A Single Dad at Heathermere

by Abigail Gordon

  In the days when it had all gone wrong his values had been all haywire, and he’d only come to his senses when Kezia had suggested what to him had been unthinkable—a termination.

  Now, incredibly, circumstances had brought Laura back into his life. He was seeing clearly which way he wanted to go, and who with, and if he had to wait for ever, he wasn’t going to mess up their lives again.

  She was lovely with the children, and caring and compassionate with the sick who came through the surgery doors, but he was never sure what her feelings for him were. Most of the time they got on well, but there were occasions when he felt that she was far removed from him. That whatever he did wouldn’t be right. She never showed any signs of being attracted to him as he was to her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE coming weekend would see the last of the long summer break at the village school. September was upon them and a new term for their young ones. As he drove back to the surgery he was remembering Liam’s first day there and Laura’s anxiety at his reluctance to be left in the strange new world she had brought him to.

  Jon had been happy that he’d been the one she’d turned to, and it had increased his desire to take care of her, independent though she was. What would tomorrow night bring? he wondered. A move forward in their relationship, or a step backward?

  The moment Laura had been waiting for had arrived. Jon had taken the children round to his mother’s and would be leaving them with the promise that tomorrow they would go to see the ponies.

  When they had gone she took the new dress out of the wardrobe and as she slipped it over her head and it shimmered down her body, for once she felt beautiful. Her visit to the hairdresser and the beautician had begun the first part of the transformation, but although Jon had seen the results he’d made no comment and her confidence was flagging.

  When he came back from his mother’s she was on the landing between their apartments, ready and waiting, and his heartbeat quickened. As he moved slowly up the stairs towards her he thought how beautiful she had made herself for him, and immediately told himself that it might be for her own sake she’d taken so much trouble. Didn’t they say that women dressed to please themselves?

  Passion was making his loins ache, but he’d learnt a lot about self-control over the years, and there was no way he was going to presume anything that wasn’t there.

  If Laura would just give him a sign to say that she saw him as someone other than Abby’s father and her childhood friend of long ago, he would have something to build on. But so far her recognising him as a man with normal desires and emotions seemed to be a long way off, and until she did he was going to hold back.

  ‘Nice,’ he said, keeping his arms tightly by his sides to stop him from reaching out for her and letting all his pent-up feelings take over.

  She turned away to hide her disappointment. Why should she expect that the way Jon saw her was ever going to change? she asked herself. Nice, he’d said. Big deal!

  As they went out to the car his elegance matched her own. Immaculate in a dark suit and crisp white evening shirt, with expensive cufflinks showing at his wrists and hand-made leather shoes on his feet, his was also a transformation from the man across the landing with stubble on his chin, making breakfast for himself and his daughter.

  Tonight he came over as any woman’s dream man, yet not hers it would seem. She felt her insides knot at the thought of telling him about her true feelings for him. Did she really want to put herself at any further disadvantage with Jon? she asked herself. Why spoil what they had? Because once it was told nothing would ever be the same again.

  She was being given the chance to have him to herself for a little while, away from all their cares and responsibilities, and all at once she calmed down. She would let the evening take care of itself, she decided. If the moment presented itself, she would know and would act accordingly.

  As they drove out of the village Jon glanced across at her in the passenger seat. She was gazing tranquilly out of the window and he was relieved to see that his lukewarm comment about her appearance didn’t seem to have upset her.

  Manchester at night was a mixture of the cosmopolitan and the traditional. The cathedral, floodlit and awesome. The Exchange Theatre, rebuilt after bomb devastation, its interior uniquely eye-catching in unusual marbles.

  Dotted around the two famous buildings were bars and restaurants, hotels and fast-food outlets, already thronged with those for who Saturday night in the city was a must.

  ‘I’ve booked a table here in the restaurant,’ Jon said as he drove the car into the parking area of one of the big hotels. ‘It’s been recommended to me by one of my patients who knows that I rarely dine out in the evening.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Laura told him with the assumed tranquility still in place. ‘Only for me it is never, rather than rarely.’

  ‘So it’s a case of the country bumpkins come to town, then.’

  ‘Mmm. It would seem so. Though I feel more like Cinderella going to the ball.’

  ‘We’d better make sure you don’t leave one of your shoes behind, then,’ he said whimsically.

  A few minutes later they were being shown to a table in an impressive restaurant.

  To an onlooker the couple at the table in the corner were a smartly turned-out man and woman spending an amicable evening together as they enjoyed the food and chatted. Only Laura and Jon were aware of the undercurrents below the surface.

  What would she say if he asked her to marry him outright? Jon wondered, and found himself answering his own question. It would be a repeat of that other time when Laura had told him in no uncertain terms that if he had a marriage of convenience in mind, he could forget it.

  She’d obviously thought that he would be prepared to use her for his own benefit. So to tell her that any thoughts of marriage he’d had were because he wanted her more than anything else in the world would fall flat after that outburst.

  Sitting across the table from him, Laura was thinking that it had been a wise decision not to bring her feelings for him out into the open until she was sure that the moment was right. Jon had just raised his glass and said with a twinkly smile, ‘To you, Laura, friend, neighbour, colleague.’

  He was spelling out the roles she played in his life and all of them were minor compared to the one she wanted to play, and as he looked at her expectantly, waiting for a reply, she said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘I wonder what the children are doing at this moment.’

  ‘Sleeping, I would hope,’ he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘It is eleven o’clock.’

  ‘It will seem strange when we get back, neither of them being there, won’t it?’ she went on.

  ‘If you say so,’ he replied, and the impatience was still there.

  The pleasant atmosphere they’d managed during the meal was disappearing fast. For the first time ever Jon didn’t want to talk about the children she thought, not tuning in to his desperation to talk about themselves for once.

  Shortly afterwards he said, ‘Shall we make tracks as you are so concerned about Liam and Abby? But my mother is quite capable of taking care of them, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I do know that,’ she told him with heightened colour.

  ‘Hmm. So it was too much to expect that we might have talked about ourselves for once?’

  He’d had enough of putting on an act and just wanted it to be over, Jon was thinking. As usual he’d been giving off all the wrong vibes and any hopes he’d had of them becoming closer during the evening had fizzled out.

  ‘You’d already said it all in the toast you proposed,’ she told him.

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing!’

  As he held her jacket for her to slip her arms into, his hand brushed against her neck and he felt her stiffen at the touch, but instead of giving himself time to consider how his touch might have affected her, he said, ‘Sorry.’ And turned
away.

  ‘So what have I done?’ Laura asked as they drove out of the city. ‘Why did mentioning the children irritate you? Abby is always your first concern, surely.’

  ‘You know she is,’ he said abruptly. ‘But it isn’t to the extent that I care for no one else.’

  ‘Yes. I know that. There is your mother, and you’re fond of Liam, for which I’m grateful.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ he exclaimed. ‘You don’t have to be grateful. He’s a smashing kid. But did we really plan this evening with our respective children as the one topic of conversation?’

  He’d wanted her to himself for once. Wanted her so badly, he knew if he spoke again he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from telling her just how much she meant to him. So he fell silent for the rest of the journey, and, having no ready answer to the question, Laura did likewise.

  When they arrived back at the apartments she went straight upstairs without waiting while he parked the car, and went in and shut her door. It had been a disaster, she thought dismally. From a pleasant enough beginning they’d ended up bickering because they’d both got their wires crossed.

  She’d taken off the dress and was standing in the satin slip she’d worn beneath it when she heard Jon coming up the stairs. He halted on the landing and she waited to see what he would do next. She heard his door open and close and thought that was it. The end of a catastrophic evening.

  A moment later it opened again and he was knocking on her door. She didn’t move.

  ‘Let me in, Laura,’ he called.

  Trancelike, she pulled back the catch and with one stride he was inside and they were almost touching. His glance was taking in the rise and fall of her breasts inside the silk slip, the smooth contours of her thighs, and the uncertainties of the night faded as she felt her blood warm to the message in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry for spoiling your evening,’ he said robotically, as if some unseen force was controlling him. Before she could reply she was in his arms. He was kissing her as if it was their last moment on earth, and she was responding with a passion that had come out of nowhere. Until sanity fought its way through the heat of it and she pushed him away. ‘I can’t!’ she gasped. ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said softly. ‘We’re consenting adults.’

  ‘Consenting to what? Lust?’

  He became very still. ‘Is that how you see it?’

  ‘How else?’

  He sighed. ‘Oh, Laura! Every time I think I understand you I discover that I don’t know you at all.’

  As dismay hit her he went, and this time when she heard his door close she knew it wouldn’t be opening again before morning.

  She’d slept at last, after repeatedly going over in her mind what had been a very strange evening, which in its last moments had placed her where she’d always wanted to be—in the arms of the man she loved.

  But as always there’d been something to spoil it. Passion had flared up between them, urgent and demanding, yet without any words of love or endearment. It had been a moment of sexual chemistry, nothing more, and having made that bleak decision she’d eventually slept.

  Too long, it seemed. She opened her eyes to see that it would soon be time to pick the children up from Marjorie’s, and there wouldn’t be any sleepyheads there with a visit to the stables to look forward to.

  As she raised herself up on the pillows the door opened and Jon came in with a breakfast tray. She goggled at him as he placed it on the table beside the bed, and was even more dumbstruck when he pointed to it and said, as if the previous night’s happenings had disappeared into the ether, ‘My motives are not suspect. I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in with the key that you leave with me for emergencies. We have exactly one hour before we go to pick up the children. I thought breakfast in bed might speed things up.’ And on that he went. Not with as much purpose as the night before, but he didn’t linger.

  There were a couple of reasons for that—one the time factor, and the other Laura, heavy-eyed and still in the satin slip, crumpled and creased, yet just as desirable as the night before.

  He’d blown it, he’d thought when he’d gone striding back into his own apartment after those incredible moments when she’d been in his arms. The evening had been a hit-and-miss affair, mostly miss, and instead of leaving it at that and trying to make things right the next day, he’d let his feelings get the better of him. He shuddered as he thought that Laura must have felt he’d seen her as available and ready to oblige.

  Yet for a few blissful moments she’d responded, and then the Laura that he knew best had asserted herself. Mentioning the word ‘lust’ when he’d been carried away by his love for her. As dawn had lightened the sky he’d known that the best way to handle it was to go on as they had been before. Not to make an issue of those few crazy moments.

  As they walked to Marjorie’s house in the mellow September morning the two doctors were silent, each wrapped up in their own thoughts. Laura was wondering how they were ever going to be able to behave naturally after what had happened the night before, and Jon was trying to find the right words to do that very thing, and not succeeding.

  Until the children came running out to meet them. The only question in their young minds was how soon were they going to see the ponies, and, as their parents hugged them, it became almost like any other day in their domestic lives.

  Almost, but not quite. Barriers had come down the night before, but others had gone up in their place, and Jon thought that treading carefully was going to be the pattern of the days to come.

  Jon’s friend Sarah who owned the stables was an attractive, capable-looking woman of a similar age to themselves, and when he introduced them Laura found herself meeting the curious glance of dark hazel eyes in a tanned face.

  ‘I’ve heard that we have a new doctor in the village. It’s nice to meet you,’ she said with a friendly smile. ‘Jon tells me that you and he want the children to have riding lessons.’

  ‘Yes, that is so,’ she told her. ‘They are both very excited at the thought, needless to say. Jon and I learned to ride when we were young, though on my part I haven’t been near a horse in years. Yet the pull is still there.’

  ‘So once your children have had some training you could all go riding together as a family,’ Sarah said, and Jon winced as he wondered what Laura would say to that.

  It had sounded as if he’d been discussing them with Sarah, which was definitely not the case. His feelings for Laura would only be brought into the open when she was ready to listen, and the dawning of that day seemed far off after the previous night’s badly handled moment of passion.

  He needn’t have worried. If Laura had got the wrong impression she wasn’t showing it. ‘Yes, I suppose we could,’ she replied. ‘But there’s some way to go before we’d be ready to do that.’ He thought if that wasn’t a double-edged remark, he didn’t know what was.

  As she showed them around the stables Sarah said, ‘I’ve got a couple of New Forest ponies that would be ideal for these two young ones of yours to learn to ride on. They’re gentle and used to children.’

  ‘That sounds ideal,’ Jon said. ‘What do you think, Laura?’

  She smiled. ‘I agree.’ Turning to Sarah she said, ‘May we see them?’

  The ponies were stabled further along the yard and when Sarah led them out the children’s eyes were wide with wonder and Laura and Jon saw immediately that she was right. They looked just right for their requirements.

  ‘Their names are Mischief and Muppet,’ Sarah told them. ‘Mischief is the bigger of the two so would be more suitable for Abby, and I always use Muppet for the smaller children like Liam.’

  As they admired the ponies’ shiny golden-brown coats, Jon said, ‘If it wasn’t for Mischief having a small flash of white on the face it would be difficult to tell them apart.’

  Abby was dancing with excitement, while Liam was standing quite still as he took in every detail of the animals in front of them.
Laura and Jon smiled at their different ways of showing their delight.

  ‘Once the children have got the hang of it, I think that Jon and I had better sign up for a refresher course,’ she told Sarah.

  ‘He doesn’t need to,’ she was informed. ‘Jon hasn’t ridden for a few months, but before that he used to take out one of my chestnuts regularly.’

  ‘I see,’ Laura said slowly, and felt as if she was on the threshold of his life again. Why had Jon never said that he went riding regularly?

  While Jon was in her office, sorting out the details, Sarah glanced down the yard to where Laura was listening to the children’s high-pitched chatter.

  ‘You’ve found her at last, haven’t you?’ she said gently.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked warily.

  ‘The woman you’ve been waiting for.’

  He groaned. ‘Don’t tell me that it is so obvious.’

  ‘Only to me, maybe. I can tell from the way you look at her. What’s the story, Jon?’

  ‘I’ve known Laura all my life in one way, and never known her at all in another,’ he said flatly. ‘And now that I’ve come to my senses, I don’t think she wants me.’

  ‘You’re kidding! If at any time over the years you had given a hint that you were ready for the marriage business, women would have been queuing up, including myself, if you hadn’t already introduced me to my darling husband. So what’s the problem with Laura Cavendish?’

  He sighed. ‘It’s a long story, Sarah. But I’m working on it, and you’ll be the first to know if I ever get it right.’

  ‘You will,’ she said confidently.

  He shrugged. ‘I hope so. I really do.’

  For the rest of the day the children talked of nothing but the ponies and as they listened to them lovingly, for once Laura and Jon’s thoughts were running along the same lines.

  The happiness of their two young children came before anything else and their own uncertainties were shelved for a while. Until in the late evening when the children were asleep she knocked on his door and said, ‘When Sarah mentioned us being a family, have you discussed us with her? You and she seemed very close.’