Caring For His Child

by Amy Andrews

  “Thank you for keeping me updated on Miranda’s condition,” she said stiffly

  “You didn’t return my calls.” David sat at the breakfast bar and watched her.

  Fran stirred her tea not missing the gentle tone of accusation in his voice. She tapped the teaspoon on the side of the mug and placed it in the sink. “I’m leaving, David. What would have been the point? Better to make a clean break.”

  “So, you’re running away.”

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly.

  “Why? I know you love me, Fran. Love us. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Her eyes welled with tears and she felt a sob rise in her throat. “Because if I love you this much now, how bad will it be in a year, or two or five?” She knew her voice was rising and soon she wouldn’t be able to speak. “What if I can’t do it then? What if I’m useless to you?” She sat at the table with him and put a hand on his arm. “It’s better to get out now while I still have a chance to recover.”

  “It doesn’t matter where you run, Fran. It’s too late. We’re in your heart, in your soul. You can run, but we’ll always be with you.”

  Dear Reader,

  Many years ago when my husband and I lived in the U.K., I worked in a couple of nursing homes. Because I never had any real experience with elderly people other than nursing, it drove me crazy. And I was determined after that to never do geriatrics again. In fact, I chose a completely opposite specialty—intensive care.

  It surprised me that Fran’s character came to me as a nurse working in a nursing home. Actually, surprise is probably too mild a term—it stunned me. A nursing home? No, no, no. Not geriatrics. But it was the perfect place for Fran to hide and heal her wounds. And as I wrote her and David’s story, and wrote of some of the elderly characters, it rekindled my memories of all the truly wonderful elderly people I had nursed and made me revisit that time in my life.

  Caring for His Child is Fran and David’s story. And the story of their baggage—baggage that would do a Heathrow luggage carousel proud! Fortunately for them, it’s no match for the determination of a child called Miranda, a black Labrador puppy and some meddling octogenarian triplets.

  I hope you enjoy.

  Amy

  Caring for His Child

  Amy Andrews

  This book is dedicated to all those people who have made the ultimate selfless decision at the most tragic time in their lives. Your precious gift gives others another chance at life. Remember—don’t take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need them here.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  FRAN PUSHED OPEN the wooden shutters and inhaled the salty sea air. For the first time in two years a feeling of contentment surfaced. The silent grey ocean was a good match for the dark storm clouds on a chilly winter’s afternoon, but despite the inclement weather the beach beckoned.

  She heard the clatter of paws on the highly polished wooden floor behind her and turned to see Fonzie, her black Labrador puppy, sliding to a halt at her feet. His ridiculously big paws made him awkward and clumsy and Fran swore he grinned at her as he sat looking up at her expectantly.

  She knelt and gave him a scratch behind the ears and he gave her a I’ll-be-your-slave-for-life look. ‘Come on, boy, let’s go for a walk on the beach.’

  He licked her face and Fran laughed. It echoed in the empty house and she couldn’t wait for the morning when the van would arrive with all her worldly goods and she could fill up the dinky little renovated beachfront cottage she’d been inexplicably drawn to two months ago.

  She grabbed his lead and pulled on her hooded jumper as she walked out the door. She clipped the lead to Fonzie’s collar and opened the white picket gate, crossed the narrow laneway and traversed the small area of grass with the little black puppy eagerly pulling against his restraint all the way.

  They reached the concrete stairs that led down to the beach and the dog stopped abruptly. He looked up at her soulfully and she chuckled as she gave in and picked him up, carrying him down the dozen steps. At only ten weeks old she supposed the stairs could have seemed daunting.

  But once her foot hit the sand, Fonzie squirmed to be put down and pulled excitedly at the lead, charging up and down the beach of the small cove several times with Fran in tow, before he was content to sit at the water’s edge and chase the waves.

  Fran sat farther back where the sand was drier and watched as Fonzie followed the ebb and flow of the tide. She had her legs hugged against her body and her head resting on her knees. A light wind blew up and lifted a few strands of her long blond hair across her face.

  She tucked them behind her ear and laughed as a solitary seagull landing nearby glared haughtily at an excited Fonzie. They had a brief stand-off, with Fonzie backing down as the bird ran towards him, wings expanded menacingly. She’d laughed more in the last couple of weeks, having Fonzie around, than she had in the last couple of years. Buying the dog had definitely been a good move.

  Fran tuned in to the sound of the gentle lapping of the waves as they kissed the sand and felt each one soothing the ache that had taken up permanent residence in her heart. It will be OK. It will be OK. It will be OK. The words echoed with every roll of surf against sand and Fran knew she had come to the right place to recover and regain her life.

  ‘Oh, look, Daddy, it’s a puppy. Isn’t he so-o-o-o cute?’

  Fran had been so deep in thought she hadn’t seen or heard the approach of other visitors to the beach. She startled as the high voice of a young girl broke into her reverie.

  ‘Can I, please, pat your puppy?’

  Fran looked at the child and felt the familiar rush of painful emotions swamp her like a tidal wave. The girl had skinny arms and legs and her curly red hair sprang out in riotous disorder all over her head. Her cute moon-shaped face was smattered with freckles and her eyes were a deep sea green. She looked about twelve, the same age Daisy would have been, and every cell in Fran’s body ordered her to retreat.

  No, she wanted to say. You can’t pat Fonzie. Go away. I don’t want to see you and I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to share this beach with you. Can’t you see I just want to be left alone?

  Then the girl, who was waiting patiently for Fran’s permission, snaked a finger into her curls and proceeded to absently twirl a strand of hair. And Fran felt like she’d been stabbed through the heart with a machete.

  Daisy had done that. Exactly that. From the time she had been able to co-ordinate baby brain and fingers to do it, she had done it. She’d done it when she’d been sleepy or concentrating or bored or watching television or cuddling up. Some children sucked their thumbs. Some carried around bits of material that had seen better days. Daisy had twirled her hair.

  As she silently inspected the child before her, Fran had to admit there wasn’t one other thing about the girl that reminded her of her daughter. Physically, the resemblance was non-existent. In fact, Daisy had been the complete opposite in looks, taking very much after Fran and her Nordic ancestry. Tall and blond. Fair complexion, light blue eyes.

  But that gesture, that hair twirl was Daisy personified and Fran despaired at how much it still hurt to catch a glimpse of her daughter. When would an incident like this be comforting and joyful, as she had been assured would one day happen? When would she be able to see her daughter in someone else’s child and be grateful and at peace? When would the hurt ever stop?

  ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ A male vo
ice intruded into her pain. ‘Mirry, sweetie, I think the lady would like to be left alone.’

  David Ross watched the woman as she turned her head to face him. The pain in her eyes took his breath away. The sadness. The grief. Yes, this was definitely a woman who wanted to be left alone. Then she blinked and straightened and it was as if she’d drawn the curtain on her emotions. A wary veneer was all that remained.

  Fran looked at Mirry and forced a smile onto her dry lips. ‘Of course you can pat Fonzie. I’m sure he’d love it.’

  Mirry jiggled with delight and ran down to the shoreline. Fran and David watched them for a few moments.

  He made a mental note to make sure Mirry washed her hands when they got back home. ‘She’s never going to let up about a dog now.’ He grinned.

  Fran looked at him, startled by his voice again, and gave him a ghost of a smile. She looked back at Fonzie and his new friend and wondered if it would be rude to leave.

  ‘I’m David Ross,’ he said, and Fran turned in time to see him put his hand out to be shaken.

  ‘Fran,’ she said quietly, and slid her hand briefly into his. It was warm and she suddenly realised how cold hers was. How cold she was all over. She hugged her legs closer.

  ‘Are you just passing through Ashworth Bay?’

  Go away. Don’t talk to me. But she couldn’t say it. Even with everything that had happened over the last two years, she still felt an entrenched politeness, a societal expectation that wouldn’t allow her to be just plain rude. Although she was tempted. After all, how bad could his reaction be?

  Would it make her feel worse than the day they’d switched her daughter’s life support off? Or her marriage falling apart? If you could make it through those things then nothing that anyone thought about you mattered a damn.

  ‘No. I’ve just bought a cottage on the cliff.’

  David felt a flutter of excitement. ‘Really? You must be our new neighbour. We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow. Mirry will be very excited. Hey, maybe I won’t have to get her that puppy after all. She can puppy-sit for you.’

  She looked at him silently and battled the urge to bellow in utter despair. She didn’t want to live next door to this man and his daughter. She didn’t want to know them. She didn’t want to have nice neighbourly chats. And she didn’t need a puppy-sitter.

  Sure, he seemed nice enough. He was tall and had a friendly face and intelligent eyes, blue like hers but darker, richer, deeper. Like a sapphire. He was lean rather than bulky and she noticed how he had long elegant-looking fingers, as if he spent all day playing piano concertos. No doubt he’d make a great neighbour, but that wasn’t why she’d come to Ashworth Bay.

  David waited for an answer but could tell he wasn’t going to get one. His new neighbour obviously liked to play things close to her chest. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but right there, talking to him…or not, as was the case.

  ‘Fonzie,’ Fran called, brushing off her hands and rising to her feet. ‘Come on, boy, time to go home.’

  The black ball of fur hurtled towards her and wagged his tail vigorously as he stood at her feet. Mirry followed closely. She fell onto her knees beside Fonzie and averted her face to protect it from the puppy’s appreciative licks.

  ‘Miranda, sweetie, this is Fran. Or would you prefer Mrs…?’ David asked.

  ‘Fran is fine,’ she said, stiff-lipped.

  ‘Fran is our new neighbour,’ David informed his daughter.

  ‘Really?’ Miranda’s excitement was barely contained, her voice almost a squeal. ‘Can I come and visit Fonzie later?’

  David laughed at his daughter’s eagerness and lack of pretence. Maybe he should have been cross but it was such a pleasure to see. His daughter didn’t trust easily. Years of doctors and hospitals and painful treatments had seen to that. But she’d certainly taken an instant liking to Fran and Fonzie.

  He watched Fran distance herself even more, her eyes going from light blue to glacial blue in an instant. Man, she had baggage! She looked like she’d splinter into a thousand pieces if he or Mirry managed to break through the force-field she had erected. And he should know, it had taken him way too long to break through his own.

  Which was a real shame because she was stunningly beautiful…or at least she could have been. She was tall with gorgeous platinum-blond hair, straight as an arrow and falling almost to her waist. But the ends were split hinting that its length was due more to it being neglected rather than any fashion statement.

  Her cheekbones were high, if a little too prominent, her milky complexion wan and pale, rather than healthy and luminous. Her face was completely devoid of makeup, as if she didn’t care that her features were too angular where once they’d probably been regal. Her face hinted at the gauntness reflected in the rest of her body.

  Faded denim hung loosely around legs that had probably filled the jeans perfectly once upon a time. As she bent to Fonzie he noticed how the waist of her jeans had slipped lower, barely clinging to the jut of angular hips. Her baggy jumper was unable to disguise the scrawniness of her chest, the flatness of her breasts or the boniness of her shoulders.

  Fran was a woman who hadn’t been taking care of herself and, unfortunately, that was also something he understood too well. How grief could be so overwhelming that eating, sleeping, grooming didn’t register as important. How only breathing…existing, putting one foot in front of the other, living from one second to the next was all you could manage.

  ‘I think we need to let Fran get settled first,’ David said to his daughter.

  Fran stared at them both for a moment longer, more grateful to David than he would ever know at the reprieve he had afforded her. She gave them a small smile and turned away, dragging a reluctant Fonzie up the beach back to the house. She kept her eyes on the row of cottages set back a little from the face of the cliff and failed to feel her earlier contentment. A girl called Miranda had snatched it away and the wind had blown it out of reach.

  ‘She seems sad, Daddy,’ Miranda said as she and David watched the forlorn figure walk away, her baggy jeans threatening to slide off her hips with each footfall.

  David nodded, not surprised at the astuteness of his twelve-year-old daughter. Miranda had seen a lot of sadness and had always been sensitive to people’s emotions.

  ‘Yes, honey,’ he agreed, ‘she does.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Miranda grinned up at her father. ‘We can cheer her up, can’t we?’

  David doubted it somehow but he didn’t want to quash Miranda’s spirit. If anyone could do it, she could. ‘I’m sure we can, sweetie, I’m sure we can.’

  Fran reached the solace of her new home gratefully. She felt chilled to the bone. Yes, it had been cold on the beach but she knew it wasn’t just that. How was she going to cope with having a twelve-year-old girl as a neighbour? A constant reminder of what she’d lost?

  Her heart, her emotions had frosted over at the mere thought. She had felt the chill invading her skin, creeping into her bones steadily each second she had spent in their company on the beach. And despite their distance now, she couldn’t shake it. Had fate not already dealt her more than one person could deal with?

  She rubbed her arms vigorously, the cold penetrating deeply, diffusing its icy breath into every cell and fibre of her body. She was not emotionally ready for Miranda. Existing had been the only thing she’d been capable of these last two years. She’d come here to live again, start over, but she needed to do that on her own terms and in her own time.

  Maybe Miranda didn’t live with David full time? Maybe she was the product of a broken home and she only spent a few days a fortnight with her father. The thought cheered Fran even as it appalled her. How could she wish that on someone as sweet as Mirry?

  She plonked herself down on the old-fashioned padded seat that had been built into the bay window and stared unseeingly as night advanced over the ocean and across the beach. Fonzie joined her and dozed on her feet, exhausted from his earlier exerci
se, a warm fuzzy blanket. She was too cold and numb to move, paralysed by a resurfacing of emotion that she hadn’t been prepared for.

  She had been so sure when she’d seen the cottage for sale on-line that it was her destiny to live here. It had appealed to something deep inside. Had it been the lure of fulfilling a life-long fantasy of living in a house by the sea or some kind of instinct? Whatever…her gut had said yes even though, at that stage, she hadn’t yet decided to move.

  Maybe before she’d decided to travel one and a half thousand kilometres away from her home town of Canberra and all her family and friends, she should have sussed out the neighbours a bit better? But the real estate agent had assured her that Ashworth Bay was populated mainly by retirees and a sleepy seaside town full of oldies had sounded ideal.

  Her view across the bay was uninterrupted and she could see the Ashworth Bay Nursing Home standing in all its pre-war grandeur on the cliffs opposite, its white-columned façade an imposing site for any passing maritime traffic. Once a grand hotel when Ashworth Bay had been in its heyday, it still held a commanding presence.

  And hopefully, tomorrow, she would be working there. She rubbed her arms again and pushed the nervous flutter aside when she thought about the fact that she hadn’t nursed in two years. Part of her plan to get her life back together involved going back to work, and she would not deviate from it.

  For goodness’ sake, it was a small nursing home in a sleepy seaside town—how hard could it be? She’d worked in a busy city emergency department for years. An old folk’s home should be a doddle compared to that.

  Finally, it started to penetrate her brain cells that her core temperature was getting a little too low to support basic body functions and she stirred herself. Fonzie briefly opened one eye at her movement but preferred his repose and promptly shut it again.

  She pulled out a change of clothes from her suitcase and padded through the empty house to the bathroom. All the utilities were in working order and Fran stood under the hot shower for a long time, waiting for sensation to return to her numb extremities. She wished it was as easy to melt the coldness around her heart, to relieve the ache, obliterate the pain but she knew only time could mend those wounds. And just as well she wasn’t holding her breath.