Dr. Zinetti's Snowkissed Bride (4 page)

‘I didn't need his help. I could have managed on my own.'

‘Megan, when are you going to realise that you don't win awards in this life for managing on your own?' Her mother looked tired suddenly. ‘You're a fantastic mum, but Jamie needs a man in his life and, frankly, so do you. It's time you stopped shutting everyone out. If you can't bring yourself to trust another man quite yet, at least make a New Year's resolution to have sex.'

‘Sex?'
Scandalised, Meg shrieked the word just as Dino scooped Jamie out of the car.

It echoed through the silence, the sound somehow magnified by the cold emptiness of the night.

Across the snow Dino's eyes met hers.

And she knew she was in trouble.

‘M
UMMY
,
what's sex?'

Oh, brilliant. Cursing her mother for landing her in such deep water, Meg tucked the duvet around Jamie. ‘Well, sex can mean different things.' This was one conversation she did
not
want to have right now—not while memories of Dino's irresistible dark eyes were still fixed in her brain. ‘It can mean the same thing as gender—whether someone is male or female.'

‘So Rambo is male sex.'

‘That's right.'

‘And you're female sex.'

‘Right again.'

Jamie reached for his drink of water. ‘So what else does it mean?'

Meg wondered whether to simply change the subject and then decided that wouldn't be right. This was part of being a single parent, wasn't it? You dealt with these things on your own. ‘When a male and a female come together to make a baby, that's called sex, too.' She decided that was enough detail for a seven-year-old, at least for the time being.

‘Grandma thinks you should make a baby.'

Meg gulped. ‘No, Jamie, that's not what Grandma thinks.'

‘Yes, she does. She's told me loads of times she thinks you
should get married and have more babies. She's always talking about it.'

Meg contemplated calling her mother upstairs to sort out the mess she'd created. ‘Jamie, I'm not getting married.' She took the cup from him and tucked the duvet around him. ‘Honestly, if I ever decide to get married, you'll be the first to know.'

‘The man you're marrying would be the first to know. I'd be second.'

‘Sometimes, my little superhero, you're too clever for your own good.' Meg kissed him on the cheek and then reached across and snapped the light on by his bed. ‘Which story do you want?'

‘Batman. So if you're not getting married, why did you yell the word “sex”? And why was Dino laughing so hard?' Jamie snuggled under the duvet, his hair still rumpled from play-fighting with the Italian doctor. His Batman toy was still in his hand. ‘I don't get what's funny.'

‘Nothing's funny. I was talking to Grandma. She was being…well, she was being Grandma.'

‘She also told me it isn't normal or natural for a young woman of your age to be on her own,' Jamie parroted. ‘I pointed out I live here too, but apparently I don't count.'

‘You count, Jamie.' Meg picked up the book they'd been reading the night before. ‘Believe me, you count.'

‘I wouldn't mind if you got married. Especially if you married Dino. That would be super-cool.'

Meg thought about the heat they'd generated in the small tent on the mountainside. ‘Cool' wasn't the word she would have chosen. ‘Jamie, I'm not marrying Dino. We're not even…well…'

‘You're not dating?'

‘What do you know about dating?'

‘It's when a boy and a girl hold hands. Sometimes they kiss and stuff. I know you don't do it.'

‘Right. Well, that's because I haven't met anyone I want to…' she cleared her throat ‘…hold hands with.'

‘Maybe you will now we've hung all the mistletoe everywhere. Grandma says you just won't let a man close enough to hold your hand.'

‘Grandma talks too much.'

‘But it could happen?'

Not in a million years.
‘Maybe—of course, you never know what will happen in this world.'

‘Could it happen by Thursday?'

‘Thursday?'
Meg blinked. ‘Why Thursday?'

‘Thursday is Dad's Day at school.' He sounded gloomy. ‘You're supposed to bring in your dad or some other important man in your life and they're all meant to talk about their jobs for five minutes.'

Meg felt as though ice water had been poured down her back. ‘There are lots of kids in your school whose parents have split up.'

‘Not in my class. Only Kevin and he still sees his dad every weekend. I'm the only one whose dad doesn't actually visit. Freddie King says I must be a total loser if even my own dad doesn't want to be with me.' Jamie sat up and scrubbed his hand over his face. ‘I know you told me to be ass-ass—'

‘Assertive.'

‘That's what I meant—assertive, but it's hard to be assertive when he's telling the truth.' His little mouth wobbled.

‘It isn't the truth, Jamie.' Meg felt boiling-hot anger replace the freezing cold. ‘Dad didn't leave because of you,' she muttered thickly, pulling him into her arms and hugging him tightly. The plastic Batman dug into her back. ‘He left because of me. I've told you that a thousand times. He left
before you were even born, so how could it have been about you? Technically, you weren't even here.'

‘The thought of me was enough to scare him away.'

‘It wasn't you who scared him away, it was me. I wasn't who he wanted me to be.' Meg eased him away from her. ‘Your dad wanted a really girly girl, and I'm, well, I'm not like that. I've never been that great with hair and dresses and make-up and all that stuff.'

But other women were.

Do you really need to ask why I had an affair with Georgina? Because she's glamorous, Meg, that's why.

Meg sat still, shocked by how much it could still hurt, even after more than seven years.

Jamie snuggled under the covers, clearly reassured by her words. ‘But you can do all the important things. You're like Mrs Incredible. I mean, not with the stretchy arms, but you can climb, and slide down ropes and stuff. That's cool.'

Mrs Incredible. Meg swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘Well,
you
think it's cool, but some people think it's more important to know about the right shade of nail varnish than be able to rescue someone off a mountain in a blizzard.' She stroked his head quickly and then stood up, too agitated to sit still a moment longer. She prowled around the tiny bedroom, picking up socks and more Batman toys, trying not to remember how hard she'd found it to fit in at school. She didn't want her child to go through the same thing. She didn't want him to feel that same sense of isolation. ‘It's going to be OK, Jamie. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to your teacher and ask her what on earth she was thinking, having Dad's Day at school. It just makes kids a target for bullying. We'll sort it out, I promise. We'll come up with a plan.'

Jamie was silent for a moment. ‘I sort of had a plan. I thought of something.'

‘Good. That's what I like. A plan. It's great that you sort things out by yourself. Tell me.'

‘I want to invite Dino.'

Meg froze. ‘To Dad's Day?'

‘Why not? He lets me ride in his car, he's always nice to me when we have to go the mountain rescue centre and that time at the hospital he let me wait in his office and got me a whole bunch of toys to play with. And he knows about cars and stuff. I like him. He's nice.'

Nice?
Meg thought about Dino Zinetti. Hair as dark as night, a mouth that was masculine and sexy and eyes that knew just how to look at a woman.

‘Nice isn't the word I'd use.'

Jamie looked shocked. ‘You don't think Dino is nice?'

‘I'm not saying he isn't nice, honey.'

‘Nice' seemed like such an inappropriate word to describe a man as hotly sexual as Dino, but somehow Meg managed to get her tongue round it. ‘He is—er—nice, but, well…he's just not the right person to take to Dad's Day.'

‘It doesn't have to be your dad. Just a man who is important in your life.'

And she didn't let Jamie have a man who was important in his life, did she? This was all her fault. Torn apart by guilt, Meg stood still. ‘Jamie, listen, I—'

‘You work with him every day. Will you ask him, Mum? He just has to come for an hour and chat about what he does.'

Ask Dino to come to the school? Meg felt the Batman toy bite into her palm as she squeezed it tight. ‘He wouldn't do that.'

‘He might. You didn't think he'd let me sit in his car, and he did. You don't know if you don't ask.'

‘I can't ask, Jamie.'

Jamie's face fell. ‘OK. I'll just go on my own. It'll be fine.'

Meg felt like the worst mother in the world. ‘All right, I'll ask him.' The words were torn from her, dragged from inside her by the raw power of maternal guilt. ‘But he might be busy.'

‘I know. He's a consultant in Emergency Medicine and he's a member of the mountain rescue team
and
he won a gold medal in the men's downhill at the winter Olympics when he was nineteen.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘He won a gold medal. Didn't you know?'

‘No,' Meg said faintly. ‘I didn't. We don't talk about personal stuff that much.'

‘You should. He's really cool, Mum. Did you know that when he was my age he could eat six doughnuts in under a minute?'

Meg thought of Dino's athletic physique, a result of his active, outdoor lifestyle. ‘No, I didn't know that either. Presumably he gave that habit up before he won the men's downhill. Go to sleep now.' Why on earth had she allowed herself to say she would speak to Dino? She'd rather dig a hole and bury herself in it. ‘Jamie, listen to me—'

‘I'm so glad you're going to ask him, Mum.' Jamie pulled the duvet up to his neck, a blissful smile on his face. ‘I was dreading school this week, but now I'm really looking forward to it. Dino's the best. If he comes and talks to my class, Freddie will never tease me again. Do you know it's only fifteen more sleeps until Christmas? Isn't that great? I've written my letter to Santa. I did it with Grandma. We put it in the fireplace. Do you think he'll take it tonight?'

Meg opened her mouth to tell him that there was no way she could ask Dino to Dad's Day. ‘I'm sure Santa will take it. Is it really only fifteen more sleeps?' Her voice was croaky and somehow she just couldn't form the right words. ‘That is great. I guess I'd better start doing some Christmas shopping.'

 

Hi, Dino, what are you doing on Thursday?

Hi, Dino, don't take this the wrong way, but would you consider…?

Meg rehearsed various ways of asking him as she walked through the main entrance of the hospital the following morning. As if she didn't have enough pressure from her mother, now she had it from her son, too.

Why did she have to find a man? It was just nonsense. Jamie's life was full of men. Just not one special man. And that was a good thing. Relying on one man could leave you flat on your face, as she'd discovered to her cost.

Jamie had already had one man walk out of his short life. She wasn't going to allow it to happen a second time by encouraging him to spend time with a man as notorious for his unwillingness to commit to relationships as Dino.

They were doing fine, the two of them. They were a great team. She was the one in control of their future.

But she couldn't shift the heavy weight of guilt and she'd hovered for an extra five minutes at the school gates, fighting the temptation to seek out Freddie and tell him to stop torturing her child. She'd stood and watched Jamie, a tiny figure, swamped by his warm jacket.
The only boy in his class who wasn't bringing a Dad to Dad's Day.

She'd wanted to go into the school and yell at them for being insensitive, but Jamie had begged her not to. Now she was wishing she'd overruled him.

Should she have rung the school? Freddie's mother? She worried about it all the way to work and was still worrying when she visited Harry in the observation ward. He was in a corner bed on his own. ‘Hey, layabout. I thought I'd say hi before I start work.'

His face brightened when he saw her. ‘Wolf-girl!'

‘Better not call me that. They're funny about animals in hospital—they might throw me out. Here…' Meg handed him
a book she'd bought from the hospital shop, ‘I've no idea if you've read it, but I thought it had an interesting cover. Monsters ripping people apart. Perfect teenage reading.'

‘Thanks. Cool.' Harry put it on his lap and reached for some chocolate from his locker. ‘Want some?'

‘At nine in the morning? No, thanks. I don't mind being wolf-girl, but I draw the line at elephant-girl, and if I start eating chocolate for breakfast that's what I'll be. How's your head?'

‘Hurts.' Harry chewed. ‘But they did that scan thing and said my brain is all right.'

‘I know. No skull fracture. I rang last night to check up on you.' She looked at his bedside table. ‘Who bought you the torch and the whistle? Your mum?'

‘Are you kidding? Mum's never going to let me out of her sight again.' He looked gloomy. ‘No, the torch and whistle were from Dr Zinetti. He dropped them off before he went off duty last night. Or it might have been this morning—it was definitely after midnight.'

He'd been at the hospital that late? Meg's tummy gave a little lurch. ‘I suppose your mum was upset.'

‘She freaked out. I'm grounded. No more walks on my own. Dad went totally mental.' He looked so forlorn that Meg took pity on him.

‘When you've healed, you can walk with Rambo and me.'

‘And me.' The deep, male voice came from right behind her and Meg felt her heart bump against her chest. Was it the Italian accent? Or the fact that last night he'd got too close for comfort? Or was it just her mother's fault for mentioning sex?

She closed her eyes briefly, feeling sick at the thought of telling him Jamie's request. Imagining how he would interpret
such an invitation, Meg slid lower in her chair. Could anything be more embarrassing?

‘Hi, Dr Zinetti,' Harry grinned. ‘Thanks again for the torch and the whistle.'

‘Basic walking equipment.' Dino sat down on the chair on the opposite side of Harry's bed and helped himself to chocolate. ‘I'm going to run a survival course in the New Year. I've booked you on it, no charge.'