Kitabı oku: «A Very Single Midwife», sayfa 2

Tonight had seemed a good opportunity to apologise for his lack of support at her promotion and see her in action. The trouble was, when he let his barriers down, the depth of his attraction to her swamped him like it had now and his plan of just being friends became difficult to stick to.

The bus pulled up at Bella’s house more sharply than expected and everyone jerked in their seats. ‘Sorry,’ Bella murmured as she opened the door. The twins giggled as they waved goodbye.

Bella glanced at Scott. ‘Are you on call for the ward?’ Scott nodded and patted his pager and Bella raised her eyebrows. ‘What were you going to do if your pager went off and they needed you in Maternity?’

‘I was hoping the bus driver would drop me off. It’s a small town.’

Bella smiled and his own lips curved. Hell, she was beautiful. She was still talking and he tried to concentrate.

‘Are you going home now or were you planning to wait for the next run in an hour?’

Waiting with Bella would be exquisite torture but, now he realised there was a chance she’d be alone in the bus to pick up strange young people, he’d never settle at home. ‘I’ll wait.’

Bella glanced at him and he couldn’t tell her thoughts from her noncommittal voice. ‘Were you planning on coming on all the trips tonight?’

He avoided her eyes. ‘I don’t like the idea of you being here on your own.’ He stood and watched her squeeze out from behind the wheel and waited for her to go past him before following her out. Her no-nonsense jeans hugged her tiny waist and stretched over the subtle curve of her buttocks and down her long legs like a second skin as she descended the steps. Scott closed his eyes.

At work he could control the direction of his thoughts. But tonight, after the decision he’d made today to get used to Bella being in his life again, it was much harder to stay detached.

In the old boarding-house-cum-family home it was quieter than he’d expected for just after eight o’clock in the evening. The bustling family atmosphere he’d vaguely assumed would distract him from lusting after Bella wasn’t there. Now he was in trouble.

‘Drop in and say hello to Aunt Sophie. She’d love to see you,’ Bella said over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen.

Scott glanced at the closed door in the foyer and accepted that the light streaming from under it meant that Sophie was awake. He knocked and a querulous voice called for him to enter.

The white-haired old lady was hunched in front of the television, watching the horse races as he’d expected, and she cackled softly when she saw him. Her bird-like face widened into a grin and he wondered not for the first time how she managed to eat with so few teeth.

‘Bit late for a house call, Dr Rainford,’ Sophie said.

Scott walked across the room to stand beside her chair. ‘I’m doing the bus run with Bella tonight. How are you, Sophie? Keeping the house under control as usual?’

‘Bella runs it. I just watch. And soon I’ll see my new great-nephew.’

Scott smiled at the old lady’s delight. ‘He’s a fine young fellow and Abbey looked wonderful when I saw her before tea.’

‘They deserve their happiness. And so do you. You might think of doing something about it before you get too old.’

Scott raised his eyebrows but, in fact, nothing Bella’s aunt said could surprise him after all these years of being her doctor. Sophie’s eyes had strayed from his, back to the screen, as a new race started. He’d ceased to exist.

‘Funny you should say that,’ he murmured. More loudly, he said, ‘I’ll go, then. Good luck with your punting.’

She flicked him a sly glance. ‘Good luck with yours.’ And turned back to the television.

Scott bit back a sigh as he left the room. One thing about old age seemed to be that you could say what you wanted, when you wanted!

CHAPTER TWO

BACK in the foyer, the twins had disappeared up the stairs and then a barely audible thumping beat vibrated through the house. He looked down where the noise seemed to be seeping through the floorboards under his feet. Thump, thump, thump. He wondered if his son liked that kind of music and even if Bella did. He was definitely too old for Bella. He thought wistfully of his own quiet house until Bella returned from the kitchen and then age was forgotten.

She was munching an apple and he couldn’t help the sudden connection in his head to Adam and Eve and the malicious serpent of desire. Even in jeans she embodied the essence of womanhood and he could feel the too-familiar surge of frustration at the unfairness of fate.

‘It seems Vivie’s gone to bed.’ Bella said as she rubbed the uneaten side of her apple against her breast to shine it. Scott almost groaned at the undulation of tissue under the fruit. Oblivious, she went on, ‘Her baby was unsettled last night and she’s probably trying to catch up on some sleep.’ Bella tilted her head and he could see she was unsure what to do with him. ‘Do you want to listen to music in the study until the next trip?’

Scott tore his eyes away from the tightness of her shirt and dragged his thoughts back under control as he followed her into the book-lined room. He remembered the room they used as a study from when Abbey had lived here, but the aura was different.

Bella had painted the walls a soft lilac and replaced the old curtains with white linen. She gestured to an under-stuffed chair as she moved across to turn on the CD player. ‘Please, sit down.’

Before he knew it Carol King had started to sing softly in the background about a life and a tapestry and he relaxed a little at the pleasant music. Bella crossed the room back to him as he sank into the chair. And sank comprehensively until his knees almost came up to his chin. He pretended to be comfortable though he felt like he’d been swallowed whole. At least it took his mind off Bella’s breasts.

Bella perched on the arm of a sister chair and Scott could see why. Bella would disappear if she sank as far as he had.

Her eyes twinkled. ‘Sorry about the chairs. There used to be a chaise longue in here but Rohan asked if Abbey could take it with her when they got married. Something to do with happy memories or something and I couldn’t say no.’ She grinned. ‘He’s so romantic and Abbey is so matter-of-fact. Love is grand if it works out.’ She shrugged and patted the chair.

‘I found these really cheap at a garage sale.’ Her smile faded and she glanced out of the window at the house next door where her sister and brother-in-law lived. ‘Poor old Rohan looked strained today while Abbey was in labour.’

She turned back to stare thoughtfully at Scott. ‘And so did you after the baby was born. What happened to a show of relief and joy at the birth of the new Roberts baby?’

She was different in her own home, more decisive and assertive, and it knocked Scott off balance. So much so that he answered by speaking about something he’d least intended. Something he hadn’t told anyone since he’d found out yesterday.

‘I was thinking about my own son.’

Bella blinked. ‘You have a son? Since when?’

She looked so incredulous that Scott winced. ‘It is possible, you know. I am a man.’

Bella snorted, not unlike her maiden aunt, and raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve been aware of that for a while.’ And suddenly it was back—that aura between them that had shimmered in the bus. She blushed and looked away but not before he saw her moisten her lips with her tongue. That brief glimpse of pink softness almost undid all the hard work he’d expended on controlling his lust.

He rose, not without difficulty, from the softness of the upholstery, and walked over to the window. He had to move away or he’d pull her into his arms and do something he should have done many years ago.

He clung grimly to a topic that could divert him. ‘As to “since when”, a letter arrived from him yesterday. My son, Michael…’ he shook his head as if still unable to believe he was a father ‘…apparently was adopted by his maternal grandparents not long after his birth, when his mother was killed in an accident. Until they died, and he came across his birth certificate, he didn’t even know he had other parents. He only mentioned that he’d discovered his real mother was long dead and the letter was to let me know my ex-wife had died. “In case I wondered”, he added, and he might come to visit me in a month or two. He doesn’t seem very keen to meet me.’

Scott turned back to Bella and the sympathy he saw in her face made him fiercely regret telling her. ‘Considering I’ve done nothing for him, I’m not surprised, of course.’

Bella shook her head. ‘If you didn’t know about Michael then someone made it hard for both of you. Why didn’t his mother tell you?’

‘That’s not something I’m ever likely to find out. We were totally different and never really understood each other. She probably thought I’d be as useless as a father as I was as a husband.’ He saw her flinch at the bitterness in his voice. What did she expect? All those extra years he had on her were filled with mistakes.

Bella’s voice was reasonable. ‘As you’re not useless at anything else you attempt, I find that hard to believe.’

‘That’s a compliment, considering I’ve been less than pleasant to you since you came back.’

Bella patted the chair and encouraged him to sit down again. ‘We’ll talk about that another time.’ When he walked past her to his chair she touched his arm fleetingly and this time there was healing in her sympathy. To his relief she didn’t pursue the subject.

Bella outlined a few changes she was looking at for the ward and the time passed swiftly. Before he knew it, she’d glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘Let’s go drive a bus.’

This time, as they circumnavigated the town, surprisingly there was little strain—on Bella’s side anyway. More young people got on and off than the last trip and they all knew Bella.

Scott tried to concentrate on where they were driving and not the driver. He’d been aware of the bus campaign but was amazed at how much the service was used. No wonder the number of teen car accidents was down if this many kids weren’t driving the streets.

When they returned to Bella’s house the lights were out in Sophie’s rooms. They were the only ones awake in a sleeping house and there was one more run to go. He felt his inner tension increase another knot and his steps slowed.

‘Do you want to go back into the study and have some coffee?’ Bella didn’t appear to notice as she stifled a yawn.

Scott pictured another episode of trying to extricate himself from the carnivorous chair and, despite its diversional properties, he couldn’t face it. ‘Can we sit in the kitchen?’

Bella stared at him for a moment and the laughter in her eyes told him she’d guessed about the chair.

‘Certainly.’ She led the way into the old-fashioned kitchen and indicated a huge boiled fruit cake under a glass cover in the middle of the scrubbed oak table. ‘I’ll make coffee and you can cut us some of Vivie’s cake. Then you can tell me about your marriage.’

She looked so innocent as she assumed he’d just do as he was told and bare his soul. For some reason her assumption chipped a little more at his composure and he couldn’t help his need to try and regain some control.

Bella wondered if she would get away with it. Hopefully Scott wouldn’t take offence at her question. It would be nice to know more about the man she’d once thought she loved. Someone, she realised now, who’d always treated her like a child.

Without warning, he caught her arm as she moved towards the sink to halt her progress away from him. Apparently, Scott wasn’t ready to discuss his marriage any further. It was the first time he’d touched her in twelve years and he wasn’t touching her as if she were a child. Bella’s pulse jumped with the unexpectedness of it.

‘Who says I want to talk about my marriage?’ His voice was deeper than usual with a touch of danger that accelerated her heart rate even more. ‘You’re being very bossy all of a sudden. When did this shift in power happen?’ he asked with gentle sarcasm.

This was a startling side of Scott she’d never seen. Bella looked down at her own pale wrist captured by his much larger hand and then up at his face.

Her mouth was dry and she moistened her lips with her tongue, lost for words. Suddenly he was staring down at her like a dying man in a desert without water. The air crackled with tension and she could almost taste the scent of the storm to come.

She said quietly, ‘Maybe I’ve changed and you’ve never noticed.’ This time when she ran her tongue over her lips she did it to deliberately provoke him, but his response exceeded her expectations.

Bella felt his fingers tighten on her wrist even more and her eyes widened as he pulled her all the way towards him until she was hard against the rock of his chest with her head tilted up at him.

His voice lowered and the conversational tone he used belied the hungry look in his storm-green eyes. ‘It drives me insane when you lick your lips. If you do it again I won’t be responsible for the consequences.’ Scott’s fingers loosened and he dropped her wrist to sit down.

Bella blinked and pressed her lips together, rubbed her wrist and turned away. Her mouth was dry, and a heaving, almost sickening excitement she didn’t want to feel coursed through her stomach as she filled the kettle. At least she’d found out the tiger’s tail could be pulled, she thought shakily.

When she returned to the table with the mugs of steaming coffee, Scott had cut two pieces of cake.

A tiny green flame simmered in his eyes and Bella threw up her chin at the challenge—something the Bella of a year ago would never have done—and she gloried in it. ‘So, does this mean you don’t want to talk about your first wife?’

Scott’s hand froze as he reached for his cup.

Ha. Good, she’d surprised him, she thought with sudden satisfaction, and for once she could read his mind. ‘You really haven’t seen how much I’ve changed since the court case, have you?’

Scott paled and clenched his teeth as he fought back the impotent fury that invaded his mind whenever he thought of Bella at the drugged mercy of her attacker. He took a deep breath. ‘We seem to have successfully avoided each other for most of the last year since you’ve been home. I didn’t get the impression it helped you when I was around.’

She shrugged delicately and her fragility belied the strength in her voice. ‘They say good comes out of even the worst scenarios. That experience taught me to rely on myself and not other people. And not to expect my big sister to always save me. I’ve worked on that over the last year.’

Scott frowned. ‘To say good came out of a brutal attack seems a tad forgiving of a creep who drugged and abused you.’

Bella winced with distaste and her voice shook a little. ‘He can rot in gaol, but surviving his attack has forced me to grow and learn. You weren’t here straight after the attack, but for a while I was ready to crawl away and die.’

Scott had shut off a lot of the memories of Bella’s attack because he’d felt so useless in her hour of need. He’d been away and had come back to find a shattered shell of the woman he’d known. She’d refused to see him when he’d come to offer comfort so he’d gone away again and gained what reassurance he could from information gleaned from Rohan. Scott felt he’d already hurt her enough all those years ago to feel he had the right to push his presence on her when she was vulnerable.

‘But I don’t want to talk about me, I want to hear about you…’ She trailed off and managed a small smile of encouragement.

He smiled grimly. ‘So it’s my turn, is it?’ He could see that she’d sat far enough along the table away from him to be out of reach. At least he’d made her wary but it hadn’t stopped her impudence.

‘How old were you when you were married?’ The question drifted towards him and he would have liked to know why it was so damned important for her to hear this. He considered refusing to answer but he never had been able to deny Bella anything if she wanted it badly enough.

His voice was expressionless. ‘Married at twenty, but she left less than a year later. Pretty well most of med school was spent trying to forget my marriage. We fell in and out of love very quickly. Or at least she did.’

Scott could see the brevity of his answer irritated Bella and it gave him a little satisfaction that she could be frustrated for once.

‘Then why get married?’

‘I was young and stupid and she was older and no wiser. It blew incredibly hot and then, before I knew why, our relationship was as cold as ice. She left me for another man, a man her senior who could support her, and filed for divorce.’ A distant echo of a crushing hurt was in his voice and Bella felt more mature than Scott for the first time in her life. It was an interesting concept.

Luckily he wasn’t looking at her. His voice was flat when he went on, ‘Apparently my wife was pregnant when she left me. I just wish I’d known I had a child and could have been involved in some part of his life. The last two days I’ve agonised over why she shut me out so completely. I rang and checked. I am Michael’s true father.’

He shrugged. The image of the pain in Scott’s face in the birthing suite that morning came back to her. ‘And you’ve learnt nothing else about your son?’

‘What’s there to learn? He’s a man now. I imagine from his side I’m the father who’s done nothing to help him. It must be more of a shock to him than it was to me.’

Bella drained her coffee and set the cup down. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘It’s almost time for the bus run again.’

Scott gave her a wry smile and stood to pull out her chair. ‘Well, that will end our session of truth and dare for the night. Thank goodness.’

‘It’s not healthy to keep all this stuff bottled up, Scott.’ Bella was stern in her new role. ‘When the shock wears off, you’ll be glad you told me.’

‘Right,’ Scott said cynically, and waited for her to precede him out of the room.

When they’d settled in the bus and Scott saw Bella stifle another yawn his original misgivings came back to him. ‘This is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be driving this bus. Can’t you find someone else to do it?’

Bella shook her head. ‘The government has promised funding for next year. That includes the employment of a salaried driver. I can survive until then.’

‘But why is it your problem?’

Bella shrugged. ‘Because if I didn’t do it, no one else would. I agree with my sister in the basic goodness of the younger generation. The advantages of the service are worth the effort.’

The conversation came to a halt because the bus had reached the first stop. A large group of young men and women clambered on and the noise level in the bus made conversation between Bella and Scott impossible, which was OK because he had enough to think about. Not the least was how soft Bella had felt in his arms and how hard it had been to let her go. Her support for his dilemma with his son was also surprisingly comforting.

At each stop the bus became more crowded until finally people started to get off and head home. By the time Bella had arrived back at Chisholm Road there were only Melissa and a young man left.

Bella had glanced in the rear-view mirror a few times. Blake—Bella assumed it was the Blake Melissa had befriended—had a sweet smile and laughter-filled eyes. In fact, Bella had liked him on sight.

When they moved to the front of the bus to alight, Melissa’s pleading eyes left Bella in no doubt of the young man’s identity.

‘This is Blake, Bella.’

Bella swivelled in her seat and held out her hand. Blake’s long brown hair looked clean and his goatee was interesting, though she wasn’t sure if she was thrilled with the small scorpion tattooed on his wrist or the skull and crossbones piercing his eyebrow. Scott’s going to love this, she thought.

She met the young man’s green eyes and nodded. ‘Hello, Blake.’ Blake shook Bella’s hand. ‘This is Dr Rainford.’ The two men nodded at each other but neither held out their hand. Bella smiled wryly to herself. ‘Perhaps you could come and see me tomorrow and we can discuss Melissa’s idea.’

Blake nodded. ‘Thank you. I will.’ He glanced at Scott once more and then followed Melissa out of the bus, where they went into a huddle for a minute before he headed off down the street.

Bella realised she’d been swayed to coolness by the fact that Scott was there, and the thought irritated her.

‘What was all that about?’ Scott’s timing was way out.

‘Nothing important.’ She put the bus into gear and reversed it carefully down the driveway. ‘Let’s get this bus parked. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.’

He waited until she switched off the engine in the garage before pushing his luck. ‘For nothing important, there was a lot of eye contact going on all round. What does he want?’

Bella stifled a sigh and measured her answer. ‘Blake has offered to do odd jobs around the house in exchange for lodging. I’m thinking about it.’

Scott frowned and shook his head. ‘I can do odd jobs around the house. I don’t think introducing a young man as a boarder is a good idea.’

Bella held back the comment that it was none of his business. Her voice was sweet. ‘And here I was thinking that having a large country medical practice and most nights on call would be enough to keep you busy. I must start a list of repairs for you.’

She stood up and eased herself from her seat. ‘Goodnight, Scott.’

He followed her out and towered over her beside the bus. ‘I enjoyed your company, Bella. We must do it again.’

‘Any Friday and Saturday night,’ Bella said dryly, and walked away.

Scott’s firm voice drifted across. ‘Then I’ll see you at seven tomorrow night.’

Bella thought of those moments in the kitchen and how much she had cared about Scott’s distress over his son. She closed her eyes and didn’t look back. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she whispered to herself.