'And Will with broken arms, eh? Still, he's got such a nice, even temper. Anyone else might be really grumpy.'
Lucie nearly choked, swallowing the retort. Instead she smiled at Dick, exorted him to give the consultant a chance and reached the door just as Will and Pam came in.
'Right, are you all done?' Will asked. He had plant pots balanced on his cast, and Lucie rolled her eyes.
'Scrounging off the patients?' she teased as they went out to the car.
'Absolutely. Cheers, Pam. Thanks. Cheerio, Dick. Mind how you go.'
Lucie stuck her keys in the door of the car and paused. 'It would never happen in the city,' she remarked over the roof in a quiet voice.
'It's a cover. She wanted to talk to me about him. He won't go back to the consultant.'
'Yes, he will,' Lucie said smugly. 'I just talked him into it—at least, I think I did. The only reason he wouldn't do it is because; he's afraid of the pain. He's hoping he'll die before he gets to the front of the waiting list. I told him it was possible he'd be suitable for balloon angioplasty, and even if he wasn't, how about his retirement?'
Will stared at her over the top of the car. 'And you've talked him round?'
'Yup.'
Respect dawned in his eyes. 'Good girl, well done,' he said softly. 'It's a shame he can't afford to go privately and get it over with, now he's psyched up. Not that it should be necessary, but I don't want to start on the politics of funding.'
'Pointless, really,' Lucie said with a cheeky grin. 'We'd probably be in agreement, and that would never do, would it? Anyway, he's got private health insurance through his work.'
She opened the car, slid behind the wheel and pushed his door open. He tried to pass the plants to her, but, of course, he dropped one on the seat, and it splattered wet black compost all over her upholstery.
'"Don't you dare put those bricks in my car like that,'" she mimicked, and he groaned and met her eyes, his own apologetic.
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't fret, I don't have to sit on it. Just brush it off for now—you can lick it clean later.'
Shooting her a foul look, he used his sprained wrist to flick the little bits of black aside, leaving dirty streaks on his bandage and the seat.
She stifled a smile. 'On second thoughts, using your car in future might be a good idea, if you're going to take up horticulture as a sideline,' she said sweetly. 'Mind you don't stand on them.'
He clenched his jaw and got into the car, tucking his arm into the seat belt and pulling it through with care and much wincing. She let him struggle for a moment, then took the buckle and clipped it in.
Her hand brushed his thigh, and it tensed again as it had before. She stifled another smile. Interesting.
'When are you going to go back to the hospital? You ought to go to the fracture clinic.'
'I'll go tomorrow,' he said. 'Right, where to next?'
* * *
Lucie was right, of course, he did need a sling on it, but now his pride was going to get in the way and so he surreptitiously propped his right arm up on anything that was handy, just to take the pressure off it.
It was pounding and, of course, with only a back-slab it was marginally unstable, too, and grated nicely every now and again if he was a bit rash. He really should get it seen to, he thought with a sigh.
The day seemed to drag interminably, and Lucie didn't need to be watched every second. She was more than capable of running his afternoon clinic on her own, and in the end he left her to it and called a patient who ran a minicab.
He was an ex-London cabbie, and always good value, and he entertained Will all the way to the hospitals. He took himself off for a cup of tea while Will saw the fracture clinic staff and got a lecture about the swelling and resting it in a sling. Then the cabbie took him home, after Will had bribed the man to go down his track.
'Blimey, gov, it's a miracle nobody's got stuck on this,' he said in a broad Cockney accent.
'Mmm,' Will agreed noncommitally, saying nothing about Lucie. He gave the man a hefty tip, crawled into the house and greeted Bruno with guarded enthusiasm.
'Hello, mate. Good dog, get off. Ouch!' He raised his arms out of reach, kneed the dog out of the way and sat down at the table with his arms in front of him, safe. Now all he needed was some pills, and they, of course, were in his pocket. Could he get them out?
He struggled, but came up with them, and even managed to open the lid. Amazing. He took two, thought about another and put the lid back on. He'd have more later. In the meantime, he was going to stretch out on the sofa with the dog at his feet and have forty winks...
'Hello, Lucie. How are you doing?'
She looked up from her paperwork and smiled at Richard Brayne, the senior partner. 'Oh, hi, there. I'm fine. I don't know where Will is—have you seen him?'
'Gone to the fracture clinic and then home, he said.' Richard settled himself beside her and pushed a mug of tea across the table to her. 'You must be doing well if he'll leave you alone all ready.'
'Or he feels like death warmed up, which is more likely,' Lucie said drily, harbouring no illusions about her brilliance or Will's understanding of it. 'I suppose he wants me to cover his evening surgery— is he on call tonight, by any chance, just to add to the joys?'
Richard shook his head and grinned. 'No. You get lucky. We have night cover—a co-operative. You don't have to do any nights. Will doesn't—he has too much to do on the farm.'
Lucie tipped her head and looked searchingly at Richard, puzzled. 'On the farm?' she asked. 'Such as what?'
'Oh, I don't know, fencing the fields, mending the barn, doing up the house, getting the cottage ready for guests. He's always busy. Just at the moment he's redoing the ground floor of the house, I think—or he was.'
Lucie was relieved. She had wondered, for a moment there, if he had masses of stock all starving to death without him—stock she was about to have to look after. She didn't mind the dog or the cat, and she'd get used to the snorting horse given time, but anything more agricultural was beyond her.
It was a pity, she thought on her way back there later that evening, that Will didn't spend some of that time being busy doing the drive. She picked her way along it with caution, and went in to find him sprawled full length on the sofa.
Bruno had greeted her rapturously, whining and wagging and pushing his great face into her hand, and she'd patted him and done the 'good dog' thing, and had then looked for Will.
And there he was, spark out, looking curiously vulnerable this time. There was a sling round his neck but the arm was out of it, propped beside him on a pillow with a cool pack over the gap in the back of the plaster. He'd obviously been ticked off at the fracture clinic, she thought with wry amusement, and was now doing as he was told.
Or perhaps the pain had finally penetrated his common sense. Whatever, he was now doing what he should have been doing ever since he'd hurt himself.
Finally, she thought, and then wondered what was for supper.
Whatever she cooked, she realised. She went into the kitchen, followed by the clearly hopeful dog, and fed him first. The cat materialised at the sound of Bruno's bowl clunking round the floor, and she fed her, too.
'OK, guys, what about us?' she asked, and Bruno cocked his head on one side for a moment, before going back to his optimistic licking.
She found some steak mince in the freezer, and onions and tinned tomatoes and some ready-made Bolognese sauce, and in the cupboard next to the sink, under the first-aid kit, she found a bag of pasta shells.
Easy—and he could eat it without difficulty. She threw it together, dished up and went and woke him.
'Supper's ready,' she announced, and he propped himself up groggily on his left elbow and peered at her out of dazed eyes.
'Supper?'
'Spag Bol. Well, pasta shells, anyway.'
'Oh, God.' He pulled a face and flopped back down on the cushions. 'Right at the moment, I can't think of anything I want less.'
She stared at him in amazement, then flipped. 'Fine,' she said tightly. 'I'm sure it'll find a more appreciative audience.'
And she stalked into the kitchen, seized his plate and scraped it into the dog's bowl, just as Will came through the doorway.
'What the hell are you doing?' he asked, stunned.
She banged the bowl down defiantly. 'You said you didn't want it.'
'No, I said I couldn't think of anything I wanted less than food. That didn't mean I wouldn't have eaten it! Hells teeth, woman!'
He stared with evident dismay at the dog, who had swallowed the plateful almost whole and was busy doing the dish-licking thing again.
Throwing her one last disbelieving look, he let his breath out on a sharp sigh, turned on his heel and went back into the sitting room, banging the door behind him.
Whoops. OK. So she'd overreacted. Hardly the first time, but he just seemed to set her off. She looked at her own food with regret. She could give it to him...
Or she could eat it, and he could contemplate the wisdom of thinking before he spoke. She was sure he managed it with his patients, so why not her?
No. She was eating it. All of it. Every bite.
It nearly choked her.
Will was starving. Only pride prevented him from going into the kitchen and making himself something to eat—pride and the fact that Lucie was in there with the radio on, singing along to some ghastly noise and chattering to the dog, who was her devoted slave.
'Fickle beast,' he mumbled, flicking through the television channels with the remote control in his reluctant left hand. He found a wildlife programme, and settled down to watch it, disturbed only by the noise from the kitchen.
After five minutes, it had driven him crazy. He stood up, walked over to the door and yanked it open, just stifling the little yelp of pain in time. 'Do you suppose you could turn that bloody awful racket down?' he snarled, and kicked the door shut again, retreating to the sofa to nurse his throbbing wrist.
'Sor-ry,' she carolled through the door, and then started humming and singing, which was worse, because she had a throaty, sexy voice that did unforgivable things to his libido.
He turned the TV up in self-defence, and forced himself to concentrate on the mating habits of some obscure Australian spider. Riveting it wasn't, and finally he went upstairs to bed, propped himself up and read a book until he'd heard Lucie settle for the night.
Then, like a fugitive in his own home, he crept down to the kitchen, raided the bread bin and managed painfully and raggedly to hack the end off the loaf.
He found a chunk of cheese in the fridge, looked in despair at the tub of olive-oil spread and realised that the effort was more than he could be bothered to make. He wrapped the cheese in the wavering doorstep of dry bread, bit the end off and poured a glass of milk. It would have to do. Anything else was beyond him.
He carried the rustic little shack up to bed, wondering as he went where Bruno was, and then saw him through the crack in Lucie's door, curled up across the foot of her bed, one eye open and tail waving gently in apology at his defection.
Lucie was scrunched up at the top, forced out by the dog, and he smiled nastily. Good. Serve her right. If there was any justice Bruno would be sick on her floor and she'd have to clear it up—and lying like that she'd almost inevitably wake up with a crick in her neck.
He sighed and shook his head. Lord, she really brought out the worst in him, but she was so disruptive! He was used to silence, broken only by the sounds of nature or by the television or radio if he chose to have them on, which he often didn't.
It wasn't her fault she was here, of course. The sooner he got the bed ordered, the sooner he could have his peace and quiet back. He vowed to do it the next day.
First thing in the morning...
CHAPTER FOUR
'What do you mean, you can't do it till next week?'
'Sorry, sir, all our carpet-fitters are busy. It's because of the spring, you see.'
Will didn't. All he saw was the next week stretching ahead of him, fighting with Lucie for his personal space.
'But surely you can manage one small room.'
'That's what they all say, sir,' the salesman told him cheerfully. 'Next Wednesday's the earliest we can possibly get to you.'
'But I have to have it!' He heard the rising, frenzied tone and cleared his throat, dropping his voice an octave and striving for authority. 'I really have to have it,' he insisted, and then added coaxingly, 'Can't you manage this Friday? Perhaps for an incentive payment?'
'Not even if you double it, sir,' the man said implacably. 'If you really are in such a hurry, I suggest you buy a piece off the roll and fit it yourself.'
'I might just do that,' he lied. 'Elsewhere.' If he had arms. Hah. He would have hung up with a flourish, but remembered just in time that it would hurt too much. Instead, he replaced the receiver with exaggerated care and swore, just as Lucie came back into the consulting room bearing two cups of coffee and a pile of patient envelopes.
'No joy?' she said sweetly, plonking the mug down in front of him, and if he'd had two hands, he would have strangled her while she was in range. Instead, he withdrew into dignity.
'There are other firms,' he said tautly. 'I shall keep trying. Are those this morning's notes?'
'No, tomorrow's. I thought we could get ahead.'
'Don't get sarky,' he growled, and her lips twitched. Aggravating woman. He dragged his eyes off her lips and tried to stop fantasising about them. He had to concentrate...
Will seemed to be getting a little better, Lucie thought as the day wore on, if his temper was anything to go by. He was crabbier than ever, possibly from pain, but more likely because now he was over the initial shock of his fall, the enforced inactivity was starting to get to him. By all accounts he was usually a busy person, and just now he was having to put up and shut up. It clearly didn't sit well on him.
Nor did not being able to drive, and her refusal to drive his car instead of hers. 'I hate it,' she'd insisted. 'We take mine or we don't go—or you can pay for a taxi.'
It hadn't really been fair, and in truth there was nothing at all wrong with the bigger car. It was easy to drive, but she was used to hers, and anyway, it was the principle.
So he'd folded himself up and threaded himself through the door like a camel through the eye of the needle, and sat in grim-lipped silence most of the time they were out.
And then, after their last call, he climbed out of the car and winced, and she noticed he was limping. Oh, blast. Guilt washed over her, and she hurried after him.
'Are you OK?' she asked with genuine concern, and he shot her a look like a shard of ice.
'Just peachy. How the hell do you think I am?'
She shrugged. 'Just asking.'
'Well, don't bother,' he snapped. 'Everything hurts like the devil.'
'Did you take your painkillers earlier?' she asked, and got another murderous look for her pains.
No, then. She made him a drink, and they talked through her calls until it was time for her afternoon clinic, and then, because it was a shared antenatal with the midwife and she had plenty of supervision, he took himself off to an empty consulting room.
'To sort this darned carpet out,' he said with determination, and she pitied the salesmen he was about to browbeat into submission.
She enjoyed the antenatal clinic. She'd always liked maternity, mainly because it was the one branch of medicine where everyone, by and large, was well. She felt her first set of triplets, and listened to their heartbeats, and discussed the management of the delivery with the midwife and the mother, Angela Brown.
It had been planned that she would have a hospital delivery by Caesarean section, and was being seen alternately at the hospital and the GP clinic. As the time went on, she would transfer entirely to the hospital, and although she was happy to do that for the sake of the babies, she expressed regret that it couldn't be a more normal birth.
'Are you looking forward to it?'
Lucie asked, wondering how she'd cope with three at once. Apparently she wasn't the only one wondering.
'Actually, I'm dreading it,' the patient confessed. 'I don't know how I'll manage. My mother's said she'll help, and my husband's going to take some time off, but it's going to be hell at first, and we're only in a small house. This wasn't exactly planned, and I was going back to work afterwards, but there's no way I can afford to pay child care for three!'
Good grief, Lucie thought. Accidental triplets on a tight budget? Rather her than me.
They finished their clinic, and she found Will in the office, hunched over a cup of tea. He looked up at her as she approached, and his lip moved a fraction. A smile? Perhaps his face muscles were on a tight budget, like Mrs Brown, she thought, and stifled a chuckle.
'Got your carpet sorted?' she asked, and a frown replaced the sorry excuse for a smile.
'More or less. I've had to pay more, but it comes on Monday. I thought it was worth it.'
She ignored the implied insult. 'So we'll be stuck with each other over the weekend,' she said breezily. 'I dare say we'll survive.'
He muttered something inaudible, and she felt another flicker of irritation and hurt. How silly of her. It wasn't personal, he just liked his space, she told herself. 'How about the bed?'
'From the same place. It'll come later in the day. I've arranged to leave them a key. Security's not a problem—nobody ever goes down my track except for the occasional dog walker who's got mislaid on the footpath from the ferry.'
She settled her chin on her hands and looked across the table at him, wishing he wasn't quite so prickly with her. 'Tell me about this ferry,' she said, trying to bridge the gulf between them. 'When does it run? I've looked and looked, but I can't see anything.'
'You won't. It doesn't exist. It's just the name of the little jut of land. It used to be a chain ferry that crossed the mouth of the river, but they built a bridge further up. The only thing left is the name.'
Rescuing Dr Ryan Page 5