‘I’m going to Spain for two nights to catch the end of a conference. I’m not going on a holiday. I shan’t even see the beach,’ Cat pointed out. ‘I wish that I was flying off for a holiday,’ she said, and then sat on the bed. ‘I hate July so much.’
‘I know you do.’
It had been seven years since Thomas had died.
She didn’t lug her grief around all the time but on days like today it hurt. Gemma smiled as her friend went into her bedside drawer and took out his photo. Cat kept it there; it was close enough that she could look at it any time and removed enough not to move her to tears. The drawer also meant she didn’t have to explain the most vital piece of her past to any lovers until she was ready to.
She simply found it too painful.
‘Rick asked how likely I was to have another one like him,’ Cat admitted. It was what had really caused the end of her latest relationship. ‘I told him about Thomas and then I showed him his photo...’
‘He’s not a doctor, Cat,’ Gemma said. ‘It’s a normal question to ask. It’s one you’ve asked.’
‘I know that. It was more the way...’ She was so hypersensitive to people’s reactions when they saw her son but she smiled when Gemma spoke on.
‘I loved how he smiled if you touched his little feet,’ Gemma said, and her words confirmed to Cat that she was very blessed to have such a wonderful friend. ‘He’s so beautiful.’
He was.
Not to others perhaps but they had both seen his lovely eyes and felt his little fingers curve around theirs and they had felt his soft skin and heard his little cries.
And this was the hard part.
It was late July and she’d be away on those days.
The day of Thomas’s birth and also the day that he had died.
‘Do I take his photo with me?’ Cat asked, and Gemma thought for a moment.
‘I don’t think you need his photo to remember him,’ she said.
‘But I feel guilty leaving him in the drawer.’
‘Leave him with me, then,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ll have a long gaze.’
Yes, she had the very best friend in the world, Cat thought as she handed over her most precious possession, and because she was going to start crying Cat changed the subject. ‘Hey, did you have any luck tracking down that dress for the christening?’
‘Nope.’
Gemma shook her head as she put the photo in her bag. ‘I knew that I should have just bought it when I saw it. It was perfect.’
‘It was very nice, but...’ Cat didn’t continue. A white broderie anglaise halter-neck with a flowing skirt was a bit over the top for Cat’s tastes but, then, that was Gemma.
And this was her.
She pulled on some white linen pants and a coloured top and added the espadrilles.
‘Am I girlie enough for you now?’
‘You look great.’ Gemma laughed. ‘It’s once you get there that worries me. With those clothes you’ll just blend in with all the others...’
‘Which is exactly my intention,’ Cat said. ‘I have to go soon.’
‘But your flight’s not till nine.’
‘I know but I’ve booked in to get my hair blow-dried on the way.’
Her long black curls would be straightened, just as they were twice a week. Cat always washed it herself before she went to the hairdresser’s, though.
It saved time.
They headed downstairs, chatting as Cat did a few last-minute things. ‘You’re speaking in the morning?’ Gemma checked.
‘At nine.’ Cat nodded. ‘I’d have loved to have flown last night but I couldn’t get away. Hamish isn’t back till tomorrow and Andrew is covering me this weekend. Same old. It would have been nice to stay on for a bit and spend a few days in Barcelona...’
‘Are you ever going to take some time off?’
‘I’m off in October for three weeks.’ Cat smiled. ‘My exams will be done and I’m going to celebrate by decorating my bedroom. I can’t wait to turn it into something that doesn’t make me want to sleep downstairs on the sofa.’
‘You’ve done an amazing job with the house.’
Last year, after a year of looking, Cat had bought a small two-bedroom home in a leafy London suburb. It was a twenty-minute drive to work at night, which meant, if Cat was on call, that she had to stay at the hospital. Yes, perhaps she could have bought somewhere just a little bit closer but the drive did mean that when she left the hospital, she really left the building.
Here, she could pull on tatty shorts and a T-shirt and get on with her second love—knocking down walls, plastering and painting. The house had been a real renovator’s delight and Cat had delighted in renovating it.
The ghastly purple carpet had been ripped up to expose floorboards that, once sanded and oiled, brought a warmth to the house. A false wall in the lounge had been removed to reveal a fireplace and the once-purple-themed bathroom was now tiled white with dark wood fittings and had a gorgeous claw-foot bath.
‘Will you sell it once you’ve decorated the bedroom?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Cat admitted, tipping milk down the sink. ‘Initially that was the plan, but now I love the place and want to simply enjoy it, but...’
‘But?’
‘I’ve really enjoyed doing it up bit by bit. I’m going to miss that.’
‘After your bedroom you’ve still got the garden to make over.’
‘Oh, no!’ Cat shook her head. ‘I’ll get someone in to do that.’
As they headed out, Cat locked up and Gemma looked at the small front garden.
‘It’s the size of a stamp,’ Gemma pointed out. There was just a rickety path and two neglected flower beds, and the back garden, Gemma knew, was a small strip of grass and an old wooden shed. ‘You could have it sorted in a few days...’
‘Nope!’ Cat smiled. ‘I have black thumbs.’
They said goodbye on the street.
‘We’ll catch up properly soon,’ Cat promised. Both women knew that they wouldn’t get much of a chance to gossip at the christening. ‘I’ll come over to yours after the conference. I haven’t seen the twins for ages. I’ll bring them a stuffed donkey each back from Spain.’
‘Please, don’t!’ Gemma winced and glanced at her phone to check the time. ‘Ooh, I might make it home in time to give them their bath before bed. Nigel’s cooking a romantic dinner for the two of us tonight...’
‘Lovely.’
‘Enjoy Spain,’ Gemma called. ‘You might find yourself some sexy Spanish flamenco dancer or matador...’
‘At an emergency medicine conference?’ Cat laughed. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that.’
‘Well, a gorgeous waiter, with come-to-bed eyes and—’
‘Oh, please!’
‘Why not?’ Gemma winked. ‘If you can’t manage a love life, then pencil a few flings into that overcrowded diary of yours.’
‘There’s another conference in Spain the following week that you might want to consider attending,’ Cat said in a dry voice. ‘Sexual health. You, as an obstetrician, better than anyone must know the perils of casual sex.’
‘Of course I do, but sex is healthy.’ Gemma grinned and then she looked at Cat. She wanted to pick up an imaginary sledgehammer of her own and knock down the wall that had gone up around her friend since her baby’s death.
‘Do you know what’s brilliant about a one-night stand, Cat?’
‘Gemma...’ Cat shook her head. She really didn’t have time to stand and chat but her friend persisted.
Gemma loved to talk about sex! ‘He doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to worry how you might slot into each other’s lives and whether he leaves the toilet seat up or is going to support you in your career and all that stuff,
because you’re not looking for a potential Mr Right. He can be Mr Wrong, Mr Bad, Mr Whatever-It-Is-You-Fancy. God, but I miss one-night stands.’
‘Does Nigel know your theory?’
‘Of course he doesn’t.’ Gemma grinned. ‘Nigel still thinks he was my second...’ They both laughed for a moment but then Gemma stood firm. ‘It’s time for you to have some fun, Cat. Doctor’s orders—you’re to buy some condoms at the airport.’
Cat laughed and waved and got into her car and headed for the hairdresser’s.
She adored Gemma.
And Nigel.
But...
What she hadn’t said to her very good friend was that, as much as it might work for Gemma, she really didn’t want a Nigel of her own. She didn’t want someone asking what was for dinner every night, but nor did she want to be the one coming in after work and doing the ‘Hi, honey, I’m home’ thing.
Still, there wasn’t time to dwell on it all.
She parked her car in her usual spot behind the church and grabbed her bag and walked quickly to the hairdresser’s. She pushed on the door but it didn’t open and she frowned and then she saw the ‘Closed’ sign.
‘Don’t do this to me, Glynn...’
He never forgot her appointments and Cat had been very specific about the time for today when she had seen him on Monday. Glynn knew that she had a plane to catch and that she would be pushed for time.
‘Breathe,’ Cat mumbled as she accepted that no amount of rattling the door was going to make Glynn suddenly appear.
It’s a hair appointment, that’s all, she told herself. There would be a hairdresser at the hotel. Only, her presentation was at nine in the morning and she’d wanted to have a leisurely breakfast in her room and calm herself down before that.
And it was Thomas’s birthday tomorrow.
She was not going to cry over a missed hair appointment.
Cat wasn’t crying over that as she drove to the airport. Instead, she was wishing the boot was full of presents and wrapping paper and that she was dashing to pick up a birthday cake...
Why was it still so hard?
So, as she could not get her thick curly hair smoothed into long, glossy and straight, she bought some hair serum at the airport, then checked in her luggage and headed through with ages to spare.
She went to the loos and sorted her hair as best she could, deciding she would straighten it tonight and again in the morning, but for now she tied it back and headed out.
She took a seat and read through her talk on her tablet. It was about palliative care and its place in the emergency department and, really, she knew it back to front and inside out. She had done hours of research and all her meticulous notes and patient studies now came down to one talk.
And then what?
Exams.
And then?
Cat blew out a breath.
Her career was a little like her house renovation.
The day she’d moved in Cat had stared at the purple carpet and the purple tiles that would take for ever to get off. It had seemed unlikely, near impossible, that she would ever get there and yet here she was, just a bedroom and a garden away from completion.
She had, through high school, always wanted to be a surgeon yet as a medical student she had stepped into the emergency department and had been quickly ushered into Resus to observe the treatment of a patient who had just come in.
A cyclist had lain there unconscious with a massive head injury. Cat had watched in silent awe as the staff had brought his dire condition under control. His heart, which hadn’t been beating, had been restarted. His airway had been secured and the seizures that had then started to rack his body had been halted with drugs.
She had been sure at first that he would die and yet he had made it to Theatre and then on to Intensive Care.
She had followed him up and found out a week later that he had been transferred to a ward. She had gone in to see him, expecting what, she hadn’t known. Certainly not a young man sitting up in bed, laughing and talking with his girlfriend, who was sitting by his side.
He should be dead, Cat had thought, though, of course, she didn’t say that. Instead, she’d chatted to him for a few moments, unable to truly comprehend that here he was, not just alive but laughing and living.
Emergency medicine had become her passion right there and then. Yes, at twenty years old she had known she was a long way off being as skilled as the staff who had attended the cyclist that day.
Slowly she had got there, though.
And now here she was, coming to the top of her game.
So why the restlessness?
Cat glanced up at the board and rolled her eyes when she saw that her flight was delayed, and decided to wander around the shops.
Oh, there was Gemma’s dress!
She was sure that it was, though looking at the price tag, not quite sure enough to buy it without checking, so she took a photo and fired a quick text to her friend.
Is this it?
It was, and Gemma promised to love her for ever and forgive any stuffed donkeys she might bring home for the twins if Cat would buy it for her.
She bought some duty-free perfume too, as well as her favourite lip gloss and...no—no condoms.
Finally the plane was boarding and Cat, along with her purchases, was on her way.
She didn’t read through her talk again. She dozed most of the way, trying to drown out the sound of over-excited children and their parents. As they disembarked she almost forgot the dress but luckily she grabbed it at the last minute.
Very luckily, as it turned out.
Having spent hours watching an empty baggage carousel, seeing the shutters go down on all the airport shops and filling in numerous forms, she was doing her level best to hold it together as she climbed out of the taxi and walked into the hotel. It was close to midnight.
Her luggage was lost, her hair was a joke.
And tomorrow, at nine, she had to deliver the most important presentation of her life.
CHAPTER TWO
CAT WOKE BEFORE her breakfast was delivered and lay there.
She remembered a day seven years ago and wished, how she wished, that there was a seven-year-old waiting to open his birthday presents and to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to.
It was a hard picture to paint and each year it got harder.
Was Mike in this happy family picture and did Thomas have brothers and sisters now?
No, she didn’t miss Mike and the perfect world they had been building. She missed, on Thomas’s behalf, all that he had been denied.
She couldn’t afford to cry, especially given the fact she had no make-up with her and so she headed to the bathroom to set to work with the little she had.
With her heavy-duty hair straighteners neatly packed in her lost luggage, she was very grateful for the hair serum she had bought and applied an awful lot in an attempt to tame her long, wild curly hair.
When her breakfast was delivered she walked out onto the balcony and tried to calm herself with the spectacular view of the Mediterranean. It was just after seven but already the air was warm. The coffee was hot and strong and Cat tried to focus on her speech. It will be fine, she told herself, refusing to fall apart because she didn’t have the perfect, perfect pale grey suit and the pale ballet pumps in the softest buttery leather to wear.
They were here to hear her words, Cat reminded herself.
Yet she couldn’t quite convince herself that it didn’t matter what she wore or how she looked.
Neutral.
That was how she always tried to appear.
There was nothing neutral about her today, she thought as she slipped on Gemma’s dress.
Her rather ample bust was accentuated by the lace, the halter-n
eck showed far too much of her brown back—the tan was from painting the window frames on her last lot of days off, rather than lying on the beach. Her hair she tied back with the little white band that came with the shower cap in the bathroom and then she covered it with a thick strand of black hair.
A squirt of duty-free perfume, a slick of lip gloss and she would simply have to do.
Yet, she thought, having tied up her espadrilles, as she stood and looked in the mirror, while never in a million years would she have chosen this outfit for anything related to work, she liked how it looked. She wouldn’t even have chosen it for anything out of work either. Generally she was in shorts or jeans when sorting out the renovations. Yes, she liked how she looked today. It reminded her of how she had looked before she’d had...
Cat halted herself right there.
She simply could not afford the luxury of breaking down.
Tonight, Cat told herself. Tonight she would order room service and a bottle of wine and reminisce.
Today she had to get on.
She had one last flick through her notes and then she headed out to register for the conference and also to check that everything was in place for her talk.
She was just putting her swipe card in her bag when the elevator doors opened and she looked up to an empty lift, bar one occupant.
Bar One was tall and unshaven with grey eyes and his dark hair was a touch too long yet he looked effortlessly smart in dark pants and a white shirt. All this she noted as she stood there and briefly wondered if she should simply let this lift go.
For some bizarre reason that seemed far easier than stepping in.
‘Buenos días,’ Bar One said, and then frowned at her indecision as to whether or not to enter.
‘Buenos días,’ Cat replied, gave him a brisk smile and stepped in. The floor number for the function rooms had already been pressed and as she glanced to the side and down, anywhere other than his eyes, she noted he too was an owner of the softest buttery leather shoes.
His luggage clearly hadn’t been lost.
And neither was he wearing socks.
Three, Cat thought as his cologne met her nostrils and she found herself doing a very quick audit as to the number of garments that would remain on his lovely body once he’d kicked off those shoes.
The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) Page 2
