The Nurse's Reunion Wish (HQR Medical Romancel) Read online

  There had been more muffled words and then his dad’s voice had cut through the gloom.

  ‘You used to have a future. As far as I can see, the only thing she’s doing is bringing you down. It’s time to put this mess behind you and pick up your life where you left off.’

  As harsh as Professor Hadley’s words were, it had been nothing Rachel hadn’t been thinking herself. Dominic seemed fine, while her whole world had crumbled.

  They’d limped on for a couple more months, until finally Dominic had sat down on the edge of the bed she’d barely got out of in those days.

  ‘Listen,’ he’d said, and taken her hand. ‘What if I ask your dad if we can move in with him for a few months? I can work like crazy and we can get ahead—and you can take some time and focus on retaking your exams.’

  She’d looked up at him, up to the dark of his eyes, and then down to the mouth that had never once said the words she’d needed to hear.

  ‘Or I could move in with my dad.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Dominic, why did you marry me?’

  ‘Rachel—’

  ‘Why?’

  The silence was endless. ‘What do you want me to say here, Rachel? I’m trying to do the best I can.’

  ‘But why did you marry me?’

  ‘Because you were pregnant—because it was the right thing to do...’

  She’d known all along that Dominic had only married her because of the baby. And now that there wasn’t one...

  Rachel had removed her hand from his and then she had removed herself from his life.

  Mourning both her marriage and her baby had been a mountain it had taken years to climb. Her long-time dream of being a midwife had evaporated, and she’d simply not known who she was any more.

  She’d moved back to her dad’s, returned to work at the hairdresser’s—this time as an apprentice.

  There she’d made friends, and later she’d moved out of her dad’s. She had finally rediscovered what it meant to have dreams, to want something in the future. But she no longer wanted to be a midwife, so she had applied to study nursing and had fallen in love with Emergency.

  It had taken years, but piece by piece she had built a new life.

  A good life.

  A nice life.

  And yet it didn’t hold a candle to the bliss she had once known.

  The good times with Dominic had been the very best of times, Rachel thought now, as she lay there, recalling the utter joy of lying in his arms, the sheer heady pleasure of their lovemaking. But it hadn’t all been sex.

  She had never been happier than when they’d scored a lunch break together and would sit in a café or bar, holding hands. Or when they sat at their little kitchen table and he tested her for when she’d retake her exams. When she’d cut his hair. When they’d stood in their little living room, Dominic tall, her massive with her baby bump, and danced and laughed and danced...

  She’d never been so happy in all her life.

  And later, as she scraped the remains of her lunch from the sandwich box into the little compost bin that they kept under the sink, Rachel herself loathed the analogy, even if it smacked of the truth:

  She and Gordon were frittata.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BREAKING UP REALLY was hard.

  Perhaps more so when you were the one taking an axe to a perfectly good relationship with a nice and kind man.

  Had she not bumped into Dominic...

  Rachel truly didn’t know what would have happened.

  But by the end of the week, when she still hadn’t told her fiancé that her ex-husband was working at The Primary, Rachel accepted the reason why.

  She should have been able to tell Gordon, reassuring him that it wasn’t a problem, that Dominic meant nothing.

  Nothing.

  She should have been able to say airily, Oh, that was years ago... And, If Dominic was the last man on earth I wouldn’t...

  Except, Dominic had been the first.

  She certainly wasn’t breaking up with Gordon in the hope of rekindling things with her ex. It was more that she could not bear the thought of putting Gordon through what she had experienced.

  He deserved love.

  ‘Is there someone else?’ Gordon hurled the inevitable question at her.

  A week ago she would have been able to look him in the eye and say, No, of course not. Absolutely not.

  Except...

  ‘Rachel?’ Gordon demanded.

  She truly didn’t know how to answer him, for it had hit her then: there had always been someone else taking up too much space in both her mind and her heart.

  Dominic Hadley.

  Yes, breaking up really was hard to do.

  There was a lot of slamming things in suitcases—Gordon.

  And a whole lot of silence—Rachel.

  She really was still terrible at sharing her feelings.

  When the door slammed closed she sat there, in silence rather than in tears, and wondered if she should research if there were any adult education classes she could take in How to Share Your Feelings.

  She felt...defeated.

  It was the best word she could come up with.

  Defeated because she had worked so very hard for so many years and tried so very hard to move on.

  She had tried to let love into her life. She had moved her world to be with Gordon. But here she was, alone, her world turned upside down...again.

  There was never a more honest hour than the one just after a relationship died.

  Rachel wanted a family, and she wanted a baby, and while she’d been content with Gordon, she hadn’t been as happy as she’d told Dominic she was.

  She hadn’t loved Gordon. At least not in the white-hot way she had loved Dominic—not that she’d ever dared to reveal it to him. She had always been so good at keeping her feelings under wraps.

  But Dominic hadn’t loved her.

  And she must never forget that fact.

  * * *

  When she had a couple of days off on the rota, Rachel took the train up to Sheffield to tell her dad that her engagement to Gordon was off.

  She wanted to tell him in private, without a running commentary and input from her brothers, but it took some considerable time to find a moment alone with him. The doorbell or the phone were constantly ringing, with one of her brothers or their wives, or one of her ten nieces and nephews, all of whom Rachel adored.

  Except today. Especially today. It felt as if she was always the aunt and never the mum, and destined to remain that way for ever.

  As if to ram home that fact, Phil and his wife dropped by with the happy news that Rachel would soon be an aunt for the eleventh time. She had never been more grateful for the ability to hide her true feelings.

  But finally she stood in the kitchen alone with her dad.

  ‘So, how are you finding the new job?’ he asked as he stacked the dishwasher while Rachel made them a cup of tea.

  ‘I like it,’ Rachel admitted. ‘The hospital’s really busy, but the staff are nice. There’s a big work do coming up and I’ve put my name down to go...’ Her voice trailed off, and it took her a moment to find it again. ‘Dad, I’ve got something to tell you. I broke up with Gordon.’

  She watched as her dad stiffened and then got back to rearranging the mugs on the top rack—the mugs that she herself had put in the dishwasher.

  ‘That was sudden,’ her dad said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re okay, though?’

  ‘Dad, it was my choice. I’m honestly fine.’

  ‘Are you going to move back up here?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Rachel sighed. ‘There’s a lease on the flat and...’ She shrugged. ‘I think I like London.’

  ‘Really?’

>   ‘I didn’t just move there because of Gordon.’

  She’d been ready for change too. But she hadn’t foreseen this much change.

  She was single again, and in a new city, with a new job and no friends nearby to call on...and her ex-husband working at the same hospital. Not that she would be getting into a deep and meaningful conversation about that with her dad.

  ‘I’m sure the right one’s out there for you,’ her dad said, doing his best to offer relationship advice to his daughter. ‘Better to find out now than later.’

  Was it?

  Rachel wasn’t so sure.

  How could it possibly be better to find out all these years on, just as you were finally moving on with your life, with an upcoming marriage and the possibility of babies on the horizon, that you weren’t as over your ex as you’d hoped?

  Of course she didn’t say that to her dad, though he had something of his own to add. ‘While we’re on the subject of romance and such,’ her dad said, ‘I’ve got a lady friend coming to dinner tonight.’

  ‘What?’ Rachel frowned, because in the twenty-six years since her mother had died there had never been so much as a hint of anyone else. ‘Are you saying you’re seeing someone? How long has this been going on?’ Rachel asked. ‘Is it serious? Are you—?’

  ‘Moira,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Moira.’

  And that was all Dave Walker had to say on the subject of his love life. Though when Moira arrived he had plenty to say about Rachel’s.

  Moira, Rachel guessed, was younger than her dad—in her early sixties, perhaps, with straight white hair cut in a rather stunning jagged bob which, given Rachel’s brief hairdressing career, she noticed and admired. Beyond the bob, she considered that, since Moira’s hair was a beautiful white, rather than grey, she had very possibly been a redhead.

  Like Rachel’s mum.

  And that was more than enough to make Rachel wary.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Rachel.’ Moira smiled. ‘I was sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet before you headed down to London.’

  ‘Moira had other plans on the day of your leaving party,’ her dad explained.

  ‘No, I didn’t, Dave,’ Moira said, and Rachel couldn’t help but smile. ‘You just thought it a bit soon for the kids to be told.’

  ‘Well, you’re here now,’ Dave huffed. ‘Come on through.’

  He guided them to the dining room, where they sat down at the table—usually they ate in the kitchen or in the lounge. He handed Moira a glass of wine and soon brought up the reason for Rachel’s unexpected visit. ‘Rachel’s just broken off her engagement.’

  ‘Oh, that can’t have been an easy decision,’ Moira said. ‘Or was it?’

  Rachel certainly wasn’t about to reveal anything to a stranger, but before she could find a polite response which would make it clear the subject was not up for discussion, her dad chimed in.

  ‘Probably for the best. Never really took to him myself.’

  ‘You’ve said that about everyone I’ve ever been out with.’

  ‘Well, you’ve brought home some right idiots.’

  ‘Dad, I’ve hardly brought anyone home.’

  ‘There was that Ricky. The one you worked with when you were hairdressing.’

  ‘Ricky’s gay.’ Rachel sighed. ‘We were just friends. I assume you’re referring to Dominic?’

  ‘Hmmph,’ Dave said, because he loathed speaking about that time. ‘That one couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel.’

  He looked at Moira, expecting her to laugh, but halted when Rachel got up from the dining room table and walked out.

  He found her in the kitchen staring out at the garden and trying not to cry.

  ‘Come on, lass, I’m just playing. I’m sorry to hear about you and Gordon—but, as I always say, there’s no point upsetting yourself.’

  But it wasn’t Gordon she was upset about.

  It was Dominic.

  She thought back to the eighteen-year-old Dominic, arriving home after a long day working with her father and brothers before heading out for a shift in a bar that night. He’d asked her what the old Yorkshire saying couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel had meant.

  ‘Couldn’t stop a pig in an alley,’ Rachel had translated. ‘It means useless, I guess. Why?’

  Dominic had shaken his head rather than say why he was asking. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He’d looked so hurt that day, so dejected, but she had never, even for a moment, thought the insult had come from her dad.

  She’d spent so long looking back on their time together wearing thorn-rimmed glasses, shaded with the resentment and the pain of what had come after, that she hadn’t stopped to think what it had been like for him. And Dominic’s apology the other day in the hospital about not providing for her had shaken her. While she knew he hadn’t been talking about money, the truth was that Dominic had changed all his plans, worked hard day and night, and tried so hard to take care of both her and the baby.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  Rachel glanced up and saw that Moira was standing at the kitchen door, but she said nothing, safe in the knowledge that her dad would soon shut the conversation down.

  Except he didn’t!

  ‘She’s just a bit upset about the break-up with Gordon.’

  ‘It’s not Gordon!’ Rachel snapped, and then blurted it out. ‘Dominic’s working at The Primary.’

  ‘What?’ The colour drained out of her father’s face.

  ‘He’s a doctor there,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Who’s Dominic?’ Moira asked.

  Dave gave a weary sigh and ran a worried hand over his scruffy grey beard. ‘Our Rachel was married to him for a while,’ he said, then added, ‘Broke her heart, that fella did.’

  ‘It was a long time ago, Dad,’ Rachel said, and tried to rally. ‘It’s fine. Come on, let’s have dinner.’

  Dinner was an amazing roast lamb, that Dave had cooked incredibly well, but he was very quiet as Moira kept the conversation careering over to Dominic.

  ‘How long were the two of you married, Rachel?’

  ‘About a year,’ Rachel said, and took a large slug of wine. ‘Have you been married, Moira?’

  She was making a point—there were some things you just didn’t talk about.

  ‘Twice,’ Moira said.

  Rachel was glad she’d killed that conversation stone-dead...except it turned out that Moira was just drawing breath.

  ‘First time was wonderful—second time a mistake,’ Moira said. ‘I swore off men and kept to it for fifteen years. But then your dad and I...’

  Rachel closed her eyes and wondered if the talkative Moira was going to tell her that she and her dad had been internet dating—but, no.

  ‘Well, I was downsizing and he came to give me a quote.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I don’t know what came over me, but I said, perhaps we could work it out over dinner. Still,’ Moira said, ‘you don’t want to hear about your dad and me. How was it, seeing this Dominic again?’

  ‘Moira...’ Dave warned, but Moira took no notice.

  ‘I’m just asking. I dread running into my ex.’

  ‘It was fine,’ Rachel said airily. ‘We had lunch together and caught up.’

  ‘Caught up?’ Dave checked. ‘On what?’

  ‘Just...’ She blew out a breath. ‘This and that.’

  It was clear her dad didn’t like the sound of that and was visibly worried.

  ‘Look, maybe you should just come back home,’ he said. ‘You’re not with Gordon any more—there’s nowt to keep you down there.’

  But Rachel, who had been thinking the same thing, answered as the woman she wanted to be, rather than the one she was. ‘I’m not coming home just because my ex happens to work in the same place. It’s a huge hospital. Wi
th any luck I’ll barely see him.’

  With any luck!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘HOW WERE YOUR days off?’ May asked.

  ‘Great.’

  Rachel’s response was a little stilted—and not just because Dominic was sitting at the crowded nurses’ station. He was writing up some notes after a frantic morning, during which a serious head injury and a cardiac arrest had arrived simultaneously, all on Rachel’s first full shift in Resus.

  So much for hardly seeing him!

  And she felt particularly awkward because she’d told no one about her break-up with Gordon. There was no need to just yet, she’d decided. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d ever worn her ring at work. And it just felt somehow safer to say she was in a relationship when she was around Dominic.

  Well, not safer.

  But there was no point muddying things.

  ‘Did you end up going home?’ May persisted with the conversation.

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel said, and then checked herself, because she was being aloof. It was only Dominic she had to remember to stay entirely professional and polite with—not her colleagues. ‘I had dinner with my dad and his new girlfriend.’

  ‘How was it?’ May asked.

  ‘Awkward,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Though she seems nice and everything.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll soon get used to her.’ May smiled and then picked up a large envelope and waved it in Dominic’s face. ‘I need your deposit for the night out. Cash only—I can’t be doing with your apps and things. If you change your mind, you won’t get it back.’ She read down her list to see who else was on it. ‘What about you, Jordan?’

  ‘Heather and I will be there.’ Jordan nodded. ‘I’ll have to get the cash to you another day.’

  ‘What about you, Rachel? Oh, you’ve already paid. What was your man’s name again?’

  ‘Gordon!’ Dominic answered for her, with a tart edge that May must have caught because she gave a slow blink.

  ‘So it is!’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Tara chimed in, with a smile aimed at Dominic. Rachel felt her nostrils do that pinched thing all over again. ‘We’re going Greek!’

  ‘Fantastikós,’ Dominic said, and took his wallet out and peeled off the necessary notes. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’