Читать книгу Hollywood Hills Collection - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 24

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HIS HANGOVER WAS impressive and instead of going to The Hills, where no doubt Freya would be tapping her feet, waiting for him to snap to her snappy tune, he took the morning off and in the afternoon he drove into South LA and to the Bright Hope Clinic.

‘Mila’s not here today,’ Geoff said.

‘I know. I’m just dropping by to see how things are going.’

‘Well, we’re taking delivery of an MRI machine tomorrow,’ Geoff told him, ‘and I’ve just ordered a state-of-the-art ultrasound that might mean we can have intelligent conversations...’

It had been frustrating. Knowing that The Hill’s equipment would give clearer answers, there had been a lot of doubling up. Zack wanted state of the art, so nearly every test Geoff had done had been repeated.

‘It’s great news about Paulo.’

‘I think he’ll be going home soon,’ Zack said.

They went through the patients and Geoff said he’d like to come and watch the scheduled ablation.

‘On a Sunday?’ Zack checked. ‘And it’s Valentine’s Day.’

‘My wife is very understanding.’

Zack saw a few patients and then drove back to the hotel and lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and tried to make some sense of his thoughts.

He took out his laptop and typed in a few things, and found out that their baby, assuming it had been conceived on the first night, was due on September twenty-fourth.

He stared at that date for ages and then he texted Freya.

Are you okay?

She took less than a minute to respond.

I’ve told you I’m fine with it.

He fired back another text.

Such a well thought-out response!

Then he deleted it, unsent, and wrote another.

Let me know if you need anything.

She wouldn’t.

That much Zack knew.

He still couldn’t get over how she’d been the night Cleo had died. Even he had teared up but not Freya. It was like she kept all her emotions inside and yet he had glimpsed them.

The things she’d told him, Zack knew, only he knew.

And it worked both ways. Freya knew stuff he would never discuss with anyone else.

She had pushed too hard and too soon, though, Zack thought, but then he smiled as he did so because that was Freya.

They were so good together and she had wanted more, and he could see now that she’d probably known she was pregnant and starting to stress.

His head was a mess and there was no one he could talk to, or was it that there was no one he would talk to?

His alarm went off and Zack remembered that his mother had reluctantly agreed to try video-chatting.

Zack sat up and picked up the laptop.

This should be fun!

Not.

After a few goes, there was his mum and she had make-up on, when she only wore it at Christmas or on birthdays.

‘How are you?’ Zack smiled when he saw her.

‘Sorry about yesterday.’

It had been a very tense phone call, which was why Zack could not have been more relieved when Freya had arrived.

‘It’s fine,’ Zack said. ‘Yesterday was a tough one.’

‘You’re right,’ Judy said. ‘Alice deserves to be happy.’

‘So do you guys,’ Zack said. ‘Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s in with a patient. Max is here for a check-up.’

‘How is he doing?’

‘Very well,’ Judy said. ‘I was thinking when you come home in April...’

And that was the trouble with communicating like this. Judy saw Zack close his eyes.

‘You’ve changed your mind?’

‘No,’ Zack said, but how did he tell his mother that things here in LA had suddenly got very complicated? They didn’t speak about such things.

Could they?

‘I’ve got some stuff going on at the moment...’

‘Another patient who needs you?’

‘Isn’t Dad the same?’ Zack challenged, and Judy smiled.

‘I guess.’

‘Anyway, it isn’t work that’s complicated,’ Zack said. ‘I like someone.’

His mother said nothing.

‘A lot.’

‘You can tell me, Zack.’

‘I’m trying to.’

‘Times are changing.’ Judy sat very composed and Zack looked at her, and then his face went right up to the screen.

‘Do you think I’m gay?’

He could not believe it.

‘You’ve never had a lady friend,’ Judy said. ‘Tara had a thing for you and you never did anything about it...’

He’d been trying to keep Tara’s dad from knowing! ‘Mum, just because I don’t discuss my sex life with you it doesn’t mean that I don’t have one.’

‘I’m talking about relationships. You’ve never spoken about anyone special and I was worried that you felt you couldn’t tell me.’

‘There hasn’t really been anyone special,’ Zack said. ‘Till now.’

‘And you said that there would never be grandchildren.’

‘Because I could never see myself as a parent or tied down.’ And he sat there in silence, with his mum doing the same, and it wasn’t a strained silence this time. He didn’t feel tied down with Freya. That morning when she’d suggested he move in had jolted the hell out of him but he could laugh about that now. That was Freya. It was who she was.

‘I need to work a few things out,’ he said.

‘Well, I think that’s a very good reason not to come home,’ Judy said. ‘Does she have a name?’

He was about to say ‘Fred’ but realised his mum maybe wouldn’t get his joke. ‘Freya.’

And he named her.

He named the woman who, wherever they were headed, was in his life.

Freya and Zack.

‘I might have a glass of sherry tonight,’ Judy said, and Zack laughed.

‘I am coming home soon,’ he told her, and he thought about what Freya had said. ‘Maybe for two or three months. I could help out properly and give you and Dad a break.’

‘That would be wonderful.’ Judy smiled. ‘But sort yourself out first and while you’re at it, get a haircut.’

And the relationship that had always been difficult was being worked on and it felt good that it was.

‘There’s your dad. I’ll let him say bye to Tara and then go and fetch him.’

‘Can I see Max?’

He wanted to see the little guy.

After a little bit of drama getting them all on the sofa and the computer in place, there was Tara and they shared a smile.

‘Thank you,’ Tara said.

He looked at his ex and the feelings were only of friendship, both knew that, but all these years on and, without talking, this friendship remained a good one.

It wouldn’t have.

Both knew that had they stayed together and made promises that the other could not keep, they would have been fighting and, yep, a divorce statistic now. And he thought of Toby and Alice. It had been such a hard secret to carry but Freya knew it now and that helped.

‘This is Max,’ Tara said. ‘The cause of all this drama.’

‘He looks fantastic. Cale told me that the surgery went really well.’

‘It did,’ Tara said. ‘But apparently we got there just in time. He collapsed in the air ambulance.’

Jed, Tara’s husband, spoke then. ‘We’re very grateful to the surgeon and to you and Dr Carlton. You made a great team.’

Even if they’d only managed to work as a team that once, it was a great result. Max was healthy and starting to cry and Tara tried to quiet him with her finger as Jed spoke on. ‘I was saying to Tara it’s hard to imagine now but in a few years he’ll be bringing in the cows...’

And Zack looked at a very little infant that would probably be as strapping as his father one day and there were all the assumptions there, but then Tara spoke.

‘Max gets a chance to be anything he wants to be now.’

It was a little message between her and Zack.

‘He does,’ Zack agreed.

‘Thanks, Zack.’ Tara smiled. ‘You’ll be sure to stop by when you’re home?’

‘I shall.’

They stood and walked off and left Zack with his dad. No doubt his mum was leading them through to the kitchen where she would have some cake ready. It was never just a visit for some patients.

Zack could remember most days getting in from school and the lounge would be full with patients, or families of patients.

‘I’ve been tough on you, Zack,’ his father said.

‘And I get why you have been,’ Zack said. ‘I hate that it all falls down to you. And I do worry about you retiring and what’s going to happen but—’

‘You’ve got your life.’ His father said it without malice now.

‘I’m good at what I do,’ Zack said. ‘I need to stick with it. In the same way you stuck with general practice when it was tempting to go to the city.’

He was about to tell his dad his plans to come back, maybe at Christmas so that he and his mother could have a break, maybe take a holiday, but then Zack smiled to himself. If things worked out, and he hoped that they would, there was no way his parents would be heading off on a holiday the next time their son came home.

Whatever happened between him and Freya there would, God willing, be a grandchild for them to get to know.

Now he just had to sort things out with the person who thought she had it all sorted out—Miss Freya.