‘That—what you felt—it’s just sexual attraction, Hugh,’ she said awkwardly, and he smiled, a warm, tender smile, that kicked her heart up into her throat.
‘Perhaps, but, Alex, do you want to know when I realised I was completely dead in the water as far as you’re concerned?’ he said. ‘It was when you told Donna Ferguson what was wrong with you. It was then that I knew that I’d fallen in love with you, and that it wasn’t going to change, not ever.’
She stared at him blindly, her throat so tight it was an actual physical pain.
‘I…I don’t know what to say,’ she said.
“‘I love you, too, Hugh,” would do it,’ he said.
She thought of what her life would be like if she never saw him again, and her heart shrivelled. She thought of how she would feel if anything happened to him, and such a surge of loneliness coursed through her that she almost cried out. She did love him. She was never going to love anyone as much as she loved him, and he would never let her down as Jonathan had done, she knew he wouldn’t. He would always be there for her, and she opened her mouth to tell him so, and his phone rang.
Apologetically, he reached to answer it, but, as he listened to whoever was on the end of the line, Alex knew immediately that something was wrong. A deep frown had appeared on his forehead, and he was already stretching for his medical bag.
‘That was Geordie Dickson,’ Hugh said as soon as he’d put the phone down. ‘Ellie’s waters have broken, and the contractions are coming every thirty minutes.’
‘She’s also two to three weeks early, Hugh,’ Alex said, already on her feet, and he nodded.
‘It could have been worse,’ he said. ‘She could have been three months early. Geordie’s called for an ambulance but, by the sound of it, I don’t think it’s going to arrive at their house in time.’
Alex knew it definitely wasn’t going to arrive on time when she and Hugh arrived at Ellie’s house, and Geordie rushed out to tell them that the contractions were now just ten minutes apart.
‘Do you think she’s been deliberately waiting, doing what she threatened to do, so she doesn’t have to go to hospital?’ Alex muttered as she followed Hugh into the cottage.
‘Geordie says no, and I believe him,’ Hugh replied in the same undertone. ‘He said this baby just doesn’t seem to want to wait.’
It didn’t. Within five minutes of their arrival, Ellie’s cervix had dilated to ten centimetres and the contractions were coming every three minutes.
‘This wasn’t planned,’ Ellie gasped as Hugh and Alex crouched down beside her. ‘I know I said I wanted a home birth, but this really, really wasn’t planned.’
‘Can’t you give her gas, or air, or something?’ Geordie Dickson demanded, wiping his forehead with a shaking hand, and Hugh shook his head.
‘We don’t have any, and even if we did, it wouldn’t help because I can already see the baby’s head.’
So could Alex as Hugh reached quickly forward to support it, and she caught hold of Ellie’s hand and smiled encouragingly at her.
‘OK, Ellie, you know the drill,’ she said. ‘Huff, puff, and push.’
‘Easier…said…than…done,’the woman said breathlessly.
‘You’re doing fine, Ellie, just fine,’ Alex observed, seeing Hugh giving her the thumbs-up. ‘Now push again—just one more time.’
‘The shoulders are out,’ Hugh declared. ‘Just the bottom to follow, and we’re there.’
‘Is it a girl or a boy?’ Geordie Dickson asked, hopping from one foot to the other, his face almost as red as his wife’s. ‘We were hoping for a daughter, a little sister for Thomas, but right now I don’t care what it is as long as it’s all right.’
‘It’s too soon to tell,’ Hugh said. ‘But Ellie’s certainly going for a record delivery time.’
Ellie laughed, gasped, then groaned.
‘The baby’s almost here, Ellie!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘Just one more push—a really big one.’
‘Didn’t you already say, “Just one more push”?’ Ellie protested, her face scarlet.
Alex chuckled.
‘I did. I was hoping you hadn’t heard me. OK, relax…relax…now push…. push…Oh, wonderful!’ she declared as, with a tiny wail of protest, the baby suddenly slipped out into Hugh’s waiting hands.
Quickly he clamped the umbilical cord, and cut it, and Ellie tried to lever herself upright.
‘Is it all right?’ she said as Hugh began massaging her stomach to help the afterbirth come away. ‘Is my baby all right?’
‘You have a lovely baby girl, Ellie,’ Alex said, laying the baby gently beside her. ‘A beautiful little sister for Thomas.’
‘Isn’t she gorgeous, Dr Hugh?’ Geordie Dickson declared with clear delight. ‘Absolutely, and completely gorgeous.’
‘She is, indeed,’ Hugh replied, as the baby grasped hold of his finger and held onto it tightly. ‘Look at her, Alex. Look at her little fingernails, and toenails, and she’s got two dimples in her cheeks.’
‘You’d think you’d never seen a baby before,’ Alex protested with a half-laugh, and he shook his head.
‘Not a newborn. Not since I was at med school. GPs don’t normally assist at home births any more, so it’s a long time since I’ve seen a baby as small as this one.’
‘Do you want to hold her, Doc?’ Geordie Dickson said. ‘Go on—hold her,’ he insisted as Hugh gazed uncertainly at him. ‘You helped her to arrive so it’s only fair you should get to give her a cuddle.’
And Hugh laughed, and took the baby, and, as Alex stared at him and saw his face soften as he gazed down at the little girl, she felt something tear inside her.
She would never be able to give him this, not ever. If she stayed with him he would never be able to hold a child of his own in his arms. Never be able to bore people rigid with photographs of his son or daughter, or watch their eyes glaze over as he recounted tales of what his children had said or done. She couldn’t give him the opportunity to be a delighted dad on school sports days when he wouldn’t care whether his son came first or last. She couldn’t give him a daughter he’d video so proudly when she was chosen to be the fifth spear holder in the back row of the Christmas nativity play.
He’d said it didn’t matter, that only she mattered, but to deny him the opportunity to become a father…It would be wrong, so wrong, because he was a man who should be a father. A man who would make a terrific father, but all the IVF treatment in the world couldn’t make her fertile again. Nothing could.
‘I think she just smiled at me,’ Hugh said with clear delight. ‘Look, Alex, that’s a smile, isn’t it?’
‘I…I think the experts would say it was just wind,’ she said with difficulty.
‘No, that’s not wind, that’s a smile,’ he insisted. ‘That’s a lovely smile.’
‘Do you want to hold her, Dr Alex?’ Geordie Dickson said, turning to her, and she shook her head quickly.
I can’t, I can’t, she thought. Not when Hugh has just held her, not when I’ve seen the wonder in his eyes, the gentleness, the tenderness.
‘I…I think, as she’s slightly premature, maybe the fewer people who hold her the better,’ she managed to say.
‘Good point.’ Hugh nodded as he handed the little girl back to Ellie. ‘And that—if I’m not very much mistaken,’ he added, as the sound of a wailing siren split the air, ‘is the ambulance. A little late in the day, perhaps, but still in time to take mum and baby to the hospital.’
Ellie didn’t want to go, but both Hugh and Alex insisted.
‘Ellie, your daughter’s three weeks premature,’ Alex pointed out. ‘She looks to be a good weight, and she’s breathing well, but midwifery is neither my nor Dr Scott’s speciality, so humour us, please?’
‘OK—all right—if you think it’s best for Alexandra, then we’ll go,’ Ellie said with a very definite sigh, and Alex gazed at her blindly.
‘You…you’re going to call her Alexandra?’ she said, and Ellie beamed.
‘Geordie and I decided about a month ago that if this little one was a girl, we’d like to name her after you.’
‘I think that’s a lovely gesture, don’t you?’ Hugh said with a smile, and Alex dug her fingernails deep into her palms to stop herself from crying out loud, and felt her heart tear just that little bit more.
No more, she thought. Please, no more.
‘I’m hugely honoured,’ she forced herself to say, ‘but surely there are other, lovelier, names that you could give her?’
But the couple were adamant, and within minutes, Geordie, Ellie and baby Alexandra had been whisked into the ambulance and were gone.
‘Are you OK?’ Hugh asked, shooting her a puzzled glance as he drove back to the surgery.
‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘The birth was just a bit unexpected, that’s all.’
‘You can say that again.’ He grinned. ‘But hopefully little Alexandra will be none the worse for arriving too early. And speaking of arriving too early,’ he continued, ‘we’ve yet to finish the conversation we were having before she decided to put in an appearance.’
She knew what he meant, but she didn’t want to continue their conversation. No matter how she felt about him, she knew now that she couldn’t stay. He would say she was being foolish, that it didn’t matter to him that she could never give him children, but it mattered to her, and what if—despite all his protestations—it one day mattered to him? It was better for both their sakes if she walked away now, and she had to tell him so, and quickly.
‘You’ve got that look on your face again,’ he observed, when he drew his car to a halt outside the surgery. ‘The look I don’t like.’
‘Hugh, we have to talk.’
‘Sounds ominous,’ he declared. He searched her face for a second, but clearly found no clue there, because he nodded. ‘OK, come into my consulting room.’
She followed him reluctantly, knowing that she didn’t want to do what she was about to do, but knowing, too, that she must.
‘Hugh, I’ve come to a decision,’ she said the moment he had closed his consulting-room door behind them. ‘I’m not staying on here in Kilbreckan. What we’ve shared has been great, but I…’ Make it convincing, Alex, make it convincing. ‘I have these plans, you see, things I want to do, and I have to keep focused. If I allow myself to be distracted—’
‘You’re saying I’ve just been a distraction?’ he interrupted, hurt plain in his face, and she stared at him aghast.
‘No—no—that came out all wrong,’ she exclaimed. ‘What I’m trying to say is, I can’t stay, and if you think about this rationally you’ll see that you don’t really want me to. I…’ Come up with a good reason, Alex, a really good reason. ‘I’m too much of a gadfly, always on the go, always wanting to see things, do things. You’d get irritated with me. What you see now as…as appealing, you’d find annoying in time.’
‘I would never find you annoying,’ he insisted. ‘Alex, have I come on too strong, too fast, telling you that I love you? If it’s that, I can back off, give you some space, but please…please, don’t go. I don’t want you to go.’
Oh, don’t say that, she thought, feeling her heart clench, as his grey eyes met hers, and she could see the pain and bewilderment in them, but she mustn’t weaken, she mustn’t, for his sake.
‘I just…Hugh, I don’t want to be tied down. I want to go where I want, when I want.’
‘On your own.’
‘Sorry?’ she said in confusion.
‘Wouldn’t the hang-gliding, and white water rafting, and biking, and all the rest of it be a lot more fun if you could share it with someone?’ he said, and, before she could prevent him, he’d reached out and grasped her hands in his. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘What?’ she said faintly.
‘I’ll throw up everything here, and come with you, and we can white water raft, or skydive, or hurl ourselves out of aeroplanes together.’
‘Hugh, please—’
‘Alex, I know Kilbreckan must seem quiet and dull after all the exciting places you’ve been to, and I…’ He bit his lip. ‘I probably seem a bit dull, too, but when Jenny died I never thought I’d find anyone I could love as much as I loved her, and you—’
‘Don’t,’ she begged. ‘Hugh—please—don’t say any more. You’re a lovely man—a very special man—but I just can’t stay.’
‘This is all because of Ellie Dickson’s baby, isn’t it?’
His eyes were suddenly dark, angry, and she shook her head.
‘No.’ She lied. ‘It isn’t.’
‘When you saw Ellie’s baby it reminded you that you can’t have children,’ he exclaimed. ‘And you think if we stay together you’ll be depriving me of the opportunity to become a father.’
‘No—no—’
‘Alex, I can keep repeating until I have no voice left to speak that it doesn’t matter to me if I never have children,’ he declared, his grip on her hands tightening, ‘but I can’t make you believe it, only you can do that, and until you do you’re a coward.’
‘I’m a what?’ she gasped.
‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘All these challenges you set for yourself—they’re not real challenges because if the going gets tough, and you don’t want to do them any more, you can just walk away from them.’
‘I have never given up on a challenge that I’ve set myself.’ She flared, driven beyond endurance. ‘Whatever I start, I finish.’
‘Perhaps you do,’ he said, ‘but, the thing is, Alex, you don’t have to do any of them, but there are thousands of people out there in the real world who have to face real challenges every day of their lives whether they want to or not.’
‘I know that, but—’
‘There are people who have no jobs, no money, and no hope of ever getting either. People with disabled children, and people with loved ones who are dying. These are real challenges, Alex, not the made-up ones you do. What you’re doing is running away from life.’
‘How dare you?’ she exclaimed, her colour high. ‘I’ve had to face Hodgkin’s on my own. My mother fell apart, and the man I loved…the man I thought wanted to marry me…he walked, Hugh. He walked out on me.’
‘And you’ll never forgive him for that, will you?’
She wanted to say he was wrong, that she understood why Jonathan had behaved as he had, but suddenly all the old hurt, and pain, and heartache that she had been keeping a lid on for years boiled over.
‘No, I’ll never forgive him,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I loved him, Hugh, and when I needed him most, when I desperately needed him to just hold me, to be there for me, he wasn’t, and I will never ever forgive him for that.’
‘And you think every other man you meet is going to do the same,’ he said. ‘You think every other man is either going to freak out if your cancer comes back, or suddenly decide he wants children.’
‘I can’t risk it—don’t you see that?’ she cried. ‘I just can’t take the risk.’
‘Oh, leannan,’ he said softly, his voice unbelievably tender, ‘can’t you see that, at the moment, you’re like a seed blowing in the wind, going wherever that wind takes you, never settling anywhere, never leaving your mark anywhere?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ she said. ‘It means I can go wherever I want, do whatever I want, be free.’
‘Yes, but for a seed to grow, for it to become what it was born to be,’ he protested, ‘it has to put down roots or eventually it will simply wither and die.’
He was right, she knew he was, but she couldn’t admit it, even though her heart was breaking.
‘Hugh—’
‘Alex, there are no certainties in life,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I, at least, am prepared to take the risk, to gamble again on love. I never thought I’d ever meet another woman to whom I could say, “Take my heart, it’s yours,” but you’ve done that, simply by being you, whereas you…’ He shook his head. ‘You’d rather run away to your made-up challenges tha
n give your heart to anyone, and that isn’t living, and until you can see that, accept that, you’ll never truly be alive and free.’
And before she could answer he walked out of his consulting room, letting the door clatter shut in her face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DÉJÀ VU, Hugh thought wearily, as he stared across his desk at Sybil Gordon’s plump and worried face. Now he understood exactly what people meant when they said they were experiencing déjà vu.
‘You’ve been reading your medical book again, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘The one I told you to burn.’
A faint wash of colour appeared on Mrs Gordon’s round face.
‘I might have dipped into it, simply to check—’
‘And what did I tell you I would do if you didn’t get rid of that medical book?’ Hugh interrupted, fixing Mrs Gordon with a steely gaze.
‘That you’d come round to my house and burn it yourself,’ Sybil Gordon said in a very small voice, and Hugh nodded.
‘I want that book on your fire, or in your dustbin, by tonight. It’s a danger, and a menace, and is causing you nothing but grief.’
Not to mention being quite likely to push me over the edge, he thought.
‘So, you don’t think I might have Lassa fever?’ Sybil Gordon queried and Hugh gritted his teeth until they hurt.
‘Not unless you’ve made a trip to West Africa that I know nothing about. You have a cold, Mrs Gordon. An ordinary, common-or-garden winter cold as does half the population of Kilbreckan at the moment.’
‘Well, if you’re sure that’s all it is, doctor,’ Sybil Gordon said, looking anything but convinced. Slowly she walked to his consulting-room door then paused. ‘So, Dr Lorimer is definitely leaving us at the weekend?’
‘Yes, she’s definitely leaving,’ Hugh replied tightly.
‘I’ll miss her classes,’ Mrs Gordon murmured.
Which undoubtedly explained why Sybil was reading her medical book again, Hugh thought, but he didn’t say that.
‘The classes aren’t stopping just because Dr Lorimer’s leaving,’ he said instead. ‘Dr MacIntyre and I will be taking it in turn to weigh everyone who comes along, and Dr Lorimer has arranged for a professional belly dancer to continue to teach the dance element.’
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