such news.
Now, ten years on, the woman he was seriously crazy about was telling him such news.
‘With twins,’ she added.
He hadn’t been aware that she’d brought a cricket bat with her when she’d come into the office. Of course Candy hadn’t but it felt like that as she added her little postscript and he was left with one thought, one regretful, sad thought.
They’re not mine.
‘They’re not yours,’ she added, like an echo to his brain, and Steele snapped his response, in his gruff, low voice.
‘I think I’d already established that, thank you.’
Yes, he actually felt as if he’d been knocked on the back of the head because his reactions, his words did not belong to the man he knew he was, yet, concussed by the impact of her news, he continued to speak. ‘What do you want me to say here, Candy?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
He honestly did not know how to react. Was he supposed to step in and say, That’s fine, darling, I’ll raise his babies? Or, How convenient, Candy, he should perhaps say with a smile, given that I shoot blanks. Or was he supposed to say that it was no big deal?
It was a massive deal.
He should, Steele knew on some level, take her in his arms and tell her that things would work out, that she could get through this.
His arms couldn’t move, though, and his mouth was clamped closed so that no words could come out.
‘I’m going to go,’ she said.
‘Wait.’
‘Why?’ Candy answered. ‘Steele, we agreed to three weeks. We managed two. I was hoping to get through this week without telling you.’
‘But you have.’
‘Because you’re right—we have always been honest. Yes, I’ve been avoiding you. I didn’t want to spoil what we had.’
‘Have you told your parents?’
Candy shook her head.
‘Have you told anyone?’
‘I have now,’ she said, and she looked straight through his eyes and to his heart. ‘I’ve got the hardest part out of the way now.’
And telling Steele was the hardest part. Her parents, Gerry’s parents, all of that she would deal with in time, but this part hurt the most.
‘I’m going to go,’ she said again. ‘If you could drop my case off that would be brilliant. Just leave it at the door.’
She walked out then and he sort of came to and opened his office door and stepped onto the ward. There was Candy, walking out quickly, and he closed his eyes in regret for his lack of response. Then he turned and saw that Macey was watching him.
No, Steele did not smile.
Instead, he walked up to the nurses’ desk. ‘I’m going home,’ he said to Gloria. ‘Page Donald if you need anything.’
IT WAS A long lonely night for both of them.
Candy woke in her flat and was more tempted than she had ever been in her life to ring in sick this morning. She had a shift on the geriatric ward, her last one. She was desperate to avoid Steele yet she wanted somehow to see him. And to see Macey too and say goodbye.
Then she had two more shifts in Emergency and then she flew to Hawaii.
Alone.
Or rather not alone—she ran a hand over her stomach and felt the edge of her uterus.
She had no idea how she felt about being pregnant.
No idea how to tell her parents or friends or anyone.
Right now, none of it even seemed to matter.
She loved Steele.
It wasn’t like the crushes she’d had on other men, which Candy was rather more used to.
It felt so much deeper than that, like an actual concrete thing that now resided within.
Except the twins resided within also.
Twins?
As he did up his shirt that morning Steele was thinking about them too.
He was also thinking about her words—how telling him had been the hardest part.
He knew how impossible her parents were and he knew telling Gerry’s parents would be supremely difficult.
Yet telling him …
As he did up his tie, he found himself closer to tears than he had been at his marriage break-up. Closer to tears than he had been at his grandmother’s funeral.
In fact, Steele wasn’t even close to tears—he was sitting on the edge of the bath in a serviced apartment, bawling his eyes out, for the fact they were over and the grief that her babies were not his. He’d never cried. Even when he’d found out that he couldn’t have children, Steele hadn’t broken down. He’d been too busy mopping up Annie’s tears. Now, ten years later, he let out what had long been held in. He cried alone.
He was as nice to himself as he had been to Macey.
At seven a.m. it was a bit early for sherry but he made a strong mug of tea and put in extra sugar and then sat and thought what best to do.
He could avoid Candy, Steele knew. He could call in sick today. He had a day off tomorrow and then it was just her final shift in Emergency on Friday—he could send Donald to deal with anything that came up in Emergency, and he would never have to see Candy again.
He couldn’t do that, though.
‘Morning,’ he said as he came into the kitchen on the geriatric ward, and there was Candy, making a mug of tea.
‘Morning,’ she said, though she brushed past him pretty quickly and headed off for handover.
Steele headed into his office and checked his emails.
Oh, joy.
There was Gerry.
His smiling face was surrounded by flowers, and Steele, along with the entire hospital—as long as cover could be arranged, of course—was invited to attend the memorial service next Tuesday and the naming of the resuscitation area as Gerry’s Wing.
Candy was trying to get her head around that terrible name too.
Lydia, who had been on
