'Annie, don't be silly. I'll drive you—'
'I'd rather you didn't. Really.'
And it dawned on him that she was going to visit a man, and naturally she wouldn't want him delivering her to his door. Jealousy speared through him again, and he leant back and pretended indifference.
'In that case, be my guest. The phone's beside you.'
He listened, but the address she gave as her destination meant nothing to him. The taxi took only a few minutes to come, but there was an awkward silence while they waited. He didn't want her to go, yet in a strange way he was relieved when she did.
He had a great deal to think about, and it was still a lovely evening, although it was dusk. He locked up the house and set off towards the park, then realised it would be shutting at dusk. Oh, well, he could walk round the streets instead, he thought, and, reaching the end of his road, he turned left and headed along the road beside the park. A taxi pulled up at the kerb ahead, and a woman got out and headed towards one of the big old houses facing the park.
A young woman who bore a striking resemblance to Annie.
He paused beside the wall, slipping quietly into the shadows until she was out of sight, then he walked on, his long stride covering the ground swiftly and silently until he came to the place where the taxi had stopped.
She stood in the well-lit porch of a big old Victorian house, and. as the door opened she stepped inside.
It was her. He recognised her, even as he heard her say, 'I'm sorry, Mum, I forgot my key. Has she been all right?'
The door closed, leaving Max standing puzzled in the shadows. If she lived so close, why the taxi? And why say she was going on somewhere else? To make him jealous?
Unless she just didn't want him to know she lived so close to him. If he hadn't decided to go for a walk, he would never have known.
Bizarre. Why would she want to keep her whereabouts a secret, unless she didn't want him pestering her? If so, all she had to do was say so—and he'd hardly given her cause to think he was pestering her this evening, for heaven's sake!
Puzzled, confused and a little angry, he went back to his house, washed up the mugs and made himself another coffee, then sprawled in front of the television with the chocolate biscuits in one hand and the remote control for the television in the other, and channel-hopped his way through the late evening news.
He realised he'd been foolishly expecting her attitude to change ever since she'd told him about Peter, but why should it? So it was news to him. So what? It wasn't to her, and he'd already told her about Fiona earlier, so why should her attitude change? Obviously she'd decided she didn't need him. Well, that was fine. He didn't need her either.
He jabbed at the remote control viciously, plunging the set into silence, and with a harsh sigh he went upstairs, shed his clothes on the chair, visited the bathroom briefly and threw himself down on the bed with a disgusted snort.
'What did you expect, Williamson?' he asked himself shortly. 'Company?'
It would have been nice. Hell, it would have been more than nice, but he hadn't even so much as kissed her goodbye on the cheek!
He yanked the quilt over his legs, rammed a fist into the pillow and gave a grunt of disgust. No doubt his dreams would be Technicolored, as usual.
He closed his eyes, and all he could see was Annie's face, her eyes luminous against the alabaster of her skin. He pictured her body, her breasts swollen with milk, blue veins threading them as she suckled her baby, and desire slammed through him like an express train.
It was going to be a long, lonely night...
CHAPTER FOUR
By the following morning Max's emotions had settled down a little. He still didn't know why Annie hadn't told him where she lived, but the emotion that had filtered to the surface was hurt, pure and simple. He felt hurt that she hadn't trusted him. What did she think he was going to do? Pester her the entire time? Although, after his dreams, the thought was tempting...
He went to work a little warily, unsure quite how to approach her now, knowing what he did. As a result, he was a little distant, and he wasn't sure if he imagined it or if she seemed a little taken aback by that.
However, they were too busy to have time to worry. He had another outpatient clinic with Steve Kelly, the SpR, and during the course of it he had to go back to Theatre and open up the RTA victim they'd operated on the day before. He'd sprung another leak, and his pressure had been dropping steadily all morning.
Annie was in Theatre with him, and he let her perform the operation. Only a part of him was playing the tutor. The other part was a voyeur. He didn't really need to be there, in many ways. In an emergency he was quite confident that she could have coped without him, and he was beginning to realise that she could handle quite a high level of responsibility.
'I think you can manage on your own from now,' he said, and walked towards the door. 'I'm going to have a coffee. Give me a shout if you need a hand.'
He poured himself the last dregs from the coffee-machine and sat down on one of the plastic chairs, staring morosely into the murky liquid. He didn't really need the coffee. He'd had more than enough of it in the middle of the night while he'd been trying to escape from the images that had taunted him in the darkness. Even so, it was the lesser of two evils. The alternative was to stand and watch her, and that was probably even worse for him than the coffee.
Her head appeared round the door of the theatre. 'I think I've done it. Do you want to check? It was a leak in the mesenteric artery—I think it was weakened and just went during the night.'
Was it really necessary? New gloves, new mask, new gown, just to know that she had done it right. And if he didn't, and the man leaked again, he would have the responsibility for exposing him to yet another anaesthetic, more theatre time wasted and infinitely more expense. He put the mug down with a sigh and shrugged out of the chair.
'Can do.'
He didn't want to. She didn't need checking up on, he didn't suppose for a moment, but it was part of his job. He couldn't really understand his reluctance, and he realised he was letting his personal feelings get in the way of his professional judgement.
'You're a fool, Williamson,' he muttered to himself. 'Just a stupid, deluded fool.'
He realised he'd allowed himself to imagine that things would be different now that he knew Peter was dead, but they weren't. Quite obviously, she had another man in her life, and even if she didn't, she'd made it abundantly clear last night by not letting him walk her home that she wasn't in the slightest bit interested in him. She had a child now, Peter's baby, and she had obviously moved on. It was only him that was fixated.
She had, of course, sutured the tiny rupture in the artery perfectly well, but he took the opportunity to check all his previous handiwork and make sure that there were no other possible areas that were going to give trouble before he left her to close.
'I'm going back down to the clinic now,' he said. 'Perhaps you could finish up here for me.'
He shouldered the door out of the way, stripping off his gloves and mask and gown as he went, and showered rapidly. Within five minutes, he was back down in his clinic, apologising profusely to all the patients he'd kept waiting.
Most of them were entirely reasonable, but there was always the odd one who felt they were different. He found his temper fraying, and realised it was nothing to do with his patients, simply a lack of sleep and the chaos that meeting Annie again had thrown him into.
He missed lunch. His clinic overran until nearly two, and then he had day-surgery cases all afternoon. As soon as he finished them, he went up to the ward to check on the previous day's patients and find out how their RTA man was getting on. He seemed fine, his pressure much better, a little groggy and in pain not unsurprisingly, but hopefully over the worst.
Damien Rayner, the charge nurse, seemed happy with his condition. He had him in a side ward under the eye of the staff constantly milling around the nursing station, and Suzie Crane was taking his obs ever
y half-hour.
Max had half hoped that he would find Annie on the ward, but she wasn't there. He checked his watch, and found it was after five. He wondered where she was. Had she gone off duty? Possibly. Another team was on take, and there was no reason why she should still be in the hospital.
She was probably at home, in that big, solid, safe Victorian house with her parents and her baby.
Lucky Annie. He felt an overwhelming wave of loneliness, and with a disgusted sigh he set off for home. He wasn't going to allow himself to wallow in self-pity. He bought the paper on the way, but there were hardly any properties in it. Apparently Thursday was property day, so he would have to wait until then. He went on the Internet instead, trawling through the property agents and looking for things in the area, but they seemed to give frustratingly few details.
He gave up, and went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. More coffee. Oh, damn.
He opened a bottle of wine instead, threw an instant meal into the microwave and was just glad his mother wasn't watching him. Alcohol and cholesterol. Brilliant combination. It was a good job he'd spent all that time training as a doctor.
It was only eight o'clock and still light, so he took himself off for a walk. The park was still open, and he went into it, exploring all the many intersecting paths. He found a slide, set into the hill, and the duck pond, and a children's playground with bark chippings and rope bridges and brightly coloured ducks on springs. There were slides and swings and a big wooden frame like a mini adventure playground, and he wondered how long it would be before Annie's baby was playing in there.
It was deserted now, of course. All the little tiny children would be at home tucked up safely in their beds. He realised it was getting dark, and that the park gates would be locked at dusk. In which case, if he didn't want to risk an undignified scramble over the spiked railings and the possibility of impaling his nether regions, he'd better leave.
He made his way back to the nearest gate, which by coincidence was almost opposite Annie's house. The lights were on in the kitchen at the front, and he could see her sitting at the table. Her mother—he assumed it was her mother—was busy at the sink, and it looked a curiously homely scene.
The loneliness ate at him again, and dragging his eyes away he strode home. It was too late to attack the garden, and the house didn't belong to him, so knocking the wall down would be a little embarrassing. Pity. He felt like a little demolition.
He'd talk to her in the morning, try and clear the air a little. He'd tell her that he'd seen her getting out of the taxi, and point out that she didn't need to lie to him. He wasn't so thick-skinned that he couldn't take a hint.
Good idea. He picked up the bottle of wine and a glass, and went into the sitting room, searching fruitlessly for something on the television that would hold his attention. Predictably, there was nothing, and the wine certainly wasn't worth staying up for.
Ah, well. He'd have an early night. After his lack of sleep and broken dreams the night before, it probably wouldn't go amiss, and he had a long list in the morning.
That meant he would be operating with Annie again, and at the thought his heart pounded heavily against his ribs.
Idiot.
When was he ever going to learn?
There was no opportunity to talk to Annie the following day. The list was long and complicated, and although they were working together, they were never alone. Because they were on take, they also had emergencies to deal with, including one nasty RTA during the early afternoon which had them both working at full stretch.
They were working side by side on a case, trying desperately to repair a torn aorta before their patient, a teenage girl, bled to death. It was hopeless. It was completely impossible to patch the tear, and although they worked flat out, she arrested three times on the table and in the end they had to admit defeat.
Max hated to lose a patient. He particularly hated to lose so young a patient, with all her future ahead of her. He spoke to her parents while Annie and the nurses tidied her up, and then he was called down to A and E for another suspected surgical admission. While he was there, Annie was called back again to a child with suspected appendicitis in another cubicle.
'Why are they all picking today?' he growled as he passed her in the corridor.
She gave him a fleeting smile, and his heart lifted. Lord, she was lovely. Just having her around made him feel better.
Frustrated, but better.
Finally, at about six-thirty, he managed to get away from the hospital. Steve was on call now, and barring another critical emergency he was able to relax.
And that, of course, meant he had time to think about Annie. He still hadn't talked to her yet about not trusting him, and he really wanted to before very much longer.
He glanced at his watch. A quarter to seven. The shops would be shut, but there was a supermarket not too far away which had flowers. Checking his mirrors quickly, he spun the wheel and did a U-turn that earned him a blast on the horn from a passing motorist, and once at the supermarket he scanned the endless bouquets lined up in buckets.
There were big ones and small ones, some gaudy, some colour co-ordinated in red and gold or yellows or pinks, some with roses, some with lilies.
What would she like? What kind of person was she?
He walked round the end of the display and then he saw them. White lilies, with dark green foliage and greenish-white spider chrysanths—simple and unfussy. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if they were a bit funereal, but there was nothing else he liked and he wasn't giving her red roses.
Not unless he wanted them rammed down his throat.
Although maybe she'd like them...
He gave up, paid for the flowers and left. He went home, showered and shaved, then with a mental girding of his loins he walked round to her house and rang the doorbell.
It echoed in the long, high hall, and after a moment he heard swift footsteps approaching. The door swung in and he got his first close look at her mother—small, slender, grey-haired but dressed in jeans and a T-shirt liberally splashed with water.
Bathtime for the baby?
'Can I help you?' she asked, her eyes scanning him quickly and settling on the flowers with a flicker of curiosity.
'Yes—my name's Max Williamson. I'm a colleague of Annie's. I wondered if she was in.'
Her mother's eyes flicked back to his face, then widened slightly before she collected herself. 'Um— no, she's not,' she said. 'She's gone shopping. I'm her mother, by the way. My name's Jill. Do come in, she may not be long. Can I get you a coffee?'
Max hesitated, then shook his head. 'No, that's not necessary. I don't want to trouble you,' he assured her, feeling a curious wave of disappointment. 'If you could just give her the flowers?'
He handed them over, and she took them, still looking at him searchingly. 'Are you sure you won't come in? It's no trouble, the kettle's always on and I was just about to sit down with a drink myself.'
He was torn, but he didn't know what, if anything, Annie had told her mother about him and he didn't want to put his foot in it. 'Thank you, it's very kind of you, but I won't stop,' he told her with a slight smile.
She nodded. 'All right.' Her eyes searched his face again. 'Any message?'
'No—no, there's no message.' None that he could give her mother, anyway.
He stepped back and gave her a fleeting smile, then turned and walked away. He didn't hear the door close until he was round the corner, and then he kicked himself. He should have stayed. She might only have been live minutes, and then he could have talked to her, right there in the house with her mother to chaperone so she didn't need to feel nervous.
He almost went back, but the idiocy of it suddenly dawned on him and he carried on, back to his lonely, gloomy little rented house. He felt oddly dispirited. This post, his first consultancy, was supposed to have been a new start, to get him away from memories of his disastrous relationship with Fiona and the futile year he'
d spent mourning the loss of Annie.
And now she was here, and his new start was just a continuation of the lonely and frustrating period he'd thought he'd left behind, only magnified tenfold because she was always there, looking wary and distant and right in his personal space.
He couldn't even come home and escape her!
Well, it was still daylight. He changed into his tatty old clothes, went out into the garden and dug over what had obviously been a vegetable patch.
He had no intention of growing vegetables—in fact, the sooner he could find another house, the better— but the exercise took his mind off Annie and might ensure a decent night's sleep, and it was less likely to get him in trouble than putting his fist through a wall.
He leant on the spade and sighed in disgust. What was it about Annie that brought all his emotions roaring to the surface? He felt like a randy, aggressive teenager. Any minute now he'd get spots, for heaven's sake!
He threw the spade into the shed, shut the door and went back inside. There was still half a bottle of wine left in the fridge. He'd have a glass, watch some television and then go to bed.
Annie slipped her key into the lock, let herself in and found her mother sitting in the kitchen.
'Hi, Mum. I've done a big shop—I didn't really mean to, but I got sort of carried away— Oh, nice flowers. Who are they for?'
'You.'
Annie nearly dropped the bag she was juggling. 'Me?' she squeaked. She put the bag down on the worktop and went over to the sink, staring at them suspiciously.
'Who from?'
'Max.'
She spun round, her hand on her chest. 'Max? But— How? When? How did they get here?'
'He brought them.'
'Himself?'
'Yes, himself. Why?'
She felt the panic rising. 'Because he doesn't know where I live. I went round there on Monday night, and I took a taxi when I left. I said I was going on somewhere else.'
'Why?'
She swallowed. 'Why?' she repeated, stalling for time. Lord, she couldn't tell her mother the truth! 'Well, because...a new colleague and all that. I don't know very much about him—'
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