He went back into the kitchen, took the children’s pictures off the fridge, put the magnets in his pocket, locked the house and drove back.
As he pulled up on the drive and got out, the front door opened. Ellie stood there, framed in the light, and for the first time since he’d moved there it truly felt like coming home.
To a family?
Not his, though, and if she had her way, never his. Not that he wanted that—did he?
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE’D BEEN WAITING in the kitchen for him, watching out of the window with one ear listening for the children, and as the car turned onto the drive and the lights swept across the window, she felt a little surge of—what? Relief? Joy?
She didn’t wait to analyse it, just went to the door and opened it, and as he stepped inside he took her into his arms and the world seemed to right itself.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so long. Are you OK?’
His arms felt so good around her, and she rested her head against his chest and breathed him in. ‘I am now. I’m sorry I was a bit hysterical earlier. Did you get everything?’ she murmured.
‘Mmm-hmm, and I brought a few other things,’ he said, dropping his arms and easing back a little. ‘I emptied the fridge-freezer, but mine’s fairly empty so we should be OK. And I brought their teddies from their beds, too, but they’re a bit soggy and dirty. They’ll need a wash, but I thought they might want them. Oh, and there’s something else. I hope they’re all right, but it was hard to see by torchlight.’
He went back to the car, opened the back door and took something out, and as she saw what he’d brought her hand flew up to her mouth and she let out a little sob, overwhelmed that he’d thought of something so small and yet so significant.
‘You brought their pictures?’
His grin was a bit crooked. ‘Yeah. It seemed a shame to leave them, and my fridge is a bit bare. I thought it might help them feel at home. Here. Stick them up.’
He pulled the fridge magnets out of his pocket, piled them on the worktop and left her to deal with them while he brought in all the other things.
‘I’ll need to find you room in a chest of drawers, and make sure I remember to give you a set of keys,’ he said, putting the stuff down.
‘We’re only here for the night,’ she reminded him, and he rolled his eyes, but even as she’d said it, she knew it was a token protest, and she couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be. She just hoped he didn’t regret it in the morning, but she wouldn’t say anything to the children yet about how long they’d stay, just in case he changed his mind.
They sat down at the dining table after she’d unpacked everything, and while they drank another coffee and ate the cake he’d found in her fridge, she tracked down her house insurance documents in the file.
‘Well, that looks pretty straightforward,’ she said after a quick scan through them. ‘All I have to do is ring them and they send an assessor and it all goes from there.’
‘Good. And Lucy was OK?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, Lucy was wonderful, and said if I need anything just ask. I’m sure there will be a million things, but they’ll crop up when I know I haven’t got them. Oh, and Liz phoned. Steven’s out of surgery, and he’s OK, but he’s staying in for a few days for investigations. They think he might have some kind of heart condition that caused the blackout, so they want to look into that.’
‘Yeah, they will,’ Nick murmured, frowning. ‘I wonder what caused it? Arrhythmia? He said he felt hot and sweaty and a bit weird, and he was very pale.’
‘Who knows. I just hope it’s nothing too serious. So tomorrow, Lucy said you’ll split all my patients between you, and if I can get this done early I’ll come in and do what I can. I’m going to take the kids to nursery but I can’t ask Liz to pick them up, at least not until they know more about why Steven fell.’
‘No, of course not. Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it all out somehow.’
* * *
‘Somehow’ was right.
It was chaos, the usual Monday morning rush after the weekend compounded by the fact it was the Easter holidays and Dev was off.
He and Lucy and Brian divvied up the patients between them, diverted some to the nurse practitioners and took advantage of the ones who failed to turn up for their appointments by catching up a little with the backlog, and by lunchtime they were more or less there.
For the morning lists, at least.
And then as they sat signing repeat prescriptions and checking results in the staff room, Ellie appeared looking harassed and racked with guilt.
‘I’m so, so sorry. Has it been hell?’ she asked, and he got to his feet and put the kettle on.
‘It’s been fine. We’ve managed. How did you get on with the insurance company?’
‘That’s why I’m here. The assessor’s coming at two thirty, so I’ve asked nursery to keep the children until five. If I get away early, I’ll come and do my afternoon list, or as much of it as I can, but if not I don’t know what to do.’
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Brian said firmly. ‘You don’t need to be here at all today. Go and sort out your house stuff and we’ll see you tomorrow if you’re able to come in, and if you’re not, then we won’t. Now sit down and have a coffee and relax for a minute.’
‘That’s not fair. Have you got any results I can look at, or repeats to sign?’
‘No, they’re done, but you might want to look at Jim Golding’s PM report,’ Nick said quietly, putting a mug of coffee down beside her. ‘He had an undiagnosed aneurysm in the aortic arch. It ruptured.’
She scanned it, and her eyes widened. ‘Really? Wow. Poor Jim. No wonder he was feeling peaky. It must have been brewing for days—weeks, maybe.’
‘Mmm. Says it was catastrophic, so the DNAR was irrelevant. We couldn’t have resuscitated him anyway.’
She nodded slowly, and he met her eyes over the top of the screen. They were sad, filled with regret, and he cut her off before she could say it.
‘You didn’t let him down. The other thing he said to me was, “I’m glad it’s not Dr Kendal.” I don’t think he wanted you to be upset, and I have a feeling he knew he was going to die then. He’s was ready, Ellie.’
She nodded. ‘I know. He told me, when he asked for the DNAR. He said he didn’t want anyone trying to save him if his time was up, because he was ready to go and join Kitty. He missed her so much—sorry...’
She swiped away a tear, and Lucy looked up and shook her head.
‘There’s no point at all in telling you not to get involved, is there?’ she said with a wry smile, and Ellie gave an uneven little laugh.
‘No, probably not. Right, I’d better go and meet my assessor and see what he makes of it.’
‘Don’t come back today,’ Brian said firmly. ‘You’ve had enough to deal with. We can cope.’
‘But I—’
‘But nothing. Look what you all did for me while I was off. What you’re still doing. Go, Ellie. Do what you have to do. The world won’t stop turning. It never does.’
She nodded and went, and Nick turned to him.
‘Thanks. She’s been so determined not to let anyone down, but—Brian, if you’d seen that house... And her father-in-law fell because he’d had a blackout, so that’s now under investigation and she’s bound to be worried about him, too. I think he’s one of our patients.’
‘He is. I’ll look into it,’ Brian said, and got stiffly to his feet. ‘I’ll be glad when the builders finish this week and we get our new staff room downstairs. My hip really doesn’t like the stairs. Doesn’t like anything much. I suppose I need to bite the bullet and get it done.’ He gave them a crooked grin and limped out, and Nick met Lucy’s eyes.
‘He’s needed a hip replacement for years,’ she told him quietly, ‘but he couldn’t do it because of his wif
e, and since then—well, I don’t think he feels he can take the time off.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘That’s general practice, Nick. It’s what it’s like now. I can’t tell you how glad we all are that you’re here. And—Ellie. Tread carefully, Nick. She’s been through a lot and this is the last thing she needed.’
‘I know. Don’t worry, Lucy, I’m looking after her—after all of them.’
She held his eyes. ‘Don’t break her heart.’
He frowned, and Lucy shook her head. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Nick. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. I’m not stupid.’
‘Nor am I, and the last thing I want is to hurt her. I’m just offering her a roof over their heads and a safe place to be, for as long as it takes.’
‘Good.’ She put the signed prescription on the pile and stood up, letting the subject drop. ‘Back to the grind, I suppose. Are you coming?’
He nodded and followed her, her words echoing in his head.
Been through a lot...last thing she needed...don’t break her heart...
* * *
‘How did it go?’
Ellie shrugged and tried to smile, but she knew it was a poor effort.
‘OK, in a way. They’ll fix everything, I just have to remove what I want to keep with me, and they’ll put everything that isn’t damaged in the rooms that are OK and fix the ones that are broken, then replace the damaged stuff.’
‘Timeline?’
She shrugged again and put the knife down, abandoning the vegetables. ‘Weeks? Maybe up to two months? The main problem is the chipboard flooring in the bedroom, and the kitchen units and worktop. It’s swollen and disintegrating and it all needs to be replaced, and of course the wiring needs sorting and it’ll need decorating and carpeting and—oh, it goes on and on.’
He nodded, his eyes searching hers. ‘Do you get to choose the kitchen?’
‘Within reason, apparently. If I want a better one I can pay the difference, and if I want to make changes to the house I can do that and pay the extra, so I could do that—put doors in between the sitting room and dining room so it’s essentially one space, and refit the kitchen and reinstate the door to the garden, but...’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. It still isn’t big enough, the garden’s too tiny for a proper extension, and it might make more sense to get it fixed and sell it as it is and buy something that works for us.’
He nodded, still studying her, and then he tipped his head on one side. ‘You said “OK, in a way”. So what’s not OK?’
She gave a tiny huff of what should have been laughter if it wasn’t so unfunny. ‘I don’t have temporary replacement accommodation insurance. It’s an optional extra on that policy, and I obviously didn’t tick the box.’
She swallowed, because he probably didn’t want to hear the next bit, but he got in before her.
‘Well, that’s not an issue,’ he said, before she could say the words. ‘I’ve said you can stay here, and you can. You don’t have to, obviously, but if you would like to, then I don’t see the problem.’
She searched his eyes, and then they went all blurry and she had to blink.
‘Thank you. That’s very generous of you, so we will, please, for now. I’ll see how Liz and Steven feel once he’s better—’
‘Ellie. It’s fine. They’re not young any more, and little children are wearing.’
‘Well, then, you don’t want them, either,’ she said, racked with guilt again, but he shook his head.
‘Nonsense. That’s not what I’m saying. I just know that when my parents have one of my sisters over with their family for the weekend, by Sunday night they’re exhausted and more than ready for them all to go home, much as they love having them. I would say they’re pretty much the same age, both the children and the grandparents.’
‘And how about you? What happens when you get sick of us and you’re ready for us to go home? Because we can’t, Nick, we don’t have one any more—’ She broke off, her voice cracking, and turned away, sucking in a deep breath and trying to get herself back under control.
She heard the soft sound of his footsteps, felt his hands cup her shoulders and draw her gently back against his chest.
‘Ellie, stop it. Stop torturing yourself. Yes, it’ll get noisy and frustrating at times, and we’ll trip over each other a bit, but honestly, I love having you all here and all families go through that. There are times when my sisters could cheerfully rehome their children, but it usually lasts about ten minutes. We’ll cope. I’ll cope. It’ll be fine. Now come here and have a hug and stop worrying.’
She turned in his arms, buried her face in his shoulder and let out a ragged little sigh.
‘What have I done to deserve you?’ she asked, and she felt a chuckle rumble through his chest.
‘You don’t really know me yet. I’ll probably be getting on your nerves by the end of the week.’
‘Why would you do that?’
She felt his shoulders lift in a little shrug. ‘As I said, you don’t know me. I’m sure there are all sorts of things that’ll irritate you.’
She leant back a little and looked up at him. ‘Well, you haven’t so far.’
He grinned. ‘Give it time. Talking of which, is that our supper you’re getting, or something else?’
‘That’s our supper. The children have been in bed for ages, they were tired. I got the travel cot from Evie’s bedroom cupboard. She didn’t sleep too well last night, and nor did I with her wriggling around, so she’s got her own bed now so I don’t need to worry about her falling out, and I brought the baby monitor so I can relax in the sitting room without worrying, and I also brought them some toys.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I had an idea, I don’t know if it appeals. I thought I could stack all those boxes from the other bedroom into the garage, and then you could have it as a playroom. There’s a sofa bed in there, and we can turn it into a little sitting room for you.’
‘We can keep out of your way, then,’ she said, not sure if she felt relieved or rejected, but he just laughed.
‘Ellie, that’s not what I meant! But the sitting room is upstairs, and Evie could fall down them and hurt herself, which is the last thing you need. I need to get a stairgate, really, so she can’t crawl up them.’
‘I’ve got one at home. I could bring it.’
He nodded. ‘Then we can keep her safe, and they can have somewhere to make a mess when they want to without you having to feel guilty—which I know you will, before you deny it. So, what’s for supper?’
* * *
He moved the boxes after they’d eaten.
It took him over an hour, and by the end of it his hip was aching and he was more than ready to sit down, but at least the room was clear. It just needed a vacuum while the children weren’t asleep, and maybe a little table and chairs for them to sit at to draw and paint, and it would be fine.
There was nothing they could do to the carpet that would do it any harm, anyway. It was worn and tired and needed replacing, but it could wait. It could all wait, and it would have to, because Ellie and her children were his priority now, not the house.
He put the last box of Samuel’s things down on the stack in the garage, and rested a hand on it, closing his eyes and breathing in slowly.
‘Miss you, Sam,’ he murmured, and sucking in another breath, he walked out of the garage, locked the door and headed back inside.
He could hear water running. Ellie must be in the shower, and the longing to take his clothes off and walk in there and join her was overwhelming. Hell, it was going to be tough.
He went back to the kitchen and found it was all cleared up and the dishwasher was on. He boiled the kettle, made himself a mug of tea and was about to head up to the sitting room when she appeared, wrapped in a dressing gown with a towel round her
head and looking way too good for his peace of mind.
Her smile was wry. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a hairdryer?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, no.’
‘I need to write a list. There are loads of things I haven’t got. I’ll go back and get them tomorrow. And in the meantime we need to have a talk.’
He frowned at her. ‘About?’
‘Us being here and how we’re going to manage it. If we’re going to be here for weeks, we’ll pay our way, obviously. A share of the electricity and gas bills, the food—all of it. Or we move,’ she added as he opened his mouth, and he had a horrible feeling she meant it, so he shrugged and gave in.
‘OK. I cleared the playroom.’
‘I saw. Thank you so much. I’ll move their toys and stuff into it tomorrow and we can keep out of your way then.’
‘Ellie, you’re not in my way,’ he said, but she just shook her head reproachfully so he gave up.
‘Whatever. Want a cup of tea?’
* * *
They fell into a sort of routine over the course of the next week.
He got breakfast for everyone on her work days, she cooked the evening meal most nights, and by the weekend she’d rounded up all the things she’d forgotten to bring from the house, and they were settling in nicely.
A bit too nicely, and she was worried that they were constantly underfoot, but when she tackled Nick about it again on Friday night he was adamant that they weren’t. Nevertheless, the children spent a lot of time with him, more than was probably wise, if they weren’t going to get too attached to him. And that went for her as well as the children.
‘We’ll keep out of your hair tomorrow,’ she told him, and he rolled his eyes.
‘You don’t need to. I’m doing the Saturday morning surgery this weekend anyway, so I won’t even be here.’
Tempted By The Single Mom (Yoxburgh Park Hospital) Page 12