“What harm can a hug do? I want you to let me into Daniel’s life, Will!”

He gave a short laugh. “Let you into his life? With an occasional hug?”

“More than that. Any kind of relationship has to start somewhere. With a hug or two. I want to start. I need to, if this thing between us is going to be anything more than a quickie now and then. But you won’t even let me get a foot in the door!”

Will closed his eyes. Maggie didn’t know what she was asking. He knew that both of them were getting more deeply into this than he’d intended. He was finding that he liked her more. Admired her more. Respected her more. He wanted her in his life as a professional partner and as a lover.

Not as a wife. Not as a mother for Daniel. Dear Lord, he wasn’t ready to fill those roles again.

Dear Reader,

I love New York State’s Adirondack Mountains, where this story takes place. I love the wilderness grandeur of the mountains in winter, as well as the summer treats of sun and swimming on the shores of Lake George. Dr. Maggie Lawless seemed to belong in this setting. She is a strong character, who has known some struggles in her life, and I really felt she deserved her beautiful lakefront home and medical practice.

I felt she deserved Will Braggett, too, once she could get over her misconceptions about him. The big questions remained. With the extra attention his little son needed, did Will have enough to give? And did Maggie have the patience to wait?

Don’t you find it frustrating when two people obviously belong together, except that one or both of them can’t see it? Hold on to your hats, because this is going to be a bumpy ride….

Lilian Darcy

A Mother for His Child

Lilian Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’M STARTING to get nervous about the island thing.’

Laura Bailey curved one forearm below the tight swell of her pregnancy as she swung herself awkwardly from the examining table. She gave Dr Maggie Lawless an apologetic smile.

Maggie, who had been nervous about the island thing for months, nodded and clicked her tongue in sympathy.

‘Do you want to take another look at what I suggested before?’ Her tone was as persuasive as she dared to make it. ‘Just check into a motel for a few nights? You’re due on Monday and your cervix is as ripe as a plum. It shouldn’t be too much longer.’

Laura sighed, and the smooth, fair skin on her brow crinkled into a frown. She slipped her feet into a pair of flat-heeled but expensive-looking navy shoes. Her outfit was expensive, too—a navy tunic and pants combination that contrasted with her blonde hair.

‘I guess that’s what I’m going to suggest to Curtis,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to—I still don’t—because I know he’ll think it’s about him…which, of course, truthfully, it is. In part, anyway. How will it be if I go into labour on the island in the middle of the night and he’s not well enough to help me get to shore? We have friends on standby, but if the baby’s coming fast…’

Maggie nodded again, took a surreptitious glance at her watch and winced. It was late, but she didn’t want to hurry Laura along. As the Bailey family’s physician, she was familiar with the conflicting issues that were tying this patient in knots at the moment.

Millionaire businessman Curtis Bailey had multiple sclerosis, and he wasn’t the type to give in to his disease. He was proud, independent and fought bitterly against any limitation to what he did. Living on an island in the middle of a lake demanded a defiant form of courage that Maggie had to admire, even though, as a doctor, it scared her.

‘Problem is,’ Laura was saying, ‘I’d forgotten what this feels like.’ Her vague gesture made it clear that ‘this’ was the pregnancy—the heaviness, the waiting, the nerves. ‘It’s six and a half years since I was pregnant with Lily.’

‘If you want to call Curtis now…’ Maggie offered.

But Laura shook her head. ‘He’s in Wayans Falls, running some errands, and then we have to pick up Tyler and Lily from ball practice. I’ll talk to him about it tonight. The other two both came around ten days late, so I’m sure there’s a little time.’

Maggie wasn’t as confident.

‘Tell Curtis to call me any time if he has questions, OK?’ she urged. ‘I’m on call all weekend.’

‘Thanks, Dr Lawless.’ Laura glanced through the wide windows looking onto the lake. The sweeping expanse of water danced with bright reflected light. Maggie could see the tip of the Baileys’ island, as well as the blue, contoured smudge of the lake’s opposite shore.

‘At least the weather is holding,’ Laura went on. ‘It’s supposed to be fine through Monday.’

‘Supposed to,’ Maggie echoed dryly.

‘Well, yes.’ Laura gave a little sigh.

Maggie ushered her out into the waiting room. It was empty. Her office manager, Marilyn, had already left for the day, and so had Janet, who handled billing and insurance. She closed the front door after Laura, blew a breath through her lips and lifted the thick hair from the back of her neck with both hands, enjoying the sensation of air on the tender skin there.

Last patient of the day. And, as was the case more often than not, she’d been running a half-hour behind for most of the afternoon. It happened when she was the only doctor in a practice that really needed two. She often had to squeeze in extra patients who really needed to be seen. It was well after six already.

Not a problem, normally, with the quiet, ordered life she’d led here for the past two years. Tonight, though, she was having dinner with Will Braggett, of all people, in less than an hour. He had called out of the blue last week, his voice rough, musical, careless, confident and astonishingly unexpected.

‘I’ll be in the area. Any chance that you’re free to meet?’

She’d said, yes, fine, no problem. Had imagined a quick coffee, for old times’ sake.

No, for Alison’s sake. Will’s divorce from Maggie’s old college room-mate and close friend had apparently been an amicable one.

Although why bother even with coffee when Maggie and Will had strenuously detested each other for years? she wondered.

And then he had suggested a Friday night dinner, in that typical far-too-confident way of his. Would she meet him at the Caprice restaurant at the Craigiemoor Hotel at seven? He’d already made a reservation.

Of course he had!

Caprice was easily the most expensive and exclusive dining establishment within a radius of a hundred miles or more, just as the Craigiemoor was the most expensive and exclusive resort hotel. The place occupied its own island in Lake George, linked to the mainland by a picturesque bridge. Maggie had only eaten there once before, nearly three years ago. With Mark, celebrating their second wedding anniversary. Just two months later, Mark’s aggressive form of prostate cancer had been diagnosed.

‘Is that why I’m sorry I said yes to this? Because it’ll remind me too painfully of Mark?’ she murmured to her reflection ten minutes later, after she’d changed her clothing and brushed her hair to a dark sheen.

Didn’t let herself answer the question.

Ten minutes, she decided, really wasn’t long enough. And neither was this dress. The stiff cream line of its hem flirted sexily with her knees, when it would have been far more compatible in a staid relationship with her lower calves. Also—tonight, suddenly—cream was not her colour. It wasn’t assertive enough.

Dissatisfied, she wrenched the back zipper open again. Halfway down, right at the tightest spot, it got caught in the fabric. It took her five minutes and a strained muscle in her neck to get it free, and in a bad mood she then dived into the safest, simplest outfit she owned, with her jaw already aching and tense.

It was a pair of black linen trousers and a matching sleeveless top, with a round, open neckline and a closely fitted shape. Not dowdy, but not a show-stopper either. The outfit was, however, far more her than cream silk and lengths of nylon-covered leg.

Maggie had always been quite aggressively herself in the company of William James Braggett. Intelligent, uncompromising, argumentative, sure of her ground.

On the surface, at least.

In return, he’d barely spared her the time of day. Well, no, that was an exaggeration. Certainly, though, he’d never appeared to take her seriously in any way. Apart from one solitary occasion…

Late. She was definitely going to be late.

Her pager vibrated as she was adding some defensive length and blackness to her lashes and, nervous, her hand slipped and streaked an ugly blob of mascara onto one eyelid.

‘Ugh!’ A rough flourish with a moistened cotton ball only made it worse, and her eye stung. She’d have to start again, after dealing with the pager.

Her medical answering service reported a call from the mother of one of her patients, and she returned it straight away. The ten-month-old had a fever. It was fairly high, at a hundred and two Fahrenheit, but some questions calmed both her own concerns and those of the mother. It was probably the start of a simple cold. The baby’s older brother and sister both had one.

Maggie put down the phone, swabbed the mascara off her eyelid with make-up remover and completed a sketchy version of her make-up, resisting the temptation to try for glamour. She wasn’t glamorous. Never had been. Her mind was her strength, not her body. Why pretend to Will Braggett, of all people?

That phrase kept cropping up in her thoughts, annoying and disturbing her. Did she really still have him under her skin, after so long, like some irritant chemical?

Apparently she did, because when she finally turned into a parking place outside the stately and exclusive hotel, she was aware of an emotion that could only be described as glee as she noted that the time on the dashboard clock now read seven twenty-two. Yes, that definitely counted as late.

Unpunctuality was a power play she normally scorned to indulge in, but just this once, since it was Will—of all people—and, anyway, it hadn’t been deliberate…

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said to her, nine minutes after this.

Maggie threw back her head and laughed. ‘In the space of five seconds, Will Braggett,’ she jeered lightly, ‘you have just taken me back in time about eight years!’

Still laughing, she took in his dark, impossible and totally masculine good looks, which had only improved with the seasoning effect of the years. Thick, short-cropped hair showed off the neat shape of his head. Brown eyes and long lashes created a liquid impression of tenderness and warmth. His mouth was made for kissing, or murmuring in a woman’s ear.

There were laugh lines around it now, too, showing the teasing humour she’d always refused to respond to. His build, in contrast, gave him a very definite aura of power. Finally, she registered that his charcoal suit fitted him like armour, his smile dripped with charm and he was thrusting a very pretty bunch of white daisies in her direction.

She remained unimpressed. Tilted her head to one side and looked at him from beneath her lashes. ‘Is that part of the apology?’

He frowned, and looked—but this was impossible—taken aback. ‘No, I bought them earlier.’ His voice dropped a little. ‘Maggie, I really am sorry about being late. I’ll explain while we eat.’

Maggie took the flowers, feeling the heat rise in her face. How had she managed to let him wrong-foot her so soon?

‘They’re lovely,’ she said. She hid her repentance by looking down at the simple blooms.

‘I thought they’d suit your place better than hothouse roses.’

She angled her head once more, and met those dark eyes. ‘How do you know…?’

‘I drove by it this afternoon,’ he explained. ‘You have a great setting, and that log-cabin look to your house fits it so well. Your practice is under the same roof as your home, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘But listen, let’s talk properly when we get inside. Our reservation is for seven-thirty. I was thinking we’d have time for a drink at the bar, but…’

She felt his hand beneath her elbow, guiding her confidently towards the restaurant, and all the old, unwanted feelings came flooding back. The wall of alien, chemical desire slamming into her like a rogue wave the moment he was near her. The seething irritation and shame at her own weakness in responding to a man she considered so…so…shallow and arrogant and unsubtle. The determination that he should never, ever guess that she wasn’t nearly as immune to him as she pretended to be.

For heaven’s sake, she thought in sudden panic, why hadn’t she just invented another commitment when he’d called last week? She had been Alison’s college room-mate. Both of them had been bright and ambitious, and both of them had scorned the frequent feminine tendency to hide the fact. They’d been close all through four years of premed studies and four years of medical school, but their internships had taken them in different directions. Contact over the past few years had dwindled to an annual Christmas card.

She knew that Alison and Will were divorced. Sad. They’d seemed like the perfect couple, with Alison’s classic, cool blonde beauty and Will’s dark good looks. Beyond Maggie’s disappointment that yet another modern marriage had failed to stay the distance, however, it meant that she and Will had no reason at all for any further connection. Why had he called? And why had she accepted?

Ah, yes, why had he called? Will wondered. That was what Maggie—now the cool, intimidating Dr Lawless—had to be thinking. He could feel it in the stiffness of her body as she walked beside him, and he’d heard it in that cynical, and perhaps exultant laugh of hers when he’d apologised for being late.

She’d always loved catching him out. She watched for opportunities, and never let one pass. She had never believed in his sincerity. Basically, she’d never understood him at all, and he knew this was partly…mostly…his own fault. She’d unsettled him for nearly eight years of regular contact. He’d deliberately played up to her poor opinion of his worth, and at the same time he’d experienced an unparalleled sense of impotence whenever they’d rubbed up against each other.

Metaphorically, of course.

The back of his neck prickled as he realised what a sexually suggestive phrasing he’d just used in his thoughts, and he wrenched them back to the question of why he’d called her, why he’d proposed dinner and why he’d proposed dinner here.

He had an interview scheduled for Monday morning at another family practice in the region, but it was located in a city centre, and that wasn’t what he was ideally looking for. In her annual Christmas card to himself and Alison several years ago, Maggie had written with enthusiasm about her own practice on the shore of the northern reaches of Lake George in the Adirondack mountains, several hours’ drive north of New York City.

She’d penned a vivid sketch of the spacious wooden house with an attached suite of professional rooms. She’d spoken with love about the wide windows looking onto the lake, the surrounding grandeur of tall trees and spreading grass, and the summer flowers which painted accents of colour. In fall, the mountains flamed a hundred different colours as the leaves changed, she’d said. In winter, the long, island-dotted lake was frozen solid enough to support a car. It was a beautiful part of the country.

She’d talked about the private boat dock, the motor launch, the canoe and the little sailboat.

‘Mark and I are just like the characters in The Wind in the Willows,’ she’d written in her bold hand. ‘Eight months of the year, we spend half our free time simply messing about in boats.’

Her description had stuck in his mind, even then, when he hadn’t yet been looking for something such as she’d described. Over the past year, his need to get away from Arizona, a long way from Arizona, had grown acute—more than enough to overcome his reluctance at subjecting himself to fearless, opinionated, maddening Maggie Lawless once again. He’d remembered the one night when their connection hadn’t generated sparks of hostility but sparks of something very different.

And he’d—stupidly, he now saw—clung to that memory and made too much of it. He’d joined it to his need to find a new place to live and work far from where he now was, a place like the one Maggie had described so glowingly in her card, and he’d taken the bull by the horns and called her.

Picnic Point would suit his needs a lot better than Wayans Falls, and infinitely better than Arizona, for several reasons. He was a good doctor. That wasn’t arrogance. It was simply a fact. He wouldn’t be asking her for a favour.

But, hell, Wayans Falls and Picnic Point weren’t his only options. He could have kept looking, found something in Vermont or Maine. Flying east from Arizona for a series of exploratory trips and professional interviews wouldn’t be convenient, but it would be worth it to find the right place.

Why had he pinned his hopes on maddening Maggie? And why had he thought he could bulldoze her into considering his proposition by making it with style and finesse in this glamorous setting? He should have remembered that she was the last woman on earth to be impressed by such a move.

He dropped back a pace as they were ushered to a table overlooking the terrace garden and the lake beyond. He let his hand slide from her elbow—she clearly didn’t want it there—and studied her rear view.

Did cool-headed, intellectual, difficult Dr Lawless have the slightest idea what she looked like from this angle? He doubted it. He knew from several conversations with Alison years ago that Maggie didn’t consider herself to be a particularly attractive woman.

She was dead wrong, and his visceral awareness of the fact had tortured him persistently for a long time. For a start, she had the best back view he’d ever seen on a woman. Neat, square shoulders, perfect shoulder blades, glossy dark hair that bounced when she walked…and, oh, that walk…oh, that very female and very sinuously curved behind!

They sat down, and the walk and the behind and the creamy scoop of skin above the low, curved back of her close-fitting black top were all lost to sight. They were facing each other now, only she had her head tipped forward and, distracted from her equally magnificent front view, he suddenly saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. Had she been crying the whole time he’d been ogling her?

It didn’t matter. She was crying now. She stopped trying to hide the fact after just a few seconds, picked up the peach-coloured cloth napkin and shook out its overly elaborate folds with clumsy impatience. Her strong jaw jutted.

‘I hope this mascara’s waterproof,’ she muttered.

‘You OK?’

He would have reached out to cover her hand with his, but was saved from enacting what she would undoubtedly have considered a slimy gesture by the fact that she was using both hands to dab the napkin against her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped.

‘Good gosh, don’t apologise!’

‘I came here with Mark once. They put us at this same table.’

Oh, lord, of course! It was Mark!

‘I was saddened to hear of his death, Maggie,’ he told her at once, his voice dropping. ‘I know Alison wrote to you. We would have come for the funeral, only she was so close to her due date, it wasn’t safe for her to travel so far.’

She nodded. ‘I knew that, Will. I’m fine. Just let me…’ She waved a hand vaguely, then rested it on the table as she gathered herself together. ‘He was ill for quite a while, and we both had a chance to get used to it. We laid up some good memories. Like fine wine, he said. He was a lot older than me—twenty-five years—so we always…took it in our stride…that I’d be the one left.’

‘But not so soon?’ Will suggested gently.

‘Not so soon,’ she agreed, looking up at last. Her eyes were pink-rimmed, but her mouth was steady again. Smooth and full-lipped, and no longer pinched. ‘We had a good marriage. Short, but good. He always said it would lay a good foundation for whatever came after, and so far that’s held true. I’m pretty content most of the time.’

He noticed she didn’t say ‘happy’. Then noticed that his hand was right where he’d resolved not to place it—on top of hers, stroking it gently with his fingertips.

She noticed it, too. Laughed. Apologised. Pulled it away. She looked…angry. She was good at that. A pair of dark, delicately arched brows descended until they formed a straight line. Her full lips tucked in at the corners. Her blue eyes clouded, and her strong jaw jutted again. He’d seen it all before, many times.

How come he never knew how to handle it? Never! Where was the easy, confident instinct he usually had with people? Why did he always burn to prove something to her? Normally, he didn’t consider his ego to be that fragile.

A tiny espresso cup filled with a creamy, pale green liquid arrived. Fennel bisque, the waiter told them—their complimentary appetiser. They hadn’t even ordered their meal yet, but it seemed that the tone of the evening was already set. Will grated a rough sigh between his teeth and saw a long, difficult two hours stretching ahead.

I’ll bide my time on this, he decided. I won’t cut to the chase right away, and tell her what I’m here for. We’ll just talk. Surely we can manage that!

From the pocket of her black linen trousers, Maggie felt her pager begin to vibrate against her thigh. She welcomed the interruption, and didn’t quite manage to hide the fact as she pulled the little instrument into view.

‘I’m on call,’ she said, her tone dropping into something that could only be described as officious. ‘I must call my service and deal with this. It could be important.’

‘Yeah, really?’ Will drawled at her across the table. He leaned back and twisted slightly in his chair, to rest one elbow on the seat-back. ‘Important? And you a doctor? I had no idea…’

She flushed and apologised. Again.

Felt like a fool as she managed to extricate herself from the table legs and went in search of a private spot where she could return the call. She’d condescended to him in a way that was ridiculous, considering the fact that he was a doctor himself. No wonder he’d called her on it, with that liquid, mocking tone and those raised brows.

They’d always, always dealt with each other like this. Never cutting each other any slack. Never giving an inch. Surely that should have changed after such a long interval? It was infuriating.

Sheltering in a little alcove beside a delicate still-life painting, she took out her cellphone and keyed in the number her answering service gave her. It was the father of the ten-month-old this time.

‘We’ve given her the medication,’ he said. ‘But her temperature’s still pretty high. She’s so dry and flushed.’

Again, Maggie asked some questions, elicited a description of the baby’s symptoms and wasn’t overly concerned. ‘Make sure she gets plenty of fluids,’ she said. ‘And don’t overdress her. Use a damp, tepid cloth to cool her head and her limbs.’

Many of her phone consults were like this, routine and quick to deal with, snatched moments that punctuated her personal time. She was back opposite Will at the table sooner than she’d have liked. Why hadn’t she taken some time to gather herself together? She might have drawn some tranquillity from that lovely little oil painting of fruit. Too late now…

They ordered, ate, drank. The meal was delicious and beautifully presented, the setting was gorgeous and their waiter attentive. Respecting her on-call status, she refused more than a half-glass of wine, but the evening itself was intoxicating enough. Will had never shown any doubt about how to keep a woman entertained.

Distantly, Maggie watched their conversation unfold as blue darkness spread over the mirror-still lake. It wasn’t going so badly now. It was nice. She forgot his promise to ‘explain’ about his lateness, the significant way he’d said, ‘We’ll talk.’ She stopped watching for chinks in his armour, opportunities to catch him out.

She decided that people did change and grow and mature after all. At last. With hard work. She wasn’t quite the same belligerent, awkward young woman she’d been ten or fifteen years ago, thank goodness. She didn’t have to curl herself into a ball like a porcupine, showing only her spines. She could handle Will Braggett now.

‘But you haven’t noticed that that’s exactly opposite to the statement you made five minutes ago!’ she said triumphantly to him, to cap what she considered to be a lively and satisfying exchange.

He smiled in a lazy way. ‘Know what, Maggie?’ he said. ‘I think you’re even more terrifying than you used to be.’

‘Terrifying…’

‘Do you ever give a man a break?’ He was still smiling, his eyes liquid and dark. He might have been flirting if he’d been with any other companion. But he wasn’t flirting with her, she was sure of that. ‘No, of course not!’ he answered himself. ‘Maggie Lawless, relentless defender of her own principles.’

Ouch! The sharp prick of a shattered illusion.

It was a dismissal far more than a compliment, and she recognised the fact at once. He didn’t deliver the line with a sneer, because charming Will Braggett never sneered. That sexy, kissable mouth wouldn’t have known how. But still his words had the power to make her falter in her tracks and turn right back into that prickly, belligerent porcupine after all.

‘Take it as an attack if you like,’ she said crisply. ‘You’re the one who seems to feel you were vulnerable.’

He shrugged, as if it was far too wearying, and too far beneath his dignity, to cross swords with an intelligent female. His face closed and he covered his mouth for a moment. Was that a stifled yawn?

‘Why did you bother to do this?’ she blurted out, stung by the idea that, beneath his charming façade, he might…actually be bored by her? His problem!

‘You could easily have gotten away with coffee, or nothing at all,’ she went on. ‘Instead of this ridiculous meal. I haven’t been in touch with Alison. I didn’t know you were going to be in the area, and even if I had…For heaven’s sake, Will, we’ve never been able to stand each other. Was this an ego thing for you? The one woman you’d never been able to wrap around your little finger, and you couldn’t resist trying one last blast of charm? Get it straight, Will. You don’t impress me. You never have, and one expensive meal isn’t going to change that.’

She almost stood up and stormed out, then and there. Actually got as far as pressing both hands to the table to propel herself to her feet. At first Will looked shocked at the blunt barrage of her words. This was somehow satisfying to Maggie, but then the shock drained away to leave a grey, tired bleakness she’d never seen in his face before and…

She dropped back into her seat, falling hard. Not only had she never seen the bleakness, she’d never even considered that he had the depth of character to feel something like that. The gods had smiled upon him since birth, hadn’t they? His parents were successful and well-to-do. He’d topped his classes without visible effort. His divorce from Alison—who was as attractive, bright and successful as he was himself—was surely the only glitch in the glittering, perfect mechanism of his life.

Poor man, she might easily have drawled, how tragic it must be to have to live such a Camelot-like existence!

Only this wasn’t the face of a man who’d lived all his life in Camelot.

‘Is that really true, Maggie?’ he said, his voice low. ‘Was it as strong as that? You couldn’t stand me? That night at Gerry Berkov’s party when we sat out by the pool and talked, I thought…that we respected each other, at least. You used to get on my case about not treating Alison the way she deserved—about being late to pick her up, forgetting her birthday and not calling her when I said I would—and you were right about that. I was a jerk about things like that when I was twenty.’

‘Yes, you were,’ she agreed, masking her dismay with a confident nod.

‘And if that’s the sum total of what you feel for me then, yes, tonight has been a complete waste of my time as well as yours. That wasn’t intended as an attack just now. I was teasing you. And I guess I was trading on the fact that there was a little bit more between us than a shallow, trivial sort of dislike. I’ve always respected you. I thought that maybe two worthy and well-matched adversaries could make peace after all this time.’

‘Trading on?’ She picked up on the phrase straight away. Ignored that other very interesting phrase, ‘worthy and well-matched adversaries’. ‘What do you want from me, Will? Of course, I should have realised. You said we’d “talk” over dinner. You want something. A favour. But what is it?’

Her pager vibrated again. With a sound of impatience she pulled it from her pocket, set it on the table and ignored it. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. She was a family physician, not a microsurgeon or a trauma-team doctor. Real emergencies went right to the hospital in an ambulance. They didn’t call her. She wanted answers from Will before she followed up on her patient.

But he wasn’t buying that. Watched her hand as she pushed the pager aside while her eyes were still fixed on him. There was a little twist to his lips.

‘Aren’t you going to call your service?’ he drawled. ‘Don’t you have to deal with that? Couldn’t it be important?’

She recognised how exactly his questions parroted her own self-important phrasing to him earlier and saw the smile on his face. A wicked, tempting smile now. Teasing her again? It softened those dark eyes still further. It invited much more than a mere smile in reply. It was seductive, damn it, even when he wasn’t trying! She burned yet again.

It would have been so refreshing if time had taught her how to act rationally with this man!

‘OK. I’ll deal with it,’ she said. ‘And then I want some straight talking from you, Will.’

‘You’ll get it,’ he promised. A habitual confidence rang in his tone. It was clear that, whatever he wanted from her, he hadn’t come crawling.

Once more, she sought the quiet alcove beside the still-life painting to make her call, but this time the outcome wasn’t as simple. It was another case of fever in a child, a fourteen-year-old.

‘I’m worried about him, Dr Lawless,’ Kathy Sullivan said. ‘He’s vomited twice, and he feels so hot. He says his joints hurt, and so does his neck.’

‘Does he have a rash?’

‘I haven’t noticed one. But I’ve kept him in the dark because the light is bothering him, so maybe there is something.’

‘Could you check for me, Kathy?’

‘Surely, if you’ll wait.’

‘I’ll be here.’

Maggie heard the clatter of the phone and Kathy’s slow, heavy footsteps. She came back a minute or two later. ‘There is a little bit of something on his chest,’ she said. ‘Looks like poison ivy. He was clearing the yard for me yesterday.’

‘I’m going to come over and take a look at him. Has he been away on camp or anything?’

‘No, not yet. That’s right at the end of summer this year. What is it you’re thinking, Dr Lawless?’

Meningitis. She didn’t want to say it. Neither did she want to wait. The symptoms were ambiguous, and the disease was most common in children under the age of five, but it was frequently fatal if treatment was delayed.

‘Let’s wait until I take a look at him, OK?’ she told Kathy, then put down the phone and hurried back to the table. ‘I need to leave,’ she told Will. ‘I shouldn’t be long, but it can’t wait.’

‘Let me come along,’ he suggested at once, already on his feet. ‘I’ll tell the waiter we’ll be back for coffee and dessert. They know I’m staying at the hotel.’

‘There’s no need—’

‘There is. I want to.’

He strode off and found their waiter. She didn’t linger, but he caught up to her quickly. It was a warm summer evening, and neither of them needed jackets. In fact, Will had taken off the jacket of his suit and it hung from one finger.

‘What’s the problem? What kinds of things do you usually get called out for?’ he asked.

She sighed. Why did he want this detail? OK, she’d give it to him.

‘It varies,’ she answered. ‘Depends on the patient’s circumstances. In a case like this, I’d normally tell the child’s parents to drive him straight to the hospital emergency room, then I’d call the ER to let them know he was coming, but this is a single mother. She’s not well, she doesn’t have much money, she has very basic health insurance cover—no ambulance—and she doesn’t drive. Her brother comes up from Albany every weekend to help her with shopping and stuff. I like her, and—’

‘Do you have many patients in that sort of situation in your practice?’

‘Some. This little family is one of the best. My heart goes out to the mother and her son every time I see them. They only live a few minutes’ drive from here. Tonight I want to save them an ambulance trip to Wayans Falls if it’s not necessary, and I want to start giving Matthew treatment while we wait for the ambulance to get here if it is.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Some form of meningitis, but it could just be flu and poison ivy. Why are you asking all these questions, Will?’

She risked a glance at him, and wished she hadn’t. He was frowning, and his mouth was straight and closed. She could have touched him if she’d reached out her hand, asked him with soft concern to tell her what was on his mind…

‘Because I’m interested in joining your practice, if you’ll have me,’ he answered calmly.

It almost knocked the ground out from under her feet.

CHAPTER TWO

‘BUT you’re an orthopaedic surgeon,’ Maggie told Will blankly. He matched her pace easily as she hurried towards the car. It was parked in the guest parking lot, a minute’s walk from the main entrance.

‘Not quite,’ he answered. ‘I changed direction several years ago, before I finished my residency. Switched to family practice instead.’

‘Alison never wrote me that. I’d have remembered because…’ She stopped. Because it seemed so unlikely. Family practice wasn’t a prestige medical speciality. He and Alison had both been concerned with prestige.

She glanced across at him, but it was quite dark now. The long fingers of blue and gold light dancing on the black lake water didn’t make much difference to the thickness of the night here in the shadow of the sprawling hotel, and she couldn’t see his face.

‘Alison wasn’t thrilled,’ Will answered carefully. ‘She tended not to advertise the switch.’

His tone was neutral, but Maggie was left wondering if their divorce had been as amicable as Alison’s smoothly worded card last Christmas had suggested.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I told you, she wasn’t happy about it.’

‘No, why did you switch, I mean? It’s…um…not a very common path.’

He laughed. Oh, she wished she could see his face! What were those wicked dark eyes doing? Glimmering or sparking?

‘You mean it’s a very definite drop in status?’ he said.

‘That, yes.’ Why deny it? He wouldn’t expect her to. ‘You always cared about status.’

‘I thought I did. Shall I say something saccharine? Say that I came to realise I cared much more about people instead? Something like that?’

‘Spare me!’ she drawled.

‘OK.’

‘No, say it,’ she revised. ‘Was that the reason?’

‘No, it was the hours that did it. I wanted a life. None of the orthos I knew actually had one.’

‘I’m sure many orthopaedic surgeons do,’ she offered primly. ‘It’s a matter of choosing your priorities. And for some, in any case, it’s a question of vocation and they just couldn’t be happy doing anything else.’

‘Maybe.’ Will shrugged.

They had reached her car, which was dark and new and American-made. She had bought it last year. The alarm and automatic lock whooped electronically as she pressed a button on her key-ring. Will knew she was in a hurry, didn’t open the door for her, just slid himself into the passenger seat in tandem with her own movement. Maggie buckled her seat belt, started the engine and threw the vehicle into reverse.

Feeling alarmed and confused, she told him, ‘You can’t be serious about joining my practice.’

‘Can’t I? It’s what I want. What I need,’ he corrected, as if the distinction was important.

She filed the word away, as something else to question him on later if he didn’t explain its use himself. For now, she just wanted him to keep talking, and he did.

‘The location is ideal. You didn’t look for a new partner after Mark died, did you?’

‘No.’

‘But that’s not because you were short of patients. Your books are overflowing, and you’re turning new patients away. You need someone. I can understand your hesitation. You and Mark must have worked well together. But it’s time, isn’t it?’

‘That’s not about your needs, it’s about mine,’ she pointed out, her defensive instincts still strong.

Maggie could smell the fresh maleness of him and was distracted by an absurd need to identify it. It was no pungent drenching of aftershave, just something clean and simple and subtle. Sandalwood shampoo? Hotel soap? A faint whiff of chlorine, too. He must have taken a swim in the pool, and hadn’t quite showered off the residue.

They drove out of the hotel grounds and across the bridge which connected its island setting to the shore. Through the open car window came the sound of ropes playing music against the metal masts of boats in the night breeze.

‘Yes,’ she finished reluctantly, ‘it’s time I looked for a new partner.’

She wasn’t looking forward to the process.

‘So you have an opening,’ he pointed out, his voice confident, ‘which is what I need.’

‘When you called, you said you’d be “in the area”. I got the impression you had business here.’

‘I do. An interview at a practice in Wayans Falls. But I like your set-up better.’

‘How do you know that? And how did you know about my patient load? Have you been…?’ She shifted in her seat and sat up straighter as she made a turn, ready to put on a cloak of indignation.

He cut her off. ‘Have I been checking you out? Yes, but nothing sinister.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that!’

‘I called your office and asked for an appointment. I was told that, as a new patient, I’d have to wait at least six months. I was referred to a practice in Ticonderoga and one in Warrensburg. Your sign, out front, lists you as the sole practitioner. It was pretty easy to fill in the blanks.’

‘You’re avoiding my question, Will. Why Picnic Point? For that matter, why New York State? It’s a long way from Arizona.’

He ducked the question. ‘How far is this patient’s house?’

‘Just up the hill, here, off a side street. Technically, we’re still in Cromer’s Landing. Will, you have to—’

‘This needs time, Maggie. There’s a lot to say.’

Dear lord, he’d dropped into that serious voice again! The one that undermined her because it forced her to liberate him from the convenient box she’d placed him in so many years ago. She didn’t want to know that he could talk this way. She’d never heard him do so before.

‘I know you want better reasons,’ he went on just as soberly. ‘There are better reasons. Reasons that are going to make me tell you more about the collapse of my marriage than I remotely want to.’

‘And more than I’ll want to know?’

‘You and Alison were close.’ Not exactly a direct answer. ‘Can we wait until we’ve seen your patient?’

She couldn’t help trying for more from him. ‘This is the reason for the divorce, then? Alison didn’t want to move?’

‘No, you were right before about the reason for the divorce.’ His tone was very light.

She couldn’t tell if he was serious. He couldn’t be. It was just a line. What had she ever said or hinted about what she thought of his and Alison’s divorce and the reasons behind it? Nothing! She had her own scenarios, of course. None of those scenarios showed Will in a very good light. She hadn’t been uncomfortable about that fact until now.

But she couldn’t give the matter any more of her attention. They’d just turned into Kathy Sullivan’s driveway. Kathy herself was silhouetted against the light that came through the screen door as Maggie and Will came up the concrete path that led to the entrance of the weathered clapboard dwelling.

‘Is that you, Dr Lawless?’ she said, peering out. The old door creaked.

‘Yes, it is, Kathy,’ Maggie called back. ‘And I’ve brought—’

‘Dr Braggett,’ he cut in, smiling. ‘Will Braggett. Dr Lawless and I are looking at the possibility of me joining her practice.’

No, we’re not!

Maggie bristled, but no one noticed.

Will grabbed the screen door which Kathy had pushed slightly ajar, held out his hand for her to shake, ushered Maggie past him and then entered the front hallway himself. The series of fluid actions, on top of his confident explanation of his presence, took just seconds and left Maggie—as usual—breathless with something she wanted to call outrage.

Wanted to. Couldn’t, in all honesty. He wasn’t deliberately attempting to overshadow her or crowd her out—he just did this charm stuff too well.

Kathy was smiling, too. ‘Well, that would be just great, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘Dr Lawless needs someone.’ Then her face fell. ‘Come on in. He seems real sick. More than just flu, and it came on so fast. He was fine this afternoon. The rash is getting worse, and it’s such a funny colour. It don’t look like poison ivy no more.’

She led the way, leaning her swollen hands heavily on a four-footed walking frame. She’d put on a little more weight. Maggie registered the painful stiffness of her walk, and the two inches of streaked grey showing at the roots of her long, braided coppery hair. Kathy’s great pride was her beautiful thick hair, and it was never the same colour for more than six months at a stretch. When she let the grey grow through like this, it meant the pain had been pretty bad. She had rheumatoid arthritis as well as fibromyalgia and struggled to maintain her quality of life.

Fourteen-year-old Matthew was lying on the couch in a darkened living-room. The television flickered in one corner, providing the only light, but his eyes were closed and he wasn’t watching. Maggie slipped past Kathy and went immediately to him, touching the palm of her hand to his forehead.

‘I’m going to have a look at you, Matthew, to see why you’re feeling so bad,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll have to turn on the lamp here.’

He didn’t reply. He was burning up, beneath a heavy quilt, and didn’t even acknowledge her touch. She turned on the table lamp, lifted his T-shirt and found the spreading patch of rash. It was purple and blotchy, and her heart sank. Had she been too concerned with saving Kathy’s budget when she’d decided against calling an ambulance at once? This wasn’t poison ivy on top of a dose of flu.

Kathy was hovering in the background, and Maggie had to tell her, ‘I think he’s pretty sick, Kathy. He needs the hospital. I’m glad you called me early and didn’t wait this out.’

‘What is it, Dr Lawless?’

‘I’m afraid it looks like meningitis, Kathy.’

‘I’ve heard of that.’

‘There are several different types, some more dangerous than others. The meningococcal type is spread by saliva, and it’s so hard to get kids not to share drink bottles and lip salves, and that sort of thing.’

‘I’ll call the ambulance,’ Will said behind Maggie. ‘Where will I find the phone?’

‘Kitchen wall,’ Kathy answered.

‘Kathy, you’ll want to come too, won’t you?’ Maggie said.

‘Can I?’

‘Of course you can,’ She touched Kathy’s arm. It was trembling. ‘Do you want to put together a few things you might need overnight, and make sure you’ve got some cash?’

Kathy nodded, her mouth working. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

‘He’s going to get the best possible treatment, starting right now.’ It was all she could promise.

Kathy made her slow way out of the room. Maggie opened her medical bag, and then heard Will’s return.

‘You’re not going to wait for the ambulance?’ he said. ‘It’s on its way.’

‘No, I’m not waiting. I’ll put in an IV and run in as much fluid as possible. And I have some new antibiotic samples in my bag. Could you check them for me?’

‘See if any of them are worth a try?’

‘Yes.’ She racked her brains. ‘Can’t remember what’s there.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty well up on that stuff.’

‘I’m glad you’re here, Will.’ The words just slipped out. Will was probably as surprised by them as Maggie was, but he didn’t say anything.

Maggie got an IV kit out of her bag, found a good vein in the back of Matthew’s hand and swabbed the area. He stiffened and hissed as she slid in the cannula, but didn’t jerk away. Yes, it was safely in. She taped it in place and began to run in the fluid. There was nowhere to hang the IV bag.

She held it awkwardly until Will said, ‘Wait a second.’ He slipped through to the kitchen and appeared again with a wooden-backed kitchen chair.

‘Hang it on this. Ambulance should be here soon, and the hospital knows he’s coming. Can I look at those antibiotics now?’

‘Please. They’re all oral. I don’t know if it’s worth it. He needs intravenous.’

‘At this stage, let’s go with the idea that it can’t hurt.’

‘How much time did I waste by not calling the ambulance immediately?’

‘Five, maybe ten minutes. It’s not significant, Maggie. The fact that Kathy called early is the important part. If she’d waited till morning, or even another hour or two…Kids do recover from this.’

‘Some.’

‘Let’s try this. It’s broad spectrum, and pretty powerful.’ Will produced a sample packet of capsules and they managed to get Matthew to swallow one successfully.

The ambulance arrived within minutes, just as Kathy made her way back down the stairs. She put her swollen hand to her throat when she saw her son being carried out on a stretcher. Will held up the IV bag and Maggie took Kathy’s overnight bag and helped her to the vehicle.

‘I didn’t close up the house,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘I’ll take care of that for you, Kathy,’ Maggie soothed.

She expected Will to wait in the car, but instead found that he was following her back into the house as the ambulance pulled away, with sirens rising.

‘Better check that everything’s switched off,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look upstairs.’

Maggie found some soup sitting in a pot on the stove. She poured it into a plastic container and put it in the fridge. Will appeared in the doorway just as she closed the door of the ancient appliance.

‘Any idea where she’d keep new batteries?’ he asked.

‘Batteries?’

‘The smoke alarm upstairs is yelping at me, which means it’s about to give out. And I bet the wiring in this place isn’t that great.’

‘No, probably not,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s try the drawers.’

Cutlery, dish towels, paper bags…Will reached the drawer next to the one Maggie was checking, and as he pulled it out she felt the brush of his arm on hers, like a streak of warm paint. He said ‘Aha!’ a moment later, flourishing the small, box-shaped nine-volt battery.

‘Oh, good.’ Maggie’s voice came out a little too high, and she stepped back out of the thick potency of his aura. Will had no idea he did this to her, thank goodness!

He added, ‘Now, I just need this chair again.’

He grabbed the stiff-backed wooden kitchen chair with one hand and carried it out of the room as if it weighed as much as a plastic coffee-mug. Maggie stood there, leaning helplessly against the sink as she listened to him, still bathed in the aftermath of that one tiny, accidental touch.

She heard his firm footfalls on the hardwood stairs, the scrape of chair legs, some clicks and snaps and rattles as he detached the smoke alarm, changed the battery and clicked it back into place. It was a job she’d done a few times herself since Mark’s death, but she always fumbled it, took three attempts to get the thing out and in again properly. She didn’t like it.

Tasks like that daunted her more than they should, given her capability in other areas. She was intelligent, but that didn’t mean she was good at practical household maintenance tasks. She was always glad that the whooping warning signal was so damned annoying, because it forced her to tackle the matter immediately. Even gladder, tonight, that someone else was here to do it. Someone male and strong and sure of what he was doing.

Will was back. He deposited the chair beside the table and said, ‘Done. Shall we go?’

‘Thanks, Will.’

He shrugged. ‘No problem.’

She wanted to push the point. Thanks for checking upstairs. Thanks for taking notice of that sound. Thanks for acting on it, when these aren’t your patients, and when a lot of people wouldn’t have bothered to make all those cognitive leaps. Dying alarm plus old wooden house plus slow-moving occupant equals unacceptable risk.

She let him open the front door for her—ten years ago, she would have made a clumsy point of doing it herself—and he surprised her once more by pausing just before he closed it.

‘Does she have her keys with her?’

‘Well, I know she took her purse…’

‘Should I take a quick look around, just in case?’ He did so, but came back empty-handed.

In the car once more, they were silent. Maggie’s thoughts were with Kathy and Matthew, speeding towards the hospital, and then something else began to nag at her—the two calls from Amy Pickford’s parents earlier, about her high fever.

She hadn’t been concerned at the time. Going over the baby’s symptoms in a rational way, she still wasn’t—but what if she was wrong?

‘Will, I’m sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘There’s another patient I want to take a look at. Five minutes’ drive. I’ll phone ahead now and tell the parents I’m coming. I know I’m being paranoid, but—’

‘Tell me about it,’ he invited her calmly, and when she’d sketched out the details he said, ‘You’re right.’

‘That I should check the baby out, in view of Matthew’s illness, or that I’m being paranoid?’

‘Both. In medicine, as in real life—’

‘Oh, medicine’s not real life, according to you?’ she cut in.

‘No, it’s real life concentrated until it’s four times as thick…’

Maggie laughed.

‘And in both, it’s not the likely odds of a particular outcome that count, it’s how serious the consequences are. From what you’ve said, I’m close to a hundred per cent certain this baby doesn’t have meningitis. But if she did, would you ever forgive yourself?’

‘No. Never.’

‘So go and check her out. I won’t come in this time, and for a premium of around ten minutes of your time, you’ve insured yourself against a lifetime of losing sleep.’

Maggie’s visit to the Pickford household unfolded exactly as she and Will had both predicted. The baby’s temperature had dropped significantly, she had developed a runny nose and she had no rash or neck stiffness. She was now sleeping peacefully, and when Maggie crept in to take a look, she was presented with the familiar sight of a baby with a developing cold.

‘Is the doctor feeling better now?’ Will asked when she came out of the house.

He had got out of the car for some fresh air, and was pacing up and down the steep gravel driveway.

‘Much,’ Maggie answered. ‘Since the patient is feeling better.’

‘Good.’ He flung her one of his gorgeous smiles.

‘When did you get to be this thoughtful?’ Maggie asked without thinking. Not the sort of thing you should say aloud, but somehow with Will she always had.

He stilled for a fraction of a second, then said lightly, ‘Around the same time as most guys, I guess.’

‘And when’s that?’

‘You tell me!’

‘With men like you, often it’s never!’

This time, his stillness wasn’t momentary, but it was definitely threatening. ‘If I’m supposed to regard that as a backhanded compliment, Maggie, sorry, I don’t,’ he said. ‘That’s like telling a woman that she seems surprisingly intelligent for a blonde.’

‘Now you’re a feminist, too?’

Oh, hell, what was wrong with her tonight?

‘I think what I think,’ he growled. He strode down the driveway towards the car, and the loose gravel rattled. In the neighbouring yard, a dog barked.

Apologise, Maggie.

‘Can we…uh…rewind the tape a little?’ she asked. It was inadequate, but both her tongue and her brain stubbornly announced themselves incapable of doing better.

‘To what point in the conversation?’

‘To the place where I said thanks.’

‘Oh, right, yeah, you did,’ he drawled. ‘I’d almost forgotten.’

‘Sorry, OK? I’m sorry.’

He sighed between his teeth. ‘Yeah, so am I. Look, shall we forget dessert? Obviously this joining your practice thing is a non-starter, so there’s nothing to discuss. Just drop me back at the hotel. Daniel sometimes wakes up around this time and I doubt he’ll react well to an unknown babysitter. I told the woman I wasn’t planning to leave the hotel.’

Remorse burned on Maggie’s skin like steam in a sauna.

‘Will, do you have Daniel with you? Why didn’t you say? You didn’t need to come with me to see Matthew. I assumed he was at home in Arizona with Alison.’

‘Home in Arizona is with me,’ he answered slowly. ‘I have custody now. And Daniel is why I need to make this move.’

‘Listen, can we rewind the tape right back to where you first came up to me with those lovely flowers?’ Maggie caught up to him just as they reached the car, parked precariously in the steep, rutted driveway. She touched his arm, but let her hand drop again at once. ‘Daniel is the reason you were late, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, Daniel is the reason I was late,’ Will agreed patiently. ‘I didn’t want to leave until he was asleep, and he wouldn’t settle. But is there any point in explanations?’

There was a sceptical lift and tilt to his head. It showed off his firm jaw. The reflection of a nearby streetlamp glittered in his dark eyes and sheened on his short hair.

‘The point,’ she answered, struggling for a firm, steady tone, ‘from where I stand, is so that I don’t have to spend the next three months confronting my worst weaknesses when I think back on how unfair I’ve been to you tonight. I guess maybe it’s not surprising that you think I hate you. I don’t. But I—I don’t know what gets into me when you’re around, Will Braggett.’

She knew she was blushing, and prayed he couldn’t see it in the dim, bluish light of streetlamp and moon.

‘So if you don’t hate me…?’ he said softly. Left the sentence unfinished quite deliberately, she could tell. There was a new light of interest and curiosity in his dark eyes.

Oh, damn, and she couldn’t even begin to say it! She feared, though, that it was written all over her face. Did he want her to say it? Was he guessing, or did he know?

Her lower lip was trembling, and so were her knees. Her widened eyes swam. Will’s fresh male scent filled her nostrils once more, and his warmth drew her like a magnet. They faced each other, motionless, and the sharp edge of old, unsated and unwanted desire swelled inside her to screaming point.

He did something to her. He always had. Her limbs softened with wanting. Her jaw was wired tight with the tension of fighting it. Her tongue grew barbs whenever she spoke, to keep him from guessing. She fought what she felt by fighting him, but her dreams betrayed her. Her nerve-endings betrayed her.

They had for years, and they were doing it again now. She was so close to reaching out to him, touching him, using her body to beg for his. Didn’t have room in her mind to think about how he’d react, how he was reacting already.

This is why I married Mark, she suddenly understood. A man I loved, but didn’t desire. Because I was so afraid of how I’d felt about Will for so long. Afraid of how this desire might have weakened me and changed me. It would. Still, after all this time, it would. I guess I kept seeing my father, and all his torrid, pitiful affairs. Not to mention my mother, and her unmet needs. And I was afraid of wanting a man I didn’t respect. I didn’t respect Will then. Has that changed?

‘Perhaps it’s best described as grudging esteem,’ she managed finally, her voice deceptively light.

It was a typical Maggie-to-Will answer, and he recognised it as such. The tension of awareness between them had broken now. Maybe he hadn’t guessed after all. Please, let it be that he hadn’t guessed!

He turned and made his way around to the passenger door of her car.

‘Interesting choice of words,’ he said. ‘Esteem. A word that reeks of old-fashioned primness, with an aura of keep-your-distance. And grudging! You’ve always begrudged everything you felt about me, Maggie, as if I wasn’t even worth the effort of your anger. Except once. When we sat by the pool and talked for four hours straight and for once you forgot to fight.’

She sighed and spread her hands. ‘I won’t apologise again. You’d only laugh, and you’d be right. Apologies only go so far, don’t they? But let’s go back to the hotel. Tell me about Daniel. Tell me why you want to leave Arizona. Tell me what you’d have to offer my practice. I won’t fight with you. I’ll try. You’re right. I’m sick of making the effort.’

‘Sure. Yeah. OK.’

But he was silent as they drove until she prompted, ‘Will?’

‘Listen,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’m not asking you for any favours here. I’m a competent, experienced professional, with an impeccable track record and brilliant references. I have other options. So if you’re going to pull that let’s-see-whose-IQ-is-the-highest routine with me—and I don’t just mean tonight, Maggie, I mean ever—then I’m out. And, please, don’t bore me with denials. It’s what you used to do to me all the time.’

Of course, it was true. It shamed her.

‘And I probably lost every time,’ she finished, half to herself.

He laughed roughly. ‘Oh, no! You won. Plenty of times, Maggie Lawless, you won!’

‘Fifty-fifty at best.’

‘Never again,’ he stressed. ‘I’ve spent too much of my past wondering what would happen to my poor, damaged ego if you decided to try just a little harder.’

‘You mean I got to you?’ She was incredulous. ‘You mean you cared? I thought—’

‘Did you?’ He twisted in his seat and studied her face. ‘You never realised that half of—most of—how I responded to you was an act?’

‘No. I didn’t. And a lot of the time, Will…’

‘Yes?’

‘I—I was acting, too.’

He clicked his tongue against the side of his mouth and muttered, ‘Points to me that I never knew I’d won.’

‘We’re giving that up, remember?’ she reminded him softly, with a laugh in her voice. Maybe she needed to reassess every exchange she’d ever had with this man. ‘Tell me about Daniel.’

‘When did you find out?’ Maggie asked, some minutes later.

Their waiter placed a towering creation of puff pastry, custard, cream and fresh berries in front of her and the steaming richness of fresh coffee reached her nostrils. She ignored both cup and plate at first. Her gaze was riveted on Will’s serious face. His eyes were completely hidden by a screen of black lashes as he stared down at the table, and his mouth was tight.

‘I first felt that something wasn’t right when he was just a few months old,’ he replied. He prodded his own chocolate mousse cake with a fork, then looked up. His eyes seemed darker than ever. ‘It was summer. Practically every building in Arizona is air-conditioned, but whenever we were outside with him in the dry, intense heat for anything more than a few minutes, he’d just wilt, and we could see he was overheating. He had a couple of summer colds and he’d get feverish and his temperature just wouldn’t go down.’

‘Scary,’ she murmured.

‘He was hospitalised once, with suspected meningitis. Fortunately, that was a false alarm. I wanted to start some tests, but Alison…well…didn’t think that was needed.’

‘Of course, it’s natural that she didn’t want to think anything could be wrong,’ Maggie suggested.

Will smiled distantly, but said nothing.

‘That’s a normal reaction, isn’t it?’ she pressed.

She watched the way he chose his next words. ‘She found it hard to accept anything that threatened to deflect her from her goals. Alison has become very involved in her career.’

‘Couldn’t you say that of all of us? Medicine is a very demanding profession.’

‘She went back to work two weeks after Daniel’s birth and couldn’t manage to maintain breastfeeding.’ He paused. ‘She…uh…thought that my concern about Daniel’s health was just an attempt to make her feel guilty, a way of saying that she’d failed.’

Yes, it was true that Alison had never reacted well to criticism or defeat, Maggie thought cautiously. Reluctantly, too. Her instinct had always been to defend her friend against Will. It was a hard habit to break, even when his criticism was apparently reluctant as well. He was picking through his words as if they were unmapped mines in an open field.

‘She wouldn’t agree to tests,’ he went on, ‘even after another three days in hospital, again with what turned out to be a common, non-specific infant fever that just wouldn’t break.’

‘What about the issue of his teeth? Didn’t that set off alarm bells?’

‘No, it didn’t, because plenty of children cut their first teeth later than normal. It wasn’t until we had the provisional diagnosis of the genetic defect, two months later, that his jaw was X-rayed and we found there was nothing waiting to come through.’

‘How did Alison take the diagnosis?’

Again, there was a hesitation. ‘At first, she felt that it didn’t have to change anything.’

‘Which in many ways is true,’ Maggie suggested. ‘In terms of intelligence, he’s completely normal, right? And physically, it’s mainly about keeping cool. He has no teeth, no hair—’

‘He has false teeth, which will be changed several times as he grows. He has a thin blond fuzz, which he’ll probably keep. I think it’s cute.’ Will’s eyes were bright. ‘And I’m thankful for the current wide range of acceptable hairstyles and hope we never return to a more conservative era.’

‘And he has no sweat glands. That’s—’

‘Yes, the real concern. A reason…a major reason…I wasn’t prepared to stay in Phoenix.’

‘Alison didn’t want to leave.’

‘Alison…had her own solutions,’ he answered carefully. ‘I won’t bore you with the details of our debate.’

A smile flickered briefly on his face like a dodgy light bulb and then went out. Maggie felt an absurd need to touch him, even though it wasn’t likely he’d gain much from her action.

Will closed his eyes briefly, then continued, ‘Anyway, as soon as the divorce and custody issues were finalised, I was free to start looking around.’

‘I can see why Alison didn’t want to move. She’d just been given a position at the hospital which she’d wanted for a long time,’ Maggie said, defending her friend again.

She remembered the eager—and, now that she thought about it, self-important—detail contained in the annual Christmas card, written when Daniel must have been about eight months old. There had been nothing about his genetic abnormality.

‘This is a major, major milestone for me, Maggie!’ Alison had written. ‘I can’t describe to you how much it means!’ She had then gone on to describe it anyway, spelling out points which Maggie, as a doctor herself, understood very well already.

And OK, yes, that was annoying, but it was a small thing. Maggie reminded herself that there were two sides to every story.

‘I was pretty well situated myself,’ Will drawled. ‘We were about to buy a house. Alison wanted to continue with the purchase. I thought we needed to take some time, plot some scenarios.’

‘Such as?’

‘What would it be like for a kid growing up in a climate where he could barely go outside for most of the year? No team sports, no picnics. Even playing in the sandbox at preschool would be risky. Alison suggested that it was about my ego. I’d been a star athlete at school, and so I didn’t want to end up with a weedy kid who couldn’t do sports.’

He laughed, and continued, ‘She’s right about that! But it’s not ego. It’s about not wanting him to miss out, not wanting this thing to define his personality and narrow his choices from day one. And it’s about finding a lifestyle where there’s space to consider his needs and give him some time. Hell, Alison only saw him awake at weekends!’

The last words came out as a growl and he closed his eyes again, as if already deeply regretting that he’d said as much as he had. Maggie’s heart gave a sympathetic lurch. She’d never heard him speak in this way before, and he obviously hated it.

‘Why here, though, Will?’ she asked carefully. ‘Sure, the pace of life is slower than in the city, and the climate is cooler than out west. He can spend more time outdoors. But sport is still a risk, isn’t it?’

‘Not all sports. When I saw that string of houses spread out along the lakefront, with your practice right there, it was something straight from my wish-list, just the way it had sounded from your description. I wanted something in the mountains and close to water. He can go swimming and boating, winter sports, maybe, and I’ll have time to teach him about his limitations myself instead of farming that task out to a trained nurse, as Alison talked about.’

‘Did she contest custody?’

He shook his head, muttered something that Maggie didn’t catch and she heard an old thought whisper traitorously inside her head.

Yeah, Will, even when the going gets tough, the chips basically fall your way.

Alison probably wouldn’t have dared to contest custody when it would have involved pitting herself against the juggernaut of Will Braggett’s habitual success.

Unfair to think of it that way. Maggie had no doubt that he’d been through a lot. It was written in the new lines on his face, the new sensitivity to his mouth, the new depth to his black eyes. He and Alison had been together for a long time, a golden, successful couple envied by all who’d known them. Some relationships, like some plants, only flourished in full sun. Their break-up must have felt like a failure, and Daniel’s rare genetic problem must have been frightening.

The waiter appeared with more coffee, but Maggie shook her head.

‘I should get back,’ she said.

She looked at Will, forced herself to see beyond the foolish, draining desire that had been with her so long it seemed like a part of her bones. He was a doctor and she was certain that he was right in his arrogant claim that he was a very good one.

Out of the blue, remembered images came to her mind. She thought back on the serious, absorbed way Will used to bend over the dissecting table in anatomy class. Those macabre, ridiculous jokes he’d made had only been a front. She hadn’t been able to see it, then.

Lord, she’d been so humourless where he was concerned! She had ignored the absorption and focused on the smart mouth. Making rounds, too, as students on their first visit to a genuine hospital unit, he had always asked the right questions, and had always found time to smile at the patients.

While I was usually too terrified about making a mistake to think of making a connection like that…

Did he belong in her practice? She owed it to both of them, perhaps, and to little Daniel as well, to explore the issue more deeply.

‘I want you and Daniel to come over and talk tomorrow, Will,’ she told him seriously. ‘I do need to take on a new partner, and I don’t doubt that you’d be an asset to the practice. But there are…other factors to consider. We both need to think about whether this can possibly work. I’m sorry I gave you such a knee-jerk reaction at first.’

‘Apology accepted. And I know the fault wasn’t all on your side. Will you go to the hospital to see Matthew in the morning?’

‘Well, there’s no need…’

‘A statement which doesn’t answer my question.’

‘Yes, I’ll probably go,’ she admitted. ‘For Kathy’s sake. I—I just hate to think how she’d deal with it if he doesn’t pull through this.’

She shook her head. In certain circumstances, meningitis could result in amputation, brain damage or death. Kathy already had enough to deal with.

‘Let me check on Daniel, then I’ll walk you out to your car,’ Will said quietly.

A quick signature charged their meal to his room account and they left, choosing the stairs to reach his second-floor room. Maggie waited outside, listening to the murmur of voices within. All seemed quiet. She held the flowers Will had given her, which the restaurant staff had placed in water for her during their meal.

Will closed the door of the hotel room silently behind him a few moments later.

‘Hasn’t stirred,’ he reported. ‘The babysitter was almost asleep.’ They headed for the stairs once more. ‘How do you want to do this tomorrow?’

‘Well, I’m on call all weekend, so I was only planning to hang around the house in any case.’

‘How do you arrange cover when you need time off?’

‘I work out a roster with a couple of other local doctors.’

‘The ones your office manager recommended when she told me you weren’t taking new patients?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Anyhow, if you and Daniel just come over in the morning…’ After everything Will had said about his son, she was curious to see the little boy—Alison’s son, flawed in a way that apparently Alison hadn’t been able to deal with. ‘For breakfast, if you like,’ she added.

‘Are you still a morning person?’

‘I’ve never been a morning person.’

‘You used to get up at six every morning to study.’

‘That doesn’t mean I’m a morning person, it just means I’m disciplined. Sorry,’ she added at once. ‘That wasn’t an attempt to score points. I was just—’

‘Stating a fact,’ he cut in. ‘I can see that. I’m starting to wonder if a lot of what I used to think was point-scoring was actually stating facts. Back then, I was used to girls who swooned, not girls who fought back.’

‘And back then, I was point-scoring.’

‘Never tempted to swoon?’ He grinned, and she didn’t credit him with an ounce of serious intent behind the question.

‘No!’

‘I can see you wouldn’t want to risk tactful wording obscuring the clarity of your reply!’ Something flickered in the back of his eyes, but she couldn’t read it.

She sighed. ‘We’re still point-scoring, aren’t we?’

‘But this time it’s fun,’ he answered. ‘Isn’t it? I’m trying for that.’

‘Mmm…’

‘Maybe we were both too…too raw back then, too brash and clumsy and young, to enjoy it the way we should have done,’ he suggested.

I’m too raw now, Maggie thought.

Not brash and young any more, but still, where Will was concerned, far, far too raw.

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