A Father For Poppy. Abigail Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ at the hospital in his new role on Monday morning. So it would seem that unless they met at breakfast their first proper encounter would be at work, under the eagle eyes of their colleagues. It was hardly ideal, but they were professionals and they would make the best of it.

      It turned out that Tessa was already in the dining room amongst a smattering of other early risers when he went downstairs at six o’clock the next morning, and before he could give it another thought he stopped by her table and said, ‘I’ve got a hire car and will be leaving shortly. Can I give you a lift to Gloucestershire?’

      ‘No, thanks just the same,’ she told him levelly, in the process of buttering a piece of toast. ‘I have a seat booked on an early train. The taxi that I’ve arranged to take me to the station will be here soon.’

      ‘Are you still at the same address?’ he asked casually, letting the rebuff wash off him.

      ‘No, I’ve moved recently,’ was the curt reply, and then to his surprise she followed up with ‘If you haven’t got any accommodation arranged, there is the house in the grounds of the hospital that the retiring consultant has been living in.

      ‘The property was bequeathed to Horizons in the will of some grateful patient and is now vacant. I’m sure it could be made available to you if you wished.’

      Drake was frowning. ‘I don’t want any fuss, Tessa, I’m here to work.’ He realised his tone had come across perhaps a little harshly, so he added, ‘But I suppose living so near work could be very useful.’

      In truth, he was amazed. After her tepid reaction to his return he hadn’t expected her to do him any favours. He was the one who’d been a selfish blighter all that time ago and anyone observing them now would find it hard to believe they’d been lovers.

      ‘I will most certainly look into that,’ he assured her, dragging his mind back from the past.

      Meanwhile, Tessa’s only thought was whether there would be anyone sharing the place with him if it was available.

      It was an old house that its previous owner had cherished, with high vaulted ceilings, curving staircases and spacious rooms all furnished with antique objects, with its biggest benefit being that it was only a matter of minutes away from the hospital for the consultant in charge when needed.

      ‘Now that you mention it, I seem to remember something about being offered it when I accepted the position,’ he said, ‘but I had so much on my mind at the time I’d completely forgotten about it. So thanks for that, Tessa.’ Could he sound more like an idiot? Drake thought to himself.

      She shrugged as if it were of no matter. ‘You would have heard about it sooner or later.’

      ‘Yes, well, thanks anyway,’ he told her, and as a member of the dining room staff came to show him to a table, added, ‘Until Monday morning, then.’

      She nodded and turned back to her tea and toast, hoping that she hadn’t given any sign of the fast-beating heart that the turmoil inside her was responsible for. Having already settled her account, when her taxi arrived she left the hotel as swiftly as possible, and without a backward glance.

      So far so good, Drake thought sombrely as he watched her go. At least they were on speaking terms and Tessa had taken the trouble to tell him that his accommodation arrangements might soon be solved. But who was it that she had moved house for?

      She wouldn’t have left her beloved apartment for no reason, and he could hardly expect that her life had been on hold while he’d been away. She’d watched him leave that day without a murmur. Or could it have been that he hadn’t given her a chance to get a word in with his obsession about the job in Switzerland, and the opportunities for developing new techniques it had presented?

      But he’d made his choice and paid the price. It had been over then and nothing had changed. It wasn’t like he’d returned to Horizons for her. He’d wanted the job—and to see her for old times’ sake, not to rekindle what had once been between them.

      But that wasn’t to say that he’d forgotten the passion they’d shared, or how it had felt to lie in each other’s arms. So much so that he hadn’t slept with anyone since, hadn’t found anyone he’d wanted to share that with. Now that he had some distance, he could see that what they’d had was without equal—but he didn’t regret taking the Swiss job, which had developed his skills and offered him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now, for better or worse, he was back and he couldn’t deny that a part of him was curious to see if there was anything left of it.

      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, СКАЧАТЬ