Sarah was too concerned with her own worries, though, to think about what was happening between doctor and vet. Geraldine’s normal nursing partner was returning from holidays in the morning and it couldn’t be too soon for Sarah. She could go back to helping out when things were busy-when there was work to do but little responsibility.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr Mountmarche, but Mr Reid’s drip has packed up,’ she faltered. ‘I tried your flat, Doctor, but you weren’t there.’
‘Because I was here.’ Niall grinned, the strain that seemed almost permanently round his eyes lifting and lightening. ‘Well hunted. I guess you want me to fix it.’
‘Y-yes, please.’
‘I’ll come now,’ he promised. He cast a thoughtful glance at Jess, his eyes glinting at the colour on her cheeks. ‘But I’ll carry Paige back to my flat first and you can stay with her while I do the drip, Sister.’
‘I’ll do that.’ Sarah relaxed. Caring for a child while Dr Mountmarche took over acute medical care suited her down to the ground.
It was on the tip of Jessie’s tongue to say, Leave Paige here. I’ll look after her.
She didn’t make the offer. The tip of her tongue wasn’t working properly. The sensations running through Jessie’s body were almost overwhelming.
All she wanted to do was to hide. To be alone. To think through events that threatened to overwhelm her.
She stood aside as Niall gathered his precious bundle, wrapping his daughter in blankets and carrying her to the door.
‘I’ll bring back the blankets later,’ he told Jess.
‘No.’
Jess shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes.
‘I’ll be asleep later,’ she managed. ‘Morning will be fine.’
‘I see.’ Burdened with the child, Niall couldn’t force her to look at him. His voice was troubled, though. ‘Are you OK, Jess?’
‘Fine.’
She wasn’t fine at all. She was scared stiff.
‘I have a clinic booked in the morning…’
‘Paige can come with me while you work,’ Jess told him. ‘She’s always welcome and there’s little I do where she can’t watch.’ She took a deep breath, still not meeting his eyes, but her voice was almost back to normal. ‘My patients don’t worry about modesty or confidentiality.’
‘I suppose they don’t.’ It was an absurdly formal conversation.
She wished he’d go. She just wished he’d go.
‘Jess?’
‘Yes?’ Jess was acutely aware of Sarah watching from outside the door. For heaven’s sake, the nurse must know there was something going on between them. The tension was almost visible it was so strong.
‘I wish you sweet dreams,’ Niall said softly.
Jessie’s eyes flashed up to meet his-and then wished she hadn’t. His look was a caress all by itself. ‘I hope…I hope your daughter has sweet dreams,’ she managed to whisper in reply. ‘That’s all I care about.’
CHAPTER SIX
JESS fed her babies at five a.m. and then set her alarm for seven. It didn’t have a chance to go off. Fifteen minutes before it was due there was a series of loud thumps on the door from hospital to flat and then the sound of crutches across the kitchen floor.
‘Can I come in?’
Jess surfaced reluctantly from troubled sleep. There was a small face peering round her bedroom door. ‘Paige?’
The child was still in her nightdress. She clumped across to the bed and stared down at Jessie’s nose emerging from the quilt.
‘I knew you’d be awake,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Daddy said, “Go away it’s not even morning,” but I told him everyone would be awake. So then he said I could go and find out whether everybody really was awake all by myself and I did.’
‘Everybody meaning me?’
‘Especially you.’ Paige beamed as though signalling a very special honour.
‘Your daddy is a very generous person,’ Jess said drily.
‘I didn’t have a nightmare.’ Paige laid her crutches on the floor and put both hands on the bed to support herself. ‘It’s cold out here,’ she said hopefully.
‘Well, you’d better come in.’ Jess pushed back her quilt invitingly and the child scrambled up. In seconds she was cocooned against Jessie’s body, her cold toes on Jessie’s legs.
‘Ooh, you’re warm.’
‘That’s more than I can say for you, twerp,’ Jess smiled and obligingly put her arms round the child and cuddled.
It seemed that human contact was all Paige wanted. To be cuddled. To draw maximum warmth from this strange, fearful adult world.
‘Daddy’s very pleased I didn’t have a nightmare,’ the child announced. ‘Are you?’
‘Very pleased.’
‘He says we might stay here again. Lots of times. That means I can visit you every morning.’
‘Wow!’
‘You’ll like that?’ The child was suddenly anxious, sensing the laughter in Jessie’s ‘Wow’, and Jess gave her thin body a squeeze.
‘It’ll be delicious,’ she agreed. ‘Much better than an alarm clock.’
‘It sort of seems better here than at the farm,’ Paige confided. ‘When I’m here…I play a game…’
Her voice was suddenly shy, as if about to confess something she wasn’t sure about
‘What sort of game?’
‘That I have a mummy.’
Jess closed her eyes. Instinctively she pulled the child closer. ‘Paige, you don’t have to pretend,’ she said softly. ‘You do have a mummy. Your mummy’s travelling at the moment but she left you with some lovely people who found your daddy for you.’
‘You’re talking about Karen,’ Paige said scornfully. ‘She’s not my mummy.’
‘Paige, she is…’
‘No.’ The child’s voice hardened as if she was reciting a well-learned lesson-one she didn’t like a bit ‘Karen says I’m not to call her Mummy. She says only bourgeois children have mummies and I have to learn to be ind-independent and stand on my own two feet She says the sooner I learn not to need her all the time the better it’ll be for me and for her but I sort of think…’
The child’s voice was a strange mixture of adult and confused child and Jessie’s heart melted. ‘You sort of think what?’
Paige sighed and snuggled close. ‘Well, it’s really, really nice to at least have Daddy. But Mummy sounds even better.’
‘Lots of kids only have either a mum or a dad,’ Jess said evenly, biting back anger at the unknown Karen. ‘And Karen is still your mum, even though she wants you to call her Karen. It doesn’t make her any less your mum. So you have a caring daddy and a travelling mummy. Exciting, really.’
‘I don’t think it’s very exciting,’ Paige said bleakly. Then she pulled away from Jessie’s hold and sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘Jessie, I can hear Harry. Harry’s awake.’
So could Jess. The big dog was whimpering against the door of his cage. Their talk had disturbed him but he was making it known that he was uncomfortable, to say the least The whimper rose to a whine.
‘What’s wrong?’ Paige almost tumbled out of bed in her haste to reach him. ‘Is he hurting?’
He wasn’t hurting. Jess reached the cage door just behind Paige’s speedy crutches and nodded as she inspected the cage.
‘I see,’ she said slowly, smiling down at the Border collie. ‘Ever the gentleman, aren’t you, Harry?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Paige demanded.
‘Well, Harry is a very well-trained dog,’ Jess smiled. ‘For the last two days I’ve had newspaper in the base of the cage for when he needs to go to the toilet-and he’s been too sick to go anywhere else. Now, though, he’s starting to feel well enough to remember it’s not at all proper to go to the toilet in someone’s kitchen. See the newspaper? It’s not soiled at all and it’s eight hours since I changed it.’
‘What will we do?’ Paige asked anxiously. The dog was trying to paw the cage with his uninjured leg and whimpering when his weight went onto the injured pad.