Tempting Dr. Templeton

by Judy Campbell

  There was no doubt about it, thought Rosie, sipping a long drink thoughtfully as she sat out on the little terrace , she would have to tell Lily very soon that she was having a baby. It wasn’t fair to keep her in the dark. She drew a deep breath of the balmy evening air and reflected how much of a rock Lily had been to her since she’d been on her own. Despite her smoky, joky manner, she was a very wise woman, rarely shocked or judgmental at any worries Rosie might confide to her. This news, however, might shake her more than usual!

  Lily came out with her usual small tot of brandy—‘only medicinal’, as she liked to say. She sat beside Rosie. ‘Amy’s out like a light, the little sweetheart,’ she said. Then she lit a cigarette, and turned towards Rosie, a steely light in her bright eyes.

  ‘Now, my dear,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t believe a word of your protestations that nothing’s wrong. I’ve known you too long not to realise that you have something on your mind—and I jolly well want to know what it is!’

  Rosie tilted her head back against her seat and looked up at the cerulean sky, just beginning to be touched with pink as the sun started to dip. She couldn’t hide her secret from Lily for ever.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this—and you’re never going to believe it,’ she said slowly. ‘But the fact is, Lily, I’m pregnant!’

  There was a stunned silence. Lily took a deep inhalation of her cigarette, and then a large swig of her brandy. ‘What did you say?’ she said at last. ‘Am I hearing right?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘You heard right,’ she said. Then she burst into tears.

  Immediately Lily sprang up and knelt down beside her, putting her arms round Rosie’s shoulders.

  ‘Darling, please, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to upset you and sound shocked—you just took me rather by surprise!’

  ‘You’ll think I’m completely mad.’

  Lily shook her head and stroked Rosie’s hand. ‘Just give me a minute to get used to the idea! You know, I love you whatever happens, and actually the thought of a new baby is really wonderful. It will be lovely for Amy to have a little brother or sister.’ She gave Rosie a sparkling smile. ‘And what does the father think of this?’

  ‘He…he doesn’t know,’ muttered Rosie hollowly. ‘I just don’t know how I can tell him—or even if I should tell him.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’ Lily went back to her chair and sat down, staring at Rosie in a perplexed way. ‘Why should you not be able to tell him?’

  ‘Because—oh, because he’s got commitments elsewhere. He may even move abroad—and that’s something I could never do!’

  ‘But, my dear girl, he has to know—he has a right to know. He might have “commitments”, as you put it, but now he’s got another commitment. He’ll just have to sort it out with you.’

  ‘You don’t know who it is,’ said Rosie wretchedly.

  Lily looked at her scornfully. ‘I can make a pretty good guess.’ She laughed at Rosie’s surprised face and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You don’t have to be a genius to know that Andy Templeton’s madly in love with you—and I’m pretty sure,’ she added shrewdly, ‘that you’re not averse to his company either!’

  Rosie reddened. ‘Is it so obvious that I…I love him?’

  ‘You’d be mad not to! He’s absolutely gorgeous!’ She looked at Rosie mischievously. ‘And how long did it take for you two to get together?’

  Rosie pulled a strand of hair back from her forehead, a blush of embarrassment rising to her face. ‘Not very long, actually—about seven hours from when I first met him!’

  Lily nodded sagely. ‘The weekend conference! I had a feeling that more happened there than discussions on local health!’ She leant back in her chair. ‘You know, Rosie, I think you do Andy a disservice to think he wouldn’t want to know about this baby. I’m sure he’s a man who would face up to his responsibilities—and I think he would be thrilled to think you were having a baby together!’

  ‘But he’ll think I’m trying to trap him. I don’t think he would want a permanent relationship!’

  Lily raised her eyes to heaven. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense. What makes you so sure about that? And anyway, he might just be delighted that there’s something that’s going to bind you together.’

  ‘It could ruin his future plans…’

  ‘Rosie Loveday—you know that every child deserves two loving parents.’

  ‘That’s just what Andy said,’ murmured Rosie.

  ‘Well, then, think about it. Poor little Amy didn’t have a choice when Tony died before she was even born. How unfair it would be to deprive this little one of a father, just because you seem to be frightened of telling the man!’ She looked fiercely at Rosie. ‘You’ve got to tell him—it would be grossly unfair to you both if you didn’t.’

  Rosie gazed silently at her hands, twisting nervously in her lap. Of course Lily was right—how could she deprive Andy of the knowledge of this child, or the child of its own father?

  She stood up and looked down at Lily with a rueful smile, then kissed her quickly. ‘You’re right, Lily—I’m a fool not to have seen it before. I knew you’d know the way to go, you wise old thing! I’ll tell him as soon as possible—perhaps after work tomorrow.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘You know, I can’t wait to see his face!’

  Lily leant forward in her chair and looked at her seriously. ‘Just tell me one thing, darling—how do you feel about this baby? Are you thrilled or sorry about it?’

  Rosie hugged her arms around herself and laughed. ‘I can’t remember feeling so excited for a long time. If Andy takes to the idea, it’ll make everything perfect!’

  It seemed a summer of beautiful days, thought Rosie, swinging her car happily into the health centre’s car park. The day matched her mood, sunny and sparkling. Somehow she didn’t feel nervous now about telling Andy of his impending fatherhood. Everything she’d been worried about seemed to have been resolved after her talk with Lily. She couldn’t wait for the end of the afternoon.

  Ben was riffling through his correspondence in the office behind Reception. He looked up over his glasses at Rosie as she came swinging in.

  ‘Ah, Rosie! I’m afraid we’re going to have to fit in a few extra today…we’re rather short-handed.’

  Rosie looked at him questioningly. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Good job we’ve got Roddy starting back on Monday. Andy’s had to abandon things here rather swiftly—he took a flight to Chicago last night.’

  ‘What?’ Rosie’s mouth went dry and her voice cracked slightly. ‘Why—what’s happened?’

  Ben spread his hands out helplessly. ‘His ex-wife’s new husband has been seriously injured in an industrial accident and she’s involved in looking after him. Andy’s gone to help her and look after his son. I don’t know what his long-term plans are, but he’ll probably be some time sorting things out. I suppose he’ll end up doing whatever’s best for Keiron.’

  ‘You mean…he could end up staying in the States?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘It’s a possibility. Keiron’s probably happily settled at his school with his own friends. Andy may feel it would be cruel to move him. Well, Andy was only a stopgap after all. It would have been a bonus to have him stay on as he’s an excellent doctor and the patients love him, but we’ll just have to manage without him!’

  ‘Just have to manage without him…’ The words hammered in Rosie’s head, echoing and reverberating cruelly as she walked unseeingly to her room. She sat down at her desk and switched on her computer, watching as it booted up. Of course she’d manage, she thought numbly. She’d done so before, hadn’t she? Made a life for herself when Tony had died? Now she’d have to face up to the fact that Andy would probably never come back to England, and that, however fond he was of her, when Keiron needed him he dropped everything!

  For the first time she noticed an envelope on her desk addressed to her in scrawled handwriting. She tore it open.

  ‘My dear Rosie,’ she read. ‘I’m s
o sorry I’ve had to go so suddenly to Chicago without saying goodbye. Ben has probably told you that Sonia’s husband has been badly injured and she can’t look after Keiron by herself. I don’t know how long I’ll be over there, but I hope things will be clearer soon. Take care of yourself. Love to you, Amy and Lily—Andy.’

  Rosie folded the letter neatly and put it back in the envelope. There was no doubt about it. Andy Templeton was history. From now on it was just Amy and herself—and the new baby.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ANDY TEMPLETON looked at his son patiently. ‘Film or fishing, Keiron?’

  The young boy’s eyes lit up. ‘Can we go fishing, Dad—by the little bay on the lake? It reminds me of the house in England and the little cove there. It’s really neat!’

  Andy grinned wryly. ‘You like the little cove?’

  ‘Sure—and the house, too, with all those secret passages!’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll go back and see them, then, when we’ve helped your mum sort things out here.’

  Keiron nodded seriously. ‘Yeah, cool—I’d like that.’

  Father and son were sitting on the verandah of the beautiful whiteboard house that belonged to Sonia and Roger. The large garden was filled with the paraphernalia of a young boy’s activities—a football, a baseball bat, a basketball ring on the wall and a blue scooter carelessly flung on the ground. Keiron got up and started to kick the football against the wall, then he looked across at his father and frowned.

  ‘Is Roger going to die? He’s pretty sick, isn’t he?’

  Andy walked over to his son and put his arm round the boy’s shoulders. ‘I don’t think he’ll die, Keiron, but he may never be in the best of health. They think he’s injured his back very badly, which might stop him walking.’

  Keiron stopped kicking the ball and leant against the wall, watching his father carefully. ‘Suppose he did die,’ he persisted. ‘Then perhaps you and Mom might get together again, huh?’

  There was a heart-breaking wistfulness in his son’s voice that caught at Andy’s heart. He sighed. It was hard for Keiron to believe that he and Sonia would never get together again.

  ‘You know Mum and I are good friends, and we both love you very much,’ he said gently. ‘But I’m afraid we aren’t very good at living together—we’re happier apart.’

  Keiron made a face and kicked a stone on the driveway as they walked to the car. ‘I’d like to be part of a proper family,’ he muttered. ‘Most of the guys at school have families, brothers and sisters. I’m the only one who’s got no one. And now Mom’s got no time for me ’cos she’s so busy looking after Roger…’

  Andy ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. ‘Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself! You’ve got a lot of people who love you—and loads of friends. And aren’t I here to look after you while Mum’s busy? Count your blessings, my boy! And now let’s get fishing—the rods are in the car already!’

  As they drove off to the lake, Andy glanced at his son’s grave profile. He was a wonderful little boy, and he’d always seemed to accept what his parents told him quite calmly, yet underneath that apparently acquiescent façade was a sensitive child who wanted nothing more than to be part of an ordinary family. One thing was for sure. Keiron had pinpointed a very important fact—Sonia would be totally occupied from now on with a husband who would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  Andy gazed at the straight road ahead, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering-wheel. He had to think of the future—his future as much as Keiron’s. Once he got a job in the States, he couldn’t see himself returning to England for some time—and the paradox was, he thought bitterly, that he had never wanted to be home so much in his life. He loved Keiron with all his heart, but his life wouldn’t be complete unless he was with Rosie—and what kind of a future would she have with him? He guessed she wouldn’t want to leave Lily and come and live in America, and he saw no prospect of going back for a long time. No, it was best that he didn’t let her know how much he needed and longed for her. It would be fairer to Rosie, and Amy, if he allowed her to get on with her own life without him.

  The rain lashed down so hard against the windows in Ben’s room that it was like being in an aquarium, thought Rosie gloomily, staring out at the rivulets of water that poured from the gutters. The weather reflected her mood. She still couldn’t get her head around the fact that just as she’d determined to tell Andy about her baby, he’d vanished back to America. It was a cold and empty feeling—but in a way she was relieved she hadn’t burdened him with the truth before. Whatever happened, Keiron would always come first with Andy.

  She reflected on the e-mail she’d received from Andy. It had been a brief acknowledgement of her letter to him, saying how sorry she’d been to hear about the accident to Keiron’s stepfather. She could visualise the e-mail vividly—it had been fairly formal and, considering their former relationship, distant and cold.

  Dear Rosie, Thank you for your kind letter regarding Roger. Although he’s been seriously injured, life is starting to settle down into a routine here. I’m going to take some qualifying exams so that I can hopefully get some work in Chicago. It’s a wonderful city with plenty to do, and Keiron and I are enjoying ourselves immensely. Hope life is fine for you and Amy. Best wishes, Andy.

  If that wasn’t a clear indication that Andy intended to cut his life off from her for ever, she didn’t know what was, she thought sadly. No mention of meeting again, or of when he might come back to England. How ironic it was that just when she knew with all her heart and soul that she loved him with every fibre of her being, he should disappear out of her life for ever.

  The murmur of her partners’ voices in the background brought her back to the present. They were discussing the practice’s drug strategy and the various new drugs that had been introduced in the market.

  ‘I’ve been reading about a new drug that’s currently being tested on treating Helcobactor pylori infections,’ Ben was saying. ‘They’re running trials now—it sounds promising.’ He pushed a journal towards Roddy. ‘This is the paper on it—I think you’ll find it interesting if you could read it some time. They may market it next year.’

  Next year, thought Rosie numbly, I shall have my new baby. And, like a rerun of an old film, there won’t be any father to welcome it. She felt the hollowness of despair, just as she had when Tony had died, as if her future had been whipped away from her. She bit her lip and flicked a look at the two men on either side of her. They would have to know about her baby sooner or later, but she would never tell them that Andy was the father. Andy had another life in another land now, and she and he had different paths to follow.

  ‘I think that’s all for now,’ said Ben, gathering up some papers from the desk. The discussion had come to an end, and they got up to go.

  ‘Glad you both got on with Andy Templeton,’ remarked Roddy as they walked out. ‘He’s a good man. Lucky he was able to come when I had my accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly was,’ agreed Ben enthusiastically. Rosie nodded silently, an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘I just wonder what he’ll do now. I believe that Roger, his wife’s new husband, will be wheelchair-bound, poor chap. It’s early days, of course, but it seems he’s paralysed below the chest, although that could improve over the next few weeks.’

  Rosie looked in horror at Roddy. ‘That’s tragic,’ she said, appalled at the news being even worse than she’d thought. ‘How terrible for them all. I suppose Andy will stay out there, then?’

  Roddy shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know at all. He just e-mailed me with the news about Roger, but didn’t reveal his future plans. Probably doesn’t even know what he’s going to do himself.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I can’t see Andy ever coming back here. His future’s got to be with his son.’

  Each doctor went to their own room and Rosie sat down blindly at her desk. Two tears rolled down her cheeks and she brushed the
m away impatiently. ‘And my future’s with my daughter and new baby,’ she muttered fiercely to herself. She punched the button to signal on the display board in the waiting room that she was ready for the first patient and fixed a bright smile on her face.

  The low autumn sun cast long shadows of their figures over the field as Rosie and Amy and the dog walked over the field at the back of the cottage. The Indian summer they’d been enjoying was coming to an end. There was a chill in the air and the earthy smell of newly ploughed land.

  ‘Boggle! Boggle! Come back here! We must go in now!’

  Rosie shielded her eyes from the sun and watched the dog bounding back to her and Amy across the fields, his ears flapping wildly, a huge stick protruding out of his mouth. He flung it down on the ground in front of them and looked up hopefully from one to the other.

  Rosie laughed. ‘Sorry, old boy. We’re not throwing it any more, are we, Amy? It’s time for tea and it’s getting cold.’ She pulled a lead from her pocket and fastened it to the dog’s collar, then bent down and adjusted Amy’s anorak, pulling the fur-lined hood over the little girl’s head. ‘Come on, my darling, let’s go back to Lily.’

  Amy picked up the stick Boggle had dropped and began to skip ahead on sturdy little legs. ‘Come on, Mummy!’ she shouted. ‘You skip, too!’

  A few more weeks and it wouldn’t be so easy to skip, thought Rosie, panting slightly beside her daughter. Being five months pregnant, she had begun to fill out and had decided that next week she would definitely have to tell Ben Cummings and Roddy Turner that for a few months early in the next year she wouldn’t be available—before they guessed! She had been putting it off for weeks, loth to see the questioning look in their eyes when she told them her news.

  She slowed down to a brisk walk and smiled at Amy, now holding Boggle’s lead and being pulled along the path by him. Life wasn’t too bad. She was healthy, she loved her job and she had people round her whom she loved. Only sometimes…a lot of times…she longed for Andy, longed to share with him the hopes and dreams she had for this new baby. After many weeks he had written to her again, explaining that Roger, although regaining some use of his legs, was still very frail and needed full-time assistance. He hadn’t mentioned the future, this time sending only his ‘best wishes’. She had found his cold attitude inexplicable and hurtful, but it had confirmed her in her belief that she was right not tell him that he was the father of her baby.