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Fairytale on the Children's Ward
Meredith Webber
Emily dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek. ‘Isn’t it fun having Dad around?’ she whispered, and suddenly Clare’s spring of happiness wasn’t bubbling quite as high.
She knew it wasn’t jealousy she was feeling, but disappointment of some kind—disappointment that the life she’d been providing for her daughter hadn’t measured up…
‘You need my pearls—the ones Gran gave me,’ Emily declared as she inspected her mother for the last time. ‘Wait here.’
She ran off to her bedroom and returned with the pearls that had been her great-grandmother’s, making her mother sit on the bed so she, Emily, could fasten them.
‘There,’ she said, ‘you’re beautiful. Dad will surely want to marry you now.’
Clare knew the words were nothing more than childish enthusiasm, but once again the joy of the morning dimmed, and despair wormed its way into her heart.
How could she resist if it became a matter of two against one?
CHRISTMAS AT JIMMIE’S
At Jimmie’s Children’s Unit, miracles don’t just
happen at Christmas time—babies are saved every day!
But this year there are two children
with some big wishes for Santa…
BACHELOR OF THE BABY WARD
—little Hamish McDowell wants a new mummy…
FAIRYTALE ON THE CHILDREN’S WARD
—all Emily Jackson longs for
is to see her mum and dad reunited…
Will Hamish and Emilyget the greatest Christmas gifts of all?
Find out in Meredith Webber’s heartwarming
linked duet, out this month!
Fairytale
on the
Children’s Ward
Meredith Webber
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Chapter One (#u23306828-edd3-5801-a88c-868804147131)
Chapter Two (#ud87cfe45-c7e3-50f3-8129-e4564dddacb3)
Chapter Three (#u5d5b81f0-044a-5ebb-a503-c833e409c177)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Meredith Webber says of herself, ‘Some ten years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new Medical™ Romance authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’
CHAPTER ONE
OLIVER RANKIN hated being late. He was a man who believed there were no acceptable excuses for it, and condemned the rudeness of it. But he was undoubtedly running late, due mainly to car trouble on his drive from Melbourne to Sydney—trouble that had delayed him twenty-four hours while a part was sent, apparently by camel train, from Melbourne to the Victorian border.
Then there was Sydney peak-hour traffic—un believable!
Eventually, however, the latest fellow appointed to Alex Attwood’s paediatric cardiac surgical team pulled into the parking lot at St James Hospital for Children, abandoned his car in a board-members-only parking spot and raced into the building.
Fortunately he’d spent a month with the team earlier in the year so he knew where to go, but he still only made the meeting with a couple of seconds to spare.
Relief swamped him!
Until—
The world whirled before his eyes. Low blood pressure—all the rushing…
He dropped into a chair as Alex introduced him to Angus, the new surgeon on the team, and reminded him he’d already met Kate. Then he closed his eyes, and opened them again.
Carefully.
The apparition had come right into the room, later than he was.
A totally beautiful, totally mind-blowing apparition…
‘And this is Clare Jackson, our new perfusionist,’ Oliver heard Alex say. ‘I’m more delighted than I can tell you to welcome Clare to our team as she trained in the US at the same hospital as Theo, and the oldies on the team will know how good he was.’
Oliver battled to sort out the disbelief in his head, to actually accept that the woman who still, from time to time, haunted his dreams was right here in this room.
Impossible!
Except it wasn’t! There she was, head tilted towards Alex, so he saw her in profile, and caught the long line of her neck—the neck he’d loved to—
Clare Jackson?
He’d had the list of team members’ names for a couple of weeks, but as she’d shown up on that as C. Jackson and most perfusionists he’d worked with had been males, he hadn’t given a thought to the coincidence of surnames.
Alex was talking, but the words didn’t penetrate Oliver’s brain. Not only was Clare right here in this room, but apparently she was a team member. He’d be working with her.
She was a perfusionist?
From actress to lifesaving medical equipment expert in ten short years?
‘Clare!’ he’d managed to blurt out when they’d been introduced.
She’d nodded, lustrous dark hair swirling around her head, brown eyes half hooded, long eyelashes hiding any emotion those eyes might reveal at this unexpected reunion.
‘Oliver,’ she’d said, her voice still so familiar a tremor of excitement had shaken his body.
He tried to concentrate on Alex’s introductions to the rest of the team, but how could he? He snuck a glance at Clare, and was annoyed to see that she seemed totally unfazed by this incredible coincidence.
* * *
Clare held her body very still, glad she’d learned how to do this years ago—back when she was a drama student at university, back when she’d first met Oliver.
Besides, if she held her body very still it might not fall apart, which was what it was threatening to do any moment.
Her body and her mind!
That he should be here—on the same team—was so unbelievable she had to wonder if it was some giant conspiracy of the Fates. Of course, even ten years ago, Oliver had been headed for a paediatric specialty, but he’d never mentioned surgery.
Whatever, it was indisputably Oliver sitting on the other side of the room, ignoring her in the politest possible way. Although what could he have said?
Long time, no see?
Not for Oliver the trite phrase, nor even idle conversation. The problem was that eventually the meeting would end and they would have to leave the room and some kind of conversation would obviously have to take place!
He’d come to claim Emily!
Nausea roiled in her stomach as the thought struck like the flick of a whip, but common sense prevailed. He’d obviously been as shocked to see her as she was to see him, and if he’d wanted his child surely he’d have got in touch back when she’d told him about the pregnancy.
Or in the intervening years?
And the fact that he hadn’t—that he obviously didn’t want to know his daughter—hardened her heart against him once again.
She could handle this! She could handle anything!
Easy to think, harder to do. Fear for her daughter fluttered in her heart, fear for Em’s emotional stability.
Her mind ran wild.
Now he was here, wouldn’t he want to see his daughter—to get to know her?
And if he still refused to acknowledge her, how would that affect Em?
Thinking about her daughter opened up a void so deep and black Clare felt as if she was teetering on a precipice, about to be plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Yet how could she not think of Emily, not put her first?
She’d have to talk to Oliver, find out what he wanted and whether Emily was part of it. Then she—perhaps they—could work out how to get father and daughter together—or not—with the least possible upheaval in Emily’s life.
She sneaked another glance at the man causing such havoc in her mind, and this time felt her heart turn over. Silver threads had infiltrated his sandy hair at both temples, lending him an air of distinction, but Oliver had always been a distinguished-looking man—tall, lean, tanned, with dark brows above those startling pale green eyes. In profile slightly hawkish, the long thin nose tipped down just slightly at the end.
Pointing to his lips?
That had been a stupid fantasy of hers in her youth, for Oliver Rankin had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen, on a man or woman.
Oliver!
Huge inward sigh!
She tried to concentrate on Alex’s words, but her mind was way back in the past.
With Oliver…
How had things gone so disastrously wrong between them? How had she been stupid enough to walk out on him?
Because he didn’t want the child you yearned for, she reminded herself. Didn’t want a child at all and definitely not right then for all it would have been an ideal time as far as you were concerned. But part of the stupidity had been thinking he’d come after you, and that somehow the two of you could have patched things up.
That hadn’t happened!
She’d spent a miserable Christmas at home on the farm with her family, then the realisation had dawned that, wanted or not, she was going to have a baby.
Tentative delight…
Quickly quelled at the thought of Oliver’s reaction.
Which hadn’t come!
Unable to contact him by phone or email, she’d finally written, but when he hadn’t answered her letters—had ignored her unexpected news—she’d decided she’d have to forget all about him, which, she’d admitted to herself even then, was easier said than done. Until the diagnosis of her father’s illness had turned her family’s life upside down and concern and grief for him had swamped the pain of losing Oliver. Then, within weeks of Em’s birth, life had changed so irrevocably Oliver had been the last person she’d been thinking of.
No, that was wrong. She’d longed for him—for his presence, his support, to have him there to share her dread and fear.…
And not having him, she’d turned to the man who was there—
