style="font-size:15px;"> ‘If it’s a problem for your partner,’ she added, misreading his silence, ‘then she—or he—is very welcome to join us. We won’t be discussing individual patients, so we wouldn’t be breaking any confidentiality.’
His partner was welcome to join them.
Marc just about managed not to flinch.
‘I don’t have a partner,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice even. It was something he’d just about come to terms with over the last two years. But he still couldn’t forgive himself for Ginny’s death.
Laurie grimaced. ‘Sorry. You must think I’m being horribly nosey. I guess that’s the problem with growing up in a small town—you know everyone and everyone knows you, and if you don’t know something you tend to come straight out and ask. It wasn’t meant maliciously.’
He understood that—he’d already worked out that Laurie Grant was warm, bubbly and incredibly enthusiastic—but he didn’t want people knowing too much about him. If they knew the truth about his past, they’d despise him as much as he despised himself. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said neutrally.
‘How about this evening?’ she suggested.
‘That’s fine. What time’s good for you?’
‘Izzy goes to bed at seven. So any time after that.’ She shrugged. ‘Unless you’d like to come for dinner? It’s nothing fancy, just pasta and garlic bread and salad, but there’s more than enough if you’d like to join us.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check if you don’t mind.’ He didn’t want to be rude to his new colleague; but he was also guiltily aware that in other circumstances he would’ve loved to share a meal with her. There was something about Laurie that drew him; she wasn’t a conventional beauty, but there was a warmth and brightness about her, and her smile made the room feel as if it had just lit up. Though, for his own peace of mind, he knew he needed to keep himself separate. And in any case he’d guess that, as a single parent, her life would be complicated enough without adding someone like him to the mix.
‘No problem.’ She scribbled down her address on a piece of paper, added her phone number and handed it to him. ‘Just in case you get held up. See you later.’ She smiled. ‘Enjoy your first morning, and welcome to Pond Lane Surgery.’
The rest of the morning surgery went fine. Marc went home for a sandwich and ate it in the kitchen. He stayed out of the dining room, because it contained a stack of boxes he hadn’t been able to face unpacking. Boxes full of memories he couldn’t handle.
Maybe he should’ve taken up his sister’s offer of help, instead of being too proud and telling Yvonne that he was fine and he’d be able to sort it out. Because he wasn’t fine. And he couldn’t sort it out.
Still, he’d brushed her offer aside, so he’d have to live with his choice. The boxes couldn’t stay there for ever, so he’d have to make himself do it room by room.
One step at a time.
CHAPTER TWO
MARC wasn’t in the mood for cooking when he got home from an afternoon of house calls. He made himself a salad and ate it listlessly—food nowadays was fuel, rather than a pleasure—then looked up Laurie’s address on his satnav. Her house was totally the other side of the town from his, far enough to justify using the car rather than walking.
When he parked his car outside and walked up the path to her front door, he wished he’d thought to bring her some flowers or something. OK, so this was a work meeting rather than a social event, but it was still being held at her house, and he felt uncomfortable turning up without anything. Then again, would flowers be making the wrong kind of statement?
He shook himself. Oh, for pity’s sake. He needed to be professional about this. But he was horribly aware that this whole situation was throwing him. He was about to walk into just the kind of home he could’ve had if the accident hadn’t happened. A family home. One with children.
But the accident had happened. He had a bachelor pad, not a family home. And he only had himself to blame.
He knocked on the front door. There a brief woof and a ‘Shh!’, and then Laurie opened the door. A chocolate Labrador with a wagging blur of a tail was desperately trying to barge past her. There was a smudge of flour on Laurie’s face and several of her dark corkscrew curls had escaped from the scrunchie she used to hold her hair back. The whole effect was unbelievably cute, and he found himself wanting to tuck the stray curls into place and brush that smudge of flour from her skin.
Which was incredibly dangerous. He didn’t need that kind of contact. Didn’t want it. His heart had been broken, he was still trying to patch it up, and no way was he ever risking any kind of relationship again, other than on a strictly colleagues basis. He even kept his family at a distance nowadays, because it was easier. If he didn’t let himself feel, he wouldn’t hurt.
Misinterpreting his sudden stillness, she pushed the dog back behind her. ‘Sorry, Cocoa’s a bit over-friendly.’ Within a nanosecond, the dog was trying to push past her again. ‘I forgot to ask if you’re OK with dogs. I can put him in the utility room, if you’d rather.’
‘No, it’s fine. I like dogs.’ It had even been part of his and Ginny’s plans. A baby, and then a dog. A house with a garden.
Ginny would’ve loved the old cottage he’d found to rent in the small Norfolk town. She would’ve loved the duck pond on the green, the ancient flint church with its round tower, the gentle undulations of the countryside around them. But because of his own stupidity he had nobody to share it with. Nobody to love. Nobody to love him back.
He pushed the thoughts away and held out his hand for the dog to sniff, then scratched the top of the dog’s head. There was a look of sheer bliss on Cocoa’s face and he leaned towards Marc.
‘He’ll be demanding a fuss from you all night,’ Laurie warned with a smile. ‘Come in. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m waiting for some stuff to come out of the oven, so we need to stay in the kitchen. Can I get you a coffee, or maybe a glass of wine?’
Definitely not wine. That had been one of the causes of his downfall, and he hadn’t touched a drop since the funeral. ‘Coffee would be lovely, thanks,’ he said politely.
‘Come in and sit down.’
It was clearly a family kitchen. There were several paintings held on the fridge with magnets, obviously the work of a young child. And if that wasn’t enough proof, there was a cork board on one wall covered with school notices and photographs of a little girl, varying from babyhood to what looked like about five years old.
Marc couldn’t help thinking how his own child would’ve been eighteen months old now, toddling everywhere and starting to chatter away. A boy or a girl? It had been too soon to tell.
He dug his fingernails into his palms, and the slight pain was just enough to stop him thinking and ripping the scars off his heart.
On the worktop, there was a plate full of cupcakes covered in very pink icing, along with lots of sparkly sprinkles—and there were almost as many on the worktop as there were on the cakes. A pile of washing-up was stacked up next to the sink and a batch of cookies sat on a cooling wire rack next to the oven. Clearly Laurie was in the middle
