Christmas Knight

by Meredith Webber

  Too late for that warning, Kate thought, but her hand felt so warm and right in Grant’s she let it stay there.

  And she found a smile to offer him in return for the comfort of those long, strong fingers.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit defeatist, Dr Bell? Especially coming from the lips of a prime risk-taker like yourself? And leaving Mark, when the time came, didn’t hurt. In fact, it was the easiest of partings, because I knew it was right for me.’

  His thumb was rubbing the back of her forefinger and, though she’d never considered that bit of skin as part of any erogenous zone, the movement was sending startlingly explicit messages through her body.

  She should remove her hand.

  Now!

  But he probably didn’t even realise he was doing it—and certainly wouldn’t in his wildest dreams have guessed what it was doing to her.

  So to withdraw her hand might seem…unfriendly?

  She turned her attention to his face, and found him smiling at her—with eyes as well as lips this time.

  ‘I can’t imagine you admitting if it had hurt, Katie,’ he said gently. ‘You might have railed against what you saw as injustice, or taken up a fight on behalf of someone else, but I never heard you complain about your own lot, or saw you cry over an injury.’

  ‘Until the week you arrived, when all I seemed to do was weep. It’s a wonder you didn’t turn around and go straight back to Byron Bay.’

  His grip tightened on her fingers, sending more tremors through her body.

  ‘Maybe it would have been better if I had,’ he said quietly, then he released her hand, stood up, tipped his dinner into the trash can and dumped the plate in the sink.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘Leave the dishes and I’ll do them later.’

  ‘Nonsense—I’ll do them,’ Kate told him, surprised she’d managed to form the words when she was breathless with fear for him. Then, much as she tried not to say it, she couldn’t hold back the words. ‘N-not on your bike? You won’t ride your bike?’

  Grant was at the back door as she stammered out the feeble pleas, and turned, frowning again.

  ‘I’m only going over to Vi’s,’ he said. ‘On foot!’

  And though her panic eased on that count, another worry arose to confront her.

  The ‘maybe it would have been better if I had’ statement he’d made before his precipitate departure.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS nonsense, Kate assured herself, but the sick feeling in her stomach and the dull ache in the region of her heart suggested it probably would have been better if Grant had gone straight back—or if he’d never come.

  She thought back to the strange conversation that had preceded his departure—to her rage over his reaction to her innocent acceptance of Brian’s invitation to the bank’s Christmas party. She’d stood up for herself then, flinging stupid words at him as her temper had flared, but that’s all they’d been—words. In truth, when she’d decided to go ahead with her pregnancy and had planned her life—hers and Cassie’s—she’d never for a moment considered a relationship with another man somewhere further down the track. In her relief to be free of Mark and the emptiness of what they’d shared, the single state had seemed to offer everything she’d ever need.

  Until Grant Bell had come back into her life, reawakening not only the heat and longing of desire with an intensity she’d thought she’d never feel again but, worse, reminding her of the ease with which she could talk to him, the special bond she’d always felt in his presence, the sense of completeness he’d brought to her life—so many years ago.

  Yes, maybe it would have been better if he had, as he’d murmured, gone straight back to Byron Bay.

  Though she certainly wouldn’t have managed without him.

  The sharp summons of the phone brought her out of the useless cogitation, and the emergency, a child who’d swallowed half a bottle of cranberry capsules because they’d looked pretty, had her on the phone to Tara, then hot-footing it across to the hospital.

  ‘They probably won’t do any harm,’ she assured the panicking parents, ‘but we’ll try to get rid of them anyway.’

  She was examining little Richie Webb as she spoke, talking quietly to him, asking how he felt.

  The four-year-old was alert—perhaps too alert, though he was always an active child, and his respiration and pulse were normal.

  ‘Rather than intubating him to use a stomach pump, I’d rather try an emetic—something to make him sick,’ she told Mrs Webb. ‘It’s less traumatic than the stomach pump.’

  The anxious mother nodded, and Kate explained to Richie that he’d have to have a drink and it might make him sick.

  ‘But being sick is good because it will get all those silly tablets out of your tummy.’

  The little boy nodded, and Narelle, again on duty, hurried off to get a basin, while Kate measured out two teaspoons of syrup of ipecac for the little boy.

  ‘Just drink this down, Richie, then I’ll give you a glass of water.’

  She glanced up at his parents.

  ‘Be prepared for a fast reaction, though if it doesn’t work within thirty minutes I can give him another dose.’

  The second dose wasn’t needed, and the fourteen tablets, still encased in their gel coating, were safely remitted.

  Leaving Richie resting on a table in the emergency room, Kate took the empty bottle of cranberry tablets and hurried through to her office. As the capsules still looked intact, there was a chance none of the constituents had entered Richie’s stomach, but she’d have to check the list of ingredients against known contraindications before giving him activated charcoal as a precautionary measure.

  She explained this to Mr and Mrs Webb when she returned minutes later.

  ‘So, just in case some bad stuff got out of the tablets and into your tummy, Richie,’ she told the little boy, ‘I want you to take this tablet. You know how Mummy’s sponge picks up spills in the kitchen? Well, that’s what this tablet will do in your tummy. It will pick up any bad stuff left and you’ll be OK.’

  ‘Will I have to be sick again?’ he demanded, giving Kate a look that suggested he’d rather be poisoned.

  ‘No, not this time,’ she assured him.

  ‘Then where will it go?’

  His clear, pale blue eyes challenged her and, with his parents exchanging amused glances, Kate grabbed a diagram of the alimentary canal and proceeded to explain just how it worked, in simple enough terms for a four-year-old to understand.

  Richie’s main delight was in the end result.

  ‘He’s at an age when “bottom” is the funniest word he knows and anything to do with bodily functions is a cause of great interest,’ Mr Webb explained.

  Kate nodded, knowing children of friends who hooted with laughter over the same word, and whispered behind their hands about the less attractive features of the end product of their alimentary canals. Then, while Richie regaled Narelle with some of the things his friends said at preschool, Kate spoke to his parents about precautions they might take in future.

  ‘I do know all that,’ Mrs Webb said earnestly. ‘We’ve a child-proof lock on the cupboard under the sink where I keep cleaning things, and Jeff has a lock on the garden shed. But my grandmother’s staying with us, and she takes the cranberry, and heaven knows what else. Richie must have slipped into her bedroom while we were having dinner, and it wasn’t until Grandma was going to bed that she realised the tablets were missing.’

  ‘You can’t be on guard all the time,’ Kate assured her. ‘And there’s no harm done. A good night’s sleep and he’ll be back to normal. Although if he does seem unusually quiet or if you’re worried about him in any way, don’t hesitate to call me.’

  Both parents thanked her, then Mr Webb lifted their son into his arms and carried him out to the car.

  How long would she be able to lift Cassie? Kate wondered. Until she was five—six?

  She scuffed her feet against the path as she walked home, conc
erned because the spectre of bringing up a child alone was once again a pressing concern on her shoulders.

  Smiled to herself, because Grant had been so reassuring whenever she’d expressed the stupid fears that beset her so regularly. Then she remembered how they’d parted, and stopped smiling.

  He was going, anyway, and she’d have to manage on her own—as she’d always intended.

  But thoughts of Grant lingered in her mind, and after paying Tara and seeing her safely on her way home, she walked through the house, knowing he wasn’t there but looking for him anyway. His bedroom door was open but the room was empty. Not only emptied of his possessions, but totally emptied. He must have shifted things while she’d been at work.

  She walked to the next door—which was pulled close but not shut—and tapped before pushing it open. The bed with flowered sheets had been moved in and pushed against the other single to form a larger bed. She should have done that earlier, for someone as tall as Grant. The chest of drawers from the bigger bedroom was tucked behind the sliding doors of the built-in wardrobe where there was plenty of room, given Grant’s lack of clothes.

  Kate sniffed the air, already masculine though he’d barely used it, then she saw the briefcase on top of the dressing-table.

  ‘My papers are in my briefcase in my room if you’d care to look.’

  She recalled the words he’d said that first day, before going out to see George Barrett.

  She’d never looked, and although, tonight, it seemed like an invasion of privacy, she assured herself it was a responsible thing to do. A little late, admittedly, but still responsible!

  She carried the worn leather case to the bed, rubbing her fingers on the leather because she knew his fingers had touched it. Telling herself not to be pathetic but doing it anyway.

  Opening the clasp, she leafed through the manilla folders it held. New appointment letter—she’d like to look at that but had no right. Personal. Nothing to do with her. Definitely nothing to do with her. Bills—well, that one she didn’t want. CV. That was it.

  She pulled it out and opened it, laying it flat on the bed. Read through his school results—Miss Jones’s mammary glands couldn’t have had all that damaging an effect, from the results he’d got in final year maths. Results Kate hadn’t known because he’d been gone before they’d been published.

  She flipped over pages, trying not to think of that summer, and came to the précis of his medical career. University of New South Wales, then North Shore Hospital, followed by A and E at St George for three years.

  Making money to buy back the farm, until he’d become an adrenalin junkie and had decided he liked it. Recalling his words, she studied the time frame once again. Three years and two months. Not a contract, then, in that fourth year. Contracts were usually longer—three months minimum. It looked more as if something had happened.

  She went on to the next line. GP training—big switch. Perhaps he’d been waiting for a training position in a general practice and had continued in A and E until one came up. She checked the dates but they didn’t fit—there was a four-month gap between when he left A and E and when he took up his post at the practice. Perhaps he’d been overseas, though leafing through the folder gave no indication of any overseas experience or study.

  ‘It was a holiday—after three years and two months in A and E he’d have needed one.’

  She spoke out loud, hoping to convince herself, but the words didn’t have any more effect when heard aloud than when she’d thought them.

  Kate turned a page. Twelve months’ training, then GP work for eleven months, then another sudden switch—back to a lowly resident in paediatrics.

  Two years there—not so lowly second year—took her up to two weeks before he’d appeared on her veranda with his ‘knight in shining armour’ routine. And the new job was in a training post for paediatric oncology—he’d told her that—a follow-on from what he’d been doing.

  She was puzzling over the shifts and possible reasons for them when she heard Grant’s footsteps entering the kitchen. Not wanting to appear furtive, she remained where she was, the papers spread in front of her, and when he entered the room she gave him what she hoped wasn’t a furtive smile.

  ‘You did tell me to check your credentials. I just never got around to it.’

  He remained where he was, just inside the door, looking at her in a way she couldn’t read.

  ‘You stopped and started at odd times, and the gap after you left A and E—did you go overseas?’

  He didn’t answer, though his eyes remained fixed on her—or were they on her? She couldn’t be sure, but what she did know was that some new tension had entered the room—not with him, but emanating from him now.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have asked first—it was ages ago you said to look.’ She gathered up the papers but in her haste knocked the briefcase to the floor so the folders she’d half pulled out spilled to the floor, opening enough for papers to flutter everywhere.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll pick them up.’

  She reached out, lifted a bundle and was about to shove them back into the closest folder when she saw the photo that lay beneath them. Grant was by her side, so she didn’t miss his reaction either, didn’t miss the tremor in his hand as he reached out to lift it, moving it out of her grasp—out of her sight.

  Instinct made her grasp his wrist and stop him hiding it. Instinct took her further so she knelt closer to him and reached out her free hand to turn his face towards her.

  ‘I guessed a baby, but I don’t know any more. You’re far better at changing Cassie’s nappies than I am—you had to have had experience. Let me see him, Grant. Tell me.’

  He didn’t answer, neither would he look at her or reveal the image on the photo he held protectively against his chest.

  Kate traced the lines that had deepened on his face.

  ‘They’re lines of pain—I knew that when you first returned. But wouldn’t sharing it help you take the next step to recovery? Isn’t there enough of our old friendship left for me to be the one you talk to?’

  He lifted his head and what she saw in his blue eyes terrified her. It wasn’t grief, but a kind of blankness—like the bewildered terror of a child who’d lost his way.

  Kate forgot the photo and wrapped her arms around him, drawing him close and rocking his body against hers.

  ‘Let’s forget it for a while. Leave the papers here. Come with me, we can lie on my bed. We don’t have to talk but at least I can hold you—we can hold each other. Everyone needs someone to hold occasionally.’

  He didn’t argue, though he did help her to her feet and allow her arm to stay wrapped around his shoulders as they walked into the bedroom.

  Stay asleep, Kate willed the baby as she pulled back the sheet and guided Grant’s obviously numbed body down onto the bed. Then she lay beside him and, as promised, held him, resting his head on her shoulder, running her fingers through his hair, stroking his back and kneading at his shoulders.

  The words, when they came, were muffled, but though Kate’s heart hurt when she heard Debbie’s name, when Grant spoke of the casual relationship that had resulted in a pregnancy, she said nothing.

  ‘Debbie wanted to keep working for at least another year—it would have given her the seniority she’d need for future jobs. And though I knew I’d have to give up A and E—the hours were too erratic for a family man—I stayed on until Robbie was born, so I could get some paternity leave and do a lot of the caring for those first three months.’

  He paused, and Kate could picture him, though little Robbie would have had more cuddles than the occasionally surreptitious ones she knew Grant gave to Cassie.

  ‘Then I went into a GP practice for training, and Debbie worked part time. My mother minded Robbie in between, and things were fine.’

  But not ecstatic from the sound of your voice, Kate thought, then regretted it, as she knew it came from a jealousy she had no right to feel.

  ‘Until he was nine
months old, when he became listless, failed to thrive. We took him to doctors and finally to specialists. It was diagnosed as a brain tumour, a glioma, in the brain stem, inoperable and, practically speaking, untreatable. Robbie died six months later. Debbie and I had stayed together until then, but with nothing left to bind us that ended as well.’

  The words stopped, and Kate’s grip tightened. With tears flowing unchecked from her eyes, she used her hands, and the warmth of her body, to try to offer comfort that could never be put into words. A heaviness in Grant’s body told her the telling of Robbie’s story had left him exhausted, and when his deep, steady breathing suggested he might sleep for a while, she slipped away, covered him with a light cotton blanket, then lifted Cassie, crib and all, and carried her out of the room.

  No good taking her into the small bedroom—Grant would still hear her when he woke.

  Kate’s heart fluttered as she imagined the agony Cassie’s cries must already have caused him—unknowing reminders of his tragedy.

  ‘We’ll sleep in the living room,’ she told her still sleeping baby. ‘You have your crib, I’ll take the couch.’

  But though Cassie slept, Kate couldn’t emulate her, too distressed by Grant’s story to turn her mind off the baby he’d called Robbie. And, in spite of the fears that beset her daily about her own small infant, it was for Grant she feared through the dark watches of the night. For the laughing carefree teenager who’d already suffered the loss of his beloved home, then had rebuilt his life, only to be hit by another tragedy.

  So many things had fallen into place with the telling of the tale—why he was so determined to do further study, why he’d chosen paediatric oncology, why he was so adamant that he’d be gone in a couple of weeks…

  Kate could understand it all, but it didn’t make the loneliness it prompted any easier to bear. It was as if she’d secretly—subconsciously—been hoping he would stay—that the fairy story which had begun with her knight’s arrival would have a ‘happy ever after’ ending.