The Surgeon's Proposal Read online

  OK. Fair enough. She could tolerate it.

  More importantly, from her point of view, Alex realised that Duncan was a permanent fixture in her life, and always took him into consideration. He was happy about supporting both of them, and understood that her mother required a huge amount of Annabelle’s time and care as well. He actively preferred that she give up work.

  ‘If you never go back at all, that’s fine with me.’

  This wasn’t quite how she felt. She loved her career but, even leaving aside Mum’s needs, Duncan just wasn’t the kind of child that did well in the structured environment of a child-care centre, and she couldn’t ignore that. She had begun to see unpleasant shifts in his developing personality that upset her deeply, and she knew that the overworked and underpaid child-care centre staff breathed sighs of relief when he went home each day.

  Duncan had been carelessly conceived during a holiday fling with a Greek barman, carelessly brought into the world and casually abandoned by his mother, Annabelle’s sister Victoria. Vic hadn’t intended to abandon him permanently, of course. She’d simply left him in Annabelle’s care when he was ten months old, while she went on an adventure holiday in Borneo.

  ‘Eleven days. You don’t mind, do you, Belle?’

  No, she didn’t mind. She loved her baby nephew, and she had days off work owing to her.

  Six days into the trip, Victoria had been killed in a landslide on the side of a jungle-clad mountain. It was an exotic end to an exotic life, and a difficult start for a little boy. He deserved better, and he was going to get it in future, Annabelle had vowed.

  Only now, because of Dylan Calford, he wasn’t.

  The electric jug boiled and she poured steaming water onto the little mounds of shiny granules at the bottom of each mug, creating a hissing sound. The coffee smelled good and rich and fresh, but unmistakably like instant. She had real ground beans, and a whiz-bang Christmas-gift coffee-machine, but wasn’t going to waste either the coffee or the machine on Dylan Calford today. The coffee took longer to make that way, and might give him the mistaken impression that she wasn’t furious.

  ‘Here.’

  She handed him the muddy black brew, and plonked a plate of sweet biscuits onto the coffee-table. There wasn’t much room on it at the moment. Duncan was running back and forth between his toy chest and the table, depositing his trucks and cars there one by one in a long, snaking row. His sound effects were loud.

  ‘Active little boy,’ Dylan commented.

  ‘He doesn’t have ADHD,’ Annabelle said.

  ‘Did I say—?’

  ‘A lot of people have said it. The manager of his child-care centre wanted him assessed.’

  ‘But you didn’t think it was necessary?’

  ‘No. Because when he’s with me, he’s fine. Active, yes. Top-of-the-chart active, but I read up on the subject when the issue was first raised, and he doesn’t show any of the other signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The psychologist I finally took him to agreed. His concentration is fully engaged when he’s interested in something. He’s not aggressive, unless he’s handled aggressively first.’ Or not often, anyway, she revised inwardly, thinking of a couple of recent incidents at child-care. These were the reason she’d consulted the child psychologist, and she’d found his ideas on the issue very sensible. She summarised them briefly to Dylan.

  ‘He can’t express his feelings very well yet. His language skills aren’t good enough. So he gets frustrated in a situation where he’s not happy, and there have been a couple of incidents of biting and kicking at his child-care centre. A lot of young children go through a similar stage, and they grow out of it, if it’s handled in the right way.’

  If. A big ‘if’, in this case, when Annabelle herself couldn’t be with him, and the staff at child-care didn’t have the resources to give him the extra attention he needed.

  Knowing she could talk for minutes on end about Duncan, his difficulties and her feelings, she finished, ‘He just likes to be on the go, to head for the horizon and explore.’

  Like Vic had. Perhaps he had received his temperament from her.

  ‘Parents usually know best,’ Dylan said.

  ‘I am his parent!’ She glared at him. ‘Or the closest thing he’s got to one, anyhow.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I meant. You’d know, and I’m guessing you’re not influenced too much by wishful thinking either. Or not usually.’

  He frowned, and Annabelle flushed. Was that a reference to Alex and their marriage plans? It was! She’d blurted out far too much to Dylan yesterday in her anger.

  ‘Why are you here, Dylan?’ she asked him coldly.

  ‘To make an offer. Some kind of compensation. I want to cover the cost of the reception at least.’

  ‘Alex is the one to approach about that, although I doubt he’d accept it. I wouldn’t!’

  ‘And ask you if there’s any other way I can make up for—’

  ‘There isn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Short of offering to marry me yourself.’

  It had to be one of the most ill-thought-out suggestions she’d ever made, a product of fatigue and stress, and disappointment and anger, and something else she didn’t have a name for. Something new. She didn’t usually come out with wild statements like that.

  Dylan laughed. It was a rich, confident sound. In any other circumstances, she would have wanted to join in. ‘Perhaps that’s exactly what I should do,’ he said. ‘The only thing that would really make the grade, right?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Thanks. You’ve made me feel better.’ He was still grinning at her, his dark gaze sweeping over her like a caress. It disturbed her.

  ‘How?’

  ‘By proving to me that I did the right thing. The insane thing, under the circumstances, and I hadn’t realised it would be the show-stopping announcement that it was, but if you could propose me as a substitute husband—’

  ‘I wasn’t serious.’

  ‘One day later.’

  ‘I wasn’t serious!’

  ‘Even as a joke, then doesn’t that tell you—?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head sharply, clenched teeth aching. ‘It was a stupid, meaningless thing to say. It doesn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘I dare you, Annabelle.’ There was a light of challenge and determination in his expression now that made her uncomfortable. He was leaning forward in his seat, his strength casually apparent. ‘I dare you to consider the proposition. I’ve got just as much to offer you as Alex does. Not exactly the same things, perhaps, but equivalent. Better, possibly, in some areas. Think about it.’

  And suddenly, graphically, she was.

  She was thinking about a wedding—symbol of solved problems—and a wedding night, and a bed with Dylan Calford in it. Naked. Or possibly not quite naked yet, but with some snug-fitting black stretch fabric across his groin. And smiling. The way he was smiling now, with a challenge glinting in his eyes, and a wicked, delicious expression that said, I can read your mind.

  She went hot all over. My sainted aunt! She’d never thought of Dylan Calford that way before! He’d been engaged or married or absorbed in his divorce for the entire three and a half years she’d known him, and that had meant he’d been off limits. Not just in her eyes, but in his own.

  He didn’t give off the knowing, overtly sexual vibe that available, good-looking men so often exuded. And, anyway, they rarely encountered each other outside the demanding environment of surgery, and never away from the hospital. When they worked together, there was always too much else to think about.

  Today was different. There were no patients, no colleagues. His property settlement was at the negotiation stage, with the one-year anniversary of his separation already past. The vibe was there, singing and throbbing like the strings of an instrument. Two contradictory feelings warred inside her.

  The first was instinct more than thought, and insisted, You’ll learn more from this than you ever learned from
Alex. The second was an impatient need to reject the whole thing as dangerous, untrustworthy and insignificant.

  The second feeling won.

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ she told Dylan flatly.

  Hardly aware of what she was doing, she wrapped her arms across her body to try and stroke away the goose-bumps that had risen on her arms. Her nipples ached, and deep inside her there was a heaviness and a heat that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Definitely, she didn’t want any of it. Not now.

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You’re right. I don’t. But you thought about it, didn’t you?’ His eyes were still fixed on her face.

  ‘Not in the way you mean.’

  Or, possibly, exactly in the way he’d meant.

  Had he been aware of the vibe he’d given off? The potency of it? The delicious wickedness of it? The fact that she’d absorbed it, wrapped herself in it and reflected it right back at him? Or was he giving it off unconsciously?

  ‘Well, think about it some more,’ he said. Or, rather, ordered.

  He took what had to be a scorching gulp of his coffee, without apparently noticing the heat. If he had a tendency not to notice heat, that was good, a relief…and a reprieve.

  ‘There’s no need to think about it any more,’ she said sharply. ‘Not for a second.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  Meanwhile, Duncan had become bored with the car and truck game, and every vehicle he owned was now lined up on the coffee-table like a peak-hour traffic jam. ‘Go inna pool, Mummy?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘In a little while, love,’ she answered.

  A swim would be great. Bruising, with the way Duncan liked to hurl himself off the edge and into her arms in the water. His eager little legs always collided painfully with her thighs as he held her tight and instinctively kicked like a frog beneath the water. But it would cool her down. The building heat in the air was extra sticky today.

  Duncan had already run off in search of towels. He’d probably come back with six of them.

  As soon as he had gone, Dylan asked curiously, ‘He calls you that? Mummy?’

  Annabelle went on the defensive at once. ‘Mum and I talked about it. We agreed it would be best at this stage. He has no memory of Vic—my sister. We haven’t decided when we’ll tell him.’

  ‘Tell me how it happened,’ he invited quietly. ‘Do you mind?’

  She stifled a sigh. Sometimes she did mind, especially when the questions were nosy, tactless or judgmental. But somehow Dylan Calford seemed to be in her life now, since yesterday. Arrogant in his presumptions, dictatorial in his advice. She was still angry about it, yet at the same time felt her usual over developed need to be fair. Beyond the arrogance, his desire to make amends as far as possible was apparently genuine.

  Not that he can make amends, she considered inwardly. Is it the thought that counts? Aloud, she said, ‘No, I don’t mind. She’d gone trekking, and there was an accident. In Borneo. It was in the news. You might have read about it.’

  He thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Mmm, yes, I remember now. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that was your sister.’

  ‘I didn’t want to talk about it much at work.’

  ‘It must have been hard. For you and your mother.’ They weren’t flowery words, but she appreciated the depth of sincerity behind them.

  ‘Still can’t believe it sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I—’ She broke off and shook her head.

  Sometimes she’d hear a voice in a crowded shopping mall and instinctively turn her head because it sounded like Vic. Sometimes, with news or a funny anecdote to tell, she’d pick up the telephone and stop with her finger poised over the first digit of Vic’s old phone number, her whole body frozen and a stabbing pain in her stomach.

  But she didn’t want to tell Dylan Calford about any of that. He didn’t prompt her to finish, and she felt a small stirring of gratitude for the fact.

  ‘And there was no father around?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘Not one that we could trace. Vic never even told Mum and me his last name. He didn’t know about Duncan and wouldn’t have cared, Vic said. It was a holiday romance. She travelled a lot.’

  ‘The adventurous type. Like her son.’

  ‘I’m starting to see that, yes, although at the end of a long day, I always blame his father for the high energy levels!’

  ‘How do you deal with it? How do you know that your full-time care will be better than a child-care centre?’ Evidently he remembered exactly what she’d said to him yesterday.

  ‘Because I love him. I…’ she searched for the right word ‘…champion him, in a way those very nice girls—really, they’re very nice—at child-care just don’t have time for, with their ratio of one adult to five kids.’

  ‘That high?’

  ‘It’s standard,’ she answered. ‘I believe in him, and know him well enough to bring out the best in him. I understand what he’s trying to tell me, which some people don’t. His speech isn’t very clear yet, and that frustrates him. I have the time and care to head off his difficult behaviour, and I know when he’s overdosed on other kids and needs some time to himself. We go to the park for hours, and just run each other down as if we were two little toys in one of those battery commercials on television. He sleeps well, if an hour or two less than most kids his age. And I’m pretty fit, as a result!’

  ‘Hmm,’ Dylan said. There was a pause. ‘And what will happen now?’

  ‘He’ll stay in child-care. Unless I can juggle my shifts at the hospital, which, of course, I’ll try to do.’

  Which doesn’t deal with the mortgage. There must be some other areas where I can save. If I get an increase on my credit-card limit…

  ‘There’s no other choice? Your mother—’

  ‘Has emphysema, as you may have realised. She’s tired and breathless, gets asthma attacks quite often, and can’t do much for herself. She could sell her little unit and come and live here, yes, but she’s too ill to help with Duncan, other than overnight babysitting, and really too ill to live under the same roof as such an active little boy.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand that.’

  ‘She loves him, but she wouldn’t be happy here. Can you stop asking these questions, Dylan? Marrying Alex wasn’t just about solving my current family problems. There was a lot more. You mean well. I can see that. But you’re trivialising my life, and my choices. It’s not helping. Don’t try and help, please.’

  She lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily, still far more conscious of their two bodies than she wanted to be. What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell. His dark eyes were clouded and thoughtful, and he was frowning.

  At that moment, Duncan ran back out to the veranda, as expected, with his arms full of towels. One dangling end was dangerously close to tripping up his eager little feet. Turning away from Dylan, Annabelle took the bundle from Duncan quickly, and asked, ‘What about your cozzie? Know where that is?’

  ‘Onna line,’ he said confidently, and rushed off again, to the far corner of the crowded garden where the rotary clothesline stood, hung with pegged-up garments.

  ‘I should go,’ Dylan said, and Annabelle didn’t argue. ‘Please, think a little more about what I said.’

  She laughed. ‘The marriage proposal? You didn’t mean it. I’m not going to think about it for a second.’

  ‘You’re right. I didn’t mean it. But think about it anyway.’ His dark gaze collided with hers again. It seemed to trap her, making her hot.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she told him.

  ‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘Although I wonder…Maybe one day we’ll both understand what it meant.’

  Then he shrugged, smiled and stood up, looking long and strong and sturdy. Not at all the kind of man who should make whimsical marriage proposals that he admitted he didn’t mean but still wanted her to take seriously.

  ‘Enjoy the pool,’ he said, and touched her bare shoulder.

  His hand left a warm impr
int there, and was gone again in a second. Annabelle’s awareness of his touch was unsettling and unwanted. She took him quickly back through the house, and they got through a few last polite phrases, then she closed the door behind him and listened with relief to the confident sound of his feet as he loped down the twenty-seven steps.

  She spent a shrieking half-hour in the pool with Duncan, got him dried and dressed and settled him with a video.

  Then she phoned Alex.

  ‘I was wondering when you’d call,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘It’s just on eleven. I wasn’t sure whether to…’ She trailed off, feeling the phone line between them heavy with stony silence. She tried again, newly determined that there had to be a way to get through this. It was ridiculous to call off a marriage permanently because of one meaningless intrusion during the ceremony. They were both mature adults. Alex was almost forty, and she was thirty-two. ‘I really wanted to talk, Alex, but I thought we both needed to cool down after last night. I’m just as angry with Dylan as you are.’

  Silence.

  ‘And if you still think I gave him any cause to make that idiotic objection, then I’m not sure what to do next, because I didn’t, and I’ve told you that, and he’s told you that…’ She paused expectantly.

  Silence.

  ‘Which makes me start to wonder if you were just looking for an excuse.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

  ‘So we’ll get married. A small, discreet ceremony, with—’

  ‘That’s impossible. I’m not going to rehash it again.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Alex!’ she begged him desperately. ‘Just blustering like this, stonewalling anything I say, it’s not telling me anything.’

  Silence.

  ‘Shall I come over to your place, or do you want to come here?’ she suggested.

  Silence.

  ‘Dylan wants to pay for the reception. I told him to talk to you about it.’

  ‘So you’ve seen him? When have you seen him?’

  ‘He came round just now. He obviously feels bad.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re defending him, and that you talked to him before you talked to me.’