A Very Single Woman

by Caroline Anderson

  Helen felt the hot, wet trace of his tongue, then a shiver of cold as he blew against the damp skin, and a little cry rose in her throat. He groaned, claiming her mouth again, and his tongue plundered the secret, inner depths. She heard a whimper, probably hers, but she was past caring. They were both adults, Sam was out for the night, there was nothing to stop them.

  Nothing except common sense.

  What was she doing? She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do this, and now she was allowing herself to be sidetracked by the first half-decent man that came along.

  With a huge effort of will she pushed him away.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  She could feel his heart pounding under her hands, the ribs vibrating under the onslaught.

  ‘Nick, I’m sorry,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I really didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Hush, Helen, it’s all right.’ He wrapped her in his arms, folding her against his chest and holding her until their hearts slowed and the screaming need had settled to a steady roar. Then he let her go, brushed a feather-soft kiss over her lips and opened the door.

  ‘Goodnight, Helen,’ he said softly.

  She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Instead, she lifted her hand and touched it lightly against his cheek, then turned away.

  Nick watched her go, the ache inside threatening to burn him up. He wanted her, and he knew she wanted him, but for some reason she was holding him at arm’s length.

  He realised he still knew hardly anything about her—why, for instance, did she want to adopt a child? He didn’t know, but instinct told him that until he did he would get no further with her.

  And there was Sam to consider.

  He realised that his hormones were engaged but his brain was still free-wheeling in outer space as far as Helen was concerned, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair on Helen, it wasn’t fair on Sam and it probably wasn’t fair on him.

  Frustration ripped through him, and he went back into the sitting room, turned the music up loud and poured himself another coffee.

  He could see the dent made by her neatly rounded bottom in the chair opposite, and he groaned and closed his eyes.

  No. He couldn’t do this. He had to find out more about her, get to know her.

  Back to basics, old man, he reminded himself. Woo her, don’t rush her.

  Romance her.

  He gave a hollow laugh.

  If he could even remember how…

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE WAS different.

  For no good reason that Helen could think of, Nick’s behaviour towards her had changed.

  She noticed it for the first time on Tuesday morning, after she’d stopped their kiss in its tracks the previous night. He wasn’t distant, exactly—if anything, he was even more attentive, but it was a different sort of attentiveness. Instead of the teasing, light flirtation of before, he seemed to weigh up what she said, thinking about her replies. It was almost, she thought in surprise, as if he had changed tack and was trying to get to know her better.

  How very strange—not that he should bother, but that it should feel so different. She almost missed the flirting, although she tried to convince herself that she didn’t, and anyway, this was a side of him that she found very interesting.

  They talked about all sorts of things in the little intervals between patients and visits and admin, and on Thursday morning she found herself telling him about her childhood, about how difficult it had been at times and how strange it had been without her father.

  ‘He didn’t seem to understand the concept of faithfulness,’ she said quietly. ‘My mother just took it, over and over again, until finally the last time she threw him out for good. It got even worse then, because I used to listen to her crying at night and I thought I’d been naughty.’

  ‘How old were you?’ he asked.

  ‘About eight. Sam’s age.’

  Nick winced. ‘You poor little sod,’ he said softly. ‘It must have been hell. At least when Sue died we were all able to grieve for her, and there was no anger and resentment and bitterness to deal with.’

  ‘You must have missed her dreadfully,’ she murmured.

  His eyes clouded. ‘I did. I didn’t know what to do with myself at first, but you get through it somehow. My parents were wonderful. They moved down here so they could help me with Sam, and they were just amazing. I don’t think I would have got through it without them.’

  She thought of the photos, of the love shining from their eyes, and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can even begin to imagine what it must have been like.’

  ‘Numbing, really, at first. I didn’t feel a thing. Not for ages. It was about six months before I started to feel anything again, and then I just fell apart. We’d had so much, and to lose it all so quickly was awful.’ He gave a crooked grin. ‘Still, I got there in the end, and I think Sam survived reasonably intact.’

  ‘He seems remarkably well adjusted,’ Helen said quietly. ‘You must be proud of him.’

  Nick pursed his lips slightly and nodded. ‘Yes, I am. I’m very proud of him, even though he can wind me round his little finger, and I like to think Sue would be happy with what we’ve achieved. It’s difficult to juggle it, though, when you’re a single parent.’

  Helen nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I can see that it must be.’

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ Nick asked after a little pause. ‘Will you tell me why you want to adopt a child?’

  She hesitated, then shrugged slightly. She didn’t have to tell him everything. ‘Because I’m alone. I don’t have a partner, and I don’t want one, and the thought of going to a sperm bank and having a total stranger’s body fluids injected into me in a clinic just makes my blood run cold. Besides, there are so many children out there that need someone, and I’ve got a lot of love to give.’

  Nick was silent for a moment. He was chasing a grain of sugar around on the table top with a blunt fingertip, and after a moment he looked up and met her eyes.

  ‘What if you meet somebody you want to share your life with?’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said flatly.

  ‘But if you did? Would you change your mind? Would the child be in the way? A child is for life, not just for Christmas, and all that,’ he said with a slight smile, but his eyes were serious.

  ‘I thought that was dogs,’ she cut in, trying to lighten the mood, but he just shrugged.

  ‘It is—but you can’t send kids back to the RSPCA when you get bored or overwhelmed. It’s a huge commitment, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that you aren’t up to it, but it’s a hell of a lot to take on on your own. I love Sam, but even so he can be very trying at times. Starting from scratch with a child you don’t know, a child that isn’t part of you—that takes a very special kind of person.’

  Nick sat back and laughed softly. ‘Heavens, this is all getting a bit heavy for a coffee-break. Sorry. I need to get on and do my calls. I’ll see you later.’ He stood up, squeezing her shoulder gently in passing, and went out, leaving Helen alone with her thoughts.

  Nick was on his way out through Reception when Julia caught him.

  ‘Nick, we’ve had a call from one of your patients, Mr Graham. The home help found him lying on the floor and called an ambulance, but she had to leave before it came, and the ambulance crew can’t persuade him to go to hospital. He’s in a state of collapse, but he just flatly refuses to go. Would you go? You might be able to talk him into it.’

  ‘Sure. Give me the address, I’ll pop in on the way to my first call.’

  Julia handed him the notes, and he put them on top of the others and set off. The elderly man was a patient he didn’t see very often, but he did know him, and his state of health was pretty frail.

  When he went into the house, he found the man sitting in a chair in the living room, a blanket wrapped round him, and the two ambulance officers trying to reason with him and coax him to drink a cup of tea.

  ‘Ah, Dr Lancaster, thank goodness you�
��re here,’ the ambulance driver said with relief. ‘We just can’t talk any sense into him.’

  ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘On the kitchen floor. He’s hypothermic, he’s got a nasty rattle in his chest and he’s been drifting in and out a bit. He seems a little confused from time to time, but most of the time he’s pretty with it, and we can’t force him to come with us.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Nick agreed. ‘Hello, Mr Graham,’ he said, crouching down beside the elderly man. He took his hand, ice cold, and chafed it gently between his. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  Mr Graham looked at him with rheumy eyes and blinked. ‘Hello, Doctor,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘What happened, Mr Graham?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I was making a cup of tea.’

  ‘When was this? This morning? Last night?’

  ‘In the night, I think. I don’t really remember. I can just remember lying on the floor for a long time, then Jenny came, but she had to go. She only comes just to get me up, so she only has half an hour with me in the morning. I don’t know why she called these blokes in.’ He waved a dismissive hand at the ambulance officers, and they shrugged and grinned at Nick.

  ‘Well, I think, as they’re here, we might as well take advantage of it, don’t you?’ Nick said persuasively.

  ‘But I don’t need to go to hospital,’ Mr Graham protested. ‘I’ll be all right after a cup of tea. I’m just chilled.’

  Nick took a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘Let me just have a look at you. I’d like to listen to your chest.’ He got out his stethoscope, sounded Mr Graham’s chest and then listened to it while he breathed in and out. At least, he would have done if Mr Graham had been able to breathe in and out without going into a massive coughing fit. He sat back on his heels and waited it out, and when the old man was finished, he just looked at him.

  ‘How long have you been like this?’ he asked patiently.

  Mr Graham mopped at his eyes with a tired handkerchief. ‘I don’t know,’ he wheezed. ‘A day or so?’

  ‘How about a week?’ Nick suggested wryly. He folded up his stethoscope and tucked it back in his pocket. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Graham, but you’re going to have to go to hospital. You’ve got pneumonia, my old friend, and you aren’t going to get better staying at home, lying on the kitchen floor all night. Now, can I find you a few things to take with you?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Mr Graham said stubbornly.

  ‘Well, as I see it, you’ve got a choice,’ Nick said flatly. ‘You can go to hospital, or you can stay here and die on your own. Now, which is it going to be?’

  ‘That’s a fine way to talk to an old man,’ he grumbled, but after a little more fluff and bluster he gave in and agreed to go to hospital. Nick stayed until he was loaded into the ambulance and the doors were shut firmly behind him, just in case he changed his mind again, but finally he was off and Nick was able to continue with his rounds.

  On the way to his next call, his mind drifted automatically back to Helen, and their last conversation.

  She’d been very emphatic about not having a man in her life—too emphatic. He wondered if it was anything to do with her father’s behaviour, or if she herself had had a bad experience. Maybe both, the one reinforcing the other.

  How to ask her, though, without seeming to pry—which, of course, was what he wanted to do. Well, not pry exactly, but certainly find out more about why she was so set against the sort of warm, loving relationship he’d had with his late wife. It seemed a tragedy that such a lovely and generous person with so much to give should shut herself away from that amazing happiness.

  Because that was what she was intending to do, and taking on a child, although very laudable, was no substitute for the sort of relationship she was going to be missing.

  ‘Fancy a drink later?’

  Helen had been in her room when the knock came on the door, looking through quotes from the roofing contractors, and she looked at Nick in surprise. ‘Where, at your place?’

  ‘No, I was thinking of a pub. Sam’s out tonight and I thought, if the idea appealed, we could take a run over to a favourite watering hole of mine. They do quite good bar meals, and it’s got a lovely view from the garden.’

  It sounded very tempting, but Helen wasn’t quite sure of his motive. At least, though, in a public place, they were unlikely to get led astray into another kiss.

  ‘I ought to work on the garden really, and I must make sure that the workmen are all right.’

  ‘The workmen go home at five, Helen, and you’ll have been working on the garden all afternoon, if I know you.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘You don’t have to make excuses to me. If you don’t want to come, just say so.’

  Put like that, it made her feel churlish. She flashed him an apologetic smile. He was only asking her for a drink and a bar snack! ‘It sounds lovely, actually. Thank you.’

  ‘Why don’t I pick you up from the surgery at half past six?’ he suggested. ‘I should finish early today, and that will give us both time for a shower before we go out.’

  ‘I’ll certainly need one, in this heat, if I’m going to wage war on the weeds again.’

  He grinned and winked, then left her, going back into his surgery for his afternoon clinic. She’d just had her lunch and was on her way up to the cottage, and for the rest of the afternoon, in between answering the plumber’s questions and fighting with the couch grass in the flower-beds, she pondered on the motive for Nick’s invitation.

  After all, she’d made it perfectly plain this morning that she didn’t intend to get involved in a relationship. Maybe he was going to try and talk her out of adopting a child again but, if so, he was doomed to failure, because she knew what she was doing and her mind was made up.

  ‘Right, I’m off, then.’

  She looked up, snatched from her reverie by the electrician’s voice. She scrambled to her feet and tugged off the rubber gloves. ‘Fine. How have you got on?’

  ‘Almost finished—about another half-day to go. Is the plasterer coming tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, in the morning. Will he be in your way?’

  The electrician shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t think so. We’re used to working round each other, us trades. Occupational hazard,’ he added with a grin.

  Helen smiled back. ‘OK, then, I’ll see you after lunch. I have to do calls after surgery tomorrow morning, so I won’t be here quite so early. If you’ve got any problems, can you ring the surgery?’

  He nodded, and wandered off round the side of the cottage, whistling cheerfully.

  Helen went into the house and looked around. The upstairs seemed completed, everything back in order, and only the downstairs was still in confusion. He’d agreed to come back and do the kitchen when it was refitted, because there was no point in putting sockets where they weren’t needed, and once the plasterer had been it would all look heaps better.

  She glanced at her watch, and realised with surprise that it was almost six. The electrician had obviously worked late to finish off, and Nick was picking her up in half an hour. She had to lock up the cottage, clear away her tools in the garden, drive back to the surgery and shower and change. She looked regretfully at the almost finished flower-bed. ‘Sorry, lupins,’ she said apologetically, and fled.

  Nick tapped on her door at the surgery half an hour later, just a minute before half past six, when she was just putting the finishing touches to her make-up. ‘Come in,’ she called, dropping the lipstick back onto the top of the chest of drawers. She gave a last cursory glance at herself in the mirror, then turned to him with a smile.

  ‘All set?’ he said, his eyes running over her appreciatively.

  Forgetting her resolve to keep her distance, some imp of femininity in her opened her mouth and said, ‘Will I do?’

  He smiled knowingly. ‘Oh, yes, you’ll do,’ he said softly, and she felt the warmth of his appreciation all over her.

  The pub they went to
was about half an hour’s drive away, set on the banks of a river, and he’d booked a table on the terrace in the shade of a veranda.

  The view was wonderful. Stretched out before them Helen could see the broad, flat water of the estuary with the evening sun glinting across it, the chequer pattern of fields on the other side rolling away into the distance. There were boats on the water, from little dinghies to small sloops, all pointing upstream and swinging on their moorings in the ebb tide.

  ‘What a fabulous spot,’ Helen said with a contented sigh, and he smiled.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? It never used to be like this, but it was taken over a couple of years ago and it’s improved enormously. Not the view, of course, that hasn’t changed, but they’ve landscaped the terrace to take advantage of it and the food’s much better.’

  She scanned the menu and sighed. Spoilt for choice, she thought, and eventually settled on a seafood salad. It was a wise choice, and tasted wonderful, but, in fact, it could have been anything because all her attention was on Nick.

  He was wonderful company, easy and relaxed, and he managed to avoid any controversial subjects for the entire meal. They finished off with coffee and strawberries and cream, and then they strolled along the river-bank, following the sandy footpath upstream.

  There was a little church a few hundred yards away, almost on the river-bank, and it seemed a very strange and lonely setting, a long way from the nearest community.

  Maybe it had always served the people whose livelihoods were on the river—the fishermen, the ferrymen and the local farmers. Whatever, she thought it must be a beautiful spot for worship. The path widened, and Nick fell into step beside her. She lost her footing slightly on the uneven path and reached out to him, and after that their fingers remained companionably linked.

  They reached a little bluff where the path rose a few feet above the river-bank, and they sat on it with their legs dangling over the side and looked out over the water.

  ‘It’s so peaceful here,’ Nick said quietly. ‘I love it. I come here every now and again to recharge my batteries and get away from it all for a little while.’