Mrs Roberts rounded up her three sons and Freya saw them to the desk. There she pulled up the appointments on the computer screen and made one for the next Thursday.
‘Thanks so much, Freya.’
‘You’re welcome, Mrs Roberts.’
‘Leah, please.’
Freya smiled, for it was high praise indeed to be invited to call Mrs Roberts by her first name.
‘I wish you all the very best in London.’
‘Thank you.’
Once Mrs Roberts had left Betty came over, and Freya explained a little of what had happened.
‘It would have taken a lot for her to admit she’s struggling,’ Betty agreed. ‘Well done, Freya. And don’t worry—I’ll be keeping a very close eye on her.’
Freya took in Betty’s knowing eyes and kind face and knew Mrs Roberts was in the very best of hands. Betty had been a midwife here for nearly forty years. She had, in fact, delivered Freya herself. Right now, though, she was just trying to get the clinic closed somewhat on time.
‘I’ll shut down the computers and you go and tidy up the cubicles,’ Betty said. ‘You’re going to be late for your own leaving party.’
Goodness, Freya thought when she saw the chaos of the cubicle. It looked as if it had been snowing!
Yet not for a second did she regret that the check-up had spilled more than an hour over time.
Freya tidied up and as she came out saw the waiting room was in semi-darkness.
‘Everything’s done,’ Betty said. ‘I’ll lock up.’
And then it was finally here—the end of her time at the Cromayr Bay birthing centre.
Freya looked around the waiting room and beyond the desk, thinking of the two birthing suites behind. Then she walked out through the familiar room and into the office to collect her coat before a dash home to get changed for her leaving do.
She hoped her ex wouldn’t show up.
Alison would be there. She had cried when Freya had told her that she was moving to London,
‘I’ll be back all the time,’ Freya had reassured her.
‘It won’t be the same.’
No, it wouldn’t be. But then, things hadn’t been the same between them since Andrew had died.
Freya had always been private. The only person she really opened up to was Alison—but of course the loss was Alison’s, so Freya had tried to remain stoic and strong for her friend, not burdening her with her own grief.
She said goodbye to Betty, who promised she would join them all at the Tavern shortly, and then drove the short distance home in her little purple car.
It was July. The holidaymakers were back and the town was busy.
She parked outside her tiny fisherman’s cottage which, although a bit of a renovator’s nightmare, was certainly a home.
Each of the houses along the foreshore was a different colour, and Freya’s little cottage was a duck-egg-blue with a dark wooden door. Opening it, she stepped into the surprisingly large lounge with its open fireplace, seeing on the mantelpiece her favourite pictures and little mementoes.
Freya headed into the tiny alcove kitchen. It needed a complete overhaul, but everything worked—and anyway, Freya wasn’t much of a cook. In pride of place was a coffee machine that Freya was having to leave behind in the move, as there really wasn’t that much room in her father’s car.
It would be nice for the tenants, Freya thought as she made a very quick coffee.
Freya had the house rented out over the summer, but in October it was going on the market to be sold.
In the cellar she had boxed up some of her belongings. The tiny spare bedroom looked a little bare, but it was ready for its new occupant with a pretty wrought-iron bed and a small chest of drawers.
Freya headed into the main bedroom to change out of her uniform and get ready for her leaving do, but for a moment she paused.
The unobstructed view of The Firth had sold the place to her on sight. Often at night she simply lay there in bed, looking out, and she had watched the new Queensferry crossing being built. It was a spectacular cable-stayed bridge, and Freya had watched the huge structure unfold from either side until finally the two sides had met.
It was her favourite view on earth, and as she gazed out to it Freya asked herself again what the hell she was doing leaving. Here, she had a job she loved and friends she had grown up with as well as her family, to whom she was very close.
Yet, the very things she loved about Cromayr Bay, were the very reasons she felt she had to leave.
The loss of Alison’s baby had hit everyone.
After it had happened Freya had often walked into a shop or a café, and on too many occasions the conversation would suddenly stop.
Everyone knew everyone’s business—which wasn’t always a good thing. Take tonight—there was a fair chance that her ex, Malcolm, would be at the Tavern. Not that she really thought of him much, but it was always awkward to run into him and see the hurt, angry expression in his eyes before he turned his back on her.
It wasn’t just about Malcolm, though. Freya wanted more experience and a fresh start.
She would be thirty soon, she reasoned. If she didn’t make the move now then she never would.
Deep down, though, she knew she was running away.
It was going to be hard to leave, but for Freya it was simply too hard to stay.
CHAPTER ONE
‘IS ANYONE...?’
Freya looked up and quickly realised that the woman in theatre scrubs wasn’t asking if she might join Freya at her table in the hospital canteen. Instead all she wanted was one of the spare chairs at Freya’s table.
People, Freya thought, didn’t even bother to speak in full sentences down here.
‘Help yourself.’ Freya nodded.
And so the lady did.
It was orientation day at the Primary Hospital, and apart from being asked her name and shown where to go Freya really hadn’t spoken to anyone. She had tried during the coffee break, but Rita, the woman she had sat next to during the lectures, had gone off to call her husband.
The schedule had been a full one. First there had been an introduction to the Primary—a large general hospital with a major trauma centre. The volume of patients seen in Casualty per annum was, to Freya, staggering, as was the number of deliveries in Maternity, which had reached seven thousand last year.
There was no such thing as orientation day at Cromayr Bay—a new staff member would be shown around and introduced and made welcome. Here, though, Freya sat with approximately fifty fellow nurses, admin staff and ancillary workers who were commencing, or had just commenced work at the Primary this month alone.
Freya felt like a very small fish in a very large and rather cold sea.
On Friday she had been in to collect her uniforms and her lanyard and had got rather lost on her way out of the huge building. Today, though, sitting in the lecture theatre, she had found out that the red strip painted on the corridor wall led to Casualty and the main exit. So that was good to know. The yellow strip, she had then been told, led to Maternity and the blue to Outpatients.
‘It helps not just the staff and the patients,’ the admin manager had said, ‘but it is also far easier to give directions to visitors. We shall soon be adding a green strip for the Imaging Department. Any more than that and the walls will start to look like rainbows!’
After a morning of lectures and films they had been told to head off for lunch and to be back at one.
There was no coloured strip that led to the canteen, but by following the overhead signs Freya had found it quite easily.
The place had been packed, and Freya had rather wished she had thought to bring her own lunch, as most of her fellow orientation candidates seemed to have done. Perhaps that was why she sat alone.
She hadn’t brought any change for the vending machines, so she’d queued up and selected a salad wrap, a packet of cheese and biscuits and a coffee, and then scanned the busy canteen for a table.
They’d all been
rather full, but there had been a couple of seats that had seemed free on a table for four.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Freya had asked.
‘We’re just leaving,’ the man there had said.
They had also left their plates, glasses and cups.
She had to stop comparing things to Cromayr Bay, but all this was just so unlike anything she was used to.
Since her father had left her at her one-bedroom flat, four days ago, Freya hadn’t really spoken to anyone. Well, apart from a couple of shop assistants and a worker on the Underground who had helped Freya to buy a travel pass.
She had rung her mother and assured her that everything was fantastic.
‘Your dad said the flat’s a bit grim.’
It was rather grim, but Freya had reassured her mum that it was nothing a few rugs and pictures wouldn’t pretty up, and reminded her that it was a brilliant location—just a ten-minute walk to the Underground.
‘Is anyone...?’
Freya looked up as another unfinished question was asked by an elderly man in a porter’s uniform.
‘No,’ Freya said, and gestured to an empty seat. ‘Help yourself.’
He said nothing in response, just took a seat at the table and opened up some sandwiches, then pulled out a newspaper and started to read.
There was no conversation.
Having finished her wrap, Freya peeled open the foil on her cheese and crackers. But she really wasn’t hungry so she put them down and pushed away her plate.
Glancing at her phone, she saw that there were still another fifteen minutes left until she was due back.
‘Is this seat...?’ asked a snooty, deep, but far from unpleasant male voice.
Freya was suddenly sick to the back teeth of unfinished questions.
‘Is this seat what?’ she asked, but as she looked up her indignation took a rapid back seat as she was momentarily sideswiped by six feet plus of good looks dressed in blue theatre scrubs.
He had straight brown hair that was messy, and was so crumpled-looking that, despite the hour, he appeared to have just got out of bed. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and in his hands was a very laden tray.
Freya regretted her brusque response, but consoled herself that he probably hadn’t understood a word she had said.
Oh, but he had!
‘Is this seat taken?’ he enquired, more politely, though the smile he wore had a tart edge.
‘Please,’ Freya said. ‘Help yourself.’
He put down the tray, and Freya assumed when he looked around and then wandered off that he must be locating a spare chair for his companion. On his tray there were two mugs of tea, a carton of milk and six little boxes of cereal—the type that her mother had used to get when the family had gone camping, or in the holidays as a treat, when she and her brothers would fight over who got what.
But instead of a chair and a companion he returned with a spoon.
‘Len,’ he said to the porter by way of greeting. He got a ‘humph’ in return, but the good-looking stranger didn’t seem in the least bothered by the less than friendly response.
As Freya drank her coffee she tried not to look at him, and pretended not to notice when he opened each box of cereal in turn and poured them into the one bowl with all the flavours combined. It was a heap of cornflakes and chocolate puffs and coloured circles, and then he added to his concoction the small carton of milk.
No, there was no companion about to arrive, for next he added sugar to both cups of tea and made light work of the first.
And still Freya tried not to notice.
A domestic came round with a trolley and started to pick up the collection of cereal boxes, as well as the mess that the previous occupants had left in their wake.
‘Done?’ she asked Freya as she reached for her plate.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, and then blinked as the porter—Len—actually spoke.
‘Do you mind?’
‘Sorry?’ Freya asked as he pointed to her plate.
‘You’re not going to eat those?’ he asked, pointing to the open cheese and crackers that Freya hadn’t touched.
‘No.’
‘Do you mind if I have them?’
‘Go ahead,’ Freya agreed—because, really, what else could she do?
‘Ta very much,’ Len said, and took out a piece of kitchen paper from his pocket and wrapped the cheese and biscuits in them.
The domestic didn’t seem in the least perturbed by this odd exchange, and cleared up the boxes and plates. Then as she wheeled her trolley off, The Man Who Liked His Breakfast Cereal, spoke.
‘Here you go, Len.’ He pushed a granola bar across the table to him.
‘Cheers!’ Len pocketed his bounty as he stood up and then walked out of the canteen.
Goodness, Freya thought, people here were so odd. She simply couldn’t imagine asking a complete stranger for the leftover food on their plate.
But then that deep, snooty voice spoke again and attempted to clarify things a little.
‘He only talks to the animals.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Len,’ he explained. ‘He’s miserable around people, but he visits an animal shelter in his free time and he’s always after treats for them.’
‘Oh!’ Freya let out a little laugh.
‘You’re new,’ he said, glancing at her lanyard.
He had realised she was staff, but was quite certain he would have noticed her before if she wasn’t new.
She wore a dark shift dress that accentuated her pale bare arms, and her black curly hair was loose and down to her shoulders. From the little he had heard, he guessed she was far from home.
‘I’m here for my orientation day,’ Freya said.
He grimaced. ‘I’ve done a few of those in my time. The fire lecture, the union rep...’
‘We haven’t had a fire lecture yet,’ Freya said. ‘That’s this afternoon. I think it’s a film, followed by a demonstration.’
‘Fun,’ he drawled as he rolled his eyes. ‘Mind you, I did have a patient who tried to set fire to the ward once...’
She waited for more, but he’d gone back to his cereal.
‘Breakfast?’ Freya asked.
‘And lunch.’ He moved on to his second mug of tea. ‘Are you new to London as well as the hospital?’
Freya nodded. ‘I got here last week.’
‘I worked in Glasgow for a while.’
‘For how long?’
‘A year. I couldn’t understand a word anybody said. “Pardon” became my most-used word.’
‘I’m having the same problem—although in reverse,’ Freya admitted. ‘I have to keep repeating myself.’
‘I can understand you.’
‘Then you’re the first.’
‘You’re not from Glasgow, though?’
She was far too soft spoken for that, he thought. But not soft. He had liked the edge to her tone when he’d asked if the seat was taken. Richard loved the challenge of a sullen woman.
‘No, I’m from Cromayr Bay.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Fife,’ Freya said. ‘Overlooking the Firth.’
‘Never heard of it,’ he said again.
But this time he smiled just a smidge and she couldn’t tell if he was teasing.
‘How are you finding London?’
‘It’s early days.’ Freya gave a small shrug.
‘Ah, after a few late nights you’ll come to love it.’
It was then that she noticed his eyes—or rather, it was then that she properly noticed them.
In his good-looking face there were several stand-outs. If she’d been describing him to Alison, his sculpted cheekbones and attractive full mouth were two features she might easily have named, and that his hazel eyes were just so much more than hazel. They were the colour of burnt amber, with a smatter of golden flecks, and they made Freya feel as if she were gazing upon an open fire.
Or was that more f
rom the way he absolutely held her gaze as she replayed his words in her mind?
‘Ah, but after a few late nights you’ll come to love it.’
Those words had sounded like an invitation.
As Freya held their eye contact steady, she wasn’t quite sure how, but he made her his sole focus.
And he was hers.
Gone was the canteen, and gone too was the noise.
But then he spoke, and Freya found herself blinking at the intrusion of words.
‘So, where will you be working?
‘Maternity. I’m a midwife. The name’s Freya,’ she added, and she was not just being polite. His stethoscope was hanging over his lanyard and she wanted to know his name and just who this delectable stranger was.
She would have to wait to find out, though. His pager was trilling. As he looked at it he scooped the last of his cereal into his mouth and then gulped down the remaining tea as he stood.
‘I expect you to be fully versed in the operating of a fire extinguisher the next time we meet.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Freya said, but he had already gone, his large frame moving swiftly through the tables as people made way to let him past.
She watched.
And not idly.
The overhead chimes started then, and Freya heard that the Cardiac Arrest Team was needed in Casualty.
Through the glass windows of the canteen Freya watched as he ran down the corridor, and then she turned her head and surveyed his empty cereal bowl and the two empty cups of tea.
Freya didn’t know his name, just that he was gorgeous. Effortlessly so. And way more gorgeous than she could handle.
She hadn’t been born yesterday. In fact, Freya’s thirtieth birthday was fast approaching. And there was something about him that told her he had learnt to flirt from the cradle. There had certainly been a tease and a flirt in his eyes when they spoke—especially with that little quip about late nights.
Well, there would be no late nights spent with him! She was far too guarded and sensible for that.
With her lunch break over, Freya headed back to the lecture theatre for the afternoon session of her orientation day. Sure enough it was the fire lecture. She watched the film and tried not to smile when they were given a demonstration on how to use the various fire extinguishers.
The Midwife's One-Night Fling Page 2
