round.
‘You really don’t have to give me a lift.’ She stood at the door, dressed now and holding her shoes in her hand, last night’s mascara smudged beneath her eyes, her hair wild and curly, and he wanted her back in his bed. ‘It’s no problem to get a taxi.’
‘I’ll get my keys.’
And she averted her eyes as he climbed out of the bed, as he did the same walk as her and located his clothes all crumpled on the floor. She wished the balloon would pop and he’d look awful all messed and unshaven. She could smell them in the room and the computer was still on and their photo was there on the screen and how they’d been smiling.
‘Bridgette…’ He so wasn’t used to this. ‘You haven’t even had your coffee.’
‘I really do need to get back.’
‘Sure.’
And talking was incredibly awkward, especially at the roundabout.
She wanted the indicator on, wanted him to turn the car around and take them back to bed, and, yes, she could maybe tell him about Harry.
About Courtney.
About the whole sorry mess.
End the dream badly.
After all, he was only here for two weeks, and even if he hadn’t been, she could hardly expect someone as glamorous and gorgeous as him to understand.
She didn’t want him to understand, she didn’t want him to know, so instead she blew out a breath and let the sat nav lead him to her door.
‘Good luck in Sydney.’ She really was terrible at this one-night thing.
‘Bridgette.’ He had broken so many rules for her and he did it again. ‘I know that you’re busy today, but maybe…’
‘Hey!’ She forced a smile, dragged it up from her guts and slathered it on her face and turned to him. ‘We’re not suited, remember?’
‘Completely incompatible.’ He forced a smile too.
He gave her a kiss but could sense her distraction.
She climbed out of the car and she didn’t say goodbye because she couldn’t bear to, didn’t turn around because she knew she’d head back to his arms, to his car, to escape.
But she couldn’t escape the niggle in her stomach that told her things were less than fine and it niggled louder as she made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning her room. By midday her answer came.
‘Can you have Harry tonight?’
‘I can’t,’ Bridgette said. ‘I’m on an early shift in the morning…’ Then she closed her eyes. She had reported her sister a couple of months ago to social services and finally voiced her concerns. Oh, there was nothing specific, but she could not simply stand by and do nothing. Since she’d asked Courtney to leave her flat, things had become increasingly chaotic and in the end she’d felt she had no choice but to speak out. Not to Jasmine or her friends—she didn’t want to burden them. Instead she had spoken to people who might help. Her concerns had been taken seriously, and anger had ripped through her family that she could do such a thing. Sour grapes, Courtney had called it, because of what had happened between her and Paul. And then Courtney had admitted that, yes, she did like to party, she was only eighteen, after all, but never when Harry was around. She always made sure that Harry was taken care of.
By Bridgette.
And as she stood holding the phone, Bridgette didn’t want to find out what might happen if she didn’t say yes.
‘I’ll ring the agency,’ Bridgette said. ‘See if I can change to a late shift.’
Even if it was awkward talking to her sister when she dropped him off, Bridgette really was delighted to see Harry. At eighteen months he grew more gorgeous each day. His long blond curls fell in ringlets now and he had huge grey eyes like his aunt’s.
Courtney had been a late baby for Maurice and Betty. Bridgette delivered babies to many so-called older women, but it was as if her parents had been old for ever—and they had struggled with the wilful Courtney from day one. It had been Bridgette who had practically brought her up, dealing with the angst and the crises that always seemed to surround Courtney, as her parents happily tuned out and carried on with their routines.
It had been Bridgette who had told them that their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant, Bridgette who had held Courtney’s hand in the delivery room, Bridgette who had breathed with hope when Courtney, besotted with her new baby, had told Harry that she’d always be there for him.
‘And I’ll always be there for you,’ Bridgette had said to her sister.
And Courtney was taking full advantage of that.
By seven, when Harry had had supper and been bathed, dressed in mint-green pyjamas, one of the many pairs Bridgette kept for him, and she had patted him off to sleep, she heard a car pulling up outside. She heard an expensive engine turning off, and then the sound of shoes on the steps outside her ground-floor flat, and she knew that it was him, even before she peeked through the blinds.
There was a loud ring of the bell and the noise made Harry cry.
And as Dominic stood on the step, there was his answer as to why she’d had to dash off that morning.
He waited a suitable moment, and Bridgette waited a moment too, rubbing Harry’s back, telling him to go back to sleep, ignoring the bell. They were both quietly relieved when she didn’t answer the door.
Still, last night had meant many things to Bridgette—and it wasn’t all about the suave locum. Seeing her old colleagues, hearing about the midwifery unit, she’d realised just how much she was missing her old life. She knew somehow she had to get it back.
It was a curious thing that helped.
When Harry woke up at eleven and refused to go back to sleep, she held him as she checked her work sheet for the week. She was hoping that Courtney would be back tomorrow in time for her to get to her late shift when an e-mail pinged into her inbox.
No subject. No message. Just an attachment.
She had no idea how Dominic had got her e-mail address, no idea at all, but she didn’t dwell on it, just opened the attachment.
It didn’t upset her to see it. In fact, it made her smile. She had no regrets for that night and the photo of them together proved it. The photo, not just of him but of herself smiling and happy, did more than sustain her—it inspired her.
‘Harry Joyce,’ she said to the serious face of her nephew. ‘Your aunty Bridgette needs to get a life.’
And she would get one, Bridgette decided, carefully deleting Dominic’s e-mail address so she didn’t succumb, like Arabella, in the middle of the night. The photo, though, became her new screensaver.
‘HE’LL
