He didn’t do family. He never had.

He didn’t know how.

But he could give her a place to stay. That had to be a start. He lived in a huge old house right by the hospital. Once upon a time the house had been nurses’ quarters, but nurses no longer lived on site. Big and rambling and right by the sea, it was comfortable and close and why would he want to live anywhere else?

Last year the hospital had offered to sell it to him. For a while he’d thought about it-but owning a house… That meant putting down roots and the idea made him nervous. He was fine as he was.

He could see the sea when he woke up. He had a job he loved, surf at his back door, a hospital housekeeper making sure the rest of the house didn’t fall apart… He had the perfect life.

His daughter wasn’t part of it. She was an eighteen-year-old he’d never met-a kid on an adventure to Australia, meeting a father she didn’t know. Had she always known who he was? Why had she searched for him? Had she been defying Mummy?

And at the thought of her mother he felt anger almost overwhelm him. To not tell him that they’d had a child…

Anger was not useful. Put it aside, he told himself. He’d meet Lucy and see if she wanted him to be a part of her life, no matter how tiny.

She’d probably only stay a day or two. That thought made him feel more empty than before he’d known of her existence. It was like a tiny piece of family was being offered, but he already knew it’d be snatched away again.

Story of his life.

He shook his head, managed a mocking smile and shook off his dumb self-pity. Olive Matchens was waiting. Work was waiting.

He’d saved Phillippa Penelope Fotheringham. Pippa.

He did have the perfect, solitary life.

Once Riley left, an efficient little nurse called Jancey swept into Pippa’s cubicle to tidy up the edges. Someone was collecting her toiletries from the hotel, she told Pippa, and she bounced off to set up a call to Pippa’s mother. ‘Dr Chase’s instructions. He says if you don’t talk to her she’ll be on a plane before you know it.’