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‘Why?’
‘I — I just don’t …’ she floundered.
His grin was wicked. ‘Not good enough. Come on, you’ve finished here for the night.’
He flicked off her terminal, stacked her books back on to the shelf and held out his hand. ‘Come.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’ she said defensively.
He sighed. ‘You’re lying again, Abbie,’ he teased in a soft, sing-song voice.
Her mouth firmed in defiance. ‘I have to study.’
‘Cobblers,’ he said rudely. ‘Come on. We’ll pick up a take-away.’
Her stomach rumbled loudly at the thought, and he chuckled. ‘Co-operation at last!’
‘Only from my involuntary muscles —— ’
‘That’ll do for a start. I realise that aggravating mouth of yours will take a little longer to tame. Come on — and say, Yes, Leo.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, Leo.’
‘Better. Now come on.’
She assumed they’d have fish and chips, or a Chinese at the outside, but the little town surprised her. Tucked away in a narrow alley off the main street was a tiny but immaculate kebab house owned and run by a Greek Cypriot who, Leo said, had come over from Cyprus at the time of the Turkish invasion in the early seventies and stayed ever since.
The shop, predictably, was called Spiro’s, and Spiro himself was almost circular, balding and grumbled constantly about the price of lamb and the rubbish at the market.
Leo, commiserating, bought shish kebabs in pitta pockets groaning with salad, and they ate them in the car looking out over a field because they were both too hungry to wait any longer. Despite Spiro’s complaints the quality was superb, and Abbie ate every last bit and even pinched a bit of Leo’s second one.
Then he drove her back to his house, a cottage on a quiet lane about two miles from the town centre, and the evening sun gleamed on the windows and on the glowing banks of perennials that flanked the path, the magenta of the crane’s bill, the green and white of the lady’s-mantle, the tall spires of the hollyhocks nodding at the back behind the white and yellow daisies.
‘Oh, how pretty!’ Abbie said, enchanted, and Leo let them in, retrieved a bottle of wine and two glasses and took her for a stroll round the garden.
The evening was much cooler than the day had been, and she was able to enjoy the mellow air and the sweetly scented roses that graced the soft pink walls.
‘How do you manage it all?’ she asked, incredulous, after he had finished his guided tour.
He laughed softly. ‘Me? I wouldn’t know a dandelion from a primula! I have a gardener who comes in twice a week and cuts the grass and keeps the beds in order.’
‘He does a wonderful job,’ she said admiringly, glancing round again at the riot of colour that filled every corner.
‘She. Yes, she’s excellent, I have to say. When I moved here the garden was a mess, but she’s worked wonders.’
‘She?’ Abbie said with a teasing grin. ‘I might have known.’
‘Of course. She’s tall, blonde and very, very lovely.’ He grinned back. ‘She’s also in her late forties and a grandmother. I swear she’s stronger than I am, and she’s definitely no competition to you, Abigail, my love, so you needn’t get all jealous.’
She looked away hastily. ‘I’m not your love, Leo, and I don’t intend to be. And I’m certainly not jealous!’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I really ought to get on. I’ve got studying I should be doing, and I’m sure you’ve got better things to do ——’
He laughed softly. ‘Running, Abbie?’
‘Not at all,’ she blustered, but she was, and they both knew it.
He took pity on her, though, and drove her back to the surgery so that she could collect her car.
As she unlocked the door, she became suddenly, startlingly aware of his body close behind her. His hand, warm and hard, closed over her shoulder and turned her gently towards him.
‘Leo?’ she said breathlessly, and then her protest, such as it was, was cut off by his lips as they covered hers in a feather-light caress.
‘Goodnight, Abigail,’ he murmured softly, and then he turned on his heel and walked back to his car.
Shaken, she unlocked her door and slid behind the wheel, her limbs trembling. He was waiting for her to start the car and drive away, she thought dimly, so mechanically she turned the key, backed out and drove off.
After a moment she realised he was flashing his lights furiously at her, and she pulled over.
He leapt out of his car and ran towards her. She wound down the window just far enough to talk to him but not so far that he could kiss her again—just in case.
‘What do you want?’ she asked nervously.
‘Me? That’s an interesting thought.’
‘Leo ——’
‘You didn’t have your lights on.’
She blinked. ‘Oh — right. Thanks.’
His grin was infuriating. ‘My pleasure. I didn’t realise one little kiss would throw you so badly.’
‘It’s nothing to do with your kiss!’ she protested, and the grin widened.
‘You’re telling porkie-pies again, Abbie, darling,’ he murmured, and, slipping his hand through the partly-open window, he brushed her cheek with his knuckles.
It sent a shiver through her, as did his softly voiced, ‘Sleep well, princess. Dream of me.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Leo, go away,’ she said unsteadily, but he was gone, leaving her in a tangle of wild and unfamiliar emotions, not least of which was a most unsettling feeling that she would, indeed, be dreaming of him — with or without his permission!
She didn’t dream of him, in the end — largely because she didn’t sleep until almost dawn, because every time she closed her eyes she felt the brush of lips on hers and her whole body screamed to life.
Unable to bear it, incapable of sweeping aside such unfamiliar and overwhelming sensations, she paced her little flat over a shoe-shop in the centre of town and wondered how she was going to get through the next year.
By ignoring him whenever possible, was the conclusion she eventually came to, and after a drink of hot milk and another severe lecture to herself she finally crawled exhausted into bed shortly before dawn to fall instantly and deeply asleep until the traffic woke her at almost eight-thirty.
Predictably, she was late, and, equally predictably, her surgery was less than straightforward. To add insult to injury, she found that when under pressure the computer was even less co-operative, and she finally, in desperation, asked Peggy if she could come in and sit with her and show her what she was doing wrong.
‘No,’ Peggy told her, ‘I don’t think the patients would like it, but Leo’s here. I’ll send him in; it’ll get him off my back while I type these letters.’
Seconds later there was a tap on the door and Leo appeared clutching two cups of coffee and the computer manual.
‘Problems?’
‘It hates me!’ she wailed despairingly.
He chuckled. ‘Nonsense. It’s an inanimate object. It’s incapable of hate.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ she snorted. ‘Tell it to the fairies.’ She glanced at him, took in the cool cotton trousers and the turned-back cuffs of his shirt, exposing strong, hair-strewn wrists, and turned quickly away. After that kiss the night before, the very last thing she needed was him beside her looking sexy as all get-out. She forced herself to concentrate. ‘Look, how do I recall previous prescriptions and history?’ she asked, her voice a little strained to her ears.
Leo, apparently oblivious to her discomfort, leant over her, his body brushing hers, casually tapping buttons, and the information on her next patient appeared as if by magic. She blinked. The vital manoeuvres were still lost to her, drowned out by the clamouring of her hormones.
‘How did you do that?’ she asked faintly.
He grinned. ‘Easy — you should have watched.’
‘I did,’ she lied. ‘It takes me ages to get it to do that, and I’m sure I go through a far longer process —— Right, show me again.’
He shook his head. ‘Finish your surgery and I’ll go over it with you afterwards. I’ll just sit here and help you get through the rest of your patients for now.’
One or two of the patients looked askance at Leo, but he smilingly explained that they were having problems with the computer and he was fighting with it to try and save the patients’ waiting time.
‘Just ignore me,’ he said, but Abbie found it intensely off-putting and difficult.
Until, that was, she had a patient with a seemingly innocent mole just below her collarbone. She examined it, asked all the appropriate questions and was on the point of telling the patient to go home and stop worrying when Leo’s toe connected none too gently with her ankle.
She glanced at him, but he was staring fixedly at the computer screen. She followed the direction of his eyes, and saw ‘Excision and histology’ on the screen.
She cleared her throat, smiled at the patient and shot up some thanks for Leo’s presence at her elbow. ‘Right,’ she told the patient, ‘what we need to do is remove it, just as a precaution, and then send it to the lab to have it checked, just to be on the safe side. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but removing it is such a minor procedure it seems silly not to do so. Now, the only thing is I’m not an expert in minor surgery, but I believe Dr Chandler here could remove it for you, couldn’t you, Dr Chandler?’
He turned a charming smile on the young woman. ‘My pleasure,’ he murmured, and he told her to book in with the receptionist for surgery the following day. ‘Dr Pearce will, of course, assist me and continue with your follow-up,’ he added, and the woman smiled gratefully at both of them and left.
Abbie turned to Leo. ‘Is it really necessary to remove it?’ she asked, her confidence shaken yet again.
He shrugged. ‘Probably not, but it’s the sort of blemish that could easily turn into melanoma, if not now then in the future, and it’s so dead easy to take them off and check. We have a set procedure, by the way, for follow-up of any mole or skin lesion removed in the surgery. All material excised is sent for histology, always, without exception, and the patient is always recalled automatically when the result comes back because if they’ve gone to the lengths of consulting their doctor they’re going to worry till they know the answer one way or the other. The only time we don’t do it ourselves is if we’re sure it’s gone too far for simple excision or in the case of a difficult site.’
‘Difficult as in cosmetically difficult?’
‘Or in one of the areas where nerves are likely to be implicated, like the anterior triangle of the neck, or eyelids, or over the flexor tendons of the fingers, for instance. Cheeks can be difficult, too, both cosmetically and because of the nerves and glands over the jaws. We do what we can, but it’s important to know your limitations. We aren’t plastic surgeons, and some procedures require other skills.’
‘What about this lady?’ Abbie asked doubtfully. ‘Won’t she have some scarring?’
He grinned wryly. ‘No faith, have you? I’m not a complete butcher, Abbie. She might have a tiny scar, but I won’t disfigure her for life, my love. Right, who’s next?’
Abbie, completely fazed by his endearment, floundered on with her surgery until all her patients had been dealt with and the computer had gobbled up Leo’s instructions, obediently spewed out various prescriptions and gone quietly back to sleep.
She glared at it. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she grumbled crossly. ‘Horrid thing.’
Leo grinned. ‘Think of the writer’s cramp it’s saved you.’
She snorted. ‘Yes, I’ve got cramp of the brain instead!’
‘All comes of being a simple-minded woman ——’
‘It’s nothing to do with ——’ she began, rising instantly to the bait, but then, seeing his dancing eyes, she subsided immediately. ‘Thank you so much for your help,’ she said instead, batting her lashes at him.
He laughed. ‘Come on, time for visits. Mary Tanner has gone home and I have to pop in and see her. Want to come?’
‘Sure. How’s her husband coping?’ she asked as she packed up her things.
‘I don’t know. That’s one of the things I want to find out.’
She followed him out, returning the patient envelopes to the office as she went.
Predictably, Peggy was waiting with a question. ‘Did you mean to send this urine off on a haematology form?’
‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered.
Behind her Leo tutted and gave a resigned sigh while she quickly filled in the correct form and gave it to the patient practice manager.
‘Sorry, Peggy,’ she said with an apologetic smile, and was greeted with an encouraging pat on the hand.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll come with time.’
‘I wish,’ she muttered under her breath, and then Leo was wheeling her out of the door and towards the car.
‘Now, do you need the loo before we go?’ he asked with heavy tolerance, and she glared at him.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Sure?’
‘Perfectly!’
‘Don’t get grotty with me ——’
‘I’m not getting grotty!’ she said, her voice rising steadily.
He tutted again. ‘You’ll be stamping your foot in a second.’ He hopped over the door and slid behind the wheel, watching with interest as Abbie struggled into the low bucket seat, her skirt riding up as she did so.
She shot him a furious glare. ‘Don’t leer,’ she told him crossly. ‘And anyway, where’s your Volvo? Isn’t it time you got it back?’
‘All in good time — anyway, I get a better view of your legs in Topsy.’
She glowered at him, and he chuckled. ‘God, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry, do you know that?’
She looked hastily away. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To see Mary Tanner, then an elderly lady with congestive heart failure who’s struggling for breath. I’ve put her on Bambuterol but I want to see if it’s doing the trick.’
