible blue of his eyes confronted her.

  ‘Can I tell you how long it is since I’ve done this?’

  ‘Is that an issue?’

  ‘Since Robert. Ten years. Most of my adult life.’

  ‘You don’t seem all that rusty at it to me.’

  ‘I would be, with anyone but you.’

  ‘I’m not understanding the problem here, in that case, sweetheart, since it’s me you’re with.’

  ‘If I’m not good at it, in the end, will you be—?’

  He covered her mouth with his fingertips. ‘I’m not even going to let you finish. Do you think that “being good at it” is something you achieve by yourself? I can’t believe you think that. It’s chemistry, Caroline. Chemistry between one man and one woman.’

  He began to kiss her, branding his warm lips on her skin from the corner of her mouth to her jaw, down her neck, across her collar-bone to her breasts. The depth of sensation stung her, turned her inside out.

  ‘Don’t you think we’ve proved the chemistry’s already there?’ he finished.

  Her uneven breath, almost a gasp, answered the question, but still she couldn’t let it go. ‘What if it disappears, before we—before I—?’

  He stopped again, looked at her face again, turning her nerve-endings into an intricate web of lace with his hands at the same time. His words were almost a whisper. ‘Are you saying you’re afraid you won’t reach your climax, sweetheart?’

  She closed her eyes and nodded in silence, marvelling that he understood, and that he could put it into words.

  ‘Is that what’s happened in the past?’

  ‘Too many times.’ She added even more honestly, ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘And you think it was your fault?’

  Robert hadn’t ever said so, in those exact words, but she hadn’t needed him to. Those sorts of unspoken emotional transactions could get so complicated in a less than ideal marriage. On the occasions when it had worked out right, when she’d managed to relax and push herself over that critical brink, Robert had been so obviously pleased with himself about it.

  It was similar to the way he’d been pleased about having a son. He’d always, unconsciously, taken the credit. It could have been an endearing trait if her successes hadn’t been so rare, if she hadn’t felt such pressure.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,’ she said, because she didn’t want to over-simplify, or cast blame. ‘It’s disappointing. Both people get resentful after a while.’

  Declan kissed her, soft and sweet, less urgent than before but just as delicious. His arms made two strong bands of warmth across her back.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said, after a few moments. ‘Let’s make a promise. Let’s agree that the top of the mountain isn’t where we’re aiming for right now. Promise you won’t give another thought to that. We’re on a different journey. Promise you’ll just pick flowers all along the w
ay and forget the top of the mountain’s even there. I’ll promise it too, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she agreed, and laughed—a small, upside-down, uncertain kind of laugh because she couldn’t see how it would happen. ‘Forget it’s there.’

  ‘Forget it’s there,’ he agreed. ‘You’re not convinced, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I guess you’re asking me to do all the hard work.’ He exaggerated a sigh. ‘Seems like sometimes a man’s just gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’

  She couldn’t help laughing at him, and when he grinned back, she knew he’d wanted her to.

  ‘Let’s watch the fire for a while,’ Declan said.

  He reached for pillows from the couch, and the blue velour beanbags that the children liked to lounge in. Sinking back to a half-recumbent position in the soft pile he’d made, he pulled her against him, cradling her back and shoulders with one arm and letting her knees bend over his thigh, so that both of them faced the fire.

  For a few minutes, he didn’t move at all, and neither did she. Truth be told, she felt sleepy. Is that what he intended? That they should simply fall asleep naked in each other’s arms, blanketed in heat? He’d said they should watch the fire, but she found the flames too hypnotic, and just couldn’t keep her eyes open. He was right. This was so nice, just this, no goals, no mountains to climb.

  She was almost asleep by the time he began to touch her, and it was easy to obey his whispered command, ‘Don’t move. Don’t wake up.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Or speak. You’re not permitted to say a word, is that perfectly clear?’

  ‘Mmm.’ She laughed a sleepy laugh.

  He stroked her nipples and pinched them lightly, then salved them with his tongue. For minutes on end, he traced the weight and fullness of her breasts with his hands and his mouth, and then he shifted position and went lower, leaving a trail of sensation across her skin.

  Every muscle in her body turned to warm mush, and she felt so heavy that she half expected to sink through the floor. If he asked her to move, to caress his beautiful body the way he was caressing hers, she doubted she could do it.

  But he wasn’t asking, so that was all right.

  His mouth trailed lower still. He supped her the way a bee supped nectar from an open flower, his tongue moving in soft, rhythmic strokes and circles, and while a part of her remained in a state of dreamy half-awareness, the rest of her body woke up with an electric intensity that made her shudder and twist.

  Or she would have shuddered and twisted if he’d let her. Instead, he pulled away, pinned her hips with his hands, and let her suffer as he stroked the insides of her thighs, until she began reaching for him, grabbing him, silently begging him to come back. A moan broke from deep in her chest.

  When he—at last!—deepened the intimacy of his mouth even further, she heard herself cry out in sheer relief, and suddenly there she was, on the top of the mountain, without ever having felt the labour of the climb. The view was spectacular.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, as she eventually began to still. ‘Oh, yes. That’s nice.’

  He slid away from her and she reached out for him, almost weeping. ‘No! Declan!’

  ‘More?’

  ‘You now. Inside me. Please.’

  She was so full and sensitised that his thrusts brought her right back to the place she’d just been, and he wasn’t far behind her. She kissed him feverishly as he shuddered against her, and somehow they were laughing, holding each other so tight they could hardly breathe, and just laughing.

  ‘You totally tricked me into that!’ she told him, her voice croaky in the aftermath of the moans she’d made. She felt so lazy in his arms. The fire would need another log to feed it soon. Not yet. She couldn’t move just yet.

  ‘I never did!’ he answered. ‘You tricked me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Ah, no, you didn’t. We tricked each other maybe. Each of us took the other by surprise. I really thought there might just be the flowers, with the mountaintop saved for another day, but you responded so…Like a train, Caroline. Strong and unstoppable.’

  ‘Greedy.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice what I thought about your greed? What my body thought?’

  ‘Got a few clues.’

  They lay there for a few minutes, while Caroline made up her mind that it actually would be possible for her to get up and put more wood on the fire. In the end, Declan beat her to it, and she watched him, enjoying the sight of a naked man with a log in his arms, and firelight flickering on his skin. Very primal.

  The door of the stove squeaked as he shut it, then he turned to her and said, with an odd expression, ‘We got a little carried away just then. I should have asked this before, but I’m not sure if I should ask it now.’

  ‘Way ahead of you, McCulloch,’ she answered, ‘if you’re talking about contraception.’

  He looked relieved. ‘I wondered, yes.’

  ‘After what we said to each other on Monday night, I got an oral contraceptive prescription on Tuesday.’ She couldn’t help blushing. ‘And the timing was right, so I could start taking it straight away.’

  ‘Safe, then.’

  He lowered himself to the nest of pillows and beanbags he’d built and took her in his arms once more. They watched the new log catching around the edges. Gold and blue flames crept silently along the splintered surfaces, and then a shower of sparks came as gas escaped from one of the half-burned logs and made it shatter.

  Am I really safe? Caroline wondered.

  Safe in his arms, yes, and safe from an unplanned pregnancy, but she knew there were other dangers. Feeling like this, there had to be. She’d thrown herself into what she felt, knowing it would make her vulnerable to his uncertain future here. She still didn’t see how she could have acted differently, but what did she do next? Just wait for the axe to fall?

  ‘This must be your regular time slot,’ Declan said to Alison Scanlon.

  He’d run into her twice in the supermarket on a Saturday morning, following the time he and Suzy had seen her. Since this was the closest thing he had to a regular time slot himself, he wasn’t surprised. Both times, they had been cruising in opposite directions down crowded aisles, adding items to their trolleys, so they’d simply smiled and said a quick hello.

  Today, however, he was later than usual, and he had Caroline with him, while Alison was just coming out with her trolley full of packed bags. All three of them stopped, and Alison said, ‘It’s nice to see you, Dr McCulloch.’

  ‘You look great, Alison.’

  ‘I’ve got a new job, at the Glen Aran Winery, giving tours and assisting in the tasting room, and I’m loving it.’

  ‘Well, it obviously suits you.’

  ‘Thank you. I never thought I’d be good at dealing with the public, and I almost didn’t apply for the job, but after the cancer scare I just…’ She stopped, thought for a moment, then continued, ‘…wasn’t prepared to give in to my own faults so easily any more.’

  ‘Alison, I don’t know if you remember me,’ Caroline said, ‘but I’m the medical technician who was assisting Dr McCulloch the day you first came into the hospital.’

  Alison smiled her new, more confident ‘dealing with the public’ smile. ‘I thought you looked familiar,’ she said.

  ‘I heard about the great outcome you’ve had, and it really lifted my spirits.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. That’s nice of you.’

  ‘It’s a little selfish, too. I have a…a relative who’s having cancer treatment at the moment. I need people like you!’ She laughed.

  Standing beside her, Declan could see she wished she hadn’t spoken so frankly. She hadn’t wanted to get upset, and foist her own worries about her sister-in-law on this near stranger. He said quickly and lightly, ‘You’re every doctor’s favourite kind of patient, Alison. I know that’s a terrible burden for you, but I’m afraid you’re just going to have to live with it.’

  Alison laughed and blush
ed and said awkwardly, ‘I’m luckier than I deserve. Thank you again. I’d better get home and get my ice cream in the freezer.’

  ‘Thanks, Declan,’ Caroline said, after Alison had continued on her way.

  She leaned against him and he captured her arm and laced his fingers through hers. ‘Any time,’ he answered. ‘But what’re you thanking me for?’

  ‘You know. I dug myself into a hole just now. I might have burst into tears on her shoulder and started talking about Sandie in another few seconds. Alison’s case has given me hope, and I’ve told Sandie a bit about it. Sandie got some encouragement from it, too, but I shouldn’t have told Alison about any of that.’

  ‘Blurs the professional boundaries?’

  ‘That’s happening too easily for me at the moment, and I’m not even talking about you and me!’

  ‘Forget professional boundaries. You didn’t put your foot in it nearly as much as you think. Let’s talk about us. It’s a subject I like.’

  ‘Mmm, OK.’

  ‘Us and our stomachs at the moment. We’re shopping for brunch, but it’ll be afternoon tea if we don’t get to it soon. What do you fancy? Smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers on fresh-baked French bread? Or maybe—?’

  ‘Stop right there. Don’t waste your breath on any other options. It sounds wonderful.’

  They had a perfect day, leading effortlessly into a perfect night. Very lazy, and totally focused on each other. On Sunday morning, they slept late again and ate another delicious brunch of sweet canteloupe and salty Parma ham that they’d also bought on Saturday. The sun shone into Caroline’s enclosed porch-cum-dining-room, and Declan hadn’t shaved, which gave him a wicked, rakish look that she loved.

  ‘I was surprised,’ he said, as they ate, ‘to find you could buy prosciutto in this town. I thought Glenfallon might not get beyond white bread and processed cheese slices.’

  ‘We have a big Italian community here,’ Caroline answered, straight-faced. ‘We’ve known about weird foreign food for a while.’

  ‘Am I a spoiled, condescending Londoner, then?’

  ‘A Londoner? You’re not a Londoner! You don’t really think of yourself as one, do you, Declan?’