‘I trust you, dear,’ she said simply. ‘You can tell me all about it later.’
‘I will,’ Julia promised, and then she went up to Theatre, scrubbed and changed and came out of the dressing room to find David sitting with a cup of coffee in his hands, waiting for their patient.
‘Hi, there,’ he said, and she felt suddenly conscious of the blue pyjamas and whether she looked hippy in them. She was bound to. Everyone looked hippy in them—well, everyone except him, of course, because he hardly had any hips, just shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms.
Oh, heck.
‘How’s Mrs Bailey?’
‘Fine. Wants a blow-by-blow account of the op later.’
He grinned. ‘I’ll let you do that—especially if we don’t find anything and we’ve opened her up for nothing,’ he said, but in the event they found a small black section of stomach wall which had withered and died without a blood supply, as David had suspected, and he removed it, patched and repaired the hole and then closed the wound with neat stitches, leaving healthy pink tissue that would heal quickly and put Mrs Bailey on the road to recovery.
He was a joy to watch, and for a few minutes Julia forgot about the feel of his hip against hers and concentrated on watching the precise and careful movements of his hands as he inserted the fine sutures.
‘I’ve got some mending at home. I think I’ll let you have it,’ she teased, and his eyes creased over the mask.
‘In your dreams,’ he murmured, and straightened, flexing his shoulders and rolling his head. ‘Right, she’ll do. Thank you, everybody.’
They left her with the anaesthetic staff and went into the changing area, and Julia’s side felt cold without him next to her. How odd, she thought, because normally she didn’t like to be too close to people.
Well, men, anyway, and yet David, for all he was all man and hugely attractive to her, seemed in no way a threat. Instead, being that close to him just seemed…right.
Very right. Worryingly so.
A little late to do anything about it, she realised she’d allowed him to become important to her. Not only that, she’d maybe allowed herself to become important to him, and that was unfair, because there was no way anything permanent would come of their relationship, or even anything more serious than what they were already indulging in.
But what were they indulging in? she wondered. A little light flirtation? Friendship? Nothing overtly sexual—nothing that smacked of an affair about to be embarked upon. There were no suggestive remarks, no forbidden touches, no stolen kisses—just friendship, and the occasional goodnight kiss that didn’t even get mildly out of hand.
Maybe she was blowing it up out of all proportion. Maybe it was only her, and he was unmoved.
‘Thank God that’s over,’ he said now, stripping off the top of the blue scrubs, and with one last longing glance at his powerful back and shoulders, she headed for the changing room.
He might be unmoved, but she wasn’t. If she’d had the slightest hope that it would work, she would have had a cold shower, but she had a horrible sneaking suspicion that it would take more than a simple dousing in icy water to subdue her feelings for David Armstrong…
‘So will I get better now?’
‘Oh, yes. I’m glad I had the chance to assist him. He’s a very careful, thoughtful surgeon. He’d be a good builder—measure twice, cut once, you know the sort of thing.’
Mrs Bailey smiled faintly and nodded. ‘Good. I shall look forward to feeling more my old self, then.’
Julia settled her down comfortably on her pillows and left her to rest. She’d been too groggy yesterday for much of a conversation about her surgery, but today she’d had questions that Julia had been able to answer, and now she seemed content to relax and allow herself to get better.
It was a shame she’d had the setback, but these things sometimes happened. Julia found herself wondering if it would have happened if David had performed the initial operation, and wondered just how biased her answer was.
Very, probably! Oh, dear. She really was losing her perspective on this man, and just to mess her up worse, she could hear his voice in the office. It sounded as if he was on the phone, and he appeared beside her a moment later, a smile warming those astonishing eyes.
‘Hi, there. I just borrowed your phone to speak to a GP. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. It’s hardly my phone.’
His smile widened. ‘Some people are very territorial about their ward phones.’
‘I have better things to worry about,’ she said primly, and he chuckled.
‘Of course. How’s Mrs Bailey?’
‘Happy. I told her you were wonderful.’
‘Naturally. What else would you tell her?’
‘The truth?’ she suggested, and then spoilt it by laughing. ‘I told her you’d make a good builder.’
He rolled his eyes and laughed. ‘Is that supposed to inspire confidence?’
‘Yes—her husband was a builder. It’s a concept she understands. Talking of builders, how’s the house?’
‘Oh, coming on. I should have a bathroom by the weekend. Want to come and see?’
She pulled a face. ‘I’d love to, but I’ve got Katie. I’m going to need to spoil her a bit because she didn’t get the part of Mary in the nativity play. She’s got to be a lamb, and she’s disgusted. Maybe another time.’
David’s eyes met hers, troubled and a little saddened. ‘Am I ever to be allowed to meet your daughter?’ he asked gently.
She looked away. ‘I don’t want her getting caught in the cross-fire,’ she said, all humour banished. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘Nor do I, but what cross-fire, exactly? I don’t see us fighting, and we aren’t involved in an intimate relationship that’s going to cause questions. I really don’t see the problem. I’m a friend, Julia. I’d like to be more, but for now I’m just a friend. Surely she’s allowed to meet your friends?’
A flashing light caught her eye, and she latched onto it like a drowning man to a straw. ‘I have to go, someone needs me.’
‘No, they need someone. Not necessarily you. Julia, think about it. I’ll talk to you later.’
And he walked away, leaving Julia staring after him and wondering if, indeed, he really was only a friend and if she and Katie could spend time with him without harm coming to her daughter. The weekends were often long, and she had more and more trouble finding cheap, fun things to do.
Maybe visiting David’s cottage and going for a walk in the country might be rather fun, she thought, allowing herself to be tempted. After all, with Katie there he was hardly likely to do anything to threaten the status quo—even if at times she might rather want him to, against all common sense.
The flashing light called her still and, putting aside her personal thoughts and feelings, she went back to work.
Just friends, he’d promised her, and he spent the whole of Saturday morning telling himself that as he worked on the cottage. She and Katie were coming over that afternoon, and he was cleaning it up and trying to make it look less like a bombsite and more like a home.
Fruitless task. He stopped himself picking a bunch of greenery out of the hedge and sticking it in a milk bottle on the kitchen window-sill. Dear me, he thought, you’re losing it.
Instead he concentrated on picking up the scattered tools so that Katie wouldn’t fall over them and hurt herself, and making sure he had an adequate supply of his mother’s biscuits and lots of juice and milk and so on for her to drink.
At a quarter past one, just as he was clearing away the last dustsheet from the sitting room, there was a tap on the door. He opened it, dropping the sheet behind it, to find Julia there, an apologetic smile on her face and a tiny, bright-eyed little girl with blonde curls fizzing round her head staring up at him in obvious excitement.
‘Sorry we’re early,’ Julia began, but Katie cut her off.
‘’S my fault,’ she said. �
��I wanted to see your house. Mummy said it was re-e-eally pretty and got a big garden with a swing, and I wanted to come now!’
Julia’s smile was apologetic. ‘She’s been nagging since seven this morning. I hope we aren’t too early.’
‘Of course not,’ he said, unable to help the smile. ‘Come in. I was going to change, but you’ve caught me. You’ll have to take me as you find me, I’m afraid.’
A pale wash of colour ran over her skin, interestingly, and David stored that little snippet for later consumption. Suppressing his smile, he led them both into the kitchen and offered them refreshments.
‘Juice, please,’ Katie said politely, and perched on the edge of a chair, sipping her orange and nibbling a biscuit while he made tea. He noticed her eyes kept sliding to the back door, but she didn’t say anything. He was impressed. Julia might have had to bring her up alone, but she’d done a good job, from what he’d seen so far.
‘Right, while the tea cools, what would we all like to do?’ he asked, and her eyes lit up.
‘I want to see the swing,’ she said, and Julia was just opening her mouth when he got there first.
‘I think that can be arranged. Julia, shall we take our tea up the garden with us?’
‘It’s freezing,’ she pointed out, but he just smiled.
‘We can wear coats.’
So they put on their coats, and while Katie swung gently back and forth on the swing with its creaky branch and rusty chains, Julia and David stood nearby in a pool of sunlight and drank their tea and watched her.
‘She’s enjoying herself,’ Julia said softly. ‘Thank you so much for suggesting it. The weekends are getting difficult.’
‘Because of her grandparents?’
‘Partly,’ she confessed, unwilling to blame them too much. After all, it wasn’t their fault they had money and wanted to spend it on their grandchild. ‘Partly because we’ve done all the obvious things a million times.’
‘Well, I’m only too happy to be of service,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘It’s not a lot to ask, letting the kid have a go on the swing.’
‘Can we go for a walk round here?’ she asked, and he shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure of any of the walks, I haven’t had time to try them yet. We could go to my parents’. She’d love it there. She could help pick up the eggs and things, and play with the dogs and cats. There are some puppies at the moment.’
‘Puppies?’ Julia said, weakening visibly, and he pushed the slight advantage ruthlessly.
‘They’ll be going soon. They’ve all got homes but Mum won’t let them go so close to Christmas, so they’re only there until just afterwards. They need children to play with, to help them socialise.’
She was struggling. ‘What sort?’ she asked, a tiny thread of yearning in her voice, and he played his ace.
‘Golden retrievers. Mum breeds them. They’re lovely—like little woolly bears. They’re cute,’ he added, and watched her crumple.
‘Well…maybe for a short while,’ she conceded, and David had to restrain himself forcibly so he didn’t punch the air.
‘We’d better make a move, then. It takes twenty minutes to get there from here, and it’s cold and dark so early at the moment.’
She nodded, and called to Katie. ‘Would you like to go and see a farm, and some puppies?’ she asked, and the child skidded off the swing and ran over, bright eyes shining, curls bouncing.
‘Puppies?’ she squeaked excitedly. ‘Real ones?’
He chuckled and hunkered down. ‘Absolutely real. They belong to my parents. Want to go?’
She nodded so fast it was a wonder her head didn’t fall off, and they moved her booster seat from Julia’s car into the back of the BMW and set off, and all the way there Katie bombarded David with questions about the puppies and the farm until his head was reeling.
Then they pulled up outside, and she skipped up the path to the back door beside him, little face shining up at him, and he lost his heart.
‘Stay for supper.’
Julia hesitated, unwilling to overstay their welcome, and Mrs Armstrong smiled understandingly.
‘You’re more than welcome,’ she said firmly. ‘The house is just too quiet these days with the youngsters away at university and David moving into his own home. I can’t get used to cooking for two and I always overdo it. We’ve got a big casserole—Jeremy would be delighted if you’d help to eat it up so he doesn’t have to have it for days running.’
Julia looked at David for help, but he just shrugged. ‘I’ll take you home if you like, but I’m coming back for supper. I can’t resist Mum’s casseroles and she knows it. It’s up to you.’
‘Please, can we stay?’ Katie asked pleadingly from her position in the puppies’ playpen in the corner of the kitchen. She had three of them asleep on her lap, sprawled across her like fat furry butterballs, and three more resting against her legs. Extracting her was going to be worse than pulling teeth, Julia realised, and gave in.
‘All right—but just for supper. Then we have to go home.’
‘Can we take a puppy home?’
She sighed inwardly. She’d known this had been coming since the moment David had first said the word. Fortunately Mrs Armstrong had an answer, because she couldn’t bear to have to say no to yet another thing her child had set her heart on.
‘I’m afraid they all belong to people already,’ she said kindly, pausing beside the playpen to look down at Katie with a smile. ‘But they will need someone to play with them and cuddle them from time to time until they can go to their new homes after Christmas. If your mother doesn’t mind, you’d be very welcome to come over and do that until they go—and by then we might have some kittens. One of the farm cats is looking suspiciously fat. And in the spring there’ll be a couple of lambs to play with and lots of baby chicks.’
Katie’s eyes were like saucers, and Julia felt panic rising in her chest. So much for keeping Katie and David apart! His mother was sucking them in relentlessly, giving her daughter a million and one things to look forward to that all depended on her relationship with David—a relationship she wasn’t even sure she had or could cope with.
She looked at him in desperation for help, but he was watching Katie and his mother and smiling indulgently. So, no help there, then.
Supper was wonderful, of course, not only because the food was delicious but because they were both made to feel so welcome. Katie was never excluded from the conversation, and Julia only realised later quite how much of herself she’d revealed during the course of the meal.
They were so easy to talk to, though, and the glass of mulled wine beforehand by the drawing-room fire might have had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, she found she’d told them a little of their lives since Andrew had died, all in very neutral terms, of course, because Katie had been there and Julia made it a habit not to discuss Andrew in a derogatory way, but they weren’t stupid, and she’d seen the understanding in their eyes.
‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ Mrs Armstrong asked as they cleared the table. Katie was back in the puppy pen, Mr Armstrong was walking the dogs and David was busy with the washing-up.
Julia shrugged. ‘Nothing much. We’ll spend it quietly at home. We’ll probably go for a walk in the park.’
‘What about family?’
She shook her head. ‘My parents live in Lancashire, and my brother and sister-in-law and their children are going to them. It’s a long way to go just for two days, and I’m working the morning of Christmas Eve and again the day after Boxing Day, so I can’t really squeeze it in this year. Katie will spend the weekend before with Andrew’s parents, having their own little Christmas while I’m on duty. They’ll spoil her to bits—it’ll be her real Christmas, I suspect.’
‘You could come here,’ Mrs Armstrong said softly. ‘There’s always room, and I know David would love to have you. All the others will be back, so it’ll be a bit manic, but we’ll still have the puppies and
David’s sister’s children will be here for Katie to play with as well. Why don’t you think about it?’
She could picture it—warm and colourful and loud and loving and the most wonderful fun. She ached for it, and a huge lump formed in her throat. ‘I couldn’t,’ she said, the words almost torn from her, but she could feel them being sucked in deeper and deeper, and the desperate longing to be part of it terrified her.
‘Think about it,’ Mrs Armstrong said again, and Julia nodded blindly.
‘We ought to be going soon,’ she said, putting the plates down beside David on the draining board.
‘Ten minutes,’ he promised, and she nodded and picked up a cloth and wiped the cutlery absently and worried about how she could refuse their invitation for Christmas without hurting all their feelings. All three of them had been so kind to her and Katie that day, and she wondered what David had said to his parents about her, if anything.
They hadn’t expressed any surprise or untoward interest in her, just an easy acceptance of her as a friend of his, but Julia was afraid they would start expecting more. After all, he was thirty-two, still single, and most men would be seriously thinking of settling down by then, if not before.
Was David? Was that why he was interested in her?
Because, if it was, it really wasn’t fair to him to allow him to spend time with her, because she had no intention of allowing their relationship to develop into anything serious and it was only right that he should know that from the outset.
All she had to do was tell him so.
She was quiet on the way home. David watched her out of the corner of his eye, and the child sleeping in the back of the car, and wondered what was on her mind.
He had a feeling he knew. She’d withdrawn from him since supper—well, since his mother had issued the invitation to come for Christmas. She’d done that while he’d been in the kitchen, but he’d heard her, and his heart had sunk.
Too much too soon, he’d thought, and it seemed he might have been right. Could he undo the damage, though?
‘Don’t let my mother crowd you,’ he said now, softly so as not to disturb Katie. ‘She’s always throwing the door of the house open to anyone who strays within reach. She means well, but sometimes people feel a little overwhelmed.’
The Perfect Christmas Page 6
