All The Little Moments (19 page)

Lane’s teeth bit at Anna’s tongue, and Anna’s nails dug down. Pinned, she was being driven crazy as Lane’s thigh built a rhythm. Soft lips pulled away from Anna’s, and her groan of protest turned to delight as those lips pressed against
her neck.

The sound of a mobile ringing echoed, bouncing off the
cement walls.

“You have,” Lane bit at the sensitive skin of Anna’s neck as she spoke, “to be,” her tongue traced a trail to Anna’s collarbone, “kidding me.” Lips kissing Anna there once, Lane then met Anna’s irritable look.
She snickered.

“What?”

“You look
so disgruntled.”

“I hate
your phone.”

Lane didn’t move, obviously enjoying the close contact. “Well, yesterday afternoon I hated
your pager.”

“Yeah? Yesterday morning, your
mobile rang.”

“Should we even mention the evening before?” Lane fished her phone
out blindly.

Anna flushed. “Tess should
have knocked.”

“Yes, she should have. In a
public stairwell.”

“We need to stop making out like high schoolers all over
the hospital.”

Mouth dropping open, Lane stared at her. “But I don’t want
to stop.”

“Yeah, well, the entire hospital knows what we’re doing—Tess is a giant gossip. The cafeteria lady winked at me yesterday and said she liked that doctors don’t snub
nurses anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, now, go. Return that call—save patients or move wards or whatever you
nurses do.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Lane gave a mock salute with two fingers. “See
you later?”

“Of course.”

Lane kissed her, pulling back with a groan when her phone started
ringing again.

She glared at it. “Okay, I get it!” Lane looked back to Anna, slightly sulky. “Bye.”

Anna pouted as she pulled
away. “Bye.”

Hovering a minute, looking like she wanted to fall forward once more, Lane’s eyes flickered to Anna’s lips. With a groan, she turned and walked down the stairs, calling over her shoulder. “You’ll be the death of
me, Foster.”

Lane answered the call. “Dad, you have terrible timing.” There was a pause. “Yes, I am supposed to be
at work.”

Anna sighed happily and dropped her head back against
the door.

Hurriedly washing her hands after surgery, Anna breathed in the smell of coffee. Next to her, Lane waited patiently as she held the take-away cups. They only had five minutes, and Anna didn’t want to waste them. Drying her hands with a paper towel, she’d just thrown it away and turned to face Lane when her
phone rang.

With a heavy sigh, Anna shot Lane an apologetic look and pulled the offending item out of
her pocket.

“Yes?”

“Anna! Dinner, tonight. Lasagne. Are we still
doing that?”

Anna chuckled. “Of course we are, Mum. I’ve been looking forward to that food
all week.”

“I bet the kids
are, too.”

“What’s that supposed
to mean?”

“Nothing! Nothing. One question—why don’t you
ask Lane?”

Panic flipped in Anna’s gut. What was she supposed to say with Lane in hearing range? She glanced at Lane, who was ostensibly reading the small print on her
coffee cup.

“Uh…maybe, Mum?” Did you ask the girl you’ve had one real date with over for dinner with your mother? Was she even comfortable with that concept? The answer to that was, “hell, no.” Anna was trying to keep the two of them separate from the kids, to keep boundaries there. Having Lane over for dinner on a Friday night for her mother’s homemade lasagne was not a notion Anna was particularly
excited about.

But, damn her mother, because Anna heard Ella yell in the background, “Nurse Lane is coming? Awesome! I didn’t even get to see her last time, Aunty Na
hogged her.”

Pursing her lips, she prayed Lane couldn’t hear the conversation. Anna chanced another glance at her. Still staring at the coffee cup, Lane’s eyes weren’t
even moving—faker.

Now Ella thought Lane was coming. Really, damn her mother and her
excellent lasagne.

Sandra’s voice came over the phone again, “Oh, honey, you should see her, she’s so excited.” She dropped her voice. “And she had a bad day
at school.”

Anna closed her eyes and counted to five. “Will Dad
be there?”

Her mother’s voice changed. “Ah…no. He’s
staying in.”

Still avoiding her and Toby, then. He seemed to cope with Ella, but she and Toby apparently reminded him too much
of Jake.

Lovely. At least that was one less mess to introduce Lane to. “Sure, I’ll ask her. Tell Ella not to get her hopes up. She might
be busy.”

“She sounds like the kind of girl who’ll drop everything for you, but whatever, sweetie. I’ll see you at Ja—your place.” It was a slight hiccup, one she tried to glaze over but didn’t completely manage to. Her mother rushed to keep talking. “I’ll bring Ella over and meet you and Toby around six thirty. Tell Lane six thirty sharp. Ella and I will start the food
prep here.”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Love you.”

“Love you,
too, Mum.”

The phone dropped heavily into
her pocket.

Giving up the pretence of reading the three sentences on her cup, Lane looked up. “That sounded,
um, fun?”

“Parents.”

“Tell me
about it.”

“Ah, Mum is cooking at my place tonight, with the kids—lasagne. She asked if you wanted
to join.”

“Oh. Uh…are you okay
with that?”

Could this woman be any more thoughtful? “Um, sure, Ella heard, she’s incredibly excited. She’ll talk your ear off about how her cast is coming off in a
few weeks.”

“A
week, actually.”

“That
flew by.”

“Yeah. I’d love to join tonight.” Lane’s smile lit up the darkened
scrub room.

Guilt joined the panic that was swirling around Anna’s gut, but she forced her voice to remain neutral, unsure if she was managing to keep the panic off her face.
“Six thirty?”

“Sounds great.” Lane grabbed a fistful of Anna’s scrub shirt and tugged her close. As the softness of Lane enveloped her, Anna calmed down slightly. “You can get that look off your face, Anna. It’s
just lasagne.”

Lane was onto her. “Sorry. It’s lasagne that involves my mother and hanging at my
house and—”

“I don’t have to come,” Lane said. “If it’s going to make your complicated little head explode, I’ll just go get drunk with Kym at a bar and talk her ear off about this
 
totally
 
hot anaesthetist
I’m seeing.”

Anna laughed, relaxing completely into Lane and dropping a kiss to her lips. “No. It’s fine—complicated, like you said. Come. Ella would be incredibly disappointed if
you didn’t.”

Kissing her once, Lane asked,
“Just Ella?”

“Maybe my
mum, too.”

Lane actually
pouted. “Mean.”

“Fine.” Anna gave in. “I’d miss
you, too.”

“I
knew it.”

Their kiss was interrupted as Lane pulled back, eyes wide with realisation. “Shit. I’m meeting
your mother.”

Smug that Lane finally got it, Anna leant back against the sink. “My
point exactly.”

Reaching for one of the coffees, Anna took a triumphant sip as she watched Lane stare
straight ahead.

“At least there’ll
be lasagne.”

Lane’s voice had never been
so high.

Anna got a full half hour at home alone with Toby before the house was invaded. She was trying to swallow down her
conflicted feelings.

It wasn’t like she and Lane would start a romp on
the table.

She eyed the spacious dining room table when that occurred to her and had a lot of trouble quelling thoughts of a half-naked Lane spread
over it.

Anna read books with Toby, enjoying quiet one-on-one time that wasn’t possible at the day care. He leant against her as he sat in her lap, revelling in it. He pointed delightedly at every page, his lips rounded, saying, “Oo!” at everything. “Oo!
Na! Oo!”

They were interrupted at six thirty by the tornado that was her mother, the mouth-watering smell of pre-cooked sauce, and an incredibly
overexcited Ella.

The lasagne was quickly thrown together and into the oven. It would only need twenty minutes
to cook.

Deftly pouring two glasses of wine, Sandra handed one over. “Here, you
need this.”

One gulp and Anna instantly felt a little better. Under her mother’s orders, she started to make a salad, grateful someone else was directing dinner. She had quickly discovered why parents complained about having to cook something every single night: without the option of going out to eat every second night, it was hard to find meals that a fussy toddler and six-year-old would eat; it was incredibly tedious. Anna heaved a sigh as she sliced tomato, amazed that, over such a short period, so much had changed. Every now and again, she just wanted slow-cooked lamb from her old
favourite restaurant.

Ella was floating around like a very cute but bad smell, and Anna enjoyed seeing her move out of the quiet headspace she spent so much
time in.

“When’s Nurse Lane
getting here?”

For the fifth time, Anna looked at the clock. “In about fifteen minutes. Three minutes less than when you asked me the
last time.”

Ella clung to the bench with the fingertips of one hand, taking the carrot Anna held out with the other and jamming it in
her mouth.

The hope that it would quiet her for at least a moment was soon dashed. “Is she staying for all of dinner?” Ella asked
while chewing,

Anna actually laughed. “Yes, Ella Bella. She’s not going to get up and leave
halfway through.”

“How
long now?”

Anna’s eye
actually twitched.

Sensing Anna’s patience waning, Sandra held out an armful of plates. “Set the table, please,
Miss Ella.”

Ella nodded, grabbing the plates and walking into the dining room, still talking a mile a minute without noticing that no one
was listening.

Anna let out a deep breath and took another long gulp of wine as the
oven sounded.

Pulling the lasagne out, Sandra didn’t try to hide her amusement. “You were so much
like her.”

The knife in Anna’s hand sped up as she chopped cucumbers and tried to smother
a groan.

“You were. You could be incredibly introspective and closed like she can be; then there were days your father and I considered muzzling you for five minutes
of silence.”

“Gee,
thanks, Mum.”

“Well,
it’s true.”

Anna drizzled over dressing to touch up the salad. Not taking her eyes off her work, she tried to sound casual. “I miss
Dad, Mum.”

She sensed her mother tense behind her. Silence rang around them, the only sound coming from Toby as he smashed blocks against
each other.

“I do,
too, honey.”

“He won’t look at me.” She leant on the bench to check on Toby, who was under the table and oblivious to the conversation.
“Or Toby.”

“He doesn’t know how to do this.” Her mother’s voice was tight. “He, just…he…”