by Jax Burrows
It was easy to make such promises from a distance. Now, the lady who had shared his bed one summer solstice four years ago was no longer a fantasy figure. She was real and working alongside him as an A&E staff nurse. His body told him the sexual attraction was still there and as strong as ever. He still wanted her. What he didn’t want was any emotional entanglement. He’d been there, done that and got burned for his trouble. He wasn’t going back down that road, not even for a beautiful blonde with china blue eyes and a mouth tasting of ripe strawberries that could perform miracles on his aching flesh.
Even more reason to stay away from her. A night of hot sex was one thing but falling for someone was something else entirely. Something he was determined he would never do again.
*
As Lexi strode towards the exit, eager to get out of the hospital, she bumped into Theresa.
‘Oh Lexi, I’m glad I’ve caught you before you left. I just wanted to apologise for my faux pas before. I had no idea you’d been in care. I’m such an idiot - an idiot with a big mouth. Please forgive me.’
‘Of course, there’s nothing to forgive.’ They hugged, and Theresa kissed her on the cheek.
When they broke the embrace, Lexi noticed Casey watching them as he bought a bar of chocolate from the vending machine. She tried to ignore him, but knew from the way Theresa started preening, that he was coming over.
‘Afternoon ladies.’ He was all charm now, smiling widely.
‘Casey. How’re you getting on – first day nerves settled yet?’ Theresa turned on her charm too. Attractive, with short blonde highlighted hair and big cherry brown eyes, she was never short of admirers. It looked to Lexi that she had Dr Casey O’Connor in her sights.
Casey flirted back with Theresa and Lexi wished that she could just walk away. She was late anyway and had better things to do than play gooseberry to these two.
‘Right. Bye then.’ She tried to escape but Casey stopped her by putting his hand on her arm.
‘Not going, are you? I thought we could have a chat. Have a coffee and catch up?’
Lexi could feel Theresa’s gaze burn into her. She was going to be annoyed now she’d found out that Lexi had known Casey all along, but she had other things on her mind as the touch of his hand burned her skin with memories of other touches, other caresses and she shivered.
‘I can’t I’m afraid, I’m meeting someone. I need to go. Maybe another time.’
Casey looked disappointed and dropped his hand from her arm. ‘Okay. Another time.’
She hurried through the automatic doors that formed the entrance to the Accident and Emergency Department and was relieved when she saw three figures sitting in a row on a bench a few feet away.
‘Mummy!’ Jade got up, and ran to her, flinging herself into her arms.
She hugged her daughter. As she held her close, her body relaxed, and her heart rate returned to normal. Just to hold the little girl felt so right, so perfect, that whatever else was wrong in her world, in that moment, Jade made it right.
‘Hi, hon. Heavy day?’
Jess and Craig had appeared next to them and she was grateful for Jess’s perception. Her friend worked in a cake shop and regaled her with amusing stories of the customers and the antics of the staff, but she always understood when Lexi was feeling stressed and needed a listening ear.
Her son, Craig, who was eight and obsessed with games, had his head bent over some device or other. He could have been on the moon for all the notice he took of his surroundings.
‘You could say that,’ she replied to Jess. ‘How about we treat ourselves tonight and have a take-away?’
Jess frowned. ‘But it’s not Friday.’ They shared a cottage, so they could help each other with finances and childcare and encouraged each other to keep to a strict budget.
‘Well it’s either that or a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I need something.’ She acted out gasping and staggering like a parched man in a desert. The kids laughed, then Lexi heard someone clear their throat from the direction of the entrance.
‘Who’s he?’ Jess whispered.
Lexi glanced over to see Casey watching them with a frown that was getting deeper with every minute that went by. ‘He’s one of the new consultants.’
He walked slowly over to them and stood still as a statue. No one spoke. They were all holding their breath as they looked from Casey to Jade. The little girl looked like her mother, with ash blonde hair and a heart-shaped face. But her eyes gave her away. Emerald green with a black ring around the irises. Eyes that looked out at the world in wonder and joy. Eyes the same shade as her father’s. The man who was staring at her as if he had just seen a ghost, whose whole body was vibrating with tension and, Lexi suspected, anger.
He turned to face her at last and his voice was deceptively quiet. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your daughter?’
*
Rage simmered below the surface of his studied calm. He tried not to show it in front of the children. His anger was directed at one person only. The lady who was staring at him with wide blue eyes, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights. A guilty rabbit.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘This is Jade. Jade, this is Doctor O’Connor.’
Casey knelt so he was at eye level with Jade. She smiled at him, so he smiled back.
‘Hi, Jade.’
‘Hi. Do you work with my mummy?’
‘I do, darling, yes. But I’ve just started working here so I don’t know many people yet.’
‘Mummy’ll be your friend, won’t you mummy?’ She turned her face up to Lexi who had the grace to look embarrassed.
‘Uh… yes, of course.’
‘Good. I need all the friends I can get. Now, do you mind if mummy and I have a quiet word before you all go home? Could you stay with…’ He looked up expectantly at the woman who was hovering close to the children, listening to every word.
‘Jess.’ She stepped forward with her hand out to shake. ‘Lexi and I share a cottage. We’re both single mums, you see, and we help each other.’ He stood up and shook it. ‘And this is my son, Craig, but you won’t get much response from him, he never looks up unless there’s food on offer.’
‘Hi, Craig.’
‘Hi,’ said the boy who glanced up and back down to his tablet in a flash.
‘No problem; I’ll look after the kids.’ Jess beamed at him and he liked her immediately. She had tattoos and piercings, short dyed black hair and the most amazing grey eyes he had seen on a woman. He decided that what you saw was what you got with Jess. Which made a refreshing change after all the devious women he’d known in his lifetime.
One of whom was looking at him in alarm. ‘I don’t think… we don’t really have the time… can we talk tomorrow?’
‘No, now.’ He was brusque with her but was on an extremely short fuse.
‘We need to get the kids home and fed, so I really do think we should leave this until tomorrow, Casey.’ Her eyes flashed fire at him, but what had she got to be annoyed about? He was the one who had been lied to. Again.
‘Look, here’s the deal. Either you and I have a very short conversation now in which I ask you a straightforward question and you do me the courtesy of giving me an honest answer, or I’ll call round to your place this evening and we can talk all night if that’s what it takes.’
Lexi looked furious and lifted her chin to look him in the eyes. He stared back, unblinking. She seemed to deflate suddenly and closed her eyes as if she was in pain. He felt a stab of guilt, but it was fleeting as his anger was the dominant emotion and swamped any other feelings he might have had for the lady.
‘Okay,’ she said. She looked over at Jess who nodded. Casey wondered how much Jess knew about his night of passion with her bestie, but then he wondered a lot of things. His mind was whirring, and he couldn’t focus on anything but the one question he needed an answer to. All the rest could wait until later.
‘Right. We’ll go over there, just out of earshot. I ne
ed to be close to the department in case they need me.’
They moved away from Jess and the children, but in sight of the front entrance. He felt bad about leaving his post in Resus, but this wouldn’t take long.
‘I have one question, Lexi, and I think you know what it is.’ When she didn’t answer, he continued. ‘Jade is about, what? Three?’ Lexi nodded but still didn’t speak. ‘I’ll bet she was born in March, nine months after the Summer Ball. Am I right?’ She nodded again.
The tension between them was electric. He hated the way he was treating her, but she had lied to him. She was the second woman who had decided not to tell him she was carrying his child. At least this time she had gone ahead with the pregnancy, but didn’t she think, while she was busy making plans for the rest of her life, that the father should be somewhere in the equation? But no, she hadn’t even bothered to try to find him. He wasn’t even given a say. In any of it.
Casey felt the rage building inside him and took two deep breaths to try to control it. Losing his temper would get them nowhere.
‘Is Jade my daughter?’
‘I -’ Lexi began.
‘And before you lie to me, just remember that I’m not stupid. And I will demand a DNA test if I have to.’
The silence stretched on and Casey’s nerves stretched with it.
‘That won’t be necessary. She is your daughter.’
Suddenly all his anger melted like snow in the hot sun, to be replaced by a feeling he had never experienced before. A mixture of joy, fear and overwhelming, heart-stopping love. He looked over at his child, holding Jess’s hands and swinging around, her head back, blonde hair loose and flowing.
‘She’s mine.’ It was said almost with wonder as if he couldn’t quite believe it. He was a father. It was almost too much to take in. ‘Why didn’t you try to find me?’ He was close to tears but had so many questions that he needed answers to before he could fully let go of his resentment towards Lexi. He’d missed out on three years of his child’s life and he needed to know why.
‘I did.’ Lexi looked and sounded sincere, but he had been hurt before by a woman’s evasiveness.
‘Well, you didn’t try very hard.’
Lexi let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You have no idea how hard it is to find someone who is determined not to be found. I didn’t even know your name, I didn’t know where you worked. I asked around with just your description to go on and no one could help. I tried, Casey, you have no idea how hard I tried.’
‘For how long?’ He was being unreasonable, he knew it. For he had tried to find her with the same lack of success. He had tried everything but hire a private detective and the only reason he hadn’t done that was because he had no information to give to one. “She’s gorgeous, blonde hair, blue eyes and dynamite in bed.” He would have been laughed out of the man’s office.
‘For a long while. Eventually, when I had no luck, I decided that the baby was my priority.’
‘My daughter.’
‘Our daughter.’ It sounded strange to him as it must to her. But the truth was that Jade was his and he needed to start being a father to that little girl.
‘Will you tell her tonight?’
‘What?’ Lexi looked panicked and shook her head.
‘Do you want me to be there when you tell her?’
‘No!’ It was almost a shout and Casey felt his heart harden against her.
‘Why not? She’s mine, you’ve just admitted it. Don’t I have the right to be there?’
‘You need to leave this up to me, Casey; you don’t know her like I do. I’ll tell her when the time’s right. On my own.’
‘The time is right now, Lexi. I’ve missed out on three years of my child’s life. Three years of milestones, magic moments, birthdays and Christmas; times that I can never get back. You’ve had all those things. Are you going to deny me any more time with Jade?’
Lexi’s shoulders slumped as she faced the full blast of his pain and anguish, but her chin was raised in the next moment and she stared back at him defiantly.
‘I need to prepare her, I can’t just blurt it out.’
‘What have you told her about me?’ Lexi couldn’t meet his eyes and a cold feeling crept into his stomach. ‘For pity’s sake, please don’t tell me she thinks I’m dead!’
‘No, of course not!’ Lexi looked irritated with him. He knew very little about the mother of his child. They had been intimate with each other but had never had a real conversation. He knew nothing about her past, her dreams and fears. He wanted to know everything.
‘What then?’
‘I told her you couldn’t stay and had to go away for work.’
‘So, you told her a pack of lies?’
‘She’s too young to be told the truth.’
‘Well, I’m back now and I have no intention of ever leaving her again. Tell her that, when you tell her who I am. I intend to be very much a part of my daughter’s life.’
Pete, the Charge Nurse, ran through the automatic doors and looked frantically around. When he spotted him, he dashed over.
‘It’s a Code Red, Casey, guy with an arterial bleed, they’ll be here in eight minutes.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’ Casey turned away without a backward glance, and they both ran back towards the entrance to A&E leaving Lexi staring after them.
Chapter Three
After the usual evening ritual when the kids had been fed, bathed and had listened to a bedtime story before being tucked up for the night, the two women curled up on the sofa together, sharing a bottle of white wine.
‘So, this doctor is your one-night stand then?’ asked Jess. Lexi had told her that Jade was the result of a night of hot passionate sex with a man she would never see again. Jess, being the sensitive friend that she was, had never questioned her. But now she wanted all the details.
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘At the Summer Solstice Ball arranged by the registrars at the hospital I worked at in London. I didn’t really want to go, to be honest, as my boyfriend had just dumped me, and I wasn’t feeling very sociable. My friends said I should get back out there and bought me a ticket. I didn’t know who Casey was and had never seen him before that night.’
‘What happened?’
‘He asked me to dance. And we did.’ She stopped as the memory of being held in his arms and nearly drowning in his intense green eyes, took her back to that night. She could hear the music and feel the heat between them. ‘We went back to his place and, well … made love. All night.’ She wished she could find the words to express how wonderful it had been. Every cliché that came into her head was inadequate. To be wanted so much by such a gorgeous man had been beyond her wildest dreams. Jess picked up on her mood anyway.
‘And I’m guessing by your expression it wasn’t so shabby?’
Lexi sighed. ‘Shabby? It was the most amazing night of my life. And I conceived Jade. She was an accident but still, the most precious gift I’ve ever been given.’
‘Why didn’t the two of you see each other again?’
Lexi poured more wine before she answered. ‘At the time we just wanted a one-night stand. It was a kind of madness us getting together, a mid-summer madness. Ironically, we both tried to find the other afterwards, but without even a name to go on, it was impossible.’
‘How do you feel about him now? Seeing him turn up like that must have been a shock.’ Jess fixed her with a penetrating look as she took the glass of wine Lexi offered her. The two women had been friends for many years and very little got passed Jess.
She wasn’t sure how to answer. How did she feel? ‘I don’t want things to change. I’m happy being a single mother. Jade’s happy and we’ve got you and Craig, but I can’t ignore the fact that he’s Jade’s father and wants to be part of her life.’
‘You’ll have to let him see her.’
‘Of course.’
*
Lexi had hoped for a quiet day, maybe in the Minor Injuries Unit,
where she could treat cut fingers and sprained ankles at her own pace. Her head and heart could have coped with that. She wouldn’t have minded listening to the patients talking about their woes, it would have saved her from having to think about her own. Even the “revolving-door” patients; the ones who came to A&E on a regular basis for comfort and company, mainly people with mental health problems and those who just couldn’t cope with life, would have been a pleasant change from the life and death dramas of Resus.
It wasn’t to be, of course. She was back in her role as trauma nurse in Resus and the team leader for the day was none other than Dr Casey O’Connor.
He was the first person she noticed when she walked into the department and, as usual, the sight of him took her breath away. He wore burgundy scrubs, his cheeks were smooth as if he had just shaved, and his short hair was brushed back from his face. Some of the nurses were looking at him as if they could eat him up on the spot and Lexi felt a flash of irritation. Or was it jealousy? She wished her body wouldn’t betray her like this every time she was in the same room with him, it was going to make working together that day, and all subsequent days, uncomfortable and filled with tension.
‘Good morning.’ He spotted her and came straight over.
‘Good morning. How are you?’ Now he was close to her, she could see the bags under his eyes, so maybe he had also found it difficult to sleep the previous night.
‘Good. Well, not so good actually.’
‘Oh?’ She hoped he wasn’t going to accuse her of all manner of things as he had the previous evening.
‘Listen. I need to apologise to you for my behaviour. I was angry yesterday and should never have spoken to you the way I did. It was a shock, finding out I was a father. And on top of seeing you again, well, it was one shock too many. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.’
Lexi watched his eyes as he spoke and saw sincerity there. Standing so close to him, breathing in his unique scent and hearing his deep, rich voice, slightly husky now as he spoke softly so people couldn’t overhear, reminded her of their night together and she wanted him all over again. The feeling was almost as intense.
