Sarah Morgan - Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 1

He didn’t reply. There was nothing more to add.

So that she didn’t have to go home in the same dress everyone had seen her in the day before, he lent her a pair of denim cut-offs that were loose on her waist and snug on her hips, and the shirt she was already wearing, and drove her home. He pulled up outside her front door. Gathering her things together, she paused, her hand on the car door.

‘Thank you for last night, it was wonderful,’ she said, and, leaning over, she kissed him goodbye.

It seemed horribly, unbearably final.

‘RIGHT, Lucy and Dragan, don’t forget I’ve booked you both off this afternoon for the MIU meeting with the St Piran consultant. He’s coming about two-thirty,’ Kate said.

‘Pointless,’ Nick said flatly. ‘I don’t know why you’ve booked him in with Lucy. Can’t you reschedule it for when I’m around? She won’t be in a position to implement the changes and we’ve got more than enough to think about at the moment. We won’t need all the extra hassle while we’ve got a locum in. I think we should forget it for now.’

‘No,’ Marco interjected. ‘The community needs more than we can offer, Nick, and we do need to do this as soon as we can. We’ve talked it over endlessly.’

‘So why Lucy? Why not us? It’s our practice.’

‘Because she’s the most appropriate person,’ Kate pointed out calmly. ‘Apart from the fact that you’ve shown no interest in being involved in this up to now, emergency medicine is her area of responsibility in the practice, and this was all her idea. It’s only a feasibility study, Nick,’ she went on, ‘planning for the future. Someone’s got to do it, so why not her? Besides,’ she added before Lucy could interrupt and point out that she was still, actually, in the room, if they’d all finished talking about her, ‘they’ve worked together before, so it makes sense.’

They had? When? Or more importantly…

Nick’s brow pleated into a scowl. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, yet again before Lucy could speak.

‘Oh—didn’t I mention that?’ Kate said guilelessly. ‘It’s Ben Carter.’

‘Ben?’ Lucy said, her heart lurching against her ribs. Oh, no. Not Ben! Not when she still hadn’t told him…

Her father’s frown deepened. ‘Carter!’ he growled. ‘Why the hell is he coming?’

‘Because he, like Lucy, is the most appropriate person for the job—and he volunteered.’

Really? Why on earth would he do that, seeing that the last time she had spoken to him it had been to agree that they shouldn’t see each other again because of the situation between him and her father?

Nick was emphatic. ‘No. Not Carter. I don’t want him in my practice.’

‘Our practice,’ Marco pointed out mildly. ‘And anyway, it’s irrelevant what you or I or anybody else want. If we’re going to do this, we need an expert, and he’s the best.’

‘Rubbish, the man’s incompetent.’

‘Dad, no! You cannot go around saying things like that about him.’

‘Why not, if it’s the truth?’

‘Because it isn’t! The inquiry exonerated him absolutely.’

‘It was a whitewash. Utter whitewash, and if you weren’t so hoodwinked by the man you’d realise it.’

‘Nick, that’s not fair,’ Kate said gently. ‘He’s very well regarded.’

He stood up and banged his mug down on the drainingboard. ‘Think what you like, he’s the last person we need here,’ he said stubbornly. ‘It doesn’t matter what any of you say, you’ll never convince me otherwise. Ben Carter’s bad news, and I don’t want anything to do with him.’

He spat Ben’s name as if it were poison, and Lucy’s heart sank. Was he ever going to be able to see this clearly? Because if not…

‘Nick, you’re getting this totally out of proportion,’ Kate said firmly. ‘Anyway, you don’t have to have anything to do with him. You’re busy with your antenatal stuff, Marco’s concentrating on the paeds, this is all Lucy and Dragan. Mostly Lucy. And if they’re all happy about it, I really don’t see why it’s such an issue. It’s not as if he’s going to be having any involvement in the running of the unit.’

Nick opened his mouth to reply, but Marco cut him off.

‘She’s right. Move on, Nick. Let it go.’

He shut his mouth, opened it again, and then turned abruptly and stalked towards the door. ‘Fine. Don’t any of you mind me, I’m just the senior partner,’ he snapped, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Lucy winced, Marco shrugged, Dragan shook his head and frowned and Kate smiled briskly at everyone and headed for the kettle. ‘Right. That’s that settled. Coffee, anyone?’

Lucy couldn’t believe it was Ben.

Of all the people to be coming, why did it have to be him?

Although she had to see him some time, and preferably soon. Unless she just wasn’t going to…

No. That wasn’t an option. She just wanted time to think it through, to work out the words, to find a way of introducing the subject.

Ridiculous. She’d had months to talk to him, months to think up the words. She was just a coward—a coward with a patient who was staring at her a little oddly, waiting.

‘Right, Mrs Jones, I’m sure you’ll be all right. I’m confident that as I first thought it’s just a little bit of fluid on your lungs from your heart problem, so I’m juggling your pills a little and we’ll see if you improve. Here’s your new prescription, but in the meantime the injection I’ve just given you should start to shift it soon, and the extra frusemide should do the trick in the long term.’ She clipped her bag shut with a little snap, and picked it up. ‘If I don’t hear anything from you, I’ll come back and see you next week to make sure it’s cleared up, but if you’re at all worried, you call me, OK? No being stoic.’

Edith Jones nodded. Recently widowed, she was struggling to cope with her new independence, and Lucy worried about her. Her heart condition had been fine until her husband’s sudden and traumatic decline, and since then she’d been neglecting herself. Not any more, though. Lucy simply wouldn’t let her. Edith was still a little breathless, but even in the short time since Lucy had given her the diuretic injection, she’d noticed an improvement.

‘I’ll be fine, Doctor,’ Edith said with a smile. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

‘My pleasure. You stay there, I’ll let myself out.’

‘No, that’s all right, I’ll see you to the door. I have to get up to go to the toilet anyway. That’s one of the problems with your medicine!’

Good. More evidence of the drugs working, but just to be on the safe side, Lucy warned, ‘Don’t forget to keep drinking. I don’t want you thinking you can keep the fluid off your lungs by dehydrating yourself. That’s not how it works. Cut down on your salt intake, and have lots of water and fruit juice, and not too much of that mega-strong tea you like to drink, or you’ll be getting problems with your waterworks to make life even more interesting! And don’t forget—if you aren’t entirely convinced it’s working, ring me.’

‘I will, Doctor. Thank you.’

She waved goodbye, got into her car and drove the short distance back to the surgery. It was ten past two, and Ben would be arriving in twenty minutes. Just time for a bite of lunch and a little hyperventilation before she had to see him again…

He was early.

He hadn’t meant to be, but the morning had gone badly and he hadn’t stopped for lunch in case the roads were busy, then they’d been clear and he’d found himself at the practice at five past two. So he was sitting in his car and killing time, staring out over the harbour and wondering whether he should go in and what kind of reception he would get from Nick Tremayne.