Guilty Secret Read online

  In the meantime, it was high time she took herself off to her consulting room because she had a full list of patients coming to see her this morning and another equally full of home visits for this afternoon. At this rate, by the time she finished it would probably be time for Laura and Katie to go to bed and far too late to discuss birthday plans.

  ‘It comes to something when you have to write yourself a memo to talk to your daughter,’ she muttered as she scribbled in her bulging diary. ‘But with only a few days left to organise anything…’

  The intercom buzzed to let her know that her first patient had arrived and she deliberately wiped thoughts of home and family out of her head. As tired as she was, it was going to need all her concentration to get through the day successfully. There was no way she wanted to let a lapse in attention be the cause of missing an important symptom.

  ‘Hey, Mum!’ Katie called brightly from the other side of the GP unit’s waiting area.

  Frankie gave a despairing glance at her watch and thanked God for her daughters’ amenable natures. Her afternoon of visits had been extended by several extras so that she was now nearly an hour later than she should have been.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m so late,’ she called back as she gratefully dumped a pile of notes and files into the wire basket held out to her by receptionist Mara Frost.

  That’s all right,’ Laura piped up from her seat behind a rack of information leaflets. ‘Dr Lawrence came to get us from school and everyone was looking at his car.’

  ‘Then Nick’s been helping us with our homework,’ Katie added, oblivious to the sudden leap her mother’s pulse gave at the mention of his name. ‘I’ve asked him if he’ll come with us for my birthday treat. I know it’s supposed to be just for family but he’s stayed at our house so that makes him sort of family, doesn’t it? Is that all right?’

  A movement behind the rack of leaflets resolved itself into the shape of Nick Johnson, straightening up from his position beside Laura.

  ‘I told Katie that it was your decision,’ he said quietly, the deep tones of his voice enough to set up an uncontrollable trembling somewhere at her core. It took her a moment to subdue it and find her voice.

  ‘We haven’t even discussed what she wants to do for her birthday,’ Frankie replied weakly. ‘It’s a family tradition that the celebrant gets to choose a special treat that we can all share.’

  ‘I explained that,’ Katie said importantly, almost bouncing up and down with excitement. ‘And I’ve decided what I want us to do—go horse-riding.’

  Frankie remembered that she’d wanted to do the same thing last year but the foot-and-mouth epidemic raging at the time had prevented the outing from happening.

  ‘And you’re willing to go?’ she asked, finally daring to meet his eyes. The jolt of recognition was faster and harder than ever. Just one look at that deep blue gaze and she could tell that he still wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him.

  ‘Only on condition that the girls promise to take care of me,’ he said with an apprehensive look that she was certain he was putting on for the girls’ benefit.

  ‘Don’t worry, Nick,’ Katie said kindly. ‘We’ve been before so we can tell you what to do. And the horses are very good. They’re so big that they look frightening but they’re really very gentle.’

  ‘In which case, I’d be delighted to accept your invitation,’ he said with a courtly bow that made both girls giggle. ‘Get your mum to tell me where and when and I’ll make sure to be there.’

  ‘And you’ll have to come back afterwards to have some birthday cake, won’t he, Mum?’ Laura finished, turning to Frankie with a beseeching expression.

  ‘Chocolate cake?’ Nick asked.

  What could Frankie do but agree? Although the third hopeful expression ranged beside Laura’s and Katie’s almost made her laugh aloud.

  The urge to laugh was what stuck so vividly in her mind that she was still thinking about it hours later. It was something she’d done far too little of, over the last few years, but ever since she’d met Nick…

  Was ‘met’ the right word? she debated silently in the quiet of her room, covers pulled right up to her ears against the February chill of a double bed with only one occupant. Nick’s advent into her life had been far too explosive to be called a mere meeting.

  Whatever it was, his presence seemed to have made so many things different, and this time she wasn’t thinking about the burden of guilt sitting on her conscience.

  The urge to laugh aloud might have been the trigger but, now that she thought about it, even her current feeling of exhaustion hadn’t curbed the deep certainty that she was doing the right job in the right place. It didn’t matter that spring might still be many weeks away, she found herself noticing the stark grandeur of her surroundings with a more appreciative eye than usual.

  Even her overwhelming concern about her ex-husband’s threat to take the children to live with him didn’t seem such a worry these days. It was nearly a month since he’d made his announcement and she’d heard nothing. Knowing what a legal shark he could be, she would have expected something to have happened by now, so perhaps he’d changed his mind.

  In fact, if it weren’t for the minor detail that Nick was preparing to marry another woman, Frankie was pretty certain that her life hadn’t been this good since…well, she couldn’t remember when. Still, she’d been quite content with her largely solitary life for the last seven years, and she’d always known that Nick could never be hers. It was up to the two of them to find a way to work together amicably while they got on with their lives.

  In her new state of optimism, even that seemed a relatively simple task.

  As the bed grew warmer she began to relax towards sleep. She was happily basking in the unexpected feeling of well-being when a little voice in the back of her head intruded with an unwelcome reminder.

  If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, it whispered, sending a sharp shiver of apprehension the length of her spine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SATURDAY dawned bright and dry but very cold.

  Frankie glared at the clock beside the bed and pulled the covers up over her nose, hoping for just a few more minutes, but from the sounds along the hallway that wasn’t likely.

  ‘Happy birthday to you…’ she heard Laura singing.

  Katie chimed in with, ‘Happy birthday to me!’

  She gave a resigned sigh, knowing that the day had officially started. There would be no leisurely lie-in today.

  At least Laura and Katie were happy and got along with each other reasonably well. She’d had so many children in her consulting room who did nothing but argue with each other that she knew she had grounds for counting herself lucky.

  She took a bracing breath and flung the covers back then forced herself to climb straight out.

  For several seconds the room seemed to sway around her and she was afraid she was going to be sick.

  Sitting shakily down again, she leant forward, instinct as much as her medical training telling her to bring her head closer to the level of her heart.

  ‘Not flu. Not today,’ she groaned, thinking of all the things she still had to do today to make Katie’s day perfect.

  Several deep breaths later she gingerly straightened up again, relieved to find that her surroundings were behaving themselves again. Her stomach still felt a little less certain, but that could be a combination of hunger, excitement and the underlying stress of the custody situation and her guilt over Nick.

  There was a hollow thud in the hallway below, followed by a squeal from the two girls as they emerged from Katie’s room to go thundering down the stairs.

  ‘Mum! The postman’s been,’ Katie announced gleefully on her way past her mother’s door, clearly already enjoying every minute of her special day.

  Frankie silently had to admit that this was the first of her daughters’ birthdays that she’d been looking forward to in her own right. She’d always loved doing those
extra little things for her girls—baking a special cake or organising a particular outing. But this time Nick would be sharing the day with them and although he’d been invited by Katie, somehow her brain was having trouble fighting the notion that he was there for her benefit.

  ‘Mum! I’ve got cards! They’re addressed to me!’ Katie shouted, the exclamation marks almost visible in the air in her excitement.

  ‘You’d better hurry up and get dressed, then,’ Frankie called back.

  ‘But, Mu-u-m…’ Katie wailed. ‘I want to open them now!’

  ‘Breakfast rules,’ Frankie said, reminding her of the family tradition that, Christmas, Easter or birthdays, any cards or gifts were only opened after breakfast was over.

  ‘But, Mu-u-m!’ she tried cajoling again, but Frankie wouldn’t budge. That little breathing space had saved many an argument and she wasn’t going to break the ritual now.

  ‘If you’re in that much of a hurry, you’d better get upstairs and decide what you want to wear,’ she pointed out firmly. ‘You don’t want Nick to arrive before you’re dressed, do you?’

  ‘Come on, Katie,’ she heard Laura mutter. ‘She wouldn’t let me open mine either. Let’s get dressed.’

  Frankie smiled, pleased she’d stuck her ground. The last thing she wanted to do was let either of her girls think they were being treated better or worse than the other. Their open love for each other was something too precious to spoil with sibling rivalry.

  Breakfast was one of their favourites in winter, traditional south-of-the-border porridge made with milk and a sprinkle of brown sugar over the top. In honour of the day there was a swirl of thin cream, too.

  Frankie had to stifle a chuckle when both girls were in too much of a hurry to see what the post had brought to volunteer to do the washing-up, but she took pity on them.

  ‘I’ll do it while you bring the post to the table,’ she told Katie. ‘Laura, would you go to my dressing-table and bring down the things I’ve left there, please?’

  Katie might have graduated to double figures in her age, but it didn’t mean she’d grown any less openly enthusiastic in her reactions.

  Each card brought exclamations of pleasure and Frankie was pleased to see that even Martin’s sister had remembered her niece this year.

  Bearing in mind that they’d be seeing him shortly, she was surprised to see that Katie had a card from Nick, too. How could a bachelor, who admitted to almost no experience with children, know how much the gesture would mean to a ten-year-old? And as for the book token he’d enclosed, it was more than her own father had done for her.

  Eventually, all the cards were arranged to Katie’s satisfaction along the mantelpiece and she was just twirling around to model her new fleece jacket when they heard the sound of Nick’s car.

  ‘Nick, come and look,’ Katie called, only prevented from leaping out onto the front path in her socks by a hasty grab of the back of her new jacket. Thank you so much for the book token,’ she added as soon as he entered the hallway, flinging her arms around his waist in an exuberant hug.

  For a moment he seemed totally nonplussed by her actions, both hands hovering uncertainly above her shoulders as he glanced towards Frankie as if for guidance.

  Frankie just grinned at him and felt the prick of tears when he wrapped one arm gently around her daughter’s shoulders and cradled her head in the other.

  ‘You’re very welcome, Katie,’ he said in an emotionally husky voice as he tentatively stroked her dark shiny hair. ‘Happy birthday, sunshine.’

  ‘Come and see her cards, Nick. She’s got loads of them,’ Laura invited.

  Of course, then he had to see Katie’s presents, too, and, knowing just how long that could take, Frankie silently took herself off to make the poor man a cup of coffee.

  Catching sight of herself in the bright surface of the kettle, she realised that her face was wreathed in an idiotic smile.

  She paused to stare at the image, wondering just how long it had been since she’d last caught herself smiling over nothing, smiling just because it felt as if everything was right with her world.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ She shook her head and turned away from the tell-tale sign. She did not need a man to make her happy. She’d made that mistake before and had ended up very unhappy.

  Anyway, Nick wasn’t in her life in that way. He was only spending part of the day with them to celebrate Katie’s birthday. There was nothing personal in it at all.

  ‘Here, Nick,’ she said as she offered him the steaming mug. ‘You should just about have time to finish that before it’s time to go. And as for you two, you need to get your things together. Gloves, boots…’

  She was speaking to their backs as they ran out of the room and for just a second she wondered when scientists would find a way to bottle children’s excess energy. She could do with some.

  ‘Have they got all the proper gear?’ Nick asked as he leant one elbow on the mantelpiece and sipped his coffee.

  ‘They wish!’ Frankie rolled her eyes. ‘I was the idiot who suggested this as an outing the first time and I think they’re well on the way to being hooked. At the moment we hire hats and body protectors at the stable but I’ve a feeling that life is going to get very expensive in the near future, and not just in financial terms.’

  ‘Would you rather they didn’t ride?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s just…Can you imagine what a logistic nightmare it would be? It’s bad enough trying to coordinate my timetable with their visitation rota. How would I add in regular riding lessons? Then, in September, Laura moves up to senior school and she’ll have the option of all sorts of after-school activities—music, sports, drama…Next year, it’ll be Katie’s turn to move up and I’ll be so busy racing round organising the two of them and their social calendar that I won’t even have time to go to work any more.’

  And the wretched man had the nerve to laugh.

  For a fraction of a second she almost succumbed to anger but then her sense of humour kicked in.

  ‘Just you wait,’ she warned with a narrow-eyed glare that only set him chuckling again. ‘I’ll get my own back. We’ll see who’s laughing when you’re so stiff after the horse-riding that you’re walking like John Wayne.’

  At that point the girls came thundering back down the stairs full of excited chatter and it was time to go.

  ‘Hey, Katie, are you sure you don’t want to swap?’ Nick wheedled as he stood beside her to give her a leg-up onto the pretty grey pony she’d been assigned.

  ‘No!’ She giggled as she settled herself into the saddle. ‘You’re too big. Your legs would reach the ground if you got on Misty.’

  ‘What a good idea!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think my horse is half-giraffe. My legs will never reach the ground on him.’

  For all Nick’s rude comments, the animal he was to ride was a beauty, and far more his size than a child’s pony.

  Suddenly Frankie was assailed with a terrible feeling of guilt. What if he really was afraid? Horses were large animals and some people were genuinely frightened of them. The poor man had more or less been railroaded into coming by her daughters. How could she give him a way out without spoiling their pleasure in the day’s treat?

  She watched while he gave Laura her share of attention and saw the extra self-confidence in her posture after his quiet words of praise.

  He was going to make a wonderful father one of these days, she thought, and the tight pain around her heart almost robbed her of breath.

  In the blink of an eye there were so many emotions whirling round inside her that she could hardly sort them out.

  There was pleasure and gratitude that he was doing his best to make Katie’s birthday special and there was sadness mixed with more than a hint of jealousy that it was just a temporary situation. All too soon he was going to be marrying Vicky, and who knew how long it would be before he was taking his own children out for their first lessons on horseback?

  The most painful emotion was the realisation t
hat she was falling in love with the man and that it was going to cause her nothing but misery.

  ‘Nick, it’s your turn now,’ Katie called, snapping Frankie out of her churning thoughts to the awareness that she’d left it too late to rescue Nick with his dignity intact. He was already standing beside that sleekly powerful animal and preparing to mount it.

  It wasn’t until she concentrated on what he was doing that she realised that he was actually standing on the wrong side of the animal but when she would have pointed out his error she was treated to a surreptitious wink.

  Silenced, she watched while he clambered aboard, knowing from her own childhood how awkward it could be—almost as impossible as a right-hander trying to use scissors with their left hand.

  Katie and Laura were so busy praising him for getting into the saddle that they didn’t notice that he needed no assistance to check the length of his stirrups or how to hold the reins. Frankie saw, and knew that this was far from the first time he’d been riding. At least that was one thing she could stop feeling guilty about.

  ‘OK, John Wayne. Smile for the camera,’ Frankie instructed, stepping back far enough to get all three of them in the frame, then finishing with an individual picture of each of them.

  She waved as they set off for the instruction arena, following at a safe distance to watch and take more shots as the lesson progressed.

  Next time, perhaps she should think about joining in, too. It was many years since she’d last ridden but if Nick was game to give it another go, why shouldn’t she? Perhaps they could go for a hack out into the countryside together once she’d rediscovered her old skills.

  Except there wouldn’t be a next time, not with Laura and Katie or with Frankie…not unless Vicky was a rider, and even then, why would she want to have another woman and her children tagging along?

  ‘Enough!’ she scolded herself, opting to sit in the protection of Nick’s car to watch when her feet started to turn to ice. ‘This is Katie’s day and you’re only going to think happy thoughts.’