Christmas Magic in Heatherdale

by Abigail Gordon

  It was a beautiful town, with its pump room and the well that produced the spa water from underground close by. There were hotels built out of weathered limestone that had a stately magnificence, gardens that stretched as far as the eye could see, and all around the small market town were the high peaks and green dales.

  She came across Ryan and the girls on the pavement outside one of the toy shops and before she had a chance to backtrack Rhianna saw her so she had to stop.

  ‘Hello, there,’ he said easily, as if they were on the best of terms. ‘Are you out Christmas shopping, too?’ He then whispered, ‘I’ve brought the children to have a look around the toy shop to get some ideas from what they show interest in, and then we’re going to look for a wedding present for Mollie.’

  ‘No,’ she said in reply to his question. ‘I haven’t given Christmas a thought, or at least if I have they’ve been negative ones.’

  He would have liked to ask her what she meant by that, but refrained with the children close by, and guessed that it would be something to do with her solitariness, which he supposed he could do something about if he was so inclined.

  The children would love it if he asked Melissa to spend Christmas Day with them but what about him? Would having her there make the occasion a bigger ordeal or a lesser one?

  Bringing his thoughts back to the present, he asked, ‘Could you possibly stay here with the children for a moment while I go into the shop to check on how long delivery might be on some of the items they have on display?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, determined that there would be no repetition of the last time she’d been with them.

  ‘We liked your sitting room, didn’t we, Martha? But we think the rest of your house is ugly.’ Rhianna piped up.

  ‘Yes,’ her sister agreed.

  Melissa hid a smile. She was with them on that. It was ugly, but not for long, if not in time for Christmas maybe soon after.

  ‘It was Daddy who told Mr Smethurst to put the carpet down on the floor for you,’ Rhianna continued, and Melissa frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

  ‘He told him not to tell you.’

  ‘And why do you think that was?’ Melissa asked gently.

  ‘He said he would give him some money.’

  So that was why the decorator hadn’t wanted any extra payment for laying the carpet. Light was dawning.

  Ryan stepped out of the shop at that moment, and leaving the children engrossed in what was in the window Melissa stepped quickly towards him and took him to one side.

  ‘You paid for the carpet to be fitted, didn’t you?’ she choked out. ‘I wondered why I wasn’t charged any extra for it. It was very kind of you, Ryan, but please don’t treat me as a charity case.’

  ‘That is not how I see you,’ he said levelly. ‘I meant no offence. It was just a thought that it would give you pleasure to see the room finished when you came home, that’s all.’

  With that Ryan went to where the children were still observing the toy display and said, ‘Say goodbye to Melissa.’ And not allowing time for kisses and hugs this time, he walked them away from her and disappeared from sight.

  There was a coffee shop nearby and Melissa went inside on leaden feet. As she stirred the drink in front of her unseeingly she was ashamed of her reaction to his kindness in one way but hurt that Ryan hadn’t thought that he might have embarrassed her with his act of generosity.

  He was the most attractive, amazing man she’d ever met, as well as a paediatric surgeon who was bringing up two motherless children with a totally selfless kind of love, and she’d dared to berate him for what to him had been just an act of thoughtfulness.

  The urge for sightseeing was gone. She drank up quickly and made her way back to the crescent of town houses where they lived, feeling so ashamed of her behaviour she wouldn’t be able to rest until she’d apologised. Ryan had shown her nothing but kindness since the day she’d arrived in Heatherdale and that was how she’d repaid him?

  She would pop a note through his door so it was there when he and the children arrived home from their Christmas shopping. For her part she intended to be nowhere to be seen. It would be time enough to face him when they met up on Monday morning at the hospital.

  With every passing day she was becoming more aware of him and didn’t want it to be like that because she knew that to him she was just someone he was allowing briefly into his busy life.

  * * *

  Ryan groaned when he read the note that was on his doormat when they got home. Their relationship, if it could be called that, was like a see-saw, up and down, but more down than up, and if he had any sense he ought to let it stay that way.

  He had never met anyone to make him change his mind about marrying again, and if he ever did he hoped that it would be someone he knew something about. The children were his first consideration in everything he did because they were small and vulnerable, and if he was doing them no favours by not providing them with a new mother figure, at least he wasn’t blotting out what little they remembered of Beth.

  Tomorrow he would clear the air with Melissa, tell her that in future he would never again interfere in her affairs, and if the promise made life less liveable he would have to stick with it.

  * * *

  She wasn’t around on the Sunday, as he’d been expecting, and he felt frustrated and on edge, eager to say his piece and clarify the situation between them knowing that he wasn’t going to rest until he’d said it.

  But short of talking into thin air he was going to have to wait until she reappeared.

  He wasn’t to know that she was at the last place he would have expected. She’d seen a notice in the hospital announcing that there was to be a children’s Christmas party for past and present young patients on Sunday and that volunteers to assist from staff and friends were needed.

  On impulse she’d given her name to the organisers during the week and after Saturday’s upset was grateful to have somewhere to go where she could be lost in a crowd, instead of being isolated in her grandmother’s house.

  She’d checked to make sure that Ryan wouldn’t be there and been told that consultants didn’t usually take part on such occasions, that it was organised by the nurses and social workers based at the hospital. It would start mid-morning and finish halfway through the afternoon.

  The party was a yearly event that was held in the run-up to Christmas, and when she arrived Melissa felt as if she belonged for the first time since she’d come to Heatherdale.

  For the children who were confined to bed there was special attention to their needs and she was perched on the side of the bed of a small girl who’d had surgery a few days previously after a fall that had resulted in bleeding inside her head.

  They were playing one of the fun games that had been provided and the little one was forgetting her tears and fears in the excitement of the party when Melissa looked up and her eyes widened. Ryan and his children had just arrived and he was chatting to one of the nurses.

  He hadn’t seen her, but Rhianna and Martha had. They’d left their father’s side and were coming across the ward to her.

  Ryan looked up at that moment and surprise showed on his face.

  This was the last place he would have expected to find Melissa. Weekdays yes, but not on a Sunday. He wouldn’t be here himself if it hadn’t been that just an hour ago he’d had some bad news that could affect the neurology unit during coming days. He’d driven to the hospital to check on what his clinics and surgery arrangements were for the coming week.

  A phone call had come through from Julian’s parents to inform him that their son had been involved in a riding accident the previous day and was in a Manchester hospital with spinal injuries.

  ‘It looks as if it might be a long job,’ Julian’s father had told Ryan and he’d thought that Melissa had arrived in the unit in the nick of time. She was going to be heaven sent in his working life—and could be the same out of it if he would only let her.

&n
bsp; There was no use denying it. Melissa was never out of his mind no matter how much he told himself that she was just a passing fancy. His children loved her and who could blame them? There was a gentleness about her when she was with them that pulled at his heartstrings, but did she feel the same about him? He doubted it. She seemed to have enough emotional dramas of her own to worry about, without taking on those of a bereaved father!

  The phone call had brought him to the hospital to check what was on their agenda in the unit for the coming week with Julian missing, and here she was, conveniently already on hospital premises.

  ‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’ he asked the nurse beside him. ‘I see my colleague over there, chatting to my daughters, and I need to speak to her. Dr Tindall has had a serious riding accident and we need to check what we have ahead of us in the coming week.

  ‘Can you look after Elfrida for a few moments while I talk to Melissa?’ he asked Rhianna and Martha, indicating the small girl in the bed, and when they nodded he told her in a low voice, ‘Julian isn’t going to be around for some time. He’s been seriously injured in a riding accident so it is going to be all systems go here next week and for some time to come.

  ‘I’m here because I need to know what I’m down for in the clinics and theatre and I can get that information from my secretary’s computer, so I’m going to have a quick look. Finding you here has saved me having to disturb you at home so can I leave the children with you for a little while?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she told him. She had listened to what he’d had to say in stunned silence, aghast to hear what had happened to Julian, with her first thought for the hospital’s Romeo. Then it dawned on her that it was going to be just the two of them working together for the foreseeable future until a temporary replacement could be found.

  They were going to be in each other’s company workwise much more than she’d expected. How was she going to cope with that? How was she going to keep a hold on the attraction he had for her, being near him so much in the neuro unit and only a few yards away from him at home?

  But most importantly, would Ryan want her around him so much? He might feel that living next door to her was enough, especially after her having been so ungrateful about the carpet-laying incident.

  * * *

  After flicking through his appointment list on the computer, he returned to Melissa and the girls.

  ‘So what do you think about Julian? What a shame, eh?’ he commented.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I have had no wish to go back to Manchester since I moved here, but will put all that to one side and go to visit him when I get the chance.’

  ‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘I’m going to have plenty to keep me occupied for some time to come, but will find time for that.’ He looked around him. ‘How long are you planning on staying at the party?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she told him. ‘It depends on how long I’m needed.’

  ‘Right, we’ll be off, then,’ he said, and with a child on either side of him he went.

  Melissa could tell that Rhianna and Martha were disappointed that she wasn’t leaving at the same time as them, but she knew the rules now and number one was ‘no fussing please’, so she waved them off with a bright smile that faded as soon as they’d disappeared.

  * * *

  Outside in the hospital corridor Ryan hesitated. He was going to take the children for a meal somewhere and was tempted to ask Melissa to join them. He wanted to make amends for their exchange of words outside the toy shop. Turning, he took the children back into the ward and saw that the party was practically over. Relatives of the children were helping nursing staff to tidy the place and Melissa was ready for the off, expecting that he would have gone by now.

  ‘What’s wrong, Ryan? I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘We’re going for a meal in the children’s favourite restaurant,’ he explained, ‘and I wondered if you would like to join us.’ It was a spur-of-the-moment invitation and he expected her to refuse.

  ‘Yes, I would like to very much,’ she told him, ‘just as long as you are sure you want me there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise,’ he said easily. ‘I’ll lead the way in my car, with you following, if that’s all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  She noticed that his expression didn’t alter when Rhianna cried, ‘Goody! Melissa is coming with us, Martha!’

  When they were seated at a table in a bright modern restaurant with the children tucking in to fish fingers and chips and the adults something more spectacular, Ryan amazed her by commenting in a low voice, ‘This is what I miss, family outings. We used to do this a lot when Beth was with us, but it all feels like a charade now.’

  ‘Maybe it does,’ Melissa said carefully, ‘but you are the only one who can put that right, Ryan. You are a fantastic father, holding down a very responsible job, but you must feel the loss of your wife a great deal. What was she like? Tell me about her.’

  ‘Beth was just Beth, medium height, slim and very active, with brown eyes like the children’s and light brown hair. She was a loving mother and dedicated to bringing babies safely into the world. Wouldn’t hear of it when I tried to persuade her not to go out in the storm, and that was how she lost her life.’

  When he lapsed into silence Melissa asked gently, ‘And would she not want you to have the joys of family life again with someone else?’

  ‘Maybe’ was the answer. ‘But so far there has been no one that I’ve wanted enough to be ready to take that step.’ Until now, maybe? But he was far from sure that it would be a good idea to give Melissa any signals that he might regret afterwards.

  Even though today had shown an affinity between them that hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was because this was his loneliest time of the year, and whatever her Christmastimes had been like in the past, this one looked as if it was going to be a non-event.

  The waitress was at his elbow, waiting to take orders for dessert, and the conversation became general again until they were leaving the place and Rhianna spotted mistletoe above the doorway.

  ‘Look, Daddy!’ she cried, and lifted her face to be kissed beneath the white berries. When he’d bent to oblige it was Martha’s turn, and as he straightened up she cried, ‘Melissa hasn’t had a kiss! She must have one too!’

  As Melissa shook her head laughingly, Ryan stepped towards her and took her in his arms. He wished the moment could go on for ever because the feel of her mouth under his and the closeness of her was like coming in out of the cold.

  When he let her go there was a round of applause from the other diners and taking her hand, with Rhianna on one side and Martha on the other, they left the restaurant with not a word between them and went to their separate cars.

  On arriving home, Ryan unlocked the door to let the children in. Before going inside himself, he walked over to where Melissa stood at her own front door.

  ‘Do I have to say sorry for what happened?’

  ‘No,’ she said lightly, ‘not at all. It was only a Christmas kiss, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied with a tight smile, and was gone. After his door had closed behind him, Melissa went inside and sank down onto the nearest chair. She relived the moments in his arms again. Beyond that she couldn’t think.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT HAD BEEN the strangest of weekends as far as Melissa was concerned. She wasn’t sure what to think as she drove to the hospital on the Monday morning. First there’d been her exchange of words with Ryan outside the toy shop about the carpet-laying, and the consequent remorse on her part for being so ungracious when she’d tackled him about it.

  Then, thinking she had been well away from him when she’d gone to help with the party, he had turned up there with the bad news about Julian and had left her uneasy about what it could mean for them both. Finally there had been that surprise dinner invitation, culminating in an unexpectedly passionate kiss!

  M
onday morning was always Ryan’s first clinic of the week and even though Melissa was early he was there before her and observed her keenly for a second when she appeared.

  ‘If you do the ward rounds, I’ll get going with the clinic earlier than usual,’ he said briskly. So much for their kiss under the mistletoe. He was finished before her and came to join her as she moved from bed to bed, where often anxious parents were hovering, seeking reassurance.

  Ryan was impressed with what he saw. Melissa was a natural with patients and parents. Obviously he’d seen her in this mode before and was satisfied with the way she performed, but today his awareness of her was heightened. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, the memory of their kiss haunting him. It should have been a peck on the cheek and it hadn’t been. It had opened a floodgate of longing that he wanted to hold back, but the more he observed her the harder it became.

  * * *

  Unaware of how his mind was working, Melissa was concentrating on the young occupants of the beds in the two wards. She was confident that it was here that she belonged, amongst children who were sick and needed all the help they could get to become well again.

  As the young ones and the parents hovering around their beds saw her approaching they felt her reaching out to them. No matter how worrying the diagnosis they had been given previously or might be receiving, she made them feel that their child was special.

  * * *

  ‘So,’ Ryan said when the rounds were over. ‘Now we’ll leave the wards in the care of the nursing staff and have a quick lunch. This afternoon you can watch and learn while I operate on a child with a cleft lip and palate, just as long as there aren’t any emergencies brought into A and E that our unit have to deal with.’

  She was expecting Ryan to lunch in his office as he’d done on other days since she’d joined the staff of the neuro unit, but when she moved in the direction of the staff restaurant he fell into step beside her and when they’d queued and been served he said, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she told him. She hoped he wasn’t going to refer to the mistletoe incident while they were eating. It would be just too embarrassing if he did as she hadn’t been entirely unresponsive while he’d been kissing her.