Margaret Barker - A Father for Baby Rose

Rose’s eyes were closing now. In another few seconds she would be asleep. Maybe she should relieve Yannis of the burden on his shoulder. But something told her he was quite comfortable with the arrangement, and she didn’t want to speak until Rose was asleep.

They sat together in a companionable silence that was broken only by the sound of the sea close beside them below the rocky promontory. Cathy moved her gaze to her daughter, who was now peacefully sleeping with her small head cradled against Yannis’s shoulder.

Yannis saw Cathy looking anxiously at her daughter. Gently he eased the child down to a more comfortable position, cradled in the crook of his left arm. He smiled across the table, wondering why he felt so comfortable here with this mother and baby. This was what life would have been like if… If only he… No! He mustn’t torment himself by going down that road again. Just enjoy this simple, pleasurable feeling that was stealing over him—if he would let it.

He forced himself to relax again. ‘Rose is sound asleep now, Cathy, so don’t worry about her.’

She stopped herself just in time, avoiding the question she’d wanted to ask. Looking across at Yannis now, with her daughter cradled in the crook of his arm, she thought he looked like the perfect father.

Margaret Barkerhas enjoyed a variety of interesting careers. A State Registered Nurse and qualified teacher, she holds a degree in French and Linguistics, and is a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. As a full-time writer, Margaret says, ‘Writing is my most interesting career, because it fits perfectly into family life. Sadly, my husband died of cancer in 2006, but I still live in our idyllic sixteenth-century house near the East Anglian coast. Our grown-up children have flown the nest, but they often fly back again, bringing their own young families with them for wonderful weekend and holiday reunions.’

A Father

for Baby Rose

Margaret Barker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

CATHY pushed the buggy past the vibrant tavernas edging the harbour, which hummed and buzzed with early evening revellers. Little Rose, squashed against her pillows in the buggy, was leaning forward now so she could point out something of interest that she wanted Mummy to see.

Cathy put her foot on the brake and went round to the front of the buggy, smiling down at her daughter.

“What is it, darling?”

Ah, yes, now she saw it. Rose loved cats. The black and white cat was now mingling with a group of people strolling along the harbour. The nearest woman to Rose’s buggy bent down to look at the small girl.

“ Kali spera ,” she said to Cathy as she smiled down at her daughter. “ Posseleni ?”

Rose chuckled but didn’t reply to the woman who was asking her name.

“My daughter is only ten months old,” Cathy explained in Greek. “She’s called Rose.”

“Horaya!”

As the woman hurried away to catch up with her friends Cathy repeated the compliment under her breath. “Horaya!” She didn’t know whether the woman considered the name or her daughter to be beautiful but whatever it was she was right on both counts.

She paused to look up at the beautiful evening sky, not a sign of a cloud, the golden shades of the advancing twilight mingling with the seemingly endless blue that merged with the lighter colour of the sea. What a difference eighteen months had made! The last time she’d been here on the island she hadn’t even known that she was actually going to be a mother. And then when she’d found out!

She drew in her breath as she remembered the shock, horror, her awful, mixed, muddled emotional reactions. How could she have had such dreadful ideas? She swallowed hard. How different her life would be now without Rose, the centre of her universe. There would be no meaning to it at all, apart from her medical career. But even that paled into insignificance now that she was a mother.

Eighteen months ago she’d come out to Ceres to attend her cousin Tanya’s wedding, so happy to get away for a while, still licking her wounds and feeling the awful despair of another failed relationship. When Tanya had suggested she apply for the temporary appointment of doctor that would be available when she and her husband Manolis went on honeymoon, she’d jumped at the chance.

But two weeks later, back at home in Leeds, discovering she was pregnant had changed everything. She still had to suffer the awful pangs of despair at the fact that Dave had gone back to a wife she hadn’t known existed. Coupled with the morning sickness that had set in with a vengeance, she’d withdrawn her application for the temporary post at Ceres hospital.

When Rose had been a few months old Tanya had phoned to say she and Manolis were taking a six-month sabbatical from Ceres hospital to work in Australia and there would be a vacant post for her if she wanted to apply. She’d got a second chance! Tanya had asked if she would like to stay in their house and she’d even arranged child care for Rose. She could make a fresh start at last and concentrate on her number one priority, Rose.

Looking down at her beautiful daughter, she could feel her heart lifting at the thought that they were going to be fine out here. Life was beginning to take shape again.

Involuntarily, she increased her stride, now desperate to get away from the evening crowds by the harbour, yearning for the peace and calm of the next bay where all would be quiet and she could sit down at a table outside the final taverna, which she remembered from the times her mother had taken her there as a child was always quiet.

She needed to watch the sun setting whilst chatting to Rose in Greek or English as her own mother had done with her. It didn’t matter which. Rose was learning both languages as she had when her mother had brought her here every holiday to “pick up Greek” from her cousins and the children she played with.

Later, while at medical school, she’d taken Greek lessons with a private tutor who’d helped her sort out the grammar and linguistic rules. He had also been a retired Greek doctor, which had been a help when she’d made sure she was conversant with Greek medical terminology. She’d always hoped she might have a chance to use it. Never had she thought things would turn out as they had!

The buggy was rattling alarmingly now and not just the gentle groaning of an ancient model that should have been scrapped long ago. She tried to ignore it as she pushed hard against the rough cobblestones. Seconds later it ground to a jolting halt. What now?

She hadn’t wanted to borrow it from Grandma Anna’s vast array of baby equipment because it had obviously seen years of service. But Anna had been very persuasive, telling her that it would be difficult to get a taxi down from Chorio, the upper town, to Yialos, the area around the harbour. The hourly bus would be overcrowded and with standing room only. Much better to push Rose in the buggy down the Kali Strata.

Cathy knelt down to take a look at the loose wheel that was now firmly stuck in a deep crevice in the cobblestones. Rose leaned over the side and stroked Cathy’s long blond hair as she struggled to extricate the wheel, gurgling all the while, obviously desperate to communicate her own thoughts on the situation!