Midwives On-Call At Christmas. Tina Beckett
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got quite a way to walk back.’ She saw the tiniest flash of hesitation across his eyes, then he bent down and dropped a kiss on her lips.
Just when she thought she had things sorted in her head. Just when she’d convinced herself that what Jacob did was none of her business and she should forget their last kiss.
The kiss zapped everything back into his place. The taste of his lips and the feel of his hands sliding under her jumper and up her back.
‘Come on.’ He smiled at her. ‘Let’s get sleepyhead back home. It’s getting cold out here.’
A few gentle flakes of snow started to fall around them. Freya had automatically snuggled into Jacob’s neck and was already half asleep. Jacob kept his other arm around Bonnie and steered them both through the crowd and along the street.
Bonnie looked around. To everyone else, they must look like a regular family. Mum, Dad and little girl. Part of that terrified her. The other part pined for it.
She wanted Freya to be loved, to be part of a family. She wanted her little girl to have the relationship that she’d missed out on with her own father.
And Bonnie didn’t want to grow old alone. She’d been stung by her cheating ex and it had made her wary. But it didn’t stop her hoping that somewhere out there would be a man who would love and respect her the way she did him.
Would make her skin tingle and send pulses through her body from a mere look, a touch.
Trouble was, the only person who fitted the bill right now was Jacob Layton.
Could she really trust him with her heart? And with Freya’s too?
JACOB STARED AT the letter in his hand.
This was it. The appointment he’d been waiting for. The one that could be the end of the big black cloud that had been hanging over his head for the last fifteen months.
His scheduled appointment was fourteen days away but he’d phoned and asked for a cancellation. He couldn’t wait any longer to find out his results—good or bad.
Professional courtesy in the NHS went a long way. CT scan and blood tests tomorrow. Appointment with the specialist the day after.
His stomach twisted. Over the last few days he’d reverted to form and he knew it. He was snapping at people again, being grumpy at work.
All because of what was happening inside.
Something had hit him. Ever since he’d had that conversation with Bonnie and kissed her he couldn’t think straight. His house was now full of Christmas decorations and happy, smiley people. And for the first time in his life he actually wanted to be a happy, smiley person too.
But he just couldn’t be. Not with this hanging over his head.
The possibility of a real relationship—a real connection with someone—was there. But he felt as if it were slipping through his fingers like shifting sands.
Talking about his mother had been an enormous help. Sharing with Bonnie had given him a connection he hadn’t felt since he was a young child. Bonnie was a woman he could trust. A woman he could love with his whole heart.
His grip tightened on the letter in his hand. So why hadn’t he told her about this?
The truth was he wasn’t ready. Cancer was a burden. Cancer was a relationship deal breaker. He was still at that uncertain stage with Bonnie. He didn’t want to be a burden to her and Freya—particularly if the news he was about to receive was bad.
If it was, he would step back and fade into the background of their lives. He would probably stop making up reasons she shouldn’t move to any of the properties that she’d shown him and help her and Freya take the next steps in their lives.
Above everything he didn’t want Bonnie to feel sorry for him. To form a relationship with him out of sympathy or pity. He didn’t want that kind of relationship.
He wanted the kind that had started to burn inside him already. The kind where she was his first thought in the morning and his last thought at night. The kind where he could walk into the labour suite and sense she was there without even seeing her.
The kind where her scent would drift across the room towards him and wrap itself around him like a magic spell. So the first face he would see would be hers and her smile would send him a thousand unspoken promises.
Bonnie and Freya had been badly let down before. He didn’t want that for them again. And until he found out about his test results, he couldn’t even begin to have the kind of conversations with Bonnie that he should be having.
Would she even consider their relationship progressing? How would she feel knowing that he’d had cancer? How would she feel about his position on children? She already had Freya, but Bonnie struck him as the kind of woman who’d want to expand her family. Could she be in a relationship with a man who didn’t want to pass the risk of cancer—no matter how small—on to his kids?
So many unanswered questions. So many dangerous assumptions. Crabbit. That was how she’d good-naturedly described him the other day. It was a good Scottish word for him—because that was exactly how he felt.
Unsure. That was another word that described him right now.
He’d always spent his life knowing exactly who he was and what he wanted.
Bonnie—and Freya—had literally turned his world upside down.
‘Jacob?’
He crumpled the paper in his hand and thrust it into his pocket. ‘Yes?’ Bonnie was standing at his office door. A furrow ran across her brow.
‘Sean just phoned. Someone else phoned in sick for tomorrow. He wondered if you could cover the theatre list?’
Jacob hesitated. He’d never refused to cover for a fellow doctor before. His automatic default position was always to say yes.
But this was different. If he missed the tests tomorrow, he’d have to wait another two weeks before his routine appointment came up. There were another four obstetricians at CRMU. Sean had probably just asked him first as a matter of routine. He took a deep breath. ‘No. Sorry, tell him I have obligations that I can’t break. He’ll need to ask someone else.’
Bonnie hesitated and took a little step towards him. ‘Jacob?’
He shook his head. He couldn’t have this conversation with her—not right now. He swept past her, before her light perfume started to invade his senses. ‘Tell him to ask Isabel. I’m sure she’ll oblige.’
He carried on down the corridor. One look from Bonnie’s confused blue eyes was enough for him. He had to be so careful. She’d been hurt badly by her husband. He’d already done damage when he’d torn down the Christmas decorations. For the next two days it would be best if he could avoid her. He’d find a reason to work late tonight. And another reason to stay out of her way tomorrow. His tests were in the afternoon. Then he’d just have to wait twenty-four hours to find out his results.
He glanced at his watch. He needed to have a conversation with Dean Edwards about a baby in Special Care. He could go there. Bonnie would be tied up in the labour suite for the rest of the day.
He sucked in a breath as he pushed open the swing doors. Forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours, then he’d know if his life was about to begin, or could be about to end.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG. She could feel it in her bones.
Jacob was avoiding her—and avoiding Freya. Last night he’d come home when they’d both been in bed. When she’d got up and gone downstairs to make a cup of tea and talk to him, it had been obvious he had