Liz’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘Just be grateful your shift’s over.’
Annie glanced at the ward clock. Liz was right. It was almost a quarter past four. She had to go. David had offered to collect Jamie from the day-care centre and to look after him until she got home, but the last thing her brother needed was a small boy under his feet. Especially if that small boy was being difficult because he’d had a rotten day.
He hadn’t. In fact, she could scarcely get a word in edgewise while Jamie excitedly told her about the toys he’d played with, the Viking longship he’d made from egg boxes and the lunch he’d enjoyed.
‘I said you were worrying needlessly, didn’t I?’ David grinned when she finally managed to get Jamie into bed.
‘I’m his mother,’ she protested. ‘Worrying goes with the territory.’
‘I’m his uncle, and I say you worry too much.’
She did—she knew she did—just as she also knew she would never change.
‘How was your day?’ she asked, deliberately changing the subject.
‘I didn’t get the promotion.’
‘Oh, David…’
‘To be honest, I never really expected to. Admin and I have never really seen eye to eye, so…’ He shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal, Annie.’
But it was. Her brother was a gifted obs and gynae specialist registrar, and if anyone deserved being made consultant at the Merkland Memorial it was him. He’d been so good to her, too. Bringing her back to Glasgow when she’d told him she was pregnant, insisting she stay with him after Jamie was born, and it hadn’t been his idea for her to move out and get a place of her own.
‘I can’t—and I won’t—live off you, David,’ she’d told him when he’d protested at her decision—and had protested even more when he’d seen the flat. ‘It’s time I was independent.’
He’d agreed eventually, had even paid her first month’s rent, and now he hadn’t got the promotion he deserved because the administration at the Merkland didn’t like his innovative ideas.
‘David, couldn’t you—?’
‘You haven’t told me how you got on at the Belfield.’
Who was changing the subject now? she thought, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about his own problems so obediently she told him. Told him every single, humiliating incident, and by the end, to her surprise, she was laughing about it as much as he was.
‘Honestly, love, when you mess things up, you really go for it,’ he exclaimed, wiping the laughter from his eyes. ‘This Gideon bloke sounds all right, though. How old is he—fifty—sixty—nearing retirement?’
‘Late thirties, I’d guess, but I don’t see—’
‘Good-looking—pot ugly? Look, just answer the question, OK?’ David continued when she looked even more confused.
‘Ordinary-looking, I guess, but tall—very tall—with brown hair. Well, it’s more sort of beech nut brown, really,’ she amended, ‘with little flecks of grey at the sides. His eyes are brown, too. A kind of hazel brown—’
‘Not that you noticed, of course.’
Her brother’s eyes were dancing, and she gave him a very hard stare. ‘David…’
‘Pretty junior doctor Annie Hart arrives for her first day at work and falls headlong into the arms of tall, ordinary—but apparently not all that ordinary—consultant Gideon Caldwell. Their eyes meet across a bedpan—’
‘And he hits her with it because she’s the ward dork,’ she finished dryly. ‘David, Mr Caldwell would never be interested in me in a million years. And even if he was, I certainly wouldn’t be interested in him.’
‘Annie, not all obs and gynae consultants are rats,’ her brother protested, ‘and giving up on men because of what happened to you in Manchester is crazy. You’re only twenty-eight. That’s way too young to have stopped dating.’
‘You date enough for both of us,’ she said with a laugh, then quickly put her hand up to her brother’s lips to silence him. ‘David, you’re my big brother, and I love you dearly, but I’ve got my son, and you, and now I’ve got a job. I don’t need anything else.’
And she didn’t, she thought when David went home still muttering under his breath.
She’d vowed four years ago never to let another man into her life. Never to let anyone get close enough to hurt her the way Nick had, and she’d meant it. She’d loved him so much. Believed him when he’d said he loved her. Trusted him when he’d said he was getting a divorce. And then he’d walked away, leaving her with nothing.
No, not with nothing, she thought wryly, picking up one of Jamie’s toys. Jamie had been the accidental result of one of their nights of love-making, and despite everything she could never regret him.
Yes, the last four years had been tough, but things were starting to look up. Gideon Caldwell could have fired her today, and he hadn’t. Jamie could have hated the day-care centre, and he’d loved it. It was going to be all right. If she could just hold onto this job, everything might finally be all right.
‘DON’T want to go to the day centre. Want to stay home with Mummy.’
Annie glanced at the kitchen clock then back to her son’s truculent face with a groan. She didn’t need this, not today. Not when Gideon had asked her to sit in on his morning clinic for the very first time.
‘I thought you liked the centre. You said the toys were terrific—’
‘Don’t want to go. Don’t like it there any more.’
Annie put his cereal bowl in the sink, her brain working overtime.
‘I could collect you early today,’ she suggested. ‘I should be finished at the hospital around two o’clock, and after I’ve done some quick shopping—’ frantic, more like ‘—I could collect you at three.’
Jamie didn’t look impressed. In fact, he looked even more truculent. ‘I’ve got a sore tummy.’
‘I’m not surprised considering how fast you ate your breakfast.’
‘I mean a really sore tummy. And a sore head.’
She stared at him uncertainly. He’d been perfectly fine when he’d got up this morning, and he looked perfectly fine now, but…
‘Wait here while Mummy gets her thermometer,’ she ordered.
‘Don’t want the termoneter,’ Jamie yelled after her. ‘Want to stay home.’
And I’m the worst mother in the world, Annie thought when she’d taken his temperature and found it to be normal. It was obvious what was happening. The novelty of going to the centre had worn off and this was Jamie’s way of telling her he felt abandoned, but what could she do? She had to work to keep a roof over their heads. She couldn’t keep on relying on David for the rest of her life.
‘Sweetheart, Mummy has to work—you know she does.’
‘You never did when we stayed with Uncle David,’ Jamie argued, his face beginning to crumple.
‘Look, if you’re a good boy and go to the centre, I’ll buy you that pudding you like for tea,’ she said swiftly. ‘The one with the chocolate bits in it?’