A Wife Worth Waiting For

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘Right,’ she said again, wondering why it hadn’t been his wife who had bought the groceries.

  Maybe he didn’t let his wife out. Maybe she was somewhere downstairs, having been cowed into submission after years of being married to him. Well, she had no intention of being cowed. Not by him, or by anybody, and something of her feelings must have shown on her face because he backed up a step.

  ‘Any problems, I’m just downstairs, but as I said, there should be everything you need here—’

  ‘So I don’t have any excuse to bother you,’ she finished for him.

  A hint of betraying colour on his cheeks confirmed that she’d correctly read his mind and, as he made his escape, she was sorely tempted to yell after him that it would be a cold day in hell before she would ever bother him for anything, but she didn’t.

  Instead, she walked over to the sitting-room window and stared out. According to the agency, Kilbreckan had once been a thriving, bustling harbour. A place that had boasted more than a dozen shops where you could buy anything from a pin to a tractor but, with the advent of the car and new roads, it had become a village in decline.

  It looked like one, too, Alex thought, but she didn’t mind quiet places. She’d worked in city practices, town ones and rural ones, and she knew the score. In city and town practices you could be almost anonymous, but in a rural practice the patients would be disappointed if they hadn’t found out everything about you within a week. Well, they were going to be disappointed, she thought wryly, because the inhabitants of Kilbreckan would find out only what she wanted to them to know.

  She turned from the window and grimaced as her gaze fell again on the sitting room’s bare walls and functional furniture. Homely it was not, but she was only going to be here for three months. She’d survive, and determinedly she unzipped her rucksack and took out a silver framed photograph. Once she’d put it down on the mantelpiece she was sure she would feel more at home, less lost, less…lonely.

  ‘Oh, come on, Alex,’ she said bracingly. ‘It’s not like you to get a bad attack of the blues.’

  It wasn’t. She’d trained herself to be always upbeat and positive, but tonight…Tonight was somehow different. Tonight, as she stared down at the photograph, at the familiar faces of her parents smiling back at her, and at herself, looking so young and optimistic, she found herself thinking of the man who had once been in the photograph. He was still there if you looked really hard. Just the edge of his jacket beside her father’s shoulder, but he was still there.

  ‘You’re never going to go away completely, are you, Jonathan?’ she murmured. ‘Even if I cut out more of my dad, you’d still be there, just as you always will be.’

  Sudden tears welled in her eyes, and with a muttered oath she put down the photograph.

  Bloody Hugh Scott. It was all his fault, her feeling weepy like this. She hadn’t expected a welcome buffet, a pipe band and a collective round of cheers, but she’d at least expected to feel wanted, and Hugh Scott had all but told her she wasn’t.

  Which was weird. He was the senior partner in the practice, so he must have agreed to her appointment, and yet…

  ‘Maybe he’s the strong silent type,’ she said out loud, then shook her head. He had been anything but silent about her bike. ‘OK,’ she continued, regrouping. ‘Maybe he’s had a bad day. It happens. You’ve had them yourself.’

  And maybe he’s just an arrogant jerk, her mind whispered, and she bit her lip. She hoped he wasn’t. It was going to be a very long three months if he was because no way was she going to run away from this job. Not only did she need the money for her future plans, she wasn’t a quitter, never had been. She might have got off to a bad start with Hugh Scott, but bad starts could be rectified.

  ‘Just be your normal, pleasant self, Alex,’ she muttered as she went into the kitchen to investigate what Chrissie might have bought in the way of groceries. ‘Just smile, and be pleasant, and everything will be just fine.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  A DEEP sigh broke from Alex as she gazed out of her consulting-room window at the grey-stoned houses of Kilbreckan, their slate roofs sparkling under the mid-September sunshine, and the harbour, empty this morning save for a rather rusty-looking trawler because the rest of the fishing fleet was out at sea. It was a beautiful spot, and the local people had been warm and welcoming, but after two weeks here it was only her pride and obstinacy that were keeping her from packing her bags and leaving.

  A discreet cough caught her attention and she glanced over her shoulder to see Chrissie standing in the doorway, holding out a cup of coffee.

  ‘Rough surgery?’ the receptionist said, and Alex shrugged.

  ‘It was fine. It’s just…’

  ‘Hugh.’ Chrissie nodded as Alex took the coffee from her. ‘Alex, I know he’s being difficult—’

  ‘Difficult isn’t the word I would have used,’ Alex said with feeling. ‘Downright impossible would be closer to the mark. Chrissie, I know he’s still grieving for his wife, and when you told me how she died…’ Alex shook her head. ‘He must have been devastated, but he has to let go, to move on. Taking his grief out on everyone because they’re alive and his wife’s not isn’t good for him and it sure as heck isn’t good for the practice.’

  ‘I know, and the damnable thing is he’s actually a lovely man,’ Chrissie observed. ‘There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his patients, and he’s a terrific friend. When he took over this practice ten years ago he could have asked anyone to join him but knowing how much Malcolm and I wanted out of Edinburgh, he asked Malcolm, but when it comes to Jenny…’

  ‘He thinks every locum he employs is trying to take her place,’ Alex finished for her. ‘I don’t want to take his wife’s place, Chrissie. I’m here as a temporary help, and I’ll be gone in two and a half months, and yet he can’t even bear to call me Alex. It’s Dr Lorimer this, and Dr Lorimer that…’

  ‘You don’t call him Hugh,’ Chrissie pointed out, and Alex looked at her as though she was insane.

  ‘Do you think I want my butt nailed to the wall?’ she protested. ‘He’s made it plain he considers me a complete idiot despite the fact I’ve been a doctor for four years.’

  ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘He does,’ Alex insisted. ‘Take this morning. It’s supposed to be his day off but is Hugh at home, with his feet up, eating chocolate biscuits and watching daytime television? No, he’s here, supposedly doing paperwork which is Hugh-speak for keeping an eye on me.’

  ‘It’s…it’s because you’re new,’ Chrissie said uncertainly. ‘He doesn’t know you.’

  ‘And he’s never likely to if he never talks to me,’ Alex replied. ‘If I so much as open my mouth at post-surgery meetings he gets this pained oh-my-God-the-village-idiot-wants-to-contribute expression, and I swear he must levitate out of his house every morning because I’ve never once seen him in the hallway.’

  ‘Maybe he gets up earlier than you do.’

  ‘And pigs might fly!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘Chrissie, he is avoiding me, and when he does meet me he behaves like such a jerk. How old is he? Thirty-nine. Thirty-nine going on sixty, more like, and a more pompous, arrogant twit I have yet to meet.’

  ‘Post-surgery debriefing in my room in five minutes, Dr Lorimer.’

  A deathly silence descended on Alex’s consulting room as Hugh Scott’s head disappeared from round her door, and her eyes flew to Chrissie’s in dismay.

  ‘Do you think he heard me?’

  The receptionist rolled her eyes. ‘Do you want the truth or a lie?’

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Alex groaned. ‘He heard me.’

  Which was just wonderful, Alex thought, reaching for her notebook as Chrissie hurried away. Post-surgery debriefing meetings with Hugh Scott were never a bundle of laughs and, after what he’d just overheard her say, this one promised to be a doozy. She should never have said what she had. She should at least have ensured her consulting-room door was firmly closed, but she hadn’t, and now she w
as going to have to pay, and pay big time.

  She did. By the time Malcolm had discussed all the patients he’d seen that morning, and every observation she’d made had been greeted by either a distinctly bored expression or an abrupt change in the conversation by Hugh Scott, Alex’s pen had all but perforated her notebook and her temper was wire thin.

  ‘Any problem with your patients, Alex?’ Malcolm questioned with an encouraging smile that told her he, at least, was on her side.

  ‘Rory Murray wasn’t very happy when I told him he has osteoarthritis in his hip,’ she replied, and Malcolm grinned.

  ‘I bet he wasn’t. Rory might be forty but he still considers himself the village Lothario, although Neil Allen at the garage would probably hotly dispute his claim. He’d think you were telling him he was over the hill.’

  ‘He did.’ She chuckled. ‘But he cheered up a lot when I told him osteoarthritis can appear at any age, and it’s actually been found in teenagers.’

  ‘On what basis did you diagnose that he has osteoarthritis?’ Hugh demanded.

  Because I’m a doctor, God dammit, Alex thought, but she didn’t say that.

  ‘On the basis of a thorough examination, and my medical knowledge,’ she said instead as evenly as she could. ‘I have—of course—made him an appointment to have the hip X-rayed,’ she added, fixing Hugh with her best try finding fault with that glare, ‘but I don’t expect my diagnosis to be wrong.’

  ‘It’s an odd condition,’ Malcolm observed, glancing uncertainly from her to Hugh. ‘You can examine a group of forty-to sixty-year-olds who have lived virtually identical lives, and yet some of them will have almost perfect joints, while others will have really quite severe osteoarthritis.’

  ‘Hasn’t research suggested that some people might have an inbuilt susceptibility to the condition, while others could actually have an inbuilt protection against it?’ Alex said. ‘I remember reading—’

  ‘What did you tell Rory?’ Hugh asked, cutting right across her, and she gritted her teeth.

  Did he have to be quite so rude? Presumably he did, as it seemed to come so easily to him, and there was no need for it. Civility cost nothing but, in Hugh Scott’s case, civility was clearly a completely alien concept.

  ‘I told him he should try to keep as mobile as possible, taking painkillers like paracetamol only when necessary,’ she replied, controlling her rising temper with difficulty. ‘Obviously, if the pain becomes a lot worse, I think you’d be looking to prescribing anti-inflammatory drugs, and arranging for him to have physiotherapy, but at the moment I’d say it was a wait-and-see situation.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Malcolm nodded, then the corners of his mouth lifted. ‘Did he try to chat you up?’

  Alex laughed. ‘He did, actually. My diagnosis threw him temporarily off his stride but…’

  ‘It didn’t deter him for long.’ Malcolm shook his head. ‘You know, I doubt if even being told he was going to die would dampen Rory’s libido. The minute he sees a pretty girl he automatically moves into wolf mode.’

  Just as Hugh Scott automatically moved into disapproval mode, Alex thought, seeing his face set into rigid lines.

  Oh, get a life, why don’t you? she thought. So Rory Murray had tried to flirt with her—so what? As a female doctor, she’d very quickly learned that some men thought you were fair game but you fended off such men with a laugh, leaving no hard feelings on either side, and yet Hugh Scott was looking at her as though she was some sort of raving nymphomaniac.

  ‘Did you recommend paracetamol to Rory?’ Malcolm asked, breaking into her thoughts, and she nodded.

  ‘I also suggested he try glucosamine tablets, and a cream based on chilli peppers,’ she said. ‘They’re both available without prescription, and there’s quite strong evidence that they could ease his discomfort.’

  Was that a very derisive sniff she’d just heard from Hugh Scott? She might have been mistaken, but she didn’t think she was, and slowly she turned in her seat to face him.

  ‘Am I to take it you don’t agree with my suggestion that he takes glucosamine and uses the chilli pepper cream?’ she said with an edge.

  Hugh leant back in his seat.

  ‘I suppose it won’t do any harm,’ he said.

  ‘It can also—in some cases—do a lot of good,’ she replied.

  ‘In some cases, yes.’

  ‘Of which Rory Murray might be one.’

  His gaze was locked on hers, and she thought, Back off buddy. I’ve had more than enough of you over the past two weeks so if you know what’s good for you, back off.

  He did. His eyes held hers for just a second more, then they slid away and he picked up his notebook.

  ‘I noticed Donna Ferguson going into your consulting room.’

  Of course you did, she thought, unclenching the fingers she hadn’t even realised she was clenching. You’ve all but got binoculars trained on my room so of course you saw her.

  ‘Apparently, she’s not been feeling very well for the past six months,’ she replied. ‘Nothing specific. Just general fatigue, and feeling a bit stiff in the mornings. I noticed her fingers were swollen, but her blood pressure and heart rate were both normal.’

  The supercilious look which made her long to slap him had disappeared from Hugh Scott’s face, and in its place was concern.

  ‘Both her mother and her sister died with breast cancer.’

  ‘She told me.’ Alex nodded. ‘She’s obviously scared witless she’s got it, too, but I couldn’t feel any lumps in her breasts or under her arms, or see any puckering of her nipples when I examined her. She took up the invitation to have a breast scan when the mobile unit was here two months ago, and her result was clear, so I think it unlikely anything would have flared up since then.’

  ‘Unlikely, but not impossible.’ A deep frown creased his forehead. ‘Donna’s mother died thirty years ago when she was forty and the treatment for breast cancer was nowhere near as good as it is now, but her younger sister died just four years ago at the age of forty-three, and she would have had a much better chance of survival if she’d come to us sooner.’

  ‘I can see why you’re worried,’ Alex said gently, ‘but I’m wondering whether she’s just perhaps suffering from “empty nest” syndrome as both her daughters are away at college, plus her swollen fingers could simply be the first signs of arthritis.’

  ‘Did you take a blood sample?’

  Well, duh, and did he think that would never have occurred to her?

  ‘Yes, I took a blood sample,’ she replied as evenly as she could. ‘It’s in Chrissie’s out-tray and will go off to the lab today.’

  ‘I want to see Donna when she comes back in for the results.’

  The words, But she’s my patient, sprang to Alex’s lips, and she crushed them down with difficulty. This case was clearly personal for him. She could see that, understand that, and if she also suspected he wanted to double-check her examination that was understandable, too. Just about.

  ‘I’ll tell Chrissie,’ she said, and he almost—but not quite—smiled.

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing else…’ Malcolm declared, getting to his feet, and Hugh stood up, too.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ Alex said, and the two men sat down again. ‘I noticed you have a poster in the waiting room advertising slimming and exercise classes for women. As nobody turned up on the evening the classes were supposed to take place, can I assume the classes have folded?’

  ‘Jenny used to run them,’ Malcolm declared awkwardly. ‘She’d weigh everyone who came in, give them a bit of a chat about healthy eating, then do some exercises. After she died I took the classes for a while, but as you can see…’ He patted his ample stomach. ‘I’m not really the best person to give dieting advice.’

  ‘It’s a pity the classes folded,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe they just need a new angle, something to kick-start them into life again.’

  ‘You have an idea?’ Malcolm said, and she smiled.
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  ‘Maybe. Let me think about it.’

  ‘It hardly seems worth while restarting the slimming classes when you’re only going to be with us for another two months, two weeks, and…’ Hugh glanced at his watch ‘…three hours. They will only fold again once you’ve gone.’

  ‘At least those women who are interested in losing weight will be able to get some advice from me during the next two months, two weeks, two hours, and…’ she glanced deliberately at her own watch ‘…fifty-nine minutes, which must surely be a good thing.’

  ‘I think it’s a good thing,’ Malcolm said hurriedly, but neither Alex nor Hugh were looking at him. Their eyes were fixed on each other.

  ‘If you want to restart the classes, then feel free,’ Hugh declared, indifference plain in his voice. ‘But I don’t want them interfering with the rest of your work.’

  ‘Your wife couldn’t have found they interfered with her work,’ she said before she could stop herself, and Hugh’s eyebrows snapped down.

  ‘We are not discussing my wife.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Alex replied. Calm down, Alex, calm down. Oh, sod it, she thought. To hell with calming down. ‘We’re discussing me, or rather your apparent inability to believe I’m capable of doing anything more challenging than taking someone’s temperature.’

  ‘Alex—Hugh,’ Malcolm declared. ‘I think you’re both perhaps getting a little heat—’

  ‘You wouldn’t be here at all, Dr Lorimer, if that’s what I believed,’ Hugh exclaimed grimly. ‘According to your CV you are adequately qualified—’

  ‘I am what?’

  ‘But I have to say I find your attitude less than satisfactory,’ Hugh continued as Alex gazed at him in outrage. ‘Dr Lorimer, you are not here as a member of my practice, nor can I envisage a time when you would ever become a member of my practice. You are here simply as my locum, to do what I say, when I say it, and the only reply I expect from you when I say, “Jump,” is “How high?” Now, Malcolm, about—’