She loved Gemma and Nigel and their little family and she remembered Thomas’s christening and when they had been there for her.
Gemma must have been thinking of it too, because she gave her friend the nicest smile and later pulled her aside.
‘My parents are driving me crazy,’ Gemma said. ‘They want to know when we’re having the cake. I’m sure they want to go home.’
Cat smiled. Gemma’s parents loathed any change to their routine.
‘Are you okay, Cat?’
‘Of course.’
They told each other everything and she could have come up with some airy excuse, that today was hard because...
Only, she wouldn’t use Thomas as an excuse for not being able to meet her friend’s eyes.
‘What are you up to, Cat?’
‘I’m not up to anything.’
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
For the first time since they’d been teenagers she lied properly to her friend.
‘Don’t be daft.’
And she got on with smiling and enjoying this very special day.
But over the next few weeks Cat threw herself into her work and studying for her exams, which were tough but no tougher than expected. It meant there was no time to catch up with Gemma.
And even when three weeks’ annual leave stretched ahead of her, she still avoided her friend.
Though she was starting to realise that she wouldn’t be able to avoid her for long.
Gemma texted.
Is everything okay?
Cat didn’t answer.
Gemma persisted.
Did we have an argument that I didn’t notice?
Finally Cat texted back.
Can I tell you when I’m ready?
Because she wasn’t just yet.
Of course.
No, she wasn’t quite ready, so she stripped walls and sanded back a mantelpiece and tried to face something she was avoiding.
When it proved too hard, she took herself to her favourite shop and spent a morning turning pages of wallpaper samples.
‘I think a silver grey,’ Cat said to Veronica, the owner, who was as obsessed with wallpaper as she was. ‘Perhaps with one wall in silver and the rest in a matt finish...’
Silver moonlight hues had appealed but as Veronica went to clear some space so they could put together samples she moved a book and suddenly it wasn’t those colours that Cat wanted.
‘I haven’t seen this,’ she said.
‘It’s only just in...’
‘Oh, my,’ Cat said. She could almost feel the pulse from the sample book as she turned the pages. It was like being walked blindfolded and then having it removed and finding herself standing in a spring park. Birds, butterflies and tree branches that stretched and flowers, endless flowers...
It reminded her of Collserola and that one magical morning and she certainly didn’t need such a constant reminder, except...
‘Would this be a feature wall?’ Cat checked, and then almost winced when the assistant pulled up some images on her computer screen.
Every wall was covered. In some of the images even the ceilings were papered. It was a sort of cross between a cheap Paris hotel and an enchanted wood.
‘This is so far removed from what I was planning,’ Cat said, and Veronica nodded.
‘You don’t want to know the price.’
‘I don’t,’ Cat said, and tried to get back to silver grey. ‘Have you got it in?’
‘I do, though it’s incredibly hard to get hold of. It was on a special order but the buyer couldn’t wait and went for something less...’
‘Less what?’ Cat asked. ‘Less migraine inducing, less...?’ She let out a breath. ‘Less sexy...?’
Yes, somehow it was sexy.
‘Just less,’ Veronica said.
It was sold to the guilty conscience that just wanted to revisit that gorgeous morning over and over again.
A time when the world had been absolutely beautiful.
Magical even.
The strange thing, Cat thought as she stepped back a full week later and surveyed her handiwork, the world still was.
Magical.
Instead of the muted tones for the bedroom she had chosen colour. And now, in autumn, she stood in the middle of summer and imagined this being her haven when winter came in.
Yes, that weekend had changed her in a way she was finally accepting.
‘Hey, Gemma.’ Cat called her friend, who had so patiently waited for the morose mood to pass by. ‘The bedroom’s finished.’
Gemma really was a brilliant friend. She came over within an hour, clutching a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and they did a walk through the house. Cat had a photo in each room of what it had looked like before she’d set to work and it was hard to believe now just how bad it had once been.
As she opened the bedroom door she watched her friend’s jaw drop in absolute amazement as she stepped in.
‘I want to live in your bedroom for ever,’ Gemma said.
‘Nigel might not be too pleased.’
‘He can come too,’ Gemma said. ‘Oh, my, it is beautiful. It’s just stunning. I can’t believe you’ve finished the house.’
‘I haven’t yet.’
‘Well, it looks pretty perfect to me. What do you still have left to do—the garden?’
‘No.’
Gemma followed Cat out of the master bedroom and down the hallway that no longer creaked when you walked, and she frowned as Cat opened up the guest bedroom.
It had a dark wooden bed that was dressed in white linen. There was a gorgeous bookcase next to the open fire. On the mantelpiece were beautiful ornaments. Every last piece had been chosen with care.
‘But it’s already perfect,’ Gemma said.
‘I’m going to make it into a nursery.
‘Will it sell better if you do?
‘No, I’ve decided against selling.’
‘So why are you making it into...?’ The penny was slowly dropping and a rather stunned Gemma halted and turned to her friend.
Yes, there was magic in nature.
‘You’re pregnant?’
* * *
There was a long stretch of silence.
Gemma was an obstetrician and she was used to women finding themselves rather unexpectedly pregnant.
It seemed today, though, that it was the doctor who was more surprised.
She was.
Cat had spent the past few weeks fighting the idea and then getting used to it. A private person, she revealed only when she was ready.
And tonight she was.
‘How long have you known?’ Gemma asked.
‘A couple of weeks after the twins were christened,’ Cat said. ‘I tried to put it out of my mind, what with my exams and everything. I decided to work out how I felt when I was on leave.’
‘And how do you feel?’ Gemma asked, struggling to put back on her obstetrician’s hat.
‘Well, I’m going to be terrified until I have the tests and get all the results back...’
‘The chances of it happening again are minimal,’ Gemma said.
‘I know they are.’
‘But you shan’t relax till they’re in.’ Gemma smiled gently and Cat nodded. ‘Apart from that, how do you feel?’
‘I still don’t know,’ Cat admitted. ‘I don’t know if I’m happy or worried or anything really.’
‘You know that I’m here for you, whatever you decide.’
‘I do and even if I haven’t been ready to speak about it till now, it’s helped a lot to know that.’
Gemma opened the champagne.
For herself.
&n
bsp; She didn’t even bother with a glass!
‘What about Rick? How did he take it?’
‘It isn’t Rick’s.’
‘Then who—’
‘I don’t want to discuss that.’
‘Now, hold on a minute,’ Gemma said. ‘You’re not my patient yet—you’re my friend so we are going to discuss that. What happened in Spain?’
‘How do you know that it was in Spain?’
‘Because you’ve been different since then, and also you don’t top up your tan by sitting in a hotel room.’
‘Yes, it was then,’ Cat admitted. ‘I met someone but it was never going to be going anywhere. It was supposed to be a bit of fun, a weekend of no consequence...’ She gave a wry smile. ‘We were careful...’
‘You have no idea how many times I hear that a day,’ Gemma said.
‘We used condoms.’
‘Note the plural,’ Gemma said. ‘Was it a sex-fest, then?’
‘I guess.’
‘You dirty girl.’ Gemma grinned.
‘Okay, I can tell you what happened now.’ And so she told Gemma all about the hair appointment that hadn’t happened and the missing luggage. ‘I ended up wearing your dress for the presentation,’ Cat explained. ‘I felt like a fish out of water at first but then I started to enjoy myself. I felt a bit like my old self. Anyway, he made it very clear from the start that he was only interested in the weekend and nothing more...’ Cat thought about the moment when he had asked her to stay on for longer but she shoved that aside. It didn’t matter now. ‘At first I was going to tell him to get lost, he’s not my usual type at all, but then...’ She shrugged. ‘I decided that a weekend of no-strings fun was better than six months of starting out all hopeful and then slowly finding out that a relationship wasn’t working.’
‘And was it?’
‘For a while,’ Cat said.
‘So, what’s his name?’
‘Dominic,’ she replied.
‘And have you told him about the baby?’ Gemma asked.
‘He’s married.’ Cat made herself say it. They stood in the spare room that would soon be a nursery in silence. It was Cat who broke it. ‘I’m sorry, Gemma...’
‘You don’t have to say sorry to me,’ Gemma said. ‘After all, it wasn’t Nigel who you slept with.’
‘I know, but even so.’ There were tears in Cat’s eyes. She still couldn’t quite believe how careless she’d been. ‘I didn’t know that he was married right until the end—the bastard had taken off his ring and tucked it in his wallet. I probably didn’t ask enough questions,’ she admitted. ‘He seemed very direct to me. He didn’t seem the sort of person who would cheat, which says a lot about my gauge for guys...’
‘Well, whether he’s married or not,’ Gemma said, and Cat knew that her friend’s doctor’s hat was firmly on now, ‘Dominic still has a responsibility towards the baby...’
Cat shook her head. ‘It might be a bit late to be thinking of it but I’m not tearing a family apart. I’m not going to contact him just yet. I don’t even know where he works, I don’t even know his surname...’
‘Come off it, Cat.’
‘Okay, I looked up the conference attendees and I do know his surname but I can manage—’
‘It’s actually not about you and whether or not you can manage,’ Gemma said. ‘And it’s not about his wife and how she’ll react. It’s about the baby, Cat.’ Gemma was as firm as Cat had known she would be. The very questions that she had been wrestling with for weeks were now being voiced by her friend. ‘It’s about your baby, who will grow up and will want to know, and has a right to know, who their father is. Whether or not you want him to be, Dominic has a right to be involved, or not, in his baby’s life.’
‘I know all of that,’ Cat said. ‘And I shall tell him, just not yet. Gemma, I’m eleven weeks pregnant. I’m doing my very best to simply get used to that fact. I’m not going to upend his life while I’m still in my first trimester...’
‘Oh, but you’ll upend yours. Why the hell should he get away with a few weeks of stress—’
‘I’m not stressed,’ Cat said. ‘I was at first but I’m not now. I want this baby and I’m going to do the very best that I can by it. I shall look up Dominic at some point but not now. Not now while I’m still trying to work things out. I need to find out the test results before I tell anyone. I need to know that it’s not going to be happening again...’
Cat knew she had Gemma’s support and, yes, she could tell her most things but there was something she couldn’t explain to her friend just yet because she didn’t actually understand it herself.
She missed Dominic.
Yes, it had been but one weekend and, yes, she was angry, not just with him but herself.
It was how she would react when she saw him that terrified Cat.
She knew that she wouldn’t cry and break down if he told her he wanted nothing to do with them—it would come as a relief, in fact.
And she didn’t want a penny from him either.
There were two things that terrified her—how he might react to the news if their baby was less than perfect, which was understandable given all that had gone on.
And how she might react if he took the news well.
Or, rather, how she might react when she saw him again.
What if that spark blew all her scruples away?
The mere thought of his kisses terrified her.
His smooth talk too.
She had this awful glimpse of life as a mistress.
Tucked away in England with her baby.
And she’d never be that.
If he was to be in their baby’s life, then it would be without lies.
Which meant someone was going to get hurt.
CHAPTER SIX
CAT DID LOOK him up.
At twenty weeks gestation, when her scan and amnio had come through as clear, Gemma told her that she had no excuse not to.
It really had been an excuse because whatever the outcome of the tests it wouldn’t have changed the course of the pregnancy for Cat.
But the results came in before Christmas and Cat had visions of Dominic and his fraught wife and the triplets she had now assigned to him, and decided she couldn’t ruin Christmas for them.
Or New Year.
Still, she had looked him up and it had taken about fifteen minutes to find out where he worked.
She recalled him saying that he liked the architecture in Edinburgh and after a few false starts she found someone who knew him and was told he was now working at a large teaching hospital in Glasgow.
Ah, that’s right, Cat remembered, he didn’t like to be tied to one place for too long.
Or one person.
And so Cat had sat on that knowledge for another month.
Her second pregnancy threw up so many memories of her first. There were so many thoughts and fears and she wanted to get past the milestone she had reached with Thomas.
Finally, though, she plucked up the courage to make the call.
‘You’re looking for Mr Edwards?’ A cheery female voice, with a heavy Glaswegian accent, checked.
‘Dominic Edwards—he’s an emergency consultant.’
‘Oh, you mean Dom!’ There was a long pause. ‘No, he was only here for a couple of months... Sorry, I’ve no idea where he is now.’
And that ended that.
Though, not quite, of course.
Now into February and thirty weeks pregnant Cat and Gemma caught up one Monday morning for breakfast in the canteen. They were interviewing for Cat’s maternity leave position and she didn’t want to be around for that.
Pregnancy suited her and she was enjoying this one. Colour had continued to come back into her life since that
weekend and she was wearing the paisley dress that she had bought for the twins’ christening, along with chocolate-brown high-heeled boots. Her hair hadn’t been straightened since and hung over her shoulder in a thick, long ponytail.
‘I really don’t want to see who’s replacing me,’ she admitted as she peeled the lid of her yoghurt and, having licked it, added, ‘Temporarily, of course! I’ll be back.’
‘Full-time?’ Gemma checked.
‘That was the plan,’ Cat admitted, ‘and I’ve told Andrew that I shall be returning full-time but I’m starting to really wonder how on earth I’m going to manage it.’
‘Have they had many applicants for the role?’ Gemma asked.
‘There have been a few, but only two standouts—two women who are looking at job share,’ Cat said.
‘You could think about doing that,’ Gemma suggested.
‘I don’t like sharing at the best of times and especially not my job,’ Cat said. ‘Still, I’m going to have to work something out. I can’t believe how quickly my due date is coming up.’
Cat had always heard women saying that their pregnancy seemed to drag on for ever, yet hers seemed to be galloping along at breakneck speed.
Work was as unrelenting as ever and she did her level best not to bring any aches and pains with her, but by the end of the day she was exhausted. The nursery hadn’t been sorted out; instead, her days off were spent looking at child-care centres. All to no avail. Even the crèche at the hospital wasn’t geared to a baby whose single parent worked such erratic hours.
‘If I’m going to work, then I’m going to have to get a nanny,’ Cat conceded as she added sugar to her tea. ‘But even that comes with its own set of problems.’
‘Such as?’
‘I have a two-bedroom home.’ She sighed. ‘A small two-bedroom home.’
‘And you don’t like sharing.’ Gemma smiled. ‘Can’t you get somewhere bigger?’
‘I’m going to have to at some stage but the thing is, I love my home. I’ve just got it exactly how I want it but, yes, I guess I’m going to have to look at moving. Not yet, though,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll stay put for now and once I’ve had the baby I’ll think about putting the house on the market. I’ll have six months to move...’
The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) Page 6