New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  Lauren looked at the man who’d asked the question, a man she knew but, she was realising, didn’t really know.

  She wondered if he really wanted to know, or if it was her way of avoiding talk of Alyssa and how she, Lauren, had handled the visit.

  ‘I think he’s been yelled at enough in his life, or heard enough yelling, and although there are times when I could scream at him, I really, really don’t want to do it. Do you know what he was doing when he broke the eggs?’

  Tom smiled, and something shifted in her chest, but she couldn’t fall in love with Tom—that was a given—so stuff happening in her chest had to be ignored. And who said anything about love?

  ‘Tell me,’ the man she wasn’t going to love asked quietly, and now it was Lauren’s turn to smile.

  ‘He was showing me how you could swing a bucket or a bag around in big circles in the air and stuff didn’t fall out of it.’

  ‘Ah, I’ve done that trick with a bucket of water,’ Tom replied, smiling even more broadly so the something in Lauren’s chest got worse. ‘I got very wet if I remember.’

  Picturing the scene, Lauren had to chuckle.

  ‘Well, Bobby was obviously much better at it than you, because nothing fell out but the dozen eggs got jostled by the cans of baked beans and sweet corn and the bottle of tomato sauce, hence the mess.’

  ‘We can buy more eggs,’ Tom said, and the ‘we’ in the sentence told Lauren that she should move out as soon as possible—before this ‘we’ business went any further—before she started to think that maybe, somewhere along the track, they might actually make a ‘we’.

  Which she knew full well they wouldn’t.

  Couldn’t.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  Bobby’s cry brought her attention back to the reason she was here with Tom, living in his house, and feeling all kinds of emotional turmoil because of it.

  Bobby was twirling around on the bike, the front wheel off the ground.

  ‘Fantastic!’ Tom said, just as Lauren was about to tell the child to stop doing something so dangerous.

  ‘Fantastic?’ she echoed, but quietly, as Bobby rode off to try another trick.

  ‘He’s trying things, pushing limits,’ Tom told her. ‘That is fantastic! It also shows he’s feeling okay—kind of settled with us for all that’s happened to him over the weekend.’

  Trying things—pushing limits—wasn’t that what she had done? Oh, she’d been older than Bobby was—a teenager—

  but going out with Nat when he’d been known to be wild had maybe pushed the limits too far.

  Was that why she’d never told anyone about the abuse?

  ‘I can understand kids wondering if it’s their fault their parents are making a mess of life.’

  The words came out of her thoughts—unconsidered—and the smile Tom turned on her this time made her wonder if he’d guessed that.

  ‘You should be over feeling shame or blame,’ he reminded her, picking up on her thoughts—taking her hand to hold it in his.

  ‘Look at this one!’

  Bobby’s call distracted them both and they watched him run the bike up a ramp he’d constructed from a brick and a bit of ply he’d found somewhere, then flip it in the air before landing on two wheels, wobbling slightly but carrying on, one arm raised in triumph as he yelled his success to the heavens.

  They clapped and shouted praise, but as he spun away, Tom squeezed Lauren’s hand and they sat and watched the boy until the wind blowing in from the ocean turned cold and Lauren called him Bobby to bed.

  But when the bathed, pyjama-clad child came into the kitchen to say goodnight, Tom remembered the scrap of paper Lauren had rescued from the toaster.

  He pulled it out of his pocket and laid it on the table.

  ‘Why did you want to burn it, Bobby?’ he asked gently, then felt like a monster when tears welled in Bobby’s eyes.

  ‘’S nothing!’ Bobby growled, pushing away from the table. He slammed his chair back with such force it toppled over, and once on his feet he snatched at the singed and blackened scrap, clutching it to his chest as he dashed from the room, heading for his bedroom.

  ‘At least he didn’t run away,’ Lauren said quietly.

  ‘Unless he’s in there packing,’ Tom muttered, wondering why on earth he’d spoiled a pleasant evening by bringing up something Bobby obviously wanted forgotten.

  ‘What was on it?’ Lauren asked.

  Tom saw the anxiety in her voice mirrored in her eyes, and had to touch her again, reaching across the table to rest his hand on hers.

  ‘I don’t know—it was too badly burned to tell, although it seemed to be a picture of a witch or a wizard perhaps, but I couldn’t really tell.’

  ‘Merlin!’ Lauren breathed, her face lightening with the word as though the magic of the legendary man was working within her. ‘Of course! I wonder where it is?’

  ‘Where Merlin is?’ Tom looked around. ‘Wasn’t he a shape-shifter? Could he be my oven, or perhaps my washing machine? It’s definitely possessed!

  Lauren laughed and Tom found the rage he’d been holding at bay was gone, replaced, yet again, by the strange contentment he kept finding in the simple presence of this woman in his house.

  ‘It’s a rug Joan was making for Bobby. He loves all things Merlin. I imagine he saw a movie at some time that had Merlin in it and now he knows things I didn’t know. For instance, in my mind Merlin was always connected with King Arthur, but Bobby informed me he was around long before that.’

  She grinned at Tom across the table before adding, ‘I must admit I was so suspicious that he’d know such a thing that I looked it up and he was right. If there was a real Merlin—or a person Merlin might have been based on—then he was around way before the legends of King Arthur began.’

  Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately for Tom’s peace of mind—the smile gave way to a frown as Lauren continued, ‘Maybe it’s at the refuge. That’s what he went to look for earlier with Mike.’

  Tom met her frown with one of his own. He was totally bamboozled now.

  ‘What’s at the refuge?’ he demanded.

  ‘The rug, of course. I’ll go over there later but right now I’d better reassure Bobby.’

  She left the room while Tom’s mind replayed the conversation, finally settling on ‘a rug Joan was making’ as the most salient part of it. Canvas and bits of wool? A rug in progress?

  He didn’t want to get Bobby’s hopes up by mentioning it right now, but as soon as he was through the goodnight session with the little boy, now soothed by reassurances from Lauren, he’d check that suitcase again.

  In the bedroom Lauren was reading the bedtime story, and standing in the doorway, looking at the fondness—no, love—in her face as she looked down at Bobby, he felt a surge of—it had to be protectiveness—so strong he had to lean against the doorjamb for a moment.

  It was the family thing again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘IT is the rug,’ Lauren said a little later, lifting the mess of canvas and wool out of the suitcase and spreading it on the table. ‘And, see, it’s nearly finished.’

  She looked up at Tom, eyes gleaming with excitement.

  ‘I know there are two rug hooks because sometimes one of the helpers worked with Joan. There’s not so much to do—let’s get it done tonight.’

  She was practically shimmering with expectation—and no way could he pour water on that shimmer!

  But …

  ‘Hook a rug? You’re talking to a man who has to get the dry cleaners to sew his buttons on!’

  ‘It’s easy. I’ll show you!’ Lauren declared, which was how Dr Tom Fletcher, who normally on a Monday night might be enjoying a little female company, found himself sitting at his kitchen table, pushing bits of wool through holes and knotting them to make sure they stayed in place.

  Which was fine as far as it went, but working on a small rug—Merlin the magician or not—meant sitting in very close proximity to Lauren,
feeling her warmth, her softness when she moved, breathing in the clean, fresh scent of her, blowing fine fair hair out of his face when she spun to fix something for him.

  He hooked and tied and hooked and tied and all the while the urge to take this woman in his arms grew stronger and stronger.

  ‘Concentrate!’ Lauren chided at one stage, but her voice seemed a little shaky, the rebuke far from firm.

  Was she feeling it as well?

  Could something as simple as hooking a rug have brought another dimension into their relationship?

  His body certainly seemed to think so! Yes, they touched from time to time, skin meeting skin, thigh meeting thigh, hard to avoid it, but even when they weren’t touching he could feel her presence, feel it tantalising his body in a way he couldn’t remember feeling before.

  Was it because she was off limits? Not only because she’d already rejected him or because of what had happened in the past, but because she was a guest in his house—definitely off limits! So could the heat building in his body be put down to the lure of forbidden fruit?

  He hoped so.

  He really did!

  ‘Okay, we’re done!’ she declared, some hours later.

  ‘Just as well, given it’s after midnight,’ Tom grouched, although his chest filled with pride and he all but forgot the heat as Lauren lifted the finished product, holding up the picture of the bearded old man in his tall, pointed hat.

  ‘It’s fantastic!’ he said, and he leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair as Bobby had earlier. But who cared about the chair? He grabbed Lauren and the rug in a tight clasp and swung her around in the air. ‘We did it!’ he crowed. ‘We did it!’

  After which it was only natural that he should kiss her, and although there was two inches of tightly knotted wool between her body and his, his heart surged with a wild emotion when her lips fluttered uncertainly for a moment before opening beneath his kiss and, suddenly, there was Lauren kissing him back …

  They had two inches of wool and carpet between their bodies so it couldn’t be the siren song of lust that had her returning Tom’s kiss. But returning it she was, drawn into it by some emotion too powerful to resist.

  It was just a kiss—a celebratory kiss—nothing more, she kept telling herself, yet her lips clung to his, opening to his invading tongue, revelling in the moist warmth, the sharing, the sheer physical delight that kissing Tom was spreading through her body.

  She tingled in places she hadn’t known existed, heated in places she knew shouldn’t be so hot, her nerve endings quivered and her hands began to tremble so she let go of the rug, which remained firmly stuck between them, and clasped her hands around Tom’s neck, sliding her fingers into his hair—silky hair that stirred her quivering nerves even more.

  Maybe it was because the whole time they’d been working on the rug, sitting so close to each other, her body had been feeling things it shouldn’t, alive with an excitement she didn’t understand—well, she did understand it, she just didn’t want to think about why she’d been feeling it!

  The kiss deepened and she clung to him more tightly, all questions forgotten.

  Tom had shifted too. His arms had been clasped around her, but now his hands were in her hair, and it seemed, although she was probably imagining it, that his fingers were trembling too …

  He whispered her name, the all-but-soundless ‘Lauren’ seeming to float from his lips, wrapping her in a bubble of new sensation.

  A tiny mew of protest fell from hers when his mouth lifted for that fraction of a second, and though it was a wordless noise he seemed to understand for the kiss resumed and she allowed herself to stop thinking altogether, to stop analysing and categorising her sensory reactions and just enjoy them as tendrils of physical delight bound them together.

  Could a kiss last for ever?

  So it seemed to Lauren, although eventually they drew apart, as if by some mutual but unspoken agreement, the rug falling to the floor between them, Merlin the magician a crumpled bundle on the floor.

  It was a moment in time, Lauren realised, when they—or maybe she—could move forward, and though she was confused about where such a choice might lead—confused about the whole situation—she knew the decision was up to her.

  Excitement urged her forward, while fear held her back—no, not fear, for she knew Tom would never hurt her, but trepidation …

  ‘I think I have to trim the top of it,’ Lauren whispered, bending to pick it up, knowing there was fierce colour in her face and hoping Tom might assume it was because she’d bent over.

  He looked at her, saying nothing, studying her as if she were a new acquaintance, or perhaps a chance-met old one, until, when the silence had stretched, it seemed, for even longer than the kiss, and the rug was grasped in front of her in a white-knuckled grip, he asked, ‘That’s it?’

  She tried for calm, control and composure.

  ‘What’s it?’ she asked, and he turned and walked away, along the hall, down the steps, heading who knew where.

  Lauren sat down at the table, picked up Joan’s sharp scissors, and began to trim the uneven ends of wool until the rug was smooth and thick and a perfect representation of the wizard Bobby so admired.

  Tom checked his patients in the hospital, looking in on Alyssa who was sleeping, a nurse never far away, keeping watch over the fragile and vulnerable woman. He couldn’t help but picture Lauren lying there and the cold anger filled him again, although this time the heat that lingered in his body from the kiss had diluted it, allowing him to consider the things he’d learned.

  Lauren’s disjointed confession of her abuse bothered him in many ways. Was she still suffering the after-effects? Was that why she hadn’t dated since he’d known her?

  He wasn’t vain enough to think it was why she hadn’t dated him, but if she was still avoiding intimacy …

  As if he could help her! he scoffed to himself.

  Oh, he knew physical intimacy extremely well, but helping someone over any other kind of problem with intimacy—well, hardly! Not when he’d avoided it all his life!

  Yet deep inside he felt a need to do something for the woman who was living in his house—for the friend he’d found in Lauren.

  For the woman he’d kissed?

  Well …

  The only thing he did know was that it wasn’t his old friend Lauren whom he’d kissed, or she who’d kissed him back. Something had shifted in their relationship, and as they were bound together by their responsibility to a lost and lonely little boy, he’d darned well better get it shifted back.

  He returned to the house, making a noise as he came up the steps, hoping she’d hear him and come out so they could talk.

  At two in the morning?

  She didn’t, but when he found his duvet back on his bed, he looked into Bobby’s room, seeing, on the floor beside the bed, the finished rug—carefully placed there as a surprise for Bobby when he woke up.

  That was so typical of Lauren—the Lauren who sought to make people’s lives easier and happier, their paths smoother—that he smiled and for a moment forgot the Lauren that he’d kissed …

  Had there been a promise implicit in that kiss?

  This was the question running through Lauren’s head as she tossed and turned on the very comfortable bed in the second spare bedroom of Tom’s house.

  On her part, not his, she meant.

  Tiredness made her thoughts swirl uselessly around in her head, while her body continued to whisper traitorous messages.

  But Tom deserved better than to be led on by promises, then rejected when she turned frigid at the first really intimate touch.

  On top of which would be her humiliation when that happened—the numbing despair and overwhelming embarrassment.

  In front of Tom?

  She couldn’t contemplate such a thing so, no, there had been no promise implicit in the kiss, and if, by chance he’d read one, she’d surely made things clear when she’d grabbed the rug as if it were a lifeline,
chattering on about trimming it.

  She must have slept, although as she leapt out of bed in response to Bobby’s yell, she knew it hadn’t been for nearly long enough. Near numb with fatigue, she rushed to Bobby’s room, to find him dancing up and down on the little rug.

  ‘Look, it’s here!’ he cried. ‘It’s finished. My Merlin rug. Mum made it—she must have finished it without telling me. Look!’

  He grabbed it off the floor and held it up for inspection, and Tom, who’d joined Lauren in the entrance to the room, put his arm around her waist and gave her a gentle squeeze, sharing the pleasure of their achievement and the joy of the little boy.

  ‘It was in a suitcase at the house,’ Tom told Bobby, while Lauren pleased the boy by examining the rug more closely, exclaiming over it while hoping he wouldn’t notice a couple of blisters from the rug hook on her hands.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Lauren told Bobby as he took his treasure back and held it crumpled tightly in his arms. Tears shone in his eyes and she drew him close, so once again she was hugging someone with the rug between them.

  If she hadn’t raised her eyes to Tom it would have been much easier to go with the pretence of no invitation in a kiss, but the flare of complicity in Tom’s eyes, and the slight smile on his lips, told her it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Fortunately, because she was feeling totally lost—way out of her depth in a sea of emotion she didn’t understand—Tom took control of the morning routine.

  ‘Breakfast?’ he suggested, and Bobby pulled away from Lauren.

  ‘We’ve got Frosty Flakes!’ he told Tom, darting out of the room, the rug dropped to the floor.

  ‘Clothes and bathroom first,’ Tom said, as Lauren bent to straighten the rug. ‘Wash face and hands, clean teeth, get dressed. We’ll all have breakfast together.’

  To Lauren’s surprise, Bobby trotted obediently towards the bathroom, then she looked down at the Cupids on her nightgown and wished she’d beaten him to it.

  But she could get changed.

  ‘Lauren!’

  Too late! Tom’s had rested his hand on her shoulder, catching her as she turned away from him, and though her nerves jangled at his touch, and fear he’d bring up the promise in the kiss stiffened all her muscles, he simply smiled and said, ‘We did good, huh?’