CHAPTER SIX
JESS fed her babies at five a.m. and then set her alarm for seven. It didn’t have a chance to go off. Fifteen minutes before it was due there was a series of loud thumps on the door from hospital to flat and then the sound of crutches across the kitchen floor.
‘Can I come in?’
Jess surfaced reluctantly from troubled sleep. There was a small face peering round her bedroom door. ‘Paige?’
The child was still in her nightdress. She clumped across to the bed and stared down at Jessie’s nose emerging from the quilt.
‘I knew you’d be awake,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Daddy said, “Go away it’s not even morning,” but I told him everyone would be awake. So then he said I could go and find out whether everybody really was awake all by myself and I did.’
‘Everybody meaning me?’
‘Especially you.’ Paige beamed as though signalling a very special honour.
‘Your daddy is a very generous person,’ Jess said drily.
‘I didn’t have a nightmare.’ Paige laid her crutches on the floor and put both hands on the bed to support herself. ‘It’s cold out here,’ she said hopefully.
‘Well, you’d better come in.’ Jess pushed back her quilt invitingly and the child scrambled up. In seconds she was cocooned against Jessie’s body, her cold toes on Jessie’s legs.
‘Ooh, you’re warm.’
‘That’s more than I can say for you, twerp,’ Jess smiled and obligingly put her arms round the child and cuddled.
It seemed that human contact was all Paige wanted. To be cuddled. To draw maximum warmth from this strange, fearful adult world.
‘Daddy’s very pleased I didn’t have a nightmare,’ the child announced. ‘Are you?’
‘Very pleased.’
‘He says we might stay here again. Lots of times. That means I can visit you every morning.’
‘Wow!’
‘You’ll like that?’ The child was suddenly anxious, sensing the laughter in Jessie’s ‘Wow’, and Jess gave her thin body a squeeze.
‘It’ll be delicious,’ she agreed. ‘Much better than an alarm clock.’
‘It sort of seems better here than at the farm,’ Paige confided. ‘When I’m here…I play a game…’
Her voice was suddenly shy, as if about to confess something she wasn’t sure about
‘What sort of game?’
‘That I have a mummy.’
Jess closed her eyes. Instinctively she pulled the child closer. ‘Paige, you don’t have to pretend,’ she said softly. ‘You do have a mummy. Your mummy’s travelling at the moment but she left you with some lovely people who found your daddy for you.’
‘You’re talking about Karen,’ Paige said scornfully. ‘She’s not my mummy.’
‘Paige, she is…’
‘No.’ The child’s voice hardened as if she was reciting a well-learned lesson-one she didn’t like a bit ‘Karen says I’m not to call her Mummy. She says only bourgeois children have mummies and I have to learn to be ind- independent and stand on my own two feet She says the sooner I learn not to need her all the time the better it’ll be for me and for her but I sort of think…’
The child’s voice was a strange mixture of adult and confused child and Jessie’s heart melted. ‘You sort of think what?’
Paige sighed and snuggled close. ‘Well, it’s really, really nice to at least have Daddy. But Mummy sounds even better.’
‘Lots of kids only have either a mum or a dad,’ Jess said evenly, biting back anger at the unknown Karen. ‘And Karen is still your mum, even though she wants you to call her Karen. It doesn’t make her any less your mum. So you have a caring daddy and a travelling mummy. Exciting, really.’
‘I don’t think it’s very exciting,’ Paige said bleakly. Then she pulled away from Jessie’s hold and sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘Jessie, I can hear Harry. Harry’s awake.’
So could Jess. The big dog was whimpering against the door of his cage. Their talk had disturbed him but he was making it known that he was uncomfortable, to say the least The whimper rose to a whine.
‘What’s wrong?’ Paige almost tumbled out of bed in her haste to reach him. ‘Is he hurting?’
He wasn’t hurting. Jess reached the cage door just behind Paige’s speedy crutches and nodded as she inspected the cage.
‘I see,’ she said slowly, smiling down at the Border collie. ‘Ever the gentleman, aren’t you, Harry?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Paige demanded.
‘Well, Harry is a very well-trained dog,’ Jess smiled. ‘For the last two days I’ve had newspaper in the base of the cage for when he needs to go to the toilet-and he’s been too sick to go anywhere else. Now, though, he’s starting to feel well enough to remember it’s not at all proper to go to the toilet in someone’s kitchen. See the newspaper? It’s not soiled at all and it’s eight hours since I changed it.’
‘What will we do?’ Paige asked anxiously. The dog was trying to paw the cage with his uninjured leg and whimpering when his weight went onto the injured pad.
Jess had pulled on her warm dressing gown. She slipped back into the bedroom and returned with a thick fleecy jacket.
‘Let’s put this on you,’ she told Paige. ‘You’ve slippers for those feet? Good. OK. I’m going to carry Harry out to the back lawn. Want to come?’
‘I sure do,’ Paige said triumphantly. ‘I knew everyone except Daddy was awake.’
Daddy…
Niall Mountmarche…
For about ten whole minutes the image had faded but now the remembrance of last night flooded through Jess with a rush of fierce sensation.
How could she have let him make love to her?
The man was so close. A corridor away, sleeping while she entertained his small daughter.
Maybe she’d better put half a dozen advertisements for locums in each medical journal, Jess thought grimly. How on earth could she face the man now?
Jess carried Harry gently out to the back lawn of the hospital, where the headland ran right out to the sea beyond. It was a magic spring morning, the sun already holding a promise of warmth, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. The only sound was the surf from the distant sea.
Jess set the dog down on the grass and Harry did what he had to do with an almost audible groan of relief. Then they watched while Harry proceeded to sniff his way round unknown territory.
He hopped on three legs, carrying his injured pad high, Jess was pleased to see, and not attempting to bear weight on it yet. The bandaged pad seemed almost a trophy. Harry’s bright eyes cleared and he looked around with the air of a dog almost content with his lot.
Almost.
There was a hint of unease.
Jess had saved his life but Jess wasn’t his master.
‘He looks like he wants something,’ Paige said, and Jess nodded.
‘He wants someone.’
‘Like his mummy?’
‘Like his dad.’ The voice came from the hospital door and made Jess jump. All three-child, woman and dog- turned to face the voice. Niall Mountmarche was standing on the top step, surveying them with complacency.
‘I thought you’d run away,’ he told his little daughter with a smile.
‘I wouldn’t!’ Paige’s face was appalled as if she couldn’t imagine doing something so stupid. She clutched Jessie’s hand as if for support and Jess realised that Paige still wasn’t completely relaxed with her father.
