He drew back and looked into her eyes. ‘Do you still feel cold?’
‘No,’ she murmured, feeling herself trembling with desire.
‘Good.’
He smiled as he lifted her until she was straddling his hips. His mouth found hers at the very moment that he entered her and she closed her eyes as a wave of intense pleasure swept through her. She didn’t need to look at Max to know that he felt the same. They were so completely in tune that she could tell exactly how he was feeling. She clung to him as they climaxed together, and in the final second, just before the world dissolved, she couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘I love you.’
* * *
Max could feel the words echoing inside his head, growing louder and louder with every beat of his heart. Lucy loved him—could it be true?
He wanted to leap up and punch the air in delight, but how could he? How could he celebrate when it was the one thing he should never have allowed to happen?
He set her back on her feet, reaching around her to turn off the water, feeling the pain bite deep into his gut when he saw her eyes open because he knew he would have to hurt her.
‘Max? What is it? What’s wrong?’
He had to steel himself when he heard the alarm in her voice. It would be so easy to accept what she was offering him, but it wouldn’t be right when he had nothing to offer her in return. ‘We need to talk, Lucy.’ Opening the glass screen, he took a towel off the rack and handed it to her. ‘Why don’t you get dressed while I make us some coffee?’
‘I don’t want coffee! I want to know what’s wrong.’
‘Let’s leave it until we’re dressed,’ he said flatly, deliberately removing any trace of emotion from his voice.
She didn’t say another word as he stepped out of the stall, but she didn’t need to. Max could feel her pain as he strode into the bedroom and dragged on his clothes. He didn’t think he had ever felt as bad as he did at that moment, knowing that he had to hurt her even more. It was only the thought that he was doing it for her sake as well as his that gave him the strength to continue.
The coffee was ready by the time she appeared at the kitchen door. Max filled a couple of mugs and placed them on the table then pulled out a chair for her, but she made no attempt to sit down. She just stood and watched him, her face looking unnaturally pale in the glare from the overhead spotlights.
‘So this is it, Max? You’ve had enough of me already?’
Her tone was bitter and he flinched. Sitting down at the table, he took a sip of his coffee, hoping it would steady him. He needed to make her understand that this was the right decision, the only decision that made any sense.
‘I told you that I wasn’t looking for commitment,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, you did. No one could ever accuse you of being untruthful.’ She laughed, and his heart ached when he heard the pain in her voice. ‘I suppose it’s my own fault. I committed the ultimate sin, didn’t I? I should never have told you that I loved you.’
‘Look, Lucy…’
‘No. Please don’t say anything. I feel foolish enough without you trying to reassure me that it doesn’t matter. All I can say is that I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Max. I never intended to do that.’
She spun round on her heel and he realised that she was going to leave. Was that what he really wanted? Did he want her to walk out of his life, thinking that she’d been at fault in some way? He shot to his feet and hurried after her. She already had her coat on by the time he reached the sitting room and his hands clenched when he saw her fumble with the buttons. He couldn’t bear to know that she was upset and that it was all his doing.
‘Lucy, I’m sorry! If anyone’s to blame then it’s me. I should never have got involved with you in the first place. I knew how dangerous it was but I kept telling myself that I could handle it.’
‘Dangerous,’ she repeated, turning to look at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘That I knew from the first moment we met that I could very easily fall in love you.’
‘And would that have been such a bad thing?’ she asked, her voice catching.
‘Yes.’ Max could feel the blood pounding through his veins. He knew there was only one way to make her understand why they couldn’t have a future and that was to tell her the truth. The thought of how she would react was almost more than he could bear but he had to do it.
‘I’m no use to you, Lucy.’ He held up his hand when she went to interrupt. ‘No, let me finish. The fact is, I’m no use to any woman because I can never father a child. That’s why you’re better off without me messing up your life.’
Lucy felt the room start to spin. She grabbed hold of a chair and clung to it while everything whirled out of control. She heard Max say something but she had no idea what it was. When he took her arm and sat her down on the sofa, she didn’t protest. She couldn’t. Every single word seemed to have disappeared from her mind apart from the words he had uttered: he could never father a child.
‘Here, drink this.’
He placed his mug of coffee in her hand and helped her raise it to her mouth. Lucy shuddered when she felt the hot liquid trickle down her throat. She took another sip then set the mug down on the coffee table, afraid that she might drop it. Max was sitting beside her now and she could tell that he was waiting for her to speak, but what could she say? She was so shocked by what he had told her that she had no idea how to respond.
‘Wh-when did you find out? That you couldn’t have children, I mean?’ she managed at last.
‘Three years ago. Becky and I had been trying for a baby for a while. When nothing happened, we decided to have some tests done.’ He shrugged. ‘It turned out that I was to blame.’
‘It must have been a terrible shock for you,’ she said softly.
‘It was.’ He gave her a tight smile and her heart wept when she saw the anguish in his eyes. ‘I’ve always loved kids and just assumed I’d have some of my own one day. Finding out that the chances of it happening were virtually nil was a lot to take in.’
‘But there is still a chance that you could father a child,’ she said quickly.
‘A very slim one. Apparently, I produce enough sperm but they have poor motility.’
‘Surely there are steps you could have taken? I don’t know much about fertility treatment but they can do wonderful things these days. Did you and your wife never think of trying it?’
‘No. To be honest, I don’t think we could have coped with the strain, let alone the disappointment if it had failed. We’d been going through a rocky patch even before we decided to try for a baby and that was the final straw. It was simpler to call it a day.’
‘I’m so sorry, Max. It must have been a horribly difficult time for you.’ She squeezed his hand, wishing there was something she could say to make him feel better.
‘It’s all over and done with now.’
He moved his hand away, making it clear that he didn’t want her sympathy, and she sighed. Although she understood how painful it must have been for him to discover that he was unlikely to father a child, he couldn’t let it affect his life for ever.
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You already admitted that your divorce is the reason why you steer clear of long-term relationships. It doesn’t sound to me as though it’s all over and done with from that.’
‘Obviously, it has a bearing on how I lead my life these days. It wouldn’t be right for me to expect any woman to forgo having children because of me.’ He looked steadily back at her. ‘I certainly wouldn’t put you in that position, Lucy. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘But surely it should be my choice,’ she protested.
‘Some choice.’ His tone was grim. ‘Stick with me and give up your dreams of becoming a mother. Or find some other guy who can give you all the children you want. I know which option I’d choose.’
‘Yo
u make it sound so…so clinical! But you can’t just turn your feelings on and off like a tap, Max.’
‘You can when it’s the sensible thing to do.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘Maybe you think you could live with the situation right now, but a few years down the line, you’ll change your mind.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I’ve seen how you are with the babies on the ward, how much you love them. Be honest, Lucy. Do you really think that you’ll be happy if you never became a mother? Because I don’t.’
Lucy hesitated. Although she longed to deny what he said, it wouldn’t be right to do so without thinking about it first. She had always assumed that she would have a family one day, so could she really imagine being childless?
‘I thought not.’ Max obviously took her hesitation as a sign that she agreed with him. His face was set when he looked at her. ‘I don’t think there’s any point letting this affair continue, is there?’
‘If it’s not what you want, Max, then, no, there isn’t any point.’ She stood up, trying not to let him see how much it hurt to hear him speak to her in that distant tone. Tears stung her eyes as she picked up her bag. It had never been just an affair to her. It had been so much more!
‘You may as well know that I’m planning on leaving Dalverston in the near future. That should make life simpler for you.’
Lucy couldn’t hide her surprise as she turned to him. ‘Leaving?’
‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I decided that it was time I applied for a permanent consultant’s post. Anna is due back from maternity leave at the end of January so it’s the perfect time to make the move. I have a couple of interviews lined up in the next few weeks, so hopefully it won’t take too long to find a suitable position.’
‘Then all I can do is wish you luck,’ she said hollowly, her head reeling when it struck her that he must have been planning his departure for some time if he already had interviews scheduled. The thought that she had only ever been a fleeting distraction to him was more than she could bear and she knew that she had to leave before she did the unforgivable and broke down.
She hurried to the door and let herself out, bitterly aware that Max didn’t try to stop her. Why would he when he was probably relieved to see the back of her? All that talk about him being afraid of falling in love with her had been so much hot air. There’d never been any chance of that happening!
Tears ran unchecked down her face as she hurried down the drive. She’d thought she knew how it felt to have her heart broken but she’d been wrong. This was far worse than anything she had experienced before. She had lost the man she loved with all her heart and she couldn’t imagine how she would ever get over it.
* * *
Max stood at the window, watching as Lucy ran down the drive. The urge to go after her and beg her to forgive him was so strong that he almost gave into it. His hands clenched as he fought for control but it was hard to stand there and watch her walking away from him. Maybe he had done the right thing, the only thing, yet he couldn’t help feeling as though he had thrown away something really precious. There was going to be a huge gap in his life now that Lucy would no longer be a part of it.
* * *
The days passed in a blur. Lucy was aware that she was functioning on autopilot most of the time but it was the only way she could cope. If she allowed herself to think about what had happened then she would break down.
Thankfully, she saw nothing of Max. Although she knew he was in work during the day, he was never around when she arrived in the evening for the night shift. She suspected that he was avoiding her and was relieved. The less she saw of him the better, she told herself, but it was hard to pretend that everything would be fine when it was such a long way from being that.
Fortunately, they continued to be extremely busy and that helped. The baby she had found had been placed with foster-parents now. The mother still hadn’t contacted either them or the police. Although permission had been granted to hand over the details of all the babies born in the unit during the period in question, nothing had turned up during the police’s enquiries. Lucy knew that any hopes of tracing the mother were fading fast.
Her second stint of nights came to an end on New Year’s Day and she had the rest of the week off. She was planning to go home and visit her parents. What had happened in the past had paled into insignificance compared to recent events and it was time her family knew that she had put it behind her. She was planning to catch the ten o’clock train because as she knew from experience, it was pointless trying to sleep when she got in. As soon as she closed her eyes, her mind started racing, going over everything Max had said to her. She had to accept that whatever they’d had was over.
Lucy made herself a cup of tea when she got home then took a shower. It was barely eight o’clock by the time she got dressed again, way too early to set off to the station. She decided to go to the newsagent’s and buy a magazine to read on the journey, so fetched her coat. It was still very cold outside but the snow had disappeared at last. After she’d bought her magazine, there was still plenty of time left before she needed to leave so she decided to go for a walk. The canal was close by and a walk along the towpath would help to blow away some of the cobwebs.
There were a couple of people walking their dogs along the path when she set off but apart from them there was nobody about. She decided to walk as far as the lock and then make her way back. She could see the old lock-keeper’s cottage in the distance and guessed it would take her about ten minutes to get there. She rounded the final bend and stopped when she saw a familiar figure standing on the edge of the lock basin. It was Sophie Jones, the young mum whose baby she had delivered on her first day at Dalverston General. She couldn’t imagine what Sophie was doing there at that hour of the day and hurried towards her.
‘Sophie? Are you all right?’
Sophie spun round and Lucy tried to hide her dismay when she saw the state the girl was in. Her clothes were filthy and it looked as though she hadn’t washed in days. There was no sign of Alfie and Lucy’s heart turned over as she wondered what had happened to him.
‘What are you doing here, Sophie?’
‘Nothing. I…I just felt like a walk, that’s all,’ Sophie muttered.
‘Me too. It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?’ She gave the girl a reassuring smile. ‘Where’s Alfie? Have you left him with someone, a friend or a neighbour perhaps?’
‘I don’t know where he is, but he’s better off without me!’
Tears suddenly began to pour down Sophie’s face, and Lucy felt more alarmed than ever. ‘What do you mean that you don’t know where Alfie is? What have you done with him?’
‘I left him outside the hospital,’ Sophie whispered. ‘I knew he’d be safe there.’
‘Alfie was the baby I found on Christmas Day!’ Lucy exclaimed in shock.
‘Yes.’ Sophie gulped. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. I tried phoning everyone I could think of—the clinic, the doctor, the health visitor—but all I kept getting were messages to say that I should call back after Christmas. I couldn’t wait that long. Not with the flat in that state!’
‘Tell me what happened,’ she said firmly. ‘Why was your flat in such a state?’
‘It was some boys. They broke into the flat above mine and ripped out all the pipes. There was water pouring through my ceiling, so I got in touch with the landlord, but he wasn’t interested when I told him what had happened. He’s planning to sell the building to a property developer and he couldn’t care less what goes on there. Most of the other tenants have moved out because they couldn’t put up with the conditions any longer.’
‘It sounds dreadful.’
‘It is. I put out pans and bowls to catch the water, but on Christmas Day the whole ceiling fell in. Everything was ruined—the furniture, Alfie’s pram, every single thing I own.’
‘I am so sorry, Sophie. I can’t imagine how you must have felt. Is that why you left Alfie at the hospital?�
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‘Yes.’ Sophie dashed her hand across her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to do it, but how could I keep him when we had nowhere to live? I thought he’d be better off with someone else, someone who could look after him properly.’
She gave a choked little sob as she turned away. Lucy wasn’t sure what happened next, whether she lost her footing or deliberately stepped off the lock wall, but one minute Sophie was standing in front of her and the next second, she had disappeared.
‘Sophie!’
Horrified, Lucy ran to the lock and peered into the water, but there was no sign of the girl. Instinct kicked in at that point, cutting through her panic. Shrugging off her coat, she leapt into the lock, gasping when the icy water closed over her head. Kicking her feet, she propelled herself back to the surface and looked frantically around. Sophie was floating, face down, on the water a couple of yards away so she swam over to her. She managed to roll her over and was relieved when the girl started to cough.
‘You’ll have to help me,’ she panted, struggling to keep them both afloat. The water was so cold that her legs were already going numb and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to support them for very long. ‘Try to kick your feet while I tow you over to the side.’
Sophie did as she’d instructed but it was obvious the cold was affecting her too. It seemed to take for ever to reach the side of the lock where metal rungs had been embedded in the wall to form a ladder. Taking hold of the girl’s hand, Lucy closed her fingers around one of the rungs.
‘Do you think you can climb up?’ she panted, her breath coming in laboured spurts.
‘I…don’t…know,’ Sophie replied, her teeth chattering with cold.
‘You have to try. Come on. I’ll help you.’
She managed to guide Sophie’s foot onto a rung then used her shoulder to boost her up the ladder. It was painfully slow and Lucy could feel her hands as well as her legs going numb with the cold. Sophie was halfway up the ladder now and she knew it was time that she got out as well.
The Midwife's Christmas Miracle (Dalverston General Hospital) Page 14