still felt like he was shirking his responsibilities.
He doubted his parents would be impressed.
But, as she’d said, it was a compromise. He could hardly drag her to London when she didn’t want to go.
He had no doubt there was legal recourse but he knew if he forced her to do something she didn’t want to do, it could do irreparable damage to their relationship. And she was the mother of his child. It was in both their interests and particularly in the interest of his unborn son — oh, God he was doing it now — to keep things amicable.
Hell. How had their fun, easy relationship become so complicated?
‘It sounds like a start,’ he said.
They walked in silence the short distance to their cars. Maggie turned as she reached for her door handle. ‘Should we shake on it?’ She held out her hand.
Nash looked at it, then up into her face. She was looking at him with her big brown eyes and he wanted nothing more than to go back to her place and hold her while they fell asleep.
He lifted a hand, stroking her fringe back and tracing her cheekbone until he was cupping her jaw. ‘I think we’ve passed that, don’t you?’
His voice was soft and his gaze was on her mouth and Maggie couldn’t have stopped her eyes fluttering shut or the sway of her body towards his had her life depended on it. It had been days since he’d kissed her and she yearned for the feel of his lips.
Nash lowered his head and dropped a soft kiss against her pliant mouth. Her sigh encouraged him to linger a little longer and he deepened the kiss. But when she moaned he knew they were treading on dangerous ground. She was tired and he knew this wasn’t the kind of intimacy she’d allow if she had her wits about her.
Not anymore.
‘Go home, get some sleep,’ he whispered against her lips, dragging his mouth away and planting a soft kiss on her forehead before turning away and heading to his car.
Maggie watched him open his door, get in, start it up and drive away, all the time her heart breaking. How was she ever going to watch him walk away for good?
‘What are you wearing to the ball?’ Linda asked a few days later as she came round at the start of the late shift to check on how each of her staff members were getting on with their patients. Maggie had been allocated Toby again. She’d developed a real rapport with his parents and a definite soft spot for the little battler.
‘Oh, damn!’ Maggie slapped herself on the forehead. ‘I’ve forgotten all about it.’ To be fair to herself, she did have quite a bit on her mind and the tickets had been purchased in August.
‘I bought myself this swanky little number with a corset-style bodice. Phil’s gonna drool all night when he sees it.’
Maggie laughed at her friend. The Christmas Eve ball was not only the highlight of the hospital calendar but the highlight of Linda and Phil’s calendar too. Linda’s parents took the kids to Carols by Candlelight on the Brisbane River while Linda and Phil lived it up for one night of the year.
Of course, they felt like hell at six a.m. when six children landed on their bed demanding to open their presents from Santa.
‘I guess I’ll need to go shopping for something.’
‘Da.’ Linda bugged her eyes at Maggie. ‘Only seventeen more sleeps.’
Maggie laughed again. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘Are you counting down sleeps to Christmas or shopping days remaining?’ Nash enquired as he stopped by Maggie’s bedside to deliver Toby’s latest blood-gas results.
Linda shook her head. ‘Neither. Sleeps until the ball,’ she informed Nash. ‘Although it does help that the kids’ Christmas countdown happens to coincide. You are coming, I hope?’
Maggie threw a quick prayer into the ether. Nash in chinos and Levi’s was hard enough to ignore. Nash in a tux?
Now, that would be a magnificent sight indeed.
‘I bought my ticket in August,’ he confirmed, ‘but I’ve got a morning shift Christmas Day so I’m not sure if it’s wise.’
Maggie held her breath. Maybe he wouldn’t come?
‘Oh, you poor old man,’ Linda teased. ‘Can’t party all night and work the next day anymore?’
Nash grinned, responding to Linda’s well-intentioned banter but conscious of Maggie growing stiller and stiller beside him. ‘Well, I am thirty now.’
‘Oh, right. Hey, Maggie’s going and she’s working the next day. She’s got a whole decade on you.’
Maggie winced. She caught