‘I wouldn’t mind if you want me to stay behind with him.’
‘Maybe you wouldn’t, but I would, and Dad will be most upset if you aren’t there. Also Toby and Grandfather Gallagher, as he calls my father, are getting on famously. I shall book a room for the night and when he gets tired tuck him up safely in there and keep checking on him every so often.’
‘I could do that for you,’ she suggested, ‘so that you don’t have to leave your guests.’
‘So shall I book a room for you as well?’
‘Yes, why not?’ she agreed. ‘It will be nice to have a leisurely breakfast that someone else has prepared overlooking the lake on the Sunday morning.’
‘I can agree with that wholeheartedly,’ he said, and went to start his day, leaving her to greet her first patient with a lighter heart than she’d had for some time. Nathan wanted her to be at the party, she thought. She didn’t know why exactly. Maybe it was just because of her position in the practice. Whatever it might be, it was like balm to her soul because for the first time since widowhood had fallen on her she would be attending a social event and he would be there.
Laura Standish and her husband had been wanting to start a family for quite some time but without success due to her irregular menstrual cycle and his low sperm count, but today it was a different story. When she seated herself opposite Libby the reason for her consulting a doctor became clear.
She explained tremulously that she was experiencing all the signs of early pregnancy and was desperate for confirmation from a reliable source.
‘I feel nauseous in the mornings,’ she said, ‘my breasts are tender, and I’ve missed two periods. I know I’m irregular, Libby, but I’ve never missed two full months before.’
‘Have you done a pregnancy test from the chemist?’ she asked.
Laura shook her head. ‘No. I preferred to come to you for the good or bad news. We’d got to the point where the gynaecologist you sent us to was suggesting IVF treatment. Then suddenly, almost like a miracle, I feel as if I might be pregnant.’
‘Shall we see if you’re right?’ Libby told her gently, pointing to the couch beside them.
When she’d finished the test and examination that would confirm whether her patient’s dearest wish was to be granted she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Laura,’ she told her, ‘not this time, I’m afraid. It is more likely to be a hormone imbalance. Maybe you should give IVF some thought the next time you see the gynaecologist.’
‘Why is it that it is so easy for some people to have a baby and so difficult for others?’ Laura said tearfully. ‘Mike will be so disappointed.’
‘Nature is a law unto itself and can be very cruel sometimes,’ she told her with the memory of a teenage girl that she’d seen the day before who had been desperate to terminate an unwanted pregnancy that had been the result of her one and only venture into unprotected sex.
The first delivery of the flu prevention vaccine had arrived, so it turned out to be an extremely busy day for the practice nurses, with the waiting room full of a mixture of those waiting for the jab and the ones who’d just been given it hanging on for the suggested twenty minutes before leaving the premises in case they suffered any ill effects, and alongside them those who were waiting to consult their doctor about other things.
That being so, it was evening before Libby was able to take her mind back to Nathan’s surprise announcement at the start of the day. The party was going to be something to look forward to, a pleasant surprise, and with that thought in mind what was she going to wear?
It would be an occasion for being neither overdressed or understated, something in the middle maybe. Avoiding the clothes she’d worn during her brief depressing marriage to Ian, she decided that it was going to be a black dress with long sleeves, low neck and calf-length full skirt, with appropriate jewellery.
Next door Nathan’s thoughts were also about the party but along different lines. He and Libby would be sleeping beneath the same roof for once, he was thinking, not the golden thatch above them as he would have liked on the night when Libby had fallen off the ladder, but the roof of a smart new hotel by the lake.
On the Saturday night he went on ahead to the party venue with Toby so as to be there beside his father as he greeted his guests, and to make sure that all was in order with the arrangements he’d made with the hotel.
Hugo was the first to arrive with his sister, who he’d brought along for company, a childminder having been engaged to look after her little girls. Then came the surgery nurses Robina, Tracey and Coleen with their partners, followed by the receptionists also suitably escorted, and tagging along behind them was Gordon, a confirmed bachelor.
Next to arrive was Alison, the cleaner, and her husband, who looked after the gardens around the surgery and did general maintenance on the building when necessary. Even the man from the pathology lab who came each day to collect blood samples for testing and anything else that had to go to his department was there. He’d been coming for so many years he was looked on as one of them. The last, but not the least by any means, was Libby, stunning in black, smiling her pleasure to be there and taking in the vision of Nathan and his father resplendent in dinner jackets, evening shirts and bow-ties. Even Toby was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a little tie held in place by elastic.
As each guest had arrived John had shaken hands with them cordially until Libby had appeared and then it was different.
He held her close for a long moment and then said gruffly, ‘I’m missing you, Libby. How’s it going with Nathan back in harness?’
The man in question was only inches away, observing her with an ironic gleam in his eyes as if daring her to be truthful and admit that she was putting up with him on sufferance.
He was in for a surprise. ‘Everything at the practice is fine,’ she told his father. ‘The patients are delighted to see Nathan back, and the rest of us really appreciate his contribution to the village’s health care.’
‘That’s good,’ the older man said, and with a glance at Toby, who was looking around him with interest, ‘You won’t have much time for anything else with the job and this young fellow to look after, eh, Nathan?’
‘It would depend on what it was and how important,’ he said evenly, with his glance still on her, and now there was no irony in it, just a question that she didn’t know the answer to.
By the time the last course of the meal was being served Toby was ready for sleep, nodding his curly blond head every few seconds, and as she observed him Libby said to Nathan in a low voice, ‘You can’t very well leave your guests, Nathan. Shall I take Toby and get him settled for the night, if he’ll let me?’
‘I don’t think he’ll object,’ he replied. ‘He likes you, Libby, and would be round at your place every minute of the day if I let him.’
‘So why don’t you?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I know that I’m not welcome and I wouldn’t want that sort of feeling to wash off onto him.’
As she bristled with indignation beside him he said, ‘We’d better take him up now before he falls off his chair.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but don’t think that by hustling me off with Toby, what you have just said about not being welcome is going to pass without comment.’
He was on his feet and didn’t reply. Lifting Toby up into his arms, he whispered in his ear, ‘Libby is going to give you your bedtime cuddles tonight—is that all right?’
‘Mmm,’ he murmured.
When they reached the top of the hotel’s wide staircase and turned into the first corridor he pointed to two rooms overlooking the lake and, giving her the keys, said, ‘The nearest one is yours, and the one next to it is a twin-bedded for Toby and I. When you’ve opened the door I’ll lay him on his bed and then go back to the others, if that’s all right with
you.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t come down until I’m sure that he’s fast asleep.’
The moment Nathan had gone Toby opened his eyes and smiled up at her drowsily. ‘We need to take your shirt and tie off and put your pyjamas on before you go to sleep,’ she told him gently. ‘They are here beside you where Uncle Nathan has left them, so if you’ll just sit up for a moment we’ll put them on.’
He did as she’d asked and gazing around him said, ‘I haven’t got my comforter, Libby,’ and with his bottom lip trembling went on, ‘I always hold it close when I’m in my bed.’
‘What is it, Toby?’ she asked as tears began to flow.
‘It is Mummy’s nightdress, Libby,’ he sobbed. ‘It’s soft and cuddly and smells lovely.’
She was looking around her desperately, lifting the lid of a small overnight case only to find it empty, checking that the nightdress wasn’t tangled up in the bedclothes, opening drawers, all to no avail.
‘I think that it must have been forgotten when your uncle was packing your things,’ she said consolingly, ‘but do you know what, Toby? I have a nightdress that smells nice. You can cuddle up to that if you like, pretend that it’s your comforter just for tonight. What do you say?’
‘Where is it?’ he wanted to know.
‘In my room next door.’ Not wanting to leave him even for a second after watching his distress, she said, ‘Shall we go and get it?’
He nodded, and swinging his small legs over the side of the bed took her hand in his and side by side they went to find the nightdress that was folded neatly on her pillow.
She gave it to him and holding it close to his cheek he said, ‘Mummy won’t mind, will she?’
‘No, of course not,’ she told him reassuringly. ‘She will be happy that you are happy. So if that is all right, shall we go and tuck you up in bed?’
The room that Nathan had booked for her had a double bed in it and as Toby observed it he said, ‘Can I sleep in your bed, Libby?’
The thought of having him safe and close beside her was tempting, and what the outcome would be if she left him asleep in the next room and when she’d gone to join the others he awoke in the distressed state he’d been in earlier didn’t bear thinking of, so she said, ‘Yes, you can, but first I must write a note for someone who loves you very much to tell him where you are when the party is over.’
‘You mean Uncle Nathan, don’t you? He is going to be my new daddy, did you know that?’
‘Yes, he told me how excited he is to be your new dad,’ she told him.
Picking up a pen off a nearby writing desk, she wrote on headed notepaper…
Nathan.
Toby is sleeping with me after a major upset that has now been sorted. It’s why I didn’t come back to join the party. I know you will want to see for yourself that he is all right, so will leave my door unlocked until you’ve been and checked on him.
Libby.
When she’d placed it on Toby’s empty pillow in the next room she took him to her bed and held him close until he was asleep, then, bereft of her nightwear, slipped off the dress and lay beside him in the black lacy slip that she’d worn beneath it.
Down below Nathan was watching the staircase as coffee was being served to his guests, expecting Libby to appear any moment, but she didn’t materialise and knowing how tired Toby had been he was wondering why.
He was tempted to go and check on them but didn’t want to be seen as fussing, either by her or by the surgery staff who were in no hurry to go. But at last they had all said their farewells and he’d seen his father safely into a taxi, so was free to go to the suites above to see where Libby had got to.
The first thing that registered was that there was no Toby in the bed that he had laid him on. The second was the note on the pillow. As he read it his expression tightened. For God’s sake! What kind of upset was Libby referring to? Then he was out in the corridor and pushing back the door that she’d left unlocked.
When he looked inside his face softened. His adopted son was asleep in the crook of the arm of the woman he could once have had if he hadn’t been too blind to see what had been under his nose.
As he looked down at the smooth skin of her shoulders inside the flimsy slip and the rise and fall of her breasts as she slept beside the precious child who had been catapulted into his life, it was his turn to fight back the tears for the waste of the years and the mistakes that both of them had made.
He hadn’t a clue what could have upset Toby to such an extent until he looked at what he was holding in his arms and as he observed it he gave a hollow groan. He’d forgotten to pack Toby’s comforter. How could he have done such a thing? Thank God, Libby had come up with a solution.
His exclamation of dismay must have disturbed her. She had opened her eyes and was looking up at him.
‘Everything is all right,’ she whispered, and easing her arm from beneath the sleeping child she slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood before him.
‘I can’t believe that I forgot his comforter, of all things,’ he said wretchedly, ‘and lumbered you with the aftermath of my carelessness.’
‘Stop berating yourself,’ she told him. ‘You are marvellous to do what you do for Toby. He has told me that you are going to be his new daddy and seems fine with the idea. Forgetting to bring his mummy’s nightdress isn’t going to change that.’
He was not to be consoled. ‘You must wish me a thousand miles away, Libby,’ he said bleakly. ‘I went out of your life a long time ago and have had the nerve to come bursting back into your planned existence as if by divine right.’
She took a step forward and touched his face with gentle hands and suddenly nothing else mattered except themselves, not Toby sleeping contentedly beside them, the party that she’d seen little of or the practice that was their daytime rendezvous. There was peace between them for a few brief moments with no recriminations or hurts to spoil it, no bitterness or past mistakes hovering over them. It was a moment of supreme need with desire ruling their emotions.
For the third time in Libby’s life Nathan was touching her and there was nothing casual about it this time. His mouth on hers was demanding, urgent, and she was responding with every fibre of her being.
He took her hand and drew her towards the door of a small sitting room at the end of the bedroom and once inside turned the catch to prevent Toby walking in on them. Then he was slipping the black slip off her shoulders and kissing the cleft between her breasts.
As their passion increased Nathan lowered her onto a sofa and as she gazed up at him in the moment before the climax of their desire Libby came to her senses.
She’d already made one big mistake where Nathan was concerned, she thought. This could be another. This wild abandonment of common sense could lead to more heartbreak if she let it continue.
He felt her change of mood as painfully as if it was a knife thrust and as she got slowly to her feet he placed the keys of the suite next door in her hand and said sombrely, ‘You can’t let go of the past, can you, Libby?
‘If you don’t mind swapping I’ll take over here and we’ll see you at breakfast. Do you need to take anything with you?’
‘Just the things I brought with me for an overnight stay,’ she said weakly, and flinging her belongings into her travel bag she wrapped herself in the robe that she’d brought with her and went.
So much for that, he thought grimly when she’d gone. He’d lost the control that he’d been cultivating ever since coming back to Swallowbrook and all because Libby had stroked his face. Yet it hadn’t been just that, had it?
His emotions had already run amok when he’d discovered he’d left Toby’s comforter behind and Libby had been left to handle the distress that the oversight had caused his little one, and when instead
of blame she’d shown him only tenderness the barriers between them had come down.
He’d given in to passion she’d aroused in him and blown it, had been able to tell that the change in her response to his love-making had been because she’d suddenly remembered how he had once let her see that he wasn’t interested in any feelings she might have for him, and had told her cruelly to go and forget him.
It had seemed as if she’d taken him at his word when she’d married Jefferson, and he’d stayed away even after he’d died and Libby was free of him, because of what he’d said that day. Was the awful mistake he’d made always going to be there to haunt him?
As Toby stirred in his sleep and held Libby’s nightdress more closely to him, Nathan eased himself carefully onto the bed beside him in the place where she had lain and wondered what tomorrow would bring in a relationship that seemed to be going nowhere.
He’d come back to Swallowbrook with no intentions towards Libby other than telling her, if she would give him the chance, how much he regretted the way he’d behaved that day at the airport when her timing had been so unfortunate.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN Libby went down to breakfast the following morning, pale and drawn after a sleepless night, Nathan and Toby were already seated at a table by a window overlooking the lake on the point of finishing theirs.
When Toby called across to her she had no choice but to go to where Nathan was observing her unsmilingly from the opposite side of the table.
She didn’t want to sit with them, the happenings of the night before were too recent, too raw, but she could tell that Toby was expecting her to and there was no way she wanted to upset him. So she asked Nathan, ‘Is it all right if I join you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said evenly, and she thought that the core of their relationship, if it could be described as that, was as past its promise as the fallen leaves of bronze and gold lying beneath the trees that surrounded the lake.
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