скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ he said softly. ‘My parents are…complicated.’
She reached over and squeezed his hand briefly. ‘I know,’ she said, equally softly.
In the months since Tom’s death, Ellis had opened up a little to Ruby and told her about the tragedy that had taken the sunshine out of his world. How his older sister had taken a gap year before university, teaching in a remote school. Sally had fallen pregnant by accident and hadn’t realised it at first; when she’d been so sick, everyone had assumed it was a virus. But by the time they’d realised she was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness, it was too late. She’d grown too weak, developed complications, gone into organ failure and never regained consciousness.
And Ellis’s parents had never recovered from losing their only daughter. Their remaining three sons simply hadn’t been enough to bring them back from the cold, emotionless life they’d led from that moment on.
Ellis and Ruby drove back in companionable silence, listening to Nick Drake. The kind of mellow, faintly melancholy stuff Ellis had enjoyed listening to with Tom. It went well with the rain and his mood.
Back in London, he parked in the street outside Ruby’s house and saw her to the door.
‘Thank you, for today, Ellis. I don’t know what I would have done this last year without you,’ she said.
‘Hey, no problem—and you’ve helped me, too.’ He hugged her. Bad move. Now he could smell her perfume, the sweet scent of violets. And she fitted perfectly in his arms.
She’s your best friend’s widow, he reminded himself silently. No, no and absolutely no. Don’t even think about it. You do not make a move on this woman. Ever. Hands off.
‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Call me if you need me.’
‘Thanks, Ellis.’ She reached up and kissed his cheek.
For a moment, Ellis desperately wanted to twist his face to the side so the kiss landed on his mouth. For months now he’d wanted to kiss Ruby. But he held himself back. The feelings he’d developed towards her over the last year were completely inappropriate; plus he risked losing one of his closest friendships if he asked her out. He was pretty sure that Ruby saw him only as a friend, so wanting more was just stupid. Especially as he knew he wasn’t a good bet when it came to relationships.
His normal job, working for a medical aid charity, meant that relationships were tricky. Either he had long-distance affairs where he hardly ever saw his girlfriend and the relationship ended by mutual agreement because his girlfriend just got fed up waiting for him; or they were short, sweet flings that ended when he moved on to another assignment. Except for his marriage to Natalia—he’d thought that would be the exception to the rule, that maybe he could have the best of both worlds after all. How wrong he’d been there. So nowadays he didn’t do more than short, fun flings—where everyone knew the score before they started and nobody ended up disappointed.
When Ruby was finally ready to move on, Ellis knew she’d want more than just a fling or a long-distance relationship. More than he could offer her. Asking for more than friendship would just ruin a relationship that had become really important to him over the last eighteen months. And to have her solely as his friend was way better than not having her in his life at all, wasn’t it? So he’d just have to keep himself in check.
‘I’d better go,’ he mumbled, and left before he did something really reckless and stupid. Like kissing her.
And he brooded all the way home. His current job as an obstetrician at the London Victoria was only temporary, covering another registrar’s maternity leave, and his contract was due to end in a couple of months’ time when Billie was due to return. He’d already agreed to do a month’s assignment for the medical aid charity, helping to set up a new medical centre in Zimbabwe, when his temporary contract at the London Victoria ended. Going to work abroad again would mean he’d be out of temptation’s way and he wouldn’t hurt Ruby.
Then again, Ellis had promised Tom that he’d look after Ruby. Until he knew that she was ready to move on and had found someone else to share her life—someone who was good enough for her and would treat her as she deserved—how could he desert her?
It was a tricky line to walk.
So he’d just have to bury his feelings, the way he normally did, and everything would be just fine.
Ruby watched Ellis drive away, feeling guilty. For a moment she’d been tempted to kiss him on the lips instead of on the cheek.
How could she possibly want to kiss another man? And especially how could she have thoughts like that on the first anniversary of her husband’s death? How mean-spirited and selfish and plain wrong was that?
She closed the door with a grimace of self-disgust.
Plus she knew that Tom had asked Ellis to look out for her. Letting Ellis know that she was starting to see him as more than a friend might make everything go wrong between them. He’d always been such a perfect gentleman towards her. Trying to push their friendship in another direction might mean that she lost him—and she didn’t want that to happen. She liked having Ellis in her life. Liked it a lot.
Though she had a nasty feeling that she was going to lose him anyway. Ellis had always had itchy feet, according to Tom, and she knew that Ellis wanted to go back to the medical aid charity. The place where he’d always felt he’d belonged.
Losing Tom had ripped Ruby’s heart to shreds. Over the last year, she’d gradually put the pieces back together, and it would be very stupid to let herself fall for someone who’d made it very clear that he didn’t do permanent. Someone who didn’t want the same things she wanted. Someone she knew she’d lose to his job. Yes, he would come back to England from time to time to see her—but she’d be lonely in London, waiting for him. Yet, if she went with him, she’d end up feeling horribly homesick and missing her family. Neither option was right for her. Which meant that Ellis really wasn’t the right man for her, much as she was attracted to him, and she needed to think with her head rather than her heart.
Now they’d scattered Tom’s ashes and she was back in London again, Ruby didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She wished she’d asked Ellis to go somewhere for dinner with her or something; right now, she felt so lonely.
She mooched around for the best part of an hour, not able to settle to reading or doing crosswords. Even cleaning the bathroom until it sparkled didn’t make her feel as if she’d achieved anything; she was in limbo.
Then the doorbell rang.
Her heart leapt. Had Ellis come back?
No, of course not. How stupid of her to think it.
She opened the door to see her best friend, Tina, bearing what looked suspiciously like a box of homemade cake.
‘With today being what it is, I thought you could do with some company tonight,’ Tina said, ‘and this.’ She lifted the box. ‘Lemon cake.’
Ruby’s favourite. And Ruby knew without a doubt Tina had made it especially for her. It was probably still warm.
‘There isn’t anyone in the world I’d rather see right now,’ Ruby said, meaning it. Not even Ellis. Because with her best friend Ruby knew she wouldn’t have that edge of guilt and faint shame that she seemed to feel around Ellis nowadays, outside work. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’ She hugged her best friend, hard.
Tina hung her coat in the hallway and made herself at home in the kitchen, putting the kettle on and getting the teapot out of the cupboard, the way she and Ruby had done hundreds of times over the years in each other’s kitchens. ‘So how did it go this afternoon?’
‘Really well. It didn’t matter that it was raining. Ellis had brought a couple of huge umbrellas and waterproof blankets for us to sit on.’ Ruby smiled. ‘We made a sandcastle and put the ashes in the moat, covered it with rose petals, toasted Tom with champagne and let the sea wash the sandcastle and the ashes away together.’
‘It sounds perfect—well, as perfect as something like that could be.’ Tina finished making the tea, put the lemon cake on the plate and cut them both a slice, then handed Ruby a steaming mug. ‘To Tom,’ she said, lifting her mug and clinking it against Ruby’s. ‘I’ll miss him horribly. But I’ll always be glad I knew him, because he was just the nicest guy in the world.’
‘Yeah.’ Ruby took a sip of her tea to take the lump out of her throat.
‘Hey. It’s OK to cry,’ Tina said softly.
‘No. I want to remember him with smiles, not tears,’ Ruby insisted. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted anyone to be miserable.’
‘But?’
Ruby and Tina had clicked immediately when they’d met on the first day of their nursing training at the age of eighteen, and they’d been friends for long enough to have a pretty good idea what each other wasn’t saying.
‘I feel a bit guilty, that’s all.’ Ruby wasn’t quite ready to admit her feelings for Ellis, but she also knew that Tina was the best person she could float ideas past. Someone who’d be honest with her.
‘Why on earth do you feel guilty?’ Tina looked puzzled.
‘Because tomorrow it’ll be a year and a day—the last traditional day of mourning—and over those last months Tom said to me quite a few times that he didn’t want me to be alone and grieving for him. He said he wanted me to live a happy life with someone who loves me as much as he did.’
‘Now you’re putting a lump in my throat.’ Tina hugged her. ‘Though he’s right—you’re still young. In fact, at twenty-nine you’re practically a baby.’
Ruby laughed. There were all of six months between them, with Ruby being one of the youngest in their academic year and Tina one of the oldest. ‘Thirty’s not exactly old, Tina.’
‘No.’ Tina looked at her. ‘Rubes, are you saying you want to date again?’
‘I love Tom—I always will—but I think I’m ready to move on. Scattering his ashes today felt a lot like closure,’ Ruby said. ‘But is everyone going to think I’m heartless and I should wait a lot longer before even thinking about moving on?’
‘No. Some people will probably mutter about it being too soon,’ Tina said, ‘but remember that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, so don’t let that get to you. It’s none of their business. You’re the only one who can really say when you’re ready.’
‘I guess.’ Ruby bit her lip. ‘I just…’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘Sorry.’
‘As you said, Tom wanted you to be happy and he wanted you to find someone else. You have his blessing, and you don’t need anyone else’s.’
Even if I fell for his best friend?
But Ruby couldn’t quite bring herself to ask that. She’d barely admitted it to herself and she still needed time to get used to the idea.
‘You know, we’ve got a new registrar in Neurology. He’s a nice guy. Single. New to London. Maybe…’ Tina let the suggestion hang in the air.
‘Maybe,’ Ruby said.
‘Don’t make a decision now. Just think about it,’ Tina said gently. ‘In the meantime, I think we need a feel-good film and more cake.’
‘Brilliant idea. Let’s do it,’ Ruby said, and ushered her best friend into the living room.
But she found it hard to concentrate on the film, because she couldn’t stop thinking about Ellis. Ellis, with his haunted grey eyes. Ellis, who had itchy feet but had stayed in one place for the longest time since his training, specifically to be there for her.
Her husband’s best friend.
What if…?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a7983429-0225-5e62-b703-40b0151b95f1)
RUBY EXAMINED MRS HARRIS GENTLY.
‘So is everything OK?’ Mrs Harris asked anxiously.
‘I’m happy with how you’re doing,’ Ruby said, ‘but we do have a tiny complication, in that your little one is quite happy being bottom-down rather than top-down. So I just want a quick chat with the doctor to talk through your options for the birth.’
Mrs Harris bit her lip. ‘So the baby’s in the wrong position?’
‘Bottom-first rather than head-first—it’s called being a breech baby,’ Ruby explained. ‘It’s a really common position in early pregnancy, but the baby usually turns by itself into the head-first position before birth. Your baby hasn’t turned yet, that’s all.’
‘Does it mean there’s something wrong with the baby?’ Mrs Harris asked.
‘No. It happens with about three in a hundred babies, and there are all kinds of reasons for it, some of them being plain baby awkwardness because they want to do things their way rather than follow their mum’s birth plan,’ Ruby reassured her. ‘I’ll just go and get Dr Webster, and then we can talk it through with him.’ She squeezed Mrs Harris’s hand. ‘Try not to worry. There are a few things we can do to persuade the baby to turn.’ She smiled, and went to find Ellis in his office.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him. Ellis was wearing a charcoal grey suit, a white shirt and an understated tie rather than green Theatre scrubs, and he looked utterly gorgeous. He wouldn’t have looked out of place on the pages of a glossy magazine as a model for an upmarket perfume house.
And she needed to stop herself thinking like this. Ellis was her friend and her colleague. Asking for more was just greedy.
She tapped on the open door and leaned against the jamb. ‘Hey, Ellis. Can I borrow you for a second?’
He looked up and smiled at her, and her heart skipped another beat.
‘Sure. Problem?’ he asked.
‘Complication,’ she said. ‘I have a first-time mum who’s thirty-seven weeks. Her baby’s quite happily settled in the breech position. I know her birth plan is firmly centred round a natural birth with no intervention.’ And she also knew that a lot of doctors would take one look at Mrs Harris’s situation and immediately insist on a caesarean section. Given Ellis’s experience outside the hospital, Ruby really hoped that he’d take a different tack and give Mrs Harris a chance to have the birth she really wanted. ‘So I wondered if you’d mind coming and chatting through her options for the birth,’ she finished.
‘Of course I will. You did warn her that babies never respect their mum’s birth plans, didn’t you?’
She smiled back. ‘I always do.’
‘So what are you thinking?’
‘We’ll start with an ECV to see if we can get the baby to turn,’ Ruby said. ‘But, if it doesn’t work, I’m hoping that I can talk one of the obstetricians—’ she gave him a pointed look so he’d know she meant him ‘—into agreeing to a trial of labour for a vaginal breech delivery.’
‘I think we’ve only had a couple on the ward since I’ve been here, and I wasn’t on duty at the time,’ Ellis said. ‘Are the doctors here not supportive of vaginal breech births?’
‘Theo’s wonderful,’ Ruby said. Theo Petrakis, the director of the maternity ward at the London Victoria, believed in supporting his midwives and keeping intervention to a minimum. ‘But, as you say, it’s not that common—and I need someone who’s had a reasonable amount of experience in delivering breech babies.’
‘Which is why you’re talking to me?’
She gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Got it in one.’
‘She’s a first-time mum, so we have no guarantee that her pelvis is big enough to cope.’ Ellis looked thoughtful. ‘OK. If ECV doesn’t work then—on condition the baby’s not too big or small, the baby’s head isn’t tilted back and I’m happy that the mum’s pelvis is going to cope—I’ll support you and you can call me in, even if I’m not on duty when she goes into labour. But in return I need a favour from you.’
Ruby’s heart skipped yet another beat. What was he going to ask for?
A kiss?
She shook herself mentally. How ridiculous. She really had to stop fantasising about Ellis. This was totally inappropriate. They were at work, and she needed to keep her professionalism to the forefront. ‘Sure. What do you want?’
‘I’d like you to talk your mum into letting a couple of the junior staff observe their first ever breech birth. One midwife, one doctor.’
‘Great minds think alike. I was going to ask you if there was anyone you wanted to come and observe.’ And she really liked the fact that he’d thought of the midwifery team, too, not just the obstetricians. She smiled. ‘I want to reassure Mrs Harris that we’ll try our best to help give her the birth experience she really wants, but I’ll make it clear that if the baby’s in distress at any point then we might need to give her a section, so she needs to be prepared for that to happen.’
‘Which is again where I’d come in,’ Ellis said.
‘Just flutter those disgustingly long eyelashes at her. Actually, on second thoughts, perhaps you’d better not,’ she said. ‘You already look more like a movie star than a doctor.’
‘Very funny, Rubes,’ Ellis said, but he didn’t look the slightest bit offended.
Which was another reason why she should put this whole thing out of her head. If she made an approach to Ellis and he turned her down…Even though she knew he’d be kind about it, it would still put a strain on their friendship. On their working relationship. And Ruby didn’t want to take the risk of wrecking either of them.
Maybe it was just loneliness making her feel this way, and she should take Tina up on her offer of setting her up with the new registrar on the Neurology ward.
‘Penny for them?’ Ellis asked.
No way was she going to tell Ellis what she was thinking about. ‘Just my first-time mum,’ she said with a smile. It was true; it just wasn’t the whole truth.
Back in the examination room, she introduced Ellis. ‘Mrs Harris, this is Dr Ellis Webster, one of our registrars. Ellis, this is Mrs Harris. She’s a first-time mum, the baby’s thirty-seven weeks, and the baby’s quite happy in the breech position.’
‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Harris.’ Ellis shook her hand and smiled at her. ‘Ruby tells me that you’d like as natural a birth as possible.’
‘I definitely don’t want an epidural. I want to manage with gas and air,’ Mrs Harris said. ‘And I really didn’t want to have a section.’ She bit her lip. ‘But, because the baby’s lying the wrong way, does that mean I have to have a section?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Ellis said, ‘but it might be possible for you to have a vaginal delivery. With the baby being breech, it means that the head—which is the biggest part of the baby—is the last bit to be delivered, so it’s a little bit more complicated. May I examine you?’
