Found: A Father For Her Child Part 17

'You know she has an illegitimate child? That's not really something we encourage in the Wentworth family.'

Carrie blinked. Illegitimate? Did anyone seriously use that word any more? Did anyone seriously care any more? She was beginning to see why Charlie and his father didn't get on.

Charlie grimaced. Pompous a.s.s. He was doing exactly what Charlie had known he'd do. Stick his nose into Carrie's background to check out her pedigree. 'She's a friend, Dad, that's all.' Bounce. Bounce.

Carrie sucked in a breath. She was surprised how much Charlie's dismissal of their relations.h.i.+p hurt. It shouldn't, that's what they'd agreed, after all. She should be happy that he was trying to stick to their deal. But the deal had come before her revelation. She knew now she could never just be friends with Charlie Wentworth.

'You know Veronica was asking after you the other day?'

Carrie swallowed. She should stop. This was a private conversation and none of her business. But, try as she may, she couldn't drag herself away.

'Oh, yes?' Charlie stifled a yawn. Bounce. Bounce.

Carrie felt her breath catch in her throat. He was interested?

'Said she missed you.'

Bounce. Bounce. Charlie rolled his eyes. h.e.l.l-kill me now. 'Really?' He'd rather go without s.e.x for another year.

Carrie swallowed. He was interested. There was a pain in her chest. He wanted his ex back?

'Play your cards right and I'm sure she'd take you back.'

'Really?' Charlie said distractedly. Thoughts of s.e.x had reminded him of how he had peeled Carrie's clothes off with his teeth last weekend. Bounce. Bounce.

Carrie ordered herself to breathe. Which she did. She ordered herself to move. Which she did not. The conversation was horribly fascinating-like a motorway smash, gruesome but compelling.

'What is that infernal noise, Charles?'

Charlie had had just about enough of the conversation. 'Someone knocking at my door.' I do work, Daddy, Dearest. 'My first appointment for the day. I'd better go.' Bounce. Bounce.

'So you'll apply for that surgical position, then?'

'No.' Charlie ended the call, pleased to have it over and done with. He checked his watch as he rose from his desk. Carrie was late. Maybe if he lurked by his doorway he could lure her inside.

He opened his door and jumped as he came face to face with her. The look on her face told him she had heard everything.

'Hi,' he said.

'Hi.'

'You heard that, didn't you?'

Carrie nodded.

Charlie couldn't tell what she was thinking. Her gaze seemed blank. She looked kind of frozen. That wasn't good. 'It probably didn't sound too good from your side of the door.'

He reached out to touch her, to tell her it wasn't what she'd thought, but she drew back.

Carrie felt her brain power up. 'No...it's fine. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been listening. It was none of my business.'

It was good that she'd overheard. To know that he hadn't really got over his ex-wife. It made the conversation they had to have easier. It made their parting easier. And it didn't matter that her heart was breaking. It was better to know now where she really stood in his life. Before she had too long to get used to loving him. Better to know before Dana got involved, too.

'Let me explain,' he said, taking another step towards her.

'Charlie, really,' Carrie said briskly. 'This is unimportant. There's something much more pressing I need to discuss with you.' She turned on her heel and headed straight for the staffroom, placing her laptop on the table.

She paced while she waited for him. She hummed a nursery rhyme in her head, determined not to think about the conversation she'd just overheard. About her fledgling love being well and truly flattened. She had to get through this. Afterwards she could fall apart. She could cry and rail against the fates. Right now she had work to do.

Charlie entered and she looked at him and couldn't decide what she wanted to do more-run to him or slap his face.

'Shut the door,' she ordered.

OK. This was bad. And he didn't think it was about the phone call. She looked serious. Deadly serious. Her pinstripes had never looked primmer. He turned and did her bidding then faced her.

'You're closing the centre down.'

Carrie suppressed a gasp. She could see his jaw clench and unclench and guessed the calmness of his statement had cost him a lot.

She swallowed. 'The centre is not viable. It will be my recommendation to the board that closure is the most expedient course of action.'

Charlie felt the burn of anger scorch his chest. 'Expedient.'

Carrie flinched at the disgust in his voice. He repeated it as if it was the dirtiest word in the dictionary. She lifted her chin. 'Yes. Expedient.' To h.e.l.l with him.

'I thought you'd changed. I thought you'd started to see past the bottom line.'

His barb hit home. He knew she had. She had changed so much in her time there. But that didn't alter the facts. 'My job is to look after the hospital's money.'

Charlie strode to the door and whipped it open. He pointed to the teenagers that were already lining up for their first game of pool. 'What are these kids going to do? Where are they going to go?'

'That data is not required by the board-'

'Data?' he interrupted furiously, slamming the door closed. 'They're people!'

Carrie swallowed. 'Rest a.s.sured, as with any report, I will also state the reasons against closure, which will include those issues.' Dear G.o.d, she sounded so pompous. So bureaucratic.

Charlie couldn't believe what he was hearing. The centre was the heart and soul of this needy community. He couldn't allow this to happen. It was madness. 'Is this because of us?'

It took a brief moment for the full implications of his statement to sink in. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Well, let's see. You haven't mentioned a word to me once about the state of play and then this morning you overhear a phone call and now you're shutting me down?'

Carrie felt herself stiffen. 'I resent your inference. This was a professional investigation. What happened between us privately has absolutely no bearing on the outcome.'

'You sure there isn't a little vengeance in there, Carrie?'

She stared at him, at his indignation, and her heart ached. But she didn't need to stick around and be insulted. Have her integrity called into question. She'd been down that road once in her professional career and had barely survived. She wasn't about to let Charlie do it to her all over again.

She picked up her laptop and fished around in her pocket for the locker key he had given her the first day. 'You will be receiving official notification in due course.'

Charlie rubbed a hand through his hair and stared at the key dangling from her outstretched fingers. This was making him crazy. First his father and then this? It was too much for one morning. She looked so self-righteous. So businesslike. What did tie-dye Carrie think of it? Didn't this bombsh.e.l.l affect her at all?

'There'll be an outcry. This centre will close over my dead body,' he warned.

She hoped so, she really did. But the words wouldn't come. This conversation had dealt the fatal blow to their relations.h.i.+p...friends.h.i.+p...kissing-buddy thingy-whatever the h.e.l.l it was. As hard as it was, it was necessary for them to both move on. He had a chance with his ex and she had a life with Dana to get on with.

She went for a nonchalant shrug. 'That's not my concern. Goodbye, Charlie. I hope you and Veronica are very happy.'

The light flippant delivery cost her dearly. She walked past him, her head held high, her back erect, her fingers squeezing the laptop bag handle with a death-like grip. She didn't want to go. But she couldn't stay, either.

Charlie watched Carrie disappear and realised the awful truth. She was ruining him twice. She wasn't only going to take the centre away but she'd also walked away with his heart. He had fallen in love with her.

It had crept up on him unawares but it was there nonetheless. No wonder he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. No wonder the women at the club the other night had left him cold. He'd been fooling himself that it was l.u.s.t-a combination of pinstripes and abstinence. But as she walked away and an intense pain ripped through his gut, he knew it was deeper than that. Much deeper.

Deeper than anything he'd ever felt before. Sure, he'd loved Veronica but, looking back, he wasn't so sure he'd liked her very much. His father had liked her so that should have been a clue from the start. And to finally have his father's approval had definitely helped keep the thing between them going.

But Carrie was different. She had facets to her character that Veronica had never had. And he loved each one. The businesswoman, the re-emerging doctor, the generous lover, the devoted mother. She was multi-dimensional and complex and he couldn't bear the thought of living his life without her.

His feelings were so intense that not even her proposal to shut the centre, to tear his heart out, could dampen them. Now he'd opened the floodgates, his love was gus.h.i.+ng through his system unabated. Not that admitting it helped. It seemed today, more than ever, their problems were completely insurmountable.

He pulled up a chair and sank into it. h.e.l.l-it wasn't even eight o'clock yet!

Two days pa.s.sed. Two long, slow, agonising days. Charlie relived their last words over and over. He relived the phone call from his father over and over. Every d.a.m.ning word. Her glib 'I hope you and Veronica are happy' rang in his ears.

He wished she'd given him the chance to explain. She hadn't had the benefit of years of similar conversations with his father. She didn't know the best way to deal with them was to tune them out. He'd hardly been paying attention for most of it. But his words came back at him repeatedly. His noncommittal replies. His bored tone. His evasive comebacks. None of that inflection, the grimacing, the rolled eyes would have been obvious from the other side of the door. No wonder she thought he was interested in his ex.

Between that and exploring avenues to keep the centre open he'd had plenty on his mind. He rubbed his hands through his hair. He felt like he had after Donny had first stabbed him with the syringe. Powerless. In limbo all over again. His options removed. His freedom denied.

He stood and paced around his desk. No. No more. Hadn't he decided just last week that he was reclaiming his life? That he wasn't going to wait around any longer? Carrie had challenged him to get a life and he'd taken her up on that. Was he really going to let circ.u.mstances block him again?

It had taken him a long time to build up the centre. To gain the trust of locals and authorities alike. And it had taken him for ever to find his soul mate. And he'd be d.a.m.ned if he was going to give up on either of them without a fight.

Two things he knew for sure. He wanted the centre and he wanted Carrie. The thought of being a father to Dana was completely terrifying, but he knew Carrie's daughter had wormed her way into his affections, despite his concerns, and he wanted to be a part of her life, too. A part of both of their lives.

OK, Carrie didn't love him. Yet. And he knew he'd be foolish to push that. That she would need time to be certain of his love for her and Dana. And slow would be good to ease into a relations.h.i.+p with Dana. If they took things slowly, maybe the prospect of being a father wouldn't be so daunting?

But he had to be let in first. He may have only known her for a short time, but her goodbye had seemed very final to him. He paced a bit more, trying to think of a way to reach out to her.

It came to him a few moments later. Of course. The centre. She was good with figures and she knew the financial state of his workplace much better than he did. Surely she'd be interested in helping him to find a way to make it work? No, scratch that-more than make it work. He wanted to go grander. He wanted the expansion, d.a.m.n it!

OK-she'd been sent here to do a job. And she'd done it. But was it how she really felt deep down? If he'd been a betting man, he would have wagered against it. Surely, with her own personal journey back to medicine so intimately linked with the centre, she could be persuaded to help?

He picked up the phone and dialled her home number without giving himself time to change her mind. A young woman answered.

'Hi, you must be Susie. This is Charlie.'

'Ah, Charlie. Dana talks about you non-stop.'

Charlie smiled. Nice to know he was in one of the Douglas women's good books. 'Is Carrie in?'

''Fraid not. She and Dana are spending a few days at her mum's place.'

'Oh, right...OK, then. If you hear from her, tell her I called.'

Charlie replaced the phone in the cradle. d.a.m.n it! What now? He had to see her. It had been two days and he was going mad without her. He rose from his desk and stalked out of his office. The area was deserted and the jukebox was blissfully silent.

He sat in Angela's chair at the reception desk and opened the bottom drawer, reaching for the phone book. He flipped through the pages until he came to the 'D' section then thumbed through, locating Douglases. Carrie had mentioned last weekend the suburb where her parents lived.

Charlie found four Douglases listed and prayed that Carrie's parents were one of them. He'd grabbed his stuff and locked up the centre. He would visit each address until he found her. He started the Datsun and prayed they didn't have an unlisted number.

Carrie was grateful, as she sat beside her mother, that her father had volunteered to bath Dana tonight. Her heart had been so heavy the last few days that any help getting through the day was appreciated. Coming to her parents' had been a good idea. It was a distraction for Dana, whose incessant chatter about Charlie was heartbreaking. And a distraction for her, too. Someone to talk with to take her mind off being in love with someone who didn't love her back.

Her mother put her arm around Carrie's shoulders and the brave demeanour Carrie had been putting on since she'd arrived cracked into a thousand pieces. 'Why, Mum? Why? I should never have got involved.'

'Oh, darling.' Meryl Douglas stroked her daughter's fringe. 'We don't get to choose if or who we fall in love with.'

'Dana's going to hate me,' Carrie wailed, dissolving into tears. 'She adores him.'

Carrie despised herself for this weakness. After Rupert she'd vowed she'd never cry over another man and here she was, five years older but obviously not any wiser. d.a.m.n Charlie. d.a.m.n him to h.e.l.l. It wasn't fair to worm his way into her life, wake her from her sleep, show her a better existence and then deny her the right to claim it.

Charlie pulled up at the fourth residence not at all confident that he'd have any luck here, either. The house was a typical Brisbane champher-board, high-set house. It was plain, nondescript, the paint a little worn in places. But it was neat, the gra.s.s clipped short, garden beds decorating the fence borders. An ancient-looking, floppy-eared Irish setter adorning the bottom step hobbled towards him as he pushed open the gate. It sniffed the hand that Charlie offered and licked it.

'h.e.l.lo, there, boy,' Charlie crooned, scratching the sweet spot behind the dog's ear. 'Is Carrie here?'

The dog looked at him myopically and Charlie chuckled.

He took a deep breath, climbed the steps two at a time and knocked on the door. His blood pounded through his ears.

The door opened. 'Charlie!'

Charlie looked down to see Dana's adorable face staring back at him. She'd obviously not long had a bath as her hair was damp and she was in her tie-dye pyjamas. She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his leg. Charlie felt his heart would burst it swelled with so much love for the little blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub who had captivated him from the very beginning. He reached down and picked her up, settling her on his hip.

'I missed you, Charlie.'

'I missed you, too, Sleeping Beauty.'

'Dana?'

A woman who must have been Carrie's mother approached. They had the same hair and the same whiskey-coloured eyes.

'Granny, this is Charlie.'

Charlie felt the lump in his throat grow bigger. Dana had introduced him like he was Superman, and he knew he would leap tall buildings for the daughter of the woman he loved. Could he be a good father to her? Her trusting eyes made him believe he could.

'h.e.l.lo, Mrs Douglas,' Charlie said politely.

'I take it you'd like to see Carrie?'