HARRY took Rebecca to a small Italian place which, she was pleased to conclude, had probably never received the slightest attention from the fashion-conscious. She had no desire to turn this into a big evening. It was early, and it was a quiet night, with just three other groups of diners drifting in during the course of their simple meal.
He orchestrated the situation masterfully, and this—although she’d never have admitted it to him—was exactly what Rebecca needed. First, he rang her father and told him where she was. Next, he observed casually that the entrée of garlic prawns and the main course of aubergine lasagne were both excellent. Rebecca dutifully ordered them.
Finally, he told her with a very earnest expression, ‘We’ll talk about the malpractice suit for three minutes and get it out of the way, then switch to opera or something, shall we?’
‘The…malpractice…’
‘Gee, you are tired, aren’t you?’
‘Oh. Right. Joke. Sorry.’
‘Joke with subtext,’ he corrected. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, OK?’
‘A “tummy-ache”! And Deirdre told me his English was bad.’
‘Deirdre didn’t sense the urgency, and she was the one that spoke to him.’
‘But I’ve dealt with recent immigrants in Melbourne. I should have realised that a young Vietnamese couple with almost no English wouldn’t necessarily present the way I’m used to in that sort of situation. The moment I heard the words “tummy-ache” and “baby” from him, I should have put them together, and—’
‘Miraculously stopped the pre-term labour?’
‘Well, no, but sent them straight to Southshore Hospital.’
‘They made it there anyway, right?’
‘Just! She was born in the lift.’
‘A girl? Nice! They’re usually a little stronger than premmie boys.’
‘Yes, apparently the baby’s looking good, and the mother’s textbook-healthy post-partum. She must have been about seven months, judging by the baby’s development, although she certainly didn’t look it! Dr Gaines—Grace’s husband—rang while you were finishing your notes and gave me all the details. He was on hand to deliver the placenta, if not the baby!’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘They might not have made it to the hospital. The baby might not have been OK.’
‘Do you make a habit of borrowing trouble like that? Let me guess, you’re still thinking about that guy who pulled the dislocated shoulder scam, too, aren’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, unfortunately, you’ve had your three minutes, so—’
‘That wasn’t three minutes!’
He looked at his watch. ‘True. OK, then, you’ve got another minute and thirty-eight seconds. What more do you want to say?’
She opened her mouth then stopped and spread her hands. ‘I suppose there isn’t a lot more to say.’
‘You’ve heard the expression “flogging a dead horse”,’ he drawled.
She sighed.
‘Right, then, it’s on to opera,’ he said briskly, rubbing his lightly tanned hands together.
She laughed and took a deep breath, fighting to get beyond the physical effect he had on her. She wasn’t going to fall under its spell. It was like a drug, somehow, powerful and frightening. She didn’t trust what would happen if she let herself feel this new floodtide of femininity in her body. They had to work together, and Dad didn’t need personal tensions between his partners.
‘I really appreciate that you’ve taken the time tonight,’ she managed. Good! It sounded firm and sincere, but not too warm. ‘I did need it. Thanks.’
‘Hmm.’ His grunted acknowledgment was gruff, brief and noncommittal. And he was frowning. Perhaps she appreciated it, but he was regretting it? Rebecca wondered uncomfortably. She’d more or less made it impossible for him to get out of it, ambushing him at the end of the day with her change of heart.
Harry was regretting it. Her initial rather ungracious refusal had let him off the hook. He couldn’t believe it when she’d suggested it again herself just an hour and a half later. He’d filled in the broad brushstrokes of Mrs Tran’s drama for himself as everyone had prepared to close the practice for the day, and he understood why Rebecca was feeling dissatisfied. He would have himself in that situation.
And while he was perhaps experienced enough by now to have guessed that something more serious than a gastric upset was going on with the Trans—or at least to have played it very safe and sent them straight to Southshore’s emergency department—he didn’t condemn Rebecca for her misjudgement.
Far from it. Far, far from it…
She kept doing this to him, and he didn’t like it. There was something about her that instinctively drew him, captivated him, set him on fire.
Lust, said a cynical voice inside him. You have the hots for her because she’s just the fiery, emotional type you like, especially after Phoebe. Part siren, part white witch—and she even looks the part. Look at her now!
The dark red silk blouse she wore was a little tired after the long day, not crisp any more but soft so that it moulded itself to the very feminine contours of her figure. He couldn’t see her matching skirt, but remembered all too vividly the flirting flare of it, swinging around her knees so that even at a sedate walk between surgery and waiting-room today she had looked almost as if she were dancing.
No, it was more than just lust…Oh, God, yes, although he admitted that lust was a huge part of it! It was the passion he’d admired in her earlier. She’d probably go home tonight and unload every detail of today’s two very understandable misjudgements onto her father, and Marsh would bend over backwards to assure her that they didn’t matter.
Ironically, it was exactly the sort of thing Harry had feared in his qualms about her joining the practice—that she and Marsh would bounce their concerns off each other and thereby double them.
And I ought to be feeling smug that I’m turning out to be right, Harry thought as Rebecca murmured to herself, ‘I hate to think how Dad will take all this…If it turns out that I’m not up to scratch, he mustn’t be afraid to let me know…’
Or angry, Harry’s thought-track continued, because it really is going to be a damned nuisance. And instead…
Instead, he was intrigued by the way she took things to heart, and ridiculously keen to distract her with scintillating conversation…
Or a searing kiss.
Hell, no! The boss’s daughter? Since when had he been bent on self-destruction like this?
But she was speaking to him now, the words making her lips part and press together and reshape themselves exactly as they might do under the onslaught of his own mouth—
No!
‘You don’t seem to have much to say on the subject,’ she said, and for about eight seconds he couldn’t think of what the hell subject it was. Not her mouth. Definitely not that. Then what? ‘Opera,’ she prompted.
‘Opera…’ he echoed blankly.
‘Your idea, not mine.’
‘Right.’ With a huge effort, he redirected his thoughts to a saner area. ‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘I know almost nothing about opera.’
‘Same here.’
‘Although I did treat one of the Australian Opera’s soloists for a groin injury he sustained during a performance.’
‘What made you choose sports medicine?’
‘Well, partly because I was frustrated at how little an ordinary GP can do about muscle and joint problems, other than masking them with painkillers, and partly because I’m intrigued by athletes and dancers and what makes them tick—what drives them.’
‘I still don’t know. For some, it’s simply the will to win. For others, like my skater, Jade, this afternoon, it’s almost as if they were born to it. She saw skating on television one day when she was five, apparently, and turned straight to her mother and said, “I want to do that.” Till then, she’d been quite a sickly child, I’m told, with a lot of asthma and bronchitis, but as soon as she started skating her health improved and she never looked back.’
‘So you believe in the idea of vocation?’
‘Absolutely.’
They talked for another hour and a half, and towards the end of it, in the back of his mind, Harry knew he was trying to work out how he could arrange to kiss her…Which was a complete waste of mental effort, as he’d already decided that he wasn’t going to do any such thing.
Why, then, did the calculations keep coming?
If I take her arm just outside the restaurant…If I walk her to her car…When she thanks me…
‘Thanks, Harry,’ Rebecca said. She had signalled for the bill several minutes ago, and here it was, sitting between them on the table in its discreet black vinyl folder, although she wasn’t sure that he’d noticed.
Staring down at the dregs of his coffee, he hadn’t spoken for at least a minute and neither had she. Fatigue was overtaking her. It had been a long day. She wasn’t working tomorrow, though.
‘Hmm?’ Harry looked up.
‘I think you did that already today.’
‘Well, I’m doing it again. It was good to get out, and the food was delicious. I’m glad I didn’t go straight home. I might not feel compelled to download onto Dad in quite such detail now, especially after your tactful reference to flogging dead horses.’
He grinned crookedly, and she hesitated. The company had been surprisingly pleasant, too. She should probably say that. It would be polite, if nothing else. But she didn’t want to.
‘Food’s always good here,’ he was saying. ‘And I like the fact that it’s so unfashionable.’
‘So do I.’ It was exactly what she’d noted and liked when they’d arrived.
To illustrate his point, he lifted a Chianti bottle from the centre of the table. Lovingly dusted, it had a half-burnt candle in the top and ripples of sensuously thick white wax running down the curved green sides. It had probably sat on this table for at least twenty years. ‘The day they get rid of these…’ he said.
‘And the red-checked tablecloths?’
‘And the red-checked tablecloths,’ he agreed, ‘is that day I stop coming here.’
She laughed, and got out her credit card. This signalled the start of a polite but deeply serious little tussle over who was paying. He won, but only just and only because he used such grossly unfair tactics—like reminding her she’d spent a very large amount of the bank’s money on a new car just last week.
Speaking of cars…They’d parked in opposite directions, as spaces had been scarce.
‘I’ll walk you down,’ he told her, and after the skirmish over the restaurant bill she didn’t feel like arguing.
She had her keys in her hand as she reached the vehicle, and was already aiming them at the lock. It must be nearly ten. He must have had quite enough of her company by now…
But then she felt his hand curving lightly and briefly on her hip and turned back to him.
‘I haven’t thanked you yet,’ he said, and for one ridiculous moment she was convinced he was about to kiss her.
She froze, her heart pounding. There it was again, that astonishing pull she’d felt between the two of them before—like some effervescent chemical reaction in the air. He was watching her, and his gaze seemed to have trapped hers because all she could do was stare up at him—at his slightly parted lips, his smoky dark eyes and the shadow of new growth which had darkened his jaw perceptibly since this morning.
‘I’ve really enjoyed your company this evening,’ he said at last.
‘It’s been lovely,’ she agreed inanely.
Now was the moment, and she knew quite well that she wanted it. It was so obvious. Two people, both unattached. A glass of wine. A palpable, fierce attraction which had built steadily since the moment they’d met.
She didn’t think about anything else—forgot about their well-founded flare-ups, her determination to distrust him and her need to prove herself—and could only think of what he would feel like, what he would taste like.
She lifted her face, betraying her need, then heard him sigh between clenched teeth and say, ‘You’ll be all right to get home? You followed me here from the surgery, but do you know the way back to Centennial Park? You can follow me again, as far as my turn off to Surry Hills, if you like. Just wait for me to get back to my car.’
‘There’s no need, thanks, Harry,’ she managed. ‘I have a map. But we’re not far west of Anzac Parade, are we?’
‘No. Just turn right at the end of the street, and eventually there’ll be a T-junction.’
‘No problem, then. Night, Harry.’
‘Night, Rebecca.’
Unbelievably, she was shaking by the time she sat at the wheel of her car. Would he notice? She looked up to find him already striding away. With his back to her, his big shoulders looked hunched and stiff, and there was something about the rhythm of his walk that made her wonder if he was angry.
She was now. At herself. How had she got it so wrong? And had he guessed?
Of course he had! She’d practically swooned into his arms and puckered her lips!
Was that what he’d been waiting for? she suddenly wondered. Was the whole episode simply a power play for him?
‘That’s ludicrous, Rebecca Irwin!’ she told herself aloud, and drove home.
Dad was still up. The television was on in the small sitting-room, and the ironing-board was out, with the iron standing on it to cool. Several freshly ironed shirts hung on coat hangers hooked to any available spot—the doorhandle, the corner of the mantelpiece.
Dad himself wasn’t in sight, but she could hear the vacuum cleaner, droning back and forth in the carpeted hall upstairs. He hadn’t heard her come in, and he wouldn’t hear her now if she called out to him.
Going through into the kitchen, she found evidence that he’d had poached eggs on toast for dinner, that he’d mixed up a new batch of muesli and that he’d cleaned out the fridge.
Damn her! Rebecca thought, setting to work automatically to rinse out several containers that held some very dead, very forgotten leftovers. Damn that grasping, two-faced woman!
For six years following Mum’s death, Dad had had a very nice elderly housekeeper named Daphne, who’d come in daily, but she’d retired and he’d employed a younger woman in her late thirties, Tanya Smith, on a live-in basis.
Back here from Melbourne for university holidays, Rebecca hadn’t particularly taken to Tanya at first, but had kept her opinion to herself. After all, what did she have to go on? Instinct, rather than anything else, and instinct was fallible. She hardly knew the woman. The house had seemed clean and tidy—at least in the obvious places—and the meals had been good. Extravagant, even, at times.
Rebecca had found Tanya in the kitchen one afternoon, eating her way through a whole can of smoked oysters on salted biscuits.
‘I have a medical condition where my body doesn’t burn food efficiently,’ she’d explained glibly. ‘I need to snack a lot to keep my weight up. Your dad knows all about it.’
And she’d certainly been thin enough to support the statement. She’d had a certain energy, too, and it had been entertaining to hear her tart, suspicious opinion of politics and world events aired out loud.
Then, after Tanya had been with the Irwins for nearly four years, Dad had flown down to Melbourne one weekend for a visit…and a talk. Over a restaurant dinner, he’d told Rebecca, ‘I’ve come to care for Tanya quite a lot. Of course, it’s not what I felt for your mother, but I do care for her. She fits into our household now. She’s worked hard for Simon and me. I wanted to let you know what was happening…I’m planning to take her on a cruise and ask her to marry me.’
‘Oh, Dad, that’s great!’
She knew how lonely he had been, Simon’s company notwithstanding, and how his loyalty and love for their mother had prevented him, for so long, from falling in love again. Witnessing such grief and coming to understand the depth of love that lay behind it had had a powerful effect on Rebecca.
And at last, ten years after Mum’s death, Dad had found a second chance at happiness, albeit of a quieter, less romantic kind.
‘Do you know…? I mean, she must already have an idea how you feel.’ Rebecca said.
‘She must,’ he agreed. ‘Although I’ve been a bit old-fashioned about it. I haven’t said anything. We’re not lovers. But I’ve given her jewellery and paid for her car repairs. And the cruise ticket, of course. And—if I can say this to my grown-up daughter—the kiss we exchanged on her birthday last week wasn’t exactly chaste!’
‘I can handle it, Dad,’ she told him indulgently.
‘So do I have your blessing, Becca?’
‘Very much so. And Simon? Is he pleased, too?’
‘Simon is…yes, pleased, of course. He’s only just out of his teens. I think boys…men…at that age find it very difficult to comprehend that their father could need an emotional life!’
‘Well, I understand, Dad, and I think it’s fabulous!’
So Dad went back to Sydney, and took Tanya on their cruise, and it was a painful, horrible disaster.
He proposed to her on their first night at sea, apparently, and she turned him down. Not kindly, either, but almost angrily, Dad said, as if she’d been affronted that he, ten years her senior and her employer, could have dared to think of her that way. She dismissed any suggestion that he’d given her fair warning of his intentions, with his gifts and their holiday, and she actually used the words ‘sexual harassment’, although how a courteously worded proposal of marriage could come under that heading Rebecca had no idea!
With separate cabins, they hardly saw each other for the rest of the week-long trip, but since their cabins were adjacent, Dad had no trouble discovering that, by the third night of the cruise, she was entertaining the cruise’s thirty-two-year-old social director in hers until the early hours of the morning.
When the ship docked again in Sydney, she left with her holiday luggage and he never saw or even heard directly from her again. She actually sent a friend to clear out her room. Needless to say, the jewellery, worth a significant sum in total, was not returned.
Dad phoned Melbourne several times to tell Rebecca the whole story as it unfolded. He was obviously still bewildered at what he saw as his own misreading of Tanya’s response to him, and berated himself for not being more sensitive. They had some long, painful talks about it all, and Rebecca twice flew up on weekends, at the expense of her own studies, because she was so concerned.
It took him several months to gain perspective and see that the fault lay with Tanya and not with himself, but even then he was simply not willing to take the same risk again. He hadn’t had any help in the house at all for the past two years.
Rebecca washed out the alarming contents of the containers in the sink, put the ironing-board and iron away and gathered up the shirts on their hangers to take them upstairs.
She met Dad in his room, just as he switched off the vacuum cleaner.
‘Ah, there you are, gypsy!’ he said, taking the armful of shirts and turning to the wardrobe to hang them up.
Rebecca was warmed by the old nickname. He hadn’t been calling her Becca lately, which was good, really, because it did sound too childish. She’d always liked ‘gypsy’, though, and Dad had been so cool and formal with her these past few days that it felt good to hear the warmth in his voice now.
‘You didn’t have to do all this,’ she scolded him, with a dismissive wave at the vacuum cleaner. ‘I’m off tomorrow, remember?’
‘Well, I didn’t intend to do it all,’ he confessed. ‘But I got into a flow, you know how it is. I was lured on into greater achievements by my own astonishing efficiency.’
‘You mean the fridge?’
‘Yes, the fridge was a bit ambitious, wasn’t it? When I opened that container of potato salad…’
‘Er, probably.’ He winced. ‘I should have realised what I was in for and fled.’
‘I rinsed out all the containers and left them to soak in detergent and water overnight.’
‘Bless you!’
‘Dad, shall I chip in half the cost of a cleaning lady to come in once or twice a week?’
‘You know it’s not the cost…’
‘I know…but is it really still the Tanya thing after all this time? You needn’t have anyone to live in. There are agencies these days. It’s completely impersonal, if that’s what you’d like.’
‘Do you think I’ve been managing so badly?’ He smiled.
‘No, but in your position…’
‘Shall I tell you the truth?’
‘Please!’
‘It’s not Tanya any more, despite the bitter taste that left in my mouth. Before Simon left for Harvard, it had become something we shared and, believe it or not, we both enjoyed it. He’d say to me, “Time we had a blitz on the house, I reckon, Dad,” and he’d put on some of his music—which I almost started to like—and we’d go at it.
‘Now he’s halfway round the world, of course, and you and I probably don’t need to achieve parent-child intimacy through house-cleaning, but I’ve got a bit stubborn. I’m proud of the fact that I do everything here myself, and don’t think I’m going to kick back and let you do it all now you’re here!’
‘You’re cute, Dad,’ she told him tenderly.
‘I know.’ He smiled smugly. ‘But just imagine what a difficult old cuss I’ll be by the time I’m ninety!’
‘I shudder at the very thought.’
He turned to unplug the vacuum cleaner and wind up the cord, and she noted how fit and trim and youthful he looked at fifty. She had no doubt that he would live until ninety and beyond, and remain very much his own man. Illogically, even while admiring his physical and mental capability, she felt a fresh surge of protective love for this unusual and wonderful man.
No one, but no one, was going to undermine his certainty about himself, the way Tanya Smith had done! And, after all, she wasn’t going to burden him with a long, needy recitation of today’s misjudgements over John Morrison, a.k.a. Joe Morrow, and Mrs Tran’s early delivery. There was really nothing to be gained by it, and it simply wasn’t fair.
The four doctors met for a partners’ dinner on Saturday night. Since it was Rebecca’s official welcome to the practice, as well as a very necessary opportunity to talk through several practical issues, Grace had suggested the revolving restaurant at the top of Centrepoint Tower.
‘Sydneysider that I am,’ she said, ‘I’ve never been there!’
So they met there for cocktails at six-thirty, in time to see the sun set behind the city as the view slowly changed to take in the full 360 degrees each hour. Grace stuck to non-alcoholic fruit drinks and Rebecca soon concluded that she should have done the same, since her gin and tonic quickly went to her head—it had to be the gin and tonic—and made her aware of Harry again, as she had been so shockingly on Wednesday night.
Staying away from the practice on Thursday had been good, and she’d had a lazy day, punctuated by lunch with an old friend she’d kept in touch with from school. On Friday, she’d gone in to the practice, quite looking forward to seeing Harry for the express purpose of proving to both of them that she could interact with him quite calmly, without the inconvenient interference of either anger or attraction.
Then, of course, she’d discovered he was seeing patients at Hazel Cleary Lodge in the morning, and was taking the rest of the day off! Now here they all were, very nicely dressed—Grace and Rebecca had both chosen flowing, elegant black, while the two men wore dark suits—and prepared to have a pleasant and productive time.
Noting exactly how close Harry’s leg was to hers beneath the table as they sat down was definitely not part of the equation! Wine with the four-course meal didn’t help, but Dad had already filled her glass to the brim before she could stop him.
And then Harry started talking shop. ‘What are we going to do about everyone’s hours?’ he said briskly. ‘I’m a little concerned that these next few months are going to be very messy in that regard.’
‘You mean because the patient load isn’t building as quickly as we thought it would?’ Dad said.
Harry nodded. ‘I was talking to the building foreman of the new development yesterday and he said that the next stage won’t be finished for another three months. And we didn’t get as many people from the low-cost housing in stage one as we thought we might.’
‘Southshore Health Centre bulk-bills,’ Marshall said. This meant that patients themselves paid nothing for a visit to the doctor. ‘I expect that’s the reason. A lot of people are choosing the financial savings over the greater continuity and personal contact that we can offer.’ The Irwin practice, on the other hand, bulk-billed the government for pensioners and other financially disadvantaged patients, but charged a little more than the basic fee for others. ‘That should change with stages two and three,’ he went on, ‘because those are catering for a different market.’
‘You two have been getting some new obstetric patients from the new development, though, haven’t you?’ Harry asked Rebecca and Grace.
‘Yes, which is great,’ the latter said.
‘But the fact is, we could still manage to give ourselves each a four-day week, or even three and a half. We just don’t have quite enough patients. Julie would like to increase her nursing hours, but I don’t think we can offer her that option at the moment. And, of course, in three months when the load does start to build, Grace will be going off on maternity leave.’
‘What are you suggesting, Harry?’ Grace said.
‘Don’t know,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘Some sort of a rethink. I’ve also been wondering if we should extend our hours on a couple of evenings, and put in Saturday morning hours, too. Most of my patients are at work and some of them have demanding training schedules in their sport or dance. They don’t necessarily want to take the time off during the day. Southshore offers evening and weekend hours. I’m wondering if we should do the same.’
‘So you’re talking about increasing the hours when you’ve just finished saying that we don’t have enough patients for the hours we’ve got!’ Rebecca said, trying to keep her voice calm. Was she simply far too sensitive where Harry Jones was concerned, or was he implying that it was her arrival in the practice which was causing the problem?
‘Look, I’m just tabling a few issues that I see as important,’ Harry said, with his usual husky rasp of impatience. ‘They concern us all equally so I feel we all need to think about them.’
‘Have you and Marcus decided how long you want for your maternity leave, Grace?’ Marshall asked.
‘Not yet.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘I’d like to take at least three months, and then only come back part time, but Marcus…seems to feel I’ll find that frustrating. He’s talking about six weeks, and then returning full time.’
‘I think we need a decision fairly soon, if you can, Grace,’ Marshall said, touching her arm. They were seated side by side.
Grace nodded. ‘I—I know.’
She looked miserable now, and had hardly touched her food. There was a small silence, then she looked up with a big, bright smile and said, ‘Well…!’ She obviously hoped that everyone would think she was fine.
Everyone knew she wasn’t. As a distraction, Harry topped up Marshall’s glass, leaned forward a little and asked him, ‘Have you seen Gareth Searle lately? How are things at the health centre?’
Rebecca waited a moment, then asked Grace quietly, ‘How are you feeling?’
Grace had been with Dad’s practice for close on two years now, and Rebecca liked her enormously. There was only about five years difference in their ages, so they could easily have been sisters, but it was as a mother that Grace would really shine, Rebecca considered.
There was something so warm and giving about her. It was there in her soft, twinkling blue eyes and the rounded fullness of her arms. If there was something wrong with the baby…
‘I’m feeling good. Fine,’ Grace said brightly. It was a little forced.
‘Who does your prenatal care?’
‘Oh, I go to Julius Marr at Southshore. It’s convenient, and he was at university with my older brother so he feels like a friend. If I develop any sort of a problem, Marcus will send me to a colleague of his, but I’ve been so disgustingly normal with everything so far…’ Distracted from whatever had been upsetting her before, she was clearly telling the truth. ‘I’m not exactly stretching Julius’s skills!’
So there was nothing wrong with the baby, thank goodness!
‘Even Marcus isn’t worried?’ teased Rebecca. She knew that obstetricians usually did worry about their pregnant wives—or their pregnant selves, if they were female—because in their working lives they were always the ones on hand when things went wrong.
‘Not worried, no.’ The tension was back again. Rebecca changed the subject quickly. ‘Do you have family in Sydney, Grace? I think you do, don’t you?’
‘Just my mother…’ she said slowly.
‘Well, that’ll be lovely for you—’ Rebecca began.
But Grace went on after a tiny pause, ‘but I’m afraid we don’t speak to each other these days.’
‘Oh…Grace, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you? I haven’t talked about it, but I don’t mind doing so.’ She gave a twisted smile. ‘Mum didn’t approve of my choice of husband, you see, and she expressed her views on the subject very bluntly. More than once! Which wasn’t really very useful of her, as we were already married. So I yelled at her, and she yelled at me, and now I think we’re both waiting very stubbornly for the other one to pick up the phone first.’
She laughed, then picked up her napkin and wiped away some tears. ‘Silly!’ she sniffed, smiling and crying at the same time. ‘If I’m feeling this bad about it, I shouldn’t let pride get in the way, should I?’
‘Perhaps not. I know it’s hard…’ Rebecca squeezed the other woman’s hand. So this was the source of Grace’s tension!
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harry glance across, then he spoke to Dad again, as if realising that his best role at the moment was to keep both himself and Dad out of what had become a very female exchange. There, Rebecca had to give him points for sensitivity. Lately, unfortunately, he’d been scoring quite a lot of points that way.
‘But Mum was impossible!’
Grace went on, her round, pretty face darkening again. ‘And I just don’t think I could stand it, at the moment, to hear a reprise of the subject. No, she can make the first move, thanks! She can show me she’s not going to harp on about it or say I told you so, and then I’ll be more than happy to meet her halfway!’
The waiter arrived with dessert menus at that moment, which reminded everyone that there was still quite a lot to discuss. Grace briskly began to debate the issues at hand. How often were they prepared to talk to each pharmaceutical rep? Twice a year? Or only once? In the case of some of these drug reps, though certainly not all, once was felt to be quite enough.
Next, should Harry give up obstetric work altogether? Or did it make sense to have him keep up his skills in that area as a back-up? He’d hardly done any pre-or postnatal check-ups in ages, only stepping in to cover for Grace if she was unavailable at short notice, and he hadn’t looked for visiting rights in the maternity ward as he didn’t have the special obstetrics diploma which GPs could take to increase their knowledge in this area. Rebecca herself was keen on mothers and babies.
‘And I wouldn’t want to deny you the chance to build your workload there, when it’s really something I’m quite happy not to do,’ Harry told her.
The word ‘experience’ again. At least this time it didn’t have the syllable ‘in’ in front of it! She had to grant that, on this occasion at least, he wasn’t aiming a dig at her, but was simply considering her stated preference.
By the end of the evening, though, she couldn’t help noticing that every one of the decisions made tonight had gone his way! They’d be introducing evening hours within the next month, and Saturday mornings after Christmas.
Grace looked tired as they all rose to leave. Being only around five feet two, she was carrying her pregnancy rather awkwardly already and it probably hadn’t been comfortable for her to sit upright at a table for such a lengthy meal.
The revolving outer ring of the restaurant, where all the tables were situated, was flush with the stationary part of the floor and moved quite slowly past it, but Grace had forgotten about the movement altogether and tripped as she walked towards the lift. Rebecca reached out at once to steady her, and Harry, on Grace’s right-hand side, did so, too. Their two hands met in the middle of Grace’s back, and as Grace was somewhat shaken and needed the support they stayed like that.
The result was familiar by this time—a melting consciousness of every inch of his skin touching hers, and an instinctive need to seek closer contact. She felt the brush of his olive-green shirt sleeve and heard the familiar scratch in his deep voice as he asked Grace, ‘Back on your feet?’ Then he teased gently, ‘I guess it’s difficult when you can’t see your own toes.’
‘Oh, Harry,’ Grace answered indignantly. ‘For goodness’ sake! I can still see my toes—just!’
His laugh was delectable. And his hand, as it broke contact with Rebecca’s arm, left a patch that tingled like the deep-heat rub he recommended to some of his patients.