“Hmm.” Hettie grinned. “Don’t think what you were getting up to called for much in the way of sleeping.”
“I can take the baby now.” Frankie hoped the change of direction in their conversation was enough to derail Hettie.
Though, like a train hurtling towards its destination, Hettie refused to be put off course. “Come to think of it, Doctor Lucas is looking a bit peaky this morning, too.”
“He always looks like that,” Frankie retorted, taking the baby from Hettie and dropping a kiss onto his soft head.
Hettie laughed. “Best not let him hear you talking like that, otherwise you might find yourself getting a good night’s sleep tonight.”
Frankie couldn’t help but laugh alongside Hettie. Her feelings for Lucas were new, she didn’t want to explore them yet, but she knew enough that she wanted to spend another night in his arms. And Hettie was right, there definitely wouldn’t be much sleeping going on. Not if she had something to say about it.
Chapter Six
The shift change complete, Lucas looked around for Frankie. He’d been overly harsh with her, but he couldn’t bear the thought of someone guessing they’d spent time together being more than professional colleagues.
The baby was once again cocooned against her body and she swayed from side to side as though to soothe him. She’d make an excellent mother. Despite what he’d said to her earlier about not knowing anything about babies, she’d taken to it remarkably quickly.
Lucas looked through the list of patients, focussing his mind on what he needed to do, not what he wanted to do. Or, rather, who he wanted to do. She was a colleague, an occasional lover. Definitely not Frankie the fabulous mother. Those were dangerous thoughts. Ones he couldn’t afford to be having.
“What’s on the list for us today?”
“We’re going to be hospital-based today. We were out yesterday and the day before, and with you looking after the little guy, it’ll be easier for us to stay here.”
“I’d rather not face the cameras again either.”
“You wouldn’t?” Lucas had noticed her discomfort, but it seemed so contradictory to what he’d believed. “I thought that’s how you made your living?”
She shrugged, a sad smile showing her disappointment in him. “It is. Well, it was. But that reality TV stuff wasn’t my idea.”
“You just went along with it?” Not that it was so difficult to believe, she was obviously a compassionate person. But ‘follower’ didn’t exactly go with what he’d learned about Frankie. She certainly knew her own mind—he was witness to that.
“It seemed easier. Being Joey’s girlfriend included intense media attention. I knew that when we first met. He and some team mates were visiting the hospital I was working at and I knew even then he was destined for great things.” She shrugged as though giving up her career for the guy who’d eventually broken her heart was no great thing.
“You gave up everything for him?” Lucas couldn’t help but push her. This wasn’t the Frankie that he knew.
“I was young, he flattered me.” This time her shrug was helpless. “I believed in him, in us. Enough to give away my own dreams to follow his.”
“What did your parents think of your choice?”
“My mother encouraged me to follow my heart. My father was disappointed.” Frankie stroked the top of the baby’s head while she spoke. “But, then, he thought I should’ve trained to be a doctor like him. He thought being a nurse was beneath me. So, of course, being a footballer’s girlfriend was definitely less than he’d hoped for me.”
“You sound as though your relationship with your father is difficult.”
“It is,” Frankie agreed. “He wanted me to be brilliant and talked-about for my amazing surgical skills and not for the dresses I wore or my new hairstyle.”
“Does he know you’re here now?”
“Yes.” Frankie nodded, her eyes meeting his for the first time since their conversation started. “He’s the one who helped me buy the medical supplies I brought with me. It was the first time in years I saw pride when he looked at me.”
It explained a lot about the type of person Frankie was and maybe even why she’d come to Astoria in its moment of need—she was searching for approval from her father after her relationship with Joey had failed.
“You came here to please your father?”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently, her caramel coloured hair swishing in the neat ponytail. “I came here for me.”
“To get away from the media?”
She pinned him with a molten chocolate glare. “If I wanted to escape the media, I’d have gone somewhere they couldn’t reach me, somewhere they couldn’t follow.”
“And yet they did follow you.”
“I didn’t exactly try and cover my tracks, Lucas. I came here because I thought it was the right thing for me to do. At a time of my life when I was struggling to come to terms with who I was, coming here felt right.”