Brought Together by Baby (8 page)

‘I hate to keep referring to him as
“the baby”
,’ Holly added, gently fingering the security band around his son’s fragile wrist, which simply read, ‘Baby Buchanan’.

‘No decision was made regarding names,’ he answered gruffly.

In truth he hadn’t given it much thought, because Julia had been determined that
she
would decide. It had been one of many points of contention, but at the time it hadn’t seemed imminently important, and he’d refused to be drawn into an argument when Julia had come up with ever more ridiculous names, inspired by the celebrity trend for the weird and unusual.

‘I don’t mean to intrude, but I have an idea if you’d care to hear it…one that I think means something to you and has resonance with both sides of the baby’s family.’

The nervousness and reticence in Holly’s voice suggested she was treading on eggshells around him. Weary, but grateful for the support she’d shown him, he made an effort to be less brusque with her.

‘Tell me,’ he invited, earning himself the barest flicker of a smile.

‘I was thinking…’ She paused, glancing at him uncertainly before returning her gaze to the sleeping form in the cot. ‘If you don’t like it, that’s fine—you choose whatever you want—but I came up with Max. Maxwell Angus Tait Buchanan.’

A fist clenched inside him as the full impact of Holly’s proposition sank in. She’d not only remembered something he’d told her ten months earlier, but she’d grasped its significance. The Christian name belonged to the only person
who had meant anything in his life before he’d come to Strathlochan.

Maxwell McTavish. The teacher who had looked past the exterior and seen the boy within. He’d become his mentor and confidant, encouraging him to fulfil his potential and helping him believe in himself. Maxwell’s sudden death four years ago had left him distraught, Gus admitted, choking up with the memories.

Apart from Maxwell, Holly was the only other person he’d ever trusted, talked to or allowed into his heart. He still didn’t understand the intense connection between them during his first weeks in Strathlochan, but he’d shared things with Holly that he’d never revealed to another living soul. Not even Maxwell. And, despite recent hostilities, Holly had suggested the one name guaranteed to touch his emotions.

‘You remembered,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes were huge as she looked at him—huge and filled with doubt. ‘If you don’t like it—’

‘I do.’ He shook his head to get rid of the confusion. Of course he liked it. He couldn’t have picked anything better himself. He met her gaze, not caring for that brief moment what he revealed to her. ‘Thank you, Holly.’

He saw her swallow, saw the sheen of moisture that clouded her eyes, and his heart turned over when she produced the first natural smile he’d seen from her in months. A smile that dimpled her cheeks, squeezed his heart and turned his insides to mush.

* * *

Relieved by Gus’s reaction to her idea about the name, Holly was moved by the emotion he revealed to her, reminding her of the old Gus—
her
Gus—in the days when they’d shared a special closeness. At least on her side. She was no longer sure Gus had felt anything. Maybe she’d just deluded herself
that he’d felt something for her because she’d so desperately wanted him to.

She’d been scared to mention the name, unsure if Gus would find her suggestion intrusive. She knew what Maxwell McTavish had meant to him, just as she understood why family was so important…the reason she’d known he would move heaven and earth for his child. And she knew all this because, days after they’d met, he’d told her about his life and Maxwell’s place in it.

‘How long have you lived in Strathlochan?’ Gus had asked as they’d sat outside having a late lunch after a busy morning in A&E.

‘All my life,’ she’d told him, licking some stray mayonnaise from her tuna sandwich off her fingers. ‘I was born and raised here. My dad died when I was sixteen, which was really hard, and I stayed with my mum at home while I did my nursing training—which was good, because I was able to take care of her when she became ill.’

Gus had been sympathetic, listening as if what she’d said was important to him. Encouraged by his attention, she’d opened up and shared some of her childhood memories…ones that didn’t include Julia. He hadn’t asked if she had any siblings, and that suited her just fine. The longer she kept Julia a secret the better.

‘Do you still live in the house?’ he’d asked.

‘No, it had to be sold after Mum died.’ She’d struggled to control her emotions, hiding the real reason she’d had to say goodbye to the home she loved. ‘That’s when I moved in with George. I’ve been there ever since.’

Gus’s mood had changed in an instant, his face tightening, long lashes lowering to mask the expression in his eyes. ‘Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t realise.’

‘Realise what?’ she’d asked, confused by the sudden change in him and the flat, distant tone of his voice.

‘That you were involved with someone.’

‘Involved?’ she’d repeated with a puzzled frown.

Sighing, Gus had sat back on the bench, hands thrust into the pockets of his scrub trousers as he’d gazed up at the blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. ‘George.’

‘Oh!’ She hadn’t been able to prevent a giggle escaping as the misunderstanding had become clear. ‘George as in Georgia Millar…she’s a staff nurse on the Children’s Ward!’

His answering chuckle had been laden with relief and a hint of embarrassment. ‘Right…that’s good! I’ve probably seen her around the hospital, but I can’t put a face to the name,’ he’d responded, finishing his sandwich with renewed appetite.

The knowledge that he’d been upset at the thought of her with another man had brought a warm glow and a tingle of excitement as she’d dared to hope he might like her as much as she liked him.

‘George lost her dad shortly before my mum died. Since then she’s rented out rooms in her house,’ Holly had explained. ‘Kelly—as in Kelly Young from A&E—lives there, too.’

‘Is that something you thought of doing in your own home?’

Gus’s question had hit a raw nerve, and she’d looked away lest he read the emotions in her eyes. She’d shaken her head, declining to explain why his suggestion wouldn’t have worked for her as it had so successfully for George. Doing so would have meant telling him about Julia, and that had been a road she hadn’t wanted to travel.

‘How about you, Gus?’ she’d asked, moving the conversation away from herself. She’d more or less fallen in love
with Gus from day one and wanted to find out all about him. ‘What’s your family like?’

‘I don’t know…I’ve never had one.’

Her bottle of juice had remained suspended in mid-air, part-way to her mouth, untasted and forgotten. She’d turned to face Gus, shocked not only by his words but by the bleak emptiness in his voice. Unable to stop herself, she’d reached out her free hand to take one of his, their fingers naturally entwining.

‘How do you mean?’ The question whispered from her, and she felt a mix of trepidation and suspense as she waited for him to answer, fearful for several long, tense moments that he’d shut himself away and not confide in her. ‘Gus…?’

A jagged breath shuddered from him and he sat forward, his gaze averted, his fingers clinging to hers as if to a lifeline. Her drink set aside, Holly held on tight with both hands, willing him to talk, but increasingly fearful of what he might say.

‘I was abandoned outside a hospital in Glasgow one frosty March morning,’ he began, and Holly barely contained her gasp of shock. ‘A nurse found me and rushed me inside. I was only a few hours old. They treated me for near hypothermia, and it was touch and go for a while whether I’d develop pneumonia or some other breathing problem. I didn’t. An appeal went out for my mother to come forward—there were concerns for her own health, physical and mental—but she never did. And a police enquiry proved fruitless.’

A shiver ran through her at the cold, emotionless tone of his voice. ‘Wh-What happened to you?’ she managed, stunned by the image of Gus as a baby, abandoned in the cold.

‘The nurse who found me named me Angus, but I’ve no idea where Buchanan came from.’ He paused, glancing briefly in her direction, and Holly squeezed his hand supportively.
‘When I was well enough to leave hospital I was placed in foster care,’ he continued, fledgling emotion beginning to challenge the dispassionate nature of his account. ‘It became one foster home after another for the first few years until I was finally placed in a children’s home, age six, labelled difficult and unable to settle.’

‘How could any child settle in circumstances like that?’ Holly exclaimed, incapable of containing her reaction, furious and hurting for the little boy who had been passed from pillar to post for so many years. Of
course
he hadn’t been able to put down roots. He must have felt unloved and frightened, and horribly let down by a system designed to help which, in his case, had failed abysmally.

‘I don’t know. I certainly didn’t. Not that the home was any better,’ he admitted, and she could feel the shudder that ran through him as he faced his memories. ‘I hated it there.’

Holly struggled to keep her tears for him at bay. ‘How long were you there?’

‘Until I was sixteen.’

‘All that time?’ she responded, unable to keep a horrified gasp in check. ‘What about adoption? Why didn’t they help find you a loving family?’

His expression hardened, but she saw the hurt and loneliness in his eyes before he looked away. ‘They tried…but no one wanted me.’

‘Oh, Gus,’ she whispered, a tear escaping.

‘Don’t cry for me.’ The fingers of his free hand gently wiped her cheek. ‘I survived. And when I started senior school I met Maxwell McTavish.’

As a smile stripped the harshness from his face Holly latched onto the information he’d given. ‘He was a teacher?’ she asked, anxious to learn more, to hear what had shaped him into the man he was today.

‘Yes. He saw something in me and had the patience and dedication to burrow past the angry, defensive exterior I’d cultivated to find it. He’s the nearest thing I ever had to a father. It’s thanks to him that education became my way out and gave me a chance to make something of myself.’

He let out a deep breath, and she wanted to hug the man for giving Gus the care and encouragement he’d badly needed.

‘He sounds amazing.’

‘He was,’ Gus allowed, a waver in his voice, his smile fading.

Heart in her mouth, she whispered the question that hung in the air. ‘Was?’

‘Was.’ Gus swallowed, emotion thickening his voice, his fingers once more tightening on hers. ‘He died four years ago—a sudden massive stroke. He was only fifty-four. I never had the chance to say goodbye or to thank him. And he never saw me qualify as a doctor.’

Uncaring who saw them, or what anyone thought, Holly wrapped her arms around him, fresh tears squeezing between her lashes. Having lost her own father suddenly, she knew how Gus must have felt about Maxwell, the man who had fulfilled Gus’s need to feel loved and to belong.

‘I’m sure he knew how you felt. And he’d be so very proud of you, Gus. You’re a credit to him,’ she murmured, her own emotions showing as she attempted to comfort him, her tears dampening the top of his scrubs.

‘Thank you, Holly.’

As they finished their lunch he told her more about Maxwell, and then he spoke of his feelings growing up alone, of what the idea of family meant to him.

‘I have no idea what the future holds in store,’ he concluded, ‘but if I’m ever lucky enough to have a child I intend to make damn sure he or she knows exactly where they’ve
come from, and is raised in a proper family with the love of a mother and a father and everything else I missed out on.’

Knowing about his past meant she’d understood Gus’s reaction to Julia’s pregnancy, but that hadn’t made his rejection of her in favour of her slender, beautiful sister any less painful. Nor had it eased the bitter regret and jealousy…More than anything,
she’d
wanted to be the woman to give Gus the family and the love he’d craved, and to be the mother of his children. But Gus’s decision to build that family with Julia had shattered her hopes…and her heart.

Now Julia had been violently taken from him, wrecking his dream of building his own family and leaving his son without a mother. Gus didn’t want her; he’d made that clear. But even though he’d hurt her, and she hated what he’d done, she wanted to help provide a loving, stable world for Max.

Regrouping, she turned back to her nephew. ‘Maxwell Angus Tait Buchanan seems far too big a name for such a tiny person,’ she admitted with a nervy laugh, moved by the memory of the time Gus had confided in her, and sorrowful that the trust and closeness they’d shared had evaporated so completely.

‘He’ll grow into it,’ Gus responded with a tired half-smile, his gaze on his sleeping son.

‘Please God, let’s hope so.’ She paused a moment before softly voicing her fear. ‘Max will be all right, Gus, won’t he?’

* * *

Gus looked up. Holly’s sky-blue eyes were huge and full of anxiety. The feeling in her voice called to him, and without conscious thought he did what she’d done for him earlier in the day: he took her free hand in his, understanding the basic human need for contact and comfort. He didn’t answer because he didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t want to tempt
fate. Like Holly, he’d experienced myriad emotions about Max’s immediate future.

For long moments they sat in silence, watching Max, listening to the buzz of the unit and the bleeping of the monitors. The highly skilled nurses cared for their tiny charges with dedication, kindness and efficiency. Gus looked around the unit. Each cot contained a fragile, often precarious new life, just like Max, watched over by parents who felt the same worries he and Holly shared.

‘You look exhausted,’ Holly murmured with concern. ‘If you want to go and freshen up, maybe get changed and have something to eat, I won’t leave Max.’

He knew she was right. Hell, he was still in the scrubs he’d pulled on in A&E who knew how many hours ago? He released her hand, immediately missing the feel of her soft skin.