Marc was here.
She’d thought she was over him. How could the sight of him sitting at her kitchen table do her head in?
Marc belonged to a crazy time in her life. For a short few months she’d forgotten the responsibilities life had thrust on her almost as soon as she was able to walk. An invalid mother who’d refused to take care of herself. A father who’d walked out on them. A town who’d helped her train and expected medical care in return.
She buried her head in the pillows but it didn’t help. She climbed out of bed and went and stared out of the window into the dark.
Marc was just down the road, in the local motel. Marc, the most gorgeous man she’d ever set eyes on. The man who’d turned her world upside down.
Who’d just turned it upside down again.
Be practical. She forced herself to put aside the image of her ex-husband—tricky that—and focus on what he was asking of her.
Could she go to Falkenstein?
‘It might be exciting,’ she muttered. ‘Maybe I’d get to stay in a palace.’
‘Felix would stay in the palace.’ She was arguing with herself. ‘They’d probably put me in an attic. But an attic in Falkenstein might be more exciting than here.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake...’ She threw the window open so the night air could cool her heated face. The night was full of the vision of Marc. Her head felt as if it might explode.
To take Felix to Falkenstein, or to let him go without her. To lose control.
The alternative, to spend weeks near Marc...
The in-house phone rang, the connection between her apartment and the hospital, and she almost fell on it with relief. Anything to stop herself thinking of Marc.
The nurse was apologetic. ‘Ellie? Sorry to wake you but Mrs Ferguson’s restless. Permission to up the diazepam?’
An intercom in Felix’s room connected to the nurses’ station meant she could come and go to the hospital without worrying. ‘Yes! I’ll come.’
‘There’s no need,’ the nurse said, startled. ‘If you can just give me a phone order... She’s not uncomfortable, just doing her usual moaning, but she’s getting loud.’
That wasn’t so unusual. Eighty years old and in hospital because she’d broken her foot while trying to kick her son’s dog, Myra Ferguson moaned at the world.
But Ellie had the choice. She could stay here staring into the dark or she could go and hear how appalling the world was treating Myra and how inconsiderate her son was to own a dog.
There wasn’t a choice. The dark involved thinking of Marc.
Myra’s moans were nothing in comparison.
CHAPTER FIVE
SOMETIMES ELLIE’S CLINICS ran over time. Often. Sometimes she finished her morning clinic to find her afternoon patients already queueing.
But not this morning. She ushered out her last patient and her receptionist was beaming.
‘All done, and not a single house call. And your gorgeous doctor friend is waiting in the car park. You should see the car he’s driving! It’s a bright red sports car, and he has the sun roof down. He’s about to whisk you off to an assignation.’
‘Sandwiches and soda in the park,’ she said dryly. ‘I’ll be back in thirty minutes.’
‘I’ve cleared an hour if you need it,’ Marilyn said serenely. ‘Oh, Ellie, he’s beautiful. And the rumours are that he’s Felix’s father.’
This town! Word would have flown throughout the district before breakfast.
‘You want to put a bit of lippy on?’ Marilyn said happily. ‘And unfasten that top button.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake...’
But she did just happen to glance in the mirror before she left. A woman had some pride.
* * *
What had happened to her in the past ten years?
He watched her walk towards him and he worried.
She was wearing faded black pants, a white shirt and a soft grey cardigan. Plain black shoes, old. Her auburn hair was caught into a sensible knot.
She wore no make-up, no jewellery.
She looked as if she’d turned into a workhorse. His beautiful, vibrant Ellie...
He’d done this to her. He’d turned her into a single parent.
Maybe he should be angry that she’d kept things from him, and part of him was, but the overwhelming feeling he had was guilt.
And grief.
‘Do you have sandwiches or will I grab some from the hospital kitchen?’ she called, and he thought, great, he’d eaten her fish and chips and now she was offering to bring hospital sandwiches. What would he give to be able to say he had a picnic basket loaded with lobster, caviar, the finest selection of breads from a French boulangerie, champagne on ice...?
‘I have pies,’ he told her. ‘Courtesy of the general store. And fruit and soda.’ How exotic was that? What was the use in being King? he thought ruefully. He should have called for the army to fly in truffles before dawn.
But it seemed they were acceptable. ‘Pies?’ Her face lit and he thought, Wow. What a small thing to give her pleasure.
And why did that make him feel so good?
‘Mrs Thomas makes the best pies,’ she told him as she reached him. ‘You can’t think how tired I get of hospital food, but there’s seldom enough time for me to cook or even shop. There’s a park down by the creek and the creek has water at this time of year. I have my phone. We might get lucky and it’ll stay silent long enough for us to eat.’
‘I need time to talk.’
‘I know,’ she told him and slid into his car. ‘So talk.’
But he couldn’t for a bit. The pleasure on her face had unsettled him. Disarmed him even.
He followed her directions down to what she’d optimistically referred to as a park—a stand of gum trees on a bend in a creek bed. They set themselves up on the lone park bench. He handed Ellie a pie and she attacked it as if there was no tomorrow.
‘You were hungry?’ he asked, startled, and she smiled between mouthfuls.
‘I’m experienced,’ she told him. ‘My beeper goes and my food gets forgotten. I learned early to feed rather than graze.’
‘Just how busy are you?’
‘Twenty-four-seven.’ She paused and looked down at the remains of her pie with respect. ‘But I do get fed. The hospital cook has been known to show up when I’m inundated with house calls. I’ll come out of someone’s front door and she’ll be standing there with a plate of lasagne and arms akimbo, glaring at me and daring me not to eat before I go to the next job. They look after me,’ she said simply. ‘It’s why I’m here. This town is desperate for a doctor and they’ll do what they must to keep me. Including looking after Felix. I’ve never had to worry about childcare. As a single mum, I have it easy.’
‘You don’t look like you have it easy.’
‘We’re not here to talk about me. We need to talk about Felix.’
‘Ellie...’
‘We’ll come,’ she said simply. ‘I’ll accept your help finding locums. I understand this is Felix’s life. I can’t refuse. But I won’t leave him there, Marc. He comes home with me after the coronation. He can spend a couple of weeks every year with you, as long as I have your written assurance, overseen by international lawyers, that he returns to Australia after each two weeks away. When he’s eighteen, he can make up his own mind what to do.’
So he’d got what he wanted. Sort of.
‘You’ll come with him?’
‘For the first visit, yes, but for the rest, as long as you make sure he’s safely escorted and cared for, my place is here.’
‘He’ll need to come a bit before. There’ll be a media frenzy. We need to prepare you both.’
‘We?’
‘The royal minders. They’ll
also be preparing me for my role but that’s not...’
‘My business? No.’ Her mouth set. ‘He’ll need to stay at the palace?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can stay with him?’
‘I hope you will.’
‘I can’t imagine me in a palace.’
‘I can’t imagine me in a palace,’ he told her and she looked swiftly up at him.
‘You don’t want this?’
‘What do you think?’
She stared up at him for a long moment. ‘I guess... I don’t know anything at all about you, Marc. Or make that Your Highness. I know nothing at all.’
‘You knew enough to marry me.’
‘I was nineteen years old. A lovestruck teenager.’
‘And you’ve regretted it ever since?’
Why had he asked? What difference did it make? Was it vanity—or something else?
When the thought of marriage had come up it had seemed impossible, fraught with problems, a fairy tale. But the day after Ellie’s exams, he’d woken with her beside him. He’d lain in the filtered dawn light and thought of the last weeks, during which he should have been travelling, enjoying the freedom he’d craved. Instead of which, he’d stayed in Ellie’s bedsit, helping her cram, or walking her to and from her endless waitressing jobs, or thinking of what to make for dinner—and actually cooking! He’d swotted up on student medicine—the things he’d had to learn for exams but had promptly forgotten the moment he’d passed. He’d pushed her, bullied her, hugged her, worried with her...
And that morning she’d woken in his arms and he’d kissed her and said, ‘Ellie, I know marriage is impossible but dammit, let’s do it anyway. Let’s face the impossible afterwards.’ She’d kissed him and said a drowsy, deliriously happy yes. And four weeks later, despite the sonorous drone of the marriage celebrant intoning the age-old vows in a council chamber, those vows had seemed like life itself.
For as long as you both shall live...
Maybe that was why he’d never thought of marrying again.
And you’ve regretted it ever since? His question hung in the air between them.
‘I have Felix,’ she said and bit into her remaining pie with a decisive crunch. ‘How can I regret that?’
That was enough to shut him up. It wasn’t about him. It was about a son he’d never known.
‘What about you?’ she said as she demolished the last crust and looked consideringly at the apple he’d provided. ‘I’m not asking if you regret our marriage. That’s a given—apart from Felix it was an appalling mistake. But wife? Kids? Why not?’
‘No time.’
‘Like me.’
‘And you’ve been working too hard so you can pay for Felix’s medical costs. And your mother’s too, I’ll bet. Ellie, why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ It was an explosion and a couple of ducks that had been edging nearer, eyeing crusts, took to the air in flight.
‘It wasn’t your business.’
‘Of course it was my business.’
She’d picked up the apple. Now she laid it back down on the bench and stood and faced him. ‘I lied to you,’ she told him. ‘Oh, I didn’t tell outright lies but I let you believe Felix had been adopted. That was deceit. And at first I did it to protect you. I was reading about the situation in Falkenstein and I knew the pressure you were under. I knew how impossible it would be for you to drop everything and come. But afterwards, when the war ended...’
‘Yes?’ He was still angry, still frustrated. She was standing before him, a shadow of the vibrant girl he’d married. She was weary, careworn, worried. Her hair could do with a cut. Her clothes were...serviceable.
Half his frustration was that he wanted to pick her up and change things. Give her time to sleep. Send her to a decent hairdresser. Buy her some attractive clothes.
Care for her...
‘I was afraid you’d still care,’ she said and it brought him up short. ‘I was afraid...the feelings we had...they were so strong they threw our lives out of control. My mum needed me. The town needed me and Felix needed me. When I was with you I forgot everything and it scared me witless. I couldn’t go there again. I couldn’t risk it. I thought, if I told you, you’d come. You were honourable, you’d want a say in how Felix was raised, but most of all you’d be in my life. I couldn’t afford to feel like that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And, Marc, I still can’t.’
And he understood.
Anger faded as he faced her fear head-on. He thought of the times he’d wanted to contact her, to find out how her life was going. He thought of the times he’d come close and then pulled away.
He had no life to offer a bride. Even now. The goldfish bowl of royalty, the appalling media attention he was about to attract, the resentment the people had for a royal family who’d brought them nothing but trouble—combined, it was the stuff of nightmares.
He thought fleetingly of Josef’s assertion...
‘We need to find you a wife. Get you a son...’
What a joke! There was so much to do to put the country back on a stable footing, how could he possibly have time to woo and wed a suitable bride?
Fraught as things were, Felix at least answered this problem. He now had a son.
He didn’t need a wife. He could stay in control. Sort of.
Ellie was looking straight at him, her gaze defiant. What she’d said had been a confession of sorts, he thought. A confirmation that what had been between them was a wildfire, impossible to control.
But, like a wildfire, even though the flames were long gone, embers glowed underground for years, awaiting their chance to flare again.
‘I get it,’ he said roughly. ‘I don’t have to like it, but I understand. But you’ll let me help now. You’ll come back here after the coronation, but from now on the financial responsibility for Felix is mine. He’s to receive the best medical care available and you—Ellie, you’re officially mother to the Crown Prince and as such you’ll receive an allowance.’
‘I don’t want your money.’
‘It’s not my money. It’s a state allowance for the Crown Prince and his mother, and it’s not negotiable. I will care for you.’ There was that anger again. The wildfire analogy flashed back—an ember smouldering deep underground.
He caught himself. He gathered the remains of the picnic and carried it to the trash can. When he returned, Ellie was still standing, watching him. Her face was expressionless but he knew this woman.
Was he seeing fear?
‘Ellie...’ He reached out and touched her face, but she slapped his hand away as if he were a viper.
‘Don’t touch me.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Neither of us meant anything. What happened between us was stupid on so many levels.’
‘We loved each other.’
‘Did either of us know what love is? I loved my mum and she needed me. You loved your country and you were needed at home. Now I love Felix. That’s the love we need to focus on. What was between us was crazy, a stupid denial of responsibilities.’
He watched her face and still saw fear, but also the wash of raw emotion she couldn’t conceal. His presence was reawakening something she had no control over and he understood. He felt the same.
Ten years ago he’d fallen for this woman in a way he could never understand, and somewhere under the fear, despite the years of separation, that incomprehensible feeling still lingered.
But it had to be ignored. For one crazy moment he thought about what it would be like to be a medieval royal prince. He could summon his knights, point to Ellie and say I’ll have that one. His knights would carry her to his bed. His women would bathe her and dress her as she deserved to be dressed. All honour would be bestowed on her and she’d be his Queen.
Yeah.
Like that was going to happen. The time for impulse, for passion was over. For behind Ellie’s fear there was anger. Ellie’s life was here. He was messing with it enough. He couldn’t risk pushing it further.
‘I won’t touch you,’ he told her.
But was that enough? She was staring at him as if baffled.
‘What?’
‘I have no idea,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t have a clue what I’m feeling, much less why. All I know is that you lay a hand on me and all deals are off. I’ll fight you every inch of the way for Felix, and maybe you’ll win because you have the resources to fight, but I’ll try anyway. And you won’t make friends with Felix that way. If you want to be his dad, you respect my boundaries.’
‘Of course.’
But even then she was looking at him as if he was some kind of puzzle she couldn’t work out.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it and he saw relief.
‘I need to go. Rebecca Taylor’s parents have just brought her in and Chris thinks it’s appendicitis. If Chris thinks it’s appendix, it’s ninety nine per cent sure to be appendix.’
And wasn’t that just what he needed? Medicine. Something he understood. ‘Would you like me to help?’
‘No!’
‘You can’t operate on your own.’
‘Chris will help if necessary but I’ll try and settle things, and evacuate her to the city.’
‘I’m a surgeon. You know as well as I do that sometimes an appendix can turn into an emergency. Let me check.’
Her expression changed, from defensive to understanding and sympathy.
‘You want to work.’
There was no response but the truth. ‘Yes.’
‘Marc...’ He saw compassion in her eyes. ‘They’re asking you to give up medicine?’
‘I have no choice.’
‘Again?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She shook her head. ‘You had no choice when you walked away from us. If that hurt you as much as it hurt me...’ She paused, catching herself. ‘No matter. That’s history. But for you to walk away from your medicine as well as everything else...’
Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince Page 6