by Kate Hardy
He managed to keep the conversation work-based for the rest of their break, then walked with Florence back to the department.
It was a busy afternoon and, although he hated to admit it, he was tired by the time he got home. There was a note in his letterbox saying that a parcel had been delivered next door; even before he picked it up, he had a pretty good idea who’d sent it. The person he’d done exactly the same thing for, a couple of months back; the person whose thoughts so often chimed with his.
There was a note attached:
You are only allowed to open this if you DIDN’T overdo things on your first day.
‘Yeah, yeah, Olls,’ he said with a grin, and opened it. The parcel contained a bottle of good red wine and some seriously good chocolate.
Perfect for his first evening after work.
Rob texted his twin. Thank you for the parcel. I so deserve this.
His phone rang seconds later. ‘So how was your first day?’ Oliver asked.
‘Wonderful. It was so good to be back, Olls. To save lives—we had an arrest and we got him back. And even if it’s only three days a week, it’s so much better to know I’m making a difference again instead of being stuck at home.’ Stuck feeling too ill even to pace about. It had been Rob’s worst nightmare.
‘Glad you enjoyed it. Are your colleagues nice?’
Rob thought of Florence Jacobs. ‘Very.’ Though he wasn’t going to admit to his twin that he’d been drawn to one new colleague in particular.
‘And you paced yourself?’ Oliver checked.
‘Stop nagging. Of course I did. I’m a bit tired, now,’ Rob admitted, ‘but I’ve got tomorrow off to recover. Working every other day is going to ease me back into things. I know it’ll be a while yet before I’m ready to go full time again, but working part time is way, way better than doing nothing.’
‘That all sounds a bit sensible for you. So you actually meant it about being more Ollie?’ his twin teased.
‘Yes.’ Mostly. He wasn’t sure if he was actually capable of putting down roots.
Though he was very aware of how impersonal his rented flat was. The one thing that Rob did envy Ollie was the way his twin always seemed able to make a place feel like a home, even on the same day he moved in. Rob was never in a place for long enough to make it feel properly like home; he was too busy chasing the next adventure, making the next difference. And even his flat in Manchester—currently rented out to a colleague—was just a place to stay between the emergency department, climbing and his overseas work.
Maybe he should try taking a few more leaves out of Ollie’s book.
Tomorrow, he decided, he’d print out some of the photos on his phone and stick them in frames on the mantelpiece. That might make his flat feel less anonymous and soulless.
‘I’m starving, so I’m going to say goodbye now and cook dinner,’ he said.
‘You mean, you’re going to stick something in the microwave,’ Oliver teased.
‘It’s perfectly nutritious. There are two portions of my five a day, and I’m having an apple afterwards.’ Unlike his twin, Rob never had been big on cooking. It always felt like a waste of time where he could be doing something more active and more interesting. His rule was that if it took more than five minutes, it was off the menu. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Give Gemma my love. And thank you for the care package.’
‘You’re welcome. And you can always come here for dinner after work, if you’re tired. I don’t mind cooking for you.’
‘That’s kind,’ Rob said. Though Ollie was newly loved up; given that the kidney transplant had been the thing to break his brother’s engagement, the last thing Rob wanted now was to put pressure on Ollie’s new relationship. Even though Rob liked Gemma very much and thought she was a million times better for Ollie than Tabby had been, and also wasn’t likely to behave in the same way, he still didn’t want to make things difficult. ‘Oh, by the way. How’s your patient with chickenpox pneumonia doing?’
‘She’s completely recovered,’ Oliver said. ‘But I don’t remember telling you about that. Why do you ask?’
‘One of my new colleagues remembered you bringing her in. She thought I was you.’
‘Oh?’ Oliver sounded intrigued.
‘And I’m hungry,’ Rob said, ‘so I’m going.’ Before he said anything about Florence Jacobs that his twin might misinterpret.
* * *
Florence walked into the kitchen, her footsteps echoing.
It was more than a year now since she’d moved back to Northumbria. More than a year since her divorce. More than two years since her world had collapsed.
And, although she’d grown up only a few miles away in the next village, this place still didn’t feel like home. A single person’s flat. Empty. This wasn’t the life she’d planned for herself; she’d thought by now she’d have children at preschool—children who’d grow up close to their cousins, the way Florence had been close to her sister.
Instead, she was on her own. And she just didn’t have the strength to try again.
She didn’t regret moving back from Leeds. Being close to the family she loved, being able to see her nieces grow up—that meant the world to her. And it was nice not having anyone at work pitying her, or the whispered conversations that stopped abruptly when she walked into the staff kitchen.
She knew her colleagues in Leeds had speculated about the break-up of her marriage, and it was obvious they’d all guessed Dan’s affair had been at the root of it because Florence had adored her husband. But telling them the whole truth would’ve been so much harder. That she and Dan had tried for a baby for three years, the tests had shown that he was the one with the fertility problem, and he’d refused flatly to adopt, foster or to go through IVF with a sperm donor. He’d refused to go to counselling, too, and he’d given her an ultimatum of a baby or him.
How ironic that now she had neither. And Dan had ended up marrying a single mum who’d given him the children he hadn’t been able to have himself but had refused to give Florence: the woman he’d had an affair with. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that maybe Dan’s issues hadn’t been with having children; it had been having children with her. And just what was so wrong with her that the love of her life hadn’t wanted to make a family with her?
She shook herself. ‘Enough of the pity party,’ she told herself crossly. Time to look on the bright side. Focus on what she did have, not what she didn’t. She loved her family and lived close enough to see a lot of them; she had a job she adored; and she had good friends who looked out for her. She was lucky.
Though she knew exactly what had unsettled her today.
Robert Langley.
Her new colleague was charming, great with patients, and he treated all staff as equally important—whatever their position on the ward. He thought on his feet, so he was good to work with. He was more than easy on the eye.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because in some ways he reminded her of Dan, when they’d first got together. Dan, who was urbane and charming and got on well with everyone. Dan, who she’d thought she’d be with for ever: until he’d changed the goalposts and broken her heart in the process.
Rob hadn’t mentioned having a partner or children, and she’d got the impression that there was something a little remote about him. As if that charm was a barrier to stop people seeing who he really was, behind it.
‘Or maybe you’re overthinking things and being incredibly unfair to your new colleague, Florence Jacobs,’ she said out loud.
To get her balance back, she needed to go for a run and get the endorphins flowing, and have dinner. And until then she wasn’t going to allow herself to think about Robert Langley.
Copyright © 2021 by Pamela Brooks
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ISBN-13: 9780369712110
Second Chance with Her Guarded GP
Copyright © 2021 by Pamela Brooks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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