Читать книгу A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For - Marion Lennox - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’LL have to be married or she’s going to someone else.’

Tom’s words were a bombshell, dropped with devastating effect into the quiet of Charles Wetherby’s office. Jill and Charles stared at Lily’s uncle in disbelief and mutual shock.

It was Wendy who filled the silence. Wendy was Lily’s social worker. She’d handled the details when the little girl’s parents had been killed a year ago. There’d been immediate agreement in the aftermath of tragedy. Charles and Jill would care for her.

‘Let’s just recap, shall we?’ Wendy said, buying time in a situation that was threatening to spiral out of control. ‘Tom, the situation until now has seemed more than satisfactory.’

It had. Dr Charles Wetherby, medical director of Crocodile Creek Air Sea Rescue Base, was a distant cousin of Lily’s mother and a friend of Lily’s father. In this remote community relationship meant family. Jill Shaw was the director of nursing at Crocodile Creek, and it had been Jill who Lily had clung to in those first appalling weeks of loss.

‘We’ve loved having her,’ Jill whispered.

They had. Neither Jill nor Charles could bear to think of six-year-old Lily with an unknown foster-family. They’d rearranged their living arrangements, knocking a door between their two apartments, becoming partners so Lily could live with them.

They’d become partners in every sense but one, but that one was what was bothering Tom now. Tom was Lily’s legal guardian. He had six kids by two marriages and he didn’t want his niece, but he’d become increasingly unhappy about her current living arrangements.

‘Charles and Jill have both loved having her,’ Wendy reiterated, taking in Charles’s grim stoicism and Jill’s obvious distress. ‘And it’s great for Lily to stay in Croc Creek. She was born here. She’s friends with the local kids. Her father’s prize bulls are housed locally and Lily still loves them. Crocodile Creek provides continuity of identity, and that’s imperative.’

But it wasn’t an imperative with her uncle.

‘The wife’s been onto me,’ Tom retorted, sounding belligerent. ‘People are asking questions. Why don’t we take her? The wife’s feeling guilty. Not that we want her, but I’m damned if I’ll keep saying she’s fostered. I want her adopted, and the wife says whoever gets her has to be married. We’ve got to be able to say she’s gone to a good home.’

Gone to a good home… Like a stray dog, Charles thought bleakly. Lily wasn’t a stray. She was Lily, a chirrupy imp of a six-year-old who warmed the hearts of everyone around her.

But there were scars. He remembered the crash. The truck had been a write-off. They’d had to cut the cab open to get to the bodies of Lily’s mother and father, and only then had they discovered the little girl, huddled in a knot of terror behind the seats.

‘She needs us,’ he said roughly. ‘Tom, outwardly Lily’s a bundle of mischief, cheerful and bouncy and into everything. But she’s too self-contained for a kid her age, and almost every night she has nightmares.’

‘We’re only just starting to get through to her,’ Jill added urgently, and Charles looked across at his director of nursing and thought the process was going both ways.

Jill, damaged by a brutal marriage, had escaped to Crocodile Creek and was only now beginning to relax. Jill was starting to give her heart to this waif of a little girl.

And Charles…

He’d been a loner for twenty years. It had been no small thing for him to knock a hole in his living-room wall and let Jill and Lily into his life. To give Lily up now…

‘We want her,’ he said, watching Jill, and he knew by Jill’s bleak expression that Jill was expecting the worst.

‘Get married, then,’ Tom snapped.

‘We can’t,’ Jill whispered.

‘Yes, we can,’ Charles said, spinning his wheelchair so he was facing Jill directly. ‘For Lily’s sake…why can’t we?’

It seemed they could. When the shock of the question faded, Wendy was beaming her pleasure, seeing in this a really sensible arrangement that meant she didn’t have to relocate a child she was still worried about.

Tom was satisfied.

‘But do it fast,’ he growled. ‘I want her off our hands real quick. A month’s legal? I’ll give you a month to get it done or she’s gunna be adopted by someone else.’

He bade them a grim goodbye and departed. No, he didn’t want to see Lily before he went. He never did. He might be her uncle but he didn’t care.

‘This is wonderful,’ Wendy said as the door slammed behind him. They were sitting in Charles’s office at the Crocodile Creek medical base. The hospital was wide and long and low, opening out to tropical gardens and the sea beyond. Wendy looked out the big French windows to where Lily was swinging on a tyre hanging from a vast Moreton Bay fig tree. ‘This is fantastic.’

‘It’ll mean she can stay here,’ Charles said, casting an uneasy glance at Jill.

‘It means more than that,’ Wendy said warmly. ‘What Lily needs is commitment.’

‘We are committed,’ Jill said, startled out of her silence, but Wendy shook her head.

‘No. You’re doing the right thing. Neither of you give yourselves. Not really.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ Charles demanded.

‘I mean you two are independent career people. Both of you have been hurt in the past. I’m no mind reader but I can see that. You’ve gone into your individual shells and you’ve figured out how not to get hurt. Both of you are lovely people,’ she said, gathering her notes with an air of bringing the interview to a close. ‘Otherwise I’d never have let Lily stay with you. But both of you need to learn to love. That’s what that little girl really needs. Children sense—’

‘We do love her,’ Jill interrupted hotly.

‘Yes, you do,’ Wendy said, smiling. ‘Enough to marry. It’s come as a surprise to me—a joy.’ She stooped to kiss Charles on the forehead and then she hugged Jill. Jill stood rigid, unsure.

‘You’ll figure it out,’ Wendy said. ‘You and Charles and Lily. It’s fantastic. Get yourselves married, learn to expose yourselves to what loving’s all about and then I can rip up Lily’s case file. Oh, and invite me to the wedding. Tom’s not leaving you much time—I guess you’d better start organising bouquets and wedding cake now.’

She left them, skipping down to say goodbye to Lily with a bounce that was astounding for a sixty-year-old, grey-haired social worker.

Jill and Charles were left staring after her.

Not looking at each other.

‘What have you done?’ Jill said finally into the stillness, and the words sounded almost shocking.

‘I guess I’ve just asked you to marry me,’ Charles said.

‘I… We can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘In a month?’ she whispered, and he nodded. But he was frowning.

‘It’s a problem,’ he agreed. ‘We’ve got so much on.’

They did. Six months ago a tropical cyclone had ripped a swathe of destruction across the entire coastline of Far North Queensland. The damage had been catastrophic, and only now were things starting to get back to normal. Here on the mainland things were reasonably settled, but their base out at Wallaby Island—a remote clinic plus Charles’s pet project, a camp for kids with long-term illnesses or disabilities—had been decimated. With government funding, however, and with the sympathy and enthusiasm of seemingly the entire medical community of Queensland, they had it back together. Better. Bigger. More wonderful. The first kids were arriving this week, and the official opening was on Saturday.

‘I guess it doesn’t take long to get married,’ Charles said cautiously. He wheeled out to the veranda. Jill followed him, unsure what else to do. They stood staring out to sea, lost in their own worlds.

‘I shouldn’t have said it without asking you,’ Charles said at last, and Jill shook her head.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You do want Lily.’

‘Of…of course.’

‘And this seems the only way.’

‘I guess.’

‘You are divorced?’ he asked suddenly, and she bit her lip on a wintry little smile.

‘Oh, yes. You think I’d have stayed married…’

‘Jill, if you ever want to marry anyone else…’ Charles spun his chair again. He was as agile with his chair as many men were on their feet. Shot by accident by his brother when he’d been little more than a kid, Charles had never allowed his body to lose its athletic tone. The damage was between L2 and S1, two of the lowest spinal vertebrae, meaning he had solid upper muscular control. He also had some leg function. He could balance on elbow crutches and move forward, albeit with difficulty. He had little foot control, meaning his feet dragged, and his knees refused to respond, but every day saw him work through an exercise regime that was almost intimidating.

Jill was intimidated. Charles had a powerful intellect and a commanding presence. Tall, lithe and prematurely grey, with cool grey eyes that twinkled and a personality that was magnetic, he ran the best medical base in Queensland. He might be in a wheelchair, he might be in his forties, but he was one incredibly sexy man.

And he’d asked her to marry him.

No. He’d said they’d marry. There was a difference.

‘You don’t want to marry me,’ she whispered, and he smiled.

‘Why would I not? You’re a very attractive woman.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘No, but you are.’

She stared down at her feet. She and Lily had painted their toenails that morning. Crimson-tipped toes peeped out from beneath faded jeans.

She was wearing ancient jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped out. She’d pulled her thick chestnut hair back into an elastic band. She left her freckles to fend for themselves. Make-up was for kids.

She was thirty-seven years old. The young medics who worked in Crocodile Creek hospital looked fabulous, young, glowing, eager. In comparison Jill felt old. Worn out with life.

‘You know you can trust me in a marriage,’ Charles said gently. ‘It’s in name only. If you hate the idea…’

She turned to face him. Charles. Wise, intelligent, astringent. Funny, sad, intensely private.

How could she think of marrying him?

‘O-of course it w-would be in name only,’ she stammered. ‘I… You know I wouldn’t…’

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ he said, sounding suddenly tired.

‘Tom won’t let Lily stay with us if we don’t marry,’ she said, turning away from him. Fighting for composure. ‘And…and you do want Lily?’

‘You want Lily, too,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

She stared out across the garden at Lily, swinging higher and higher. Did she want a daughter?

More than anything else in the world, she thought. Until Lily’s parents had died her life had been…a void.

Her life had been a void since she’d walked out on her marriage. Or maybe it had been a void since she’d married.

‘What the hell did he do to you to make you so fearful?’ Charles demanded suddenly, and Jill shook her head.

‘I’m not fearful.’

‘Not in your work, you’re not. Put bluntly, you’re the best nurse it’s ever been my privilege to work with. But in your private life…’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’ve kept yourself to yourself ever since you’ve been here.’

‘And you’ve kept yourself to yourself for even longer.’

‘Maybe I have more reason,’ he muttered. ‘Hell, Jill, do you think we can make a marriage work?’

‘I… How different would it be from what it is now?’

‘I guess not much,’ he conceded. ‘I’d need to buy you a ring.’

‘You don’t.’

‘No, that much I do,’ he said. ‘Let’s make this official straight away.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But things are tight. We’ve got Muriel Mooronwa’s hernia operation in half an hour, and I’ve promised to assist Cal. If things are straightforward we might catch the shops before closing.’ He grimaced. ‘And the paperwork…that’ll take time and I need to go to the island tomorrow.’ He frowned, thinking it through. ‘You know I’ve told Lily I’ll take her with me. Why not rearrange the roster and come with us? We could sort out the details over there.’

‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘Someone senior has to stay here.’

‘I can ask Gina and Cal to stay. Cal’s so much second in command here now he’s practically in charge.’

‘He’s not a nurse. Doctors think they know everything but when it comes to practicalities they’re useless.’

‘You don’t want—’

‘No,’ she said flatly, and would have stepped away but Charles’s hand came out and caught her wrist. Urgent.

‘Jill, this doesn’t have to happen. I’m not marrying you against your will.’

‘Of course not,’ she said dully, and a flash of anger crossed Charles’s face.

‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ he snapped. ‘I want no submissive wife.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means I employ you as a director of nursing and I get a competent, bossy, sometimes funny, sometimes emotionally involved woman who keeps my nursing staff happy. It’s that woman I’m asking to marry me—not the echo of what you once had with Kelvin.’

‘I’m over Kelvin.’

‘You’re not,’ he said gently. ‘I know you’re not. I’d like to murder the bottom-feeding low-life. More than anything else, Jill, I’d like to wipe the slate clean so you can start afresh. Find some great guy who can give you a normal life—kids, dancing, loving, the whole box and dice. But I can’t. OK, I can’t have them either. We’re stuck with what life’s thrown at us. But between us we want to give Lily a great home. She makes us both smile, we make her smile, and that counts for everything. It’s a start, Jill. A need to make a kid smile. Is it a basis for a marriage?’

She took a deep breath. She turned and leaned back on the veranda rail so she was looking down at him.

‘I sound appallingly ungrateful,’ she whispered.

‘You don’t. You sound as confused as I am.’

‘You’re burying your dreams.’

‘I don’t do dreams,’ he said roughly. ‘We’ve both been there, Jill. We both know that life slaps you round if you don’t keep a head on your shoulders. But what we have… Friendship. Respect. Lily. Is it enough to build a marriage?’

‘For Lily’s sake?’

‘Not completely,’ he said, and he looked out to where Lily was swinging so high she just about swung over the branch. ‘Just a little bit for our sakes.’

‘Because we love Lily,’ Jill whispered.

‘And because the arrangement suits us.’

‘I guess we already have a ruddy great hole in our living-room wall.’

‘We may as well make it permanent,’ Charles said. He’d released her hand. He put his hands on the arms of his wheelchair as if he meant to push himself to his feet, but Jill took a step away and he obviously thought better of it. ‘What do you say, Jill? For all our sakes…will you marry me?’

‘As long…as long as you don’t expect a real marriage.’

‘Outwardly at least it has to be real. Lily needs to know that we’re marrying and we’re her adoptive parents.’

‘She calls us Jill and Charles,’ Jill said inconsequentially.

‘Wendy says that’s OK.’

‘Yes, but I’d really like her to call me…’ She faltered. ‘But I guess that’s something I can get over. Charles, if you really mean it…’

‘I really mean it.’

‘Then I’ll marry you,’ she whispered, and despite the enormity of their decision Charles’s eyes creased into laughter.

‘I’m supposed to get down on bended knee.’

‘And I’m supposed to blush and simper.’

‘I guess we make do with what we’ve got.’ He caught her hand again and before she guessed what he intended he lifted and lightly brushed the back of her hand with a kiss. ‘It makes sense, Jill. There’s no one I’d rather marry.’

The sound of laughter echoed from the pathway. Across the lawn was the doctors’ house, a residence filled with young doctors from around the world. Doctors came here and gave a year or two’s service to the remote medical base.

Two young women were coming along the path now, in white coats, stethoscopes around their necks.

They were young and carefree and gorgeous.

There was no one Charles would rather marry? Jill doubted that. He was gorgeous, she thought. His disability was nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing in his eyes. It would always stop him giving his heart.

If he couldn’t give his heart, she may as well marry him, she thought. And, hey…

A tiny part of her…just a tiny part…thought marriage to Charles Wetherby might be…well…interesting?

Quite simply, Charles was the sexiest man ever to be stuck in a wheelchair, voted so by every single female medic who ever came here.

‘OK,’ she said, and managed a smile. The smile even felt right.

‘OK, what?’

‘I’ll marry you.’

‘Fine,’ he said, and grinned and let her hand go. ‘Let’s get this hernia organised and go into town and find us a ring.’

‘A ring…’

‘A ruddy great diamond,’ he said. ‘If we’re doing this at all, we’re doing it properly.’

‘Charles, no.’

‘Jill, yes,’ he said, and spun his wheelchair to the end of the veranda where the ramp gave him access to the outside path. Decision made. Time to move on.

‘Let’s tell Lily,’ he said. ‘She needs to approve. But, hell, we only have a month to make this legal. We may as well stop wasting time.’

‘Don’t…don’t tell Lily yet.’ It seemed too fast. Too sudden.

‘Tonight, then, when we tuck her into bed,’ Charles said. ‘But it has to be done. Let’s get a move on.’