Hell, they must all think he was an idiot. One minute he’d been fine, and the next…
It had been the smell. He’d never realised that all operating theatres probably smelt the same, but they did, and when he’d seen the table…
‘Oh, hell.’
He clenched his hands tightly together and whirled round on his heel. Think of something else. Think of anything else, his mind urged, before you make an ever bigger fool of yourself than you already have done.
If only he hadn’t been driving so fast. If only he’d been paying attention. But he hadn’t, and now…
Restlessly he paced the waiting room. What the hell were they doing in there? Aligning and plastering a leg shouldn’t take very long. Unless, of course, they’d found some complication.
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he turned quickly as a door opened behind him. Fiona. And to his relief, Jess was with her.
‘She’s thrown up twice, and fainted once,’ the staff nurse stated, holding out a bottle of pills. ‘She can take two of these for the pain, but no more than eight in twenty-four hours.’
‘B-but surely you’re going to keep her in?’ Ezra stammered, and Fiona sighed with resignation.
‘She won’t stay. Maybe you can make her see sense but I doubt it.’
‘Jess, of course you’ve got to stay!’ Ezra exclaimed as Fiona walked away. ‘You could be suffering from shock—’
‘I’m not,’ she said smoothly. ‘Will’s plastered my leg, and given me some painkillers, so could we, please, leave now?’
‘But—’
‘Could you drive me down to my practice? It’s not far, but…’ she gazed wryly at the crutches Fiona had given her ‘…I don’t think I could manage it on these.’
‘You want to collect something?’ he murmured, still stunned by the knowledge that she’d actually discharged herself.
‘Not collect, no. My surgery started half an hour ago, and I don’t want to keep my patients waiting any longer than necessary.’
Ezra stared at her in disbelief, then anger flooded through him. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I happen to believe I have a duty to my patients,’ Jess replied crisply. ‘Now, if you could—’
‘Duty be damned!’ he flared. ‘You’re just being pig-headed, that’s all, and if you think I’m going to encourage you in this stupidity, you can think again!’
‘Then I’ll phone the garage and ask them to send a taxi,’ she retorted, only to suddenly remember to her chagrin that, though she’d insisted on him retrieving her medical bag from her car, she’d forgotten all about her handbag. ‘Could…could you lend me twenty pence for the pay-phone, please?’
‘No, I will not lend you twenty pence!’ he thundered. ‘For God’s sake, woman, were you born with a vacant space between your ears? You’ve been in a car crash. You’ve fractured your leg in two places, and badly bruised your forehead. OK, so maybe you don’t feel too awful at the moment, but that’s only because of the anaesthetic and the fact that your body’s producing its own endorphins. Believe me, in a little while you’re going to feel hellish—’
‘Endorphins?’ A frown pleated Jess’s forehead. ‘What do you know about endorphins?’
‘Only what everybody knows,’ he replied with irritation. ‘That they’re peptides produced in the brain which give pain-relieving effects.’
‘Everybody doesn’t know that,’ she said, her eyes fixed on him. ‘What are you—a nurse, a vet?’
‘I used to be a doctor. Jess, listen to me. You can’t possibly do this—’
‘What kind of a doctor?’
‘Does it matter?’ he retorted, exasperation plain in his voice. ‘The most important thing right now—’
‘You can’t have retired,’ she continued thoughtfully. ‘You’re much too young to have retired.’
‘I…I just don’t practise any more, OK?’ he muttered, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘People change careers, want to do something else.’
‘I can’t ever imagine not wanting to be a doctor,’ she observed. ‘It was something I wanted even when I was a little girl.’
‘Everybody’s different.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Look, if you insist on going to your surgery, let’s go,’ he interrupted grimly. ‘And I only hope to heaven that when we get there we’ll find somebody who can convince you that you’re out of your tiny mind!’
Tracy Maxwell tried. Ezra had to give the teenager credit for that. She might look a bit weird, with her heavily gelled, spiky black hair and the diamond stud in her nose, but the minute the receptionist saw Jess, she tried her level best.
‘It’s only the usual bunch of hypochondriacs anyway, Jess,’ she protested. ‘And you look shattered.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Ezra nodded. ‘So why don’t I go out to the waiting room, explain what’s happened—?’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Jess ordered. ‘OK, so I’ve fractured my leg but my brain’s still working.’
‘I’d say that was highly debatable,’ Ezra observed, and Tracy giggled.
‘His name is Dr Dunbar,’ Jess said acidly in answer to the girl’s raised eyebrows. ‘He has a big mouth, and even bigger opinions.’
‘You’re a doctor,’ the receptionist exclaimed. ‘We all thought—’
‘Yes, I know what you all thought.’ Ezra’s lips curved ruefully. ‘Sorry to be such a disappointment.’
‘Oh, not a disappointment at all,’ Tracy replied, batting her heavily mascara’d eyelashes at him. ‘In fact, it’s terrific, being able to finally put a face to a name.’
‘Is it?’ he said in surprise.
‘Oh, yes.’ Tracy beamed. ‘You know, you really ought to get out more. Living all alone at Selkie Cottage—a man could start getting weird doing that, and we’re quite a sociable crowd on Greensay, so there’s no need for you to ever feel lonely or isolated.’
‘I’m not—’
‘In fact, there’s a dance in the village hall this weekend—’
‘Look, I’m sorry to interrupt this cosy chat,’ Jess said caustically, ‘but some of us have work to do. Goodbye, Dr Dunbar.’ She didn’t extend a hand to him but kept both fixed firmly on her crutches. ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but in the circumstances I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you?’
‘Goodbye?’ he echoed. ‘But—’
‘Goodbye, Dr Dunbar,’ she repeated, and before he could stop her she’d turned and hopped with as much dignity as she could along to her consulting room.
The nerve of the man—the sheer unmitigated gall! Laughing and joking with Tracy—discussing the dance which was going to be held in the village hall on Saturday. Well, to be fair, Tracy had done most of the laughing and joking, but that didn’t alter the fact that she wouldn’t be able to do any dancing for the next three months. And whose fault was that? Ezra’s!
Just as it was also his fault that by the end of her surgery she felt like a washed-out rag. Ten patients—that’s all she’d seen. Ten patients who’d been suffering from nothing more challenging than the usual collection of winter coughs and colds, and yet by the time they’d all gone her head was throbbing quite as badly as her leg.
So the last person she wanted to see in the waiting room was Ezra Dunbar.
‘Now, before you chew my head off,’ he began, getting quickly to his feet as he saw the martial glint in her eye. ‘I’m here solely because I thought you might appreciate a lift home, rather than having to wait for a taxi.’
‘I don’t need—’
‘No, I know you don’t,’ he interrupted. ‘But just humour me this once, please, Jess, hmm?’
And because she felt so wretched she feebly allowed him to drive her home, and made only a token protest when he insisted on helping her inside.
But the minute he’d flicked on the sitting-room light and ushered her towards a chair, she turned to him firmly. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’
To her surprise,
he didn’t go. Instead, he stared round the room, then back at her with a frown. ‘Isn’t there anybody I can call to come over and stay with you?’
‘I don’t need anybody,’ she insisted. ‘You can see for yourself that my house has no stairs, and as all I want to do is go to bed—’
‘Your clothes—what about your clothes?’ he demanded, his eyes taking in her green sweater and the remnants of her trousers. ‘How are you going to get them off?’
‘The same way I put them on,’ she replied dismissively, only to see his frown increase. ‘Look, I’ll be all right.’
‘You won’t. Oh, I don’t mean simply tonight,’ he continued as she tried to interrupt. ‘I mean tomorrow, and the day after that. Jess, you’re going to be in plaster for a minimum of eight weeks. You might just be able to do your surgeries, but how are you going to do any home visits or night calls when you can’t drive?’
‘I’ll get a locum to cover the nights and home visits.’
‘And until he or she arrives, how are you planning on getting to your patients—by hopping or crawling?’
Ezra was right. If she couldn’t drive there was no way she was going to be able to cope. And then suddenly it hit her. She had the answer standing right in front of her. All six feet two of him.
‘You could drive me about.’
‘I could what?’ he gasped.
‘You’re here on holiday,’ she continued quickly. ‘You could drive me to my home visits and out to any night calls until I get a locum.’
‘Jess—’
‘I’m not asking you to do anything medical—’
‘Just as well because I wouldn’t do it,’ he retorted. ‘No, Jess. No way.’
He meant it—she could see that—but desperate situations called for desperate measures, and she drew herself up to her full five feet two inches and took a deep breath.
‘OK, I’ve tried asking, and now I’m telling. You’ve admitted the accident was your fault so you owe me. Either you agree to chauffeur me around or…or I go straight to PC Inglis, and accuse you of dangerous driving.’
‘That‘s…that’s blackmail!’ he spluttered, and she coloured.
‘I haven’t got any choice—can’t you see that? The people here need me, and everybody else on the island is either too young, or too old, or they’ve got full-time jobs. Only you are here on holiday.’
He stared back at her impotently. He could tell her to go to hell. He could say he didn’t give a damn if she spoke to the chief constable of the area himself, but if she called in the police questions would be asked. Questions about where he’d come from and what he was doing here. And everything would come out. Every last, sorry detail. There was nothing he could do but agree to her suggestion, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or that he couldn’t make one last attempt to dissuade her.
‘And what if I am a drug dealer, like Wattie Hope said, or an axe murderer?’
Heavens, but he looked angry enough at the moment to be either, she thought as she stared up at him. And she couldn’t really blame him. What she was doing was unforgivable.
‘I’ll…I’ll risk it,’ she said. He didn’t reply. He simply turned on his heel and headed for her front door, and desperately she hopped after him. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I promise I’ll phone the agency about a locum first thing tomorrow—’
She was talking to thin air, and as she listened to the sound of his footsteps going down the gravel path she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to burst into tears. Which was crazy.
Dammit, he owed her a favour. OK, so maybe she shouldn’t have blackmailed him into agreeing to it, but he did owe her. And just because he obviously thought she was the lowest form of pond life, that was no reason for her to get upset.
She was home, wasn’t she? Home in the house where she’d been born. Home with all her familiar things. OK, so her leg—not to mention every other bone in her body—hurt like hell, but that didn’t explain why she should suddenly feel so lost and lonely.
And it sure as heck didn’t explain why her heart should lift when her front door was suddenly thrown open again and Ezra reappeared.
‘I can’t do it,’ he announced without preamble. ‘You might be the most manipulative, stubbornly vexatious woman it’s ever been my misfortune to meet, but I can’t leave you here on your own. You could collapse in the middle of the night—’
‘I won’t—and if I do it’s not your problem,’ she pointed out.
‘Of course it’s my problem,’ he flared. ‘You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me, and if you’re too stupid and pigheaded to stay in hospital there’s only one thing I can do. I’ll have to stay.’
‘Stay?’ she echoed faintly.
‘And not just for tonight,’ he fumed. ‘If you insist on me being at your beck and call twenty-four hours a day I’m going to have to move in with you until you get a locum.’
Jess’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, then she found her voice. ‘But it could take me a week to organise a locum!’
His lip curled grimly. ‘You’re the blackmailer. You tell me what other alternative there is?’
To her acute dismay Jess realised there wasn’t one. His cottage was on the far west side of the island and if she got an emergency call during the night he’d have to get up, get dressed, drive down, pick her up—
‘And lose vital, potentially life-threatening minutes in the process.’ Ezra nodded, obviously reading her mind. ‘So would you care to reconsider your plan?’
She wanted to—oh, boy, did she want to. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t abandon her patients, leaving them with no emergency cover or home visits.
‘No, I don’t want to reconsider,’ she replied tightly. ‘Believe me, the thought of you living here doesn’t exactly fill me with unmitigated joy either, but right now it looks as though I’m stuck with you, Dr Dunbar.’
And she was stuck with him, she thought after she’d shown him through to the spare room then retreated thankfully to her own bedroom. Stuck with the most bossy, self-opinionated man she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Stuck with a complete stranger who could have been anyone, despite his declaration that he’d once been a doctor.
Yet, as she began undressing, and heard him moving about in the room next to hers, she realised that she had that odd feeling of security again.
And she was still mad.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window which first told Jess something was wrong.
For a start it should be dark. Greensay was situated off the far west coast of Scotland and it never became fully light in January until well after nine o’clock, so if the sun was shining…
Quickly she reached for her bedside clock, remembered her plastered leg too late, and with a yelp of pain knocked the clock. But not before she’d seen the time. One o’clock. Lunchtime. Which could only mean some officious, overbearing swine had sneaked into her room during the night and switched off her alarm.
The same overbearing, officious swine whose dark head had just appeared round her bedroom door.
‘Now, before you blow a fuse,’ Ezra declared, holding up his hands defensively as she eased herself upright, a look of fury plain upon her face, ‘it was obvious you needed sleep—’
‘And what about my morning surgery?’ she exclaimed, pushing her tangled hair back out of her eyes and wincing as her fingers caught the bruise on her forehead. ‘My poor patients, left wondering where I was—’
‘They weren’t. I told Tracy to put a notice on the health-centre door, explaining what had happened and advising anyone with worrying symptoms to contact the Sinclair Memorial.’
She all but ground her teeth. ‘Dr Dunbar—’
‘The name’s Ezra.’
‘Tracy doesn’t have the authority to cancel anything. She only joined my practice four months ago. Cath Stewart’s my senior receptionist and practice nurse.’
‘I
wondered about that,’ he observed. ‘The diamond stud in her nose and everything.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the stud,’ she retorted, conveniently forgetting her own initial misgivings when she’d seen it. ‘It’s fashionable, modern. And how Tracy dresses is none of your damn business anyway,’ she added for good measure.
He stared at her for a second, then sighed heavily. ‘Topsy.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Forget it. Jess, a tired doctor is a careless doctor. A tired doctor who is also in pain is a menace.’
‘I’m not in pain,’ she lied.
His eyebrows rose. ‘No? Then lunch will be ready in ten minutes. No doubt you’ll be able to get up, dressed and along to the kitchen by then.’
And he went. Without giving her the chance to hurl something harder than her voice at him, he just upped and went.
Of all the interfering, arrogant, pompous…! There was no limit to the home truths she intended throwing at him, but first she had to get out of bed and dressed.
Well, she’d managed to get undressed and into bed last night, she told herself as she pulled back the duvet and stared dubiously at her plastered leg. How hard could it be to do it in reverse?
Tear-blindingly, excruciatingly hard was the answer.
‘Don’t say a word,’ she ordered when she finally made it to the kitchen more than half an hour later. ‘Not one single solitary one, OK?’
Obediently Ezra lifted the pan of potatoes off the hob and drained them. ‘It’s frozen fish, potatoes and peas for lunch. Your freezer needs restocking.’
She knew it did. In fact, she’d intended going shopping yesterday but it hardly seemed tactful to point out to him why she hadn’t been able to do it. Especially when he was cooking for her.
‘Who—or what—is Topsy?’ she said instead when he put her lunch down in front of her.
‘A neighbour’s cat in London.’
Which made absolutely no sense at all to her, Ezra realised as he began washing the pots, but perfect sense to him.
Topsy and Jess Arden had a lot in common. Both were red-haired, green-eyed and fiercely independent. Both hissed and spat fire whenever they thought anyone was trying to invade their space. Not that he’d tried invading Topsy’s space often. He preferred his hands in one piece. And he most certainly didn’t intend trying it with Jess Arden.
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