The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance

‘Two years,’ he said. ‘They wanted five but I wouldn’t agree to it.’

‘Because?’

‘Because I’ve never stayed anywhere for more than two years. I like fresh starts. I like putting everything into it and building things up …’

Or rather he had.

They drove to a pub and had a lovely lazy lunch overlooking a huge village green.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ Candy said, and he nodded.

‘Even if we don’t get the go-ahead for the gym, I’ll probably start a walking club over there.’

‘You’re going to go start a geriatric walking club!’

‘Yep, I walk with my dog every morning that I can. Why not have company?’

‘You have a dog?’

‘I do.’ Steele smiled. ‘You have me pegged as a loner— no friends to go to the movies with, no pets. I have a dog, I have nice furniture and I have, when I’m not sleeping with Nurse Candy, a very busy social life.’

‘Where’s your dog now?’

‘At my parents’,’ he said. ‘He’s a chocolate Labrador called Newman.’

‘Newman?’

‘You’ll …’ Steele stopped. He had been about to say she would see why when she met him but that wasn’t what today was about. No pressure, he reminded himself. Today was doing her good, he could see that already. Her cheeks were pink and she seemed more relaxed than she had since … well, since Macey had opened her mouth and knocked their worlds off their axes, but they were starting to spin again, tentatively, though. ‘He’s got blue eyes,’ Steele said instead. ‘And he’s the love of my life and he knows it.’

‘Does he sleep on your bed, Steele?’

Steele shook his head. ‘He sleeps on his bed for about seventeen hours a day and graciously lets me share it at night.’

After lunch they walked across the green and Candy laughed as she looked at it through what she imagined were Steele’s eyes. ‘I have this vision of all these old people doing Tai Chi …’

‘So do I.’

She stopped walking. ‘And then you’ll leave.’

‘That was the plan,’ he said. ‘Though this is a huge project …’ He looked around. Since his divorce he had never been able to imagine staying in one place for very long. Here, though, he was close, though not too close to his parents; here was the job he had been working towards his entire career. He looked over as a car pulled up and a man got out and gave them a wave as they walked over to him.

‘That’s the estate agent,’ Steele explained.

‘Oh.’

‘And that’s the renovator’s delight I’m hoping to buy, but I’m not telling him that.’

It was a huge rambling house with a small wooden gate, overlooking the green.

‘Are you going to come and take a look?’ he said.

‘I think I might just take another walk,’ she said. She didn’t want to see his future home, so she walked on the green as Steele inspected the house.

He looked at the cornices and the hanging-off doors; the windows would all need to be taken out.

Don’t start on the electrics, he thought as he flicked lights on and off.

And as for the plumbing! The estate agent tried to distract him from turning on taps but Steele was not easily distracted and when he turned on the taps the whole house seemed to rattle. Steele grinned as, in his head, he knocked another five grand off the asking price.

It was magnificent, though.

‘Could you give me a moment?’ he said to the agent. ‘I’d like to walk through it again on my own for a minute.’

The estate agent agreed and Steele took way more than a minute.

The last time he had looked at a home this size had been with his ex-wife. The natural assumption at that time had been that the bedrooms would soon be filled.

The natural assumption as he walked around now was that the bedrooms would be filled too.

It was more than an assumption. It was a feeling it was how it should be. He looked out of a window and could see Candy idly walking around. He wanted to go and fetch her, bring her in, ask her her thoughts, yet her thoughts were cluttered enough now.

His weren’t.

He thanked the estate agent and said that he’d be in touch then he walked over and joined her.

‘Maybe I can explain you after all,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I could just say to my parents that you’re a friend from work who needed a day out. You can meet Newman.’

‘No, thanks,’ she said.

‘Candy, can we talk—’

‘Please, not now,’ she said. ‘I just need this day. I just need a day of not dealing with it and then I need my holiday to start dealing with it on my own.’

Steele nodded. It was what they had agreed to after all.

They drove back to his flat to collect her case, which was no longer in the car, and Candy needed it as she flew tomorrow.

Candy, of course, fell asleep in the car but now it just made him smile.

She awoke to his lovely deep voice and the sight of his flat and then she turned and there he was.

‘I’ll go and grab your case,’ he said.

‘Can I borrow your loo?’ Candy said, because, as she was starting to find out, this was something she would be saying rather a lot in the weeks and months ahead.

She went to the loo and remembered the last time she’d been here—when her pregnancy had just started to become a possibility. As she looked in the mirror while washing her hands, she remembered the fear that had been in her eyes then.

The fear was gone now.

Yes, she was confused and exhausted and nervous about how she would provide for two children, but the terror was leaving and, after such a wonderful day’s reprieve, she was starting to feel a little more like herself.

‘Thank you for a lovely day,’ she said.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ he offered, and she nodded.

‘Make yourself comfortable.’

‘Ha-ha,’ she said, and stood and watched him make the tea instead.

Meaning …

She lifted her top and showed him the straining zipper that had simply refused to go all the way back up.

Only Steele didn’t really see that. He saw pink lace and a teeny flash of jet hair and the stomach that his mouth had kissed over and over.

And as she put down her top Candy looked at the teabag he was squeezing the hell out of with his spoon and, yikes, there was a sort of gravelly note to his voice as he asked her how many sugars she had in her tea.

‘The same as last time,’ Candy said.

‘Sorry, I’m a bit distracted.’ Steele smiled. ‘Two?’

‘Two.’

‘Do you really want tea?’ he checked.

‘No.’

‘Because I don’t,’ Steele said. ‘I want a glass of wine but I’m driving.’

‘Poor Steele.’ She smiled. ‘It really is a problem.’ Candy thought for a moment. ‘I know!’ she said brightly.

‘Do tell.’

‘Why don’t you have a glass of wine and drive me home later?’

He turned and faced her. ‘That’s so clever, but you’re stuck in those uncomfortable jeans. I insist you take them off …’

They started to kiss, the best kiss ever, because she’d got so lost in babies and feeling massive and unsexy but his tongue swiftly took care of that.

It hadn’t really entered her head that he might want her again in that way. Now his fingers were at her zipper and somehow she felt back to the woman she had been.

Out of her jeans, she moaned in relief.

‘Nice?’

‘Nice,’ she said to his mouth.

‘That bra looks a bit tight too.’

He unhooked it and took it out through her arms and it was lovely to be all loose and floppy and to rest a moment in his arms.

‘Feels so good,’ she said.

‘It does,’ he said. There would be no rushing. He loved feeling her all relaxed against him.

‘Get your wine.’

They headed over to the sofa and it was nice to be back there. Steele sat and Candy lay down as he drank his wine and played with her hair. It was good not to talk. She remembered the mornings with Macey and her nonna, and the bliss of hush when words could only serve to make you sad.

‘Are you all packed for Hawaii?’ he said finally.

‘Nope.’ Candy sighed. ‘We’re here to get my case, remember?’

This time tomorrow she’d be at Heathrow.

‘Can I paint your toenails?’ she asked.

‘Er, why?’

‘It relaxes me and my mum’s still sulking at me so I haven’t been able to do hers.’

‘Do you have some nail varnish with you?’

‘In my bag.’

He was so laid back and yet so austere. It was a lovely mixture that made her stomach curl and also gave her a peace that she could be herself.

And she was.

He lay down and she sat on his calves and started on his right foot. ‘I like men’s nails,’ Candy explained, ‘because they’re bigger.’

‘Have you painted a lot of men’s nails?’ he asked, and then let out a moan of surprise. ‘Oh!’

‘What?’ She smiled as she painted his big toenail.

‘I have nail-painting jealousy issues,’ Steele said. ‘I just felt it burn. I’m looking at your bum and enjoying the view when I suddenly got the Annie burn that you had.’

‘I’ve never painted another man’s toenails from this angle.’ Candy smiled again.

‘Take your knickers off, then.’

She did as told and then got back to painting the toenails on his left foot but she made a terrible mess of his long second toe because she heard his zipper slide down.

‘I’m making a bit of a mess here, Steele,’ she said.

‘I forgive you,’ he said.

‘Steele.’ She was arguably the most turned on she had ever been. She had never thought she’d feel sexy again, had never thought sex would ever be fun again, and yet here they were and it was bliss. ‘Can I turn around?’

‘You’ll finish what you started,’ Steele warned.

She gritted her teeth and did the last three toes really quickly. ‘Done.’ She turned around on his calves to the delicious sight of him and she moved up to sit on his thighs and lowered her head and they shared a long, deep kiss. Her breasts flattened against his chest and she could feel his erection pressing against her stomach.

She brought the kiss to a giddy halt and stared at him. He looked right back at her in a way that had her almost feverish. She started placing small kisses over his cheeks as his hands moved to her breasts, working her nipples.

‘Candy …’ Steele nearly said something he shouldn’t. Today wasn’t a day for confusing her, today wasn’t a day for declarations, it was about keeping it light and he felt her sudden tension at the tender tone to his voice. ‘Time for your hula lesson,’ he said, and got the reward of her laugh in his ear.

She lowered herself onto him and he held her hips and had her sway a little and circle, and then Candy could not play any longer and she started moving of her own accord. His hands exploring her breasts had her greedy for more and she leant forward, lowering her breasts to his mouth, dizzy with the sensation of his hands now on her hips, grinding her down a little harder as his mouth worked her tender nipples.

‘Steele …’ There was almost panic in her voice, a delicious panic because her body wasn’t hers any more but was moving into a rhythm of its own.

His mouth left her breast and she looked down at him. His lips were slightly parted and there was tension in his expression, just as there was in hers.

Steele adjusted the angle of his thrust just a fraction and she let out a sob. It was an actual sob as Steele started to come.

And then another sob and it was one of relief as somehow, some way, as she came to him, all she was at that moment was Candy.

Not pregnant, not scared, not worried at all.

The world felt a lot better when she was in Steele’s arms.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

STEELE STARED AT the morning light as she lay in his arms.

It was the last morning they would share in this room.

‘Excited?’

‘Very.’ Candy nodded.

Despite her misgivings at times, now she was looking forward again to going on holiday. There was so much more to sort out now and Candy truly wanted to get on with it.

Right now, though, here was where she wanted to be, and she lay stroking the crinkly hair on his stomach that she loved so.

‘What date do you get back?’ Steele asked.

It was the first day of his new job.

‘Do you want me to see if I can get away this evening and take you to the airport?’

‘No, because then we’ll have to say goodbye again.’ She looked up at him. He’d been so lovely to her. Her time with Steele had been the most wonderful time of her life but she wasn’t foolish. Two weeks away from each other, him starting a new job, very soon he might look at things in a very different light. She didn’t want to find out a few weeks or months from now that, despite best intentions, they hadn’t worked out … A very big part of Candy wanted it left at this. She wanted it to end while they were crazy about each other, while it was fun and sex and romance—before it all got too hard.

They got out of bed and got ready and he picked up her case and when they got to her flat he carried it in and he laughed when he saw the lock she’d put on.

‘How many holes did you put in the door?’

‘I’m very proud of my work,’ Candy said.

‘I’m not sure your landlord will be,’ Steele said, and smiled as Candy went a bit pink. ‘Did you ask permission?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want me to fix it up?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to fix it myself.’

‘I know you do.’

They had a cuddle in the hall, a quiet one, just stood there and held each other and the moment was theirs.

He drove her to work and as they went to say goodbye it was too hard to do. ‘I’ll pop in and see Macey and if you’re on the ward …’

‘Sure.’

He gave her a kiss and they both did their very best to get on with their day.

‘Candy …’ Kelly said as she came into the changing room. ‘How are things?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You were off sick yesterday,’ Kelly fished.

‘I wasn’t sick, though.’ Candy smiled. ‘It was a mental health day.’

‘So everything is okay?’ Kelly checked.

‘It will be about ten hours from now when my plane takes off.’ She knew Kelly was fishing—everyone was.

And at midday Candy broke her news as they dealt with a multi-trauma.

‘I’m stepping out,’ she said as they went to do the X-rays. She always wore a heavy lead gown and so she knew it would not have affected the twins, but she just chose to let people know then. ‘I’m pregnant, so I’d rather not take the chance …’

She left the room and let out a breath. Steele was right, she’d enjoy her holiday much more without that hanging over her.

And she dealt with the second question on everyone’s minds as she stepped back in.

‘I’m not comfortable yet discussing who the father is, but you’ll all be very excited to know I’m expecting twins.’

There were smiles and congratulations and even a bottle of iced lemonade to toast her at the end of her shift.

‘Have fun!’ Lydia said. ‘Lots of it.’

‘Oh, I shall.’

She headed up to the geriatric unit and said goodbye to a couple of patients before she got to her very favourite one.

‘Enjoy yourself,’ Macey said. ‘You deserve to be happy. A rather clever doctor told me that.’

Candy nodded. She had every intention of being happy, but as she gave Macey a cuddle and said goodbye she asked a question, desperate for the older woman’s sage thoughts.

‘Macey,’ Candy said carefully. ‘I want to be happy but what if you’re not certain that the other person truly is? What if they might be there only out of a sense of duty?’

‘Duty?’ Macey thought for a long moment and Candy realised she was holding her breath as she awaited her answer, but Macey clearly didn’t quite understand her question. ‘Duty to who?’ Macey asked.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Candy said, and gave her a smile. ‘Stay well and I shall send you a postcard.’

As she left Macey she saw Steele going into his office and she went and knocked at the door.

‘Are you off?’

‘I am,’ Candy said. ‘Well, I’ve just got to see the obstetrician, buy a bikini, pack, take the Underground …’

‘You’re sure you don’t want me to take you?’

‘I’m very sure,’ she said, and he took her in his arms. ‘Thank you,’ Candy said. ‘I know we only had a short time and I know it was a bit fraught but you really helped and I just …’ She couldn’t really finish saying what she wanted to say without crying. ‘I might write to you,’ she said. ‘Or call you. I really don’t know …’

‘You stop worrying about me and just go and have a wonderful time,’ he said. ‘Do what you have to do. Oh, one thing …’ He took out his wallet and peeled off some US dollars.

‘Stop!’ Candy said. ‘I don’t need a sugar daddy.’

‘I’m not old enough to be your sugar daddy.’ He laughed. ‘Seriously, I’ve had these for about five years, since my last trip to the States. Have fun with it.’

‘Thank you!’ Candy smiled.

‘Go,’ he said.

‘But—’

‘Go,’ he said again, and she was glad that he did because she wanted to say goodbye smiling and if she stayed a moment longer she might possibly cry.

Then it was time for her official appointment with Anton.

‘I told you that you were about to start showing,’ he said with a smile as she walked in. ‘Have people started noticing?’

‘Yes, though no one had the nerve to ask if I was pregnant just yet, though a patient told me that I was before I even knew. I’ve just announced it. I also said that I’m not comfortable with telling them who the father is.’

‘Well done.’ Anton smiled again.

He checked her blood pressure and all was well then Candy climbed up onto the examination table and he spoke to her about twin pregnancies. He said her babies would probably be born at around thirty-seven weeks and that he would see her more regularly than he would for a singleton pregnancy.

‘Have you told your parents?’

Candy nodded. ‘They didn’t take it very well at all.’

‘They’ll come around.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I told them to contact me when they do. I think I’m going to tell Gerry’s parents when I return from my holiday. I think that it is only fair to them to know.’

‘What about your new partner?’

‘He’s not really my partner, I don’t think,’ Candy said as Anton helped her to sit up. ‘It was supposed to be just a casual thing. He starts a new job soon and is moving. He’ll be gone by the time I get back from my holiday. I don’t know what will happen then, if anything.’ She smiled at Anton. ‘My bad for falling in love.’

‘You have told the insurance companies that you’re pregnant?’

‘I have.’

‘Go and have and amazing holiday. Grieve, cry, smile and heal.’

‘Thank you.’

They sounded like pretty straightforward instructions and as she packed the last few pieces into her suitcase she called for a taxi to take her to the Underground.

Usually her parents would go with her to the airport to wave her off as if she were going on an expedition for a year but they were clearly not over the news yet so Candy took the Underground and battled with evening commuters and her suitcase.

She caught sight of a pregnant woman’s reflection in the window and it took a second before she realised that it was her own.

We’ll get there, she said in her mind to her small bump. She loved them already. The numb shock had worn off. The fear had gone. Already Candy knew she’d cope.

They would get through this.

As she checked in at Heathrow and watched her case shoot away she turned and saw her parents.

‘Ma …’ Candy ran over and hugged them.

‘We love you.’

‘I know you do.’

‘We’ll help.’

‘I know you will,’ Candy said, and they kissed and made up with much relief.

‘You move from that flat and come home,’ her mother said. ‘We can help you to raise them—’

‘We’ll talk when I get home,’ Candy said. ‘Thank you so much for coming to the airport. It means an awful lot to me.’

It had but as she sat on the plane she knew she was moving from her flat but not to her parents’ home.

She thought of Steele raised by his grandmother. No, she didn’t want that for the twins. She wanted to raise her children herself, her way, and not her parents’ way.

There was so much to sort out, so very much, but as she disembarked from the plane nearly a day later and a lei was placed around her neck Candy was the happiest tourist on the planet and knew Hawaii was the right place to be.

‘Aloha,’ a gorgeous woman said.

Yes, she was happy, yet that evening as she walked along the beach, how she wished Steele was here beside her—dipping his red toenails in the Pacific, making her laugh, making her smile, letting her be who she was.

Candy loved the way he accepted her just as she was.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘ARE YOU GOING to a funeral?’ Macey checked, seeing Steele’s dark suit and tie the following Tuesday morning. ‘Wait till you get to my age. I go to one a month.’

‘It’s a memorial service,’ he said. He really liked speaking with Macey. She was so blunt about everything.

‘Oh, is it for that nurse in Emergency?’ she asked. ‘The one Elaine’s crying over?’

‘Elaine?’ Steele glanced across the ward and sure enough a very flat Elaine, very un-bossy of late Elaine, was sitting at the desk when she’d normally be bustling about. ‘He got off with her at a Christmas party,’ Macey said, ‘from what I can make out. Then he had nothing to do with her the next day. I would say he wasn’t a good caretaker of lovely young hearts.’

‘Oh, he’s St Gerry now.’ Steele rolled his eyes.

‘And I shall be St Macey for a while after I die and then people will start to remember what a cantankerous old thing I really was.’

He laughed and looked into her wise eyes. ‘You don’t miss anything, do you?’

‘Not with the new medication.’ She smiled. ‘I’m back.’

‘God help us, then.’ Steele smiled.

‘You wouldn’t have met him, though,’ Macey said, and the smile was wiped off his face at her perception.

‘Sorry?’

‘He was in Greece, had been there a couple of months when it happened, well, according to the porter who took me for my X-ray … That’s what he said to the radiographer anyway.’

‘I believe so.’

‘So why are you going to his memorial service if you never met?’

Steele said nothing, just gave Macey a small nod and walked off.

He sat at the desk and tried to write notes, but he ached. He actually ached sitting there.

He missed Candy, more than he had ever missed anyone.

He’d never missed anybody really, apart from his grandmother when she’d died.

It felt like grief. It really did.

It was grief because he missed her. He even missed the bump of her twins, or was he just imagining that?

He pulled up his emails and looked at the image of Gerry and it wasn’t jealousy he was feeling. Steele understood that now.

It was guilt.

Guilt because this young man had died. Guilt that he might be swooping in and raising his babies because he couldn’t have any of his own.

Steele let out a breath and then jumped slightly as a voice startled him.

‘I’m here to see Macey Anderson …’ Steele glanced up and saw a good-looking middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie and carrying a huge bunch of flowers.

He was nervous, he was anxious and he was hers, Steele knew.

‘I’ll take you over.’ He stood and as they walked to the bed he would never forget the small cry of recognition that escaped Macey as she looked down the ward and for the first time saw her son.

He ran to her.

Those last two steps he actually ran and Steele pulled the curtains around them as Macey held her fifty-five-year-old baby for the very first time.

Some things were private but Steele knew he’d just witnessed love.

Steele checked in on Macey a couple of hours later. She had gone to bed for a lie down, but he found her sitting up, smiling, with a huge bunch of flowers beside her bed and a photo album that her son had brought for her.