Ear plugs? Kittens weren’t that loud were they? He’d ask Paul later, if he remembered that is. God, was he ever going to get enough of this beautiful girl as he felt his breath shorten and his pulse quicken. Ideal girlfriends were alright, but give him his perfect little wife any day.
‘Yes, you know….’ She answered, slightly breathless herself. ‘For when the baby won’t sleep.’
She felt his hand pause to complete stillness as his brain finally caught up and overtook his emotions.
‘Don’t stop.’ She whispered against his mouth as she placed her hand determinedly over his. ‘Yes, you’re going to be a dad, but please don’t stop.’
The End
Dear Reader,
When I decided to publish at the end of August (2015) I never dreamt that more than a couple of people would read and to leave comments too - I’m overwhelmed!
I’ve been asked many times the inspiration for Mitch and now, on the anniversary of my father’s death I have to say Mitch is my personal tribute to my dad – He had the most amazing cheeky sense of humour, but was still always very much an old fashioned gentleman. We all still miss him even though it has been many years….
If you’d like to find out more you can catch up with me on my blog at jennieobrienwriter.wordpress.com and I’m also on Twitter @scribblerjb.
With very best wishes
Jenny O’Brien, March 4th 2016
Girl Descending
Chapter One
She’d always remember the quiet - The sort of quiet that only comes with loneliness.
Slamming the door on her locker before dragging scrubs over disappearing hips she smiled at the sharp click of metal on metal; the grating sound sweeter than any lullaby or overture. Pulling the door of the changing room open she relished at the creak just as she relished the swish of a passing trolley rattling past.
It wasn’t just her gran’s company she missed. It was the small almost silent noises that were all part and parcel of sharing a house, of sharing a life. The tread on the staircase, a footfall in the hall, the flick of the kettle switch: All of these things she missed. All of these things conspired to make her leave.
Oh there were other reasons – Other reasons she wasn’t going to give head room to. But the main reason was the intense quiet that kept her awake at night waiting for sounds – Sounds that would never come.
So here she was in Dublin to escape the silence, to get a life.
She needed to get a life. No, she paused mid-step before continuing on her way to the nurses station. She had a life, just one she didn’t want anymore.
She also needed a job. She needed a job, but not for the money. Her gran had made sure the cottage was hers and there was loads of money in the bank to make sure she didn’t have to work for months if not years to come. She needed the stability of work. She needed something to get out of bed for in the mornings and something to send her to bed at night. She wasn’t sleeping, but if she worked hard enough that too would come.
This new job was a way, her way of carving out an existence from the dregs of her previous one. She’d make new friends; she’d forge ahead with her career. She wouldn’t be happy, that was asking too much. She’d have to be content with successful.
It was only later when Sorcha, her nurse mentor for this her first shift continued to rave on about one of their consultants that she started to question her decision to leave.
‘Ruari’s a real hunk and nice too with the cutest bedside manner, not to mention the firmest bum.’ She said on a cackle. ‘Of course you probably won’t run into him this week as he’s been away updating his ALS course, but all the nurses are crazy for him.’
Her face dropped as she listened to the tall bubbly blond staff nurse enthuse again about his liquid brown eyes and taut muscular abs, not to mention a set of ‘glutes’ to die for. She’d only been working in the hospital for six hours and already she’d had to side swerve a date with Archie, the plaster technician, a proposition from one of the theatre porters and now this delectable hunk that was apparently God’s gift to women.
As part of her brain continued to absorb random facts about his generosity and skill as a doctor the rest of her argued against the perfection of any member of the male species. In her book all men were flawed. She’d never known her father or even her grandfather – all she had to go by was Simon, the most flawed of all.
‘Of course I’m not interested.’ Sorcha ended, going a pretty shade of pink.
‘What?’ She said, glancing up from checking where the litres of normal saline lived.
‘I’m getting married next Saturday.’
She heaved her shoulders in relief. Now weddings she could do, it was just all the rubbish that led up to them she found painful.
‘Congratulations. Does he work here too?’ She bent down to look in the back of the cupboard to see exactly where the blood giving sets were housed.
‘Oh no, but his brother does. Paul is about to go into his last year at Trinity – He’s studying to be a vet. I’ll invite you; it’ll be a good way of getting to know people down here.’ She paused. ‘Ruari’s going.’
Grainne visibly shuddered as she located the boxes of luer lock syringes, neatly stacked according to size along the bottom shelf. Sorcha was going to be a problem, obviously.
There was nothing worse than the blissfully happy: They always wanted everyone about them to be as blissfully happy as they were.
Unhappy Ever After Girl
The early morning sun, streaming through the stained glass window cast deep shadows over her bent head. But she wasn’t aware of the bright prisms throwing their glorious light over the bench in front just as she wasn’t aware of the biting cold seeping through her thin slippers. She wasn’t aware of anything other than a sudden sense of uncertainty: a sense of uncertainty that was overwhelming just as it was unexplainable.
She’d spent half her life, or what seemed like half her life sitting in the exact same place bathed in the reflected light from the sun bouncing off the coloured pains. The window with its bright shiny countryside scene much more comforting to a lonely child than the hidden meanings and church dictates contained in her father’s sermons.
Lifting her head she read the words etched on the glass, words she’d read a thousand times, words she could quote and requote.
‘Loved and loving memory of Mabel Singer, forever walking beside me in both thought and deed.’
Would Henry love her like that? Would he mourn her loss so much as to erect an edifice to her memory? At the end of time would he step up to the mark, or would he be found wanting?
She flicked a stray strand of hair from her face, a small smile hovering on her lips. He’d professed his undying love. Surely that had to be more important than sterile lumps of glass? He’d placed the diamond on her finger and, even if it was only a small diamond it still glinted as brightly as her namesake’s memorial.
But, despite the diamond her mouth wavered and doubt lingered; unwanted and unbidden. It lingered at the edge of his smile, a smile that never quite reached his eyes - just as it lingered in the memory of his overbearing manner. She raised her hand to let the light fall off her ring. The size of the rock was irrelevant.
Her attention shifted from the words etched black against grey to the undulating rolling hills layered with pink and purple flowers, finally to rest on the clear blue of the sky punctuated only by two birds soaring in flight. She’d always been jealous of those birds: twin souls sweeping across the glass ready to rise and spiral out of the frame to perpetual freedom. But now she wasn’t so sure. For the first time she realised they weren’t free, they’d never be free. Those birds were trapped by the confines of the window to be forever captured in flight – captured in a flight going exactly nowhere.
She shifted in her seat, her bum complaining at the relentless feel of the bench it was forced to sit on week after week while its owner continued to puzzle over Henry and his motives.
WHY
&
nbsp; Why had the recently ordained deacon chosen her over all the other girls around?
She hadn’t known him more than a few months. Was a few months long enough to snag someone’s heart for that forever journey? Since arriving to work under her father’s tutelage he’d been around every corner wooing her with smart words and even smarter flowers. She hadn’t noticed him at first that is until he made sure he was everywhere she was. She didn’t know what she wanted from life but being married had never really come into it. There was a dark shadowy dream of a man just outside her realm of vision, someone tall, dark and handsome who’d whisk both her and her heart along on a tide of unstoppable fate – and then there was Henry!
She’d been flattered at first at the near stalking: flattery soon turning into love. Her phone had taken on a life of its own. Now instead of the odd texts from Grainne and Liddy her phone was alive with his words and snapchat missives.
She stamped her feet in an effort to drum some warmth into them, her slippers making a dull thud against the tiles. Were soon to be curates meant to be social media savvy? Her dad didn’t even own a mobile let alone know what a selfie was while there was Henry sending her daily selfies in, if not compromising positions then determinedly risky ones.
Stretching out her long slender hand again in order to allow the sunlight to bounce back and forward across her ring, a smile again stole across her lips. She loved him and whatever his reasons for loving her she was prepared to take him on trust. After all she had more than enough love for both of them.
‘Freddie, you’ll catch your death of cold.’ Glancing up she grinned at the short and distinctly round figure of her father hurrying across the transept. ‘Mrs Friend has just this minute set the table; she’s determined to send you down the aisle on a full stomach.’
‘Coming father,’ she said, her hand lingering to brush against the wild cream roses hanging off the end of the pew before leaning across and planting a brief kiss on the top of his bald head. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’
‘Don’t chance fate my love, although Grainne and Liddy have just phoned to say they’re on their way to give you a Gok Wan style makeover - whatever that means?’ He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘All this Feng Shui stuff has passed your poor old dad by I’m afraid, your mother would have known…’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said on a laugh. ‘I have the best dad a girl could ask for. Come on, let’s go and grab breakfast or we’ll upset Mrs Friend and that would never do!’
They made their way out the side door and across the short path to the vicarage. Freddie threw a glance at the grey brick building, her eyes dwelling on the daffodils just starting to poke their heads out of the tubs that heralded either side of the entrance. In truth these were the only attractive things about the dull single fronted rambling house that was a nightmare to keep both clean and warm, but that didn’t stop her from heaving a sigh at the sight of her home. It was the only home she knew and, with Henry now earmarked as curate one she’d be returning to as a bride after their honeymoon.
Ideal Girl (Irish Girl, Hospital Romance 1) Page 21
