He touched her shoulder and pulled her round to face him. ‘Don’t take it like that, Cara,’ he said gravely.
‘Look,’ she rejoined hotly, ‘you’re entitled to your own opinions—just keep them to yourself, that’s all!’
His grip tightened on her shoulder. ‘Of course your son is everything to you, it’s just, well, I see a lot of girls left to carry the can when their boyfriends go off. I hate to see someone like you and Dan hurt.’
Those deep blue eyes burnt into her. Jake meant what he’d said and, to be honest, he had a point. Toby had left her to fend for herself with a baby, and it had been hard. She was determined that Dan would never suffer for it, but the sad truth was that he would probably never know his father—and she was happy for it to be that way. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her anger with Jake, but the sting of the truth in what he’d said didn’t make his outspokenness any easier to take.
She looked up at him defiantly. ‘I’d better be quite candid,’ she said brusquely. ‘My father wants me to work with you and I don’t want to upset him at the moment. But if you keep pontificating on the way I run my life, I shan’t be staying!’
He dropped his hands from her shoulders abruptly and raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘That sounds like a threat,’ he remarked.
‘Well, I feel very strongly about it!’
‘I have no intention of telling you how to live,’ he said stiffly. His voice hardened. ‘All I do know is that in the unlikely event of my meeting the right person and deciding to have a child, I’ll make darned sure I’m married first.’
For a second a most curious feeling of jealousy filled Cara’s heart. The girl Jake ended up with would be a lucky one, she thought. He would take his responsibilities very seriously and would never abandon his wife and children. She gave him an appraising look. He was a mixture, this man—confident, handsome, and yet there was something aloof about him, a touch of the loner in some ways.
She shrugged. ‘You have an idealised view of marriage. It doesn’t always lead to happiness—as I know from my father’s experience.’
Jake looked at her stubbornly. ‘It’s not something to be jumped into, I agree—but where children are concerned, I believe marriage is imperative.’
‘And, as a responsible person, would you like children?’ Cara asked coldly.
‘Perhaps.’ His voice was noncommittal, careful to give nothing away. ‘The time has to be right—and, of course, one’s got to meet the right person.’
Cara raised her eyebrows. ‘And that’s not happened yet?’
Suddenly that stern demeanour relaxed somewhat, and a slight smile touched his lips. ‘There aren’t many single girls around Ballranoch who want an impoverished doctor in their lives!’
The temperature between them seemed to lower a few degrees as he looked down at her with a hint of amusement in his eyes, and Cara felt a treacherous tingle of excitement hit her. She tensed as he brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
‘You’d probably be the first to admit that any relationship is a gamble after your experience,’ he said with more gentleness in his tone. ‘But perhaps if you’d married Toby you’d still be together—right?’
Cara moved away from him and opened the door to the surgery. She wasn’t ready to forgive Jake’s outburst concerning Dan just yet.
‘I doubt that very much,’ she said coldly. ‘And as you know nothing about Toby’s relationship with me, I don’t know how you can make that assumption!’
What Toby had done to her—and indirectly to her father—could never be forgiven, but it wasn’t any of Jake’s business. She marched quickly to her room, her feet making any indignant tattoo on the wooden floor.
Only one more patient to see before she could go and collect Dan from his nursery and hear all about his day. Cara stretched luxuriously. That was one very good thing—her lovely son seemed to have taken like a duck to water to the nursery that her father’s daily, Annie Shaw, had recommended to her. Annie had also asked if she could stay in ‘the big house’, as she called it, whilst Gordon was in hospital. She was a young, lively woman who wanted to get away from living at home with her mother for a while, and she was longing to help look after Dan. At least, thought Cara gratefully, her worries about child care for Dan had been alleviated.
She sighed and stared distractedly at the PC screen in front of her. It was her relationship with Jake that worried her. Just how easy was it going to be to work closely with someone who manifestly disapproved that she was a single mother—that somehow she should have ‘known better’? Angrily she pressed the switch that activated the screen in the waiting room telling patients that she was ready to see them. It shouldn’t matter what he thought of her, she told herself—she should just get on with her job. But it did matter. Jake was beginning to get under her skin and she couldn’t forget his cutting comments.
She brought up her next patient’s notes on the screen and tried to put the annoying Dr Donahue out of her mind. Then she leaned forward with more interest and raised her eyebrows—the address of the next patient was the house where the rave had been two afternoons ago!
She was surprised to see that the woman who came in was middle-aged. She’d got the impression that she would be elderly—after all, Megan, her granddaughter, was at least fifteen. Mrs Forbes was smart and well groomed with streaked golden hair, and she was wearing a beautiful camel-coloured cashmere coat. She looked the kind of confident woman who knew what suited her and had her life in order.
Cara’s mind flicked back to Jake’s rather scathing comments about leaving teenagers alone in the house on New Year’s Eve—perhaps he’d had a point. Mrs Forbes certainly wasn’t the doddery, out-of-touch pensioner Cara had imagined, and she wondered if the afternoon of the party was something to do with the woman’s visit.
‘Ah, Mrs Forbes, do sit down,’ she said, indicating the seat in front of her desk. ‘How can I help?’
Mrs Forbes gave a bright smile—too bright perhaps—and clasped her hands tightly in front of her. ‘I…I don’t really know if it’s a problem I should bother you with,’ she began hesitatingly. ‘The fact is…’ Her voice faltered and she put a hand up to her forehead, scrabbling about in her handbag to find a handkerchief which she pressed for a second to her eyes. ‘The fact is, doctor, I’ve been a complete and utter fool!’
Cara waited as the woman stared at her, her lips trembling as if trying to psych herself up to tell Cara what was wrong. At last she blurted out breathlessly, ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I’ve got to unload it somehow. It’s been a terrible few days. I…I’m Dr Donahue’s patient really, but I couldn’t discuss this with him…with someone I know.’
‘Take your time,’ said Cara gently. Wryly she thought that some patients objected to seeing a new doctor in the practice, whilst others positively welcomed it!
Mrs Forbes swallowed and bit her lip. ‘You probably heard of the damage done to our house outside the village when some yobs came and trashed the house…’
‘I did happen to be there. Dr Donahue and I were helping a young diabetic girl in the garden.’
‘Then you’ll know how stupid we were to leave my granddaughter, Megan, and her friend by themselves. I can’t forgive myself, and I can only say that I was so worried about…personal matters that I felt I had to get out for the night. Megan is so good I couldn’t imagine anything awful happening.’
‘What things were you worried about?’
There was a short silence as the woman gathered her resources. She gave a deep breath.
‘I’m afraid I might be pregnant!’
‘How old are you, Mrs Forbes?’ Cara asked gently.
‘I’m nearly fifty. You wouldn’t think it would be possible to get pregnant at my age, would you?’
Cara smiled. ‘If you’re still ovulating, it’s perfectly possible. How many weeks do you think you are?’
‘I don’t know—could be quite a few. I just never dreamed this could
happen to me!’ Suddenly Mrs Forbes’s face crumpled and she put her hands over her face as she sobbed her heart out. Cara got out of her chair and put her arm comfortingly on the woman’s shoulder.
‘Come on now, Mrs Forbes, let’s just make sure you are pregnant before you get upset. There are other conditions that have similar symptoms to being pregnant, you know. At your age the menopause is probably starting to kick in.’
Mrs Forbes dried her eyes. ‘But I thought one had hot flushes and other symptoms—I haven’t had anything like that.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I haven’t had a period for some time…I was having them fairly regularly up to three months ago.’
‘I take it a baby wouldn’t be welcome, then? Have you mentioned this to your husband?’
The woman gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I certainly haven’t! Anyway, it…it’s not as simple as me just having a baby.’ She sighed. ‘A baby would have been so welcome many years ago—I only had one child and I’d have loved another. No…the trouble is…’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘I’ve been seeing someone else. It was just a bit of fun, you know, nothing serious. My husband is a good deal older than I am and hates going out now.’ She twisted the handkerchief round in her hands, and her voice started to rise. ‘I just got tired of sitting around all the time, doing nothing, but it would ruin everything if he found out. I don’t know what would happen to me!’
‘You think he would leave you?’
‘My husband is well thought of in the community—he’s an ex-MP, you know, and he wouldn’t welcome being made a fool of if this were to come out.’
Talk about selfish, thought Cara. No thought of the hurt she’d cause her husband, only what the consequences might be for her if she was found out. She got up briskly. It wasn’t for her to make moral judgements.
‘First of all, let’s establish if you really are pregnant—I take it you haven’t done a pregnancy test? When you’ve given me a specimen of urine I’d like to examine you.’
Margery Forbes looked anxiously at Cara as she put the strip of paper in the specimen a few minutes later. After a few seconds Cara looked up. ‘This result is negative—I think you could be worrying unnecessarily. Let me just examine you—it’s possible to be fairly certain of pregnancy by the state of the cervix.’
After the examination, Cara drew off her protective gloves and threw them in the bin, then washed her hands. ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about Mrs Forbes—I’m practically sure that you’re not pregnant. Just to make absolutely certain, I’ll take some blood for a test on your hormone levels. It may indicate what I suspect—that you’ve started the menopause.’
‘Thank God!’ said the woman, closing her eyes and lying back on the couch. ‘I felt I was living a nightmare!’
‘This doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant,’ warned Cara as she dried her hands. ‘Until your periods have stopped for a year, you should protect yourself.’
Mrs Forbes got off the couch and smoothed down her immaculate tweed skirt. ‘There won’t be any need,’ she said forcefully. ‘I’ve learnt my lesson, and…well, I shall try and be more sensible.’
A familiar scenario, thought Cara bitterly as Mrs Forbes left the room. A younger woman marries an older man and then gets bored. She knew it only too well, for wasn’t that her father’s sad little story? Mrs Forbes seemed absorbed with herself and on New Year’s Eve she’d put her own needs before that of her granddaughter. It could have ended disastrously with the death of a child.
Cara gave a little shrug of wonder at the secret lives of her patients and switched off her computer. She suddenly realised that she was dying for a restoring cup of tea and, when she’d put Dan to bed, a soak in a hot bath. That was why when there was a knock at the door she was tempted to call out, Go away!
‘Come in,’ she said a trifle wearily.
Jake looked round the door, his face apologetic. ‘I know it’s late and you’re really tired, but I need a big favour. Everyone’s gone home and my car’s finally run out of petrol—I had an unscheduled emergency call out in the hills. Could you just drop me off at the garage on your way to pick up Dan from his nursery, and I’ll get a gallon to keep me going?’
Cara stared coldly at him—she hadn’t forgotten his remarks about ‘accidental’ babies. If he thinks he can just slip back to being Mr Nice Guy, he’s got another think coming, she told herself fiercely.
‘No trouble,’ she said tersely.
As he settled himself into the car, Jake turned to Cara, his strong face made more angular by the shadows of the streetlamps.
‘I’m glad of the chance to see you by yourself,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I want to say something to you—something important. I should have kept my big mouth shut earlier. I must have hurt you very much, and I wouldn’t do that for the world. I…I do sometimes jump into things with both feet, I know.’
‘You’ve noticed, have you?’ Cara’s voice was heavily sarcastic.
‘I’ve been told often enough by my sister,’ he said wryly. ‘I apologise.’
Cara stared at him and put the key in the ignition. ‘And that’s supposed to make everything all right, is it?’
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. ‘I hope it helps a little. Look, I want our working relationship to be a success, and I know it can be. Please, allow me to take you out for a meal to try and make up for my crassness. I really want to make amends.’
His voice was low and coaxing, and his arm was slung round the back of her seat, making him far too close for comfort. Suddenly the space in the car seemed to contract and the atmosphere was just a little too intimate. Cara felt Jake’s warm breath on her cheek and she was hardly surprised when his hand turned her head to his so that his dark-flecked eyes held hers.
She swallowed. This was too reminiscent of the other night when they’d kissed so ardently. Even thinking of that made her senses tingle, and an urgent longing came over her to repeat the experience. She shifted nervously away from him in her seat.
‘You don’t have to take me out,’ she said in a tight little voice. ‘Just keep your thoughts to yourself.’
His finger traced a line under her chin. ‘Believe me, I’ll try. As you said, I’ve been too long in the wilds and I’ve forgotten how to behave.’
There was something bleak in that statement, something that spoke of loneliness and isolation—even chances missed. What was it in Jake’s past that had led to his reserved and blunt manner? Cara knew that under that stern exterior lurked a humorous and warm personality—she’d encountered it on New Year’s Eve. There had to be an explanation for the façade he presented. All at once her anger with Jake seemed to dissipate like seeds in the wind.
‘It would be nice to go out for a meal,’ she said lightly as she turned the key in the ignition. ‘But, remember, I’ve got a hearty appetite!’
‘I’ll keep you to that,’ he murmured.
When they reached the garage, Jake got out of the car and watched as Cara drove off, hunching his shoulders against the bitter wind. It always had been a failure of his, to speak first and think afterwards. Perhaps it was the result of a harsh upbringing where people spoke their minds and didn’t wrap things up in glossy words, and the circumstances he found himself in now. The irony was, he reflected sadly, that he seemed hellbent on hurting Cara Mackenzie—the sort of girl he’d been looking for all his life, sparky, humorous and far too beautiful to be let down by wastrels such as Toby.
He dug his hands into his pockets and bunched his fists. It was a pipe dream to wish that he and Cara could get together anyway. It could never happen, not with things as they were at home. There was no way he could make the commitment to Cara that she deserved, and for that reason he had to keep his distance.
‘Forget about it, Jake Donahue,’ he muttered as he turned towards the garage. ‘It’s never going to happen.’
CHAPTER FOUR
CARA screwed her eyes up against the brig
ht light and stared at the two figures floating high in the sky and drifting their way over the loch from the heights of Ballranoch Ridge high above her. Against the clear blue winter backdrop they looked like oddly shaped birds with one huge wing.
‘Look, Dan,’ she said, one arm round the stout little body of her son, the other pointing up to the sky. ‘See up there? Those are men with special harnesses on with wings like birds—it’s called paragliding.’
Dan looked up at them for a minute, and then said very seriously. ‘I think I’d like to do that, Mummy.’
Cara laughed. ‘When you’re quite grown up—and then you’ll have to have lessons, because it could be very dangerous otherwise.’
‘Why? Why dangerous?’
‘You could fall to the ground if you didn’t do it properly and hurt yourself.’
The little boy nodded, then turned his attention to Buchan who was rushing up and down the lochside, barking at some ducks that had ventured near the shore.
‘Come on, Buchan!’ he shouted. ‘Come and play football with me!’
He ran down the shingly shore, kicking a small ball along, and Buchan raced in front of him.
This is better than being in the town, thought Cara, watching her son with pride as he shrieked with laughter trying to beat Buchan in getting to the ball first. Dan didn’t seem to have any hang-ups about being a one-parent child, she reflected—he was full of confidence and fun. There would come a time, she supposed, when he would compare himself with other children and see them with fathers. That might bring problems, but until then he was a carefree little boy who was enjoying his third birthday.
‘Let’s go fishing now!’ he cried, running up to Cara, his cheeks rosy red.
‘I’ve no fishing rod, love,’ said Cara. ‘Perhaps we’ll go to the village and see if they’ve got one, and then we’ll go to the little farm for a birthday treat.’
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