‘I think we’re all going to have to take turns pushing,’ Kat mediated swiftly, before the argument could escalate. ‘Remember how far away I had to park the car?’
‘How about if you go to get the car and drive it right up to the entrance?’ Ben suggested, hating the thought that a woman who was already tired to the bone would have to exhaust herself still further. ‘You could leave Josh and Sam with me…to take care of me,’ he added quickly, in case boyish sensibilities were bruised.
He watched those soft grey eyes take in each of her sons’ responses to the suggestion before replying.
‘If you don’t mind waiting while I get it. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of minutes.’
‘Don’t hurry,’ he said with a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘It they’re as hungry as I am, the boys and I will be discussing the relative merits of the various take-away establishments between the hospital and home.’ And when she looked as if she was going to argue against the idea, he added, ‘I just don’t feel up to cooking for myself tonight, and the boys would be very late to bed if they have to wait for you to make something once you get home.’
‘That seems sensible,’ she agreed blandly, but he caught a glimpse of a keen intelligence behind those soft grey eyes that warned him she wouldn’t allow him to manipulate her into doing anything she didn’t really want to, no matter how much easier it might make her life.
And she certainly needed her life made easier, he realised when he and the two boys tucked into steaming plates of pizza at the kitchen table while she barely sat down.
In the time that it took him to fill the gnawing hollow inside, she’d put a load of washing in the machine, prepared lunch boxes for Josh and Sam for the next day and put them in the fridge ready for the morning and had made several forays out of the room that involved strange unidentified thumps that were only explained when she sent the boys off to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
‘While you’ve got that temporary cast on you won’t be able to get up the stairs, so I’ve put you in one of the rooms down on this level…if that’s all right with you. I thought it would be safer while you’re getting used to using the crutches.’
His first instinct was to object. The very idea of sharing a relatively small space with Kat and her two sons would be too much to cope with, especially if she’d given up her own room for him.
While he’d been trying to find the words to turn down the offer, she’d quietly taken charge of the wheelchair and without any fuss had piloted him along the hall.
‘There are the stairs,’ she said, pointing to the wrought-iron spiral of steps rising from the corner of the hallway through a circular hole in the ceiling—obviously impossible for a leg in a cast, as she had known. ‘And here is the bedroom with a bathroom opening directly off it.’
Kat pushed him into a room that was much bigger than he’d expected, but every breath he took told him that this was her private space he was invading.
There was nothing overtly fussy or flowery about the décor, everything in shades of calm neutrals with accents of a soft sage green. But it smelt like she did, of something not quite flowery but not spicy either. Whatever it was, it wasn’t helping that he was looking at the freshly made bed that she’d been sleeping in last night. And that was another thing he shouldn’t be thinking about.
‘The previous GP who lived here put in this bathroom when his wife had a stroke,’ she said as she pushed him to the open door, continuing with her low-key guided tour. ‘As you can see, it’s got a walk-in shower with a seat that folds away. I thought that would be much easier to cope with unaided if you taped some plastic around the top of your leg to protect your cast.’
He sighed silently, conceding that she was right. He was in no fit state to clamber up those stairs and a bath would be beyond him.
‘I don’t like putting you out of your room,’ he pointed out uncomfortably, wondering if he would be able to sleep, knowing it was her bed. ‘I’ll stay in here just for a few days…until I get proficient on the crutches.’
‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘It’s no problem for me to use the other room.’ She left him for a moment and returned with the small stash of belongings he’d carried home from the hospital, depositing the plastic bag on the bedside cabinet and propping the crutches against the bed. Her second journey had her returning with the suitcase he’d stowed in the back of his car, last seen parked in front of the practice.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ he objected, his protective male instincts rebelling against the thought of someone as slight as Kat hefting such a heavy weight. She threw a wry glance in the direction of his bulky leg, pointing out without saying a word that he certainly wasn’t in a fit state to carry anything, and he subsided glumly.
‘It hardly seems worthwhile bringing everything in when I won’t be staying long,’ he said, when she returned with the last of his luggage. ‘You’ll be needing the room for whoever takes the job.’
‘But the job’s yours!’ she exclaimed, clearly startled. ‘It’s my fault that you’ve been injured, so it’s my responsibility to look after you until you’re on your feet again.’
That was just what he didn’t want…to be another responsibility for her to carry on those slender shoulders. But the alternative—to leave Ditchling without ever having a chance to get to know this courageous woman—was unthinkable, too.
‘I can’t just be a burden on you,’ he objected. ‘The whole reason why you were advertising for an associate was because you’re either rushed off your feet without a minute to call your own, or you’re paying vast sums for other people to cover for you.’
‘Mum! Can you come and hear me read?’ called Sam, his voice loud in the sudden silence between them.
‘Coming!’ she called back. ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’
She paused in the doorway, almost as if she was momentarily suspended between her roles of mother and GP. ‘We’ll talk about this when I’ve finished settling the boys down. There must be something…’
That little pleat was back between those silky eyebrows and he was struck by the sudden urge to smooth it away with a fingertip…or a kiss.
‘Enough!’ he growled to himself as soon as she was out of earshot. ‘You don’t need any complications in your life, especially ones that come with children, no matter how tempting their mother is.
‘And she doesn’t even realise just how…’ He was lost for words, searching for them inside a head that could only think about how much the light fragrance surrounding him suited her.
‘Is this some sort of reaction to the accident? Did they give me something in A and E that’s scrambled my brain?’
The only solution was, as ever, hard work that left him no time to think.
‘Time to unpack,’ he decided, gripping the wheel-rims of the chair and turning it laboriously around.
It didn’t take him long to discover that making the decision wasn’t the same as carrying it out. Even the smaller of his two suitcases was beyond him when he couldn’t use his lower body to help him lift it onto the bed, and that would be the only
