Chapter 3 #2
Oh, help… If she wasn’t careful, she’d fall for this surgeon, hook, line and sinker. Bella never had trouble falling in love. She fell out of it again just as easily, mind you, but something about that moment of connection felt different.
The waters she could be falling into there were a hell of a lot deeper than any she’d been near before.
Dangerous waters.
She could drown, given that the possibility of the potential lifeboat of the attraction being reciprocated to an equal degree was non-existent.
‘A bit of fantasy couldn’t hurt, though, could it?’ she murmured to Bib as she cuddled the kitten for a moment before putting her down on the floor. ‘It’s no worse than having the hots for a movie star, is it?’
Bib flicked her pointy little tail and held it straight up like a flag as she trotted down the hallway.
Bella looked into the guest suite that was her room.
The solitude and opportunity to sit and dream for a while was very attractive, but it would be rude not to go and talk to Auntie Kate.
She could hear voices in the kitchen. Following them, she found her pathologist aunt barefoot and relaxed, indulging in her favourite pastime of cooking.
Her fiancé, orthopaedic surgeon Connor Matthews, was standing behind Kate, his hands resting on her hips and his chin on her shoulder.
He was, in fact, nuzzling her aunt’s neck.
And Kate was leaning back into the embrace, swaying gently. The pleasure they were both taking from simply being so close to each other was palpable.
Bella suddenly felt like she was intruding into a very private space.
One that she couldn’t approve of more, given how much real joy Kate’s life had been missing before Connor had swept her off her feet and onto the back of his motorbike, but really she should back out and give them the chance to start their lives together without having to worry about an audience.
Connor was the first to notice Bella’s arrival.
‘Hey! How’s it going? Did you find what you’d left at work?’
‘Mmm.’
Kate spoke without looking away from the pot she was stirring. ‘Really, Bella. You’ve got to start looking after your stuff a bit more carefully. You’ll lose something important one of these days.’
So true. Like her heart, maybe?
Kate gave a squeak then, and looked down. Bib was trying to climb up her jeans. ‘Ouch… Where did you spring from? I’ve been wondering where you’d got to.’
She prised the kitten away from her leg and handed her to Connor. ‘Could you feed her, please, hon? That way she won’t try and eat my leg.’ She turned further to smile at Bella. ‘You going to eat with us?’
Bella hesitated. ‘I don’t want to get in the way of you two lovebirds.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ But the look that Kate and Connor exchanged was lingering and very exclusive. Bella couldn’t help feeling left out.
Lonely, almost.
‘How was work?’ Kate asked. ‘Did you get into any trouble?’
‘Almost. I got busted taking a line-dancing class by none other than Oliver Dawson.’
‘Uh-oh.’ Connor was grinning. ‘You really know how to push his buttons, don’t you?’
Oh… she wished. If Connor hadn’t been there, she might have blurted out the whole story to Kate, but the fact that Oliver’s mother was an inpatient was being kept under wraps, wasn’t it?
She’d told Sally she was capable of being discreet.
With an enormous effort, Bella put a lid on her inside information.
‘What’s his deal?’ she asked Connor, who had finished scooping cat food into a saucer and had now turned his attention to a rather nice-looking bottle of red wine. ‘Why is he so… uptight?’
Connor shrugged. ‘Goes with the territory, I guess.’
‘What territory?’ Bella remembered that Kate had said something similar once about Oliver’s background – excusing him when he’d contributed to a bad day by telling her off in public – but she was curious to hear Connor’s take on the man.
Oddly, she was suddenly aware of a very intense curiosity about anything to do with Oliver Dawson.
‘Being a pillar of society. Number one on the rich list. Following in the footsteps of Sir David Dawson can’t have been an easy road. Especially when he didn’t go into the family business.’
‘Which was?’
Connor pulled the cork from the bottle. ‘Something that made a serious amount of money. Too many companies to list, probably. Commercial stuff, anyway. I should think it was quite a rebellion to take up medicine.’
‘He died a while ago, didn’t he?’ Kate put in. ‘Sir David? I seem to remember that there was some big mystery about it all. Lady Dawson vanished from the social scene and there was a rumour there was more to it than grief.’
‘Lady Dorothy.’ Bella couldn’t help the correction.
Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘How do you know her name?’
‘Must have heard it mentioned somewhere and remembered,’ Bella said vaguely. ‘Information is power and all that, you know.’
‘Mmm.’ Kate was trying not to smile. ‘Talking about information… Shall we tell her, Connor?’
‘Might be a good idea,’ he said. ‘Seeing as she’s going to be chief bridesmaid.’
‘The only bridesmaid,’ Kate shot back. ‘This is going to be a quiet affair, remember?’
‘Oh, my God…’ Bella ran to hug her aunt. ‘You’ve set a date? For the wedding?’
Kate hugged her back, nodding happily. ‘In a month’s time. I didn’t want to risk you deciding to shoot off overseas early or something.’
‘Not much chance of that, the way my saving is going.’ But Bella shook off the depressing thought. ‘This is so cool. Where is it going to be?’
‘We’re thinking Piha beach.’
‘A beach wedding? Excellent. And are you having a honeymoon?’
‘For a few days maybe. At a beach where it’s a bit safer to swim. Rarotonga or Samoa. Would you be able to cat-sit if we were away?’
‘No worries. I’d love to. Ooh… what are you going to wear? Hey… what am I going to wear?’
‘I’m out of here,’ Connor groaned. ‘I’ll take my wine and go and sit in the garden while you two do the girly thing.’ He crossed the kitchen to hand Kate a glass of wine and plant a soft kiss on her lips. ‘Call me when dinner’s ready?’
Bella watched him go as she took a sip of her own wine. The countdown had really begun. No way could she still be living in this house when these guys came back from their honeymoon.
She’d have to find a flat to share and that meant she’d have to start paying rent.
The delicious aroma coming from the pasta sauce Kate was currently creating reminded her that she would have to spend more on food than she was allowed to contribute here as well.
If the money in her savings account was going up so slowly now, how much worse would it be when she had to factor in additional living costs?
The dreams of going overseas to get her wanderlust out of her system before she settled down to get married and have babies was starting to look like a rather big ask.
Maybe she could get some extra shifts at work. Bella made a mental note to ask Sally about it tomorrow.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, Bella, as much as I’d like to cure my staffing problems this way, there are rules about how many hours you can do on the trot. Double shifts aren’t allowed.’
‘Okay. It was worth a try.’
Sally sighed. ‘I can’t even use you on the ward this morning, so I’ll have to get a temp in.’
‘What?’ Bella bit her lip. ‘Have I done something wrong? Was it my line-dancing class?’ Or had Oliver dobbed her in about sneaking the kitten into the ward last night?
No. As much as she knew he might have liked to do the right thing about breaking such rules, Bella had complete confidence that a promise had been made that would be kept.
What had gone on in that room would stay in that room.
Maybe that went with all the privileged background stuff too.
Bella was quite sure that Oliver Dawson was a man of his word.
Sally laughed. ‘Not at all. No… Lady Dorothy apparently pulled some strings and declared that she doesn’t want another nurse in her room. You’re it.’
‘Can she do that?’
‘When you come from a family that’s supported hospital fundraising to the extent the Dawsons have, I think you can pretty much call the shots. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all. I really like her. She reminds me of my nana.’
‘That’s good. I get the impression that Lady Dorothy can be formidable if she doesn’t get what she’s set her heart on.’
What Lady Dorothy had really set her heart on became apparent a little later that morning, after Bella had helped her get dressed and sat with her while the physiotherapist put her through a range of exercises intended to keep her joints mobile.
Bella went to fetch Lady Dorothy a cup of the Earl Grey tea she preferred when the session was finished and when she came back, she found that Oliver was visiting his mother.
They seemed to be finishing a rather intense conversation, in fact.
‘I can’t stop you,’ Oliver was saying in a low voice. ‘It’s your life and your house, after all, but I think it’s ill-advised.’
When he saw Bella enter the room, he turned away, walking two strides to the outside window where he stood staring at a view she knew was not that fascinating.
Bella had made the tea cool enough to be safe and it was in a cup with a straw.
‘Put it there, dear.’ Lady Dorothy waved at her bedside table. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’
Bella set the cup of tea down and turned. She looked at Lady Dorothy sitting up quite straight in her chair. She was smiling. She looked at Oliver’s back. He was standing very straight. Bella had the distinct impression that if he turned around, he would not be smiling.
‘I want to go home,’ Lady Dorothy announced. ‘But I realise I’m going to need some help until I get better. Oliver suggested that I get a private nurse.’
‘That sounds like a very good idea,’ Bella said cautiously, not sure what this had to do with her.
Lady Dorothy beamed at her. ‘So you’ll take the job, then?’
Bella’s jaw dropped. ‘I’m not a private nurse. I work here, at St Patrick’s.’