‘Er...yes,’ he said, as if bringing his thoughts back from somewhere far away.
Lucy, quite unaware that she’d dropped a bombshell, piped up, ‘And I’ll have a drink of orange, please, Grandma.’
As the evening progressed the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed and Annabel thought wistfully that, whether the mother figure was missing or not, this was family life at its most enjoyable.
When it was time for Lucy to go to bed Mary said, ‘We’ll let Daddy off bathtime tonight, shall we, Lucy? Annabel is our guest and it is only good manners that he should entertain her while I get you ready for bed.’
Aaron was smiling, but there was a glint in his eye that puzzled Annabel, as if messages were flashing between his mother and himself, but Mary’s expression was innocent enough and Lucy had no problems with the suggestion. She trotted off obediently after planting a shy kiss on Annabel’s cheek.
When she’d gone Annabel said into the silence that had fallen, ‘Lucy looks fine, Aaron. Are you satisfied with her progress?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I am. That was a nightmare I wouldn’t want to repeat.’
‘Your anguish at the time would have been understandable in any case,’ she told him, ‘but after hearing what happened to your wife it must have been a nightmare. Do you want to tell me about it? I’ve told you about myself, so perhaps it’s your turn to unburden yourself.’
That wasn’t exactly true. She’d only told him about her past, not the miserable present.
‘I would rather we could have kept it light this evening,’ he said after a moment’s silence, ‘but Lucy, bless her, says whatever is in her mind, like most children do, so I suppose I don’t mind talking about Eloise. I think about her enough.
‘We were on holiday in Cornwall and having a picnic on one of its fabulous beaches. Mum and Eloise were sunbathing and Dad was swimming out in the cove. We’d forgotten something, the sunblock cream to be exact, and I’d taken Lucy, who was only a toddler then, back to the hotel with me to get it.
‘While I was gone my dad got into difficulties. He was a strong swimmer but wasn’t aware of the dangerous currents there, and on seeing his distress Eloise went in after him. By the time I got back they’d gone. Swept out to sea. The next time Mum and I saw them was when their bodies were washed up further along the coast a few days later.’
‘That is awful,’ she choked.
He nodded. ‘My mother thinks I should be looking for someone to take Eloise’s place, that I’ve been on my own long enough. But who is to say that the right wife for me would be the right mother for Lucy?’
Annabel averted her gaze from his. She would have settled for being just a one-parent family, given the chance, and no child of hers would ever have been subjected to the awful feeling of rejection that had tarnished her life. But she understood what this caring father was saying.
‘I would imagine that is a problem that faces many single parents when they consider remarrying,’ she said slowly, ‘but a child can be just as miserable with its birth parents as with someone not of its own blood. I don’t know you all that well, Aaron, but you strike me as a person who would rarely make a wrong decision, either in your work or in your personal life, because you are cool and calm in everything you do.’
She wasn’t to know that he was feeling anything but cool and calm at that moment. She was getting to him as no other woman had since he’d lost Eloise, and it was much more than just sexual chemistry.
In the car earlier she’d told him about her loveless childhood and he’d wanted to hold her close and soothe away the hurt from a friendship point of view, nothing more. And now, with a wisdom that no doubt came from her own experience, she was putting him right about his own life. Making him see that it could be possible to find happiness with someone else.
Sitting beside him with cheeks warming at her own temerity, Annabel was facing up to the fact that she liked this man a lot. She’d had respect for him from the moment of their meeting, even though on that awful morning he’d been brusque and dubious of her capabilities. But now it was something deeper than that. To compare Randy Graham with Aaron would be like putting a fake next to the real thing.
It wouldn’t be wise to let her feelings run away with her, though. The fact that they were having this discussion showed that Aaron saw her as merely someone to talk to. He would never have said what he had if he’d any yearnings towards her. And was it surprising? He must see her as the person she had become, a washed-out, grieving loner, and for the first time in months she wanted to be different.
Aaron was smiling to conceal his own thoughts.
‘I don’t know about me. But you have a wisdom all of your own. It’s good to be able to talk to someone who understands.’ He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.
It was just a friendly gesture, but she felt some of the chill leave her blood and for a crazy moment wondered what it would be like to sit in this charming room with him every evening after a hard day on the wards and in Theatre, with Lucy sleeping contentedly above.
His mother came in at that moment carrying a tray with coffee and pastries on it, and Aaron got to his feet.
‘Lucy is waiting for a goodnight kiss,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘I won’t pour the coffee until you come down.’
When he’d gone Mary said, ‘And how are things with you, Dr Swain? Are you settling in all right in your new surroundings?’
Annabel wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the dismal flat or Barnaby’s itself, so she just said, ‘Yes, fine, thank you, Mrs Lewis. And it’s not Dr Swain when I’m out and about. It’s Annabel.’
Aaron’s mother smiled. ‘And my name is Mary,’ she said, straightening an imaginary crease in her skirt with a plump hand. ‘So what do you think of my son?’
Annabel’s eyes widened. What was that supposed to mean?
‘I don’t know Aaron all that well, er...Mary, but from what I’ve seen of him I think he is a doting father and a good doctor.’
‘I keep telling him he should marry again,’ the other woman said wistfully. ‘I won’t be here for ever and...’ She’d left the sentence unfinished but it made her concerns clear.
‘I can understand how you feel,’ Annabel told her, squirming inwardly, ‘but that is up to him, isn’t it?’
They could hear his feet on the stairs and Mary sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. We’re happy enough as we are, but the future does worry me sometimes.’
Not as much as it worries me, Annabel thought wryly, but their anxieties had different sources. She would be happy if she could find some direction in her life. Except for the job that she adored it was empty, and likely to remain so, with the hurt inside her that Aaron seemed to be so strangely aware of.
Maybe she should have told him her problems in return for him telling her his. He might have had some words of wisdom to impart, but her feelings were still too raw to bring out into the open and where his loss had been due to a cruel twist of fate, hers had been self-inflicted up to a point. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake, and should have taken better precautions against pregnancy. Instead of letting her longing for a child overcome common sense.
* * *
As Aaron drove her home Annabel was thinking that it had been a strange and unsettling evening. She’d been allowed into the warm circle of a close family, depleted though they were, and at the same time had experienced the pleasure to be had from gracious living.
Maybe it had done her some good, seeing how other people lived. If it had lifted her out of the doldrums, Aaron would have done her a favour by inviting her to his home.
But before leaving him she had to get one thing