unreliable man.’
‘Pardon, Mummy?’
Juliet looked down at the angelic face staring back at her. ‘Nothing, sweetie, Mummy was just mumbling. Everything’s just perfect.’
‘Okay,’ Bea replied as her eyes darted from one festive decoration to the next before she began pulling her mother back in the direction of the main doors.
Juliet knew everything in their lives was not perfect but she would make it as perfect as she could for her daughter. She would devote her life to ensuring that Bea never felt as if she was missing out on anything. Particularly not about the lack of a father in her life. Juliet often felt sad that, while she enjoyed a wonderful relationship with her own father, Bea would never experience that bond. Although, she conceded gratefully, while the special father-daughter relationship would never be a part of her daughter’s life, an unbreakable grandfather-granddaughter relationship had already formed. Juliet’s father and Bea were like two peas in a pod and seeing that closeness brought Juliet joy.
She was drawn back to the current situation, caused again by a man. Bea’s grip was tight and she was clearly on a mission as she tried to pull Juliet along. Juliet tugged back. ‘It’s so cold outside, darling. Let’s stay in here where it’s nice and warm.’
‘But, Mummy, it lookth like the top of my cake.’
‘What looks like the top of your cake, sweetie?’
‘Out there,’ the excited little girl replied as she pointed to the snow-covered ground. The branches of the trees and even the cars that had been parked for a few hours had been blanketed.
Juliet had to agree that it did look like Bea’s fourth birthday cake. Her grandmother had baked a triple-layer strawberry sponge cake with a generous covering of brilliant white icing and decorated with four different fairy tale princesses for her beloved granddaughter. But this was not a cake, it was their reality for the next few weeks, and, despite her reservations and her annoyance with Charlie Warren, it was very pretty. Postcard pretty. And it was the first time either of them had seen snow up close and she couldn’t blame her daughter for wanting to go outside and enjoy it.
‘But I need to stay inside and wait for the doctor. He’ll be here any minute, I hope, and I don’t want to miss him when he arrives because after my meeting with him you and I can go to the hotel and have a nice nap.’
‘Pleeease can I play in the snow?’
Juliet felt the sleeve of her blouse being tugged by two tiny hands, still gloved, and Bea’s eyes were wide with anticipation and excitement. Juliet looked out to the fenced area near the entrance doors. There was a park bench, see-saw and a small slide and the playground was secured with a child safety gate. It was clearly a designated area for children to play on a sunny day but it wasn’t a sunny day. It was freezing cold, overcast and the ground was covered with snow, which she knew was the draw card for Bea but a cause for concern for Juliet. Although she didn’t want to impose a fear of almost everything onto her daughter, she couldn’t help but worry.
After a moment she took a deep breath; she had made her decision. ‘All right, you can play outside but only if we button up your coat again, put on your hat and keep your gloves on...and only for five minutes. And I mean five minutes—you’ll catch a terrible cold if you stay out any longer.’
‘Yeth! Yippee! Thank you, Mummy.’
With trepidation, Juliet buttoned up her daughter’s heavy overcoat, pulled a knitted cap from her bag and popped it over Bea’s mass of honey-blonde curls, pulling it down over her ears, and then slipped on her own coat again before walking the little girl outside into the wintry weather. She was still worried about leaving Bea for even five minutes, but common sense told her it would be safe. It was ten o’clock in the morning not the middle of the night and it was no longer snowing.
Her father’s words rushed back into her head, ‘You can’t keep Bea in bubble wrap. Let her have some fun sometimes or she’ll grow up scared of taking chances. Who knows what she can do in life if she’s allowed to really live it? She might even become a surgeon like her mother...and grandfather.’
Although Juliet loved her work, she wasn’t convinced medicine was the life she wanted for her daughter. Part of her wondered if the lack of a social life due to the years of heavy study load, and then the long shifts at the hospital as an intern, then as a resident didn’t assist Bea’s father to deceive her. She was far from streetwise about men. She’d had friends but never a love interest until she met him and he’d swept her off her feet and into his bed. Making her believe their night together was the beginning of something more. She wanted Bea to be wiser and not naive about the opposite sex.
But that was many years away and this was a playground. But it was still making Juliet very nervous.
She paused at the playground gate and looked down at her daughter, trying unsuccessfully to mask her concern.
‘Mummy, I’ll be good, I promith.’
Juliet realised she was being silly. It was only a children’s playground and one she could see from inside and so too could all of the staff in the hospital foyer and the tea room. Juliet needed to meet with the now quite late Dr Warren. There might be a message from him any minute. She also wanted to meet the quadruplets’ mother as soon as possible to discuss her treatment plan. Bending down and looking Bea in the eyes, she said, ‘Mummy has to talk with the nice lady at the desk inside. I’ll be back in five minutes. You know my rule—don’t talk to strangers.’
Bea nodded. ‘Okay.’
With that Juliet closed the childproof gate with Bea inside the playground wearing an ear-to-ear smile, already making small snowballs with her tiny gloved hands. Juliet tugged again on the gate to check it was closed properly before she headed back inside. She doubted she would leave Bea for five minutes, estimating it would only take two to check again on Dr Warren’s whereabouts and see if there had been an update on his ETA. And she would be watching her the entire time through the large glass windows.
* * *
Charlie Warren pulled into the Royal Cheltenham hospital astride his black motorcycle. Both he and the bike were geared for riding in the harsh winter conditions of the southern English countryside. The sound of the powerful engine reverberated across the grounds as he cruised into the sheltered area of the car park. Charlie climbed from the huge bike that would have dwarfed most men, but, at six feet one, his muscular frame dressed in his leather riding gear stood tall against the bike. He removed his snow-splattered black helmet and heavy riding gloves and ran his still-warm fingers through his short but shaggy blond hair. It was cold riding to work every day, even brutal his colleagues would tell him some days in the middle of winter, but Charlie wouldn’t consider for a moment taking a car. He couldn’t; he didn’t own one. Not any more and not ever again. He hadn’t driven a car of any description in the two years since the crash.
Two years and three days to be exact. The anniversary was only a few days earlier, and, he assumed, was the reason the nightmares had returned. He knew he would never forget the date. It was the day the life he loved had ended.
After that, little brought him joy outside his work.
He had nothing to look forward to each night he rode away from the hospital. So he didn’t stay away from Teddy’s for too long.
* * *
Juliet watched Bea giggling as she climbed carefully up each rung of the
