‘I’m going this way anyway,’ he said. ‘My house is in Brooke Avenue.’
Seriously? That was right round the corner from her! Great. Marvellous.
‘Actually, I could do with some local knowledge. The front door sticks and I’m worried I’m going to break the glass if I keep forcing it. Any idea where I can get some tools so I can free it off a bit? A plane, maybe? Sandpaper, even.’
‘You don’t have any tools?’
‘Why would I need them? I had a brand new flat. I didn’t even need to pick up a paintbrush.’
She stopped again, giving up any hope of distancing herself from him. ‘So what do you need?’
He shrugged. ‘A plane, a rasp, sandpaper? Maybe a screwdriver to take the door off its hinges?’
‘I’ve got all of those. Give me time to walk Millie. I’ll come round with them—seven o’clock, seven thirty?’
‘Are you sure?’
No, she wasn’t, but she’d said it now. ‘Yes, I’m sure. You could get us a takeaway if you like. I haven’t got anything in the fridge so I was going to have to go shopping. What number are you? Give me your address, I’ll come round straight after our walk.’
‘It’s number forty-two, Brooke Avenue. Bring her with you if you like. You don’t want to leave her alone again.’
‘Oh—OK. Thanks. I’ll do that.’
Why did he have to do that? Be considerate and think about the dog? Just when she was trying to convince herself she didn’t like him...
She deliberately took a different route at the next junction, partly to give herself some breathing space and partly because she didn’t want him knowing exactly where she lived, because she wouldn’t trust him not to rock up at any time and unravel her all over again. Not that it could get much more complicated.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, and walked away, hoping to goodness he didn’t decide to follow her.
* * *
Tom watched her go, her back ramrod straight, and let out his breath on a long, thoughtful huff.
Awkward didn’t even begin to touch it. She was so prickly, so tense, so—so un-Laura—that he almost wished he hadn’t slept with her.
Almost. But he couldn’t wish that away, in all honesty, even though it hadn’t heralded a new beginning for them but an ending, at last, to whatever it was they’d had. A tying up of loose ends, she’d called it at the time, and that left a sick, hollow feeling in his gut because he’d realised afterwards that he didn’t want to tie up their loose ends. He wanted to unravel them more, not have closure.
Except she did, and he had to respect that, but maybe they could be friends again, if he could only keep his mind off that night and his body under control.
He really shouldn’t have taken the job.
He let himself in, giving the door an extra shove with his foot, and then it wouldn’t close so he swore and kicked it shut in frustration, making the glass rattle.
Stupid thing. It only needed a bit off the side down at the bottom, but he’d fallen at the first hurdle. Not that he missed the flat. He’d never been happy there, and he’d left it and all its contents behind without a pang of regret. Including Karen, but that was fine. He had bigger fish to fry right now than a cheating lover and a disloyal boss with the morals of an alley cat.
And now he was here, in Yoxburgh, making a new start in a charming little cottage the antithesis of his sharply modern London flat, a bit run down but perfect for him, and he could do it up as he went along—well, once he’d bought some tools. It’d keep him off the streets, at least, and might give him something other than Laura to fret about.
And on the subject of Laura...
He was starving, and he imagined she was, too, as they hadn’t had time to stop all day, and his fridge was full. If he did nothing else, he could make her something nice to eat rather than getting a takeaway. That might break the ice.
He went to inspect the contents of his kitchen, turned on the oven, relieved that it worked, made a pasta bake packed with veg in a cheesy tomato sauce, put it in the oven and ran upstairs, had a quick rinse in the leaky shower, pulled on some clean clothes and went down in time to check the pasta bake.
Perfect. He opened the front door a bit so she could come in, threw a salad together and tidied up while he waited.
* * *
She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t the run-down little Edwardian cottage between numbers forty and forty-four which had been on the market for ages. She found the old brass numbers buried in ivy on the gatepost, so it must be right.
She rang the bell even though the door was ajar, and it swung open to reveal Tom looking super-sexy in jeans and a blinding white shirt, his feet enticingly bare.
Why was she here? She must be crazy.
Too late to run away.
He stepped back with a smile that threatened to unravel her and beckoned her in. ‘Hi. Welcome to my new home. Hello, Millie. Do you remember me?’
The dog went straight up to him, smiling and wagging and wiggling with delight, and Laura followed her over the threshold to the smell of something delicious that made her stomach growl and her mouth water.
It wasn’t the only amazing aroma hanging in the air, because Tom was smelling every bit as enticing. She kicked off her shoes and put them beside the door in case they were dirty, although the carpet had seen better days anyway.
‘Did you find me all right?’ he asked, looking up from fussing Millie, and she nodded.
‘Yes, once I found the number under the ivy.’
‘Yeah, I keep meaning to cut it away but I haven’t had the time or the tools.’
‘Talking of which,’ she said, and handed him a groaning carrier bag. ‘I wasn’t sure what you’d need, but I put a paintbrush and some primer undercoat in there as well as the tools.’
‘Brilliant. Thank you so much. I’ll let you have them back as soon as I’ve done it.’
‘No rush,’ she said, glancing around and smiling. ‘You might need them again any minute.’
He laughed and rolled his eyes. ‘I might well. Come on in, I’ll get you a drink.’
He shoved the door shut with his foot and led her through to the sitting room, and Laura slowed to a halt and looked around her in amazement.
‘Wow. It’s like a time warp.’
‘Yes, it is. The executors were going to get a house clearance firm to take it all away but I didn’t have any furniture or kitchen stuff—nothing, really, and they were desperate to sell so they were happy to throw it all in with the price, which saved me having to worry about that immediately, at least.’
Sell? ‘You’ve bought the house? That was quick. I assumed they’d decided to rent it.’
‘No, I bought it,’ he said, putting paid to any hope she might have had that he wasn’t putting down roots. ‘I had the cash in the bank and it went through really quickly, and I got the keys two days ago. Come on through. I hope you’re hungry, I had tons of food so I’ve made us a pasta bake.’
Her stomach growled again, and she gave up any idea of resistance.
‘It smells amazing. I’m ravenous.’
‘Good. So am I. Let’s eat it before it gets cold.’
She was all for that. It gave them something to do before the conversation that she could feel looming in the wings, but there was only so long you could drag out a bowl of pasta and a handful of salad leaves. She even had seconds—anything rather than run out of excuses to stall what was coming.
But finally there was nothing left to eat, nothing left to do, and he picked up their plates, put them in the sink and came back with the wine bottle to top up their glasses.
‘Let’s go in the sitting room.’
It wasn’t a question, so she got up and followed him, Millie at her heels. He sat at one end of the sofa, and she sat at the other end, her feet curled
up under her, nursing the glass of wine, cradling it in her hands and staring down into it as if it held the answer to the universe while he sat in silence, fondling Millie’s ears as she leant against his leg.
Was he ever going to start talking? Or was he waiting for her—in which case he’d wait for ever because this was his idea and she wanted to know what he was going to say.
Except he didn’t. He asked, instead.
‘Talk to me, Laura,’ he said gently. ‘I need to know where you stand on our relationship because we have to sort this out.’
She looked up then, slightly startled.
‘What relationship?’
He gave a slightly disbelieving little laugh. ‘What relationship? Um, let me see now... How about our friendship? Or the fact that we’re working together now? That’s a relationship, and apparently an awkward one. And then there’s the fact that we slept together,’ he added after a slight pause, and she felt herself colour slightly and looked away.
‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
‘Maybe not, but it did, and as I said before, I don’t regret it, but I don’t think it’s dealt with. I don’t think it tied up any loose ends at all. I think it unravelled them all a bit more and now it’s just a mess that we have to sort out.’
She looked back at him, confused now. ‘How are they unravelled?’
‘Because I can’t get you out of my mind?’ he said softly. ‘I never could, and that was before I knew what I was missing.’
She felt her heart thump. ‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think we can find a way forward and be friends again? And if not, what?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It wouldn’t go anywhere, anyway. You don’t do relationships. You never have done. Look at all those girls in college.’
‘They were the wrong people.’
‘So why sleep with them in the first place if they were wrong?’ she asked bluntly.
He held her eyes, then looked away himself this time. ‘Maybe because the right person wouldn’t have me?’
Did he mean her?
She waited, but he didn’t say anything more, and the silence stretched between them for an age before she cracked.
He couldn’t mean her... ‘I wasn’t the right person,’ she said tightly, her voice low and unsteady, her heart pounding.
He looked back at her, his eyes searching. She told herself to relax, but she couldn’t. Not when he was studying her, reading her awkward body language, the tense, tight posture, the fast, shallow breathing that she couldn’t control.
‘Weren’t you?’ he murmured, his voice gentle, and her heart tumbled in her chest.
‘No!’
‘Are you sure? Because I’m not.’
She made herself meet his eyes again, shoring up her defences because she knew what she’d see in them. ‘No. You were a heartbreaker, Tom, and I didn’t need my heart broken. I still don’t.’
He sighed and dropped his head back. ‘Laura, I didn’t want to break your heart. I don’t. That’s not me.’
‘Oh, tell it to the fairies, Tom! I was there, I saw you in action, and I saw the girls who loved you. They all wanted you to love them back, and you never did. You didn’t even have a clue.’
He studied her thoughtfully. ‘Did you love me, Laura?’ he asked her softly, totally taking her by surprise, and she coloured and looked away, her heart pounding.
‘Of course I didn’t love you! I had too much self-respect, and I didn’t want my heart broken. Still don’t.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t set out to break any hearts, and I never made anybody any promises. I made sure they knew I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wanted to be a doctor, and not just a doctor, the best doctor I could be. So I didn’t want any distractions, I didn’t want any angst, I just wanted a bit of fun from time to time, like all the other lads, and the rest of the time I worked. You know that. You saw me. You were always in the library.’
She had been, and she’d worked as hard as him. Harder, probably.
‘Did you do it just to annoy me?’
‘What, go out with the girls?’
‘No. Work in the library.’
He smiled a little wryly. ‘No. I did it because I knew you would be there.’
She held his eyes, spellbound for a moment, then looked away and took a gulp of her wine. ‘That’s rubbish. Why would you do that?’
‘Because it gave me a legitimate reason to be near you? I wanted you, Laura. You fascinated me. You gave so little away, but there was so much there, and you wouldn’t let me in. Why? Was it because of what your mother did, the way she behaved?’
Was it? Was he right? Did she judge him so harshly because she saw him in the same light as her? The mother she’d caught in bed with her boyfriend? The mother who’d dragged her all over the place as a child, camping at festivals where she’d have to listen to her and some random stranger making—no, not making love, there was never any love. Just sex, for the sake of it, when they’d thought she was asleep.
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I know I was never close to her. She never seemed to want me, and she didn’t make any concessions, she just did what she wanted. I don’t think she’s ever loved me. I don’t think she knows how to love,’ she said quietly, holding back sudden tears that didn’t seem to want to be held back.
‘Oh, Laura...’
She squeezed her eyes shut, felt the sofa dip beside her as his arm went round her shoulders. Felt the wine glass carefully eased out of her fingers, heard the clink as he put it down on the glass-topped table, felt the warmth of his breath against her cheek as he held her close.
‘Tell me about her,’ he said softly, so she told him. She told him about the festivals, about the beach-front cabins in Goa and Thailand, little more than open shelters, about the times she’d pressed her hands to her ears so she didn’t have to hear what her mother was doing with men she didn’t even know.
The drugs, the disruptive lifestyle, the uncertainty, the open relationships in a commune where she’d never felt truly safe...
‘My grandparents took me in when I was ten,’ she said, scrubbing at her face and sniffing. ‘I was supposed to be going to Glastonbury with my mother but I didn’t want to go and I told them why, and they were furious with her and there was a lot of shouting. She told them they were welcome to me, and she went without me, so they kept me, even though Grandma was very ill by then. They gave me a proper home for the first time in my life, sent me to school, fed me, cared for me, loved me, and when she died Grumps put me into boarding school. He thought it would be better for me but I hated it, so he got me into our local high school and I lived with him until I was eighteen.
‘He was the father I never had, the mother I needed, the only friend who ever really understood me. He filled all the gaps in my education, and more, while my mother just flittered in and out of my life like a malevolent fairy. He was so kind, so wise, so understanding. And I miss him—I miss him so much...’
The tears were streaming down her cheeks now, and he cradled her wordlessly against his chest and rocked her, while Millie pressed her cold wet nose against her hand and licked it.
Then she hauled herself together, sat up and swiped the tears off her cheeks and gave Millie a little stroke.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.’
‘It’s fine. You needed it. I always knew he was very important to you, I just didn’t realise why.’
She nodded, sniffing, and rummaged in her pocket for a tissue to blow her nose. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just self-indulgence.’
‘That’s not illegal, you know,’ he said, his voice gently teasing, and she laughed.
‘No, I know, but...’ She shrugged. ‘You’re right, my reaction to you probably was because of my mother, I just didn’t realise. You were no different to
the other guys at college, and lots of them were worse than you. None of you were a patch on my mother, but maybe I’ve always judged you so harshly because of the way she behaved. It just hit a nerve, I guess, but I didn’t realise it had affected me so much.’
‘It wouldn’t be surprising if it had,’ he said, a thread of anger in his voice. ‘I can’t believe she did all that to you. She had no right to do that, no right to expose you to things like that.’
‘Oh, Mel thought everything had an educational value.’
‘Mel?’
‘My mother. I never called her Mummy or Mum or anything like that. She wouldn’t let me. She said it was ageing. She was only seventeen when I was born, and I was just an inconvenience, to be honest.’
‘What about your father?’
‘What about him? I don’t suppose she has any more idea who he is than I do.’
She heard him swear very softly under his breath. ‘Do you ever see her now?’
She shook her head. ‘No. She missed Grumps’ funeral. She didn’t know he’d died—didn’t look at her email which is the only way I can ever get hold of her. She saw it eventually and rocked up four weeks later with a load of luggage, and said she’d come home.’
‘Home?’
He sounded shocked, and she laughed. ‘Yes. That’s what I thought. I told her it wasn’t her home, hadn’t been for years, and he’d left it to me. And I told her I never wanted to see her again, and shut the door.’
‘But she’s your mother, Laura.’
‘No, she’s not. She hasn’t earned the right to be called a mother. She’s the woman who gave birth to the child of a random stranger. Nothing more.’
She sucked in a deep breath and straightened up. ‘I need to go home. It’s getting late and I’ve got to be at work at six tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, me, too. I’ll walk you home.’
‘You don’t need to do that!’
‘Yes, I do. You’re not walking home in the dark, and anyway, it’s the easiest way to show me where you live, so I can return those tools when I’m done.’
Healing Her Emergency Doc Page 7
