Dr Mathieson's Daughter

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘I didn’t expect you back so early,’ Jane continued. Actually, she hadn’t expected him back at all, at least not tonight. ‘How’s Gussie?’

  ‘Fine. No, don’t put that off on my account,’ he said quickly as she reached for the television remote control.

  ‘I wasn’t really watching it anyway. It’s just another of those mindless American soaps that never seem to get anywhere.’

  ‘Has Nicole gone to bed?’ he asked, throwing his car keys onto the coffee-table.

  ‘About an hour ago,’ she said. Ask him, she told herself. Go on, ask him. You want to know. You know you do. ‘Did you have a nice evening?’

  ‘It was OK,’ he replied, offhand, dismissive. ‘Gussie and I…We don’t seem to have a lot in common any more.’

  Privately she wondered when they ever had but, then, she’d always supposed they didn’t spend much time talking on their dates.

  ‘Did you have a good evening?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, quiet, you know. I helped Nicole with her homework, we played some snakes-and-ladders. She won.’

  He smiled. ‘I think she cheats.’

  She laughed. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Have you had supper?’

  ‘About half an hour ago, after my bath. I was just about to go to bed.’

  ‘So I see.’

  And he did see as his eyes took in her red and white men’s pyjamas, and he found himself wondering why on earth he’d ever thought Gussie’s sheer nightdresses sexy.

  Jane’s pyjamas were sexy. Sexy in the way they revealed nothing. Sexy because they hinted at the curves that lay beneath them. Hinted, and tantalised, and simply cried out for a man to investigate them. For him to investigate them.

  ‘Jane, what Nicole said at breakfast about you and I going out together,’ he said quickly. ‘I was thinking it’s actually a very good idea. We could get a babysitter in—Flo’s always saying she’d love to—and go out to dinner somewhere.’

  ‘You and me?’ she said in obvious surprise.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on asking Stephanie’s mother.’ He smiled. ‘I thought we could try out that new restaurant in town—the one that’s just opened in Flynn Street—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ he echoed. The girls he asked out didn’t normally ask why. They were usually too busy falling over themselves to say yes. ‘Well, because…because I thought you might enjoy it.’

  Which wasn’t exactly the most romantic way to ask a girl for a date, he thought ruefully, and Jane clearly agreed, because she shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, Elliot.’

  ‘But I really would like to take you out to dinner,’ he said desperately. ‘You could look on it as a sort of thank you for all the work you’ve done with Nicole.’

  It had been the wrong thing to say and he knew it immediately. Knew it from the stiffening of her shoulders, the way her eyes suddenly grew cold.

  ‘I don’t consider what I’ve done with Nicole work, Elliot,’ she said tightly, ‘and I certainly don’t require dinner as a payment.’

  ‘And I didn’t mean it to sound as though it were!’ he exclaimed, cursing himself under his breath. ‘What I meant to say was…’

  Hell, he didn’t know what he’d meant to say. She was sitting there in those damn pyjamas of hers, looking so appealing, so desirable that all he really wanted was to take her in his arms.

  ‘Look, Jane, you haven’t had an evening out since you moved in.’ Oh, that’s wonderful, Elliot, he groaned mentally, seeing her bristle even more. Now you’ve implied you feel sorry for her. That she’s got no social life. What on earth’s wrong with you? You don’t usually make such a mess of asking a girl out, but you sure as heck are making a mess of this. ‘I simply thought when Nicole suggested it—’

  ‘That as poor old Jane doesn’t get out much maybe she could do with a little treat?’ she interrupted acidly. ‘That perhaps a little pat on the head might keep her sweet if you need to ask her another favour?’

  ‘No—No!’

  ‘Then why, Elliot? Why?’

  Because I like you, he thought as she glared at him, her face chalk-white, her eyes glittering with fury. Because I’m growing more and more attracted to you every day, and what I want right now more than anything in the world is to make love to you.

  She’d slap his face for sure if he said that. Instead, he forced what he hoped was his most appealing smile to his face. ‘Has anyone ever told you you’re gorgeous when you’re angry?’

  She stared at him silently for a full ten seconds, then her lip curled. ‘You have, Elliot, most generally when you think your charm and your looks will get you out of a mess. Well, not this time they won’t. I won’t be patronised—do you hear me? Not now, not ever!’

  ‘Jane—’

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘But, Jane—’

  He was talking to empty air. She’d already swung out of the room, her back ramrod stiff, her head high, and as he heard the sound of her bedroom door slamming shut, he closed his eyes tightly and groaned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘ELLIOT says there’s a two-hour waiting time in Reception now, and X-Ray are warning of at least a one-hour delay in the processing of non-urgent plates,’ Kelly reported.

  Jane groaned as she leafed through the stack of patient notes the student nurse had brought through from Reception. It was always the same. The minute the schools closed for their Easter break the number of accidents quadrupled. If it wasn’t children throwing themselves off walls, or under cars, it was their parents attempting to electrocute themselves with their DIY equipment or driving like maniacs to beat the queues at the tourist attractions.

  Thank goodness, Stephanie’s mother had agreed to look after Nicole during the day. She wouldn’t have been able to relax for a minute otherwise. As it was, if it was up to her, all school holidays would be cancelled. Neither she nor A and E could take the strain.

  ‘Jane, we seem to be running really low on dressings.’ Richard frowned, swiftly erasing the name of the last patient he’d seen from the whiteboard. ‘Any chance of you nipping along to the dispensary to pick some up?’

  ‘I’ll try to arrange—’

  ‘Jane, if you’re going to the dispensary, could you pop into Haematology on your way back and see if you can hurry up the results for my patient in 6?’ Charlie chipped in.

  ‘Did you just say you’re going to Haematology, Jane?’ Elliot said as he passed. ‘Because if you are, I’ve got some samples—’

  ‘What am I—the local collection and delivery boy?’ Jane snapped before she could stop herself. ‘Kelly, go and pick up some dressings, but I want you back a.s.a.p. Charlie, if you’re so concerned about your results, lift the telephone. And, Elliot…’ Oh, she knew exactly where she’d like to tell him to go, but she was too much of a lady to say it. ‘Get a porter to take your samples!’

  And before any of them could reply, she strode quickly away, all too aware that the three men were staring in stunned amazement after her.

  Well, let them stare, she thought belligerently. Right now she could cheerfully have seen the three of them, and St Stephen’s, at the bottom of the Thames.

  No, not St Stephen’s, she conceded. And not the three of them. Just him. Just Elliot Mathieson.

  The nerve of the man. The sheer, unmitigated gall of him. Asking her out like that. Like he was doing her a favour. Like she ought to be grateful. Well, he could stuff his dinner invitation. In fact, she was sorely tempted to go back to the flat tonight, pack her suitcases and leave him and his daughter to get on with it.

  No, she wouldn’t do that, she realised as she gazed unseeingly, at the clock on the treatment-room wall. No matter how angry she might be with Elliot, she could never do that to Nicole.

  She jumped as a white sheet of paper stuck to the end of a ruler suddenly fluttered in front of her nose, and turned to the bearer of it with a frown. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A substitute white flag.’ Elliot gri
nned sheepishly. ‘Jane, I’m sorry. Charlie and Richard—they’re sorry, too,’ he added, nodding to where the SHO and junior doctor were standing by the whiteboard, looking decidedly shamefaced. ‘We didn’t mean to make you feel like an errand boy.’

  Yeah, right, she thought sourly. And last night I suppose you didn’t mean to make me feel like a charity case either, but you still did.

  ‘And while we’re on the subject of apologising,’ he continued quickly as though he’d read her mind, ‘you shot out of the house so fast this morning that you didn’t give me the chance to set the record straight about last night.’

  ‘Elliot, I think the less said about last night, the better,’ she declared.

  ‘Well, I don’t!’ he snapped, then bit his lip as he noticed that Floella was watching them curiously from the bottom of the treatment room. ‘Jane, I really do want to go out with you. Not as a payment, not as a thank you. On a date.’

  Boy, but he and Gussie must have had a real humdinger of a row if he was asking her out, she thought waspishly. Well, she had no intention of accepting. She might be a mug and a patsy in many things, but not on this.

  ‘And as I told you last night, Elliot, thanks but, no, thanks,’ she said tersely.

  She was turning him down? he thought in amazement. She was actually saying no, and meaning it? She couldn’t. He wouldn’t let her.

  Then tell her the truth, his mind urged. Tell her how you feel, why you really want to go out with her.

  ‘Jane…Janey, look, this probably isn’t the best time or place for this conversation,’ he began awkwardly, ‘but I meant what I said. I like you. I like you a lot. I’ve no idea why I didn’t realise it before…’

  Probably because you were too busy dating Gussie, she thought bitterly, and before her it had been Marie from Obs and Gynae and Sue from Radiology. Actually, now that she came to think of it, it would have been an awful lot easier to name the girls at St Stephen’s that Elliot hadn’t dated.

  ‘But now I’m asking you out, Janey,’ he continued. ‘Not because you’ve been such a great help with Nicole, not because I want to say thank you, but because I truly and honestly do like you very much indeed.’

  And she might well have believed him if she hadn’t heard him use exactly the same coaxing tone on dozens of women before. Might have been convinced by his earnest expression, the way his lips had curved into one of his lopsided, nerve-tingling smiles, if it hadn’t been all too familiar. It had always worked on the women he’d tried it with, and—if she was honest with herself—it was almost working on her, too. Almost, but not quite.

  ‘That’s very nice to hear, Elliot,’ she declared, ‘and I like you as well, but the answer’s still no. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’

  And before he could stop her she’d walked away, leaving him staring helplessly after her.

  Where had he gone wrong? It had never failed in the past. A particular smile, a few soft words, and most women had come running. But it hadn’t worked this time, and he couldn’t for the life of him think why.

  ‘What are you playing at, Elliot?’

  He turned quickly to see Floella staring up at him, her normally cheerful face grim, her eyes accusatory.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you do,’ she said. ‘I told Jane to be careful when she agreed to move in with you. Told her she was storing up a whole heap of trouble for herself, but I thought that was because she might get too fond of Nicole.’

  ‘Flo—’

  ‘Elliot, don’t mess her around. She’s my friend, and if you hurt her—’

  ‘I’d never hurt her, Flo, believe me,’ he interrupted indignantly.

  ‘And you don’t think persuading her to go out with you, getting her into your bed, and then dumping her will hurt?’

  ‘Flo—’

  ‘And that’s what you’ll do, Elliot,’ she continued. ‘It’s what you always do, so leave her alone. If you’re not serious about her, leave her alone.’

  Which was telling him good and proper, he thought ruefully, and Floella was right.

  He didn’t do commitment. He didn’t do fidelity. OK, so maybe he felt an overwhelming attraction for Jane, but the last thing she needed was a man like him in her life, a man who was only comfortable with brief affairs. He’d hurt her, he knew he would, and she didn’t need that, didn’t deserve it.

  He had to start distancing himself from her, and fast. He had to go back to seeing her as good old Janey. For his own sake, as well as for hers. And if that meant standing by and watching her becoming involved with someone like Richard Connery, he decided as he saw the junior doctor say something to her that had made her laugh, so be it.

  ‘Kate Anderson, Doc!’ a paramedic exclaimed as he rushed into the treatment room, a heavily pregnant woman on his trolley, and a white-faced man at her side. ‘Twenty-two, in labour, and I don’t reckon we’re going to make the delivery room!’

  Elliot didn’t reckon she would either when the paramedics had got the woman onto the examination trolley. Her cervix was well dilated, already ten centimetres.

  ‘Jane! Good, you’re here,’ he said with relief, wincing slightly as Mrs Anderson suddenly grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed hard on it. ‘How are you with imminent mums-to-be?’

  ‘Not exactly my speciality, I’m afraid,’ she replied ruefully.

  ‘Nor mine,’ he replied. ‘Has anyone paged the labour ward?’

  ‘Flo was doing it when—’

  ‘Should she be suffering so much?’ Mr Anderson interrupted convulsively as his wife let out a scream. ‘It doesn’t seem right that she should be suffering so much. Can’t you give her something—some painkiller?’

  ‘There isn’t any point, Mr Anderson,’ Elliot said gently. ‘By the time it took effect the baby would be here.’

  ‘It’s that close?’ the young man gulped, and Elliot nodded.

  ‘It’s that close.’

  ‘Oh, cripes, oh, God!’ Kate Anderson gasped, doubling up as another contraction hit her. ‘Nobody ever told me it would hurt this much. John, if you ever come near me again, if you ever even attempt to lay a finger on me—!’

  ‘I can see the baby’s head!’ her husband exclaimed excitedly. ‘I can see the top of its head!’

  ‘I don’t care if you can see its head, its shoulders, its entire body!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to do this any more!’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.’ Elliot grinned. ‘Breathe, Kate. Huff and pant and breathe like you were taught at the antenatal clinic.’

  ‘But it’s not working!’ she wailed. ‘Those stupid lessons—they’re not working!’

  ‘They are—believe me, they are,’ Elliot insisted.

  Believe me, he’d said, Jane thought as she quickly mopped Kate Anderson’s forehead. The young woman believed him, but she couldn’t.

  He liked her, he’d said, but what did that actually mean? Two or three dates, a few nights of love and then goodbye, Jane, when he got bored or began to feel pressurised?

  Could she be happy with that? Right now she could, she realised as she watched him urging the young woman on, smiling at her as only Elliot knew how. Right now she would happily have settled for one night in his arms, but that was only her hormones reacting. Her head was wiser, her head knew different, and it was her head she was going to listen to.

  ‘It’s coming, Kate, it’s coming!’ he encouraged. ‘One more push. Just for me, give one big, huge push!’

  And she did, with a cry that was halfway towards a scream, and suddenly the baby was there.

  ‘Is it all right—is my baby all right?’ she cried, trying to lever herself upright.

  ‘Perfect, just perfect,’ Elliot replied, swiftly cutting the umbilical cord as Jane wiped the mucus from the baby’s eyes and mouth and it let out a protesting cry.

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Kate asked, turning eagerly to her husband.

  ‘Ye
s,’ he said, then flushed as he realised what he’d just said. ‘It’s a…What is it, Nurse?’

  ‘A girl.’ Jane laughed. ‘You have a lovely baby girl, Mr Anderson.’

  And she was beautiful, she thought as she handed her reluctantly to her mother. Perfect in every detail, right down to her tiny toes and fingernails.

  And I’m getting broody, she thought as the labour staff arrived to transfer Kate to Theatre to deliver the placenta and repair the small tear she’d sustained during the delivery. I’m twenty-eight years old, soon to be twenty-nine, with no man in my life, and I’m getting broody.

  ‘Wasn’t she absolutely gorgeous?’ Floella exclaimed, as the baby was whisked away by Sister Strachan of the special care baby unit for monitoring and assessment. ‘I told my husband after the twins were born that there’d be no more, but when you see a little scrap like that…’

  ‘You start getting broody.’ Charlie Gordon laughed. ‘Honestly, you women. Put you within ten yards of a baby—’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Floella interrupted, her dark eyes dancing. ‘Like you didn’t go a bit misty-eyed yourself. I saw you, so don’t try to pretend otherwise. And you weren’t any better, Elliot,’ she continued as he joined them, ‘so don’t try to tell me that you were.’

  He didn’t. He was too busy wishing he’d been present at Nicole’s birth. OK, so he and Donna hadn’t been on speaking terms, and she would probably have preferred him to be rotting in hell, but he’d seen the look of wonderment on John Anderson’s face, the joy, the pride. He’d missed that, hadn’t had the chance to experience that.

  Maybe the next time, he found himself thinking, only to realise to his horror that his eyes had automatically drifted to Jane, and quickly he wrenched them away.

  No, he wasn’t going to think that, he must never ever think that. OK, so he expected that Nicole would like a little brother or a sister, but to have one would mean him making a commitment to someone—a long-term commitment—and that was the last thing on his mind.