Greek Doctor: One Magical Christmas

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‘Not on the strength of one morning’s surgery,’ he said, so cool in the face of her rudeness she wanted to throw something at him. Something hard!

‘Sit down and have your lunch.’ This from Ned, and she knew his voice well enough to know he, too, was angry, but with her.

As well he should be!

‘I’m sorry, that was terrible of me,’ she muttered at Mak from the doorway. ‘Yelling at you when I should be thanking you.’

He nodded a gracious acceptance of her apology, but she suspected he was laughing at her inside for his eyes were twinkling with delight, which made her mad again. But she had to enter the kitchen! For a start, she was starving. But her legs were heavy and stiff with dread because, for only the second time in her life, Neena was feeling physical responses to a man. Well, maybe not the second time—but only once before had they been as strong as this and that once had ended in heartache, pain and trouble.

‘How’s Albert?’ she asked, directing the question at Ned, trying to ignore the other person in the room.

‘Blooming,’ the man she was trying to ignore replied. ‘I’ve just been talking to him. He quite likes the Mozart but would prefer a little rock music from time to time.’

Neena frowned at the light-hearted comment. She didn’t want to like this man—bad enough to be getting physical reactions from him, but liking him?

‘Sit down and eat,’ Ned told her, pulling a plate of cold meat and salad from the refrigerator and putting it down at the other end of the table from Mak, setting cutlery beside it and pouring her a glass of cold water.

So here she was, right opposite Mak Stavrou, where every time she looked up she’d see some bit of him, like how the dark hair on his arms curled around his watch. At least the table was long so she wouldn’t be accidentally bumping his feet or have her knees knocking his…

Although not thinking about him was hard as once again came the memory of the previous night, of the touch of his hands on hers.

Ridiculous, fantasising about a stranger’s touch!

‘Lovely salad, Ned. Are these tomatoes from our garden?’

‘You’ll note she says “our”,’ Ned growled at Mak, ‘though it’s years since she dirtied her hands in the vegetable patch. Reckons looking after the roses is enough for her, not that roses take much looking after out here.’

‘I noticed the rose gardens on my way to the stables,’ Mak replied, smiling at Neena. ‘My mother grows roses but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wonderful display.’

‘The dry climate means you don’t get mildew or most of the bugs you get closer to the coast,’ Neena replied, keeping the words crisp and impersonal, the mention of his mother reminding Neena of her doubts about why this man was really here.

Reminding her he could well be the enemy!

An enemy who had helped out this morning, she reminded herself. She asked him about the patients he had seen, and managed to eat most of her lunch while they discussed them.

‘I’m going out to the drilling site this afternoon,’ the man who was disrupting her life announced as he stood up from the table, rinsed his plate and put it in the dishwasher. ‘I need to see some people and explain why I’m here. I want to talk to them about what they see as the impact on the township.’

‘You might as well stay out there, then,’ Neena told him. ‘They’re putting on a Christmas party for the town tonight. Every man and his dog will be there.’

Mak turned towards her and leaned against the kitchen bench.

‘And every woman and her camel?’

Neena had to smile.

‘Maybe not the camel, but as Ned is Father Christmas—yes, I know he’s not a normal size Father Christmas but he does a great ho-ho-ho—we have to go.’

‘Then I shall certainly stay for it,’ Mak said with a smile that made moths flutter in her stomach and caused regret that she’d mentioned it.

He departed soon after and Neena went up to the hospital to check on patients there, then crossed to the retirement home to sit with her old friend Maisie for a while.

But Maisie’s common sense, and their shared remembrances, failed to soothe the turbulence in Neena’s chest. The arrival of the man from Hellenic Enterprises had thrown her into such a muddle she couldn’t begin to think logically about him.

Or why he’d really come!

‘Don’t think too much,’ Maisie said as Neena was leaving, and although Neena hadn’t done more than mention Mak in passing, avoiding any discussion of him, she knew Maisie had picked up on her unhappy state of mind and had guessed he was the cause of it. ‘Sometimes our instincts are our best guide.’