Authors: Emma Daniels
THE DREAM CHILD (16 page)
Sophie hovered in the doorway, seeing the usual four beds, two of which had visitors gathered around them. An older man lay in another, which meant Victor was in the one under the window. Even though he was lying with his back to the doorway, she knew it was him.
How many times in the past few weeks had she looked up to gaze at the back of his blonde head? She wondered if he was asleep. Perhaps she shouldn’t disturb him after all. Maybe she should just turn around and leave.
“Can I help you? Are you looking for anyone in particular?” a short young nurse with a mass of curly red hair asked her.
Sophie motioned to Victor’s bed. “I wanted to see him, actually.”
“If you don’t mind your head being bitten off, be my guest,” the nurse said rather peevishly.
“Being his usual charming self, is he?” Sophie remarked. “He’ll probably have mine on a stick when he realises I’m here.” They both entered the room together. “Do you think I should wake him?”
The nurse went around to the other side of Victor’s bed.
“He isn’t asleep,” she told Sophie, and then to Victor. “I’ve come to do your obs. And you have a visitor.”
“No wonder no one ever gets any sleep in these places, with the way you guys come round every five minutes – “ He didn’t get to finish his sentence when a coughing fit interrupted him.
“I think we might call you the Frog Prince because Prince Charming you ain’t,” the nurse muttered as she started unwrapping a bandage on Victor’s arm.
“Call me what you bloody well like. Everyone else does,” he growled back at her.
When Sophie came around the bed, she gasped at the sight of his face. There didn’t appear to be any part of him that wasn’t bruised or scratched. He was also in need of a shave.
“You really have been in the wars, haven’t you?” Sophie said, coming to stand beside the nurse.
When he saw who his visitor was, he stared up at her in utter bafflement.
“What the Hell are you doing here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Nice to see you too,” Sophie said. “Some people at work were asking if you were dead, so I thought I’d come and see for myself that you weren’t actually in the morgue.”
“Oh hardy har har. It would take more than a tumble off a cliff to kill me.”
“Mr Indestructible, are we now?”
The nurse peeled off the last of the gauze.
“Ow!” he complained.
“Not that indestructible I see,” Sophie observed.
“What do you want, Sophie? Why are you here?”
“Why do you think? To see
you
of course.”
“Like I said, why?”
Sophie caught sight of the vicious cut on his arm before the nurse began to dab on some ointment and reapply another bandage.
“Because I’ve missed your surly face so much I just had to come and get a dose of it before I got withdrawal symptoms.”
The nurse giggled at that. “Your workplace must be one heck of a cheerful place.”
“Oh it’s just one step short of heaven with this one in charge,” Sophie told her.
“Well I’ll leave you two to fight it out. Call me if he decides to grow horns and a tail.”
“Good to see you’re having so much fun at my expense,” Victor muttered. “Now get lost and leave me alone.”
“Yeah, I think I just might do that,” Sophie said tersely. “But not before I have my say. Look, I know you’re mad at me, but does the whole office have to suffer because of it?”
Victor closed his eyes. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Yes, you are. You haven’t said a word to me in weeks –“
When he opened his eyes again, Sophie saw the raw, naked pain in them, making them so dark, they looked almost black. “You drop a bombshell like that and expect me to be happy about it.”
She drew a chair closer to his bed and sat down. “Well I’m not entirely happy about it either, but it’s happened. There’s nothing I can do about it now, other than accept it and move on. We all have to move on, and you need to stop letting things hurt so much that you take it out on everyone else. The entire office is suffering because of your bad moods.”
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”
“I’m not taking responsibility for your emotions, Vic. That’s not fair and you know it.” She was having trouble containing her own feelings. She felt very much like strangling him right now. “You’re acting like a spoilt child, you know.”
He crossed his arms. “So what! You’re the one who came here. I didn’t ask you to.”
“And I won’t be back either if you keep this attitude up. No one will want to come and visit you. No one will want to talk to you. Is that how you want to live your life?”
“It’s how I’ve lived it for the past six years. I’m kind of used to it by now,” he said harshly, his eyes flashing.
“You know what your problem is Vic, you want everyone to live by your high and mighty standard, and when they fall short by just a tiny winy bit, you reject them outright. So I made a mistake. We all make mistakes.”
“I’m tired Sophie. My throat aches and I hurt all over. I just want to rest,” he said wearily.
“Yeah, just exactly how did you get yourself in this state, may I ask?”
“Being the dumb jerk you think I am. Just go home Sophie. I rang and asked Kevin for a transfer today, so hopefully by the time I’m due back I’ll be working somewhere else. I thought that was easier than what my father suggested.”
“Don’t tell me you told you parents about me?” she asked in ire.
He sighed, “I know another dumb ass thing to do.”
“Thanks a bunch.” There was no way she was going to tell him the baby was his now. “You really are just as bad as Louise said you were.” She got to her feet, her heart breaking in two.
Sophie cast him one final glance, but he’d closed his troubled eyes. He really did look exhausted and unwell, his face pale, his cheeks hollow, and his beautiful mouth a thin tight line of tension.
With leaden feet and downcast head she walked out of the ward.
Because she wasn’t watching where she was going, she almost walked into two people coming the other way.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. When she looked up she saw it was Victor’s parents. The expression on their faces showed just how little they thought of her now.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be back again,” she told them, before stalking away.
“What was she doing here?” Vera asked her son as she approached his bedside.
Victor opened weary eyes. Oh great, this is all I need, he thought on seeing his parents in front of him. “She’s the only one from work who bothered to visit,” he told her harshly.
“And we know the reason for that, don’t we?” his father sneered. “She’s looking for a father for that kid of hers. So if you’re –“
“No, she’s not,” Victor interrupted her.
“Of course she is,” James insisted.
“Look, if you’ve come here to give me another lecture about my terrible taste in women, you can leave now. I’m not in the mood.”
Sophie didn’t want him any more than Amanda had. He knew he’d driven her away with his bitter words, but if he hadn’t done that he would have made an even bigger fool of himself by begging her to stay, promising her that he’d take care of her and the baby, something he was pretty sure she’d never want from him.
He’d been a complete idiot to follow his heart because of a couple of silly dreams. That was all they’d been – dreams and hopes of something that could never be his.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What do you mean you broke it off?” Rita asked Sophie over the phone the following evening.
Up till now Sophie had managed to keep her conversations with her sister casual, particularly as they hadn’t seen one another since the dinner at her house. But now that Rita had phoned her, the truth came pouring out, well the truth that she and Victor were no longer seeing one another. She didn’t think she could tell anyone else about the baby just yet.
“We just weren’t getting on. If you want the truth he’s as immature as the rest of the male population,” Sophie said with a sigh.
Rita sighed right along with her. “That’s a crying shame. He seemed so nice that night at our house.”
“Like you said, he wanted to make a good impression, but when things don’t go his way he’s like a little boy.”
“I don’t get it. What’s he been doing that’s so immature?”
“Totally ignoring me at work, and being rude to everyone else.”
“But that’s because you broke it off. Anyone is going to be cut up about that.”
“Not everyone is going to walk around snarling at people like a wounded puppy.”
“But why did you break it off? Honestly Sophie. The real truth?”
“I can’t tell you that right now. Maybe in a couple of months, but not now.”
“Oh Sophie, I’m so disappointed. I honestly thought he was going to be the one. Are you sure there isn’t anything you can do to patch things up?”
Short of getting him to believe in the unbelievable, I doubt it, Sophie thought sadly to herself. “No, I went to see him in hospital yesterday and he more or less told me to get lost.”
“What the heck’s he doing in hospital? You never told me that.”
“Some bushwalking accident, He looks pretty roughed up.”
“What hospital is he in?”
“Hornsby. Why do you want to know that?”
“So I can go and give him a nice loud piece of my mind.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Want me to?’
“Better not Rita. If he won’t listen to me, I don’t think he’d listen to you. Consider yourself lucky you got one of the good ones.”
“I do, Soph. Every minute of every day I thank my lucky stars for Simon.”
“You’ll be able to go home in a couple of days,” the doctor told Victor the following day.
He should have been glad to hear that, but Victor knew his mother wanted to take him home to St Ives so she could take care of him until he felt well enough to look after himself.
All he seemed to want to do was sleep, so after the doctor had gone Victor rolled over and closed his eyes. It was probably because his night sleep was so interrupted. The staff kept coming in every couple of hours for check ups, as well as all the noise he wasn’t used to.
So when he heard footsteps beside his bed while he’d only been partially dozing, his eyelids fluttered open of their own volition.
“Sophie,” he said drowsily. She looked like Sophie, but as his muddled mind cleared, he realised it wasn’t her. This woman was much further advanced in her pregnancy, and her hair was shorter, her face thinner.
“No, I’m Rita, Sophie’s sister.”
“Oh,” He felt his brow furrow in confusion. What was Sophie’s sister doing here? Unless…
“Has something happened to Sophie? It’s the baby isn’t it? She’s lost the baby?” he asked in alarm.
“What baby?” She brought a hand to her own swollen abdomen. “My baby’s fine as you can see.”
“No, Sophie’s baby.” And then he realised with a jolt that Rita didn’t even know. “Oh damn, I’m sorry. She hasn’t told you yet, has she?”
“Told me what?”
“Sophie’s pregnant,” he muttered, wishing he’d kept his great big mouth shut.
“She can’t be. Where the heck would you get an idea like that? I think I need to sit down.” She glanced around for a chair. The closest one was with several others grouped around another patient’s bed.
“I’d get up to help you, but –“ he began. However, she was already pulling it across the floor. “You shouldn’t be doing that in your condition.”
“Pregnancy isn’t an illness,” she muttered. “What on earth has Sophie been telling you?”
“The kid isn’t mine anyway, so what’s it matter?” Victor said crossly as she sat down. He really didn’t want her here. She reminded him too much of her sister.
She held up her hands, palms out. “Hang on. Backtrack a little here. When did Sophie tell you she was pregnant?”
“Weeks ago. She’d be about three months along now I’d say, not that you can tell. What makes you think she’s lying about it?”
