‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ he replied smoothly. He certainly didn’t want to make her feel that she was in the wrong when it could have repercussions on her offering him the job. He needed this job for Kristy’s sake and wanted it for himself, too. He could imagine himself working very happily with Helen Daniels.
Lewis cleared his throat, somewhat surprised by the thought. It was rare for him to make snap judgements and he couldn’t understand why he’d done so in this instance. ‘All I can say is that I will do a good job if you offer me the post. With your help, I feel that I could fit in here and make a valuable contribution to the community.’
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, Dr Cole. However, as I’m sure you will understand, I need to consider your application in light of the others I’ve received. The standard has been extremely high so it may take a few days for me to reach a decision.’
She stood up, making it clear that the interview was over. Lewis’s heart sank as he got to his feet. He knew without having to be told that he’d blown it. He’d been too forceful, too sure of himself, and she wasn’t having any of it.
He really couldn’t blame her, he thought as he shook her hand. He would have had reservations, too, if he’d been the one doing the interview. A forty-year-old consultant surgeon moving into general practice wasn’t the usual run-of-the-mill candidate so any prospective employer would have had doubts. Not for the first time he found himself wondering if he’d been mad to take this step, yet what choice had he had?
Kristy needed him to be there when she got home from school. She needed him to be there in the middle of the night when she woke up, screaming in terror. What use was he to her if he was stuck in Theatre or at one of the endless fundraising dinners he’d been expected to attend? His whole lifestyle had had to change, although he didn’t regret it for a second. He owed Kristy this and a lot more after the way he’d failed her for the first six years of her life!
He swung round, wishing there was something more he could have done to convince Helen Daniels that he was the best candidate for the post. She followed him from the room and he could sense her eagerness to get rid of him as she escorted him to the reception area. She paused by the desk, a polite smile fixed to her lovely mouth, and he sighed. There was no point holding out any hope that he would be offered the job so maybe he should cut his losses and make this as easy as possible for her.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Dr Daniels. I appreciate you giving up your time.’
‘Thank you for coming all this way,’ she countered politely. ‘Did you drive up here or travel by train, by the way?’
‘I drove. The trains can be a little erratic and I wanted to make sure I was back when Kristy got home from school,’ he replied, without thinking, because he was busily watching the light from the window playing across her hair. It really was the most glorious colour, he thought, watching a winter sunbeam bounce fiery lights off the silky red tendrils…
‘You have a daughter?’
The surprise in her voice reclaimed his attention and he nodded. ‘Yes. Kristy is six,’ he explained in the noncommittal tone he used whenever anyone exhibited surprise at the fact that he was a father.
‘A lovely age. Old enough to enjoy her company yet still young enough that you can take care of her. You spend all your time worrying about them when they’re old enough to leave home.’
Lewis frowned. He wasn’t sure what to make of that comment. He would have put her age at somewhere in her mid-thirties so she must have been very young when she’d had her family if her children had left home. Bearing in mind the years she would have spent studying, it seemed very strange and he was still trying to work it out when she continued.
‘How does your wife feel about moving out of London? Is she happy about the idea?’
Lewis forgot about Helen’s family as he tried to decide how to answer the question. Normally, he avoided any mention of Tessa because he found it too difficult to talk about her. It also upset Kristy to hear her mother’s name mentioned so he skirted around the subject whenever anyone asked about her. However, for some reason he felt that he had to be truthful with Helen Daniels.
‘I’m not married. I never have been, in fact.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry. I just assumed you were when you spoke about your daughter…’
She broke off in embarrassment and he grimaced because now he’d made matters worse. The only way to rectify the problem was to tell her the full story and to hell with what she thought…only it wasn’t that simple. For some, inexplicable reason he didn’t want her to think badly of him.
‘Kristy’s mother and I had a brief affair some years ago before she moved to Florida. She never told me that she was pregnant before she left so I had no idea that she was expecting my child. I only found out last year when a firm of lawyers from Miami informed me that I had a daughter.’
‘It must have been a shock for you.’
‘It was.’ He smiled grimly, thinking that must be the biggest understatement of all time. Even now, a full year later, he still woke up at night sometimes and wondered if he’d dreamt it.
‘You said that you found out about your daughter when you were contacted by lawyers? Was there a reason for that?’
Lewis felt his heart swell when he saw the concern in her beautiful eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at him that way, he thought wistfully. He realised that he needed to terminate the conversation before he got in way too deep for his own good. Once he left The Beeches that would be the last he saw of Helen Daniels so there was no point wallowing in all that wonderful sympathy.
‘Unfortunately, Tessa was involved in a road accident and subsequently died of her injuries. She was living with some guy in Miami at the time, and after she died he decided that he didn’t want to be responsible for Kristy.’ He shrugged, trying to damp down the anger he felt whenever he thought about what had happened. ‘He took off one day and left Kristy in the apartment. Fortunately, a neighbour heard her crying and called the police, but from what they could gather she’d been on her own for almost a week by then.’
‘But that’s awful!’ Helen exclaimed. ‘How could anyone just abandon a young child?’
‘I’ve no idea. Anyway, once the authorities discovered that Tessa was dead, they put Kristy into care. It was only when the police finally tracked down the guy Tessa had been living with that my name cropped up. Tessa had told him I was Kristy’s father, so the lawyer who was working on the case got in touch with me. I flew out to Miami the following day and was granted custody of her.’
‘It must have been a huge shock for you, though.’
‘It was.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I’d never thought about having a family and all of a sudden I had a six-year-old daughter I had never even known existed.’
‘You could have had her adopted,’ she said, her eyes locked to his face in a way that would have bothered him if it hadn’t been for what she’d said. The fact that she believed him capable of giving up his own child made him see just how low an opinion she had of him, and it hurt to realise that, hurt far more than it should have done, bearing in mind that he barely knew her.
‘Kristy is my child and I would never put her up for adoption,’ he stated in a voice like steel. ‘I’ve enough to feel guilty about without adding that into the equation.’
‘But you didn’t even know that you had a daughter!’ she protested.
‘No, I didn’t know about her, but that isn’t an excuse for what’s gone on. The poor child has suffered enough heartache in her young life and I intend to do everything I can to make up for it.’
He looked straight into her eyes, wanting to convince her yet unsure why it mattered so much. ‘I’m going to do my best to be the perfect father to her,