The Spanish Consultant's Baby by Kate Hardy

Author:Kate Hardy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE next few weeks were the happiest that Jennifer had ever known. Although she and Ramón were careful to be professional with each other on the ward—they’d agreed tacitly not to let the hospital grapevine hear a whisper of what was happening between them—she spent all her free time with him. They even sneaked a couple of lunchtimes together—a snatched hour at his flat, where he fed her choice bits of ham and olives and Spanish cheese and crusty bread, and made love to her with a passion that had a greater edge because his pager could have interrupted them at any second if he had been needed on the ward. And if her hair was still damp from his shower when they returned to the ward, nobody noticed. At least, nobody commented.

Although Jennifer had worried that if she let Ramón into her life, he’d try to take over in the same way that Andrew had, he didn’t. He didn’t try to change her, didn’t buy her clothes or shoes as a way of making her look the way he thought she should look, didn’t want her to change her hair or her make-up or her perfume or anything at all. The first night he stayed over, he got up before she did the next morning and made her a mug of coffee just the way she liked it.

‘It’s the little things that count,’ he said simply, when she asked why. ‘And I don’t expect you to wait on me, mi amor.’

Ramón introduced her to all sorts of things she’d never done. He carried her into a photograph booth and sat her on his lap and pulled faces at her in the mirror until she was laughing; he gave her two of the tiny snapshots to keep, and placed the others in his wallet. He left her romantic little notes in all sorts of places—her fridge, her coffee-jar, underneath her pillow. He drew a heart with their initials in the steam on her bathroom mirror. They went out to the Blue John mines and took a boat ride through the flooded caverns, admiring the stalagmites and stalagtites—and he bought her a heart carved out of a piece of blue john as a keepsake.

One night, Ramón danced with her barefoot on her lawn under the stars, singing softly to her in Spanish. ‘I want to make love with you,’ he murmured.

She nodded and took his hand, as if to lead him indoors.

‘No.’ He stopped her and kissed her fingers.

‘Here.’ ‘Here?’ She was faintly shocked. He wanted to make love in her garden? Outside?

‘Your garden isn’t overlooked. No one can see us,’ he said softly. ‘And I want to love you here, under the stars. Here in your little piece of paradise, among the sounds of the owls and the scent of your flowers.’

‘Night-scented stocks,’ she said.

‘Ah, my Jennifer. Always so precise. It’s one of the things I adore about you.’ He kissed her.

Adrenalin pumped through her system as he began unbuttoning her shirt.

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