‘Sorry,’ the girl replied, clearly harassed. ‘But I’m late for my flight to Toronto.’
‘Now, there’s a coincidence.’ Mark smiled. ‘I’m going there, too.’
And he would never change, Helen thought as she watched him walk off with the girl, his hand already under her elbow, his head bent to catch whatever she was saying. Flirting was as instinctive to him as breathing, and he must have read her mind because just before he disappeared from sight he glanced over his shoulder and threw her a smile—half apologetic, half rueful—and try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling back.
She hoped he would be happy in Canada. She hoped he would find what he was looking for there, but she knew where her own heart lay, and quickly she turned, intending to get a taxi back to the Belfield, only for her heart to leap into her throat as she saw Tom running towards her across the concourse.
‘Tom, what’s wrong? Has something happened to Emma?’
‘Emma’s fine,’ he said breathlessly. ‘It’s you I’ve come to see. You I’ve come to stop.’
‘To stop?’ she repeated in confusion as the loudspeaker suddenly crackled into life, announcing the last call for boarders for flight 101 to Toronto. ‘To stop me from doing what?’
‘Going to Canada with Mark,’ he said raggedly. ‘Helen, don’t go. Please, please, don’t go. Stay with me and the kids.’
‘Stay with you? Tom—’
He gripped her by the arms, and she was amazed to feel that he was trembling. ‘All I want is for you to give me another chance. I know we’ve been having problems. I know you love Mark, and not me, but if you could just give me another chance, maybe…maybe in time you might forget him and grow to love me again.’
She stared up into his, oh, so familiar face, a face that was ravaged with fatigue and worry and pain, and tears filled her eyes. Tears of relief and joy and love. He thought she was in love with Mark. That was why he’d been so cold, so remote. Not because he was leaving her, but because he thought she was leaving him.
‘Tom, Mark and I—’
‘If you want to leave the Belfield—go to another hospital—then we’ll go,’ he said desperately. ‘If you want to leave medicine completely, and raise chickens on a farm, or move to the Western Isles and become a potter, we’ll do it, but, please…please, don’t leave me. You are, and always will, be everything to me.’
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and did both.
‘Tom, I’m not going to Canada. I have absolutely no intention of going to Canada.’
‘You haven’t?’ he faltered. ‘Then why…?’
‘Mark asked me to come to the airport to see him off, and that’s what I’ve just done,’ she said, gesturing to the plane that was ready to taxi down the runway.
He gazed at it for a second, then back at her. ‘Helen, if you’re staying with me because of Emma—’
‘Tom, I’m staying with you because I love you,’ she said. ‘I fell in love with you ten years ago, and I haven’t ever really stopped loving you.’
‘But, Mark…What about Mark?’
‘I was flattered by him. Flattered that somebody so handsome and charming could be interested in me. He made me feel special, and for a little while I thought that was the same as love, but it wasn’t.’
‘Helen…’ He swallowed hard, and his grey eyes held hers, refusing to allow her to look away. ‘I don’t really want to know this, but I have to ask. Have…have you and Mark made love?’
Oh, how thankful she was that she could look him in the eye and say, ‘No.’
The breath went out of him quickly, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. ‘Did…did you want to?’
Yes, I wanted to, she thought. Wanted to because Mark made me feel like a woman again, and not just a wife and a mother. Wanted to because you seemed to be taking me for granted. But how could she tell Tom that? Tom, who’d never stopped loving her. Tom, who’d said she was everything to him.
‘I might have been flattered by his attention,’ she replied, willing him to believe her, ‘but, no, I didn’t ever want to make love with him.’
‘And you’ll stay with me?’ he said, his voice rough with emotion. ‘You won’t leave me?’
‘Only if you ask me to raise chickens or become a potter in the Western Isles,’ she said with a shaky laugh. ‘Tom, I hate chickens. They’ve got big claws and beaks, and they peck and flap their wings, and I couldn’t make a pot to save myself.’
‘All I want is for you to be happy,’ he murmured. ‘Just tell me what you want that will make you happy.’
‘You make me happy,’ she said softly. ‘You and John and Emma make me happy.’
‘But—’
‘Just love me, Tom,’ she said. ‘All I have ever wanted is for you to just love me.’
He gathered her to him, and held her tight. ‘Helen, I fell in love with you the first day we met in the Belfield canteen, and I’ve never stopped loving you. I know I haven’t said it often enough, but I’m going to from now on.’
‘We have to talk, too,’ she said. ‘We have to keep remembering that we’re a couple, and not just doctors. We forgot to talk, Tom, forgot what was really important in our lives. Yes, we’re doctors, but we’re people first, a couple first.’
‘Can we…? Do you think we can go back to the way we were?’ he asked, and she thought about it for a moment.
‘I think we can be better than we were. Stronger, closer, if that’s what you want.’
‘If?’ He kissed her long and hard. ‘Helen, when I’m ninety-two, and bent, and bald, I will still love you.’
‘And I will still love you, Tom,’ she whispered.
‘Together for always?’ he murmured, and she nodded.
‘Together for always, Tom.’
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5739-2
THE SURGEON’S MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Maggie Kingsley
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