Neurosurgeon...and Mum! (14 page)

L
ATER
that evening, after Perdy had gone to bed, Tom was sitting in the garden with Amy. There was definitely something different about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Her hair was the same colour, she wasn’t wearing anything different—but that haunted look in her eyes had vanished, and she was smiling more than usual.

She sparkled.

‘You look happy,’ he said. ‘Good day?’

She nodded. ‘I’ve had some great news. Laura rang me today.’

Given that Amy was smiling, that had to be a good thing. The beginning of mending the rift between them. ‘So it all went OK?’

‘Yes.’ Her smile broadened. ‘Ben’s finally healing, and he’s got some movement back in his hands. He’s still never going to walk again, but he’s going to be more independent. With a bit of help from physio…well, they’re going to get more of their lives back.’

‘That’s fantastic.’ For her. Of course it was. And he was genuinely pleased for her; but at the same time he suddenly felt hollow. What did this mean for their relationship—their future? ‘I’m really pleased,’ he made
himself say. ‘So that proves you did do the right thing in that op.’

‘Mmm.’ She looked rueful. ‘I’ve learned my lesson, though. In future, I won’t get emotionally involved.’

The hollow feeling grew stronger. She didn’t just mean in her career, did she? he thought. She meant in her life, too. And now she’d go back to her career in London. She’d choose her job over him and Perdy, just as Eloise had. He’d been stupid to hope that their relationship had started to mean as much to her as it did to him. Stupid to hope that maybe she might be able to love him back in the way that he loved her. The doubts all came crowding back in. He and Perdy hadn’t been enough for Eloise; why would they be enough for Amy?

‘Uh-huh,’ he said.

She frowned. ‘Tom? What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ He paused. ‘So when are you going back to London?’

‘I’m not sure if I am.’

He blinked. ‘Why not? You’re a neurosurgeon. A consultant. High-powered. And now you’ve got your confidence back, why wouldn’t you go back to London—back to the job you spent years training to do?’

‘Because I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I really want. Yes, I love my job, just as you love yours. But it isn’t the whole of who I am. And I don’t want to come home to my empty flat every night any more.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I haven’t been in denial about it, exactly, but I know now that I’ve been suppressing what I really want and telling myself that my job’s enough to fill my life. It isn’t.’

Hope flared inside him. ‘So what do you want, Amy?’

‘I want a family,’ she said. ‘And I don’t mean as a substitute for Colin and Millie. I want a family of my own.’

The flame went out again. A family of her own. ‘Someone without any complications,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘Families aren’t simple. And for someone so bright, you can be incredibly dense, Dr Ashby. Unless…’ She bit her lip. ‘Unless I’ve got it all completely wrong and I’ve been deluding myself again, the same way I did about Colin.’

He couldn’t quite take in what she was saying. Did she mean that she wanted him and Perdy? ‘Deluding yourself about what?’

‘You, me and Perdy,’ she said. ‘Tom, I know you’re still mourning Eloise and your feelings about her are complicated. I know these things take time. I know we said we’d help each other out of a bad place and we weren’t going to get involved. And I don’t want to rush you into something you’re not ready for. But I was hoping that maybe…’ She raked a hand through her hair. ‘Oh, God, why are these things so hard to say?’

‘Hoping that maybe…?’ he prompted.

‘That maybe things have changed for you these last few weeks, the way they have for me. That you’d be prepared to take a chance on me. That I could share your life and be a family with you and Perdy.’

Yes. That was everything he wanted, too. And yet…‘What about your job? I can’t see how you’d want to give up working in a London hospital, at the cutting edge of your specialty. And Perdy’s settled here. I don’t want to uproot her yet again and drag her back to London.’ He blew out a breath. ‘The obvious compromise is that you work in London and we come and stay at weekends, but that…’ He grimaced.

‘That isn’t being a family,’ Amy agreed. ‘And you don’t have to uproot Perdy, because I can still do the same job
outside London. I, um, took the liberty of talking to my boss last week. He’ll give me a reference. And I’ve checked out the local opportunities.’

‘Local?’ Tom blinked.

She nodded. ‘I knew I wanted to go back to work—but I also knew I didn’t want to leave you and Perdy. So I thought I’d find out what my options were.’ She looked slightly shy. ‘I was planning to talk it over with you when I heard back—see what you thought. It looks as if there’s a fair chance I could get a locum job, and maybe it’ll lead to something permanent.’

‘And that would really be enough for you?’

‘Having everything, you mean?’ She gave him a quirky smile. ‘Yeah, I reckon.’

Tom swallowed hard. ‘Amy. There’s a bit of me that wants to pick you up and twirl you round and yell to the skies how much I love you.’

‘And what about the other bit of you?’

The bit that was panicking. How could he tell her that without sounding insulting? ‘Full of questions.’ He owed it to her to be honest. He took her hand. ‘And full of doubts.’

‘You think Perdy won’t be happy about it?’

‘Far from it. I’m pretty sure she’d be delighted,’ Tom said. ‘She likes you—really likes you. When she’s with me and you’re not around, she never stops talking about you.’ And he’d already fallen hard for Amy. He just about managed to stop himself yanking her into his arms and kissing her senseless. ‘Amy, I want to be with you, too. I fell for you a long time ago. Not when I first met you, though I found you attractive—it was when you let your barriers down and I started getting to know you. You’re everything I want in a life partner. I can talk to you about anything, I like being with you, and you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.’

‘But?’

She’d picked up on it without him having to say the words—she was that much in tune with him. So he really hoped she’d understand what he was trying to say now. ‘But I’ve been here before and it was a disaster,’ he said softly. ‘I was married to a high-powered doctor, and Perdy and I turned out not to be enough for her. And even though I know you’re not Eloise and I love you, there’s still a bit of me that’s terrified in case we’re not enough for you either. What happens six months, a year down the line? What happens if you get bored and discover you need more, the way Eloise did?’

Amy looked steadily at him. ‘I made a family with someone who changed his mind. Bits of me are scared too that the same thing’s going to happen again—I mean, I know it’s not physically possible for you to go back to Eloise, but what’s to stop you having second thoughts and realising that I’m not good enough to be her substitute?’

‘You’re not her substitute,’ Tom said. ‘And it’s not a question of not being good enough. You and Eloise are different people. You see things in different ways. And,’ he pointed out, ‘I’m not Colin.’

‘I know that. And you know I’m not Eloise.’ Amy’s eyes were very clear. ‘My background’s similar to hers, but I do know the difference between trying to please someone who can’t be pleased and reaching out for what I really want. And I don’t want the same things Eloise wanted. I want so very much more: I want you and Perdy.’

The lump in Tom’s throat was too huge for him to speak.

‘You’ve helped me see that I’m a neurosurgeon and I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else,’ Amy continued, ‘but at the end of the day it’s my job and it’s only part of who I am. I need more than that to make me whole. I want
a home, Tom. A home with a proper family, a solid base where there’s a slot especially shaped for me to fit into. I want a little girl who gives me a hug when she gets home from school and tells me about her day. I want a husband who shares his life with me—his hopes, his dreams, his fears. I want to be part of a team, a proper family.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘I want all that, Tom. And I want it with you and Perdy.’

He still couldn’t speak. So he wrapped his arms round her and kissed her, pouring his soul into the kiss. And when he finally broke it and looked into her eyes, he knew she understood.

‘I love you, Amy,’ he said softly.

‘I love you, too. And I know you’re going to have doubts about this—just as I will—but we’ll talk about them. Deal with them together and not let them get in the way.’

‘Agreed.’ He paused. ‘So, would you—?’

She pressed a finger against his lip. ‘Don’t say it. Because we’re not going to take anything for granted,’ Amy said. ‘Don’t say a word to me until you’ve talked it over with Perdy—and I want you to make sure she knows that I love her but I’m not expecting her to pretend Eloise never existed. That’d be completely wrong. Her mum will always be her mum, and it’s fine for Perdy to talk about her and look at her photographs—and we can both help her remember the good times and put the bad memories behind her.’

‘So, hypothetically,’ Tom said, ‘if Perdy says yes and if you say yes, we’d be talking about a house somewhere in the village, with a garden for a slide, a swing and a trampoline.’

‘And a puppy. Don’t forget the puppy,’ Amy added. ‘Provided Perdy says yes for all of us. No counting chickens. If she says no, then it’s a no.’

Tom smiled. ‘And if she says yes?’

‘Then I’ll say yes, too.’

He kissed her, very gently. ‘I have a good feeling about this…’

Six months later

C
ASSIE
had insisted on tradition—especially as Amy and Tom were marrying in the tiny eleventh-century church in the centre of the village—so Perdy and Amy had spent the night before the wedding at Marsh End House rather than at their own house in the village.

On the Saturday morning, Perdy sat patiently while Beth finished painting her nails, and Alexis did the same as Cassie painted hers. Laura finished arranging the veil over Amy’s hair, then stepped back to admire her best friend.

‘What do you think?’ she asked the others.

‘Beautiful,’ they chorused.

‘You’re a radiant bride, Amy,’ Laura said with a smile.

‘Thank you—and it looks as if I’ve got radiant bridesmaids and matrons of honour, too,’ Amy said.

‘It helps that Sam’s started sleeping through the night,’ Beth said feelingly, ‘or I would’ve needed so much concealer under my eyes, I’d have been charged excess baggage before I got on the plane.’

‘Beth, you’d manage to look glamorous wearing a hessian sack,’ Amy said, laughing.

‘This is going to be such a cool wedding. I’m going to have a proper family,’ Perdy said.

‘Absolutely,’ Amy agreed. True to Tom’s prediction, Perdy had been delighted when Tom had asked her whether she’d like Amy to be a permanent part of her life, and Tom had called the jeweller’s the second the shop had opened to order one very special engagement ring: an eternity symbol made from diamonds, flanked by Paraiba topaz. Amy and Perdy’s birthstones.

‘And we’re getting BT next week.’ BT—named by Perdy, and short for ‘Buster Two’—was the chocolate Labrador puppy Tom had taken them to see three weeks before and which they’d all agreed would be the perfect addition to their family.

The last few months had been a whirl. To Amy’s surprise, she hadn’t been offered a locum post; she’d been offered her dream job, instead, setting up a treatment centre at the hospital forty minutes down the road. It was a similar commute to the one she’d had in London, and both Tom and Perdy had told her to take the job.

Joe, on his return to England, had said that he wanted to cut his hours down and offered Tom a full-time post at the practice—with the new housing development at the edge of the village, the practice had to expand and he thought Tom was perfect for the job.

And then there was moving into the house in the middle of the village, an old place that needed a little bit of work but which had a large garden and Perdy could see the sea from her bedroom window.

Not to mention wedding preparations. Amy’s parents were even flying over from America for a couple of days—though, true to form, they were shoehorning it around their work and were arriving at the very last minute: they
planned to meet everyone at the church then go back to America the following day. But Amy didn’t mind because she had Cassie and Joe, and Tom’s parents had proved to be as warm as Tom himself, accepting her immediately as part of their son’s life. She’d written a letter to Eloise’s parents, explaining that she wasn’t taking Eloise’s place and they’d always have a warm welcome if they wanted to visit Perdy, and Tom had been astonished when Eloise’s mother had called to say thank you.

‘So, let’s run through the last checks. Flowers?’ Laura asked.

‘All here and looking fabulous,’ Cassie said. ‘Joe’s taken the buttonholes and the rest of the corsages to the church—he’ll be back any second now.’ Joe had arranged to step into his brother’s shoes and accompany Amy in the wedding car, and if the flight was delayed he’d be the one to give the bride away.

Beth looked at her watch. ‘The car should be here in ten minutes and the photographer will be here any moment now. Bridesmaids all present and correct?’ Beth asked.

‘Yes,’ Perdy and Alexis chorused.

‘Matrons of honour?’ Cassie asked.

‘We’re ready,’ Beth said.

‘And Ben’s waiting for us at the church,’ Laura said.

‘I’m so pleased he’s well enough to make it,’ Amy said. ‘His recovery has been amazing.’

‘He’s never going to walk again,’ Laura said, ‘but he can do most things.’

Amy noticed that Laura was fiddling with the neckline of her dress. ‘Are you all right, Laura?’ she asked.

‘Mmm. Obviously I’ve been stuffing my face too much over the last week,’ Laura said ruefully. ‘I meant to be good, but I’ve been starving.’

Amy raised an eyebrow. ‘Your dress is too tight at the top, and you’re permanently hungry? Hmm. Right, you’re on mineral water today. No more than one sip of champagne at the toast.’