‘When was the last time you went out—?’
‘I’m not ready for dating,’ Madison snapped, but when Guy carried on talking she realized he hadn’t even scratched the surface.
‘If you’d let me finish, I was going to ask when the last time was you went out to see a movie that wasn’t an animated kids’ one.’ Madison pursed her lips as he pushed on. ‘When was the last time you went out for a night with the girls or even for a coffee with a friend?’
‘Ages,’ Madison admitted. ‘I’ve actually decided to make a bit more of an effort on that front. I’m going to make some time for me, find a reliable babysitter and start going out a bit. I’m finally starting to realize that I do need a bit more adult company—away from work.’
‘Good.’ Guy smiled. ‘And is there any chance of me being a part of that adult company?’ When she opened her mouth to speak he overrode her. ‘Can I take you out for dinner at least—once you find that reliable babysitter?’
‘I was talking about female company, Guy.’ Madison swallowed. ‘Getting a social life going was what I meant, perhaps joining a book club or something—not dating. The last thing I need right now is a relationship. I’m just not prepared to let anyone jeopardise what I’ve fought so hard to build.’
‘Maybe things wouldn’t be jeopardised,’ Guy said gently. ‘It could even enhance things, make things better.’
Madison shrugged. ‘I’m not prepared to chance it, Guy. At the end of the day I’ve got a five-year-old daughter, and I know it’s way too soon to be looking ahead, but that’s how it has to be when you’ve got a child—at least, that’s how I feel.’
‘So you’re never going to go out with a man again.’
‘Not for the foreseeable future,’ Madison answered, ignoring the incredulous edge to his voice and deliberately keeping hers even. ‘I can’t just date freely, bring different men into Emily’s life until I meet the right one. I simply won’t do that to her.’
‘What if you’ve already met him?’ Guy asked. Madison gave him a startled look, shocked yet relieved at the depth of feeling behind his words, scarcely able to comprehend that Guy could be feeling this as much as her. ‘Look, I can’t rationalise what’s taken place. The truth of the matter is if I wrote up one of your blessed lists and put down what I was looking for in a woman, a single mum with a tendency to obsessive compulsive disorder wouldn’t be at the top of it, but…’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Madison gave a dry laugh. ‘A perpetual backpacker isn’t exactly at the top of my list either. Do you see now why we can’t take this further?’
‘No,’ Guy answered, smiling at her frown. ‘I can see why we have to take things very slowly. I can see why it would be a very good idea if I go home now and not try and rush things. Are you free at any time tomorrow?’
‘Emily has a dance lesson,’ Madison answered unthinking. At nine a.m.’
‘So how about we do breakfast?’ Guy suggested. ‘You can tell Emily that you’re going shopping—she doesn’t even have to know. You name the place.’
He made it sound so easy, so straightforward, and Madison found herself being swayed.
‘We’ll take things so slowly Emily won’t even know I’m around. We can have lunch at work, the odd dinner when you can get a babysitter. Breakfast once a week would be a good starting point.’
‘Just breakfast?’
‘Emily won’t even know we’ve met.’
She was touched more than she could say that he would leave now when he clearly wanted to stay, that he would meet her for a mere hour and a half just to talk with her, just to spend time with her. Madison found herself nodding, not just about tomorrow but at the possibility he was offering, that maybe they could make this work. Maybe he was a man she could actually trust.
‘There’s a nice café on the high street,’ Madison gulped. ‘I could get there about five past nine.’
‘It’s a date, then,’ Guy said, standing up and heading for the front door. But as they walked past the living room, when he was sure the door was closed, he pulled her into his arms, dusted her forehead with his lips, melting away the tension that was there. Then his mouth found hers and he silenced the questions that were there with the briefest but most tender of kisses, before reluctantly letting her go and heading off into the night.
And yesterday faded almost into insignificance—yes, the sex had been amazing, reckless and exciting, but the tiny kiss they had just shared had spun her into orbit. The depth and emotion behind it, the glimpse of promise within it, had her senses reeling. Her fingers came to her lips, pushing the flesh beneath them as if somehow he were still there, tasting him all over again then snapping out of her daydream as Emily bustled out of the living room.
‘Where’s Guy?’ Emily asked, holding out a bowl. ‘I was going to see if he wanted some popcorn.’
‘He’s gone home, honey.’ Madison smiled. ‘And I think it’s time you two went to bed.’
‘Five more minutes.’ Emily pouted. ‘We won’t make a noise.’
‘Five minutes, then,’ Madison agreed, but as Emily headed off to the living room she paused, her shrewd eyes turning back to Madison, her pretty face way too knowing for her years.
‘I like Guy,’ she said to Madison, staring directly at her mother. ‘And I think that you like him, too.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘BUT where are you going?’ Emily asked, unaccustomed to any change in their strict routine. ‘You always watch me dance.’
‘I know, darling, but today I need to go shopping. I’ll be back at ten-thirty…’ A knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach and she decided that if Emily got upset and asked for her to stay, she’d ring Guy on his mobile and cancel. But Emily gave a tiny shrug and absent-mindedly kissed Madison goodbye before disappearing into a sea of pink-leotarded little girls. It was painfully obvious to Madison that Emily couldn’t give two hoots about the change in her routine.
Painful because now she had absolutely no excuse not to go and meet Guy for breakfast.
‘I was expecting a phone call.’ Smiling as she nervously sat down in front of him, Guy placed his mobile on the table beside them. ‘I was sure you were going to ring and cancel.’
‘I was sure I was going to.’ Madison smiled and accepted a menu from a busy waitress. ‘In fact, I’m clearly nowhere near the perfect mother because I was praying Emily would burst into tears and beg me to stay.’
‘She didn’t?’
‘No.’ Madison shook her head. ‘She barely managed to scrape together a kiss and a goodbye before she was off to be with her friends. I definitely need to improve my social life because my five-year-old’s is already miles more active than mine.’
‘What do you fancy?’ Guy asked. ‘Apart from that?’
‘Guy!’ Madison squealed, her cheeks bursting into colour as he read her mind. Refusing to look up till her colour had subsided, she scanned the menu. ‘Pancakes, with maple syrup and bacon.’
‘Madison Walsh!’ Guy tutted. ‘That’s not very calorie-controlled of you.’
‘I like my food.’ Madison shrugged, but Guy just stared. ‘What?’
‘What about all those healthy meals for one I saw in your cupboard?’
‘I have them because they’re easy,’ Madison said, surprised that he’d noticed. ‘I’m hardly going to cook chicken tarragon with jasmine rice just for me, and Emily’s a real meat-and-two-veg girl. It’s certainly not a desire to be healthy, more a desire for taste, speed and convenience. You really think you’ve got me labeled, don’t you?’
‘Not a bit,’ Guy answered thoughtfully. ‘Every time I think I’m getting to know you, out pops another surprise. You’re nothing like the woman I thought you were.’
‘And what was she?’
‘Uptight!’ Guy grinned. ‘Mind you, I fancied her like crazy.’
‘And what am I now?’ Madison asked, ignoring the second part of his statement
but glowing inside.
‘Uptight,’ Guy said. ‘But with a hell of a lot of potential. And, for the record I still fancy you like crazy.’
The food was delicious—at least, Madison assumed that the food was delicious because suddenly she was staring down at an empty plate. And the clocks must have changed last night and she’d forgotten, because an hour had disappeared in a flash, laughing, eating, exploring, getting to know each other, finding out all the silly little things that didn’t really matter a scrap but mattered terribly at the start of a romance—that he took sugar in his coffee, that he rained salt and pepper on everything, that his star sign was Aries, and that his favourite indulgence after many years in the middle of nowhere was exactly the same as Madison’s, a hot bath filled to the brim with bubbles…
‘With a magazine,’ Guy added. ‘The trashier the better…’ Seeing her stare regretfully at her watch, he halted the conversation and waved for the bill. ‘Dance class over?’
‘In ten minutes,’ Madison replied, reaching for her purse. ‘If I go now I can catch the last five minutes.’
‘Let’s go, then,’ Guy said, completely ignoring the money she held out and paying the bill himself, before walking her outside. ‘Would you like to do this again—say, same time next week?’ Guy asked, and Madison didn’t even hesitate.
‘Please.’
And it was the right answer, the right answer for both of them. A delighted Guy pulled her into his arms, his mouth crushing hers, the scratch of the brick wall behind her the only thing holding her up as she burnt under his touch like a teenager high on hormones. Oblivious to the throng of people in the high street, not even caring if half the parents at school were walking past, she kissed him back, felt the bruising weight of his lips on hers, until he pulled away, leaving her breathless and weak with longing, his touch so full of promise, affirming that a week between drinks, so to speak, was just too long to be without this divine man.
Nibbling her bottom lip, she gazed back up at him, dizzy with lust, trying to decide if she should take things further. Her mental scales carefully weighed up the pros and cons, carefully spooning on the utter joy that had filtered into her life during what should have been such a bleak time, adding the sensual, heady awakening he had so easily given her, topping it off with the sheer unadulterated pleasure of just being with him. She could feel the weight of his eyes on her, knew that he was waiting, hoping that she was going to move this forward yet refusing to coerce her, just patiently awaiting whatever came next.
But five years of pain couldn’t be erased so easily. The scales that had seemed so heavily weighted in Guy’s favour catapulted upwards as Mark’s deception, his irresponsibility, the sheer hell he had inflicted shifted the balance as layer after layer of pain was scooped on and the scales teetered ominously against them. He must have seen the hurt in her eyes, felt the shift in her stance, because finally he spoke, dragging her back into his arms, but in a way that was more soothing than sexual, holding her close as her heart hammered against him, feeling her confusion and pain.
‘There’s no rush here, Madison,’ Guy whispered in her ear, blocking out the busy sounds of people on the street, the Saturday morning traffic, until for all the world is was only the two of them. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
And it was exactly what she needed to hear, tiny grains of hope that shifted the balance back towards Guy, gave her the confidence she needed to face the possibility of a future with Guy beside her, to move things along just a shade more.
‘Madison’s going to Mark’s parents on Wednesday night, she stays over once a month for a contact visit. Maybe you could come over, we could have dinner, I could cook…’ And she felt him hold her tighter, his breath still in his lungs as she took the first brave step towards a future, invited him a touch further into her life.
‘Leave the details to me,’ Guy murmured. ‘But there’s no way you’re cooking.’ Reluctantly he let her go, but she left hastily, her mind whirring. Thrilled, terrified, excited by what she had done, she raced to the dance hall and arrived just as the class ended. She anxiously glanced through the window as she scuttled past and twenty little girls made curtsies.
Surely everyone must know, Madison thought, blushing scarlet as she waded through the throng of mothers towards Emily. Surely everyone had seen her kissing a stranger in the street, surely it was flashing like a neon sign above her head. But no one seemed to even look at her, no one even gave her a second glance as, dizzy and breathless, she found her daughter peeling off her ballet shoes then peeling off her wide pink hairband, a smile lighting up her face as she saw her mother—not remotely fazed by the fact that Madison was all of fifteen seconds late.
‘Hi, Mum!’ A tiny frown puckered her face as she stared back at her mother, and a million thoughts crashed into Madison’s mind. She wondered for an appalling second if she really did have a neon sign flashing over her head or, more probably, whether her face was smeared with lipstick. ‘What did you get?’
Madison gave her a helpless look.
‘You haven’t got any bags,’ Emily pointed out. ‘I thought you said that you were going shopping.’
‘I’ve been window-shopping,’ Madison offered, but Emily stared at her nonplussed.
‘What’s that?’
‘Window-shopping,’ Madison said again, waiting for the penny to drop, then realizing with a stab of pain that Emily would have no idea what she was talking about. That somewhere between getting her life structured and organized, somewhere between paying the mortgage and fighting to give her little girl what Madison had been sure she’d needed, somewhere along the way, probably right at the beginning, spontaneity had been lost and she’d somehow neglected to give what every child needed—a chance to just be.
‘It’s just for fun,’ Madison explained. ‘You don’t actually buy anything, you just wander round the shops, looking.’
‘Why?’
‘Come on,’ Madison said, mentally pushing aside the grocery shopping and the mad dash to get to the bank, which only opened for a few hours on Saturday morning, to race back home before the ice cream melted to an unsalvageable mess in the boot and then attempt to make a dent in the laundry that invariably piled up over the week. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘But I’m in my ballet clothes.’
‘So what?’ Madison asked, and Emily blinked back at her mother, clearly shocked that her mother wasn’t suggesting they race home and change, or pulling out a neatly folded T-shirt and skirt from her bag.
‘So what?’ Emily repeated, an excited smile breaking out on her face, Standing up, she took her mother’s hand and they headed out to the street, ready to have some fun.
‘That wasn’t really window shopping,’ Emily said, between blowing bubbles into her strawberry milkshake, sitting only two tables down in the café from where her mother had sat only a couple of hours before. ‘Because we did buy something!’
Quite a few somethings, actually, Madison thought, feeling the weight of shopping bags around her ankles as she sipped on her very welcome cappuccino.
They were OK with money.
Not rolling in it, but not struggling either. The decision to keep Emily at the school she was happy at had been made now and it was as if a huge burden, both financial and emotional, had been lifted. No need to save every penny for a rainy day now. Of course, given what she had been through, Madison knew she would always be sensible, but now, finally, after all this time, she had the confidence to relax a touch—to stop worrying about potential rainy days and instead bathe in the delicious warm rays of the sun whenever it chose to shine—and it was shining now.
‘We deserve it.’ Madison grinned, thinking of her gorgeous sheer top and the most divine pair of shoes to ever have graced her feet nestling safely in their mounds of tissue paper.
‘I love my fairy wings.’ Emily giggled. ‘Can I wear them to bed tonight?’
‘I guess so,’ Madison said, ‘given that I’ll be wearing my shoes!’
/> CHAPTER EIGHT
‘DO YOU speak Sudanese?’
Only briefly knocking on his office door before she entered, Madison strode in.
‘A tiny bit,’ Guy answered, sensing the urgency in her voice and ignoring the chance for a smart comeback. ‘Why?’
‘A woman’s presented to the maternity department. She’s a new migrant to Australia, she’s only been in the country for a couple of weeks. According to the records she’s not pregnant. However…’
‘How far?’ Guy asked, getting straight to the point.
‘Full term—at least they think so. They’re trying to get an interpreter for her but they’re not having much luck and it doesn’t look as if they’ve got that much time to spare. She’s got an old Caesarean scar and it’s unclear whether that baby survived. Basically, they want to take her to Theatre, but they need someone to translate.’
‘Fine. I’ll go straight up.’
‘You know we’ve got the budget meeting in an hour,’ Madison reminded him as Guy clicked off his pen and stood up.
‘I’ll tell the woman to hurry up and deliver, then,’ Guy retorted, but softened it with a smile. ‘I hate those meetings.’
‘No, I’m the one who really hates those meetings,’ Madison responded, but more to herself, rolling her eyes heavenwards at the thought of yet another meeting to discuss the findings of the last meeting. Glancing at her watch, Madison knew that if she wanted some lunch she’d better grab it now, but watching Guy head out the door, lunch was the last thing on her mind.
‘Guy?’ Madison called as he raced out the door, frowning as she halted him but briefly turning around. ‘Can I come and watch?’
‘Sure,’ he said after only a beat of hesitation. ‘So long as Maternity don’t mind.’
The obstetrician and midwives didn’t mind a bit. The relief on their faces when Guy appeared was evident. They barely even noticed Madison.
‘Her name’s Juka, and she doesn’t like any equipment near her. All I’ve managed is to take a pulse and temperature. She won’t even let me put the Doppler on to listen for the foetal heartbeat,’ Moira, one of the midwives, explained. ‘I tried to take her into the birthing suite and she panicked, so for now she’s in her room. Brett, the on-call obstetrician, is in with her now, but from the sound of it he’s not having any luck—basically the family just want to be left alone. She’s got a classical Caesarean scar, and that’s all we’ve been able to ascertain.’
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