Harlequin Medical Romance December 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 (29 page)

Polly ate her dinner but every now and then he caught her looking through to the sitting room and beaming.

She'd dressed for dinner. She was wearing another of her retro dresses. This one had splashes of crimson, yellow and blue, and was cinched at the waist with a shiny red belt. The dress had puffed sleeves and a white collar and cuff trim.

Her curls were shining. Her freckles were...freckling. She did not look like a doctor.

She looked adorable.

He didn't want to leave tomorrow.

How could he fall for a woman called Pollyanna?

How could he not?

‘We've done good,' Polly was saying to Ruby and Ruby looked where Polly was looking and nodded her agreement.

‘Yes. But you'll be here by yourself.' She sounded worried.

‘Me and Hamster,' Polly reminded her. ‘I'm glad your uncle agreed to let him stay. I might be lonely without him.'

‘Won't you be lonely without your mum and dad?' Ruby asked and Polly's smile died.

‘No.'

‘Won't they be lonely without you?'

There was an uncomfortable silence. Polly ate another meatball but she suddenly didn't seem so hungry.

‘They have lots of friends,' she said at last. ‘They've booked a restaurant. They'll have a very good party.'

‘It won't be much fun if you're not there.'

‘They'll hardly miss me,' Polly said stoutly. ‘Whereas if I wasn't here Hamster would miss me a lot. Plus Hazel Blacksmith's promised to teach me to tat.'

‘Tat,' Hugo said faintly. ‘What on earth is tat?'

‘You come back after Christmas and I'll show you. Whatever it is, the house will be full of it.'

‘That'll make a nice change from soggy flour.'

‘Bah! Humbug!' she said cheerfully and got up to clear the dishes. Instead of getting up to help, he let himself sit for a moment, watching her, watching Ruby jump up to help, feeling himself...wanting.

It wasn't fair to want. He had no right.

To try and saddle her with Wombat Valley and a needy seven-year-old? And...

And what was he thinking?

He was trapped. He had no right to think of sharing.

* * *

At Ruby's request, Polly read her a bedtime story while Hugo did a last fast ward round. The hospital was quiet. The rain had stopped, the storm was over and what was left was peace. The night before Christmas? Not quite, but it might just as well be, he thought. The whole Valley seemed to be settling, waiting...

Waiting? There was nothing to wait for.

Of course there was, he told himself as he headed back to the house. He was heading to the beach tomorrow. Ten glorious days of freedom.

With Ruby.

He wouldn't have it any other way, he told himself, but he knew a part of him was lying. His sister's suicide had killed the part that enjoyed being a skilled surgeon in a tight-knit surgical team. It had killed the guy who could head to the bar after work and stay as late as he wanted. It had killed the guy who could date who he wanted...

And it was the last thing that was bugging him now.

Dating who he wanted...

Polly.

He wanted Polly.

And she was waiting for him. The light was fading. She was sitting on the old cane chair on the veranda, Hamster at her side. She smiled as he came up the steps and he had such a powerful sense of coming home...

He wanted to walk straight to her, gather her into his arms and claim her as his own. It was a primitive urge, totally inappropriate, totally without consideration, but the urge was so strong he held onto the veranda rail, just to ground himself.

Do not do anything stupid
, he told himself.
This woman's ethereal, like a butterfly. You'll be gone tomorrow and when you return she'll flit on. Life will close in on you again. Accept it.

‘Ruby's asleep,' Polly said, leaning back in the rocker and rocking with satisfaction. ‘I read her to sleep. Boring R Us.'

Nothing about this woman was boring, he thought, but he managed to make his voice almost normal. ‘What did you read?'

‘
The Night Before Christmas
, of course,' she told him. ‘I just happen to have a copy in my luggage.'

‘Of course you do.'

‘My nannies read it to me every Christmas.' She sailed on serenely, oblivious to his dry interruption. ‘I started asking for it to be read about mid-November every year. I can't believe you don't own it.'

‘My mother didn't believe in fairy tales.'

And her eyes widened. ‘Fairy tales? What's fairy tale about
The Night Before Christmas
? Next you'll be saying you don't believe in Santa.'

And Hugo thought back to the Christmases since his father died—the struggle to stay cheerful, Grace's depression—and he thought...
All we needed was a Pollyanna. A fairy tale...

His parents had been down-to-earth, sensible people. He thought of his sister, crippled by depression. He thought of his father, terse, impatient, telling the teenage Grace to snap out of it.

Grace might still be alive, he thought suddenly, if she'd been permitted a fairy tale.

And... Life might be good for him if he could admit a fairy tale?

A fairy tale called Pollyanna?

‘Polly...'

‘I need your help,' she told him. ‘You're leaving at crack of dawn and we need to pack the silver Christmas tree without making the living room look bereft. I don't intend to have a bereft Christmas, thank you very much.' She rocked her way forward out of the rocker and it was all he could do not to step forward and...

Not!

Somehow he managed to calmly follow her into the house and start the demolition process, following instructions as to which decorations would stay and which would go.

‘I wonder if I could make a tatted angel for your tree next year,' she mused as she packed golden balls into a crimson box. It seemed even the crates she stored things in were a celebration. ‘What do you reckon? If you get an angel in the post, will you know what to do with it? Will you value it as you ought?'

She was kneeling by the tree. The Christmas tree lights were still on, flickering multi-coloured patterns on her face. Her eyes were twinkling and a man wouldn't be human...

He didn't go to her. There was a mound of tinsel and a box of Christmas decorations between them. It had to act like Hadrian's Wall.

To stop himself scaring this butterfly into flight.

‘Polly, I'd like to keep in touch,' he ventured and she went right on packing decorations as if what he'd said wasn't important.

‘I'd like that too,' she said. ‘But you're behind the times. Ruby and I already have it planned. We're going to be pen pals—real pen pals with letters with stamps because that's cooler than emails. Ruby will send pictures of herself, and of Hamster too, because I'm starting to think I'll miss him.'

Pen pals.

‘That's good, as far as it goes,' he said cautiously. ‘But it's not what I had in mind.'

‘What did you have in mind?'

‘The kiss,' he said and her head jerked up and the atmosphere in the room changed, just like that.

‘The kiss...'

Stop now
, the sensible part of him demanded, but there was a crazy part that kept putting words out there. ‘It meant something,' he said. ‘Polly, I'd like to keep seeing you.'

‘That might be hard if you're in Wombat Valley and I'm in Ethiopia.'

‘You're really thinking of Ethiopia?'

‘No,' she said reluctantly. ‘I can't.'

‘Then how about an extension of your time in Wombat Valley?'

The question hung. It had been dumb to even ask, he thought, but he couldn't retract the words now.

‘Stay here, you mean?' she said cautiously.

‘We could...just see.'

‘See what?' Her eyes didn't leave his face.

‘If you and I...'

‘I don't do family.' She stumbled to her feet and a crimson ball fell onto another and shattered. She didn't appear to notice.

‘Polly, this isn't a proposal.' What had he done? He was appalled at the look of fear that had flashed across her face. ‘I'm not asking for permanent. It's far too soon...'

‘It's not only too soon,' she snapped. ‘It's stupid.'

‘Why is it stupid?' He knew, but he still found himself asking. Did she know what a trap his life was?

But it seemed she was worrying about a different kind of trap. ‘Hugo, it's true, I kissed you and I felt...like I might be falling for you,' she managed. ‘But it scared me. I don't want to go there. I can't. You worry about me, and Ruby hugs me, and even Hamster wriggles his way round my heart like a great hairy worm. But I came here to get away from family, not to find myself more.'

Her words cut, but they were no more than he'd expected.

To hope for more was stupid.

So now what? There was a strained silence while he tried to find a way forward. He'd thought he'd put away his love life when he'd left Sydney, but somehow Polly had hauled it front and centre. He wanted...a woman like Polly?

No. He wanted Polly herself, yet he had no right to haul her into his own personal drama. How could he possibly think of adding his constraints to hers? There was no way through this tangle to a happy ending.

So now? Now he had to get this situation back to a relationship that could go forward as it should. Employer and employee, nothing more.

‘You don't think you might be propelling things forward just a tad too fast?' he ventured. ‘I'm not asking you to commit to Wombat Valley for life.' He tried smiling, aching to ease her look of fear, but the fear stayed. It seemed she wasn't good at pretending. The employer, employee relationship was finished.

‘Hugo, I know what I felt—when I kissed you.' She put her hands behind her and took a step back. ‘When I'm with you I feel like someone else. It would be so easy to fall into this place, become your lover, become Ruby's best friend, become Hamster's third favourite cushion, but you'd tie me down. You'd fret—you already do—and before I know it you'd be watching what I eat and checking my long-term sugar levels and making sure I wear warm coats and boots when it's raining and not letting me do the hard medical cases because it might upset me. And I'm sick of cotton wool; I'm just...over it.'

‘Polly, of all the things I'm offering, cotton wool isn't one of them.'

‘You're saying you wouldn't fuss?'

‘Warm coats, boots, the Hamster cushion thing...all those things are negotiable,' he said evenly. ‘But if we ever tried it...maybe you couldn't stop me caring.' He had to be honest. ‘I'd hope you could care back.'

‘I don't do caring.'

‘I've watched you for days now. You care and you care and you care.'

‘Not with you.'

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing at all.

He'd been stupid to ask. This place—his life—had nothing a woman like Polly would wish to share. How could he ever have imagined otherwise?

He looked at her for a long moment and then, because he couldn't think of anything else to do, he started untangling tinsel. And Polly knelt again to put decorations into boxes.

‘There's broken glass by your knee. Be careful.'

‘I know,' she snapped, but she hadn't noticed—he knew she hadn't. She looked and saw the shattered Christmas bauble. ‘Thank...thank you.'

‘I'll get the dustpan.'

‘I broke it. I'll fix it.'

‘Fine,' he said and then his cellphone rang and he was almost relieved. He went outside to answer it because he needed space.

He felt like smacking himself over the head. For one brief moment he'd tried to prise open the doors that enclosed him. All he'd done was frighten her.

Where to take it from here?

Nowhere.

* * *

She was an idiot.

She gathered the shards of glass and then got the vacuum cleaner because you could never be too careful with glass on carpet and she wasn't stupid...

She was stupid, stupid, stupid.

For heaven's sake...
He wasn't asking her to marry him, she told herself. He was simply asking her to extend her time here as a locum.

Ruby would love it. Hamster would love it.

Polly would love it?

Love...
The word echoed round and round in her head. She hit the power switch to the vacuum cleaner so it faded to silence and she gazed round at the mess that was the living room.

Mess. Christmas.

Family.

She didn't do family. She hated Christmas.

But still she was staring around the room. One intact Christmas branch, gaily decorated. One lopsided silver tree, semi naked. Hugo saw this place as a trap, she thought. A prison. Oh, but if she let herself care...

If she cared, he'd care right back, and the cotton wool would enclose her.

‘It's a mess,' she muttered to herself and suddenly she found herself thinking of her parents' Christmases. They were perfection in planning and execution. Exquisite. Her mother employed party planners.

There'd be no soggy flour on her mother's carpet. The only thing missing from her family's perfect Christmas this year would be her.

And, stupidly, she felt tears well behind her eyes. She dashed them away with an angry swipe.
What the heck...
She didn't cry. She never cried.

She'd walked away from her family Christmas without a second glance. She'd felt joyful to be escaping.

And here was Hugo offering her another family Christmas. Not yet, she thought, not this Christmas, but she knew his offer was like an insidious web—
‘Come into my parlour,' said the spider to the fly...

Only it wasn't like that. What fly had ever thought the spider doing the inviting was gorgeous? What spider was ever kind, skilled, gentle, loving, awesome...?