Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit

by Meredith Webber

  ‘He’s fine, well enough now to be a handful as far as keeping him quiet is concerned. We’ve read every book ever written about possums and wombats and have moved on to platypuses and kangaroos.’

  They’d moved towards the front entrance as she’d asked the question and he’d answered, but now Kate stopped, unwilling to walk home with him while her body ached to hold him, her hands to touch him, yet his whole demeanour yelled, Keep off.

  ‘I’ll drop some of my books in for him,’ Kate said.

  He’d stopped beside her, looking down at her, but it wasn’t books he mentioned when he spoke again.

  ‘You told me you weren’t quite alone when your mother died,’ he said, the words so startlingly out of context Kate frowned as she made sense of them. But making sense and saying something were two entirely different things. She could only stare at him.

  ‘And you held that baby like he was something precious. Did you lose a child, as well? Is that what makes you long for one? Was the grandmother story just a cover?’

  How had he done this?

  How had Angus, of all people, swooped from swimming eyes while she held a baby, to her grandmother story being a cover in such a short time?

  Confused didn’t begin to cover how Kate felt, and that stirred anger.

  ‘The grandmother story is true,’ she said, and turned away, but he caught her shoulder and steered her into the café.

  ‘Come, sit awhile with me. Talk to me, Kate. Help me here.’

  She looked at him, still angry, but read a confusion to equal her own in his eyes.

  Allowing him to steer her to a corner table, Kate slumped down in a chair, waited while he went to order coffee, then looked at him across the table.

  ‘I don’t think my life is any concern of yours, not any longer,’ she said.

  He spread his hands and shook his head.

  ‘How else could I feel but guilty—not being home that night when Hamish first was sick? I’m not blaming you, Kate, but it brought home to me how dependent Hamish is on me, and how—’

  ‘How you can’t afford to have a life of your own because of that?’ Kate demanded. Then before he could reply, she continued, the weird anger that had come from nowhere suddenly exploding. ‘That’s nonsense, Angus, and someone as intelligent as you should know it. It’s just another excuse to hide yourself away from hurt, and don’t tell me I don’t know about hurt. I’ve felt it all, including, yes, a baby that I lost. When my mother died I was seeing a fellow student, Brian, and seeking comfort in his arms I became pregnant. He was horrified, wanted me to have a termination, but it was my baby and no way was I going to give it up, so we parted. Then two months later I miscarried. So, yes, there’s more to my wanting children than my grandmother dream, but—’

  ‘You did lose a child? It was a stab in the dark, when I said that, not something meant to upset you,’ he said, but the stab had found its mark and suddenly Kate was too upset to stay in the café, no matter how good the coffee was. As the waitress approached with the order, Kate stood and hurried out, muttering something that might have been goodbye but was more a garbled curse.

  The tears were too close again, and she was damned if she was going to cry in front of half the hospital staff…

  Chapter Ten

  ‘TWO COFFEES?’ the waitress said, and Angus waved to her to put them down. He probably wouldn’t drink either of them, but he needed to sit awhile and try to sort out some of the emotional mess curdling inside him.

  Of course Kate, who’d suffered so much loss in her life, would want children of her own—a family. Not only that, she deserved a family, deserved all the happiness in the world, in fact.

  The thing about Kate, he’d discovered, was that she refused to be beaten by what life threw at her. She kept going, kept smiling, always positive, always up-beat, seeing the best in situations, the best in people. She’d even tried to dig out something worthwhile in him and, to a certain extent, succeeded because he was recovering his humanity, and for that he was really grateful.

  He drained his cup of coffee and started on hers, not sure where all this rational thinking was getting him, although he now had a much fuller picture of the woman he loved.

  Loved?

  He set the cup back carefully in its saucer, certain it had been about to slip from his grasp.

  Loved?

  How could he love her? He barely knew her. But even as this excuse sprang from his brain, another part of his mind was denying it. Of course he knew her, knew her from that first day at work when she’d broken through Mrs Stamford’s denial, and started his own process of rehumanisation, if such a word existed.

  He pictured her on the yellow sofa, an arm around his son, and remembered the stab of jealousy he’d felt, but what he should have felt was pleasure, that finally he’d found a woman who would make the ideal mother for his son.

  His son!

  His only child!

  Kate wanted babies, wanted a family, and knowing Kate as he now did he knew darned well one child didn’t constitute a family in her terms.

  And she deserved babies and a family, but was he the man to provide this? Fear grasped his heart as he considered losing Kate as he’d lost Jenna.

  No, that couldn’t happen!

  It probably wouldn’t, the scientist reminded him, but there was always that chance.

  He left the coffee shop, half a cup undrunk. Alex had given him more time off, but he had patients he wanted to see—outpatients whose parents had often travelled hundreds of miles so their children could keep appointments. He wasn’t going to push them on to one of the other specialists. Tomorrow he’d go to work, but taking appointments, not operating, so he’d be able to avoid Kate while he sorted things out in his head.

  Avoidance was not so easy when he returned home to find her as he’d pictured her in his mind, sitting on the yellow sofa, Hamish by her side, McTavish as close as he could get to Hamish, Kate reading from a rather tattered storybook.

  ‘This was my favourite as a child,’ she said, holding it up so he could see the cover. It was a Dr Seuss book, and although he was reasonably sure Hamish had a newer and cleaner version, he could hardly complain. His son was sitting quietly, which was the main thing, and if the picture conjured up images of family in Angus’s eyes, then that was his problem.

  As was the distance in Kate’s voice as she spoke, though when she returned to the story, she was animated once again, giving all the characters a different intonation.

  The urge to join them on the yellow sofa was almost irresistible but he knew, until he’d sorted out how he felt about Kate—how could it possibly be love? He’d known Jenna for years before he’d fallen in love with her!—he had to steer clear.

  On top of that was the fact that he had no idea how Kate felt about him. He had no doubt about the attraction, but love was a whole different matter. He tried to remember if she’d used words of love at any time, but knew it was a pointless exercise. If Kate had at any time mentioned love, he’d have backed off so quickly even kisses would have been off limits.

  Waving a rather ineffectual goodbye, he made his way inside, but though he settled in the corner of his bedroom he’d made his study, determined to do some work, images of Kate blocked his mind. So he gave up, got the car, told Juanita he was going out for a while and headed for the beach.

  He walked the coastal path, north towards another beach called Bondi, striding along until he came to a massive cemetery, perched on the edge of the cliff, gravestones looking out to sea. It was a place of such quiet beauty he found a bench and sat there, thinking of the past, reliving Jenna’s death, then moving on to consider—really seriously—the future.

  Needing to do something to stop herself thinking about Angus, Kate had spread drop sheets on the living-room floor, and was, rather inexpertly, rolling paint onto the uneven surface of the walls. It was a paint called white-on-white, which the man at the hardware shop had assured was perfect anywhere. What it seemed to be d
oing was highlight all the unevenness of the walls, and she was wondering if it was time to call in an expert when the front doorbell rang.

  She looked down at the paint spatters on the old dungarees she was wearing, and frowned at the smattering of paint dots on her arms and legs, then as the doorbell pealed again, she sighed and headed for it, praying it wasn’t someone important from the hospital.

  ‘Angus?’ The first word was generated by surprise, then fear took over. ‘It’s not Hamish, is it? He hasn’t had a relapse?’

  Angus shook his head, presumably answering her questions, not denying who he was.

  She stared at him. He’d come to her so he must want something, but did she want him in her house?

  Did she want him within a hundred yards of her, looking as she did?

  Of course not, but he was there.

  ‘Do you want to come in? It’s just that I’m painting, as you can see, so it’s not the best time, though what it’s not the best time for, I don’t know.’

  The rapid heartbeats Angus’s presence always caused had obviously turned her brain to mush that she was prattling on like this. And now he was smiling—more mush, although in her stomach this time.

  ‘Not the best time for proposing, I guess,’ he said softly, but she heard the words, just couldn’t grasp the meaning.

  ‘Proposing what?’ she demanded, thoroughly disconcerted now.

  ‘Marriage, of course.’

  He was sounding a little tetchy now but how did ‘marriage’ and ‘of course’ get to go together?

  ‘Marriage?’ she echoed, just to make sure she’d got it right.

  ‘Yes, marriage,’ he grumbled—hardly loverlike.

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Of course to you.’ He was snapping now.

  ‘But I want children,’ she reminded him, then suddenly realised they were still standing on her front doorstep, she completely paint-spattered, and he in shorts and a T-shirt that looked slightly damp.

  ‘Has it been raining?’ she asked, though she was sure she’d have known if it had been, but weather talk was good to get through awkward conversations.

  He stepped towards her, smiling now, and put his arms around her.

  ‘Kate, I’m proposing to you, not discussing the weather, but no, it’s not raining. I just went for a walk, then needed a swim to clear my head, and it was hot so I went in fully clad—except for my shoes, of course. Now could you please put me out of my misery and tell me if you’re at least interested enough in me to consider a proposal.’

  He kissed her, which was a big mistake as Angus’s kisses always had the effect of starting such powerful surges of desire that her mind, even when it wasn’t mush, found it hard to work.

  ‘Could you at least say something?’ he asked, raising his head several minutes later. ‘I’m dying here!’

  ‘You don’t want more children,’ she reminded him, and he kissed her again.

  ‘It was nothing to do with not wanting more children,’ he reminded her at the next kiss break. ‘It was fear for the mother of the children, and that’s still there and very real and if you marry me and we have more children I shall probably drive you insane checking you for DVT after each and every birth.’

  Even with a mushy brain this was beginning to sound quite hopeful, but it had all been very matter-of-fact. Was it just the attraction?

  Which, given the way she was kissing him back, she’d find very hard to deny!

  ‘Is there more?’ she asked when she’d pulled away and replenished enough breath to form words.

  ‘Of course there’s more,’ he told her, but he must have thought she meant more kissing because that’s what happened. Eventually he broke away, this time holding her at arm’s length and looking down at her with such tenderness she thought her heart might split in two and all her blood seep out.

  ‘When you walked out of the coffee shop, I realised how much I loved you,’ he said, his voice so deep and husky it ran across Kate’s skin like the brush of butterfly wings. ‘Then I thought of all I knew about you, and how you, of all people, deserve the family you crave. I knew then that even with my fear of losing another person I loved, if I married you I’d have to give you the children you deserved, because otherwise I’d lose you anyway. Does that make sense?’

  Kate melted into his arms.

  ‘Not a lot,’ she whispered against his damp shirt, hoping these weren’t his best casual clothes because by now they probably had quite a lot of paint on them. ‘But it sounded really beautiful.’

  ‘So, will you marry me?’

  Would she?

  Why the uncertainty?

  Because it was so sudden?

  ‘Oh, Angus!’ She held him tight and hoped her words didn’t come out as a wail. ‘Do you really want this? Are you sure it’s not just a reaction to Hamish’s illness?’

  He pushed her away again, looking deep into her eyes, studying her as if to read what she was thinking; but if she couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head, how could he?

  ‘I really want it,’ Angus said, wondering how a decision he’d made in the cliff-top cemetery had somehow become so difficult. ‘I know it won’t be easy for you, taking on someone else’s child, but you and Hamish seem to get on well.’

  At least the smile that brought to her face chased away the look of worry it had held earlier, but doubts were now springing in his mind, bursting out like sprouting plants. She didn’t love him. Couldn’t think of a way to tell him, to let him down lightly! She could think of nothing worse than being Hamish’s mother—Oh, hell! Perhaps he should kiss her again.

  But as he tried to draw her close she held him back.

  ‘Tell me again why you want this,’ she asked.

  ‘Because I love you,’ he said, slightly puzzled as he was sure he’d told her that before.

  ‘Really love me?’ she asked, and now he had to kiss her. But this time he punctuated the kisses with words, telling her things he couldn’t ever remembering saying before, about how wonderful she was—her empathy with patients’ parents, her calm control in all situations in the operating theatre, the instinctive way she’d known that McTavish could rouse Hamish. Then the way she made him feel, ten foot tall and invincible, the way just looking at her roused his blood to fever pitch, the way thinking of her made his body hard at inappropriate times—a catalogue of love-reasons tumbling from his lips, lips that still stayed close to hers, kissing in between…

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ he finished, breathless from words and kisses.

  She looked at him, pale green eyes alight with mischief.

  ‘My turn to kiss you?’ she teased.

  ‘Your turn to tell me things, little witch!’ he growled, his arms still loosely imprisoning her.

  There was silence for what seemed forever to his overburdened heart, then she smiled a funny kind of smile that made her teeth gleam and her eyes light up.

  ‘I love you, Angus,’ she said, and that was it, but it was all he needed to hear. He drew her close again, her head resting above his heart, and held her so she could feel its excited beat, and feel the flush of heat in his body.

  ‘That’s all I need to know,’ he managed, his voice so gruff with emotion he didn’t recognise it as his own.

  ‘All we need to know, as well,’ another voice said, and Angus turned to see Juanita, Hamish and McTavish sitting on the yellow sofa, smug smiles on all their faces, although it wasn’t really easy to read smug in the expression of a Highland terrier.

  He frowned at all three of them but it had little effect.

  ‘If you will propose to someone on their doorstep, you have to expect to have onlookers,’ Juanita continued. ‘We were actually coming over to invite Kate to Hamish’s getting-better party on Saturday afternoon, and got here just in time for the show.’

  Angus knew he should be angry but Kate was laughing helplessly, just standing there in paint-spattered dungarees, laughing and laughing. So instead of being angry he put his arm
around her and drew her outside, stopping in front of the threesome on the sofa.

  ‘Hamish, do you understand what’s going on here?’

  ‘You’ve been kissing Kate,’ he said, with all the aplomb of a four-year-old who knows about kissing. ‘I kissed Chloe at kindergarten—it’s kind of fun.’

  ‘I’ve been more than kissing Kate,’ Angus said, squatting down in front of his son, praying this would go better than his proposal had—at first!

  ‘I’ve been asking Kate to marry me, so that means she’ll be your new mother.’

  Hamish nodded, apparently shrugging off this momentous news.

  ‘Juanita told me that ages ago,’ he announced, causing his carer to shift uncomfortably on the sofa. ‘She said that Kate was just what our family needed. We just had to wait for you to figure it out for yourself. I did say I’d ask Kate for you, but Juanita said you had to ask or it wouldn’t be right.’

  Angus gave up squatting and collapsed onto the ground. Kate was laughing again and hugging Hamish, while Angus considered ways a doctor could get away with murder. But Juanita must have read his mind, for she reached out and touched his shoulder.

  ‘It was in your eyes from the first time you saw her,’ she said gently. ‘Love like that doesn’t happen often, so you have to seize it while you can. I just hoped you’d have the courage to do that, and you did. Congratulations!’

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then hugged Kate.

  ‘Come on, Hamish, let’s go back inside. We’ve a party to plan, then a wedding to arrange—we’re going to be really busy for a while.’

  They disappeared back into their house, Hamish asking if you could have balloons at weddings and would there be cake. Kate collapsed onto the yellow sofa and smiled at the man who was pulling himself off the ground. He sat beside her and took her hand.