New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  The slang expression made her smile and she raised her hand to exchange a high five with him, then darted to her room, reminding herself that touching any part of Tom, even the palm of his hand in a high five, was fraught with danger and would only make her decision to deny her reactions to the kiss even harder.

  As it turned out, Tom was called to the hospital before the first Frosty Flake was poured then after breakfast Bobby was whipped away by the mother of a friend of his from school, who’d phoned first to ask if he would like to go down to Port Macquarie with her and her son. Her older boy would be with them, she’d explained, and the three lads could go to a movie while she did some last-minute Christmas shopping.

  Which left Lauren on her own and with plenty of time to visit Alyssa once again. She went into the office first to check for messages and mail and was about to leave when Tom walked in.

  ‘Did you come over to see Alyssa?’ he asked, and something in his voice made her look more closely at him, although looking too closely at Tom was something she’d been avoiding this morning.

  His face was drawn, and he paused before adding, ‘She was pregnant, Lauren. She’s lost the baby. I did a D and C this morning so she’ll still be a bit woozy.’

  Her mission forgotten—for the moment—Lauren slumped down into her chair.

  ‘Hell and damnation,’ she muttered. ‘The poor woman!’

  Tom shrugged and shook his head, looking not defeated exactly but so down, it took iron control on Lauren’s part to prevent herself standing up, crossing to him, and giving him a hug. She knew how much he loved obstetric work and how hard he took such occurrences, and a comforting hug would have been natural.

  It’s what she would have done before all this began, she reminded herself.

  Even yesterday she would have hugged him, before she’d cut the tendrils of desire that had wrapped around the two of them with that stupid rug remark …

  He hesitated in the doorway. Was he waiting for the hug?

  She wasn’t going to hug him!

  And eventually he walked away, leaving Lauren feeling guilty that she hadn’t offered some kind of comfort.

  Except it would have had to be a hug.

  It’s what she did.

  To her, gathering someone in a strong embrace often did more good than a thousand words. As well as offering comfort, hugs could transfer energy. They could invigorate and rejuvenate, and unlike drugs they had no unpleasant side effects. She knew enough of her own psychology to know she’d taken to hugs as a way of initiating physical contact with people back at a time when it had been very difficult for her to be touched. Back then she’d realised that the hugger could break away any time—the one who hugged was in control and control had been very important to her.

  Hugging Tom, however, was a very different matter. Hugging Tom would have side effects for her—not unpleasant but unsettling, tempting—stupid!

  She’d go and see Alyssa—give her a hand hug and sit with her a while—then go over to the refuge and work out the Christmas plans for the families in the house. Tell them about Karen Williams’s offer and see what they thought …

  Bobby returned mid-afternoon, full of talk about his day’s adventure, the movie—not that good—and the treat they’d had, eating at a fast-food outlet. Lauren had slipped a casserole into the oven, thinking the vegetables in with the cubes of lamb might be well enough disguised for Bobby to eat them without complaint.

  ‘Can we go over to the house and show the kids there my new clothes?’ he asked, when he’d finished describing his day.

  ‘I thought you might be tired,’ Lauren said, while wondering if his ability to latch onto something and not let go was a normal ‘kid’ thing, or a ‘Bobby’ thing. She’d been certain he’d have forgotten about showing off his new clothes by now.

  ‘I suppose we can,’ she said, ‘but we can only stay an hour or so because dinner’s in the oven.’

  ‘What is it?’ her new protégé demanded, suspicion flashing in his eyes.

  ‘A casserole.’

  ‘Yuck—sloppy stew! Why can’t we have sausages?’

  ‘Because you need a balanced diet, we all do, and there is no way I’m cooking one thing for you and something else for me and Tom. You’ll just have to handle the sloppy stew tonight. Tomorrow we might have chicken.’

  She expected to see the scowl he brought out when things didn’t go his way, but to her surprise he grinned then dashed off, presumably to get dressed in his new clothes.

  They stayed longer than they’d intended at the refuge. The women were so excited at the prospect of taking their children to a farm for Christmas they wanted every detail, and Bobby was having a good time with the children he knew so he’d been happy to stay. As a result the sun was sinking towards the horizon when they drove home, and even the usually indefatigable Bobby was showing signs of tiredness.

  ‘There’s Tom!’ Bobby shouted as they pulled up in the drive. Lauren turned her head and saw the man she was avoiding thinking about walking towards the house. Hard not to think about him when just seeing him made her heart jolt in her chest.

  They got out of the car and waited until he joined them, Lauren sniffing the air, sure she’d smell the delicious aroma of a simmering casserole as she walked through the door.

  Perhaps the breeze was blowing it the other way.

  They all headed for the kitchen, which had fast become the hub of their little household, Bobby yammering away at Tom, Lauren growing more anxious about the casserole.

  She crossed to the oven and felt the outside.

  Cold!

  ‘Problem?’ Tom asked, and she turned to see him smiling, but with that one eyebrow raised.

  Big problem, her mind replied as she battled her reaction to that smile, so by the time she was ready to reply he, too, was feeling the oven.

  ‘It helps to turn it on,’ he said, standing so close she could feel the warmth of his body, while the smile that accompanied the words exacerbated all the tremors and tingling and heat rioting within her body.

  ‘I did turn it on, look!’

  Indignation helped and she stepped back to point at the dials, but for some reason a nothing exchange of words about an oven was proving as seductive as that darned kiss had been and she was losing strength in her knees and willpower in her mind.

  Could he be feeling it?

  She had no idea!

  Her experience was limited, and in retrospect mostly embarrassing, so she had no idea if the man peering into the depths of his oven, poking at things with his fingers—he had turned it off first—was feeling anything other than aggravation that his oven was broken.

  ‘It worked okay last night when we cooked the lamb,’ Tom said, turning a mystified face towards Lauren as she stood there beside him, contrarily revelling in all the sensations his closeness was causing when she should have been moving to Antarctica.

  A snigger from somewhere behind them gave the game away, Lauren catching on first and turning on the eight-year-old demon who had come into their lives.

  ‘What did you do?’ she demanded.

  ‘Nothin’!’

  The predictable response was accompanied by a hurt look but Tom had sussed Bobby out, turning on the switch for the kitchen light and finding it, too, wasn’t working.

  ‘Power board,’ he said to Lauren. He grasped Bobby gently by the shoulder and steered him towards the back door. ‘Now you’ll turn it back on, young man, and any more of those tricks and the bike goes into storage for a week, understand?’

  An outwardly contrite Bobby turned the power back on, explaining to Tom as he did so that one of the big kids from school had once turned off the power to all the houses in their street.

  ‘Inwardly the little devil’s gloating,’ Lauren said to Tom, as Bobby went into the living room to watch a TV show while she found something else to have for dinner. ‘He wanted sausages, not sloppy stew for dinner.’

  ‘So we can’t let him win, can we?’ Tom t
old her, enfolding her in a smile that made her heart melt. ‘What else do we have?’

  ‘Look for yourself. There’s cold meat, salad, cheese—things I bought for sandwiches for lunches.’

  Tom poked his head into the refrigerator, then started to haul stuff out.

  ‘When I was a kid I hated salads, so maybe a salad will be a just punishment.’

  The smile this time was more of a grin but it had the same effect. She had to get out of there and, speaking of that—thinking of it—why hadn’t they heard from Mike, or someone from Children’s Services?

  And why hadn’t she phoned around to find out what was happening in the search for Bobby’s relatives?

  Surely not because she was enjoying living here?

  ‘I’ll just check he hasn’t found the water main,’ she said, and fled the kitchen, needing to get away from Tom while she worked out just what was happening in her head.

  Was she escaping him? Tom wondered as he watched Lauren whisk from the room.

  And if so, why?

  Surely she hadn’t been feeling the tug of attraction he’d felt as they’d stood at the oven! It was an oven, for heaven’s sake, and a none-too-clean one at that! Yet he’d lingered there, mind blank for all he’d been poking things, his body revelling in being close to Lauren’s, drinking in the hint of the dusky perfume she used, the softness of the hair that brushed his face as she moved.

  He had to do something about this—maybe go visit Emily at Belrose, although that would be the act of a cad, using one woman to forget another, and he’d never done caddish things …

  He made a salad instead—the old-fashioned kind of salad his foster-mothers had always made. Trendy, tossed in a bowl then dumped on a plate salads were all very well, but for someone like him—and Bobby—who liked individual tastes, a pile of grated cheese next to the mound of grated carrot beside the slices of tinned beetroot and the slices of ham and tomato was how a salad should be. He put the three plates in the refrigerator and went to find his ‘family’.

  They were on the front veranda, Lauren gently questioning Bobby about relatives.

  ‘I haven’t got any grandparents,’ Bobby protested. ‘There used to be an old lady Mum called Aunty but she died. We never saw her anyway ‘cos she lived in Sydney.’

  Not wanting to interrupt, Tom watched from the doorway, studying Bobby carefully and deciding the child wasn’t upset by this lack of relations. If anything, he seemed to accept it as the natural way of things.

  ‘I don’t need any old relations,’ Bobby continued. ‘I can just stay here with you and Tom.’

  Tom’s attention switched to Lauren. How would she handle this?

  ‘For the moment, definitely,’ she said, reaching out and rubbing Bobby’s thatch of hair. ‘The problem is that there are rules about who children live with, and there are people whose job it is to find the best places for kids to live and it might be they find a nice aunt or uncle you didn’t know you had and it might be that aunt or uncle would like you to live with them.’

  ‘Would not!’

  Bobby’s denial was so swift Tom moved, thinking he might strike out again, but he remained sitting in the chair, staring out at the darkening sea, his jaw set in a way Tom now recognised as a fight against tears.

  ‘Who’s for some dinner?’ he called from the doorway, then he stepped onto the veranda where he, too, ruffled Bobby’s hair. ‘Cold salad, thanks to you, champ,’ he said. ‘And don’t bother telling me you don’t like salad. You’re a growing boy, you need your vegetables.’

  Bobby rose without a murmur and to Tom’s surprise the child put his arms around Tom’s waist and gave him a hug. He quite possibly wiped his wet eyes and dribbly nose against Tom’s shirt at the same time, but what did that matter, compared to a hug from a lonely, confused, bereaved little boy?

  They sat at the table in the kitchen, and as Tom put the plates on the table he couldn’t help but feel a sense of … not pride exactly but deep satisfaction, as if somehow he’d made a family.

  ‘I like salads like this.’ Bobby’s appreciative comment broke into Tom’s slightly shocked consideration of how the words ‘family’ and ‘satisfaction’ had wormed their way into the same sentence in his mind. He, who was happy as a loner …

  ‘And I’m sorry, Lauren, about the ‘lectric switch.’

  Lauren smiled at the miscreant.

  ‘Not to worry,’ she said easily, then turned the smile a little brighter. ‘Just think, you can have the casserole tomorrow.’

  Bobby grimaced but didn’t object, apparently accepting defeat in the matter of sloppy stews!

  ‘No relations?’ Tom asked. It was some hours later. Bobby was asleep in bed, barely lasting out his second bedtime story, his face angelic in the glow of the small night-light Lauren had found for him.

  Now his temporary parents were sitting on the veranda, enjoying an after-dinner coffee and the peaceful sound of the waves washing on the beach below the town.

  Lauren turned towards him, the light behind her so her face was shadowed, but he could hear real concern in her voice when she answered.

  ‘Would you believe I didn’t even try to find any relations today? I saw him off with his friends, then went across to the hospital, got involved with Alyssa and had a talk to Karen Williams, came back and prepared dinner, and didn’t at any stage give a thought to Bobby’s future.’

  She sighed so deeply he wanted to touch her—to comfort her—but touching Lauren was habit-forming, and possibly addictive, and definitely not a good idea given even standing near her had fired his body to an aching desire.

  ‘Not only did I not do anything about the poor kid, but I don’t want to think about why I didn’t contact anyone,’ she finished.

  ‘You’re not in charge of finding relations,’ he reminded her, surprised to find himself in sympathy with her over not wanting to contact people. ‘Mike’s handling that with Children’s Services and it’s up to them, not us. All we’re doing is looking after him for now, making sure he feels secure, and knows he’s safe with us.’

  I think, he added to himself …

  ‘Except if we don’t find some relation soon, I’ll have to talk to him about Joan’s funeral. He’s a little boy, Tom, he shouldn’t have to be involved in things like that, yet what happens if I don’t talk about it and later find he wanted input? Maybe there’s a song Joan liked that he’d like to hear played. I don’t know!’

  Forget the aching desire—this was a woman who needed a hug!

  Tom stood up, hauled her out of her chair and put his arms around her.

  ‘We’ll talk to him,’ he told her firmly. ‘We’ll help him decide what he wants—together! And if he doesn’t want to know—or if he doesn’t want anything to do with any of it—then we’ll back him up on that, but you’re right, we do have to talk to him.’

  He felt her body relax against his, her curves fitting into him as if they’d been fashioned to match his shape, and the desire he’d been trying to forget burned through him, so his muscles tensed and his arms drew her closer, closer, closer, until he was pressing kisses on the top of her head, on her forehead, on her eyelids, working slowly downwards until she lifted her head to him and pressed a kiss onto his lips.

  Lauren kissing him?

  He needed no second invitation, his mouth opening over hers, devouring her lips, seeking entry to her sweet, moist warmth, coffee flavoured but Lauren flavoured as well. Soft breasts pressed against his chest, moving now and then when she dragged in a deep, replenishing breath before returning all her attention to the kiss.

  The Kiss—it was assuming capital letters in his head, for never had kissing someone been so satisfying. Generally seeing it as little more than a prelude to making love, he usually got the kissing part over and done with quite quickly, but right now he didn’t want this kiss to stop.

  Her arms had crept around his waist, her hands sliding up, then down, cupping his butt, squeezing it, holding him tightly to her, evidenc
e of his arousal pressed into the softness of her belly.

  She moved against him, moved enough to make him groan.

  Stupid!

  Why make a sound?

  Now she was gone, slamming away from him so suddenly she nearly fell.

  He caught her—saved her from falling—held her steady, watching her chest rise and fall as she sucked in air—saw the tears in her eyes and the quiver on her lips as she tried to speak and failed.

  And when finally a word did emerge, it was hardly what he’d expected. It was a trembling and shame-faced ‘Sorry’, stricken eyes raised to his, panic as well as embarrassment written on her face.

  He drew her close again, and held her, just held her.

  ‘Sorry for kissing me?’ he asked gently, when her trembling had eased and she’d once again relaxed against him.

  Well, almost relaxed against him …

  She shook her head, then lifted it—no coward, his friend Lauren.

  ‘Sorry for—for leading you on—for encouraging you—for kissing you like that. Sorry I’m so damn inept at this stuff. Sorry I’m not what you need, Tom. Believe me.’

  She paused, as if waiting for him to say something, but what could he say? Besides, silence often worked because the person who found the silence most awkward would fill it …

  And finally she did!

  ‘You know my history—you’ve seen Alyssa in hospital. I know as a psychologist I should have sorted myself out by now, but … ‘

  Even in the shadowy light of the veranda he could see the colour in the cheeks and pain for her—for her embarrassment and for the things she’d suffered in the past—shafted through Tom’s body.

  ‘I’m no good with intimacy.’

  She didn’t mumble the words, or try to hide her face against his chest, although it was there, readily available to her. She looked up into his eyes as she said it, defying the flaming cheeks and quivering voice that evidenced her embarrassment.