‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s nothing I can say to make it better, except to say I’m sorry. So sorry. You didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve any of it.’
Her arms tightened round her waist but her eyes didn’t leave his. ‘No, I didn’t. She did a real number on you, didn’t she? Your ex?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, she did. But you know what? I’m a grown man, I shouldn’t be letting the actions of someone in the past affect the way I interact with people now, but sometimes I think I can’t trust my own judgement, and then if I think I’ve been lied to I lash out, but I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have said the things I said and hurt you like that. I never meant to, and if I’d stopped to think about it for a second, I would have known you weren’t lying to me.’
She nodded. ‘I know. But I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, either. That poor lorry driver.’ Her mouth twitched, and she gave a tiny ripple of laughter that was verging on tears and pressed her fingers to her lips. ‘I don’t know what he thought was going on.’
Joe felt a reluctant smile tug at his mouth. ‘I have no idea, but I’d love to know what he told his mates.’
He saw her eyes soften, and he took a step forward and wrapped his arms gently round her and hugged her, resting his head against hers. ‘I’m so, so sorry I hurt you.’
‘Me, too. Can we start again? Forget any of these conversations happened and just be nice to each other?’
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes.
‘I don’t know if I can forget that easily. You’ve told me too much, and whatever you say I’m going to worry about you now.’
‘Don’t. I’m not going to do anything rash, I’m honestly not that stupid, and I’ll think really seriously about what you’ve said before I go any further, I promise. And I’ll have another look at the donor sites.’
‘No fjord cruises?’ he teased, and she laughed and shook her head.
‘No fjord cruises. No random one-nighters with tall blond strangers or sneaking off into the bushes with the best man.’ Her eyes were smiling now, teasing him back, and he felt himself relax. At least she wasn’t still furious with him, even if the hurt he’d caused would take a while to fade.
‘Good. Right, I need to go, I’ve got things to do before I leave.’ He hesitated, then threw out his reservations and bent his head and kissed her.
Just a fleeting kiss, or it was meant to be, but then she kissed him back, her lips soft but supple, their warmth melting something deep inside him that he’d long forgotten. And so he lingered, not heating it up, but not letting her go, either. Not yet. Not for a moment...
With a mammoth effort he lifted his head, brushed his knuckles slowly over her cheek and stepped away before it was too late. ‘Take care, Iona. Stay safe.’
‘I will. You, too. I’ll see you next week.’
He nodded, turned away, then turned back again. ‘Have you got your phone on you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take my number. I know what it’s like when there’s nobody to bounce stuff off, and if I know nothing else, I know about sperm donation.’
She nodded, gave him a fleeting smile and keyed in his number. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. Just call me if you need to.’
And with that he got back into his car, started the engine and drove away, watching her in the rear view mirror. As he got to the junction, he glanced back and she was still there, her hand raised in a little gesture of farewell.
He lifted his hand and pulled away reluctantly.
* * *
‘What’s happened? You look different.’
‘Different?’
He bent and kissed his aunt’s cheek, and she reached up and took his hand.
‘Yes, different,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘And you didn’t come yesterday.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I did let you know.’
‘I know that, I got your cryptic message, but you never change your plans unless it’s for work, and I knew you weren’t working.’
He chuckled and sat down beside her. ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you?’
‘No, I don’t, so don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes. What’s going on?’
He smiled wryly and gave up. ‘I’ve had a rather interesting weekend, what with one thing and another.’
‘Have you?’ she asked thoughtfully.
‘Yes. I met someone on Friday. At work. A very junior registrar. She—um—she challenged my ability to do a REBOA.’
‘Oh, dear—I can’t imagine that went down well,’ she said with a chuckle, and he gave a wry smile.
‘No, not exactly. But then I borrowed her stethoscope and forgot to give it back, and when I returned it to her—well, we got talking, and to cut a long story short she’s thinking about being a surrogate for her identical twin sister.’
‘What—having a baby for her? Well, bless her heart. What a very brave thing to do.’ She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then tucked it back up her sleeve. ‘Goodness. I can’t imagine how she’ll be able to do that. She must really love her sister. I could never have done anything as brave or selfless as that, even if I’d been able to.’
‘No, nor me,’ he said, still unconvinced she could do it without being destroyed. ‘Anyway, it was her brother’s wedding yesterday, and she talked me into going with her, and her sister was there and—well, basically the sister asked her if there was any way she could convince me to be their sperm donor.’
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! What did you say?’
He gave a wry laugh. ‘All the wrong things? I accused her of inviting me to the wedding just to meet her sister—’
‘Why did she invite you?’
‘Because she found out three days before her own wedding that her fiancé was sleeping with the stripper from his stag weekend, so weddings aren’t really her thing. And it was in the same church as her wedding would have been, with a lot of the same people, and she wanted me with her to deflect the sympathy. She really didn’t want to go.’
She sucked in a breath and put her hand over her chest. ‘Oh, the poor girl. No, I should think not. No wonder she didn’t want to go alone. I’m also surprised you went.’
He laughed without humour. ‘So was I.’
She plucked an imaginary bit of fluff off her sleeve, and rearranged her cardigan. ‘So—are you going to do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Be their sperm donor?’
‘No! Elizabeth, you know how I feel about it.’
‘Yes, I do, but—that’s because you had no idea who the parents would be. This way, you’d know, because you’ve met them, so it would be different.’
‘No, it wouldn’t. And anyway I don’t care about them. I care about Iona, and I know she thinks she’s thought it through, but I’m so worried that’s she’s not grasped the enormity of what she’s doing, that her love for Isla is blinding her to what she herself stands to lose. What if it destroys her?’
‘Maybe it won’t. If her sister’s an identical twin, they share exactly the same genes, so it would make sense, wouldn’t it, for her to be the one to carry the baby if her sister can’t? Then the sister will have a child who could have been her own, and Iona will have a child she’ll have a lifelong relationship with, without running the risk of another potentially messy relationship before she’s ready. I can see why she’s thinking like that, and it’s quite unlike your situation.
‘I know what you feel about your children—and, yes, before you say it, I know they’re not your children, but you know what I mean. She would know the answers to all the questions you constantly ask yourself. And there’s nothing to stop her further down the line meeting someone and falling in love with them and having a family of her own—someone like you, maybe?’
> His aunt had the most eloquent eyes in the universe, he thought, and wouldn’t hesitate to give him her opinion if she felt he’d invited it. Which he had, just by telling her. Didn’t mean he liked it, especially when her eyes were saying what they were saying.
‘Elizabeth, we’ve barely met! She’s not in love with me, and I’m certainly not in love with her, and I’m not going to be.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you are, not after such a short time, you’re much too wary. But I knew about Owen the moment I met him. It was love at first sight—’
‘That doesn’t exist.’
‘Says the boy who couldn’t work out why a woman like Natalie would be unfaithful if she was left alone for long enough.’
‘I’m not a boy, Elizabeth.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re a man, and it’s high time you stopped running away from it and having meaningless affairs and allowed yourself to be happy.’
He sighed. ‘I’m not in the market for it. I’m too busy, I’m not ready for it yet, not until I’ve got a consultancy, if then. I’m not going to risk trashing another relationship like I did the last one.’
‘Well, hopefully it wouldn’t be like the last one. Hopefully she’d be rather more level headed and less egocentric, and if Iona’s prepared to have a baby for her sister, I think that qualifies her quite nicely. I’d like to meet her.’
He laughed. ‘Over my dead body. You know way too much about me.’
‘Not if she’s going to be carrying your child. She should know the kind of man you are.’
‘She’s not going to be carrying my child, either! And if we were in love, which we aren’t, not by a country mile because we know next to nothing about each other, why would we have a baby and give it away?’
She smiled gently at him, her eyes softening. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that. It was a sort of either/or. I know how hurt you are, how much Natalie destroyed your faith in women, and because of that, because I know you can’t trust easily and don’t want another relationship, it might be the only chance you have to bring a child into the world that you could have a relationship with.’
‘No! I’m not going to do it!’ And especially not now, after their row. She’d made that quite clear, and it was a miracle she’d even spoken to him again.
‘Never say never. Tell me about her. What’s she like?’
‘Lovely. She’s gorgeous,’ he said honestly. ‘Almost too good to be true. She’s caring, very fond of all her family, but she’s also spontaneous and emotional. That’s why I’m worried for her, in case she’s suggested this out of pity and now doesn’t quite know how to retract it.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t want to. Maybe she’d be happy doing it. And you used to be spontaneous and emotional.’
‘I know. And I learned by my mistake, and I don’t want Iona to have to do the same, because as well as spontaneous and emotional, she’s also either immensely brave or she’s totally missed the point of what it could do to her.’
‘Don’t underestimate her. Women are strong, Joseph. Yes, it could hurt her, but so would not giving her sister the joy of being a mother if it’s in her power. Maybe she really is that selfless. Oh, and that’s the gong for tea. Lucky you, you get to run away,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye that made him laugh in spite of himself.
‘I need to go anyway. I’ve got a lot to do, I’m leaving for Manchester shortly, for this course. Would you like me to walk you along to the dining room on my way out?’
‘That would be lovely, my darling. And you drive carefully, now. That car of yours has got far too much power.’
She kissed him goodbye at the dining room door, but she couldn’t resist a parting shot as he walked away.
‘Bring her to see me!’
He laughed. As he’d already said, over his dead body...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SO DID HE manage to track you down at the speed dating?’
Iona stared at Jenny, taking a second or two to work out what she was talking about because it seemed like a lifetime ago.
‘Oh—yes. Yes, he did. Thanks for sending him there.’
‘I hope he apologised for being rude in Resus as well as running off with your beloved stethoscope?’
She laughed softly. ‘Yes, he apologised.’ For that, and for all the things he’d said in the car, too, which had been much more hurtful. They’d come totally out of the blue and had seemed really out of character from what little she knew of him—which, she realised, was precious little, so maybe it wasn’t out of character. But then he’d kissed her...
‘So where am I today?’
‘Oh, I think James has put you in Minors, keeping an eye on Tim. Between you and me, I think he’s a bit worried about him.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s not alone. OK, Jenny, thanks.’
She made her way to Minors, relieved in some ways that it would be a relatively easy day, but she should have realised nothing was ever as straightforward as it seemed. And Tim, with his lack of experience and apparently no gut instinct, was at the root of it.
‘How are you getting on?’ she asked him after a while.
‘OK. I’ve got someone with migraine I’m just about to discharge with codeine.’
She frowned. ‘Do they have a history?’
‘No. It’s the first time, but he said it was very bad with a roaring in his head and he was very shaky for a few minutes, so his wife brought him in.’
Iona frowned again. ‘Shaky?’
‘Yes—she said he was shaking all over. I assume it was from the pain.’
‘Don’t assume,’ she said, red flags appearing all over the place. ‘Ask. Follow up. When did this start?’
‘About half an hour ago, I think, or a bit more. I’ve done some basic neuro obs and his strength is fine.’
‘Right, where is he?’
She went in, introduced herself, skipped the basic neurological strength tests and made him close his eyes and touch the tip of his nose with his index finger, first right, then left.
And he missed with the left.
‘OK, it’s just a precaution, but I’d like you to have a CT scan. I’ll go and arrange it now.’
‘A CT? Really? For a headache?’ Tim asked, following her to the desk.
‘Or a stroke,’ she said quietly, and picked up the phone. ‘Hi, I need an urgent CT on a query CVA, but he’s coming up to the hour and he’s got some neurological deficit. Can we send him down now?’
She put the phone down, and Tim looked shocked. ‘But he’s too young. He’s only thirty-seven.’
‘Nobody’s ever too young. Let’s just see what the CT comes up with.’
* * *
She was right. He had a clot in his right parietal lobe and another in the cerebellum, and was immediately whisked into the stroke unit for treatment with anticoagulants.
Tim, predictably, was shaken. ‘I thought he just had a headache. His wife said it was a migraine—’
‘Is she a doctor?’
‘No—no, she’s not. And I’m not sure I am, either.’
Iona sighed. ‘Yes, you are, Tim. You just need to question everything, take nothing at face value and don’t overlook the obvious. His wife said he was shaking. You should have asked what kind of shaking, because when she demonstrated it to me, it looked like a Parkinsonian tremor and that can be symptomatic of a brain injury. It’s OK, I picked up on it and no harm was done, so go and get a coffee, take a break, and come back and find me. We’ll work together. OK?’
He nodded, and she watched him go and let out a quiet sigh.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ Jenny asked, and she nodded.
‘Tim misdiagnosed a stroke patient. It’s OK, I picked it up in time. He’s in the stroke unit.’
‘Well done. So how was the wedding?’
She smiled
wryly. ‘OK, thanks. I went with a...friend, in the end,’ she said, wondering if she would have picked up on that slight hesitation, but the red phone rang and Jenny answered it, and she escaped without any further interrogation.
Not that Jenny would really have interrogated her, but somehow she didn’t want the fact that Joe had gone with her to come out, because without a doubt it would unleash a barrage of questions she didn’t want to answer. She wasn’t even sure she could answer them.
Not until she knew him better, and she suddenly realised how much she wanted that. She’d gone from thinking he was arrogant to friend to arch enemy and back to friend in the course of less than forty-eight hours, and next weekend when she’d see him again seemed a long, long way away.
* * *
The course was tough.
Tough, challenging and utterly fascinating. Or it should have been, but for some reason he couldn’t get Iona out of his mind. Iona, and her hunt for the elusive donor.
He wondered how her week was going, and if she’d looked at any more donor sites. If so, she hadn’t contacted him, and he wondered if it was because she was still feeling hurt and insulted and didn’t want to talk to him.
He wouldn’t blame her. What an idiot. If he’d only engaged his heart instead of his mouth, he would have realised she could never have done anything that devious, but no, he’d gone straight in with all guns blazing like an arrogant idiot. Serve him right if she didn’t want to speak to him again—far less ask him to be her sperm donor. Although he’d got that message, loud and clear, and so had half of East Anglia.
Damn Elizabeth for making him even consider it. There was no way—
He dragged his attention back to the lecture, forced himself to concentrate and put Iona and her surrogacy project firmly out of his mind.
* * *
The week came and went without a word from him, but then again because she’d been letting the dust settle she hadn’t contacted him, either. Which meant he didn’t have her phone number, she realised, because although he’d given her his, she hadn’t reciprocated.
Oh, well. It was too late to ring him at ten on a Friday night, and he might be driving, or even coming back tomorrow. Or he might have been back days ago. She had no idea how long the course had been, he hadn’t said, but he should be home by tomorrow. She’d call him then before her night shift and ask—just casually—how the course had gone.
Their Own Little Miracle Page 6