As more than a friend?
Steph sat at the table they’d been allocated and watched Harry walk back out of the restaurant.
He looked fantastic, in a dark suit with a casual turtle-necked sweater beneath it, the dull maroon of the sweater complementing his olive skin and silky black hair.
As well as stirring that bit of her she’d thought dead for ever, he was intriguing her in other ways because though he was, in many ways, still Harry the friend she’d once have trusted with her life, he was an enigma as well.
Driving over here, he’d taken her hand, and she’d known he’d understood, without her having to say the words, what had happened between her and Martin that had put an end to her chance to specialise in surgery. He’d even seemed to understand how difficult it still was for her to reconcile the love she had for the child she’d borne from that unwanted pregnancy with the lingering bitterness of thwarted ambition.
Though he probably couldn’t understand her resentment of Martin, who, she was now sure, had deliberately planned for it to happen.
But as Harry walked back in, pink plastic folders in hand, she pushed the past back to where it belonged and smiled, because the joy she felt at seeing him again—spending time with him—superseded even her suspicion of him.
He, however, couldn’t be feeling the same joy, because he plunked the folders on the table, passed her a menu and said, ‘Let’s order then get down to business.’
And Steph, who’d been the one to remind him this was a business dinner, squelched the disappointment inside her and obediently studied the menu, her disappointment soon diminished by the sheer pleasure of deciding what to eat.
Harry had been determined to be as businesslike as she apparently wanted him to be, but when he saw her face light up as she pondered her choice, he forgot businesslike, wanting only to keep her looking as happy as she looked right now.
For ever.
‘There are far too many choices,’ she finally said, turning to him with her face still glowing with delight. ‘What are you having?’
They debated the various options—fish or fowl, meat or vegetarian—finally deciding to share a seafood platter. Well, Harry decided, and though Steph nodded enthusiastically, she had another look at the menu and the glow faded from her face.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s the most expensive thing on the menu and you’re already going into debt to set up your rooms. I know I told you to go into more debt to pay me, but I’ll earn whatever you pay me, Harry. I’ll do a good job for you. But this is different. Ordering the platter is sheer extravagance.’
He reached out and took her hand.
‘I’m not actually broke,’ he said apologetically. ‘In fact, though I might have to borrow a little money to get set up, it won’t be much. I’ve done quite well, and do have another source of income to back up my own savings, so one extravagant night out won’t do any harm. And as you’ve already pointed out, if things look like they’re going bad, I can do more rejuvenation work.’
She shrugged, as if ashamed she’d once put down his business, then frowned at him.
‘What work do you mainly want to do? And what were you doing in Paris? Why would there be more children with facial injuries there than anywhere else in the world?’
He hesitated for a moment, then, knowing Steph would persist until she got a satisfactory answer, he told her.
‘We, the general public, see the children—and adults, of course—who’ve lost limbs as a result of exploding land mines—anti-personnel mines they call them—on television all the time. And a lot of specialists and prosthetics manufacturers donate time and equipment to these people. But many of those injured have facial scars and deformities as well, where bits of shrapnel have flown up and gouged out not only flesh but bone as well.’
Her eyes widened, but urged him to go on.
‘There’s a clinic in Paris where children from the war-torn areas of Europe are brought. The specialists there use a technique of taking bone from another part of the child’s body, usually the hip bone, shaping it, then grafting it into place to give definition back to the face.’
‘Because kids can cope with a prosthetic arm or leg, but to carry a distorted face through life would be terribly destructive to their self-esteem?’
‘Exactly,’ Harry said, relishing the warmth of the hand she’d laid gently over his as he’d talked about the children.
‘So, tell me more. Does the bone grow? That would be much better than plating or screwing bone together because there’d be no need to follow-up operations. Do you get rejection problems? What are the risks?’
Business was discarded—and any hope of a romantic evening also went west—as Steph demanded to know more and more about the work he’d done. Her excitement shimmered like an aura around her and he realised she’d probably been isolated from this kind of conversation for too long.
There’d been other doctors at the clinic where she’d worked, but only sharing duty with her one night a week, and from what he’d seen of Friday nights, there wouldn’t have been much opportunity to talk shop.
So he fed her hunger for information, then fed her literally, peeling prawns and offering them to her, still talking, egged on by her keen interest.
‘No! Eat yourself,’ she finally protested. ‘I’m going to tackle the sand-crab.’
She smiled across the table at him—a genuine, heart-felt smile.
‘I must have sounded desperate,’ she said, a little rueful now. ‘But, Harry, it’s just so long since I’ve sat and talked medicine with someone—and to hear about the things you’ve done…’ She shrugged. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious.’
And Harry, who’d always thought of Steph as someone who could have had it all—in fact, when she’d married Martin he’d assumed she would have it all—felt the grip of pain for what she’d lost.
‘But you have got Fanny,’ he reminded her, and was rewarded with a warm smile.
‘Yes, I have got Fanny,’ she said, and although the words shone with the love she felt for her daughter, beneath that sparkling polish he glimpsed patches of the dusty tarnish of regret.
They finished the meal, then did settle down to discuss business, both ordering coffee while Harry talked Steph into trying a slice of chocolate and macadamia torte as well.
‘So, now that’s sorted, how are you going to get known?’ Steph asked him, licking a last piece of sweetness from her lips.
Harry was looking at her, but the blank expression on his face suggested he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
‘You’ll need referrals so you get patients. Your savings might pay for the rooms and furniture but for ongoing income you’ll need paying customers,’ she reminded him.
She saw the little frown appear and guessed he was dragging his mind back from wherever it had been.
‘I know a couple of GPs in the area, and now doctors are allowed to advertise—to the extent they can announce they’ve opened an office—I thought I’d do that.’
Steph shook her head.
‘Not enough!’ she said firmly. ‘You need to join the local branch of the medical association, and there’s a specialists group here in Summerland as well. Then maybe a letter to all the GPs in the area, letting them know you’re in town but, more importantly, telling them the kind of work you’ve done, the experience you’ve had, who you’ve worked under—things like that.’
He smiled at her and she felt a hot wave of blood colour her cheeks.
‘Of course, you’d already thought of that,’ she mumbled.
He reached out and took her hand, stilling the fingers that had been playing nervously with her discarded napkin.
‘I had, but thank you anyway. Thank you for caring enough to be interested in whether I get patients or not.’
The warmth of his touch burned into her and the urge to turn her hand, grasp his fingers, and drag him across the table so she could kiss him properly was so unexpected she was left breathless—
as breathless as she’d have been if the kiss had happened.
She had to get out of here—away from Harry—before more bizarre notions occurred to her.
‘I should be getting home,’ she said, removing her hand from temptation and pushing back her chair.
‘Yes!’ Harry stood up, and came around the table to hold her chair, then push it back under the table.
Contrarily disappointed that he didn’t argue, she walked beside him towards the door, going on ahead when he paused to pay the bill but lingering on the path as the sweet scent of some hidden plant attracted her attention.
Drawn to it, she stepped off the path into the shadows, seeking among the rich banks of greenery for the white flowers of a star jasmine—for surely nothing else could be as subtly enticing.
‘Hiding from me?’
Harry’s voice barely broke the evening stillness, though the husky tones of his whisper caused agitation in her heart.
‘Looking for the jasmine. I was going to pinch a bit of it. It grows from a cutting and if I planted it just below my front veranda I could enjoy that heavenly perfume every night.’
‘Still a girl who loves the simple pleasures,’ Harry murmured, coming closer and encircling her, but loosely, with his arms.
‘Hardly a girl,’ Steph managed, as Harry’s nearness caused the breathlessness again.
‘No, you’re right,’ he said, looking down into her face. ‘You’re a woman—and all woman, Steph.’
Then he kissed her, and this time she didn’t have to tempt him, or even wonder what he was feeling, because this kiss was full of heat and hunger, and it burned deep down into her body, setting her aflame with so much desire a tiny moan escaped from way back in her throat, a moan of frustration that she couldn’t press her body closer, feel his skin on hers, find the ultimate fulfilment that was part of being a woman.
A part she’d all but forgotten…
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘COME home with me?’
The request was whispered so softly it might have been the rustling of the night wind in the trees, but the seductive undertone, firing need along Steph’s nerves, told her it was more than a passing breeze.
It had been so long…
Would it be so wrong?
This was Harry, whom she’d always loved…
He must have sensed her weakening for, with his arm around her shoulders and her body tucked protectively close to his, he led her back towards the car.
The excitement the kiss had generated grew, fizzing in her body like the bubbles in shaken champagne. Speech impossible, she sat, clutching one of Harry’s hands while he drove, one-handed, back towards the centre of the tourist strip.
Still clinging to his hand, as if it was the only thing anchoring her to the real world, she stood beside him in the lift as it rose to his floor, then walked beside him into the apartment.
He must have been still unfamiliar with the placement of light switches, for he moved away from her, feeling along the wall, the only light in the room the red blinking of the message light on an answering machine.
For someone in the state she was in, it was a little bit of normality. So much so, Steph moved automatically towards it as she always did at home—when messages might occasionally change her work schedule from week-nights to weekends. As the lights came on, she pressed the button to play then, realising what she’d done—that it wasn’t her machine—she turned, appalled, to Harry.
‘I’m sorry—put it down to nerves,’ she quavered, but her apology was lost as the booming voice of Bob Quayle echoed around the room.
‘Have you spoken to her yet?’ he demanded. ‘It was part of our agreement, remember. Phone me when you get in.’
It was an unmistakeable order and an echo of Harry’s earlier words—‘I do have another source of income’—rattled in Steph’s head.
She stared at Harry, unable to believe he’d betray her this way. Though Martin had betrayed her, and Harry had done nothing about that!
‘I assume I’m the “her” he mentioned,’ she said, wishing the jagged chips of ice in her voice would tear his skin and make him bleed.
‘Yes, but it’s not what you think. Steph?’
He came towards her, hands out held as if to grasp and hold her.
She stepped away.
‘You don’t know what I think, Harry,’ she told him, evading his hands and moving towards the door. ‘And perhaps it’s just as well you don’t.’
She was out of the apartment, pulling the door shut behind her, before he realised she was going, and as the lift was still on the twelfth floor, it took only an instant longer to enter it and press the button.
But the satisfaction she felt at the dismay on Harry’s face as the doors slid closed was diminished as pain, deadened at first by the shock of Bob’s words, now clamped her heart and lungs and made her clasp her arms around her stomach as if to protect her body from an even greater onslaught.
It was inevitable Harry would catch up with her. Taxis were never available when you needed one.
‘At least let me drive you home,’ he said, standing beside her on the footpath a few minutes later. ‘You’re being silly about this.’
She turned towards him.
‘No, I was silly when I believed Martin loved me,’ she said fiercely. ‘And silly when I thought you and I could still be friends. Maybe even more than friends. Silly to think I could trust you—trust any man! But right now I’m being sensible. I’m going home in a cab, alone, and that’s that, Harry Pritchard. But if you thought you could seduce me out of working for you, well, forget it. I’ll be there tomorrow at nine, and the day after that, and the day after that. And seeing you’ve another source of income—’ she let her scorn emphasise the words ‘—I might not even try to get another job.’
She would, of course, because working with Harry, particularly now when he must know how she felt about him, would be too torturous to handle. But he wasn’t to know that.
Let him sweat!
A taxi pulled up in front of her, and as she’d been too busy telling him off to have signalled it, she realised he must have done it for her.
Ha! So, for all his protestations, he was glad to be rid of her.
He opened the door for her and she slid in, then remembered her manners.
‘Thanks for a memorable evening,’ she snapped, then she turned to give the cabbie her address.
To say the atmosphere was strained between them at work would have been the understatement of the century, but life was made slightly easier by Harry being out of the office most of the time.
Steph didn’t try to keep track of his whereabouts, though she did organise a pager for him so she could contact him if she needed to—or if he was offered some work at either of the local hospitals.
The computer and related software she’d ordered arrived, though the furniture hadn’t, but she set up the computer on the card table and drafted a letter for him to send out to local GPs, leaving blanks for him to fill in his experience.
He’d returned the completed letter to the card table, coming in some time after she’d left work, and this became the pattern of their days—she leaving things for his perusal or signature, he returning them when she was absent.
Medical reps started calling, leaving glossy brochures on the drugs and equipment they were touting, often flirting with her, perhaps thinking she would influence her boss.
As if!
No alternative job materialised, so she was still there two weeks later. Furniture and furnishings had been delivered, and Steph began to take a proprietorial delight in the swish look of the suite of rooms, carefully setting the patient files, with their different coloured tabs, into slots in the open shelves, ruling up the appointment book, the day surgery book and the theatre appointments book.
She mastered the phone with its various options for transferring calls, arranged for direct cable access to the internet and had programmes for patient information, pathology reports and
medical accounting installed on the computer.
‘Have you heard when the hospital will open for business?’ she asked Harry on one of the rare occasions their paths crossed. ‘I’ve a number of patients already listed for appointments. I’m to call them back with a date and time as soon as you’re ready to begin consultations. And I’ll need to know what operations you can do as day surgery and which patients you’ll need to hospitalise. Perhaps you could do a list…’
Harry stared at her. He couldn’t fault her efficiency—she’d done far more than he’d ever have expected a receptionist to do—but now she was talking as if she’d be here for ever, and being near her, seeing her whenever he entered his own suite of rooms, was driving him to distraction. While frustration gnawed its way through his body, like a lion feasting on a dead beast.
The beast analogy fitted—it was exactly how she saw him.
He’d tried talking to her, and had been met with cold disdain as she refused to acknowledge the passionate embrace they’d shared—or how close they’d come to taking that passion further.
‘From the number of enquiries and the people already waiting for confirmation of their appointments, I think you’ll need two staff people sooner than you think, but probably an office junior, someone who can answer phones, write in appointments and handle filing would be better than a nurse.’
She continued talking as if the heat thrumming in the air between them didn’t exist, but he knew she had to feel it—it was too strong for her not to.
‘I was talking to the hospital administrator and he said they supply the nursing staff for both the day surgery theatres and the main theatre—apparently the cost is written into your rental agreement.’
Her lifted eyebrows told him just what shenanigans she imagined had gone into that arrangement, but he’d attempted, over a week ago, to explain about the phone call—and his private income. She’d refused to listen and he was damned if he was going to grovel to the woman.
Yet!
‘Hire whoever you think you’ll need—or the real receptionist will need. You’re surely not planning to stay on once we open.’
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