Christmas Knight

by Meredith Webber

  The only thing she did know was that Grant was hurting.

  She’d seen that same stiffness in his shoulders, the blankness in his eyes, way back when he’d had to leave his beloved home. And he’d coped by refusing to talk about it. By going to some place deep inside him, where even she hadn’t been able to reach or follow. The memories were as clear as the leaves on the eucalypt outside the kitchen window.

  But then she’d known what had happened—known the extent of his loss. Now all she had to go on was whatever they’d been discussing when the change had occurred.

  Specialties.

  Oncology.

  Paediatric oncology?

  She remembered the way he handled Cassie—with care, experience, even love, if she needed burping or changing. But putting her down as soon as the task was complete—not cuddling her or talking to her for too long. Staying aloof—apart.

  Kate had assumed that while he was aware of a baby’s needs, he just wasn’t too fond of very small humans, and from time to time she had felt a little peeved he didn’t show more wonder at the perfection of her daughter.

  But if he was deliberately distancing himself…

  For protection from some memories…

  ‘D—Jeez Louise! Surely not!’

  ‘Talking to yourself? Bad sign, Katie! I just popped over to the surgery to phone Brisbane. They’re operating on Kevin’s legs later this morning.’

  Grant’s sudden reappearance in the kitchen might have startled her, but not enough to miss the message he was giving her. He was over whatever had upset him and the subject was closed. Possibly for ever.

  He put the kettle on to boil and popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. Watching him moving about her kitchen with such ease, undertaking simple domestic tasks, made her feel happy and empty at the same time.

  Which was ridiculous!

  ‘I hope it goes well,’ she said, to show him she’d got the message, both messages—the one about the patient and the silent one—though she wasn’t as certain she’d take much notice of the latter.

  However, Kate was aware that now wasn’t the time to push further, though there was something she wanted to talk to Grant about.

  ‘Mr McConagle. We never finished that conversation—worked out about the new bathroom and where you’d sleep.’

  Then she remembered why they hadn’t finished the conversation, and heat crept into her cheeks.

  ‘Gosh, is that the time? We’ll have to talk about it later as one of us should be heading for work. I was going to go over and do some paperwork, but maybe I’d better spend the time sorting out the nanny en suite thing.’

  But Grant didn’t take the hint. He remained where he was, leaning against the sink, sipping tea and eating his toast while watching her with a frowning kind of academic interest, as if trying to remember who she was.

  Grant knew he had to move, but it was difficult. Though staring at Katie wasn’t producing answers so he may as well be working.

  He finished his breakfast and walked across to the surgery, his mind still puzzling over why the question of a live-in nanny was bothering him.

  Because once Katie had this paragon in place, she’d no longer need him?

  No, it couldn’t be that. He was going anyway.

  He had to go.

  Cassie was one baby, but the work he’d chosen to do might eventually save the lives of hundreds of babies.

  Though the position on the team had been hotly contested and one of any number of able men or women could be chosen to take his place.

  No!

  The word sounded so loudly in his head he glanced around in case he’d actually said it aloud. But the birds in the cassia seemed unfazed, and the young mother dragging her toddler up the path towards the surgery’s front door hadn’t even glanced his way.

  Loving a baby was like having your heart held to ransom. No way could he go through that again.

  The mother with the toddler was his first patient—she was also pregnant according to the test kit she’d bought at the chemist.

  ‘I didn’t want another baby quite so soon,’ she told Grant, though the pleasure in her eyes belied her words. ‘But seeing as it’s coming, is there any way I can have it here? Now you’re here, surely it would be OK.’

  Grant must have looked as puzzled as he felt for, without waiting for a response from him, she went right on talking. ‘Dr Newberry, before Kate came, said it wasn’t possible to have little Brendan here because, as the only doctor, he mightn’t be around when I went into labour, but Mum says Dr Darling delivered all the babies in Testament for years, and he wouldn’t always have been around when the mothers went into labour. I mean, given how long labour takes, it shouldn’t have been a risk, but now there are two doctors—’

  ‘I’m only temporary.’ Grant blurted out the words, determined to stop this misconception before it went any further—or he felt any guiltier. ‘But once a new hospital doctor is appointed it should be OK. I know Katie—Dr Fenton—is interested in the local women having their babies here. She’s done a short obstetrics course and is really very keen. If you ask Vi, she can make sure you see Katie on your next appointment.’

  The young woman smiled so broadly Grant wondered if he’d overstated the case. And was Katie’s desire to do obstetric work dependent on the appointment of a hospital doctor or would she go ahead anyway?

  He completed his examination of the woman, made notes on her card, then saw her out.

  Vi came in with some drug-test results.

  ‘So Katie’s organising a live-in nanny,’ she said, and looked at Grant, obviously expecting some reaction.

  ‘It’s the sensible thing,’ he said, quelling his own reservations about the move.

  ‘I guess,’ Vi said, though her tone was glum. ‘But such a pity when she’s obviously enjoying parenting, and I think, deep down, she’ll hate handing so much of it over to someone else.’

  ‘It was her decision to go along the path of single motherhood,’ Grant reminded his aunt, though the gruffness in his tone was more to do with the bad feeling in his guts than with Katie’s difficult choice.

  He picked up the papers from the pathology lab and pretended to study them so Vi would realise the subject was closed.

  Not that Vi would take any notice of something as subtle as a hint.

  ‘Maybe marrying Brian wouldn’t be such a bad idea. She’d have security so she wouldn’t have to work full time for financial reasons, and she could get someone to take over the practice, just do a few surgeries a week and start up some of the ancillary things she feels are missing in the town.’

  Vi walked away. Though Grant had heard the rest of the conversation, it hadn’t made a lot of sense as the words ‘marrying Brian’ had kept hammering away in his head.

  They were still echoing there, in spite of the demands and conversation of nineteen more morning patients, when he returned to the house for lunch. Katie was there, dressed not in her usual uniform of short shorts and a cropped top but in a flirty skirt with blue and yellow flowers on it and a yellow T-shirt which gave her skin a special golden glow.

  There was a similar glow in her eyes…

  She must have been out, and though he wanted to ask where—and perhaps why—the noise in his head took precedence.

  ‘I thought you’d got rid of Brian,’ he said, and saw the glow fade from her eyes and puzzlement take its place.

  ‘Got rid of? Brian? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Brian who was doing your lawns. I told you I’d do them. I did them last Saturday.’

  ‘Yes?’

  She sounded confused but it could be a ploy.

  ‘So what’s Vi talking about?’

  Katie shook her head, making her curls dance and jiggle in a way that told him she’d washed her hair as well.

  ‘Vi?’ she asked, still sounding confused. ‘What did Vi say?’

  ‘That you were going to marry Brian?’

  ‘Marry Brian? Br
ian Ridley? Vi said that?’

  Her disbelief penetrated the cloud of anger and, yes, he had to admit to some confusion.

  ‘Well, she mightn’t have said exactly that, but she gave that impression.’

  Katie stared at him as if unable to make sense of what he was saying, then she shook her head so the curls bobbled about again and distracted him.

  ‘Nonsense!’ she said. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Maybe you’re working too hard. I should have taken morning surgery. You had a late and stressful night last night with Kevin, and—’

  ‘I am not overtired or overstressed!’ Grant told her, speaking slowly and just a trifle loudly to make sure she understood. ‘I simply don’t think you should consider marrying a man like that. You’ve Cassie to think of, and she’ll need someone with strength and character as a father, not some chinless wimp of a bank manager.’

  It was the way she straightened up that told Grant he’d gone too far. Straightened up and looked at him, green eyes narrowed in anger.

  ‘Before you get that foot out of your mouth and insert the other one, might I remind you that my father was a bank manager. And furthermore, Brian Ridley happens to have a most attractive chin, which, I might add, doesn’t jut out stubbornly when he’s arguing. He also has a nose that doesn’t keep poking itself into other people’s business. And if you’re not overtired, or overstressed, then I suggest you think of some other excuse for your behaviour, which is totally unacceptable.’

  And on that note she spun on her heel—high, and part of a most attractive golden sandal—and stalked out of the room.

  Grant leaned against the sink and stared out the window.

  He did try to think of some excuse for his behaviour, but could come up with nothing—apart from temporary insanity. And if he pleaded that, Katie would ban him from seeing patients in case it happened in a doctor-patient situation.

  And rightly so.

  Though he didn’t think it would. The insanity thing seemed to be solely connected to her.

  He was still trying to think when she walked back into the kitchen, this time carrying a handbag that matched the cheeky sandals.

  ‘Cassie’s down the road at Tara’s place, and I’ll be back in time to feed her there before afternoon surgery. If you take any emergency calls that come in between now and then, I’ll take the surgery, so you’ll be free from two until tomorrow morning. I’ll leave you the car.’

  She was halfway out the kitchen door when he had to ask—just had to.

  Though he tried hard to sound casual about it.

  ‘Where are you off to—should I need you?’

  He was congratulating himself on injecting just the right degree of nonchalance into the words when she turned, smiled brilliantly at him, then answered.

  ‘I’m having lunch with Brian.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  HAVING lunch with Brian wasn’t quite the ‘date’ Grant might have been imagining, but it served him right for butting in with remarks about her private life.

  Having lunch with Brian, Kate realised, as she trudged uptown towards the bank, was about on a par in the excitement stakes with cleaning the fluff out from under the washing machine. And on top of that, now she was actually on her way, it renewed all the guilty feelings she had about the rift with her mother. Her parents would be only too happy to lend her the money for the renovations—in fact, her father would be hurt if, by chance, her application for a loan came to his attention.

  Not that it should—state managers had better things to do than check out small personal loans made in remote country towns.

  But if Brian had to get approval from a district manager—who happened to be one of her father’s best friends…

  Or if her father were to idly flick through a data bank on his computer…

  By the time she reached the bank, she was so confused she wondered why she’d ever made the appointment.

  ‘Kate—lovely to see you. And how beautiful you look. Motherhood does suit you. The baby’s well?’

  Brian always seemed to rush into speech as soon as they met, but today Kate appreciated the verbal outpourings as it gave her time to recover her nerve and steel herself for whatever lie she might have to tell as she persuaded him to keep her request to himself.

  ‘We’re both fine,’ she replied, smiling at him to make up for any lack of enthusiasm in her words. ‘It’s kind of you to make time for me like this.’

  This mild appreciation prompted another flood of assurances, delight and confused half-sentences, making Kate wonder if he might be as nervous as she was over the meeting.

  He ushered her into his office and shut the door, and, anxious to get the matter out in the open, she came straight to the point.

  ‘I need a loan—a personal loan—for a second bathroom—for a nanny, you see, or visitors, or whatever—and I know you probably have to get approval, but I don’t want my father thinking I’m not managing very well should it happen to come to his attention through someone who knows someone. He might also think I’m over-extending myself, and I wondered if there was any way I could get some money that only you know about.’

  ‘Well, I know the bank would approve a small loan through the usual channels, or I could lend it to you myself if you’d like that better,’ Brian said. ‘We’d do it legally, with signed agreements and all, but I’ve quite a bit put by, and I’d be happy to do it, Kate. Only too happy. Any time. A private arrangement, no worries, and you needn’t think I’d cheat you on interest. I could let you have it interest-free, say, for twelve months, then we could discuss it again.’

  Kate felt an enormous weight lift off her shoulders. She could see the bathroom taking shape.

  Of course, it would mean Grant shifting into the small bedroom, but he’d said he wouldn’t mind, and the baby didn’t need it yet. Though having Grant just through one wall instead of two—

  ‘So what about it?’

  She stared blankly at Brian. She’d been so lost in her plans for the immediate future she’d totally missed whatever he’d been saying.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was thinking of the bathroom, and phoning Mr McConagle, and all the other things I need to do. Christmas decorations, too.’

  Brian looked confused.

  ‘What were you saying?’ Kate prompted.

  ‘You haven’t said yes or no.’

  He was smiling at her, and suddenly Grant’s words about marrying Brian came rushing back to her. Had she been wrong thinking Brian’s friendship had stemmed from his anxiety to be nice to the big boss’s daughter?

  And if it was more than that, then accepting his offer would almost certainly be wrong because it might give him the wrong idea.

  But it would solve all her problems!

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She offered a smile of her own. ‘I guess I didn’t think it would be so easy. I need to think about it—about which way to go.’

  She was stumbling over the words, anxious not to hurt him, wanting to avoid conflict with her father, but uncertain of the ramifications of borrowing privately, so when he spoke again she was still weighing up the pros and cons—or trying to ignore the cons.

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to come to the bank’s Christmas party on Saturday night,’ he said. ‘It’s a dinner-dance at the Commercial Hotel, for the staff and their families and some of our larger accounts. That country and western band from Craigtown’s doing the music.’

  Pleased to have something easy to answer, Kate rushed in.

  ‘That would be wonderful—I really need to get out and meet more people in the town—as people rather than patients—but I can’t promise, of course. I had suggested to Grant that he take the weekend off, so I’d be on call.’

  Brian looked so disappointed she rushed to reassure him.

  ‘Not that I’d be likely to be called out.’

  He beamed at her, told her he’d look forward to hearing from her about the loan and would draw up two sets of papers ready for her signature so, whatever she decided,
the loan wouldn’t be delayed.

  ‘And now the business is done, let’s have lunch. I asked the Star Café to send in sandwiches. I hope that’s OK.’

  His nervousness prompted her to overreact again, assuring and reassuring while wondering how someone who always seemed so ill-at-ease could handle his responsible job, but as they ate he chatted on about the district, seemingly more relaxed when not in bank manager mode.

  Kate glanced at her watch before she left the bank. Not enough time to buy Christmas decorations before collecting Cassie from Tara and getting to work.

  She walked with long, swift strides, pleased the loan could be organised though not sure which way she’d go. A personal loan would solve so many problems—but would it lead to more? Probably! She’d think about other things—the alterations and the baby—think about anything that would take her mind off personal loans and, more particularly, off Grant Bell—off the feel of his lips on hers, off the hardness of his body as she’d pressed against it.

  ‘Such a happy lunch with Brian you’re still smiling?’

  It was as if her thoughts had conjured him up, but when she recovered from the shock of Grant’s sudden appearance and looked around, she realised he’d come out of the bakery.

  ‘Yes! In fact, it was such a happy lunch I might be smiling for a couple of weeks,’ she told him. ‘Have you been reminiscing with Codger?’

  ‘Trying his pies. They’re not bad.’

  Grant spoke lightly, but no smile accompanied the words. Kate glanced towards him and caught the faint markings of a frown lingering between his eyebrows.

  ‘Not good either?’ she asked, then added, ‘Codger’s pies,’ when he looked confusedly at her.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He spoke so crossly Kate let the subject drop, though even walking with Grant, his steps fitting hers, his body so close, was filling her head with all the things it shouldn’t think, and tantalising her nerve endings with a fuzzy kind of excitement that was dangerous in the extreme.