The Honourable Army Doc (14 page)

‘I don’t know. I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing. About anything. Julieanne and I used to make decisions based on what was best for the girls but knowing that Julieanne would be there for them. I know it allowed me to be quite selfish in terms of my career. I told myself I was being the provider and that no one was suffering, but now I have to do it all and I’m going to need some time to figure it out.’

‘Whatever you decide to do, don’t imagine that you’ll be able to do it alone. You’re going to need help,’ Ali said. He would definitely need a nanny or another wife or his mother-in-law’s help. ‘Have you had a chance to talk to Helen?’

Quinn nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to her but she’s still not coping very well. She’s going to spend some time with her sister in Hong Kong. She thinks she just needs some time away from the house. She will be back but we haven’t talked about what she wants to do then. Raising my daughters isn’t her responsibility. I’m going to have to figure out how to manage without her. Or at least plan for that eventuality.’

Ali was about to agree with him when she was distracted by the sight of a familiar figure appearing over Quinn’s right shoulder. Scott was coming their way.

He looked just the same. He was slightly taller and thinner than Quinn. He had a long-distance runner’s build, green eyes and a rectangular face topped with immaculate thick, dark hair. She knew she was comparing him to Quinn and she found him wanting. He was cool and focussed and self-absorbed while Quinn was
warm, open and generous. And Quinn made her heart race and her body burn in a way that Scott never had.

She waited, curious to see how she felt, and was surprised to find her anger had faded. But the hurt was still there. Scott was entitled to his feelings but it hurt to know she hadn’t been enough for him.

She saw him glance at their hands as he walked towards them. Quinn rose to his feet as Scott approached, letting go of Ali’s hand as he stood. Scott nodded in acknowledgement at Ali but his conversation was directed at Quinn. Ali wasn’t sure what she’d expected but to be virtually ignored, treated as if they barely knew each other, wasn’t it.

She sat and waited as Scott spoke to Quinn and behaved as though she was unimportant.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She hadn’t been important enough for him to build his dreams with rather than without nine months ago, so why should things be any different now? But it annoyed her that his attitude still hurt. It annoyed her that he could still affect her like this.

He was just a man. A man who hadn’t supported her, who hadn’t listened to her, who hadn’t tried to understand her heartache. Instead he’d used her failings as a woman as a reason to end their relationship. When she had needed him to put her first he hadn’t, and that was when it had really hurt. She refused to let him upset her any more. She wasn’t going to spend any more of her energy concerning herself with him. She straightened her back and stood up.

‘Everything has gone smoothly,’ he was telling
Quinn. ‘I removed her appendix. It was inflamed but hadn’t burst. She’s in Recovery. You can go through and see her. ‘

‘There you are. Are you finished?’ A thin, blonde woman in three-inch heels and skinny black pants, a jacket draped over her arm, perfectly groomed but heavily made up, was walking towards them. It took Ali a moment to figure out She was talking to Scott.

‘Just about,’ Scott replied.

Ali looked her over again. She was wearing a hospital ID badge, one that indicated she was a nurse, but she wasn’t dressed like a nurse and she wasn’t talking like a nurse. Was she Scott’s new girlfriend?

‘We have to be at dinner in twenty minutes,’ the woman said as she looked at her watch. As she rotated her wrist the sparkle of an enormous diamond ring caught Ali’s eye. An engagement ring, brand-new and ultra-shiny, adorned her finger. Not a girlfriend, a fiancée. Was she Scott’s fiancée?

Ali felt sick. She couldn’t speak but fortunately no one seemed to expect anything from her.

‘I just need to get changed,’ Scott replied to the woman, before turning back to Quinn. He only half turned, effectively avoiding any chance of eye contact with Ali as he spoke to Quinn. ‘I’ll see Beth in the morning. The hospital can contact me if need be but I don’t anticipate any problems.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate it.’

Ali stood, still and mute, as Scott ignored her. As Scott took the woman’s hand and walked off with her.

She could feel her heart hammering in her chest. She was afraid she was going to start hyperventilating.

Scott was engaged. He had found someone else. Someone who would raise the family Ali knew he wanted.

Gradually Ali became aware of Quinn still standing beside her. She’d forgotten he was there, she’d assumed he’d gone to see Beth in Recovery.

He was watching her closely. ‘That was awkward,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew him?’

‘I do…did.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Why were you both so uptight?’

‘I’m not uptight,’ she protested, but even she could hear the tension in her voice. Her throat felt tight and she had to physically force the words out. ‘I didn’t know he was engaged, that was all. I was just surprised.’

Quinn raised his eyebrows. ‘But that wouldn’t have been a surprise to him and he was just as uncomfortable.’

Ali could hear the question in his voice. Was her history with Scott such a secret? She knew it wasn’t. Quinn could ask any number of hospital staff and it would take him five minutes to find out how she knew Scott. ‘We used to date,’ she admitted.

‘When?’

‘We broke up nine months ago.’

‘Did it end badly?’

‘No, it’s not that…’ Well, it was partly that and Ali
knew it was obvious that they had issues, but she wasn’t about to get into those details here and now.

Quinn was frowning, clearly trying to sort out her odd reaction. ‘People move on. You’ve moved on, haven’t you?’

Ali hesitated. She had moved on, of course she had.

So what if she still had Scott’s number in her phone. She hadn’t spoken to him in nine months.

So what if she was jealous of his fiancée. It wasn’t because she had Scott, it was because her life had all the possibilities that hers didn’t.

Seeing Scott again had reminded her of the things she couldn’t have and reminded her of why no one would want her. But she didn’t want him.

She had most definitely moved on from Scott.

Quinn was still watching her intently. ‘I have to go. I need to see Beth.’ He turned on his heel and began walking away.

He hadn’t waited for her answer.

Ali wanted to call him back.

She started to call his name but as she lifted one hand to reach out for him, to bring him back, she realised he
had
waited but that she had taken too long to respond.

What was he thinking?

She wanted to call him back but what could she say?

That she’d moved on.

That Scott had left her because she couldn’t have children.

That she didn’t want Scott. She wanted him.

It was all true.

She wanted Quinn more than anything she’d ever
wanted before. But it didn’t matter. She had nothing to say that he’d want to hear. He wanted children. He wouldn’t want her.

She was frozen to the spot. Speechless, overwhelmed. She had nothing to say.

The ache in her heart and the ache in her belly were back. But this time her heart wasn’t aching for the children she would never have, it ached for Quinn.

She couldn’t stand the thought of telling him about her flaws. She couldn’t stand the thought of being rejected.

Not again and not by Quinn. So she let him go.

She stood and watched as he disappeared through the doorway. Watched until he was gone and she was alone.

Ali

A
LI COULD FEEL
herself unravelling. She had to get away from the hospital. She couldn’t fall to pieces in public. She had thought she was resigned to the fact she couldn’t bear children but the hollow, nagging ache in her belly told a different story.

She managed to keep the tears at bay until she got home. The house was dark and she was grateful for the solitude. She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. In the privacy of her bathroom she could let her tears run freely as she cried for the life she wasn’t going to have. She didn’t want Scott but that didn’t stop her from being jealous of the fact that he and his fiancée were going to be living the life she wanted. They would get married and have babies and she would be old, single and childless.

The old, familiar ache in her heart was accompanied by a newer, sharper pain and she knew that was the place in her heart that belonged to Quinn.

She stood under the running water as her dreams dissolved in her tears and washed away.

Ali was coming out of her en suite bathroom when her mother knocked on the door.

‘I just wanted to find out what happened with Beth,’ Malika said when Ali called her in.

Ali really didn’t feel like talking but she knew that Beth’s emergency would have been the main topic at the clinic at the end of the day and her mother deserved to know the outcome. ‘All good,’ she replied, attempting to keep her tone light and cheerful as she tightened the sash on her dressing gown. ‘It was her appendix, it’s been removed.’

‘Who did the surgery?’

‘Scott.’

‘Did you see him?’ Malika asked.

Ali nodded.

‘Are you okay?’

Ali wondered if her mother could tell she’d been crying. She thought the shower had helped to prevent the tell-tale blotchiness but her eyes felt puffy and mothers always seemed to sense these things. ‘Not really,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s not Scott’s fault.’

‘It’s not?’

Ali shook her head. ‘No. It’s Quinn. It’s over.’

‘Why? What happened?’

Malika sat on the edge of Ali’s bed and Ali picked up her hairbrush and started to pull it through her hair with long strokes as she avoided her mother’s eyes. ‘Seeing Scott again reminded me of what went wrong and
brought back all the feelings of pain and loss and rejection. I remembered how he thought I was flawed. How I wasn’t enough for him. What if Quinn feels the same way?’

‘If?’ Malika asked. ‘You don’t
know
how he feels?’

Ali shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t told him. I’m not going to tell him.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I can’t stand the thought that he won’t want me. I don’t know how I’d cope if he rejected me. I’d rather not tell him.’

‘So instead you’re going to walk away?’

Ali stopped brushing her hair and turned to her mother. ‘There’s no point in telling him. He won’t want me.’

‘How do you know?

‘Because he wants more children.’

‘You know you have other options besides natural conception.’

‘I know, but neither adoption nor surrogacy are easy and what if he’s not interested in that? What if he left when the going got tough? He left his marriage.’ Ali knew she wasn’t being fair. Julieanne had forced his hand with the divorce but could Quinn have fixed things if he’d wanted to? Had he taken the easier option?

‘But
he came back to help Julieanne when she needed it. I imagine the past few months have been extremely difficult for him but he’s done what he needed to. He must be dealing with a lot of stress already so perhaps this isn’t the right time to have this discussion but I think he deserves to know.’

Ali shook her head. She couldn’t see what difference it would make. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for them but maybe it never would be. Quinn wanted to have more children and he wanted the whole experience, starting with a pregnancy. He wasn’t going to want her.

‘Do you love him?’ her mother asked.

‘Yes.’
Her feelings hadn’t changed. Even though she couldn’t see a future with Quinn, she still believed he was the one for her.

‘Then I think you owe it to him to tell him. Let him decide.’

But if he decided he didn’t want her, if he rejected her, there wasn’t enough left of her heart to cope with that. Her heart was missing too many pieces. A piece for the babies she would never have and now a piece for Quinn. Her heart was already breaking and she didn’t have the strength to mend it. If it suffered too many more blows, it would shatter. She wasn’t strong enough to persevere with such a damaged heart. She took herself to bed and stayed there.

‘Liza, have a look at this,’ Beth said as she held out a small specimen container to her sister. ‘It’s my appendix.’

‘Ew, that’s gross.’

‘Is not.’

‘Is too. What do you want to keep that for?’

‘I’m going to take it to school.’

‘Yuk, you’re disgusting.’

‘Am not.’

‘Are too.’

‘Girls, that’s enough.’ They’d done nothing but argue since Helen had brought Eliza to visit, and it was driving Quinn crazy. Of course, they paid him no attention, choosing to continue their bickering instead.

‘Quinn, can I have a word?’ Helen asked, indicating with an inclination of her head that she wanted to speak to him in private.

Quinn followed her into the corridor, grateful to have an excuse to leave the girls to it. He loved them dearly but sometimes they were hard work.

‘Can I make a suggestion?’ his mother-in-law asked, waiting until he nodded before she continued. ‘Eliza is missing Beth. It’s pretty quiet at home with just her and me and I think she feels that Beth is getting all the attention. That’s why she’s being so argumentative, it’s a way of getting noticed.’

‘I don’t see what I can do about that. Beth is terrified of staying here by herself,’ he replied. Quinn had promised Beth he wouldn’t leave her and he’d slept at the hospital for the past two nights. ‘I’m not going to leave her here alone.’

‘No, I understand that, but why don’t you take Eliza across to the park or at least to the café downstairs for a milkshake? I’ll stay here with Beth and you can spend a couple of hours with Liza.’

Quinn was exhausted. Camping on a fold-out bed in a children’s hospital was hardly conducive to a good night’s sleep. What he’d really like was to spend a couple of hours sleeping or better still a couple of hours in bed with Ali. That would improve his mood, but he
knew it wasn’t possible and he knew Helen was right. His girls were his first priority.

He hadn’t seen Ali since the day of Beth’s surgery. He knew she’d phoned the hospital for an update but she hadn’t been back to visit Beth. When he’d phoned her she’d told him she had a bad cold and didn’t want to expose Beth to any germs. She had sounded stuffy but that didn’t stop him from wanting to see her. He wanted to talk to her about Scott. He’d made some assumptions about her feelings for her ex and he was beginning to feel he should have given her a chance to answer his question. But he’d been so jealous that he had stormed off without listening and he owed her an apology. He wanted Ali to himself. He didn’t want to share her. He was tired and grumpy and angry with everyone.

He was angry with Julieanne for dying and leaving him to cope with girls. He was angry with Helen for planning a trip to Hong Kong and effectively abandoning them. Angry that Ali might still have feelings for her ex, angry with the girls for fighting and angry with Eliza for needing his attention.

But he wasn’t so angry that he didn’t realise he was being unfair. No one was deliberately trying to irritate him and he recognised that anger was one of the stages of grief, and that Helen and the girls were all grieving too. He would get through this. He just needed to take a deep breath and calm down. But Ali was the best person for keeping him calm and circumstances were conspiring to keep him from seeing her, and that was another thing that made him angry.

Enough, he told himself. This wasn’t helpful. He
needed to deal with the most urgent matters first. He needed to deal with the things he could control. He wanted to see Ali, he needed to feel her arms around him, he needed to taste her red lips, but all that would have to wait. Responsibility and duty, as always, came first. He’d promised Beth he would stay with her and the only way he could leave with Eliza was if Helen remained behind, as she’d offered to. She was leaving for Hong Kong in a few days so he’d better accept her help while he still had that luxury.

He took a deep breath. Ali wasn’t here to calm him down, he’d need to manage on his own. His daughters needed him and he’d promised Julieanne that he’d take care of them. He wasn’t going to let her down. He would do his best.

He thanked Helen and went to fetch Eliza as he forced himself to put Ali out of his mind for another day.

Ali was nervous. Her hands were clammy and her heart was racing. She washed her hands and dried them, trying to wash away the dampness. She held her cool hands against her cheeks and took a deep breath. One more patient for the day, which was no big deal except for the fact that the patient was Beth. She was booked in for her post-op review with Ali, her referring doctor, and more than likely she’d be accompanied by her father, which meant that Ali was about to come face to face with Quinn for the first time in a week.

She opened her door, intending to call them through. She could hear Quinn’s voice and his deep tone sent a shiver of longing through her. She stuck her head into
the waiting room. Quinn was leaning on the reception counter, chatting to Tracey. He was casually dressed in soft jeans that hugged his bottom and her favourite blue jumper that highlighted his eyes.

‘So when are you coming back to work?’ Tracey was asking.

Ali paused in the doorway. As far as she knew, he hadn’t yet committed to a return date and she was interested to hear his answer. Very interested.

‘I don’t have any firm plans yet,’ he said. ‘It’s something I need to discuss with Malika. If she has space in her diary she wanted to see me after we finish with Ali.’

Tracey was nodding. ‘That’ll be fine. I’ll let her know you’re here.’

Now was as good a time as any to interrupt, Ali thought as she called them through.

She tried to focus on Beth as she started her check-up but it was difficult with Quinn sitting so close, near enough that she could smell the soap he used in the shower and see the fine blond hairs on the back of his hand.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked as she took Beth’s temperature. ‘Is your cold gone? You sound much better.’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied. She could hardly tell him she’d been fine all along and that her gravelly, nasal voice hadn’t been due to a cold but to the hours she’d spent crying over him. She avoided eye contact, choosing instead to stay focussed on Beth.

‘I’m planning on taking the girls on a holiday if you
can give Beth the all-clear,’ Quinn said as Ali got Beth to lie down on the examination bed.

‘A holiday?’ Taken by surprise, she glanced his way.

He was nodding. ‘I think we all need a break. I’m taking the girls to Queensland. I have flights booked to leave in two days.’

‘Two days?’

Beth’s laparoscopic scars were healing well and her digestive system was reportedly working perfectly from top to bottom so Ali couldn’t see any reason why Beth couldn’t get on a plane to Queensland. ‘You’re good to go,’ she told her, as she helped her sit up and get down from the examination table.

‘Great,’ Quinn replied on her behalf, before adding, ‘I need to speak to Malika quickly but I’d like a chance to speak to you too. I know we booked your last appointment—can you give me a few minutes?’ He was watching her closely with his gorgeous blue eyes and Ali had the sense that he was feeling nervous although she couldn’t imagine what about.

Despite her resolutions, she would still do anything for him, especially when he looked at her as though he was afraid she was going to disappear. But she had no plans to go anywhere so she could only assume that he did, that somehow his nervousness was tied into this trip. What did he need to tell her? She had to know.

‘Why don’t I take the girls outside? We can wait for you in the garden,’ she replied.

Ali gave the girls each a drink and a piece of cake from the kitchen and made a pot of jasmine tea to take out to the garden. The last of the daffodils were nodding
their heads in the flower beds but even the burst of yellow in the spring sunshine wasn’t enough to lift her spirits. She could feel Quinn vanishing from her life, bit by bit, and with each little step he took away from her she could feel another piece of her heart breaking. But still she waited.

Quinn came into the garden just as Ali was pouring the tea. She watched him walk towards her, his powerful, muscular thighs flexing under the denim of his jeans as he crossed the lawn. She concentrated hard, trying to commit each movement to memory, wondering when she would see him again. Even though he was walking in her direction, another little piece of her heart broke with each step.

She passed a cup of tea across the table, making him sit opposite her. She wanted to be able to watch him while the girls were otherwise occupied on the swing.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said as he took the tea. ‘I’ve missed you.’

She’d missed him too but she’d convinced herself that a clean break was the best way, the only way, to get through this. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call in to see Beth once she was discharged. I’ve been swamped at work, one of our doctors has had some family emergencies…’ she managed a smile ‘…which left us a bit short-staffed.’

‘You look tired. Has it been very busy?’

Looking tired was a polite way of telling her she looked washed out. Sleepless nights were to blame for that, not busy days, but Ali chose not to tell him the real reason. She shook her head and changed the subject instead. ‘How did you go with Mum?’ she asked.

He picked up the tea, wrapping his hands around the cup until she could scarcely see the china as it got lost in his grip. His long, slender fingers beckoned to be stroked but she tucked her hands under her thighs and resisted temptation as he bent his head over the tea and inhaled deeply. ‘She wanted to know if I’ve made a decision about coming back to work. She’s agreed to let me have another couple of weeks.’