A Father Beyond Compare by Alison Roberts

Author:Alison Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

It was all too easy to postpone what had to be done.

Turning up, unannounced, in Simon's office was probably not the best plan, Emma decided. Maybe she should drop a note into the internal mail system in the hospital to give him some warning.

Or maybe she should wait a few days to make sure he wasn't jet-lagged and totally unreceptive.

Maybe she didn't actually want to see him at all, which might pre-empt the ending of this chapter of her life she was sharing with Tom and Max and Phoebe.

Especially Tom.

He had been strangely quiet since the night Mickey had shocked them both by revealing his understanding of Emma's hidden agenda for the adventure of coming all the way to New Zealand. Not that Tom had said anything. On a couple of occasions it had been on the tip of Emma's tongue to ask how he'd felt at Mickey's assumption he was his father. Had he been horrified? Was there a faint possibility that he might like the idea?

The question remained unasked, however, because Tom had noticeably stepped back. Direct eye contact was much less frequent and accidental touch carefully avoided. Tom seemed to be spending longer hours at work and he'd gone to his mother's for dinner last night. Mickey appeared to have forgotten the conversation about Simon and made no further queries about his 'real' father, but it was obvious to Emma that Tom was waiting to hear how the meeting had gone.

Emma had nothing to tell him. The tension was getting destructive but she was feeling an increasing sense of panic about doing anything to resolve it. Two days had gone past. Then three. And four. It was so easy to find excuses. She wasn't at the hospital every day. She'd had a very busy shift with too many sick people to look after and she was tired. Mickey had a sniffly nose and she didn't want to leave him at the daycare centre any longer than she had to. Grocery shopping needed to be done because it was her turn to cook dinner. Goodness knew how long she might have left things if the situation had not been taken abruptly from her control.

If she hadn't, quite literally, bumped into Simon Flinders in the hospital staff car park.

It was Emma's fault. Her mind was elsewhere as she negotiated the parking area on her way to the bus stop. One of her patients that afternoon had been a seven-year-old girl with a life-threatening asthma attack. The terrified child had required aggressive treatment and had ended up being intubated and admitted to the intensive care unit. Emma was focused on the comfort she had given the girl's mother, hoping that the reassurance she had given so freely had not been misplaced. It was what she would want herself if it was Mickey that was in such a precarious state of health, wasn't it? Some hope to cling to? Reality would intrude fast enough if things became worse. Or should

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