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‘I don’t want that either,’ Elspeth admitted. It wasn’t going to be easy, having him in her life. Not when her body had its own very firm ideas of what it wanted from him, which were strictly off-limits. But they both owed it to their baby to work out how to be around each other.
‘I’ll look at my property portfolio,’ Fraser said at last. ‘See if there’s a place in the city that’s suitable for us. For me and a room for the baby, I mean. If not, I’ll see what’s on the market.’
‘What about your work?’ Elspeth asked.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t have to be there twenty-four-seven. I can work from the city some of the time if I have to. I’ll work it out. This is too important not to.’
Elspeth nodded, and they walked on.
‘Are you going to carry on living with your mum?’ Fraser asked.
‘I don’t have a choice,’ Elspeth said. ‘My mum and I take care of my sister. My sister and I help Mum out. They both help me put in the hours at work that I need to do so that we can pay the mortgage. If I leave, the whole ecosystem stops working.’
Her sister had mentioned once or twice that she would like to move out one day, but Elspeth had been trying to break it to her gently that there was no way it could happen. Elspeth needed to oversee all her care, and it just wouldn’t be possible if they weren’t under the same roof.
She glanced across and saw Fraser nodding. ‘I understand that—sounds like a lot of pressure on you, though. And there’s enough room for you all, when the baby gets here?’
‘For now.’ She nodded, with more confidence than she felt. ‘The baby will sleep in my room. And when that’s not possible any more...’
Well, I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, she thought.
By the time the baby was born her training post would have finished and she should have been offered a permanent job. Janet was happy enough with her,
and the shortage of GPs across the country was in her favour. But... But what if she didn’t get the job? What if she couldn’t find anything else near her home, so that she would always be nearby if she was needed?
She felt a twinge of anxiety. This was when she was meant to be making big commitments in her career—while her mum was still mobile, before her responsibilities grew even more. She had intended to spend her thirties working every unsociable hour, taking every extra shift, every on-call, covering for colleagues, all to build up a pot of money and goodwill that would be sorely needed when they all needed more help.
She’d never made the conscious decision that she wouldn’t have children—she just hadn’t thought about where in her plan it might happen. But then Fraser had come along and all her carefully made plans had been worth less than nothing.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Fraser asked, and Elspeth realised they had been walking in silence for a good ten minutes.
‘Work,’ she replied, knowing that she was holding back.
‘Anything I can help with?’
‘Not really.’ She shook her head. There was no point. Fraser couldn’t fix this situation any more than she could. ‘Just thinking about what I’m going to do when my training post comes to an end if I don’t get this job.’
‘You’ll get it,’ he said, with a confidence she had never felt. ‘They must love you. You dragged yourself to that wedding...’
She smiled, knowing that he was thinking about the first time they’d met.
‘I definitely earned some Brownie points with that.’
Janet had written a touching note in the thank-you card she’d sent after the event, saying how pleased she was that she had been able to come. And no one seemed to have noticed that she’d sneaked out early, so she was winning all round.
‘I’ll need you to send me your address,’ Fraser said after they’d walked on a bit more. ‘I’ll start looking for somewhere nearby.’
‘Nearby?’
So they might bump into each other in the supermarket, or out for a jog? She felt a shiver of apprehension at the realisation of how present Fraser was going to be in her life from here on in. How impossible it was going to be to ignore him. How much of a challenge it was going to be trying to ignore this chemistry between them. He never said his flat in the city would be close.
‘Doesn’t make sense for me to get a place if it takes me an hour to travel across from the other side of the city.’
‘I know. I just hadn’t thought...’
‘What? That I’d be a part of your life?’
Ugh, she could do without him reading her mind right now.
