by Lilian Darcy
‘Touch me, Dylan,’ she said again. ‘Please?’
A fraction of a second later, she felt his thumb trace the peaked contour of her nipple, while his other hand came up to lift her weight. Sliding even higher, she brought her breasts within reach of his hot mouth, and at last they began to find the rhythm and urgency they’d so nearly lost. When her moving hips brought both of them crashing over the brink, she had tears spilling onto his face and onto the pillow beside him.
He must have felt them, but he didn’t say anything. She lay on top of him, her head pillowed on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It must have been ten minutes before he spoke, and his voice was creaky and stiff.
‘Presumably, you have to get to work soon.’
‘Yes. What’s the time?’
‘Clock’s just there on the bedside table. I can’t see it from this angle.’
‘Ten past ten.’
Another silence.
‘I’m first on Graham Barlow’s list tomorrow,’ he said.
‘So, no food after midnight?’
‘All that stuff. They probably would have admitted me today if I hadn’t been a doctor myself. I had the pre-op check-up on Wednesday and everything was OK.’
‘It won’t be a long procedure, will it?’
‘An hour or so, I’d guess. They’ll send the tumour to Pathology. Funny, I’m not so concerned about that—the possibility that it’s malignant. I’m more concerned about…’
He didn’t finish, but she could guess the rest. She waited, then asked, ‘When will you be discharged?’
Silence.
‘Depends,’ he answered at last.
Oh, dear God, of course it did! she realised. How stupid of her to have even asked! It depended on how well he could walk, how much relearning he had to do. How to get out of a chair. How to climb stairs. How to stand without falling. If his nerve damage was extensive, he might be in hospital and rehab for some time.
‘You should go, Annabelle.’ It didn’t take half an hour to get to Coronation Hospital from his place. He meant, I want you to go. I want to be alone. Stare my future in the face, alone.
She didn’t argue, just slid away from him awkwardly, aching at once for the lost contact and the lost warmth. Dylan stayed on the bed. He didn’t watch her dress. All the same, she felt vulnerable as she reached for the briefs and jeans flung on the floor near the doorway, and her breasts felt swollen and sore—almost bruised. Although it was dark, and there was no one to see, she cupped her hands over them inadequately as she went in search of her bra and top in the living room.
Dylan appeared in the bedroom doorway, fully dressed, hair tousled and still faintly damp, just as she was ready to leave. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but then he just shook his head.
‘Don’t be late for work,’ he said finally.
Not the words she’d wanted to hear. He switched on the light, and once they’d both gone past their half-blinded reaction, she could see a potent mix of negative feelings smouldering in the depths of his eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN a patient was under general anaesthesia, he or she lost the subconscious awareness of time passing that was present in normal sleep. Dylan closed his eyes, began to count backwards from a hundred, as instructed, and woke again a millisecond later, in a bed in the recovery annexe.
Dimly, he knew that his surgery was over. His mouth felt dry, and his eyelids were too heavy to open. His lower back throbbed, and a tiny, wobbly shift in his position, lying on his side, made him aware of the dressing that covered his surgical site. A scratchy sound emerged from his lips, and one of the nurses came over. He knew her. Older woman. Pat Gould.
‘Awake, Dr Calford?’
‘Bit.’
‘Let’s check you out.’ She took his temperature, blood pressure and pulse. Satisfactory, apparently—he couldn’t summon the energy to ask for the exact figures—but he knew he’d be here for another half hour or so, just to make sure.
Can I move my legs?
He was sane enough not to try and answer this question yet. The effect of the anaesthesia was still weighing too heavily on his muscles. ‘Barlow?’ he asked Pat, just before she left.
‘He’s going to talk to you after his next procedure is over.’
‘Tumour’s out?’
‘Yes, but that’s all I know.’
‘’Anks,’ was all he could manage, and even that was an effort. He closed his eyes and let the anaesthesia win for a while.
‘Dylan?’ said a soft voice a little later.
No, that wasn’t Graham Barlow. He knew who it was.
This time, he got his eyes open. Lids felt a bit lighter now.
‘I saw you just as you were getting wheeled in,’ Annabelle said. ‘There was no time to say anything. We were late finishing this morning, after a peritonitis case.’
‘Very late off,’ he said. One eye managed to focus on the clock. It was after ten.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I went home. Gave Mum and Duncan breakfast and took Mum home. Dunc’s playing with a friend this morning.’
‘So you should be asleep.’ Tongue was working much better now.
She smiled tentatively. ‘Well, I’m not. Not yet.’
Dylan’s heart lurched. Lord, he was glad she was here! He was flooded with the feeling suddenly. The ripe beauty of her figure, the richness of her hair, the warmth of her smile. The familiarity of her voice and the radiance of her care.
He would have reached up a hand and touched her, squeezed her, only the hand was still too heavy. He would have said something about what was in his heart, but the only words that filled his mind had too many unanswered questions crowding around them.
Most importantly, did he have the right to say anything at all? And would she want him to? What had she wanted to give him last night, when she’d given him her body in bed? Just that? Just the immediate blessing of oblivion and release? Or much more?
Hell, it was all so woolly in his mind!
‘How are you feeling?’ Graham Barlow asked, coming up beside Annabelle. He gave her a quick nod, as if she was just a nurse he vaguely knew, not anyone important. Dylan rebelled inside. Annabelle was utterly important.
‘Getting there,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Graham. Annabelle can hear it. I want her to. It’s fine.’
‘Nothing to tell yet,’ the neurosurgeon said. ‘We got it out. It’s encapsulated, and almost certainly benign but, of course, Anne Smyth in Pathology will have a good look at it to make sure. You won’t get the full picture on the extent of nerve damage, if any, until the whole thing has healed and you’ve had some physio.’
‘Damage, if any,’ Dylan echoed.
‘I did the best possible job I could. There’s a slight chance you’ll experience no permanent loss of function at all. That’s the best I can say.’
‘OK. Thanks.’ Dylan gave an awkward nod at his colleague, and tried not to let the dread and helplessness show on his face.
‘We’re going to send you up to the ward now, Dr Calford,’ Pat Gould said a few minutes after Graham Barlow had gone.
‘I’ll come up with you,’ Annabelle jumped in at once. She didn’t care if Dylan didn’t want her. She was here, and she was staying.
He still seemed very groggy, and his body, beneath the heavy white cotton of the hospital sheets, looked so different from the way it had looked last night. There was a strong chance it would never be the same body again. It was just as solid, just as strong, but so heavy and lifeless in his bed. This didn’t matter to her, but she was certain that it would matter to him.
It was her own fault. She knew that, too. If she hadn’t rebuffed his help, if she hadn’t been so afraid of falling into the same unequal partnership that she and Alex had negotiated with each other, and if she hadn’t been afraid of following Vic’s emotional path as well, things might have been different now. They might have been going through this together.
Dylan had his eyes closed as t
hey went along the corridor, up in the big service lift and into the sixth-floor neurological ward. He opened them as his bed was pushed into position in his private room, and he smiled at her. Her heart jumped and turned over in her chest. If he sent her away…Now, or ever.
‘When do you have to go?’ he asked.
‘By lunchtime.’ She leaned forward and stroked his shoulder tentatively, ending at the ropy hardness of his forearm.
He twisted his arm a little beneath her touch, and suddenly her fingers were engulfed in his grip. He closed his eyes again, and she just sat there, his touch bringing back powerful images of last night, and the way they’d made love with such urgent intensity.
Was that only because it had been their last chance?
‘What are we going to do, Annabelle?’ he asked in a scratchy voice.
‘Whatever you want.’
Dylan laughed without moving his mouth, eyes still closed. His face looked just as gorgeous and dear to her when it was still and slack as it did when firmed and animated by his work in surgery…or his energy in the pool…or when he kissed her.
‘What I want isn’t good enough,’ he said. ‘My career may be over. I may be half-crippled.’
‘All right, then we’ll do what I want,’ Annabelle said.
‘And what’s that?’
‘We’ll stop this stupid, almost competitive game we’ve both been playing since Alex walked out of the wedding. This game of tallying up which of us needs the other the most, and which of us has the most to give. We’ve both handled it wrongly. Maybe there was no way to stop that from happening at first, but if we don’t change it now…’ She stopped.
If we don’t change it now, how will we make our love work?
That was what she’d wanted to say, but she still didn’t know if he loved her at all, let alone if he was thinking of a long-term future to what he felt. She was.
Annabelle watched his face, and saw him nod faintly. Had he understood?
He still had his eyes shut, and his lips were closed and joined by a soft seam. She wanted to kiss them open, and feel his fingers tangling in her hair, the way they had tangled there last night. More than that, she wanted to hear what he would say.
She waited, but nothing came.
‘Gone to sleep again?’ said one of the ward nurses, a minute later.
Oh, heavens, he had! she realised. Of course he had! He was less than two hours post-op, he was on medication for pain, and sleep would be the best place in the world for him. How could she even have tried to talk to him now?
‘I’ll come back later,’ Annabelle said.
But would he want her when she did?
‘Can you drop by on your way to work, Annabelle?’
Dylan was on the phone from his hospital bed, sounding so much stronger and more alert than he had ten hours ago. He sounded a little grim, too, as if phoning her was something he had needed to do—an unpleasant duty—not something he wanted. ‘We didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation this morning,’ he finished.
‘No, we didn’t,’ she agreed. ‘So you do remember it, then?’
‘No, not exactly,’ he admitted. ‘But I know it was important.’
‘I’ll—I’ll give you a recap or something.’ She could hardly speak.
‘So you’ll come?’
‘Yes, I’ll leave here as soon as I can.’
Duncan wasn’t in bed yet, but he soon would be. Annabelle didn’t know what to think about Dylan’s call. Did he want to talk about last night?
Thanks, he might say. It took my mind off things. But don’t get the wrong idea.
Or perhaps there was some news about the extent of damage to his nerves.
When she arrived at the hospital forty minutes later, Dylan was sitting up in bed. He looked tired and a little creased, but it suited him…made her want to smooth out those lines around his eyes and mouth with her fingers, and with her lips…And there was life in his face again.
He had his wheeled meal tray beside him, with an open paperback novel sitting on it, as well as a pile of chocolate boxes, and his raised knees had turned the sheet into a tent. Surrounding him, the entire private room was ablaze with flowers.
There were red roses and exotic tropical blooms in yellow and purple and white. There were lilies and carnations and daisies, and more roses—pink ones, gold ones, furled buds and open blooms. There were flowers in pots and flowers in Cellophane, and flowers bunched with gold ribbon, and the only thing that could possibly compete with the flowers for her attention were the chocolates…and Dylan.
Annabelle spoke her first thought aloud. ‘You’ve phoned your family!’ Surely all these flowers and gifts had to be from them. ‘Oh, I’m so glad! Are they coming out?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t phoned them yet. I told you I wanted to wait. These yellow ones are from Alex. You left this box of chocolates, according to the card…’
‘Yes, this morning. I went out and came back with them, but you were still asleep.’
‘But the rest of the chocolates and the flowers are for you.’
‘For…?’ It didn’t make sense. They were overwhelming, lush and perfect, lavish and expensive and decadent and sweet. They brought tears to her eyes. He really wasn’t well enough to have spent half the afternoon on the phone, ordering chocolates and flowers. For her.
‘From me,’ he said softly. ‘For everything.’
‘Dylan!’
‘For everything,’ he repeated. ‘I couldn’t wait any longer to say it, and prove it, and what could I do in this bed all afternoon but order chocolates and flowers? For the way I love you, for the way you gave yourself to me last night, without knowing what was going on between us, and when I was so apprehensive I could hardly see straight. For the words I want to say to you now, which I’m still afraid you’ll throw back in my face. I’ve been a brute to you this past week, not trusting why you were still around.’
‘I know why I was still around,’ she said softly, sliding onto the bed to sit close to him.
‘And I hope I do, too, now. I love you, Annabelle. Marry me!’ He took her hands, and warmth flooded up her arms.
‘Oh, Dylan!’
‘I wanted to wait until I knew…about my legs. The tumour is benign. Graham got the report back late this afternoon. So at least I can promise you my life.’
Dylan’s life was more than enough. Annabelle wanted to say it, but her heart was so full she couldn’t find the words and, anyway, he didn’t give her time.
‘But because of the rest—my career, and the question of me being able to walk properly, I was going to wait,’ he said. ‘Then, though…I think you said something this morning. What was it?’
‘You fell asleep!’ Annabelle’s tears welled again, threatening to brim over.
‘I’m very awake now, and I remember it all. It doesn’t matter which of us takes and which of us gives. That’ll balance out. We can’t keep score. It’s deathly to do that, in any relationship. I love you, and I’m going to trust that that’s enough. Enough for both of us.’
‘Oh, it is. I love you, and it is. Whatever happens. It’s more than enough.’
‘No matter which of us has to do the most giving? And what form that giving takes?’
‘Yes. No matter. It’s not important. I’ll marry you, Dylan, as soon as you want.’
He reached up and touched her face, and she bent towards him. Their lips met, and their kiss sealed the moment for both of them—the perfect promise of forever.
‘Put me down, Gwanpa!’ Duncan protested loudly.
Distracted, Dylan and Annabelle both looked at the little boy, struggling in Dylan’s father’s arms.
‘All right, little guy,’ said Mason Calford, in his deep-voiced American accent. ‘We’ll go for a walk, OK?’
Annabelle watched for another few seconds, to make sure the older man and the little boy were genuinely happy in each other’s company, then turned back to her groom. The guests, gathered in the inform
al garden setting of one of Brisbane’s most beautiful public parks, fell silent. The marriage celebrant cleared his throat then apologised and searched in his pocket for a handkerchief. Linda, Annabelle’s newly pregnant bridesmaid, gave a nervous hiccup. The best man, Dylan’s close friend David, shifted his feet.
‘I’ve just thought of something,’ Dylan said quietly in Annabelle’s ear. ‘We were supposed to get back to the celebrant if we wanted any changes in the standard format of the ceremony, and we never did.’
‘You mean the lines about—?’
‘Yes. If anyone knows any reason why this couple should not be joined, and so on.’
‘Pretty significant lines, those can be. Are you worried?’ She smiled at him, and caught his answering grin.
He wore a dark suit which emphasised his broad shoulders, and he was very steady on his feet. It was over three months since his surgery now. The first week had been difficult, as the surgical site had slowly healed. For several days, they had all been afraid that his effortful, hesitant and ungainly walking and standing would be permanent.
Time, however, had proved otherwise. Dylan had worked hard and consistently at his physiotherapy, and there was only a minor numbness remaining in his toes—not enough to compromise his performance during surgery or change his normal gait.
Their June wedding, with his family in attendance from America and the sun shining mild and bright in the afternoon sky, was almost as much a celebration of his health as it was a celebration of their soon-to-be-joined lives.
Almost as much. They were both determined that their marriage would always come first in their shared priorities. They wanted children of their own, in the not-too-distant future, and they both agreed that Annabelle should put her career on hold for the time being. Duncan and Mum both needed her too much. She expected that the coming years would be both full and rich.
‘No, I’m not worried at all,’ Annabelle answered her groom. ‘You can object all you like, and so can anyone else. But this time, come hell or high water, Dylan Calford, the wedding is going ahead!’