‘Don’t you dare.’
‘That’s just the problem, Luc. You never let me dare anything.’ She glared up at him and then shrugged. ‘Okay. I’m grateful. Really I am. Let’s go to the beach and forget it.’
And she put her hands on the wheels and shoved, moving the chair forward.
There was a road. A kerb. A drop. A lurch.
She had to let go of the wheels and grab Toby.
Luc caught her before she tilted and fell.
There was a moment’s silence while traffic whizzed past. She sat and stared ahead, counting to ten. Then to twenty. She thought about counting to a hundred.
And finally Luc spoke. ‘Beth, really, how much can you see?’
Her anger was still with her, but she’d just given herself a fright. She’d shoved her chair toward the road. Toby was on her knee.
She hadn’t been totally stupid. Even if she’d fallen she would have just fallen on the kerb. A bike lane protected her from oncoming cars, but still...she had been dumb.
One of the things she’d found hardest, still found hard, was accepting her limitations. She took a deep breath, fought for calm, and finally she said it like it was.
‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ she managed. ‘That was stupid. I need to figure this chair out, what I can and can’t do, but what I just did had nothing to do with impaired sight. It was temper. My visual impairment is six/sixty without glasses, but my field of vision is around a hundred and twenty degrees. So, yes, I’m impaired but with my glasses or contact lenses I’m close to normal. Not in dull light, though—being honest, that screws me. Colours fade. Under the concrete...that was terrifying. But that’s it, Luc. Usually I can do and see almost everything a normal person can.
‘What I did was dumb but here’s the thing. I’m not all about my disability. I have hormonal flushes, I have temper, I have impatience, I have all the things normal people have. Because I am normal, Luc. Now I have a broken leg, a guilty conscience and an almost overwhelming urge to get down to the beach. As I’m sure Toby does. Don’t you, Toby?’
All this while Toby had been sitting on her knee, beaming at the outside sights, delighted with the fact that he was with his mum, on a wheelchair, an amazing wheeled contraption he’d never seen before. There was enough going on around them to hold his attention. Now, though, she’d said the magic word. His little face turned toward the sea.
‘Beach,’ he said solidly. And then... ‘Spade.’
‘Spade?’ Beth asked, thrown off track.
‘During this last week,’ Luc said, almost apologetically, ‘Toby and I have been learning to dig. We’re not quite down to China but we’re close.’
And that took her aback, too. All this week while she’d been struggling with tests, procedures, a mild infection, pain and boredom, Luc had been playing with her son. Playing. She had no doubt of it. Toby had had enough carers in his short life for her to assess how he reacted to them, whether they were full of warmth and fun or whether they treated him as a job.
Whenever Luc had brought him into her room he’d crowed with joy to see her, but the protests when he’d left had been minimal. Sometimes even non-existent. He’d snuggled into Luc as if Luc had known him all his life.
Because they’d dug holes almost all the way to China?
And what was there in that that sent a wash of desolation over her, a wash so great she felt her world was shifting?
It was dumb, she thought. It was because she’d just been released from hospital. Patients often said release meant a weird feeling of discombobulation, emerging to a world that didn’t seem to have noticed that they’d stepped out for a while.
And while she’d stepped out... Luc and Toby had formed their own little relationship, and she hadn’t been part of it.
She had to accept the new norm and move on. She had to step right back onto this spinning world and be a part of it.
‘I would very much like to see you dig a hole to China,’ she managed, with forced cheeriness, and Luc sent her a sharp look.
‘Are you okay? Pain?’
‘Leave it, Luc.’ She took a deep breath, pushing away the almost dizzy sense of disorientation. ‘No pain. I’m just a bit...befuddled with everything that’s happened. I’m sure what I need is sand, sun and maybe even an ice cream. If you could manage that I’d be grateful.’
‘But you don’t want to be grateful.’
He said it like he was struggling to understand, and she thought, I’m hurting him. Again.
‘No one wants to be grateful,’ she managed. ‘Giving should be two ways, and for me, the balance has always been a bit lopsided for comfort. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love what you’re doing for us. Tell you what. You push us down to the beach and I’ll buy the ice creams. Deal?’
And he gave her a look she couldn’t begin to understand. A look that said even this tiny thing, letting her pay for ice creams, was hard.
That was dumb. They both knew it was dumb and finally he smiled.
‘Deal,’ he said. ‘Can I have a double cone, chocolate on one side, liquorice on the other?’
‘Liquorice? What sort of ice-cream freak are you?’
‘A man of taste,’ he told her. ‘What’s your poison?’
‘Salted caramel every time. And Toby loves rainbow.’
‘Rainbow!’ He looked appalled. ‘Doesn’t that make...?’
‘An appalling mess? Yes, it does. And you know what? Sight impairment works just fine for that. All I need to do is remove my glasses and my little boy is just a sticky, Technicolor bundle of happiness. You have a problem?’
‘I... Not at all.’
‘Then let’s go,’ she said happily. ‘We have work to do if we’re to reach China by lunchtime.’
* * *
Luc parked the wheelchair on the promenade and, despite Beth’s protests, lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the shoreline. The sunshine was glorious. Tiny waves ran in and out. The shallow water made a magical playground for Toby, and a host of tiny sandpipers had obviously agreed to share.
As Luc carried Beth, Toby staggered along by his side, seemingly entranced that it was his mother being carried and not him. He was equally entranced by the sand between his toes so it meant a long carry—which was fine by Luc.
He was holding Beth in his arms and he’d forgotten...how right she felt?
She was holding herself stiffly, though, as if she was afraid to relax. The thought was unsettling. What had he done to make her afraid?
He’d cared. Too much?
How could he limit caring?
He had to, though, or she’d run. He knew it. For all she needed his help, she’d set up boundaries that he couldn’t cross. Her body didn’t mould against his as it once had. She’d lost...trust.
She’d told him so little of her life for the last eight years. Hell, he didn’t even know who Toby’s father was, and some gut instinct told him not to ask. She was holding herself tightly contained.
When he set her down by the water’s edge she almost visibly relaxed.
‘Sunscreen first,’ he said, tugging a bottle from his back pocket. And then ice creams.’
‘Ice creams when we’ve done enough to deserve them,’ she retorted. ‘But hooray for remembering sunscreen. I don’t suppose you brought three spades?’
‘Two,’ he told her. And then at the look on her face he did a fast change of tack. ‘My mistake. They sell them at the kiosk. Three bucks fifty each, blue, pink or yellow or red. Toby’s is yellow. Mine’s blue. Do you have a preference?’
‘Pink, of course,’ she said happily, and took five dollars out of her purse and handed it over.
He managed to take it. This was a whole new ballgame, he thought as he headed across to the kiosk, and he needed to learn the rules.
When he returned, the hole had been sta
rted. Beth and Toby were digging fiercely, a spade apiece.
‘Here’s yours,’ he said, offering her a pink spade with silver sparkles embedded in the plastic handle. ‘Plus the change.’
‘I’ve decided I like the blue one,’ she said blithely. ‘There’s been a coup in your absence. Consider the dollar fifty change compensation for the new order. You’re in charge of pink and glitter.’
And she chuckled.
It was a good sound. A great sound.
It was a sound that did something inside him he couldn’t understand.
But now wasn’t the time for asking questions. Toby was digging with fierce concentration, spraying sand as he went. ‘Dig,’ he said imperatively, and they all dug—and ducked from Toby’s sand—and kept right on digging.
Luc got creative. He extended the hole from where they’d started, down to the reaches of the tide. He dug deep so as the tide started to come in, the water rushed in and out of their hole, making Toby squeal with joy. They dug until the hole was big enough for a toddler to sit in and that was a moment of supreme satisfaction.
And that took Beth aback as well, because Toby started tugging his T-shirt and saying—very firmly, ‘In!’ Luc emptied the daypack Beth hadn’t even noticed until now, producing towel, spare clothes, spare nappy...
‘Wow,’ Beth breathed. ‘If you ever give up medicine can you come back as a childminder? Dibs I have first chance at employing you.’
‘Consider me employed,’ he said grandly. ‘I have more leave due and it would be my very great pleasure to be your childminder.’
Which silenced her.
They’d been divorced for eight years. After all this time...
‘Luc, why?’ she managed as he expertly stripped her small son and started massaging in more sun lotion. By the way Toby submitted she knew this had been a daily ritual while she’d been hospitalised.
This man had put his life on hold.
‘Because we’re friends,’ he said solidly, and she thought he always had sensed what she was thinking. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that stretched a bit tight across his abs. His dark hair looked a bit...messy. He rose and looked down at her, smiling that lopsided sexy smile that had made her fall in love ten years ago and that was doing exactly the same thing now.
Except she wasn’t a dumb kid, thrown by accident and disability into falling back into a failed relationship for all the wrong reasons. She was sensible. A mother, a family doctor, a woman who had her own independent future mapped out in front of her. Sort of.
She didn’t need to be looking at...abs?
‘With no strings,’ she managed, and it sounded ungrateful. Or scared. She wasn’t sure which but there didn’t seem anything she could do about it.
‘No strings,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Just friends, Beth.’
‘I... It might be a good time for an ice cream.’ She had to break the moment. The way he was looking at her...
The way he was looking...
Toby was done. He was now wearing a swim nappy and nothing else except sun screen. He wriggled out of Luc’s grasp and slid into their hole with a resounding splash. An incoming wave filled the hole with foam, and he patted the water with gusto, sending splashes over his mother. He crowed with glee and then caught onto the only word in the preceding conversation he recognised.
‘Ice cream!’
And for both of them it was a relief. She could turn away, take time to find her purse again.
‘There’s a queue at the ice-cream cart,’ Luc said, and she could tell by his voice he was as...discombobulated as she was. ‘You’ll be okay with Toby if it takes a while?’
‘Yes.’ She shouldn’t have snapped but she couldn’t help it.
‘Of course. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘I... Yeah, I have a cast on my leg so if Toby runs I could be in trouble.’ She glanced around the beach and saw a cluster of young mums and their toddlers not too far away. ‘But if he does I’ll yell for help. I’ve learned to ask for help if I need it, Luc. So thank you for worrying but I’m fine.’
* * *
The ice creams were wonderful. They took turns keeping a hand on Toby’s wrist to make sure his ice cream didn’t get dunked in his waterhole—that’d be a disaster of epic proportions—and licked their own.
There was little need for words. The sun was on their faces and it was all about sensory pleasure—the warm sand, the hush-hush of the surf, the happy slurps of a toddler in his version of heaven.
People walking along the water’s edge turned to smile at them and Luc knew exactly what they were thinking.
A young mum with a broken ankle. Dad taking time to care for her and care for his young son. A family.
It was make-believe, pretend, but for now it felt fine.
Eight years ago... If he’d stayed with Beth... It wouldn’t have had to be pretend. He could have been a family man by now. They could have had two or three kids. Living happily ever after.
How could he have kept them all safe?
He suddenly remembered a conversation he and Beth had had, just before she’d walked out.
‘I want it all, Luc. I want to go back to medicine. And I want a family. Kids. Maybe even a dog.’
‘What the hell...’ He still remembered the feeling of panic. ‘Beth, I can’t even keep you safe.’
‘You wouldn’t have to keep me safe,’ she’d retorted. ‘Except in so much as you love me. I’ll keep myself safe. There’ll be times when I need you—of course there will—isn’t that what marriage is all about? But there’ll also be times when you need me. And it’ll be the same for our kids and this mythical dog I’m proposing. Yes, they’ll need us but we’ll need them, too. And that’s what I’m aching for. Luc, I need to go back to medicine. And I need a family. I’ve been dependent since my illness and I’m over it. You have to let me care, too.’
He couldn’t. The thought of a baby...of Beth being home alone with an infant... For heaven’s sake, anything could happen.
‘You’ve told me about your cousin,’ she’d said, gently then. ‘And I know about your mum. I understand, honestly I do. You know my feelings on it but you can’t smother me in caring to make up for it.’
And a month later she’d left.
‘You’ve been wonderful but I no longer need a carer. I need you as my husband but if I can’t have one without the other... Luc, I know you can’t understand but I need me more than I need you.’
He still didn’t fully understand, but as he sat on the sand and watched Toby’s unadulterated happiness, he thought maybe he’d been wrong about the family thing. Maybe he could have included children—or at least one child—into his caring. If that could have made Beth happy.
For she was happy now. Toby had misdirected his ice cream and jammed it on his nose. He was snorting rainbow ice cream and giggling, and Beth was chuckling as she tried to sort the situation. She was sitting on the sand, her moon boot protected with a towel so she didn’t get sand in her dressings. She was wearing a crimson dress, simple, something the patient welfare people had found her because she couldn’t get into the jeans her friends from Namborra had sent. Her hair was still its glorious chestnut. She was wearing prescription sunglasses but they’d slipped down her nose, making her look...adorably cute.
This woman was ten years older than the woman he’d married but she still looked...
‘We’d best go home,’ she said, breaking the moment. ‘I’ve found with Toby it’s best to quit while we’re ahead. One minute you have happiness personified, the next you’re in tired territory and, believe me, Luc, you don’t want to be there.’
‘Hey, I’ve cared for him for a week.’
‘You mean you’ve seen it.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen it.’
‘And yet you’ve stuck with us. You’re a man in
a million, Luc Braxton. How many men would take their ex-wives in, no questions asked? No strings?’ She smiled happily at him, seemingly totally relaxed. ‘You’re being wonderful.’
‘I’m being useful.’
‘Yeah, and you love that.’ She put a finger on his nose, a gesture he remembered from all those years ago, a gesture that almost did his head in. ‘Okay, friend Luc, let’s get this baby to bed. Only... I’m afraid you’ll have to carry me again.’
So he did. He carried her over the sand while Toby staggered along gamely, clutching his spade and a handful of sand and the soggy remains of an excellent rainbow ice cream.
Friend Luc.
But that wasn’t what he felt like. He didn’t feel like a friend at all.
CHAPTER SIX
TWO DAYS LATER he went back to work. At Beth’s insistence. She had things under control.
Sort of.
Harriet had introduced her to Alice, a lovely, grandmotherly soul who lived in the same apartment block as Luc. Alice was delighted to offer childcare while Beth did rehab. Beth wheeled her chair there easily, taking the lift, balancing Toby on her knee. Despite being well into her seventies, Alice was almost as bouncy as Toby, so he expended his energy there, and Beth picked him up just as he was about to crash. Then she’d bring him back to Luc’s apartment and they’d both nap.
Luc timed his work. He was available for Code One emergencies only, and limited time in ER, so he was home early enough to take them both to the beach before dinner.
‘There’s no need,’ Beth told him, but there was a need. She was so close...
He needed to be with her while he could. He was increasingly aware that she was trying to sort her future in her head and that future didn’t include him.
‘But I don’t think I can go back to Namborra,’ she confided, late on the third night. ‘I don’t think I can work without Ron.’
Finding His Wife, Finding a Son Page 7
