A Woman Worth Waiting For

by Meredith Webber

  ‘In England,’ Ginny confirmed.

  ‘Then why the hell’s she causing problems between the two of you? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Sally’s a friend of mine and she’s had enough problems in her life over the last twelve months without the police tracking her down and asking questions. But it isn’t Sally causing problems. It was Max blabbing about Sally to Brent.’

  ‘Blabbing? I do not blab!’

  His indignation was so strong it was a wonder the words weren’t shaking with it.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Sarah said. ‘It was my idea to come so I’ll pay, and when you two are over your domestic you can take me out to celebrate.’

  Max pulled out his wallet, arguing that he’d pay, but Sarah was already on her feet, making her way to the front counter.

  ‘Desperate to get away from us,’ Ginny said, the words sounding heavy with sadness.

  ‘But she’s right,’ Max replied. ‘We do need to talk this out and here isn’t the place.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to talk out,’ Ginny told him. ‘I think we simply admit we made a mistake and go on from there.’

  Max felt his heart leap with joy and he turned to her, face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘You mean it? We can forget this silly misunderstanding happened?’

  His delight was somewhat dampened when he realised she wasn’t smiling back. If anything, she looked more depressed than she had earlier.

  ‘I didn’t mean this Brent and Sally thing,’ she snapped. ‘I meant the whole getting together thing. The idea that we could somehow have a relationship. That’s what we should forget.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Max managed, fighting valiantly as icy waves swept his happiness away. ‘There’s far too much at stake. We love each other, Ginny.’

  She tilted her head up to a snooty angle and peered down what he’d always considered a quite delightful nose.

  ‘We might have grown to love each other,’ she informed him. ‘Once we’d got the sex thing out of the way, there might have been a possibility. However—’

  He didn’t get to hear the rest of it as Sarah returned, hassling them to get moving, hustling them out of the restaurant.

  ‘I thought I’d better get you into the open before you came to blows. Who knows what damage the glassware might have suffered.’

  Ginny followed Sarah along the path towards the road. Every step was an effort as exhaustion weighed down her feet. She might have escaped Max’s proximity over the weekend but there’d been no way she could wipe him out of her mind. He’d hovered there, fogging all her thought processes, distracting her with memories of his touch, his kisses, the way one eyebrow tilted slightly more than the other.

  Now he was here—so close she imagined she could hear him breathing—yet she couldn’t reach out to him, couldn’t seek refuge from her misery in his arms or lose herself in the sexual delight his body generated in hers.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  She glanced up at this quiet question and realised Sarah was now some paces ahead.

  ‘About sex, if you must know.’ She responded truthfully, too tired and forlorn to prevaricate.

  ‘With me?’ he said, and she heard hope as well as hurt in his voice.

  ‘Who else?’ she grumbled. ‘But just because I’m thinking about it, don’t get the idea it might mean something.’

  He rubbed his hand across his face as if to rid it of cobwebs. It was a gesture of despair and she guessed that, had he been a swearing man, it would have been accompanied by several choice words.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve gone from where we were—almost lovers—to barely speaking in such a short time, and over such a trivial matter.’

  Trivial matter! The anger Ginny had felt when Brent had first questioned her came washing back with the fiery devastation of a lava flow.

  ‘You think betraying something confidential is a trivial matter?’ she demanded.

  She heard Max’s sigh and read the beginning of the end of things in it.

  ‘There’s no such thing as a confidential matter in a murder case, Ginny. That’s a fact you have to learn to live with. And at no time did you indicate your mention of Sally might be confidential—why would it be? She was a colleague you glimpsed, and you commented on her presence, or possible presence, as something unusual. No “cross your heart and hope to die” or “don’t tell” conversations—just a comment of surprise, which I passed on.’

  He was right, of course. Put like that, what he’d done had probably been correct, but the moment Brent had mentioned Sally’s name, Ginny had been aware of the complications she’d unwittingly be causing in that young woman’s life.

  But she knew she’d overreacted.

  ‘Oh, hell!’ she muttered, as the confusion in her head threatened to swamp her.

  ‘Hey!’ Max rested his hand on her shoulder. ‘Nothing’s so bad it can’t be sorted out,’ he said gently.

  ‘No?’ Ginny muttered, letting her tone carry her disbelief to him.

  But she didn’t move away, striding out beside him as they caught up with Sarah.

  The weight of Max’s hand felt so right. Why did everything else feel so wrong? Because, she realised, she and Max still had so much unfinished business.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE week began with an air of armed truce about it, as far as Max was concerned. He had planned to spend Monday observing the nursing staff at work, and though he tried to concentrate solely on them, Ginny’s presence threw him off balance, affecting his concentration in ways he wouldn’t have thought possible.

  It also appeared she’d forgotten their moment of near-rapport the previous evening, and had taken her side of the war to new heights.

  ‘I should have known that if you’d really cared, it wouldn’t have taken you six years to get back to Australia,’ she sniped when they’d been left together in a treatment room while a nurse had taken the current patient to the bathroom. ‘And even then, you came back for a job. If you hadn’t tripped over me, would you have come looking?’

  ‘Ginny, I came to look, but I didn’t want to make waves in your life. For all I knew, you could have been happily married and the last thing you’d want would be someone from the past arriving on your doorstep. I thought working in the larger hospitals would be one way to learn where you were and what you were doing—someone always knows someone.’

  ‘Don’t they just,’ the nurse said, returning in time to hear the last remark. She helped the patient back up on the examination couch.

  But the look Ginny shot him showed a distinct lack of understanding, and the moment for argument was lost as she continued her examination of the woman.

  ‘I’d say the problem’s gallstones,’ she told the patient. ‘I’d like to admit you for further tests. That way you’ll be seen by a specialist who’ll decide what to do.’

  ‘I’ve been sick with them before,’ the patient complained, ‘and haven’t had to come to hospital.’

  ‘Have you been in this much pain?’ Ginny asked, and the woman’s groan was answer enough.

  ‘But why six years? Why didn’t you come sooner?’

  The questions startled Max. It was hours after they’d had the original conversation and he, Sarah and Ginny had been grabbing a cup of coffee in the doctors’ office in the one lull the two doctors had had all day. Then Sarah had gone to meet an ambulance, leaving him and Ginny together.

  He studied her face—the beautiful eyes, freckled nose and lips that made his knees go weak.

  ‘Are you simply making conversation or do you really want to know?’

  She glared defiantly at him.

  ‘I really want to know!’

  He took a long, slow breath, determined to explain as unemotionally as he could. He wanted Ginny’s love, not her pity.

  ‘As you know, I went home because my mother’s second husband had left her and she was devastated and needed some support. What I didn’t know at that time was tha
t she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s why the man she thought had loved her had decided he wanted out.’

  He paused then added what she already knew. ‘I realised I’d have to stay—that’s when I wrote to you.’

  Ginny felt her heart falter as she studied him. He’d written of a family commitment, used it as an excuse to not return to Australia, and she hadn’t read his anguish in the cool, matter-of-factly stated words. Or realised the ‘commitment’ had been so serious.

  And though the words were just as coolly spoken now, the pain was there behind them, and in his eyes, and the deep lines that scored his cheeks.

  ‘Go on,’ she prompted, needing to know just what he’d been through in their six years apart.

  ‘She had a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation, remission for twelve months then had to have her other breast removed. Went through the works again, more remission. Then secondaries were found in her lungs. Later they spread to her spine. When I went back, I shifted in with her, working contracts to give me time to take her to appointments. Medical treatment is very expensive in the States, so I had to work to pay for it, and for the carers to be with her when she needed them and I couldn’t be at home. As her condition deteriorated, I worked from home, doing consultations and giving interactive lectures over the internet so I could be her primary carer for those last months.’

  Ginny found herself blinking back tears. Though put so succinctly—so medically—she could feel the echoes of his devastation. She wanted to say something—say she understood—but the announcement that another ambulance was on the way put a stop to any further conversation, and the day continued as it had begun—frantically busy.

  But being busy wasn’t enough to stop her thinking. Max had left the department soon after the second ambulance had arrived, and she’d been involved in a frantic struggle to save a young motorcyclist’s leg. Then Sarah’s patient had arrested, and they’d worked on him for an hour before getting him stable enough to transfer to the coronary care unit.

  ‘I’m having tea and toast, then falling into bed,’ Sarah told her when they tottered up the steps to the flats three hours after they should have finished work.

  ‘Me, too,’ Ginny agreed, but she glanced towards the lighted window of the flat next door. Her heart was heavy with the knowledge of Max’s loss, and though she ached to go to him, the barriers she’d erected blocked her way.

  She looked for him as she left for work the following morning, but didn’t hear any movement from his flat. When he wasn’t at work she began to worry, then scolded herself because it was none of her business where he was.

  ‘He had an appointment in the city,’ Sarah said, when Ginny had—very casually—mentioned his absence. ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back.’

  Seven that night—that’s when he returned. Ginny heard his tread on the steps but couldn’t rush out to say hello— even if she’d wanted to—because Paul was sitting in her living room, telling her about the terrible weekend he’d had with Isobel’s relatives.

  ‘Her sister-in-law offered to go through all her clothes. She said she wanted to give them to a charity, but I couldn’t help thinking she wanted some for herself, and I couldn’t bear to see her in Isobel’s things so I said, no, she couldn’t do it.’

  Ginny nodded sympathetically, but all her nerves were on full alert as she waited—hoped—for Max to knock. But his footsteps took him past her door, and she heard his key in his lock…

  Drearily, she remembered she’d done nothing about getting the locks changed—or even investigating if they needed changing!

  She murmured what she hoped was an appropriate reply to Paul and tried to pry her mind off what Max was doing next door. Dropping his laptop onto a chair, reefing his tie loose, flicking undone a button—

  ‘Listening to me?’

  ‘Of course,’ she lied to Paul. ‘I can understand exactly how you felt and I imagine your sister-in-law would have understood.’

  ‘Not her! She said it was morbid, keeping Isobel’s clothes.’

  ‘Maybe in five years it would be morbid,’ Ginny said, touching his knee in silent apology for her distraction. ‘But now? No way! You have to move through your grief at your own pace.’

  ‘I knew you’d understand,’ Paul said warmly, covering Ginny’s fingers with his own before she had time to lift them off his knee. ‘There’s something about you that reminds me of Isobel. Of all the wonderful things about her.’

  Like the million-dollar inheritance?

  Ginny wasn’t certain what recess of her brain threw that curly one into the equation, but Paul’s behaviour jarred on her.

  Probably because the wrong hand was holding hers!

  She tried to ease her fingers free, but he shifted so their hands were clasped between them, and peered earnestly at her.

  ‘Though I do have to get rid of the clothes. She was probably right when she said keeping them is stopping me from moving on. Have you heard any more about what’s happening? Have you been questioned again—I mean since Friday when the policeman was there in A and E?’

  Word travelled swiftly in a hospital, so it wasn’t surprising Paul knew of Brent’s visit. But Ginny didn’t dwell on the efficiency of the hospital grapevine, swamped instead by memories of the misery his visit had caused.

  ‘He didn’t want to see me about the latest victim—or Isobel for that matter.’ She felt the swoop of the emotional roller-coaster she’d been on since that time, and battled to control her reactions. But the tears slid down her cheeks and now Paul was holding her, soothing her, murmuring how sorry he was to upset her.

  She could hear the question he wasn’t asking—why all the emotion? But for once he didn’t ask, didn’t press for an answer.

  The pressure of his arms increased and Ginny reacted too sharply, pushing away then hurriedly excusing herself and heading for the bathroom.

  He was gone by the time she emerged, the tears washed away though traces remained in reddened eyes. She knew she’d probably offended him with her abrupt movement, but she was physically and mentally exhausted, so he’d have to stay offended.

  However, far from being offended, he seemed unaffected by her behaviour, seeking her out the following morning in A and E to ask if she’d have dinner with him that evening.

  ‘I’m working late,’ she explained.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  His eyes, a pale but still piercing blue, seemed to plead for a ‘yes’ and she reminded herself of all he’d lost, and agreed. Later he phoned to say he’d had a wonderful idea— how about she come to his place? He’d show her the old house. It would be a good opportunity as he mightn’t have it much longer. She might even…If she didn’t mind…

  She guessed from his hesitancy he wanted her to go through Isobel’s clothes, and once again found herself agreeing.

  ‘You and Max still not talking?’ Sarah observed, as they sat in the doctors’ office and watched Max chatting to one of the male nurses.

  ‘We’re not “not talking”,’ Ginny said. ‘We simply don’t have anything left to say to each other.’

  ‘No?’

  Sarah’s one-word question was disbelieving, and Ginny, feeling the pain around her heart as she looked at the man she knew she loved, wondered how things could have gone so wrong so quickly.

  ‘Why did you get so upset over Brent’s questioning?’ Sarah asked. She fixed Ginny with a determined look and added, ‘And don’t give me any nonsense about betrayal. If you think about it, Max did exactly what he should have done. As you knew he was here to look into the murders as well as do his stress study, then you should have been aware he was working as well as offering you his support while you watched the tapes.’

  Ginny sighed.

  ‘I do know all of that,’ she agreed.

  ‘But?’

  She tried a shrug, but couldn’t shrug off Sarah’s persistence.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Ginny found herself promising. ‘I’m working late but with an
y luck should be home by nine. If you can manage to stay awake that long, I’ll see you then.’

  They both returned to work, but Ginny found herself looking forward to the end of her shift—and to sharing what was worrying her with Sarah.

  But nothing was ever as easy as it seemed, so when the time came to explain she had trouble finding the words.

  Sarah had ordered pizza, and while it reheated she poured Ginny a glass of wine and ordered her to have a drink.

  ‘Priming me for confession?’ Ginny joked.

  Sarah studied her for a moment.

  ‘I think you’ll find the words will come—when you’re ready.’

  Ginny looked into the older woman’s green-gold eyes and wondered how some people who’d barely met became friends, while others known for years remained acquaintances.

  ‘Twelve months ago,’ she began, sipping at the wine as she chose each word with care, ‘there was a scandal at Ellison involving a nursing sister who was gay—a lesbian. I know we all believe in live and let live, and we should accept people as they are, but for some reason this woman’s personal life became public property.’

  Sarah slipped into the chair opposite and lifted her glass to Ginny.

  ‘Poor thing!’ she said, and Ginny knew she could continue.

  ‘A group of younger nurses decided to boycott her—to refuse to work the same shift. It was ridiculous, but it became a political hot potato in the hospital. The sister was shifted to a different ward, but totally false stories of her making passes at young nurses followed her and very early one morning she hanged herself in one of the nurses’ locker-rooms.’

  Sarah closed her eyes, but couldn’t shut out the horror of Ginny’s quietly spoken words.

  ‘When on earth will we learn, as humans, to accept each other as we are and celebrate the fact we don’t all come out of one mould?’ she muttered, then she set her glass down on the table and stood up to serve the pizza, stomping her way into the kitchen as if she needed the movement to vent her dismay.

  They ate in a ruminative silence.

  ‘That was great!’ Ginny said eventually. ‘A pizza is always too big for me so I rarely order it, but I do enjoy one now and then.’