A Family for Chloe

by Lucy Clark

  ‘I’ve done quite a bit of paediatric work in the past.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry. I just thought we were getting to know each other a bit better. I mean, you just asked if I was married—’

  ‘No. I asked if you’d thought of having children. You were the one who volunteered the information about being divorced.’

  ‘Then you’re not married?’ he guessed.

  ‘What brings you to that conclusion?’

  Why was she being so cagey? It only intrigued him even more, making Harriette more of an enigma than he’d first realised. What was her story? Why had she lived in a lot of small towns? Why did she hate big cities? Why was she always so incredibly happy and optimistic? Was she hiding something? Plus, when they’d been talking about her living in small towns, she’d used ‘we’, then changed it to ‘I’. What was she hiding?

  ‘The fact that most women, when asked if they’re married, usually say yes if they are but try and dance around the question if they’re not. Now you’ll probably give me some information about how you don’t need marriage to define you, that you’re an independent woman, that you’re more than happy with your life the way it is—’

  ‘I am happy with my life the way it is and I’ll have you know that I’ve worked very hard for it to become that way. At the end of this year, I’ll sit my final exams and then I’ll be a qualified surgeon.’

  ‘You’re still a registrar?’ he queried, clearly more surprised at this news than discovering she wasn’t married. ‘I didn’t realise.’

  ‘And besides, just because I may not be married, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a special someone in my life whom I love and adore.’

  ‘Oh, so there is someone.’

  ‘Of course there’s someone. Everyone needs a special someone.’

  ‘Where is this mysterious “someone”?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Is it Henry? The police officer? You two seem quite easygoing with each other.’

  ‘Henry is married, to Sarah, one of our midwives.’

  ‘OK, so who do you text all the time? Who texts you back?’

  ‘You’ve been watching me?’

  ‘I live in the same house as you, Harriette. Sometimes it’s difficult not to notice the way you get a text, then smile that cute little smile of yours.’

  Harriette raised an eyebrow and glanced over at him. ‘Cute little smile?’ She smirked at his words then shook her head and concentrated on getting to the airstrip. Felix thought her smile was cute? That was nice and the knowledge warmed her although she wasn’t entirely sure why.

  ‘You know what I mean.’ He seemed embarrassed.

  ‘Uh, not really but...whatever.’ She slowed down to turn the corner into the entrance to the airstrip. She brought the ambulance to a halt, as close as she could to the airstrip. The plane’s wheels had just touched the ground and Harriette jumped from the vehicle, immediately swatting flies as she went. ‘Let’s see what we’re dealing with.’ She opened the back of the ambulance and took out one of the emergency backpacks. She handed it to Felix, who slung it over his shoulder, then she pulled out two pairs of gloves. ‘Here you go.’

  It wasn’t too much longer until the plane stopped and another moment more before the steps were lowered. They both headed over, pulling on the gloves so they were ready for action. Harriette was about to head up the steps in order to check on the patient, but before she had one foot on the bottom step a tall, handsome young man came bounding out of the plane.

  ‘Surprise!’ he called and opened his arms wide. In another second, he’d barrelled down the stairs and scooped Harriette up into his arms, spinning her around.

  ‘Eddie!’ She wrapped her arms around him and gave him an enormous kiss.

  Felix watched, taken aback by this turn of events. Here they’d just been talking about Harriette’s special someone and, clearly, the man who was holding her close, who was kissing her cheek, who was laughing at her surprise was Harriette’s special someone.

  Why he felt a thread of annoyance surge through him, Felix had no clue. No clue whatsoever.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE HUGGED EDDIE close and kissed his face several times, clearly so incredibly happy. Felix looked away from the radiance of her smile, the way her beautiful red hair started to come loose from the haphazard bun, her tinkling laughter filtering through the air as though she had not a care in the world.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ the young man replied, his voice deep. In Felix’s opinion, this Eddie person really did have a baby face and he couldn’t help but notice that Harriette seemed quite a bit older than the man she had her arms wrapped around. Perhaps Eddie was older than he looked. Perhaps Harriette was younger than she looked, although, as he knew, she was finishing up her surgical training. That meant she had to at least be in her early thirties.

  Well, some men preferred older women and some women preferred younger men. Who was he to judge? What he was more concerned with, and what Harriette seemed to have clearly forgotten in light of her surprise visitor, was the sick patient still on board the aeroplane. Felix edged past the happily reuniting couple, determined not to give them a second thought, and walked up the steps of the plane, peering inside.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ he stated, looking over at the pilot in complete confusion.

  ‘That’s right. There’s no emergency.’ Dale, the pilot, finished filling in his logbooks and gathered his headphones and other bits of paraphernalia so he could disembark. He grinned at Felix. ‘Eddie wanted to surprise Harriette so we decided to get her to the airstrip under false pretences.’

  ‘You faked an emergency?’ There was disbelief and censure in Felix’s tone. ‘You took the only two doctors in town away from the hospital’s emergency department, which therefore required our senior nurse to leave the immunisation clinic in order to staff the now vacant ED, and you thought this was a good idea?’

  The young pilot had the grace to look guilty at Felix’s words. ‘We didn’t think—’

  ‘No. Clearly you did not. What if there had been a real emergency, an emergency which required the ambulance and the attention of the doctors?’

  ‘Was there?’

  Felix paused for a moment before reluctantly admitting, ‘No. But there might have been,’ he added quickly. ‘Emergency service call-outs aren’t some sort of joke, young man.’ With that, Felix exited the aeroplane, stalking briskly to where Harriette was now loading Eddie’s duffel bag into the front seat of the ambulance.

  ‘You can ride in the back,’ she told him, her smile still wide and happy. ‘But don’t touch anything.’ She waggled a finger at him, then stared at him a moment longer as though she really couldn’t believe he was standing in front of her. ‘Put your seatbelt on,’ she remarked as she took the backpack from Felix and stowed it back in place. She shut the rear doors of the ambulance and went around to the driver’s side.

  ‘That’s it?’ Felix asked. ‘Put your seatbelt on?’

  ‘What?’ She waved goodbye to Dale, then looked across at Felix. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He looked into her face and his breath caught in his throat. He’d known she was an attractive woman but right now, the way she looked so incredibly happy, as though she could take on the world and knew she would win, brought out her inner radiance. She was...stunning.

  ‘Uh...’ Felix tried to think of what he’d been saying but his mind was blank.

  ‘Are you ready to go?’ she asked as she climbed into the ambulance. ‘We should get back to the hospital asap and let Tori know it was a false alarm.’

  As he walked around to the passenger side his brain seemed to click back into gear. ‘They could be charged,’ he remarked softly while he put his seatbelt on.

  ‘Who?’

  Felix
glanced back towards where Eddie was sitting.

  ‘Eddie and Dale?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve radioed in a false emergency, removing valuable resources which may have been needed elsewhere.’

  ‘But we weren’t. We’ll be back at the hospital in a few minutes and everything will be back to normal. Henry won’t charge them.’

  ‘Won’t he?’

  ‘No. He and Eddie get along really well.’

  Felix frowned. ‘Eddie’s a local?’

  Her smile increased. ‘He is now, aren’t you, sweetheart,’ she stated, raising her voice so Eddie could hear them.

  ‘What am I? I can’t hear you properly back here.’

  She laughed as though Eddie had just said something hilarious. ‘Felix here wants to know if you’re a local.’

  ‘Ah. This is Felix. Sorry. We weren’t properly introduced. I’m Eddie. I’m—’

  His words were cut off as Harriette’s phone buzzed. ‘That’ll be Tori wanting an update,’ she remarked. ‘Just as well we’re almost there. She is going to be gobsmacked to see you, honey.’

  Felix rolled his eyes and looked out of the window. No one seemed to care that Eddie had disrupted the smooth running of the hospital and clinics. It was as though the prodigal son had returned back home and everyone was getting ready for a feast in his honour. The odd thing was that in the three days he’d been in Meeraji Lake, he couldn’t remember Eddie’s name ever being spoken—not once. Eddie, however, seemed to know exactly who he was.

  ‘How’s Chloe been sleeping?’ he asked from the back. ‘Getting any better?’

  ‘How do you know about Chloe?’ Felix glared at Harriette. Had she been telling her ‘special someone’ all about him? About Chloe?

  ‘Here we are,’ Harriette stated as she pulled into the hospital driveway and drove the ambulance back into the garage. No sooner had she stopped the vehicle than Eddie had opened the back doors and loped inside the hospital, leaving Harriette to grab the duffel bag before heading inside. ‘Come on. We’ll miss Tori’s reaction.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Felix muttered, not particularly caring about Tori’s reaction to the energetic Eddie. What was so special about him? Felix checked the ambulance was locked up, then caught sight of his reflection in the window, only then realising he was scowling. He wasn’t too keen on this Eddie bloke because Eddie had disrupted the calm Felix had only just managed to achieve.

  True, there was still a lot of turbulence in his life, mainly thanks to Chloe, but with Harriette’s help even that had started to settle down a bit. Now Eddie had come into the mix and the search for calmness would need to start again because no doubt Harriette would want Eddie to stay at the doctors’ residence. The entire situation was exactly what Felix didn’t need right now, and neither did Chloe. This would create more disruption in her life. Couldn’t Harriette see that?

  When Felix entered the ED, it was to find Harriette with her arm around Eddie’s waist. Eddie looked as though he was tolerating the embrace.

  ‘What a scamp, eh?’ Tori remarked when she saw Felix. ‘Can you believe what Eddie did in order to surprise Harriette? Crazy.’ Tori didn’t wait for Felix to answer but instead bid them farewell, heading back to clinic.

  ‘OK,’ Eddie said, extricating himself from Harriette’s arms. ‘I’m gonna go get settled in, then say g’day to some people.’ He picked up his duffel and slung it over his shoulder, looking every bit like a handsome superhero, with his blond hair and blue eyes, tanned skin and perfectly straight white teeth.

  ‘Make sure you see Erica. She’ll be mad if you don’t.’

  Eddie grinned and winked at her. ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said in a teasing tone before walking out of the door. She laughed again and once more Felix found the sound to be like music to his ears. What he didn’t like was that Eddie had been the one to make her laugh. Why this should bother him, he really wasn’t sure. He only knew that it did and that simply made him mad at himself.

  Harriette sighed and sat in the chair, looking very relaxed and at peace. Her eyes were bright, her pink lips held the faint hint of a smile...a smile he wouldn’t mind tasting. Felix blinked and immediately looked away from her, one hundred percent confused as to where that thought had come from. Why on earth would he be interested in tasting Harriette Jones’s lips? In kissing her? She clearly had that avenue of her life all sorted out thanks, once again, to her special Eddie.

  ‘We will be eating well tonight, my friend,’ she remarked, rubbing her hands together with glee.

  ‘Pardon?’ He glanced at her and thankfully didn’t experience any immediate pangs of jealousy or the need to gather her close and kiss her senseless. Good. He was a grown man and, as such, was more than capable of controlling his libido.

  ‘Dinner tonight. Eddie’s going to cook.’

  ‘How do you know?’ It also appeared there was no changing the subject from the latest arrival in Meeraji Lake. He opened the next file in the pile and tried to study it, displaying an air of nonchalance as he interacted with Harriette. ‘Did he say something?’

  ‘No, but he always cooks the first meal whenever he comes to see me. It’s a rule.’

  ‘A rule? Whose rule?’

  ‘Mine.’

  Frowning, Felix eased back in the chair and looked at her. ‘You make him cook dinner for you whenever you see him?’ he clarified, as if trying to make sense of the conversation.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t pay for him to go to culinary school for nothing.’

  ‘You paid for—?’ Felix held up his hand. ‘Wait. What? You paid for your boyfriend to get his qualifications as a chef and in return he has to cook you a meal whenever he comes to—’ He stopped again, because Harriette had started laughing again, but this time it was definitely something he’d said that was making her crack up.

  ‘What? What did I say?’ His words only made her laugh harder. In another moment, she had tears in her eyes and was wiping them. ‘What’s so funny?’ His earlier annoyance and frustration returned and he tossed the pen back onto the desk before sighing with exasperation.

  ‘Oh. Oh, Felix. Thank you. I’m incredibly flattered.’

  ‘Why?’ He was totally lost now. Had no clue what she was going on about.

  ‘You think Eddie’s...’ she stopped, another bout of laughter bubbling through her ‘...my...my boyfriend?’

  Felix frowned, now knowing he’d definitely missed something. She’d kissed Eddie. She’d hugged Eddie. She’d called him sweetheart and honey. How was he not to think Eddie was her boyfriend? ‘Your...brother? Nephew?’

  She laughed again, sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘No, you absolute ninny. Eddie’s my son.’ She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes before chuckling again.

  ‘Your son! How old are you?’

  Harriette’s answer was to laugh again, then stand from her chair. ‘He even called me “Mum”.’

  ‘I just thought he was being ironic.’

  Another burst of laughter. ‘Well, as we’re all quiet here, I think I’ll give Tori a hand in the clinic with the immunisations.’

  ‘You’re going to tell her, aren’t you?’ Felix stated, shaking his head with slight embarrassment. ‘You don’t have to, you know. It was an honest mistake.’

  ‘Yes, but it was a hilarious mistake.’ With that, she sauntered out of the ED, still chuckling to herself.

  ‘Her son?’ he mumbled as he tried to focus on the paperwork before him. How was that possible? Either she was much older than he’d thought or Eddie was much younger than he looked. Or both. It also put the prank at the airfield into better perspective. The son, eager to see his mother, to surprise her, doing a crazy stunt without thinking through or considering the ramifications. It also explained why Harriette had been so happy.

  ‘He was her son.’ He shook his head in bemusement.
‘It was an honest mistake,’ he grumbled as he once again tried to focus his thoughts on the paperwork before him. When he’d finished at the hospital that night, he headed to the doctor’s residence, already having received a call from Harriette to check it was all right for her to collect Chloe from day care. As he walked in the door his senses were filled with the most delicious aroma, along with the sound of laughter.

  He went into the lounge room and found Eddie lying on the floor on his back, his knees bent, his feet on Chloe’s hips and his hands holding her firmly as she stretched out her arms as though she were flying, giving her an aeroplane ride.

  ‘Look at me! I’m flying!’

  Harriette sat next to them clapping her hands. Her hair was loose, freed from its messy bun, and when she glanced up at him, the red shoulder-length tendrils curling a little at the end, softening her face and making her look even younger, Felix felt a tightening in his gut. How was it possible that this woman could have a grown-up child? And how was it possible he was no longer in control of his senses? Clearly his self-control required even more work than he’d thought.

  ‘All done?’ she checked and he nodded, momentarily unable to speak, he was so captivated by her beauty. ‘Doesn’t dinner smell delicious? I told you Eddie would cook something brilliant.’ Chloe was calling to him, demanding his attention, demanding he comment on her excellent flying skills. Felix obliged, making sure he put the correct amount of enthusiasm into his tone because he’d discovered the hard way that if he didn’t, she’d get cross with him and a cross Chloe was not something he had the energy to deal with right now.

  ‘Glass of wine?’ Harriette asked as she walked into the kitchen, taking another glass from the cupboard and putting it next to the two wine glasses already on the table.

  ‘Eddie’s old enough to drink?’

  Her answer was to laugh but not provide him with an answer so he simply had to presume Harriette’s son was either over the legal drinking age or she simply didn’t care. She poured Felix some wine and handed him the glass, picking up her own and clinking it gently to his. ‘Cheers.’