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‘Has he passed urine yet?’
‘Several times,’ Shirley confirmed.
‘Any meconium yet?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Shirley laughed. ‘I’ve saved it for you if you want to check.’ She laughed again. Having done this for the fourth time, Shirley knew that black, tarry bowel motions were best left alone.
Mercifully William didn’t stay on after he passed little Davy for discharge. He left straight away but did manage a lewd wink at Claire before he shut the door.
She escaped to her office, once again cursing under her breath. Great, it was going to be around the hospital in five minutes flat. Of that Claire had no doubt. By the time Campbell got to work on Monday it’d be so blown out of proportion they’d be practically married. So much for one night of passion. No one was going to believe that was the extent of it.
Oh, well, Claire decided, rearranging the stuff on her desk, she’d weathered years of St Jude’s gossip before. She could do it again. Once people realised that she and Campbell weren’t an item, the talk would die down and be completely snuffed out once a juicier titbit came along.
Claire heard Shirley’s family arrive and went out to greet them. Graham had brought the other three kids and they were all very excited, jostling to be the first to hold their new baby brother.
While Graham supervised the children, Claire finalised things with Shirley.
‘Now, page me if there are any problems. That’s what I’m here for—all right?’
‘Sure thing,’ Shirley agreed, as she signed the discharge papers.
‘Here’s your appointment for your six-week check,’ said Claire, handing the card to her. ‘Expect a phone call on Monday about the heel prick. I’ll see you in six weeks, but remember—’
‘I know, any problems and you’ll be the first to know. I promise.’
‘Good.’ Claire grinned as she accepted Shirley’s hug of gratitude.
She saw them out the door. It was quite a noisy goodbye and Claire was still smiling when she shut the door and started on the clean-up in Shirley’s room.
Claire was making the bed, her last chore, when she heard the swing doors open.
‘Hello. Anyone here?’
Campbell’s voice reached out and touched her, even from the other side of the wall. She groaned inwardly. She wasn’t ready to face him just yet. She hadn’t had enough time to work out what to say to him.
She knew what had to be said but hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to face him so soon after having seen him naked. After he’d seen her naked. How could you tell someone that one night of mind-blowing sex was it and expect them to believe you? Because that was what she had to say. There could be no more.
Claire contemplated hiding somewhere, quickly scanning the room for a good position, but discarded the idea just as quickly. How juvenile! Never put off till tomorrow what you could do today. Right? She took a deep breath and went out to him.
‘Hi,’ she said quietly, coming to a halt in the doorway. She leaned against the doorframe, feeling weak from her reaction to his presence. He was in casual mode again, looking even more delicious than last night, kind of rumpled and content. Damn her weak body! Claire had to grind her shoes into the floor to stop herself running into his arms.
‘Hi, yourself.’ He smiled.
They stared greedily for the longest time. Campbell moved towards her, reaching out. She very nearly gave in to the temptation. Heaven knew, she wanted to feel his body against hers so badly she ached.
But at the last moment sanity prevailed and she backed away from him into the room. It didn’t matter how much her body ached, she had to think with her head. There were things to say.
She crossed back to the bed and picked up the sheet, busying herself. Claire could feel the intensity of his gaze fill the distance between them.
‘I missed you this morning.’ His quiet voice broke into her activity.
‘Help me with this?’ She nodded for him to get the other side.
He crossed until he was opposite her. One bed and ten years of baggage between them.
‘We need to talk.’ Claire fussed, getting the corners just right as she spoke. ‘I’m really sorry—’
‘Please, don’t say you’re sorry last night happened.’
‘No. Campbell, I don’t mean … I’m not sorry about last night. I should be. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but … it did and, no, I’m not sorry.’
‘Oh, Claire.’ Campbell sat down heavily on the halfmade bed, a sigh of relief escaping his lips. ‘Don’t do that to me.’
‘What I was going to say,’ she said, sitting down on her side, ‘was that I’m sorry but the cat is out of the bag. As far as the hospital grapevine goes anyway.’
‘Already?’ Campbell whistled. ‘How did that happen? Were they looking through the keyhole?’
‘No.’ Claire laughed. ‘William Casey came and did the discharge check on little Davy. He guessed.’
‘Guessed?’
‘Yeah, I know. Crazy, isn’t it? He reckoned I looked different and put two and two together.’
‘Well, you do have that thoroughly kissed look.’
‘I … I do?’ Claire pressed a hand to her mouth.
‘Very much.’
Claire’s eyes dilated as his hungry gaze followed the movement of her hand to her lips. She felt as if a hand had grabbed her insides and was squeezing. She heard the texture of his breathing roughen and felt hers fall into sync.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway, Claire. Let them talk. Our relationship is our business.’
Claire stood up and moved over to the window. He’d just mentioned the R-word. This was what she had feared would happen. She sensed things would get out of hand if she didn’t put a stop to his fanciful thoughts right now. One roll in the hay did not a relationship make. Right?
‘It matters to me, Campbell.’
‘Why?’
‘Because … it was just one night.’ She turned to face him. ‘We don’t have a relationship. Last night was great. But wrong. I’m sorry if us sleeping together led you to believe differently. It shouldn’t have happened and it’s not going to happen again.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I’m not going to let it. I seriously don’t know what came over me last night, Campbell. But it doesn’t negate the reasons I have for not dating or getting involved. They still exist.’
‘So, what was last night, then?’
‘Last night was a serious error in judgement. A very pleasant one but … I guess I just didn’t expect to be so swept away. It’s been such a long time for me …’
‘So you used me last night?’ He stood and paced and Claire didn’t need to look at him to know he was angry.
‘No. It wasn’t like that!’
‘No? Seems to me I was a convenient body to ease years of sexual frustration.’
Claire felt wounded by Campbell’s unfair judgement of her. She had obviously hurt him, but he knew how to wound her just as effectively.
‘Look, we went on a date. I was very attracted to you—’
‘I know the feeling.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about the future. I wasn’t thinking at all. We were kissing and one thing led to another and … I was just feeling, Campbell. I wasn’t thinking. I never promised you a relationship. I never promised you a happily ever after.’
‘Well, pardon me if I assumed certain things while you were half-crazy with lust last night.’ His voice was icy.
‘Lust, Campbell. Lust. You said it.’
‘I didn’t think you were that kind of woman.’
Claire’s head snapped up as his accusation hit home.
‘What? You mean the kind who indiscriminately sleeps with someone and then dumps them the next day? I’m sorry, I forgot that was a man’s prerogative.’
Campbell stopped pacing and pushed his hands through his hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said placatingly, rubbing his eyes. ‘That was unforgivable. Claire … I just want to be with you. Let me be with you.’
‘I don’t want to be with you,’ she said, turning away from him so he couldn’t see the lie reflected in her expression.
‘You’re a liar.’ His voice was calm. Emotionless.
‘Just go, Campbell,’ she said quietly.
‘This isn’t over, Claire,’ he warned. ‘Every time your head hits your pillow, you’re going to be thinking about me. About me inside you. I hope it drives you mad. As mad as it’s going drive me.’
Claire heard his footsteps retreat and it took all her willpower to stand her ground. Her arms shook with the effort of keeping them firmly planted on the window-sill. She would not call him back. It was better this way.
* * *
Later that day, Claire found herself back at the birth centre with another of her clients in labour.
The birth stretched into the night and she paged Barbara Willis, the night-shift midwife, to tell her not to bother coming in as she would stay until her patient had delivered.
Finally around three a.m. the tiny baby boy made its entry into the world, much to Claire’s delight and the mother’s relief. Baby Jonathon slept on obliviously as Claire fussed around, settling him into the mobile crib.
The first embers of dawn were glowing in the heavens when Claire finally left St Jude’s. She yawned as she pushed open the front door. Two nights with little sleep had really taken their toll. But her work wasn’t over yet.
Claire poked her head into her mother’s room. She was awake, as Claire knew she would be. ‘Hello, Mum,’ Claire said softly. She opened the curtains to admit the early morning sunshine. ‘How about I read you the paper and then I wash your hair?’
The pump that delivered hourly metered doses of a special nutritional formula into her mother’s feeding tube beeped that it was empty, and Claire switched it off. She opened the newspaper that had been on the front lawn and thumbed through it with one hand and stroked her mother’s hand with the other. Claire picked out stories she felt would interest her mother … had once interested her anyway.
She looked into her mother’s vacant, staring eyes. Who knew what went on inside her head any more? Speech had been difficult for a few years and non-existent for a year now. Did she understand? Claire wanted to believe that she did.
One thing was for sure, seeing her mother like this reinforced her reasons for rejecting Campbell. She’d definitely done the right thing.
Campbell … Would he be awake yet? Would he still be mad with her? Spending time with her mother like this always left her feeling flat. It was like looking into a mirror. She was scared for her mother and anxious of what would become of her father after …
It would have been so nice to go to Campbell, crawl into bed beside him and have him hold her until all her fears went away. To confide in him.
She shook herself. What was wrong with her? Surely years of denial had annihilated such temptations? Had sleeping with Campbell triggered these feelings? She should have known it’d be more complicated than just two people having sex. Intimacy was never that straightforward—that’s why she had avoided it!
She pushed these confusing thoughts aside as she lifted Mary onto the mobile shower chair with ease. Years of nursing had taught her to lift properly and, despite the nightly supplements, her mother had wasted away to practically nothing in the last year.
The en suite bathroom had been modified as her mother had become more dependent, so there was ample room for Claire to shower her mother and wash her hair. She chatted as she saw to her hygiene needs, prattling on about baby Jonathon and baby David.
Claire yearned to tell her about Campbell. Confide in her mother as daughters the world over usually did. But something held her back. Telling her mother made it seem like they were involved. And they weren’t.
All these thoughts whirred around in Claire’s head as she finally collapsed into bed a couple of hours later. Fortunately they weren’t enough to halt the pressing need for sleep. She closed her eyes and for the first time in a long time it was not her mother she dreamed about as sleep claimed her. It was Campbell.
CHAPTER SIX (#u70b3c252-7574-5df0-be50-882125b835b7)
CAMPBELL had no sooner sat down at his desk on Monday morning than the phone rang. It was Martin with a command, poorly disguised as a request, to see him immediately in his office.
Replacing the phone, Campbell decided that Martin could wait until he was good and ready. He’d head up there in a few minutes. He was in no mood to be ordered around, particularly by a pompous fool like Martin.
He drummed his fingers on the desk and then stood abruptly, stalking to the window. He stared with unseeing eyes at the phenomenal view.
Snatches of the incredible experience with Claire on Friday night chased snippets of their argument on Saturday morning around and around his head. So much for the three Ps. If she refused to see him again, his plan would be down the gurgler.
He’d wanted to shake her on Saturday. Grab hold of her arms and shake her until she understood that he loved her and they were wasting precious time, arguing. Time that they could spend loving each other.
Not for the first time, Campbell wished he knew what was eating her. Why did she persist with her no-relationship mantra? Why couldn’t she open up to him? Had Shane hurt her that badly? No. She seemed to be way over that—there had to be something more.
He reluctantly made his way up to the executive offices, still deep in thought. The lift opened just as Campbell was coming to an important decision. Whatever her reasons, they were irrelevant. His objective was still the same—to make Claire West his. If one night of passion wasn’t enough to sway her, then he’d have to go back to basics again.
He heard the raised voices coming from Martin’s office from out in the hallway. He quickened his pace as he realised that one of them belonged to Claire.
Campbell burst through the door just as Martin was saying, ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to see that centre shut down.’
‘Morning, all,’ he said cheerfully, entering the fray.
Martin shot him an irritated look. Claire had murder in her eyes. Her look of relief as she realised it was him was heart-warming. Campbell cautioned himself not to get too caught up by it. She was probably only grateful that his arrival had stopped her from strangling Martin with his own necktie and spending the rest of her life in prison. The cleaner would probably have been given the same treatment.
Hell, she looks tired, he thought. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was secretly pleased that sleep hadn’t come easily to her either. Good. He’d hate to think he was the only one suddenly afflicted with insomnia.
‘So pleased you could join us.’ Martin’s sarcastic comment intruded on Campbell’s thoughts.
Deciding to let that one slip by, Campbell guessed that calm and reason was definitely lacking in their conversation. Luckily, he was very good at calm and reason.
‘Is there a problem here?’
