And, while he wanted to ask her when they could speak again, when they could talk about them, he did not want to push too hard too soon.
And so, rather than talk about trying again, and vasectomies and things, and the terror of doing it all over again, he moved back to their little lost son.
‘He was wanted and loved.’
* * *
And now that Rachel had taken off those thorn-rimmed glasses, shaded with resentment and pain, she could recall softer, kinder times—Dominic coming home after a long shift at the bar and crawling into bed exhausted, holding both her and the bump of their baby as she slept in his arms.
She spoke to him about the little pair of socks that she’d kept. Remembering how he’d come home with them one evening because they were cute.
And together they recalled the two of them cuddled up under blankets on the sofa, because they were saving to feed the electricity meter when their baby was born, and the flat would need to be kept warm.
It was nice to remember all this, but also terribly hard to do so. And so, when they were all wrung out, she closed up his wallet and handed it to him and watched him slip it back into his jacket. It was nice to know the photo now lived by his heart.
‘You know,’ she said as she peeled some tissues from the box, ‘despite the tears, I do feel better.’
‘Good,’ Dominic said, and took a couple of tissues for himself.
‘Will you be all right to work?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘I’ll get you a taxi home.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Rachel said, and she looked at him, this man who might not love her but who had always taken care of her. ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks for this,’ she said, and she meant it.
Because talking about her son, being able to share her memories of Christopher Hadley with his father...
It had meant the world.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘WHO ARE YOU here to see, Dominic?’ May was updating the whiteboard. ‘The surgeons are—’
‘I’m actually here to see Rachel,’ Dominic cut in.
He had given her a few days’ space, so as not to cloud their conversation about Christopher with the other issues surrounding their relationship, but he could no longer hold back.
Now Dominic wanted to cloud the issue. It was time. They belonged together. There could be no doubt.
‘Rachel Walker,’ he elaborated when May frowned.
‘But Rachel’s not here.’
‘When’s she back on?’
‘She’s not,’ May said, and carried on writing on the whiteboard. ‘Rachel left last week.’
‘What do you mean, she left?’
‘Just that.’
May wasn’t exactly forthcoming.
‘It was supposed to be a three-month trial, but it wasn’t working out, so she left before the end of it and headed back to Sheffield.’
‘May, I really need to speak to her. Can you give me her mobile phone number?’
‘I’m not about to give you one of my nurses’ contact details.’ May gave him a rather scornful look. ‘I’m not the keeper of your little black book, Dominic. It would be a full-time job, that’s for sure.’
‘May...’ Dominic was appalled that Rachel had gone and was way past caring about keeping secrets. ‘Rachel is my ex-wife.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ May put down the whiteboard marker. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think I’d know.’
‘But you never let on.’
‘Rachel didn’t want me to,’ Dominic said. ‘Anyway, it was years ago.’
‘Yet you’re standing here asking for her number.’
‘Because I have to speak to her.’
May was kinder then, but still adamant. ‘Dominic, I won’t be giving you her phone number. If she’d wanted you to have it you would have it.’
* * *
Rachel exited the train station at Sheffield and returned to her life without Dominic.
There was blossom on the trees, and everything looked gorgeous and green as the taxi carried her back to her dad’s. She wore the same summery dress she’d had on when she’d last seen Dominic, but despite the attire, and the familiar sights of home, tears kept stinging her eyes and she wondered what on earth she’d done.
Since that night, talking with Dominic, she’d been like a leaking tap—only her tears weren’t all about Christopher.
He’d told her in bed that morning that he wanted to work rather than to have a relationship. He’d outright said that he didn’t want both. And even at their most intimate, holding each other and crying about their son, Dominic hadn’t wanted to talk about them.
She had to accept it. Because she could not go through it again and again.
Rachel felt like a failure as she paid the taxi driver and hauled out her case. She was thirty-two years old and moving back in with her dad. Well, just for a couple of weeks, until she found somewhere of her own.
As she walked up the garden path she saw the front door open.
‘Dad!’ She barely recognised him. His beard was gone, his scruffy grey hair was freshly cut, and he was wearing, of all things—
‘What are you doing in a lilac jumper?’
‘It’s blue,’ her dad insisted.
‘It isn’t,’ Rachel said as she hugged him, and then pulled back when she saw his lady friend coming out of the kitchen. ‘Oh, hi, Moira,’ she said, when what she really wanted to ask was, What have you done to my dad?
Rachel did not want to be back living at her dad’s. And now she couldn’t even hide herself away in the kitchen, as Moira seemed to have that under control.
‘Dinner won’t be long,’ Moira said as Rachel took a seat in the very tidy lounge on a sofa that had new cushions.
Clearly it wasn’t just her dad that Moira was sprucing up!
Moira lived here, Rachel realised. Or if she didn’t quite live here fully yet, she soon would.
For dinner they were no longer formally seated at the dining table, but squashed on the sofa in the lounge, eating spaghetti bolognaise from trays on their laps.
And when they’d finished eating it was Moira who went to take the plates.
‘I’ll do it,’ her dad said, and stood up, no doubt to micro-manage the stacking of the dishwasher.
‘Sit down, Dave,’ Moira said. ‘I’ll do it.’
And when her dad sat down, and allowed someone else to stack his precious dishwasher, Rachel knew just how serious the two of them were. On top of that, he patted Moira’s bottom as she walked past.
Oh, God—Rachel could not bear the thought of them in bed together!
‘I’ll probably stay at Nicola’s,’ Rachel said, mentioning a friend oh, so casually. ‘I’ll just borrow my old room for a couple of nights.’
‘No rush,’ Dave said as Moira came back in.
And as they watched a replay of a dancing show on TV, Rachel found out that he and Moira were thinking of taking up ballroom dancing!
The whole world was moving on and having relationships and falling in love and having babies. All except for her.
Rachel could feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes.
‘Our Phil’s dropping in,’ Dave said during the adverts. ‘He’s bringing over the gender-reveal cake, but he’s taping it up so we can’t peek. We’re going to have a little party here.’
How did her dad even know what a gender-reveal cake was? Things really were changing here...
But she knew her dad loved nothing more than a little party, with all the family present, so Rachel pushed out a smile. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. If it’s a boy, it’s going to be called Robin, but if it’s a girl—’
‘Don’t start, Dave...’ Moira sighed.
‘Pixie!’ her dad said, in the most scathing of tones. ‘I’ve
lived too long—I really have. Eleven grandchildren and one of them called Pixie!’
‘You have twelve grandchildren,’ Rachel said, her voice shaking.
It was only the fact that she now knew her dad had cried about Christopher that made her brave enough to raise it.
‘You have twelve—but, oh, that’s right... We don’t speak about Christopher.’
‘Because I don’t want to upset you.’
‘Has seeing Dominic stirred things up?’ Moira asked.
Rachel pursed her lips at the intrusive question. Clearly Moira had been told all about it. But even as she did that, tears were trickling down her face, and there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide except her old bedroom, and somehow the thought of that just made things worse.
‘Come on, love,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t go upsetting yourself.’
‘I think you need to tell her, Dave,’ Moira said.
‘Moira!’ he warned.
Rachel looked up. ‘Tell me what?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘It was years ago.’
But Moira was insistent. ‘She still needs to know.’
‘Very well,’ Dave said. ‘Dominic called me.’
‘When?’ Rachel asked, and her heart soared with hope.
But of course it was a false alarm.
‘A couple of years after you broke up.’
‘Oh.’ She sagged back in the seat.
‘You know how he insisted that he’d pay me back for...’ He swallowed. ‘For Christopher’s funeral. I always said there was no need. I was more than glad to take the strain off the two of you...’
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, lost in that appalling time, there was a memory of that. Her dad saying he would take care of things and Dominic swallowing his pride, insisting it was to be just a loan.
‘When?’ Rachel croaked. ‘When did he pay you back?’
‘He’d send some money every month until he’d paid me back. It was just something he felt he had to do. I didn’t want to go worrying you with talk about it.’
It made her feel very small to realise that her assumption that Dominic had walked off without a backward glance could not be further from the truth. He had told her that he’d put himself through med school, and now she was finding out that on top of that he’d been paying her dad back—doing what little he had been able for their son.
‘He called to thank me for the loan and he wanted to know how you were...said that he was studying to be a doctor...’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing much.’ Her dad shrugged. ‘He just wanted to know how you were.’
‘Dave!’ Moira said again. ‘Tell her about the other time. Two years ago.’
Rachel turned and looked at her father, and despite the new jumper and the fresh haircut, she could see the strain on his features, and she noticed that he was clinging on to Moira’s hand.
‘Your dad told me a few things after you were here the last time. Well, I dragged it out of him,’ said Moira.
‘What?’
‘I think he’d been drinking,’ said her dad.
‘Dominic?’ Rachel frowned, because Dominic didn’t drink—well, not much—but it would seem that one night two years ago he had.
‘It was his thirtieth birthday and he was all mawkish. Said he wanted to get in touch and find out for himself how you were. He wanted your phone number.’
‘And?’ Rachel said.
‘He said he’d tried to find you on social media and the like.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That perhaps there was a reason you didn’t want to be found,’ her dad said. ‘I told him you had started seeing someone... Gordon. That you were back on track and for the first time in years you actually seemed happy. I said that if he cared about you—if he really cared about you—then it would be better for all concerned for him to leave well alone.’
Rachel hadn’t known it was possible to feel so cross, and yet so relieved, so bewildered, and yet so clear-headed, all at the same time. Dominic—arrogant, confident, alley cat Dominic—had struggled too.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I didn’t want to bring up old hurts,’ her dad snapped. ‘That man caused you no end of problems...’
‘I loved that man, though,’ Rachel choked.
The doorbell went. No doubt it was Phil with the cake.
Her dad, glad of the reprieve, jumped up to get it while Rachel sat silent, with tears coursing down her cheeks.
‘He meant well,’ Moira said. ‘It’s been eating him up.’
‘I know he meant well.’ Rachel felt her anger towards her father fading. He’d been the one who’d had to deal with the fallout of their divorce after all, and she could understand his desire to protect her.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, Rachel,’ Moira said.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel responded politely, and then tried to pull back from discussing it further with Moira. ‘It was years ago, though...’
‘And tidied up and put away still festering.’
‘Yes,’ Rachel said, and she looked over at Moira with less wary eyes.
Dominic had been right. She must be pretty special to have got all that information out of her dad.
Rachel was starting to see how much she had lost by keeping her distance from people, and as her father helped Phil in with the cake, she relaxed and opened up to Moira.
‘Does it change things?’ Moira asked. ‘Knowing that he called?’
‘A bit,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Although I know he was trying to get hold of photos and things. Still, it helps to know that he paid for the funeral.’
They watched the dancers on TV for a moment, but then Rachel had a question for Moira.
‘How did you get Dad to tell you?’
‘I asked him,’ Moira said. ‘After that dinner we had I knew there was something bothering him, but when I asked what it was he said it was none of my business.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything. I went and got my coat,’ Moira said. ‘And when he asked why I was huffing off, I told him that if he wanted me in his life, then it most certainly was my business. That I’m not going to be fobbed off.’
And apparently there was someone else who refused to be fobbed off.
‘Er... Rachel...’ Her dad stood at the living room door, his face bright red and clashing with his lilac jumper. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
And there behind him stood Dominic.
He did not stand quietly, for there was such a presence to him, dressed in black jeans and a black jumper, unshaven and pale.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
‘Dominic.’ Moira stood and introduced herself. ‘I’m Moira—a friend of Dave’s.’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Moira.’
Rachel watched as Dominic walked in and shook Moira’s hand. It was all so terribly polite and so very odd to have Dominic Hadley back in the Walker living room.
* * *
It was more than odd for Dominic. There was the strangest feeling of déjà vu as he stood at the fireplace where he all those years ago had told Dave Walker that he’d got his daughter pregnant.
He’d been terrified then, but he wasn’t terrified now—because he was here to finally put things right.
‘I’m sorry to mess up your evening,’ Dominic said to the one friendly face in the room.
‘No, no,’ said Moira, ‘it’s no bother. We were just watching the television.’ She glanced over to Rachel, whose skin was bright red, her eyes all puffy and glassy from crying. ‘And having something to eat...’ she added rather lamely.
‘Rachel.’ Dominic turned to her then. ‘I was hoping that we might speak.’
She nodded—what else could sh
e do?
‘Perhaps we could go for a walk?’
‘Sure.’ She pulled herself up from the chair and gave a thin smile to her worried-looking dad.
‘Take care,’ Dave said, and his voice was gruff.
Dominic could feel his reluctance to let her leave, but he stepped back and allowed the two of them to pass.
* * *
Rachel couldn’t quite believe he was here. Her head was still whirring from the fact that he had called her dad. Twice. That the man she’d thought had walked away without a backward glance had spent two years sending money to her father.
That was the Dominic she had known—the man she had loved from the start.
‘He’s watching us from the window,’ Dominic said as they walked. ‘I can feel it.’
‘I know...’ Rachel sighed. ‘He means well.’
‘He does,’ Dominic said. ‘He’s a good guy.’
She gave a mocking laugh, because she knew the two men she loved did not get on.
‘He really is,’ Dominic said. ‘I can’t imagine losing the woman I love and then having to run my own business as well as raise five kids.’
‘Nor can I,’ Rachel admitted.
‘And then, just when he’d got them almost done—just when the youngest was close to finishing school—along came some guy and got her pregnant.’
Her cheeks were sore from the tears that were still trickling down as they walked familiar streets, passing their old school and the tree where they had shared her roll on the first day of the school year—where she’d smiled her metallic NHS braces smile at Dominic Hadley as she’d handed over her heart.
Because she had fallen in love at first sight.
And love could be so hard.
Impossible, even, when you were told it was just a crush, that you were too young, and your feelings would fade.
They paused a moment at the school gates, where she’d stood waiting for him to finish his exams so she could tell him about the baby, and she remembered watching his smile fade.
‘Come on,’ he said, and they walked on past the school and towards the park.
The Nurse's Reunion Wish (HQR Medical Romancel) Page 14