Needed: Full-Time Father (Medical Romance) (7 page)

‘I’ve got to get back out there,’ Guy said, gesturing to the door but clearly reluctant to leave without offering some sort of solution. ‘Look, it’s impossible to talk properly here. Why don’t we go out for a drink tonight, grab some dinner?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Madison answered coolly, but inside she was horribly flustered. The thought of facing him socially, away from the safety of the hospital, terrified her.

‘I think there is,’ Guy answered, looking directly at her. And something in his eyes, his voice, his stance told her he wasn’t referring to Gerard, or funerals, or work, but to them—to the chemistry that had sparked between them, to the irrefutable tension that crackled whenever they were together. ‘I’d like to get to know you, Madison, away from here. It’s only dinner…’

But it wasn’t only dinner, Madison knew that, knew that despite the casual offer, despite his attempt to soften the offer with an
only,
it had all the hallmarks of a date. A real-life grown-up date. Staring back at him, watching his soft blond hair falling over his forehead, those gorgeous hazel eyes taking in every flicker of her reaction, the delicious male scent of him filling the room, for a frighteningly long moment she was tempted to accept, to throw caution to the winds and just move with her feelings. But as the reason she would
have
to decline popped into her mind, it was as if a bucket of icy
water had been poured over her—feelings, emotion that had struggled towards the surface firmly quashed as common sense took over, as the practicalities of being a mother, a widow, a working woman mocked her temporary moment of recklessness.

‘In case it slipped your mind, I’ve got a daughter, Guy. I think I used up all my babysitting tokens long ago.’

‘Tokens?’

‘Favours,’ Madison briskly corrected. ‘I can’t just pull a childminder out of thin air.’ Satisfied she’d given a dignified no, Madison picked up her pen, effectively ending the conversation, but still Guy remained.

‘Bring her along,’ Guy offered.

Madison’s pen froze mid-signature, internally damning him through gritted teeth, but forcing a smile instead.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t think so?’ Guy smiled, ever the optimist. ‘Is that a maybe?’

‘It’s a no,’ Madison said firmly.

‘So you’re just going to sit home alone tonight and mull things over, work yourself into a tizz about the funeral—’

‘Again,’ Madison broke in, ‘you exemplify how little you know about my life, Guy. After I’ve collected Emily, made her dinner, helped her with her homework, bathed her, set out both our uniforms for tomorrow, listened to her read, then read to her, maybe, just maybe, I’ll have half an hour to myself before collapsing into bed, only to get up a few hours later and do it all over again!’

She was painting a picture, trying to show him the impossibility of her situation, to scare him off perhaps, but infuriatingly he still stood there, still smiled that lazy smile at her.

‘Anyway,’ Madison carried on, ‘I’ve made up my mind and I’m going to go.’

‘To dinner?’

‘To the funeral,’ Madison said, despite her words, somehow smiling.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I actually want to,’ Madison admitted. ‘I want to say goodbye to Gerard and I want to lay a few ghosts of my own to rest. I’m just worried I’ll make a fool of myself.’

‘I’ll stay with you,’ Guy said firmly, and Madison frowned at the possibility, frowned at the prospect of actually leaning on someone. ‘I’ll stay with you the whole time. You don’t have to do this on your own.’

‘I’ll be fine on my own.’

‘You probably would,’ Guy responded. ‘Only you’re not going to get a chance. I’ll make sure that you don’t have to do a reading or anything like that—all you have to do is be there. I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty on Thursday.’

‘You don’t even know where I live.’

He stood up, shot her just a tiny glimpse of that devastating smile. ‘Ah, but as acting director, I’m sure I’ll be able to find out.’

‘I
F THERE’S
a heaven, why do people cry when someone dies?’

‘Because they miss them,’ Madison answered, her throat thickening, wishing Emily would just buckle up her seat belt so she could get her to school.

Wishing that this whole day was over with.

‘Do you miss Daddy?’

Aware of two very beady eyes staring at her in the rear-view mirror, Madison resisted the urge to grimace. Instead, she took a deep breath and then gave a long, slow nod. ‘Of course I do. And,’ she added, because this conversation wasn’t really about her, but about her daughter, ‘I’m sure that Daddy misses you, too.’

‘But can he see me?’

‘He can.’ Madison gulped.

‘He knows I’m OK?’

‘He does,’ Madison said, wishing fiercely that Emily would change the subject. ‘And I’m sure he’s really proud of you.’

‘You should get a new boyfriend—Mummy, you’ve stalled the car!’

Be careful what you wish for, Madison thought, slamming her foot on the clutch and restarting the engine.

‘Helen’s got a new boyfriend.’

‘Has she?’ Madison asked, frantically revving the car. ‘Who told you?’

‘Richard—but he’s not allowed to know yet, so you mustn’t say a word. All the grey hairs on Helen’s head have gone blonde and Richard heard her talking on the telephone, saying that she’s going out on Friday and that she hopes it’s somewhere expensive! He’s got the same job as Jesus.’

‘Who has?’ Madison asked faintly, doing bunny-hops all the way to school.

‘Helen’s new boyfriend. He’s a carpenter!’

‘OK?’

Opening her door, she was greeted by the single word, and even though Madison automatically nodded, midway it changed and she gave a tight shrug. ‘I don’t actually know.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Guy said softly. ‘And if you’re not, I’ve got a very good plan B.’

‘Plan B?’ Madison frowned.

‘If it looks like you’re about to lose it, I’ll save you the embarrassment and pretend to faint or something—everyone will be so busy looking at me, they’ll forget about you.’

‘Please,’ Madison scoffed, but amazingly her pale face, for the first time that hateful morning, was smiling. ‘Come in. I’m nearly ready.’

Holding the door open, she stood back as he walked in, her generous hallway seeming to shrink as Guy walked down it. Until now she’d only ever seen him in either jeans or theatre greens, but dressed in a black suit, his unruly blond hair neatly combed, still damp from the shower, and even in Madison’s tense, introspective state, there was no denying Guy looked stunning. His broad shoulders seemed to fill the hallway, his features were accentuated more with his hair slicked back, and when he entered her living room, and turned and smiled at her, Madison could feel her breath catching in her throat.

‘You have a nice home.’

‘Thank you,’ Madison responded to the pleasantry, but Guy was still looking around, taking in the scattered bright cushions on the sofa, the jumble of crayons and picture books on the coffee-table, framed photographs adorning every available surface.

‘I mean that, it’s a real home.’

‘Of course it is.’ Madison gave a slightly nervous laugh. ‘What were you expecting?’

‘I don’t know,’ Guy admitted. ‘Something more…’ he gave a helpless shrug ‘…immaculate, I guess. Not that it’s untidy or anything,’ he added quickly. ‘I guess, from the way your office is, the way you are at work, I figured your home would be the same.’

‘This
is
immaculate.’ Madison smiled. ‘For me, anyway.
I tidied up for two hours last night because you were coming. I’m a control freak at work, not at home. Believe me, when you’re sharing a house with a five-year-old, you soon learn to let go.’ She gave a dry smile, remembering that morning’s conversation with her daughter, and suddenly, inexplicably almost, wanted to share it with Guy, but sensibly chose not to. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ Madison asked. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes,’ Madison admitted. ‘I’d rather be nervous here than there.’ He followed her into the kitchen, leaning against the bench and watching as she spooned coffee and sugar into cups, noting at first her jerky, nervous movements, but more, more than that, he noticed the bright paintings on the fridge, no doubt done by her daughter. The whiteboard above the telephone accounted for every moment of every day, and as she opened the cupboard to pull out sugar to top up the sugar bowl, he couldn’t help but see that, aside from the crisps and biscuits, the children’s cereal and all the paraphernalia that lived in a working mother’s kitchen cupboards, on one lonely shelf stood an endless row of meals for one, the same meals he’s watched her throw in the microwave at lunchtime. Something told him the same thing happened in the evenings.

‘How are you doing with this?’ Madison asked, when finally they were seated in the lounge, her eyes nervously darting towards the clock, knowing that in a short space of time they would have to leave, have to
face what she was dreading. ‘From the way Gerard spoke of you, you were pretty close. Did you work together?’

‘Once formally,’ Guy replied. ‘But over the last few years I’ve called on him hundreds of times, either by phone or the internet, for advice. I’ve done a lot of AID work overseas. I’m sure that you don’t need me to tell you how generous Gerard was with his knowledge—I could always call on him. It’s a shame we didn’t get to work together again. I was really looking forward to it.’

‘Was that why you took the job—to work alongside Gerard?’ Madison asked. ‘I mean, if you’ve worked overseas, seen so much, a suburban hospital is hardly going to be cutting edge.’

‘That was part of the reason, and a new hospital opens up an interesting set of challenges, which are appealing. I guess I figured that it will look good on my résumé,’ Guy admitted. ‘Though I have to say, after years of tarpaulin and mosquito nets, the thought of a key to my own front door, constant running hot water—even a mortgage—has actually started to appeal.’

‘You’ve had enough of travelling?’ Madison asked.

‘For now.’

‘So, how come you settled here? Are your family in Melbourne?’

‘No.’ Fiddling with his coffee-cup, Guy shook his head, and even though he clearly didn’t want to talk about his reasons for settling, Madison was scared he’d look at his watch and decide that it was time to go. Taking
a deep breath, despite Guy’s reluctance to prolong the conversation, Madison pushed on anyway.

‘So where are they?’ Madison asked. As his shoulders stiffened, she immediately regretted her insensitivity. ‘Your family?’

‘There’s only my mother,’ Guy responded stiffly. ‘She’s in India—again.’

‘Oh.’

‘Apparently she’s “finding herself”.’

‘Oh.’ Madison blinked, not really knowing what to say, but Guy now had plenty.

‘One would have hoped that by the time you reached fifty-two, you’d have “found yourself”, wouldn’t you?’ His eyes jerked to hers and Madison found herself frowning at the pain behind his voice.

‘You’d hope so,’ she said tentatively. ‘What does your mother do—for a living, I mean?’

‘She’s a doctor. She specialises in tropical and infectious diseases.’

‘Is that how you got into AID work?’

‘I’ve been into it since I was six months old,’ Guy responded. When Madison’s eyebrows shot up somewhere into her hairline, he elaborated further. ‘Mum was into AID work before it was even remotely trendy. She’s done a lot in Papua New Guinea and some of the small islands. Most of the time she took me with her.’

‘But what about school?’

‘There were teachers here and there, a lot of books. Mum’s extremely clever—she taught me well, though, thankfully when I was sixteen I boarded here in Melbourne,
which meant I could concentrate on getting good enough grades to study medicine.’

Which was no mean feat. Places at medical school were exceptionally hard to come by, and to get in with only two years of formal education was nothing short of amazing.

‘So you don’t actually have relatives here in Melbourne?’ Madison asked, and for some reason she didn’t want to fathom, the question unnerved her. If he had no one here, there really wasn’t much reason to stay, and there was something about Guy, something about this confident yet closed man that intrigued her, something about him that evoked a response she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

He paused for a long time before answering, enough time for Madison to process her jumbled thoughts, to realise that she actually wanted him to stay, wanted to get to know him better. ‘There’s no one,’ he said finally. Looking at his watch, she could almost feel the sigh of relief from him that this conversation was over, that now he could legitimately stand up and tell her that they had better get going.

Pulling on some black court shoes, Madison checked her lipstick in the hall mirror, rued the fact she had even bothered with mascara and fiddled with her hair for a moment. Guy stood patiently at the door, perhaps sensing that it had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with remaining in control, with taking care of the small details and hoping that if she did, the bigger ones would fall into place.

‘Ready?’

Tears flashed in her eyes as she nodded and headed for the front door, her hands shaking so much she could barely lock the blessed thing behind her. She joined him in his dark sports car and felt the tension increasing as he switched on the engine and they drove the short distance to the church. The street was packed with cars, endless people were milling around in dark suits, even darker glasses shielding both tears and the harsh Australian morning sun. Madison rummaged in her handbag for her own sunglasses, noting that Guy already had his on. Staring down at his hands, she saw the white of his knuckles as he gripped the steering-wheel and it wasn’t just about herself any more and how she was going to get through this, but about Guy, too, about a man who had also lost a friend and colleague.

‘Let’s do this,’ she whispered, opening the car door and stepping out, waving and talking in a subdued voice to the endless stream of familiar faces. All of them wanted to be here, but not one of whom could quite believe that they really were.

And, as most fears were, when faced head on, it wasn’t bad. It was awful and sad, but it wasn’t the nightmare Madison had envisaged. Surprising herself, she managed to sing along to the hymns, focussing on Gerard instead of her own painful memories. Exquisitely aware of Guy standing straight and tall next to her, they read from the same hymn book, Guy holding it, Guy turning the page, so all Madison had to do was concentrate on herself, drawing strength from his presence,
glad that someone knew her plight. She was able to finally relax enough to listen as Gerard’s son rose to speak about his father, even managing a smile as somehow he managed to capture some of Gerard’s funnier traits. She looked at Guy and was appalled to see a tear rolling down his cheek, could feel the tension in his body. In an instinctive gesture her hand reached out to his, her fingers coiling around his. She bit her lip as for a fleeting second he held on.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Guy gave a stiff nod as he mouthed the words, reclaiming his hand and staring fixedly ahead. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Here.’ Pressing a massive brandy into Madison’s hand, Guy nodded a greeting to a couple of people he must have recognised, before turning his attention back to Madison. A buffet and drinks had been put on at the hospital, but now an invited few were back at the family home and Madison watched as Guy fiddled with his black tie, clearly uncomfortable, the small talk having dried up long ago. ‘How long do you think we should stay?’

‘Not long,’ Madison answered, looking around at the thinning crowd. ‘In fact, I think it might be appropriate if we leave now.’

‘You don’t mind?’ Guy checked. ‘I only just got you a drink.’

‘I’ve had two brandies already on the emptiest stomach in the world. I’m certainly not going to get through this one!’

‘Right, let’s say goodbye, then.’

The farewells were difficult somehow. Even though Madison knew she had done everything she could to help Gerard, Yvonne’s obvious discomfort as she and Guy approached caused a pang of anxiety as Madison said goodbye.

‘You did your best,’Yvonne said kindly. ‘You did everything humanly possible, and for that we’re very grateful.’

‘Thank you.’ Madison dusted Yvonne’s cheek with her lips. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

She waited for Guy, stood at the door expecting to stand for a couple of moments as he said his goodbyes, but after a brief handshake with Gerard’s son and a small murmur of farewell to Yvonne, Guy was beside her, taking her arm and leading her out to the car.

‘Is everything—?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Guy answered stiffly, but Madison wasn’t convinced, and once they were seated in the car, before he turned on the engine Madison voiced what was on her mind.

‘Is she upset with us, Guy? Do you think she somehow blames us for not doing more?’

‘I don’t know.’ Guy shrugged. ‘Look, Yvonne and I…’ His jaw clenched, his mouth snapping closed on the words. ‘She doesn’t blame you at all, Madison, no one does.’

‘But she was so wooden, so—’

‘She just lost her husband,’ Guy snapped, then instantly regretted it. ‘Look, Madison, it’s me she doesn’t like, not you.’

And though she’d have loved to have asked more, something in Guy’s expression told her the subject was closed, something in his stance told her to leave things well alone.

They drove in tense silence to Madison’s house and, despite the relief that the hard part of the day was over, all of a sudden Madison didn’t want it to end. Turning shyly to him, she offered him coffee.

‘I’m not much company at the moment,’ Guy responded.

‘Neither am I.’ Madison smiled. ‘We can be morose together.’

The awful thing about funerals, Madison decided, was that they were generally held in the morning. In some ways it served its purpose, meant that you didn’t spend the whole day dreading the event, but because it was a funeral, because it was such a big event, the whole day was generally set aside to accommodate it. Helen was giving Emily dinner tonight so she had the whole afternoon and evening to fill, and as Madison stepped back into her home with Guy it seemed almost incomprehensible that it was only just two o’clock. The house was impossibly warm and Madison flicked on the air-conditioner, the whirring sound breaking the oppressive silence. ‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ Madison said as Guy sat down on the sofa, loosening his tie as if it were choking him.