The Shy Nurse's Christmas Wish

by Abigail Gordon

  ‘It is to me, though,’ he replied, and taking her hand he took her out into another Christmas night. He drove her the short distance to his sister’s house and hoped that nothing would go wrong in the evening ahead.

  Daniel had been right about the young would-be nurse. No sooner had they arrived than Katie was ready to check their general health once they had been introduced to everyone there, and as Darcey watched him playing the part of the patient to the full there was an ache around her heart at the thought of how much he had missed by letting a stale marriage separate him from a family life of his own.

  Daniel saw her expression and wondered what was causing her to look so solemn, but before he could ask, Cordelia came to chat while their friends watched football on television, and it was all relaxing until he saw tiredness fall on Darcey like a cloak as a reminder that hers had been a long day, with others to follow, and tenderness washed over him as they said goodbye to the only family he had with the thought uppermost that she had even less.

  They had to pass the apartments where he lived on the way home, and glancing across at her sitting quietly beside him in the passenger seat Daniel said, ‘I seem to be in and out of your place all the time, Darcey, but you have never seen mine. Are you too tired to come in for a coffee?’

  She smiled across at him. ‘No. I would like that. I imagine it is quite sumptuous.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said laughingly. ‘It is more like an empty shell that I use to eat and sleep in, a boring place really.’

  He was driving into the parking area, which was well lit, and Darcey became silent as the difference between their two residences became apparent, yet it stood to sense that it would, and did it matter? They were only socialising like this because it was Christmas.

  She had already weighed up the pain threshold of loving him with the memory of losing her parents still starkly clear, and tonight was not going to be a stepping stone in that direction, she prayed as Daniel settled her into a comfortable sitting room while he went to make the coffee. When he came in with it, as if he’d read her thoughts he said, ‘It is midnight, Darcey, and you are already exhausted after a busy day at Oceans House, so much as I would like your company for longer, once we’ve had the hot drink I’m going to take you home.’

  If he’d told her the truth it would have been that he longed to carry her up the stairs and make love to her in his lonely bed, but that would be a poor show of caring about her tiredness, not how he wanted it to be at all, and short of offering her his guest room there was no way he could keep Darcey near until morning when she would require an early departure to get changed into her uniform, and might not thank him for that.

  Darcey gazed at him above the rim of her coffee cup but said nothing, the memory of her fears of losing him to the sea feeling as if it would be a similar tragedy to that of her parents lost in the snows, and knowing that Daniel would always honour his father’s devotion to the mighty ocean so near the town, no matter what. She could see nothing ahead but pain if he ever loved her as much as she was beginning to love him.

  He was getting to his feet as she put her coffee cup down and he held out his hand. As she rose to face him he said quizzically, ‘Can I take it that tonight you haven’t been lonely?’

  She flashed him a tired smile. ‘You can indeed,’ she said softly. ‘I envy you your delightful family, Daniel.’ Reaching forward, she stroked his face gently with her fingertips and said, ‘Thank you for sharing them with me on this occasion.’

  ‘It was a pleasure for all of us,’ he said gravely, as if her tender touch wasn’t making him long for more. ‘And as for our young would-be nurse, don’t be surprised if the next time you see me I’m covered in bandages and plasters.’ Taking hold of her wrap, he draped it around her snugly and led her out into the night once more, where the warmth of the car awaited them.

  When they got to her apartment Daniel saw her safely inside, and with Darcey’s work routine as familiar as his own he didn’t linger but had one last thing to say regarding her almost non-existent social life. ‘I don’t like to think of you alone on New Year’s Eve,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘My two young nieces go to the birthday party of one of their friends on that occasion every year and stay overnight, which gives the rest of us—Cordelia, Lawrence and myself—the chance to go to the ball at the biggest hotel in town.

  ‘This year I have a spare ticket that I got in case the doctor who is filling in for me at Oceans House would have liked to have gone, but he has another engagement for that night. So if you would like to join us you will be most welcome. I would pick you up at seven thirty.’

  ‘Daniel, it is very kind of you to offer, but I’m afraid that I have something special planned for New Year’s Eve,’ she explained awkwardly, and cringed at his expression.

  ‘Fine,’ he said briskly, ‘just as long as you won’t be alone.’ And during the short drive home he decided that maybe Darcey found him too overpowering, but if that was the case why didn’t she say so?

  Back at her apartment Darcey was going over those few embarrassing moments in her mind and cringing at the way she’d handled them. But she reasoned that, however much she would have liked to have gone to the ball with Daniel, her yearly pilgrimage to a church on New Year’s Eve, wherever there might be one near, had to come first in remembrance of the deaths of her parents on that long-ago New Year’s Eve, and during the week that followed the new closeness between the two of them that Christmas had brought seemed far away.

  * * *

  A nearby church was almost full when she got there on the night but she found a seat near the back and when she looked around her Darcey saw that Bridget and Ely were sitting nearby, and when they saw her and smiled across for a moment it was as if those she had lost were there in the friendly older couple.

  Both were wearing winter coats, but as it was quite warm in the church they had unbuttoned them, and she could see that they were dressed in evening wear, which made her heart sink.

  They must be going to the ball, she thought, and when they got there would be sure to tell Daniel that they had seen her elsewhere in the town, and a dampening thought was that if they were attending the church service first they must be confident that when it was over they would be in time for the ball.

  But once Daniel had spoken to Bridget and Ely it would be too late for any afterthoughts on her behalf. It was an hour to midnight and Darcey was alone, as she had expected to be when she had refused Daniel’s suggestion that she be his guest at the ball, but she had seen his friends since then and if they had met him earlier it hadn’t sent him to her.

  So maybe he’d had his fill of what he might see as her playing hard to get, as after seeing Bridget and Ely she was not likely to have gone to the ball without a ticket and risk being sent away if he didn’t see her arrive.

  The minutes were passing, soon it would be a New Year, a time to make a fresh start for some, or make the best of what they had for others, and neither suggestion was appealing.

  It was ten minutes to the hour when Darcey heard a car pull up outside the apartment and her mouth went dry. What now? she wondered, and as she opened the door to him she had her answer. There was no sweeping her into his arms, just questions needing answers.

  ‘Why are you so secretive, for heaven’s sake?’ he asked as he stepped over the threshold, ‘Or is it only with me that you are like that, such as hiding your loneliness from me when I was able to do something about it once I knew, and it was a joy to make you happy for a while.

  ‘Yes, I have spoken to Bridget and Ely, and they told me that they saw you in church. What you did after that I have no idea, but when you said that you had something special that you had to do tonight, why didn’t you say what it was so that I could have driven you there, or maybe even been present at the service where they saw you?’

  ‘It was just something that I always
do on New Year’s Eve wherever I happen to be,’ she told him, ‘and it is a very private thing, Daniel, that is all. My parents lost their lives in an avalanche when they were skiing on New Year’s Eve many years ago, and it was in their memory that I was unable to go to the ball with you.

  ‘If I’d had the opportunity to check the time of everything properly I would have realised that I could have managed to get to both the church service and the ball, which I do so regret missing, but I wouldn’t want to become a burden in your busy life because I’m new here in Seahaven,’ she told him awkwardly.

  He groaned inwardly at her enchanting honesty and thought she was one burden he would carry with him for ever if she would let him, and what could have been a more suitable occasion for them to get to know each other better than in the last hours of the old year and the first hours of the new one?

  When Bridget and Ely had told him about seeing her in the church, he hadn’t wanted to intrude into whatever need had taken her there until midnight was almost upon them, but he knew that he needed to be with her like he needed to breathe.

  He held out his arms and, unable to help herself, Darcey moved into them, but the night was not to be theirs. A greater force than their attraction to each other had different plans for them as Daniel’s phone rang, and as he listened to the voice at the other end his hold on her slackened.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said flatly. ‘But I’ll have to change first. I’m still in the clothes I wore to the ball and will change into the spare outfit that Ely keeps for me at his place. See you soon.’ Disconnecting the call, he said, ‘The lifeboat has been called out, Darcey. Some folks on a pleasure boat have come unstuck in the same place as where our young ones almost scuttled theirs not long ago.

  ‘They’ve hired it for partying but have run into very high seas and the only one of them capable of bringing them safely back to shore has been drinking ever since they set off, so is totally out of it.’ His hand was already on the door catch. ‘Make sure that you lock up after me.’ As an afterthought, he added, ‘I’m due back on my usual routine at Oceans House in the morning, so I will see you then if all goes well with this callout.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’ she questioned raggedly.

  ‘It will, don’t fret,’ he informed her briskly, and was gone, and as she heard his car engine start up outside Darcey sank down onto the nearest chair and thought miserably that it could have turned out to be one of the most special moments of their lives, but if Daniel didn’t return safely it would be the worst and she couldn’t live the sort of life again where someone she loved was snatched away in a moment.

  It might not have been so hard to cope with if he hadn’t shown her the derelict lighthouse that he was having restored and told her the reason why.

  At the time she had been moved by his acceptance of what must have been a terrible loss, but at that time she had been merely a sympathetic bystander, not a woman in love.

  It was turning out to be a painful beginning to the first hours of the New Year, the two of them being on the brink of something magical that had fallen apart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BRIDGET CALLED TO let Darcey know the lifeboat was out there, and after Darcey hung up, all she could think about was that when Bridget was gone, would she be expected to take the elderly woman’s place, providing hot drinks and sandwiches for those who waited anxiously for the return of their loved ones?

  No! She would want her life to be wrapped around children that she could love and adore with a fantastic father, but she was moving too fast. How could she be sure that it wasn’t just a quick hug that Daniel had been about to bestow upon her? That saving lives on the sea came before even his expertise at Oceans House, and that love and marriage were a poor third after what had happened to his father.

  The time was almost one o’clock in the early morning of New Year’s Day and her main concern had to be with the sick and injured children who were in her care, Darcey thought as she lay sleepless beneath the covers, but at the back of her mind there were still Daniel’s comments about her refusal to let him take her to the ball and the mix-up of the timing. What else could go wrong? she questioned miserably, and turning her face into the pillow felt the dread from earlier return like a hand grasping her heart.

  He had said on leaving that he would see her in the morning as he was back on schedule from then, and the thought of how she would cope if he didn’t arrive was beyond thinking of. But there could be various other reasons that might delay him and with that frail comfort to hold onto she finally drifted off to sleep, until the alarm clock beside her bed awoke her to reality once more in a winter dawn with no phone calls to draw comfort from or messages of a safe undertaking on the mat. This could mean that the lifeboat was still out there, or that Daniel had got back and rather than disturb her had gone to bed knowing that they would be meeting up first thing in the morning.

  Then again, there was a third possibility that had occurred to her when he’d received the phone call the night before. It was that of expecting her to be as easygoing about the danger involved as he was, and if that was the case he couldn’t be more wrong.

  * * *

  There was no sign of him when she arrived on the children’s ward, or anywhere else for that matter. No one had seen anything of him so far, which made everything that she’d felt so definite about seem unimportant.

  His absence had to mean that the lifeboat was still out in dangerous waters, she thought frantically, and began her rounds with dogged purpose to stop herself from weeping, until magically she heard the voice that she longed to hear.

  He was there, observing her from the doorway of the ward with dark hazel eyes red-rimmed, his face unshaven, and when he beckoned her she went to him as if in a trance.

  ‘I’ve only just got back,’ he said, ‘so I’m going to have a shower in the en suite bathroom adjoining my office and then ask one of the hospital’s restaurants to bring me some breakfast. Once all that has been accomplished, I will start my rounds, with the children’s ward first as I usually do.’

  As their glances held, Darcey thought there was no mention of what he and the rest of the lifeboat crew had been facing during the long hours of a stormy night and maybe it was just as well. She was concerned enough without a blow-by-blow account that would make the kind of life she dreamed of seem even less likely to ever be hers.

  But for the present there was the exquisite relief of seeing Daniel back in familiar surroundings, and when he appeared later, looking scrubbed and clean and ready for action, she was content until he said, ‘When are you due for a break after being on duty all over Christmas?’

  ‘I’ve got a week off, starting tomorrow,’ she said awkwardly, as they approached the first small bed in their line of vision.

  ‘And have you anything planned?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not especially,’ she told him. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m intending going to see how the work on the lighthouse is coming along and thought you might like to join me for the day, as it isn’t quite as isolated as it appears. Often in years gone by one would find a manor house and a cluster of cottages that housed the lighthouse keepers not far away from it, along with a small church. All of which are still there but no longer lived in, and I might decide to change all that by buying the manor house.’

  Darcey was gazing at him in disbelief, but they had reached the bedside of Luke, a ten-year-old boy who stared at them unblinkingly and asked how long it would be before he could play football again after a serious leg injury. As she listened to Daniel explaining gently that it could be some time, but it would happen one day, Darcey knew beyond doubt that he was the man that she wanted to father any children she might have, and if he couldn’t be for any reason she would do without.

  As they moved on to the next bed their private lives were shelved to attend to the needs of their young patients, and b
y the time that was accomplished Darcey was due for her lunch break and Daniel would proceed to the adult wards that had still to be visited due to his late arrival.

  ‘So what do you think of that for an idea, buying the manor house?’ he said as they were about to separate. ‘I’ve had it in mind for some time and would like your opinion.’

  ‘Why me?’ she croaked.

  ‘Why do you think?’ he said softly. ‘I want you to be the mother of my children one day.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ she questioned flatly. ‘Expecting me to be the mother of a one-parent family if you don’t come back from a lifeboat callout? I’ve endured that kind of thing for over ten years with Alexander after our parents went in a flash and left us alone, and I can’t bear to make another commitment of that kind, Daniel.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I understand,’ he said levelly. ‘But my father’s sacrifice was a willing one, as my mother had already gone and Cordelia and I were adults in charge of our own lives.’

  ‘And what would your decision be if you found yourself in a similar position to his?’ she questioned.

  ‘If I had a wife and children I would only risk my life in the most extreme circumstances, I can promise you that, but whether it would be enough is up to you, Darcey.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said painfully. ‘I just don’t know. You haven’t said that you love me, have you? Just that you would like me to have your children.’

  He was observing her with a twisted smile. ‘I’ve loved you ever since you let me put your luggage up on the rack in the train, though I don’t know why as when I saw you on the ward the next day and saw how really beautiful you were I realised that you had been sad and exhausted, far from your best on the journey.’

  ‘But I must go, Darcey, I’m way behind in my routine today after my late start. Do you think we could meet up again this evening and finish what we were discussing earlier?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she told him weakly. ‘Although I don’t see what it can achieve. Our needs are too different, our lives too far apart. We work together. It’s not a good idea for us to get involved.’