The Good Father

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘This is ridiculous, Jonah!’ he exclaimed as he swept down the corridor. ‘We shouldn’t have to be sending babies hundreds of miles away from their mothers.’

  ‘I agree,’ Jonah replied, ‘but the likelihood of us ever getting a bigger unit is nil. The funding just isn’t available.’

  ‘Then it should be,’ Gabriel snapped. ‘Every baby has the right to the best possible care and it should never depend upon whether we’ve got an empty incubator available.’

  ‘I agree. And speaking of babies getting the best possible care, the Scotts look a lot happier today,’ Jonah said, motioning to where the couple were standing outside Gabriel’s consulting room.

  They were.

  ‘Diana’s a real fighter, isn’t she, Mr Dalgleish?’ Simon said, his voice a mixture of relief and pride as Gabriel ushered him and his wife into his consulting room. ‘That’s another infection she’s managed to throw off. It doesn’t seem to matter what life throws at her, she just keeps on battling.’

  ‘She does indeed,’ Gabriel replied. ‘Did Sister Howard tell you we’ll be giving her another blood transfusion this afternoon?’

  ‘She’s had a lot of those, hasn’t she?’ Rhona said, and Gabriel nodded, then paused.

  Was a simple nod enough, or did Mrs Scott’s comment imply a deeper fear? Hell, but ever since Maddie had told him about the importance of listening to people he felt as though he spent half his working day trying to second-guess what anybody said to him. OK, he’d assume Rhona’s comment wasn’t simply a generalised observation, and hope he was right.

  ‘I know she seems to be having rather a lot of blood transfusions,’ he said, ‘but the problem is we need to take blood from her for testing to make sure she isn’t developing a condition we’re unaware of, and in a child as small as Diana even a teaspoon of her blood is too much for her to lose.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Rhona said, and smiled across at her husband, who smiled back. ‘That makes perfect sense.’

  Maybe he was finally getting the hang of this listening business, Gabriel thought with relief.

  ‘I can’t believe Diana is almost six weeks old,’ Simon Scott observed. ‘It seems no time at all since she was born, and she’s doing so well, isn’t she? The ventricular tapping thing is working, her heart problem seems to be resolving by itself, and though she’s had a lot of infections she’s come through them all.’

  Gabriel nodded. The resilience of tiny babies never ceased to amaze him, and though Diana still had a long way to go, even he was beginning to feel cautiously optimistic.

  ‘She’s doing remarkably well,’ he said.

  He wasn’t, he realised when the couple left to visit their daughter. The week had seemed interminable and the one thing that had kept him going was the thought of Saturday, but how many more of these family Saturdays would Maddie insist on—how many more would he be able to stand? Sure, he enjoyed talking to Charlie, but he hadn’t asked Maddie out in order to spend his time socialising with her nephew.

  Maybe he should give Maddie an ultimatum, tell her that unless he could go out with her properly he didn’t want to see her again. Evelyn had made it clear she was available and at least with her he wouldn’t be so frustrated all the time. Except Evelyn didn’t make him laugh the way Maddie did, and her smile didn’t make his heart quicken the way Maddie’s did.

  ‘You’re in a bad way, Gabriel,’ he muttered as he left his consulting room, and heard a soft laugh behind him.

  ‘First signs. Talking to yourself.’

  He glanced over his shoulder to see Maddie smiling at him.

  ‘Only if you answer yourself back,’ he replied. ‘Were you looking for me?’

  ‘I was, and I’m afraid I have some disappointing news,’ she said, regret plain in her face. ‘Charlie and Susie’s grandparents phoned last night to say they’d like to see them so I’m driving them through to Edinburgh tomorrow, which means our day out will have to be cancelled.’

  ‘I’m surprised they still remember they have grandchildren,’ he said, disappointment roughening his voice. ‘Isn’t it four months since they last saw them?’

  ‘Helen and Bill are in their seventies, Gabriel, and they don’t have a car. Trips through to Glasgow aren’t easy for them.’

  ‘No, but dumping Charlie and Susie on you clearly is,’ he said, and her face set slightly.

  ‘They didn’t dump them on me,’ she said, with an edge. ‘I volunteered to take them because they couldn’t cope. You know how difficult Susie can be, and Charlie—’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Charlie,’ he flared, and her face relaxed slightly.

  ‘Not when he’s with you, there’s not. Look, if you still want to see the children, we should be back from Edinburgh by six. If you come round at seven we could take the kids to the cinema.’

  But he didn’t want to sit in the dark for a couple of hours, watching some kids’ movie. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her.

  ‘Or perhaps you’d rather just forget Saturday completely?’ she said, sensing his reluctance.

  Part of him wanted to say forget it, but that would mean he’d have to wait yet another week before he could go out with her and if they went to the cinema he could at least hold hands with her, under the cover of darkness without Susie popping up and doing her chastity patrol bit.

  Oh, for crying out loud, Gabriel. Holding hands in the dark? You really do need to get a proper love life.

  ‘Gabriel…?’

  ‘I’ll come round at seven,’ he said.

  This wasn’t how Saturday was supposed to end, Maddie thought as she sat nervously in her kitchen, watching the clock on the wall tick relentlessly towards seven o’clock. Charlie and Susie were supposed to spend the day with their grandparents, and then Gabriel would take them all out to the cinema in the evening. But now…

  ‘You’re sure you don’t mind the children staying overnight with us?’ Bill had said. ‘It’s just that we’ve so enjoyed their company. I’m sorry we don’t have a spare bed for you, but…’

  ‘And I’m sure Maddie would much rather enjoy a little time to herself.’ Helen had smiled, and Maddie had tried to smile back, but all she’d been able to think was that Gabriel was coming round tonight, and if the children weren’t there she was going to be all alone with him.

  It’s just a date, she’d tried to tell herself as she’d driven back to Glasgow. People go out on dates all the time. It’s no big deal.

  But she knew that it was. For the past four weeks she’d insisted on never seeing Gabriel alone, and now Gabriel was going to arrive, expecting to see Charlie and Susie, and when she told him they weren’t there he was bound to think she was saying, I’m available.

  Well, you are, aren’t you? a little voice whispered in her head. Look at what you’re wearing. Your powder blue sundress, the one that buttons all the way down the front, the one you don’t need to wear a bra with. If that’s not saying I’m available, I don’t know what is.

  Oh, hell, maybe she should change into something else, even though her sundress was the coolest thing she possessed. Maybe she could pretend to be out when he called. Or maybe, she decided as her front doorbell rang and she walked slowly down the hall to answer it, she should just grow up, stop agonising, and relax.

  And then again, perhaps not, she thought when she opened the door.

  Lord, but he suddenly looked so big. Big, and masculine, and downright sexy, and she could feel her heart doing an involved tango that had nothing to do with the heat.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he said with a slight frown. ‘You look a little stressed.’

  ‘Do I?’ she said, annoyingly aware that her voice had come out way too high. Get a grip, Maddie. Nothing is going to happen here tonight that you don’t want to happen. ‘It’s probably the heat. I’m not good in the heat.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ he said, pulling his shirt away from the back of his neck as she led the way into the sitting room. ‘So, which movie do
the kids want to see tonight?’

  She sucked in a lungful of air. This was it. Crunch time.

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said, feeling her cheeks beginning to darken with every word. ‘Their grandparents asked if they could stay with them tonight.’

  His eyes met hers, and she saw the surprise in them give way to something darker that sent her already skittering heart into overdrive.

  ‘So it’s just us this evening,’ he said.

  She nodded. Just us, in an empty house, with nobody to interrupt us. Just us. All alone.

  ‘So, what would you like to do?’ he said. ‘Take in a movie, go out to dinner or, if you’re too tired after your visit to Edinburgh, would you prefer to get in a take-away and watch some TV?’

  I want you to make love to me. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. Nell said I had to come to a decision, and I have. I want you to make love to me.

  ‘Maddie…?’

  He was staring at her curiously—probably thinking, Dear Lord, I’m dating a complete flake, she thought—and she pasted a smile to her lips.

  ‘I think I’d rather stay home,’ she said. ‘I have some chicken and salad in the fridge. Charlie and Susie don’t like either but I do.’

  ‘Perfect.’ He smiled, that lopsided, slightly crooked smile that always did strange things to her brain, and she shook her head to clear it.

  Food. He wanted food. The food was in the kitchen. If he stayed in the sitting room maybe she’d be able to get her act together.

  And she did. She managed to prepare the chicken salad, and they ate it and drank some of the bottle of wine she found lurking in the fridge, and he switched on the TV, and by the time she’d sat through two game shows and a comedy that wasn’t even remotely funny her nerves were stretched to breaking point.

  Every time he moved her heart clenched. Every time their eyes met she had difficulty breathing. She wanted him. She wanted him so much, but for some strange reason his gaze kept drifting across to the photographs of Charlie and Susie on the mantelpiece, and the more he looked at them, the grimmer his expression became.

  Something was wrong. She’d expected him, if not to immediately jump on her, to at least have made some move. Hell, he’d shot her enough hot looks in the past to melt the polar ice cap and yet now, when they were alone, he hadn’t even attempted to put his arm around her as they sat, side by side, on the sofa.

  ‘Gabriel…’

  ‘Do you want some more wine?’ he asked, half rising to his feet, and she could have screamed with frustration.

  ‘No, I don’t want any more wine,’ she said. ‘I want…I want…’

  You. Then do something, her heart urged, and before she could think about it, talk herself out of it, she pulled him back down onto the sofa and kissed him.

  For one awful second she thought perhaps she’d read him all wrong, that he didn’t want this as much as she did, and then suddenly he was kissing her back, kissing her hard, and her mouth fitted his perfectly as it always did, and she felt his tongue against hers, hot and devastating, so that when he broke the kiss she clung to him, dizzy and breathless.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she said, breathing hard into his chest. ‘Don’t stop.’

  And he kissed her again, and she let herself fall into him, no reservations, no fear, shivering with anticipation as his hands slid up her sides, feeling a hot rush as his fingers unbuttoned her sundress and slid it off her shoulders, leaving her naked to her waist.

  ‘God, but you’re beautiful,’ he said, his voice strained as he stared down at her.

  ‘I’m too fat,’ she said, moving instinctively to cover herself, torn between embarrassment and wanting him. He stayed her hands with his own. ‘You’re perfect,’ he said simply, and she believed him, wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man in her whole life, so that when he cupped one of her breasts and began stroking it with his thumb, she shuddered and convulsed towards him, feeling the heat spread everywhere.

  More, she thought as he kissed her neck, then gently bit the place he’d kissed. I want more.

  He wanted more, too. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his ragged breathing, and he kissed her, long and deep, sending glittering sensations everywhere, behind her eyelids, in her fingertips, low inside her, and when his hand slid up under her dress, she moaned against his mouth, loving the feel of his fingers on her skin.

  Then suddenly—inexplicably—he pulled back from her, breathing hard.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, scanning his face, as breathless as he was.

  ‘Maddie, I’m sorry,’ he said raggedly. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Can’t do this?’ she repeated. ‘But I thought…I thought this was what you wanted?’

  ‘I do.’ He pulled her sundress roughly back over her shoulders and swore under his breath. ‘God, help me, Maddie, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman before, but for your sake, we have to stop.’

  ‘Why?’ she protested. ‘I’m a fully grown, consenting adult. I know what I’m doing—’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he interrupted, ‘because for you it’s for ever, isn’t it? And I can’t give you for ever. I can’t be what you want me to be, and to make love to you knowing that…’ He shook his head. ‘I might be a bastard, but I’m not that big a bastard.’

  ‘You’re not a bastard at all,’ she said. ‘You’re a kind, generous, giving man.’

  ‘Oh, Maddie, you don’t know me at all,’ he said grimly, and she caught hold of his hand.

  ‘Yes, I do. You’re the man who was prepared to spend an hour and a half teaching Charlie how to kick a ball so it bounced off two trees. The man who’s listened to all of Charlie’s worries and made him feel good about himself. The man who’s trailed Susie around more museums and big houses than I ever want to see again in my lifetime, and you did it without a word of complaint despite the fact that she was horrible to you the whole time.’

  ‘I only did those things because I wanted to make love to you,’ he muttered.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you don’t care about Susie and Charlie at all?’ she demanded. ‘Because, if you are, I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Of course I care about them,’ he said impatiently, ‘but to be a surrogate father to them…And that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I told you I did, and you said it was all right, that you understood,’ she said.

  ‘But I didn’t, not really. I…’ His jaw clenched as though he didn’t want to say what he was going to say, but felt he must. ‘Maddie, I want to be a father. I never thought I’d hear myself say that, but I do, and I think I could cope with a baby, but to be a father to a teenager and an eight-year-old…’

  ‘Who aren’t even mine,’ she said dully. ‘That’s what you mean, don’t you?’

  ‘No—no—it isn’t that. It’s…’ He dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m all at sea with Charlie and Susie. No matter what I try, I fail.’

  ‘You don’t fail with Charlie,’ she protested. ‘He thinks the world of you, and as for Susie…Gabriel, bringing up children—it isn’t an exam that you pass with flying colours or fail miserably. Nobody gets it right all the time. We all just stagger along, hoping we don’t screw things up too badly, so stop being so hard on yourself, expecting perfection, because there’s no way you’re ever going to achieve it.’

  ‘Maddie, I’m not being hard on myself, I’m being realistic,’ he said. ‘I can’t do this. And you said that if I couldn’t accept Susie and Charlie as part of the package, then I had to walk, so I’m walking now before we get in too deep.’

  But I’m already in too deep, she thought as she stared up at him. I’ve fallen in love with you so I’m already in way over my head.

  ‘Gabriel—’

  ‘No, Maddie. For your sake, it has to be no.’

  Nell would have said that she ought to be grateful to him for stopping when he had, that he was being sort of noble, but Maddie didn’t feel grateful and she didn’t think he was nobl
e. She wanted to hit him. To hit him for all the dates they’d been out on when she’d been so sure he wanted to be with her and the children. To hit him for allowing her to believe that this time—this time—she’d got it right and had picked a prince instead of a frog. And she wanted to hit him most of all because, despite everything he’d said, she knew she still wanted him, and that was the worst of all.

  ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said. Go before I totally humiliate myself and beg you to make love to me.

  ‘Maddie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘You and me both,’ she said tightly.

  He walked slowly to the door then stopped. ‘Maddie, I’d like—if I may—to see Charlie occasionally. He…he seems to sort of look up to me, and I don’t want him to think I’ve abandoned him.’

  Like you’re abandoning me?

  ‘I know it might be a little difficult—’

  A little?

  ‘But we’re both mature adults. We can handle this.’

  ‘OK,’ she managed to reply, but, as she listened to him walking down the hall and then out the front door, she wanted to yell after him, Maybe you can handle it, but I can’t because what about me? What’s going to happen to me?

  Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and no matter how angrily she wiped them away more kept on coming. Tears of misery and frustration. Tears that became great gulping sobs because she’d done it again. Despite all her plans and determination that this time she wouldn’t screw up, she had. She’d screwed up big time.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘BUT why can’t we all go out with Gabe like we did before?’ Charlie demanded, his small face belligerent. ‘I liked going out with him. It made Saturdays special.’

  ‘You’ll still be able to see him,’ Maddie said, as she had done at least twice a day since Monday, when she’d worked up the courage to tell Charlie and Susie there would be no more Saturday trips out with Gabriel. ‘He said he’ll come round to see you as often as he can—’