Partners By Contract
KIM LAWRENCE
The unforgettable Dr Carlyle…Dr Phoebe Miller was settling in well to her new practice - until senior partner Dr Connor Carlyle returned from his holiday and sparks began to fly between them! The tension wasn't just professional: it was definitely personal…Conno was Phoebe's first love, but years ago she'd been forced to accept he was bound to another woman. Her sister. Connor was now free, though, and he wasn't letting Phoebe disappear from his life again. He was determined to keep her as his partner at the practice - and for life!
‘I had no idea that you were the partner I was standing in for.’
‘And when you did…?’ Connor replied.
That was the question she’d been asking herself a lot. The fact was, some masochistic part of her hadn’t been able to resist a glimpse of the new life Con had built for himself.
‘Fair question,’ Phoebe admitted with a beleaguered shrug.
‘An honest answer to a fair question seems reasonable.’
‘I’ve already explained I thought I’d be long gone before you got back!’
Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!
Kim has written almost twenty novels for our Modern Romance
series, where her contemporary, intensely emotional style has made her a rising star. With a background in nursing, Kim also has wonderful insight into the tensions and drama that can arise in a medical setting. Partners by Contract is Kim’s first novel for the Medical Romance
series, and we hope you enjoy it.
Recent titles by the same author:
A SEDUCTIVE REVENGE
A CONVENIENT HUSBAND
THE PROSPECTIVE WIFE
THE PLAYBOY’S MISTRESS
Partners by Contract
Kim Lawrence
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Chapter One (#u7ff16459-98fc-51bd-950e-90e15cb82955)
Chapter Two (#u1aa92e7e-bd76-5d62-beac-8382c85fb3a9)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘DO YOU believe in love at first sight?’
This dreamy question, inserted into a debate that had up to this point revolved around whether the current flu outbreak was going to reach epidemic proportions, brought an exchange of amused, indulgent looks from the other women who had gathered, coffee-mugs in hand, around Dr Phoebe Miller’s desk.
‘I don’t suppose there’s much point asking whether you do, Sally?’ Fran Green, the health visitor attached to the Hayfield Surgery, remarked dryly, pushing her mug aside and getting to her feet.
There was a general murmur of low-voiced laughter in response to this comment. Sally, the most junior receptionist to join the practice reluctantly withdrew her gaze from the brand-new diamond ring sparkling on her finger.
‘What?’ she demanded defensively, a self-conscious flush mounting the smooth contours of her attractive pointed pixie face. ‘It’s not my fault you’re all disgustingly cynical...’ She paused in mid complaint, mindful of practice manager Ellen Patterson’s recent warning that she needed to cultivate a more respectful attitude towards the medical staff. Not that it had ever seemed to her that anyone other than Ellen herself was bothered about such things.
In fact, Sally couldn’t help but reflect that Hayfield had been a much nicer and more relaxed place to work before the tall, statuesque blonde had returned from her winter holiday on the ski slopes.
Surgery nurse Grace Winston consulted the fob watch pinned to her ample bosom and swigged back the last dregs of her coffee. She gave the young girl a comforting pat on the shoulder as she, too, got to her feet.
‘The girl’s right, ladies. The truth is, Sally, my dear, we’re a bunch of spiteful old cows disgustingly jealous of you and your lovely Marty. You keep hold of your youthful ideals as long as you can,’ she recommended warmly, swiping the last chocolate biscuit off the plate. ‘Come along, Kate,’ she added, turning with a dramatic flourish to the student nurse she had in tow that morning. ‘Flu jabs await us.’
‘Good take-up for the flu vaccine this year, Grace?’ Fran asked, checking through her bag to see if she had all the notes she needed for her afternoon visits.
‘A lot better than last year...’
‘I do.’
The quietly spoken, dark-haired locum who was gazing through the window, a far-away look in her wide-spaced amber eyes, immediately became the focus of attention.
If that attention made Phoebe Miller feel self-conscious, she hid it better than the newly engaged eighteen-year-old. This wasn’t entirely surprising. After all, she’d had ten years more practice at doing so. Though when she looked at Sally, Phoebe found it hard to believe she’d ever been as dewy-eyed and idealistic as the young girl.
No, Phoebe had always been the realist in the family. She’d had enough common sense for both herself and her twin sister, Penny, which, given Penny’s impulsive nature, had been just as well! Occasionally, when she found herself doing or saying the sensible thing, Phoebe wondered if she’d been born cautious or had become that way out of necessity.
‘Do what, Phoebe?’
Phoebe tucked a section of dark shiny hair, which was inclined to escape the simple ponytail that confined her shoulder-length hair, behind her ear.
‘I believe in love at first sight,’ she mumbled reluctantly. Some things, she reflected uneasily, were better left unsaid.
Grace silently motioned the student nurse back from the door and eased her generously padded bottom back into a chair. ‘What was that you said, Phoebe?’
Phoebe gritted her teeth and smiled in the face of mounting embarrassment. She was well aware that Grace knew exactly what she’d said.
‘I believe in love at first sight!’ she responded in a belligerent, want-to-make-something-of-it manner that made the other women stare—as a rule, serene and unruffled best described the young GP.
How could Phoebe not believe in love at first sight when she’d seen it happen right under her nose? Even now, she still recalled the instant they’d come face to face—the chemistry had been instantaneous. The man who had been her flatmate and close friend for two years had taken one look at her identical twin and been smitten, and Penny, being Penny, hadn’t tried to hide the fact that she’d felt the same way, too.
If you want something, Phoebe, go for it, life’s too short, Penny had been fond of advising her more cautious sister. As it had turned out, it had been all too tragically true in Penny’s case—her life had been too short. The loss of her twin was still like an empty aching hole in the pit of Phoebe’s stomach. It was the sort of ache that you couldn’t prescribe anything for.
Phoebe doubted if either Penny or Connor had even noticed when she’d made some awkward excuse and left them alone—they’d only had eyes and ears for each other. Had anyone asked Phoebe, she couldn’t have told them a single thing about the film she’d sat through three consecutive times that evening. She’d had other things on her mind... Jealousy wasn’t a nice thing, but when the person you were jealous of was your twin it was a million times worse.
‘You?’
Sally’s incredulous response wrenched Phoebe clear of the painful memories. Her lips twitched, it was clear that she was the very last person in the world that Sally had expected support from.
How did the other girl see her? she speculated, for a moment trying to see herself through the young woman’s eyes. Too old, too cold? Maybe she was right on both counts, Phoebe reflected glumly. Compared to Sally, she felt extremely old indeed, and as for the other... A surreptitious glance around the room revealed to Phoebe that the other women were as flabbergasted as Sally by her claim, though not quite so transparently so.
‘I take it you’re speaking from personal experience?’ The irrepressible Grace voiced the question everyone else was aching to ask.
Not at first sight or even hundredth sight, for that matter! It had taken the sight of her twin sister falling very obviously in love to make Phoebe realise that she and Penny had had identical tastes in men—right down to falling in love with the same one! The difference had been that it hadn’t taken Penny three years to figure it out!
Grace’s eyes widened as, improbably, a faint but definite rush of colour heightened the pale, flawless complexion of their cool and collected locum.
‘Why, you dark horse, you. Who is he?’ she teased good-naturedly. ‘Anyone we know?’
Very well, as it happens, Phoebe could have said—but didn’t. Her dismayed eyes passed from one eager, expectant face to the next—it was pretty clear that there was no way they were going to let her escape without her offering up some sort of token explanation.
This is what you get for being enigmatic, Phoebe, she told herself dourly. At least enigmatic had been the way her colleagues had chosen to read her reserved silence on the subject of her love life. Her silence hadn’t been intended to keep a steamy love life private but to hide the shameful fact she didn’t have a love life! In the end all her silence had done had been to fuel their speculation.
‘It didn’t happen to me. I’m a bit slow in that department.’ A fleeting self-derisive smile flickered across her face. ‘But my sister fell in love at first sight,’ she explained quietly, recovering from her brief loss of control.
‘And was it requited?’ Grace persisted.
‘Extremely requited,’ Phoebe admitted, her normally mobile features very still.
Penny had been gone when she’d eventually returned to the flat that first night. Unaware of her presence, Connor had strolled into the living room, his blond hair tousled as if he’d just woken—or just finished making love? Phoebe had shut herself in her room and tortured herself a lot with imaginary details for the rest of that night and many more after that. The first chance she’d got she’d moved out of the flat, not caring if her excuse for the sudden departure had sounded lame.
‘How marvellous!’ Sally sighed. ‘Did they get married?’
‘The child still equates marriage with happy-ever-after,’ the recently divorced Fran Green contributed with a a jaundiced scowl. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘Yes, they did get married, Sally,’ Phoebe admitted, smiling at the girl.
Sally shot Fran a triumphant look. ‘And I bet they were blissfully happy! They were, weren’t they, Dr Miller?’
‘Until Penny died, yes.’
There was a painful silence.
‘I’m so sorry, Phoebe...’ Grace looked stricken, she loved a piece of juicy gossip, but she had a kind heart.
‘You weren’t to know,’ Phoebe responded, pinning on her best stoical smile. ‘And it was a long time ago,’ she added in an effort to lessen their collective embarrassment. ‘Now, I’d better get on with my visits or Ellen will be complaining I’m not pulling my weight,’ she said ruefully, rising gracefully to her feet and lifting the grey jacket of her trouser suit off the back of her chair.
‘Talking of which, Sally...’ She nodded tactfully towards the clock on the wall. Phoebe wasn’t the only person that could do nothing right in the critical eyes of the practice manager.
With a flustered exclamation the receptionist shot to her feet.
The other women were still smiling at the ludicrous idea of the industrious Dr Miller malingering. During the weeks she’d been at the practice Phoebe had established herself as a bit of a workaholic, as well as being nice.
Niceness notwithstanding, their practice manager seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her on her return the previous week, and had taken every opportunity to keep her in her place. Even Dr Will Edwards, who wasn’t renowned for his keen powers of observation had been heard to comment on the situation.
‘I reckon she sees you as competition, Phoebe,’ the young receptionist mused halfway to the door. ‘Perhaps she thinks Dr Carlyle will fancy you. Sorry!’ She grimaced and pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘It just slipped out.’
‘You know, I think the girl’s right!’ Fran exclaimed as Sally disappeared.
Everyone automatically looked at Phoebe, taking in her tall graceful figure, her mane of thick glossy hair only a shade removed from pure jet, her clear flawless skin, wide-spaced amber eyes and the mouth that was both sexy and vulnerable. One by one they nodded their agreement.
Phoebe, deeply embarrassed by the scrutiny, turned a pretty pink.
‘Miss Patterson is an excellent practice manager,’ she observed, frantically trying to steer the subject into less personal channels.
‘And a first-class cow,’ Grace supplied cheerfully.
Phoebe, who had a lot of sympathy with this view, was hard put not to echo this sentiment.
‘And she’s going to marry the boss,’ the student added.
‘Who,’ Grace asked, ‘told you that?’
‘Why, she did,’ came the bewildered response. ‘Well, not in so many words, but I got the impression she and Dr Carlyle were...’
You and me both, thought Phoebe, adding a fresh pad of prescription sheets to her bag and trying not to look as though she had anything more than a passing interest in the subject. After all these years, it was nothing to her personally if Connor chose to marry—in fact, she’d be happy for him. She’d concluded that it was just his supposed choice of bride that had been making her feel uneasy.
‘She wishes!’ Fran snorted with a dismissive laugh.
‘Well, they went on holiday together, didn’t they?’ Kate asked, puzzled.
‘There’s together and then there’s together,’ Grace explained. ‘There was a place left in the chalet that madam and her mates were renting in France and she persuaded Connor to go along. I don’t expect she bargained for him busting his knee. A bit of a passion-killer, a ruptured cruciate ligament.’
There was a group wince at the thought of the painful knee injury, feared by all sensible athletes. Not only was it excruciatingly painful when one of the main ligaments supporting the knee tore, there was also a lengthy period of recuperation after the surgical repair.
‘At least he’s had it sorted straight away. These ski resorts generally ship you back home to languish for months on our waiting list. I suppose it helps if you went to school with the surgeon,’ Fran mused cynically. ‘I get the impression our Ellen is a bit miffed because he didn’t want her to stay behind and play Flo Nightingale.’
‘I hate to play devil’s advocate,’ Grace interjected, ‘but it didn’t happen until the last day of the holiday. That gave Ellen ten days...’
‘To do what?’ The student enquired innocently.
‘Use your imagination, Kate,’ came the scornful response.
Phoebe already was, as her churning stomach could have attested.
* * *
‘Can I help you, sir?’ Sally asked the tall man who made his halting progress towards her desk. She stifled a tiny sigh of appreciation. Whilst she was deeply and madly in love with her Marty, that didn’t stop her looking, and this splendid specimen of manhood was seriously worth looking at!
Several inches above six feet, broad of shoulder and snakily slim of hip, he had the body of an athlete, albeit an injured one at present. She tried not to goggle too obviously as he approached.
‘And who might you be?’ The stranger had a distinctively deep voice with a fascinating sexy rasp.
‘I’m Sally...Miss Winter...’ The blue eyes—which, as she later explained to her best friend, seemed to be able to see right into her soul—made her even more flustered.
‘I’m here to see Dr Edwards.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
The blond head was shaken and Sally, who had spent the previous Saturday morning and more money than she could afford having highlights put in her mousy locks, felt a surge of jealousy. The streaks in this man’s thick corn-coloured hair were obviously natural, as were his ultra-long dark eyelashes that framed his sky blue eyes. There was just no justice in the world!
‘I’m sorry but he’s fully booked up...’ She consulted the computer screen. ‘He could see you tomorrow morn—Sir, you can’t go back there... Sir...!’ Her alarmed cries as the tall figure went, as cool as a cucumber, right through the door marked PRIVATE brought Will Edwards, sandwich in hand, out of his consulting room.
‘Who’s being murdered?’ he began, then he spotted the figure swinging towards him on crutches and choked on his lettuce and bacon. ‘Good heavens! What the hell are you doing here?’
The intruder grinned and the flash of white teeth not only increased his gorgeousness factor but sent his danger factor soaring also. Sally prayed they weren’t dealing with a violent lunatic because even with those crutches she was pretty sure he’d make mincemeat of nice Dr Edwards.
‘Shall I call the police? I told him not to, but he didn’t take any notice of me,’ Sally piped up, anxious to establish her innocence from the outset.
‘Don’t worry, Sally, he rarely does,’ came the dry response. ‘Your confidence in my ability to run things is touching, Connor, really touching,’ Will sighed.
‘Then he’s—’
‘The boss, our esteemed senior partner—that’s right Sally,’ Will confirmed, without removing his critical gaze from his friend’s face. ‘A tan hides a multitude of sins, Con, but it can’t work miracles. You look awful,’ he announced frankly.
‘Always the enviable bedside manner,’ drawled Connor, who did indeed feel pretty awful after the flight from Geneva. ‘These bloody crutches,’ he growled as he knocked into a decorative bank of pot plants.
Sally ran to clear his path, feeling deeply indignant that nobody had seen fit to mention that their boss was a seriously gorgeous hunk! Her mum still drooled over Robert Redford and this bloke was a dead spit for the actor in his hey day.
‘I’m sorry I gave you a fright...Sally, is it?’
Will watched the Carlyle smile work its magic with the air of a man who wasn’t seeing the female response to this phenomenon for the first time. In less scrupulous hands that smile could have been a lethal tool, but fortunately Connor had more scruples than most—except when he got a bee in his bonnet about some injustice or other. Then he was inclined to use whatever means necessary and make everyone’s life thoroughly uncomfortable into the bargain.
‘Oh that’s all right. I’ll just...shall I, Dr Carlyle?’
‘Yes, you do that, Sally,’ Will remarked, giving the girl a gentle push in the right direction. ‘Dr Carlyle and I have a lot to talk about.’ He rounded grimly on his friend. ‘Such as why the hell aren’t you still in hospital in Geneva, Connor?’
‘The truth is, Will, I was bored out of my skull.’
His friend and partner snorted. ‘The truth is, you don’t think this place can survive without you at the helm.’
‘A man wants to pull his weight and all his friends can do is accuse him of being a control freak,’ a frustrated Connor grumbled, repressing a grin. You couldn’t pull the wool over Will’s eyes. He leant against the wall and adjusted one of the Velcro straps which held the protective padding that swathed his injured leg from thigh to ankle.
‘Pulling your weight! You couldn’t pull a pint!’ Will retorted scornfully. ‘I worry about you, man. I enjoy my work as much as anyone, but with you it’s an...an obsession!’ he accused. ‘How long had it been since you took a holiday—what, four, five years? And you wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t all but bought your ticket and put you on the plane!’
Connor touched his injured leg. ‘Does that mean you’re taking responsibility for this, too?’ he wondered dryly.
‘You shouldn’t have been trying so hard to impress the lovely Ellen with your prowess,’ Will retorted, grinning unsympathetically.
‘Is she around?’ Connor asked casually.
‘Holed up with a rep. Shall I call her for you?’
‘Don’t disturb her on my account,’ Connor insisted, a wary light in his eyes.
Even if he’d been in the market for a light-hearted relationship, it had soon become clear that the lovely Ellen had something a lot more serious in mind. It was hard to believe that all the cosy moments—and there had been many—had occurred without a little bit of forward planning on somebody’s part.
‘Did romance blossom on the slopes?’
‘Mind your own damn business.’
‘Would it be such a bad thing if it did?’
‘Is that a rhetorical question?’
‘I’m only saying this because I’m your mate, Con, but don’t you think it’s about time you got a life?’ Will suggested cautiously. Con could be quite touchy about personal matters.
Suddenly everybody thought they knew what he needed. Connor struggled to keep his growing irritation under control. The trouble with Will was he’d made such a good job of the whole marriage and babies thing that he was labouring under the false impression it was simple. Connor knew otherwise.
‘We can’t all be such a well-rounded individual as yourself, Will. Do you mind if I sit down?’ Connor asked, easing his weight onto his good leg.
‘Of course...of course. I suppose you’ve come straight from the airport? I thought as much! You imbecile,’ Will growled affectionately. ‘If a patient of yours acted like this you’d be blowing your stack,’ he confidently predicted, opening the door of his office wider and kicking a swivel chair out his partner’s way.
‘Any more new faces I should know about, Will?’
‘Only the locum, who I will not hear a word against,’ Will warned sternly. ‘She’s the answer to a harassed GP’s prayers.’
Connor’s darkish, well-defined eyebrows rose quizzically. ‘That good?’ He propped his crutches against the desk and prepared to lower himself cautiously into a convenient chair.
‘Better. I rather hoped she might consider staying on. The authorities are still making loud noises about us taking on another partner.’
They’d been thinking about taking on another pair of hands for some time. The practice had grown to the point where it was too large for the partners and their junior Alan Field to cope with, but they hadn’t got around to doing anything about it.
‘I sounded her out, making it clear the offer would be dependent on your approval.’
‘Of course.’ Connor responded dryly.
‘But...’
‘No go?’
‘’Fraid not, which is a shame because she fits in so well. Everyone likes her—well, almost everyone.’
Before Connor could plead for a bit of clarification on this last point Will grinned widely at some point over Connor’s shoulder.
‘And speaking of the angel,’ Will began, raising his voice, ‘here she is. Phoebe, come along and meet our senior partner!’ he called out to the group of women who were making their way down the carpeted corridor.
His words were greeted with an assorted selection of astonished squeals, cries and a gentle stampede.
‘Connor, back!’
‘The man can’t keep away from us.’
The babble around Connor became a distant irritating buzz. He must have responded and said the right things because people carried on smiling and laughing. He probably did, too, though inside shock had his guts in a frozen fist.
Phoebe’s case slid in slow motion from her nerveless fingers and, without her being aware of it, she grabbed hold of the radiator beside her, the heat making no impact on her icily cold hand. In fact, nothing made much impact at all but those electric blue eyes—more intense than any laser and just as precision-focused—which were fixed unblinkingly on her face.
She didn’t know how long it took for the thundering in her ears to become a gentle roar or her vocal chords to thaw.
She cleared her throat and willed her lips to form a casual smile.
‘Hello, Con.’ No needy tremor—thank goodness—just a slight huskiness.
He didn’t respond and, very conscious of the watching eyes, Phoebe moved forward with a firm, confident tread that belied her inner turmoil. She thought about extending her hand, but had second thoughts. It would be too embarrassing if he refused to accept the gesture of friendship. She thrust it instead into the pocket of her fitted trousers.
She forced herself to look directly at him, the experience about as soothing as plugging herself directly into the national grid.
What changes there had been were subtle—a more pronounced suggestion of muscularity about his broad shoulders and chest, and possibly the fine lines that radiated from spectacular eyes and bracketed his firm sensual mouth were more deeply engrained than they had been four years ago—but essentially he was still the same Con that Phoebe recalled.
Not a person prone to self-deception, Phoebe didn’t have the luxury of pretending even to herself that it was only shock that had sent her nervous system spiralling out of control. She’d often wondered how she’d cope if she saw him again. Now she knew—she wouldn’t! This wasn’t information she felt any desire to share.
‘You two know one another...?’ Will looked from one to the other, a perplexed expression on his pleasant face.
‘You could say that. We lived together for three years.’ This casual bombshell was delivered totally straight-faced. Not unnaturally, it caused jaws to drop. ‘How are you, Phoebe?’
If that had been a deliberate attempt to unsettle her, he needn’t have bothered—she was already semi-catatonic. Against a backdrop of thunderous heart-pounding Phoebe gave a brittle smile.
‘I’m fine...just fine.’ She prayed she wouldn’t prove herself a liar by falling in a heap on the floor. ‘Such a surprise...’ she gulped. No lie this time!
She’d spent the last four years filling the gap this man had left in her life. Now she knew how spectacularly unsuccessful she’d been.
‘For me, too.’ Their gazes meshed. Phoebe flinched. Connor’s expression didn’t suggest that the surprise had been a pleasant one. She’d anticipated some residual hostility, maybe even a dollop of cringing embarrassment if and when they eventually met up again, but not this level of cold, savage fury.
‘We shared a flat as students, though Con was a couple of years ahead of me.’
If Con wasn’t going to go into details, neither was she. Their audience heard her hasty explanation with a disappointed air.
‘This is quite a coincidence, Con.’
‘Is that what it is?’
Her chin went up. ‘You always were the sharp one,’ she responded tensely. ‘The truth is out, folks,’ she announced flippantly. ‘I’ve been stalking the man for years—on account of his magnetic personality and startling good looks, you understand.’
Her words were greeted with general laughter. Phoebe hoped that the person her words had been aimed at had received the message. All she needed now was for Con to run away with the idea she had in some way contrived this situation.
‘That’s our leader all right,’ Grace agreed, blowing a kiss in his direction before heading off with her student in tow. Connor’s eyes stayed on Phoebe’s face as Fran hugged him, then his gaze drifted reluctantly away.
‘You should have said you knew Con, Phoebe,’ Will said, a puzzled frown knitting his brow.
‘Oh, we lost touch years ago.’ She glanced at her watch and murmured a realistic-sounding squeal of horror. ‘Is that the time already?’
‘I expect she didn’t think I’d recognise her,’ Connor drawled.
How could he joke about it? Talk about bad taste! Phoebe shot him a reproachful look and discovered that his expression wasn’t nearly as careless as his tone. His brooding examination sent an electrical surge through her tense frame.
‘Heavens, I’m running late! I must dash,’ she babbled. No longer caring if Will thought her behaviour odd, she did just that, as fast as her long legs would carry her.
Her heart was thumping, only not from the burst of speed, by the time she inserted the key shakily in the lock of the car door. This is all my fault, she thought. Why didn’t I turn and run the moment I realised that Connor worked here? Oh, she’d spent plenty of time rationalising the decision, but the bottom line was that she’d known all along it had been crazy and self-indulgent to stay.
She stood still for a few moments, waiting for waves of nausea to pass. When they did she hastily slid into the driver’s seat, glancing nervously over her shoulder as she did so. A showdown was inevitable but she wanted to choose the time and place. She was about to drive away when Will thumped the roof of her car. She let out a cry and jumped a mile.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ Will said as the window slid down.
‘Well you did!’ she barked. ‘Sorry, Will, I’m just...I hate being late,’ she ended lamely.
Easygoing Will brushed aside her stumbling apology. ‘I was wondering, Phoebe, are you calling in on Rob Marlow this morning?’
‘I thought I would, yes.’
Phoebe was relieved the conversation had turned to more professional matters. Here at least she felt in control. Rob Marlow had been the first patient she’d seen at Hayfield. It had taken Phoebe about two seconds to see beyond his outward aggressive behaviour to the fearful young man beneath.
‘We’ve been discussing the idea of him getting used to using a long stick now while his sight is still reasonable.’
The young computer programmer had been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital inherited degenerative eye condition, some years before, but up until recently he’d been able to lead a normal life as night blindness had been the only manifestation of the disease. Over the previous months, however, Rob had lost a significant degree of peripheral vision, leaving him with tunnel vision.
Will looked impressed. ‘When I suggested a white stick, he told me in no uncertain terms what I could do with it.’
‘I think the counselling is helping him come to terms with things,’ Phoebe responded modestly.
‘Bad timing, the fiancée walking out on him like she did. Hardly surprising the poor bloke went into denial.’
Phoebe nodded. ‘I’m sure she had her reasons,’ she agreed diplomatically. From things Rob had let slip, she suspected that ‘pushed’ rather than ‘walked’ would have been a more accurate description. ‘But,’ she continued on a genuinely upbeat note, ‘Rob’s one of life’s survivors. He seems determined to make the most of what sight he eventually retains.’
‘Good, good!’ Will approved benignly. ‘And if you’re heading out that way, would you mind dropping Con off at his place? It’s only a mile or so past the Marlows’ farm. I wouldn’t ask but I’ve got a clinic, and the idiot came straight here from the airport. And if you know Con, you’ll know he must be feeling pretty hellish if he admits to feeling off-colour. Here he is now...’
Phoebe’s smile became fixed as the tall, achingly familiar figure appeared, making his way towards them. The way he moved was as firmly lodged in her brain as the sound of his voice, the gold tips of the ends of his long eyelashes or the shape of his elegant hands. Right now his loose-limbed elegance was severely hampered by his injury, but it didn’t stop a stab of pure sexual longing from jolting through her with the force of a lightning bolt.
Nothing had changed! It wasn’t the best moment to discover that she’d been successfully in denial for the last four years. Her first instinct was to drive away and leave them both standing there—such a shame she couldn’t follow it.
‘Fine, Will,’ she responded, a little wild-eyed.
Connor endured his partner’s fussing with growing impatience and a noticeable lack of gratitude. His temper snapped when Will readjusted the passenger seat yet again.
‘I’ve plenty of room for my damned leg!’
‘He was only trying to help,’ Phoebe remonstrated, sparing her passenger a disapproving glare before she started the engine.
‘He’s an old woman!’ Connor grouched.
‘He’s a warm and caring person, and very dedicated—a perfect GP,’ Phoebe corrected in a shaky voice. Will brought out the maternal instinct in most women and Phoebe was no exception.
‘Since when,’ she asked, an antagonistic note creeping into her strained voice, ‘did you want to be a GP anyhow?’ Four years ago he’d just been made a senior registrar in one of the top neurological units in the country. If he’d stayed on that course he would undoubtedly have been a consultant now and, more importantly, he wouldn’t be here in her car, filling it with a warm, sexy Con smell.
‘Perhaps I was inspired by Will. Of course, I can’t aspire to his level of dedication but, despite my lack of warmth, some people think I’m quite good at the job,’ he drawled sarcastically.
Phoebe had never doubted it, and if she had, a day of treating his patients would have put her straight. They’d all made it quite clear that Connor wasn’t just a hard act to follow—he was an impossible act to follow!
‘You’re good at everything, Con,’ she observed with a resigned little sigh. Especially kissing...he was excellent at kissing. Don’t go there Phoebe. Don’t think about his mouth...don’t think about anything!
‘Except being a husband.’
CHAPTER TWO
PHOEBE’S stomach churned with self-disgust. Connor’s bleak pronouncement was confirmation of all her worst nightmares.
This was all her fault!
You did it, you fix it, Phoebe. Nice in theory, but in reality she was swamped by a wave of inadequacy. If this had been a heart with an irregular beat or a broken limb, she’d have known what to do, but it wasn’t—this was something they didn’t teach you how to fix in medical school!
It had been bad enough to lose the closest friend she’d ever had because of a moment of weakness, but to learn that he was so guilt-ridden about what they’d done that he considered himself a failure as a husband was just too awful to contemplate. Just when she’d thought she’d finally come to terms with her own guilt, she had his to sort out.
‘Don’t you think you’re being just a tad over-dramatic, Con?’ she began tentatively.
She heard the anger in his hissing intake of breath. Good, anger was infinitely preferable to that terrible desolation she had seen in his face moments before. ‘I have to admit I’m surprised to hear you speaking like that.’
‘Truthfully you mean?’
‘You know perfectly well you’re talking a load of rubbish!’ she countered, a sliver of desperation creeping into her tense tone.
‘Do I?’
‘Sure you do. If it wasn’t so silly, I’d laugh,’ she claimed.
‘You’ve got a nice laugh.’
The sheer unexpectedness of this comment and the strange driven note in his voice made her involuntarily stiffen.
‘Just an observation,’ he added in a much less alarming tone.
Phoebe’s hands relaxed slightly on the steering-wheel.
‘But you’re completely wrong about me being a good husband.’ His lips twisted in an expression of sour distaste. ‘I was actually a disaster from beginning to end.’
Phoebe caught her lower lip between her teeth. She was so embarrassed she could hardly get her words out, but she supposed it needed to be said.
‘I suppose you’re thinking about...’ She shook her head, unable to say it.
‘No, I’m not thinking about the unmentionable.’ Actually, there had been very few days over the past four years when he hadn’t thought about it, thought about Phoebe...
His mocking drawl hurt. ‘It’s not funny,’ she reproached gruffly. Perhaps making light of it was part of his coping mechanism.
‘I’m not laughing.’
A brief sideways peek revealed this to be true. His spectacular eyes were burning in his rigid countenance. Phoebe hurriedly looked away, deeply relieved she had a legitimate excuse to do so.
‘Are you?’ he challenged huskily, directing a diamond-hard searching glance at her clear-cut profile.
‘Am I what?’
‘Thinking about it?’
‘Why would I?’ she blustered. ‘It’s not as if anything actually happened.’ Her laugh sounded almost authentic.
‘In fact, you hardly remember,’ he drawled sarcastically.
Phoebe felt the heat rise up her neck. ‘I remember, but let’s keep this in proportion, shall we?’
‘By all means,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I’m assuming your version of keeping things in proportion involves skipping the country?’
Sarcastic beast! ‘It was just a...a kiss...’ The fine muscles in her pale throat quivered. ‘Penny would have understood.’ She wished she really believed that.
‘She did.’
His cryptic comment only served to deepen Phoebe’s confusion, and it showed in her wildly fluctuating colour.
‘What a day!’ he sighed, rotating his neck from side to side to alleviate the knots of tension that were tying his spine in knots. ‘I pop in to catch up on my paperwork...’ He yawned.
‘You shouldn’t be doing paperwork,’ she responded automatically. She was relieved he’d changed the subject.
‘And I find our brilliant new locum is none other than my elusive sister-in-law.’
Her relief seemed a bit premature. ‘I didn’t set this up, Con,’ she told him urgently.
‘And here’s me thinking you missed me,’ he drawled.
Only about as much as she’d have missed her right arm.
‘Bad luck about the knee,’ she heard herself babble brightly. Wasn’t that the sort of things that casual acquaintances said when they bumped into one another? ‘Was it the anterior cruciate ligament? Isn’t that usually the most common skiing—?’ Now I sound like a medical textbook!
‘To hell with my knee!’ he blasted.
‘I’m trying, Con.’ He didn’t seem to appreciate how hard.
‘Trying to do what?’
Now she knew he was being deliberately obtuse.
‘You could at least make an effort!’ she burst out, keeping a wary eye on a stray sheep that had wandered into the road. ‘It’s very uncomfortable, of course.’
‘My knee?’
His flippancy exasperated her. ‘That, too,’ she agreed, refusing to get angry. Anger made you say things you regretted later and she needed to keep a careful guard on her tongue.
Connor’s lips curled into a derisive smile. ‘Uncomfortable. You always were good at understatement, Phoebe.’
‘By the time you’re fit to come back to work I’ll be gone. When I applied for the job,’ she continued doggedly, ‘I had no idea that you were the partner I was standing in for.’
‘And when you did?’
That was a question she’d been asking herself a lot. The truth was, some masochistic part of her hadn’t been able to resist a glimpse of the new life Con had built for himself. The temptation of seeing where he worked, the people he knew, had been too great for her to resist. Phoebe refused to acknowledge the possibility that subconsciously a little part of her had hoped that this would happen, that deep down she’d wanted to see Connor again.
‘Fair question,’ she admitted with a beleaguered shrug.
‘An honest answer to a fair question seems reasonable.’
‘You wouldn’t recognise reasonable if you fell over it,’ she snapped, forgetting for the moment about keeping her temper. She took a deep steadying breath. ‘I’ve already explained. I thought I’d be long gone before you came back, and when Will asked me to stay a little longer after your accident I couldn’t refuse. With hindsight, of course, I can see—’
‘I tried to write to you,’ he interrupted abruptly. The crack in his resonant voice made her startled eyes swivel in his direction. In profile she could see a maverick pulse thumping like crazy in his lean cheek. Her eyes slid as if preconditioned to the firm sensual outline of his lips and her tummy muscles did a lot of squirming.
With a tiny snort of denial she managed to tear her eyes away and nodded.
‘I know.’ She trained her eyes with glassy fixed concentration on the road ahead.
Connor raked a hand through his blond hair. ‘You must know that I never intended that we lose touch completely...or at all...’
Aware his eyes were on her face, Phoebe kept her facial muscles still, presenting a bland mask to his searching scrutiny.
‘The letters kept being returned unopened. Then you left with no forwarding address.’
‘It seemed easier that way.’ Her composed tone didn’t even hint at the hours she’d spent agonising over the decision not to open his letters. ‘You’re the one who said you didn’t want to see me again.’ The bitterness crept, unintended, into her voice and she knew it was unrealistic to suppose he hadn’t heard it, too. ‘And I gave you every justification,’ she added with painful honesty. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to shift the blame.
‘You gave me...!’ he snarled. Connor closed his eyes, his chest heaving with the effort to control his feelings. ‘Stop the car, will you?’
‘I can’t. I’m already running late.’ If she stopped the car she’d have to look at him.
‘What happened was...’ A deep sigh reverberated through his powerful frame. ‘It was in the heat of the moment, Phoebe,’ he rasped.
The moment was long gone, but the heat remained. A lot of heat! Phoebe, her eyes locked in forward position, didn’t see the colour seeping slowly across the high contours of his cheekbones.
It had been a few days after Penny’s funeral when Connor had come across her curled up in a foetal ball on a sofa. The room had been dimly lit. She’d stopped crying just long enough to plead with him not to turn on the light.
If only I hadn’t kissed him!
A kiss—even an innocent, well-intentioned one—in those circumstances, when emotions were running high, when the people involved were both hurting like hell and feeling empty, was always going to be liable to go horribly wrong.
When you added the fact that one person, namely herself, had been nursing a forbidden passion for the other for some years then the odds on something going horribly wrong became a lot shorter. The horribly wrong part became almost inevitable when the person instigating the kiss happened to possess a face and body identical to the wife the grieving husband had just lost.
‘Sorry about that, Con,’ she’d said huskily when the storm of weeping had at last abated. She’d slipped out of his light, comforting embrace.
‘There’s no point keeping it locked in, Phoebe,’ Con had replied gently, levering himself onto the arm of the sofa and looking compassionately down into her tear-stained face. ‘And there’s no need to apologise for crying—not to me.’
The kindness in his voice had made the tears well afresh. ‘Oh, God!’ she gasped shakily, grabbing the loose hem of his blue denim Oxford shirt and mopping her face. ‘S-sorry.’
Connor had produced a tissue from somewhere on his person and Phoebe had blown her nose noisily on it.
‘Before, I couldn’t cry, now I can’t stop. How about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Have you cried, Con?’
He didn’t answer, she hadn’t really expected him to. Con wasn’t a sharing, caring, sort of bloke. Even in the semi-lit room where his features were reduced to a series of hard planes and complementary brooding shadows, she could tell his control had stepped up a notch, the tension emanating from his lean frame was almost tangible.
‘Let’s throw a bit of light on the subject, shall we?’ she said thickly, reaching for the table lamp.
Her painfully tear-swollen eyes narrowed against the sudden light.
‘We all have our own ways of coping, Phoebe.’
‘In other words, butt out and mind my own business.’ It was desperately hard to keep her tone light. The empty expression in his eyes made her want to cry all over again.
‘I wouldn’t be so rude...’
‘Yes, you would.’ She was comforted to see the faint amused quiver of his wide sensitive lips. The humour didn’t extend to his eyes, but it was a start.
‘I’m making allowances for your fragile emotional state, but—’
‘I think you’d be better off to make allowances for your own fragile emotional state,’ she told him bluntly. She could almost see him visibly withdrawing further from her. ‘All right.’ She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I won’t mention empathy,’ she promised.
Dark eyes meshed with navy blue. The colour of Connor’s eyes always was a fair barometer of his mood—the more intense his feelings, the deeper the shade.
‘A deal,’ Connor agreed, extending his hand to her.
Phoebe’s fingers were enclosed in his as, still seated, he hoisted her to her feet. ‘I just can’t believe she’s gone...’ The tears started flowing once more as the extent of her loss hit her—as it did many times a day—all over again.
‘I know...’
‘I know you know,’ she gulped with a watery smile.
His strong fingers tightened around hers so vigorously that she actually cried out.
‘Sorry,’ Connor said as she rubbed her crushed hand against her shoulder.
She brushed aside his concern with an impatient gesture. ‘It would have been better if it had been me. I wouldn’t have been missed nearly as much,’ she cried, bitterness quivering in her broken voice.
Connor was on his feet before the hissing sigh of anger had passed between his tightly clamped lips. Phoebe gave a startled bleat as she was grabbed unceremoniously by the shoulders. He just stopped short of shaking her, but it was obvious from the expression of blistering fury on his face that it had been a close thing.
‘If I ever hear any more of that self-pitying garbage, Phoebe, I’ll...’ The sound of disgust seemed to emerge from deep in his chest as he scanned her tear-stained features with controlled contempt. ‘You don’t really think that.’
Actually, she did. Penny had had so much more to live for than she did—a husband who loved her, a growing reputation as one of the most talented botanical artists in this, or any other, country, the prospect of a family at some point in the future. Penny had had it all, but as it seemed to matter so much to Connor she obligingly shook her head.
Abruptly the grip on her shoulders loosened and the fury drained from his face, leaving behind white-faced tension.
‘Oh, Con!’ Phoebe instinctively reached up and pressed her hands either side of his lean face. The stubble along his strong jaw rasped against her open palms as she gazed tearily up at him. ‘It’ll get better...won’t it?’ she appealed miserably to him. It had to, didn’t it?
‘I sure as hell hope so.’ His big hands came up to cover hers where they lay against his skin.
During the moment of total empathy their fingers interlocked. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Phoebe stretched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do.
They drew apart almost immediately, but were still close enough for her to feel the warmth of his quick shallow breaths against her cheek. She looked anywhere but into his eyes, terrified of revealing the shameful pulse of pure sexual longing which had surged through her body at the brief contact.
It was wrong—wrong time, wrong place and most definitely wrong person!
If Connor even suspected, he’d despise and loathe her for ever. She already despised and loathed herself.
She cleared her throat, hardly able to hear herself think beyond the heavy thud of her heart. ‘How about a nice cup of tea?’ Who needed therapy when they had tea...? She swallowed a bubble of hysteria that rose in her throat.
‘I don’t want tea, nice or otherwise. Phoebe...’
Her eyes were instantly drawn from the safe perspective of his left ear by the unfamiliar hoarse note in his voice. Don’t let him know, please, don’t let him know, she prayed, fearful that he’d picked up on her guilty lust.
‘What’s wrong, Con?’ Of all the inane... The man’s just lost his wife—will that do you? She was braced for his scorn but not what actually came.
His fair head inclined towards her too quickly for her to focus on his face. Phoebe’s eyes stayed wide open and shocked all the way through the kiss.
They drew apart, but not as far apart as the first time. This close it was impossible to distinguish the individual sounds of their painfully rapid breaths. The pressure of his lips on hers had been just as restrained as hers on his, but something else was there that hadn’t been there before. The new dangerous element made her pulses run wild.
She finally managed to focus, and what she focused on made the muscles in her lower belly spasm. The very last thing she’d been prepared to see had been the blaze of raw sexual hunger in his half-closed, heavily lidded eyes. It sliced neatly through her defences like a hot knife through butter.
Without saying a word or taking his eyes off the trembling outline of her full lips, Connor cupped her face in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers with shuddering, blind desperation. She’d wondered so often what it would feel like—now she knew! All the muscles in her lower belly spasmed again and a febrile shudder coursed through her pliant body.
His hands moved down the flexible curve of her spine, before curving possessively over her taut curve of her buttocks and drawing her hard against him.
Reality and fantasy collided with a resounding crash that sent her spiralling out of control. The sense of unreality persisted as his body, his hard male body, continued to press up against her.
The next time his mouth descended she moaned his name and responded with all the passion she’d been forced to deny for so long. Her knees buckled and it was only the strength of his arms that controlled her fall onto the sofa.
He fell to his knees beside the sofa and his body curved over her. He lifted the silky strands of hair that fanned out from her face and let them fall through his fingers.
His scorching glance moved hungrily over the soft contours of her face before dropping lower to where her breasts strained with each tortured breath against the thin fabric of her top.
‘I want to touch you.’
His hoarse announcement sent a sizzling surge of sexual excitement through her body. Expectation stretched every nerve in her body to breaking point. She ached for his touch, and told him as much in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.
His head moved, allowing his lips to brush against the hand she’d laid on his face, then abruptly he froze. ‘Dear God...Phoebe!’ He acted like a man who’d just woken up from a dream—or maybe a nightmare.
‘What the hell are we doing?’ he groaned, jackknifing to his feet. He continued to stagger backwards until his back hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. Grey-faced, he continued to gaze at her in a dazed kind of sick disgust. ‘You’re both so mixed up in my head I can’t... Just go away, will you? Go away and don’t come back!’
Phoebe took a deep breath and steadied herself. After all, she’d come a long way in the last four years. She turned a deliberately deaf ear to the small voice in her head that pointed out that all that progress had amounted to a fat nothing the instant she’d seen him again.
‘I suppose there’s a moral somewhere in what happened...’ she suggested lightly.
‘And that would be?’
‘If you’re going to have mindless sex to forget your troubles, do it with a total stranger—there are fewer repercussions.’
‘Is that the sort of advice you give your patients?’
‘I wasn’t speaking literally...’
‘No, just stupidly,’ he snarled.
‘We didn’t have sex. And don’t worry, Con, I forgave myself some time ago.’ This was only partially true, but it made her sound suitably rehabilitated. She didn’t expect his forgiveness. Carefully she manoeuvred the car through the awkwardly angled Marlow farm gate.
‘And did you ever get around to forgiving me?’
His brooding tone was filled with a depth of self-loathing she recognised extremely well. Phoebe had got so used to blaming herself that the fact that it was possible he might have shouldered the responsibility had got lost somewhere along the way.
‘Forgive...me...you...?’ Fortunately there were no obstacles in the way as her hands left the steering-wheel for several startled moments. ‘I keep telling you, you didn’t do anything!’ She had to establish once and for all that he’d been the innocent party in all this.
Connor reached across and with a judicious touch on the steering-wheel saved the lazy farm cat sprawled in a patch of winter sun from being crushed. Phoebe took control, of the car at least, and parked it behind a tractor.
‘No forgiveness required,’ she insisted in a calmer voice as she fiddled with the clasp on her case. She didn’t look at him—she was working up to that. ‘We both needed...comfort, that’s all.’
‘And you were completely untraumatised by the entire comfort thing? So much so, in fact, that you couldn’t risk coming within a hundred miles of me!’
‘If you’re implying that I was worried you’d... you’d...kiss me again, you couldn’t be more wrong!’ She laughed to demonstrate how crazy the idea was. ‘If there’s been any hint of...attraction between us,’ she gulped, ‘I think it would have showed up when we lived together. You were hurting like hell, missing Penny. I was there...’ She swallowed and smiled through the pain. ‘I look like Penny,’ she added simply.
‘It’s taken you four years to come up with that explanation?’ he grated incredulously.
‘No, five minutes.’
‘That covers my lustful advances.’ And his violent disgust, she thought dully. ‘What about you?’
Phoebe’s eyes widened fearfully. ‘What about me?’
‘Who were you closing your eyes and thinking of when you kissed me?’
‘Nobody!’ she exclaimed. An alert expression flickered into his eyes and she continued more cautiously. ‘That is, I wasn’t thinking,’ she clarified hastily. ‘I was hurting, too. I suppose I just needed someone to hold me...’ His arms were about perfect for that job, she recalled wistfully.
Connor’s strong jaw clenched, drawing his lightly tanned skin even tighter across his prominent cheekbones. ‘And I was a convenient body,’ he suggested flatly.
Guiltily Phoebe nodded.
‘This all sounds perfectly plausible.’
Phoebe’s spirits plummeted. Suddenly she was getting the distinct impression that he hadn’t swallowed a word she’d said.
‘There’s just one difficulty. If you had no problem with what happened, why refuse to open my letters? Why disappear off the face of the earth?’
It was so obvious she couldn’t believe Con hadn’t worked that one out for himself.
‘How could you get over Penny with me around as a constant reminder?’ She lifted a hand to her face. Had Penny lived, it would have been her face, too.
The taunting smile faded abruptly from Connor’s face. He looked horrified. ‘You went away to spare me heartache?’
Warily Phoebe nodded. He was partially right at least.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the head restraint. The irony of it was so acute he couldn’t help but laugh, but when he lifted his head he wasn’t laughing.
‘Has it ever occurred to you that I was out of my skull with worry?’ She recoiled from the blue blaze of fury in his eyes. ‘I thought I’d wait a few weeks, let the dust die down, only by then you’d gone...left the country. I got that much out of Magda.’
Phoebe nodded. She had sworn her mother to silence. Phoebe suspected that Magda’s co-operation had had a lot to do with her dislike of Connor, who had never really succeeded in hiding his disapproval of a woman who had walked out on her husband and six-month-old baby daughters.
‘You don’t think I’m capable of seeing the person beyond the face? You think I’m that superficial?’ The thought seemed to whip his temper to greater heights. ‘You’re nothing like Penny!’
Not funny, not brave, not sexy or spontaneous. He was too kind to say it, but she knew what he was thinking. She raised her chin, ashamed of the self-pitying direction of her thoughts.
‘I’ve never confused you with her.’
That was one claim too many for Phoebe, whose spine stiffened. ‘Never?’ she echoed scornfully.
His bold accusing glare finally dropped from hers. A dark tide of colour washed over his face. When he met her eyes again his expression was hard and set.
‘No, never,’ he asserted, his nostrils flared.
The delicate frown line between Phoebe’s eyes became a furrow as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.
‘That means...’ she gasped in a charged undertone.
‘I knew who I was kissing that day. Yes, I did, Phoebe. That ruins your victim image of the tragic bereaved husband, I’d say,’ he ground out with savage sarcasm.
She shook her head slowly from side to side in silent denial. The bewildering implications of what Connor was saying were too great for her to take on board. For four years she’d believed that the passion he’d displayed that day had been intended for someone else. Now he was saying... what was he saying?
She wound down the window and took several gulps of cold Cheshire air.
‘I thought I recognised the sound of your car.’
‘Rob!’ She gasped, almost falling out of the car in relief.
The tall young man put out a hand to steady her. ‘Watch your step.’ He laughed. ‘Mum’s got the kettle on if you’d like a cup of tea.’
‘I’d love to, Rob, but I’m running a bit late.’ The young man’s face fell dramatically but Phoebe, normally the most perceptive of women, failed to hear the warning bells. Her thoughts were too preoccupied by the man sitting silently in her car to see anything worrying in Rob Marlow’s obvious disappointment.
‘I’ve got that video I promised you, though,’ she said, withdrawing the video of a wildlife documentary—she and Rob had discovered a shared love of nature programmes—from the capacious pocket of the swing coat she wore over her trouser suit. Her soft red leather glove, tangled up with the video, fell towards the muddy concrete floor.
Both she and Rob bent down to retrieve it simultaneously and their heads collided with a thump that vibrated through Phoebe.
She came up clutching her head. ‘I felt that.’ She laughed shakily.
Rob caught her shoulders as she swayed and for a moment she leant her spinning head against his chest.
Watching from the car, Connor had an excellent view of the impact. The professional objectivity he prided himself in was absent as he watched the tender scene through narrowed eyes.
‘Are you all right, Phoebe?’ Rob asked, his face creased in concern as he bent over her.
Phoebe straightened up. ‘Isn’t that my line?’ she said ruefully, rubbing the swelling already detectable through her thick hair. Her glance at his hands curved over her shoulders was a gentle reminder to which Rob responded with a self-conscious blush.
‘Now you must have a cup of tea—it’s a medicinal necessity,’ he coaxed.
Brandy would have been more appropriate medicine, she thought, brooding over the amazing thing that Con had just said. Perhaps she was getting too hung up over semantics, perhaps he hadn’t meant anything by it... This possibility didn’t stand up too long to scrutiny—the Con she knew was as precise with words as he was with a scalpel, though he’d abandoned that, too, now. There were just so many questions for her brain to cope with and far too few answers!
‘I would, but I’m not alone...’ She nodded stiffly towards the car without turning her head. ‘Dr Carlyle is back. I’m giving him a lift home,’ she explained.
The young man’s expression cleared. ‘Oh, I see.’ A frown of concern creased his brow. ‘That doesn’t mean you’re leaving us, does it?’
‘I’m not sure yet...’ Phoebe responded vaguely. Her first instinct might be to put as much distance as possible between herself and Hayfield as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t realistic or fair to leave Will in the lurch before the replacement he’d organised arrived in a fortnight’s time.
‘We’ll miss you.’
‘Thank you, Rob,’ Phoebe responded absent-mindedly as he walked her back to the car.
Rob walked round to the passenger side as Phoebe climbed back in. ‘Heard about the accident, Doc. You know how it feels to be on the receiving end of medical advice now.’
‘He knows how to ignore it,’ Phoebe muttered, before Connor could reply.
Connor dealt her a narrowed look from his expressive eyes. ‘How have you been, Rob?’
‘Can’t complain. I’ve been well looked after.’ The smile was reserved for Phoebe. ‘I’ve made arrangements to move back to my own place in town.’
Connor’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘That’s great news. What brought about the change of heart?’ This assertion of independence was also surprising news. Since Rob’s deteriorating sight meant he could no longer drive, he’d returned to his parents’ farm and, despite a few gentle nudges from his doctors, had shown every inclination of staying put. ‘Or should I say who?’ The lightness in his even tone wasn’t reflected in the look he shot an uneasy Phoebe.
Phoebe’s full lips compressed. The condemnation in his cold blue-eyed glare was totally unreasonable.
‘Phoebe’s been great.’
‘I do my job,’ she responded uncomfortably.
‘Above and beyond the call of duty.’ Rob beamed.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Connor muttered snidely under his breath.
Phoebe clamped her teeth into a fixed smile and ignored Connor completely as she made her farewells to Rob, promising to drop by the next day. She could be developing paranoia but somehow she didn’t think so. Whatever was bothering Connor, she knew she wouldn’t have long to wait to hear about it. He never had been backward in coming forward when it came to telling her how wrong she was about something!
Connor was about to learn that when it came to professional matters Phoebe wasn’t to be patronised or preached at!
‘Take the first left after the—’
‘I know where you live,’ she snapped.
‘Ask, did you?’
‘I didn’t have to. The community takes a deep, and in my view unhealthy, interest in everything about you, from the colour scheme in your bedroom to your love life!’
‘And did you learn anything interesting?’
Phoebe despised herself for being so damned receptive to his sexy low-pitched drawl. ‘You don’t wear pyjamas!’ she returned snappily.
Oh, heavens! First bedroom and love life, now this! She could have taken a whole day to pick a retort likely to discompose and generally embarrass and not come up with one that did both so efficiently.
‘According to Mrs Sanderson, that is,’ she faltered.
‘Oh, dear Olive. What would I do without her,’ Connor drawled.
‘Very well, if she’s to be believed. I’m not sure she actually approves of men who can iron a shirt,’ Phoebe elaborated dryly.
‘Rob Marlow looked a lot more cheerful than the last time I saw him.’
Here it comes. Anyone who didn’t know Con as well as she did might have taken this statement at face value, but Phoebe knew him too well to be lulled into a false sense of security.
‘Are you suggesting that’s not a good thing?’ she asked spikily.
‘Not at all.’
‘If you’ve got some problem with my professional judgement, Con, spit it out. It’s not like you to be so coy.’
‘I’m suggesting,’ Connor replied, his tone hardening, ‘that our resources are stretched thinly enough without including social calls on your rounds. I’m curious, Phoebe, do all your patients warrant such individual attention? I’d have thought you’d have learnt by now that it’s not a good idea to get involved with patients, especially vulnerable ones. Leaving the ethics of becoming romantically involved with a patient aside...’
Phoebe caught her breath. Con hadn’t lost any of his bluntness over the years.
‘Are you aware that you sound incredibly pompous?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Is this Connor Carlyle, senior partner, flexing his biceps?’
‘Are you aware you sound as if you’re trying to deflect the question?’ he countered annoyingly.
‘Are you implying there’s anything improper in my relationship with Rob Marlow?’ she said through gritted teeth, determined to keep up his question-for-a-question policy as long as he did.
‘I don’t know.’ An image of the younger man, his hands placed proprietorially on Phoebe’s slender shoulders, materialised in his brain and Connor felt the blood pound in his temples. ‘Is there?’
He was watching as a tide of dark colour travelled up her slender neck until her whole face was suffused in a delicious shade of delicate pink.
‘I suppose you only see a patient when you’re doling out a prescription. Sometimes they need to talk...’ she choked scornfully.
‘Yeah...yeah, and in a perfect world we’d have time to listen, but even in that world there’s such a thing as professional distance,’ Connor bit back cynically. ‘He’s smitten, Phoebe,’ he told her bluntly. ‘It’s written all over him.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Phoebe exclaimed, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her voice. ‘I’ve been helping him come to terms with his situation...’
‘Have it your own way, Phoebe. You usually did, as I recall. A more stubborn, self-opinionated female I never did meet,’ he reflected grimly.
Phoebe’s jaw dropped. The bare-faced cheek of the man! ‘Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!’ she gasped.
Connor shrugged. ‘Don’t come running to me when things go pear-shaped.’
‘As if I would. A man who is to empathy...’ She clamped her lips over the insult that rose to her tongue.
‘Restraint, Phoebe, from you...?’
‘Let’s just say I think the likelihood of me crying on your shoulder is remote at best,’ she assured him frigidly. Been there, done that and suffered the consequences...was still suffering...
‘Fair enough, but it’ll end in tears, as my old mum would have said.’
Phoebe’s expression softened. Maureen Carlyle was a lovely woman and, if she’d read a comment Maureen had made at Penny’s wedding correctly, the only person who had suspected Phoebe’s true feelings for Connor.
‘How is Mo?’
‘Died last summer.’
Phoebe’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Connor, I’m so sorry. She was a lovely lady.’
‘She liked you, too,’ Connor said quietly.
‘Was it her heart?’ she probed gently. Maureen Carlyle had had a long history of heart disease, but a triple bypass operation some years back had given her a new lease of life.
Connor nodded. ‘A massive MI,’ he confirmed.
‘I wish I’d been around.’
‘Where were you, Phoebe?’
Her dark, spiky lashes flickered downwards. ‘Abroad.’
‘You always did want to travel,’ he recalled, allowing his head to drop wearily against the headrest. The day’s exertions were beginning to catch up on him with a vengeance. ‘I suppose rural Cheshire must seem a bit tame after all the glamorous places you’ve been to?’
A grim smile curved Phoebe’s lips as she glanced out at the green fields. ‘Restful,’ she corrected softly.
She had been to worse places than the camp on the border of the two war-ridden African countries, but it had been there she’d faced the fact she’d reached the limit of her endurance. Emotionally and physically drained from her stint with the aid agency and nursing a nagging sense of failure, she’d returned home, where she’d been a locum for the past six months.
‘You say that now, but in six months time I expect you’ll be hankering for the bright lights,’ Connor predicted cynically.
Phoebe remained silent. Connor seemed to be in danger of confusing her with Penny—and not, she thought darkly, for the first time. It had been Penny who had been the party animal. She’d often teased Phoebe, who’d preferred curling up with a box of chocolates and a nice romantic video to going out to a nightclub, about her anti-social tendencies.
The nerve-stretching silence continued for several minutes before it finally dawned on Phoebe that Connor had fallen asleep. An ironic laugh worked its way past the emotional congestion in her raw throat as her rigid back slumped back into the seat. Here she was, primed for the most traumatic encounter in her life, and her combatant—if that was the right word under the circumstances—had fallen asleep.
He still didn’t stir when she pulled up on the cobbled drive of his home. She’d always tried to stifle her curiosity when she’d driven past before. Now she could see how attractive the three-storey building built of the mellow local stone was.
Speaking of attractive... In repose, the cynicism and tension wiped clean from his face, Con looked like the young medical student bursting with enthusiasm she’d met when she’d replied to the ad for a flatmate.
A smile played about her lips as she recalled how hard it had been for her to persuade him that a female flatmate would be just as good as, if not better than, a male counterpart. The accommodation situation in the university town had been notoriously bad, and Phoebe had been desperate.
She was seized by an overwhelming urge to brush the hank of fair hair—he wore it much shorter and neater these days—from his broad forehead. The sound of a car pulling up behind her brought her back to reality with an almost audible thump.
The slam of the car door to the rear was audible, too—audible enough to rouse Connor from a deep sleep.
He blinked in a sleepy, confused way and slowly focused on Phoebe. The smile that slowly spread across his face made Phoebe catch her breath, it warming the neglected corners of her aching heart.
Then his expression changed. It was like watching shutters come down. The enveloping warmth was snuffed out like a candle, leaving wary caution...or possibly simply dislike...in its place.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/kim-lawrence/partners-by-contract/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.