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‘So would you like to be involved in the project?’ she asked.
‘I can’t really say no, can I?’
‘Of course you can. I understand if you’re too busy.’
He looked thoughtful, and for a moment she thought he was going to say no. Then he nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Thank you. When’s a good time for you for a meeting?’
‘After surgery?’ he suggested.
Not when she had a pile of paperwork and then had to take the dog out and do the school run. ‘Is there any chance you could make an evening meeting at my house?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Your house,’ he repeated.
‘Because I’m a single mum,’ she explained. ‘It’d be a lot easier for me to discuss work with you at my place after Izzy’s gone to bed. If that’s a problem for you, never mind—I’ll ask my mum to babysit.’
Something in her tone told Marc that wasn’t her preferred option. ‘But you’d rather not?’
‘Mum helps me out quite a bit as it is,’ Laurie admitted. ‘I try not to ask her unless it’s really desperate, because it’s not fair to keep relying on her.’
Discuss the project at her house.
A family home.
It was something Marc had shied away from for the last couple of years; since the accident, he’d quietly cut himself off from friends who had children. But right now it didn’t look as if he had much choice in the matter. Given that Laurie had already explained why she didn’t want to ask her mum, he’d feel mean if he pushed her into getting a babysitter. And he didn’t want to explain why children were difficult for him, outside work. That was his business. His burden.
‘If it’s a problem for your partner,’ she added, misreading his silence, ‘then she—or he—is very welcome to join us. We won’t be discussing individual patients, so we wouldn’t be breaking any confidentiality.’
His partner was welcome to join them.
Marc just about managed not to flinch.
‘I don’t have a partner,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice even. It was something he’d just about come to terms with over the last two years. But he still couldn’t forgive himself for Ginny’s death.
Laurie grimaced. ‘Sorry. You must think I’m being horribly nosey. I guess that’s the problem with growing up in a small town—you know everyone and everyone knows you, and if you don’t know something you tend to come straight out and ask. It wasn’t meant maliciously.’
He understood that—he’d already worked out that Laurie Grant was warm, bubbly and incredibly enthusiastic—but he didn’t want people knowing too much about him. If they knew the truth about his past, they’d despise him as much as he despised himself. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said neutrally.
‘How about this evening?’ she suggested.
‘That’s fine. What time’s good for you?’
‘Izzy goes to bed at seven. So any time after that.’ She shrugged. ‘Unless you’d like to come for dinner? It’s nothing fancy, just pasta and garlic bread and salad, but there’s more than enough if you’d like to join us.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check if you don’t mind.’ He didn’t want to be rude to his new colleague; but he was also guiltily aware that in other circumstances he would’ve loved to share a meal with her. There was something about Laurie that drew him; she wasn’t a conventional beauty, but there was a warmth and brightness about her, and her smile made the room feel as if it had just lit up. Though, for his own peace of mind, he knew he needed to keep himself separate. And in any case he’d guess that, as a single parent, her life would be complicated enough without adding someone like him to the mix.
‘No problem.’ She scribbled down her address on a piece of paper, added her phone number and handed it to him. ‘Just in case you get held up. See you later.’ She smiled. ‘Enjoy your first morning, and welcome to Pond Lane Surgery.’
The rest of the morning surgery went fine. Marc went home for a sandwich and ate it in the kitchen. He stayed out of the dining room, because it contained a stack of boxes he hadn’t been able to face unpacking. Boxes full of memories he couldn’t handle.
Maybe he should’ve taken up his sister’s offer of help, instead of being too proud and telling Yvonne that he was fine and he’d be able to sort it out. Because he wasn’t fine. And he couldn’t sort it out.
Still, he’d brushed her offer aside, so he’d have to live with his choice. The boxes couldn’t stay there for ever, so he’d have to make himself do it room by room.
One step at a time.
CHAPTER TWO
MARC wasn’t in the mood for cooking when he got home from an afternoon of house calls. He made himself a salad and ate it listlessly—food nowadays was fuel, rather than a pleasure—then looked up Laurie’s address on his satnav. Her house was totally the other side of the town from his, far enough to justify using the car rather than walking.
When he parked his car outside and walked up the path to her front door, he wished he’d thought to bring her some flowers or something. OK, so this was a work meeting rather than a social event, but it was still being held at her house, and he felt uncomfortable turning up without anything. Then again, would flowers be making the wrong kind of statement?
He shook himself. Oh, for pity’s sake. He needed to be professional about this. But he was horribly aware that this whole situation was throwing him. He was about to walk into just the kind of home he could’ve had if the accident hadn’t happened. A family home. One with children.
But the accident had happened. He had a bachelor pad, not a family home. And he only had himself to blame.
He knocked on the front door. There a brief woof and a ‘Shh!’, and then Laurie opened the door. A chocolate Labrador with a wagging blur of a tail was desperately trying to barge past her. There was a smudge of flour on Laurie’s face and several of her dark corkscrew curls had escaped from the scrunchie she used to hold her hair back. The whole effect was unbelievably cute, and he found himself wanting to tuck the stray curls into place and brush that smudge of flour from her skin.
Which was incredibly dangerous. He didn’t need that kind of contact. Didn’t want it. His heart had been broken, he was still trying to patch it up, and no way was he ever risking any kind of relationship again, other than on a strictly colleagues basis. He even kept his family at a distance nowadays, because it was easier. If he didn’t let himself feel, he wouldn’t hurt.
Misinterpreting his sudden stillness, she pushed the dog back behind her. ‘Sorry, Cocoa’s a bit over-friendly.’ Within a nanosecond, the dog was trying to push past her again. ‘I forgot to ask if you’re OK with dogs. I can put him in the utility room, if you’d rather.’
‘No, it’s fine. I like dogs.’ It had even been part of his and Ginny’s plans. A baby, and then a dog. A house with a garden.
Ginny would’ve loved the old cottage he’d found to rent in the small Norfolk town. She would’ve loved the duck pond on the green, the ancient flint church with its round tower, the gentle undulations of the countryside around them. But because of his own stupidity he had nobody to share it with. Nobody to love. Nobody to love him back.
He pushed the thoughts away and held out his hand for the dog to sniff, then scratched the top of the dog’s head. There was a look of sheer bliss on Cocoa’s face and he leaned towards Marc.
‘He’ll be demanding a fuss from you all night,’ Laurie warned with a smile. ‘Come in. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m waiting for some stuff to come out of the oven, so we need to stay in the kitchen. Can I get you a coffee, or maybe a glass of wine?’
Definitely not wine. That had been one of the causes of his downfall, and he hadn’t touched a drop since the funeral. ‘Coffee would be lovely, thanks,’ he said politely.
‘Come in and sit down.’
It was clearly a family kitchen. There were several paintings held on the fridge with magnets, obviously the work of a young child. And if that wasn’t enough proof, there was a cork board on one wall covered with school notices and photographs of a little girl, varying from babyhood to what looked like about five years old.
Marc couldn’t help thinking how his own child would’ve been eighteen months old now, toddling everywhere and starting to chatter away. A boy or a girl? It had been too soon to tell.
He dug his fingernails into his palms, and the slight pain was just enough to stop him thinking and ripping the scars off his heart.
On the worktop, there was a plate full of cupcakes covered in very pink icing, along with lots of sparkly sprinkles—and there were almost as many on the worktop as there were on the cakes. A pile of washing-up was stacked up next to the sink and a batch of cookies sat on a cooling wire rack next to the oven. Clearly Laurie was in the middle of a baking session.
She followed his gaze when she turned round from the kettle and winced. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit untidy. I meant to clear up properly before you got here, but then Izzy wanted me to read her bedtime story a second time, and—’ She spread her hands. ‘Well, you know how it is with kids.’
Not personally. And he never would now. He didn’t deserve to have a family. ‘Yes,’ he said, as neutrally as he could.
Cocoa sat at Marc’s feet and rested his chin on Marc’s knee; absently, Marc rubbed the top of the dog’s head.
‘Would you like a cookie with your coffee?’ Laurie asked.
‘Thank you. But I hope you didn’t go to all this trouble for me.’
‘No, of course n—’ She winced, cutting the word off as she put a couple of cookies onto a plate. ‘Sorry, that came out the wrong way. I didn’t mean you weren’t worth taking any trouble over. I’m baking because it’s the PTA coffee morning tomorrow. Izzy decorated the cakes.’
Laurie’s little girl. Which explained the sprinkles, and probably most of the mess.
‘Obviously I don’t get a chance to actually go to the coffee morning because I need to be at the surgery for my shift, but I try to do my bit to help. I always make them some cakes to sell, give them a raffle prize and leave them money for some tickets. If they draw my name out, they choose something for me and send the prize home with Izzy.’
Laurie was clearly very involved with village life. Not only was she a GP, she was also a mum who did things to support the local school. Would Ginny have been like that? he wondered. Probably. As a teacher, she would’ve been involved with the school, either because she worked there or because their child went there. Though she would’ve been a bit less chaotic than Laurie. Their house in London had never been as untidy as this.
‘So did you enjoy your first day at the practice?’ she asked.
Work. He could talk about work, he thought gratefully. Not personal stuff. That was good. ‘Fine.’
‘Good.’ Laurie put a mug of coffee in front of him, along with the cookies, then added milk to her own coffee and sat down opposite him. ‘I’ve been thinking about the easiest way to tackle this. I thought we could maybe brainstorm all the different kinds of exercise we can think of, then I’ll list all the people within a five-mile radius who can offer each one, and we can divvy up the calls between us and ask them if they’d be prepared to do a taster session for us.’
‘Sure. That sounds reasonable.’
She looked relieved. ‘Great. One tiny thing: would you mind if I asked you to deal with Neil Peascod? He owns the gym and swim place at the other end of the town.’
‘Do I take it he’s likely to be difficult?’ Marc asked, wondering why she didn’t want to deal with the guy.
‘Not exactly.’ She flushed. ‘He was a bit, um, persistent with me last year. I guess he didn’t like to think that someone might actually say no to him.’
‘He asked you out?’ Then Marc realised how rude that sounded. ‘I apologise. I didn’t meant it to come out like that.’
Laurie didn’t look in the slightest bit offended. She simply laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m under no illusions that I’m the next supermodel. I’m thirty years old, I’m a mum, I have lumpy bits, and I have days when my hair needs stuffing under a hat so nobody can see how frizzy it looks.’ She smiled. ‘And I also have days when I look utterly fabulous. But they’re the rare ones. Dog-walking isn’t exactly the time or place to wear a little black dress and high heels.’
At the W-word, the Labrador deserted his post at Marc’s feet, rushed over to Laurie, put his paws on her knee and licked her face hopefully. She rolled her eyes and petted him. ‘No, Cocoa, I didn’t mean now. You know as well as I do that walkies is when I get home from work and before I collect Izzy from school.’
Marc couldn’t help smiling. He liked Laurie. She was warm and bubbly, yet at the same time she was very down-to-earth.
‘Sorry about that.’ When she switched her attention back to him, he noticed just how blue her eyes were. Almost as bright as the forget-me-nots in his garden. ‘Neil. No, he’s not difficult. He just thinks that he’s the answer to a desperate single mum’s problems.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Yes, I’m a single mum but, no, I’m not desperate, I don’t necessarily need a man in my life to make it complete, and I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.’
She didn’t sound bitter, but as if she was simply stating the facts. Or was that a gentle warning to him? Marc wondered. He’d told her that he was single. Perhaps this was her way of telling him that even if he might be interested, she wasn’t.
‘Noted,’ he said drily. He took a bite of the still-warm cookie. ‘This is very nice.’
‘Thank you. And please don’t let Cocoa con you into sharing with him. They’re bad for his teeth, and he’s very far from being a poor, starving hound.’
The dog looked up at him with mournful eyes, and Marc couldn’t help smiling. ‘Not according to him.’
‘He’s an old fraud.’ She smiled back. ‘Sam said you were interested in sports medicine. Is that what you did in your last job?’
‘It was more of a spare-time thing, really. I worked with the local rugby club.’
‘Oh. Do you play?’ she asked.
‘Not any more.’ Marc found himself volunteering information; he hadn’t expected that and it unnerved him slightly. ‘I was injured.’
‘Knee?’ she guessed.
‘Shoulder. Dislocation, then a rotator cuff tear.’
‘Ouch.’ She looked sympathetic. ‘I’m not surprised you stopped playing. In your shoes, I wouldn’t want to risk doing that again.’
‘Believe me, after three months of doing nothing but triage calls because my arm was out of action, I’d never risk it again.’ And he wished with all his heart that he hadn’t given in to the frustration he’d felt at having to give up the game he loved. Because then maybe he could’ve stopped the chain of events that had wrecked his life and robbed him of everything else he loved.
‘I guess rugby and football probably wouldn’t be the best kind of exercise for our group anyway,’ she said.
‘I’d say no to squash as well,’ he said.
‘Very sensible. And we’ll ban them from jogging. We’re trying to improve their circulation, not give them shin splints.’
‘Or overdoing it in the first flush of enthusiasm and giving themselves a heart attack.’ He looked thoughtfully at her. ‘Badminton’s a possible.’
‘And swimming. As well as low-impact exercise classes and circuit training,’ she suggested.
‘Maybe martial arts—kick-boxing doesn’t have to be fast and furious.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve always fancied trying that one myself.’ She took a laptop from a drawer in the huge pine dresser. ‘Let’s start getting this down.’ The computer whirred and made a couple of protesting noises, and she rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry, this is a bit old. I’m afraid it takes ages to boot up.’
His own was state of the art and would’ve been ready to go by now. As a single mum, Laurie would have to juggle her finances, and a new computer probably wasn’t top of her priorities, Marc thought.
They made a list together. Halfway through it, the timer on the oven beeped.
‘Sorry, do you mind if I sort this out?’ she asked. ‘The topping works best if you do it when the cake’s hot.’
‘I take it that’s for school?’ He grinned.
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘But, if you’re good, I’ll make a cake for the surgery later in the week.’
It smelled wonderful, and Marc ignored the fact that this was the first time he’d been interested in food in a very, very long time. ‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘If you can talk at the same time as you do whatever it is you’re doing to the cake, I’ll take over the typing.’
‘Excellent. Thanks.’
Marc surreptitiously watched her as she took the cake out of the oven, pierced the top with a skewer and spooned the contents of a bowl over it. She looked up and caught him looking at her. ‘It’s lemon and sugar.’
The citrus scent made his mouth water. ‘Is this the one Sam told me about?’
‘Yes. It’s his favourite. So, are you going to do some typing or just hoping for cake, like Cocoa is?’
He couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’m typing. Start talking.’
Within twenty minutes they had a good list. They worked through it again and weeded out some of the more unlikely suggestions they’d come up with.
‘This looks good to me. I’ll work my way through it and put in the contacts, and then give you your half of the list tomorrow,’ Laurie said.
‘That’s fine,’ Marc said. ‘And I guess I’d better let you get on.’ Especially as he felt way too comfortable here. And that unnerved him.
She smiled at him. ‘Thanks. Sadly, the washing-up won’t do itself, and it’d be a bit self-indulgent to have a dishwasher when there’s only Izzy and me living here. Are you sure you don’t want another coffee before you go?’
‘I’m sure, but thanks for the offer. See you tomorrow.’
There was something lost about the expression in Marc’s eyes, Laurie thought when Marc had gone. Had he been through a bad divorce? That might explain why he’d come here from London. Maybe she could find a tactful way of talking to him and help him understand that it did get better eventually.
OK, so she hadn’t actually been married to Dean, but the break-up and then sorting out everything afterwards had been tough. The only thing missing had been the fight in court; the rest of the acrimony and guilt had been there.
Just as Marc had left, she’d wanted to put her arms round him, hold him close and tell him not to worry because everything was going to work out just fine. Which was crazy. She barely knew the man. And she certainly wasn’t looking for any complications in her own life.
Then again, she’d been lucky. She’d had people there for her when her own life had hit the skids. And she had the strongest feeling that Marc didn’t. He was a stranger to the area. He could do with a friend. OK, so when she’d come home she’d been far from a stranger—but she knew what that felt like, to need a friend. So it would be mean of her to back off and ignore him … Wouldn’t it?
CHAPTER THREE
ON WEDNESDAY morning, Marc walked into his surgery to find a plate on his desk containing a cupcake exactly like the ones he’d seen in Laurie’s kitchen the previous night, along with a printed copy of the table he and Laurie had made together, detailing the different exercise providers and which of them was going to call each one, with space to scribble notes.
That cake gave him an odd feeling. Was this the sort of thing his own child would’ve done with Ginny, making cakes and decorating them haphazardly and sending him off to work with one? A little thing, made with such love …
He shook himself as he heard a rap on the door, a nanosecond before it opened. Sam, the senior partner, leaned round the door. ‘Morning, Marc. How are you settling in?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Marc summoned up a professional smile, not wanting Sam to see how much the cupcake had thrown him.
‘I meant to say yesterday, Ruth said you’re very welcome to come to ours for lunch on Sunday. It’s not much fun having weekends on your own and it takes a while to settle into a small country town, especially when you’re used to the city.’
Marc appreciated the overture of friendship but he’d learned that, once people knew about his past, any friendship tended to come tempered with pity. He had quite enough pity for himself without needing it from others. ‘Thanks. That’s really kind of you, but I have a few things to sort out.’
‘Sure. Well, you know where we are if you change your mind. Just turn up.’
‘Thanks. I will.’ Though Marc had no intention of doing so. He didn’t deserve such kindness. Not after the way he’d messed up.
Sam glanced at the cupcake and smiled. ‘Oh, good. I hoped we’d get some of the leftovers from the PTA baking session. Laurie’s cakes are wonderful.’ He laughed. ‘Even if Izzy does put half a ton of sprinkles on every single one.’
Marc carefully sidestepped the subject of children. ‘Laurie and I brainstormed the project last night.’ He waved the table at Sam. ‘She’s added the contact details, and we’re splitting the calls between us.’
‘Excellent.’ Sam looked pleased. ‘I can see you’re going to fit right in. We definitely made the right choice, asking you to join us.’
‘Thank you. I hope I live up to that.’
Marc didn’t get the chance to see Laurie during surgery as she was busy on house calls and, because she worked part time, she finished earlier than he did. After he’d seen his last patient for the day, he looked at his watch. Laurie’s place was on his way home from the surgery. He knew he probably ought to call her first and make arrangements to discuss the project, but he couldn’t resist the impulse to drop in and see her.
And he didn’t want to analyse the reason too closely.
‘Oh, Marc.’ She looked flustered when she opened the front door.
‘Sorry, is this a bad time?’
‘No, but my house is chaos city at this time of day, so I’ll have to ask you to ignore the mess. Izzy’s drawing pictures at the kitchen table. Come in, and I’ll put the kettle on.’ Her smile brightened back into a welcome.
And that was half the reason he was here.
Because that smile drew him. Made him feel that the world was a better place.
Marc followed Laurie into the kitchen, where a little girl was sitting at the kitchen table. Cocoa was sitting patiently by the child’s feet, clearly hoping for a share in the cake that sat on the plate beside her. He wagged his tail at Marc, but didn’t leave his position or break his eyeline from the table.
‘Izzy, this is Dr Bailey. He’s come to work with me at the surgery and he’s just popped in to see me about a project we’re working on together.’
The little girl looked up at him. ‘Hello, Dr Bailey,’ she said shyly.
‘Marc, this is Izzy, my daughter.’
‘Hello, Izzy.’ He looked at Laurie. ‘She’s very like you.’ She had the same wild dark curls, though they weren’t tied back neatly like Laurie’s hair was; and Izzy’s eyes were a deep brown rather than a piercing blue.
‘I’ve got a new friend at school,’ Izzy said. ‘Her name’s Molly. She moved here last week and she only started in our class yesterday. I said she could play with me and Georgia at playtime so she won’t be lonely.’
Taking the new girl under her wing—just as Laurie was taking him under her wing, Marc thought. Like mother, like daughter. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said.
‘Me and Mummy made some cakes. Would you like one?’ Izzy asked.
‘No, thank you.’
She nodded sagely. ‘Because you don’t want to spoil your dinner.’
Marc was torn between wanting to smile—he’d just bet that particular phrase came from Laurie—and panicking. He wasn’t used to this. He’d kept himself separate for so long; contact with a child, outside work, spooked him slightly.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘But your mum brought some of your cakes into work this morning and I had one then. It was very nice.’
She beamed at him. ‘Did you like the sprinkles?’
No. He’d scraped them off, along with most of the icing; it had been a little too sweet for his taste. ‘They were delicious,’ he said, not wanting to spoil it for her.