He looked up at her as if he’d been lost in his own thoughts. ‘What? Oh, right. Yes. Sure...’
She headed to the door, and then a thought occurred to her. ‘Earlier, when I first came in, you were talking on the phone about emigration... New Zealand. What was that about? Have we got a new doctor joining us?’
His face coloured. ‘No. I... I was just chatting to a colleague who’s thinking of going. Making a new life out there.’
‘Oh. Sounds wonderful. I’ve heard it’s beautiful out there. I think Jen mentioned it once.’
He nodded, his face stern.
‘Well, I’ll see you later, then?’
‘Yes.’
She smiled a goodbye and left his office. He was clearly stunned by what she’d said. Surprised at the depth of her feelings for him. But it was important to her to be honest with him. Then there’d be no surprises, no disappointments. If he didn’t feel the same way then she would hurt for a while, but she would get over it. In time. And she would know that she had been honest and open, and that was what was important. Honesty. Truth.
Because if you didn’t have that then there was no point in having anything at all.
* * *
Morgan’s face lit up at the sight of her mummy’s unexpected visit. She raised her arms, asking to be picked up, and Brooke scooped her up and held her tight, kissing her cheeks and just breathing her in.
She stayed with her for a while, watching her play with pasta shapes, squealing and burbling, making all her happy sounds, picking up a particular piece she wanted to show her mummy and beaming when Brooke made a happy face.
Moments like these were precious. Watching her daughter made Brooke realise just how much she was missing out on. Morgan had long days here in the crèche. Ten hours every day. Monday to Friday. That was fifty hours a week that she didn’t get to spend with her child. Morgan was growing quickly, developing at a breakneck pace, and she was missing it.
When she’d left Morgan at the crèche that morning it had been no big deal. She’d dropped her off, given her one last kiss and then walked away, sure that in ten hours she would see her again. No biggie.
Only she might have died today and she’d been so nonchalant about leaving her child. Had taken no time to breathe in her scent, to give her one last hug, to tell her that she loved her.
These early days were important and she was missing them—crossing off the days of her calendar at work instead of by her daughter’s side.
Matt wasn’t the only one who suffered from guilt. She did, too. It was something she would have to think about.
So she kissed her daughter goodbye, breathed in the scent of her daughter’s hair and gave her one last hug before she returned to work. Maybe she could claim a week’s holiday? Spend it at home with Morgan. Some of it with Matt, perhaps. Take some time out together to just be.
Entering A&E, she saw Kelly give her a wave, and as Kelly had been at the accident site this morning with her and Matt she went to give her friend a hug.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’ Kelly asked, surprised.
‘Just a hug to say I appreciate you. That I love you.’
‘Aw, thanks. I love you, too.’
Brooke smiled. ‘Crazy start to the day, huh?’
‘You’re telling me. But it was thrilling to get out into the field. We don’t often get that opportunity. It was good to see the paramedics’ side of it.’
Brooke nodded. That was true. The guys in green brought in the majority of their patients, and she was so used to them just turning up with people on stretchers or backboards it didn’t occur to her to think about the sights they saw during the course of their working day.
‘True.’
‘I think it’s good to have change, don’t you? Keeps you fresh. Keeps you on your toes.’
‘I think you’re right.’
‘I believe our Major is looking for change, too.’
Brooke frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He was looking at a new job opportunity this morning. In New Zealand, of all places! You can’t get more of a change than that.’
She felt her blood run cold as she began to understand. ‘He wants to go to New Zealand?’
‘That’s what he said. We’ll miss him here, but I wouldn’t blame him for going and giving it a try.’
Brooke’s heart pounded fast and heavy in her chest as all sound around her seemed to grow fuzzy and indistinct. She became incredibly aware of each breath, her gaze dropping to the floor as she fought just to stay upright.
He lied to me!
She’d asked him outright! After all that had happened that morning—the collapse of the café, how close she had come to losing her life—the first thing he’d done was enquire about a job on the other side of the world?
Perhaps I don’t mean anything to him at all!
‘Brooke? You okay? You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I... I don’t feel very well.’
‘Sit down for a minute.’ Kelly pulled out a chair.
‘No. I think I need to go home. It’s nearly the end of my shift anyway. I’m going to go pick up Morgan. I need to be with her. Spend time with her. With the people who love me back.’
And she hurriedly began to walk away.
As each step took her further and further away from A&E her anger and despair rose inside her, and she fought back tears as she smacked the button to call for the lift. Why? Why had he outright lied? She’d laid herself bare before him and he’d lied. That he could do that to her, when she’d exposed herself like that...made herself open and vulnerable...
At the crèche, Daisy looked surprised to see her again so quickly. ‘Dr Bailey! Everything okay?’
‘I’ve come to collect Morgan. I... We need to go home.’
‘Oh, okay. I’ve just put her down for a nap. Should I wake her?’
‘Yes. Please. Hurry.’
‘Of course.’ Daisy scurried away.
Brooke stood there waiting, feeling humiliated beyond belief.
How many times would a man stamp all over her heart?
How many times would she allow that to happen?
Not any more.
Never, ever again!
* * *
Matt hammered on Brooke’s front door. ‘Brooke? Brooke, it’s me. Please, would you just open the door and let me in? We need to talk.’ He banged on the door again.
Behind him a door opened and the occupant came out. It was a young man wearing very loose jogging bottoms and a black vest, showing his perfectly honed gym body to perfection. ‘Dude? What’s with the noise? I’m trying to sleep in here.’
Matt looked at him, irritated. ‘It’s four o clock in the afternoon.’
‘You never heard of night shifts? Brooke’s at work. She works every day.’
‘She came home. I know she’s in there.’
‘Well, she’s not the type to ignore people, so you must have upset her big-time, dude.’
‘Thank you for that observation.’ Exasperated, Matt closed his eyes and turned back to hammer on Brooke’s door.
Behind him, the man closed his door. Matt knelt down and opened Brooke’s letterbox. ‘Brooke? Please let me in! I’m disturbing the neighbours and I know you don’t want me to—’
The door was yanked open and he almost fell forward. But he instantly got to his feet and stared at the woman he had too many feelings for.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You say that a lot to me just recently. I’m not sure it means anything any more.’
‘Can I please come in? Would you just give me a moment to explain?’
Brooke shook her head, tears glazing her eyes. ‘No. You can’t. I told you everything. Everything I felt. I laid myself bare to you. I gave y
ou the opportunity to be truthful to me. But you lied. You want to go to New Zealand? Then you go, Matt. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine.’
She went to close the door, but he blocked it with his foot.
‘I wanted to tell you! I did! But I couldn’t. Because if I had told you exactly how I feel then that would’ve made it real. If I’d told you that I love you then that would have been me closing the door on everything I had with Jen, and I couldn’t do that. New Zealand was a dream. An escapist fantasy that I indulged in because I was afraid of what was happening between us! Don’t you see?’
She stared down at his foot in disdain, then looked back up at him. ‘No. You don’t get to have the monopoly on being afraid! You think you’re the only one? That because you’ve already lost one love you have the most to lose?’
She banged at his foot with the door.
‘I lost her too! My best friend in the whole world! But you know what? I started to find another. I started to believe that this new friend was going to mean just as much. And I gave my heart willingly, only for it to be crushed—once again—by an unfeeling, inconsiderate coward who’s afraid to admit how he feels! Now, you’d better remove that foot right now, or I’m going to go into my kitchen, find the sharpest knife I have and surgically remove it!’
She glared at him, tears and fury blurring her eyes, and he could do nothing but remove his foot and allow the door to be slammed in his face.
He stood there, momentarily stunned. Unsure of what to do. He didn’t hear the door behind him open once again. Wasn’t aware of the guy standing watching him, an amused smirk on his face, until he heard, ‘Dude, you messed up.’
He closed his eyes, felt tears sting behind closed lids, and felt his heart break.
* * *
Brooke called in sick that first week. Then Personnel informed him that Brooke had taken some annual leave owed to her.
Matt sat in his office in between patients, feeling numb and broken. He’d made a big mess of everything. He had disrupted not only the department—because everyone wanted to know what was wrong with Brooke—but also his own life.
He was lost without her here. Not seeing her every day was torture, plain and simple.
He’d had fights with Jen, but nothing like this. Life seemed so bleak. He found it hard to smile. Found it hard to concentrate on what anyone was saying. Found himself drifting off into thoughts of that last argument as he sat in departmental meetings. He tried his hardest to find joy and smile and laugh when he was with Lily, but even she seemed subdued by his mood and cried a lot, constantly needing his hugs.
Hugging his daughter was the only thing that brought relief. He’d just sit and watch Lily playing on the carpet. He didn’t want to uproot them and take them to New Zealand. He’d panicked. Brooke was right on that score. He’d been scared. Scared of what his feelings for her meant. He’d lost control, just for a moment, and rung about that stupid job.
He should have told her about it from the beginning, but as he hadn’t been definite about going he hadn’t thought it was worth mentioning. It had been a blip. A small error in judgement as he’d frantically fought to regain control over his feelings. Because he’d felt as if they were running away from him. Like wild horses, their glorious manes flowing behind them as they ran across a grassy plain.
He’d tried to rein his feelings in, and he could see now that it had been the wrong thing to do. Because you couldn’t rein in love. It was a wild thing. An uncontrollable animal that defied attempts to tame it. It would always be free. It demanded to be free. And accepting his feelings as truth was a big step for him.
He’d loved Jen. He would always love her. Every single day. But that love was not lessened by his love for Brooke. They were two separate things.
The fact that he still had the capacity to fall deeply in love had, at first been startling. But now it was painful. Because he’d screwed it up. He’d hurt the woman he loved and he didn’t know how to fix it.
He’d tried apologising. He’d sent flowers. Had texted. Called. But she hadn’t responded and he wasn’t sure he could face the hurt of having her slam the door in his face yet again.
So he was giving her time. Because if he’d learned anything from Jen’s death it was that time lessened the hurt. It didn’t take it away. It didn’t get rid of it completely. But you absorbed it better. It wasn’t so raw and painful as it could be in the early days.
Time allowed you to take a deep breath and just breathe.
He was biding his time and hoping that maybe—just maybe—when she was ready to return to work she would let him tell her everything.
* * *
She had to return to work. Even if it was just to work out her notice.
So much had changed for her recently, and there’d been some startling revelations, but she knew she had to do what was right for her. And for Morgan. And...
Brooke closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she handed Morgan over to Daisy in the crèche. She wouldn’t have to do this much longer. Not here, anyway.
Brooke had decided that what she and Morgan needed was a change and some rest. So she was taking a leaf out of Matt’s book. She’d been rash before, hurrying back to work after her maternity leave, when she wasn’t fully ready. And that rashness had caused her to do something silly. To fall in love with a man who was wholeheartedly unavailable.
She should have seen that—acknowledged that—but she’d been silly and allowed him into her heart. And, as in all the times before, in every single relationship she had ever had with a man, her feelings had been crushed.
But things were different now. She was taking back control. No longer a passive observer in her own life, letting things happen to her. She was going to be the one who made the changes. If Matt could consider going to New Zealand and leaving, then she could make huge changes too.
That meant putting in her notice, working it out, and then she and Morgan were going to head to the south west coast for a while. Maybe Cornwall. She’d heard it was beautiful there. She was going to hire a mobile home and they’d pootle around the area for a few weeks whilst she waited to start the job that she’d accepted just yesterday.
She would be working at another A&E—far, far away from London and its great impersonal greyness. Its hustle and bustle. Its demand for you to hurry. For you to pay, pay, pay. It was a city in which you could lose yourself, and Brooke didn’t want that. She wanted to relax more. To enjoy nature.
Her new job was in a town, yes, but the cottage that she’d seen was by the coast. It would be perfect to raise her children there. To live. To lie in bed and hear waves crashing against the beach. To hear the gulls. To take long walks along the coast, squeezing sand between her toes, watching her daughter and whoever was next to come sitting in the sand, making sandcastles...
Discovering she was carrying Matt’s baby had come as a shock. They’d used protection, but she’d found herself one morning, peeing onto a stick and then watching the blue lines appear, bright as day.
How could she have got herself in the same mess she’d been in when she got pregnant with Morgan? Was she so naïve regarding her own feelings that she’d be one of those women with a brood of children, each of them with a different father?
She had no expectations of him. She could imagine his hurt, his pain at the prospect of a child who would become just another piece of evidence that he had somehow betrayed his wife.
I can’t compete with a ghost.
She’d loved Jen so much! And she felt guilty to think that she was carrying her best friend’s husband’s child. Even if a small part of her thought that Jen might be smiling at the development, up there in heaven. That Jen might even have plotted this herself!
Thrown you another curve ball, honey!
So Matt would receive two big pieces of news this morning.
She hoped he would be a big enough man to let her go. But another part of her hoped that somehow he might tell her everything she wanted to hear.
Miracles happened, didn’t they? Wasn’t she deserving of a turn at happiness? Hadn’t she paid her dues? Finding out she was pregnant with Morgan had been a huge turning point in her life, and it was going to be the same with Matt’s baby.
Now or never.
A new life was on its way. A new baby. Brooke had always wanted a family—a few kids, a husband. The perfect little unit.
So, okay, maybe life wanted to challenge her with this. Make her fight for what she needed. She’d never backed down from a fight. Had always stood her ground. Maybe she would get what she wanted some day, even if it wasn’t now.
But she would get it.
She was determined.
CHAPTER TEN
MATT WAS IN his office. For a moment she watched him through the small window, saw the hunching of his shoulders, the lifeless look in his eyes as he stared numbly at a staffing rota.
She didn’t normally like to see anyone hurting like that. But a tiny part of her was glad that it wasn’t easy for him. Because she’d been feeling as if she was the only one suffering.
She rapped her knuckles on the door and he looked up, standing instantly, becoming alert when he saw who was standing there.
Brooke opened the door and went in. The envelope in her hand contained her notice. ‘I’ve come to give you this.’
She passed it over and he took it from her with confusion, turning it over to see if the envelope gave any clue to its contents.
‘What is it?’
‘My notice.’
His face fell. ‘Brooke, no...there’s no need for that.’
‘There’s every need. I’ll work my notice. I won’t drop you in it by leaving you down a doctor.’
‘Brooke—’
‘I’m late. I need to get on.’
And she hurried out, her nerve failing her in delivering the extra bit of news that she knew would change everything. Handing in her notice and walking away was one thing. It showed courage and determination. Telling a man she was pregnant and having him want nothing to do with her turned the tables and would make her feel pathetic and alone. And she wasn’t ready to face that just yet.
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