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‘Your patient,’ he said. ‘When are you seeing her next?’
‘Friday morning.’
‘I could,’ he suggested, ‘come and have a word with her, if you like.’
‘Really?’ The way she smiled at him made him feel as if the sun had just come out at midnight.
‘It might help her to talk to someone who’s been there and come out just fine on the other side,’ he said.
‘I think it would help her a lot. If you’re sure.’ She bit her lip. ‘I mean, I don’t want to rip open any old scars.’
He smiled. ‘It was a long time ago now. And I was lucky—I had someone who helped me. It’s my chance to pay it forward.’
She rested a hand on his arm; even through his sleeve, her touch made his skin tingle. ‘Thank you, Jared. I really appreciate it.’
‘No worries,’ he said.
On Friday, Bailey saw Vivienne in her clinic at the London Victoria and examined her knee. ‘Obviously you’ve followed my advice about rest, ice, compression and elevation,’ she said.
Vivienne nodded. ‘I want to play again as soon as possible. That means doing what you say.’
Bailey smiled. ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know you’re good to go for surgery and you can see the surgeon this afternoon.’
‘That’s great news,’ Mr Kaine said, patting his daughter’s shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
‘Actually, there is something else,’ Bailey said. ‘Obviously I wouldn’t dream of breaking patient confidentiality, but I happen to know someone who had an ACL injury at your age, and I asked him for some advice for someone in your position.’
‘Was he a tennis player?’ Vivienne asked, looking interested.
‘No, he was in a different sport,’ Bailey said, ‘but the injury and the rehab are the same. Actually, he offered to come and have a chat with you. He’s waiting outside, if you’d like a word.’
Vivienne turned to her father, who nodded. ‘That’d be great. Thanks.’
Bailey opened her office door and looked out; Jared glanced up, caught her eye and came to the door. ‘She’d like to talk to me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. And thank you. I owe you,’ she said.
‘No. I’m just paying it forward,’ he reminded her. ‘Just as your patient will pay it forward, one day.’
It was a nice way of looking at it, Bailey thought. She brought him into the room and introduced him to Vivienne and Mr Kaine.
‘Well, I never. Jared Fraser—the England footballer. I remember watching you play years ago. You were amazing.’ Mr Kaine shook Jared’s hand. ‘It’s very good of you to come in and talk to us.’
‘My pleasure,’ Jared said.
‘So do you still play for England?’ Vivienne asked.
‘No. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fix my knee. Though that’s not likely to be the case for you,’ he emphasised, ‘because Dr Randall tells me that you’re a really good candidate for surgery. If you follow the rehab programme to the letter you’ll be fine. Dr Randall asked me for my advice, and I thought it might be better for you to have it in person, just in case you have any questions.’
Vivienne nodded. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Fraser.’
‘Right now,’ he said gently, ‘it probably feels like the end of the world and you’re worrying that you’re going to lose so much ground against everyone else.’
She bit her lip. ‘That’s exactly how it feels.’
‘So you need to take it one day at a time, and find someone you can talk to—someone who won’t let you pity yourself, but will make you be sensible and get the right balance between doing enough work to strengthen your knee, but not so much that you damage it again and end up back at square one,’ Jared said.
‘That’s good advice,’ Mr Kaine agreed. ‘I’ll always listen, Vivi, but he’s right—you do need someone else to talk to.’
‘I was lucky,’ Jared said. ‘I had a great coach. And he made me see that although my knee wouldn’t hold up enough for me to play at international level again, I had other options. I could learn to coach, or I could do what I ended up doing—I trained as a doctor, and I’m still part of the sport because nowadays I work with the youth team of a premiership division club. So even if there are complications in the future and you don’t end up playing at this level again, you’ll still have options—you can still be part of tennis.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ Vivienne said, ‘but I don’t want to be a coach or a doctor. I just want to play tennis. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’
‘And you will play again,’ Bailey said. ‘But, as Dr Fraser said, you need to follow your rehab programme.’
‘Waiting is the worst bit,’ Jared said. ‘You’ll want to push yourself too hard. But don’t. Use that time to study instead. Look at different techniques, look at the way your opponents play and use that to hone your strategy. To really succeed at a top level in sport you need just as much up here …’ he tapped his head ‘… as you need the physical skills.’
‘Vivi picked up a racket practically as soon as she could walk,’ Mr Kaine said. ‘I used to play—nothing like at her level—just at a club on Sunday afternoons, and her mum would bring her to watch. And she ended up joining in.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘When she started beating us hollow and she wasn’t even ten years old, we knew we were seeing something special in the making. And you’ll get that back, love. We just have to make sure we do everything the doctors tell us, OK?’
‘OK,’ Vivienne said.
Bailey smiled at them both. ‘And I’ll do my very best to help you get that knee back to how it was, so you can go and get those grand slams.’
‘Can I be rude and ask, Mr Fraser, do you miss playing?’ Vivienne asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Jared said. ‘But I’m thirty-five now, so I’d be near the end of my professional playing career in any case. And I’m lucky because I really enjoy my job. It means I get the chance to help players fulfil their potential. If someone had told me that when I was your age, I would have laughed at them—but I really do feel I’ve achieved something when I see them grow and improve. So don’t rule it out as something you might do when you’re ready to retire from playing.’
Vivienne looked thoughtful, and Bailey could see that Jared’s words had given her a different perspective—something that would make all the waiting during her rehab a lot easier. ‘Thank you, Mr F—Dr Fraser,’ she amended.
When the Kaines had left, Jared was about to follow them out when Bailey stopped him. ‘Thanks for doing that, Jared—you’ve made a real difference to her.’
‘No worries.’
‘If I wasn’t up to my eyes in paperwork and appointments,’ she said, ‘I’d offer to take you for lunch to thank you properly. Or dinner—but I’m doing bridesmaid stuff for Joni tonight. So please consider this a kind of rain check.’ She took a plain white patisserie box from her desk drawer and handed it to him.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘A little slice of heaven. Don’t open it now. Tell me what you think later.’
‘OK.’ He looked intrigued. ‘I’ll text you. Good luck for tonight.’
‘Thanks.’
Later that evening, she had a text that made her laugh.
Best chocolate cake in the universe. Would very much like to help with more patients. Quite happy to be paid in cake.
I’ll see what I can do, she texted back.
Funny, when she’d first met Jared, she’d thought him grumpy and surly and a pain in the neck. Now she rather liked his dry sense of humour and the quiet, sensible way he went about things.
But she’d better not let herself get too close. After the way her marriage to Ed had splintered, she just didn’t trust herself to get it right next time. It was best to stick to being colleagues. Friends, too, maybe; but she’d have to dampen down the attraction that sparkled through her veins every time she saw him. To keep her heart safe.
CHAPTER SIX (#ua494eb00-dfea-56d1-8a9f-d4f6192707bc)
‘JONI, YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL,’ Bailey said, surveying her best friend.
‘So do you.’ But Joni also looked worried. ‘Bailey, are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Of course I am—why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Because I remember the last time that one of us was in a bridesmaid’s dress and the other was the bride,’ Joni said softly.
Bailey’s wedding day. A day so full of promise. A day when she’d thought she couldn’t be happier … And then, two short years later, she’d discovered that she couldn’t be any more unhappy when her whole world crashed down around her. ‘I’m fine. More than fine. Don’t give it another moment’s thought,’ she said brightly. Even if she hadn’t been fine, no way would Bailey rain on her best friend’s parade on her wedding day.
‘I can’t believe you’re actually bringing Herod as your plus-one.’
Bailey groaned. ‘Please don’t call him that when you meet him—he’ll be mortified.’
‘You’ve been very cagey about him. So you’re getting on OK together now?’
‘We’ve reached an understanding.’
Joni raised an eyebrow. ‘That sort of understanding?’
‘Absolutely not. Even if I was looking for someone, Jared Fraser wouldn’t make my list of potentials.’ That was a big fat lie—Jared Fraser was one of the most attractive men she’d met, particularly when he smiled—but hopefully Joni would be too distracted by all the bridal stuff going on to call her on it. Bailey hoped. ‘No, he’s just doing me a favour and taking a bit of heat off me where my family’s concerned.’
‘As long as you’re OK.’
‘Of course I’m OK,’ Bailey reassured her. ‘I’m thrilled that my best friend’s getting married to the love of her life, and I get to follow her down the aisle in the most gorgeous bridesmaid’s dress ever. Now, the car’s going to be here at any second, so we need to get moving.’
Jared took a deep breath and walked down the path to the church. He hadn’t been to a wedding since his own marriage to Sasha. And, despite Bailey’s assurances that the bride and groom were right for each other, Jared still felt awkward. A cynic who’d lost his belief in marriage really shouldn’t be here to celebrate a wedding. He half wished Bailey was going to be there with him to take his mind off it, but as she was Joni’s bridesmaid he knew that she would be the very last person walking into the church, and she wouldn’t be sitting with him, either.
He really should have asked if he could at least meet the bride and groom before the wedding, so he would know someone there. Right at that moment he was really regretting the impulse that had made him offer to be Bailey’s ‘plus-one’.
His only consolation had been the text she’d sent him that morning: See you at the church. And thank you. I appreciate it.
And being appreciated was nice. It had been a while since he’d last felt appreciated.
The usher greeted him with a smile. ‘Bride’s side or groom’s?’
‘Bride’s,’ Jared said, feeling a total fake.
‘Sit anywhere on the left except the front two pews,’ the usher said with a smile, handing him an order of service booklet.
Jared remembered the drill: anywhere except the front two pews, where the bride’s and groom’s immediate family would be sitting.
Over the next few minutes the church filled up. Two men walked down to the front of the church; one of them was obviously the groom and the other the best man, Jared thought.
A wedding.
A room full of hope, with everyone wishing the bride and groom happiness until the end of their days. But how often did that hope turn sour? How many people did he know who’d actually stayed together, apart from his parents and two of his siblings? Not that many.
The organist started to play the wedding march, and the bride walked in on her father’s arm, looking gorgeous and deliriously happy. Behind her, carrying the long train and a bouquet of deep red roses—to match her knee-length dress and incredibly high-heeled shoes—was Bailey.
Jared had never seen her wearing make-up before, not even on that morning when they’d trained together and she’d come to breakfast in a suit. It was barely there—mainly mascara and a hint of lipstick, from what he could tell—but it served to show him that she was jaw-droppingly beautiful and didn’t need anything to enhance her looks. Right now, she looked incredibly glamorous, a million miles away from the slightly scruffy doctor he was used to—the one who walked around the football pitch in tracksuit pants and a hoodie.
He caught her eye as she walked by and she actually winked at him.
And all the blood in his body rushed south.
Oh, help. They hadn’t set any ground rules, so this might just be one of his biggest mistakes ever. God. He really should’ve agreed it with her beforehand. At the very least they should’ve agreed on no touching and no holding hands. And yet he was supposed to be her fake boyfriend. Everyone would expect him to hold her hand, put his arm round her, gaze at her adoringly, maybe even kiss her …
The idea of kissing her sent him into such a flat spin that he was barely aware of the marriage ceremony. But then the registers were signed and the bride and groom walked down the aisle, all smiles.
The usher handed him a box of bird-friendly confetti on the way out. Jared lined up on the side of the path to the church with everyone else and waited until the photographer directed them all to throw confetti over the happy couple.
He took a couple of photos on his phone and managed to catch one of Bailey with her head tipped back, laughing. The kind of picture that would make a rainy morning feel full of sunshine.
She came over to him while the bride and groom were being photographed on their own. ‘Hey. Thanks for coming.’
‘Pleasure.’ And, actually, it was now. ‘You, um, look very nice.’
‘Thank you. So do you. I’ve never seen you in a proper suit before.’ She grinned. ‘I would say a suit “suits” you, but I need to find a better way of saying it.’
Funny, her easy manner put him at his ease, too. It suddenly didn’t matter that this was a wedding, and all the darkness associated with the end of his own marriage just faded away—because Bailey was there and she sparkled.
‘I’ll introduce you properly to everyone at the reception,’ she promised. ‘Sorry, I should have organised this a lot better so I was travelling with you or something.’
‘It’s fine. You’re the bridesmaid and you have things to do. I’ll see you at the reception.’
She gave him another of those incredibly sexy winks. ‘Ciao, bello.’
The Italian side of her was really coming out today. He’d never really seen this before; but then again she’d never flirted with him before, either.
Oddly, he found himself looking forward to the reception—and what he really wanted to do was dance with her. Which was crazy, because he didn’t even like dancing very much; but he had a feeling that Bailey did and that she’d be good at it.
He made his way to the hotel where the reception was being held, and joined the line-up of people waiting to kiss the bride and shake the groom’s hand. Bailey came and found him in the line. ‘Hey, there.’
‘Hey.’ How ridiculous was it that he should feel suddenly intimidated?
But Bailey took charge, making small talk until she could introduce him to the bride and groom. ‘Jared, this is Joni and Aaron. Joni and Aaron, this is Jared Fraser.’
‘Very pleased to meet you, Jared,’ Joni said with a smile. Jared caught the meaningful look she gave Bailey, and wondered just what Bailey had told her best friend about him. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘Thanks for inviting me. It was a lovely service, and you look gorgeous,’ he said.
She kissed his cheek. ‘You’re too sweet. I knew Bailey was lying when she said you were grumpy.’
