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Ryan had phoned home to tell Mollie he would be late due to a seriously ill child with bacterial meningitis that he wanted to try to get stabilised before he left her in the care of the night staff.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been late home because of his job and it wouldn’t be the last, and on such occasions he was very grateful for Mollie’s presence in their lives. She lived alone just down the road from them, having lost her husband from heart failure some years previously and was happy to be of use to him and his children to such an extent.
The girls were in bed by the time he arrived and after a brief chat and a cuddle he left them sleepy and contented to go downstairs to have the meal that Mollie had kept warm for him.
She wished that his life was less stressful, but knew it had been his choice to parent single-handedly after his wife’s death. She admired him for the way he cared for his children. Yet she couldn’t help wishing that someone would come along who would make Ryan realise what he was missing, that Beth would not have wanted him to be alone for the rest of his life, always involved with work or family when it came to the social life of the town and its hospital.
‘I’ve found a new registrar to lighten our load at the hospital,’ he told her as she placed the food in front of him.
‘That’s good!’ she exclaimed. ‘Another man, is it?’
‘No, it’s a woman. Actually, someone you know.’
‘That I know?’
‘Yes, it’s Melissa from next door. She has a degree in paediatrics and she joins us tomorrow. What do you think of that?’
‘I’m amazed, but what a good thing for both of you that she has found employment so quickly and that your stresses will be lighter. It’s as if her coming to live in Heatherdale was meant to be.’
Ryan smiled. ‘Don’t get too carried away, Mollie. I only found out about her qualifications last night and offered her the job on condition that she fits the bill, so it will be probationary to begin with.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Mollie agreed, thankful that something was going right for him for once.
The blood tests and lumbar puncture had shown that little Georgia had indeed got bacterial meningitis and he’d explained to her distraught parents that she was going to be given large doses of antibiotics that he’d arranged for her to have intravenously in the hope of preventing the dreaded illness increasing its hold on her.
When he’d eventually left the hospital it had been with the determination to ring the ward later for a report on her progress as the next few hours would be crucial.
The answer was what he’d hoped for when he did. His small patient was regaining consciousness and her horrendously high temperature was coming down, so with Mollie having returned home and Rhianna and Martha asleep, Ryan decided to spend the rest of the evening with a medical journal that had been languishing on the back seat of his car for a few days.
When he went out to get it he saw that the house next door was in darkness and he observed it thoughtfully. What was the bet that Melissa was having an early night so that she would be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow?
He supposed it could be said that it hadn’t been a good idea to offer her a job working with him most of the time, but discovering that she was in paediatrics had been too good a chance to miss in his busy working life. He went back into the house in a thoughtful mood and with the feeling that maybe he needed to cool it where she was concerned.
It was an eight o’clock start for day staff on the wards and the next morning Melissa watched as Ryan kissed his children goodbye with Mollie in attendance, and drove off.
As the taillights of his car disappeared she followed him at a distance, having no wish to be on the last minute on her first day at the hospital.
Today could or could not be the beginning of a new life. A life on a lower level than before maybe, when the envious had called her ‘golden girl’, but at least she would have some dignity, wouldn’t be an object of pity or sly smirks.
In the short time that she’d been in the house she had been aware that something strange was happening. The children next door had said it was haunted and she wasn’t going to go along with that, but one thing she did feel was that the grandmother she had never really known was somewhere near, content that the one person she had always wanted to live in her house had arrived.
Miserable and lonely she may be, but she was there in the house that had been bequeathed to her all those years ago because the old lady had foreseen what the future might hold for her pleasure-loving son’s child. Today Melissa was about to take the first step towards becoming a working member of the community.
CHAPTER THREE
RYAN HAD SEEN Melissa arrive from the window of his office, which overlooked the car park. She was so different from the woman he had been confronted with just a couple of nights ago, it was unbelievable. Her hair, her clothes, the newfound calm had altered her totally.
She was still the stranger who had erupted into his life from nowhere but she was no longer nondescript. Yesterday, when she’d come to the hospital to have a look round and meet Julian and any of the nurses who were present, he’d thought that she was beautiful and still did. Not in a voluptuous sort of way but fine-boned and slender.
Still, there was the promise he had made to himself to cool it with regard to Melissa Redmond. The absence of a woman in his life in the true sense meant that never again would there be the agony of loss such as he’d suffered when he’d lost Beth.
With that in mind he wished Melissa a cool good morning when they met at the entrance to the wards and suggested that she find herself a white hospital coat.
‘I’ve brought one with me from my last job,’ she told him, and wondered who had rubbed Ryan up the wrong way so early in the day.
It wasn’t likely to be Julian as so far there was no sign of him having arrived, though on the other hand that might be the reason for Ryan’s abrupt manner. Whatever it was, she was determined that nothing was going to blight this day of all days.
Julian came strolling down the corridor towards them at that moment and she flashed him a smile, and after putting on the white hospital coat followed them into the ward.
‘I’d like you to do the ward rounds with Julian today,’ Ryan told her. ‘Watch and learn and you’ll soon get the hang of things. Little Georgia is in one of the side wards where she is making a good recovery, and her parents are with her most of the time.
‘We also have a ten-year-old boy with us who is a new admission. He suffered a head injury when he fell off his bike. It’s quite serious, but at the moment does not require surgery.’
Then Ryan looked straight at Melissa.
‘Some time this afternoon I’d like a brief word with you. In the meantime, when the two of you have finished rounds, Julian will direct you to Personnel so that you can get the processing of a new employee over and done with.’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said, having decided that she was being given the hint that being neighbours didn’t mean any special treatment. As if she would expect anything of that kind.
Maybe it was Ryan’s way of letting her see that his efforts on her behalf since arriving in Heatherdale were now at an end, and if that was the case it would have no effect on the deep gratitude she felt for the kindness he had shown her.
‘I wonder what’s upset the boss?’ Julian mused when Ryan had gone. ‘He was rather abrupt. Ryan needs some light relief in his life. He’s all work and no play.’
Melissa didn’t comment. There was no way she would discuss Ryan with Julian, who, from the sound of it, hadn’t a care in the world.
Back in his office Ryan reminded himself that from now on he would be able to relax at the thought of Melissa in the house next door with her few belongings. If she could turn up looking like she had the last two days he need not concern himself about her any more, and that being so he would find it easier to have a good working relationship with her instead of behaving like he just had.
Ryan’s crustiness forgotten, Melissa enjoyed every moment of her first morning on the wards with Julian. she would have much preferred it to be with ‘the boss’, as his laid-back assistant called him, but it was sufficient that she was working in a hospital once more. She read the records of every young patient’s treatment and progress thoroughly when they stopped by their beds and asked Julian questions if she wasn’t clear about anything.
That afternoon Ryan requested her presence for the brief chat that he’d mentioned earlier in the day, and she went to his office expecting a repeat of the brisk instructions of the morning. She was surprised to see him smiling. She was unaware that he had decided that now there was no longer any need of his help as far as she was concerned, he could relax and return to what life had been like before she’d appeared in it.
‘I just wanted to ask how your first day is going,’ he said. ‘I know how much you wanted to be back in paediatrics.’
‘Fantastic,’ she told him, ‘The chance to work here is the best thing that has happened to me in years and it is all due to you.’ She didn’t want to give him the wrong impression.
‘I’ll be fine from now on, Ryan, with the house that I’m going to make as delightful as yours one day, and working here with Julian and yourself, I’m back to the self-reliant person I used to be.’
Still on a high on her way home, she stopped to collect colour charts for paints and some wallpaper samples and once she’d eaten she sat considering them thoughtfully. Renovating the house that was now her home would have to be carefully budgeted, but it also had to be right for the property.
She’d seen the interior design of the house next door and had been aware of how right it was for that kind of house, and though having no wish to copy it, she felt that she needed to keep to a similar kind of décor.
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