One Step At A Time

by Caroline Anderson

  They moved on to Susie Elmswell and her progress, and Martin was able to report that he was very happy with her. ‘She gets fed up with lack of progress, but she’s all grit, that girl. Richard’s a great help.’

  ‘I met him yesterday; he seems hand-made for the job,’ Kate put in.

  ‘He is. He’s wonderful. I wish all spouses were like that. How’s her physio going?’

  ‘Slowly,’ Angela reported. ‘She’s working awfully hard, but you can’t hurry nerve regeneration and she’s set herself a real challenge to walk by September.’

  ‘Is she on crutches yet?’

  Angela shook her head. ‘No. I want her on the parallel bars, then, once she’s balancing, I want her using sticks. You get a better result that way. Crutches are too easy to cheat with. They’re fine if you’ve got a broken leg, but not otherwise. Talking of which, how’s Dominic?’

  ‘I saw him last night,’ Jeremy told them. ‘He was pretty fed up. He’s still in pain, he says it’s dreadfully noisy, and he was threatening to discharge himself.’

  They all laughed—all except Kate. He wouldn’t—would he? Dear God, he couldn’t—not this soon. Heavens, the accident had only happened on Thursday evening, and it was only Monday now! Literally half a week. Surely not even Dominic would be so stupid?

  Jeremy broke into her panic-stricken train of thought. ‘Kate, I think he was joking.’

  She met Jeremy’s amused eyes. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked quietly. ‘Really sure?’

  The amusement left his eyes. ‘You don’t think he was serious?’

  Kate snorted. ‘I have no idea. The man is and always was a mystery to me. All I can tell you is he’s stubborn as a mule, and, once he makes his mind up, God help anyone in his way.’

  ‘Sounds like Dominic,’ they all agreed.

  ‘I’ll go and visit him tonight—tell him how well we’re all coping and take him some more needles so he can knock himself out,’ Kate muttered.

  The others laughed, but Kate was perfectly serious. She would talk to Lindsay, the aromatherapist. Perhaps she’d be able to give Kate a sedative oil to relax and calm Dominic, so he’d stay put a little longer. Even another week would be a help. It would be a disaster if he came out so soon—and, unlike the others, she didn’t underestimate his stupidity.

  She found time later in the day, and Lindsay laughed like the others. ‘He’s a case, that man. I’ll put some bergamot in with the chamomile and lavender, and an extra drop of geranium. That should settle him down. Rub it all over him—do you know about effleurage?’

  ‘Light strokes towards the heart?’ Kate checked.

  ‘That’s right. It should send him to sleep, so do it towards the end of visiting.’

  She took Stephie straight from school for a short visit, and was amazed at how much better he looked—how much better and how much more irritated.

  ‘I’ll be back later to chat about the clinic,’ she promised him. ‘We can’t stay long now—Stephie’s got homework. They finish after this week, but she’s got to keep going to the end. It’s an important year.’

  ‘Big exams next year, of course,’ he said to his daughter. ‘You’re growing up so fast, I don’t know where life’s gone.’

  He met Kate’s eyes, and she could have sworn there was a deep sadness lurking in there. Did he regret the break-up of their marriage? He hadn’t found anyone else yet either. Was he trying? Stephie never mentioned any woman in connection with her father. Maybe he had just learned discretion in his old age.

  About time, if so.

  Or maybe there just wasn’t anyone there.

  Was that why he allowed the cat to sleep on his bed? Because he was lonely at night, like her?

  If so, how much more dangerous this time together would be.

  She’d have to make sure he stayed out of the way as long as possible, because if they got back together again it would have to be for good, and for the right reasons, not just because chemistry had reared its ugly head again.

  The trouble was that ugly head had a smug grin on its face, and she had a nasty feeling that it might win.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE changed. Silly, really, but the day had been hot and she felt like putting something fresh on.

  Plausible? Maybe. Anyway, she felt good in the dress—coot and feminine and graceful. So what if the pale pink cotton set off the colour of her skin and enhanced the faint tan? And what if the cut of the top showed just a hint of cleavage? It was summer, for heaven’s sake! And the hemline was decent enough, swirling softly at mid-calf and showing off her ankles.

  She twirled again in front of the mirror, and chided herself for vanity. She was going to the hospital to slap a sedative oil on him that would hopefully render him unconscious. The last thing she should be thinking about was her looks!

  She glanced out of the window and saw John Whitelaw sitting in the garden in his wheelchair, in the shade of an old lilac, a book lying open on his lap. He was staring straight ahead, ignoring the book, and Kate went out that way. Stephie had disappeared into her room with her homework, and she called to her as she left the house, then crossed the grass to where John was sitting.

  ‘Hi. How did today go?’ she asked cheerfully.

  He looked up at her, his eyes slightly glazed, and gave a little grunt of laughter. ‘I’m knackered,’ he said with typical bluntness. ‘That woman is a witch.’

  ‘Angela?’

  Talk about a slave-driver.’

  ‘Did you stand up?’

  His mouth twisted. ‘After a fashion. And fell over. Twice. To think I used to take walking for granted. Now I can’t even stand up,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘You will. Give yourself time.’

  He laughed. ‘Do I have a choice? Time seems to be the only thing I have at the moment.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a massage this evening, unwind a bit?’

  ‘No time. I have to read,’ he told her. ‘The physio from hell gave me a book about the biomechanics of gait.’ He hefted the book in his lap and dropped it disgustedly. ‘Bio-bloody-mechanics. All I know is it’s a lot easier when you can feel what you’re doing.’

  She crouched beside him and laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’ll get there, John. Be patient with yourself. And don’t let her wear you out too badly—you’ve got to race me at the end of the week.’

  His snort was expressive. ‘Take it up with her. She instructs; I obey. I’m frightened of her, I tell you.’

  ‘Baby,’ Kate teased.

  He grinned ruefully. ‘I don’t know, Kate—can I call you Kate?’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘I just feel like there’s so much I can’t do. If she can help me get there I know she will, but it’s tough. I feel so tired tonight.’

  ‘Why don’t you just go to bed?’

  ‘I’m sick of being in bed. I’ve spent months in bed.’

  ‘And you’ve spent today out of it, working very hard. That’s quite a lot to take on all of a sudden.’

  ‘I suppose.’ He sighed, then dropped his hands down onto the wheels of his chair. ‘I’ll go back in, see if there’s anything on telly.’

  ‘Want me to push you?’

  He looked tempted, but then shook his head. ‘No. I’ll do it. It’s good for my upper body strength!’

  She walked beside him, though, to make the journey easier, and said goodbye to him at the door of his room. There were few miracles in medicine, she thought as she drove to the hospital, only opportunities for the body to sort itself out with help. John Whitelaw would have to travel the long, uphill road of recovery alone, with just a few companions from time to time along the way.

  Mostly, though, it had to come from him, and every step had to be his. There was no way anyone could carry him.

  Kate turned into the hospital car park and wondered how she could make Dominic take smaller, slower, less frequent steps. He seemed hell-bent on charging up the hill, and Kate worried that he would do something silly on the w
ay.

  She wasn’t far wrong. He was missing when she arrived on the ward.

  ‘He’s gone for a wander in a wheelchair,’ the staff nurse told her. ‘He was fed up.’

  ‘How’s he been?’ Kate asked

  The woman laughed. ‘Been? Awful, is how he’s been. He’s bored. I had to force him to take the wheel-chair—he was going to walk.’

  ‘Walk!’ Kate almost shrieked. ‘He can’t walk on it for ages! He knows that—’

  ‘Try telling him. He was standing up earlier, wobbling about all over the place. I had to threaten him with an enema.’

  Kate laughed. ‘I bet he was terrified.’

  The nurse snorted. ‘He told me he’d give it to me if I tried. I bribed him to sit down with the wheel-chair—here he is, the wretch. Hi, Dominic, your wife’s here.’

  He scooted up to her, grinning cheekily. ‘Hi. I’ve been for a burn up the corridor.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘You are going to hurt yourself.’

  ‘Kate, I am bored. That’s B-O-R-E-D. Come and tell me all about the clinic. Is John Whitelaw in? How’s he coping?’

  ‘Yes, and OK-ish.’ She wheeled him into the little room, helped him back into bed and poured him a glass of squash while she told him all about John and his problems and difficulties. ‘So you see,’ she concluded, ‘you’re damn lucky—and you ought to lie there and be grateful, not give the nurses a hard time.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Et tu, Brute? One day someone will be nice to me.’

  ‘In your dreams. How are you, apart from bored?’

  ‘Sore. My leg aches, but not nearly as much as it did on Saturday. My chest is easing a bit, but my nose is very tender—I forgot and blew it earlier, and nearly went through the roof.’

  ‘Ouch. Here, have some squash.’

  He sipped it and pulled a face. ‘It’s foul. Can’t you sneak me in a bottle of wine? Or one of those ring-pull cans? I know the wine in them isn’t great, but it beats this gloop.’

  She laughed. ‘No way, Dominic. Not for at least a week.’

  He scowled at the glass and had another sip. ‘How’s Susie getting on?’

  ‘Susie? Slowly but surely. Richard’s a nice man.’

  ‘He’s a teacher—mentally handicapped kids. I should imagine he’s really brilliant with them. Susie’s certainly come up trumps with him, whatever. He’s a really supportive partner.’

  ‘Every home should have one,’ she said lightly, and then their eyes met and locked, and she was trapped by the tender regret she saw in those midnight depths.

  ‘We didn’t give each other much support, did we?’ he murmured. ‘We were both too wrapped up in our work.’

  ‘We were kids,’ she said quietly. ‘We didn’t have a clue what life was all about. We weren’t ready for the responsibility of marriage and parenthood.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for that responsibility. Even the thought of a man going near Stephie brings me out in a rash. I don’t know if I’D survive her courtship phase.’

  His words so closely echoed her thoughts of the other day that she laughed—a short, humourless huff of sound. ‘Don’t,’ she groaned. ‘She’s such an innocent.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  Their eyes met again, and he reached for her hand. ‘You were innocent when I met you—sweet and innocent and pure. What did I do to you, Kate?’

  She swallowed, remembering what he had done to her, and soft heat brushed her cheeks. ‘It was hardly all your doing.’

  He gave a hollow laugh. ‘No? I knew what I was up to, Kate. You didn’t. You didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘I didn’t want to.’

  ‘I should have protected you,’ he went on, ignoring her protests. ‘I should have known better than to get you pregnant. You just got to me. I lost it with you—I always did. You only had to touch me and I wanted you.’ His thumb smoothed the back of her hand absently. ‘It’s still the same,’ he told her, his voice husky. ‘I still look at you and want you, feel your touch and go crazy for you.’

  She swallowed again, harder. ‘Nick, don’t.’

  ‘Do I get to you, too?’ he murmured. ‘Is it still the same?’ His voice was gruff, his thumb sending shivers through her arm. ‘Do you want me, Kate?’

  She looked away, choking on her feelings. ‘Damn you, Dominic.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Kate, look at me.’

  She did, helpless against the appeal in his voice. His eyes were bright, so blue, their message plain. ‘I never did get over you,’ he told her quietly. ‘No one else has ever made me feel the way you do.’

  She pulled her hand away. ‘And God knows you tried enough of them.’

  His sigh was heavy, full of—what? Disappointment? ‘Rumour, Kate—just rumour. No one has that much stamina.’

  She looked back at him then. ‘You did.’

  ‘Only with you.’

  ‘Do you expect me to believe that?’

  He switched lanes. ‘What about you? Have you had lovers? Stephie never mentions any.’

  She flushed and looked down at her hands.

  ‘Kate?’ he prodded.

  ‘Two,’ she told him, and was fascinated to see his fist clench in the sheet. ‘Both of them very nice.’

  ‘And?’ he said tightly.

  ‘They left me cold.’

  His fist relaxed and his voice mellowed, coaxing, tormenting. ‘I didn’t leave you cold, Kate.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You just left me.’

  He was still, motionless. ‘You told me to go,’ he said softly.

  ‘I told you to go if you wanted to,’ she corrected. ‘And obviously you did, because you went.’

  He was silent for ages. ‘Didn’t you want me to go?’ he said eventually.

  Her head jerked up. ‘Want you to go? Of course I didn’t want you to go! I loved you!’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so?’

  She gave a ragged sigh. ‘Because you didn’t ask. I thought you wanted an out. I thought you wanted me to give you an excuse to go. You said there was nothing there for you.’

  ‘I wanted you to say you were there for me, you needed me, you wanted me.’

  ‘But it wasn’t true,’ she argued. ‘I wasn’t there for you—that was the whole point! That was what was wrong, and I felt so guilty because I wasn’t!’

  ‘So you sent me away.’

  She twisted her fingers together. ‘Apparently.’

  He reached out and took her left hand, rolling the ring between his thumb and forefinger. ‘You never took it off.’

  She shrugged. ‘I had a child. Taking it off added complications.’

  ‘And leaving it on protected you from unwelcome advances.’

  How did he know that? His ring was long gone. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the conversation any more, and needed to get away.

  She rummaged in her bag. ‘Here—Lindsay sent you some more oil.’

  ‘I’ve still got the last lot.’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘Don’t tell me—bergamot? I bet everyone’s been telling her I’m not behaving myself and she’s trying to settle me down with some knock-out drops.’

  Kate laughed. Did he know himself so well now? She set it on the locker and stood up. ‘I have to go.’

  He caught her hand. ‘Am I right?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s bergamot, in with the others. I asked her for something to help you relax. I knew you weren’t finding it easy lying here.’

  He snorted. ‘That’s the understatement of the century.’ He paused and looked up at her, suddenly sober. ‘Put it on for me, Kate—please? I ache all over. I could really do with a massage, especially my back and that leg. I just can’t do it myself.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said frantically. ‘Maybe the nurses—I don’t know how—’

  ‘Rubbish. Just smooth it on. I don’t want anything fancy. I just feel tense and crabby and misera
ble. Please, Kate.’

  There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t refuse. ‘All right,’ she sighed. ‘Just this once.’

  ‘Shut the door.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  He sighed shortly. ‘Kate, I’ve got a broken leg! I’m hardly going to jump your bones, even if I wanted to!’

  She shut the door, and he tugged his T-shirt over his head and rolled onto his front, groaning as his leg jarred. Feeling guilty now for her reluctance, she poured the oil into her palm and then smoothed it up the strong columns that bracketed his spine. Her hand flattened against his skin and he groaned again, more softly this time.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he mumbled, and she hitched her hip up beside his and used both hands, smoothing the oil up his back and round his shoulders, bringing her hands back to his heart each time.

  She could feel the tension easing out of him, the stiff, taut muscles yielding to her gentle touch, and as she worked her way up both arms and legs she felt him relax deeply.

  ‘Dominic? Nick? Roll over.’

  He lifted his shoulders, swivelled his head and looked at her upside down. ‘I’ve got an erection,’ he warned her softly.

  Her heart kicked and she swallowed. ‘I can handle it.’

  He gave a choked cough of laughter and looked at her again, the right way up this time. ‘Did you mean that?’

  She could feel the colour in her cheeks. ‘Not the way you did. I can cope, Dominic.’

  ‘I just thought it only fair to warn you.’

  She poured oil into her hand. ‘I’m not nineteen now. I’m not going to have a fit of the vapours.’

  ‘OK, if you’re sure.’

  He turned over, groaning again, and she tried hard to concentrate on his chest and shoulders. Despite her protestations, she couldn’t stop the soft tide of colour, though. ‘Your bruising’s coming out well,’ she murmured.

  ‘Mmm.’

  She forced herself to look up at his face, and noticed to her intense relief that his eyes were shut. And was she imagining it, or was he also blushing slightly?

  Embarrassed? Dominic? What a novel idea. She ran her hands lightly over the Technicolor planes of his chest. ‘Is this bit really better now?’ she asked him, her touch careful.