Daisy didn’t recognise the number, nor the voice on the other end. If it was one of those pesky “you’ve been involved in a car accident” phone calls, she might be tempted to play along for the sheer devilment of it.
David was asleep in his chair, Zoe had returned to bed exhausted, and Daisy was bored out of her tiny mind. If she was going to live here for the next few weeks, she’d have to have a stern talk with her brother about the benefits of Sky. The Freeview channels were crap, unless you liked watching endless re-runs of whatever was on ITV4.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Heavy breathing greeted her. It was one of those calls, was it?
‘Stop wanking yourself off,’ Daisy said, ‘because I’m not impressed, and I’m not shocked, you pathetic excuse for a human being. If you’re that desperate, go find yourself a real woman, and stop annoying me.’
She took the phone away from her ear when the voice said, ‘Hello? Daisy?’
Oh, bloody hell, the pervert knew her name. She shot to her feet, dashed over to the window, yanked the curtains fully closed, then pulled the edge of the fabric aside, and peered into the darkness, her heart pounding. She’d seen Scream – she knew what was coming next.
‘Piss off,’ she hissed.
David wouldn’t be any help, not with him having a gammy leg, and she frantically wondered which drawer Zoe kept the knives in because she couldn’t for the life of her remember.
‘It’s Noah,’ the man on the other end said.
Noah? She didn’t know anyone called Noah, but by the sound of it, she might be about to meet him. Her heart-rate went up a notch. At this rate, she’d die of a heart attack before he reached the front door…OMG! He might already be inside the house!
A sigh came down the line. ‘Dr Hartley,’ the voice said.
Daisy collapsed against the wall, nearly pulling the curtain rail off in her relief. ‘Dr Hartley?’ she repeated. ‘Noah Hartley?’
‘Who did you think it was? Another ex-boyfriend? Bloody hell, Daisy, you don’t half attract some weirdos.’
‘If the cap fits…’ Daisy said, struggling to regain her composure. Why did this man have such an annoying ability to put her on the back foot? Was he born with the talent, or had he been practising?
Then her tummy did a little roll of excitement – he’d called. Despite everything, he liked her enough to phone her.
‘About our date,’ he said, and Daisy’s heart sank as she waited for him to wriggle out of it. ‘I’m on shift for the next two days—’ (he was letting her down gently), ‘—but I can do Wednesday or Thursday.’
Or maybe he wasn’t letting her down at all. ‘I can only do tomorrow night,’ Daisy said. Her yo-yoing emotions were seriously getting to her.
‘Oh.’ There was a whole world of disappointment in the word, and Daisy’s heart threatened to jump into her throat.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he began, and that was how Daisy found herself yet again strolling into A&E the following evening.
She gave her name to the receptionist, but this time had the satisfaction of saying, ‘I’m here to see Dr Hartley, he’s expecting me,’ when the receptionist asked her for her medical details.
This time she waited less than five minutes before she was called by Dr Hartley himself (she still couldn’t think of him as Noah). He ushered her through the door and took her into an office.
‘Quick, put this on,’ he said, handing her a white coat. ‘Hi, by the way.’
‘Hi, to you, too.’ She slipped her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up. ‘Can I have a stethoscope?’ she asked.
‘Only if you promise not to play with it.’
‘I promise.’
He draped the instrument around her neck and it was at this point that Daisy started to wonder whether Dr Hartley was into kinky games of doctors and er… doctors.
It was as though he’d read her mind. ‘Staff canteen,’ he said. ‘No one will look at you twice if you’ve got a white coat on.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, wryly.
‘I don’t mean they won’t look at you because you’re not worth looking at – you are, you’re gorgeous – what I meant was—’
Daisy laid a hand on his arm. His babbling was endearing. ‘I know what you meant.’
Their eyes met and Daisy was suddenly lost, the blue in them was so blue, and he had long dark lashes, and was staring at her, staring into her, making her knees tremble.
‘Shall we?’ He gestured to the door.
Do we have to? she wanted to say. She could spend the rest of her life gazing into those eyes, losing herself in them.
Get a grip, Jones, she admonished herself. A cluttered office in the middle of an accident and emergency department with the prospect of hospital food, wasn’t exactly romantic.
Yet nothing had been more romantic in Daisy’s life, and all she could think about was that he hadn’t been able to wait to see her. If that wasn’t romantic, what was?
‘I hope you’ve already eaten,’ he advised, leading her down a myriad of corridors and around so many corners she was soon lost.
‘I thought we were having a meal, here?’ she replied, confused.
‘Exactly!’
Daisy hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t hungry either. Her tummy was full of small insects jumping about, and the last thing she felt like doing was eating. The first thing? She certainly wasn’t going to think about that in public.
The food was everything he’d inferred it would be, and Daisy only picked at her dry shepherd’s pie. Noah, on the other hand, wolfed his down.
‘I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime,’ he said, ‘and besides, you get used to the food. Kind of.’
Every so often his pager would ping, Noah would take it out, glance at it, and put it back in his pocket.
‘I was surprised to see you working on New Year’s Day after being out in the evening,’ she said, pushing a fork full of greyish brown mush around her plate.
‘I volunteered. After I saw you in The Cardinals Hat, I had to go into work for a twelve-hour shift. Except it turned into a sixteen hour one instead.’
‘Do you often have to work such long hours?’ she asked, appalled. Nine to five had been more than enough for her, thank you very much.
‘It depends. I offered to swap with a guy who has a wife and kids, so he could spend the holiday with them. Then the doctor who was supposed to relieve me phoned in sick, though knowing him, it was probably self-induced.’ He saw Daisy’s confused expression. ‘Hangover.’
‘Oh.’ She was curious. ‘Why did you become a doctor?’ She genuinely wanted to know. From what she’d seen (a documentary on TV) it seemed that the life of an A&E doctor wasn’t a glamorous one. In fact, it looked like bloody hard work and long hours. ‘Was it because you wanted to help people?’
‘Lord, no.’ Then he realised how that sounded and added, ‘That was part of it, but the main reason is that I’m good at it.’
‘You must have known that before you applied to medical school?’
‘Nope, didn’t have a clue. It just seemed like a good idea at the time, and my mum always said she wanted a doctor in the family, to save her waiting weeks for a GP appointment, so I applied. Can I ask you something,’ he said, ‘and I hope you’ll be honest with me?’
Here goes – this was the time to confess that she didn’t have two kids, and hope he forgave her for misleading him, though with their track record, one more misconception shouldn’t make any difference.
‘What did you want to be when you were five?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling.
She hadn’t been expecting that. ‘A ballerina,’ she replied, immediately. ‘But only because I liked pretty pink tutus and not because I could dance.’
‘Did you have lessons?’
‘One. When I was four.’
‘Only one?’
‘My mother was asked to bring me back when I was toilet trained,’ she said and he gave her an incredulous look. ‘I got so excited, I peed in the corner,’ she explained. ‘My mother didn’t risk taking me back again. What about you?’
‘Train driver – the old-fashioned steam ones, not those modern contraptions.’
She wondered whether he had carried that enthusiasm through to adulthood, and had a train set bigger than London in his attic, or worse, he was a train spotter. She’d rather watch paint dry.
‘I grew out of that, in fact, I don’t really like trains much, I discovered, and then I wanted to be Spiderman. That didn’t work out either.’
‘I suppose the job’s already taken,’ she said, putting her fork down.
His pager bleeped. He looked at it, but didn’t move. ‘I also found out I didn’t like spiders,’ he admitted, then asked, ‘What’s your favourite colour?’
‘Red, because it’s sexy and sassy, and no one argues with you when you’ve got red on. It’s a fact.’
‘It is?’
She nodded. ‘You?’
‘White.’
‘White isn’t a colour.’
‘No, it’s an absence of colour,’ he said. ‘But it symbolises light and life.’
‘Not in some religions,’ she argued.
‘Are you religious?’
‘Not really, but my mother used to make me go to church on Sundays when I was really little. I hated it. I wanted to go horse riding instead, like my friend Jayne. But we couldn’t afford it.’
‘Do you ride now?’
‘Never been on the back of a horse in my life, unless you include a donkey ride on Weston beach.’
‘What would you like to do that you’ve never done before?’
Where should she start? The list was endless. ‘Visit New York, snorkel off the Great Barrier Reef, swim with sharks, own a tortoise—’
‘A tortoise?’
‘They’re cute. Don’t judge me,’ Daisy said, feigning indignation, before carrying on with her list. ‘Draw something that doesn’t look like a very bad cartoon, win a medal at the Olympics. I could go on.’
‘That’s quite an eclectic list you’ve got there, Miss Jones. I’m intrigued about the Olympic medal thing. Which sport?’
‘The one hundred metres.’
Daisy admired him for not glancing down at her less-than-trim bod, even if it was mostly hidden by the white coat.
‘Do you run?’ he asked.
Aw, that was so sweet of him, letting her think she looked as though she could. ‘No, not a step.’
‘That might make winning a medal a little hard,’ he teased, and Daisy melted at the way his voice softened and his eyes sparkled.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘Space,’ he replied.
‘Do you need some?’
‘I want to go up into it. Imagine what weightlessness must feel like – and the view.’ He sighed.
‘Anything else?’ she asked.
‘I want a sister.’
‘Is that a possibility?’
‘My parents are both in their late fifties, so I doubt it.’
‘Why a sister?’
‘Because brothers are a pain in the arse.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Daisy replied.
‘How is David?’
‘Annoying.’
‘It’s only to be expected,’ Noah said.
‘He was like that before he broke his leg,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘Now you can add miserable and frustrated to the mix. And don’t forget, demanding.’
‘Your sister-in-law?’
‘Sly.’
Noah raised his eyebrows.
‘She keeps trying to do things behind my back, as if I’m not going to notice a duster in her hand.’
‘She’s not confined to bed, you know,’ Noah pointed out.
‘She is if she’s under my watch,’ Daisy said, grimly. ‘If I’ve got to strap her to the bed I – oh!’ She suddenly remembered Freddie.
‘He’ll be okay,’ Noah said, when Daisy asked about him. ‘He’ll receive the help he needs.’
‘I would like to help him too, but I can’t, not physically nor in any other way. I don’t want to go down that path again.’
‘Freddie is an adult, and he has to take responsibility for his own actions and his own life. He can’t expect you to do that for him, and counselling will help him to work his problems through by himself.’
Daisy knew Noah was right, but it didn’t alleviate the guilt.
‘Do you like—’ Noah began, when his pager beeped again. This time, when he glanced at it, he swore. ‘Gotta go,’ he said, jumping to his feet and pushing his chair back. ‘Emergency.’
A few long strides took him to the door, where he paused and mouthed, ‘I’ll phone you,’ then he was gone, leaving Daisy to wonder if the previous half hour had been a figment of her imagination.
She was trying to find her way to the exit (and wondering where she should ditch the coat and stethoscope) when her stomach gurgled.
Not now, she sighed, as another cramp hit low down in her bowels.
‘Nurse, excuse me,’ she called, spotting the familiar blue uniform. ‘Where are the nearest toilets?’
‘Go to the end of this corridor, doctor, turn right and they are on your left.’
Doctor! Daisy felt a pride she didn’t deserve, then another warning cramp hit her.
‘Thank you, nurse. Oh, and is there any chance of borrowing a pair of rubber gloves, a bowl, and a wooden spoon?’