A Single Dad to Heal Her Heart

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Sorry, guys,’ she said humbly. ‘That was really stupid.’

  ‘It was an accident. They happen,’ Dan said calmly, but Matt just snorted and turned away. Because he was angry with her? Maybe, and she felt like the sun had gone in.

  ‘Want me to look at it?’

  ‘It’s fine, Dan. It’s only a sprain and anyway I’m not taking my boot off.’

  ‘OK. Just keep your weight off it.’

  ‘I can’t do anything else,’ she said in disgust, and lowered herself gingerly onto a handy rock.

  ‘So what now?’ Matt asked, still not looking at her.

  She followed the direction of his gaze and traced the rough path that seemed to wind endlessly down until it met the track that led to the car park. Funny, it didn’t look so beautiful now. It just looked a long, long way away.

  ‘We’ll carry her down,’ Sam said.

  ‘No, you won’t. You’ve got to finish the challenge!’ she protested, but Sam shrugged.

  ‘Well, we can’t leave you here, Livvy.’

  ‘Yes, you can. I’ll be fine. I’m not ruining anyone’s day just because I was an idiot. Please, all of you, go on up and I’ll wait here. I might even work my way down. If I take my time I’ll be fine. I can go down on my bottom.’

  ‘No,’ Matt chipped in, turning round at last, his expression implacable. ‘I’ll take you back. Our team’s out, anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Sam asked him, but she shook her head, really unhappy now.

  ‘Matt, I can’t let you do that. You were looking forward to it!’

  He just smiled, his eyes softening at last. ‘It’ll keep. It’s millions of years old, Livvy. It’s not like it’s going anywhere. I can climb it another time.’

  ‘But—’

  His tone firmed. ‘But nothing. We’re teammates, and we stick together, and it’s what we’re doing. End of.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Are you always this bossy?’

  ‘Absolutely. Ed, can I borrow the car?’

  Ed nodded and delved in his pocket and tossed him the keys. ‘Mind you don’t crash it. Annie’ll kill us both.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said mildly. ‘Go on, you guys, go and have your climb and I’ll take Livvy back and come and get you when you’re done. Call me when you hit the track.’

  ‘Will do—and no more stunts, Henderson, we need you in one piece!’ Sam said as they headed off, leaving her alone with Matt.

  * * *

  He laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m so stupid.’

  She looked up at him, her face puzzled. ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes, me. I’ve spent the last three days trying to work out who you remind me of, and it’s just clicked. You’re Oliver Henderson’s daughter, aren’t you? It’s so blindingly obvious I can’t believe I didn’t see it. You’re the spitting image of him.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  He perched on a rock in front of her so she didn’t have to tilt her head. ‘Yes, I was his registrar, years ago. He’s a great guy. I’m very fond of him, and your mother. How are they both?’

  ‘Fine. Doing really well. He’s about to turn sixty, but he doesn’t look it and he’s got no plans to retire and nor has Mum.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. They’re very dedicated.’

  ‘They are. Dad just loves surgery, and Mum would be bored to bits without the cut and thrust of ED, so I can’t see them retiring until they’re forced, frankly! So, when were you at the Audley Memorial? I must have been at uni or I’d remember you, unless you’re much older than you look.’

  He chuckled. ‘I’m thirty-six now and I was twenty-seven, so that’s—wow, nine years ago.’

  ‘So I must have been twenty then, which explains it, because I didn’t come home a lot in those days. I had a busy social life at uni, and it was a long way from Bristol to Suffolk.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Give them my love when you speak to them.’

  ‘I will. I’ll call them later today.’

  ‘So, how are we going to do this?’ he asked quietly, getting back to the core business, and she shrugged.

  ‘I have no idea. I can’t hop all the way down, but I can’t walk on it either, so it looks like the bottom shuffle thing.’

  ‘Or I can carry you,’ he suggested, knowing she’d argue.

  ‘How? Don’t be ridiculous, it’s not necessary. And anyway, I weigh too much.’

  He laughed at that, because she hardly came up to his chin and, sure, she was strong, but she definitely wasn’t heavy, he knew that because he and Sam had already carried her to the path. He got to his feet.

  ‘Come on, then, sling your arm round my neck and let’s see how we get on with assisted hopping.’

  Slowly, was the answer. He had to stoop, of course, because she was too short to reach his shoulder otherwise, and after a while they had to change sides, but she said it hurt her ribs, which left only one option.

  He stopped and went down on one knee.

  ‘Are you proposing to me?’ she joked, and it was so unexpected he laughed. Ish.

  ‘Very funny. Get on my back.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m not five and I’ll feel like an idiot!’

  He straightened up, unable to stifle the laugh. ‘You just fell off the path!’ he said, and she swatted him, half cross, half laughing, and he couldn’t help himself. He gathered her into his arms, hugged her very gently and brushed the hair away from her eyes as he smiled ruefully down at her.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was mean.’

  ‘Yes, it was. I feel silly enough without you laughing at me.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,’ he said again, and then because he’d been aching to do it for days and because she was just there, her face tipped up to his, her clear blue eyes rueful and apologetic and frustrated, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

  It was only meant to be fleeting, just a brush of his mouth against hers, but the tension that had been sizzling between them since they’d arrived on Friday morning suddenly escalated, and when her mouth softened under his he felt a surge of something he hadn’t felt for two years, something he’d thought he’d never feel again.

  Not lust. It wasn’t lust. That he would have understood. Expected, even, after so long. But this was tenderness, yearning, a deep ache for something more, something meaningful and fulfilling, something he’d lost, and it stopped him in his tracks.

  What was he doing?

  He pulled away and cleared his throat.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you down to the bottom and I’ll go and get the car and come back for you. And I will carry you, because frankly it’ll be easier for both of us and if I don’t get you off this mountain safely your father’ll kill me.’

  He turned his back on her, knelt down again and told her to get on, and after a moment’s hesitation, when he could almost hear her fighting her instincts, she leant into him, wrapped her arms round his neck and let him hoist her up onto his back.

  He wrapped her legs round his waist and straightened up with a little lurch, and she gave a tiny shriek that morphed into a giggle.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said, and he started to laugh.

  Her arms tightened round his throat. ‘Don’t mock me.’

  ‘I’m not mocking you, I promise,’ he said, stifling the laugh, and she loosened her arms around his neck and rested her head against his with a sigh.

  ‘I’m so sorry I messed up your day,’ she murmured in his ear, and the drift of her warm breath teased his skin and the feelings he’d thought he’d suppressed roared into life again.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he said gruffly, trying not to think about his hands locked together under her bottom. Her undoubtedly very, very cute bottom.
‘It was just an accident. So, tell me, why trauma?’ he asked to distract himself. ‘Why not general surgery, like your father?’

  ‘That’s probably Mum’s influence, and surgery’s still an option, but I’m undecided about it, and trauma’s a nice high-octane job.’

  He chuckled. ‘High-octane, sure, but I’m not sure I’d call it nice, especially the surgery. It can get pretty gory.’

  ‘So why did you choose it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably your father’s influence. I always wanted to be a surgeon, and when I was his registrar we had some interesting trauma cases and it just reeled me in. Yes, it’s gory, but it’s very gratifying when you can offer someone who’s been badly injured a better outcome.’

  ‘I would have thought you’d have been in London, then. That’s where a lot of the trauma cases are. More scope?’

  He felt his heart hitch. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve done London, and frankly in the year and a half I’ve been in Yoxburgh there’s been plenty to keep me busy.’

  More than enough, and nothing to do with his job. Not that he was going into details. He didn’t want to let reality intrude on a weekend that had been like a breath of fresh air after the roller coaster of the last two years, but that was all it was, a breath of fresh air, and it was going nowhere, he knew that, because there simply wasn’t room in his life for a relationship, however appealing. And anyway, there was an embargo on personal stuff this weekend, so he changed the subject.

  ‘Are you OK there? I’m not hurting you?’

  ‘No. It’s a bit sore, but it’s better than walking. How about you?’

  ‘I’m fine. We’re nearly there, anyway. Not long now.’

  * * *

  Frankly, it couldn’t be soon enough because, apart from being racked with guilt, she was swamped with feelings that were so unexpected she didn’t know how to deal with them.

  It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d given up his chance of a climb to get her safely back down, because over the last three days he’d proved himself to be tough and determined and a brilliant team player.

  Not that he didn’t know how to have fun. They’d had plenty of that, and she hadn’t laughed so much in ages.

  They’d been teasing and flirting for most of the time, too, but she hadn’t expected him to act on it and his gentle kiss just now had brought all sorts of unexpected feelings rushing to the surface. Not to mention his hands locked together under her bottom, propping her up. They must be numb by now, and she had another pang of guilt.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Matt?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, and then they hit the track and he unlocked his hands and braced her as she slid down and put her feet on the ground.

  He flexed his hands and shoulders and she watched the muscles roll under his damp T-shirt as he turned to her. ‘I won’t be long. Will you be all right?’

  She lowered herself to a rock and dragged her eyes off his shoulders. ‘I’ll be fine. There’s no rush. I’ll just sit here and look at the view,’ she told him with a wry smile.

  Mostly of him, as he turned away and headed down the track towards the farm at the end where the car was parked.

  She studied him, his strong, firm stride, the straight back, his arms hanging loose and relaxed from those broad shoulders. Broad, solid, dependable. And sexy.

  Very, very sexy.

  Would they see each other again once they were back? She didn’t think so, despite this sizzle between them all weekend, because there was something about him, some reserve in his eyes, and when he’d kissed her he’d pulled away.

  Would he have done that if he intended to follow through? Probably not, and she still didn’t feel ready for a relationship anyway after all she’d been through, but if nothing else they were good friends now and she’d known from that first day that she could rely on him.

  He had a rock-solid dependability, carefully hidden under a lot of jokes and laughter, and if she had to be in this fix, she couldn’t have asked for a better person to help her out of it.

  She just wished she hadn’t made it necessary.

  * * *

  ‘We need to get this boot off.’

  He’d propped her up on a sun lounger on the deck outside the lodge, and he was perched on the end by her feet, wondering how to remove it without hurting her.

  ‘They’re pretty old,’ she offered. ‘I don’t mind if you need to cut it off.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I will. I’ll take the lace out and see how we get on.’

  He unthreaded it, peeled back the tongue as far as it would go and slid his fingers carefully inside. ‘How’s that feel?’

  ‘Not too bad. A bit easier now you’ve undone the lace.’

  ‘Let’s just see what happens if I try and ease your foot out. Yell if I hurt you.’

  She gave a stifled snort. ‘Don’t worry, I will,’ she said drily, and he looked up and met those gorgeous clear blue eyes and saw trust in them. He hoped it wasn’t unfounded.

  ‘Right, here goes,’ he said, and gently cupping his hand under her ankle to support it, he eased the boot away.

  She made a tiny whimper at one point, but nothing more, and then it was off and he lowered her foot carefully onto a pillow. ‘How’s that feel?’

  Her breath sighed out. ‘Better. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, I haven’t prodded it yet,’ he said drily, and began to feel his way carefully around the joint, testing the integrity of the ligaments.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He prodded a little more, feeling carefully for any displacement, but if there was it was slight. ‘I don’t think it’s fractured, and it doesn’t feel displaced, so I think it’s probably only a slight ligament tear. You need an X-ray, though.’

  ‘It can wait till we get back, can’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘I think so. There’s not much else going on with it, I don’t think, but we’ll get Dan to look at it when he comes back just to be on the safe side. In the meantime I’ll get you some ice and I can strap it, if you like. That should help.’

  ‘Please. And I could kill a cup of green tea—oh, and a banana, if there’s one left,’ she said, throwing a grin over her shoulder as he headed for the kitchen, and he gave a grunt of laughter.

  ‘I get the distinct impression you’re milking this,’ he said drily as he walked away, and he put the kettle on, discovered there were no ice cubes, wetted a couple of tea towels and put them in the freezer, and raided the first-aid kit for some physio tape.

  * * *

  ‘Better?’

  She nodded. ‘Much.’

  It was, hugely better, which wasn’t difficult. Her boot had been pressing on the outside of her ankle, and removing it had made a lot of difference. So had the cold pack and the strapping that, considering he was a trauma surgeon and not a physio or an orthopaedic surgeon, was looking very professional. It still shouldn’t have happened, though, and she sighed.

  ‘What?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just—I’m cross with myself. And sorry, because I really thought we had a good chance of winning until I took my eye off the ball, and now I’ve blown it and ruined your last day.’

  He frowned, his eyes serious. ‘It’s hardly ruined. You’re alive, Livvy, and you might not have been. If your head had hit that rock instead of your ribs, it could have been a very different story. I’d take that as a win any day. And it doesn’t matter about my climb, or the challenge.’

  ‘Yes, it does, and I still feel guilty. If you’d teamed up with someone else you might have won, but now I’ve let you down.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, I have! I’m the weak link in the chain, Matt.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re not weak! There’s nothing weak about you.’

  ‘I didn’t look where I was going on a
narrow rocky path with a crumbling edge. That’s pretty weak from where I’m standing.’

  ‘You’re sitting. Well, lying, really, technically speaking.’

  She was, still propped up on the sun lounger with her ankle wrapped in the thawing tea towel in a plastic bag, a cup of green tea in her hand and a packet of crunchy oat cookies on the table between them because apparently the bananas were finished. Ah, well. She took another cookie and bit into it.

  ‘You’re a pedant, did you know that?’ she said mildly around the crumbs, and he chuckled, his frown fading.

  ‘It might have been mentioned. How’s your ankle now?’

  ‘Cold.’

  ‘Good. How about your ribs?’

  ‘Sore. I might move the ice pack.’

  ‘Here, let me.’

  He picked up the makeshift ice pack, turned it over and gestured to her to pull up her T-shirt. She eased it out of the way and he winced.

  ‘Ow. That’s a good bruise. Let me feel that.’

  ‘Why, because poking it is going to make it feel so much better?’ she said drily, but he just gave her a look that was getting all too familiar and tugged up her T-shirt a little further. And then he frowned and ran his finger across the top of her abdomen from side to side along her scar. Well, one of them.

  ‘What happened? Another accident?’

  ‘Yes, but not my fault, before you say it. I was in a car crash when I was nineteen months old. I had a ruptured spleen and a perforated bowel.’

  ‘Ouch.’ He turned his attention back to her ribs and prodded them gently and rather too thoroughly. ‘Well, there’s nothing displaced,’ he said, and she rolled her eyes.

  ‘I could have told you that. I don’t have a fracture, Matt.’

  ‘How do you know? It’s not possible to be sure.’

  She sighed. ‘Because I’m inside my body and you’re not?’

  One eyebrow shot up, his eyes locked briefly with hers and then he let his breath out on what could have been a laugh and tugged her T-shirt back down, and she realised what she’d said.

  Colour flooded her face and she groaned. ‘Sorry—I didn’t mean that quite the way it came out.’