Assignment: Single Father

‘Can you cook?’ Nick asked her directly, and she laughed.

‘Most things. It depends what you want.’

‘Pizza—and Chrissie likes spag. bol.’

Fran nodded thoughtfully, transferring her gaze to the unresponsive girl. ‘I think I can manage that.’

Chrissie looked away dismissively, and Fran thought that even without words she managed to communicate her feelings—and just now, her feelings were less than friendly.

‘She’s vegetarian, though,’ Nick was adding. ‘So no meat, worse luck. She doesn’t do meat.’

‘I’m sure Miss Williams knows what a vegetarian is, Nick,’ Xavier put in drily, and opened the side door of the car. ‘Fran, this board slides out of the floor like this, and locks, and then you can push the chair up and it clips into place.’

He pulled and clicked and then wheeled Chrissie effortlessly into the car, then with a clunk her chair was secure and he was sliding the board home and closing the door.

Fran decided to practise with the empty wheelchair before she had to do it for real. She didn’t want to mess up and dump Chrissie on the drive, and she was sure Xavier would be less than thrilled, too, not to mention Chrissie herself!

Nick was piling all their bags into the back and climbing into the seat behind Xavier, chattering nineteen to the dozen about what he’d done and the goal he’d scored in football and that he needed new football boots and could he go on the field trip in February to France, and Harry had been kicked in the chin and had to go to hospital after football because his jaw might be broken.

Finally he ground to a halt, and Xavier shot Fran a wry glance. Still not put off? it seemed to say, but in truth she thought Nick was delightful, just a normal, healthy boy bursting with energy.

Chrissie, on the other hand, was almost unnerving with her silent watchfulness, and Fran wondered how on earth she would communicate with her. The hand-held computer would surely have its limitations, but she’d just watch Xavier and see how he did it, and then talk to him later after the children were in bed.

She’d already established to herself that Chrissie could convey her feelings. It was her needs that were more of an issue here, and of more concern to Fran. She didn’t need to be liked. She did, however, need to be able to do her job, and she was on a week’s trial. The last thing she wanted was to screw up yet another job.

Xavier couldn’t believe his luck. He’d actually found someone—and not just anyone, but a highly skilled professional who by a freak of fate needed a live-in post, just when he was getting desperate.

He wouldn’t trust Chrissie to an amateur—he couldn’t. There was too much at stake, and a nurse of Fran’s experience would be alert to any slight change in her. Not that it was likely, after all this time, but he still wasn’t sure he really believed there was nothing wrong, and all the time he felt as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But Fran—Fran was a gift from the gods, and he hardly dared believe it. He’d phoned her old boss at the London hospital and had received such a glowing reference that he daren’t tell her about it because she’d be so embarrassed. It seemed a tragic shame that her career in trauma had been cut short, but he wasn’t complaining, not if it meant she was free to work for him.

He went into his study, the dogs in tow, and dropped into the chair behind his desk, swinging his feet up onto the worn and battered top and resting his head against the high leather back of the chair with a sigh.

He had some phone calls to make and one or two bits of paperwork to deal with, but he just wanted to grab a few precious, quiet minutes to himself. The children were tucked up in bed, the television was finally silenced and Fran was unpacking her possessions in her flat.

He closed his eyes and pictured her, those beautiful blue-grey eyes that said so much, bare lips the colour of a faded rose, full and soft and ripe. There was something incredibly English about her looks, the pale alabaster of her skin, the warm glow in her cheeks, the fine cheekbones. Her hair had been up, the dark, gleaming tresses scraped back into a loose knot and secured at her nape with a clip.

It made his fingers itch. He’d wanted to remove the clip, to free her hair and watch it fall in a curtain around her shoulders, to thread his fingers through it and touch the softness.

He’d wanted all sorts of things, like the feel of her body against him, the taste of her mouth on his tongue, the slide of her skin against his own, but he would never know these things.

She was an employee, a member of his team at work, a pivotal part of his home life, please, God, and he needed her in that capacity far more than he needed the mere gratification of his sexual desires. He’d managed without since Sara had died, and he could manage for as long as it took to sort Chrissie out.

Maybe then he’d allow himself the luxury of an affair—if he could find anyone stupid enough to take him on.

With a short sigh he swung his feet to the ground and went out to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine from the bottle in the fridge. It was nothing special, just a supermarket cheapie that he’d picked up the other day, but it was cool and refreshing and it might blur the edges a bit, if he was lucky.

Not a chance. Fran came down the back stairs and through the door, her hair down around her shoulders, wearing jeans and a simple sweater that hugged her waist and showed off the soft, ample fullness of her breasts, and desire slammed through him like an express train.

Dear God. He was going to have to live with this woman, work with her, share almost every detail of his life with her.

Mere sexual gratification? Mere? He set his glass down with exaggerated care and forced himself to meet her eyes. ‘Wine?’

‘Oh, lovely, thanks. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the children, particularly Chrissie, and I wouldn’t mind a lesson in pulling out that ramp thing and clipping in the wheelchair, if you can be bothered.’

‘Sure,’ he said, glad to have something positive to focus on apart from the gentle swell of her breasts and the way her hair fell in those soft, shining waves across her shoulders. He pictured it spread out over a pillow, and stifled a groan. ‘Let’s go and do that now before it gets even colder,’ he said, and, shrugging on his coat, he grabbed his car keys off the fridge and headed for the door, collecting the wheelchair as he went.

He seemed a little abrupt, Fran thought. Tired and preoccupied, perhaps? Worried about the children?

All of the above, probably. She hurried after him, practised slotting the ramp in and out and clipping in the wheelchair until she was sure she could do it blindfolded, and then they went back inside and he poured her the glass of wine he’d promised her and picked up his own.

‘Let’s go into my study,’ he said. ‘It’s comfortable, and there’s no danger of being overheard by the children.’

She nodded and followed him yet again. She seemed to have spent a great deal of time doing that today, she thought, but it was quite an interesting view, one the dogs must be quite used to as well. She stifled a smile and went into his study after him, the dogs trotting along beside her, and closed the door softly behind them all.

It was a lovely room, the walls completely lined with books, a battered desk of some considerable vintage set at right angles to the big, low window overlooking the drive. There was a huge leather swivel chair behind the desk and a toning leather chesterfield beside the fireplace.

Shoving the dogs off onto the floor, Xavier dropped into the chesterfield, waved at the other end of it and watched her as she settled into the other corner, a brooding look on his face.

She wondered what she’d done wrong, but apparently it was rather what she’d done right.

‘You have no idea how grateful I am to you for stepping into this post with so little warning,’ he said quietly. ‘I was at my wits’ end. I’d literally run out of options, and the kids were going to have to come to the surgery by taxi and sit in the office till I’d finished every night. Can you imagine Nick sitting still for that long? He’d be murdered by the staff before the week was out.’

Fran could believe it. He was certainly a live wire, she thought, although she couldn’t imagine Chrissie being any trouble if you could cope with the cold-shoulder treatment. She’d come in that evening, settled herself down at the kitchen table in silence and ploughed her way steadily through her homework.

Nick, on the other hand, had had to be retrieved from his bedroom and practically screwed to the chair by his exasperated father before he’d finally given in and opened his books.

‘Tell me about that little computer thing Chrissie has,’ Fran said, remembering how she’d communicated with her father and brother during the evening.

‘Her palm? It’s just that, a tiny computer that fits in her hand and means she can communicate without writing—well, she does write, simplified letters that the computer reads and then brings up into print on the small screen for us to see. It’s slower, but it means she doesn’t ever run out of paper and, besides, it’s cool. It gives her street cred, and I suppose in her position that’s important.’

Fran nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ She hesitated, then plunged on regardless. ‘I hate to bring it up again, but—do you have any idea what it might have been about the accident that made her stop talking?’

A shadow came over his face and he shook his head. ‘No. None. To be honest, I’ve hardly discussed it with her. Every mention of it distressed her so much in the beginning that we just avoided it, and opinion is divided on the efficacy of counselling in post-traumatic stress disorder—if it is PTSD. I still don’t know if I believe that. I can’t believe a healthy, active teenager would deliberately confine herself to a wheelchair and restrict herself to immobility and silence, no matter how traumatised.’

‘What do the experts think?’ she asked, curious as to their opinions, but he just laughed, a humourless, rather sad sound.

‘Oh, the experts couldn’t agree. Some wanted to try pressing her, forcing the issue; others said it was profoundly dangerous and she’d come out of it in time on her own. So what do you do? Who do you believe?’

‘What did you do?’

Xavier shrugged. ‘Nothing helped. The therapy made her even more withdrawn, so we stopped it and we just manage the situation as well as we can. She sees a physio twice a week and I do resisted exercises with her every evening, and she goes swimming on her games afternoon at a special hydrotherapy session, and I just hope to God she comes out of it before her body’s permanently damaged.’

He looked down into his wineglass, his face taut, a muscle working in his jaw, and Fran had an overwhelming urge to take the glass out of his hand and lay him down and massage the tension out of his shoulders. He was like a bowstring, she thought, strung so tight he would break, and she wondered if he ever did anything for himself, took any time to be himself and not a father or a doctor.

With one hand he was idly fondling the ear of one of the dogs, propped lovingly against his leg, and the other dog had her chin on his foot.

Such devotion. It wasn’t hard to see how he inspired it, she thought. He was so kind, so generous with himself, so thoughtful. He’d brought her things in out of her car, the few pitiful possessions she’d brought with her from London, and put them upstairs in the pretty little flat that was her new home.