Читать книгу One Baby Step at a Time - Meredith Webber, Meredith Webber - Страница 8

SHE DIDN’T REPLY, studying him intently for a moment instead, and he knew that look. Undoubtedly she’d picked up something from his tone.

‘Did it hurt you?’ she asked.

Yep, he’d been right about the look and although he knew full well what she meant by the question, he wasn’t going to cede ground to her by admitting it.

‘Did what hurt me?’

‘You know full well what I mean,’ she said crossly. ‘Serena saying no to your proposal.’

His turn to study her. The problem with friendship—a strong and enduring friendship like the one they shared—was that you couldn’t lie to the other party. Oh, you could fudge around a bit and dodge answering, but you couldn’t right out lie.

He turned his gaze from Bill’s too-perceptive eyes and looked out over the beach and island-strewn sea.

The truth!

‘More than I could have imagined,’ he admitted, and turned back so, now it was out, he could meet the gold-brown eyes fastened so steadfastly on his face. ‘I don’t think it was Serena’s rejection so much. I liked her well enough. For all her self-focus she was fun to be with and happy that we more or less lived separate lives—both of us working long hours at different times—so I can’t see why it wouldn’t have worked.’

Bill’s small, rather shocked ‘Oh’ broke into his thoughts but now he’d started he wanted to finish what he’d been saying.

‘You know how I feel about the “l” word, Bill, so I can’t say I loved her, but what had … not excited but certainly intrigued me was the idea of having a family—a wife and child—people who belonged, not to me but with me, if you know what I mean.’

The disbelief on Bill’s face was so easy to read he had to laugh.

‘Yes, yes, I know I said it would never happen, but finding out Serena was pregnant, well, it kind of changed something inside me, as if a wire that had been shorted out was suddenly reconnected and family stopped being in front of going down mines, abduction by aliens and the bogeyman in my fears.’

He paused, marshalling his thoughts.

‘In part, it’s why I came home—came back to the only family I’ve ever known: Gran and you de Grootes.’

‘Looking for a family of your own?’ Bill asked.

Again he paused, but honesty won out.

‘Yes, I think so—I think it’s what I need, Bill. What I really want.’

‘Oh, Nick,’ Bill said softly, and she covered his hand with hers as she had so often in the past. Though he’d reciprocated often enough, when some fool of a youth had hurt her in some way or when her pet hamster had died.

The strange thing was that this time it felt different. Nice, but different.

‘I also need to sleep,’ he said, regaining control over some erratic emotions and reclaiming his hand at the same time. ‘Then this afternoon I must go over and see Gran. You want to come?’

Fool! Wasn’t he going for distance here until he’d sorted out his reactions to his old friend?

‘No, I saw her yesterday—well, the day before now—although,’ Bill said firmly, ‘that brings me to another issue. I had an email from you only last week—you answered the one I sent to say she was looking a whole lot better—and there wasn’t a word about coming here to work. And if you were talking to Bob and pinching the best apartment in his building then you must have been fairly certain then.’

Nick laughed again—the disjointed sentence was sheer Bill, words tumbling over each other to get said, especially when she was angry with him.

‘One,’ he said, holding up his hand and pointing to his first finger, ‘I wanted to surprise Gran and if I told you …’

He let the sentence hang but had the satisfaction of seeing a faint blush colour her cheeks. As honest as the day was long, Bill would be the first to admit she found it almost impossible to keep a secret.

‘And two …’ he pointed to his next finger ‘… I wasn’t sure you were even here. In that email you’d said you had time off and were going to Townsville to talk to someone about some course.’

She nodded.

‘The mine rescue people, about a new course. It was to be this week and next, but was cancelled. Pity really because it was going to be on flooded underground rescues and I haven’t done that yet.’

‘Mine rescue—flooded underground mines?’ He could hear his voice rising but couldn’t stop it. ‘What do you mean, you haven’t done that yet? What on earth are you doing, getting involved with mine rescue, and what are your brothers doing, letting you do it?’

Her laugh made the sun seem brighter.

‘Oh, Nick, you sound just like Bob, but Danny and Pete are already in the elite mine rescue squad and they’ve encouraged me to get involved. I’m not up to their standard yet—not flying off to foreign parts to help out—but I can hold my own as part of the local team when the experts are away, especially with my nursing and paramedic experience.’

Nick didn’t know why he was surprised, but just the thought of mine rescue made him shudder. Danny, the second of the de Groote boys, had taken him and Bill down a mine when they’d been in their early teens, and though Bill had revelled in the darkness and gloom, he had hated every minute of the musty smell and the idea of being over a mile beneath the mountain.

Had been afraid every minute of it, to be honest, but he hadn’t mentioned that part to his fearless friend.

Though Bill was terrified of snakes, so—

‘I’m heading home to bed,’ she said, cutting into his thoughts and sounding so casually at ease she obviously wasn’t feeling any of the strangeness he was. ‘I guess I’ll be seeing you around.’

She stood up, paused, then dropped a light kiss on the top of his head.

‘Nice to have you back, curly,’ she added lightly, before weaving her way between the tables and disappearing round the corner of the deck.

He couldn’t help but turn and watch her go.

Bill pondered Nick’s startling revelation that he’d discovered he wanted a family. Was that why he’d come home? Did he see Willowby as the place to raise this family?

They were unanswerable questions so she moved on to considering the uneasiness the subject had caused in her insides when it was nothing at all to do with her.

Although hadn’t that been her dream? The memory of her delight in finding she was pregnant made her stomach tighten.

Enough!

No melancholy!

And anyway, wasn’t there enough to occupy her brain with Nick’s sudden reappearance?

She drove home slowly and carefully, aware she was tired, but her mind now snagged on the unexpectedness of the situation—on Nick.

But thinking about it, she could see it was only natural that Nick would want a family for all he’d spent his youth mocking the institution. She’d always known his mockery was to cover the hurt of his own parents’ behaviour, jaunting around the world, crewing on luxury yachts, visiting exotic places, their son left with his grandmother not, as they’d said, so he’d have stability but because it had made it easier for them to continue to enjoy their lifestyle.

They’d eventually drowned at sea when their own, much smaller yacht was caught up in a typhoon, but their deaths had had little effect on Nick because Gran had given him more than stability, she’d given him love—unquestioning and all-encompassing love.

So, while Nick’s admission was surprising, it was her own reaction to it that needed more consideration. As did her reaction to the sight of his bare chest, and the way his muscled thighs had matched her strides on the beach, or the strange feelings seeing him had produced, not in her heart where their friendship lived, but along her nerves and—

No, she wasn’t going there!

Surprise—that’s what had caused the weird reactions.

She stopped at the control panel to the underground parking area to press in the security code then drove in as the big door opened. She parked and made her way to the lift, the exhaustion that followed a busy night on duty fast catching up with her.

Exiting on the sixth floor, she headed down the corridor to her apartment, an end one with a view out to sea, a really special place to live for all she’d complained about its size. Two floors above her the two penthouses spread across the top level—big four-bedroom homes, each with three bathrooms, wide decks taking in the view out over the Coral Sea, and a smaller deck on the western side, looking back towards the green-clad mountains.

Bill smiled to herself, pleased that even in choosing accommodation that might only be for a year, Nick was following his avowed intention to have nothing but the best!

It had to be tiredness, Nick decided as he drove home, that had weakened him to the extent he’d admitted his disappointment over Serena and the baby to Bill. Normally he’d have teased her about being nosy, or asked a question about her own love life to divert her attention from the fact he hadn’t answered, but, no, he’d heard himself bleating out his pathetic reaction, even feeling remembered pain for the loss of a dream—a family of his own.

But he hadn’t lost the dream, he reminded himself. Wasn’t that why he was here? He’d been drawn back by Gran, of course, but also by the feeling that in Willowby he might find the woman who would help the dream come true. A family woman and, yes, his thinking had been that Bill would know someone who’d be just right for him—Bill or someone in her family. They were into family in a big way, the de Grootes.

And hadn’t he always turned to Bill when he had a problem, or needed help?

Letting himself into the penthouse, he set aside his tumbling thoughts and sighed with pleasure. The familiar view out across the island-dotted sea still took his breath away. And tired though he was, a part of him wanting nothing more than to slip into bed, he had to walk out onto the balcony and breathe in the fresh sea air.

He was home.

Second night on duty. No life-threatening emergencies and he’d heard from the hospital in Brisbane that his patient from the previous night was doing well.

‘It has to be the night for the bizarre,’ Bill said, slumping down beside him in the tea room during a lull in proceedings. ‘I suppose dog bites are common enough, but the bite usually doesn’t come with a couple of dog teeth in the wounds. The dog must have been a hundred and five for its teeth to have come out so easily.’

Nick shook his head.

‘I can’t believe I nearly missed the second one. It was weird enough discovering one tooth in a puncture wound, but it was only when you were putting on the dressing that I realised I hadn’t probed the second hole and, sure enough, another tooth.’

‘Perhaps someone wrenched the dog off and that’s why it lost the teeth.’

Nick considered this for a moment.

‘No, there’d have been tearing around the wounds and there was no sign of that—just bite holes and teeth.’

‘From an ancient dog or one with a gum problem.’

‘And the kid with his head stuck in the bars of his cot,’ Nick recalled. ‘You’d have thought his father would have had a hacksaw to cut through a bar and release him instead of taking the cot to pieces to bring it in for us to do it.’

‘It did look funny.’ Bill smiled at the memory of the two parents arriving with the side of the cot held between them, and the grandmother carrying the perfectly contented baby, which had been looking around with wide-eyed curiosity and doubtless wondering about all the fuss.

‘Cute baby, though,’ Bill added, although she knew she should dodge baby conversations altogether because even after more than a year it hurt to see other people’s babies.

‘Very cute,’ Nick agreed, rising to his feet as his pager buzzed.

‘Drunk in cubicle three,’ the duty manager told Bill as she returned to work. ‘There’s a nurse in there with Nick but they might need more help.’

Bill closed her eyes for a moment. Babies were upsetting enough, but if there was one thing she hated, it was handling drunks. They came in all shapes and sizes, and varied from angry and abusive, through straight obstreperous, to wildly happy, laughing hilariously as they threw up on your uniform and shoes.

‘Obstreperous,’ Nick said under his breath as Bill entered the cubicle. ‘He’s had a fall, I’d say into a bougainvillea as he has multiple abrasions, a dislocated finger and some very nasty thorns sticking out of his legs.’

The man in question was insisting he was perfectly all right, if Bill was translating his drunk speech correctly, but whenever he moved on the examination table the thorns dug in and he’d yelp with pain.

‘I’m going to give him a local anaesthetic then fix the finger,’ Nick continued. ‘If you two can hold him still for a minute, I’d be grateful.’

The finger joint went back into place, and the young nurse cleaned and bandaged the man’s hand so the finger would be supported while the joint healed.

‘We’ll start on the thorns,’ Nick told Bill, but it was easier said than done when the man kept insisting he was fine and trying to climb off the table.

‘Who brought him in?’ Nick asked the young nurse.

‘His wife. She’s out in the waiting area.’

‘Could you ask her to come in?’ Nick smiled as he made the request and Bill couldn’t help but notice the nurse’s blush.

Still winning women over wherever he goes, she thought, but though she’d thought it a thousand times before, this time it didn’t prompt a smile.

‘Being a nuisance, is he?’ the woman who entered demanded, before turning to her husband. ‘Now, listen, you, sit still and let the doctor do his job or I’ll take you home and throw you back into the bougainvillea myself, and don’t think I wouldn’t do it.’

The man on the table quietened immediately and looking from him, a bulky six-footer, to the small slim wife, Bill had to smile.

‘Thank you, madam.’ Nick gave the wife a small bow. ‘It’s good to know who’s the boss in the household.’

She smiled at Nick.

‘It probably wouldn’t work if he was a habitual drunk, but as it is, he can’t hold his grog so mostly he doesn’t drink, but we’ve just had our first grandchild and he went out with his mates to wet the baby’s head—they insisted, and now look at him. Fine example for the kid he’ll be!’

She spoke fondly and even smiled at her husband, settling into a chair beside the wall to make sure he behaved.

Bill worked beside Nick, swabbing each scratch and wound as he pulled out the thorns.

‘I can do this,’ she said to him, but he shrugged away her offer and continued working until they had the now sleeping drunk patched up and able to be released to his wife.

‘Just watch the wounds in case they begin to fester. There’s no point starting antibiotics if he doesn’t need them, but come back or go to see your own GP if they worry him,’ Nick told her as he helped her take the man out to the waiting room where an aide would help her out to the car.

‘Babies do keep cropping up,’ he said to Bill as she came out of the cubicle, a bag of debris in her hand.

I’m glad he said that, Bill decided, setting aside her own feelings and thinking just of Nick. It must mean he’s over or getting over the loss of what he’d thought would be his very own family.

‘Some nights are like that,’ she reminded him. ‘I’d far prefer a run of babies, as long as they’re not too sick, to a run of drunks.’

‘Hear, hear!’

This from the nurse who had followed Bill out of the cubicle, although she’d spoken to Nick rather than Bill. The nurse was from an agency—distinctive in the agency uniform—someone Bill didn’t know. But studying her now, as the nurse continued to chat to Nick, Bill realised she was exactly his type—tall, curvy, blonde.

And, no, that wasn’t a stab of jealousy. Her and Nick’s friendship had survived a long stream of blondes, some, like Serena, Bill had seen in photos, and some she’d only heard about through emails and texts.

The agency nurse was now suggesting she and Nick have a coffee and as the ER was virtually deserted, it was only natural he should accept, although he did turn his head to ask, ‘Want another coffee, Bill?’

Bill shook her head and headed off to dispose of the rubbish, hearing the agency nurse question the name Bill and Nick explaining.

This had to stop! she told herself as she hurled the bag of rubbish down the chute. Her friendship with Nick had survived because neither of them had ever had the slightest interest in the other in a romantic way. Growing up, she’d have as soon considered falling in love with one of her brothers.

It had to be that she hadn’t seen him for so long that she was suddenly seeing him as a man.

Reacting to him as a man!

When had she last seen him?

He’d been in New York, proposing to Serena, when she’d broken off her engagement to Nigel, and although Nick had promised faithfully he’d be home for her wedding, once that was off, he’d headed for foreign parts, doing his bit for the army once again.

Oh!

It all fell into place now. There’d been no mention of a second deployment overseas prior to all that happening, but obviously he’d been sufficiently upset to want to get as far away as possible from everyone and everything.

Poor Nick!

Nick chatted to the nurse—Amanda—and wondered why Bill hadn’t joined them.

Not that it mattered. Amanda was amusing and obviously happy to keep both sides of the conversation going so he could brood a little over the reactions he was feeling towards Bill.

Physical reactions!

Disturbing, because at the same time it felt a little like incest—this was Bill, his friend …

‘So, you’ll come?’ he heard Amanda ask.

Unwilling to admit he had no idea what she was talking about, he said, ‘Of course!’

‘Great. The boat will leave from the City Marina, gangway four, at ten.’

‘Ten today?’ Dead giveaway, that question, but it had just burst out.

‘No, Saturday, silly,’ Amanda said, giggling and cuffing him lightly on the arm, moving close enough on the settee for him to know he should have been following the conversation.

Oh, well, some time between now and Saturday he’d have to sort out an excuse. Except going out on a boat with Amanda, and presumably her friends, might get his mind off Bill.

And wasn’t he here to meet women—maybe the one woman with whom he could plan his family?

The shift ended and he was pleased to see Bill’s ageing car still in the car park. He wouldn’t be tempted to follow her to the beach, which was good as he didn’t think his libido could handle the sight of her in a bikini again. Not just yet, anyway.