The One Man to Heal Her

by Meredith Webber

  Poor Alex had been scarlet with humiliation and hurt, tears leaking from behind the big dark glasses she’d worn even inside in those days. He’d wanted to put his arm around her—to give her a hug—but he’d known she’d shy away, as she had from all but the twins’ hugs and kisses.

  Not that he’d have kissed her—she’d been, what? Fifteen? Sixteen?

  He couldn’t remember—remembered only the deep pity he’d felt for the so obviously damaged teenager.

  Was this patient, here in the ICU, recovering from an operation for a heart valve replacement, that Mr Hudson?

  Was the sleeping woman really Alex?

  And had his thoughts disturbed her that she stirred and lifted her head?

  Huge blue eyes she’d hidden behind darkened glasses for all the years she’d lived next door stared unseeingly at him.

  Huge blue eyes framed by golden blonde hair tipped with silver here and there and softly tousled by sleep. The early beauty she’d tried to hide with shorn hair and the glasses had come to fruition. Even sleep-tousled, she was stunning.

  ‘Alex?’

  She straightened up from the bed and frowned at him.

  ‘I’m Will, Will Kent—from next door to the Armitages, remember?’

  The frown deepened and she shook her head, so obviously puzzled he had to smile.

  ‘You pinched my job,’ he added, remembering how he’d pretended to complain about losing the occasional babysitting he’d done for the Armitages.

  ‘Superman?’ she whispered, disbelief filling the words.

  He flourished a pretend cloak and bowed low.

  ‘At your service, ma’am! But also head intensivist at the hospital. Your father’s in my care until he’s well enough to be transferred to the coronary care unit.’

  He saw her face light up as things fell into place and she shot to her feet and advanced to give him an all-enveloping hug.

  ‘Oh, Will,’ she murmured, ‘it’s so good to see a familiar face.’

  She eased back, looking at him, then laughed.

  ‘Not so familiar—you’ve grown up!’

  ‘Not even Superman can stay twenty-two for ever,’ Will said gloomily, and she laughed again, her face lighting up with delight—so gloriously beautiful Will felt his lungs seize.

  Breathe, he told himself, and tried to remember how.

  Fortunately, as his brain seemed to be similarly paralysed, instinct took over and his lungs filled with air while he tried to catch up with Alex’s conversation.

  ‘Intensivist? Weren’t you heading towards O and G when you left Port? What made you change your mind? It can’t have been the late night callouts, you’d get more of them in this job.’

  ‘Whoa!’

  Will held up his hand, pleased to see his limb was obeying messages, although other parts of his body were obviously still in shock.

  ‘I’m on a ward round and really need to check your dad and the other patients.’

  ‘Can we catch up later?’ Alex asked. ‘I couldn’t get home before the op, but I’ve spoken to the surgeon who did the operation. He gave me the impression he wasn’t too positive about the outcome.’

  As Will was still feeling startling and unfamiliar reactions to Alex’s hug, he wondered if this was wise, but she was entitled to ask questions about her father’s health.

  But beyond that, he was intrigued. The damaged teenager who, in the beginning, would duck away if she saw him over the fence, and who’d shrunk back from any physical contact—even a simple handshake—had emerged, like a caterpillar from a cocoon, as this beautiful butterfly.

  He wanted to know just how she’d managed the transformation—and how deep it went. He knew Isobel in particular had worked hard to restore Alex’s self-esteem, but there’d been a fragility about the teenager that couldn’t be hidden behind dark glasses and a dreadful haircut.

  ‘As far as your father’s concerned, the operation went well, but he wasn’t in the best of health before it. Other heart problems apparently. I only know this stuff from his chart but I gather that if it hadn’t been a necessity…’

  He paused, wondering how to tell this woman he knew but didn’t know just how precarious her father’s health was.

  ‘Look, I should be through by eight and your father will still be sleeping off the anaesthetic until morning at least, so you might as well get out of here for a while,’ he said. ‘We could eat in the canteen but the food’s appalling. There’s a nice new bar and restaurant at the top of the old Royal Motel. It has a fancier name now—the motel, that is—which I can never remember. And it’s in walking distance. We could have a meal—give us time to catch up.’

  She nodded her agreement as a nurse came into the room. Will’s attention, or ninety-five per cent of it, returned to his patient as he discussed Mr Hudson’s progress and checked the results the monitor was revealing by the second.

  Alex had slipped away, for which he was truly grateful, although he felt a momentary regret he hadn’t looked at her more closely, if only to confirm his impression she’d blossomed into a startlingly beautiful woman.

  * * *

  Will Kent!

  Alex stood in the little bathroom off the family waiting room of the ICU and smiled as she ran the name through her head.

  But had the Will Kent she’d known had laughing brown eyes that crinkled with smile lines at the corners, and lips that seemed to be on the verge of a smile all the time? Of course, eighteen years ago, when he’d left Port to finish his studies, his eyes probably hadn’t been crinkled, and they’d been hidden behind the dark-framed glasses, and, anyway, in the state she’d been in back then she wouldn’t have noticed anything about any man. Certainly not his lips…

  And she’d better not notice them now, she reminded herself. As she’d pointed out, Will was all grown up now, and undoubtedly married with children. In fact, throwing herself at him, hugging him, had undoubtedly embarrassed him no end, rendering him practically speechless.

  Back then he’d been the Armitages’ next-door neighbour christened Superman by the twins—or probably their parents, given his surname. Self-effacing—that was how she’d have described him—but somehow he’d always been around in that first year she’d been with the Armitages. In and out of the house, borrowing textbooks from Dave or Isobel, seemingly always there if she’d needed him. She tried to remember.

  He’d certainly helped her rescue Riain out of the tree one day, and had carried Rosi down to the doctor’s the day she’d fallen off the swing.

  Superman!

  She smiled at the memories and told herself that today, with all the emotions of her return home churning inside her, she’d probably have hugged any familiar face.

  An image of Will as he was now, dark hair touched with silver, lips stretched in a surprised smile, continued to linger in Alex’s head, making her feel hot and embarrassed and somehow ashamed all at the same time.

  * * *

  Why had he suggested dinner?

  He could have talked to Alex in the visitors’ room, or his office, but a bar?

  Had a beautiful woman giving him a hug gone straight to his head?

  Or had his mother’s gentle nagging—you’ve got to start going out again some time, Will—prompted the choice?

  His mother was probably right!

  He did have to start going out again.

  Three years now—three years, eight months and five days, if he was counting—since Elise’s death, and Charlotte deserved to have a mother…

  He stared out at the lights sparkling in the darkened town beneath him and gave a huff of laughter.

  ‘That would be ironic laughter,’ he muttered to himself, remembering trying to explain irony to Alex, she pushing the twins on the swings while he’d leaned over the fence. Later, that was, after she’d got used to him being around and had actually asked him for some help with some assignment she was doing.

  ‘Definitely ironic!’

  ‘Are you talking to yourself?’
/>
  He turned to see her, and all the physical reactions he’d had at the hospital happened again.

  ‘Never!’ he lied. ‘That would really label me a nut job.’

  Alex smiled, intensifying all the stuff going on inside his body.

  ‘You might think back to when I met you,’ she teased. ‘You were hanging upside down on the side fence, so the nut-job label was firmly in place from the beginning.’

  Will gathered the tattered remnants of his dignity.

  ‘I was being a bat!’ he reminded her. ‘Showing the twins how they hung in their trees.’

  She laughed with such frank and open delight his insides melted.

  But along with all the physical confusion came the clang of warning bells.

  They were both damaged people, besides which she was probably married, or engaged, or partnered—too beautiful to still be single—while he was no catch—single father still hurting from the loss of his wife, shying away from the very thought of love. Not that this was a date…

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I guess,’ he answered the still smiling woman, although okay was a long way off.

  He was sitting at a table that had a view over the mouth of the river and up along the coast as far as a distant headland.

  The view provided the distraction he needed.

  ‘Can we see your house from here?’ he asked, looking not out to sea but up the river.

  Alex looked too, checking the scattering of houses on the far side of the river from the town—reached by ferry during its operating hours or by a long detour back around via the highway when the ferry stopped at midnight.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘You see the ferry down by the wharf and the fishermen’s co-op on it—the shed-looking thing? Beyond that there’s the bit of waste land and the huge old fig tree—well, we’re two houses down from the tree, although you probably can’t see the house because they seem to have built an enormous place beside it.’

  She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘We’re two houses down,’ she repeated. ‘It’s funny talking about “my house” when I haven’t been there for so long. Although I didn’t make it back in time to see Dad before the operation, we’d spoken on the phone a couple of times, and he’d been so upset about what had happened in the past that I promised when I came I’d stay with him, at least until he’s over the op.’

  Will smiled, brown eyes twinkling in his tanned face, and Alex immediately regretted this reunion.

  It was because he was a familiar face that she was noticing little things about him—like the twinkling eyes.

  And she certainly shouldn’t be noticing twinkling eyes when he was wearing a wedding ring.

  She touched his finger.

  ‘You’re married, that’s nice. Kids?’

  The twinkle disappeared and Will’s open, friendly face went completely blank.

  ‘Let’s get you a drink first.’

  He was on his feet, waiting for her order.

  On his feet too quickly?

  Far too quickly!

  Get with it, Alex!

  ‘G and T in a long glass, please.’

  That’s better. Or it would have been if she hadn’t watched him walk towards the bar, seeing the breadth of his shoulders and how his back sloped down to slim hips and—

  You will not look at his butt! The man is married, he is off limits, he’s nothing more than an old—not exactly friend but someone she had known quite well.

  It’s just that he’s the first familiar face you’ve seen that you’re reacting this way.

  He brought her drink and a small bowl of cashews for them to share, then settled back down at the table, this time looking out at the stretch of beach.

  Do I ask again? Alex wondered, as an uneasy silence hovered around them.

  ‘I’m a single father,’ he began, still staring out along the beach. ‘My wife died when Charlotte was born—cancer—Charlotte’s three and a half.’

  Will turned back to his companion as he spoke, aware of how stiff and remote he must have sounded as he’d blurted out his story.

  Lack of practice in telling it—he knew that. Telling it was one of the reasons he’d avoided going out—telling it hurt…

  Had she felt that pain—heard it in his voice—that her fingers, cold and slightly damp from the glass, reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze?

  ‘Oh, Will,’ she said softly. ‘I cannot imagine what pain that must have caused you—and what a loss it must have been. We see awful things every day in our work, yet we somehow think we’re immune to it.’

  She hesitated, her fingers tightening on his hand.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it—to tell me?’

  And suddenly he did. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for Alex to return—or someone like Alex to come along—so he could put it all together and let it all out, releasing some of the terrible tension he’d carried inside his body for so long.

  ‘We met as students, married after graduation then waited a while to have kids—an intern’s life is appalling so we were hardly ever together. Then, when we decided to have a family, Elise, her name was Elise, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was three months pregnant. It was a very aggressive strain and the specialists wanted her to abort the baby and get immediate treatment. She refused, knowing the treatment would leave her sterile.’

  He paused but Alex kept quiet, perhaps sensing there was more.

  ‘We fought about it, Alex,’ he finally added, looking into the blue eyes across the table from him, seeing her understanding and concern. ‘‘That’s what hurts so much now, that I fought her over this, said terrible things.’

  ‘But only out of love,’ Alex said quietly, and he knew she understood.

  ‘She wouldn’t accept any treatment or even pain relief that would have crossed the placenta and harmed the baby, and by the last month of the pregnancy she was in a coma—treatment was too late.’

  Alex sipped her drink, knocked flat by the deep pain behind Will’s simple tale. To her, in that first year at the Armitages’, Will had always seemed like part of the family. And, perhaps because of the family link, he’d been totally unthreatening, unlike the youths and young men she’d see on the street or in the park—males who’d make some casual remark, not really even aimed at her, but enough to make her cringe and scurry back home with the twins.

  Will had just been Will, studying medicine because, she suspected, he’d idolised Dave and Isobel.

  Now the pain he’d had in his life made her heart ache for him.

  No wonder he’d grown up…

  ‘So, your daughter?’

  His smile lit up his face.

  It did weird things to her insides too, but she could ignore them.

  ‘Charlotte,’ he said simply. ‘She’s the greatest—a precious gift—she’s why we came back here to Port. Look, here’s a photo.’

  Alex waited while he pulled out his wallet and dug in the folds, and she wondered if he was giving himself time to get over the memories of his wife’s death.

  The small, wallet-sized photo, showed a little girl with a mop of brown curls and a smile that could melt stone. Alex’s breathing faltered as she looked at the beautiful child. Mr Spencer had stolen more than her innocence, he’d stolen her ability to get close enough to a man to want a sexual relationship, let alone a child.

  But Will was speaking again and she switched off the futile regrets to listen.

  ‘Mum minds her when I’m at work, although I’ve built a separate flat in Mum’s house so we’re independent a lot of the time.’

  The happiness faded from his face.

  ‘It worries me, though, that I rely so much on Mum. Now she’s retired she should be out doing things, not minding a nearly four-year-old.’

  ‘I bet she’s fine with that,’ Alex told him, and touched the hand that still held the photo, just gently…

  ‘She says so and it will be easier when Charlotte
goes to kindy next year, then school—’

  ‘And then, whoosh—they’re gone from your life.’

  His smile wasn’t the worst one she’d ever seen, but it was close, yet even the weak effort affected Alex.

  Jet-lag—it had to be!

  Jet-lag and seeing a familiar face, that’s all that was going on.

  She let go of his hand and concentrated on her drink.

  ‘So, tell me about you,’ he said, and she knew her own smile would be even weaker than his had been.

  In so many ways it was a success story, yet—

  ‘Perhaps we should eat,’ she suggested, hoping a move from this table—any kind of movement—might…

  What? Make him forget he’d asked?

  Or break the sense of intimacy—it had to be a false intimacy because of the past—that seemed to be enclosing them.

  ‘We can talk over food,’ she added, because she knew she’d been far too abrupt.

  Will stood up with such alacrity she had to believe he’d felt it too. He led her into another part of the room where most of the diners already finishing their meals, lingering over dessert or last drinks.

  ‘Tell me about Charlotte—favourite games, toys, books,’ she said, when a waiter had ushered them to a table and slid serviettes onto their laps.

  Will grinned at her, which kind of undid a lot of what the move had accomplished, in that a different kind of tension had appeared, tightening her skin and skidding along her nerves.

  ‘You’re supposed to be telling me about you,’ he reminded her.

  Alex waved away his objection but he ignored the gesture.

  ‘No way, you tell first,’ he ordered, waggling his finger at her, like a teacher with a reluctant pupil.

  ‘Here’s the short version,’ Alex said. ‘You’d gone south to finish your degree before I left the Armitages’, but I got that scholarship Isobel made me work so hard for, went to Brisbane, got my degree, got engaged—church upbringing still strong, so marriage seemed a logical step. I’d wanted to specialise in cardiology, Dave’s influence, I suppose, although I couldn’t handle the surgery. I was offered a terrific training job in London, qualified, got unengaged, moved from London to Glasgow, and now I’m home.’