Quite a bit of weight on, he thought, as she reached for a piece of bread, and he saw how very thin her wrists were.
‘Belly dancing was one of my challenges,’ she replied.
‘Your challenges?’ he repeated, and she smiled.
‘You know how people make New Year resolutions?’ she said. ‘Well, about four years ago I started making New Year challenges, and each New Year I decide what I want to learn, or to do, and one year it was belly dancing.’
‘I suppose it could have been worse,’ he said as he forked some chicken into his mouth. ‘You could have suggested all the overweight women in Kilbreckan take up skydiving.’
‘It’s certainly good exercise.’
He blinked. ‘You’ve been skydiving?’
‘And white water rafting, and hang-gliding.’
‘And the reason would be?’ he demanded, and it was her turn to blink.
‘The reason for what?’
‘Taking up sports that no sane person would ever even contemplate. They’re all dangerous, Alex.’
In fact, the thought of her doing any of those things was enough to make his blood run cold, but Alex clearly didn’t agree with him. In fact, she looked irritated.
‘Crossing the road is dangerous,’ she exclaimed, pointing her fork at him. ‘Actually—statistically—crossing the road is a lot more dangerous.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I just want to live life to the full, Hugh, to not miss out on any opportunities, to see everything there is to see. We only come this way once, remember?’
‘Agreed,’ he argued back, ‘which is why most normal people want to go to Venice to stand in St Mark’s Square, or to the US to ride through the Grand Canyon or to climb the Statue of Liberty. They don’t want to throw themselves out of planes, or fling themselves down rapids.’
‘I don’t fling, or throw, myself out of anything,’ she protested. ‘I always make sure I follow all the safety procedures. I think it’s great you’re content with where you are, what you do, but for me…There’s a whole world of opportunities out there, and I want to try as many of them as I can.’
‘Which is why you take all these locum jobs,’ he said with dawning comprehension. ‘So you can save some money, then head off again to complete one of your challenges.’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Maybe one day—when I’ve seen everything, done everything I want to do—I might stop moving around, but…’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘And what does your boyfriend think about all the things you get up to?’ he asked before he could stop himself, only to add hurriedly, ‘Sorry, that was a very personal question. Forget I asked.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, her eyes not meeting his. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend. I was engaged once, but…’
‘It didn’t work out?’
Tell him, a small voice insisted in Alex’s head. He’ll understand, and when you leave in a couple of months he’ll see it’s nothing personal, that it’s just the way things are, so tell him.
‘Alex?’
He was waiting for her to reply, his grey eyes fixed on her, and she took a deep breath.
‘Jonathan and I met at a party when I was at med school. He was—still is for all I know—a stockbroker, and I fell for him pretty hard. We got engaged, and then…’ Say it, Alex, say it. ‘I found out…I found out…’
‘He wasn’t the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?’ Hugh finished for her gently, and to her surprise, he put down his knife and fork, and reached for her hand. ‘You’ll find the right man one day, Alex. Jonathan was an idiot to let you go, but you’ll find the right man, and live happily ever after and have lots of beautiful babies.’
You don’t know how wrong you are, she thought, feeling her heart squeeze tight inside her, and she wanted to tell him why he was wrong but his hand felt so good holding hers, and if she told him he would hold on to it out of pity, and she didn’t want that.
‘I…I guess so,’ she managed. ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’
‘It depends on what it is.’ His expression was suddenly wary.
‘How did you meet Jenny?’
For a second she didn’t think he was going to answer, then he smiled.
‘I was at a GP conference five years ago and during the interval this really boring guy collared me, and I was desperately trying to think of some excuse to get away from him, and suddenly she was there.’
‘She was pretty?’ Alex said wistfully, seeing his face soften as he spoke.
‘She was beautiful. She said, “I’m terribly sorry, but you’re needed urgently Dr Scott.” She’d read my name tag, you see,’ he continued, his eyes dark with the memory, ‘and when she’d got me away she laughed and said, “I thought you needed rescuing.”’
‘And that was it,’ Alex said. ‘You fell for her, hook, line and sinker.’
‘Totally.’ He nodded. ‘We got married six weeks later, and though we only had three years together before…before she was killed, we shared so much. Not just the love we felt for each other, but we had the same taste in books, and in music, and she…she was a friend. I know that sounds stupid—’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said, her throat constricted.
‘But now she’s gone and…’ He let go of her hand, his face unbearably bleak and desolate. ‘I’m nothing without her. I just get through the days as best I can, trying not to think, not to remember. She was so special, Alex, and everything I’m not. Kind, and patient, and gentle.’
‘You can be kind, too,’ she pointed out, her heart aching for him, wishing he hadn’t let go of her hand so she could hold his, could comfort him in some way. ‘OK, so you’re not the most patient man in the world but I’ve never seen you brusque with a patient.’
‘I was before you joined us,’ he said ruefully. ‘Malcolm threatened to relegate me to the paperwork if I didn’t keep a lid on my temper.’
‘You were probably just tired,’ she insisted. ‘There’s too much work here for two doctors, you need another partner.’
‘I know, but…Malcolm keeps telling me to move on, that I should let go, but…All my life I’ve been on the outside looking in, Alex. Maybe it’s because my parents moved around a lot when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because I was an only child like you and never learned how to connect with people.’ He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I don’t know, but when I met Jenny…’
‘When you met Jenny?’ she prompted, and his mouth twisted.
‘She brought me in from the cold, made me feel for the first time like I belonged. With her I wasn’t on the outside any more, with her I felt whole and complete, and when she died…’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘Everything that meant anything to me died, too.’
‘You’ll find someone else, Hugh,’ Alex said through a throat so tight it hurt. ‘There’s someone out there for you who can heal your heart, I know there is.’
‘No, there isn’t,’ he said sadly, ‘because, you see, I’m a forever man. I loved Jenny so much—I always will, so, you see…’
She did see, she thought, as she saw the heartbreak in his face, just as she also realised that for the first time in her life she was actually envious of a dead woman.
What must it feel like to be loved so utterly and completely? She’d thought Jonathan had loved her but he had never once looked at her the way Hugh was looking now as he remembered his dead wife. Never once made it so clear that she was his whole heart, and soul, and she had to swallow hard to ease the hard lump that had formed in her throat.
‘Hugh—’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a shaky laugh. ‘Unburdening myself like this…I shouldn’t have—I don’t know why I did.’
‘I think—perhaps—you needed to talk to someone,’ she said softly. ‘That maybe it was long overdue.’
‘Maybe.’ He shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘So, who do you confide in, tell your troubles to?’
She couldn’t tell him now. She couldn’t ever tell him
. He’d been through so much, was still hurting so much, and to land all her problems on him when she was just passing through…It wouldn’t be fair, and it wouldn’t be right.
‘Don’t have any troubles,’ she said lightly. ‘Don’t need to confide in anybody.’
He didn’t believe her, and she knew he didn’t, and so she talked about their patients, told him that the biker who had wanted a prescription for tranquillisers had given her a bogus telephone number for his GP, and was relieved when his cell-phone rang and he had to go.
But, after he’d gone, she walked over to the mantelpiece and picked up the photograph. None of them had known what the future would bring when that picture was taken. None of them could possibly have guessed that their whole lives would soon be torn apart. Life was so fragile. It could trickle through your fingers like grains of sand, and there would be no happy-ever-after for her despite what Hugh had said.
There couldn’t even be a happy-just-for-the-moment time with Hugh, she thought, her lips twisting into a sad parody of a smile as she put the photograph back down. I’m a forever man, he’d said, and he was, so she’d get through the next few weeks as best she could, then leave and concentrate on her next goal because in her goals was certainty. The only certainty she would ever have.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I’M SORRY, Dr Hugh, so sorry!’ Donna Ferguson exclaimed as he pressed a handkerchief into her hand, and she used it to wipe the tears from her eyes. ‘Breaking down like this—embarrassing you—’
‘You are not embarrassing me,’ Hugh interrupted firmly. ‘You’re feeling wretched and miserable, and if I was in your situation I’d be howling my eyes out, too.’
Donna let out a hiccuping laugh. ‘I doubt that, but…What’s wrong with me, Doctor? I know I’ve only been on the diet you gave me for a week, but I feel like I’ve got even less energy now than I had before, and look at my fingers. They’re like big, fat sausages, and I’ve started getting awful cramps in my stomach now, too.’
Hugh kept his sympathetic expression in place, but he groaned inwardly. The minute Donna Ferguson walked into his consulting room he’d known she was getting worse rather than better on the diet he’d prescribed, and though a change of diet often took a little while to take effect she should have felt some improvement.
‘Have you noticed your skin becoming drier than normal, Donna?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘Are you putting on weight, perhaps noticing your hair is getting thinner?’
‘I weigh just the same as I always do, and my hair doesn’t feel any different.’ Donna looked alarmed. ‘What are you thinking, Doctor?’
‘I’m wondering whether you might perhaps have an underactive thyroid,’ he said. ‘The thyroid is a gland in your neck that helps regulate your energy levels. Some of your symptoms…’ unfortunately not all of them ‘…could suggest your thyroid isn’t working properly.’
‘Then you don’t think I have the Type II diabetes you suspected last week, Doctor?’
Hugh sighed.
‘To be honest, Donna, I don’t know what’s wrong with you so I’d like to take some more blood and urine samples.’
Donna Ferguson didn’t look happy, and Hugh didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t have been happy either if the person he’d been expecting to give him a diagnosis seemed incapable of coming up with one. The trouble was Donna’s symptoms could fit any number of conditions, and all he could do was systematically work through them. A situation that was as disheartening for Donna as it was frustrating for him.
‘Anybody else in the waiting room, Chrissie?’ he asked after Donna had left and he’d deposited her samples in the receptionist’s out-tray.
‘Not a soul,’ she replied, then tilted her head sympathetically. ‘Rough morning?’
‘You could say that. Is Malcolm still here?’
Chrissie’s cheeks dimpled. ‘He headed off very reluctantly about half an hour ago, muttering the whole way.’
‘It’s only fair he goes to the in-service seminar at the hospital,’ Hugh protested. ‘I had to endure it last time.’
‘I know, but he was still unhappy,’ Chrissie replied. ‘He wanted to be here for the first of Alex’s slimming and exercise classes this evening. Are you coming to it?’
‘Depends on how far I get with the paperwork,’ Hugh said vaguely.
And if I can manage to slip away without Alex dragging me in to experience the joys of Sybil Gordon attempting to belly dance, he added mentally.
Except he wasn’t one hundred per cent certain that Alex would drag him in. All week she’d seemed…
Not quite herself were the only words he could come up with, and even they weren’t accurate. She was hitting the ground running with her patients as she always did, and contributing to the post-surgery meetings as usual, but he’d thought her laughter had sounded slightly strained this week, almost forced, and there’d been times when he’d caught a wistful, almost sad look on her face. A look that had instantly disappeared the minute she’d sensed his gaze on her.
‘Is Alex ready for the post-surgery debriefing?’ he said and Chrissie shook her head.
‘She’s still with her last patient. It’s Neil Allen, and he seems to have hurt his foot quite badly judging from the way he was limping.’
The garage owner was also making rather a large meal out of it, Hugh thought irritably, as the young man came out of Alex’s consulting room, and he saw the way he was leaning heavily on her, and his arm was round her shoulders.
‘Hugh, can you reinforce what I’ve just been saying to Neil?’ Alex said the minute she saw him. ‘He stepped on a rusty nail in his garage, but not only did he not come to see us about it, he also hasn’t been keeping his tetanus shots up to date, so he now has a pretty severe infection.’
‘I see,’ Hugh declared.
So, too, did Neil, he thought with satisfaction, because under his steady gaze the garage owner’s smile had disappeared and he’d removed his arm from Alex’s shoulders.
‘I thought it was just a scratch, Doc,’ Neil said, ‘one of the perils of the trade, but Dr Alex’s been telling me that small scratches from bits of metal, or infected earth, can cause big trouble.’
A fact that Neil knew only too well, Hugh thought, his brows lowering still further, because he’d had a talk with him about it less than a year ago.
‘Anyone who works near soil, or with machinery, really must keep their tetanus protection up to date,’ Alex said firmly. ‘The Clostridium tetani bacterium is one of life’s nasties, and if you get that in a wound…’
‘Neurotoxins can attack the nervous system giving you an abnormal heart rate, difficulty in swallowing and breathing, and jaw rigidity.’ Neil shook his head. ‘I have to say your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired, Dr Alex.’
‘Just as long as it’s sunk in.’ She laughed, and Neil did, too, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Hugh managed to smile as well.
‘You want to see me again in a week, Doc?’ Neil said, and Alex nodded.
‘The antibiotics I gave you should clear the infection,’ she replied, ‘but your foot’s so badly inflamed you might need another course. I also want you to try to keep off your foot as much as possible. I know—I know,’ she added as Neil rolled his eyes, ‘but will you at least try to delegate some of your work to your men?’
‘I’ll try,’ Neil replied with a grin, and with the briefest of brief nods at Hugh he limped out of the surgery.
‘His foot’s in a real mess,’ Alex said as she handed Neil’s folder to Chrissie. ‘In fact, if he’d waited a couple more days I’d say we’d have been looking at a case of septicaemia.’
Yeah, well, that was Neil Allen for you, Hugh thought sourly. Big on charm and looks, but not overly big on brains, but the minute he thought that he felt guilty. OK, so the garage owner had been stupid, but he was obviously in great pain and it was crazy of him to feel irritated by his behaviour.
Jealous, more
like, his mind whispered, and he stamped on the thought immediately. Of course he wasn’t jealous. That was a ridiculous suggestion. It was just that, having appointed himself Alex’s minder, he would hardly be much of a protector if he allowed her to get involved with a heartbreaker like Neil Allen.
And you think Alex can’t handle someone like Neil Allen? his mind mocked as he saw her smile at something Chrissie had said. Of course she could, but she had also clearly been very badly hurt by her fiancé and she didn’t deserve to be hurt again. She was a girl who had been born to laugh, not to cry, and when he thought of her crying…
Unconsciously his fingers clenched. She’d said her engagement had ended after she’d found out something which could only mean she’d discovered Jonathan had been cheating on her, but what kind of scumbag would cheat on a woman like Alex? She was kind, and funny, and feisty, and the more he got to know her the more he could see that although her can-do attitude was a part of her, she was also using it as a shield. A shield to keep other people at bay, and she needed to lower that shield, to let go of the past. But not with someone like Neil Allen.
‘Can we make the post-surgery debriefing fast this morning?’ Alex said as Chrissie had hurried away to answer the phone. ‘I’ve lots of home visits and, as it’s my first slimming and exercise class tonight, I don’t want to be late.’
‘Not a problem,’ Hugh said, leading the way into his consulting room. ‘Any concerns about the patients you saw this morning?’
‘Only one,’ Alex said as she put her medical bag down on his desk and pulled over a chair. ‘Rory Murray’s requested a repeat prescription for paracetamol, and that’s the second prescription he’s had since I diagnosed his osteoarthritis.’
Hugh frowned. ‘Not good. I don’t want him popping paracetamol like there’s no tomorrow. Have you prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs for him instead?’
She shook her head. ‘I wanted to check with you first. Taking too many anti-inflammatory drugs is just as bad as taking too much paracetamol. I’ve asked him to come back tomorrow, and he said, yes, so…’
A Wife Worth Waiting For Page 7