The Consultant's Christmas Proposal. Kate Hardy

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      They both clapped him when the song ended, and he beamed. ‘I can sing it to Mummy tonight.’

      ‘You certainly can.’ Saskia smiled at him, and turned briefly to Toby. ‘It’s my turn to cook tonight.’ She hugged her godson. ‘Billy, do you want to draw a picture for Mummy with Uncle Toby while I cook tea?’

      ‘I’ll get the felt pens!’ the little boy said gleefully, and raced off to fetch them.

      ‘I’m doing pasta,’ she whispered to Toby, ‘so I can disguise vegetables in the sauce. Tomorrow, it’s your turn to come up with a clever strategy to get him to eat something other than chicken nuggets. I told Lyd we’d do the impossible.’

      ‘You would,’ Toby said, resigned. ‘Right. I’m going to draw Billy a super rocket. And we’re going to call it after you.’

      ‘Oh, ha.’ She grinned, and headed for the kitchen.

      As soon as Saskia was out of Toby’s view, she massaged her fingers and took some painkillers. Was this a flare-up? And would the flare-ups become more frequent as time went on? she wondered.

      ‘Not going to happen. It’s not.’ If she could stop the disease in its course by sheer will-power, her hands would stop hurting right now.

      She flexed her fingers. Unfortunately, will-power wasn’t going to cure rheumatoid arthritis. And there wasn’t much chance of getting a cure in her Christmas stocking either. Damn, damn, damn. She’d managed in Theatre earlier today without any problems. But, right at this moment, no way could she have held a scalpel. She couldn’t have supervised a junior surgeon either—because if the younger doctor got into a mess, she wouldn’t be able to step in and take over.

      She was going to have to resign. And soon. For her patients’ sake.

      But medicine was her whole life. If she gave it up completely, what would she do? How would she fill the empty hours?

      It took her ages to chop the vegetables for the pasta sauce. But she persisted—no way was she giving in. She wasn’t ready to give in.

      Just as the sauce started to bubble, Billy bounded into the kitchen and shoved a piece of cardboard into her hand. ‘We made you a card,’ he announced.

      ‘“To the best aunty in the world. Love Billy,”’ she read. There was a picture of a flower on the front, coloured in bright pink and purple, and Toby had drawn Billy’s name in dots for the little boy to join up. Shocked by the tears that rose to her eyes, she blinked them back, hard. ‘Thank you,’ she said, crouching down to give Billy a hug.

      The sauce was a success, too. She’d put it in a blender so there were no tell-tale lumps of vegetables. Billy ate his meal without a hint of protest, and scoffed more garlic bread than anyone else. He also managed to get garlic butter in his hair and spaghetti sauce over his face—even behind his ears.

      ‘Bathtime?’ Toby suggested.

      ‘Yep. You’re in charge tonight. I’m doing the washing-up.’ She didn’t want to share the chores with him in case he noticed just how long it was taking her to do things—and then asked awkward questions that she didn’t want to answer.

      ‘Both of them together?’ he asked, looking nervous.

      ‘C’mon, you’re the paediatrician. And you must have bathed your godchildren at some point.’

      ‘Nope. You and Lyd always do it.’

      True. Saskia adored bathtime with the children, playing splashing games, then wrapping them in a towel ‘like a sausage roll’, as Billy called it. She loved Helena’s gummy smiles of delight as she splashed, the clean, baby-soft scent of the children’s skin after a bath, the way Billy’s hair stuck up in tufts. She loved giving them their milk, a cuddle, a story, tucking them into bed and then reading another story, because she couldn’t resist Billy’s huge eyes and cute smile when he asked so nicely for just one more.

      But tonight she physically couldn’t do it.

      ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ she said, forcing herself to sound happy and bubbly, the Saskia Hayward that everyone at the hospital knew. The super-focused doctor, who partied at night and burned the candle at both ends.

      As Toby took the children upstairs, Saskia’s smile faded. It wasn’t going to be that way for much longer. In fact, it’d get to the point where she wasn’t going to be burning candles at all.

      Laboriously, she washed up. By the end, she knew that drying up would push her just that one step too far. The dishes could just air-dry tonight.

      She couldn’t resist going to see how Toby was getting on. To her amusement, he was on his knees next to the bathtub, holding Billy’s plastic frog and joining in with Billy’s version of ‘Five little speckled frogs’. She couldn’t help grinning at the gusto with which Toby sang ‘Yum, yum’ about the delicious flies the frogs were eating, and ‘Glub, glub’ as the frogs jumped into the pool.

      Toby looked just like any other father enjoying bathtime with his kids while giving his wife a break from childcare.

      This was what her life could have been like, if…

      No ifs, no buts. She’d made her choice a long time ago. It was the right one, the sensible one: she knew that. So she suppressed the surge of loneliness. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t lonely. She had a good life. Good friends, a job she enjoyed and two godchildren that were as close as she was going to get to children of her own. She had nothing to complain about.

      As for that little flare of longing, she damped that down, too. Toby wasn’t for her. He’d make the perfect dad: how could she ask him to give up the idea of ever having children? She didn’t want to wreck his life, tie him down to someone who was going to end up hardly able to do a thing for herself. He deserved someone better and, as his best friend, she really ought to be helping him to find Miss Right, not selfishly holding onto him.

      Without disturbing them, she walked quietly downstairs again. The minute Lydia and Paul were back from Canada, she’d do something about Toby. Find someone who could make him far happier than she could. Maybe fix him up with someone at one of the departmental Christmas parties. It was the time when people traditionally got together after all. And it would be her own very special present to Toby. She’d find him the love of his life.

       CHAPTER THREE

      AFTER a week of looking after the children, Saskia was used to being in a family environment. She was beginning to enjoy it even. It was nice to come home from a late shift and not have to cook for herself or make do with a sandwich. Or to pick up Billy from nursery and be greeted with a big hug and hear all about his day on the way home. Or to see Toby walk in the door at the end of his shift, looking tired but giving her a genuine smile when she made him a coffee and sat down to eat with him.

      She could almost—almost—see the point of getting married and sharing her life.

      But one evening, when she was feeding Helena, the baby turned her face away and fussed.

      ‘Everything OK?’ Toby asked, clearly seeing the worry in her face.

      ‘I’m СКАЧАТЬ