‘As you say.’
‘And the osteochondroma?’
Bony growths where they shouldn’t be were a common childhood problem so it was no surprise when he said, ‘Scotty is four years old. The osteochondroma is on his leg. I biopsied it and it’s fine but it’s growing. Scotty’s mother is a single mum with three other littlies dependent on her. It’d be a heck of a lot easier if we did it here.’
‘So you really do need me,’ she said, cheering up, and he looked a bit shamefaced.
‘Um…yes.’ There was another momentary hesitation. ‘What you did with Mavis… I’ve been out there this morning and she tells me you’ve already phoned and adjusted the dose. But already the change is miraculous. And here…all these things can wait, but as you’re here and not busy…’
‘You may as well use me,’ she agreed. She paused, and then decided to push it. ‘You know, you really do need to learn to chat to me, though,’ she told him. ‘I’m not accustomed to silence. Maybe we can get piped music in Theatre. Or piped gossip. That’s what I’m used to back home.’
His face stayed expressionless. ‘Silence makes for concentration.’
‘Sure, and you need to concentrate really hard on a hernia op. It’s nail-biting life-and-death drama.’
‘You’re being silly.’
‘You don’t think it’s you who’s being silly?’
‘Am I?’ he demanded. ‘Kirsty, leave it.’
But the look on his face was making her angry all over again. It was like he was afraid of her. As if he was wary that she’d push him into something he didn’t want.
‘I don’t want this,’ he added, and she glowered.
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t you push this any further,’ she warned. ‘If you’re about to say something about me feeling what you’re feeling and it’s not wise, or that you’re instinctively realising that I want your body but you don’t want me, or really you’d love to make mad, passionate love to me but you’re a closet gay…’
There was the sound of choking and Babs was goggle-eyed behind them. The nurse had her hand to her mouth, as if she’d tried to keep herself silent but failed. Just as well, Kirsty thought. She was way out of line.
She collected herself. Sort of. Just for a moment there she’d almost been enjoying herself, hauling the self- contained Dr Jake Cameron right out of his comfort zone.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she managed, turning and smiling at Babs. ‘I’m an American. We’re known for being forward, if not downright ridiculous.’ She turned back to Jake. ‘But, of course, I’ll do your list, Dr Cameron. Any time. Anywhere. But not now, as I’m off home to our castle to check on Angus and Susie.’ She took another deep breath and almost recovered.
‘Don’t fret that you were eavesdropping,’ she said finally to Babs. ‘What you heard-very clearly-was me
What was it with the man? All the way home she fumed, trying to figure out what her hormones were doing to her. Why was she feeling like this?
Jake wasn’t the only one who didn’t do relationships. Kirsty had no intention of letting herself go down that route.
She’d learned early. When Kirsty and Susie had been ten their mother had died unexpectedly and tragically of a subarachnoid haemorrhage. They’d all been devastated-of course-but their father had been passionately in love with his wife and he’d never recovered.
Two years after his wife had died, Taylor McMahon had taken his own life, leaving his little girls to a succession of foster-homes.
Love must be appalling to do that to you, Kirsty had reasoned, and she’d decided then and there that she’d never let herself feel that way about anyone but Susie.
When Susie had met Rory…for a little while Kirsty had let herself start believing again in happy-ever-after. Only then Rory had died. Of course. The whole appalling cycle had started again-trying to drag someone you loved back from the brink.
It wasn’t going to happen to her. She dated nice safe men who left her emotionally free. That was the way of survival. Nice safe Robert…
If Jake thought she’d threaten that by falling for him, he had to be joking.
So cut it out, she told herself. Quit it with the hormones. The man is seriously threatening to your peace of mind. As well as that, he’s seriously committed to his twins and you’re not the least bit interested in playing Mom. Even if he was interested. Even if you’re interested. Which you’re not.
A ready-made family would be the pits.
She pulled into the castle forecourt and Jake’s two little girls came racing out the front door to meet her. There goes that argument, she thought bitterly as they tugged open her car door. These two buttons were seriously cute.
‘We saw you coming from upstairs,’ Alice announced-or was it Penelope? They were identically dressed in miniature jeans and grubby windcheaters. Their shoes were caked with mud, and their curls were escaping from the crimson ribbons at the ends of their pigtails. ‘Angus went for a nap and Susie said we had to go up and tell him that Spike’s measurement is a whole half-inch wider than yesterday. Mr Boyce says Spike’s going to be ginormous.’
‘And Boris got paw marks all over Angus’s bed when we let him in,’ her twin announced, big with importance in the telling of such a tale. ‘Margie growled, and then she saw our muddy shoes. She told us we were rascals and we had to hop it-but Angus says he likes rascals. Then we saw your car so we thought we might hop it anyway.’
‘So we hopped all the way down the stairs,’ the other twin explained again, grinning a hugely appealing gap- toothed grin. ‘The stairs here are beeyootiful. Penelope can hop three stairs at a time and I nearly can but not all the time.’
‘You need practice,’ Kirsty said, smiling as she climbed out of the car. She looked behind the twins to where Susie was balancing on crutches in the doorway. Her twin was smiling, and Kirsty had a sudden vision of how her own twin had looked when she had been this age. They must have both looked like this, she thought. Happy, bubbly little girls with not a care between them.
Susie’s smile was like that now, she thought in surprise. It was an echo of the past when as twins they’d done their own hopping. Before life had got in the way and they’d realised the damage love could cause. But Susie’s smile had been resurrected by this place. By Angus and by Jake and by these two little girls.
Don’t you dare let your hormones mess with this, she told herself fiercely. Start acting professionally with Dr Cameron.
‘Margie says as soon as you come back, we have to go home,’ one of the twins was saying. They grabbed a hand each and started tugging her toward the door. ‘But you have to see Spike first. We want to show you ourselves. He’s humungous and Susie said he’s getting humungouser.’
‘Humungouser?’ she said faintly, and from the doorway Susie giggled. It was a great sound, Kirsty thought. It had been so long since Susie had giggled regularly.
‘He’s a wonderful pumpkin,’ she managed, trying not to sound choked up.
‘Please, can we stay for lunch?’ a twin was begging. ‘We’ll ring Daddy and tell him we have to. Mr Boyce is out minding Spike, and Margie says he’s as happy as a pig in mud and we can stay for lunch as long as you say it’s OK and so does Daddy.’
‘What do you think?’ Kirsty asked her twin, when she could get a word in edgeways, and Susie’s smile broadened.
‘I think these kids are great.’
‘I think this place is great,’ Kirsty told her.
‘Did you have fun with Jake this morning?’
Kirsty eyed her twin with caution. The problem with being a twin was that you were known too well.
‘We did a very satisfactory operation.’
‘That’s nice,’ Susie said demurely.
Kirsty thought, Yep, she’d been sussed.
‘But can we stay?’ the twins said plaintively.
