‘What about mistakes—typing errors?’ Ted persisted, but Alana wasn’t going to give in.
‘They don’t happen already? Tired staff members already make mistakes. Haven’t you ever seen an “l” typed in instead of a “c” so it seems as if a patient has had two litres of drugs not two ccs?’
Rory Forrester laughed, a sound so unexpected that Alana was, at first, startled. But the laughter was genuinely full-blooded and carefree and she found herself smiling in response, though when he stopped for long enough to say, ‘Carole was right. You’d argue in a gag,’ she wasn’t so sure she should be smiling.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ he added. ‘Daisy Rutherford was telling me you’re another inhabitant of the Near West complex. If someone as fit as you can walk slowly enough for an aching muscled wreck like me to keep up, I’ll walk you home.’
Rory saw the startled expression on Alana’s face, and an equally startled look on Ted’s, but he told himself he was doing Ted’s wife—and thus Ted himself—a favour, removing this woman from Ted’s proximity.
The startled expression on Alana’s face he’d think about later.
When he’d finished considering why he’d made the offer…
CHAPTER FOUR
BUT if Rory thought he might get to know Alana Wright a little better on the short walk home, he was doomed to disappointment. As they entered the lift, a stocky but handsome man greeted Alana with a demand to know what she was doing hanging around the hospital so late at night.
‘Same as you, I imagine,’ she said, smiling with obvious delight at the man. Did she flirt with every man in the hospital? Then, apparently remembering Rory’s existence, she turned to him and said, ‘Have you met the neighbour in the flat above yours? Alex Graham, works in ICU, specialising in Intensive Care. Alex, this is Rory Forrester—the phantom tenant of the third floor.’
Rory shook the hand Alex offered.
‘I hadn’t had time to move in before I was called away for a family emergency,’ he explained. ‘The Frosts kindly kept the flat vacant for me.’
Alex nodded.
‘I know how family emergencies can throw you,’ he said, with the kind of heartfelt empathy which made Rory feel the man really did know about such things. He then went on to ask Rory where he’d previously worked. And though Rory answered, part of him was wondering if this Alex Graham was now on his way home, and if walking Alana home was about to become a group endeavour.
More so than he’d thought, he realised when they walked out of the hospital building and were joined by an attractive woman who greeted Alex with a kiss and Alana with obvious delight.
More introductions—this time to Alex’s wife, Gabi, who had worked at Royal Westside but was now at the Children’s Hospital across town.
He glanced towards Alana who didn’t seem at all put out by these extra people joining them.
And why would she be? he demanded of himself. She thought him a nuisance and an interloper. She’d made that clear from the start.
But he felt thoroughly disgruntled as they strolled along the night-quiet streets, perfume from scented plants in residential gardens taking over from the exhaust fumes of the traffic.
‘Nights like this when a number of us have been working late, we usually eat at Mickey’s, the bar and bistro on the ground floor of Near West, but he’s closed on Mondays so Alex and I are ordering in Chinese. Would you like to join us?’
Alana, walking with Alex directly behind Gabi and Rory, heard the question and held her breath. She was willing to admit to an inexplicable—if you ignored body scent—attraction to Rory Forrester, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted to learn any more about him—stuff that would inevitably come out when Gabi began questioning him.
Gabi could worm the life history out of a—well, worm, probably—if given even the smallest window of opportunity.
‘Thanks for the offer.’ Rory’s smile made Alana feel momentarily jealous of her lifelong friend. ‘But I’ve a thirteen-year-old at home, and if he hasn’t already ordered pizza, I’ve promised him he can.’
Alana saw Gabi’s eyebrows rise and knew she was about to begin her oh, so subtle questioning, but Alex tapped her on the shoulder and the configuration of the group changed, so Alana found herself beside Rory.
‘I’ve met Jason,’ she said. ‘I assume Jason’s the thirteen-year-old you mentioned.’
Ha! Surprised him.
‘You’ve met Jason?’ he said, in such disbelieving tones that Alana felt what surely must be the things people called ‘hackles’ rise.
‘Shouldn’t I have?’ she asked sweetly. ‘And why’s that? Was he under orders to stay shut in for three days?’
Rory’s frown deepened, then, like sunlight coming out from behind a cloud, his eyes lit up and his smile washed the harshness from his face.
‘He told you about the cat! You can’t possibly be the tennis player?’ he said. ‘You? The Dragon Lady?’
He was so obviously delighted by this revelation Alana wanted to hit him, but as that wouldn’t look good, she hit back instead.
‘Well, I assume you’re the Dungeon Master. I think that’s a far worse name to be called. He only called me the Dragon Lady because I didn’t let him win at tennis.’
He obviously wasn’t put out by her reply, because the smile didn’t seem to dim at all.
‘Dragon Lady—Dungeon Master? What’s all this?’ Gabi asked. ‘Some new game?’
Rory turned back towards her.
‘My nephew, Jason, is living with me. He makes up names for people, and Alana and I were just commiserating with each other over his choices for us.’
‘For us, huh?’ Gabi murmured, directing both the words and another raised eyebrow in Alana’s direction.
Alana, however, was too busy absorbing the ‘nephew’ part of the conversation. Maybe if Jason was his nephew, Rory didn’t have a wife. Or even an ex-wife.
Well, not one with whom he shared a thirteen-year-old son.
And what’s that to you? her head demanded.
They crossed the road and as they reached the Near West building Gabi, obviously not put off by Rory’s polite refusal, said, ‘If he hasn’t eaten, we could order pizza for all of us. I’d like to meet the boy game enough to call Alana a dragon!’
‘I’ll see how he feels,’ Rory said. ‘We’re both still adjusting to living together, so I try to let him be involved with decisions. Mind you, when it comes to going to school, it’s a different matter. His decision on that one is that it’s a total waste of time.’
‘I think we all feel that way at some time of our lives,’ Gabi said, then she nodded towards the building. ‘Well, at least he’s home. The lights are on in your flat.’
Alana glanced up automatically and noticed that the lights were also on in her flat. Had she turned them on before she left?
Or maybe Jason had turned them on when he was feeding the animals.
The cats.
The others were, as yet, unfed!
Pleased to have an excuse to avoid Gabi’s Chinese or pizza party—and thus the possibility of spending more time in Rory Forrester’s company—she excused herself on the grounds her pets needed attention and used the stairs up to her floor.
As she put her key in the lock, she realised that, as well as light, there was music flooding from her flat. A tremor of uncertainty made her hesitate, but as burglars rarely played music while they robbed and plundered, she opened the door and was only half-surprised to find Jason sitting happily in her favourite recliner, watching the music video channel on pay TV and totally oblivious to her arrival.
‘Hey!’ she yelled, needing to raise her voice to get above the music.
He shot out of the chair as if her voice had been a cattle prod and turned, a little guiltily, towards her.
‘I’ve just been sitting here. I haven’t touched anything. I really needed to escape,’ he said, defiance vying with hope in his eyes. ‘My aunt arrived, the Dracula-clone Drusill
a. She’s decided she wants to marry Rory, and thinks the way to hook him is by mothering me.’
He hesitated, looked away and added, ‘I don’t need another mother,’ in so low a voice Alana barely heard it.
‘I bet you don’t,’ she said, hoping she sounded less startled than she felt. ‘But your uncle’s just got home, and he’ll be wondering where you are.’
‘She’ll tell him,’ Jason said, the switch to cheerful and unrepentant so swift that Alana wondered how long he intended to stay.
‘Perhaps you should still go home,’ she suggested, not wanting to become involved in a family dispute.
The thin, not-yet-developed lips shut mutinously tight.
‘She’d much rather I didn’t. Being on her own with him will give her a chance for a bit of a snog with the DM.’
‘Snog? What kind of word is that? I thought slang like that went out in the Dark Ages.’ She grinned at him. ‘Back when I was young!’
‘My friend Peter says it’s what his older brothers call all that kissing stuff,’ Jason explained. ‘Snogging, or tonsil tangoing—but that’s so gross even thinking about it makes me want to puke.’
Me, too, when you put it like that, Alana thought, but as she suspected he was trying to divert her attention from the main point—his presence in her flat—with this teen-speak language lesson, she decided not to go into it.
‘Well, whether he’s snogging or not, you should still contact your uncle. Do you want to go up and speak to him, or use my phone?’
A sharp rap on the door saved Jason from making a decision, though from the look on his face he’d recognised the auditory signal. If she’d been wearing a voluminous skirt, he’d have hidden behind it.
Actually, she could have done with someone’s skirt herself, she decided when a quick peek through the peephole revealed the man they’d both guessed it would be.
She opened the door wide enough to see out—but not wide enough to be an invitation.
‘Is Jason here?’
Rory’s demand was so peremptory—so ridged with anger—Alana’s instinctive reaction was to close it again, but his foot reacted faster than her hand, effectively preventing her automatic response.
Then she had to pretend she hadn’t been about to slam the door in his face, so she babbled out the first thing that came into her head.
‘He’s helping me feed the animals. I understood you knew where he was.’
‘I was told!’ Rory said, the words seething out through gritted teeth. ‘Though no one mentioned feeding animals.’
Alana, aware from the scuffling noises behind her that Jason had made his way into the kitchen, let the door swing wider, revealing at least part of her menagerie in the form of the—to most people revolting—featherless parrot.
‘What else beside apple for the guinea pigs?’ Jason asked, right on cue, and Alana turned to shoot a ‘don’t overdo it’ look at the little ham.
He was now smiling brightly at his uncle, as if both surprised and delighted to see him.
‘Hi, Rory,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Did you see Drusilla? Wasn’t that a nice surprise?’
Alana heard a noise that sounded like a low-pitched growl and, certain her latest uninvited guest couldn’t be growling, looked around for the stray cat.
‘Have you had anything for dinner? Did you order pizza?’
Maybe it had been him growling, she decided as the questions—fairly growly still—flew past her to Jason.
Who smiled benignly at his uncle and, with a hint of a conspiratorial wink at Alana, said, ‘Well, no. I thought I might eat down here.’
Alana put up her hands.
‘No way! Enough’s enough, kid. I don’t intend to be caught in the middle of whatever hassles you might be having with your uncle. And while I’m happy to have your help with the animals, and you’re welcome to visit any time, you need to be asked to people’s places for meals, not simply assume you can come as if it’s your right.’
She saw disappointment flood his face and immediately felt like a traitor, then realised it was exactly how he’d intended her to feel.
‘And don’t try that “poor me” look, because it won’t work.’ She grinned at him. ‘I’m the Dragon Lady, remember, so beware my fiery breath!’
She jerked her head towards the door and was surprised when he obeyed the unspoken instruction.
Even more surprised when he greeted his uncle with a complicated handshake that involved meshing of knuckles and much twisting of arms and slapping of palms. They must have some level of rapport—the boy and the Dungeon Master!
‘Don’t forget, I expect you at five tomorrow. I’ll be doing my tri-weekly major house clean of all the animals’ cages,’ she told Jason, when he turned to say goodbye. ‘Once I’ve shown you what’s what, you can take over that job at the weekend.’
Rory opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, then closed it again, contenting himself with a nod of farewell.
Had he been going to object to Jason working for her? Alana wondered as she shut the door behind the pair.
Not that it mattered if he did object. The boy obviously needed plenty to occupy his time. She wondered what school he was attending, and if whatever school it was had regular after-school sporting activities.
And did he have a tennis coach? He was certainly good enough to be encouraged in the sport.
‘Not that he’s any of our business, is he?’ she said to the parrot, talking to the bird because the flat, all of a sudden, seemed very empty.
‘Nor is his uncle,’ she added to Biddy, who had obviously decided her babies were too old to feed and was pushing them towards the water dispenser in an attempt to get them drinking from another source.
But neither of these pieces of advice stopped her thinking about her neighbours on the floor above her. And about the woman called Drusilla, who’d arrived to ‘snog’ with Rory.
‘Good luck to her,’ Alana muttered savagely, setting about the tasks of cleaning the animals’ feed and water bowls with unnecessary energy. She’d just completed her tasks when Gabi rang to enquire if she wanted to join them for Chinese.
‘Rory Forrester has a visitor, and his nephew hasn’t eaten, so they’re all coming up. I’ve ordered extra—enough for a small army, according to Alex.’
The idea of playing ‘happy tenants’ with Rory, Jason and the dread Drusilla made Alana, to steal Jason’s word, want to puke.
‘Thanks but no thanks,’ she told Gabi. ‘I’m already so far behind in my chores the guinea-pig babies are eating their cage.’
But as she finished her tasks and made herself an omelette for dinner, her thoughts strayed to the fourth floor, and the people gathered in Gabi’s flat.
All the people?
Alana arrived at work early the next morning, more anxious than ever to get on top of what was happening in the ward. If Rory could organise a staff meeting and actually have people turn up on what was virtually his first day in the hospital, then he was probably equally efficient at checking what was happening within his domain.
And doubtless the kind of man who was always on time.
‘That’d be a nice change,’ Will James remarked when she ran into him a little later in the tearoom where both were grabbing a revivifying cup of coffee. ‘I’ve had three complaints about Dr Wallace and his unreliability this week, and it’s only Tuesday morning.’
‘Coffee! I smell coffee. If someone would supply me with a cup—black and two sugars—I’ll be their slave for life.’
‘Be careful what you promise,’ Will said, while Alana told herself it must be the fact she’d slept badly that had made her start at the sound of Rory’s voice. ‘Especially when Alana’s closest to the urn,’ Will added. ‘She’s not known for being kind to specialists.’
‘No?’
Dark eyebrows rose and though Rory moved his lips in what could be taken—by someone who hadn’t seen the real thing—to be a smile, the expression did nothing to lighten the line
s of tiredness in his face or warm the greyness of exhaustion from his skin.
She passed him the coffee without comment, but Will wasn’t so easily stopped.
‘Bad night?’ he asked, while Alana’s imagination supplied her with vividly illustrated explanations of the specialist’s lack of sleep.
‘You could say that,’ Rory said, blowing on the coffee then sipping cautiously.
He nodded, as if in thanks, to Alana, then said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Mrs Oliver. I was speaking to her—is it a granddaughter who looks after her?’
‘Yes, Prue.’
‘That’s the one. Well, Bill Stevens, the O and G consultant, is apparently her specialist. I ran into him in the car park and he said he’d been wanting to talk to me. He doesn’t think she can manage the grandmother any more, but he was saying there’s a new hostel about to open which will have a secure residential area for Alzheimer’s patients. He apparently knows about it because he’s on the board of the Alzheimer’s Association…’
Rory looked up from his coffee to see Alana frowning at him, the expression so puzzling he completely lost his train of thought.
‘What’s wrong? What have I done now?’
The frown grew even fiercer, while the male nurse murmured, ‘Uh-oh,’ and left the room.
‘You’re not normal!’ she said. ‘Or is this just new-broom stuff?’
‘Not normal? New broom?’
He heard his pathetic echo of her words, and regretted the impulse that had taken him into the tearoom, no matter how badly he’d needed the caffeine fix to help him over the stress and discomfort of the previous night.
‘You’re a specialist. You see the patients while they’re here, do follow-up appointments if necessary, teach students, publish papers, maybe even do patient profiles, but specialists rarely get involved with the minutiae of patients’ lives—in fact, I doubt most of them know anything about where or how their patients live.’
‘That’s a fairly sweeping generalisation, Sister Wright,’ he said silkily. ‘Based on your own years and years of experience?’
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