him, whether she knew she did or not. And Em… She needed him too, emotionally as well as for her precious medicine.
So why couldn’t they just let him give what he was able to?
Because he’d walk away.
It was the truth. He knew it, and he’d acknowledged it openly. Anything else would be dishonest.
He wouldn’t make love to Em under false pretences. He didn’t
But he wanted to make love to Emily so much that it hurt.
Hell!
The children were out of bed before he was, and his first waking thought was that a ten-ton weight had landed on his chest. But no. It was just three children.
‘Wake up, Uncle Jonas. Em’s making toast, even Bernard’s awake and we asked Em how Mum was but she said to ask you. So we came in to ask.’
Three little faces peered at him with varying levels of anxiety, and he relented enough to gather as many arms and legs as he could into a together bear-hug. It felt strange-but good.
These were his niece and nephews. He’d never been allowed close but they, it seemed, didn’t have the reservations their mother had.
‘Your mum came though the operation fine,’ he told them. ‘If everything goes well the ambulance will bring her back to the Bay Beach Hospital tomorrow, so you’ll be able to see her then for yourselves.’
They’d arranged that already. They could have transferred her today, but Anna wanted to be away when the test results came through. She wanted time out without the children, to come to terms with everything that had happened to her.
And to prepare herself for the worst, if the worst was likely.
Please, let it not be, Jonas said silently, and told himself again that there was no reason to think that it should come to the worst.
Cancer. What was the medical saying? That it was a word. Not a sentence…
He forced his attention back on the kids. ‘Did you say Em’s making toast?’
‘Yep. She’s just got back. There was a farmer who got his foot crushed when a cow stood on him.’ That was Sam. ‘So when we woke up, one of the nurses was here and she told us to be very quiet until you woke up. But then Em came back and said you were a lazy-bones so we could come and wake you up all we liked.’
‘Isn’t Em wonderful?’ He grinned and threw back the covers, but a part of him felt guilty. She’d been out working while he’d slept. She’d organised a nurse to check the kids so he could sleep on.
She had the phone beside her bed, he thought. Another was in the hall, but if she answered on the first ring he wouldn’t hear it.
That’d have to be changed.
But the kids were focusing on breakfast. ‘There’s three sorts of jam,’ Ruby told him earnestly. ‘Em’s got strawberry jam and raspberry jam and marmalade, and Bernard likes marmalade best, and Robby’s got strawberry jam all over his face.’
‘I bet he has.’
‘Come on, Uncle Jonas.’
‘Wait until I get dressed.’
‘The toast’s ready now!’ And, like it or not, his pyjama-clad figure was towed forth into the kitchen.
Em was there, and the sight of her made him…well, it sort of set him back.
It wasn’t a shock, exactly. She was looking the same as she had the day before. It was just that she was holding baby Robby in her arms and was chuckling at the mess he’d made, and Bernard, amazingly, was on his feet, whuffling around for more toast. Em was surrounded by domesticity and chaos.
It was nothing he couldn’t recover from, he told himself harshly. Given time.
And a bit of distance.
It wasn’t to be. Robby was thrust into his arms like he was expected to take a dual parenting role. ‘I need a facecloth,’ Em told him. ‘Urgently. Take a kid while I find one.’ Then she looked him up and down. ‘By the way, I love your pyjamas.’
They were silk. They also had very cute pandas all over them. A gift from a lady friend…
Hell, he almost felt like blushing.
The kids were giggling, too. ‘We didn’t think uncles would wear pandas on their pyjamas,’ Ruby said seriously, and Jonas swooped her up in his spare arm. So he had two kids in hand.
‘There’s nothing this uncle can’t do,’ he told her grandly.
‘Changing nappies?’ Em teased, and he winced.
‘It’s a learned skill,’ he told her. ‘As a surgeon, I’ve just learned to apply sticking plasters. It takes years and years of practice before I can graduate to nappies.’
‘Plus a bit of raw courage thrown in for good measure.’ She was laughing at him, and the sight unnerved him. She was so…
Gorgeous.
Em was gorgeous, he told himself as she attacked Robby with a facecloth. She was dressed for practicality, in jeans and T-shirt, her hair was drawn back into its customary severe braid, she wore not a touch of make-up-and she was gorgeous!
He wanted her so badly…
For now.
And she wouldn’t let him near because he’d hurt her long-term.
She had to be the judge of that, he told himself as he settled down to breakfast, surrounded by kids and chaos. No means no. The lady doesn’t want you, Jonas Lunn. You’ll complicate her life, and the last thing you want is to complicate anyone’s life.
Isn’t it?
Hmm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROSE’S test results came back late that day, and they were magnificent. Jonas drove back from Blairglen feeling like he’d been handed the world.
He pulled in just as Em arrived back from afternoon surgery, and his mood lightened even further at the sight of her. He wanted to shout his good news at the top of his lungs-and who better to share it with than Emily?
But there was someone else-a man-waiting in the shadows of the front porch. He had the look of someone who had waited a long time and was prepared to wait longer. And Jonas recognised him from the day before. It was Jim-the fire chief. The man who’d shared his vigil.
He needed to share his good news with him as well as Em, he thought, but it was such fantastic news that he didn’t mind who he shared it with.
As long as Em was included…
She was walking toward him from the surgery side of the hospital and he felt like striding forward, sweeping her up into his arms and whirling her round and round until he was dizzy.
But Jim was waiting, and the expression on his face was desperately anxious.
‘I hope you don’t mind me coming,’ Jim said. The man was visibly sweating. ‘I’ve been phoning all day, but the hospital won’t tell me anything. Jonas…mate… I need to know.’
This big, gentle man had sat all through yesterday without seeing Anna, Jonas thought, coming to terms with this new dimension in his sister’s life. They’d stayed in the waiting room together, but Jonas had been permitted to go in as Anna had emerged from the anaesthetic. Jim hadn’t even had that much comfort.
Still Jim had waited. And today it didn’t take a genius to figure that he’d worried himself sick.
Jonas looked sideways at Emily, whose face had softened in understanding.
