Her voice was growing quieter, as if whispering the memories might somehow make them less horrifying.
‘Sometimes, when Em had been fretful and things around the house hadn’t got done, he’d look around the messy room and sigh. Not saying anything but I’d feel that I’d disappointed him. Then one day, we were about to go to bed, and Em woke for a feed. It must have stirred his jealousy, and it triggered something in him I’d never have guessed was there.’
Anger so deep and hot he wondered he could keep it capped seemed to boil within Oliver, but he realised that, now she’d started, Clare needed to go on. He could only hold her, aching for her, fearing what he was about to hear, wondering if he could maintain his control.
‘The new ute never came. I couldn’t leave the house because we couldn’t put the capsule in his old vehicle. He picked up groceries when he went to town. Sometimes he’d have a drink while he was there and after that would be rough with me—squeeze my breasts too hard. Mum had sent a box of Christmas decorations, some old ones I’d loved as a child and new ones, too, for Em’s first Christmas, although we knew she was too small to know. I cut a little tree in the bush not far from the house and decorated it. It was Christmas—everything would be all right.’
She was shivering now, remembering, and Oliver could do nothing but hold her close and listen as the poison of that time was lanced from her soul.
‘But Christmas meant parties, not that I’d go. I wouldn’t enjoy them, he’d say, and besides, how could we take the baby? He’d meet some mates and have a drink and that was when he hurt me. He was always sorry afterwards, always promising it would never happen again, but one night, sometime in January, he grabbed my breasts and scratched them with his fingernails, scoring them and pinching me so hard I had to muffle my cries in the pillow in case I woke Em and he hurt her.’
Oliver felt her face pressed hard into the curve of his neck and knew his skin was wet with tears.
Was there more?
Could he listen to more?
Control his urge to find this man and murder him?
Then Clare’s whispered words began again and he had to strain to listen.
‘I realised just how jealous he was of my baby, of my feeding her, of my giving her any attention at all, and that’s when I knew I had to leave. I waited until he slept, and knowing he’d been drunk so he’d sleep deeply, I took the capsule and Emily and left, walking not along the road but across the fields. The neighbours all around knew us both—knew Barry better and liked and respected him—so I had to get as far away as I could, carrying Em in the capsule because I knew I’d need it if I found someone to give us a lift.’
Oliver heard the words, so flat and emotionless, but in his mind he saw the woman he loved, trudging across the fields on the peninsula southwest of Melbourne, and he felt the fear she must have felt, the agony of desperation.
And understood her courage.
‘I had a school friend in a small town near Apollo Bay. It was morning by the time I got there, so I went to her place. She didn’t ask a single question, just put me and Emily in her car and drove us to the airport, paid for my ticket to Queensland on her credit card, bought some food and coffee for me, and once I was safely on the plane she phoned Mum to meet me at the other end.’
‘Did he look for you?’
Oliver was surprised his voice had worked, so choked up did he feel.
Clare nodded against his chest.
‘But not for long,’ she whispered. ‘Both my brothers flew south to see him. I don’t know what happened but they came back and told me he wouldn’t bother me again. Later Steve apologised, saying he had no idea Barry could behave that way. Apparently when they’d arrived, Barry had shown them the pile he’d made of my and Emily’s clothes and all the gifts she’d been given. He’d put the Christmas tree and decorations on the top. He’d soaked them in petrol and had apparently been waiting for an audience for he set fire to it in front of them.’
‘He was mad,’ Oliver muttered. ‘He must have been.’
Clare kissed his cheek.
‘I thought so for a long time,’ she said softly, ‘but in the end I think perhaps he was just obsessed. For some reason I’d become the object of that obsession.’
She shivered and Oliver held her close again, murmuring not sweet nothings now, but talking of her courage and his love.
Thinking a pizza delivery after midnight might disturb Rod downstairs, Oliver made scrambled eggs and toast, coaxing Clare to eat until her body realised it needed fuel and she ate the lot.
Once she was fed, he took her into the shower, where he soaped her body, washed off the soap, dried her down and tucked her back into bed, his bed—Clare as docile as a child, allowing him to take care of her, although maybe she was so emotionally spent she could do nothing else.
He lay in bed beside her, knowing he should sleep, but wondering about how she might wake up in the morning, not wanting her to feel uneasy or embarrassed that she’d bared her soul to him.
‘It was a gift without price,’ he whispered to her when she did awake, sitting up uncertainly on the side of the bed.
‘Making love?’ she queried, a little frown puckering her forehead.
He shook his head and smiled at her.
‘Telling me,’ he said. He sat up, kissed her lips, then patted her lightly on the back. ‘Now we’ve got to get to work. Tonight we’ll need to catch up on our sleep, but by Thursday we should be rational enough to talk about where we go from here, okay?’
She was still frowning, so he kissed her again.
‘No more today,’ he told her. ‘Don’t think about the past or the future. Let’s get to work—there are babies to be helped.’
Now she smiled, and Oliver’s heart scrunched as if a giant fist had gripped it hard.
Was it love?
It had to be.
Clare wrapped his robe around her and dashed across to her flat to prepare for work, while Oliver moved into the bathroom, realising as he showered just how vulnerable love made a person.
It held you hostage, trapped you—yet the face in the mirror was smiling at him, so could it be all bad?
Obedience seemed the safest course. Clare kept her mind on the day ahead as she dressed for work. One of the things she loved about her work was the uncertainty of it, not knowing what case they might have to deal with next.
Oliver tapped on her door as she finished dressing. She called to him to come in, still feeling slightly anxious about the welter of emotion she’d dumped on him during the night. But when he kissed her, not with heat but with what felt like love, she put the past behind her, and delighted in his company even if all they were doing was walking to work together.
They went first to the PICU, where Oliver introduced her to the baby whose PDA he’d fixed on Monday. The baby’s mother was in a chair beside his crib, dozing while her infant slept.
‘You might have missed Em growing up but don’t regret missing all the worry that went on when I discovered she had a problem,’ Clare told him as they left the unit, knowing there was a team meeting in ten minutes. ‘You feel so helpless, so useless, and although you know your child’s in expert hands, not being able to do anything yourself is incredibly frustrating.’
Oliver squeezed her shoulder, just as Becky emerged from her office, heading for the meeting room.
‘Aha,’ she said. ‘Cupid strikes again!’
‘We’re old friends,’ Oliver told her, surprising Clare as they hadn’t at any stage discussed how they’d handle their relationship at work.
‘Oh, yes?’ Becky said, eyebrows rising and a teasing smile lighting up her face. ‘And don’t think you’re the only ones. Have you seen how Angus looks at Kate?’
Clare shook her head. She wasn’t into hospital gossip, but usually if there was something going on within a team as small as theirs, there’d be some kind of buzz.
‘Too absorbed in our own reunion,’ Oliver whispered to her as Becky dashed awa
y, ‘but now Becky knows, the whole world will. Does it worry you?’
He turned to look at her, his green eyes showing his concern.
Clare pondered it for a moment, then shook her head.
‘Not that we’re going to stand in a team meeting and make an announcement,’ she said, ‘but no, if people begin to realise we’re together, then that’s okay.’
She stopped and studied him again, aware she must be frowning.
‘Oh, dear, that’s assumption on my part. Just because you were kind to me last night—it needn’t mean more than that, Oliver, truly it needn’t.’
She was looking so harried Oliver had to reassure her, dropping a light kiss on her lips in spite of their location in a hospital corridor.
‘Except it does,’ he told her firmly. ‘I love you, Clare, and probably always have. I’ve wasted ten years of both our lives, and in doing that I put you into a position where you were alone and then abused. I can never make that up to you, but from this day forward I will do everything in my power to help you forget that time. I just hope my love for you will be strong enough to do that.’
‘Am I interrupting something important?’ Alex asked, edging past them in the corridor.
‘Yes,’ Oliver told him, putting his arm around Clare’s shoulders to steer her up against the wall. ‘We’ll be with you in a minute.’
He’d intended kissing her, right there and then, but Kate was coming, and Angus, and the junior surgeon, so he made do with a brush of his fingers across her cheek, then led her into the meeting room where the entire team was awaiting their arrival, a smile on every face, and speculation in their colleagues’ eyes.
Circumspection meant they kept to their own beds on the weekends when Emily was home, but every other night they spent together and, safe in the cocoon of bed and darkness and Oliver’s love, Clare let out the pain and anguish of her brief marriage, then told of how she’d remade herself, determined for Emily’s sake not to be a victim, and not to let the past drag her down.
Oliver would hold her and marvel at her strength and courage, unable to believe his love for her could still increase every day. With Emily, they shopped for Christmas decorations, Emily insisting they wait and buy a real tree, Oliver insisting they do without tinsel in their plans—so tacky, he said to his daughter, winning a warm smile from the woman he hoped to soon make his wife.
Two days before Christmas, the three of them turned up for the final performance of the pantomime. Oliver had only done one stint as the fairy godmother, having to do an emergency operation on the afternoon of the first one. But tonight he was back; in fact, both the fairy godmothers were there, and their jealous behaviour towards each other had the audience laughing with delight.
Emily had made friends with the other mice and had spent the previous night with one of them, Mia, the daughter of a nurse in the orthopaedic ward. With the performance over, the small Emily mouse bounced up to Clare and Oliver, who were still in costume as they planned to do a visit to the wards.
‘Mia and I decided we’d be bridesmaids when you two get married,’ she announced. ‘And Mia said the right way to propose, Dad, is to get down on your knees—or maybe one knee, I don’t remember now—but if you’re going to do that, can I watch?’
‘Can we all watch?’ a deep voice said, and Clare turned to see Dr Droopy standing right behind them, and behind him most of the cast.
And now she looked around it seemed the audience had stayed on as well, surely not expecting more of a performance. But before she could speculate further, the fairy godmother—grotesque make-up, wig, huge fairy wings and all—was down on one knee, reaching for her hand, asking her to marry him.
The cast and audience applauded and the mouse jumped up and down, then Oliver was on his feet, taking her in his arms, enfolding her and Emily, encompassing them both in his love.
‘Did Snow White really marry the fairy godmother?’ Clare heard a child’s voice ask.
‘In fairy stories anything can happen,’ someone responded, but Clare was beyond caring what other people thought. She had her own happy ending right there.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Meredith Webber 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91829-6
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Title Page
Other Books By
Bachelor of the Baby Ward
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Fairytale on The Children’s Ward
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Copyright
Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit Page 30
