Crack. The fat sizzled as an egg slid into the pan. ‘I’ve watched my daughter spend months trying to find you, only to be disappointed every day she failed. It was very important to her you know about Aimee. Now you do. So, no, lad, I am happy you’ve turned up.’ Crack, another egg hit the fat. ‘Can you throw some bread in the toaster? We’ll eat outside on the veranda. The cutlery is in that top drawer.’
If Brendon had been thinking clearly he’d have remembered who had dried and put away the cutlery last night after their barbecue. Something was rattling him, something Marshall desperately wanted to know. But he couldn’t offend Charlie’s father by persisting with his questions. ‘What does Aimee eat?’
‘Toast and honey.’ Brendon’s stance relaxed.
Charlie breezed into the kitchen, her earlier unease gone. ‘I could kill for a cup of tea. What about you, Marshall?’ Switching on the kettle, she leaned back against the bench and folded her arms under her luscious breasts.
‘Make that coffee and I’m in.’ Trying to avoid staring, he turned to study the toaster, waiting for the toast to pop up. A hard-on now might change Brendon’s attitude towards him. But his mind had other ideas, bringing up memories of what was under that bright blouse, of his hands holding her breasts, his thumbs rubbing the nipples until Charlie cried out with need.
The smoke alarm shrilled at the same time his phone vibrated in his back pocket. Black smoke streamed up from the toast he was supposedly watching. He jerked the plug from the wall and tipped the burnt bread into the sink, all the while listening to Charlie and Brendon going on about the American who couldn’t even manage to cook a piece of toast.
Brendon reached for the ‘off’ button on the alarm, a smile lightening his face. ‘Remind me not to ask you to cook anything again. Or drive a car.’
‘Your dad is hopeless, sweetheart.’ Charlie lifted Aimee into her arms, grinning like a cat that had just had a bowl of cream.
Dropping more bread into the toaster, he grinned back. ‘Hopeless, am I?’ Leaning over, he brushed a kiss over her lips. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he whispered.
Blushing, she spun away. ‘Didn’t you just get a text?’
His grin faded as he read the message. ‘Seems my flight’s leaving early. Tonight at eight and I have to be at Whenuapai by seven. Damn.’ He texted a reply and shoved the phone deep into his pocket. ‘I’d better pick up that replacement rental car after breakfast.’
Charlie’s face tightened as she turned away to make their drinks. Guess she hadn’t wanted him leaving yet. They’d barely got past the Aimee disclosure and he was leaving. No doubt she had many things to tell him. Plenty more kisses to share? And no time. ‘Why don’t we walk into town later to get it? Take Aimee with us?’ And talk as we go.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ she mumbled.
He started another lot of toast, this time keeping his eyes focused on it.
*
‘Another scorcher of a day,’ Marshall said as he pushed Aimee’s stroller along the footpath.
‘Hope Dad remembers his sun block. The number of times he’s come home off the lake redder than a strawberry is unbelievable, considering he’s a family doctor supposed to be warning his patients about the dangers of melanoma.’
‘Did you become a doctor because your father was one?’
The things Marshall didn’t know about her. ‘In some ways I guess I did. I liked the way he helped people and could make them better. The community spirit of general practice also appealed. But I honestly can’t remember a time I wasn’t going to do medicine. At ten I thought surgeons were the best then at twelve I liked the idea of radiology. Pathology followed until Dad pointed out how isolated pathologists could be.’
‘I can’t quite see you sitting behind a microscope all day.’
‘No, I’m definitely more of a people person and being a GP suits me, though I toyed with the idea of specialising in emergency medicine right up until I found out I was pregnant.’
‘Did that have anything to do with your time in Honolulu?’
‘You can wipe that cheeky grin off your face.’ She playfully whacked his biceps and wished she could wrap her hand around it. ‘Yes, you made the ED exciting for me.’ When his grin stretched further she shook her head at him. ‘Not the after-hours stuff back in our rooms but the nitty-gritty urgency of traumatised patients. I liked not knowing what was coming through the door in the next moment. I loved being tested again and again. It was stimulating.’
‘So why change your mind because you were pregnant?’
‘I wanted to have my baby in Taupo and there isn’t a big hospital with a major emergency department here. Also, being a solo parent didn’t faze me but I preferred to be near Dad. He brought me up on his own. I wanted him to be a part of Aimee’s growing up.’ Please leave it at that.
Of course he didn’t. ‘I looked this place up and saw that there’s a major hospital down the road at Rotorua. Not too far away from your father.’
She’d spent too much time in Rotorua Hospital having treatment to ever want to work there. ‘I considered it and flagged the idea.’ So he hadn’t just hitched a ride down to New Zealand on a whim. He’d done some research. Interesting. But how far should she go with what she told him? He was leaving in a few hours and she didn’t know if he’d ever come back. Did he even need to know about her illness unless everything went pear-shaped?
‘Are you a partner in the medical centre?’ After looking along the road both ways, he edged the stroller over the kerb to cross the street.
‘You’re a natural at this kid stuff,’ she teased, and laughed out loud at the stunned look on his face.
‘You reckon? I’ve never taken a toddler for a walk in my life.’ The stunned look became slightly smug and his chest puffed out a little.
‘Hidden talents. Who’d have thought?’ Then she pointed to a building further down the road. ‘There’s your rental company. And, no, I haven’t taken a partnership but Dad’s thinking about retiring soon and the other partners are keen for me to buy him out.’
She genuinely wanted to pay the going rate for Dad’s share of the practice but so far hadn’t been able to convince him of that idea. He kept telling her it was her inheritance and he didn’t need the money anyway. ‘We’re also looking for another partner. Patient numbers are growing rapidly and it’s hard to turn people away when they need our help.’
‘I can understand that.’ They’d reached the rental place. He stepped away from the stroller. ‘I’ll go and sort this car business out.’
She watched him saunter through the gleaming cars lined up facing the road. He walked with his back straight, his head high, shoulders back. Like a soldier. Her pathetic hint about another partner at the centre had been a waste of breath. Working there would be dull and monotonous for a man like Marshall.
Would he ever consider quitting the army and going into medicine full time? Doubtful. Even if he did return to civvie street it wouldn’t be in New Zealand, and definitely not in a quiet town like Taupo. He was used to the excitement of war zones and the urgency of battlefield injuries, the variety of location and people. Taupo would never suit him.
Her stomach lurched. It had been pie-in-the-sky stuff to think they had a future together. She didn’t even know if he liked her enough, let alone loved her. The fact he was her daughter’s father wasn’t grounds for marriage. Two weeks of hot sex and laughter in the sun weren’t either.
How had she gone from talking about the medical centre to thinking about marriage? Because she loved him. Had always suspected that she’d fallen for him but with finding herself pregnant and then learning post-partum that she had cervical cancer her feelings for Marshall had been shoved into the too-hard basket. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the heartbreak of knowing she loved a man who almost didn’t exist.
But less than twenty-four hours since he’d crashed back into her world she knew from the bottom of her heart that this was the man she loved, would always love. An
d the worst of it was that she didn’t know what to do about it. Tell him and he’d most likely leave town without giving her any contact details at all. That must not happen. The day might come when Aimee would need him, when he might have to step up as the sole parent.
Toot, toot.
‘You going my way, lady?’ Marshall pulled up beside her in an SUV, grinning like a loon.
‘Depends what you’ve got to offer.’
‘You’ve got a short memory.’ He winked at her.
Her stomach tightened. Heat crept up her cheeks as she recalled fingers and a tongue on her skin and a hard body covering hers.
‘Or maybe not, if that smoky look in your eyes is anything to go by.’ Chuckling, he climbed out and undid the straps keeping Aimee in her stroller. ‘Come on, girls, hop in. I’m taking you to a café for coffee and juice.’ His brows almost met in the middle of his forehead. ‘How do we strap Aimee safely into the seat? She’s far too tiny.’
‘The stroller very cleverly becomes a car seat and we thread the SUV’s seat belt through those clips.’ Within moments she had it all sorted and Aimee safe. Turning to Marshall, she suggested, ‘We could drive out to Huka Falls. You may as well see something of Taupo before you leave, and there’s a café there.’
His finger tilted her head up and those suck-her-in eyes locked with hers. ‘I will be back, Charlie. I don’t know when. It would be rash to make that sort of promise knowing the army as I do, but I will return.’ He meant it. He really, really did. The truth, his honesty stared out at her.