Could she spare the time? Of course she could. Ryan was actually willing to let Rhianna out of his sight for a while and into her keeping!
‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘but a wetsuit is rather ambitious for a first attempt. Beginners usually start with something simple, like maybe a scarf for their doll?’
He was laughing. ‘We Fergusons always aim high—in endeavour that is.’
She didn’t join in. Was he referring to his dedication to his job or his celibate life or both?
‘So shall I send Rhianna round?’
‘Yes, but, Ryan, what about Martha? Won’t she want to come?’
‘No, she’s all right, watching a children’s film on TV at the moment.
‘Thanks for offering to take Rhianna for whatever she needs to get started, and being willing to spend some time with her.’
‘Thanks are not necessary,’ she told him. ‘It will be a pleasure, not a chore,’ she continued coolly.
‘Yes, of course,’ Ryan said hastily. He’d phoned her with the request about the knitting because he’d been desperate to hear her voice after his bungled invitation. He was getting the kind of reception he deserved, though, looking on the bright side, Melissa hadn’t hesitated when she’d heard what he’d rung for. He said a brief goodbye and went to tell Rhianna the good news.
As he watched the two of them walking along the pavement in the direction of the town centre, Ryan swallowed hard. They looked so right together, with Rhianna chattering away to Melissa and doing a little skip every few steps, but not as right as if it had been Beth taking her daughter to the shops. Would that feeling of loss ever go away?
They weren’t gone long and then they were back. Melissa phoned to say that she was giving Rhianna her first knitting lesson and would send her back shortly. She’d also managed to talk Rhianna out of the wetsuit and into the idea of knitting her doll a scarf for starters.
‘Sounds great,’ he said. He wished Melissa was there beside him so that he could have the pleasure of her company, instead of having only her voice to listen to, but thankfully there was still tomorrow to look forward to at the hospital, where they had no hang-ups around each other.
* * *
Melissa saw Mollie arrive earlier than usual while she was having her breakfast the next morning, and within minutes Ryan was on the phone.
‘Emergency Services are bringing in two youngsters with serious head injuries from a pile-up on the motorway. Eleven-year-old twin boys who were in the back seat of the family car without seat belts. They were thrown forward like rag dolls when the car behind them in the pile-up connected with the back of theirs. It’s the tail end of the night shift so they’re hanging on for the moment. Needless to say, I want to be there when they bring them in, so I’m off now. Can you follow as soon as possible? If surgery is required, I’ll want you to assist.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she told him, already stepping out of her nightdress on her way to the bathroom. The adrenaline was kicking in. This was what she’d trained for, and it was going to be under the guidance of Ryan Ferguson. Did anything else matter?
If he was going to throw a fit every time she was near enough for the other kind of physical contact that had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with sexual chemistry, at least she would have these kinds of moments to treasure.
Ryan was in Theatre, scrubbed up and masked, when she got there. He pointed to a motionless young figure on the operating table.
‘Both twins have frontal fractures of the skull due to the force with which they were thrown forward, but this young guy is the most serious so I’m going to operate on him first. The other lad is next door, being watched over by theatre staff. The anaesthetist is at the ready so get gowned up and then we’ll begin.
‘The two boys had arrived and been scanned by the time I got here. It has shown there’s a subdural haemorrhage to deal with for this youngster. He has been barely conscious since it happened, so I don’t want to delay as there’s bleeding between the inner surface of the skull and the outer layer of the meninges. Have you been involved with anything like this before?’
‘Only once, but I remember it clearly,’ Melissa told him. ‘Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’
As she scrubbed up, in what could not have been a more unexpected moment, Melissa realised that she was falling for Ryan, the golden-haired consultant who had burst into her life like a breath of clean fresh air. She loved his integrity, his devotion to his children, and to those belonging to others who came into his care, and above all his loyalty to his dead wife.
Would he ever feel the same way about her? There was a spark between them that would soon become a flame given the chance.
Ryan was waiting. The theatre nurses were in position, the anaesthetist poised for action at the head of the operating table and everything became centred on saving the life of an injured child.
Later in the morning the process was repeated for the second boy with the same sort of injury as his brother.
It seemed that they’d been on their way to school, with their mother driving, and with the carelessness of youth had skipped fastening their seat belts, which had caused not only devastation for themselves but a nightmare for her too.
* * *
Just before three o’clock in the afternoon the theatre staff were having a welcome late lunch in the staff restaurant after the traumas of the morning. It wasn’t unusual, they often had to eat when they got the chance. Ryan had chosen to have a bite in his office as he wanted to make his regular call home to check that Mollie had coped all right with the Monday morning rush for the children.
The two boys had been transferred to the high-dependency unit, where they were being monitored all the time by nursing staff and watched over by their horrified parents, whose normal Monday morning had turned into a nightmare.
When Ryan had spoken to Mollie he went to seek out Melissa, who was in the middle of a late ward round. He found her sitting by the side of the cot of a tearful two-year-old whose mother had just taken an older child to the toilet. She was holding his hand and soothing him gently. Melissa was fantastic, either on the job or off it. So why couldn’t he act on that delightful thought and do something about it, instead of holding on to the past so tightly?
‘When you’ve finished rounds, I’d like a quick word in my office,’ he said briskly to conceal the effect she was having on him.
She smiled up at him. ‘Yes, of course, Dr Ferguson.’ She pointed to the toddler who was now asleep, still holding her hand. ‘I’ll just let Oscar settle into a deeper sleep before I move away.’
‘Of course.’ When a nurse approached with the medicines trolley he went.
The nurse was middle-aged, plump with a smiley face, and as she observed his departing straight-backed and purposeful figure, she said with comic wistfulness, ‘Isn’t he something to make any woman’s heart beat faster?
‘I keep telling my husband that if he doesn’t stop watching football on the television instead of taking me out, I’m going to run off with Dr Ferguson. Which might not be so easy as our doctor friend is reluctant to put any woman in place of that nice wife of his.’
The nurse went on her way, moving from bed to bed with whatever medication its young occupant might be requiring. Melissa was despondent. To be told what she had already worked out for herself had put a blight on the day.
When she went to Ryan’s office the first thing she saw was a florist’s delivery of beautiful flowers of the season on a side table. Picking up the bouquet, he got to his feet and came round to her side of his desk and handed them to her.
‘Just to say thanks for putting Rhianna on the right track with the knitting. There wasn’t a sound out of her last night. She was working away at it until the very last moment before going to bed and at breakfast before I left the house. So thanks, Melissa.’
She looked down at the flowers and swallowed hard. It was the moment to tell him that she would do lots more for his children a
nd him if he would let her, that she was falling in love with him, he was in her every waking thought and in her dreams, but something held her back.
She was letting a nice gesture mean more than had been meant by it. Her dealings with her ex-fiancé had shown her that humiliation was a hard pill to swallow if she should be mistaken, and hadn’t the medicines nurse just confirmed Ryan’s devotion to his wife’s memory?
‘You didn’t have to do this, Ryan. I enjoyed the time spent with your daughter, but thanks, anyway.’
As she turned to go he stopped her.
‘There is one other thing.’
She swivelled round to face him once more.
‘You were good in Theatre this morning. We work well together. Keep it up and you will have a great future before you in paediatrics.’
‘Maybe,’ she told him gravely, ‘but somewhere along the way I want to be a wife and mother, too.’
She watched him flinch.
‘Yes, of course,’ he agreed stiffly, and went back to the paperwork on his desk, leaving her to make an undignified exit. Once out of his office she went through a side door that led to the car park and put the flowers in her car out of sight. There was no way she wanted questions asked about them by other staff that might set rumours off that were not true.
* * *
The twin boys from the motorway accident had regained consciousness when she returned to the neuro unit and were looking pale, drowsy, and rather the worse for wear. Unless anything unforeseen occurred, they should, however, make full recoveries.
During their separate operations they’d had burr holes drilled into their skulls and blood clots drained away, followed by repair of damaged blood vessels.
As she checked them over their father said sombrely, ‘Somehow I don’t think they’ll forget to fasten their seat belts again.’
When Melissa went to her car at the end of the day Ryan was about to drive off in his and he rolled the window down.
‘You know that Mollie is getting married to Jack on the morning of Christmas Eve and that Rhianna and Martha are to be her attendants? She was saying the other day that she wondered if you would be willing to help in the choosing of their dresses.’
‘Me!’ she exclaimed. ‘But I hardly know your housekeeper.’
‘She may not be that for much longer, I fear, certainly not in the same capacity. Come the new year I might have to find a substitute, but that’s a few weeks away yet. So, getting back to the wedding and the children, Mollie would be glad of your advice as you wear such attractive clothes yourself.’
She smiled. How ironic.
‘My clothes belong to a time when I was a pampered pet and I haven’t been able to afford anything new since, but while I’ve come to live in Heatherdale I’ve forgiven my father. In a strange sort of way he did me a favour when I had to sell the place we had in Cheshire and come to live in my grandmother’s house.’ Because if it hadn’t happened I would never have met you, she wanted to tell him, but she was still too cautious. The dread of being hurt again was like a dark shadow hanging over her
‘It’s good to know that you’re happy here!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve had my doubts about that once or twice. I have always felt that this is a magical place, but I don’t expect everyone to feel the same as I do.’
With an unmistakeable lift to his voice he continued, ‘Getting back to the matter of Mollie’s wedding, can I tell her that you’ll go with her to choose the children’s dresses? She is concerned that they should have something really pretty but also warm and cosy for this time of year. I can usually manage to choose their clothes myself, while giving them some degree of choice, but not when it is something like this, and in winter.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll help in any way I can,’ she said. Was she in her right mind, surrounding herself with the trappings of motherhood when their father ran a mile if she came within touching distance?
‘Thanks, Melissa, that’s wonderful. I am most grateful,’ he told her, still smiling, and added jokingly, ‘I’ve got my name down for a knitted pullover when Rhianna is more accomplished in the art.’
She smiled back at him. ‘Don’t tease her, Ryan. She is more like you than you realise, not to be defeated by anything, but she is only seven years old.’
He didn’t reply, just gave her a long level look, and she wondered if he thought her interfering. He brought the subject back to Mollie’s wedding.
‘The way things are going, we Fergusons are going to be well represented on the day as not only are the girls going to be Mollie’s young attendants, she has asked me to give her away as she has no close family. Her husband died a few years ago and she has no sons or daughters to do the honours, so it will be my pleasure.
‘Her invitation was addressed to Ryan Ferguson, family, and friend, so if you want to tag along with us, Melissa, feel free. You will be most welcome.’
‘Thanks just the same but no,’ she said levelly, not enamoured by the phrasing of his invitation. ‘I am not a tag-along sort of person. My life has scraped the bottom of the barrel over recent months and one of the things it has taught me is not to accept being merely tolerated by anyone.’
She watched his eyes widen and his jaw tighten. She drove off before he had a chance to comment. If he had, Ryan would have told her that he’d phrased the invitation in such a manner because he didn’t know what Melissa thought of him, and a casual approach had seemed like the best idea at this stage of their relationship.
What would she have said if he’d worded it along the lines that she was the best thing that had happened to him in years and he would be proud to have her by his side in front of Mollie and her wedding guests?
* * *
The rest of the week dragged by on leaden feet.
On the day that Ryan was holding one of his clinics Melissa asked, ‘Is there a chance that I could sit in with you as I did when I first came onto the ward? I learned such a lot.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said with a dry smile, ‘but I think not at present. If Julian was here there would be no problem, but as it is I need you on the wards while I’m taking the clinic so that all aspects of the job are covered. I don’t know if he will ever be mobile enough to come back to us but if he eventually does...’
‘What?’ she asked. ‘What if he eventually does? Are you going to tell me I might be out of a job? Do you want me gone?’
‘Now you are being ridiculous,’ he told her, and almost laughed.
As if!
She was the best registrar he’d ever had. How could Melissa ever think that he would pass her over because of a few wrongly chosen words in the car park the other night? He just had the feeling that he needed to cool it for a while. After all, their small patients came first.
* * *
It was Saturday. The small town was buzzing with Christmas shoppers and a local brass band played carols in the centre of the town square beside the huge Christmas tree.
As she heard the music in the distance, Melissa remembered Ryan telling her about the musical event some time previously. When she saw the three of them come out of the house next door and move off in that direction, she decided to go to the special yearly happening herself, but from another direction to avoid being invited to tag along.
It wasn’t likely, of course, not after the reception the wording of his invitation had received that evening in the hospital car park, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She was relieved that Ryan wasn’t going to be present later in the afternoon when the promised shopping trip with Mollie and his children was to take place.
There were lots of the townsfolk gathered around the tree and as the band played the familiar music and those there sang the equally familiar words, she looked around her at the beautiful setting and sent up a prayer of thanks to the fates that had brought her here.
It was as if Manchester, the place that had been so familiar to her with its smart stores and many famous restaurants, didn’t exist, and neither did the million
aire’s row where she had lived with her father on money owed to others.
For the first time in ages she was beginning to feel in control of her life. That the house was still dark and dismal except for her delightful sitting room didn’t matter—she would get that sorted eventually. She had the job she’d always longed for in pleasant surroundings and had met a man who made all others seem nondescript.
The only cloud in her sky was that she doubted he saw her in the same light, though why should he when he was still in love with the wife who had been taken from him so tragically?
A child’s voice calling her name broke into her thoughts and when she looked up there was Ryan with his girls, all three smiling their surprise at seeing her amongst the festive crowd.
‘Hello, there,’ Ryan said. ‘I nearly phoned to remind you of the band playing carols before we left the house as I wasn’t sure if you remembered me mentioning it a couple of weeks ago.’
Unable to disguise her pleasure at meeting them, she told him, ‘I’d forgotten but when the sound of the music came drifting over I realised where it was coming from and came to see what was going on.’
She turned to Rhianna and Martha.
‘Are you ready for us going shopping this afternoon for your dresses for Mollie’s wedding?’
‘Yes,’ they chorused excitedly.
Martha added, ‘We already know what kind we want, Melissa.’
‘Really!’ she said in mock surprise.
‘So be prepared,’ Ryan warned laughingly, and followed it by saying, ‘We are about to go for a hot drink somewhere. Dare I ask if you’d like to join us?’
There was no mention of her ‘tagging along’, she noticed as their glances met, but she knew he wouldn’t have forgotten and she wished she hadn’t been so snappy the other night in the car park.
‘I’d love to,’ she told him, letting the joy of being with the three of them take over. It diminished somewhat as they strolled along the high street in the direction of a café in one of the parks.
She had forgotten how well known Ryan must be in the town as a paediatric surgeon and a very attractive single father, and every time someone called across to him in greeting, she was observed with unconcealed curiosity.
Christmas Magic in Heatherdale Page 8