A Proposal Worth Waiting For

by Lilian Darcy

  Find another one, he decided. Whether she’s right or wrong, play it safe, take the line of least resistance, for Josh’s sake. And for his own?

  It was what he’d been doing for far too long.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘THEY’LL be closing the flight in twenty minutes, Miranda,’ Benita said. ‘What do you think has happened to Josh and his dad? They wouldn’t have just wandered into a shop to buy postcards?’

  ‘I’m getting worried,’ Miranda admitted. Nick and his son had been absent for fifteen minutes—enough time to administer the first dose of Ventolin and assess its effect. If it wasn’t working…

  It often didn’t. Despite long-term treatment to develop Josh’s lungs, on top of a regimen of preventative action which Anna stuck to like a monk’s ritual, Josh’s sudden attacks had progressed three times in the past year to the point where hospital admission had been the only option.

  If that happened now…

  She felt a surge of disappointment on Josh’s behalf. He’d been looking forward to this trip so much. Possibly too much. Miranda had privately wondered if any place in the whole world could match the paradise of Crocodile Creek Kids’ Camp and Wallaby Island as they existed in little Josh’s energetic imagination.

  He’d said to her at his last check-up, ‘There’ll be waterfalls and birds and lakes teeming with crocodiles, and rides and surf and the best food, and toys and campfires and sing-alongs, and I’m going to swim all day, except when I’m feeding the crocodiles. I’m not going in the water with them! They’re in a lake, they’re not in the ocean or the pool. And I think the lake is going to be purple. And fireworks. There has to be fireworks.’

  And Miranda had smiled at him and nodded, ‘Purple, huh?’ And, of course, it was good that he was looking forward to it so much, but kids could make themselves sick with excitement, and then Nick had had to come on the holiday instead of Anna, which added a level of stress and uncertainty to the excitement, and—

  ‘I’m going to go and hunt them up,’ Miranda told Benita. ‘Can you handle things here, and guard Nick and Josh’s luggage? If I can’t get them to the check-in in the next twenty-five minutes at the outside, bad luck. We can’t have the whole group miss the flight because of two people.’

  Even if one of them was one of her favourite patients, and the other one was…

  Well, was Nick Devlin.

  A very memorable ship passing in the night, practically scraping her all down the starboard side like the Titanic and its famous iceberg, and pushing her off course for far too long.

  She hurried through the terminal, found the parents’ room and knocked on the door. ‘Nick? Josh? Are you still in there?’

  Nick opened the door. He looked anxious, jittery and too light on his feet. He wanted action and control and to get on that plane now. Miranda was shocked at the way she could read his emotional state. No, not just read it, feel it as if it was happening inside her own body. As soon as he saw her, he gave a frowning glance at his watch and she knew what he must be thinking.

  Can we do this?

  Behind him Josh sat on a bland vinyl chair. Still wheezing. Not noticeably better, but not worse. Could they do this, with time squeezing them as tight as Josh’s lungs?

  Miranda felt steely determination set in.

  Could they? Just try showing her any other option!

  ‘Time for a second dose,’ she said. ‘Let’s not have you two miss the flight. There isn’t another connecting hop out to the island until tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘We’ve just done a second lot,’ Nick muttered, blocking the conversation from Josh’s ears with the bulk of his body in the half-open doorway. His open-necked shirt showed a fine mist of perspiration across his collar-bone. He was literally sweating this—the tight timing, Josh’s breathing, the potential disappointment. ‘What do you think? Is there any point hanging on here for a third, or should I give up now and cancel our flight? Give up on the whole thing?’

  She couldn’t keep back a stricken sound. Cancel Josh’s trip?

  ‘I’m asking you as a doctor, Miranda,’ he added, as if he knew that she was operating far too much on emotion right now. ‘Not as someone who wants my little boy to have his holiday. Should we really push this? Is it a sign that I’m not the right person to be…? No, hell, I can’t think straight about any of this. You need to be the one to make the decision.’

  He met her gaze, jaw tight, expression rigid, fighting himself. She wasn’t imagining the appeal reflecting from deep within his brown eyes. It was there, even though he’d never been the kind of man to show any weakness easily or willingly.

  Somehow, his look cut to the heart of her just as the whole of him had cut to the heart of her ten years ago, during their one night together, without him apparently even knowing it. Or if he had known, back then, he hadn’t cared.

  At some level he trusted her on this, she decided—trusted Anna’s assessment of her as a professional, or his own more personal memories. The fact warmed her too much and she had to push the feeling away. She should remember that after their night of talking and making love, which she’d believed in so much, he’d never phoned…

  ‘Has he improved at all?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘A little. More after the dose I gave him a couple of minutes ago. I—I don’t think he trusts me. Is he psyching himself out because I’m here, not his mother? Maybe at some level this is happening because he doesn’t want to go to camp with me.’

  He was being incredibly careful not to let Josh hear. Miranda had to step closer and keep her eyes fixed on that barely moving mouth but still she strained to hear him. At this distance, she could see more clearly the lines on his face that hadn’t been there ten years ago, and she had a totally unacceptable urge to soothe them with her fingers.

  ‘Let’s not think that way. Let me take a look at him,’ she suggested.

  ‘He knows you almost better than he knows me, I guess.’ The words, barely more than a mutter, cut Miranda to the heart.

  She came fully into the parents’ room and dropped to Josh-level. He was sitting in the room’s one chair. ‘Can you talk, Josh?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘You said the second dose helped?’ She could feel Nick behind her, a ball of strong and very male tension and distress. He really didn’t want to cancel this trip.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So we’ll just sit here, shall we, and then we’ll give a third dose and that’ll do the trick.’ She spoke as if there was no other possibility, and Josh smiled at last.

  While Nick let out a sigh that she didn’t dare to think came from relief.

  Not yet, Nick, please.

  Josh wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  Ten minutes later, they both helped him with the third dose, then Nick put his asthma equipment back in the colouful backpack and they listened to the wonderful sound of Josh breathing better and talking again. ‘Did we miss the plane?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. We have time.’

  Not much of it, though.

  Nick took her aside again, holding her arm, bending his head towards hers so that the dark hair spilling across his forehead almost brushed her face. ‘Can we really do this? What if he crashes again during the flight?’ His touch felt impossibly familiar, even after so long. She couldn’t believe how quickly they’d reconnected in such a personal way.

  Maybe because she’d been expecting something like this—half dreading and half wanting it—for two years? It was harder than if he’d simply shown up in her life again, out of the blue.

  ‘They have oxygen on board,’ Miranda answered, ‘and the fact that he’s responded to these first few doses is a good sign. In the past, when he’s crashed badly, it’s been downhill all the way.’

  ‘True,’ Nick said. ‘Ambulance ride to the hospital. The full works.’

  ‘He’s been very excited about this trip.’

  ‘Don’t I know it!’

  ‘I so-o-o don’t want to pull the plug on i
t for him now.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Nick said.

  ‘Is it the excitement, do you think?’ Miranda asked him quietly.

  ‘That and…’ He stopped, took a breath and readied himself to choose his words carefully. ‘Anna can’t…uh…always hide when she’s stressed. He picks up on it far too much. As far as she’s concerned, the timing of her mother’s accident couldn’t have been worse, and maybe she’s right…’

  Anna’s emotions sometimes made Josh sicker. Nick and Miranda were in agreement on that. But then he added, ‘And maybe she’s right to think it’ll be disastrous to have me with him on the trip. He and I haven’t spent as much time together as I’d like.’

  He hated saying those outwardly bland words, Miranda could tell. Hated saying them because they were true? Or because they weren’t? Had he genuinely wanted a better relationship with his son all along? Or was Anna right in saying, as she frequently did, that Nick was the one to withdraw?

  His smile was forced. ‘We looked at pictures of a Very Greedy Frog.’

  ‘As much time as you’d like with him?’ she echoed, before she could stop herself. It had sounded a little too much like a challenge—Yeah, really? That’s not what Anna says. Why had she felt the need to plumb the level of his honesty now, when they were in such a rush?

  He looked at her and she could almost see him mentally prioritising his battles. Most important, get himself and Josh onto the flight. Way down the list, argue with his son’s respiratory physician about which divorced parent most deserved the prize for honesty and clear thinking and sacrifice.

  ‘Look, is there still time?’ he asked. ‘That’s what’s important now.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. Benita has been waiting with your luggage. Everyone else will have gone through by now. We have to get to that check-in desk now, if you’re going to make the flight.’

  He nodded for the third time. Wasn’t going to waste words when he didn’t have that luxury. Once again, he scooped Josh into his arms and slung the backpack over one shoulder. ‘Let’s do it. Josh, can you breathe?’

  No answer.

  ‘Josh, can you? You have to talk to me!’

  ‘Yes. I’m breathing.’

  ‘I’ll put you down later, so you can walk onto the plane on your own, OK? For now I’m carrying you, because we need to hurry.’

  ‘So are we still going?’ came a thin little voice.

  ‘Well, do you want to?’ Wooden tone.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Y-yes.’ A lot less emphatic.

  ‘Good,’ Nick said, and suddenly hugged him fiercely. ‘Because I think we’re going to have a great time.’ His voice was thick with sudden emotion that almost brought tears to Miranda’s eyes.

  He cared. Whatever else she might doubt about him now, she couldn’t doubt that.

  They almost ran through the terminal.

  A sympathetic desk clerk, who’d been told about the situation, waved them through to the first-class check-in desk and despatched their luggage along the conveyor with practised speed. Waiting in a queue to go through Security, they heard the announcement for final boarding for the flight, but Nick said stoically, ‘They’ve let our baggage through, and the desk clerk knows we’re on our way. They should hold the flight a few minutes for us, now. I hope,’ he added.

  Their departure gate seemed miles away, at the far end of the concourse. Nick loped ahead, seeming untroubled by Josh’s light weight. Miranda struggled to keep up. Last night’s sleepless mental list-checking of today’s travel details was taking its toll. Finally she saw the gate lounge and the open door leading to the access tunnel. The area was bare of passengers and a member of the ground crew was speaking into a telephone.

  ‘Boarding pass?’ Nick barked at Miranda.

  ‘Right here. You’ve got yours and Josh’s?’

  ‘Yes.’ To the ground crew he said, ‘Nick Devlin, Josh Devlin, Miranda Carlisle.’

  ‘Good. You’re the three we’ve been waiting for.’

  Breathless, Miranda followed Nick down the tunnel, the blood beating in her ears and her limbs weak with relief. They’d made it. Just. Josh was smiling. Everything was going to be OK.

  Just inside the plane, they caught up with the final members of the Crocodile Creek group. Benita mimed fanning herself with relief and said, ‘I’d almost given up on you.’

  ‘So had I. But I couldn’t let them miss the flight.’ Miranda lowered her voice. ‘Not these two. Not little Josh.’

  ‘Be careful of that,’ Benita warned. She meant the favouritism.

  ‘I know.’

  Miranda saw the Allandales blocking the aisle further down as they sorted through their cabin luggage. Stella Vavunis stood just ahead, handing over her crutches to an attendant, to be stowed in one of their special hidey-holes for the duration of the flight because they were too long for the overhead carrier bins.

  The teenager’s head hung with embarrassment, and her body was stiff and hunched, as if she just wanted to disappear. She felt humiliated and angry at the whole world about being singled out this way, and having to hop and hobble to her seat. Miranda thought she heard some very rude words muttered under Stella’s breath.

  ‘She isn’t handling that prosthesis very well yet, is she?’ Miranda murmured to Benita. ‘It says in her notes it was fitted a week ago.’

  ‘She won’t even try, according to her physio,’ the nurse answered. ‘She hates it, still insists on using the crutches because then she can get away with looking as if she has a broken leg.’

  ‘There’s a physiotherapist visiting the camp every day. I’ve had a couple of phone conversations with her. Susie Jackson. She sounds nice.’

  ‘We’re all nice, Miranda!’ Benita said.

  ‘True. You’re saying nice isn’t enough, in a case like this.’

  Nice. The word dovetailed with some of Miranda’s questions about Nick, too, and about why she hadn’t yet been able to give her heart to a man who truly wanted it. Was being nice the problem? Too nice. Nothing but nice. Nice wasn’t enough, and sometimes it was boring…

  ‘Stella has to be motivated,’ Benita was saying. ‘She has to believe what we tell her, she has to find someone she’ll really listen to and trust. The prosthesis is too much reality for her right now. The crutches are what she knows, and she’s sticking to them.’

  ‘Tough for a thirteen-year-old, when body-image issues are so huge at that age already.’

  ‘I know, but she’s so darned prickly and negative and ungrateful I want to shake her, sometimes.’ Benita gave a rueful shrug. ‘We rub each other up the wrong way, I’m afraid, she and I. I’m not as patient as I should be.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘I shouldn’t admit to it, should I, but you know how it is,’ Benita said. ‘Some you love, some you don’t, often without even knowing why.’

  ‘True,’ Miranda replied, watching Nick and Josh.

  Benita was right. Again. When it came to love, you often didn’t know why.

  ‘I have to fight to hide it, to be honest,’ she was saying. ‘Her dad’s supposed to be coming later in the week.’

  ‘Yes, that’s in our notes. He’s a major donor to the rebuilt camp and medical centre.’

  ‘And very driven. As well as very rich! I won’t be surprised if something gets in the way of him making it. I don’t think Stella will be surprised either, and I really, really wish I could step in and fill the breach, but we just don’t get on, she and I. I get more glares from her than words. Hope she finds a friend or two this week. Someone she can talk to.’

  ‘Someone better than just the usual nice, you mean?’

  Benita smiled ruefully. ‘That’s right.’

  The passengers blocking the aisles took their seats one by one, and Miranda found her own group of patients towards the back of the plane. There were three empty seats left, all in a row. Just ahead of her, Josh was walking on his own, as his dad had promised, wit
h Nick directly behind him.

  ‘There’s your seat, mate,’ he said to his son, the ‘mate’ part sounding a little forced and unnatural. ‘Right by the window.’ Josh climbed eagerly towards it, sneakers treading squarely in the middle of the two seats adjacent. ‘Oh, hell, Josh, don’t tread on the seat with those shoes!’

  Too late. The deed was done.

  Josh looked scared when he understood the reason for his dad’s disapproval, even though Nick was telegraphing only a second or two of mild anger. The little boy’s sneaker soles looked clean…sort of…but they had that deeply grooved tread that harboured every piece of grit and every grass clipping until just the wrong moment.

  ‘Hope your neighbour isn’t wearing a white silk dress,’ Miranda said to him, smiling. She wanted to diffuse the difficult moment between father and son. Nick could see the expression on his son’s face and didn’t like it, she could tell.

  But Nick didn’t smile at her teasing comment. Once again, was she being too nice? ‘Actually, it looks to me as if my neighbour is going to be you.’

  ‘Lucky for you, then,’ she persisted. ‘I don’t even own a white silk dress.’

  Why had she bothered? Once again, he didn’t smile back. She sat down beside him and felt his tightly coiled body like a piece of humming machinery just inches away.

  Miranda was in demand for most of the flight.

  The aisle seat was either a deliberate choice on her part or a lucky bonus, because she had to hop up and down every five minutes to answer the summons of a hand waved over someone’s head and the call of her name.

  Somebody needed their in-flight snack to be delivered early. Someone else had forgotten to pack painkillers and had a headache. Did Miranda happen to have some on her?

  She dealt with it all cheerfully, and Nick was torn between regret that they didn’t get the smallest opportunity for a proper conversation and relief because he didn’t know what on earth they would find to say, with so much past and so much distance in between.

  They’d studied medicine in the same programme and graduated as doctors at the same time. He’d been incredibly focused on his studies back then, knowing that nothing less than a cream-of-the-crop performance would satisfy his father.