He put her away from him gently. ‘I must be insane, Nina. It has to stop.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed forlornly. ‘For a crazy moment I forgot that you belong to someone else.’
It was hardly the right moment but Rob knew that he couldn’t go on keeping the truth from her.
‘I don’t belong to anyone else, Nina,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s not the reason I’m holding back. I’ve broken off my engagement. Bettine is out of my life permanently.’
Nina could feel her jaw sagging. ‘So why can’t we—?’
‘Because for one thing I’ve just had a disastrous relationship with a practice member and I don’t want another.’
‘So you think that being involved with me would be just as bad as Bettine?’ she cried dismally.
‘No. I don’t. What I meant was that I don’t think it would be wise to have another relationship with anyone in the practice, be it good, bad or indifferent.’
‘I see,’ she said flatly, and, trailing her hand along the banister, she began to mount the stairs.
‘Aren’t you going to lock up?’ he called after her.
She shrugged slim shoulders.
‘Someone had better,’ he insisted, ‘in case the shaven-headed predator turns up again.’
Nina turned and looked down on him from the top step. ‘At least I would know what’s in his mind.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ Rob told her.
Locking the doors behind him, he went to find Zacky, who was waiting patiently for him on the terrace.
‘I hear that you’ve some repair work that needs doing,’ the joiner said on Monday morning. ‘Had a bit of a hectic night, did you? You’d better let me have a key. I’ll go and see what the damage is.’
Nina sighed as she handed it over. Hearing her, Barbara, who was on Reception, said sympathetically, ‘Parties can soon get out of hand.’
So it looked as if everyone at the practice knew about Saturday’s fiasco, Nina thought dismally. She hoped that when he’d told them Rob had missed out the last bit.
But, then, he would have, wouldn’t he? He wasn’t going to admit to the rest of them that he’d had a quick flirt with someone as irresponsible as her.
He was in his consulting room, and when she went in to see if he had any instructions for her before surgery started Nina said coldly, ‘Thanks for telling everyone about Saturday.’
‘What?’ he said with equal chilliness.
‘They all appear to know about Saturday night.’
If he’d been angry then, it was nothing compared to now. ‘Really?’ he snapped. ‘Well, they haven’t heard it from me. Am I likely to go around broadcasting that I’m the village idiot? You’re forgetting that I wasn’t the only member of this practice who was there.’
Gavin! Of course! Her face flamed. But Rob wasn’t prepared to wait for an apology.
‘We have a waiting room full of patients out there, so shall we do what we’re paid to do?’
‘Yes,’ she said meekly, and slunk into her own little sanctum.
The first patient to present himself to her was Spanish. He’d married a local girl and was desperately missing his homeland, so much so that he couldn’t eat, sleep or hold down a job.
Slim, dark and extremely handsome, he told her jerkily, ‘I am lost away from my country. I shake all the time.’
His eyes were wild. His hands were gesturing all the time he was speaking. One wrong word would send this one over the edge, she thought.
‘If it distresses you so much, can you not persuade your wife to live in your country, instead of you having to get accustomed to life over here?’ she asked carefully.
He jumped to his feet and, raking his hair with shaking hands, he cried, ‘No! She has been there. Has been to the hotel that I help my father to run…but she does not like it.’
It was a clash of cultures, she thought, and the proud Spaniard wasn’t coping one little bit. In fact, if he didn’t get a grip on himself he was going to be really ill.
‘I’m going to prescribe some tablets for you to take,’ she said as clearly and concisely as she could. ‘Your life has changed dramatically and you aren’t coping. Come back to see me in a month if you don’t feel any better. You understand? And if you do have to make another appointment, I suggest that you ask your wife to come along.’
He nodded and, holding the prescription for antidepressants in his hand, left the room dejectedly.
She would like to see the girl who’d enticed the homesick Spaniard from his native land, she thought when he’d gone. His English wife must have some very persuasive qualities, but it was going to be touch and go whether he stayed, persuasive or not.
He was followed by a dark-haired, ten-year-old boy with an entrancing smile, who’d been brought in by his mother. It appeared that Jonathan had been stung twice over the weekend by wasps from a nest in the garden.
There was swelling of his face and neck, and his parents had thought it best he see a doctor, even though the boy himself seemed to be in only minor discomfort.
The time for any dangerous complications had passed, and when the mother assured her that there had never been any allergic reaction to stings in the past, it was prescription time again. This time for antihistamine cream.
‘So you’re the new doctor, are you?’ said an old man, leaning heavily on two sticks as he came hobbling in. ‘You don’t look old enough to be treating the likes of me.’
‘I’m a trainee’ she told him, ‘and I’m older than you might think.’
‘Is that so?’ he wheezed as he flopped down onto the chair at the other side of the desk. ‘And is that supposed to make me feel confident that you can sort me out?’
‘I can’t guarantee it,’ she told him with a smile, ‘but I’ll do my best. And if I can’t, Dr Carslake is next door.’
‘Was, you mean. He’s the one I usually see, but he’s gone. The receptionist said he had some urgent business to attend to, so they’ve shuffled me in here.’
‘Right, so what can I do for you, Mr Wood?’ she asked, digesting the information that Rob had already departed, which must mean that he wasn’t taking her on house calls with him today. He really must be sticking to what he’d said on Saturday night…
She’d thought she’d seen paradise beckoning when he’d bathed her face and then taken her in his arms, but she’d been wrong.
She’d been kissed before, lots of times, but by younger men and in a casual manner. With Rob it had been so different…in more ways than one.
To begin with, most men couldn’t get enough of her when it came to a bit of light-hearted canoodling, but not him. He’d no sooner turned her into a quivering jelly than he was finding reasons to put a stop to the passion that had flared between them after the party.
And ever since then she’d been trying to come to terms with what he’d said. It should have been one of the happiest moments of her life, being told that his engagement was off, but he’d no sooner said it than he’d been telling her it would make no difference.
‘So are you going to be standing there dreaming all day, or what?’ the old man growled.
Nina dredged up a smile. ‘No, of course not. And I did ask you what the problem was, Mr Wood.’
‘Aye, well, now I’m going to tell you. I keep coughin’ up blood.’
‘I see.’
She wasn’t dreaming now. It was the young doctor, keen and intelligent, who was standing in her shoes, alert to all the various possibilities, some of them serious.
‘There are various reasons why a person coughs up blood,’ she told him. ‘It’s usually caused by the rupture of blood vessels in the lungs or throat, but there has to be a cause. I want some sputum from you and I need to listen to your chest. Will you unbutton your shirt, please?’
When she’d finished he observed her with watery blue eyes. ‘Well? Have I got galloping consumption?’
‘You’ve got a chest that’s anything but clear,’ she to
ld him, ignoring the joke about tuberculosis as he might have been nearer to the truth than he knew.
‘I’m going to arrange for a chest X-ray and we’ll take it from there.’
‘How soon?’
‘As soon as I possibly can. Are you on the phone at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll get one of the receptionists to ring you when I’ve arranged an appointment. And, Mr Wood, don’t worry. We’ll sort you out, one way or another.’
‘Kill or cure, you mean?’ he asked with a dry chuckle as he got slowly to his feet.
Two things became clear as Nina surfaced from morning surgery, the first being that Gavin was doing his best to avoid her and the second that Bettine hadn’t put in an appearance.
The first she could deal with. The second wasn’t her affair…or was it?
‘Thanks for spreading the details of Saturday night’s disaster around the practice,’ she told Gavin when she cornered him outside in the parking area. ‘Especially as you were partly to blame.’
That brought a scowl to his handsome face. ‘You should be thankful that I didn’t fill in the folks about all that happened,’ he said snappily.
Her heart skipped a beat. ‘Meaning?’
‘That you and Rob were having a party of your own when I went looking for you.’
She rallied. ‘What you saw was me, very drunk, pushing my luck.’
‘It didn’t look like that to me.’
‘Obviously you didn’t stay long enough. That was all it was.’
‘So you and he aren’t…?’
‘Of course not. You’ve heard of Saturday night fever, haven’t you?’ Followed by Sunday morning doldrums, she could have added.
But she was the only one who knew just how miserable she’d been the morning after as she’d scrubbed at the wine stains and tried to mend the ornaments with superglue, while telling herself that her own after-effects of the party weren’t going to be so easy to cope with.
With Bettine missing, and the women on Reception confirming that Rob had indeed gone out on some urgent matter, Nina went to seek out Dr Raju to ask what she should do about the senior partner’s visits to patients.
‘I’ve agreed to do all the calls today,’ he told her, ‘as Dr Carslake felt that in Dr Baker’s absence you would need to be free for this afternoon’s antenatal clinic.’
‘So I’m taking it on my own?’
‘With the help of a midwife, yes. Will that be a problem?’
‘Er, no. I don’t think so.’
His twinkly smile flashed out. ‘I’m sure it won’t. It’s all experience, my dear.’
She wasn’t going to argue about that! But unsatisfied curiosity was taking precedence over the prospect of being in charge of the clinic.
Is Dr Baker ill…on holiday…or what?’ she asked casually.
‘She isn’t well, I’m afraid. Her brother rang earlier to say that she’d suffered some sort of gastric attack. Needless to say, Dr Carslake went to her immediately.’
‘Of course,’ she murmured.
So the urgent business for which he’d left his patients had been to treat his ex-fiancée’s stomach bug! Was there still some chemistry there? He’d left with such speed that someone or something must be pulling his strings.
‘Where does she live?’
It was strange that she’d never thought to ask, but she wasn’t interested in Bettine Baker, was she?
‘Bettine and her young brother live at the old hall up on the hillside there,’ Dr Raju informed her. ‘The family have lived there for generations and now there are just the two of them left.’
After their brief, angry exchange of words, Rob had sat gazing sombrely into space. Nina had thought he’d told the staff about Saturday night. As if he would! It was the last thing he would think of doing.
For one thing, he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been at the Lombard house, and for another, tittle-tattle wasn’t his style. The obvious culprit was Gavin, but she’d immediately thought that it had been himself who’d been responsible.
He knew that Nina was hurt at what he’d said, and the way he’d broken up their special moment on the stairs, but surely she must see that they’d only known each other for a very short time and that he was head of the practice.
As he had reached out to buzz for his first patient to present themselves, the phone rang. It was Miles, ringing to say that Bettine wouldn’t be available for practice duties.
‘What reason does she give?’ Rob had asked. As if he didn’t know! It would be her way of showing him that he wasn’t having it all his own way.
‘It’s that sickness thing that women have when they’re pregnant,’ the lad had said vaguely, and Rob had nearly fallen out of his chair.
‘I’m coming over,’ he’d told him, already on his feet and asking himself whatever had made him think that his troubles were over from that quarter. He should have known better.
If the previous week’s antenatal clinic had gone smoothly, it wasn’t working out that way today. The midwife assisting this time was younger than Nina and less experienced, so if the young doctor had wanted to shine, the opportunity was there.
But she’d never felt more lacking in sparkle. Rob had returned from his visit to Bettine’s place with a face like granite, and after a brief word with Vikram had gone up to the flat.
There hadn’t been a smile or even a look in her direction, and if she’d had the nerve Nina would have followed him up there and told him that if that was what she had to endure after just one kiss she’d stay well away from him in future.
But she had a feeling that wouldn’t be necessary. That, apart from their work in the practice, she would be lucky if he looked the side she was on in the days to come.
An expectant mother who hadn’t been at the previous week’s clinic had turned up with symptoms that immediately suggested trouble—headache, excessive thirst, frequent passing of urine and general tiredness, amongst other things.
Nina saw from her notes that the patient was due for the routine screening for gestational diabetes the following week, but with the discomforts she was complaining of Nina felt it was necessary to speed up the process.
‘I’m sending you to hospital,’ she told her.
‘Why?’ the woman asked anxiously. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘You’re due to be tested for diabetes next week, but I want you to have it done sooner. Just to be on the safe side.’
Panic was setting in. ‘You mean that I might have to have insulin?’
‘It’s possible, but if there’s a problem lots of pregnant women keep the diabetes in check with a special diet. If insulin is required it will be only during the pregnancy. Once the baby is delivered the diabetes should disappear.’
‘What will they do when I get there?’
‘Nothing very horrible,’ Nina said with a reassuring smile. ‘They’ll give you a dose of glucola and then an hour later test your blood-sugar levels. If they’re too high they’ll do a three-hour glucose tolerance test and go on from there. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope that when I see you next week it will have been sorted out.’
‘That makes two of us,’ the young mother-to-be said with feeling.
The midwife had been hovering. ‘I’ve tested the blood pressure of all those present,’ she said nervously, ‘and two of them are showing an increase on last week’s readings. Would you like to check me out, Doctor?’
Nina nodded.
Come back, Bettine, all is forgiven, she thought wryly as another of the expectant mothers dashed into the toilet to vomit.
One of the patients with raised blood pressure, which had been a major problem during her first pregnancy, had been sent to hospital all weepy and apprehensive at the thought of being admitted.
The other, who was due to move to another area in the next few days, and whose pressure was only slightly up, had been warned to have regular checks the moment she was settled in her new home.
&nb
sp; By the time that had been accomplished and the rest of them had thankfully been declared healthy, Nina was beginning to feel that, if nothing else, she had earned her crust.
Rob had come down from the flat by the time she got back to the reception area. He was still looking grim, but not as forbidding as before. When he asked how the clinic had gone and had been told wearily that, apart from suspected diabetes, high blood pressure and a variety of minor ills, it had been all right, he surprised her by saying, ‘Gavin will take your surgery tonight. You might as well get off home. The joiner has just come back from your place and he says that it’s fixed.’
Her expression lightened. ‘Thank goodness for that. If Dad had seen it I’d have been up before a court-martial and, no doubt, shot at dawn. I’ve still got to confess my sins to Eloise but she’s a lot more tolerant than he is.’
At that moment they were alone in the passage outside the consulting rooms and she couldn’t resist asking, ‘How’s Bettine? I believe you were called out to her this morning. I hope that it wasn’t anything serious.’
‘It all depends on how you look at it,’ he said tonelessly. ‘She’s pregnant.’
As Nina felt her jaw go slack he gave a mirthless laugh. ‘End of discussion, wouldn’t you say?’
It was, whether Nina wanted it to be or not. Rob was turning towards the door of his room and as it closed behind him she groped her way towards her own small piece of territory.
CHAPTER SIX
THE course arranged by the Department of Postgraduate Medicine to provide prospective GPs with further training on a day-release basis was scheduled for the next day, and there was relief inside Nina as she drove towards the city on Tuesday morning.
She needed time away from the village to think. If everything had been going too fast between Rob and herself since she’d joined the practice, it had been brought to an abrupt halt the moment he’d told her that Bettine was pregnant.
Would they marry now? she’d wondered in the quiet hours of the night. It had to be on the cards. Although it didn’t always mean that one event followed the other these days. It used to be the other way about, that the wedding came first, not the baby, and deep down Nina knew that was how she would want it to be for herself.
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