IT DIDN’T take long for Daisy to realise how much she’d missed direct personal contact with her patients. Being back in a clinic, part of a team working together to help children reach their true potential, no matter what problems they had, was far more satisfying than talking to faceless people on the phone or by email.
‘Two days to go!’
Julian poked his head into the observation room where she was watching a young boy, Christian Kerr, begin an activity the occupational therapist working with him had suggested.
Daisy glanced towards the door and felt a now familiar lurch in her stomach as Julian smiled at her then walked away. Christian was unsettling the table at which he and Sue, the occupational therapist, sat by jerking his knees against it.
Ignoring the stomach-lurch, and the meaning implicit in Julian’s teasing words, Daisy concentrated on Christian’s behaviour and made a note on the chart she held in front of her.
But she hadn’t needed words to remind her just how close the deadline had come. Sometimes it seemed she’d been ticking off the minutes—let alone the days.
She’d asked for a week, and it was up on Sunday. Today was Friday. Two more days to D—for Decision—Day.
She sighed as she noted Christian’s increasingly erratic behaviour, and made more marks on the chart.
Part of the problem was Julian’s mother. She was so damn nice. Not that nice was bad, mind you, but Mrs Austin— ‘Call me Diana, my dear’—was the kind of nice that made Daisy squirm, mainly because she was totally inexperienced in dealing with delightful amiability on such a scale.
And she was confiding—telling Daisy things she was sure she shouldn’t know. Not that Daisy minded the stories about Julian as an infant prodigy, a child genius and a perfect teenager. But when she got onto girls he’d dated in his teenage years— ‘They never stuck, my dear’—Daisy felt acutely uncomfortable.
Christian left the table and was fiddling with the blind cords and suddenly Daisy’s view of him was cut off as the blind slammed down.
‘You’re as bad as Christian is,’ Daisy chided herself, as her fidgety mind wandered back to the previous weekend and the incredible interlude in the spa. Against all common sense, a big part of her wanted to say yes to Julian’s proposition, for the delicious pleasure of repeating what had happened in the spa.
‘That’s pure self-indulgence—you’re supposed to be considering what’s best for the child, not your own pleasure.’
As she muttered the words crossly to herself, Sue raised the blind so Daisy’s observation of Christian could continue.
The little boy was now staring into space, obviously not listening to Sue’s instructions to find six blue objects on the toy shelves. He must have heard, for he crossed to the shelves, found a blue ball and a small blue truck, then he sat down and began to play with the truck, running it backwards and forwards across the carpet making brrrooom noises.
Two more marks on his file—one for not paying attention when being spoken to, and one for not completing his task. Christian’s behaviour was leaning towards a diagnosis of ADHD, while her own symptoms were leaning towards a diagnosis of…
Marriage?
Christian flung the little truck at the wall, reminding Daisy she was supposed to be working, not contemplating her future.
‘So, how’s he scoring?’
Her heart pounded again at the sound of Julian’s voice, but only because she was startled by his sudden reappearance in the room. Or so she told herself!
He stood so close she could feel the warmth of his body, and her nerve-endings, ever alert to his presence since the evening in the spa, sprang to attention.
‘Terribly,’ she said, passing the chart to him.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, reading then watching Christian for a minute. ‘His mother described his behaviour so accurately I was sure he was a genuine case, not an over-active and possibly under-disciplined child. He’s the youngest of four, so she should know what’s within the parameters of normal behaviour.’
He sighed, and Daisy knew he was sighing because with a diagnosis of ADHD came the responsibility for prescribing drugs which would increase the child’s attention span, and from previous conversations she knew how much he hated putting otherwise healthy children on drugs of any kind.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder.
The alerted nerves prickled at the touch and Daisy thought how easily they’d slipped into a routine—her going up to help Diana with the twins when she finished work, then usually having a drink with all three Austins when the little boys were in bed and Julian had come home.
A pleasant routine, she admitted to herself, then she turned as the door opened again.
‘Actually, I won’t see you tonight. Christian’s the last patient but I want to go up to the hospital, then I’ve got that association dinner tonight. Will you be seeing my mother? Will you remind her I won’t be home?’
Daisy nodded. It sounded so domestic somehow—seductively domestic.
Sue had taken Christian through to Julian’s office but, although there was nothing left to observe, Daisy remained in the small room, her mind once again twisting along the now familiar will-I, won’t-I path.
‘I think I will,’ she whispered, but while her heart skittered with excitement a black cloud of doubt still hovered in her head. Meeting, attraction, lust, love, disaster—the pattern of all her past relationships. She was already through the first three stages as far as Julian was concerned, and heading, almost inevitably, towards number four. Though she hated to admit it even to herself, the more she saw of the man, the more she admired him. Especially seeing him with the twins, adapting to the practical side of caring for children, always loving but firm, even stern at times, trying theories but discarding what didn’t work without hesitation.
OK, but admiration isn’t love, she reminded herself, while her heartbeats accelerated yet again—this time at the lie.
But the ‘I will’ came under pressure that afternoon. As she helped Diana bathe the boys, the talk turned to families.
‘I’m so glad Julian decided to settle in Westside and my family is all within driving distance again,’ Diana said. ‘Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day—all the holidays when the family gets together have been lacking something since he went away.’
She glanced towards Daisy.
‘Is your family close? Do you see your parents often? Keep in touch? I know some of my friends rarely see their children now they’re grown up, but I’ve always believed love flourishes best in the warm confines of a family. If children receive love, not only from their parents but from their extended family members, then they will be better able to give love when the time comes. It’s like a love bank,’ Diana finished, turning to Daisy with a smile of pleasure at her own cleverness.
‘But if you keep drawing on it, won’t you eventually empty the account?’ Daisy asked, relieved she didn’t have to answer the ‘family’ questions Diana had asked earlier.
‘Of course not,’ Diana assured her. ‘Because it keeps getting topped up. Children might not realise it, but subconsciously they must be aware of the love between their parents and that acts like a secured deposit in the bank, always there. Then the other bits, the hugs and kisses when they see Granny, the birthday card from Uncle Julian—all these things go into the account.’
Daisy sighed. Julian had mentioned his mother had strong views on love, but this strong? The concept of ‘happy families’ was alien enough to her, but children growing up with ‘love’ bank accounts?
And the ‘secured deposit’—the positiveness of parental love? That wasn’t going to happen in a marriage of convenience.
Diana had paused to wipe soap from Ewan’s eyes. Now she added, ‘It’s why I worry so much about Julian. We sent him to boarding school when he was little. It was a terrible decision because I knew he’d miss out on a lot of family closeness—miss out on love—but he was so bright he was bored to death at home. Now I don’t know if it was the lack of love in his life during those years away or just his intelligence that makes him so remote.’
‘Julian remote?’ Daisy echoed, thinking of the man with whom she could discuss just about anything.
‘Oh, people see his smile, and label him easygoing and gregarious, but behind that smile, I must admit, Daisy, he’s a mystery to me. I’ve always feared he might not understand love, that he didn’t have his love account properly established because of being sent away. I know there’ve been women but nothing seems to come of any of his relationships. Though maybe now he’s finished his wanderings and returned to Australia, he might find someone special. Find the love I’m sure is lacking in his life.’
Ho! Daisy thought, fishing around in the bath-water to retrieve the soap. But Diana’s conversation had been revealing in so many ways. Julian had mentioned boarding school, and Daisy had felt for the young boy who’d been sent away. Now she considered it, his childhood had been as deprived of close family relationships as hers, but whereas she had reacted by seeking love, his reaction had been to negate it in the grand scheme of things.
Apart from a few teenage flings which he considered an aberration of adolescence anyway!
‘I would so like him to marry and have children.’ Diana had continued talking, and Daisy finally tuned back in. ‘Madeleine thinks she’s done her bit in producing grandchildren for me, but I’d dearly love a granddaughter.’
Did she glance towards Daisy as she said it? Busy lifting Ewan’s slippery body out of the bath, Daisy wasn’t sure, her mind too busy, thoughts of the young Julian heading off to boarding school taking precedence over the implications of a love bank.
Diana couldn’t have expected a response for she kept talking, about Julian and grandchildren and love—mostly love.
There was a lot of sense in what Diana had said, Daisy decided, her mind switching to the bank-account analogy. Her own account had started in bankruptcy and she’d tried so hard to right the situation she’d ended up in a worse financial—meaning emotional—mess. But if the initial deposit came from love between the child’s parents, then entering a marriage without love would ensure the same bankruptcy for her own child.
Wouldn’t it?
She worried at the problems as she wrapped Ewan in a dry towel and followed his grandmother through to the twins’ bedroom, the task of dressing him now automatic.
‘Will you join us for dinner down at Mickey’s?’
Diana’s question pulled her out of her reverie.
‘I know Julian’s got something on but, with Jason to babysit, Dick and I are going down. You deserve a treat after all the help you’ve been to me this week.’
She beamed at Daisy who couldn’t fail to feel the kindness—or love—Diana Austin seemed to radiate around her.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s a girls’ night in tonight. A few of us are having dinner at Gabi’s.’
‘Oh, yes, she mentioned it,’ Diana said, setting Shaun on the floor and hustling both boys towards the kitchen.
Together they fed the little ones, then, as Dick—Julian’s father—had returned, Daisy excused herself and went down to her flat, where she ran a bath, stripped, then settled into the warm water, lying back with her head on the edge, gazing at the ceiling as she pictured happy family holidays with the senior Austins—Christmas, New Year, Easter—with Diana overflowing with love and assuming it was the same for both her children—while Daisy and Julian pretended.
‘It would be living a lie,’ she told the ceiling. ‘Cheating!’
‘But you’ve been considering it—you were going to say yes,’ she replied to herself.
She sighed.
‘Only because you undoubtedly, in the depths of your foolish, romantic, subconscious mind, harboured hopes he’d eventually fall in love with you,’ she told the unresponsive room. ‘A scenario less likely now you know why he thinks the way he does—and with even his mother suspecting he’s emotionally bankrupt.’
She continued to bat the mental argument one way then the other, and wasn’t sure which part of her had won. Though she did know that the yes-no pendulum, which had been swinging towards a definitive yes earlier in the day, was now pointing more towards a no.
It was a shame because she wanted—rather badly—to say yes…
But if she said yes it would be for the wrong reason—not for the child or children they might have, or for Julian, who plainly wanted a mutually satisfactory but loveless relationship—but because the more she saw of him, the more she wanted to see. Yep! It was beginning to look very like the old pattern of her disastrous affairs.
Meeting, attraction, lust, love and disaster…
Not ever again!
Especially not when mutual love was doomed from the start.
Problem solved, she climbed out, dried herself and dressed. She’d tell him—about the pretence, not the love—on Sunday, but until then she’d put the problem of Julian and his proposition right out of her mind. A night in with the girls was just the place to do it.
When Daisy knocked and entered Gabi’s flat, Alana was over by the dining table pouring what looked like champagne. She held up an empty glass and waved the bottle towards Daisy.
‘Yes, please,’ Daisy said, ‘but champagne? Simple extravagance or are we celebrating something special?’
‘Alana’s being secretive, and she’s all aglow with happiness, which means she’s got news,’ Kirsten told her. ‘It’s just a matter of winkling it out of her.’
‘Winkling things out of Alana isn’t always easy,’ Gabi reminded Kirsten. ‘So how about we wait until she’s ready to tell us and you bring us up to date on the latest wedding plans? Have you cut the guest list down to less than two thousand?’
Kirsten chortled with laughter.
‘It’s all Josh’s relatives that are the problem. Apparently you can’t have one without the lot, and they’ve bred like rabbits, that Phillips clan.’
‘You could elope,’ Alana suggested. ‘Like we did last weekend.’
Talk about a conversation-stopper! After a silence that seemed to last for ever, her three friends all spoke at once.
‘You did what?’ This was Gabi, friend of Alana’s since childhood.
‘You and Rory eloped?’ Kirsten made it sound like a bizarre mating ritual.
‘Good for you,’ Daisy offered, because on the rare times she’d allowed herself to consider saying yes to Julian, eloping had seemed the only option as far as she was concerned.
Though given Diana’s passion for family, Julian might not agree…
But marriage was no longer on the agenda, she reminded herself. She’d sorted that out in the bath.
Hadn’t she?
‘Hence the champagne!’ Alana lifted her glass high.
They toasted Alana, then she toasted them, finally explaining.
‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed—you especially, Gabi—but we wanted to be married before I moved into Rory’s flat, for Jason’s sake more than anything. And given that neither of us have parents, and considering Jason’s mother’s recent death, doing it quietly seemed the best way.’
She smiled as if the memory brought great happiness.
‘We went up to my grandparents’ farm and a minister who’s been a friend of theirs for a long time performed the ceremony. Jason was best man and bridesmaid though my gran signed as a witness as well. Then Jase stayed with them while Rory and I went to a swank hotel, booked into the honeymoon suite and did all the silly things newlyweds do.’
‘Like what?’ Kirsten demanded. ‘Drinking champagne out of each other’s shoes?’
‘Yuck!’ Gabi said, putting down her champagne almost untouched.
‘Not out of shoes, but we did drink champagne, and we kissed and canoodled and made love in the spa.’
Daisy smiled, remembering, and naturally Kirsten saw it.
‘Ha! There’s a spa in the Frosts’ penthouse if I remember rightly. Just look at Daisy. Did you happen to try it out while up there helping Julian?’
The others laughed, but the memory, now she’d made her decision, brought sadness. But the more she thought about it, the more inevitable her refusal seemed.
‘I think she’s asleep, though her eyes are open.’
It was Gabi’s comment that roused Daisy from the endless circling of useless thoughts.
‘Are you OK?’
Daisy hastened to reassure her anxious friend.
‘I was thinking of a patient I saw this afternoon,’ she said—a blatant lie but it diverted their—and her—attention.
‘A little boy who’d be more trying and tiring than two sets of triplets,’ she went on, remembering Christian from earlier in the afternoon and using him as an excuse. ‘He’s the youngest of four and so hyperactive I wonder how his mother copes. His older siblings are all OK. People argue about environment versus heredity, but children who share the same of both can be so different.’
The conversation led into the heredity-versus-environment discussion, then the pizzas arrived and food took precedence over everything else.
When the evening ended, and farewells had been said, Alana and Daisy rode down in the lift together.
‘What’s up?’ Alana asked as they stepped out on two, and once again Daisy realised she’d been lost in thought.
She frowned at her friend.
‘Why are you on this floor? If you and Rory are married, you should have got off on three.’
Alana grinned at her.
‘My animals are still in my flat. We’re looking for a house on acreage, but until then, for Rory’s sanity as much as anything else, we’re keeping on both flats. I just want to check their water.’
Daisy looked at her and waited.
‘And I was worried about you,’ Alana admitted. ‘You’ve been frowning on and off all evening.’
Daisy reached out and hugged her.
‘Thanks for caring,’ she said, her voice husky as the emotions that bubbled too close to the surface these days threatened to overcome her. ‘I’m fine. I just have to work out a few things.’
Alana hugged her back.
‘If you need advice, I know a great web-site you can visit. It’s interactive—you can ask for help.’
She grinned teasingly at Daisy, but though Daisy responded with her own smile, she was conscience-stricken by the thought she’d not checked the site for days.
‘I might just do that,’ she said, then said a goodnight and hurried into the flat.
But once inside she didn’t, as she usually did, turn on her computer. Didn’t even turn on a light. Instead, she crossed the living room and opened the door leading out onto her balcony, then sank into a chair and looked up at the sky. City lights dimmed the brightness of the stars, but they were still there, and Daisy gazed at them, wondering at their sparkling presence and thinking about love.
How could she not after spending an evening with three friends, all of whom had, after false starts and failures, finally found true happiness in love? Gabi, filled with deep contentment as she awaited the birth of her first baby, Kirsten excitedly planning a wedding, and Alana, lit by an inner radiance—newly married and revelling in it.
And with a sadness that welled up inside her until her heart felt about to burst, Daisy admitted to herself that all three were radiating happiness, not solely because they loved the men they’d chosen but because they were dearly loved and cherished in return—wrapped in the warm bounds of mutual love.
A taxi pulled up in the street outside and Daisy watched a big man emerge from it, bending his head back into the cab for a final word to the driver. Then he straightened, and as the cab drove off glanced up at Daisy’s flat.
She sat very still, sure he wouldn’t see her, but only minutes later she heard a soft tap at her door.
Open it or not?
Her legs didn’t seem to think there was an option—they were already carrying her towards it.
‘I thought I saw you on the balcony,’ Julian said quietly, ‘and hoped you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by.’
He seemed hesitant, as if uncertain why he’d done it, then the smile appeared and he added, ‘Actually, I had a sudden urge to kiss you goodnight.’
Daisy found herself smiling back, though it was the last thing she should be doing.
‘Just a goodnight kiss?’ she teased, and he laughed.
‘I guess I thought it might lead to other pleasures,’ he said, raising his hand and trailing his forefinger along the line of her jaw. ‘It was a pleasure—in the spa—wasn’t it?’
‘It was,’ she assured him, while her mind was arguing fast and furiously. Was pleasure so wrong? And wouldn’t he make an ideal father for her baby? And might not this be the last opportunity to use him this way, given what she’d decided?
She could go away, he’d never know…
No, you couldn’t, her stern conscience said. No way! That’s cheating! Don’t even think about it!
So she looked up into his softly questioning eyes and shook her head.
He studied her for a moment, then said, ‘You’re going to say no, aren’t you? Although the week’s not up, you’ve made up your mind?’
She nodded, the lump in her throat too big an obstacle for words.
His eyes darkened, perhaps with anger, but when he spoke all he said was, ‘Then perhaps this is a goodbye kiss.’ And he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.
Daisy felt heat simmer in her body, and she trembled with the ferocity of her reaction. Julian’s big hands steadied her, one on her shoulder, the other threading into her hair, holding her head captive as he explored and teased and tantalised her mouth. Then she was clasped tightly against him, so her body knew his need was as great as hers, both of them trembling now.
It’s only sex, surely there’s no harm in enjoying that! the weak voice whimpered.
But she knew there was. It was like a drug, and the more you took of it, the more you wanted.
She was wondering if drug addiction—of this type—was all that bad when he released her, keeping one hand on her shoulder to steady her. Or himself!
He looked into her face, then traced the contours of her forehead, cheek, nose and chin with a forefinger, the lightly trailing touch scorching like a brand on her skin.
The second kiss was different, less desperate, yet deeper, as if a joining of lips could also be a promise—a commitment.
Eventually, he lifted his head and looked at her for a moment before speaking.
‘It’s only Friday, or maybe very early Saturday morning—but, whichever it is, I’m not taking your refusal as an answer. I’ll ask again on Sunday, Daisy, but not until we’ve talked.’ His eyes burned into hers, as if by their impact alone he could make her change her mind. ‘And I’ve heard why you find it impossible to accept me as a father for your child.’
She shook her head, but didn’t tell him it wasn’t as a father for her child she was rejecting him but as a husband, lover, mate. And she doubted, if she practised from now to Sunday, if she’d ever be able to explain!