From Single Mum to Lady (16 page)

Mr Muir had the look of an elderly chick, with fluffy grey hair standing up over his round head and a little beak nose, but when he spoke his voice was surprisingly loud—but reassuring and confident.

‘We’re very pleased indeed with Bertie’s progress,’ he boomed. ‘He had an open skull fracture, which led to some cranial bleeding. But we’ve drained the blood and managed to repair some damaged blood vessels. With any luck, he should be as good as new soon.’ He chuckled. ‘Surprising how well the human body can restore itself after a major trauma, isn’t it?’

‘Not without some intervention on your part,’ said Jandy, smiling. ‘We’re so grateful to you, Mr Muir.’

‘Not at all, not at all.’ He smiled. ‘He’ll be kept in for a little while yet, just to be monitored, but we don’t anticipate any complications. You can tell your mother that her friend will be as good as new soon!’

* * *

Leony had been allowed home after Netta had promised to come in every day, and stay the night if need be, when Jandy and Patrick had returned to Delford. Leony sat in a high-backed chair downstairs with a smile on her bruised face.

‘I can’t believe I’ve made it home—a few days ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d be back for months!’ She turned to Jandy. ‘I know you’ve got to get back to Abigail, darling, but you’ve both been wonderful to give up everything and come and see me—I’m so grateful.’

‘We’re going back on the evening plane tonight, Mum. There isn’t much room for Netta and us in the house together! I’m going to dash out now to get some shopping. Patrick’s just gone for an exploratory walk but Ian’s only across the way at the garage so if you need him, ring him on his mobile.’

‘I’ll be fine, Jandy. I’ll sit and look out at the view—I’ve missed it all so much.’

* * *

Patrick whistled a low contented tune to himself as he strode along the woodland path. He loved this part of the world, the majestic mountains and the beautiful lochs. He and Jandy would come back soon with Abigail and Livy and have a proper holiday: he felt sure the little girls would be great companions for each other. Over the past few days he had felt the weight of sadness that had always seemed to accompany him begin to lift. Gradually he’d begun to realise that he couldn’t imagine a future without Jandy. She was everything he needed—funny, sweet and very beautiful. A short time ago he’d told her he couldn’t make a permanent commitment—how wrong he’d been! Now all he could think about was being with her for ever. He was a lucky man.

He flicked a look at his watch. It was time to get back—Jandy would have finished her shopping soon and then they could have lunch and make their way to the airport later on for the evening flight.

Their cases were already packed and he would load them into the car later. He went into the kitchen by the back door. Jandy was evidently back: he could hear her voice and Leony’s chatting together. He put the kettle on to make coffee, and as he waited for it to boil their conversation floated across to him.

‘Patrick’s absolutely adorable, darling, I do like him,’ he heard Leony say, as he poured the water onto the ground coffee in the percolator. ‘He’s so reliable and kind. And as for his looks…’

Patrick grinned. She was quite gushing sometimes, but very sincere and amusing—he liked Jandy’s mother a lot. He went to the door to make some glib comment about her remarks. Jandy was standing with her back to him, her silky, honey-coloured hair brushing her shoulders, slender in cut-off jeans. Her voice floated clearly towards him through the door.

‘I’m glad to hear you approve,’ she was saying with a laugh. ‘And, of course, the best thing is he’s got to be so secure financially. Getting married to him would sure solve a lot of money problems. Unusual to find a guy who ticks all the right boxes and is rolling in money as well, isn’t it?’

She said it in a carefree way—no mention of her being in love with him, just the fact that as a supposedly wealthy man he’d passed some sort of test. Patrick stood stock still, frozen with shock, at the door, wondering if he was hearing things—but, no, Jandy was adding to her remarks.

‘Just think—“Lady Janet Sinclair” sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?’

Patrick’s throat constricted and he turned away, sick to his stomach. He gripped the side of the work top and bent his head, suddenly feeling nauseous and dizzy, utterly stunned by Jandy’s remarks. His beautiful Jandy…He could hardly believe it—and yet he’d heard her, seen her. The bitter taste of bile rose in his mouth. Hadn’t he been in this place before—someone who only wanted him for his wealth? Jandy, his beautiful, kind Jandy, he thought in bewilderment, had turned out to be nothing but a gold-digger.

An immense and overwhelming sadness flooded over him and he stared miserably out of the window. His life seemed littered with mistakes—the guilt he would always carry for his beloved Rachel’s death, his foolishness in getting entangled with Tara. Only this time it was much, much worse because he’d allowed himself to fall in love with Jandy, to imagine a future with her. His mouth tightened. He felt he’d been punched in the solar plexus as he’d realised that Jandy’s attraction for him was founded on nothing more than the fact that she thought he was a wealthy man. Bitterly he reflected that it was a rerun of his relationship with Tara. There was no future for them if all she was interested in was his money—money, he thought wryly, that he didn’t have.

A stab of fury went through him, sudden disgust at a woman he’d thought had liked him for himself alone. They could have had a marvellous future together, and he believed she would have been a wonderful mother to Livy—and Livy would have had a little companion. All that longed-for happiness seemed to have turned to dust and ashes in a few minutes.

His brain raced. One thing he couldn’t bring himself to do was confront her on the matter at the moment, but he couldn’t bear to sit next to her on a plane for an hour. God, only that morning they had made passionate love to each other. She’d been so warm and loving, and they had been everything to each other—he’d thought. But now, knowing what her real motives were…He closed his eyes and swallowed painfully at the thought of her betrayal.

He gazed out of the window without seeing the view then, as if making a sudden decision, he reached into his jacket for a pen and scribbled a note on the back of an envelope, sticking it on the fridge door. Then he took out his mobile and went into the back garden. He made a couple of phone calls, picked up his case and strode to the crossroads without looking back.

* * *

‘Where’s Patrick?’ asked Jandy, appearing at the front door. Her arms were weighed down by two huge bags of shopping, which she dumped on the floor. Then she sat down by her mother.

‘He’s not back yet,’ said Leony. ‘I thought I heard him in the kitchen, but I must have been mistaken. Guess who turned up in a taxi just after you’d gone to the shops! Your sister. I’m so thrilled that she’s managed to get a few days off! She’s just gone to say hello to Ian, but I’ve been telling her all about Patrick.’

Jandy laughed. ‘Honestly, Mum, there’s nothing to tell. We’ve made no commitment to each other. He’s got lots of problems that have to be sorted—we’re just having a good time!’

‘Of course, darling, but anyone can see he’s besotted with you. And I don’t think you’re too averse to him either, are you?’

Of course she wasn’t averse to him—she was absolutely wild about him, she was drunk with happiness whenever she saw him! The more she saw him, the more she wanted him, to be with him, to make love with him! Jandy got up quickly—she had to keep a level head. She mustn’t presume too much about Patrick: she must let things take their time.

‘I’ll go and see Lydia,’ she said happily. ‘What a lovely surprise! She must have come straight up when she came back from her Australian flight.’

Just at that moment Lydia came through the door and the two sisters hugged each other ecstatically.

‘It’s so good to see you, Lydia.’

‘I haven’t got another long-haul flight for a week, so I thought I’d come up and help look after Mum because I know you’ve got to get back to Abigail and work.’

‘That’s great. A load off my mind…’

Lydia pulled her down on the sofa ‘Now, come on, sis, no secrets now! Mum’s been telling me all about this super doc you’ve brought up with you! How’s it going with you and him?’

‘Mum and you are the biggest nosy parkers in the land,’ declared Jandy. ‘Look, let’s make lunch before Patrick gets back from his walk and I’ll tell you what there is to tell—not that there is much, I assure you! Help me take the shopping through.’

Jandy picked up a bag and went through to the kitchen, placing it on the table, and started taking things out of it to put in the fridge. Then she noticed an envelope, with writing scribbled across it, stuck on the fridge door. She picked it up and read it slowly, her eyes widening in disbelief and disappointment.

‘Oh! I don’t believe this! Patrick’s had to go urgently to his father—he’s managed to get an earlier flight via Glasgow. He got a taxi to take him to the airport.’ She looked at Lydia, puzzled. ‘You’d have thought he would have rung me on my mobile. His father must be very bad for him to take off like that—and I was dying for you to meet him.’

‘And I was dying to give him the once-over,’ said Lydia. ‘How dare he go before I got the chance to see him? I’ll just have to rely on Mum’s glowing reports to see if he’s suitable for my darling sister, although he sounds just right in every way!’

Jandy took out her mobile and punched in Patrick’s number, but after a few rings she gave up. ‘He’s either turned it off or the reception’s bad up here,’ she sighed. ‘I hope nothing drastic has happened.’

A little niggle of worry flickered in the back of her mind. It was such a very brief note—almost terse. And he hadn’t signed it with ‘love’, she thought irrationally. Surely you’d do that to a woman you’d made passionate love to only that morning? Suddenly the day didn’t seem so carefree after all.

CHAPTER NINE

‘J
UST
get me some requisition sheets from that cupboard, will you?’ asked Karen as she and Jandy straightened up one of the small cubicles and remade a bed with fresh linen and pillow cases. She looked at Jandy sympathetically as she took the papers from her. ‘You’ve had a busy time up in Scotland, I believe. How’s your poor mother after that ghastly accident?’

‘ She’s making a great recovery. Her face looks better already, although her leg will be in a cast for a while. It was a pretty complicated fracture, but my sister’s with her at the moment and there’s someone who’ll be coming in every day when Lydia has to start work again.’

‘It was great that Patrick was able to go with you,’ commented Karen, flicking an interested glance at Jandy as she started to look through her stock list. ‘I should think he was a wonderful support.’

Karen wasn’t a gossip but Jandy was shy about telling people that they were more than just good friends. It was early days yet, she thought. In fact, they’d only been properly ‘together’ for two days!

‘Oh, he was. He suggested coming with me when he heard that my mother and her partner had been injured. We both had a few days off and it certainly made everything much easier, having him to drive me about and do the shopping.’

Jandy didn’t add that it had made what could have been a fraught situation one of the most romantic episodes in her life! She bit her lip thoughtfully. It was odd that she’d been back at work a day and still hadn’t heard from Patrick. Although she’d phoned him once or twice without success, he’d never got back to her. She had an uneasy feeling that something awful had happened—perhaps so awful that he hadn’t had time to contact her and tell her exactly why he’d had to leave Scotland so abruptly.

‘Er…have you heard how his father is?’ she asked Karen. ‘Patrick had to leave in a rush—something about his father—but I haven’t been able to find out what’s happened. He’s probably been too busy to let me know.’

Karen looked up from making notes on the stock list and shook her head. ‘He hasn’t mentioned anything about his father, but Patrick’s on this shift anyway, so you’ll be able to ask him. I do know he’s requested a few days off for holiday from next week.’

Jandy felt a flash of disappointment. She had looked forward so much to seeing him again, and had assumed that he would be as anxious as her to grab a few minutes alone together and arrange an evening out. If he was going on holiday, there’d be very little opportunity to meet.

Bob popped his head into the cubicle. ‘Four patients are due in from an RTA any minute. Can you be on standby, please? One very serious injury at least.’

Back to the grindstone, sighed Jandy, going with Tilly to make sure four cubicles were cleared and ready with drips and any other equipment that might be necessary. It all seemed a far cry from twenty-four hours ago and a romantic night filled with passion in the Highlands with Patrick, she reflected wryly.

Bob was making a rapid initial examination of the casualties who’d just been wheeled in—two elderly men and a youth were being held in the assessment area.

‘What happened?’ he asked the paramedic.

‘They were coming out of a pub and standing near a taxi rank. A car came careering round a corner overtaking a bus and went out of control. These three copped it, I’m afraid, and the driver finished up against a wall. He’ll be here in a minute when they’ve stabilised him—he’s lucky to be alive.’

‘Right…Ah, Patrick, here you are. Can you deal with the patient we’ve put in the clean theatre?’

Jandy looked round quickly when she heard Patrick’s name, ready to smile at him and hold his gaze in a little secret intimacy, but he was striding towards Bob from the ambulance bay and he didn’t seem to notice Jandy as he passed her. He listened closely to Bob as he ran through the patient’s condition.

‘This young man’s eighteen and his name’s Jed,’ explained Bob. ‘He’s in a lot of pain and it seems to be around his thorax. Plus he’s got facial and arm wounds with dirt and gravel in them that need attention. Staff, can you and Nurse Rodman clean those out?’

In the clean theatre where minor surgical procedures were performed under aseptic conditions, Jandy and Tilly began to cut away the patient’s clothing then started to work methodically, using swabs and forceps to pick out the grit and other dirt from the wounds. Jandy was intensely aware of Patrick working close to her, also very conscious that he hadn’t, even by a nod or a smile, acknowledged her presence. But, then, of course he was concentrating on his patient, just as he should be, she told herself sharply.