Читать книгу Medical Romance January 2017 Books 1 -6 - Marion Lennox - Страница 30

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT HAPPENED TO your car?’ Evie blurted out as she followed Max down the front steps. Imogen was in her arms, their cases in his.

He suppressed a grim response, confining himself to the barest minimum of responses as he loaded the bags into the new car.

‘I traded it in last night.’

She didn’t even try to disguise her gasp of shock.

‘Who willingly swaps out his pride and joy sports car?’

He resisted the urge to tell her that it was a supercar, not merely a sports car. Buying his first one ten years ago had signified the moment he’d decided he’d arrived as a surgeon, and every time he’d driven it to and from the hospital it had been the payoff for everything else he would sacrifice for his career. Yet the truth was he’d never felt so ambivalent towards his car from the moment yesterday when he’d walked out of that suburban house—a father.

The satisfaction he’d got from driving the sleek car on his outbound journey hadn’t been with him on his homeward trek. In fact, from the moment he’d walked back out into the street and taken another look at all the family cars on the various driveways, he’d realised his whole life had been turned upside down and inside out.

He was a father. The life he’d grown up envisaging for himself was gone for ever.

And somehow, the thought hadn’t chagrined him the way he might have expected.

‘It was a matter of practicality.’ He offered a deliberately nonchalant shrug. ‘It wasn’t a car designed for a baby seat. Whereas this is a decent family car.’

‘Decent? It’s one of the most luxurious, top-of-the-range family cars I’ve ever seen. And you swapped it out overnight? Just like that?’ Evie sniffed but he refused to take the bait.

‘Just like that, yes. But don’t worry,’ he added sarcastically, ‘I’ve still made sure all optional extras are included. Any other questions?’

‘Plenty.’ She clicked her tongue nervously but he could see she was still disconcerted.

He waited until she had finished settling the baby into the baby seat in the back, waiting until she stood back up, closed the rear door carefully and moved to the front passenger door.

‘What’s the problem, Evie?’ He reined in his frustration.

She paused, frowning as she cast another eye over the vehicle.

‘I don’t want you resenting me. Us. And you will, if you go sacrificing things like your car. Besides, it’s only for a few days.’

The irony wasn’t lost on Max. He barked out a humourless laugh.

‘You kept the existence of my daughter from me, Evangeline. If I hadn’t seen you in that hospital corridor two days ago I still wouldn’t know about my daughter. And yet you think it would be the fact that I had to give up my car which would make me resent you?’

‘You resent me?’ She turned to him bleakly.

‘You weren’t going to tell me about the baby, Evie. What the hell do you expect?’

The raw expression on her face turned to one of annoyance.

‘It’s Imogen.’

‘Pardon?’

‘We had this conversation yesterday when you insisted on calling her it,’ Evie sniped. ‘Now I’m reminding you that your daughter’s name is Imogen. Not the baby.’

Had he really just heard her correctly?

‘Are you serious?’

‘If you’re going to take the moral high ground with me, then, yes, I’m serious. You act like your daughter actually means something to you, yet you can’t even call her by her name.’

He bit his tongue before he could say any more, sliding into the driver’s seat as he fought against a fresh burst of the darkest rage he’d ever known in his life. It had been bubbling constantly, barely below the surface, since yesterday. But he had to control it. If he came on too heavy and scared Evie off, he might lose his daughter. He might never have intended to have a family, but he was more determined than ever that, now he had a daughter, she would never grow up feeling, well, not unwanted exactly, but certainly inadequate. Unloved.

He allowed his mind to wander for a moment. Back to his past, and back to his own parents. Didn’t they used to call him the baby or the boy? Never Max. And certainly never an endearment. He’d hated it, so why was he now calling his own daughter the baby? It was galling, but Evie was right.

His parents had given him a good home, nice room, toys, even time as long as it was for academic work. But they’d never had time to come to a rugby match, a swim meet, a school play. Work had always come first. And he’d always known that it was the most important thing in their lives. They’d told him. Sat him down and explained it to him, told him that he was mature enough to understand them and that when he too was a successful surgeon he’d feel exactly the same way. As if a seven-year-old boy could understand that.

‘Look, arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere.’

Max had never found it so difficult to keep his voice even and calm. He held his hands up in placation as Evie climbed cautiously into the passenger seat.

‘We have to find a way past the anger. For her sake if no one else.’

He dipped his head slightly to indicate the baby gurgling obliviously in the back of the car.

‘I agree,’ Evie acknowledged, her voice still quivering slightly. ‘I’m sorry I sniped at you.’

‘Right.’

‘And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Imogen. You have no idea how sorry. If I could go back and change things, I truly would. I wish I’d been able to tell you a long time ago.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’ he asked as non-combatively as he could.

‘I tried...’ She tailed off, her eyes fixed straight ahead, unable to meet his. ‘It’s...complicated. And I know that sounds feeble but, believe me, I’m trying to find the words to explain myself.’

‘Thank you,’ he said simply.

Her spontaneous apology was the acknowledgement he’d been waiting for. To know that she knew what she’d done had been wrong. That he’d had a right to know about his baby from the start.

Yet deep down, as the heat of rage was finally ceasing to sear, he was beginning to try to understand her motivations.

‘Was it because of your kidney transplant?’

‘Sorry?’ He saw her head turn to him in his peripheral vision as the engine roared into life.

‘Was your kidney transplant the reason you didn’t tell me when you first discovered you were pregnant? Did you think I’d insist you put your health first? That you should have a termination?’

A beat of silence.

‘Wouldn’t you have?’ she challenged unsteadily.

Another beat of silence whilst he thought.

‘I would have recommended it. Carrying a baby to term for a healthy woman is stressful enough on her body, but, given your kidney disease, it makes sense medically,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I would never have insisted. Ultimately, that had to be your decision. And I would have preferred to have supported you through the pregnancy.’

He heard her intake of breath.

‘You were in Gaza and out of reach.’

‘You could have got hold of me if you’d wanted. You knew who I was working with. You’d have had only to contact their head office and they could have got a message to me.’

‘I can’t imagine you’d have appreciated that call in the middle of your mission out there.’

Max frowned. Where did she get this unfavourable image of him from?

‘You don’t know me at all, do you? I’d rather have known. Just like you, I’d rather have had the option to make decisions for myself. To cut the tour short and come home if I saw fit to do so.’

‘I never thought of that.’ The words were so quiet, said more to herself to him, that Max almost missed them.

He still had no idea how the baby...Imogen...was going to fit into his life, but he knew that he needed to buy himself some time whilst he figured it out. Evie certainly thought it was a temporary arrangement, and, whilst he agreed with her on that score, he knew it was going to be a couple of months—rather than a couple of weeks—before she would be recovered enough to think about living on her own again. But by then he should have had time to work out a long-term solution, because she was seriously mistaken if she thought he didn’t want some kind of relationship with his daughter from here on out. He just had no idea how they were going to achieve it.

‘There are very few things you need to know about me, Evie,’ he told her firmly. ‘I like things straightforward and honest, but I can’t abide people making choices which impact heavily on me, without involving me in the decision-making process. Without even consulting me first.’

He’d had enough of that through his childhood to last him a lifetime. Not that Evie needed to know any of that. The contradiction wasn’t lost on him.

‘Consulting you...?’ she echoed slowly.

‘I won’t accept it, Evangeline,’ he stated grimly, struggling to shut out the ruthless memories. ‘Do you understand?’

‘But, Max—’

‘There are no ifs or buts, Evie,’ he spat out, more at himself.

At his own weakness that even after all this time it should still affect him the way that it did. How had this situation with Evie raked up so much hurt that he’d convinced himself he’d long since buried? Shifting in his seat, Max strived to recover his famed dispassion and composure, but it seemed to have deserted him as he opened his mouth again.

‘That’s the one thing I absolutely won’t tolerate.’

* * *

She hadn’t thought her heart could beat any faster or harder in her chest, every word like a nail in the coffin of her integrity.

How could she possibly tell him about the cheque and his parents now? Decisions that had been made with the express purpose of keeping Max in the dark? Believing she was doing the best thing she could for her daughter.

Evie pressed her shoulders into the plush leather seat back and drew deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. One minute went by. Then five. Then ten. The nausea subsided a fraction, nothing more.

If she didn’t tell him it would only make it harder to do so later. But—after what he’d just said—what if he turned around and sent her and Imogen back home straight away? She might not have shown Max her gratitude at taking her in, but she was indebted to him for the opportunity to allow Annie and her family some space to recover, as well as allowing herself to stay within easy reach of Silvertrees for the first few weeks after the transplant.

Worse still. What if she told him the truth and he tried to take Imogen away from her? She didn’t think that was the kind of man Max was, but how could she be sure? Between her actions in taking the bribe, and her precarious health, could a judge decide that her daughter was better off with Max than with herself? Out of the two of them, she was the one who would appear to have acted unscrupulously. How had that happened?

She didn’t realise they’d lapsed into silence for the last half an hour until his voice, deep and smooth and as self-assured as ever, broke into her thoughts.

‘I saw one of your troubled teens the other day.’

‘At Silvertrees?’ She craned her neck to look at him, grateful for his efforts to find a more neutral topic for them to discuss.

‘A young lad, in for a consult,’ confirmed Max.

‘Do you know who it was?’

‘Vince Morrison. The sixteen-year-old with gynaecomastia.’

‘They’re finally allowing him to get surgery? That’s great—psychologically he really needs it.’

‘No, the parents came in to get more information but they left, deciding it was better to wait until he was older again.’

Evie gave a grunt of frustration.

‘That wasn’t the outcome you’d been hoping for?’ Max asked.

‘No.’ She rubbed one hand over her eyes. ‘Vince’s deteriorating behaviour in school and at home brought him to us at the centre a couple of years ago. He’s lucky, he has a loving family and kind parents, and they were trying to do their best for him. But, honestly, they were despairing as the gentle child they had known had begun to be replaced by a boy they could barely recognise.’

‘I imagine he didn’t understand what was happening to his body? Probably getting bullied in school.’

‘Yep. The boys had been taunting him with the name Moob Boy, taking photos on their mobiles in the changing rooms and texting them around the school. He started fighting and skipping classes. He’d been a keen swimmer—Schools International—and all that stopped. He wouldn’t go on beach holidays with his family, or to rugby camp. He was struggling mentally and physically.’

It felt like it had felt in the early days, before they’d slept together. The easy way they’d always been able to discuss cases.

‘The procedure to remove the abnormal breast tissue is fairly straightforward—why would there be a problem?’

‘I don’t know.’ Evie threw her hands up. ‘His parents thought it was a phase, that he might grow into his body, and that he should learn to live with it until he was eighteen. I felt the psychological damage might be too great by then, and that it was an unnecessary wait.’

‘I would have agreed with you,’ Max stated.

The simple admission warmed her insides. She could really use that compliment from him right now.

‘So do you know why they went for the consult if they weren’t going to go ahead with it?’ she asked, feeling less troubled for the first time since they’d left the house.

‘By all accounts, their son took the family car in the middle of the night and ended up crashing into a wall. They came to listen to what the paediatric surgeon had to say but didn’t like the idea of putting him through the surgery. I couldn’t understand why, but now you’ve explained their attitude beforehand, it makes sense.’

‘Who was the paediatric surgeon? Couldn’t they have talked the parents round? Explained things?’

‘Not enough knowledge of the boy’s mental-health history.’

‘Why not?’ Evie frowned. ‘Where were all my notes?’

‘It’s not your notes they needed. It’s the passion, the conviction. You’re what sells these cases, not a set of emotionless black and white notes.’

‘Well, what about my replacement?’

‘No one can replace you,’ Max said, then coughed as he realised the way it sounded.

She felt the flush tingling from her toes to her legs, into her torso and up. It might not have been what he meant, but it felt good to hear nonetheless.

‘Listen, how about I go to the centre and speak to the manager, see if I can’t get him to set up a meeting with the Morrisons?’ Max offered, his professional tone firmly in place. ‘Give them my professional opinion and go from there?’

‘That would mean a lot, especially to Vince. But why would you do that for me, Max?’

She knew he’d started the conversation in order to find some common ground between them. Talking about the case was the first real conversation they’d had without awkwardness or disagreement in the last forty-eight hours and it felt like a real step forward. Proof that they could work together and agree on a solution that would be in their daughter’s best interests.

‘I want to do it to show how I appreciate your earlier apology,’ Max said unexpectedly. ‘And I think it’s time I made one of my own.’

‘An apology?’

‘I feel I guilted you into coming to stay with me. As though you owed it to me for not telling me about the baby. Deep down, I think I can understand some of your reasons even if I don’t agree. But I wanted you to know this isn’t just about the baby...sorry, Imogen...this is about wanting to help you, too.’

‘Really?’

She watched him carefully, surprised as he took his eyes off the road for a moment to meet hers.

‘Yes, Evie, really.’ He turned back to the road. ‘I think you should stay with me because I think it will be better for your recovery to stay close to Silvertrees for as long as possible, in order to be checked over by the transplant team themselves, rather than being handed off to a follow-on team too early.’

‘And you do want to get to know your daughter, right?’ She had to check.

‘Of course I do. It’s important to me that my daughter knows she is loved and never feels she wasn’t wanted. More important than I think you can realise. To that end, I want to make sure I do what’s best for her, yes.’

He was choosing his words carefully, but it wasn’t necessarily helping her. Was he alluding to his parents? She couldn’t even ask, without revealing her own experience of them. It left Evie feeling thwarted.

‘Which brings me back around to how you and I are going to proceed from here.’

‘You and I?’ Her mouth felt suddenly dry again.

‘You and I,’ he confirmed calmly. ‘I’ll admit I’ve been angry that I didn’t know about Imogen before now, and I’ve been punishing you for it. I was too wrapped up in myself to consider that you’ve got enough to deal with at the moment with your imminent transplant without additional stress from me.’

Evie squirmed in her seat. This was the perfect opportunity to admit the truth to him.

‘You do have every right to be mad...’ she began.

‘Maybe so, but it won’t help you get through this transplant. You know as well as I do that a patient’s mental well-being can influence not only how their body copes during the operation itself, but how their recovery goes afterwards. In your case, how your body responds—or rather doesn’t—to a foreign organ.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she managed shakily, not fooling him for a moment.

‘I understand that you’ve felt like you have to stay strong for your family all this time, especially with Annie being your donor. But you can let go a little now and lean on me.’

Hope flickered tentatively, but she still couldn’t relax.

‘You must still be angry, Max.’

‘Evie, I don’t know what happened, or why you...didn’t get in touch. But I’m not going to push you on it any more. However, when you’re ready to talk to me, I’d like that.’

‘As easily as that?’ She tried not to feel suspicious.

‘Why not? We can’t dwell on what’s happened if we want to find the best future for our daughter.’

It sounded too good to be true, but Evie wasn’t about to spoil it by arguing. It didn’t change the real issues, not least the money, or the fact that she still hadn’t told him about it. But it did go some way to re-establishing a rapport between the two of them so that, when she did eventually find the right moment and place to confess, Max wouldn’t be so inflexible and impersonal in how he reacted to everything she needed to tell him.

She just needed to buy herself, and Imogen, some time.

‘You can’t go forwards into the past,’ she said softly.

‘Say again?’

She startled, not realising she’d said it aloud.

‘Oh, nothing. It was just something my mum used to say. You can’t go forwards into the past.’

She listened as Max repeated it, mulling the words over as he did so.

‘It’s a good way to put it.’ He smiled. ‘So, what do you think, Evie?’

‘I think,’ she began thoughtfully, ‘I’d appreciate that very much.’

‘So, friends?’

Evie licked her lips and offered him the first genuine smile since their five nights together.

‘Friends.’