The Surgeon's Family Wish (4 page)

He watched her face close up and knew he'd hit a nerve.

‘You've no right.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘To be watching me.'

‘I can't help it. I'm curious about you. For one thing you seem so alone.'

‘That's because I am.'

‘And is that how you want it to be.'

‘Not particularly,' she said in a casual tone that he found irritating. ‘But circumstances alter cases, just as broken noses alter faces.'

Aaron frowned.

‘Obviously it
doesn't
bother you all that much or you wouldn't be so flippant about it.'

She was serious now. ‘It's more a case of having to accept what life hands out to us, Aaron.'

‘And what has it handed out to you?'

‘Nothing good of late.'

‘So I'm right. There
is
something troubling you.'

Annabel could have told him that it was there in the form of a great big lump of misery, but for some strange reason she wanted her acquaintance with Aaron Lewis to be free of past encumbrances. She didn't want him to see her as someone with poor judgement so she didn't answer.

‘What about family?' he persisted, knowing he was being intrusive but unable to conceal his curiosity.

Within minutes they would be at the house. This brief moment of closeness in the car would be over and for some reason it was important to know what was going on in Annabel's life. She already knew most of what there was to know about him, but he knew nothing about her past, present or future expectations.

He was about to find out...some of it.

‘My parents were archaeologists, more interested in old relics than a small child, I was fobbed off on relatives for most of my childhood and the moment I was old enough I cut free and enrolled in medical school. Not long after that they were on a dig in India when there was an earthquake. They died there, along with
many others. I was almost nineteen at the time. So, you see, you are the fortunate one. You have your mother and Lucy, both of them delightful. I envy you.'

‘Yes, I
am
fortunate,' he agreed, bemused by Annabel's condensed description of what must have been a miserable childhood. But he didn't feel so ‘fortunate' at night in his lonely double bed.

The house was looming up in front of them and Annabel said, ‘Wow! What a lovely place you've got. The flat will seem like a rabbit hutch after this.'

He smiled. ‘I'm sure that you could do better. Is there a reason why you're in hospital accommodation?'

‘It's only because I couldn't be bothered to go house-hunting when I got the job at Barnaby's.' As he drove onto a wide paved drive beside an immaculate garden she added, ‘But after tonight I might be spurred on to greater things.'

His mother and Lucy were coming out to meet them and Annabel thought, This is unreal. What am I doing here? Aaron is doing the polite thing, showing his gratitude by inviting me to eat with them. He didn't have to do it.

When she glanced across at him there was a look on his face that she couldn't fathom, but there were other things to claim her attention. Lucy was saying shyly, ‘Hello, Dr Swain.' His mother was beaming her welcome and for the first time in months Annabel was beginning to unwind.

Bending down to the little girl, she said softly. ‘My name is Annabel, Lucy. No need to call me Dr Swain. That's just my hospital name.' She turned to a smiling Mary. ‘It's so nice to meet you again, Mrs Lewis. I've just been telling Aaron how lucky he is to have you with him.'

Mary's smile was slipping as her glance went to her son, and Annabel sensed undercurrents. But the comment had been innocent enough and if she'd been barging in where she shouldn't, it hadn't been intentional. There was the missing wife and mother, of course. Maybe it was to do with that.

The inside of the house was just as imposing as the outside. Someone who had a feel for colour and style had been responsible, and when she commented on it, almost as if it was the opening she'd been waiting for, Mary said, ‘My daughter-in-law was an interior designer. She had a feel for those sorts of things.'

‘Have
you
got a mummy, Annabel?' Lucy asked suddenly.

‘Er...no, I haven't,' she told the little girl, with the feeling that this evening was turning into a ‘get to know you' sort of occasion. It was only minutes ago that she'd been telling Aaron about her family background, or lack of it, and now Lucy was tuning in, but Annabel wasn't prepared for what was coming next.

‘
My
mummy drowned. So did my grandad.'

‘Oh!' Annabel breathed. ‘I am so sorry. What a terrible thing to happen.'

She was speaking to Lucy but her gaze was on Aaron standing very still beside his daughter.

‘Yes, it was,' he replied tonelessly, ‘but, Lucy, we haven't brought Annabel here to upset her, have we? And I'm sure that Mummy and Grandad are watching over us somewhere and hoping we have a nice evening.'

Annabel's mind was reeling. She'd been so wrapped up in her own misery and what she'd just heard had been like a bolt from the blue. She wasn't going to ask but Aaron's composure told her that the tragedy wasn't very recent and his mother was calm enough as she announced,
‘The meal is almost ready, Annabel.' She glanced at her son. ‘Shall we have a drink before dinner, my dear?'

‘Er...yes,' he said, as if bringing his thoughts back from somewhere far away.

Lucy, quite unaware that she'd dropped a bombshell, piped up, ‘And I'll have a drink of orange, please, Grandma.'

As the evening progressed the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed and Annabel thought wistfully that, whether the mother figure was missing or not, this was family life at its most enjoyable.

When it was time for Lucy to go to bed Mary said, ‘We'll let Daddy off bathtime tonight, shall we, Lucy? Annabel is our guest and it is only good manners that he should entertain her while I get you ready for bed.'

Aaron was smiling, but there was a glint in his eye that puzzled Annabel, as if messages were flashing between his mother and himself, but Mary's expression was innocent enough and Lucy had no problems with the suggestion. She trotted off obediently after planting a shy kiss on Annabel's cheek.

When she'd gone Annabel said into the silence that had fallen, ‘Lucy looks fine, Aaron. Are you satisfied with her progress?'

He nodded. ‘Yes. I am. That was a nightmare I wouldn't want to repeat.'

‘Your anguish at the time would have been understandable in any case,' she told him, ‘but after hearing what happened to your wife it must have been a nightmare. Do you want to tell me about it? I've told you about myself, so perhaps it's your turn to unburden yourself.'

That wasn't exactly true. She'd only told him about her past, not the miserable present.

‘I would rather we could have kept it light this evening,' he said after a moment's silence, ‘but Lucy, bless her, says whatever is in her mind, like most children do, so I suppose I don't mind talking about Eloise. I think about her enough.

‘We were on holiday in Cornwall and having a picnic on one of its fabulous beaches. Mum and Eloise were sunbathing and Dad was swimming out in the cove. We'd forgotten something, the sunblock cream to be exact, and I'd taken Lucy, who was only a toddler then, back to the hotel with me to get it.

‘While I was gone my dad got into difficulties. He was a strong swimmer but wasn't aware of the dangerous currents there, and on seeing his distress Eloise went in after him. By the time I got back they'd gone. Swept out to sea. The next time Mum and I saw them was when their bodies were washed up further along the coast a few days later.'

‘That
is
awful,' she choked.

He nodded. ‘My mother thinks I should be looking for someone to take Eloise's place, that I've been on my own long enough. But who is to say that the right wife for me would be the right mother for Lucy?'

Annabel averted her gaze from his. She would have settled for being just a one-parent family, given the chance, and no child of hers would ever have been subjected to the awful feeling of rejection that had tarnished her life. But she understood what this caring father was saying.

‘I would imagine that is a problem that faces many single parents when they consider remarrying,' she said slowly, ‘but a child can be just as miserable with its birth
parents as with someone not of its own blood. I don't know you all that well, Aaron, but you strike me as a person who would rarely make a wrong decision, either in your work or in your personal life, because you are cool and calm in everything you do.'

She wasn't to know that he was feeling anything but cool and calm at that moment. She was getting to him as no other woman had since he'd lost Eloise, and it was much more than just sexual chemistry.

In the car earlier she'd told him about her loveless childhood and he'd wanted to hold her close and soothe away the hurt from a friendship point of view, nothing more. And now, with a wisdom that no doubt came from her own experience, she was putting him right about his own life. Making him see that it
could
be possible to find happiness with someone else.

Sitting beside him with cheeks warming at her own temerity, Annabel was facing up to the fact that she liked this man a lot. She'd had respect for him from the moment of their meeting, even though on that awful morning he'd been brusque and dubious of her capabilities. But now it was something deeper than that. To compare Randy Graham with Aaron would be like putting a fake next to the real thing.

It wouldn't be wise to let her feelings run away with her, though. The fact that they were having this discussion showed that Aaron saw her as merely someone to talk to. He would never have said what he had if he'd any yearnings towards her. And was it surprising? He must see her as the person she had become, a washed-out, grieving loner, and for the first time in months she wanted to be different.

Aaron was smiling to conceal his own thoughts.

‘I don't know about me. But you have a wisdom all
of your own. It's good to be able to talk to someone who understands.' He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

It was just a friendly gesture, but she felt some of the chill leave her blood and for a crazy moment wondered what it would be like to sit in this charming room with him every evening after a hard day on the wards and in Theatre, with Lucy sleeping contentedly above.

His mother came in at that moment carrying a tray with coffee and pastries on it, and Aaron got to his feet.

‘Lucy is waiting for a goodnight kiss,' she said, smiling up at him. ‘I won't pour the coffee until you come down.'

When he'd gone Mary said, ‘And how are things with you, Dr Swain? Are you settling in all right in your new surroundings?'

Annabel wasn't sure whether she was referring to the dismal flat or Barnaby's itself, so she just said, ‘Yes, fine, thank you, Mrs Lewis. And it's not Dr Swain when I'm out and about. It's Annabel.'

Aaron's mother smiled. ‘And my name is Mary,' she said, straightening an imaginary crease in her skirt with a plump hand. ‘So what do you think of my son?'

Annabel's eyes widened. What was that supposed to mean?

‘I don't know Aaron all that well, er...Mary, but from what I've seen of him I think he is a doting father and a good doctor.'

‘I keep telling him he should marry again,' the other woman said wistfully. ‘I won't be here for ever and...' She'd left the sentence unfinished but it made her concerns clear.

‘I can understand how you feel,' Annabel told her, squirming inwardly, ‘but that is up to him, isn't it?'

They could hear his feet on the stairs and Mary sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you're right. We're happy enough as we are, but the future does worry me sometimes.'

Not as much as it worries me, Annabel thought wryly, but their anxieties had different sources.
She
would be happy if she could find some direction in her life. Except for the job that she adored it was empty, and likely to remain so, with the hurt inside her that Aaron seemed to be so strangely aware of.

Maybe she should have told him her problems in return for him telling her his. He might have had some words of wisdom to impart, but her feelings were still too raw to bring out into the open and where his loss had been due to a cruel twist of fate, hers had been self-inflicted up to a point. She was a doctor, for heaven's sake, and should have taken better precautions against pregnancy. Instead of letting her longing for a child overcome common sense.

* * *

As Aaron drove her home Annabel was thinking that it had been a strange and unsettling evening. She'd been allowed into the warm circle of a close family, depleted though they were, and at the same time had experienced the pleasure to be had from gracious living.

Maybe it had done her some good, seeing how other people lived. If it had lifted her out of the doldrums, Aaron would have done her a favour by inviting her to his home.

But before leaving him she had to get one thing clear. She was certain there had been no ulterior motive when he had mentioned the problems of remarriage, but she had a strong feeling that his mother's remarks had been aimed differently. That she had been sounding her out
as a prospective candidate for the position of second wife and stepmother to Lucy.

Grateful for the shadowy interior of the car and aware that they would be back at the flat within minutes, she said casually, ‘While you were upstairs with Lucy I got the impression that your mother was vetting me for the marriage market.'

He groaned and, taking his eyes off the road for a moment, scrutinised her face, searching for a guide to her feelings on the matter.

‘I'm sorry about that, Annabel,' he said quietly. ‘She means well, but Mum is letting her anxieties about the future take over. I invited you to dine with us as a thank you for what you did for Lucy.'