‘You’ll love this place,’ Gina said, turning to unlock the door. ‘Come on. I can’t wait to show you around.’ She waited for them to enter the wide hallway. ‘Such a cute baby,’ she said as Ellie went past. ‘What’s his name?’
‘It’s a she,’ Max said. ‘And her name is Mouse.’
Gina giggled. ‘What’s her real name?’
There was a moment’s awkward silence and then Ellie spoke. ‘We haven’t decided. Max doesn’t like my choice so I’m waiting till he comes up with something better.’
‘Fair enough.’ Gina was heading for a sweeping stairway at the end of the hall. ‘Let’s start upstairs with the master bedroom. It’s got the most amazing view.’
Max followed in silence. It was just part of the pretence, wasn’t it? Ellie wasn’t really expecting him to come up with a name for Mouse, was she? That was a responsibility he wasn’t happy to take on but what if he didn’t and she ended up calling the poor kid Maxine?
‘Vacant possession,’ Gina told them as they came back downstairs. ‘The owner was hoping not to have to sell but he’s decided to stay in Europe and he needs the capital for his business venture.’
‘It’s big,’ was Max’s verdict as they completed the tour.
Gina nodded happily. ‘Four bedrooms and the office, two bathrooms, the games room in the basement and the guest suite over the garage. It’s a perfect family home.’
But he didn’t have a family. Gina glanced to where Ellie was standing with Mouse in the baby sling near the French doors that opened from the open-plan kitchen living area to a terrace that flowed into a large, sloping garden. Max followed her gaze. Was Ellie admiring the backdrop of the bush or deliberately avoiding having to keep up the deception that they were just the kind of family that this house was crying out for?
‘I know it might seem a bit big compared to your apartment at the moment but think of it as future-proofing,’ Gina said with a smile. ‘Who knows? You might end up with a few more little ones and this is the kind of house you’d want your grandchildren visiting, isn’t it?’
Grandchildren? Good grief! Max saw his life telescoping inwards with him as an old man, rocking on that veranda. No, thanks. He had a hell of lot more living to do before then.
‘This would be paradise for children,’ Gina added, blithely unaware of the effect her comment had had. ‘Tree huts in the bush. There’s a little stream on the boundary and it’s not much of a walk down to the harbour. You could have a boat. It’s great for swimming in the summer. Or you could go fishing off the jetty.’
With the grandchildren. Ha!
Max tried to sound businesslike. ‘The house is pretty old. It needs repairs as it is and would take a lot of maintenance to keep up.’
Gina smiled again. ‘I’ll bet you’re good with a hammer and paintbrush, Max.’
‘Never tried to find out.’ His precious time off was put to far more enjoyable uses. Like a blast of fresh air on an open road bike ride. Or drinking time with his mates. Or a hot date. Yes, he still had a lot of living to do out there. To give up that time to work on a house? To build tree huts or mess about with boats? He needed to get out of here.
He didn’t have a family. He didn’t even have the prospect of one.
Carefully, Max avoided even a glance in Ellie’s direction.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he told Gina, ‘but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for at the moment. Thanks for showing us around, though.’
‘No worries. It’s not on the market just yet so you’ve got time to think. I’ll be listing it next week, probably.’ Gina ushered them out and locked the door behind them. ‘I’ve got to dash.’ She winked at Max. ‘I’ve got a date with your friend Rick tonight.’
Max watched her slide into her little sports car and take off with a spurt of gravel beneath the tyres.
Dammit. He wanted a date with Rick. A fast ride to nowhere. Or, rather, somewhere that had a few icy lagers on tap. He wanted to step out of this parallel universe he’d fallen into that contained big houses and tree huts and babies that needed real names and sweet-smelling, different women.
What the hell had happened to his life?
Max was very quiet on the way back to the apartment.
So was Ellie.
She’d seen that look on his face as Gina had driven off, having announced her upcoming date with Rick.
Max had been envious. He wanted to be out with Gina. Having fun. Instead, he was stuck with her. And a baby. He was probably realising just how effectively he had scuttled any chance he might have had with Gina because she believed he had a wife and child. If she hadn’t already been getting the vibes during the house tour, that look on Max’s face had made it very clear that the deception was past its use-by date.
Any fleeting hope that Max might even consider family life was firmly relegated to fantasyland.
Just like that perfect, perfect house with its magical setting that made it a world of its own.
Why did Mouse choose to become so grizzly as soon as they arrived home? It was almost as though she was trying to chase Max away. He certainly didn’t seem inclined to hang around. A few text messages and a change of clothes and he was off.
‘Going on a bike ride with Jet,’ he told Ellie, when he came out of his room wearing the leather gear she hadn’t seen him in since the day she’d arrived.
Sexy, sexy gear. She stood there with a howling baby in her arms and knew she didn’t stand a chance with this man and she never would.
Max pulled a helmet down from above the coat rack in the hall. ‘Don’t wait for me for dinner. We’ll probably eat out at a pub somewhere.’
Somewhere there’d be lots of people. Attractive women who didn’t have babies. There’d be music and dancing and the kind of atmosphere that was just what young doctors ordered for their time away from work.
Yes. Max couldn’t wait to escape but, to his credit, he paused at the door.
‘You OK being on your own for a while?’
‘I’m fine. Have fun, Max.’
‘Don’t open the door to anyone. Text me if you get worried.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She could imagine what Jet’s reaction would be if Max received a text from her requesting assistance. She could see that dark scowl and it was easy to imagine what he’d say to his friend.
For God’s sake, man, get rid of her. She’s been nothing but trouble since she got here.
It took a long time to get Mouse happy. A feed and cuddle, a bath and change of clothes. Ellie was tired by the time her daughter was asleep in her bassinette but she didn’t rest herself. She got busy.
An hour later, she had printed out and filled in an application form for a job in a Melbourne hospital that boasted a nearby crèche that took babies from six weeks old upwards. She found an envelope, stuffed the form inside and then sealed it and then she closed her eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief.
She knew where she was heading.
She had a future again.
Knowing that, and knowing that her time of being close to Max McAdam was limited, there really wasn’t any harm in enjoying every moment she had left.
Was there?
Something else had changed.
Max couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was but maybe that night out with Jet had cleared his head. Which was weird, seeing as he’d ended up leaving his bike at a mate’s house, getting a taxi home in the early hours of the morning and waking up with a mother of a hangover.
Ellie had been very considerate the next day, keeping well out of his way with a shopping trip that resulted in a pushchair that she then took Mouse for a long walk in. He’d barely noticed them and it wasn’t until several days later that he realised he still wasn’t noticing them.
No, that wasn’t quite right. He knew they were there well enough but it wasn’t creating any negative-type tension. Yes, that was what it was. For whatever reason, after he’d burned off the fear of ending up rocking on a veranda having had
his entire life sucked away, a new serenity had slipped into his life.
Max came to this satisfactory conclusion as he watched over Mouse while Ellie had a shower and washed her hair late one evening. Mouse was awake and he’d picked her up but she didn’t seem to be uncomfortable or hungry so he was sitting on the couch with the baby lying on his lap, the back of her head resting on his knees. She was gripping his forefingers with those miniature fists and looking up at him with an amusingly serious expression.
‘How’s it going?’ Max asked. ‘I’ve had a good day. How ‘bout you?’
It had been a good day. A good week, actually, with a huge variety of interesting cases. Having someone to come home to who was genuinely interested in hearing about everything he’d been doing was the best way to debrief he’d ever come across. Living with Rick and Jet, the last thing any of them felt inclined to do out of hours was rehash a working day but Ellie seemed to revel in it. She could ask the kind of questions that made him realise what a good job he’d done or sometimes make him think about how he could do it even better next time. And sometimes, best of all, he could make her laugh.
Like he had tonight.
‘So this guy comes in like the hounds of hell are chasing him. He’s as white as a sheet. Bloodstained tea-towel wrapped around one hand and a bag of frozen veggies in the other. Tells us he’s chopped his finger off and it’s in with the frozen peas and then he faints into a puddle on the floor.’
‘Oh, no! What did you do?’
‘Cleared Trauma One. Put out a call to Neurosurgery and Rick happens to be in the department for something else so he gets all excited about the possibility of reattaching a finger and then…’
‘What?’
‘We unwrap the tea-towel and find he’s only nicked the very top off his finger. Flesh wound. All he needed was a sticky plaster.’
And Ellie had laughed. A wonderful ripple of sound that made Max feel proud of his ability to entertain. Made him feel…important, somehow. Made him feel really good, anyway.
‘I miss it,’ Ellie had confessed. ‘Maybe it’s just as well I can’t afford to be a full-time mum for too long. It’ll be good to get back to work and you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I think I’ll go into Emergency this time instead of going back to Theatre work.’
‘Join the Band-Aid brigade?’
‘The reason that’s so funny is because it’s so far towards the other end of the spectrum for the kind of life-and-death stuff you deal with every day. The variety is amazing. Challenging. I can see why you love it so much.’
And Max could see why Ellie might want to be a full-time mother for as long as she could afford to.
He was watching a play of facial movements in the tiny features in his lap. A furrowed brow that made the mouse look cross and then a wrinkled nose as if she’d smelt something particularly offensive. The tiny cupid’s bow of a mouth was open and the tip of a pink tongue emerged and then disappeared again.
Max found himself poking the tip of his own tongue out to mirror the action. Mouse’s eyes widened. Max widened his own eyes. And then he found himself sitting there, holding the hands of a three-week-old baby, making the most ridiculous faces he could.
Mouse seemed to love it. He could swear she was trying to copy him. She definitely followed a tongue-poking manoeuvre. It was fascinating. Just as rewarding as making Ellie laugh. He was making sounds without realising what he was doing for a while. Clicking his tongue and talking—God help him—in baby talk. And then it happened. The corners of that little mouth stretched and curled.
Mouse smiled at him.
Ellie didn’t believe him when she came back. She sat on the end of the couch, combing out her hair, and paused to shake her head.
‘She’s too young to smile. They’re not supposed to do that until they’re about six weeks old.’
‘She did. She smiled at me. Didn’t you?’ Max lifted the tiny hands and clicked his tongue again, trying to elicit a repeat of the miracle smile.
‘Maybe she had wind.’
‘Nope. It was a smile. Look…look…she’s doing it again.’
Sure enough, she was, even if it was just with one side of her mouth this time.
‘Oh, my God,’ Ellie breathed. ‘She is smiling.’
They both stared at Mouse. And then they looked up to stare at each other and after a long, long moment, they both smiled.
Max had to look away. He needed to move, in fact. Handing Ellie her baby, he stood up. He walked aimlessly across the room towards the bookshelf where his gaze fell on the ‘bad boys’ photograph. The four of them.
Slowly, he turned back to Ellie.
‘What about Mattie?’ he asked quietly.
‘Your friend?’
‘No. The name.’
She got it. She looked down at Mouse and then back up at him and she still looked like she had after seeing her baby smile for the first time.
‘Short for Matilda,’ she whispered. ‘Mattie. It’s perfect, Max, but are you sure?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘But I’d be naming her after someone that was very special to you.’
It was kind of difficult to swallow. ‘It’s what I’d choose for her name,’ he said gruffly. ‘If she was mine.’
Ellie’s gaze slid away and she seemed to be blinking fast. ‘Matilda it is, then.’ She leaned down to kiss her baby. ‘Hello, Mattie.’
He had given Mouse her real name.
The name he would have chosen for his own child.
The joy of what was a priceless gift was still with Ellie when she had tucked a very sleepy baby into the bassinette in the room they shared. She had a dreamy smile playing on her lips when she went back to the living area to find Max turning out all the lights. She could see him illuminated only by the soft glow coming from the hallway behind her.
‘I thought you’d gone to bed,’ he said.
‘I wanted to say thank you.’
‘Hey…no worries.’
If he hadn’t smiled at her she could have just said something else and turned away but that smile…So real. So heartbreakingly tender. It was enough to undo her utterly. Ellie stepped forward, closing the gap between them, standing on tiptoe as she reached up to hug Max. Instinct told her she could communicate how much that gift meant—how much his friendship meant—far better through touch than words that could only be inadequate.
His arms went around her and pulled her closer. His head was bent over hers and she heard the deliberate, indrawn breath—as though Max was revelling in the scent of her hair. Of her.
She could feel his body against hers. The solid wall of his chest on her breasts. The imprint of every finger against her back. A pressure on her belly that brought a shaft of desire so intense she had to close her eyes tightly and try—desperately—to remember why it was she couldn’t let Max know how she really felt about him.
Maybe she wasn’t succeeding very well. When the hug finally loosened—way after it should have, given a status of friendly gratitude—and Ellie cracked her eyes open, she found Max watching her and she could see what appeared to be a reflection of exactly how she was feeling in the dark depths of his eyes.
‘Ellie…’
Her name was a whisper. A half-groan. A warning perhaps. Or a question.
She didn’t respond. Not verbally, anyway. Instead, she allowed her body to overrule any conscious thought. She kept her arms around Max’s neck, went back on tiptoe and tilted her head, parting her lips.
Offering him her mouth.
Her body.
The sound Max made was most definitely a groan this time. His mouth covered hers and it was no casual brush. His lips found the shape of her mouth, locked onto it and then took it on a journey like none Ellie had ever experienced. A roller-coaster of movement. Pressure that built and then fell away into shards of sensation she could feel way down low in her belly. The most delicious sliding of his tongue teasing hers as his hands cradle
d her head, his fingers buried deep in her hair.
Finally, she could do what she’d been itching to do for so long and feel the roughness of that shadowed jaw under her fingers and then her palms as she slid her hands up to loosen the waves of his hair and glory in the silky slide as she explored the shape of his whole head.
And then his lips dropped away from hers to touch the side of her neck and Ellie tipped her head back to offer him her throat.
Her life.
‘Ellie…’ This time her name was a growl of frustration. ‘We can’t do this.’
Ellie froze. She couldn’t ask why not. She couldn’t even think why not.
‘It’s too soon.’
The statement was bewildering. How could it be too soon when she felt like this? So totally in love with him. But she couldn’t tell him that because then he would run and this would never happen. She’d be gone soon and she’d never know what it could have been like, except in her fantasies.
‘You only gave birth a few weeks ago. If we don’t stop this, I won’t—’
‘I’m fine,’ Ellie interrupted. She held the eye contact without wavering. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘I didn’t need stitches. I—’ Oh, God…What could she say that wouldn’t sound like begging? If he wanted to stop, she had to respect that. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated simply, her voice trailing into silence.
I want this, she tried to tell him with her eyes. As long as you want it too.
Max must have picked up at least something of her unspoken message. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat and then he picked Ellie up. Swept her into his arms effortlessly and carried her into his room.
Into his bed.
Their next kiss took them to a whole new level and with it came the shedding of clothes and the touch of skin on skin. A new roller-coaster that was as much of an emotional as a physical ride.
The Honourable Maverick / The Unsung Hero Page 11