The Love Solution Read online

  Ewan swivelled round on his stool and peered at her through his safety glasses as if Molly was one of his samples. ‘I hope you’re not developing a throat infection, Dr Havers, because if so, you know the rules. You shouldn’t be in the lab putting your co-workers at risk, not to mention jeopardising this project.’

  Molly resisted the urge to throw the semen over Ewan. ‘I don’t have a throat infection.’

  Ewan frowned. ‘Are you sure? You look a bit flushed and you sound pretty rough too.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. Actually, I was only trying to be sarcastic.’

  ‘That’s a relief, but I’d appreciate it if you tried not to be so sarcastic in future. You had me worried for a moment.’ His expression was deadpan.

  ‘In case I was ill?’ asked Molly.

  ‘No. In case you ruined our work. You know we can’t afford to let any rogue bacteria in here. Can I have the semen, now, please?’

  Molly slapped the pot onto his nitrile glove, knowing the gleam of desire in his eyes wasn’t for her, but the pot of gorilla jizz that had been flown in a week ago at vast expense from an animal conservation project in Rwanda. ‘And I promise to try not to be so sarcastic in future,’ she said, even more sarcastically.

  Ewan’s eyebrows lifted, the way they did when he’d read a scientific paper he’d been asked to peer-review and was about to rip to shreds. ‘That would be helpful,’ he said. ‘Or I might have to think about getting a research assistant who’s more respectful. Thank you for passing the semen.’

  Molly detected a nano-smile before he returned his attention to his work. He was joking about getting a new assistant, of course, because Molly knew he had a sense of humour. Unfortunately, it was often so well hidden you needed an electron microscope to find it. Then again, maybe it was a good thing that Ewan was so dour he made a high court judge look frivolous. It would be excruciating to be working on the “Love Bug” project with a boss who pumped out innuendos to rival a Carry On film.

  Molly went back to her own desk and her work on the Love Bug, a name that had stuck after one of the lab technicians had seen an old film on the TV and joked about it to Ewan and Molly. The top-secret project was a revolutionary hormone designed to help humans bond. Theoretically, it could make two individuals fall in love with each other. Theoretically.

  Ewan wasn’t amused – as always – about his complex work being reduced to a “sound bite”. Molly thought he was right about one thing: the Love Bug wasn’t accurate because the bonding agent was actually a synthetic hormone, not a “bug” or bacteria and definitely not a “love potion”.

  Ewan would have hit the roof if anyone described their precious project in such romantic terms. Well, thought Molly as she looked down her microscope, it had certainly been proven scientifically that Ewan didn’t have a romantic gene in his body. She’d lost count of the times that Sarah had told her Ewan was a lost cause and that there “were plenty more fish in the sea”. Sarah had taken on the role of surrogate mother since their parents had been killed in the accident on the way to Auntie Carol’s, even after Molly had ceased to need parental guidance where men were concerned. However, Molly thought – glancing over at him, oblivious to anything except the semen – maybe she did have a point about Ewan.

  She tried to focus on her own samples but then caught sight of the time on the laptop. It was half past six on the party night of the year and what was she doing? Smearing gorilla jizz onto a sliver of glass. That wasn’t normal behaviour by anyone’s standards, not even a dedicated research scientist such as herself.

  ‘Did you know the solitary confinement cells at Alcatraz were designed to face the mainland so the prisoners could actually hear the sounds of revelry in San Francisco?’ she muttered.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Ewan, hunched over his microscope.

  ‘I said I was thinking of ripping off all my clothes and running down the corridor shouting, “I’m a badass babe.”’

  ‘Mm. Of course.’

  ‘Ewan?’

  He swivelled round again. ‘Yes, Molly?’

  His eyes met hers through their safety glasses. Perhaps a ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth but it disappeared so fast, she must have imagined it and the Baxter lab, of course, was no place for imagination.

  ‘It’s getting late. Do you mind if I call it a day and get ready for the party?’ Molly said.

  He frowned. ‘The party?’

  She pulled off her glasses. ‘Yes, Ewan, the party. It’s New Year’s Eve if you hadn’t noticed.’

  He took off his own glasses and blinked. Molly’s determination to hate him from now on, melted like butter in a pan. Despite his name, wherever Ewan’s genes had originated from, it wasn’t Scotland or anywhere within a thousand miles. He had dark brown hair, not red or blond, and his eyes were the colour of strong espresso, rather than the blue or green a geneticist would have expected. Somewhere along the way, Ewan’s ancestors had coupled up with a tribe from the Mediterranean – and a pretty hot one at that.

  ‘Surely, you hadn’t forgotten?’ she asked.

  ‘No. No, of course I hadn’t.’

  ‘Are you going? It starts at eight, you know.’

  ‘Um. I don’t know yet.’

  Molly bit back a gasp of exasperation. The party, and the potential for getting pissed, was her one hope of persuading Ewan to let his hair down.

  ‘Well, it’s up to you, of course, but everyone will be expecting you,’ she said, turning her back on him and unzipping her onesie. ‘Especially after this morning …’

  Ewan pulled a face.

  ‘Well, when you get awarded the MBE in the New Year’s Honours List, people want to celebrate.’

  He grimaced again. Ewan might not have a sexual response but he also didn’t have an ego and had refused to accept that he was responsible for the lab’s pioneering work into parent and baby bonding among primates.

  ‘I suppose I’d better put in an appearance, if only to thank everyone who helped us win the gong. I can always come back to the lab when I’ve shown my face and it will be quiet as everyone will be at the party.’

  ‘The Love Bug will still be here tomorrow …’ said Molly, in despair.

  Ewan clicked his tongue against his teeth disapprovingly. In fact, he was the only man Molly knew who tutted in a non-ironic fashion. ‘Please don’t call it the Love Bug. It trivialises a very important project and it’s also completely inaccurate. You and I know it’s not a bug, it’s a genetically synthesised bonding hormone but if that … descriptor … slipped out to the press, they’d jump on it like a … like a … dog on a bone.’

  Molly resisted the urge to snigger. Ewan might be a genius, and gorgeous, but he was shit at similes.

  ‘You know what will happen, if some clever dick from the papers gets a whiff of our work before we’re ready to announce it publicly, it will end up splashed on the pages of some rag as a “sex bullet” next to a picture of Brian Cox showing his …’

  ‘Calm down. Our work is under wraps for now and the Love Bug will still be here tomorrow,’ she said, deliberately using the despised descriptor again and dumping her gloves in the waste bin. ‘But the party and your adoring fans won’t.’

  ‘I do not have adoring fans.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Molly mischievously. ‘What about Mrs Choudhry from admin and that guy from the equipment supplier with the hooked nose who smells like chloroform?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Really? Well, I’m going and if I don’t see you at the party, I’ll see you next year.’

  Molly made a meal of taking off her onesie, in the hope Ewan might change his mind and leave the lab with her but he pulled up his hood again and started tapping away at his laptop.

  ‘Maybe I can just fit in one more run of tests …’

  One day you will be found dead in this lab, Ewan Baxter, and eaten by fruit flies. In fact, it may be that someone – probably me – kills y
ou out of sheer sexual frustration.

  ‘Up to you,’ said Molly through gritted teeth, ‘but I have to get down to the fancy-dress shop and find a costume before it closes.’

  At first she thought he hadn’t heard her but then, slowly and very deliberately, he swivelled round again. There was genuine terror in his eyes and she thought his face had definitely turned a shade paler.

  ‘The fancy-dress shop? Why would I need a costume?’

  Power surged through Molly’s veins. ‘Didn’t you realise?’ she said, picking up her backpack. ‘It’s a fancy-dress party. The theme is movie heroes and heroines. Good luck with what you can find in the next half hour.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five miles northwest of Molly’s lab, in the village of Fenham, Sarah Havers inched open the drawer of the dressing table in the cottage bedroom. The white test stick still lay on top of her frilly red thong – the same one that had got her into trouble in the first place.

  The face of her partner appeared in the mirror behind her. ‘Is that feckin’ fireworks going off already?’ he said, fastening the top button of his uniform shirt.

  Sarah nudged the drawer shut. ‘It’s only six o’clock – surely they aren’t setting them off this early?’ Her heart thudded. She hadn’t heard Niall come out of the en suite.

  ‘Believe me, it’s never too early to set fire to your dad’s shed or blow your fingers off.’

  ‘Eww. Spare me the image, Mr McCafferty.’

  Niall ran his fingers through his quiff. Sarah thought he’d overdone the gel for work, but Niall’s “thing” about his hair was a small price to pay for living with a real-life hero, not that she’d ever tell him that of course. ‘Hey, I’ll be delighted if all we get tonight is a few lost fingers and some burns,’ he said, teasing his hair into an impressive ski slope. ‘It’s more likely that we’ll have someone die of alcohol poisoning or a juicy stabbing but as long as it’s not me, I can cope.’

  Sarah twisted the stool around to face him. ‘I wish you didn’t have to work on New Year’s Eve. You’ve already done the Christmas Day shift.’

  Niall frowned as he dabbed at a tiny shaving cut on his chin. ‘Most of the other crew have kids. It doesn’t seem right not to give them time with their families and you know we need all the overtime I can get these days.’

  ‘I’ll still miss you like mad. It means the world to me that you’ve been behind me giving up my job to start the business, especially a tiara-making business.’

  ‘You won’t miss me. You’ll have a fantastic time with Molly at the scientists’ ball.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘I’m not sure what it’ll be like with eighty geeks bopping away.’

  Niall flicked one of the crystals on her tiara and they shimmered in the lamplight. ‘And I’m sure you’ll liven it up, darlin’, though I’m not happy about letting my sexy fairy out of my sight.’

  ‘Actually, I’m a princess. The party theme is “movie heroes and heroines” and I decided that Anastasia counts as a heroine. Some people say she survived when the rest of the Russian royal family were murdered.’

  ‘You can be a sexy princess, then, I don’t really mind.’

  She traced a nail down the open V of his shirt, enjoying the softness of his chest hair under her fingertip. ‘And I love a sexy paramedic.’

  ‘Now, now, it wouldn’t do for Cambridgeshire County ambulance service to send a staff member out with a massive hard-on, would it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It would add a little frisson for the patients.’

  ‘Not with the kind of patients I’m likely to encounter on New Year’s Eve. You’ll get me into trouble … Now, I really have to go. Be careful out there and enjoy yourself. What time do you want picking up from Molly’s place tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Oh, erm … whenever you like.’ Sarah felt guilty about lying but she didn’t want to drop a momentous bombshell on him just before he headed out on his shift. New Year’s Eve was his busiest night of the year and he’d need every ounce of concentration as he hurtled along the roads of Cambridgeshire on his way to a shout. OK, she might be paranoid and sound like an old fogey, but surely anyone would be after what happened to her and Molly’s parents? You never lost the anxiety after a tragedy like that: part of you always knew that the worst could happen no matter how unlikely.

  ‘I know you worry but we’re trained professionals, remember? And if anything does happen, well, at least we’d have the paramedics on site.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Ni!’ said Sarah, then softened her tone. She was being silly and she knew Niall’s black humour was designed to jolly her out of her fears about him hurtling round the roads at top speed. The banter was the only way he and his colleagues could deal with their jobs most of the time.

  He kissed her again. ‘Sorry, babe … bad taste but honestly, my love, nothing is going to happen to me tonight, I promise you. I’ll text you if I can but it’s going to be a manic night. I’ll be back around four a.m. but it could be lunchtime before I surface properly.’

  ‘I suppose I can hang on until then to give you your New Year’s present,’ she said, growing excited again at the prospect of sharing her news and focusing on new life, not the past.

  ‘My present?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I can’t wait.’

  Sarah was still staring at her reflection when the front door shut and she heard Niall whistling “Happy” by Pharrell Williams on the drive. Only after she heard the engine of his motorbike dying in the distance, and when the pop and fizzle of the fireworks sounded loud against the newly silent house, did she dare to open the drawer again.

  She picked up the test stick and butterflies stirred in her stomach. Would Niall actually like his present? Getting pregnant now was hardly ideal timing. She’d given up her job to start her new business only a few months before and on top of the mortgage on the cottage, and the bills, they had to find the payments on Niall’s new motorbike.

  She spread her palm over her stomach. It felt exactly the same as it had for the past year. Not flat, of course – she hadn’t had a flat tummy since she was about ten – but it certainly wasn’t any rounder. She didn’t feel sick, either, unless you counted the butterflies of excitement and apprehension that had been fluttering away for the past half hour. Her body gave no clue whatsoever that it had another person inside it yet someone was there right now, its heart beating because hers did, breathing when she did, and relying on her for its survival.

  Niall loved kids and he adored his huge extended family. Sarah would never forget the first time he’d introduced her to them two years before. It had been at a party for his Nana McCafferty’s ninetieth birthday and a bit like being thrown into a pit of friendly lions and their cubs. And now she and Niall were starting their own tiny clan.

  Emotion bubbled up in her throat. She picked up her mobile and dialled the second most used number on her phone.

  ‘Hello, this is Molly, I can’t get to the phone right now …’

  Damn. Was Molly still at work at this time of night? It was New Year’s Eve – but then, her little sister had always been the biggest geek on the planet, next to her workaholic boss, of course. To be fair, Molly’s latest crush on Ewan Baxter had lasted well over a year now – far longer than any of the others. Sarah wasn’t terribly hopeful; Ewan had failed to respond to any of Molly’s hints so far. Sarah thought he was mad; Molly was gorgeous and fun and bright – when she wasn’t infuriating and impulsive, of course.

  ‘Hi, Molly, it’s me,’ Sarah spoke into the answerphone. ‘Are you still at work? If you are, don’t let Professor McDreamy make you miss the party. I’m still coming but I can’t stay over at yours after all so I’ll drive us home and before you ask, I don’t mind staying sober and no, I’m not ill …’

  Even hinting about the baby to Molly made Sarah want to laugh out loud and burst into tears at the same time. What would she be like when she told Niall? She imagined breaking her news in front of the embers of the cottage’s log fire. She ima
gined his gasp of amazement and his gobsmacked face. She wanted to hold the moment forever in her mind.

  ‘I’ll tell you more when I see you,’ she said when it was obvious Molly wasn’t going to pick up. ‘Now, get the hell out of that lab and put your glad rags on.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brushing past a Wookiee who smelled of mould and a rugby player dressed as Hermione Granger, Molly hurried away from the bar with a pint of cider for herself and a Coke for Sarah. It was slightly surreal to see the Biology Faculty staff restaurant decked out in streamers with a large glitter ball suspended from the ceiling above the salad servery. The faculty Entz Committee had obviously spent ages on the superhero-themed decorations, trying to cover the yellowing walls with posters of Marvel heroes but Molly still thought the place looked like exactly like a 1960s canteen. And a Wookiee wasn’t exactly a typical movie hero.

  Then again, quite a few people were pushing the boundaries of what qualified as a hero or heroine. Take Pete Garrick, the parasitic worm expert from the next lab to Molly’s, who was also acting as DJ for the evening, fiddling with the knobs on the decks. He was wearing what looked like an Iron Man T-shirt with fake muscles stencilled on the front. He cut the Mid and the vocals dropped out, so you could hear everyone screaming along to “Livin’ on a Prayer”.

  Wincing, Molly put the Coke on the table that she and Sarah had bagged in a relatively quiet corner. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind driving tonight?’ she said, leaning in closer so Sarah could hear above the “music”. ‘You can still stay over at mine if you want and we can get a taxi home, if I book one now.’

  ‘I don’t mind driving,’ said Sarah. ‘Anyway, I want to go home afterwards and give Niall my news.’

  ‘Ooo. News! Does this news have anything to do with the “tell you more when I see you” message?’

  ‘Might have.’ Sarah sipped her Coke and her eyes twinkled, reflecting the lights from the disco.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

  Sarah gasped. ‘Is it that obvious already? I’m only seven weeks at the most.’