Like Doctor, Like Son Read online

  Before he could comment, the air was filled with the intrusive sound of a mobile phone.

  Nadia fished it out of her bag.

  ‘It’s for you,’ she said, handing it to Faith after a quick glance at the illuminated display. ‘It’s DJ.’

  ‘Hello, darling,’ Faith said with a delighted smile, and Quinn could almost feel himself turning green with envy. It wouldn’t have been as bad if she hadn’t sounded so…so loving. That was enough for the knives of jealousy to lacerate all his tentative hopes of renewing their relationship.

  He must have been kidding himself if he’d thought that there was any chance that Faith could fall in love with him again. Whatever place he’d once held in her heart had obviously been usurped by the good-looking young man—or was he just the latest of a series of companions passing through her life in the years since he’d known her?

  That thought brought him up short and he felt a little ashamed of even thinking it.

  In spite of the fact that even as a young girl her beauty and her social standing could have garnered her a string of suitors, Faith had never been promiscuous. Who better than he, the one to whom she’d given her innocence, to know that she wasn’t what their teenaged selves would have called ‘easy’.

  But that had been a long time ago. Then he hadn’t believed that she’d walk out of his life without a word, but she’d done it. Who was to say that the life of a successful musician hadn’t changed other things about her, too?

  Even as his thoughts were churning uneasily inside his head she was ending her call.

  ‘He was just ringing to tell me that he found the car he wanted, and it took every penny of the cheque I gave him for his birthday,’ she announced with a laugh as she handed the phone back to Nadia. ‘He was warning me that it will probably be at the Barton by the time we return.’

  Quinn felt his expression sour at this further proof of the relationship between them and was hit by a wave of frustration.

  Why was Faith doing this? She didn’t need to buy expensive presents like that to have a man want to be with her. He wouldn’t need her to buy him a car or…

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Laura said as she returned to the room. ‘The vicar was just letting me know that he was leaving and that Fliss’s parents are staying with her until the undertaker arrives. Faith, I told them you’d go in for a minute before you leave.’

  ‘Do they want me to stay with them?’ Faith asked with a renewed quiver in her voice that hit Quinn hard.

  What was it about this woman that pulled his emotions in all directions at once? One moment he was angry with her because she was laughing about paying for DJ’s car and the next he just wanted to comfort her when she was selflessly offering to spend time with grieving parents when it was obvious that just the thought of it was tearing her apart.

  ‘They just want to sit quietly with her for a while, Faith. They know that Trish will be just outside the room if they need her.’ Laura looked across at Quinn, pride in her expression. ‘That’s part of what makes the Butterfly Garden special, Quinn. We make sure that there’s always time for people to take things at their own pace…everything from their introductory visit to visiting hours and consultations right through to spending time with their children once they’ve gone.’

  ‘And every child is commemorated in the garden,’ Faith added in a shaky voice. ‘The plants have all been chosen to attract butterflies so that when you sit out there it feels as if you’re surrounded by…’

  She didn’t need to finish. Quinn could vividly imagine the effect of a tapestry of bright blooms with the colourful fluttering of butterflies busily living out their brief lives.

  As if they all needed to distance themselves from the emotional turmoil surrounding them, the next hour was devoted to the business of the visit. Quinn was amazed how patiently Laura submitted to his grilling about the nuts and bolts of running such a specialised facility, and by the candour of her answers. Finally, he glanced at his watch with a grimace.

  ‘I’m going to have to go if I’m to be back in time for evening surgery,’ he said, rising to his feet and holding out his hand. ‘Laura, thank you so much for giving up your time, and for allowing yourself to be put through the mill like this.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be worth it if it’s been useful,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ve tried to give you the benefit of our experiences, both good and bad.’

  ‘Hopefully, we’ll be able to take advantage of one and avoid the other.’ He hesitated, glancing briefly at Faith, but she seemed completely oblivious. ‘Laura, would you mind if I came back some time? I’m certain I’ll think of many other things I should have asked.’

  ‘You’re welcome to come back at any time, with or without Faith and Nadia,’ she said easily. ‘And you never know—if you and Faith do get that riding stables up and running, we might even bring a few of ours down to visit.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘ARE you sure, Faith?’ Quinn asked, even as every hormone in his body screamed at him for delaying one second longer. Doing nothing more than standing with his arms wrapped around her was already stretching his restraint to the limit.

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she answered with a provocative little wiggle that nearly sent him over the edge. ‘I love you, Quinn, and we’re engaged now, remember?’

  She held her hand up so that the facets of the diamond caught the candlelight and fractured it over them in myriad tiny rainbows.

  ‘I know,’ he said, still hardly daring to believe that she’d accepted his proposal and his ring. ‘But if you’d rather wait until we’re married…?’

  In spite of his clamouring hormones, he half wished that she’d take him up on the suggestion. He certainly wasn’t confident that he had enough experience—or restraint—to make Faith’s first time into something memorable.

  Her eyes were dark velvet and serious beyond her years as she gazed up at him, her absolute trust humbling.

  ‘In a way we’re already married, Quinn,’ she said softly, tracing his lips with a tantalising finger. ‘We’ve made our promises to each other and I’m wearing your pledge, so we belong to each other, for ever.’

  ‘It sounds so uncomplicated when you put it like that,’ he said, and for the first time in his life the turmoil inside him was still. He held his breath for a moment to savour the feeling, knowing that he’d finally found the place where he was supposed to be and the person who was supposed to share it with him.

  ‘That’s because there’s nothing complicated about it,’ she said simply, and reached up to kiss him so that their bodies pressed so closely together that there was only one way they could be closer. ‘I love you and you love me. It’s perfect!’

  ‘It’s you that’s perfect,’ he whispered against her lips, his hands cupping the soft curves of her face as she shrugged the straps of her dress over her shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sapphire satin slither fluidly down her body and out of sight.

  He took a step back to gaze his fill and couldn’t catch his breath. All his heated fantasies during their special meal were true. She had obviously thought about what she wanted to happen after their meal this evening because she hadn’t been wearing a single stitch under the sleek fabric.

  She was a goddess come to life, every slender curve and enticing hollow highlighted and shadowed like a rare sculpture in the buttery candlelight.

  ‘One of us is definitely wearing too many clothes,’ she whispered, but for all her provocative words she couldn’t hide the tell-tale quiver of nervousness.

  ‘That’s easily remedied,’ he said huskily, reaching for the buttons on his shirt, then changed his mind and dropped his arms to his sides, hoping she wouldn’t notice that his hands were trembling. ‘Perhaps you’d like to help me?’

  Evening surgery was busy and Quinn felt as if every patient took twice as long as usual to come to the point of their visit—or was it just that he couldn’t get Faith’s tearstained face out of his mind?
r />   For a moment he’d been surprised that she should have been so deeply affected by the child’s death. He’d had so many years of thinking about her as Faith Adams, the international star, that he’d all but forgotten Faith Adamson, the person. Then he’d remember all those long conversations they’d had at school about their reasons for wanting to become doctors and it was Faith Adamson he saw—the woman who could have been his wife and the mother of several children of their own by now.

  Was that, in part, the reason why she’d been so devastated by Fliss’s death? Had she secretly been wishing that the youngster was hers, and was now mourning her as a daughter?

  Whatever the reason, he couldn’t forget his last sight of her this morning when he’d left her in Laura’s office. She’d looked so defenceless somehow, her face wan and tear-streaked, her swollen eyes hidden behind dark glasses as she’d stared sightlessly out of the window at another incongruously sunny day.

  It hadn’t been until he’d made the decision to call on her at the end of surgery that he’d been able to concentrate fully, excusing the trip to the Barton as a doctor’s understandable concern for a fellow human being and not the fact that he couldn’t stay away from her any longer.

  It was a good thing he’d got his mind working properly, because his next patient was Sara Dean.

  She was so altered that he barely avoided exclaiming out loud, hardly recognising this unkempt, emaciated-looking woman as the smartly dressed, happy mother-to-be he’d first met.

  ‘Hello, Sara,’ he said gently, feeling almost as if he was dealing with a fragile injured bird. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  She silently obeyed, but her descent onto the functional upholstery looked more like a collapse than a voluntary act, as if she’d just run out of the energy needed to stay standing.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked with a degree of trepidation, remembering the bitter words she’d thrown at him that night for failing to save Jamie’s life.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said dully, the effort of speaking visibly draining her. ‘I just came because…because I needed to apologise.’

  ‘Oh, Sara, you don’t have to worry about—’

  ‘No!’ she interrupted with a welcome flash of spirit. ‘I said some dreadful things to you…blaming you for Jamie’s…’ She shook her head, apparently unable to say the word.

  ‘Sara—’

  ‘Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true,’ she interrupted, as if unaware he’d even tried to speak. ‘You’ve always been so good to me, all the way through the pregnancy and when he was born…You were almost as happy as we were.’ She paused a moment then met his eyes for the first time. ‘You ought to have children,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’d be a wonderful father.’

  Quinn was startled by the sharp pang of loss her words sent through him.

  He and Faith had talked about the family they would have one day. He’d been uncertain that he’d know how to be a good father—his own had hardly been a sterling example—but she’d given him confidence, pointing out that he would have learned from the things he’d gone through as a child and therefore wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

  Over the years since then, with his many dealings with children both during his training and since, he’d realised that she’d been right—his instincts were very different from his father’s.

  The trouble was, he’d never been able to envision having the children he craved with anyone else.

  ‘The coroner’s report said exactly the same thing as you did,’ Sara said, breaking into his trip down memory lane. ‘It said that Jamie had developed an overwhelming respiratory infection and that he’d probably…gone…in his sleep just after I put him down after his last feed.’

  Quinn already knew the details. He had a copy of the report in his file, but he knew that Sara needed to tell him what she’d come here to say so he waited silently for her to finish.

  ‘Anyway, I know you couldn’t have done anything for him, no one could. I just wanted to thank you for coming so quickly and to apologise for screaming at you like that and…’ She finally ran out of steam.

  Quinn waited a moment to see if she would continue, taking the time to catalogue her sallow skin, unwashed hair and the dark shadows under her eyes. Her clothes were hanging on her, several sizes too large at least, as though she hadn’t eaten since Jamie had died.

  ‘Sara, you’re not looking after yourself,’ he said gently. ‘You’re making yourself ill.’

  Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I’m not doing it deliberately, Doctor, but…I just can’t keep anything down. Even the smell of food makes me feel sick. It feels almost as bad as when I was pregnant…I know it’s impossible,’ she added quickly when he would have spoken. ‘That’s why we had to have the IVF, because I couldn’t get pregnant on my own, but feeling like this…as if I’m…well, it just makes it worse…’

  Deep, racking sobs shook her body, leaving Quinn feeling helpless. What could he say to a woman going through such misery and despair? He’d never gone through the loss of a child so he couldn’t possibly know what she was—

  Suddenly, he remembered the crippling pain he’d felt when Faith had left him and knew there was something he could say.

  ‘Sara, I know that nothing can take away the pain of losing Jamie. There’ll be an empty place inside you where he should be and you’ll always miss all the memories you should have made with him—the first tooth, the first word, the first step.’

  Her sobs had abated slightly as his voice registered and he knew that the words were striking a chord with the look of misery in her brimming eyes.

  ‘But there’s the other side to it, too,’ he continued, hoping fervently that he wouldn’t sound patronising, because that certainly wasn’t his aim. He wanted to give her something to hang on to when she felt as if she was drowning—a feeling that had once been all too familiar to him. ‘There’ll also be a special place in your heart that’s filled with the memories of the time you did have with Jamie, starting with your determination to have him in the first place. Do you remember the first time we met? I do, vividly. It was just after you’d discovered you were pregnant.’

  She nodded, a wan smile briefly flitting across her face.

  ‘You were absolutely brimming over with joy, and that never wavered right through the pregnancy, in spite of all the ups and downs you went through.’

  ‘It didn’t seem important, as long as the baby was healthy,’ she said simply. ‘I could have put up with anything to make sure he was safe. And when he was born and they put him in my arms for the first time…’

  This time he knew they were joyful tears.

  ‘And that was just the first of the happy memories,’ he pointed out. ‘If you think, you’ll remember hundreds…thousands of special moments in just those few weeks. The fact that the time was so short doesn’t make them any less precious, does it?’

  ‘Of course not, but…but sometimes it seems that if…if I’d never had him, then I wouldn’t have lost him and I wouldn’t be hurting so much now.’

  Something that Laura had said during their meeting at the Butterfly Garden teased at Quinn’s memory, suddenly seeming very appropriate to Sara’s situation.

  ‘Sara, if you could get rid of all the butterflies in your garden, would you do it?’

  For a moment she stared at him as though wondering whether she’d heard right, clearly confused by the strange turn their conversation had taken.

  ‘Butterflies?’ she echoed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘You know…those fragile, beautiful creatures that appear every summer. Some of them only live for a day. Would you rather not see them at all?’

  Comprehension quickly spread over her face but, then, he’d known she was intelligent enough to pick up his meaning.

  ‘I would never have thought of Jamie as a butterfly,’ she said softly as she mopped the last of her tears away, her shoulders already seeming less bowed. ‘But you’re right. I couldn’t possibly wish h
e hadn’t lived, even if I couldn’t have him for very long.’

  ‘Just take it one day at a time,’ he suggested. ‘The pain is very fierce at the moment and you can’t see beyond it, so just concentrate on getting through today, hoping that tomorrow will be just a little easier.’

  He hesitated as she gathered herself together and stood up, not certain whether he should mention the Butterfly Garden to her—whether seeing the other children’s plight would be too much too soon, or whether it would help her by taking her out of herself.

  In the end, as she reached door he settled for being just a little enigmatic.

  ‘And, Sara, when you’re ready to hear where the idea about the butterflies came from, just ask me.’

  It was much later than he’d intended when Quinn finally drove up the imposing driveway that lead to the equally ostentatious front door.

  Surgery had overrun as usual, caused in part by the length of time he’d spent with Sara Dean—not that he regretted a single minute of it. The person who had entered his room had been very different to the one who’d left it. All he could do was hope that his words would still help her tomorrow and all the days after that.

  No, the biggest problem had been the thunderstorm that had suddenly blown in out of nowhere and the tree felled by a lightning strike that had demolished the electrical sub-station that served the Rookmere area.

  The Barton was no more immune to power failures than the rest of the populace, he noted when there wasn’t a single light to be seen.

  ‘Either that, or there’s no one home,’ he muttered as he climbed the steps and grimaced at the pang of disappointment that tightened like a fist around his heart.

  He was about to ring the bell when he heard the sound of music…a piano playing a heartbreakingly familiar tune.

  Automatically, his feet took him back down the steps and around the corner of the building towards the wide lawn that stretched away from the back of the house to the very edge of the nearby woodland. In spite of the darkness, it was easy to find his way with the vast dark bulk of the Barton on one side and the lighter grey of the late evening sky on the other.