Mistletoe Mother (Medical Romance)

by Josie Metcalfe

  ‘Actually, I’ve been meaning to get in contact but everything’s been so hectic that I haven’t had a minute. When’s your next long break between shifts? Could you come over and stay overnight so that we could put our heads together to choose your bridesmaid’s dress?’

  ‘Soph? Take a breath, please, and let me get a word in!’ Ella teased. ‘I’m finishing somewhere around three this afternoon and I’m not due back for two whole days.’

  ‘Great!’ Sophia exclaimed. ‘Pack a bag. I’ll pick you up and take you to the house. Be warned, though. All visitors are liable to get a paintbrush put in their hand.’

  ‘House?’ Ella repeated.

  ‘Oh, Lord, is it really that long since we’ve spoken? I told you things have been chaos. David and I have bought a house…well, the bank owns most of it but they’re letting us buy it off them a brick at a time for the next however many years.’

  ‘So where is it and what is it like?’ There was a sudden strange hollow inside her that echoed with loneliness and it was a real effort to sound genuinely interested.

  Why did it seem as if everyone else was getting on with their lives and she was the only one standing still?

  ‘You’ll see it later this afternoon. With a bit of luck it will still be light enough to see the outside, but if not, we can do the grand tour of the stately acres—the size of a small pocket hankie—tomorrow. Oh,’ she added as an afterthought, ‘don’t forget to bring some scruffy clothes. We could have a stripping party and some pizza tomorrow if we get the wedding outfits decided tonight.’

  Ella put the phone down feeling almost as though she’d just been swung around a couple of times by a tornado then dropped on her head. And it would be even worse by the time she’d spent a couple of days in Sophia’s company.

  Still, she certainly wouldn’t have time to mope if her sister was organising her activities, and she might even have the chance to ask for a little advice…purely hypothetically, of course. It wouldn’t do to let Sophie know who she was attracted to or she might be tempted to give matters a sisterly nudge.

  She stifled a groan, trying to imagine what Seth would think if Sophia tried to play matchmaker; how he would react.

  She’d probably have to move to a remote island somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic to live the embarrassment down. It had been bad enough when they had both been teenagers, but now…It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Sophie! It’s gorgeous!’ Ella exclaimed as soon as she saw the house. The light was fading fast by the time they arrived, but it looked really pretty and compact and not at all mass-produced. ‘However are you going to be able to afford something like this? I had no idea cardiac surgeons earned so much!’

  ‘They don’t, but between the two of us, we’ll manage. Somehow!’ She chuckled ruefully while she hung coat and scarf over the end of the banisters and led the way into the lounge.

  ‘It was called an “affordable executive dwelling” when it was built but the couple who bought it had problems,’ she went on, and Ella was happy just to listen. It certainly helped to take her mind off things she’d rather forget.

  ‘He had a major stroke and she wasn’t physically strong enough to take care of him so they needed to move into some sort of place with nursing assistance on hand. They were looking for several months, getting more desperate all the time, then suddenly found a place near their son and wanted to get rid of this in a hurry.’

  She whirled around happily in the middle of the as yet unfurnished but beautifully spacious room with her arms outstretched. ‘We were lucky enough to be the first ones through the door with a reasonable amount of money to offer.’

  ‘You certainly were lucky,’ Ella agreed. ‘You could fit my whole flat in this room. It’s positively palatial.’

  ‘And in answer to your other question,’ Sophia continued pointedly, ‘David and I will be buying it together. We’ve both got some savings and it’ll be in our joint names, although what’ll happen if we start a family…’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘That’s a financial worry for another year. This year, with the house and the wedding, we’re going to be absolutely flat broke.’

  ‘But happy?’ Ella prompted.

  ‘But blissfully, ecstatically happy,’ Sophia agreed. ‘I’ve been in love with the wretched man ever since I met him and he’d barely done more than grunt at me over his mask. Then, out of the blue, he invited me out for a meal and went down on one knee.’

  ‘What? Literally?’ Ella’s jaw dropped at the idea of staid, upright David doing anything so flamboyant.

  ‘Yes, literally! In front of waiters, chefs and a restaurant full of diners! I nearly died of embarrassment on the spot!’

  ‘But you said yes?’

  ‘Of course I said yes! I was in love with the man. I am in love with him. Oh, Gabby, I’m just so happy. I only wish…’

  She didn’t finish but, then, she didn’t need to. Ella could finish the thought for her because they both missed their parents, even though the years were going by and life had gone on. And then to have lost Granny Ruth as well, just a few months ago.

  ‘If wishes were horses then beggars would ride,’ Ella intoned in a bad imitation of that redoubtable lady’s musical Scottish accent and Sophia burst out laughing, the sombre mood broken.

  ‘Come on, there’s the rest of the house to see, and then I’ll show you the designs I’ve been looking at in the wedding books.’

  She was off again, bubbling over with energy and high spirits, and as Ella followed in her wake she was the one left making hopeless wishes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘SO WHAT do you think?’ Sophie demanded an hour later, and Ella realised she hadn’t a clue what her sister was talking about.

  They’d taken the grand tour and giggled over the luxury of having a cloakroom, a bathroom and an en suite.

  ‘Lucky girl. Three toilets to clean!’ Ella had teased before sighing over the luxury of fitted cupboards with drawers that actually slid in and out easily.

  Now they were back in the kitchen, picking over the crusts of what had once been a heavily laden pizza, but Ella’s thoughts had wandered, in spite of her best efforts, to what it would be like if this were their house—hers and Seth’s.

  ‘What do I think?’ she said, stalling for time, then had to make a stab in the dark. ‘I think it’s a beautiful house and by the time you’ve redecorated—’

  ‘Not the house. The dress!’ Sophie stabbed at a page in the magazine with a greasy finger. ‘Come on. Keep up!’ she teased.

  ‘I like it, but not the bridesmaid’s dress they suggest to go with it,’ she said honestly, then paused, gratified that she already felt comfortable enough in her sister’s company to speak her mind.

  Perhaps they did still have a chance to form a closer, more adult friendship after all, she thought. Perhaps that would be better than trying to resuscitate the childhood relationship that had withered from disuse years ago.

  Perhaps that was the way she was destined to go through her life, with lots of friends but none of them really close ones. It certainly seemed to be all that men wanted out of her, and one man in particular.

  ‘I hate to admit it, but you’re right about that dress,’ Sophia confessed. ‘It wouldn’t do a thing for you. Far too fussy. So, how about that one instead?’

  They were both relieved and delighted to find that they were on the same wavelength and it didn’t take long before they’d settled on the styles they were looking for.

  ‘Right, when are we going to hit the shops, then? Tomorrow morning?’ Sophie suggested eagerly.

  ‘With all the January sales on? Are you mad? I thought I’d been invited to do some decorating.’

  ‘So what if the sales are on,’ she exclaimed airily. ‘Won’t David be impressed with my thrift if I manage to get the price of my wedding dress reduced?’

  ‘You’re joking! Aren’t you?’ Ella still wasn’t quite sure when her sister was joking and that was sad.

 
; ‘Of course I am, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t consider it if the dress I wanted was in the sale. It’s not the price I pay for it that will make it perfect.’

  The thought of fighting crowds of avid bargain-hunters when she could be chatting over a leisurely breakfast wasn’t appealing. Even the hard physical labour of stripping dingy wallpaper would be preferable, but it was obviously what Sophia had set her heart on so Ella agreed with good grace.

  ‘I’ll also be calling in at the shop where I bought your Christmas present to look for something special for my honeymoon,’ Sophia said with an attempt at insouciance that didn’t quite come off when she blushed hotly.

  ‘By all means let’s look for something outrageously sexy for that first night,’ Ella teased. ‘Not that I think you’re going to need it for a man daring enough to go down on his knees in public.’

  ‘How about you?’ Sophia demanded, neatly turning the tables. ‘Have you worn your silky thing yet?’

  ‘You must be joking! It’s midwinter. I’d have frozen to death in my little flat.’

  ‘Not if you had someone to keep you warm.’

  ‘Central heating would be easier to arrange,’ Ella retorted wryly. ‘Finding someone to keep me warm would be all right if the one I wanted wanted me in return…’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Sophia said, suddenly far too alert, and Ella realised she’d said much more than she’d intended. Her sister’s antennae were up.

  ‘Do you need some help? I’ve been there longer so I know whose ears to drop a few hints into.’

  ‘No!’ Ella gasped in horror. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ She tried glaring at Sophia to get her point across but could see a scheming look in her sister’s eyes.

  ‘Soph, I mean it. Leave it alone,’ she begged. ‘He’s already told me in words of one syllable that he’s not interested.’

  Her sister was quiet for a moment, obviously thinking things through.

  ‘So he told you he wasn’t interested. Was that before or after he slept with you?’ she demanded out of the blue.

  ‘Soph!’ Suddenly, with her face blazing with heat, the idea of a closer relationship with this outrageous woman was becoming less attractive. ‘We didn’t…I haven’t…’ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it.

  ‘What? Never?’ Sophia probed intently, taking liberties few people would have dared.

  ‘I’m not saying anything more,’ Ella declared uncomfortably. The fact that none of the men who’d wanted to sleep with her had interested her was not something that she was going to apologise for. ‘Now, didn’t you say something about decorating? Is there some preparation we could do this evening to get started?’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ her sister taunted then allowed the topic to be changed with a teasing pretence of reluctance. ‘Actually I was hoping to get a few tips for March.’

  It was her turn to go scarlet and all Ella could do was gape. She’d thought she was enough of an oddity not to have slept with a man at her age, but her sister was five years older.

  ‘What—you, too?’ she exclaimed with a weak attempt at laughter. ‘I bet Mama’s up in heaven with her halo shining. She certainly managed to stress the benefits of virginity in a way that stuck.’

  ‘The trouble is, we’re now left to cope with the disadvantages of it,’ her sister said gloomily. ‘Not only do we have to work out how to tell the man of our dreams that they’re going to be the first, but we’ve also got to decide when to tell him.’

  At least you know yours will be listening, Ella thought later that night, snuggled down in the toasty warmth of what would eventually be the guest room. Mine doesn’t even want to know that he’s the man of my dreams.

  There was a new closeness between the two of them after that mad, hectic weekend that changed something elemental inside Ella.

  She wasn’t absolutely certain what it was. There had always been the family connection between herself and Sophia, but for the first time since her sister had left home to start her nursing training, she didn’t feel quite so…so alone.

  Whatever it was, she was conscious of a new confidence in herself that seemed to spill over into her time at work.

  Somehow, little by little over the next month, she and Seth seemed to regain most of the ground they’d lost with that kiss.

  It began in small ways with an answered greeting or the offer of a cup of coffee, but eventually they’d graduated to sitting together and swapping tales of the trials of being a younger sibling.

  Even so, there was something that niggled at the back of Ella’s mind.

  She didn’t know if it was because she really cared about Seth that made her sensitive to the nuances of his behaviour, but she became increasingly aware that there was something, some secret that was gnawing away at him from the inside.

  Several times she’d come upon him in the staff lounge staring out of the window looking as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Her heart ached for him and she couldn’t help offering tea and sympathy but he never so much as mentioned whatever was preying on his mind.

  All she could do was find something light-hearted to talk about to bring him out of the depression in the hope that either the problem would eventually resolve itself or that he would trust her enough to confide in her.

  One topic that was almost guaranteed to lighten his mood was the progress towards Sophia’s big day.

  She’d told him everything about the shared traumas from the very first outing to try on dresses at the height of the January sales.

  In fact, her description of that day was the very first time that she’d ever heard him laugh out loud, the husky sound almost rusty as though it hadn’t been used much recently.

  Still, the mental images she’d been painting of vicious, crazed women ripping dresses out of each other’s hands regardless of size or suitability, just because they had the largest price reduction, was a memory she wasn’t going to forget in a hurry.

  And the countdown to the event was relentless, calculable in hours now, rather than days and weeks.

  Bearing in mind the fact that Sophia and David had a fairly large circle of friends within the hospital community, they’d initially racked their brains for a way to invite the maximum number without bankrupting themselves.

  In the end, they’d settled for an intimate ceremony in the hospital chapel limited strictly to family members, followed by a similarly small reception in a local hotel. In the evening there was going to be a less formal party to which the rest of their colleagues were invited.

  ‘How small is small?’ Seth enquired lazily, yawning as he stretched after a particularly time-consuming repair job in Theatre. ‘For some people with large extended families that could be anything up to fifty.’

  ‘That sounds like a nightmare when you’re organising something like this,’ Ella exclaimed. ‘I can’t imagine how anyone would cope.’

  ‘They probably wouldn’t be able to cope with the idea of inviting half the staff of a hospital,’ he pointed out logically. ‘So, how many will this be?’

  Ella had been waiting for a chance to lead up to this for several days now, ever since she’d been handed an ultimatum by her sister.

  ‘Either you ask someone, or I’ll find you an escort myself,’ she’d declared last night, her voice no less forceful for coming at Ella down a phone line.

  ‘Well, on their side, there’ll be David and his parents, his brother, who’s best man, and his wife. On ours, there’s Sophia with me as her bridesmaid.’

  ‘That sounds as if your side is rather outgunned. Aren’t there any other relatives you can dig out of the woodwork?’

  ‘Not one, in spite of the fact that Mum was Italian. She had a sister who became a nun in an enclosed order, and a brother who was a parish priest in Turin. Dad didn’t have any brothers or sisters.’

  She paused for a moment to gather her courage and remember the words she’d practised, knowing she wasn’t going to get a better chance than this.

&n
bsp; ‘Actually, Seth, Sophia’s been nagging me to ask…if you’d be my escort for the day.’

  There. The words were out. Now all she had to do was cross her fingers that he’d accept.

  ‘Your escort?’ he said, peering at her through one half-opened eye. ‘What would that involve?’

  ‘Well, mostly it’s a case of evening up the numbers, because the rest of them will all be in couples. But it does mean that you get a free meal at an expensive hotel and an evening of dancing.’

  ‘What would I have to wear?’ he demanded warily, both eyes open now. ‘Not a blasted penguin suit, I hope.’

  That meant Seth was actually considering it!

  Her heart danced a silly little jig inside her in spite of all her stern admonitions.

  ‘Absolutely no penguin suits allowed! Ordinary two-or three-piece with collar and tie.’

  ‘And no senile great-great-aunts with whom to hold shouted conversations?’

  ‘Not one,’ she promised with a grin as pleasure blossomed within.

  ‘And I take it you’ve already checked to see if I’m on call that day, and were perfectly prepared to beg me to do what ever it took to rearrange it,’ he said wryly.

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed, knowing that her eyes must be shining.

  ‘And Sister Buchan would extract a terrible vengeance if you didn’t persuade me?’

  ‘Indubitably.’ Ella did like this playful side of his character. It didn’t emerge nearly often enough.

  ‘In that case, I’d better agree forthwith. It looks as if you’ve got yourself an escort for the wedding.’

  ‘Are you sorry you came yet?’ Ella demanded out of the side of her mouth as they posed for yet another photo.

  ‘Not yet,’ he confirmed. ‘I’m still enjoying seeing what everyone looks like when they’re not wearing surgical scrubs.’

  The approval in Seth’s eyes when he’d first seen the outfit she and Sophia had chosen had left her basking in a warm glow. She knew the coppery bronze fabric picked up similar glints in her hair but it was the flattering cut of the fluid fabric that made her feel good wearing it.