Danny nodded, and a frown creased Jess’s forehead.
It didn’t sound at all like the Fraser she knew. In fact, if anyone had asked her opinion she’d have said he was one of the most laid-back men on the island.
‘Cath, doesn’t Fraser have an appointment with Dr Dunbar this morning?’
‘Nine-thirty, as I recall.’
‘Right. I’ll have a word with him,’ Jess declared determinedly, and saw blind panic appear in Simon’s eyes.
‘Doc, please, don’t make waves. I don’t want to lose my job completely.’
‘You won’t,’ she replied.
And he wouldn’t. OK, so her conversations with Fraser had been limited to a passing greeting recently, but he couldn’t have changed all that much since they’d last had a proper talk. She would simply explain the situation, he’d understand and that would be an end to the matter.
In fact, probably the hardest thing would be getting a chance to speak to him. Simon’s accident must have shot their appointment system to bits, and there was every likelihood that Fraser had got tired of waiting and left.
He hadn’t. In fact, he was the first person she saw when she returned to the waiting room, but if she was delighted to see him, Fraser looked anything but pleased to see her.
‘My appointment’s with Dr Dunbar, Jess,’ he declared firmly when she hopped towards him. ‘I specifically asked to see Dr Dunbar.’
‘Ooh, but he’s going all red,’ said one of the young mums waiting for Cath’s Monday babies and toddlers clinic. ‘What’s wrong with you, then, Fraser, that you’re no’ wanting a woman to examine you?’
‘Button your lip, Effie Hamilton!’ he snapped back. ‘Unless you’re wanting everyone to know what you got up to at summer camp when you were fifteen!’
The other mums in the waiting room most certainly wanted to know and as the unfortunate Effie subsided in her seat under a barrage of eager questions, Jess quickly urged Fraser out into the corridor.
‘I only want to talk to you,’ she said when he began protesting again. ‘It’s about one of your men—Simon Ralston. He got his hand caught in the hawser of The Aurora this morning, and Dr Dunbar’s told him he can’t return to work for at least six weeks.’
Fraser swore under his breath. ‘The idiot! The man’s a complete waste of space. His mind’s never on his job—’
‘Fraser, his son has juvenile arthritis.’
‘And we’ve all got problems, but the rest of us don’t let them interfere with our work,’ he retorted. ‘Because he’s injured I’m going to have to put him on shore duties and hire someone else for The Aurora, which will mean more expense!’
‘Fraser—’
‘Actually, it might not be such a disaster after all,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been wanting to get rid of him for ages, and if I keep him on shore duties long enough, maybe he’ll get so bored he’ll simply resign.’
‘But that would be a wicked thing to do!’ she exclaimed.
‘Jess, fishing’s a tough business. I can’t carry passengers.’
Her green eyes flashed fire. ‘Oh, really? Well, in that case you won’t mind if I tell PC Inglis about the special passengers you were carrying in the back of your Range Rover last Thursday night. The duty-free wine and cigarettes?’
‘How the hell did you find—?’
‘I’ve got my sources, Fraser,’ she interrupted, only to redden when she suddenly realised that Ezra was helping old Mrs Mackay out of his consulting room. Mrs Mackay was, thankfully, very deaf. Ezra unfortunately wasn’t. Not from the way his eyebrows shot up. ‘Look,’ she continued in an acid undertone as Ezra escorted Mrs Mackay back to the waiting room, ‘Simon’s got family trouble right now, and all I’m saying is if you give him a little leeway, my lips will remain sealed about your contraband.’
For a moment Fraser said nothing, then he smiled grimly. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Jess.’
‘I want to know why I’ve got to make one at all,’ she protested. ‘You’re not normally so unsympathetic, so grouchy. Are you in pain—is that why you want to see Dr Dunbar?’
The colour on his cheeks returned. ‘Yes, I’m in pain, but it’s…well, the pain’s in a very personal place.’
‘Fraser, I’m a doctor. There’s nothing I haven’t seen—’
‘Look, I’ve got piles, OK?’ he interrupted, scarlet-cheeked. ‘Which is why I’m damned if I’ll let you examine me. Hell, Jess, we’ve dated, kissed—’
‘I’m ready for you now, Mr Kennedy,’ Ezra declared, his voice clipped, and to Jess’s annoyance the two men disappeared into Ezra’s consulting room before she’d had the chance to point out that it must be two years at least since she’d been out on a date with Fraser.
Not that it mattered, of course. She could date whoever she liked—kiss whoever she liked—and yet…
She still wished Fraser hadn’t said it, and then was angry with herself for the wish. What difference did it make, anyway? She very much doubted if Ezra was even remotely interested.
Ezra was actually very interested. In fact, as he sat down behind his desk and stared at the man sitting opposite him, he experienced something he had never felt before. A stab of quite unreasonable, irrational jealousy.
Brian Guthrie had been one thing. The portly, balding farmer was obviously a complete non-starter, but Fraser Kennedy…He was thirty-three, according to his patient file, tall, muscular and good-looking if your taste ran to blue-eyed blonds, which he understood quite a lot of women’s did.
Jess’s taste clearly did if she’d been dating him. And much as he longed to accuse her of having rotten taste, he couldn’t. OK, so the bloke apparently dealt in contraband, but he suspected there were precious few fishermen on the island who didn’t bring back the odd bottle from their trips abroad. If Fraser Kennedy did have haemorrhoids he obviously didn’t take enough roughage in his diet, but neither of these things disqualified him from being a suitable husband for Jess. And to Ezra’s annoyance he discovered he desperately wanted something to disqualify him.
‘I’ve always had a bit of bother in that region, Doc—having to strain when I go,’ Fraser was saying with embarrassment. ‘But this last six months…I’m in agony all the time.’
‘Is the bleeding profuse when you pass a stool, or very dark in colour?’ Ezra asked, forcing himself to concentrate.
Fraser shook his head. ‘It’s just a little bit of blood, and it isn’t dark. More bright red, in fact.’
‘Any pain in your abdomen, or persistent pain in the anal area?’ Ezra persisted. Another shake of the head. As Fraser wasn’t over fifty and there didn’t appear to have been any marked change in his bowel habit, it didn’t look as though he was suffering from anything sinister. ‘OK, could you slip down your trousers for me?’
And while I examine you I can wonder what the hell I’m doing, vetting Jess Arden’s potential husbands, Ezra thought, angrily snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. Her love life was nothing to do with him. If she wanted to marry Wattie Hope, it would still have nothing to do with him.
He was getting too involved, that was the trouble. He should have ignored her wan face and large green eyes, and taken his chances with the police. If he’d done that he wouldn’t now be treating the kind of cases he hadn’t seen since his pre-registration days, and he wouldn’t have found himself getting increasingly sucked into Jess’s life.
And he didn’t want to become involved in her life. Lusting after her warm, luscious body was one thing—he would simply have to control his libido for another three weeks—but starting to care about what happened to her…That was far too dangerous for both of them.
‘Can you do something about them, Doc?’ Fraser asked once Ezra had confirmed that the fisherman did indeed have haemorrhoids. ‘I’ve tried sitting in warm baths to ease the pain—’
‘Which was actually the worst thing you could have done,’ Ezra interrupted. ‘Taking a warm bath softens the skin, you see, allowing the water to pa
ss through the haemorrhoid so the swelling actually gets bigger. Warm baths only help if you add a handful of salt to them. That soothes the area and reduces the swelling.’
‘And is that all the help you can offer—chuck some salt into a bath?’ Fraser protested. ‘Doc, I can’t sit—can hardly walk—and as for going to the loo…!’
‘I’ll give you a tube of antiseptic cream, which should ease the pain,’ Ezra said calmly, ‘but what you really need is a small operation.’
‘An operation?’ Fraser echoed, paling visibly.
‘It’s not a complicated procedure. We’d use an instrument called a proctoscope, which places tight bands round each individual haemorrhoid so that they wither and drop off after a few days. It doesn’t hurt,’ he added, seeing Fraser gulp. ‘In fact, you can have it done as an outpatient without the need for anaesthetic. I’ll make an appointment for you at the Sinclair Memorial, and Dr Arden—’
‘Couldn’t you do it for me, Doc?’ Fraser interrupted, and Ezra’s heart sank.
A year ago he would have laughed if anyone had said he might have to think twice about removing someone’s haemorrhoids, but now…
And yet how could he refuse? If he did, Jess would want to know why. Hell, he could tell she was already eaten up with curiosity, and her brain must be working overtime now she’d seen him suture Simon Ralston’s hand.
‘I’ll make you an appointment for the operation at the hospital,’ he replied evenly, ‘but I can’t guarantee it will be quick.’ In fact, he was going to make damn sure it wasn’t so that either Jess or the locum would eventually have to do the procedure. ‘In the meantime, keep using the antiseptic cream.’
‘Thanks, Doc,’ Fraser said fervently. ‘I guess it’s stupid, not wanting Jess to do it, but we—well, we’re friends, if you know what I mean.’
Unfortunately Ezra rather thought he did when he escorted Fraser back to the waiting room and saw the smile the big fisherman flashed at Jess.
Three more weeks he told himself grimly. He only had three more weeks of this to endure, and then he could leave Greensay, forget about Jess Arden and get on with his life. The fact that he felt an overwhelming desire to punch Fraser on the nose meant nothing. All it meant was that living with a very attractive woman on a strictly platonic basis was an incredibly bad idea for any normal, healthy male.
‘Ezra doesn’t look too happy,’ Tracy said curiously, as he disappeared back into his consulting room. ‘I’d have thought he’d be doing high fives after stitching Simon Ralston’s hand.’
Jess thought he would have too. In fact, she wanted some answers, and fully intended getting them, but not right now. Not with Robb MacGregor walking towards her, looking white, drawn and downright miserable.
‘I’ve got diarrhoea now, Doctor,’ he said as soon as they were alone. ‘And my stomach’s hurting like hell no matter what I eat.’
‘Have you noticed whether your stools are much blacker than usual when you go to the bathroom?’
He nodded, and Jess reached for her stethoscope. Diarrhoea, stomach pain and dark stools. With symptoms like these it seemed they were finally getting somewhere. Robb clearly thought they were, too, but not in a way Jess would have wished.
‘I…I was reading an article in one of my wife’s magazines last night,’ he began uncertainly. ‘It said if you were tired all the time, and had weight loss, sickness and diarrhoea, you could have bowel cancer.’
Jess bit back the oath which sprang to her lips and angrily stabbed the ends of her stethoscope into her ears. Magazine articles were the bane of her life—as were medical series on the television. OK, so they were occasionally very useful—alerting people to conditions they might otherwise have ignored—but they could also cause quite unnecessary fear and panic.
Which she was sure they had done by the time she’d finished examining Robb.
‘I think you’ve got a peptic ulcer,’ she observed. ‘I’ll make you an appointment at the infirmary to confirm it, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you’ve got.’
She expected him to argue, to say he couldn’t possibly leave his business for a whole day to go to the mainland, but he merely accepted the antacid she gave him and left without a word.
‘Honestly, Cath, I’m all for educating the public,’ she complained when the receptionist brought in her coffee after morning surgery, ‘but why does everybody always automatically think they have cancer? First it’s Mairi, and now it’s Robb.’
‘I suppose it’s what everybody’s most afraid of,’ her receptionist murmured. ‘The C word.’
‘Yes, but do you remember the talk I gave on breast cancer at the Women’s Institute—when I said nine out of the ten lumps which women find in their breasts generally turn out to be non-malignant? Well, it’s the same with most cancer scares. Quite often they turn out to be false alarms.’
Cath picked up the patient files on Jess’s desk, put them down again and cleared her throat. ‘Jess, about that talk you gave…’
She came to a halt as the phone on Jess’s desk rang, and with an apologetic smile Jess stretched out to answer it, only to immediately wish she hadn’t.
‘I’m sorry, Bev, but I’m afraid I’ve got nowhere with Mairi,’ she was forced to tell the radiographer. ‘Yes, I do appreciate how tight your schedule is nowadays, but…’
‘I don’t see how you’re going to persuade Mairi to have more X-rays if she’s really dug in her heels,’ Cath said when Jess finally replaced the receiver.
‘Neither do I,’ Jess murmured, then straightened up in her seat with an effort. ‘I’m sorry, Cath. What were you saying to me before?’
Her receptionist opened her mouth, then closed it again as Ezra strode into the consulting room and made a beeline for the coffee.
‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this,’ he exclaimed, lifting one of the coffee-cups, only to glance from Cath to Jess, then back again. ‘Sorry. Am I interrupting something?’
Cath shook her head and smiled. ‘It’s nothing—nothing important anyway.’
Ezra frowned as the receptionist hurried away. ‘Why do I get the feeling she’s lying?’
‘I’m just hoping she wasn’t trying to pluck up the courage to tell me she wants to resign. She’s got family problems at the moment, you see,’ Jess explained, seeing Ezra’s eyebrows shoot up, ‘and being both my receptionist and the practice nurse…It’s too much. That’s why I hired Tracy—to spread the load—but until she learns the ropes, all I’ve done is add another burden.’
‘And I’m afraid I’ve got another one to add,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Ruth Bain has measles.’
Jess dragged her fingers through her red curls and groaned. ‘Oh, terrific! Half the school’s already down with head lice, and now I bet you anything we’ve got an outbreak of measles to look forward to.’
‘I was surprised to learn she hadn’t been immunised against it,’ Ezra said, and Jess sighed.
‘We had a much better take-up rate when it was a separate vaccination, but ever since it was suggested that the MMR vaccine might cause or contribute to autism, I’ve had the devil’s own job to get mums to agree to their children having it.’
Ezra nodded. ‘I guess parents have to weigh up the possible known consequences of contracting measles—encephalitis, ear and lung infections and bacterial infection of the larynx—with the remote possibility their child might develop autism.’
‘Yes, and because I don’t have children it makes it doubly difficult for me to be convincing,’ she declared. ‘I get the “Oh, it’s all very well for you, Doctor, but you haven’t got kids” argument.’
She should have children, he thought. Two girls and a boy. Two girls who would look exactly like her, while the boy…His fingers tightened round his cup as the little boy he’d been imagining suddenly developed an uncanny resemblance to Fraser Kennedy.
‘Have you ever thought of having children?’ he asked before he could stop himself, and saw her smile.
‘Perhaps some time in the future, when I’m more established, but at the moment I’m happy as I am. I’m so lucky, you see, to be living here, doing a job that I love, and I keep thinking what more could I want?’
For a second he was tempted to tell her to stick to that view, to forget all about children—especially children who looked like Fraser Kennedy—but he couldn’t. Not when he knew what could happen to a doctor who lived solely for work.
‘How about getting yourself a life, for a start?’ he said, and she laughed.
‘But I’ve got one. I just told you—’
‘I mean a proper life,’ he interrupted. ‘A life that doesn’t consist solely of trying to fill your father’s shoes.’
The laughter on her face died. ‘I can’t think of anyone’s shoes I’d rather fill. My father was the most talented GP I’ve ever known. He was a legend on this island. He—’
‘Was a saint.’ Ezra nodded, trying—and failing—to keep the edge out of his voice. ‘I’m sure he was, but saints generally get martyred, and I think you deserve something better than spending the rest of your life attempting to become a carbon copy of a man who—let’s face it—probably wouldn’t be able to cope with the pressures a GP faces nowadays.’
‘You don’t know anything about me, or my father!’ she flared. ‘Two weeks—that’s all you’ve known me—and yet you presume to judge—’
‘Jess, I’m not judging you, I’m trying to help you,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘You’re a good doctor. Be happy with that. Start living for yourself instead of grinding yourself into the ground, trying to become something you can never be.’
‘And I think that’s pretty rich, coming from someone who obviously used to be a surgeon but presumably couldn’t hack it!’ she threw back at him. ‘At least I’ve got a goal, a purpose in life, and unlike you I’ve no intention of throwing in the towel just because things might be a little tough!’
The second the words were out of her mouth she wished them back. He couldn’t have whitened more if she’d actually hit him, but it was the look in his eyes which had her struggling to her feet, full of remorse.
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