A Father For Poppy

He could tell from Tessa’s manner that his return hadn’t sent her into raptures—far from it—but perhaps beneath her frosty reception she was as curious as he to see whether any of the old passion remained. The old Tessa certainly would have been.

On the train journey home Tessa rang her friend Lizzie, who was Poppy’s childminder and the only person she would entrust her adopted daughter to stay with overnight, and was told that she’d been fine. A little bit weepy at bedtime but a couple of stories had made her eyelids start to droop and then she’d slept right through the night.

‘I should be with you by lunchtime and will come straight to your place,’ Tessa told her, but Lizzie suggested bringing Poppy to the station to meet her, knowing how she would be longing to see her again. Tessa was anxious to hold her little girl in her arms again, and thanked Lizzie, who was mother to two cute little ones of her own. But when her friend asked if the meeting had justified the long journey and overnight stay in London, Tessa could only reply that it had been full of strange surprises.

She didn’t regret refusing Drake’s offer of a lift home, even though it would have been faster. The thought of being in close contact with him for three to four hours had been inconceivable.

Until yesterday he had been out of her life completely and now he’d come back into it with the same ease as when he’d appeared at her door at six o’clock in the morning an eternity ago, and now she was wishing him far away … Or was she?

With Drake back in her life he would no longer be a shadowy figure from her past. She would be able to see him and hear him, but would also have to keep him at a distance.

Her life had been transformed with Poppy in it. The little one had been in care, waiting to be adopted after losing her parents in a car crash, and when she’d been brought into Horizons soon after with a bleed behind her eye from the accident, Tessa had been drawn to the solemn little orphaned girl and had spent much of her free time beside Poppy’s bed.

‘You are just what the child needs,’ her social worker had said.

‘What! A single mother!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘Hardly! My life has never been planned to include children.’

But the seed had been sown and the more she’d thought about it the more she had known that she wanted to take care of Poppy. So the proceedings to adopt had begun, with every step along the way feeling to Tessa more and more that it was the right thing to do. If she needed any confirmation of it, the happy little child that Poppy had become was proof.

If Drake had any recollection of the pact they’d once made, he was in for a surprise, she thought, and as the train left the station on the last leg of her journey home she was wishing that he had stayed in the place that he’d been so eager to go to, because now she had her life sorted.

They were waiting for her on the station platform, Lizzie holding Poppy’s hand tightly as the train stopped, and when she saw her, the little one cried, ‘Mummy Two!’ It was the name that Tessa had taught Poppy to call her so that ‘Mummy One’ wasn’t forgotten, and as she held her little girl close her world righted itself.

‘So where are the boys?’ she asked Lizzie, whose twins were the same age as Poppy.

‘They are at home with their daddy. He’s taking a few days’ leave from work so I didn’t need to bring them,’ Lizzie explained, as she pointed to where her car was parked. As they walked towards it she asked, ‘So what went wrong while you were in London, Tessa? You didn’t sound very happy when you phoned.’

‘You aren’t going to believe it when I tell you,’ she told her. ‘Guess who is taking charge at Horizons from Monday?’

‘I haven’t a clue. Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Drake is to be the new chief consultant. Drake Melford!’

‘What?’ Lizzie cried. ‘He’s back here in Glenminster? How do you feel about that?’

‘Honestly, I’m shattered at the thought. My life is sorted, Lizzie. I’m happy as I am with Poppy and my job. They fill my days.’

‘Have you actually spoken to him?’

‘Yes. He’s on his way here in a hire car and offered me a lift, which I refused … needless to say.’

‘And he’s taking over on Monday?’

‘Yes, giving me no time to compose myself after our London meeting,’ Tessa replied, looking down at Poppy, who was holding her hand tightly, ‘but nothing is going to interfere with my life and Poppy’s. Drake will be in my working life—that I can’t help—but for the rest of it he will be just as much out of it as he has been during the years we’ve been apart.’

Her first thought on awakening on Monday morning was that she would be in the same place as Drake today. Indeed, it was a while before she could focus on anything else. For not only would she be in the same place as Drake today, she would be for the foreseeable future. While their professional goals would be aligned, she could imagine him making his entrance into the life of Horizons Hospital with his usual charm and confidence, while she would be struggling just to keep afloat.

But at least she wouldn’t be on the wards or in Theatre, where he would surely be. That would be intolerable, so if the chance came to stay in her office all day she would take it. Coward, she couldn’t help but think.

What about all the other days when she would be out there, arranging and improving the standard of care that the hospital provided for its patients? She couldn’t hide in her office every day.

She’d risen through the ranks because of her expertise, efficiency and professional manner. She had years of experience, having worked in a similar capacity on cruise ships, and wanting to revert to dry land for a change had gone into hospital administration. She couldn’t help but wonder how her life would have been different if she’d never met him, if she’d stayed on cruise ships perhaps.

But there was no point going over what couldn’t be changed. And, anyway, she could never regret the road that had brought her darling Poppy into her life.

Her friend Lizzie lived on the other side of the hospital, at the edge of a town that was endowed with the beautiful architecture of bygone days and wide shopping promenades. It was an arrangement that suited both mothers. As well as putting Tessa’s mind at rest, knowing her little adopted daughter was cared for by someone she could trust during working hours, it provided Lizzie with an income of her own and gave the two friends an excuse to see each other very often.

Tessa had to drive past the hospital to get to Lizzie’s and as she took Poppy to be dropped off she saw what must have been the hire car that Drake had indicated when he’d been offering her a lift at the London hotel.

It was parked amongst other staff cars and she wondered where he had stayed over the weekend, and how she could possibly be so disinterested after the way she’d adored him. Had her feelings eventually turned to pique because she’d been discarded so thoughtlessly for a promotion and a trip to Switzerland?

When she arrived at her office, which was part of the hospital’s administration complex, her secretary, middle-aged Jennifer Edwards, was already there and eager to inform her that the new senior consultant had called to say hello on his way to the wards and what did she think of that?

‘I don’t think his predecessor even knew we existed,’ Jennifer said in a tone of wonder, and Tessa’s hopes of a busy day in the office without sightings of Drake began to disappear. But Jennifer went on to say that he’d stopped by to explain that he was calling a meeting of all staff who were free to attend at five o’clock that afternoon and hoped that the two of them would be there.

‘But will you want to stay behind?’ she asked Tessa, knowing that normally she would be setting off to collect Poppy at that time.

It was a tricky question. Her dedication to her job demanded that she be there to support the new head consultant, and deep down she knew that if it wasn’t Drake she would be phoning Lizzie to explain that she would be a bit late. She’d already been away from her little one for part of the weekend on hospital business and felt that she had given enough of her free time, but Tessa knew that was just an excuse. It would be worse if Drake thought she was being difficult because he had come back into her life unexpectedly—perhaps she should go to the meeting just to show him that he was fine. Stop it, Tessa, she told herself severely.

She was free of the spell he had cast over her. And she wasn’t going to the meeting. If they didn’t speak today she would explain tomorrow that she’d had another commitment that had been equally important.

It had been a hectic day, Drake thought, as he made his way to the main hall of the hospital at five o’clock, but it was to be expected with patients and staff all new to him … with the exception of one.

Would Tessa be there when he spoke briefly to his new team? He hoped so. There was no way he would want to cause her pain or embarrassment, but they were adults—and professionals, for goodness’ sake—and could surely behave that way.

If his restlessness and discontent while he’d been in Switzerland had been because he’d made a big mistake by not cementing their relationship, there was nothing to indicate so far that she’d been missing him. If she was now living with someone else, he had only himself to blame.

He was crossing the hospital car park to get to where the meeting was being held and caught a glimpse of her in the distance, about to drive off into the summer evening. He quickened his step but she was pointed in the opposite direction and as the car disappeared from view he had his answer.

She had better things to do, it would seem, than stay behind to hear his few words of introduction to the staff. It was going to take more than just showing up, or his charm, to get to know her again. Did he even want that?

Minutes later he faced a varied assembly of the workforce and with complete sincerity assured them that every aspect of the day-to-day challenges that Horizons Hospital was confronted with would have his full attention. Relieved that the meeting at the end of their working day had been brief yet reassuring, most of them went on their way, leaving just a few who wanted to meet the new chief consultant.

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER THE LAST of the staff members had left Drake’s thoughts turned to food.

He was starving, and the thought of relaxing over a meal in a good restaurant in the town centre had no sooner surfaced than he was on his way there.

He had to pass a park on the way and happened to cast a glance at a certain bench that had memories of a time that was as clear in his mind now as it had been then. Did Tessa remember? he wondered. Did she think of it each time she passed this spot?

As he drove along a country lane not far from the hospital he unexpectedly found his curiosity satisfied about where she had moved to. It was in the porch of a cottage by the wayside that he saw Tessa, and he almost ran the hire car into the hedgerow in his surprise.

She was chatting to a guy of a similar age to himself and as he drove past Tessa reached out and hugged him to her. Drake’s first thought was that this had to be the man who had replaced him in her heart. His second thought, which took a while to summon up, was, So what? But at least he knew now where she was to be found out of working hours.

As for himself, he’d wandered into the house in the hospital grounds that she’d mentioned, after remembering the keys on his desk and the chairman’s note offering him the use of it, and thought it wasn’t his type of place. It was too drab and he thrived on light and colour. But he had already decided that its proximity to Horizons would be perfect in an emergency, so was going to take advantage of the offer. He’d look for something else when he had time.

The food was fine when he found a restaurant that was his type of place; it battened down his hunger with its goodness, but Drake hardly noticed it. He’d got the job of a lifetime back in his home town and a place to sleep that plenty would die for, yet he wasn’t happy.

It had been a mistake to come back to where he and Tessa had been so besotted with each other, so right for each other in every way. He’d had three years to realise in slow misery that he’d thrown away a precious thing without a second thought to satisfy his ambitions, and would have been even more selfish if he’d expected that time might have stood still where she was concerned.

She was just as beautiful now as she’d been then, but there was no warmth in her towards him, and as the night was young—it was barely seven o’clock—he decided to call on her on the drive back. If possible, he would wipe the slate clean by apologising for his past behaviour and assure her of his intention to stay clear, with the exception of their inevitable coming face to face sometimes in a professional capacity at Horizons.

When Tessa opened the door to him the shock of what he was seeing rendered him speechless. Standing behind her on the bottom step of the stairs and observing him unblinkingly was a small girl in a pretty flowered nightdress with hair dark as his own and big brown eyes.

‘Who is she?’ he questioned, standing transfixed in the doorway.

‘She’s my daughter,’ Tessa told him. ‘Her name is Poppy.’

‘How old is she?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Three.’

There was a pause. ‘Is she mine too?’ he asked in barely a whisper as the colour drained from his face.

She shook her head and watched the dark hazel of his eyes become veiled. ‘Who is her father, then?’ he choked, as the small vision on the bottom step rubbed her eyes sleepily.

‘Poppy is my adopted daughter,’ she told him. ‘Her parents were killed in a car crash and we got to know each other when she was brought into Horizons with a bleed behind her eyes from the accident.

‘She was with us for quite some time and we became close. I used to sit beside her whenever I got a spare moment and take her a little surprise every day. In the end I applied to adopt her and was successful. So there you have it. No cause for alarm.’

Turning, she scooped Poppy up into her arms and held her close. As their glances met she told him, ‘Poppy has brought joy into my life.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that she must have,’ he said flatly, turning to go. But then thought that before he did he might as well ask another question that could have a body blow in the answer. ‘So is the guy I saw leaving earlier her new daddy?’

‘No, of course not,’ she replied, her voice rising at the question. ‘There are just the two of us and we’re loving it. The man you saw was the husband of my friend Lizzie who minds Poppy while I’m at work. When I picked her up this evening we left her doll behind, and he brought it, knowing that she would be upset without it.’

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, and added, with a last look at the child in her arms, ‘I’ll be off then, to let you get on with the bedtime routine and maybe see you somewhere on the job tomorrow.’

‘Yes, maybe,’ she replied.

She was relieved to see him go. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, her legs were weak with the shock of his surprise call, and she didn’t know how she was going to cope with having Drake so near yet so far away in everything else. He probably thought she was crazy to be taking on the role of mother to someone else’s child.

As he walked down the drive to his car she couldn’t let him go without asking, ‘Did you find somewhere to stay?’

He turned. ‘Er, yes. The keys for the mausoleum, along with a welcoming note to use it if I so wished, were waiting for me, and as it’s so near where I’m going to be working, and I didn’t feel like looking for anywhere else, I took advantage of the offer.’

‘You don’t sound too keen on the accommodation,’ she commented.

‘It’s a roof over my head, I suppose, but it’s rather dark and dreary. I’m more into light and colour, if you remember.’

She remembered, all right, remembered every single thing about him from the moment he’d knocked on her door early one morning until the day he’d packed his bags and left. But the memories had been battened down for the last three years and she wanted them to stay that way.

He had his hand on the car door and as he slid into the driving seat and waved goodbye, she carried a sleepy Poppy up to the pretty bedroom next to hers. Looking down at her, the feelings that being near him had brought back disappeared as her world righted itself again.

Tessa didn’t sleep much that night. She usually went to bed not long after Poppy to recharge her batteries for the next day, but not this time. Her moments of reassurance when Drake had gone and she’d carried Poppy up to bed hadn’t lasted.

She kept remembering how his face had changed colour from a healthy tan to a white mask of disbelief when he’d thought that Poppy was his, and when she’d told him that she wasn’t, she could tell that he’d thought she was crazy to adopt a child. Clearly nothing had changed with regard to what he saw as his priorities, and they obviously didn’t include parenthood.

Why did he have to come back into her life and disrupt her newfound contentment? she thought dismally as dawn began to filter across the sky.

In her role as health and safety manager Tessa went round the wards each week, chatting to patients at their bedsides about what they thought of the food, cleanliness and general arrangements of the famous hospital, taking note of any comments that were made. The morning after Drake’s surprise visit it was down as her first duty of the day.

As she made her way to the children’s ward, where it would be parents she was chatting to rather than the small patients, one of the nurses who had been there when Poppy had been admitted caught her up on the corridor and asked when she was going to bring her in to see them.

The plight of her small adopted daughter had pulled at all their heartstrings when she’d been admitted frightened and hurt after the car crash that had taken the lives of her parents. But Tessa had experienced a strong maternal feeling towards the little orphan that had made the promises she and Drake had made to each other seem selfish and immature.

At that time she’d had few expectations of ever seeing him again, but she’d been wrong and thought guiltily that she should be happy for the hospital’s sake that he had taken over, instead of complaining about the effect he was having on her life.

‘I’ll bring Poppy the first chance that comes along,’ she told her. ‘It is just that the days seem to fly.’

On the point of proceeding to wherever she was bound, the nurse said, ‘What about Drake Melford? Wow! If I wasn’t so fond of my Harry I’d be tempted. That man is every woman’s dream!’

He was certainly that, Tessa thought, and when she looked up the man himself was moving quickly along the corridor in their direction and the nurse made a swift departure.

She felt her shoulders tensing, but then reminded herself it was Drake the surgeon coming towards her, not the dream lover of the past, and with a brief ‘Hello, there,’ he was gone.

Drake had driven the short distance back to the hospital car park the night before in a state of amazement. The scene he’d just been confronted with at Tessa’s cottage had revealed that the person she’d moved house for was a parentless child, a small girl without a father. He could hardly get his head around what was certainly the last thing he’d expected to find on his return to Glenminster.

A husband and a child of her own wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, but the dark-haired little tot at the bottom of the stairs had been nothing less than a shock to his system, and after seeing Tessa in the corridor just now, he had to admit that he was still reeling.

She had done the rounds of patient appraisals and been closeted with the laundry manageress for the rest of the morning. Then, after a bite of lunch, she’d spent the rest of the day in her office, dealing with the demands of the busy eye hospital, and it wasn’t until Tessa was leaving at the end of the day to go to collect Poppy that she saw Drake again on his way to Theatre. He nodded briefly in her direction, but instead of accepting thankfully that it was a sign he was keeping the low profile that she wanted from him, Tessa was filled with sudden melancholy.

It came from the memory of strong passions and their fulfilment in a relationship that for her had been transformed into a love that was strong and abiding, and not according to the promises they’d made to each other when they’d first met. If she’d told Drake back then how she’d felt he would have seen it as not keeping to her part of the pact they’d made and so she’d stayed silent.

And now when he had finished for the day, whenever that might be, he would be alone in the huge house that he had reluctantly opted for, while she would be alone in her living room, Poppy asleep upstairs. It was a matter of minutes between their respective homes, but an unimaginable distance in every way that mattered.

Why couldn’t he have stayed away, she thought anxiously as she set off to Lizzie’s, instead of coming back to awaken memories from the past that she’d finally been able to put aside because her life had been made liveable again since she’d adopted her precious child.

She’d seen his expression when she’d explained who Poppy was, as he’d observed her at the bottom of the stairs, and he’d actually gone pale.

Yet there was no one better than Drake for bringing a smile to the face of a frightened young patient in the children’s clinic, having them laugh instead of cry while he was making a shrewd assessment of their problems.

They’d been in a similar professional situation when they’d first met. He’d been on the staff of a less famous place than Horizons but had been moving up the ladder fast, already a name that was well known in the profession, and she’d been employed as a mid-level manager where she was now, which had brought her into his line of vision when he’d been the speaker at Horizons that night.

His had been a personality that had drawn her to him like a magnet. From the moment of their meeting she had been enraptured, and, being just as much a free spirit as he was, had thought that the pact they had made would survive any hazards or setbacks.

But lurking in the background had been his ambition, his determination to be at the top of his profession, and he’d gone and left her to pick up the pieces, taking her silence on the matter as her acceptance of the open-ended arrangement they’d agreed on.

Tessa had been thankful they hadn舗t lived together, had each kept their own space, that there had at least been one aspect of his going that she hadn舗t been left to face.

As days had turned to weeks and weeks to months she had felt only half-alive until Poppy had become part of her life and her own unhappiness had seemed as nothing compared to what had happened to the little orphaned girl.

When she arrived at Lizzie and Daniel舗s to collect her after each working day, she felt joy untold to hold her close and know that she was hers.

‘So how has another day with Drake around the place gone?’ Lizzie questioned when she arrived.

Her friend had been there for her during the long months after his departure, and knowing how much Tessa had been hurting, she had admired her when she’d adopted the small girl that she was holding close.

‘Not bad’ was the reply. ‘I’ve seen him briefly a couple of times but not to talk, so I guess he’s getting the message.’

‘And are we sure that it is the right one?’ Lizzie questioned, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ she was told firmly.

‘Good for you, then. He hasn’t brought anyone with him … maybe a wife or fiancée?’

‘It would appear not,’ Tessa told her, and went on to say, ‘I haven’t told you, have I, that when Drake called last night and saw Poppy, he asked if she was his. Something that would never have been on his agenda, and he seemed quite overcome with relief to be off the hook when I explained that she wasn’t.’