WITH her confidence bolstered by Will’s praise, Lucie found working with him easier after that, although he continued to make notes and criticise and nit-pick.
Still, his comments were all fair and helpful and, although it annoyed her, she could see the point.
A fortnight after their role-play session, Harriet Webb came to see her for a check-up. She’d been discharged from hospital a week earlier, and before they arranged to go on holiday at the end of May, her mother wanted to be sure she would be well enough. Lucie had to admit Harriet looked considerably better than she had when they’d first seen her.
Her hair was cut short, as well—spiky and fun and a very pretty style that was too short to pull out in her sleep.
‘Are you finding it easier to eat now?’ Lucie asked her, and Harriet laughed.
‘I’m starving. I’ve never been so hungry in my life. I think it’s having room to really eat—I’ve probably never had that before. They said the hairball has probably been forming all my life. It was amazing—they showed it to me, and it was just the shape of my stomach and so huge! All my clothes are loose now, and my waist is so much smaller. They’re putting it in their museum at the hospital, for the nurse training department, so I’ll be famous. How cool is that?’
Lucie chuckled. ‘Ultra-cool. You look good. I like the hair.’
She patted it experimentally. ‘I’m still getting used to it. I used to fiddle with it all the time. It’s like having my hands cut off! Still, I don’t want another of those things, no way!’ She shuddered.
‘Are you seeing anyone about why you might have done it?’ Lucie asked cautiously, and Harriet pulled a face.
‘You mean the therapist? She’s useless.’
‘Give her a chance,’ Lucie urged. ‘She might be able to help you find out why you did it, and I know it might not be what you want to do, rummaging around inside all your personal thoughts and feelings, but if it stops it happening again and helps you move forward, that has to be good, doesn’t it?’
Harriet nodded. ‘I s’pose. It’s just all a bit—I don’t know. She keeps going back to when I was little and my sister died, and it—you know. It’s difficult to talk about. I don’t like to remember.’
‘I’m sure,’ Lucie said with sympathy.
Mrs Webb was sitting quietly in the background, and she met Lucie’s eyes and shrugged helplessly. ‘She seemed all right at the time, although it was awful, but that’s when the hair thing started. Maybe this girl can get to the bottom of her problems. We’re hopeful.’
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned she’s in excellent physical shape now and I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go on holiday. I expect it will do you all good. Are you going anywhere nice?’
‘Only France,’ Mrs Webb said. ‘We go most years, but we thought we’d go earlier this year, to give Harriet a treat.’
‘Well, I hope you have a lovely time,’ Lucie said with a smile as they left.
‘Make a note of that,’ Will said from behind her.
‘Of the sister?’
‘Yes. Sounds as if Harriet was involved in some way in her death—maybe she found her, or feels it was her fault. Whatever, it could be relevant. Just jot it down.’
‘I have.’ She turned to face him. ‘She’s looking better, isn’t she? Funny hangover, that.’
Will smiled slightly, letting her score the point. ‘Who’s next?’ he asked.
‘Mr Gregory. He’s had the course of treatment for his H. pylori—this is a follow-up. Hopefully he’s better.’
He was. He felt better than he had for months, he said, and although the treatment had been awful, it had done the trick and he felt much more like his old self.
‘So, how’s the diet going now?’ Lucie asked. ‘Dr Ryan tells me you’re trying to cut down and lose a few kilos.’
‘Oh, well, I gave all that up when this got out of hand, but I suppose I could start again. Maybe I need a bit less dressing on the salad. That seemed to set me off.’
‘You don’t have to eat salad just because you’re on a diet,’ Lucie reminded him. ‘You can have normal meals, but cooked with much less fat, and with low-fat gravy and sauces and loads of veg. It doesn’t have to be cold and raw to be less fattening!’
He chuckled. ‘I know. Somehow it feels more like a diet, though, if it’s cold. Still, I’ll persevere.’
‘Why don’t we weigh you now, since you’re here, and we can check you again in a few weeks? Slip off your jacket and shoes, that’s right.’
She weighed him, jotted it down on his notes and smiled. ‘Well, I’m glad the treatment worked.’
‘So am I. I’ll go and have some hot tomatoes.’
He went out chuckling, and Will rolled his eyes. ‘The nurse can weigh him.’
‘He was in here.’
‘And your next patient should have been. You’re running behind now.’
She turned to face him again. ‘Are you sure you aren’t well enough to go and do something useful, like run a surgery?’
‘With only one hand? Hardly. I’ve told you, I’m hopeless with my left hand. How could I do internals?’
‘You couldn’t. You’d have to ask for help.’
‘And if there was nobody about? Don’t worry, Lucie, I’ve thought about it. This is working.’
Not for me, she wanted to say, but that wasn’t fair. They only crossed swords a few times a day now, instead of a few times an hour.
Progress?
The phone rang, and she picked it up. ‘Dr Compton.’
‘Doctor, I’ve got Mrs Brown on the line. She’s expecting triplets? She says she’s got cramp in her stomach and she’s a bit worried. Could you go?’
She covered the receiver and repeated the message to Will. ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said, and took the phone.
After a brief exchange, he said, ‘All right, hang on, we’ll come now. You stay where you are.’
‘I have a surgery.’
‘The patients can either wait or switch to Richard,’ he said firmly. ‘Angela Brown is about to lose her triplets, unless I’m very much mistaken, and I want to see her now. She can’t wait. They can.’ He nodded towards the waiting room.
‘OK. I’ll get my bag.’
‘Come on, Lucie, move. She’s in distress.’
They moved. They got there within ten minutes, to find that Angela had started to bleed.
It was only a little trickle, but her blood pressure was low and it was likely that she was haemorrhaging.
‘I think you need the obstetric flying squad,’ he told her gently. ‘I’m sorry, but you need to be in hospital now, and you need a qualified obstetric team with you.’
‘What about the babies?’ she asked worriedly.
‘I don’t know about the babies. At the moment I’m worried about you. Lucie, can you call?’ He told her the number, and she rang, relayed his instructions and asked for immediate assistance while he checked Angela’s blood pressure again and listened to the babies through the foetal stethoscope.
‘She needs a line in,’ he instructed, and Lucie put an intravenous connector into her hand, ready for the drip, and took some blood for cross-matching, just in case.
‘Shouldn’t you examine me?’ Angela asked them, and Will shook his head.
‘No. You don’t want to be poked about—it can cause the uterus to contract, and it might settle down. I want you in hospital fast, and I want that specialist team with you, just to be on the safe side. And in the meantime, I want you to lie as still as you can and not worry.’
It seemed to take ages for the obstetric team to arrive, but when it did, they moved smoothly into action and Will and Lucie shut up the house and followed them out.
‘I wonder if she’ll lose them?’ Lucie said thoughtfully. ‘She was so worried about having them, and now she’s worried about not having them.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they’ll live, maybe not. Whatever, it’ll be hard for her. I have to say my instinct is she’d be better without them, but I doubt if she’d see that in the same way as me.’
Lucie doubted it, too, and was glad she didn’t have to make those sorts of choices. Nature would take its course, aided and abetted—or thwarted, depending on how you looked at it—by medical intervention, and Mrs Brown would come out at the end somehow, unless there was a drastic hiccup.
They went back to the surgery to find that Richard had finished her patients for her and everyone was in the office, sipping champagne.
‘What are we celebrating?’ Will asked, and Gina, one of the receptionists, waved her hand at them.
‘Look! He finally did it!’
Will grabbed her flailing hand and peered at the ring, then gave her a hug. ‘Congratulations. He took some pinning down.’
‘Absolutely. Still, it’s all going ahead now, and because I don’t trust him not to change his mind, it’s on Friday afternoon. Now, I know you can’t skive off, all of you, but you can come to a party in the evening, can’t you?’
‘I’m sure we can all manage that, can’t we?’ Richard agreed, and fixed Will with a look. ‘And since Will’s broken his arm and won’t be up a ladder, I imagine you’ll even get him.’
‘And Lucie—if you’d like to,’ Gina said with a beaming smile. Lucie guessed that just then she’d have invited all the patients as well if there had been any about, but Lucie agreed, as much as anything because she thought it might be interesting to see Will at a party.
And who knows? she thought. It might even be fun.
‘I really, really don’t want to go,’ Will said with a sigh.
Lucie looked at him across the car. ‘You have to, Will. You said you would, and it’s her wedding day.’
He sighed again. ‘I know. I’m going. I just don’t want to.’
‘It might be fun,’ she said encouragingly, and he shot her a black look.
‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ he said darkly.
‘Oh, pooh. You need to lighten up,’ she said with grin. ‘You never know, we might get you doing Karaoke by the end of the evening.’
‘Hmm. See that pig up there in the sky?’
She chuckled, and opened the door. ‘Come on. We have to get ready. We’ve got to leave in an hour. Do you want me to put your glove on?’
‘Please,’ he agreed, so she went in with him, waited while he stripped off his shirt and helped him into the long loose glove he’d got off a veterinary friend. A rubber band around the top held it in place, and it covered the entire cast without messing around with tape.
And that, they were both agreed, was a huge improvement.
The only problem was that she had to put it on after he’d taken off his shirt, and so she was treated on an almost daily basis to the delicious sight of Will’s muscular and enviable torso, just inches away.
Close enough to touch.
She snapped the elastic band in place, flashed him a grin and all but ran back to her cottage. He could get the glove off, so her time was now her own, and she had to bath, wash her hair and get it into some semblance of order, and put her glad rags on.
The party was in a village hall, and she didn’t think it would be dreadfully smart, but it might be quite dressy in a different sort of way, and she sifted through her clothes until she found black trousers and a flirty, floaty top with a camisole under it that dressed the whole thing up.
She put on her make-up, added a bit more jewellery and stood back and looked at herself. Fine. A little brash, but what the hell? She wasn’t going out to one of Fergus’s posh restaurants, she was going to a wedding party in a village hall, and she intended to have fun.
Lucie didn’t know what she was doing to him. She was like a bright little butterfly, flitting about in that gauzy bit of nonsense. Granted, she wore a little top under it, but even so!
And she was in her element, of course. She could talk to anyone, and she did. She talked to everyone, without exception, from the bride’s father to the kids in the corner who were throwing peanuts at the guests and giggling.
She threw one at him and it landed in his drink, splashing him. He met her eyes, and she was laughing, her hand over her mouth, looking as guilty as the kids and as full of mischief.
He shook his head in despair and turned back to his conversation with Richard’s wife. She, however, seemed quite happy to be distracted by Lucie.
‘What a charming girl,’ she said, and Will nearly groaned.
‘Yes, she is. Well, she can be.’
‘And you can be charming, too, of course, if you put your mind to it,’ Sylvia said in gentle reprimand.
‘Sorry.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I’m just feeling a bit old.’
‘Old?’ She laughed. ‘You wait until you hit forty-five, if you want to feel old! Did Richard tell you we’re going to be grandparents?’
‘No, he didn’t. Congratulations.’
She pulled a face. ‘I’m pleased really, I suppose, but I had hoped they’d wait until they were a bit more secure.’
‘What, like you did?’
She laughed and slapped his arm, her hand bouncing harmlessly off the cast. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I do. But there’s a danger to that, you know, Sylvia. You can be too measured, too organised, too planned. And then you find that life’s gone on without you.’
‘Well, this party’s certainly going on without you,’ she admonished, standing up. ‘Come on, you can dance with me.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, you can’t refuse, it’s rude.’ She pulled him to his feet and dragged him to the dance floor, and he could feel Lucie’s eyes on his back all the way across the room.
Sylvia was kind to him and let him shuffle without expecting anything too outrageous.
And then the music changed, and Lucie appeared at their sides.
‘I believe this is the ladies’ excuse-me,’ she said with a smile to Sylvia, and slid neatly into Will’s arms before he could protest.
The cast felt awkward against her back, but his fingertips could feel the subtle shift of her spine, and he cradled her right hand in his left against his chest, his thumb idly tracing the back of her fingers. Her breast chafed against the back of his hand, and he could feel the occasional brush of her thighs against his.
It felt good. Too good, really, but he wasn’t stopping. It was a genuine reason to hold her, and he was going to make the best of it!
And then the best man commandeered the microphone, and announced that the Karaoke machine was now working and they wanted the bride and groom to kick off.
‘I’m out of here,’ Will muttered, and Lucie laughed and led him back to their table.
‘It’ll be a laugh. Just go with the flow.’
So he did, and, in fact, it wasn’t as awful as he’d imagined. Lots of the guests had a go, and some of them were quite good, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Then, to his horror and amazement, Lucie was pounced on.
‘Come on, you can sing, we’ve heard you,’ the receptionists told her, and Will watched, transfixed, as she was towed, laughing, to the stage and presented with the microphone by the best man.
‘So, ladies and gentlemen, here we go. It’s Dr Lucie Compton singing Whitney Houston’s song from The Bodyguard, “And I Will Always Love You”. Let’s hear it for Lucie!’
The crowd clapped and cheered, and then went quiet for the slow, haunting introduction. Lord, she was wonderful! Will felt his skin shiver, and then as she reached the first repeat of the title, her eyes found his, and he felt a huge lump in his throat.
There was no way she was singing it for him, but he could let himself dream, and then she hit the volume and he went cold all over with the power of her voice.
Lord, she was spectacular! He’d had no idea she was so good, and neither, by the look of them, had any of the others. She was really into it now, her voice mellow and yet pure, every note true, every word filled with meaning.
She finished, holding the last note until Will thought she’d die of lack of oxygen, but then she cut it and bowed, laughing, as the guests went wild.
‘Encore!’ ‘Again!’ ‘More!’ they yelled, and she turned to the best man and shrugged.
‘OK. What have you got?’
‘What can you do?’
She laughed. ‘Anything. Try me.’
He did, and she was right. She knew them all, and hardly fluffed a note. Most of the time she didn’t even glance at the monitor for the words, and Will was stunned. Finally, though, she surrendered the microphone to thunderous applause, and came back to the table.
‘Sorry about that, I got hijacked,’ she said with a chuckle, and pointed to his drink. ‘Is that just mineral water?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I?’
He pushed it towards her, and she drained it, then set it down with a grin.
‘I enjoyed that. I haven’t done it for ages.’
‘You were good,’ he said gruffly. ‘Very good.’ Stunning.
She smiled a little shyly. ‘Thanks,’ she said, as if she really cared what he thought, and he wanted to hug her. Well, he wanted to do more than hug her, but it would be a good start.
‘So how come you know them all?’ he asked, trying to concentrate on something other than holding her in his arms, and she shrugged.
‘I used to sing in a nightclub to earn money when I was at college,’ she explained. ‘The hours fitted, and the money was good, and I enjoyed it mostly, except for the smoke and the lechers.’
Will was feeling pretty much of a lecher himself just now, but he didn’t want to think too much about that.
‘I could kill a drink,’ Lucie said, and he thought for a moment he was going to have to walk across the room in his state of heightened awareness, but he was saved by the best man descending on them and buying them both drinks to thank Lucie for her contribution to the evening.
The Karaoke had packed up after she’d sung. She was, as they said, a hard act to follow, and so they’d gone back to the disco music and everyone was dancing again.
They had a drink, and this time Will had a whisky. Well, he wasn’t driving, and he needed something to act as anaesthetic if he was going to sleep that night!
‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked her a short while later, and she grinned and stuck her finger under his chin, tickling it.
‘Is it past your bedtime, you poor old thing?’ she crooned, and he nearly choked.
Way past, he thought, but not in the way she was implying! He glowered at her, and she just laughed and stood up. ‘Come on, then, Cinderella, your carriage awaits.’
They said goodbye to their hosts, and twenty minutes later they were pulling up outside the house and she was going to go her way and he was going to have to go his, and he suddenly didn’t want the evening to end.
God, however, was on his side. ‘Coffee?’ she said, and he sent up a silent word of thanks.
‘That would be lovely.’
He followed her into the cottage and stood leaning on the old timber-stud wall in the kitchen while she put the kettle on. ‘So, did you have fun?’ she asked him, turning to face him and standing with one hand on her hip in an unconsciously provocative pose.
His libido leapt to life again. ‘Yes, I had fun,’ he confessed. ‘You were wonderful, Lucie. You’ve got a beautiful voice.’
‘Thanks.’
She met his eyes again, that shy smile playing over her lips, and he suddenly knew he’d die if he didn’t kiss her.
He hadn’t kissed her for weeks—three weeks, to be exact, not since Fergus had been down, and it had been far too long.
He held out his arms, and she moved into them without a murmur, pressing her body softly up against him as she turned her face up for his kiss.
A deep groan dragged itself up from the depths of his body, and his mouth found hers and relief poured through him.
Not for long, though. He shifted against her, aching for her, and with a tiny moan she pressed herself harder against him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her fingers tunnelled through his hair, her body wriggled against him and then finally she lifted her head, undid the top buttons of his shirt and laid her lips against his skin.
Heat exploded in him, and he gave a deep groan. ‘Lucie, in the name of God, what are you doing?’ he asked in a strangled voice, and she laughed a little unsteadily.
‘You need lessons?’ she said, and her voice was deep and husky and unbelievably sexy.
‘I don’t need lessons. I thought I was the trainer.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured, nuzzling the base of his throat. ‘You are. How am I doing?’
‘Just fine,’ he croaked, and, putting his fingers under her chin, he tilted her face firmly up to face him. ‘Don’t tease me, Lucie.’
Her eyes lost their playful look and became intensely serious. ‘I’m not teasing,’ she vowed. ‘I want to make love with you.’
Will closed his eyes and let his breath out in a rush. She wanted to make love with him, and had he thought of this in advance? Was he prepared?
He felt as if he’d won the lottery and lost the ticket.
‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘No protection.’
‘Yes, we have,’ Lucie said, and smiled a smile as old as time.
It had lost nothing of its power over the countless generations. He felt as if his knees were going to buckle, and when she moved away and held out her hand, he took it and followed her through to the bedroom.
She was incredible. She was gentle, teasing, earnest—she was a thousand different women, and he wanted them all. He wanted her, and he could think of nothing else.
It was only afterwards, when he lay spent beside her, his heart pounding and his body exhausted, that he remembered that she belonged to Fergus…