Christmas Eve: Doorstep Delivery

He’d already promised himself that he wasn’t going to spend another Christmas brooding over Carly. What was the point of going over it again? Of asking himself if he could have done more?

He dressed quickly and walked down the corridor of the bustling maternity unit to his office, frowning when he saw the stack of paperwork on his desk. Picking up the first file, he sat down just as the door opened and Maggie slunk into the room, an anxious look on her face and a box of chocolates in her hand.

‘These arrived from the woman we delivered yesterday. You’d better have one before they all go.’ Scrutinising him closely, she closed the door behind her and walked across the room. ‘Katherine has just gone to the ward. Paeds are happy with the baby which, by the way, is now named Patrick Gary.’

Reflecting on how his friend and colleague would greet that news, Patrick smiled. ‘As long as it isn’t Gary Patrick.’

Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘You two are ridiculously competitive. I don’t know how you managed to be in the mountain rescue team together and not push each other off a cliff.’ She stuck the box of chocolates on his desk and sighed. ‘All right. I’ll come straight to the point. Are you OK? You didn’t have to answer that woman’s question about your wife. She’s really worried she upset you. We’re all worried about you.’

‘She didn’t upset me.’ Patrick signed a document that had been left out for his attention. ‘I’m fine, Maggie.’ And the last thing he wanted to talk about was his ex-wife.

But Maggie showed no sign of shifting. ‘I know you hate this time of year—have you heard from her? Has she been in touch?’

‘No.’ Resigned to having the conversation he didn’t want to have, Patrick put his pen down. ‘She sent a card and a cheque for me to choose something for the kids.’ The anger rushed through him but he controlled it, as he always did. He’d trained himself to be civilised about the whole thing for the sake of the children. He didn’t want them to feel like tennis balls being thumped between two players. ‘She said I was more likely to know what they wanted than she was.’

Margaret’s mouth tightened with disapproval and Patrick knew what she was thinking. The same thing he’d been thinking—that Carly should have known exactly what to buy her own children for Christmas.

‘It’s been two years since she walked out, Patrick. It’s time you found someone else. Let’s face it, it isn’t going to be hard.’

Patrick gave a faint smile of mockery. ‘Not hard at all to find someone you want to spend your life with and trust with your children’s happiness.’

‘All right, all right—it’s hard.’ Maggie pushed the box of chocolates towards him. ‘The kids are lucky to have you. You’re such an amazing dad.’

Patrick’s jaw tensed. If he was so amazing, why were his children living without their mother?

‘Maggie, I appreciate your concern but you don’t need to worry about me. The children and I are fine. Goodness knows, my life is complicated enough without adding in a relationship.’ He helped himself to a chocolate. ‘Does this have nuts in it? I hate nuts. You midwives always know the chocolates by heart.’

‘That’s because we eat too many of them. That one’s caramel. And relationships don’t have to be complicated, Patrick.’

‘Mine always seem to be.’

‘That’s because you picked the wrong woman last time. Next time choose a nice, kind motherly girl who would love those gorgeous children of yours and be proud to be with a high-flying doctor.’

‘I don’t want a nice, kind, motherly girl.’ Patrick unwrapped the chocolate and ate it. ‘I want a raving nymphomaniac with the gymnastic skills of an Olympic athlete.’

Margaret choked with laughter. ‘And there was me thinking you need someone intelligent you can have a conversation with. I never knew you were so shallow. Or are you just trying to shock me?’

‘I’m trying to shock you.’ And move her off the subject of his ex-wife.

‘What about that girl you met when you were in Chicago?’

Patrick sighed. ‘Remind me why I told you about that?’

‘I caught you in a weak moment.’ Smiling, Maggie settled herself on the edge of his desk. ‘You really liked her, didn’t you?’

‘I spent twenty-four hours with her, Mags,’ Patrick said carefully, pushing aside the memory of a girl with long legs and an endless smile—and a night that would stay with him for ever. ‘Hardly a recipe for happy ever after.’

‘You should have taken her number.’

‘She didn’t give me her number.’ Patrick sat back in his chair, a wry smile on his face. ‘Clearly she didn’t want to repeat the experience.’

Maggie started to laugh. ‘Is that really what you think? It’s far more likely that she felt awkward at having spent the night with you and slunk out of your room before you woke up.’

Not having considered that possibility, Patrick frowned. ‘She seemed pretty confident.’

‘Was that before or after you’d removed her clothes?’

‘Does it make a difference?’

‘Of course it does! Confident women are often full of insecurities when they’re naked. That’s why we prefer to keep the lights off.’

They’d kept the lights on. All night.

‘Enough!’ Patrick aimed the chocolate wrapper towards the bin in the corner of the room. ‘You and I may have been colleagues for years but there are limits.’

‘I’m just saying that maybe she didn’t want you to see her in daylight.’

‘She showed me around the hospital in daylight.’

‘But presumably she was wearing clothes at that point.’ Maggie dipped her hand into the box and pulled out a chocolate. ‘Trust me, it’s different. If I ever went to bed with you, I’d want the lights off.’

‘If I ever went to bed with you, your husband would kill me.’ Patrick emptied the contents of his in-tray into his briefcase. ‘Can we drop this conversation? Relationships aren’t a priority for me at the moment. And if you ever mention this to anyone else on the unit, I’ll drown you in the birthing pool.’

Maggie looked smug. ‘You really did like her.’

‘Yes.’ Exasperated, Patrick reached for his coat. ‘Yes, I liked her. Satisfied?’

‘You liked her a lot.’

‘Yes, I liked her a lot.’

‘Was she pretty?’

‘Very.’

‘Did she make you laugh?’

Patrick thought about the day they’d spent together. ‘Yes. She was fun. She smiled all the time.’ Which had been a refreshing change after Carly’s endless moaning.

‘And you didn’t take her number?’ Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘I thought you were supposed to be clever.’

‘Clever enough to spot when a relationship isn’t going to work.’ Patrick put his coat on. ‘If she’d wanted me to have her details, she would have left her number. And even if she’d left her number, it would have been somewhere in Chicago because that’s where she lives.’ He snapped his briefcase shut. ‘I, on the other hand, live in a small corner of England. Even if she hadn’t made her feelings clear by slinking out of my bedroom, I wouldn’t get in touch with her. It would never have worked and I don’t need another romantic disaster.’

‘So that’s it, then?’

‘That’s it. It was just one night and the only reason you even know about it is because you have an uncanny ability to prise information from the innocent.’

‘I care about you. You deserve to be with someone special.’