Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit: Bachelor of the Baby Ward / Fairytale on the Children's Ward. Meredith Webber
in that group. Would you like to come in and look around now, or would some other time suit you? Perhaps a time when you can bring your wife?’
Angus closed his eyes briefly. There always came a moment! He shored up the defences he’d built around his heart and answered calmly.
‘I’m a single parent,’ he said, happy the phrase was so familiar these days that no questions followed it. ‘But as Kate’s been seconded to show me where the supermarket is, and I don’t want to take up too much of her time,’ he added to Mary, ‘perhaps I could come back this afternoon?’
‘Any time,’ she said. ‘And you’re in good hands with Kate. If anyone knows her way around a supermarket, it’s our Dr Armstrong.’
‘Why would she say that?’ he asked his guide as they walked back to the elevator.
The redhead shrugged, looking thoroughly embarrassed once again. He knew it must be her colouring but it was unusual—refreshing?—to see a woman blush these days. But as they waited for the elevator, she shook off her embarrassment and explained.
‘When the childcare centre first asked the hospital powers that be about extending hours, the usual objections were raised—costs, and where would the money come from, et cetera—so a few of us, mostly parents and childcare centre staff, began to fund-raise with the aim of getting enough money to trial the idea. We baked a lot of cakes over a couple of months, selling them within the hospital to patients, visitors and staff. We used the kindergarten kitchen after hours and as my hours were fairly erratic—and to be perfectly honest I’m not much of a biscuit or cake cook—I was the chief shopper.’
‘And you don’t have children?’
The elevator had arrived but she didn’t move, looking at him again, the defiance in her eyes echoed in the slight tilt of her chin.
‘No, but that’s not to say I won’t ever have them.’
Did she feel she’d been too adamant that she added quickly, ‘And a lot of the people involved in the fund-raising were my friends.’
They rode back up to the ground floor, the questions he’d have liked to ask—was she married, did her husband work at the hospital—were too personal when they’d just met. There was something about her—pale skin, delicate features and a slim dancer’s body, straight-backed, head held high—that reminded him of the delicate porcelain figurines his mother collected, so he kept sneaking looks at her.
At least, he thought that’s why he kept looking at her. It had to be; he didn’t look at women any other way these days—well, not often, and definitely not at women who were colleagues.
Yet he was intrigued enough to ask the questions anyway.
‘You seem positive about the children in your future. Are you already married to their father? Engaged?’
They were walking through a fairly crowded foyer so someone bumped into her when she stopped abruptly and he had to put out his hand to grab her shoulder and steady her. But the people around them didn’t seem to bother her as she studied him for a moment, then gave a rueful smile, cheeks pink again.
‘Not married, not even engaged, but all I’ve wanted to be since I was eleven is a grandmother, and, being a doctor, I do understand I’ll have to be a mother first.’
She’d made a joke of it, but underneath her light-hearted confession, Angus sensed a deeper emotion and wondered if this was a stock answer she gave to fend off further questions. It must have some basis in truth, so what had happened when she was eleven?
And why was he wondering?
Then she added, ‘Maybe,’ and the word had such sad undertones he wanted to hug her—a comforting hug, nothing more, but not something he made a habit of doing with colleagues.
It was strange that the man’s questions had Kate coming out with something she’d never told a soul, not even her best friend. And while it was true it had been an ambition since childhood, she’d blurted it out it because the pang she always felt when the question of children arose had surprised her today with its intensity.
Had he fallen for the grandmother excuse? Who would? A diversion—that’s what she needed.
‘There’s a coffee shop here that does good coffee and great friands, a sort of pastry. Let’s fortify ourselves for the shopping trip.’
She waved her hand in the direction of the coffee shop, then realised half the hospital could be taking a break there. Walking in with a man who’d immediately be established in the hospital’s top-ten most handsome could give rise to the kind of gossip she hated.
‘No, a better idea would be to show you the best little eating place around here. The breakfast crowd will have gone and the morning coffee crowd not arrived. It’s a bit of a walk but through a nice park. Come on.’
What was she doing? It had to be more than strangeness in her stomach from mouldy bread that had her confessing her grandmother obsession to the man one minute, then asking him to Scoozi for coffee the next.
Someone in the hospital coffee shop she didn’t want to see? Angus wondered, but he followed her out of the hospital, across a road and into the big park that stretched away for what seemed like miles.
‘I’ve a hospital house down that road,’ he said, pointing across the intersection where solid, old, two- and three-storeyed houses lined a tree-shaded street. ‘My house is opposite a park. Is this the same park?’
His guide turned towards him, a frown on her face—a face which, unlike his mother’s porcelain figurines, showed every emotion.
Right now it was a picture of dismayed disbelief.
‘You’re living in one of the hospital houses?’
Unable to see why it should worry her, he nodded.
‘I gather it’s the one Maggie and Phil left,’ he explained. ‘It’s actually two flats which is perfect for me as Juanita, my housekeeper-nanny, likes her own accommodation. She says she’s not my wife or mother and is entitled to her own space.’
He can’t be living in Maggie and Phil’s place! The wailing words raced through Kate’s brain, but she knew someone was—she’d seen a removal van there yesterday and wondered who could afford to pay for one on a Sunday.
She could move! It didn’t matter that she’d decided she had to face her ghosts. She could do that next year, or the year after. She’d had good tenants in the house before, and the renovations she wanted to do could wait.
Except that she’d already stripped the wallpaper off most of the living room walls—
‘Are you all right?’
The last word, with its rolled r only made her mad, panicky reaction worse, but she steeled herself to calm down. It was the man’s accent, that was all, the deep Scottish voice would make anyone shiver.
That and the shadows in his dark eyes.
‘I was thinking of coincidences,’ she said, aware of the lameness of this excuse. ‘I live next door.’
‘Next door towards the hospital?’ His eyebrows rose as he asked the question, and there was a puzzled look on his face, much like the one he’d worn when he’d asked her about her marital status—puzzled and a bit amused at the same time, though once again his eyes weren’t smiling.
‘Next door the other way,’ she corrected, then before he could make some polite remark about the state of her overgrown garden or the junk from the living room she’d been depositing in the front yard, she added, ‘It was my family home but it’s been rented out for the past few years. I’m doing a bit of renovating now that I’ve moved back in.’
She didn’t add, With the ghosts, although that was how it felt—just herself and the lonely ghosts in a house made for families, a house that should ring with children’s laughter.