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It was the briefest of contacts before he straightened up, reaching for the cup of tea Claire had made a few minutes earlier and setting it down on the desk in front of her. ‘Drink this.’ He folded his arms and sat down in the chair next to her, perching on the edge. ‘I need to go back to Coronary Care. What are you doing on Sunday? Want to grab some lunch?’
Cassidy hesitated, her stomach plunging. She had plans on Sunday. Ones she wasn’t sure about including Brad in. After all, he was just a fleeting moment in her life, a ‘passing fancy’, her gran would have said. She wasn’t ready to introduce him to her family yet. Especially in her current circumstances.
But the hesitation wasn’t lost on Brad. ‘What’s up? Meeting your other boyfriend?’ he quipped.
Her head shook automatically. ‘No, no.’ Then a smile appeared. ‘What do you mean, my other boyfriend? I wasn’t aware I had a boyfriend right now.’ Why did those words set her heart aflutter? This wasn’t what she wanted. Not with a man from thousands of miles away. Not with someone who would leave in less than a year. So why couldn’t she wipe the smile off her face?
He could see the smile. Distraction. Was that all that Cass was? What about how’d he had felt a few minutes ago when that drunk had touched her? The guy was lucky there hadn’t been a baseball bat around. Cass was getting under his skin. In more ways than one. And it was time. Time to tell her about Melody.
It would be fine. He’d tell her on Sunday. She would understand. She would get it. He had other priorities. He wanted to find his daughter, and that could take him anywhere in the world. Cassidy would be fine about it. She didn’t want a serious relationship with an Australian. She obviously didn’t mind the flirtation and distraction. Maybe she wouldn’t even mind a little more. Something more inevitable between them.
This wasn’t anything serious—she would know that. But he just didn’t want anyone else near her right now.
Brad stood back up. ‘Well, you do. So there.’ He planted another kiss firmly on her cheek. ‘And whatever you’re doing on Sunday, plan on me doing it with you.’ And with those words he strode down the corridor, whistling.
7 November
‘We seem to be making a habit of this.’ Brad smiled at Cassidy, his mouth half-hidden by the scarf wrapped around his neck, as she turned the key in the lock of the little terraced house in the East End of Glasgow.
His leather-gloved hand was at her waist and his body huddled against hers. It was freezing cold and the pavements already glistening with frost. Cassidy pushed the door open and stepped inside. ‘I’m afraid it’s not much warmer inside. Gran hasn’t lived here for over a year, and I have the heating on a timer at minimum to stop the pipes from freezing.’
Brad pushed the door shut behind him, closing out the biting wind. ‘I can’t believe how quickly the temperature’s dropped in the last few days. I’ve had to buy a coat, a hat and a scarf.’
Cassidy stepped right in front of him, her chestnut curls tickling his nose. ‘And very nice you look, too.’
He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose, before rubbing his gloved hands together. ‘So what happens now?’
She led him into the main room of the house and pointed at some dark teak furniture. ‘The van should be here any time. It’s taking the chest of drawers and sideboard in here, the wardrobe in Gran’s bedroom and the refrigerator from the kitchen. The furniture goes to someone from the local homeless unit who’s just been rehoused.’
‘I take it there’s no chance your gran will ever come home.’
Cassidy shook her head fiercely, and he could see a sheen cross her eyes. ‘No. She fell and broke her arm last year. It was quite a bad break—she needed a pin inserted. She’s already suffered from Alzheimer’s for the past few years. I’d helped with some adaptations to her home and memory aids, but I guess I didn’t really understand how bad she was.’
Cassidy lifted her hands. ‘Here, in her own environment, she seemed to be coping, but once she broke her arm and ended up in hospital...’ Her voice trailed off and Brad wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
‘So where is she now? Was there no one else to help her? Where are your mum and dad?’
‘She’s in a nursing home just a few miles away. And it’s the second one. The first?’ She shuddered, ‘Don’t even ask. That’s why I agreed to the secondment. It meant I could spend a bit more time helping her get settled this time. Her mobility is good, but her memory is a different story—some days she doesn’t even know who I am. Other days she thinks I’m my mother. I can’t remember the last time she knew I was Cassidy. And now she’s started to get aggressive sometimes. It’s just not her at all. The only thing that helps is hearing my voice.’
The tears started to spill down her cheeks. ‘I know I’m a nurse and everything but I just hate it.’ Brad pulled his hand from his glove and wiped away her tears with his fingers.
He nodded slowly. So that’s what the telephone calls had been about. No wonder she’d wanted some privacy to take them. ‘So where’s your mum and dad? Can’t they help with your gran?’
Cassidy rolled her eyes. ‘My mum and dad are the total opposite of me. Sometimes I feel as if I’m the parent and they’re the children in this relationship. Last I heard, they were in Malaysia. They’re engineers, dealing with water-pumping stations and pipelines. They basically work all over the world and hardly spend any time back here.’
His brow furrowed. He was starting to understand Cassidy a little better. Her firm stance about staying in Scotland was obviously tied into feeling responsible for her gran. ‘So you don’t get much support?’
She shook her head.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
Cassidy looked around her. The pain was written all over her face. ‘Everything in this house reminds me of Gran. I packed up her clothes last month and took them to the Age Concern shop.’ She walked over to a cardboard box in the corner of the room, filled with ornaments wrapped in paper, crinkling the tissue paper between her fingers. ‘This all seems so final.’
The knock at the door was sharp, startling them both. Ten minutes later almost all the heavy furniture had been loaded onto the van by two burly volunteers. ‘The last thing is in here.’ Cassidy led them into the bedroom and pointed at the wardrobe. She stood back as the two men tilted the wardrobe on its side to get it through the narrow door. There was a clunk and a strange sliding noise.
Brad jumped forward. ‘What was that? You emptied the wardrobe, didn’t you, Cassidy?’
She nodded. ‘I thought I had.’
He pulled open the uptilted wardrobe door and lifted up a black plastic-wrapped package that had fallen to the floor. ‘You must have missed this.’
Cassidy stepped towards him and peered inside the wardrobe. ‘I can’t imagine how. I emptied out all the clothes last month. I was sure I got everything.’ She turned the bulky package over in her hands. ‘I don’t know how I managed to miss this.’ She gave the men a nod, and they continued out the door towards the van.
Brad thanked the men and walked back through to the bedroom. Cassidy was sitting on the bed, pulling at the plastic wrapper. There was a tiny flash of red and she gave a little gasp.
‘Wow! I would never have expected this.’ She shook out the tightly wrapped red wool coat and another little bundle fell to the floor. Cassidy swung the coat in front of the mirror. The coat was 1940s-style, the colour much brighter than she would have expected, with black buttons and a nipped-in waist.
‘This coat is gorgeous. But I can’t ever remember Gran wearing it. I don’t even think I’ve seen a picture of her in it. Why on earth would she have it wrapped up at the back of her wardrobe? It looks brand new.’
Brad knelt on the floor and picked up the other package wrapped in brown paper. ‘This was in there, too. Maybe you should have a look at them?’
/> Cassidy nodded and then gave a little shiver.
‘Let’s go to the coffee shop at the bottom of the road. It’s too cold in here. We’ll take the coat with us,’ he said.
She headed through to the kitchen and pulled a plastic bag from under the sink, carefully folding the red coat and putting it inside. ‘This coat feels gorgeous.’ She held the edge of it up again, looking in the mirror at the door. ‘And I love the colour.’
‘Why don’t you wear it?’ Brad could see her pupils dilate, just for a second, as if she was considering the idea.
She shook her head. ‘No. No, I can’t. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even know if it belonged to Gran.’
‘Well, I think it would look perfect on you, with your dark hair and brown eyes. Red’s a good colour for you. Did you inherit your colouring from your gran?’
Cassidy still had her fingers on the coat, touching it with a look of wistfulness in her eyes. ‘I think so. I’ve only ever seen a few photos of her when she was a young girl. She was much more glamorous than me.’
