‘Did he talk about you covering the general patients in the hospital when he goes away?’
‘He did say that. Which is fine with me. It’s not a big hospital and I can read up on who’s in there when the time comes.’
Catrina stifled a laugh and he glanced at her. ‘Dr Southwell’s wife is keen on a cruise that leaves soon. Don’t be surprised if it happens faster than you think.’
He raised his brows in question. ‘Inside information?’
‘I saw Myra today and she did mention she hoped Reg would find someone soon and that she had a boat she didn’t want to miss.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up. I’m sure I’d manage. That’s what locums do, after all.’ But everything seemed to be happening very fast. ‘Do they get called out at night much?’
‘Rarely. And it’s shared call. So no more than three nights a week as a twenty-four-hour cover.’ He watched her expression change as she realised that leaving Piper could be a problem on those nights.
‘Hmm.’ He could tell they were both thinking of Marni’s flexibility as a day care mum.
‘Something to think about,’ Catrina said with massive understatement. ‘And it won’t be a problem unless Dr Southwell takes Myra away.’
‘Which apparently might be sooner rather than later.’ Had he started work too soon? Would his boss have an idea? Was it too much to ask the babysitter for Piper to sleep over those nights? As long as he didn’t go over the forty hours, maybe it would be okay? His feeling that everything had fallen into place shifted again and he sighed. He wondered, not for the first time, how single parents managed to work at all.
* * *
Thursday arrived and Finn had been cooking, creating and carving in the kitchen. Something his mother had tried to instil in his sister but she’d found more fertile ground with Finn. He’d loved the times he and his mother had spent cooking, and in his short marriage the kitchen had been his domain at the weekend. It felt good to make something apart from nutritious finger food for Piper.
So, tonight a roast dinner. Something his wife had scoffed at but something he loved and missed—possibly because when they’d called at Marni’s house the smell had reminded him how much he’d enjoyed a roast dinner as a child. And when Catrina had shared their lunch that first weekend they’d started talking—was it only a week ago?—she’d chosen a roast beef sandwich so she must like meat.
He’d slow roasted the beef and it lay, carved and foil-covered, in the oven with a veggie dish of potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin and whole small onions. A side of fresh beans, carrots and broccoli would have Piper in seventh heaven. His jug of gravy was reheating and fresh bread rolls were on the table with real butter waiting.
He glanced around. The house remained a little spartan in his areas and cluttered in Piper’s. She lay on her side in the playpen talking to her bunny. She’d had her bath and was dressed in her pyjamas, now looking a little sleepy, and he wondered if he should give her dinner early in case Catrina was late.
But it would be hard to dish up Piper’s and not pick for himself. His belly rumbled. Just then a knock sounded on the door and he put the oven mitt back on the bench. He felt an unaccustomed eagerness as he crossed the room and tried to damp it down. They were just friends.
Then he opened the door and there she stood, the afternoon sunlight a glow around her and an almost shy smile on her beautiful lips. Her eyes were clear and bright and her lovely dark auburn hair swung loose in the sea breeze with glints of gold dancing like ribbons.
She’d changed out of her work clothes. Stood calmly clad in a pretty sundress and a cream cardigan, her bare legs brown and long with painted toes peeping out of coral-coloured sandals. Finn admonished himself not to feel too special because she’d taken the time to change for him.
He couldn’t believe how good she looked. Needed to remind himself he barely knew this woman, but it was as if he’d been waiting a long time for this moment. Found himself saying softly, ‘You truly are a picture.’
Catrina blushed but lifted her head. He liked the way she did that. No false modesty that she hadn’t put in any effort. ‘Thank you.’ She lifted her chin higher and sniffed slowly. ‘And you have a divine aroma floating out of your house.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll be glad when we can eat. It’s been teasing me for hours now.’ Not the only sensation that had been teasing him but he was trying not to think about Catrina’s mouth.
She laughed then, her lips curving enticingly, but, unlike another woman, this one held no expectations to use her beauty and the tension stayed behind in the swirl of salt and sunshine outside as he invited her in and shut the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Trina
TRINA STEPPED INTO Finn’s house, still feeling a little mentally fragile at the tiny handprints she’d seen on the step. There was something so heart-wrenchingly adorable about a dad doing cement prints with his baby daughter. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up falling for this guy so hard she’d be vulnerable again to loss.
It was a sobering thought.
Then, to make matters more serious, when Finn had opened the door her heart had lifted at the sight of him. Two steps up, he’d towered over her, but his quick movement sideways as if he couldn’t wait for her to come in had softened the impression of feeling small into a feeling of being very much appreciated.
She couldn’t miss the approval and delight on his face as his gaze had run over her. So, yes, she was glad she’d spent the extra fifteen minutes changing and refreshing her make-up. Brushing her hair loose—not something she did often but it did feel freeing, and apparently it met with Finn’s approval.
She felt the warmth of his body as she squeezed past him into the bright and airy room, and more warmth when she saw the way Piper pulled herself up and smiled at her. She bent down and blew a kiss at the little girl, who clutched her bunny and smiled back. Then to be enveloped in the warmth of expectation with a table set and meal prepared for her—well, it did seem a little too good to be true.
She turned back to look at Finn—Dr Finn—lounging against the closed door as if savouring the sight of her. His strong arms were crossed against his chest as if taking the time to watch her reaction. She was getting a little heady here. She licked unexpectedly dry lips. ‘I’m feeling special.’
‘Good. You are special. Piper and I can thank you for the help you’ve given us.’
She hadn’t done much. But her grandmother had said, Always answer a compliment with gratitude and don’t correct the giver. ‘Thank you.’ But she could change the subject. ‘It looks great in here. So light and airy and fresh. I love the wood grain in the floor.’
He crossed said floorboards towards her and pulled out her chair. ‘Silky oak. It was under the carpet. Feels nice underfoot and I can hear Piper coming up behind me when I’m not looking. Though I had a polisher come and help me rub it back and polish it by hand. Hardest day’s work I’d done all year.’ He grinned at her and she could see he’d enjoyed the challenge.
‘And what did Miss Piper do while you were playing around on the floor?’
‘Luckily it was a typical Lighthouse Bay day—sunny—and we put up a little pergola. She stayed just outside the door in her playpen and kept us hard at it.’
Lucky her. To watch two men rubbing polish into wood for a few hours. Something very nice about that thought, Trina mused as she took the seat he held out for her.
Finn crossed to pick up Piper and poked her toes into her high chair and she snaked her way in like a little otter. Then he clipped a pink rubber bib around her neck. Piper did look excited at the thought of food.
‘Can I help?’ Trina asked, feeling a tad useless.
‘It’s a tiny kitchen nook, so you girls sit here while I produce my masterpiece and wait on you.’ Then he glanced at his fidgety daughter. ‘But you could hand Piper that crust on the plast
ic plate. She can chew on that while she waits for her veggies to cool.’ He cast a sideways glance at Trina. ‘I learnt it’s better to give her something to chew on when she’s in the chair or she starts to climb around when I’m not looking.’
‘Ah—’ Trina hurriedly passed the crust to Piper ‘—there you go, madam. Diversion tactics.’
Piper held out her hand and gleefully accepted the morsel and Finn strode the few steps to the kitchen bench and back across with the first plate and a jug of gravy.
‘Roast veggies. Gravy.’ He deposited his load and spun away, then was back in moments with a heaped plate of carved roast beef, the barest hint of pink at the centre of each slice. ‘If you don’t like it rare the more well-done pieces are at the edge.’
Trina’s mouth had begun watering as the food began to arrive. ‘I think I’m in heaven. It was busy today and I missed lunch. Plus I haven’t had a roast for two years.’ Not since before Ed’s illness. Guilt and regret swamped her and she tried to keep it from her face.
Finn took a swift glance at her and said smoothly, ‘It’s all Marni’s fault. That first day we visited. The way her house smelled of roast dinner did me in.’ She decided he was very determined that they would enjoy the meal. Good thing too.
Trina pulled herself together and asked, ‘So is this Piper’s first roast dinner?’
‘Indeed. More cause for celebration.’ He leaned and poured them both a glass of cold water from the carafe on the table. The water glasses looked like crystal to Trina. ‘Let’s drink to that.’ Then he raised his hand to hers and they touched glasses with a tell-tale perfect ching and her melancholy fell away as they sipped. Life was pretty darn good.
He indicated the food. ‘You serve yours and I’ll fix Piper.’ Finn dished some veggies and meat onto Piper’s cartoon-illustrated plastic plate and swiftly cut them into bite-sized pieces.
This was all done so efficiently that Trina found herself smiling. Such a maternal thing to do but this dad had it covered.
She arranged her own plate, finishing with a generous serve of gravy, and sat back to wait for Finn.
He wasn’t far behind. He topped his meal off with his gravy and then looked up to meet her eyes. ‘Bon appétit.’
They didn’t talk much as they ate, neither did they rush, and Trina glanced around as she savoured the subtle and not so subtle flavours of a well-cooked roast dinner. Marvelled at the decorating touches that showed this man’s love for his daughter. A mobile of seashells over the cot, a run of circus animals in a wallpaper panel behind her bed. An alphabet mat on the floor with a Piper-sized chair on it. A row of small dolls in bright dresses.
She indicated the dolls with her fork. ‘So these are the ladies you talk to?’
‘All the time. Especially the brunette on the end. Remarkable conversationalist, really.’
‘I can imagine.’ She smiled at the dark-haired doll which, at a stretch, could look a little like Trina herself.
‘Do you like our home?’ Needy? Keen for her approval? But there was something endearing about that.
She nodded sagely. ‘I think Piper will be a famous decorator one day.’
She was teasing him but it must have been the right thing to say because his pleasure was almost palpable. ‘Remind me to show you the shower. We have very nice tiles.’
‘I’ll make sure I do that.’ And she allowed herself to consider the possibility of a future here. With this man and his daughter. At the very least as friends and with a potential for more...but she wouldn’t rush. Couldn’t rush. And neither could he.
The thought crashed in. Who knew where his wife was? The thought brought a deluge of dampness to her sunny spirits and she looked down at her food, which suddenly didn’t taste as good as it had.
‘So tell me about the rest of your week. Did Piper still want to stay at Marni’s when you went to pick her up after a full day or did she miss you?’
‘Both. Marni is wonderful with her. And your Myra has booked her drop-and-go cruise. A five-nighter to Tasmania. They leave Sunday. So call and three-day rosters at the hospital. Piper will have to stay over when I’m on call. Though they’ve managed to give me only the one night call, which I appreciate.’
‘Wow. You’ve dived into work with a vengeance.’
‘I should have done it earlier. I’m feeling more connected to humanity every day.’ He glanced up at her with definite warmth. ‘Though that could have been you.’
Glad he thought she was human. But that wasn’t what he meant and she knew it. Her face heated and she looked down at her almost empty plate. ‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She lifted her head and shook the hair away from her face. It was getting hot in here. ‘One night seems like the perfect answer. That’s not too bad as a start. When did you say that night was?’
‘Next Thursday. We’ll see how she goes. Marni’s not worried.’
She could have offered for a Thursday night but she was glad he hadn’t asked. She wasn’t ready for that much commitment. ‘Well, good luck.’ She lifted her glass of water. ‘And here’s to your first week at the hospital. I’ll look forward to your smiling face.’
‘I’ll try to remember to smile.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Finn
BY MONDAY MORNING, his first day in the hospital, Catrina continued to seep into Finn’s thoughts with alarming regularity and he was feeling just as strange about that as he was about the new work model he’d slipped into. A general GP, admittedly with extra specialist paediatric consults on the side, and a rural hospital generalist as well. With maternity cover? Never thought he’d see the day.
Over the weekend he and Catrina had met a lot, each meeting better than the last, plus they’d talked about the hospital and the patients he’d probably find come Monday. About how the medical input had changed since the new midwifery model had started, even some of the times that Dr Southwell had been called away from the main hospital to provide back-up in Maternity.
He could see Catrina enjoyed their discussions and, to be truthful, he was a little curious to see how it all worked. They’d bumped into each other often. Intentionally on his part and, he suspected glumly, unintentionally on hers.
He’d managed the Friday morning beach bump into when, after his own walk, he’d offered to share the breakwall with Catrina, Piper on his back, and they’d spent more than an hour together talking non-stop.
Saturday morning, after Catrina’s scuba lesson, he and Piper had been back in their rock pool at just the right time for her to walk past them again and fortuitously share an early lunch as Catrina offered to return last week’s lunch shout at the beach café.
Saturday night he and Piper had been invited to a barbecue dinner at Ellie and Sam’s and, of course, Catrina had been there as she lived next door.
Naturally he’d spoken to other people but they’d spent most of the time standing together. He’d had an excellent conversation with Sam on the strangeness of working in a cottage hospital after coming from a tertiary health facility and Myra had shaken his hand and thanked him for making it possible to drag her husband away on a cruise. But the stand-out moments were those watching Catrina’s quiet rapport with the other dinner guests.
His eyes had drifted in her direction way too often.
The best had been on Sunday when Catrina had asked if Piper—and Finn—could come and help her choose colours for her new carpet and cushions and they’d had a hilarious day at the nearest large town choosing colours via a one-year-old in a stroller.
A huge weekend, in fact, but one that had passed without kissing her once. And that also was something he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Her mouth. So mobile, always smiling and doing that soft chortling thing when he said something to amuse her—a new skill he seemed to have acquired that did more to heal his soul than anything else.
Or that unconscious,
but luscious, lip-pursing she did when she seriously considered something he said. Or just her mouth looking downright kissable when he didn’t expect it, and he was having a hard time not drifting off and staring at the lift of a corner or the flash of white teeth.
He didn’t remember being this fixated on Piper’s mother when he’d met her. There had certainly been attraction, almost a forest fire of heat and lust culminating in a headlong rush into marriage when their contraception had failed. More his idea than hers and he had certainly paid the price for that.
But he was coming to the conclusion that he must have been meant to be Piper’s daddy because he couldn’t imagine life without his baby girl so he thanked Clancy for that. There was a bit of healing in there somewhere and he wasn’t sure he didn’t owe Catrina for that thought too.
But Catrina? Well? He needed to slow down and not lose the plot, but Catrina made him want to be better at being himself, a better person, even a better partner since he’d obviously fallen short on that last time.
His attraction to Catrina had been exquisitely stoked by want and need, and he feared—or was that dared to hope?—she might be coming to care for him too.
This morning, as he climbed the hill to the little white hospital sitting on a cliff, he hoped that very much. He glanced at the cottage garden as he approached for his first day as visiting medical officer and could feel his spirits soar as he strode towards a new perspective of Catrina at work.
The ocean glittered a sapphire blue today, brighter and more jewel-like than he could remember seeing. Piper had been as lively as a grig being handed over to Marni and the boys. And he, well, he was back at work, feeling almost comfortable already in Reg’s practice, like a normal human being. It had taken a year of shadow. And a week. And Catrina.
Except for the colour of the ocean, Catrina had a lot to do with most of his forward progress. Though maybe all the colours were appearing brighter this week because of her as well.
Reg had suggested he call into Maternity first—‘Around eight, my boy!’—to see if any women were in labour—‘Just so you can be aware.’ And then attend to his hospital round on the other side of the small white building.
Healed by the Midwife's Kiss Page 8