As the other woman handed him over she smirked. ‘Yes, you are full of surprises, aren’t you, Andrina? But, then, so am I, aren’t I, Drew?’
Ignoring the comment, Andrina turned to Drew. ‘What is Jonathan doing up at this hour? I thought we had a routine.’
‘It’s only a quarter to nine,’ he said levelly. ‘He has been to bed once but I think his teeth are bothering him. The first one is almost through.’
‘Yes, I do know that,’ she snapped. ‘I have only been away from him since yesterday.’
She was being unreasonable and knew it, picking on him because her homecoming had fallen flat. He sighed and that made her feel even more disgruntled.
‘Tania stopped by to tell me the latest news,’ he said in the same even tone.
‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me,’ she told him coolly. ‘It’s your house, your practice.’ She looked down at the child in her arms. ‘Your blood relative.’
‘I’ll be going, then,’ Tania said smoothly. ‘Bye for now, Drew, darling.’ She sauntered out into the night, leaving them to silence.
When she’d gone Andrina went into the sitting room and slumped down onto the couch with Jonathan still in her arms. She’d been like a nagging wife out there, she was thinking when he appeared in the doorway.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked levelly. ‘And why didn’t you ring and ask me to come for you?’
‘I butted into your cosy evening, didn’t I?’
‘Are you sure that you’re not still suffering from the blow to your head?’
That was the last straw. She got to her feet.
‘I’ll settle Jonathan and then I’m going to bed. You shouldn’t have let Tania go. You could have carried on where you left off.’
Before she’d even got to the top of the stairs Andrina was overcome with contrition. She’d just made a fool of herself, been objectionable to both Drew and his ex-wife, and all because the sight of Jonathan in the other woman’s arms and the smile on Drew’s face when he’d appeared with the wine had made her realise just how much her world was crumbling.
She turned, about to make her peace with him, but before she could do so she heard the front door slam. Seconds later his car drove off into the night and it wasn’t hard to guess where he’d gone.
* * *
As Drew drove to pick up the turkey he’d ordered from a farm higher up the hillside he was thinking that he should have told Andrina where he was going, but he’d let her rile him and he shouldn’t have done. She’d had a dreadful few days and could be excused for being edgy. He wasn’t going to be out long and when he got back he would put things right.
When she’d walked through the front door it had taken him all his time not to rush forward and take her in his arms, but her expression had put an end to that sort of impulse. He knew that she had reservations about Tania and couldn’t blame her for that as the other woman was never civil to her when they met, and to find her holding Jonathan after Andrina had been fretting to get back to him was certain to be something she could have done without.
When he collected the turkey the farmer wanted to talk, but after thanking him and paying for the bird Drew was off, eager to salvage what was left of the evening if Andrina wasn’t already asleep.
It seemed that she was. He called her name softly several times outside her bedroom door, but there was no response and in the end he went back downstairs and finished putting up the holly and mistletoe.
* * *
The party was a success, though not from any high spirits on her part, Andrina thought guiltily as they cleared away afterwards. Eamon had been very attentive, which had made her feel edgy, and Drew had been the opposite, quiet and withdrawn with her but pleasant and welcoming with the other guests, who had included most of the staff from the practice, Mr and Mrs Bovey, the vicar and Tom Blair, the owner of the Home Farm who had consulted Andrina about the embarrassing rash. He’d never been back so she supposed the cream had done the trick. Careful as he was with pesticides, he would have to be even more careful with them in the future.
In the middle of it all Jonathan had woken up. His teeth had been bothering him again and as Andrina had hushed him back to sleep in the quiet nursery she’d wanted to stay there, away from Eamon’s attentions and Drew’s lack of them.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked from the doorway as she crooned softly to the restless baby, and she thought that he had a built-in radar where Jonathan was concerned, but with herself it was as if he never tuned in to her needs and aspirations.
‘It’s his teeth again,’ she said softly as the baby’s eyelids began to droop. ‘The sooner they put in an appearance the better.’ And she laid him gently back in the cot.
‘How do you think it’s going?’ Drew asked as she straightened the covers.
‘Fine. Our guests are making up for our lack of zest.’
He nodded. ‘Maybe on my part, but you have Eamon to entertain you.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed absently, and wondered what Drew would say if he knew it was because she’d shown so much false enthusiasm when Eamon had asked her to go to the ball with him.
‘I haven’t wished you a merry Christmas,’ Drew said in a low voice as she was about to go back to their guests.
‘That’s all right,’ she said flatly. ‘You don’t have to. It isn’t part of the package.’
He took her arm and drew her towards him and she didn’t resist.
‘Those of us on the sidelines have to gather up the crumbs when we can,’ he said with his mouth almost touching hers. His kiss was light and undemanding until she put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and then it changed into a hungry wave of desire that had them clinging to each other as if they would never let go.
It was Marion’s voice calling up to them, asking if everything was all right, that brought them down to earth, and as they separated Andrina wiped her hand across her lips. Drew saw the movement in the darkened nursery and his mouth twisted as he thought that she’d let him kiss her on sufferance, and as she led the way downstairs he followed her in silence.
The highlight of the evening as far as the rest of those present were concerned came when James announced his engagement to Suzanne, and that seemed to set the tone. It was a moment for congratulations and popping champagne corks but, delighted though she was at their news, Andrina was envious. Why was it always someone else who was in that state of bliss? She’d found her soul mate, but he was on a different wavelength.
She hadn’t yet apologised to Drew for her tetchiness the previous night when she’d come home from hospital because she thought he’d slammed out of the house to catch up with Tania. She’d fallen into a miserable, troubled sleep the moment her head had touched the pillow and so hadn’t seen him come back with the turkey and hadn’t been aware that he’d only been gone a matter of minutes.
Conversation had been in short supply since and every time their eyes met she looked away. What Christmas Day was going to be like she didn’t know. Tonight, in a house full of people, she’d felt more relaxed, but tomorrow her wish would be granted. There would be just the three of them and she wasn’t sure how she was going to cope.
* * *
The snow still lay crisp and white on the ground on Christmas morning, and as she gave Jonathan his breakfast Andrina wondered why Drew hadn’t appeared as he was usually up first.
As she glanced through the dining-room window she saw him coming up the drive with a purposeful stride and wondered where he’d been at such an early hour. She heard him taking his boots off at the back door and then he was there with them, calm and serene like he’d been when they first met.
Her heart sank. He’d been to the Brewsters’, she thought. He’d wanted them to be the first people he saw on Christmas morning. He was looking very pleased with himself so it must have gone down all right.
Please, don’t let him ruin the day completely, she prayed, by telling me the split between us is imminent.
It was nothing like she was expecting.
‘I’ve been to see Eamon,’ he said, coming to stand beside her.
‘What for?’
‘I had something to ask him.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you want to know what it was?’
‘Should I?’
‘Yes. I saw you in his arms the night I was late home from the Brewsters’. I’ve been in torment ever since. But when I woke up this morning I knew that I had to be certain, that I couldn’t face Christmas unless I knew where I stood with you. So I did what I should have done weeks ago and confronted him.’
She was gazing at him, dumbfounded, and he took the spoon out of her hand and continued giving Jonathan his breakfast.
‘Oh, no,’ she groaned. ‘So you thought that he and I were…’
‘Yes, I did, and who could blame me?’
‘Who indeed,’ she murmured. ‘And that is what’s been wrong. I thought it was because you were going back to Tania.’
It was Drew’s turn to groan. ‘Give me a break! Beside you she’s superficial, glossy and supremely selfish, and in any case I think there might be a new man in her life. That was what she’d come to tell me the night when you arrived home from hospital unexpectedly.
‘The male nurse I engaged to look after Tim seems to have caught her eye, and even though he keeps her in order I don’t think he’s immune to her charms. But it’s us we should be talking about, Andrina,’ he said softly.
Her eyes were luminous in her pale face as she told him, ‘I nearly let Eamon kiss me in a moment of loneliness and misery. You were constantly with Tania and her family and, though I tried not to be, I was jealous.’
He nodded.
‘I know. I was to blame for that. It was just that I felt so sorry for Angela and Tim. They were heartbroken over the divorce and on any day of the week Tania is hard work. Then the heart attack, coming out of the blue, floored them completely.
‘The night I saw you with Eamon I’d begun to feel that at last my commitment to the Brewsters was easing off and you and I could begin to sort out our lives. I was going to ask you to marry me, but what I saw through the kitchen window put the blight on that.
‘I’d been desperate to get home to you and Jonathan, but after that I drove to the Grouse and just sat staring into space, telling myself that I’d left it too late. That in my concerns for the Brewsters I’d lost the love of my life. But Eamon has just told me that he never stood a chance with you because…’
He paused and into the silence she said, ‘I’m in love with you and have been almost from the moment we met. I thought that this was going to be our first and last Christmas together, Drew, and I couldn’t bear it.’
He was smiling his special smile.
‘So did I. Crazy, aren’t we? I never slept last night for thinking about us.’
‘Does Tania know how you feel? I suppose she found it strange that someone as nondescript as me should have caught your attention.’
‘Caught my attention! Are you kidding? Ever since we met I’ve been so aware of you I couldn’t think straight, and the thought of Jonathan seeing more of Eamon in the future than he did of me was like a knife in my heart. We three are bound together with the bonds of love, Andrina. If you want to give me the best Christmas present ever, say you’ll marry me.’
Her face was alight with tenderness, her eyes bright with the promise of what was to come, and he thought, Nondescript? Never!
‘Of course I’ll marry you,’ she told him. She looked down at the rosy, contented baby. ‘I love you both.’
It was there again, she thought as Drew took her in his arms, the feeling that they weren’t alone. That those other presences were close by again, warm and approving.
CHAPTER TEN
EAMON called round during the Christmas period and on seeing their faces had said laconically, ‘So it’s all come right in the end for you two?’
‘Yes,’ Drew told him. ‘We’re getting married as soon as it can be arranged and I want you to be my best man.’
His friend laughed. ‘Sure. Even though I had an eye on the bride-to-be myself. But I’ll hide my broken heart on the day and in the meantime will look for someone else to take to the ball.’
Andrina smiled across at him, radiant beside the man she loved.
‘What does Tania think about your forthcoming nuptials?’ he asked.
Drew shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. But watch out for the new man in her life.’
‘Really! Who?’
‘The male nurse that I hired to care for her father.’
‘So all’s well that ends well. Everyone finds a true love except me,’ Eamon joked.
The wedding plans were under way. One day soon Andrina would walk down the aisle of the village church towards the man she loved and she wouldn’t be carrying flowers. She would have Jonathan in her arms, and if there were those who thought it strange she didn’t care.
He had brought them together. In caring for his needs, their own had found fulfilment, and as they made their vows to each other they would be surrounded by a circle of caring friends and acquaintances who had taken a fraught stand-in mother into their midst and made her feel as if she belonged.
But before the wedding was the hunt ball on New Year’s Eve. Drew was waiting in the hall as he had that other time when Andrina had worn the flame silk dress.
He’d bought the tickets from Serena but at the time had thought the chances small that Andrina might be his partner on the night, yet somehow it had all come right and he was humbly grateful.
He knew that she would give him children willingly, brothers and sisters for Jonathan, and soon, when their joint adoption of him came through, the foundation on which they would build their life together would be laid.
Marion had arrived to look after Jonathan and as the New Year beckoned with the promise that had seemed so far away just a short time ago, Andrina came slowly down the stairs.
She’d done the clothes shopping that she’d promised herself in the week between Christmas and New Year and from it had come a long black evening dress, low cut at back and front, high-heeled silver sandals and a matching bag.
And now she was about to join the man she loved, a tall, upright figure, with hair the colour of bright gold, looking just as eye-catching as herself in a dark dinner jacket and trousers, offset by a gleaming white shirt.
‘You look very beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘I won’t be able to take my eyes off you but, then, I never can.’
As Andrina glowed back at him she knew that the difficult road she’d been forced to set out on the night she’d discovered that Jodie had given birth to a son had brought her to a place where a man and a child were offering her lasting love and contentment.
ISBN-13: 9781460376355
© Abigail Gordon 2005
THE DOCTOR’S BABY BOND
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The Doctors’ Baby Bond Page 15
