Sydney Harbour Hospital: Evie's Bombshell (13 page)

Everything about Finn and Evie were red-hot topics—like they were freaking royalty.

The fact that both of them were tight-lipped with answers to any of the questions being asked didn’t help.

And in the absence of truth there was gossip.

Evie soldiered on regardless of the whispers. Finn stayed away and she alternated between being mad and glad. But mostly she just wished she knew what the hell was going on inside his head and where they went from here. Sooner or later they were going to need to talk but she was damned if she was going to instigate it.

As far as she was concerned, the ball was firmly in his court!

Evie was late arriving at Pete’s—the pub that had stood across the road from the hospital for twenty years—on Saturday afternoon. Bella and Lexi were already seated and deep in conversation.

Pete smiled at her from behind the bar and mouthed, ‘The usual?’ at her. She nodded, the usual these days being sparkling water instead of a nice cold bottle of beer.

Not that abstaining from drinking for nine months was a hardship but she did miss it occasionally after a long day on her feet—and it had been a very hectic day.

She joined her sisters, pushing into the cubicle next to Bella to give Lexi some room. Two pregnant women on one side of a booth was one pregnant woman too many, especially given Lexi’s about-to-pop status.

‘How’s it going?’ Evie asked her sister as Pete brought her water over in a wine glass. Bless him, at least she had the illusion she was drinking something fortified.

Lexi grimaced. ‘This baby is sitting so low I feel like my uterus is going to fall out every time I stand up.’

Evie and Bella laughed. They both knew that Lexi and Sam, a transplant surgeon, were ecstatic about the fast-approaching due date. Their relationship was stronger than ever now after their years apart. ‘Pretty sure that’s not possible,’ Evie said.

Lexi laughed too. ‘There’s always a first time.’

They chatted for a while about baby things, both of her sisters being careful to avoid the F word even though she could tell they were dying to ask her about the latest with Finn. But what was there to say? There was no latest.

The baby kicked and Evie grimaced.

‘What is it?’ Bella asked. ‘Did he kick?’ Evie nodded, her hand smoothing over the spot where the baby was busy boogying. ‘Can I feel?’ Bella asked, her hands automatically gliding over Evie’s belly to where her hand was, exclaiming in awe when the baby performed right on cue.

Evie noticed the wistful look on her younger sister’s face as she enjoyed the show. ‘I’m sorry, Bells, this must be hard for you.’

Bella had cystic fibrosis and Sam had performed a double lung transplant on her less than a year ago. She and Charlie, an orthopod the hospital, desperately wanted a baby but there were risks that neither of them was willing to take on Bella’s health, not to mention the sceptre of any baby also having CF.

‘It’s fine. I’m just pleased neither of you carry the gene so my lovely little niece and nephew will be fine.’

She smiled at them both but Evie could tell it took a huge effort. Poor Bella had already had so much taken from her in life.

‘Besides,’ Bella continued, ‘I get to be the cool aunty, who fills them up with lollies and ice cream and lets them watch scary movies till midnight and teaches them to drive.’

‘And designs fabulous couture for their proms and weddings from your latest collection,’ Lexi added.

‘That right,’ Bella agreed. Her new lungs had given her more freedom to make her fashion design dream a reality. ‘And you can organise fabulous parties for them,’ Bella said.

Lexi, an events planner, grinned. ‘Starting with your baby shower,’ she said to Evie.

Evie laughed. ‘Steady on, there’s plenty of time to be worrying about that. Just you concentrate on getting this little one …’ she patted Lexi’s belly ‘… out. We’ll worry about my baby shower a few months down the track.’

Lexi shifted uncomfortably. ‘Deal.’

‘So, Bells,’ Evie said, as Pete plonked another wine glass of sparkling water in front of her, ‘tell us about your course. What are you working on?’

They nattered away for the next hour and Evie felt lighter and happier than she had in weeks. Between Finn, the gossip and the baby, she’d had a lot on her mind. It was fabulous to leave that all beyond for a while and be pulled headlong into girly, sister stuff.

Or at least it was until Finn showed up in jeans and a T-shirt, looking all rugged and stubbly and very determined. She’d seen that look before and went on instant alert despite the flutter in the region of her heart.

‘Evie,’ he greeted her, with a quick nod of his head to Lexi and Bella.

Evie frowned at him. ‘Is there something wrong?’

He shook his head. ‘I have something I’d like to show you. If your sisters can spare you … of course.’

Finn’s face ached from being polite when all he really wanted to do was snatch her up and throw her over his shoulder. The refined, educated side of him was horrified by the prehistoric notion but the rampaging Neanderthal he’d become since she’d turned him down quite frankly didn’t give a damn at the spectacle that would ensue should he follow through on his impulse.

‘Finn …’ Evie sighed. She didn’t have the energy to fight today.

‘Please, Evie.’

Evie blinked. Finn wasn’t one for saying ‘please’. Not even when he’d
suggested
they get married had he thrown in a ‘please’.

‘Where exactly are you taking her?’ Bella asked, placing a protective hand on her sister’s arm.

Bella didn’t like the way he’d been treating Evie, especially his silence this last month. If she were pregnant there was no way Charlie would treat her so abysmally. He’d wrap in her cotton wool, which was no less than any woman deserved. Especially Evie, who’d been the Lockheart family rock for ever and worked such long, punishing hours.

‘It’s a surprise,’ Finn hedged.

‘Is it a good surprise?’ Bella demanded. ‘Will she like it, Finn Kennedy, because I don’t care how much money you bring into the hospital’s coffers or how brilliant everyone says you are, frankly I think you can be pretty damn obtuse.’

‘Bella,’ Lexi said reproachfully.

But Finn gave a grudging smile. Trust another Lockheart to tell him like it was. Bella had been pretty easy to dismiss due to being sickly most of her life but those new lungs had certainly given her a whole lot of breath! ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘it’s a good surprise.’

Evie’s pulse fluttered at her wrist and tap-danced at her temple as Bella removed her hand. He didn’t look any softer but his words were encouraging. Maybe they were going to have an adult conversation about the way forward?

‘Fine,’ she said, dropping a kiss on Bella’s cheek before she eased herself out of the booth. Finn stepped aside for her and Evie was excruciatingly aware of the sudden rabid interest—some subtle, some not so subtle—directed towards them as she gave Lexi a quick peck.

She turned to Finn, ignoring the speculation she could practically feel coursing through Pete’s like an electrical current. ‘Lead on,’ she said.

She breathed a little easier once they’d got out of the pub and were walking to his car, parked at the kerb outside. It was black and low with only two seats—the ultimate status symbol—and it surprised her. She’d never seen Finn’s car. He walked to work as everyone who lived at Kirribilli Views did, and like everyone else at his professional level and with his abrasive personality didn’t have a social life that really required one.

She supposed the women he’d dated probably thought it was hot and cool. Good-looking doctor—check! Racy car—check! But all she could think as the engine purred to life was,
Where was he going to put the baby seat?

‘So what’s the big surprise?’ she asked as Finn negotiated the late-afternoon traffic.

‘Patience,’ he said, his eyes not leaving the road. ‘Patience.’

So they didn’t talk for the fifteen minutes it took to get where they were going. Evie looked around bewildered as they pulled up at a house in Lavender Bay, not far from the hospital or the harbour. In fact, as she climbed out of his car—something that would probably be impossible at nine months—she could see down to the harbour where the early evening light had laid its gentle fingers and across the other side to the tall distinctive towers of the SHH and further on to the large garish clown mouth of Luna Park and the famous bridge that spanned the harbour.

A breeze that smelled of salt and sand picked up her hair, blowing a strand across her face as she tracked the path of a yellow and green ferry. She pulled it away as she turned to face Finn, who was opening the low gate of the house where they were parked.

‘Okay, so … what are we doing here?’

‘All will be revealed shortly,’ he said as he gestured for her to follow him up the crumbling cement path.

Evie frowned. Whose place was this? Did he want her to meet someone? Someone who might help her understand him? A patient? A relative? Lydia? However she fitted into the puzzle that was Finn. His mother? His grandmother?
Did he even have either of those?
He never spoke of them.

It had to be someone he knew, though, because he had a key and as she watched him walk up the three stairs and traverse the old-fashioned balcony covered by a Seventies-style awning he didn’t even bother with knocking. Just slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open.

He turned to her. ‘Come,’ he said as he stepped into the house.

Evie rolled her eyes. The man was clueless. Utterly clueless. But she followed him anyway because she was dying to know who lived in this gorgeous little cottage overlooking the harbour and what they had to do with Finn.

Maybe it was a clue to his life that he always kept hidden from her. From everyone.

She stepped inside, her heels clacking against smooth polished floorboards the colour of honey. The sound echoed around the empty house. The rooms, as she moved through, following Finn, were devoid of furniture, curtains or blinds and floor coverings. Soaring ceilings graced with decorative roses added to the cavernous echo.

He opened the back door and she followed him down the three stairs to the back entertaining area and then onto a small patch of grass, the back fence discreetly covered by a thick row of established shrubbery.

‘Well?’ he said, turning around with his arms splayed wide like a game-show host. ‘It’s beautiful, don’t you think?’

He was smiling at her, a rare smile that went all the way to his eyes, lighting them up like a New Year’s Eve laser display, and Evie’s foolish heart skipped a beat. ‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly, smiling back.

‘It’s yours,’ he said. ‘Ours. I bought it. As a wedding gift. The perfect place to raise our son.’

Evie stared at him for the longest time as everything around her seemed to slow right down to a snail’s pace. The flow of blood in her veins, the passage of air in her lungs, the distant blare of a ferry horn on the harbour. Then the slow death of her smile as realisation dawned.

‘Is this another way of
suggesting
we get married?’ she asked, her quiet voice sounding loud in the silence that seemed to have descended on the back yard.

Finn shook his head vigorously. ‘Absolutely not. It’s a proposal. I was wrong last time just … assuming. I should have asked you. I got the call this afternoon from the real estate agent that she was mine.’

Ours
, she corrected silently knowing that the gesture, while grand, was empty. It was obvious he didn’t think of it as theirs. That it was just another way of getting what he wanted.

He reached out and took her hand. ‘What do you say, Evie? Let’s get married. Let’s raise our son together, here in this house with the harbour just there and everything he could ever want.’

Evie looked into his gorgeously shaggy, earnest face. A part of her whispered,
Do it
. Say yes. Take the fake marriage. Take whatever he’s offering. You can make him love you with time and patience.

And it was, oh, so tempting
.

But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

She wanted more than that. She wanted it all—the whole hearts and flowers catastrophe. If she’d learned anything from her own parents’ marriage and years of navigating a fraught household, it was that you couldn’t make someone love you if they didn’t.

No matter how hard you tried.

And you had to start as you meant to go on
.

She withdrew her hand from his. ‘No.’

She refused to live on Finn’s crumbs as her mother had on her father’s. If they were going to enter into a marriage then she wanted all of him.

‘Hell, Evie,’ Finn said, shaking his head incredulously. ‘I bought you a house. What more do you want from me?’

‘I can buy my own house,’ she snapped.

‘Then what
do
you want’ he demanded.

‘You, Finn,’ she yelled. ‘I want you. I want you to open up to me. To know every secret, every ugly thought, every tear you’ve ever shed. I want to know about every sad, sorry day of your existence. And I want you to
want
to know about
mine
. I want to know about Isaac and the day that he died in your arms and about who the hell Lydia is and how she fits into your life and about your childhood and your time in the army as a trauma surgeon.’