Chapter 30
Lucy
Dirk’s face is all kindness, his lips thin in a smile of concentration. He must have been an excellent doctor. Considerate. I’ve had some doctors treat me no better than meat.
My cheek doesn’t hurt at all. Perhaps it’s the cold, but with Dirk’s hand so close, I sense the warmth of it, of him.
Being in this winter garden is so different to being with him at the ball, when we were surrounded by strangers and I kissed him, to prove to Bart I was still attractive, despite his treachery, and Dirk was the closest thing. That kiss was a tactic, self-defence – essential, and selfish of me.
This kiss is different, so slow yet inevitable I don’t even see it coming, don’t even know if it’s Dirk’s idea or mine.
In the quiet garden, surrounded by thorns and overgrown branches, we are alone in the dead of winter.
My lips brush his fingers in a kiss of gratitude, for his company, his kindness, for this gift of a garden to borrow, for the feel of the clippers in my hand again and the promise of spring, hidden deep in the roots of the roses, so thick and old they are like giants’ fists, stubbornly alive against the winter cold.
His other hand rises, and with the back of his fingers, he brushes my cheek, and then, with both hands, tilts my head to his, and bends and samples my lips, once, twice and then again in a kiss so deep it takes away my breath and leaves me speechless.
“Doc O’Connell! Is that you?”
He breaks away, straightens and steps away from me.
“Mrs Munze,” he says.
“Did I disturb you?”
“Mrs Munze. Ms Beston. Ms Beston is teaching me about roses.”
Mrs Munze is not convinced.
“Haven’t seen you here much, Doc. When you coming back? We miss you. Doc Tappy is good, but he’s not like you.”
“Thank you, Mrs Munze. It’s too soon for me to make any big decisions, you understand.”
“Whatever you need, Doc. How’s the house?”
“House is fine, thank you, Mrs Munze. How’s your family?”
Mrs Munze clearly has a large family. I bite down on my smile and head back to the roses, snip, snip, snip, as Dirk listens to Mrs Munze and nods patiently, beside me.
I love this part of keeping roses. I snip at an angle near the base of a leaf, careful to choose a bud that will open the plant to more light as it grows, never back into the tangled centre.
I’m down on my knees as Mrs Munze moves away. I give her a wave and grab at Dirk’s leg to catch his attention, and it’s there again, acute awareness of the man. I snatch back my hand as if his body scalds me. It does.
“Where do you want the clippings, Dirk?”
The clouds come over again.
“Can we burn them?”
“Some of them, sure. The dry and dead ones.” I show him the oldest ones, shrivelled almost black.
“Want me to sort them? I can make different piles from now on. You’ll need gloves if you’re going to help. The thorns stay savage year round.”
As I keep working, he enters the house and returns with his coat and hat and gloves, and works silently beside me. It’s lovely to have his company. Bart never showed an interest, beyond checking the garden as a backdrop for interviews or footage.
From a back shed, Dirk finds a big old bucket. He ferries the dry wood inside the house, and then heads out somewhere in the car.
“That’s enough,” he says on his return, just as I’m tiring and the last of the roses nears completion.
He grabs the crook of my arm, hauls me up and I lean against his strength, my bones less supple than I remember.
I’ve been working away quietly at the garden at Brighton Court, along the edges Professor No can’t see properly from his apartment, and making progress, but that work is varied.
Millie’s rose garden is vast. Pruning it has been a joy, but my muscles and joints protest. Dirk leads me inside.
The interior is beautiful, if strangely empty and impersonal.
He takes me into a formal dining room. On the table is a bottle of wine, two tumblers, a loaf of bread on a chopping board with an old knife, and some cheeses and olives on a plate.
He turns two chairs around to face the fireplace, then holds a match beneath a stack of advertising brochures nestled beneath the dry rose clippings.
“I should have taken you into town with me, but we’d never get away. Even buying these few things I ended up in eight long conversations.”
“Must be nice to be so popular, so needed.”
“I hate it.”
He opens the wine and offers me a glass as fire leaps in the grate and the clouds darken again outside. Sitting is heaven. I’m suddenly ravenous. There’s nowhere else I want to be.
As we eat, we talk about his childhood and touch on his life with Millie. His words rush out as if he hasn’t spoken in years, in a lifetime. His words tumble like a waterfall and then it’s my turn, and the sky is dark and the bottle empty.
“I can’t thank you enough, Lucy.”
“It’s mutual. It’s good to talk.”
“I can’t talk to Jamison or Dee like this. They loved their mother, of course. I’d never take her memory away from them.”
His face is all angles in the firelight.
“You’re a good man, Doc O’Connell.”
He shrugs.
“Not good enough to make a plan. I’ve drunk too much to drive. I’ve kidnapped you, Lucy, for totally selfish reasons. There’s no heating, but there are quilts. You could pick a bed, any bed. And it’s bread and water for breakfast.”
“Luxury,” I say. “I love this simplicity.” I break into a song from My Fair Lady – All I want is a room somewhere.
We sing it together, arm in arm up the hallway and then he tucks me into one of the single beds and my eyes close.
Later in the night, I wake, shivering. I pile all the quilts I can find onto the single bed but still can’t get warm. Is it midnight? Moonlight flows in through the dining room window as I tiptoe down the corridor to the main bedroom and creep in beside Dirk. We’re both fully clothed.
This is nothing but a way to prevent myself from freezing to death, I tell myself as I push my back against his slumbering warmth, but when his arm comes around me and he nestles me closer, I know it’s a lie.
Doctor Dirk O’Connor is more than a helpful neighbor, a friend with roses, or a dance partner. He is more than a generous and thoughtful; more than clever and kind. Doctor Dirk O’Connell is a total catch.