Praise for Caroline Anderson:

‘From one of category romance’s most accomplished voices comes a beautifully told, intensely emotional and wonderfully uplifting tale of second chances, new beginnings, hope, triumph and everlasting love. Caroline Anderson’s Wedding of the Year is an engrossing, enthralling and highly enjoyable tale that will move you to tears and keep you riveted from the first page until the very last sentence. Moving, heartbreaking and absolutely fantastic, with Wedding of the Year Caroline Anderson is at her mesmerising best!’ —www.cataromance.com on St Piran’s: Wedding of the Year

‘Photojournalist Maisie Douglas and businessman Robert Mackenzie have been more or less amicably divorced for almost two decades, but the upcoming marriage of their daughter, Jenni, stirs up old emotions on both sides. Very young when she married him, Maisie—pregnant and disowned by her family—was miserable living in Scotland with Rob’s judgmental parents, and left after little more than a year. Maisie hasn’t found another partner and neither has rob. Can they find a way to trust each other again, after all this time? This lovely reunion romance is rich with emotion and humour, and all of the characters are exquisitely rendered.’

—RT Book Reviews on Mother of the Bride

About the Author

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft furnishing business, and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband John and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!’ Caroline also writes for the Mills & Boon® Cherish™ series.

Recent titles by Caroline Anderson: Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™

THE SECRET IN HIS HEART

FROM CHRISTMAS TO ETERNITY

THE FIANCÉE HE CAN’T FORGET

TEMPTED BY DR DAISY

ST PIRAN’S: THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR* THE SURGEON’S MIRACLE *ST PIRAN’S HOSPITAL

MILLS & BOON® CHERISH™ THE VALTIERI BABY VALTIERI’S BRIDE THE BABY SWAP MIRACLE MOTHER OF THE BRIDE

A Mother
by Nature
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

HE STOOD in the bay window, his eyes scanning the dimly lit street with quiet contentment. It was a pleasant street, the large houses set back from the road and shielded from prying eyes by an avenue of old flowering cherries.

Their branches swayed in the wind, leafless still, the whispered promise of spring barely showing in the brave shoots of daffodils nudging the earth under the garden wall, but the signs were there, and he guessed it would be glorious when the trees blossomed.

A movement in the house opposite caught his attention, and he focused on it. There were lights on downstairs, and he could see people moving about, settling down for the evening.

His house was settled already, silent now except for the running footsteps on the stairs. They ground to a halt by the door.

‘Adam? I’m going out now, OK?’

He looked towards the disembodied, slightly accented voice with resignation. ‘OK. What time will you be back?’ he asked, without any real hope that he would like the answer. He was right. He didn’t.

‘Late,’ she said. ‘I’m going to the pub again—maybe meet my new friends. I’ve got my keys.’

‘OK. Goodnight, Helle.’

The front door slammed behind her, echoing through the house and making the windows rattle. Her feet crunched against the gravel of the drive, and she slipped through the gateway and disappeared, swallowed up by the eerie night. Adam dropped his head back against the edge of the window and let out a quiet sigh.

He was tired. It had been a hectic week. The move had taken three days, and he’d spent the next four unpacking and slotting things into their new places while the children had got under his feet and rushed about excitedly and Helle had done the bare minimum. The big Edwardian semi still seemed empty, the huge rooms swallowing up their meagre possessions with ease, but given time he could decorate all the rooms and buy more furniture to fill them.

It was a daunting thought, but there was no hurry, and just for now they were enjoying the novelty of having too much room. After nearly three years of battling for elbow room and falling over toys and clutter, it was wonderful to have the space to spread out.

Skye had her own bedroom for the first time, the boys’ room was big enough to have a separate area for each of them, and Helle, their Danish au pair, had a room on the top floor, a huge room with a little shower off it next to the spare bedroom that would double as his study. That gave her privacy, and he had privacy and space of his own in the master bedroom suite at the front—most particularly space.

The size of his bedroom was the only incongruous thing. Like Helle’s room above him, it ran across the full width of the front of the house, excluding the bathroom at the end, absurdly big compared to the middle bedroom he’d had at the other house and somehow highlighting his loneliness in a way which that cluttered little room had never done.

He dropped into a chair and closed his eyes, suddenly weary, and wondered how the children and Helle would cope without him tomorrow, his first day in his new job. How would he cope, come to that? It was not only a new job, but his first consultancy, and he felt a little rush of adrenaline at the thought. Nerves?

Absurd, Adam told himself. He was more than capable of doing it, more than ready for the responsibility and the challenge. It was just that with the move to a new area and a new house, a new school for Skye and Danny and a new nursery school for Jaz, there was so much change, so much to deal with.

Someone to share it with would have made it all so much easier, he thought with an inward sigh, but that hadn’t been an option. And Helle had been more of a hindrance than a help since they’d moved. She’d been unhappy before, restless and discontented, and now, since they’d moved, she’d seemed permanently attached to the cordless phone, drifting aimlessly around and talking into it in Danish whenever she thought he wasn’t listening. Phoning home? Lord alone knows what the phone bill will be, he thought grimly.

He had a feeling his au pair was destined for a fairly imminent departure, which would mean replacing her and settling the new girl in with the children while coping with the new job and trying to sort out the house.

That in itself would be no mean feat. They’d only been able to afford it because it needed to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged, kicking and screaming, into the next century. The plumbing was ancient and suspect, the heating was intermittent and unreliable, the wiring was safe but woefully inadequate, and there wasn’t a single room that didn’t need decorating and a new carpet and curtains.

Even on his new consultant’s salary he couldn’t afford to deal with it all at once, and he certainly couldn’t afford to pay anyone to do it for him. Catapulting restlessly out of the chair, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine. His eyes scanned the room without the benefit of his earlier rose-tinted spectacles, and the enormity of what he’d taken on swamped him.

It was the little things—the cupboard door that hung at a crazy angle because the top hinge had gone, the worktop that had a hole burned in it next to the cooker, the cracked and broken tiles, the broken sash cord that dangled from the window, taunting him.

How many others were on the point of breaking? What else was wrong that he hadn’t noticed or worried about on the building society’s huge and extensive survey report? OK, structurally it was sound, but everything he looked at seemed to need some attention. The loo off the hall needed to have its door rehung because it smashed into the basin behind it if you opened it more than halfway, the fireplace in the dining room needed to be opened up and revealed—the list was endless.

Endless, but cosmetic. Nothing time wouldn’t cure. Once he’d had time to deal with it, it would be warm and light and a wonderful family home.

One day.

Adam went back to the drawing room, threw another shovel full of coal on the fire, put on a CD and settled down in the chair with his eyes firmly shut against the list of chores awaiting him in that room.

He didn’t want to see the crack across the corner of the ceiling, the wallpaper easing off the wall just below it, the chipped paint on the skirting board, the worn and frayed carpet begging to be replaced.

There would be time for that later, once they were settled. In the meantime, he’d relax and try and get himself into the right frame of mind for tomorrow, and try not to think about Helle and the fact that she would probably disturb him coming back in the wee small hours of the night, doubtless utterly wasted after her evening in the pub, and would be hell to get up in the morning in time to get the children ready for school. Which meant he’d have to do it, yet again.

He put it out of his mind. He’d deal with tomorrow when it came. One day at a time, he reminded himself. It had got him through the last two years since Lyn had left. It would get him through the next twenty.

Please, God …

Damn. He was going to be late. His first day in his new job and he was going to be late.

‘Daddy, I can’t find my shoes …’

‘Try under your coat on the floor in the dining room where you threw it last night. Jasper, eat your breakfast, please.’

‘Don’t like cornflakes.’

‘You did yesterday. Danny, have you found your shoes yet?’

A mumble came from the dining room. It could just conceivably have been a yes. Then again …

Adam rammed his hands through his short, dark hair and stared at the ceiling. Where was Helle? He’d called her three times.

‘Do we have to go to school? I hate it there. I want to go back to my old school.’

Adam met Skye’s sad blue eyes, old beyond her almost six years, and wished he could hug her and make her better. He’d given up trying. She simply stood and let him hold her, then walked away as soon as he let go. The social worker had said give her time, but it had been nearly three years now, and although she was better, she was still light years from emotional security.

And Lyn walking out on them hadn’t helped one damn bit.

‘Yes, darling, you do have to go,’ he told her gently. ‘You know that. I know it’s hard at first, but you’ll soon settle in and it’ll be much better for us here near Grannie and Grandpa. You’ll like seeing more of them, won’t you?’

She shrugged noncommittally, and he stifled a sigh and went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Helle?’ he yelled, and then remembered the neighbours through the party wall. Damn. At least the last house had been detached. Still, the people next door hadn’t complained about their new neighbours yet, and the teenage girls had been round already to introduce themselves and offer their services for babysitting.

If Helle didn’t get out of bed soon, he might have to take them up on it!

For what seemed like the millionth time, he wondered if he’d been quite mad to continue with the adoption when Lyn had left him. Maybe he should have let the kids go back instead of fighting to keep them. Maybe they would have been better off without him, with someone else instead. Two someones, preferably.

Then Danny wandered out into the hall, tie crooked, shoes untied, hair spiking on top of his head and a grin to gladden the loneliest heart, and he reached out and hugged the boy to his side as they went together back into the kitchen.

‘Look—I made you a card at school.’

He handed Adam a crumpled bit of sugar paper with spider writing on it, pencil on dark grey, almost impossible to decipher and yet the message quite clear. ‘I love you, Daddy. From Danny.’ There was a picture stuck on the front, of a house with a wonky chimney and a red front door just like theirs. Swallowing hard to shift the lump in his throat, he thanked Danny and stuck the card on the front of the fridge with a magnet.

Skye, ever the mother, was coaxing Jasper to eat his now soggy cereal, and she looked up and gave Adam that steady, serious look that made him want to weep for her. ‘Is Helle coming?’ she asked, and he shook his head.

‘I’m going to have to get her up,’ he told them. ‘I have to leave you guys and go to work, and I can’t be late. Not today.’

‘Are you scared?’ Jasper asked, eyeing him curiously.

‘Don’t be stupid—course he’s not!’ Danny said patronisingly.

He sat down. ‘Well, maybe a bit,’ he confessed. ‘Not scared exactly, but it’s never easy to meet new people and settle into a new place. It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young, it’s still a bit difficult at first.’

‘Even for you?’ Danny asked in amazement, gazing up at his hero with eyes like saucers.

He grinned and ruffled the spiky brown hair. ‘Even for me, sport.’

‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see,’ Skye said seriously, neatly reversing their roles, and he felt a lump in his throat again.

No. Whatever chaos and drama they’d brought to his life, he couldn’t imagine that life without them now. They belonged to each other, for better, for worse, and so on. They were a family and, like all families, they had good times and bad times.

Mostly they were good, but if Helle didn’t get up soon, he had a feeling that today was going to be a bad one …

Anna was feeling blue. She’d woken that morning wondering what it was all about, and two hours later she was still no nearer the answer. Wake up, get up, eat, go to work, go home, eat, go to bed, wake up—relentless routine, day after day, with nothing to brighten it.

Was she just desperately ungrateful? She had a roof over her head—more than a roof, really, a lovely little house that she enjoyed and was proud of—great friends, and a wonderful job that she wouldn’t change for the world—except that this morning, for the first time she could remember, she really, really didn’t want to be here.

So what was the matter with her?

Stupid question. Anna knew perfectly well what was wrong with her. She was alone. She was twenty-eight years old, and she was alone, and she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be married, and have children—lots of them—one after the other. Children of her own, not other people’s little darlings but her own babies, conceived in love, nurtured by her body, raised by her and a man with dark hair and gentle eyes and a slow, sexy smile—a man she’d yet to meet.

Would never meet, she thought in frustration, if her life carried on as it was. Her biological clock was going to grind to a halt before then at this rate.

Oh, damn.

She pushed her chair back and stood up, her eyes automatically scanning the ward, and stopped dead as a jolt of recognition shot through her.

It was him. Dark hair, cut short but still long enough to have that sexy, unruly look that did funny things to her insides. Tallish, but not too tall, his shoulders broad enough to lean on but not wide enough to intimidate, he looked like a man you could rely on.

Her eyes scanned him, taking inventory. Lean hips. Firm chin and beautifully sculptured mouth. Eyebrows a dark slash across his forehead, mobile and expressive. A smile like quicksilver. He’d paused to chat to a child, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his white coat, and the child was grinning and pointing towards her.

He was good-looking, certainly, but it wasn’t really his looks that made him stand out so much as his presence. There was something about him, she thought as he straightened and turned towards her, something immensely strong and powerful and yet kind—endlessly, deeply kind, the sort of enduring kindness that made sacrifices and didn’t count the cost.

She’d never seen him before, but her body recognised him, every cell on full alert.

He started towards her with a smile, and their eyes locked, and out of the blue, she thought, At last …!

‘Sister Long?’ he said, although he knew quite well who she was, if the badge on her tabard was to be believed.

‘Anna,’ she corrected, looking up at him with startling green eyes, and he felt a shiver of sexual awareness which had lain dormant for so long it was almost shocking. A wisp of dark red hair had escaped from her neat bob and was falling forward over her face, and he had to restrain himself from lifting it with his fingers and tucking it back behind her ear. She smiled and held out her hand, slim and firm and purposeful. ‘You must be our new paediatric orthopaedic consultant—Mr Bradbury, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘Adam,’ he said, and his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. ‘Adam Bradbury. Good to meet you. Have you got time for a chat? My department seem to have organised things so that I’m at a total loose end today, so I thought I’d spend it orienteering.’

She chuckled, a low, sexy chuckle that made his hair stand on end and everything else jump to attention. ‘Sure. Come into the kitchen, I’ll make coffee.’

He followed her, his eyes involuntarily tracking over the neat waist, the gentle swell of her hips, the womanly sway as she pushed the door out of the way and turned to hold it for him, flashing him a smile with those incredibly expressive eyes.

She spoke, but his body was clamouring so loud he didn’t hear her.

‘I’m sorry?’

She gave him a quizzical smile. ‘I said, tea or coffee?’

‘Oh—tea, thank you,’ he said, trying to concentrate on something other than her warm, soft mouth. ‘It’s a bit early for coffee.’

‘Well, there’s a thing. A fellow tea-drinker. Everyone else dives straight for the coffee.’ The smiled softened, lighting up her changeable green eyes and bringing out the gold flecks.

Not green at all, he realised, but blue and gold, fascinating eyes, beautiful eyes.

Bedroom eyes.

Oh, lord.

He stuffed his hands back into his coat pockets and angled them across his body as a shield. He had to work with her. He really, really didn’t need the embarrassment of an adolescent reaction!

Anna took him on a guided tour while the kettle boiled. She was glad to get out of the tiny kitchen, to be honest, the current running between them seemed so powerful. Not that he’d really given her any hint that he was interested, but there just seemed to be something that hummed along under the surface.

‘We’ve got twenty-one beds,’ she told Adam, walking down the ward towards the orthopaedic section, his area of special interest. ‘Six acute medical, six surgical, six orthopaedic and three single or family suites for more critical or noisy or infectious patients. We’ve got an isolation ward for barrier nursing or immuno-compromised patients—that’s another single, but I don’t tend to count it. It’s the only room that doesn’t get stolen for other things.’

‘Stolen?’ he said with a slow smile.

Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yes, of course—the lines get blurred and we end up with kids muddled up in the wrong place because of numbers, which drives the bed manager potty and the consultants come to blows over who has which bed for which child.’

His mouth kicked up in a crooked smile of appreciation, and her heart flip-flopped in her chest. Concentrate, she told herself sternly.

‘We keep the age groups together if we can—the long-stay older kids are the worst, as you might imagine, and the teenagers in traction are a nightmare.’

‘Well, there’s a thing,’ he murmured. ‘You could always put any really difficult kids in the Stryker bed for a little while just to get a taste of real deprivation of liberty.’

‘What, like throwing prisoners of war into the cooler? What a fascinating thought …!’

He laughed, and she thought her knees were going to give way. He’s probably married with a million children, she chided herself crossly, and told herself to mind her own business.

‘Have you moved far?’ she asked as they walked down the ward, her insatiable curiosity getting the better of her anyway.

‘About a hundred and fifty miles or so. I was in Oxford.’

‘Oxford? How lovely. How will you cope with the rural isolation of Audley?’ she asked with a laugh, and then her mouth, running on without her permission, added, ‘Doesn’t your wife mind?’

‘She might if I had one, but I don’t,’ Adam said lightly.

‘That must make it easier,’ she replied, trying not to smile with delight because he was free, but his next words took the wind right out of her sails.

‘Not really,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got three children under six and a Danish au pair with attitude, and we’ve bought a huge Edwardian house that needs every nook and cranny kicked into shape. Easier it’s not, but I like a challenge.’

She ground to a halt outside the playroom, and turned towards him, guilt prickling her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sincerely. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’

‘You’re not intruding,’ he said with a gentle smile that reassured her slightly. ‘I’m just feeling a little overawed by what I’ve taken on. How about you? Are you married? Single, widowed, divorced, or other, please specify?’

Anna laughed, relief flooding through her at his light-hearted tone. ‘Single,’ she replied. Endlessly. Regrettably.

She never found out what he would have said next, because the playroom door flew open and a child came barrelling through it full pelt and nearly knocked her over. Her hand flew out and grabbed him by the shoulder, steadying him, and she looked down into his sparkling, mischievous eyes and shook her head.

‘You’ll never learn, Karl, will you?’

He grinned. ‘Sorry, Sister. I was in a hurry.’

‘I noticed. That was how this happened in the first place, wasn’t it? Too much of a hurry?’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You’re going to hurt someone with that cast in a minute as well. Do me a favour and go and sit down and do something quiet. You’ll be going up to Theatre later this morning, and you really could do with being calm beforehand.’

‘Perhaps Karl should be our first experiment with the Stryker bed?’ Adam said softly under his breath.

‘What a good idea,’ Anna murmured, eyeing young Karl thoughtfully.

He looked from one to the other, not sure what they were talking about but obviously edgy. ‘What’s a—whatever you said sort of bed?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘You lie in it like the filling in a sandwich, and it turns over from time to time. It’s for keeping people with certain conditions like spinal injuries very still.’

‘Or settling down overactive youngsters,’ Adam added with a smile that belied his words.

‘You’re winding me up,’ Karl said, still not quite sure, and Anna laughed and ruffled his hair.

‘You got it. Go and find something quiet to do, there’s a good lad, and I’ll come and give you your pre-med later.’

He shot off, clearly relieved, and with a smile they headed back towards the kitchen. ‘He’s got a nonunion of the radius after a nasty fracture. They just can’t get it to heal, so they’re going to sort him out in Theatre this morning and probably pack it and plate it. I’m not sure if they’ve decided exactly what they’re doing.’

‘Who’s doing it?’ he asked.

‘Robert Ryder. Have you met him yet?’

Adam shook his head. ‘No. Perhaps I’ll track him down, see if I can observe. Might be interesting.’

‘I’m sure he won’t mind, he’s very approachable. How about that tea now?’ she added as they arrived back at the nursing station by her office. But then the phone rang and it was A and E to say that there was a patient on the way up, a frequent visitor who had suffered yet another serious asthma attack and was now stable but needing observation.

‘Can you hang on?’ she asked him, explaining the case briefly to him. ‘I really need to see to this child, he’s a regular. Or you could help yourself to tea. You’re more than welcome.’

‘I’ll pass. I’ll go and meet the rest of the paediatric team about the hospital, and make a nuisance of myself elsewhere. I might go into the orthopaedic theatres and have a nose around, introduce myself to Ryder and see if I can observe Karl’s op, as I said.’

She felt a pang of what could only have been regret. ‘OK. Maybe next time,’ she suggested, and could have kicked herself for sounding like a breathless virgin. Ridiculous. She was too busy to have tea with him anyway! ‘Have a good day,’ she added with a smile.

‘I’m sure I will—and thanks for the guided tour. I’ll see you tomorrow, no doubt.’

Anna watched him go out of the corner of her eye as she scanned the ward for the most suitable place to put young Toby Cardew, and she suddenly realised that she was looking forward to the next day for the first time in ages.

Gone were the blues she’d felt that morning, replaced by a shiver of anticipation. Adam was apparently unencumbered by a wife, the fact that he had children already was hardly a turn-off to a paediatric nurse and, anyway, the more the merrier.

You’re getting ahead of yourself, she cautioned as she went to sort out a bed for Toby. Just because you think he’s attractive and he asked about your marital status, that doesn’t mean it will go any further—and, anyway, he might have terrible habits. Why did his wife leave him?

She might have died. Perhaps he’s suffering from intractable grief, her alter ego suggested.

Funny. He didn’t look like a man suffering from intractable grief. He just looked tired round the eyes, and, if she hadn’t been mistaken, he’d been interested in her. She hadn’t been mistaken. She knew that look. She’d had plenty of practice at intercepting it over the years.

Too many years, too many times, too many near-misses. The trouble was, the older she got the more likely that the men of her age would be already settled in a permanent relationship—at least, the ones worth having!

Maybe this was one time when she wouldn’t have to fend the man off. Maybe this time the advances, when and if they came, would be welcome. Goodness knows, it’s about time, she thought.

‘Who was that?’

Anna looked round at Allie Baker, her staff nurse and second in command, and wagged a finger.

‘You’ve got one of your own,’ she told her friend.

Allie grinned. ‘I know, and I wouldn’t swap him for the world. I just thought whoever that was was rather gorgeous. So who is he?’

‘Adam Bradbury, our new paediatric orthopaedic surgeon.’

‘I didn’t know we had an old one.’

‘We haven’t,’ Anna replied with a smile, checking forms on the clipboard at the end of the vacant bed. ‘It’s a new post. He’s going to be doing developmental problems and post-traumatic reconstruction, that sort of thing, as well as working with the oncologists on bone cancers and the neurologists on spina bifida and so on. I gather he’s rather clever.’

Allie grinned. ‘And he’s got your name on him.’

Anna smiled self-consciously. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. He’s got three kids and no wife.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Allie looked at her in horror. ‘Three kids?’

Anna shrugged. ‘I like kids.’

‘You’d have to, working with them all day and going home to them at night. Maybe they’re teenagers and nearly off his hands. Maybe they live some of the time with his wife.’

Anna laughed and pushed Allie out of the way gently. ‘I’ll tell you if I ever get a chance to find out. In the meantime, I’ve got things to do and you’re holding me up. Toby Cardew’s coming back.’

Allie rolled her eyes. ‘Not again? Whatever this time?’

‘I have no idea. This attack was quite severe, I gather. His parents are going potty trying to find the trigger. Their house must be so clean! Mrs Cardew spends hours a day mopping it down.’

‘Maybe it’s not the house. Maybe it’s school, or something on the journey, or a kid he sits next to?’

‘They’ve addressed all that. Maybe one day it will fall into place—it’s probably something really obvious that they’ve overlooked.’

The squeak of the A and E trolley alerted them to the new arrival, and Anna went to greet him. ‘Hello again, young man,’ she said with a smile of welcome, and patted his hand reassuringly. ‘Can’t stay away, can you? Must be our wit and charm that keeps you coming back.’

The boy gave a weak grin, and his mother shot Anna a tired, slightly desperate smile. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance,’ she apologised, but Anna brushed her words aside.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said briskly. ‘That’s why we’re here, and we’re always pleased to see a familiar face. Right, let’s have you in bed and make you comfortable, shall we?’

They quickly shifted young Toby across onto the bed and settled him, then left him to rest. Allie made Mrs Cardew a cup of coffee, Anna went to give Karl his pre-med and it only seemed like five minutes before the boy was back from Theatre, his arm cast in a back slab to allow for swelling and with the hand raised.

He wouldn’t be running around for a few days at least, Anna thought, and wondered if Adam had observed the operation. No doubt she’d find out tomorrow.

A tiny surge of what felt like adrenaline ran through her, and she caught herself looking at her watch and counting the hours until she’d see him again …

CHAPTER TWO

ADAM was due to start the day with a clinic, followed by a ward round to meet the new admissions on whom he’d operate that afternoon. He’d gone back to the ward and checked the notes yesterday evening, and had been foolishly disappointed to find that Anna had gone.

Pity. He’d wanted to tell her about his part in Karl’s operation, and discuss what they’d done.

Strictly business, of course. Still, he’d see her today.

That lock of hair that kept falling forward and curving round her cheek was plaguing him. He’d been having fantasies about it all night—which was crazy because he always had fantasies about dark hair spread across his pillow in a fan, and hers was short and red. Dark red, admittedly, but red for all that, and far too short to fan satisfactorily.

Still, he wondered how it would feel sifting through his fingers …

Like silk. It was soft, heavy hair, essentially straight, with just enough bounce to curve under and curl around the pale pearly shell of her ear …

Damn.

He scooped the post off the floor in the lobby and scanned through it, grinding to a halt at the telephone bill. It was the final bill for the old house, and it took his mind off Anna and her attributes very effectively.

He opened it with grim resignation, but even his wildest expectations were exceeded by its stunning proportions. Helle must truly have spent all day, every day, on the phone to her family and friends in Denmark.

He shook his head in despair, and ran upstairs to her room, rapping loudly on the door. ‘Helle? Get up now. I want to talk to you immediately.’

There was a shuffling noise, and the door opened to reveal his hapless young au pair, her hair on end, her eyes blurred with sleep, dragging on a dressing-gown.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, looking puzzled.

‘This is the matter,’ Adam said tightly, brandishing the thing under her nose. ‘The telephone bill. It runs into four figures, Helle, and it’s not even a complete quarter. I want you downstairs dressed in five minutes, and you’d better have a damn good explanation or you’ll be packing your bags and catching the next flight home.’

‘Good,’ she said miserably, and burst into tears. ‘I want to go home. I hate it here.’

You’re a sucker, he told himself as he opened his arms and comforted the young woman while she cried. She was little more than a child herself, and it was a lot of responsibility. He should have talked to her more, been kinder to her, instead of expecting so much.

‘Come downstairs,’ he said more gently, easing her out of his arms. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea and talk about it before the children get up.’

She nodded and sniffed, scrubbing her nose on the sleeve of her dressing-gown. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

‘Good idea.’

He ran back down, put the kettle on and glanced at his watch. It was still only six-thirty, and he wondered if Anna was up yet or if she worked nine to five to cover admissions and pre- and post-ops. If she worked shifts and was on an early she’d be on her way there now. If not, she might still be in bed, her hair tangled round her face, her lashes like crescents on her cheeks, her mouth soft with sleep—

‘You need a life, Bradbury,’ he growled, and banged two mugs down on the worktop just as Helle came into the room.

She hovered apprehensively in the doorway, and he waved her in. ‘Come in, sit down, I’m not going to bite you. I just want to know what’s going on.’

She sat but, being Helle, she couldn’t just sit. She played with the salt, she shredded a paper towel that had been left on the table, tearing it systematically into tiny strips while she waited for the axe to fall.

‘Talk to me. Tell me all about it,’ Adam said softly, sliding a mug across the battered old pine table, and she looked up, her eyes like huge pools filling yet again.

‘I’m just lonely—I want my mum. I’m homesick. I thought it would get better, but then you said we were moving and I had to say goodbye to all my friends, and I thought, how will I cope in a new place?’

A tear fell, splashing on her hand, and she scrubbed it away and went on, ‘It was hard before, when my friend Silke was just round the corner. Now it’s impossible. I don’t know anybody, and the children are at school and there’s nothing to do, and I just sit and cry—’

‘So you ring your mum.’

She nodded miserably. ‘I’m sorry, Adam. I didn’t realise it would be so expensive.’

‘It’s as much as your wages,’ he pointed out, not unreasonably.

‘But some is you,’ she defended with truth, and he shrugged.

‘A little. Perhaps the first hundred pounds.’

She swallowed. ‘May I see it?’

He handed her the bill—the itemised section that ran to page after page—and she studied it in silence and handed it back.

‘Are you going to send me home?’

‘Do you want to go? Do you really want to go? Are you so unhappy? I don’t want you to be unhappy, Helle. It doesn’t help anyone—not you, not me, and certainly not the children.’

She nodded and sniffed. ‘I do want to go. I’ll miss the children, but I’m so lonely. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had a wife, it would be another woman to talk to. It’s different—I can’t talk to you like I could to a woman.’

Nothing would be so bad if he had a wife, he thought defeatedly, including his own loneliness, but it was out of the question. Lyn’s defection had scarred them all, and there was no way he was going there again.

‘I’ll ask my mum,’ Helle went on, miserably shredding another paper towel. ‘Maybe she’ll pay the phone bill.’

‘Never mind the phone bill. Just do me a favour and stay until I can get someone else, and then I’ll forget the bill—OK? Only stay off the damn phone in the daytime, please, until you go home. Deal?’

He wouldn’t understand women if he lived to be a hundred, he thought as Helle burst into tears. He found her an unshredded piece of kitchen roll and watched as she hiccuped to a halt and blotted herself up.

‘Deal,’ she said finally.

‘Good. Now, do you suppose you could get the children up in time for school today, please?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll wake them now.’

He ate a piece of toast, kissed the children hello and goodbye in one and left for work, his mind on his afternoon list. He had yet to meet the other members of his firm, the registrars and house doctors that were allocated to him in this new speciality that the Audley Memorial had set up.

Most hospitals had one or two consultants who tended to handle the paediatric work. It was unusual to find a post dedicated to it, and he was looking forward to the challenge. He understood they would take referrals from other hospitals within the region once his post was established—it would become the local specialist centre for paediatric orthopaedics, centralising treatment in Suffolk and making it more accessible for patients and their families.

That meant better visiting arrangements, which in turn meant happier patients getting better quicker. He approved of that.

Adam parked his car in the staff car park, then crossed it and palmed the door out of the way and caught himself all but running down the corridor to the ward. Idiot, he thought crossly. She’s probably not even there yet—and if she is, she’ll be busy.

She was. She was taking report, and he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on and made two mugs of tea. She wouldn’t be long.

‘Tea,’ he said, thrusting a mug at her, and Anna took it gratefully and drank it too fast, almost scalding her mouth. It was delicious—almost as delicious as him—and nearly as welcome.

‘I needed that. How did you know?’ she said with a smile as she drained it, and he gave a chuckle and made her another one.

‘I wanted to go through the notes of my afternoon list with you,’ he said over his shoulder as he stirred the teabag round. ‘I think you know some of the patients.’

She nodded. ‘Sure. Shall we go into the office?’

‘Have you got time?’

She grinned at him. ‘One of the nice things about this job is being able to delegate most of it! Come on, I can spare you ten minutes. The notes are in there still.’

She settled down in her chair, her knees propped up on the edge of the desk, her uniform trousers protecting her modesty. ‘Tell me about Karl first,’ she prompted, trying to concentrate on something other than his long, lean legs stretched out across the floor in her office and the casual way he slouched against her desk.

‘Karl? Oh, the lad yesterday. Robert let me assist—it was interesting. We plated it. When we got in there it was quite obvious that the bone had made no attempt to heal. The main reason seemed to be that it had rotated out of alignment, so we had to break the ulna as well to correct the rotation so we could line it all up properly. We plated both just to be on the safe side. It should be a better shape than it was before, anyway, so in a strange way it might have done him a favour. How is he now?’

‘Bit groggy. Quieter than yesterday, I gather. I think he had quite a good night. Was it very traumatic to the tissues?’

He shrugged. ‘Fairly. I would expect it to be quite sore for a day or two. It was obviously quite a nasty break—I had a look at the earlier plates. It seems likely that he tried to do too much too soon and twisted it out of position inside the cast. By the time it was noticed, it was too late.’

‘That’s what you get for trying to fix an active young hellion conservatively,’ Anna said with a smile. ‘They need everything screwed together because they all want a quick fix.’

‘Everybody wants a quick fix,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I think my au pair’s going to want a quick fix. I confronted her with the phone bill this morning and she announced she wanted to go home. I bribed her by offering to forget the phone bill if she’d stay until I’d got a replacement.’

‘And?’

He shrugged. ‘She says she’ll stay—for now, at least.’

Anna felt a pang of sympathy. ‘Was it horrendous?’ she asked, and he rolled his eyes.

‘Try four figures.’

Anna’s jaw dropped. For the life of her she couldn’t conceive of finding time to build up a phone bill that huge, never mind having anyone she wanted to talk to that much!

Well. Maybe that wasn’t true—not any more. She could imagine curling up in the evening and having long, cosy chats to this man—

‘Let’s talk about your afternoon list,’ she said, dragging herself back to earth hastily. ‘Who have you got that I know?’

‘A baby with congenital club foot? David Chisholm. I think he’s been in here. He’s about eighteen months.’

Anna thought for a moment. ‘David—yes, he has. I remember him. He’s had a couple of ops already to let out the short structures on the inside of the legs. He was very bad—worst case I’ve seen, I think, not that we’ve had that many. I thought they’d got quite a good result?’

Adam nodded. ‘That’s right, but he needs another op because he’s grown and the feet are turning in again.’

‘Aren’t they splinting it?’

He nodded again. ‘Yes, but it’s not keeping up. I’m going to release the tendons again—it’s fairly rare, of course, so you don’t tend to get that much practice at this sort of thing, but we’re learning new ways of dealing with it. Sadly, it’s never going to be quite normal, of course, and I haven’t met the parents yet so I don’t know what their expectations are.’

‘High, I think. Most parents’ expectations are high. They think we can sort out everything.’

‘Well, I’ll certainly try my best, but I’m only human,’ he said with a wry smile, and her heart hiccuped. Only human’s fine by me, she wanted to tell him, but she was being silly again.

One smile! she thought crossly. One smile and you keel over and submit! You’d make a good dog.

Anna tried to pay attention—she really did—but it was hard. In the end she was rescued by the arrival of a new admission, and she went to deal with him and escaped from the intoxicating and mind-bending cosiness of her office. She was busy for the rest of the day, rushed off her feet for most of it, and by the end of it she was feeling ragged.

Then Adam walked onto the ward, still in Theatre scrubs, and her heart did that silly thing all over again and she wanted to kick herself.

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice soft and low. Shivers ran down her back, and she forced herself to ignore them.

‘Hi, yourself,’ she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile and not an infatuated drool. ‘How was your list?’

‘OK. A couple are in SCBU, but you should have the rest. How’s little David?’

‘Sick and sore, I think. Well, probably more uncomfortable than sore. His mother’s with him, but she’s pregnant again and she’s finding it quite wearing. I keep sending my nurses to rescue her so she can go and have a cup of tea, but she won’t let me.’

‘Is she staying all night?’

Anna nodded. ‘Yes. She needs to rest, but she won’t leave him till he settles.’

‘Can I have a quick look?’ he asked.

‘Sure. He’s over here.’

They went over to the baby and his mother and, as Anna had expected, the little boy was propped up against her shoulder, grizzling gently, and she was rubbing his back and making soothing noises. They weren’t working.

‘Hello, Mrs Chisholm,’ Adam said, hunkering down to her level and smiling at her with that special smile. ‘How are things?’

‘Oh—hello, Doctor. I’m so glad you’ve come. Not too bad. How was it? Have you been able to do it?’

‘It was OK,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I’ve managed to get quite a bit of length on the tendons, so we were able to get his feet into a more normal position in the casts. He’ll be a bit miserable for a day or so, but we’re giving him plenty of pain relief so he’s not really hurting. Once the first few days are over you’ll find he’s walking much better. May I have a look?’

She held the little boy out, and Adam took him and straightened.

‘Hello again, young man. Can I have a look at your feet?’ he said softly, his smile gentle. The baby rested sleepily against him with a little whimper, and Adam soothed him automatically before laying him down in the cot.

His movements were sure and practised, Anna thought. You could tell he was a father. His hand brushed the baby’s head, smoothing back the damp, ruffled hair that clung to his brow, and quickly he scanned the boy’s legs with his eyes.

‘I’m checking the colour and warmth of his toes and that the dressings you can see through these windows in the casts aren’t showing signs of leaking of the wounds,’ he explained. ‘Perhaps you could keep an eye on that for us, as you’re here. It’s possible the legs might swell after a little while, but we’ll keep a constant check, and if you notice anything different, perhaps you could tell us.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘He looks fine at the moment,’ he went on, raising his voice over the baby’s unhappy protests. ‘I’m pleased. He seems a bit grizzly, though. Perhaps he’s not that comfortable. We’ll give him something to settle him.’

‘I think he needs to sleep,’ Mrs Chisholm said, ‘but every time I put him down he cries, and I don’t like to disturb the other children.’

‘Don’t worry about the other children,’ Anna hastened to assure her. ‘He won’t cry for long. He’s dead beat. He’ll go off in seconds if you can just bear to let him cry.’

‘I just feel so mean,’ she said, clearly torn.

‘Perhaps you should go and get something to eat and leave him quietly alone for a little while and try it,’ Adam suggested. ‘You might find he drops off if you aren’t here to cuddle—it’s not worth staying awake then.’ The smile robbed his suggestion of any criticism, and she nodded wearily.

‘I could murder a cup of tea and a leg stretch, and probably something to eat, actually. I was going to wait until my husband came back and go then, so David wasn’t on his own, but are you sure he’ll be all right?’

‘Of course he’ll be all right,’ Anna assured her firmly. ‘We’ll look after him. If he doesn’t settle in a minute I’ll get someone to cuddle him till you’re back, but you’ve got to look after yourself and the other baby.’

She nodded again. ‘OK. Thanks.’

They watched her go, and she was hardly out of the ward before little David stopped grizzling and started to relax into much-needed sleep.

‘Peace at last,’ Anna said with a soft chuckle, and covered the little boy lightly with his blanket. ‘He’ll be all right now. Do you still want to give him something?’

Adam shook his head. ‘Not if he doesn’t need it. I’ll write him up for something in case he wakes in the night and is distressed. What are you doing now? Got time to look at my others with me?’

She glanced at the clock on the wall and groaned. ‘Not really. Apparently, it’s time to go home and I still haven’t finished. Do you need me with you to look at your other patients?’

‘I wouldn’t mind, but it isn’t necessary. Anyway I suspect they’re all asleep. Are their parents here?’

‘Yes, all of them. I’m sure they’d love to see you and ask you about the operations.’

He nodded, pursed his lips for a moment as he, too, glanced at his watch, and then he shrugged. ‘I’ll go and see them. You don’t have to stay, I’m sure I can find my way around.’

‘I’ll show you where they are and leave you to it. I have to hand over to Allie. Those two beds there,’ she told him, pointing, ‘and that one in the far corner. OK? Shout if you need help. Allie will sort you out.’

‘OK. Thanks. See you tomorrow.’

His smile warmed her. Reluctantly, she dragged herself back to her other tasks, handed over and left the ward with only a handful of backward glances.

She went home, put the kettle on while she changed into jeans and a comfy sweater, and sat down with her feet up and a cup of tea in front of the TV news. It didn’t hold her attention. It couldn’t even begin to compete with that sexy smile and the smoky green eyes that were beginning to haunt her every waking moment.

What made him so different? Nothing obvious. Over the years she’d been out with several men, most of them very pleasant, most of them perfectly nice.

Nice. Pleasant.

She didn’t want ‘nice’ and ‘pleasant’. She wanted someone who made her blood sing, whose touch would reduce her to putty, whose eyes could turn her heart inside out and melt her into a puddle at his feet.

They hadn’t all been nice, of course. There had been Jim—he’d been charming and utterly faithless. She’d had her fingers burned by him and had been much more circumspect after that. Not that she’d ever been in the slightest bit promiscuous, but everyone seemed to imagine that if you dated them more than twice at the outside you were destined for bed.

Anna didn’t work like that. It had to be right, and it had only been right very rarely. Just recently—like in the last three years or so—it hadn’t been right at all.

‘You’re turning into a desperate old maid,’ she said in disgust. ‘One smile from a halfway presentable man and you’re there waiting with your tongue hanging out. That’s so sad.’

She smacked her mug down, stood up and went through into the kitchen. The fridge revealed very little of any interest, and the freezer was worse.

‘Great,’ she said in disgust. ‘I have to go shopping. Marvellous.’

She slammed the freezer door, stuffed her feet into her old trainers and pulled on her tatty but snuggly duffle-coat. She wasn’t going to see anyone. She didn’t need to dress up.

She drove to the nearest supermarket, picked up a little trolley and started wandering randomly up and down the aisles. Nothing appealed. Well, nothing healthy. She glanced into the trolley next to her, wondering what other people ate that might be more interesting than the usual things that she bought, and she sighed.

Fish fingers, low-fat oven chips, frozen veg, chicken legs, rice—about as inspired as hers, except that this trolley actually had something in it.

Three loaves of bread, lots of tuna and ham and salad ingredients, little cakes—lots of convenience foods, really, she thought. Busy household. Working mother, probably. Poor woman—

‘Anna?’

She looked up, startled, and found Adam looking at her curiously.

‘Hi,’ she said weakly.

‘Hi. Thought it was you. Is there something wrong with my trolley?’

‘Your—No, of course not! I didn’t know it was yours. I was looking in it for inspiration, actually.’

He gave a wry snort of laughter. ‘I should give it a miss, in that case. I buy what the kids will eat, which sometimes seems like utter rubbish. It’s the au pair’s job, of course, but she’s having the evening off, so it’s down to me to buy the junk food today.’

‘It doesn’t look too bad. At least you’re going for the low-fat options.’

‘Ever the conscientious father,’ he said with a fleeting smile. ‘Which reminds me, they’re running riot in the next aisle. I must go.’

She watched him disappear round the end of the aisle and, because she was only human and curiosity was part of human nature, she found herself drifting after him. They’d vanished, but she soon found them.

He was lifting a little boy off the top of the bread display unit, smiling apologetically at a disapproving member of staff and throwing a packet into the trolley with one hand while he clamped the protesting child to his side with the other.

‘No, if you can’t behave then you’ll have to stay here with me where I can keep an eye on you.’

‘I’ll look after him,’ a little girl promised, and Adam put the boy down. ‘Stay right next to me,’ she told him sternly, and he nodded and slipped his hand into hers.

Big sister, Anna thought with a gentle smile.

‘Daddy, can we have supper here, please?’

The middle one, Anna thought, looking at the little face shining up at him with obvious devotion. What a lovely family. A huge lump formed in her throat, and she was just about to slide round the corner of the aisle and find a little privacy to get herself under control when Adam turned and saw her.

‘Um—yes, sure,’ he said distractedly, and smiled at her. She wondered if he knew he’d just been conned, and had to hide her own smile of amusement behind a smile of greeting. ‘My brood,’ he said, waving at them. ‘Skye, Danny, Jasper, this is Miss Long. I work with her.’

‘Anna,’ she corrected, and directed her smile to the children. ‘Hi. Are you making sure he buys all the right things?’

‘No, they’re making sure I buy all the wrong things,’ he said with a laugh.

‘We’re going to have supper here,’ Danny told her. ‘Do you ever do that?’

‘I have done,’ she said, willing Adam to ask her to join them. He didn’t need to. Danny did it.

‘You could have supper with us—couldn’t she, Daddy?’ He swivelled his head round, leaning over backwards and nearly toppling into the bread.

Adam reached out and steadied him, and gave Anna a helpless look. ‘If you’d like to—you’re more than welcome to join us, if you can stand it. It’ll probably be egg, beans and chips if they get their way.’

Thank you, God! ‘Egg, beans and chips sounds good,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘If you mean it.’

‘Of course I mean it,’ he said, his eyes softening. ‘You’re more than welcome. Are you all done?’

‘Yes,’ she lied. To hell with doing the shopping. She’d get the rest another time. This was much more interesting!

They went through the checkout, parked their trolleys and joined the queue, and Danny chatted ingenuously all the way through the selection procedure and most of the way through the meal. He was a sweet, open child with spiky, untidy hair the same dark brown as his father’s, and a direct blue gaze that cut straight to her heart.

Jasper was similar—smaller and quieter, or perhaps simply overwhelmed by his big brother, hanging on his sister’s every word.

And Skye—Skye was different. She had soft, lustrous brown hair, not quite as dark as the others, and the same penetrating blue eyes, but there the similarities ended.

Her eyes were distrustful. That was the difference, Anna decided. Skye was guarded, she hardly spoke except to Jaz, and she was politely distant with Anna.

That was fine. She didn’t need the instant trust of every child in the world, but she sensed that Skye’s reticence hurt Adam, and for some reason she didn’t want to go into that hurt her, too.

There was only one awkward moment, when she wondered if she really ought to have been there. Skye looked at Adam and said softly, ‘Is Anna your girlfriend?’

He looked startled for a second, then shook his head. ‘No. We work together. She’s a nurse.’

Skye glanced at her consideringly, then went back to her meal without another word, leaving Anna thoughtful. It hadn’t sounded, from her tone of voice, as if a girlfriend was something Skye wanted Adam to have. Because she felt threatened? Because she was jealous? Or because he had a constant stream of them and Skye didn’t like it?

The table was crowded, and Anna was more than ever aware of Adam’s long legs tangling with hers every time he moved. Finally the children were finished, and he met her eyes over the litter of dirty plates and cups of fizzy drinks and smiled distractedly.

‘We have to get back. We’ve got frozen food in the trolley—or we did have. I expect it’s all thawed by now.’

She nodded, conscious of a silly little spurt of disappointment. Of course he had to go—Jasper was yawning, Skye was bored and uneasy, and they couldn’t possibly sit there all night. She conjured a bright smile. ‘Yes, you’d better get back. Thank you so much for asking me to join you. I enjoyed it.’

He gave a disbelieving snort of laughter. ‘You’re too polite. Come on, kids, on your pins, let’s make a move.’

She followed him out of the shop, looking like the Pied Piper with the children trailing behind him raggedly. Jasper kept wanting to look at things, and had to be dragged screaming past the little rocket ride just outside the door, with its coaxing invitation, ‘Come on, climb aboard and we’ll head for the skies!’

‘I want to have a go!’ Jasper sobbed, and Adam scooped him up into his arms and hugged him, walking resolutely away.

‘It’s too late. You can have a go next time. It’s too cold to hang about waiting, and we can’t do everything in one night.’

‘Don’t want to do everything! Want to go in the rocket!’

‘Jasper, Daddy said no,’ Skye told him firmly, and the screaming subsided to an unhappy sobbing. They paused at the edge of the car park, and Adam rolled his eyes at Anna in mock despair.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said, and he nodded, hesitated a moment and then spoke as if on impulse.

‘You could come back for coffee—if you could stand the chaos of bedtime and a house that needs cleaning and decorating from attic to cellar.’

A slow smile spread over her face. She could stand anything if it meant spending time with him and his family and getting to know him better. ‘I should think I’ll cope with that,’ she said softly.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

Oh, yes, she thought. I’ll follow you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if you ask me to. Just say the word.

Then she caught the look on Skye’s face, and wondered why the little girl was so unhappy about her presence. She needed to know more about the situation, and perhaps this was one way to find out.

CHAPTER THREE

‘OH, IT’S gorgeous!’

Adam looked mildly disbelieving, but Anna shook her head at him and laughed, gazing around, enraptured, at the lovely, welcoming hallway with its high ceilings and gleaming mahogany handrail. ‘It is! It’s truly wonderful—oh, it’s going to be so lovely. It just feels—I don’t know, right.’

‘That’s what I felt. It’s why I bought it,’ Adam said with a smile, but then the smile grew wry. ‘Emphasis on ‘‘going to be’’, though. If and when I ever get the time and the money—not to mention the energy. Right, kids, upstairs and get yourselves ready for bed, please. It’s way past your bedtime. I’ll be up in five minutes.’

They ran up, and Adam seized several of the shopping bags from the hall floor and headed towards the back of the house. Anna picked up a couple more and followed him.

‘You’ll do it—don’t be so defeatist. It’s early days—heavens, most people wouldn’t even have unpacked yet!’

‘I haven’t, not entirely. The dining room’s still stacked up with boxes, but they’re mainly books destined for shelves that don’t yet exist and the dining room doesn’t really matter. We don’t exactly dine in style.’

‘Shame on you,’ Anna teased, then cocked her head on one side. ‘Can I help?’

‘Please—put the kettle on. I just want to put the frozen stuff away and check the kids, then we’ll sit down for a bit of peace and quiet.’

She looked around at the kitchen. It was lovely, but it needed help. The units were awful, but they were easily replaced, and if the doorway from the breakfast area could be moved to the other side of the chimney breast, then the table could sit by the window and that would be much better.

The house looked, from the little she’d seen, as if it had been ‘modernised’ in the fifties, and it certainly needed some sympathetic restoration, but the potential was huge. Her curiosity was running riot. What was the rest of the house like?

‘Right, that’s that lot. How’s the kettle?’

‘Not boiled,’ she told him. ‘Can I have a guided tour?’

His face fell comically. ‘Oh, lord,’ he groaned, rolling his eyes in obvious embarrassment. ‘I hate to think what a mess it is, and Helle’s rooms will be chaos gone mad.’

‘I’m not looking at the mess—I’m looking at the house, at the potential,’ she coaxed, her avid curiosity unwilling to remain unsatisfied. ‘If you really, really mind I’ll let you say no, but I’d love to see it if you can bring yourself to let me.’

He hovered, just for a second, then squared his shoulders. ‘Oh, what the heck, come on, then. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he grumbled, and she laughed softly.

‘I promise.’

‘You can give me some advice. Skye’s bedroom is first on the list, and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Ask her,’ Anna said promptly, cautious of becoming involved. ‘It’s her room—she’s more than old enough to have ideas.’

‘If only she would share them,’ he murmured. ‘Come on, then, let’s get this over with.’

Anna went up the stairs after him and followed him straight down the landing and into Skye’s bedroom. It was above the kitchen and overlooked the back garden, heavily shadowed now in the dark but fascinating to Anna for all that. She’d glimpsed it from the kitchen and itched to explore it in daylight. Her own garden was tiny, and she’d always thought she’d love a bigger garden. She tried not to envy him.

Skye was sitting on the bed, still fully dressed, colouring in a book. She glanced up and then looked away, dismissing them.

‘I’m showing Anna the house,’ Adam told her. ‘Is it OK to come in?’

She shrugged.

‘I’m sorry, it’s an awful cheek—Skye, do you mind?’ Anna asked, wary of stepping on clearly sensitive little toes.

She shrugged again, noncommitally, and carried on colouring. Anna looked around. It was desperately in need of love and attention, but it was bigger than Anna’s sitting room, and way bigger than her bedrooms had ever been. There was a pretty little fireplace against one wall, cast iron and delicately patterned inset tiles, and Anna would have given her eye teeth for it as a child. As an adult, in fact!

‘What a wonderful room—it’s huge,’ she said with genuine awe. ‘My bedroom at home is much smaller!’

‘Before, I had to share with the boys,’ Skye said, clearly impressed that her room was bigger than Anna’s. ‘Well, after she went. First I had the little room, but then the au pairs had it.’

Au pairs? As in, lots of them? Of course, they didn’t come for long, Anna thought, and wondered if ‘she’ was their mother. Inevitably. And she’d gone somewhere. Where? It was suddenly a minefield, and she picked her way through it with enormous care.

‘Do you know what you want to do with it now you’ve got such a lovely room?’ Anna asked her. ‘It’s all yours—it must be wonderful, I should think, to be able to choose.’

Skye shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ She seemed to withdraw into herself then, as if too much attention was focused on her, and Anna gave a slight smile and moved further away, giving her room.

‘I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun deciding. I always think that’s the best bit.’ She turned towards Adam and pushed him gently towards the door. ‘Come on, let’s leave her in peace. I want to see the rest. What’s next?’

He showed her the loo and bathroom, both in need of tidying up and probably refitting in a more sympathetic style than the ugly suite that was there. Still, it worked, she supposed, except for the dripping tap, although an Edwardian original would have been more attractive.

‘I’m going to refit it when I get time,’ he told her. ‘I thought I might rearrange it to fit a loo in here as well—it seems silly not to have one in the bathroom, and there’s tons of room.’

‘Can you do plumbing?’ she asked, impressed, and he laughed.

‘Me? I’m an orthopaedic surgeon, don’t forget. I’m a dab hand with a saw and a screwdriver, and I’m good at plugging vascular leaks, too.’

‘Hmm. Let’s just hope your pipes heal,’ she said with a smile, and he chuckled.

‘They won’t need to. You wait, it’ll be perfect. Come and see the rest.’

He took her into the boys’ room, and they were much more welcoming and extrovert than Skye had been. She was shown their toys, and how each of them had their own space in a corner of the even bigger room, and they bounced around and generally didn’t look ready for bed.

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