Josie Metcalfe - A Family To Come Home To

In the time that it took him to fill the gnawing hollow inside, she’d put a load of washing in the machine, prepared lunch boxes for Josh and Sam for the next day and put them in the fridge ready for the morning and had made several forays out of the room that involved strange unidentified thumps that were only explained when she sent the boys off to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

‘While you’ve got that temporary cast on you won’t be able to get up the stairs, so I’ve put you in one of the rooms down on this level…if that’s all right with you. I thought it would be safer while you’re getting used to using the crutches.’

His first instinct was to object. The very idea of sharing a relatively small space with Kat and her two sons would be too much to cope with, especially if she’d given up her own room for him.

While he’d been trying to find the words to turn down the offer, she’d quietly taken charge of the wheelchair and without any fuss had piloted him along the hall.

‘There are the stairs,’ she said, pointing to the wrought-iron spiral of steps rising from the corner of the hallway through a circular hole in the ceiling—obviously impossible for a leg in a cast, as she had known. ‘And here is the bedroom with a bathroom opening directly off it.’

Kat pushed him into a room that was much bigger than he’d expected, but every breath he took told him that this was her private space he was invading.

There was nothing overtly fussy or flowery about the décor, everything in shades of calm neutrals with accents of a soft sage green. But it smelt like she did, of something not quite flowery but not spicy either. Whatever it was, it wasn’t helping that he was looking at the freshly made bed that she’d been sleeping in last night. And that was another thing he shouldn’t be thinking about.

‘The previous GP who lived here put in this bathroom when his wife had a stroke,’ she said as she pushed him to the open door, continuing with her low-key guided tour. ‘As you can see, it’s got a walk-in shower with a seat that folds away. I thought that would be much easier to cope with unaided if you taped some plastic around the top of your leg to protect your cast.’

He sighed silently, conceding that she was right. He was in no fit state to clamber up those stairs and a bath would be beyond him.

‘I don’t like putting you out of your room,’ he pointed out uncomfortably, wondering if he would be able to sleep, knowing it was her bed. ‘I’ll stay in here just for a few days…until I get proficient on the crutches.’

‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘It’s no problem for me to use the other room.’ She left him for a moment and returned with the small stash of belongings he’d carried home from the hospital, depositing the plastic bag on the bedside cabinet and propping the crutches against the bed. Her second journey had her returning with the suitcase he’d stowed in the back of his car, last seen parked in front of the practice.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ he objected, his protective male instincts rebelling against the thought of someone as slight as Kat hefting such a heavy weight. She threw a wry glance in the direction of his bulky leg, pointing out without saying a word that he certainly wasn’t in a fit state to carry anything, and he subsided glumly.

‘It hardly seems worthwhile bringing everything in when I won’t be staying long,’ he said, when she returned with the last of his luggage. ‘You’ll be needing the room for whoever takes the job.’

‘But the job’s yours!’ she exclaimed, clearly startled. ‘It’s my fault that you’ve been injured, so it’s my responsibility to look after you until you’re on your feet again.’

That was just what he didn’t want…to be another responsibility for her to carry on those slender shoulders. But the alternative—to leave Ditchling without ever having a chance to get to know this courageous woman—was unthinkable, too.

‘I can’t just be a burden on you,’ he objected. ‘The whole reason why you were advertising for an associate was because you’re either rushed off your feet without a minute to call your own, or you’re paying vast sums for other people to cover for you.’

‘Mum! Can you come and hear me read?’ called Sam, his voice loud in the sudden silence between them.

‘Coming!’ she called back. ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’

She paused in the doorway, almost as if she was momentarily suspended between her roles of mother and GP. ‘We’ll talk about this when I’ve finished settling the boys down. There must be something…’

That little pleat was back between those silky eyebrows and he was struck by the sudden urge to smooth it away with a fingertip…or a kiss.

‘Enough!’ he growled to himself as soon as she was out of earshot. ‘You don’t need any complications in your life, especially ones that come with children, no matter how tempting their mother is.

‘And she doesn’t even realise just how…’ He was lost for words, searching for them inside a head that could only think about how much the light fragrance surrounding him suited her.

‘Is this some sort of reaction to the accident? Did they give me something in A and E that’s scrambled my brain?’

The only solution was, as ever, hard work that left him no time to think.

‘Time to unpack,’ he decided, gripping the wheel-rims of the chair and turning it laboriously around.

It didn’t take him long to discover that making the decision wasn’t the same as carrying it out. Even the smaller of his two suitcases was beyond him when he couldn’t use his lower body to help him lift it onto the bed, and that would be the only level at which he could reach into it.

He paused for a moment, slumped in the hated chair and muttering swearwords under his breath when he had the prickling sensation that someone was watching him.

A quick glance over his shoulder told him the worst and a wave of guilt swept over him that he’d been caught setting such a bad example.

‘Sorry about the bad language,’ he said flatly. There was a brief flash of surprise on the youngster’s face, as though he hadn’t expected an apology from him, but he could tell that their brief truce surrounding his injury was over.

Josh’s hackles were up again.

‘This was my dad’s room…and my mum’s,’ he announced truculently, letting Ben know in no uncertain terms that his presence wasn’t welcome on such hallowed ground. But Josh hadn’t finished. ‘My mum’s a widow but she still loves my dad,’ he added fiercely, and Ben wondered just how badly his usual control had slipped. Had his unexpected response to Kat been so obvious that even an eleven-year-old had noticed? It was time for some judicious damage control.

‘Good,’ he said with an approving nod. ‘That’s how it should be in a good marriage.’ Hah! The little voice inside his head commented. What would you know about it? You couldn’t even…

‘So, why has Mum put you in here?’ Josh demanded, childish frustration at the incomprehensibility of adult actions spilling over. ‘It’s her room now. And you’re supposed to be upstairs in the flat.’

‘And I would be if it weren’t for this.’ Ben knocked his knuckles on the cast draped in voluminous pale green cotton. ‘I can’t manage stairs with it yet, but in a couple of days…’ He shrugged, hoping it looked nonchalant enough to convince Josh’s protective instincts. Once more he reached for the suitcase and this time tried to swing it up onto the bed. Instead, he nearly toppled the wheelchair over and wrenched some of the more tender areas of his back.

He only just managed to hold in a curse but thought the effort well worthwhile when he caught a glimpse of sympathy replacing the animosity in Josh’s stance.