Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit: Bachelor of the Baby Ward / Fairytale on the Children's Ward. Meredith Webber
this long?
‘Here’s Dad! He’s remembered drinks even though we didn’t tell him.’
Kate turned to see Angus approaching, holding white-wrapped parcels of food in one hand, a soft drink and a long green bottle in the other. He reached the table and put down the white parcels, gave Hamish his drink, then deposited the bottle on the table.
‘I haven’t a clue about Australian wines. I drank a fair bit of it in the U.S., but none of the names were familiar so I asked the chap behind the counter what went with battered savs.’
He was pulling two wineglasses from his pocket as he spoke, then he looked apologetically at Kate.
‘I do hope you drink wine. I didn’t think—should I have got you a soda, as well?’
‘I’d love a glass of wine,’ Kate assured him. ‘Especially a glass of this wine. The bloke at the wine shop saw you coming, and sold you something really special—really expensive, I would think!’
Angus smiled at her, destroying most of her resolution to pretend she felt no attraction.
‘Phooey to the price, as long as you enjoy it. We can both have a glass now and you can take the rest home to enjoy another time—it’s a screw-top.’
He poured the wine, then busied himself unwrapping Hamish’s dinner, showing him the battered sav.
‘It’s a kind of sausage called a saveloy that’s fried in batter,’ he explained to Hamish, who was squeezing tomato sauce onto it with the ease of an expert in takeaway food.
‘And don’t think you’ll get one too often,’ Angus added. ‘Full of nitrates, then the batter and the frying in oil—just about every dietary and digestive no-no.’
‘You’re just jealous you didn’t get one,’ Kate told him, biting into hers with relish, then she laughed as Angus delved into his white package and came up with one.
‘Well, I had to try it, didn’t I?’ he said defensively, but as he bit into it, he pulled a face and set it back down, deciding to eat his fish—grilled not fried, Kate noticed—instead.
‘They’re not to everyone’s taste,’ she said, ‘but my father was the food police like you and I never got to taste one as a child, so I became obsessed later on in life.’
‘Obsessed by battered savs?’ Angus teased.
‘Better than being obsessed by some other things I could think of,’ Kate retorted.
Her next-door neighbour for one!
Chapter Four
KATE stopped the car in the back lane outside their gate and watched the two males walk into their yard, the taller one looking straight ahead, although Hamish was chattering at him.
He was a good father, Angus, Kate told herself as she pulled into the shed that did service as a garage for Molly, but she sensed that something was amiss in his relationship with his son. Back when she was young, she’d felt guilt—blamed herself—for her family’s disintegration, thinking that if somehow she had managed to save Susie, everything would have been all right. It was this, she knew, that had led her to accept that, although her father loved her, there would always be a wall between them, so even when he was dying they couldn’t talk about the past.
Had his wife’s death built the same kind of wall between Angus and Hamish, or had Angus simply shut himself off from all emotion to shield himself from further pain?
And just what did she think she was doing, pondering such things? she asked herself as she closed the double doors of the shed. Why was she considering the convoluted emotional state of someone she barely knew?
Because you’re interested in him.
The answer was immediate and so obvious she felt a blush rising in her cheeks and was glad that Angus wasn’t around to see it. A dead giveaway, her blushes.
She thought of Clare instead, of the dark-haired beauty, and reminded herself that if Angus McDowell decided to be interested in a woman on their team, then Clare would surely be the number-one choice.
Kate grumped her way inside, a depression she rarely felt dogging her footsteps, but as she showered she thought of baby Bob and realised how little she really had to complain about.
Refreshed, she opted not for lounging-at-home clothes—in her case a singlet top and boxer shorts, her pyjamas of choice—but for respectable clothes—long shorts and a T-shirt, reasonable hospital visiting clothes. She’d just pop up and check not only on Bob but on Mr and Mrs Stamford, as well, to see how they were coping.
‘There’s something wrong? You’ve been called in?’
The panic she’d felt when she saw Angus by Bob’s crib was evident in her voice, but when he turned and smiled at her she realised she’d overreacted.
‘Did you think you were the only one who likes to check on patients, even when there’s no reason for alarm?’ he said.
Damn the blush.
‘Of course not,’ she managed stoutly. ‘It was just that seeing you there with him gave me a shock. Mr and Mrs Stamford?’
‘Gone to get a bite to eat. I said I’d stay.’
Was there an edge of strain in his voice that the statement pinged some memory in Kate’s head?
‘I got the impression you didn’t like getting too involved with patients and their parents?’
He frowned at her but she was getting used to that.
‘I think a certain degree of emotional detachment is necessary in our job.’
But even as Angus said the words he knew it hadn’t always been that way. He also knew that it was seeing Kate Armstrong’s empathy with Mrs Stamford that had broken through a little of his own detachment, enough to lead him to suggest he stayed with Bob while the couple ate together.
Was this good or bad, the breakthrough?
He was so caught up in his own thoughts it took him a moment to realise Kate was talking to him, pointing out the oxygen level in Bob’s blood, suggesting they might be able to take him off the ventilator sooner, rather than later.
Dragging his mind back to his patient, he nodded his agreement.
‘The operation is so much simpler when the coronary arteries are good,’ he said. ‘I was thinking the same thing about the ventilator when you came in. Maybe tomorrow morning we’ll try him off it.’
They stood together beside the crib, Angus so conscious of the woman by his side he knew he had to be very, very wary of any contact with her outside working hours. Admittedly, her taking them to the beach, her offer to lend her car at the weekend, were nothing more than neighbourly gestures, and he wouldn’t want to rebuff her or offend her, but every cell in his body was shouting a warning at him—danger, keep clear, problems ahead.
Kate felt him closing off from her and wondered if he’d been offended by her comment earlier—the one about detachment. But if he was closing off from her, well, that was good. It would be easier for her to pretend that’s all they were, neighbourly colleagues, in spite of how her body felt whenever she was in his company.
She felt hot and excited and trembly somehow, physical manifestations she couldn’t remember feeling since she was fifteen and had had a crush on the captain of the school’s football team. Not that he’d ever looked at her, nor even stood close to her.
She stepped away from the crib, turning to greet the Stamfords, who’d returned from their dinner.
Pete Stamford eyed her with suspicion, and she wondered if he was worrying again, thinking the presence of two doctors by his son’s crib meant there were problems.
‘It’s a habit,’ Kate was quick to assure him. ‘I find I sleep