‘Why the hell should I kiss you?’ Kate demanded. ‘You’re my locum, not my lover.’
And though he should have been put firmly in his place by that pronouncement, the wretch continued to smile, and the twinkle in his eyes positively gleamed with delight.
‘Ah, but we were, and could have been again, remember.’
‘That was different,’ Kate muttered, aware the heat burning inside her must have washed colour into her cheeks.
‘Was it, Katie?’ he said softly, moving closer. ‘Oh, I know you said it was just comfort you were offering, but it seemed very much like love to me. Isn’t comfort an element of love?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, and even if I did I wouldn’t listen,’ Kate snapped, as angry with the foolish hope that had risen in her heart as she was with this two-timing male in front of her. ‘I don’t know how you can talk that way, with Linda outside in my garden.’
‘Linda in your garden?’ Grant looked genuinely confused, then his face cleared and he laughed with such delight Kate wanted to hit him. ‘That’s not Linda, that’s Mum. Actually, Linda doesn’t exist—never did—and I thought Cassie needed a grandmother so I brought Mum back to get started with that side of things. She’ll stay with Vi, of course, but mind Cassie for you—for us—whenever we can’t get Tara.’
Kate shook her head. This was a worse conversation than they’d had the day he’d ridden into Testament four weeks ago. But there was so much she didn’t understand that she didn’t know where to start. With ‘Linda doesn’t exist’? Heavens! Her heart was cavorting so madly she was afraid she might have misheard him, in which case she’d better not ask…
Then there was the ‘us’ thing he was going on about…
She was still hesitating when he took the last step needed to bring him into touching distance, so her physical reaction caused further chaos in her mind.
‘Kiss me, Katie,’ he murmured. ‘Kiss me then tell me there’s no us!’
The last working cell in her brain registered that he’d often seemed to know exactly what she’d been thinking, then she gave in to the hands drawing her closer and lifted her face towards his, accepting his kiss and kissing him back.
Then she remembered Linda, and pushed away.
‘What did you mean—Linda doesn’t exist?’ she demanded, hope battling with apprehension—but she had to know.
‘I made her up,’ Grant told her, his smile so broad she knew he thought this had been sheer brilliance, though all it was to her was unbelievable.
‘Made up a fiancée? Why on earth would you do that?’
‘So you’d feel safe with me, not feel threatened having a man about the house—you know, after Mark…’
Kate didn’t know, but her body, still close enough to Grant’s to feel his warmth, seemed delighted to learn that Linda was pure fiction.
Though when she considered the anguish this fictional woman had caused her…
She was about to give voice to her disapproval of this tactic when Grant drew her close again, and this second kiss blanked out her mind completely, leaving room only for emotion and the physical responses as old as time itself.
Grant felt the passion in her response, and the final coil of terrible tension he seemed to have carried for so long unwound from his body.
‘I love you, Katie,’ he said, drawing her close against him and burying his head in her fragrant, tangled hair. ‘I think I realised that soon after I came back, but I wasn’t over Robbie’s death—couldn’t handle commitment that included another baby—so I tried to ignore it. I told myself specialty training was more important anyway—that what I’d learn or might discover could benefit so many babies in the future. But when I lifted the other Robbie out of that bus, I knew that you do what you can in this life, and contributing happiness, any time or any place, is just as important as contributing to great scientific discoveries.’
He felt the woman in his arms move and added, ‘Well, maybe not quite as important, but I was an average student at best, and a man or woman twice as bright as me will now have the opportunity to do the work I thought I wanted to do.’
This time the movement was more definite—in fact, the woman to whom he was so ardently professing his love was actually pushing him away from her. He looked down and saw the fire flashing in her green eyes.
‘Are you telling me you’ve given up the speciality training?’
Uncertain what was angering her, and knowing it was best to tread warily with his Katie in this mood, Grant nodded.
‘To do what?’ she demanded, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
He grinned, couldn’t help it, and held out his arms again.
‘To be the hospital doctor at Testament. Though, actually, when I talked to the Health Department people, I did mention they might be able to restructure the position so I’ve rights of private practice and we can sort of run the hospital and surgery jointly—the two of us, you know…’
His voice tailed off as he realised she looked, if anything, even fiercer.
‘And you didn’t think to mention any of this to me? You say you love me then rearrange both our futures without any consultation whatsoever? How do you think I feel, having you sacrifice your dream of paediatric oncology for me? What kind of burden is that for me to carry?’
‘Ah!’ Grant murmured, and drew her close again. ‘So that’s what’s got you fired up!’ He tilted up her chin so their eyes met. ‘It was no dream, no sacrifice, Katie. When Robbie was born I set aside my first dream, to have a property again, replacing it with the wonderful vision of fatherhood. Then, when he died, that dream died with him. I went in the direction of paediatric oncology because I was so lost I didn’t know what else to do, and I knew that drifting aimlessly would lead to disaster.’
He saw a softening in her eyes and knew she understood, and when she murmured ‘And then?’ he continued, confident now that he’d found his way again.
‘I came back to Testament, and remembered all I’d loved about life in the country. I felt at home again, and more at peace than I’d been for a long time. You were part of that healing—seeing you again, being with you, feeling that intensity that had been missing from my life for so long.’
‘But you still didn’t share any of this with me,’ she protested, but so weakly he knew it was a token argument.
‘I wanted to make sure I could come back—that I could get out of my commitment in Sydney without leaving the department short-staffed. I also needed to know if I could get a job out here. I spoke to officials over the phone, but had to be interviewed in Brisbane. I didn’t want to get your hopes up then let you down—but if it hadn’t been now, it would have been soon that I’d have come back because, having found you again, my mate for life, I was darned if I was going to lose you.’
Kate was so overwhelmed by all this information she forgot the other questions and objections she might have made, and when he leaned forward to kiss her again, she gave herself up to the delight of being in his arms, and with all her heart and soul returned the kiss.
The sound of Cassie’s waking cry broke them apart and, though Kate moved towards the door, it was Grant who got there first, picking up the baby girl and cradling her in his arms, his face glowing with the love he was now unafraid to show.
‘I’d better introduce her to Mum, then get the trailer unpacked. We can leave the furniture in the garage until we get Cassie’s room painted. I’ll start on it this week.’
Kate, still bemused by the rapidity of the changes taking place in her life, followed him out of the surgery. She’d been about to ask, And where are you going to sleep? when a tide of heat rushed through her. She knew exactly where Grant was going to sleep. Not only tonight, but every night for a very long time.
By Christmas Eve the new bathroom was finished and the altered guest bedroom restored to its original purpose. Cassie’s room was not only painted and decorated, but furnished with white baby furniture, brightened by small decals of
ducks and ducklings—the precious furniture Grant had brought with him on the trailer.
Grant and Katie stood beside the crib, looking down at the sleeping infant.
‘I want to adopt her, you know,’ Grant said, ‘so she’s officially mine as well as just belonging to me.’
Katie felt her heart swell with so much love she wondered it could all be contained within the confines of so small a part of her—then she remembered how Grant’s love seemed to permeate all of her, not just her heart.
Permeated the whole house, so it was in the air she breathed, the food she ate.
‘Don’t you want me to?’ he asked, shocking her out of her fantasy.
‘Of course,’ she said, turning to look at him so he’d know she meant what she was saying. ‘It’s just that you continue to surprise me—to overwhelm me—with your love. You take my breath away.’
‘I know other ways I can do that,’ he suggested, and Kate knew, from his smile and the light in his brilliant blue eyes, that her love for him had also worked some magic. Grant had come as her knight in shining armour, charging to the rescue of the maiden in distress, but together they’d vanquished the dragons of the past, and she and Cassie had brought him safely home.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5720-0
CHRISTMAS KNIGHT
First North American Publication 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Meredith Webber
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