‘That’s good to know.’
Hannah headed for the door, relieved to make her escape. Being around Tom seemed to confuse her for some reason and she didn’t appreciate feeling this way. She liked order in her life, not uncertainty, although she was trying not to be as rigid in her outlook as she’d used to be. As she had discovered when she’d been expecting Charlie, not everything went according to plan.
The thought still had the power to hurt. She couldn’t help feeling guilty about the way she had tried so hard to structure every aspect of her life. If she’d been more flexible then Andrew might not have been so uncompromising too, she thought for the umpteenth time, then sighed when she realised how unlikely that was.
‘So how do you feel about us holding the fort while Simon and Ros visit their daughter?’
‘I suppose it would make sense,’ Hannah said, pausing reluctantly.
‘But?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘There was a definite “but” in there if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Was there?’ He was far too astute, she realised with a sinking heart. She summoned a smile, keen to convince him that she wasn’t the least bit worried by the thought of them working together. ‘I suppose I’m a little concerned at the thought of being so new to the practice. It takes a while to find your feet and I wouldn’t like to make any major blunders.’
‘I’m sure you’re far too professional to commit any blunders.’
He returned her smile but once again she could see the wariness in his eyes. It struck her all of a sudden that if she had a problem with Tom then he had a problem with her too. The thought was unsettling because she didn’t want there to be any issues between them, nothing to make either of them more aware of the other, and she hurried on. ‘Let’s hope so. Anyway, what about you? Would you be able to delay taking up your new job?’
‘Yes, I expect so.’ He shrugged. ‘Benedict—he’s the director of the clinic I’m going to work at—is a friend from way back. I’m sure he would agree to let me start a few weeks later if I explained the situation to him.’
‘In that case, there doesn’t appear to be a problem.’ She gave a light laugh, determined to nip things in the bud. Maybe she did find him attractive but so what? She was a grown woman, a mother as well, and she wasn’t going to allow herself to get carried away! ‘If Ros and Simon do decide to go, I’m sure we’ll cope.’
‘I’m sure we will too,’ Tom murmured. He glanced round when the phone rang, hating the fact that he felt so relieved to be interrupted. He knew it was ridiculous to be so aware of her, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Even learning that she was a mother—a definite no-no in his book—hadn’t dampened his interest. As soon as he was near her, common sense flew right out of the window.
It was a worrying thought and Tom knew that he needed to take it on board. Normally, he was the one who called the shots, the one who was always in control, but not this time, it seemed. He needed to get himself back on track and there was no time like the present. He smiled coolly at her, hoping that she couldn’t tell how on edge he felt. ‘I’d better get that.’
‘Of course.’
She didn’t say anything else before she left the room so there was no basis for thinking that she was as relieved as he was to put an end to the conversation. Tom lifted the receiver to his ear and listened while the caller explained that the dog had eaten his prescription. It was the sort of anecdote he normally relished, but he found it difficult to concentrate that day. Was Hannah as confused by her feelings as he was by his?
‘Are you still there, Doctor?’
‘I… um… yes.’
Tom dragged his mind back to the missing prescription and told the caller to come into the surgery and collect another one. He printed it out and left it in the tray then headed out to the corridor. He had to stop thinking about Hannah all the time. If it did turn out that they would be working together for longer than expected then he needed to put things into perspective. It shouldn’t be difficult. He just had to remember that he was incapable of being faithful to any woman. He was genetically programmed to play the field like generations of his family had done before him. So long as he remembered that, everything would be fine, but if he ever imagined that he could break the cycle…
He cut off that thought. He couldn’t change who he was, couldn’t erase his heritage, the bad bits or the good. He had tried to do so once before and had failed miserably, and he certainly wasn’t going to try it again. No matter how tempted he was, he wouldn’t get involved with Hannah, especially when there was a child on the scene.
Children needed stability more than anything else. They needed people who would stay around while they were growing up and he couldn’t promise to do that. Oh, he might think he could but, if push came to shove, would he? Could he? Or would the family genes rise to the fore and he’d turn out exactly like the rest of them—incapable of making a commitment and sticking to it?
Tom squared his shoulders. It was a risk he wasn’t prepared to take. No matter how attracted he was to Hannah, she was off limits.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS just gone six when Hannah arrived at the nursery to collect Charlie. Simon had insisted that she and Tom should split her evening list, which meant she had managed to get away earlier than expected. Now, as she rang the bell, she found herself wondering why she had been so reluctant to let Tom help her. After all, the world hadn’t come to an end because he had seen some patients for her!
‘Oh, hi, Hannah. Come on in. Charlie’s in the playroom—we can’t get him out of the sand tray. He loves it!’
Lucy Burrows, one of the nursery nurses, laughed as she opened the door. Hannah briskly dismissed the thought that she had overreacted as she followed Lucy inside. The sooner she accepted that Tom was just someone she worked with the better. Now, as she paused in the doorway and watched Charlie giggling happily, she was overwhelmed with relief.
Taking Charlie away from everything he knew had been a gamble. Children thrived on stability and she’d been afraid that the move would unsettle him, but so far everything seemed to be working out surprisingly well. He seemed to have settled into the tiny cottage she had rented down by the harbour and he seemed equally happy here at the nursery. After what they had been through in the past year, it was hard to believe that their lives might be changing for the better. If only Andrew had stuck around, surely he would have realised that having a child with talipes wasn’t the disaster he imagined?
Hannah’s mouth compressed as she went over to her son. The likelihood of her ex altering his views was zero. From the moment they had discovered during her pregnancy that there was a problem with Charlie’s feet, Andrew hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. He had wanted a perfect child and he had made that clear.
‘Hello, darling. Are you having a lovely time?’ Hannah crouched down beside the little boy. With his dark brown curls and deep blue eyes, Charlie looked a lot like Andrew. It had hurt at first to see the resemblance, but she had learned to harden her heart. It took more than shared genes to be a real father.
Charlie gurgled in delight when he saw her. Hannah picked him up, inhaling his lovely warm baby smell. Even though she needed to work to support them, she missed him so much whenever they were apart.
‘He’s been as good as gold,’ Lucy told her. ‘You’d think he’d been coming here for ages, not that it was his first day.’
‘That’s a good boy.’
Hannah gave Charlie a kiss as she hitched him more securely onto her hip. Although the casts on his legs were lightweight ones, they were still cumbersome and made carrying him rather awkward. She collected his bag and took him out to the