The Surgeon's Convenient Fiancée (Medical Romance) Read online

  ‘No. It’s starting to go the other way,’ he said.

  She went on to tell him how she had to earn a living, how she was helping her parents financially because her father had been ill and her mother had stopped work to look after him, how her parents had later decided to go to Australia for a long visit to see her brother, whom they had not seen for a long time. They were still there.

  ‘And you miss them?’ he asked astutely.

  ‘Yes…very much. Sometimes it seems that I don’t have parents, that they are a figment of my imagination,’ she blurted out. ‘Then I feel I’m going mad.’ Now she was getting somewhere.

  It was easy to talk to him. He listened quietly, not moving, his eyes on her face as he was turned sideways towards her.

  ‘To cut a long story short,’ she went on, ‘a social worker at the hospital told me about a man, Jerry Parks, who had two children whose mother had just died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. They needed someone to take care of them.’

  ‘The man you didn’t want to see just now?’

  ‘Yes. I was desperate for a job, so I applied and got it.’

  For a few moments there was silence in the car as she wondered what to say next.

  ‘Do you care for him, this Jerry guy?’ Dr Shay Melburne asked her quietly.

  ‘Oh, no. I dislike him…intensely,’ she said, with a vehemence that she knew must have alerted him that something had indeed happened between herself and Jerry. ‘But I do love the children. That’s the trouble.’

  ‘I see,’ Dr Melburne said. ‘You want out, is that it? But you don’t want to leave the children. You’ve painted yourself into a corner, as it were.’

  ‘Yes, yes! That’s it exactly. And I don’t know what to do about it. Oh, God! What a mess,’ Deirdre moaned, with a rush of such emotion that she knew she was going to weep again in front of this stranger who would indeed think she was mad. She put her head in her hands and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, rocking back and forth in despair.

  ‘I can’t leave them, you see…not now they’ve already lost their real mother. They love me, and I love them. When I first came to look after them they were so silent, so sad. Now they’re more like normal children. They trust me now and need me. I don’t know what to do.’ When she began to sob quietly, he pushed a handkerchief into her hand and just sat beside her. ‘Sorry…sorry…to lumber you with all this. I think I’m having some sort of breakdown. I…had a peculiar mental aberration just before you almost hit me with your car. That’s why I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I couldn’t get off a bus…just couldn’t make myself…at the right place.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. Then he waited for her to compose herself. There was an air of calm about him, as though he did actually have all the time in the world. It felt good to have someone concentrate just on you, she thought, and to ask questions as though they were really interested in the answers.

  Presently he took one of her cold hands and held it between the two of his. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. Deirdre somehow accepted the oddity of this situation; the whole day had been odd, and it was not over yet.

  He waited until she had cried herself out. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’d like to take you out for a meal right now. You must be hungry, and I’m starving.’

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t have to take me for a meal,’ she protested, convinced that he was offering because he felt sorry for her.

  ‘I know I don’t have to. I want to,’ he said firmly. ‘Can you dump those groceries without encountering friend Jerry?’

  ‘I could leave them in the garage, off the back lane,’ she said. ‘That is, if Basil won’t get them.’ She said the last bit to herself, thinking aloud.

  ‘Who’s Basil?

  ‘Oh…he’s a rat.’

  Dr Melburne laughed. Surprisingly, Deirdre felt her mood of abject misery lifting a little.

  ‘A pet rat?’

  ‘Oh, no. He’s wild, he just lives there in the walls. I’ll take a chance with the groceries. I…I should cook the supper for the children, although they can cook for themselves. But I haven’t seen them since this morning…’ Her voice trailed off. Quite suddenly the most important thing for her in the world was to get away from her domestic situation for a while, to have a meal with this man who, she sensed, was safe and reliable.

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Mungo’s thirteen and Fleur’s twelve,’ she said, hearing her own voice soften as she said their names. ‘And another thing. He, Jerry, is not even their real father. He’s their stepfather.’ There was more that she could tell him, but that was enough for now. After all, this was private family information which was not just hers to divulge.

  ‘This gets more and more complicated,’ Shay Melburne said. ‘Can you phone the children? I’ll take all of you out. I know just the place. Have them meet us in the back lane.’

  It was such a relief, for a change, to have someone else make the decisions, decisions that were also benign and in her own interests for once. ‘Thank you, it’s very kind of you.’ Using his handkerchief, she blotted her face. ‘Let’s do it.’

  With Deirdre directing, Shay drove around to the back lane behind the houses, one of many that the streets in the area had at the rear of the neat rows of dwellings. After letting herself in to the back garden through the gate from the lane, she put the groceries in the garage via the side door, then, using her mobile, she called Mungo on his mobile. At this moment he should be in his room, starting on his homework.

  ‘Wow!’ he said, after she had explained. ‘Are we going out to eat in the middle of the week?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Get Fleur and come out to the garage. I don’t want Jerry to know. Can you get out without him seeing you?’

  ‘Yeah, he has a bunch of guys in here for drinks as usual. They’re making so much noise that I can’t concentrate on my essay. He didn’t even check to see if we were here,’ Mungo said in an aggrieved voice.

  ‘Leave a note for him on the kitchen table, please, saying you’re out to eat,’ Deirdre instructed. ‘Be as fast as you can.’

  ‘You don’t want him to know we’re going—right?’

  ‘Right.’

  As Deirdre waited in the drizzle for the children to appear, she knew that a corner of sorts had been turned. She was beginning to fight back. Maybe things would be easier if she just coped with the children and let Jerry fend entirely for himself, if she refused to do any work other than look after the children, which was what she had been hired for. He could fire her, perhaps, but it had been the children’s grandmother who had hired her, so perhaps Jerry was not in a position to dismiss her from the job. Their mother was dead, but the maternal grandmother was very much alive. They called her Granny McGregor when referring to her in her absence, although her name was Fiona and she liked to be called by that name.

  It was a complicated story, she thought now as she waited. The children’s biological father had never been married to their mother, they had lived as common-law husband and wife, and he had been out of the picture for some time. That was why they had their mother’s surname. As far as Deirdre could ascertain, he was in South Africa and did not even know that their mother was dead, as no one had thought to tell him. He had left shortly after the birth of Fleur.

  Often Deirdre wished she had known their mother, who seemed to have been a woman of intelligence, common sense and flair, with a great love for her children. Certainly she seemed to have done everything during her long illness to ensure that they would not be homeless and destitute after she died. Deirdre sensed that the only reason Jerry remained in the picture was that he hoped to get his hands on some of the money that his wife had left in trust for her two children.

  She went part way down the garden path towards the house to meet Mungo and Fleur as they came silently out of the back door. ‘What’s up, Dee?’ Fleur said to her.

  ‘We’re being taken out to supp
er at a restaurant by a doctor who works at the Stanton Memorial Hospital,’ she said, ad-libbing. ‘He gave me a ride home.’

  They accepted that, as she had hoped they would, assuming that she knew the doctor well. The last thing they needed to know was that she was approaching breaking point. ‘We won’t be long. I know you have to get at your homework. It just saves me having to cook.’

  ‘Jerry will be in a rage,’ Fleur said gleefully. ‘He just came in with three guys for drinks. I bet they want food as well.’

  ‘Yes, that’s part of the whole idea of going out,’ Deirdre said, gaining courage. ‘I’m not going to cook for him any more.’ The decision had sort of made itself, it seemed.

  In spite of her antipathy to Jerry, she did not bad-mouth him to the children, as she did not want that to add to their underlying insecurity. Also, doing so, she suspected, would cause them to lose respect for her, even though their own feelings for him were very mixed and mostly negative. As far as possible, she tried to be neutral, while being open about problems at the same time. She was helped by the fact that part of her salary was paid out of a trust fund that had been set up by their mother. The children’s grandmother had been at pains recently to inform her of that fact. Now she clung to that knowledge. It was the grandmother who was the legal guardian of the children, even though their mother had been married to Jerry.

  ‘Good for you, Dee,’ Mungo said, fully understanding. ‘They can get a take-away.’

  ‘This is Dr…um…er…Shay Melburne,’ she said, introducing him as they got into the back of the car. ‘Dr Melburne, this is Mungo and Fleur McGregor.’

  ‘Very pleased to meet you both,’ the doctor said, twisting around and leaning over from the front to shake hands with them in turn.

  Mungo, who had untidy dark hair and steel-rimmed glasses, and was thin and deceptively boyish, gave the doctor the once-over. ‘Have you known Dee very long?’ he asked in a tone which Deirdre recognized as protective, and she smiled. Perhaps he thought that she had a man friend who might take her away from them.

  ‘It…er…seems like a very long time,’ Shay said, and Deirdre looked at him sharply, detecting a note of sardonic humour in his voice. She hoped he was not regretting his impulsive invitation. As though sensing exactly what she was thinking, he smiled at her, causing her heart to feel as though it were being squeezed, and she thought again how attractive he was, especially when he smiled. How nice it was to be smiled at by an attractive man…one she had begun to like, who did not seem to have a hidden agenda where she was concerned.

  Fleur was equally thin, pretty in an understated way, with her fair hair and blue eyes. She had braces on her teeth, which added to her endearingly gawky and fragile air. ‘Where are we going to eat?’ she asked, lisping slightly because of the braces.

  ‘I thought I’d take you to The Joker, down by the waterfront,’ Shay said. ‘It’s vegetarian. Very good. They have great pizza.’

  ‘Ooh!’ Fleur said, impressed. ‘Some of my friends have been there. They rave about it. Did you used to work with Dee when she was a nurse?’

  ‘Regrettably, we’ve never worked together,’ he said. ‘You could just say we met in the hospital environs.’

  ‘Just hanging out?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Cool,’ Fleur said.

  ‘Real cool,’ Mungo said. ‘She didn’t tell us about you, and she’s been with us for two and a half years.’

  ‘I expect she wanted to keep me all to herself up to now,’ Shay said, sounding as though he wanted to laugh. ‘It was my idea that the two of you might want to go out to eat, as I invited her.’

  ‘Way to go!’ Mungo said. ‘Thank you.’

  As they drove away down the lane, Deirdre was aware that the two children were happy to be in secure male company, to be taken out for a meal, as the attention they got from Jerry was sporadic and cursory. The novelty of it was making them smile with anticipation. For one thing, Jerry was in business, import and export, and was away a lot. Sometimes she thought that his work was of a dubious nature, perhaps to do with money-laundering, but she kept that idea strictly to herself and did not even hint to him that she knew or cared what he did, much less to Mungo and Fleur.

  Dr Melburne called ahead on his mobile phone to reserve a table for them. ‘Just to make sure we won’t have to wait,’ he said. Deirdre, sitting silently next to him, thought what an attractive name Shay was. She had never heard it before. It seemed to suit him to perfection. Beyond that, she did not want to speculate about him too much, about his private life. For the first time in a long time, part of her was feeling human again, not just the embodiment of a role that had somehow become too much for her, in spite of her love for Mungo and Fleur. The other part of her was teetering towards the brink of something. Perhaps it was a showdown with Jerry.

  Now she felt the first glimmerings of what it might be like to have a partner that one could rely on, love and be loved by. Then she pushed that thought out of her mind. No point in speculating about this very attractive man whom she would not have met in normal circumstances, the way her life was now. Out of the goodness of his heart, it seemed, he was rescuing her for a short while from the routine of her life.

  The restaurant was crowded, yet a table had been reserved for them, by a window overlooking the harbour of Prospect Bay, where lights twinkled and glistened on the water. It was the sort of restaurant where you could feel private, even though most of the tables were taken, the tables separated by tall potted plants.

  Within a very short time Fleur and Mungo had perused the menu and chosen unusual pizzas, with very inventive vegetarian toppings.

  ‘They always have great soup here, and you can get a variety of fish,’ Shay said to Deirdre, leaning close to her so that he could make himself heard above the general hum of conversation in the large open-plan restaurant. When she turned to look at him she met his curious glance, which held in it a veiled interest, as a man would look at a woman he found attractive. Deirdre felt his frision of interest and answering acute awareness in herself. She looked away instantly from his regard and pretended to study the menu, even though the print danced before her eyes and she could not take it in. His close proximity was all that she could think of…that and how vulnerable she had become to such interest, how much she needed that affirmation of her attractiveness, how much she needed empathetic male company.

  Before she had made up her mind, the waiter was beside them and the children had placed their order in seconds. The waiter was looking at her expectantly.

  ‘I…I’ll have the soup of the day, please,’ she said. ‘And whatever fish you would recommend…the catch of the day, and a glass of white house wine.’

  Perhaps, she thought as he made some squiggles on a notepad, you could tell a lot about a person from the choices they made in restaurants. Her choice, she thought vaguely, would categorize her as a sensible, utilitarian woman, who was concerned about spending someone else’s money. Certainly, you could tell a lot about the background of a person from their table manners. Such petty speculations distracted her for a moment or two from the deeper issues of her life. At the centre of her problems was the one of finding a man to love, someone who would want her with two children who were not her own. She did not think that her chances were very great of finding such a one. That realization filled her with despair. Sometimes she could visualize herself waiting until Mungo and Fleur were in university before she could find a husband for herself, could hope to have her own children. Perhaps then it would be too late.

  Shay also ordered soup and fish, but not the specials of the day, and a glass of wine, though not the house wine. What that said about him was that he did not have to count the pennies, she thought, but he was not an extravagant man, given to excess. Deirdre was distracting herself from the inevitable confrontation with Jerry when they got back to the house and Shay would be gone.

  When the waiter had gone, Shay turned to the children. ‘Tell me about
yourselves,’ he invited. ‘About your hobbies and interests.’ Because he sounded genuinely interested—was interested—Deirdre warmed to him even more, while cautioning herself at the same time not to get used to having him around. Very soon he would be out of their lives and she would never see him again. This was one of those strange interludes in which fate gave you a glimpse of a world that might, remotely, be yours if circumstances could be different.

  The children were taken aback and pleased that someone would ask them about their interests, because strangers usually asked them first what grade they were in at school, how they were doing at school, and so on. Then, usually, the eyes of those strangers would glaze with boredom when an attempt was made to give a genuine answer. The last thing they wanted to talk about was school. They wanted to get away from it, the academic worries that hung over them. Very quickly they were in an animated three-way conversation about horseriding, boating, hiking, drama, reading and so on, while Deirdre sat back and listened, quite happy to be in the background so that she could collect her muddled thoughts. This was the best part of a strange day.

  When the food came, Shay turned his attention to her. ‘May I call you Deirdre?’ he asked. ‘Or do you prefer Dee?’

  ‘Deirdre,’ she said. Only the children and a few old schoolfriends called her Dee. With this man she felt like a Deirdre…Deirdre of the Sorrows, as he had reminded her. That was her all right.

  ‘Call me Shay,’ he said. Again, he smiled at her as though she were an attractive woman. Sometimes these days she didn’t think of herself as attractive, yet deep down she knew that she was. A lot of the time she felt herself to be more or less invisible where men were concerned. With her dark, glossy hair, that had hints of red in it, her pale, creamy skin and expressive hazel eyes she knew that she was not ordinary, yet most of the time now she could not feel otherwise. That was all part and parcel of low self-esteem, she knew, which had started from the time she had been laid off from the job that she had loved.