that memory away, along with the accompanying ache in his heart. ‘Good, because you’re going to get a soaking today. Fill your boots.’
‘I intend to.’ At least she had sturdy shoes on. That was something. Gold eyes flashed with irritation. Warm-coloured pupils with a cold fleck of anger. She held his gaze.
And he held it right back. So much for being the Good Samaritan. He’d know better next time.
‘Daddy? Dad! What are you doing out here? What’s for breakfast? Can we have pancakes today?’
His daughter’s voice jolted him back to reality. Behind him, Katy was shivering on the path, dressed only in her pyjamas. Nothing on her feet.
‘Quick, inside—you’ll get cold out here.’ He ran back to the house, cursing to himself. Idiot. That was the last time he’d try to be helpful. ‘Sorry, darling. No pancakes on a school day. I’m making porridge and there’s a banana for afterwards.’
‘Aww. Not fair.’
‘Keep complaining and it’ll be two bowls of porridge,’ he quipped, trying to make her smile while making a deal.
Katy’s bottom lip protruded in her well-worn, years-old way of appealing to his soft side. ‘Granny makes pancakes every day when I’m there. Why can’t we have them every day too?’
Joe bit back the healthy eating lecture that seemed to form the basis of their communication these days. His beautiful, playful toddler had turned into a demanding little Miss recently and he wasn’t sure why. Growing pains? Not for the first time—and definitely not the last—he wondered how different things might have been if Katy had had two parents around to bring her up. And with that thought he slopped the porridge into a bowl, the altercation with the woman still infiltrating his mood. Thank God he’d never need to speak to her again. Tomorrow, if she went past, he’d keep his mouth shut. Good luck to her.
He slid the bowl over to his eight-going-on-eighteen-year-old. ‘Hey, you’ll thank me when you still have lots of energy to run around at playtime.’
‘Ugh. But I don’t like it.’ Katy really did look dismayed and Joe’s heart pinged. Guilt lingered around the edges. Work was too damned busy at the moment; two staff down had made them all fraught, working extra hours to keep up with demand. Which meant less time with Katy. But now, as she watched his reaction, she grinned so easily, turning from heartbroken to heartbreaker with the simple upturn of her lips. ‘I have lots of energy. All the time. And I really, really like pancakes. They’re the best thing ever and if I have them I’ll smile all day. For ever.’
For ever. He wished he could somehow stop time and preserve her like this, so innocent and so easily pleased by little things.
‘Okay, we can set the alarm for earlier tomorrow and try making some pancakes. But you remember what happened last time?’
‘You just threw it too high. We know better now. Granny’s shown me how to flip them properly.’ His daughter looked up at the sticky patch on the ceiling that he hadn’t quite managed to remove with normal detergent and water. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Okay. Pancakes tomorrow. Now, eat up the porridge.’ And there. He’d given in to her again. How could he not? She was the light of his life, the reason he got up in the morning. Things could have been so different…
As he tipped the rest of the sludgy breakfast into his own bowl his gaze drifted outside again. Thick clouds darkened the sky as heavy raindrops pelted the windows. See? She’d be getting soaked right about now. Rude? No, sensible. Unlike sunburst hat woman, who had disappeared and taken what little was left of his good mood with her.
The irritation lingered with him for the rest of the morning. His sister would have told him he had a choice and that he could choose to be jovial. But now he was running forty minutes late and was choosing to be quietly efficient and, okay, he might well have come across as gruff to the patient who complained about being kept waiting. Jovial and work-smart didn’t figure in his picture right now. He was a man, after all; he couldn’t multi-task.
And as if he needed more proof of his inability to focus, every time he tried writing up his notes he stared at the screen and the image of sunburst hat woman filled his head. Gah. He’d been rude and she’d called him on it, rightly. But it had been for her own good. At least that was what he kept trying to convince himself. And those eyes… The memory of that unusual colour had lingered as long as his bad mood. Why had he gone outside to talk to her when women were off his agenda these days?
‘You want a cuppa?’ Maxine, his trusty receptionist, called through his open office door.
‘Brilliant. Yes, please, in my takeaway cup though, because I’m just heading out on the home visits.’
Maxine hobbled in on her arthritic legs. One day, too soon, she’d retire and he’d never find someone to truly replace her. She wasn’t just the face of Oakdale Medical, she was it, heart and soul. ‘You’ll come through to the staffroom first, though, Joey? The new locum nurse has popped in for a walk-through before she starts properly tomorrow and I want you to say hello.’
There was a glint in her eye that made him nervous. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe, because Maxine hadn’t had a glint in her eye for a long time. ‘Oh?’
‘We’ve got her for a month so we’ve got some breathing space to fill the vacancy. Be nice—I don’t want you scaring her off.’
‘I’m always nice.’
‘Hmm… No comment.’ She smiled and he remembered his sister saying Maxine needed a medal for putting up with him these last few years. No doubt she was right. He hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs recently. ‘Come and say hello at least.’
He probably should, and be thankful someone had turned up at all, given the scarcity of people wanting to work here in the middle of nowhere, but he had patients who needed him to visit them. ‘Would it be rude if I said no, and that I’ll meet her tomorrow? I’ve got too much to do before the afternoon clinic.’
‘Right you are. I’ll tell her. She’s lovely, so I’m sure she’ll understand. Actually, there’s something about her that seems…’ As she shook her head her nose crinkled. ‘Oh, nothing really. Just me being silly.’
‘Seems what?’ He didn’t want anyone upsetting his staff. But there he was, jumping to conclusions before he’d set eyes on the woman.
‘I don’t know…familiar, I suppose, although I’ve never met her before. She’s nice. Got a nice manner. Friendly.’ As she turned to leave she stopped short and inhaled sharply. ‘Oh. Oh.’
His gut clenched. ‘Everything okay, Maxine?’
She hunched forward and rubbed at her chest. Frowned. ‘Nothing. Don’t fuss. Just indigestion. I told David not to put onions in my sandwiches, but did he listen? No. And I ate them anyway, too quickly for my own good.’
‘You sure you’re okay?’ Pulse prickling with concern, Joe was halfway across the room, assessing her pallor and breathing rate. ‘What kind of pain is it? Come and sit down; let me look you over.’
She threw him the same look she’d been giving him for the last five years or so. ‘Since that accident you’ve been on a mission to save the world, Joseph Thompson. And you can’t.
