Don't Want To Miss A Thing (2 page)

‘I’m a mum,’ said Laura. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘And this one’s strong.’ Dex’s index finger was being grasped by Delphi’s tiny curled hand; he mimed agonising pain. ‘I think she’s going to be a wrestler when she grows up.’

‘Here, let me take a photo.’ Laura scooped up her phone and signalled for him to move his face closer to Delphi’s.

‘So did it hurt, giving birth?’ He grimaced. ‘Don’t give me any gory details.’

‘It was easy,’ Laura assured him. ‘Like shelling peas. No pain at all.’

‘Good girl.’ Happy with the lie, Dex nodded approvingly at Delphi. ‘Wait till you’re older. I’m going to teach you all the tricks of the trade. How to keep boys under control, how to break their hearts . . .’ Delphi was gazing solemnly up at him with saucer eyes as he spoke. ‘I’ll have to check them out first, see if they’re worthy of a date with Delphi Yates before letting you out of the house with them. And they’ll have me to answer to if they mess you around.’

‘Can you imagine? She’ll be a teenager,’ Laura marvelled. ‘Wearing unsuitable outfits, drinking cider and moaning about us behind our backs. One more photo.’

He held Delphi up again, careful to cradle her head in the palm of his hand, and Laura felt her heart take a picture of its own. There was a connection between the two of them that was clear to see; as they gazed into each other’s eyes, it was as if they were sharing the most amazing secret. The physical similarities were there too, in the shape of their eyes and the angle of their dark brows; you just knew Delphi would grow up looking like Dex. Laura pressed the button and captured the moment forever. Magically, their images were now enclosed within the phone.

‘Send me a copy,’ said Dex.

‘I will. You’ll have to be careful who you show it to, mind. Might cramp your style.’

‘True.’ He grinned at Delphi. ‘Is that what you’re going to do, hmm? That’s the plan? Oh my, you are
dangerous
.’

‘How’s the new girlfriend?’ Laura couldn’t remember her name but it didn’t matter, Dex no longer expected her to. He got through them at such a rate of knots.

‘It’s over.’ Dex looked mournful. ‘I’m all alone and single again. Poor me.’

As if. Laura said, ‘I know, you’ll probably be a sad and lonely bachelor for the rest of your life.’

The door creaked open a few inches and the nurse popped her head round to whisper, ‘Sorry, but you’re going to have to go now before I get into trouble.’

Dex said at once, ‘And we can’t have that. Thanks so much for letting me in. You’ve been an angel and I really appreciate it.’

‘That’s OK.’ Her cheeks dimpled with pleasure. ‘At least you got the chance to see Delphi.’

‘Which makes two new people I’m really glad I met tonight. Oh God, that sounds pukey, forget I said it.’ Having carefully placed Delphi back in Laura’s outstretched arms, Dex kissed each of them in turn and said, ‘Time for you to get some sleep. By the way, you don’t happen to know if Alice has a boyfriend, do you?’

Behind him, Alice was still hovering half in and half out of the door. She blushed scarlet at the realisation he’d checked out her name badge earlier.

‘Funnily enough,’ said Laura, ‘I didn’t get round to asking her. I was kind of busy having a baby.’

‘Well, she isn’t wearing any rings,’ said Dex. ‘So that’s a good start.’

‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ said Alice. ‘Why?’

He turned to look at her. ‘I was just wondering when you’re next due an evening off. Because if you think you might like to come out for a drink with me, I’d definitely like to go out for a drink with you.’

Laura watched and waited; he was completely incorrigible. Flirting came as naturally to Dexter as breathing. Were his chat-up lines spontaneous or did he keep to a tried and tested rota?

The recipient of this one, meanwhile, was flushing with pleasure. ‘Um, well, I’m actually off tomorrow night . . .’

‘Fantastic!’

‘But that wouldn’t be any good, would it?’ Alice was shaking her head. ‘Because you’ll be in New York!’

Dex tapped his temple. ‘You’re right. I’ve got jetlag already. Although it’s only a flying visit. I’ll be back the day after that.’

‘I’m free next Thursday.’ Alice looked expectant.

‘I tell you what, give me a contact number and I’ll call you. I’m not an axe murderer, I promise.’ He took out his mobile and keyed in the number she gave him. ‘And now I must go before you get told off. This place is such a maze, isn’t it? I don’t know how I’m going to find my way out.’

Visibly bowled over, Alice said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you where the lifts are.’

‘Bye.’ Waving from the bed as they left the room, Laura called out mischievously, ‘Don’t forget to bring us back something fabulous from New York!’

Chapter 2

At the precise moment Dexter Yates was leaving one hospital in the early hours of the morning, a hundred miles away Molly Hayes was pulling up outside another.

And wondering how she’d been blackmailed into doing so.

Except there was an answer to that, and it was niggling at her like a tiny sharp-edged stone in her shoe. Because there was a fine line between being a good sport and a soft touch.

And she was beginning to think she might have just crossed it.

On the upside, at least there was space to park at this time of night, although from the sound of it, there were some pretty inebriated patients too, determined not to let the unfortunate turn their evening out had taken spoil their fun. Hopping out of the car – no she jolly well
wasn’t
going to Pay and Display – Molly made her way past the ticket machine and headed across to A&E. Approaching the entrance, she caught her own reflection in the glass, blond hair uncombed and all over the place. Oh well, too bad.

It soon became apparent that the inebriated patient making the most noise of all was the one she’d come to pick up.

Oh joy.

‘Hey, here she is!’ Spotting her, Graham abruptly broke off his rendition of ‘Return to Sender’ and launched into ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’. Which was even more embarrassing than usual, given that she was currently looking more like Wurzel Gummidge.

Soon realising this for himself, Graham peered in puzzlement at Molly and said, ‘What’s happened to your hair? And your . . . you know,
face
?’ He made scrunched-up motions with his fingers. ‘Why are you all . . . different?’

Molly said evenly, ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning. Believe it or not, I was asleep when you called. This is what I look like without make-up. Just like this is what
you
look like after a night out with your rugby friends. Shall we go?’

‘Ah no, you can’t leave yet,’ protested a woman sitting opposite with a toddler on her lap. ‘Timmy’ll start crying again if you do.’ She turned to Molly. ‘He loves the singing. Your husband’s been a complete lifesaver tonight, keeping him entertained.’

‘He’s not my husband,’ said Molly as, on cue, the little boy began to whimper in a fractious manner.

‘Well, he’s been a godsend,’ the woman reiterated. ‘And we’re due to be seen soon. You can stay for just a bit longer, can’t you?’

Why? Why did these things always have to happen to her? Graham resumed his singing – Elvis tracks were his speciality – and Timmy stopped whimpering in order to gaze at him in rapt adoration. Everyone else in the waiting room, astoundingly, appeared to be enjoying the show too. Realising that to drag him away now would make her some kind of hateful frozen-hearted witch, Molly found herself sinking on to an empty plastic chair and picking up one of the mangled magazines from the table in front of her.

Three months, that was how long they’d been seeing each other. She’d first met Graham in a cinema queue and in so many ways he’d seemed like excellent boyfriend material. Intelligent, tick. Kind-hearted, tick. Not a ladies’ man,
big
tick. By day he was a chartered accountant, which had impressed her no end. And he didn’t have any irritating habits along the lines of eating noisily, sniffing non-stop or laughing like a donkey.

But no one’s perfect and Graham’s irritating habit turned out to be his passion for rugby. Or, more to the point, for going out with his rugby-playing mates
even when the rugby season was over
, and getting absolutely plastered on a regular basis.

Actually, she wouldn’t even mind if it didn’t affect her, but it was reaching the stage where it
was
. Last month, one of Graham’s epic hangovers had resulted in them not going to a barbecue. And a couple of weeks ago he’d managed to shoot a champagne cork into his own eye at a wedding. The subsequent bruising, which had been spectacular, had only just gone down.

And now this, tonight. To add insult to injury, she’d been having a brilliant dream when the phone had rung, waking her up.

‘Hey, Molly, I love you, it’s me.’ His voice had been blurred around the edges. ‘You won’t believe what’s happened. I’ve only gone and broken my foot. I can’t
walk
. . .’

‘Oh God, where are you?’ She’d got head-rush sitting bolt upright, instantly conjuring up a mental picture of Graham lying in agony at the bottom of a ravine. This was what happened when you were jolted out of a dream that involved skiing in the Swiss Alps with Robert Downey Junior, and loaves of bread strapped to your shoes.

‘I’m at the hospital, A&E. They’ve sorted me out but now I can’t get home. I had to spend my taxi money getting here. And
I can’t walk,’ Graham said sadly. ‘Oh Molly, I
do
love you. Could you come and pick me up?’

‘Oh God . . .’

‘If I had my credit card,’ he wheedled, ‘I wouldn’t have to ask.’

Molly sighed; she was the one who’d told him to leave his bank cards at home after the last time he’d lost them on a night out.

See? Soft touch. And now that she was here, they
still
couldn’t leave.

Thankfully the child’s mother had been right and within minutes they were called through for treatment. When they’d disappeared, Graham held out his hands to Molly and said, ‘There, he’ll be fine. Shall we go now?’

She had to help him up. His right shoe was sticking out of his jacket pocket, his right foot bare and spattered with dried blood. There was tape wrapped around his toes.

Molly frowned. ‘If you’ve broken your foot, shouldn’t it be in a plaster cast?’

‘Well, I didn’t actually break my
foot
. It was the toes. The little one and the one next to it. They don’t put them in a cast,’ Graham explained. ‘Just strap them together. Bloody hurts, though. Ow.’ Leaning heavily on her shoulder, he took a step and flinched. ‘
Ow
, OW.’

He weighed fourteen stone to her eight. At this rate she’d end up putting her back out. ‘Couldn’t they give you crutches?’ said Molly.

‘What? Oh yeah, they did. What happened to them? They were here earlier. I forgot!’

The crutches were located under someone else’s chair. It was finally time to leave. As they headed outside, a lad approached them. In his late teens and with his arm in a sling, he said, ‘Mate,
I can’t get a taxi and my girlfriend’s mad as hell ’cos I should’ve been home ages ago. Couldn’t give me a lift to Horfield, could you?’

‘Sorry, we can’t.’ Molly shook her head, avoiding eye contact.

‘Oh, Moll, don’t say that! Of course we can give him a lift.’ Graham wasn’t just a drunk, he was a generous drunk. ‘No problem, mate, come along with us, Horfield’s not far out of our way. We’ll drop you home!’

Once everyone was folded into the car, Molly buzzed down the driver’s window to dispel the alcohol fumes.

‘So how did you manage to break your toes?’ she asked Graham.

‘Fell off a table.’ He shrugged as if it was entirely the table’s fault for not managing to keep him on there.

‘And where did all the blood come from?’

‘I dropped my pint when I fell. There was glass everywhere. You should see Steve’s hands, cut to ribbons where he landed on it!’

‘So all in all you had a pretty disastrous night.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Graham gave a shout of incredulous laughter. ‘It was brilliant, best time ever!’

Nodding slowly, Molly decided for all their sakes to concentrate on the road ahead. And to think she’d been so thrilled last month when he’d helped her fill out her tax form online.

But accountant or no accountant, Graham definitely wasn’t destined to be the man of her dreams.

He was going to have to go.

Chapter 3

Dexter was enjoying Alice’s company. She was a nice girl with a neat figure and pretty grey eyes. Rather sweetly, she had refused to sleep with him after their first date, proudly announcing that she wasn’t that sort of girl.

It had happened after the second date instead.

And now it was a fortnight later and to his eternal shame Dex could already feel his enthusiasm start to wane. He didn’t want it to be like this, it just always seemed to happen regardless. The thrill was in the chase, the process of seduction. As soon as that aspect of it was over, the excitement began to subside, the shine wear off. He still had fun, enjoyed their company, liked being with them, but never
quite
as much as before.

The morning after their first night in bed, Alice had said, ‘Don’t go thinking I make a habit of this, by the way. I’ve never done it before.’

They always said that too.

Poor Alice, she deserved better than a no-hoper like him.

Dex made coffee as she wandered into the kitchen now, wearing his too-big towelling robe. While he’d been out of the bedroom
she’d done her usual thing of hastily brushing her hair and teeth and dabbing on a bit of lip gloss.

‘Here you go.’ He passed her a cup. ‘What time do you have to be at work?’

Her eyes danced. ‘Trying to get rid of me?’

‘Of course not. It’s just that I’ve got a couple of appointments later.’

‘I know.’ Alice’s tone was playful as she perched on one of the stainless steel stools and reached for the leaflets next to the coffee maker. She tapped the times and dates he’d scrawled across the top of each one. ‘I saw them last night. Are these for
you
?’

‘Well, not all of them. But one. Possibly.’ It had started off, pretty much, as an idle whim. A friend at work had happened to mention how much he looked forward to heading out of London on Friday afternoons and spending lazy weekends at his cottage in the country. The idea had piqued Dex’s interest and he’d registered his details on a couple of estate agents’ websites. Then the glossy brochures had started arriving and the level of interest had grown. A refuge, somewhere to get away from it all, began to sound like something he might really enjoy. It wouldn’t be a stretch to buy a smallish property. And whether he ended up liking it or not, choose wisely and it wasn’t as if he’d be throwing money away. It would be an investment.