Meredith Webber - Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit - Bachelor of the Baby Ward / Fairytale on the Children's Ward

‘Which gets you very neatly out of answering my question,’ Angus said, but he didn’t persist and Kate was happy to let the subject drop, as memories of her father’s long illness and eventual death when her aloneness really struck home—no-one to share the caring, or share the pain and loss—came vividly to mind, bringing back the surging tide of grief she thought she’d conquered years ago.

Had her colleague seen something in her expression—a change of colour in her cheeks—that he held out his hand?

‘Come on, baby Bob is fine, and we’ve a full day tomorrow. I’ll walk you home.’

Kate considered arguing, making the excuse that she wanted to check the children on the next day’s operating list, but weariness was seeping through her bones and, dodging the hand he’d offered to guide her through the door, she led the way into the corridor.

Why did she intrigue him? And why so suddenly was he attracted, he who didn’t believe in instant attraction? Angus pondered this as they walked down the leafy street towards their houses. The summer sun was still hot, although it was late afternoon, and sweat prickled beneath his shirt, but that was nothing to the prickling in his skin when he saw this woman unexpectedly, or an image of her flicked across his inner eye.

‘Does it get much hotter?’ he asked, thinking an innocuous conversation about the weather would distract him from considering his reactions to his companion.

‘Much,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s only late November. Summer doesn’t officially begin until December, and February can be a real killer, but at least you’ve got a nice olive skin. You can go to the beach to cool off and not risk turning as red as a lobster and coming out in freckles the size of dinner plates.’

‘Dinner plates?’ he queried, smiling, but more, he feared, because she’d said he had nice skin than at her gross exaggeration.

‘Well, very freckly,’ she countered.

‘Ah, the great genetic inheritance you want to pass on to your children!’

She sighed and ran a hand through her tangled red curls.

‘I’m very healthy—surely that’s important,’ she pointed out.

It was a silly conversation but the children thing nagged at Angus. He could accept that it was natural for a woman to want children, but Kate’s desire seemed slightly out of kilter—more like determination than desire.

And he was obsessing about this, why?

Because he was attracted to her, of course!

Stuff and nonsense, as his mother would say. It was jet lag, not attraction—attraction didn’t happen this fast.

‘Can Hamish swim? He’ll need to learn if he can’t. There are learn-to-swim classes for children in every suburb.’

Had Kate been talking the whole time he muddled over attraction or had she just come out with this totally unrelated question?

Either way, he’d better answer her.

‘ Need to learn?’ he repeated.

Her easy strides hesitated and she looked towards him.

‘ I think so! There are far too many drowning fatalities of small children in Australia each year. No matter what safety measures are put in place, and what warnings are issued, the statistics are appalling.’

Something in her voice sent a shiver down his spine and he hurried to reassure her.

‘He can swim. Loves the water but has no fear, which is always a bit of a worry.’

She was standing looking at him, and he almost felt her shrugging off whatever it was that had bothered her earlier, although when he really looked at her, he saw the pain in her eyes.

‘Someone you knew drowned?’ he guessed, then regretted the casual question when all the colour left her face.

But she didn’t flinch, tilting her chin so she could look him in the eyes.

‘My sister—she was only two. It was a long time ago, but you don’t forget.’

He reached out and touched her arm.

‘I’m so sorry, I really am. I shouldn’t have persisted.’

She rallied now, shrugging off the memories.

‘That’s okay, you weren’t to know. Things happen. But you can understand why I’m a wee bit obsessive about children learning to swim.’

‘Of course you are.’ He squeezed her arm where he was holding it, feeling her bones beneath the flesh. ‘Well, be assured Hamish will be fine in the water. We’re quite near the beach, I believe.’

Her smile caught him by surprise, as did his gut’s reaction to it.

‘Quite near the beach? You really were thrown straight in the deep end,’ she said. ‘You haven’t had time to work out your surroundings at all.’

Then, as if their previous conversation had never happened, she looked up at the sky, where the sun was heading slowly towards the west.

‘With daylight saving, it’ll still be light for a while. What if I pile you and Hamish and Juanita into my car and we do a quick tour of the neighbourhood. We can have a swim and finish with fish and chips at the beach—if Hamish is allowed to eat fish and chips.’

She was being neighbourly, possibly to banish memories his careless question had provoked, but the offer told him more about Kate Armstrong than she’d probably intended it to. She was the kind of person who would always put herself out for others. She’d had no need to go back into Mrs Stamford’s room that morning, but had known the other woman was in deep emotional pain and had decided to make one more attempt to help her.

Now she was offering to drive his little family to the beach.

She should have children! A giving person like Kate would be a wonderful mother. Angus remembered a book he’d read on parenting that explained no matter how hard a father tried he could never fully replace a mother. Something to do with wiring…

If Hamish had a mother, would that let Angus off the hook? Allow him to feel less, not exactly guilty, but disquieted about his interaction with his son?

He shook his head as if to shake away the notion. He was fine as a father, spent time with Hamish, did whatever he could for him…

‘Well?’ Kate demanded, and Angus pulled himself together.

‘We’d be delighted, and thanks to his early upbringing Hamish loves fish and chips. It’s practically a staple diet back home in Scotland.’

What was she doing? Was she mad, getting more involved with her neighbours instead of less? Kate left him at his gate and strode ahead, then found Hamish and a woman who must be Juanita sitting on her yellow sofa.

‘I thought I told you the backyard was for adventures,’ she scolded Hamish, although she softened the words with a smile.

‘This isna an adventure,’ he told her, four-year-old scorn scorching the words. ‘I’m with Juanita. We’re waiting for you to come home so I can—’

‘Introduce me,’ the woman said, standing and holding out her hand to Kate. ‘I am Juanita Cortez.’

She was a solid, olive-skinned woman of about fifty, Kate guessed as she introduced herself, and asked Juanita how she was settling in.

‘We are nearly there,’ Juanita replied. ‘Angus has sorted a kindergarten for Hamish and I’ve found an organisation for ex-pat Americans that meets once a month, and another place where I can go to play bridge, so I will soon meet plenty of people.’

‘Well done you,’ Kate responded, admiring the other woman’s nous in getting organised, but she was watching Hamish as she spoke, watching Angus swing his son into the air before depositing him on his shoulders, normal father stuff but somehow Angus was never looking at the little boy.

Not directly.

Seeing them together, so unalike, Kate wondered if Hamish looked like his mother, and therefore was too painful a reminder…

Oh, dear!

‘Come on,’ Angus said, ‘let’s get changed. Kate’s taking us to the beach.’