Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit: Bachelor of the Baby Ward / Fairytale on the Children's Ward. Meredith Webber
laughter while the children, all related in some way—connected and secure in the connections—had dashed around like restless puppies. This is a family, Kate had realised. This is what I want!
She shut the door on that memory, and fast-forwarded to years later and her adamant refusal to have a termination when Brian had suggested it. The baby would have been her family—would have been. She continued on her way. By now they were halfway across the corner of the park, and a short detour to the right took them to the road opposite Scoozi.
‘That’s the café,’ she said, pointing to a place that had seen so much drama played out among hospital personnel, the walls were probably impregnated with emotion.
In order to avoid any further asinine confessions, once they had coffee and carrot cake, which happened to be the cake of the day, in front of them, Kate introduced work topics, asking him why TGAs had become something of a specialty with him.
Serious, dark brown eyes studied her across the table and for a moment she thought he might not answer her question, but apparently he was only mustering his thoughts—not coming out with the first thing that came into his head, as she was wont to do!
‘My first operation—the first I did as lead surgeon in a team—was a TGA and things went wrong. The coronary arteries were twisted around the heart, one of them going through the heart walls, and although we got there in the end, it was enough to make me realise that TGAs weren’t the piece of cake I’d been considering them.’
Kate nodded, picturing the subdued panic in the theatre as the team fought to sort out the problems that tiny heart would have presented.
‘So you made a speciality of them?’
He smiled at her, a slow, lazy smile that made her stomach flip. Mouldy bread or something far more serious?
‘Well, I did a lot more study into previous TGA cases and the complications the team could encounter during the operation, and tried to work out the best way of handling them.’
‘Including coping with coronary arteries that wound through the heart wall?’ Kate teased, unable to stop herself smiling at this stranger.
Not that he’d be a stranger for long, because they were neighbours, as well as colleagues. The thought caused another quiver in her abdomen, although she knew they’d only be friends. A man as good-looking as Angus McDowell could have his pick of women—should he want a woman—and scraggly redheads were unlikely to be on the top of his list.
‘Including—in fact, especially—that,’ he was saying. ‘Now, you’re doing me a favour, showing me around, so I’ll pay for our coffee.’
He stood and walked towards the till, leaving Kate wondering what she’d said that had caused such an abrupt departure.
And such a shift in mood, which had been becoming, well, neighbourly!
Angus knew he’d spoken curtly, not to mention practically knocking over his chair in his haste to get away from the table, but the redhead’s smile—talking about coronary arteries of all things—had caused a physical reaction in his body, one he hadn’t felt in a long time, and didn’t want to dwell on now.
Jet lag might explain it.
Or concern about Hamish’s rash.
Hamish…
Better to think about Kate’s smile than the little boy he loved but knew he wasn’t bonding with the way he should—the little boy who was the image of his mother…
He paid for the coffees, but thinking of Kate’s smile had him wondering if he could politely ask directions to the supermarket so they could part company and he could sort out what was happening to him.
Hardly!
Nor was he going to be able to avoid her in the future, given they’d be working on the same team—working closely.
Kate took him to the local shopping mall, within walking distance, and pointed out the best places to shop for meat and fruit.
‘Stupid of me not to have thought of getting the car before we came here. Do you have a car?’ Although she needed to shop herself—fresh bread for one thing—she was too eager to get out of his company to do it now, so added quickly, ‘All the shops deliver, or you could get a cab. Will you be all right?’
Angus was forced to look at her now, although since the smile he’d been avoiding eye contact. The neat-fetured face was turned towards him and it seemed to him there was a shadow of anxiety in her pale green eyes.
For him?
Surely not! He was a grown man and quite capable of shopping and getting a cab home.
But it could hardly be for herself.
‘Thank you, yes, of course I’ll manage,’ he responded, but at the same time, contrary now, he wished she’d stay—shop with him, share the cab, maybe come in and meet Hamish and Juanita—neighbourly…
‘Stop kidding yourself,’ he muttered under his breath when, goodbyes said, he was striding down the refrigerator aisle in the supermarket. ‘One silly little smile across a coffee table and suddenly you’re attracted to the woman!’
Not that anything could happen! It was Sod’s Law once again. The one woman in the world he’d felt a physical response to in four years and she wanted children.
Well, she wanted to be a grandmother…
Why?
He recalled a depth of emotion in her voice and guessed the grandmother thing might be a cover for something else.
He shoved yoghurt and butter into his trolley, then had to go back for cheese, knowing it wasn’t quite true about the physical attraction. There’d been a couple of women but nothing serious, nothing he’d wanted to pursue.
So maybe an affair with this woman…
What was he thinking! He’d barely met her, didn’t know her at all, and just because she looked like one of his mother’s figurines, it didn’t mean he had to go loopy over her. Besides, there were a whole raft of reasons why he shouldn’t get involved. The effect it would have on his relationship—what there was of it—with Hamish for one. Two, she was a colleague. And three, well, he wasn’t certain about three, although he knew there must be a three—didn’t things always come in threes…?
Having worked the previous weekend, Kate had what was left of Monday off, but given the proximity of their houses and not wanting to run into Angus McDowell again, she chose instead to go back to work. There was always book work to be done, and reports to write up—work she was usually happy to ignore until the last possible moment.
It was almost dusk when she finally walked down the road to her house, dawdling until she reached the place where Angus McDowell now lived, then hurrying, looking busy, in case he happened to see her. But once past the boundary fence, she paused and surveyed the mess in her front yard. She should have hired a skip before she began moving the old furniture. She could have thrown things straight into it.
‘It’s a terrible mess.’ The young, accusatory voice came from somewhere behind an old yellow sofa and the rolled r‘s told her it must be the four-year-old from next door.
‘It is indeed,’ she agreed, walking towards the sofa and peering over the back to see the little boy with wide blue eyes beneath a tousled thatch of white-blond hair, crouched there, a tunnel through the hedge behind him revealing his access from the neighbouring yard. ‘Does your dad know you’re here?’
‘He’s out…’ It sounded like ‘oot’ to Kate, who had to smile, though if the child had been living in the U.S., surely his accent should be American rather than Scottish.
‘And Juanita told me to get out from under her feet,’ the small explorer finished. ‘I was looking for an adventure. Me and McTavish—he’s my dog but right now he’s quantined—we like adventures.’
Kate