A Doctor's Christmas Family by Meredith Webber

Author:Meredith Webber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

‘SHE could just be feverish. It’s not necessarily dengue,’ Esther said, trying to reassure Bill as she followed him into Chloe’s room.

‘So now you’re an expert on childhood illnesses?’ Bill snorted, stopping by the crib and reaching out to touch his daughter’s flushed cheek.

Esther knew he was lashing out through fear for his daughter, and probably through guilt that he hadn’t been home to see her earlier. Definitely guilt as well, if he was feeling anything like the cramping culpability she was feeling.

‘Have you given her anything?’ Esther asked, touching Gwyneth lightly on the arm.

Gwyneth turned and stared at Esther, as if trying to remember who she was.

‘I gave her some of the baby syrup Bill brought home when she was teething,’ Gwyneth said. ‘She’d been fretful all afternoon, didn’t have a proper sleep then wouldn’t eat her dinner. I phoned the hospital but they said Bill wasn’t there.’

Esther saw the look in Gwyneth’s eyes change from worry to suspicion.

‘He was chasing after you, wasn’t he?’ she accused. ‘Probably saw all that nonsense about a crocodile on the television and went running after you. The man never did have a lick of sense where you’re concerned.’

Hurt, regret, guilt—what else could she feel? Esther wondered.

She turned away from the now furious woman, stopping when she reached the door to say, ‘I’m going back to the hospital. I’ll take any emergencies that come up. Bill, you stay here with Chloe.’

She didn’t think he’d heard her, but as she left the room she heard him call her name. Let him call—let them both do what they like. I don’t need them—any of them—though I do hope that baby is OK. Don’t let it be dengue. Don’t let her be really sick.

Useless pleas or prayers or whatever they were! When had her desperate, silent requests to the fates ever worked?

Never, that was when.

But hope was a bird that refused to lie down and die. It fluttered in her chest with a maybe this time. Maybe just this once…

Back in the room she’d barely used, she found a plastic bag in which she’d packed her sandals for the trip north, and shoved some clean underwear, a change of shirt and her toilet bag into it. Her notes were still on the front seat of Bill’s car, but she was reasonably sure he hadn’t locked it. She’d pick them up on her way. She’d have to find a way to contact Byron, too, to let him know to collect her from the hospital in the morning.

Or maybe not at all, if Chloe was still sick and Bill needed to take the day off to be with her.

Bill! His name was like a wail of anguish in her head as she let herself quietly out of the apartment.

In spite of what she’d said in the car, she knew what she felt for him went far deeper than attraction. Love-making between them had always been good, but there’d been—or she thought there’d been—something much stronger binding them together.

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