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‘Goodness, I can hear your cronies having apoplexy as we speak.’
He laughed heartily and his red-blonde hair flopped back. ‘C’mon, Claire. Even you’ve got to admit that breech presentation is potentially much more complicated.’
‘Potentially, sure. But you and I both know that Martin and his pals automatically think breech equals C-section.’
‘You think trial of labour first?’
‘Depends on the woman and the presenting part. There are too many variables. You can’t treat them all the same, as Martin and co do.’
‘They’re just scared, Claire. Haven’t you ever been scared?’
His question startled her. It was like he had seen right into her soul. Had she? About one thousand per cent more than anyone could know. She’d been scared for the last ten years.
‘We … we’re … not talking about me,’ she stuttered. His astuteness was unsettling.
‘Right.’ He grinned. ‘Shame … I’d much rather talk about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Us, actually.’ Campbell watched as fear and confusion reflected briefly in her eyes before she masked them behind a shutter of wariness.
‘Campbell.’ She rolled her eyes and took a step away from him. She couldn’t think when he was too close. ‘I thought you’d given up.’
‘Nope. Just haven’t been able to track you down much.’
He stared pointedly at her and Claire felt her face warm. He knew that she’d been avoiding him.
‘I’ve been very busy,’ she said, sounding lame even to her own ears.
‘Have you had lunch?’
‘No.’
‘Let me buy you some. I’m starving.’
‘I’ve brought mine,’ she replied stiffly.
‘OK. I’ll watch. I like to watch.’
Claire stared at him incredulously. Was he serious? His expression was far from it. He looked like raucous laughter was only seconds away. He was winding her up.
She rolled her eyes and smiled grudgingly. ‘I’m going to show Lex around.’
‘I’ll wait for you at your desk.’
‘Don’t bother. I’m never going to agree to go out with you.’
‘We’ll see. Never say never.’ He grinned and ducked away before she had a chance to protest.
Claire would have screamed out loud if it hadn’t been for Lex in the next room. She wanted to stomp her foot so badly, it itched. Suppressing her childish impulses, she went to join Lex.
She felt herself relax as she gave their new client the grand tour. She answered all Lex’s questions and then went back to her desk to make an appointment. She ignored Campbell, who was poking around the office.
‘I understand you’re offering antenatal classes?’ asked Lex.
‘That’s right. You start them at about twenty-eight weeks. They’ll run every Wednesday night for four weeks. Would you like me to book you in?’
‘Yes, please.’
Claire retrieved the booking diary from her desk drawer, ignoring a muscled thigh she could see in her peripheral vision as Campbell lounged against her desk. She pencilled Lex and her husband in to start in eight weeks’ time.
As Claire bade her goodbye, Campbell joined her. ‘See you in four weeks,’ said Claire.
‘Actually, I might see you tomorrow. I’ve got my ultrasound at ten.’
‘Oh, what a shame you didn’t get an appointment for today. Save you coming back again tomorrow.’
‘It was the only one available this week, otherwise it was a couple of weeks’ wait. Unfortunately Brian is away until next week so he’s going to miss out.’
‘Is someone coming with you?’ Claire asked, noticing her client’s disappointment.
‘I really don’t have anyone else. No family nearby and we’ve only just moved to Brisbane so I don’t really know anybody yet.’
Claire could feel Lex’s sense of isolation and sympathised with her. ‘Ten o’clock, you say?’ She consulted her appointment book. ‘I’m free then—would you like some company?’
‘Oh, yes, please!’ Lex’s sigh of relief was audible. ‘I really didn’t want to go by myself.’
‘I’ll meet you there at ten tomorrow.’
They watched her leave with a new spring in her step.
‘That was a really nice thing to do.’ Campbell’s low voice intruded into Claire’s thoughts.
He’d come closer again. There were only a few millimetres separating them now. Appreciation sparked in his eyes. Nothing sexual. Just recognition of another person’s kind heart.
He had the most expressive eyes Claire had ever seen. If he felt it or thought it, it was right there for the world to see. He’d obviously never had anything to hide. Claire envied him that.
‘Nonsense,’ she said, moving away. ‘Anyone would have done the same thing.’
‘No, Claire, they wouldn’t.’ His voice was serious.
‘Goodbye, Campbell.’
Claire turned on her heel and left him standing in the corridor. He smiled at her dismissal but wasn’t that easily perturbed. He followed her into the commonroom, catching up with her just as she had opened the fridge door and was rummaging around inside it. Her very appealing bottom was all he could see of her. He lounged in the doorway, allowing his male appreciation full rein. Soon enough she would dash it all with her shrewish tongue.
‘Alone at last,’ he said from the doorway.
Claire hit her head on a shelf and cursed under her breath. ‘Do you mind?’ she snapped. ‘I thought you’d gone. You scared the living daylights out of me.’ She rubbed her head.
‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to look suitably chastised.
Claire sat at the dining table, ignoring him. She opened her lunchbox as he pulled up a chair opposite.
‘Why don’t you date, Claire?’
So unexpected was his question that Claire nearly choked on the carrot stick she’d been eating. She coughed and spluttered and Campbell poured her a drink of water from the glass pitcher sitting in the middle of the table.
‘Thank you,’ she said in a raspy voice, taking a gulp of water. ‘Is it so hard to believe that some women don’t want to be in a relationship?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Well, then, I guess I’m one of them.’
‘There’s a difference between not wanting to and choosing not to, Claire.’
‘Oh, yeah? How?’
‘Well, not wanting to indicates lack of interest. Choosing not to is a conscious decision that never allows for the possibility of something happening. It’s choosing with your head.’
‘Oh, I get it. You think I should choose with my heart.’ Sarcasm laced her voice.
‘I think you should listen to your heart. Don’t just ignore it because you decided once upon a time that you weren’t going to date.’
‘And if I did listen to my heart? What makes you think it’d lead me to you?’
‘Ah, that’s easy.’ He grinned a cheeky, schoolboy grin. ‘I’m irresistible.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Just ask my mum.’
‘Oh, I’m sure to get an unbiased opinion there,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Hmm, you’re right,’ he mused thoughtfully, stealing a carrot stick from Claire’s lunchbox. ‘On second thoughts, ask my sisters. They have absolutely no illusions about me and they still think I’m irresistible.’
Campbell grinned again and stole a cherry tomato this time.
‘Hey,’ she protested feebly, growing weaker at the intimacy of him helping himself to her lunch.
‘I’m starving,’ he cajoled, and closed his eyes and sighed rapturously as he bit into the ripe, red flesh. ‘Hmm. This tomato is delicious. So flavoursome.’
‘My father grows them,’ she said, distracted by his moan of enjoyment and the slow trickle of juice leaving the corner of his mouth.
Campbell opened his eyes and caught Claire staring. She was watching his chin where he could feel some juice trekking slowly downwards. Her stare was so intense and hungry he couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d reached over and unzipped his fly. In fact, she might as well have, from the way his body was reacting.
‘Claire, if you’re trying to convince me that you don’t want me, staring at me like that isn’t the way to go about it.’
His words registered on a superficial level only. They didn’t penetrate her intense concentration. She knew she shouldn’t be looking but the juice drew her gaze like a moth to flame.
‘Claire,’ he whispered hoarsely.
It was a ragged, desperate sound that succeeded where his words hadn’t. She gasped slightly, dragging her eyes away, shocked at her behaviour. It was practically X-rated. Her hand trembled as she passed him a paper napkin and tried to deny how bereft she felt that he was the one wiping the errant juice away and not her.
Oh, God, get a grip. What was the matter with her? Why did this man get to her so much?
‘Is it because of him?’
‘Him who?’ she asked, wary again.
‘The man you dated years ago who broke your heart. Or so the story goes.’
‘Been snooping, Campbell?’
‘No, not at all. It’s amazing the stuff people will tell you.’
‘Mind your own business,’ she snapped, rising to wash her dishes at the sink.
‘Oh, come on, Claire,’ he persisted. ‘If I’m paying the price for his sins, surely I deserve to know why.’
‘Campbell!’ She let her exasperation show.
‘OK. I’ll leave you be if you tell me.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘I promise. Cross my heart.’
She turned to assess the honesty of his statement. He looked sincere and … it was way too good a deal to pass up. His relentless pursuit was annoying. Really, it was. And pointless. And as difficult as she found even breathing when he was near, she couldn’t be with him. They had no future.
‘All right.’ Her shoulders sagged and she came back and sat at the table. ‘We were young. No, correction, I was young. A third-year student nurse. Shane was a resident. We were in love, or at least … I was in love with him. He said he wanted to marry me and then some … stuff happened to do with my family and he … he dumped me.’
Campbell sat in silence as she laid out the bones of something that had obviously been such a big part of her life. Her complete lack of emotion as she gave just the facts spoke volumes about her hurt.
‘How old were you?’
‘Twenty.’
Campbell covered her hands with his. ‘What stuff?’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said quietly, and removed her hands. She wasn’t going to tell a virtual stranger things that even now were too painful to think about.
‘Shane was a fool.’ Campbell’s voice held an edge of contempt.
She met his gaze and read the compassion in his emerald depths. Easy to say when he didn’t know the half of it.
‘No. It hurt for a long time but I think I’d have done the same thing if our situations had been reversed.’
It had been a traumatic chapter in her life. Her mother being diagnosed with Huntington’s disease had been a gut-wrenching time. Not to mention the real possibility that the disease could have been inherited by herself. The last thing she had needed had been her finance deserting her in her hour of need. But he had.
