She didn’t need them to. She already knew how big a fool she’d been. She only needed to remember the day Nick had told her it was all over between them. When he’d said he wasn’t good enough for her, that he wasn’t being fair to her, and a month later she’d discovered he’d been having an affair with one of the nurses in Orthopaedics.
‘Does he keep in touch with you?’ Gideon asked. ‘Visit Jamie often?’
Nick doesn’t even know I have a child, she thought bitterly. When he left I never wanted to see him again. I still don’t.
‘And what about financial support?’ Gideon continued. ‘I’m sure he’s legally bound—’
‘Can we drop the subject, please, Gideon?’ she said quickly. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it any more.’
‘But—’
‘Mummy, can we go into some of the other glass houses now?’ Jamie interrupted, having got bored with the Kibble Palace.
Annie smiled down at her son with an effort. ‘Of course you can, sweetheart. Which would you like to see first? The fern house, the cactus house, or the exotic plant house?’
Jamie frowned. ‘What’s an eggotic plant?’
‘A plant that comes from a far-away country,’ Gideon explained. ‘Places like South America, Africa, and India.’
‘Effelants come from Africa, don’t they?’ Jamie exclaimed, his blue eyes lighting up. ‘Will we see some effelants?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Gideon declared solemnly, ‘but you’ll see something called a Venus fly-trap which is almost as good.’
Jamie obviously thought it was, too, when he saw it.
‘Children are terrible little ghouls, aren’t they?’ Annie chuckled as her son watched in wide-eyed fascination while one of the gardeners demonstrated how the Venus fly-trap caught its prey.
‘I don’t think they’re so much ghouls as innocent of reality,’ Gideon observed. ‘We know the fly’s being eaten, but to them it’s just exciting to see the flower snap shut. And speaking of eating, I think we should start making tracks for lunch or we’re never going to get in anywhere.’
He was right. In fact, to Annie’s consternation, the only place that wasn’t completely full was a small café which only served fish and chips, hamburgers and chips, or eggs and chips.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ she said as soon as Gideon had ordered. ‘I know it’s probably not what you’re used to—’
‘Who says?’ He grinned. ‘I love hamburgers.’
‘And chips?’ Jamie asked.
‘Absolutely.’ Gideon nodded.
‘With or without tomato ketchup?’ Jamie demanded.
‘With—and lots of it,’ Gideon replied, winking across at Annie, and she laughed and shook her head.
Nick wouldn’t have said that. Nick wouldn’t have come in here in the first place, or cheerfully ordered hamburgers and chips. He’d have considered it beneath his dignity.
‘What?’ Gideon asked curiously, seeing her smile.
‘I’m just thinking what a very nice man you are,’ she said.
His grin reappeared. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’
‘No, I mean it,’ she insisted. ‘Taking Jamie and me to the park—’
‘We’re going back there again after lunch,’ her son piped up. ‘To the play park this time.’
‘Since when?’ Annie asked in surprise.
‘Gideon said we were.’
She glanced across at Gideon, who had the grace to look shamefaced.
‘Well, he seems really keen to go, Annie, and—’
‘In other words he’s twisted you round his little finger.’ She chuckled. ‘OK, we’ll go back to the park, but if you’re bored out of your skull, don’t blame me.’
He wouldn’t be bored, Gideon thought when the waitress brought them their hamburgers and chips. How could he be bored with Jamie, and with a girl who was warm, and gentle, and…?
What in the world was happening to him? he wondered as he suddenly realised that his eyes were tracing the smooth outline of Annie’s cheek, and his fingers were itching to do the same. Just four short weeks ago his life had been ordered, settled. He’d had his work, his career, and that was all he’d wanted, and then a golden-haired girl with large blue eyes had cannoned into him on the hospital staircase, torn his character to shreds, and nothing had been the same.
Because you’re falling in love with her, a little voice whispered at the back of his mind, and he crushed the voice down quickly. It wasn’t true—couldn’t be true. He liked his life the way it was. No emotional entanglements, no potential for heartache, and yet…
Annie was blowing on Jamie’s chips to cool them, and all Gideon could think was how wonderful it would be to turn her head, to capture those lips with his own and taste them. When she stretched across the table to retrieve the salt, and her green fluffy sweater tightened across her breasts, outlining and defining them, all he wanted was to slide his hands beneath that sweater, to touch and caress her.
Sex, he told himself firmly. These thoughts—these feelings—they don’t mean anything except that your hormones have kicked into life, and in a big way.
But it wasn’t just sex, he realised with dismay when Annie laughed at something Jamie had said, then turned to him to share the joke. Yes, he wanted to hold her, to touch her, but he also knew that he never wanted to let her go.
And it was wrong. How could he have fallen in love with another woman after Susan? He’d adored her. Loved everything about her—her vibrancy, her laughter, her joy.
But Susan’s dead, his heart murmured when their lunch was over and they walked back to the park. All the longing and the wanting in the world was never going to bring her back, so maybe it was time he moved on. He would never ever forget her, but maybe…maybe it was time to let her go.
‘Mummy, why are all those people having their pictures taken?’ Jamie demanded, as they walked past the old physic garden on their way to the play park.
‘It’s a wedding party,’ she explained. ‘They’ve probably had their reception in the Grosvenor Hotel, and have come across here to have their pictures taken because it’s such a pretty spot.’
A cheer went up from the party as the groom enthusiastically kissed the bride, and Gideon smiled. ‘They look happy.’
‘They do,’ she agreed, and he took his courage in his hands and asked the question he’d been wanting to ask since lunchtime.
‘Would you ever contemplate getting married yourself?’
She shook her head as Jamie dashed into the play park. ‘I have my son, and he’s all I want in my life.’
‘But what about you?’ Gideon protested. ‘What’s going to happen to you when he grows up? He’ll want a life of his own, and you’ll be all alone.’
‘Hopefully, I’ll have a career like you by then.’ She smiled. ‘And you don’t appear to have found it lonely.’
He hadn’t until now. ‘Annie—’
‘I don’t ever want to fall in love again, Gideon,’ she said, her eyes fixed on Jamie as he shot down the slide, then scampered round to the steps to do it again. ‘You give your heart, your soul, and it gets trampled in the mud. It’s too painful when it ends. Surely you, of all people, must agree with that?’
He thought for a long moment. ‘No, I can’t say I wish I’d never fallen in love with Susan. When she died…’ A muscle tightened in his jaw, and he swallowed, hard. ‘When she died, I wanted to die, too. It hurt for a very long time, but she was such a joy, such a delight, I wouldn’t want not to have experienced that.’
‘It’s different for you,’ she murmured, watching Jamie whiz down the slide again. ‘She didn’t leave you willingly. She didn’t walk away.’
‘All men won’t walk away, Annie. Some of us want commitment.’
She sighed. ‘Perhaps, but it’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.’
‘Annie—’
‘Mummy, there’s a river down there with some ducks in it,’ Jamie exclaimed, running up to her excitedl
y. ‘Can we go down and feed them?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s getting late, sweetheart. I think we’d better start heading for home.’
‘Could we go back to the palace, then?’ he demanded. ‘Look at the big goldfish again?’
‘I think you’ve done more than enough for today,’ she said firmly. ‘The gardens won’t go away, you know,’ she added as he stuck out his bottom lip truculently. ‘We can always come back another day.’
‘With Gideon?’
‘Certainly with me,’ Gideon replied, before Annie could say anything. ‘I want to feed the ducks, too.’
Annie chuckled. ‘You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?’
‘I just enjoy the company.’
His voice was unexpectedly deep, husky, and as she glanced up at him she saw a gentleness in his face, a tenderness she’d never seen before. A tenderness that made her mouth feel dry and her heart skitter against her ribcage, and instinctively she took a step back.
‘Gideon, don’t,’ she whispered through a throat so tight it hurt. ‘Please…please, don’t.’
‘Oh, lass, don’t you know I would never hurt you?’ he said softly.
‘You might not want to, or mean to, but…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want this. I don’t want to be hurt again. I couldn’t bear it.’
He reached out and captured her face in his hands. Hands that were big, and warm, and infinitely comforting,
‘Never, do you hear me?’ he murmured. ‘Never will I ever hurt you.’
And to prove his point he bent his head and gently brushed her lips with his own.
It was all he’d intended doing. A simple kiss to prove to her that she had nothing to fear from him. But as soon as his lips touched hers a wave of longing flooded through him, a longing and a desire he hadn’t felt in years.
It was like coming home. Like finding the other half of himself he’d been so sure had died with Susan. Did Annie feel it, too, this strange sense of rightness, of belonging? Gideon didn’t know. All he knew was that his heart twisted and contracted inside him when he heard her small wistful sigh as his tongue slid gently into her mouth, and he groaned as he felt her body yielding and moulding to his own.
He had to pull away eventually to breathe, but he didn’t let go of her. Instead, he leant his forehead against hers, and laughed a little shakily. ‘Hell’s teeth, that was meant to be a light, friendly kiss, and then…’
‘I know,’ she gasped, looking every bit as dazed as he felt. ‘Goodness knows what Jamie must think.’ She looked round him, then behind her, and he felt her stiffen. ‘Gideon, where is he? He was right beside us a minute ago.’
‘He’ll be on the slide again,’ he said reassuringly, but he wasn’t.
‘Gideon, where is he?’ she cried, her voice rising in pitch as they stared at the empty playground, then at the gardens behind them.
‘Calm down, calm down,’ he said, though in truth his own heart was none too steady now either. ‘He’s only four—he can’t have gone very far.’
‘But the River Kelvin’s down there, and there’s a gate out to the road. What if he’s got onto the road?’
‘Annie—’
‘Jamie!’ she shouted at the top of her voice, but heard nothing but the wind blowing through the trees.
Frantically she shielded her eyes against the setting sun. There were so many places Jamie could be—trees he could be hiding behind, bushes that were small enough to conceal him—but it was going to be dark soon. What would they do if it got dark?
‘Perhaps we should split up,’ Gideon suggested, reading her mind. ‘I could go towards the river, and you could go back down towards the glasshouses.’
‘I don’t know—I don’t know what to do for the best,’ she said, her voice breaking on a sob.
‘Look, there’s that girl with the baby—the one we saw in the Kibble Palace this morning,’ Gideon exclaimed. ‘Maybe she’s seen him.’
She had.
‘I thought it was strange, him being all on his own like that,’ she declared, ‘but then I thought—’
‘Where did you see him?’ Annie interrupted impatiently.
‘Down by the cactus house. He was talking to a man.’
Oh, dear lord, no, Annie thought as she began to run. Not that. Please, oh, please, not that. She’d warned Jamie time and time again about talking to strangers, of never going anywhere without asking her first, but it was difficult to know how much had sunk in. She hadn’t wanted to frighten him, but maybe she should have.
‘It’s probably just one of the gardeners, Annie,’ Gideon said as he ran along beside her. ‘Or a park guard.’
But what if it wasn’t? She should never have come here, should never have taken her eyes off Jamie for a second. It was all her fault. If anything had happened to him, it was all her fault.
‘There he is, Annie,’ Gideon suddenly yelled, pointing ahead of him. ‘There he is beside the exotic house, and it’s all right, he’s talking to one of the gardeners.’
He was, and a wave of relief washed over her. Relief which was very quickly superseded by anger.
‘How many times have I told you never to wander away from me?’ she cried, clutching Jamie to her, then giving him a shake. ‘You are never coming to this park again, do you hear me? Never!’
‘Annie, he knows he was in the wrong,’ Gideon murmured as large tears began to trickle down Jamie’s cheeks. ‘He knows he shouldn’t have wandered off. Don’t be too hard on him—’
‘Keep out of this, Gideon,’ she retorted. ‘He’s my son, not yours, and I decide what he does and doesn’t do.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Will you take us home, please?’
He did—there was nothing else he could do—but when he drew his car to a halt outside Thornton Street and began to get out, Annie put her hand on his arm to stop him.
‘I’d rather you didn’t come in, if you don’t mind. Jamie and I—we’re both very tired.’
‘But—’
‘It’s been a long day, Gideon.’
She was slipping away from him. He could see it in her face, in the way she wasn’t quite meeting his eyes. She was closing the door on any hope of a relationship between them, re-erecting the barriers she’d let fall for those all too brief moments in the gardens.
‘Annie, just because Jamie wandered off for a few minutes—’
‘He wouldn’t have wandered off at all if I hadn’t allowed myself to be distracted,’ she said flatly. ‘It was my fault, and it won’t happen again.’
‘What do you mean, it won’t happen again?’ he said, though in truth he suspected he already knew the answer. ‘Annie, I want to go out with you again. We could take Jamie to the Burrell Collection next Saturday—’
‘I’m on duty next Saturday.’
‘On Sunday, then?’
She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to keep presuming on your kindness.’
‘Kindness be damned,’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘Annie, I think we could have the start of something wonderful here—’
‘No, Gideon.’
‘But, Annie, listen—’
She didn’t. She simply swept a much-chastened Jamie out of the car and through the front door, and Gideon slammed his fist against his steering-wheel with frustration.
He could go after her, make her listen to him, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not right now, not when her emotions were far too raw.
But he could be patient, he decided as he sat in his car and waited until he saw the light come on in her living room. He could wait and be patient. If he backed off now, didn’t hassle her, he might slowly but surely be able to break down the defensive wall she’d erected around herself.
He had to. For her sake and for his own, he had to.
CHAPTER SIX
‘IT’S nothing much—just a box of chocolates—but I really would like you to accept them as a thank-you present,’ Carol Bannerman said, pressing the brightly wr
apped box into Annie’s surprised hands.
‘But I haven’t done anything,’ Annie protested. ‘Dr Brooke performed your fibroid operation.’
‘I know, and I’ve already given him a bottle of wine, and I wanted to give one to Mr Caldwell, but Sister Baker said he doesn’t usually get back from the operating theatre until half past two on Thursdays.’
Annie glanced down at her watch. ‘It’s only just gone half past.’
‘Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer. Brian’s arrived to take me home, you see, and he hates hospitals—can’t abide them.’ Carol dived into her overnight bag and produced a package. ‘Would you give this to Mr Caldwell for me?’
Annie stared at the present uncomfortably. ‘There’s really no need for you to give us anything. I mean, it’s very kind of you—and we appreciate the thought—but—’
‘I want to do it, Doctor,’ Carol declared. ‘You see, when I saw you and Mr Caldwell I thought you were going to recommend a hysterectomy. My GP said you would. He said it was the best thing for my fibroids, but I knew if I had a hysterectomy…’ She came to a halt, scrabbled for a handkerchief, then blew her nose noisily. ‘Oh, cripes, I vowed I wouldn’t do anything silly but the thing is, you’ve given me hope. Hope that I might still one day be able to have a baby, and a measly box of chocolates and two bottles of wine are small enough thanks for that.’
‘I…I don’t know what to say,’ Annie faltered, immensely touched.
‘Just don’t tell me you’re on a diet, and that Mr Caldwell and Dr Brooke are both teetotal,’ Carol said with a shaky laugh, and Annie laughed, too.
‘Have you an appointment for Mr Caldwell’s outpatient clinic in a month’s time?’ she asked as she walked with Carol down the ward.
Carol nodded. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he—Mr Caldwell?’
‘He’s certainly an excellent consultant,’ Annie replied noncommittally.
‘I’m not talking about his qualifications,’ Carol protested. ‘I’m talking about him. OK, so maybe he’s not drop-dead gorgeous, but there’s something about him, don’t you think?’
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