Caroline Anderson - Love Without Measure

‘Sit down for a minute,’ he suggested. ‘I could do with being filled in on procedure, names, places—that sort of thing. Who do I call, who do I avoid, who’s got a tetchy temper?—apart from you, of course.’

His smile took the criticism out of his words, and she found herself smiling back.

‘I’m normally very calm, but when someone questions a colleague’s competence, and says they’d get better treatment if they paid for it, I get very, very cross.’

‘Let him pay. It relieves the stress on the hospital’s funds. Anyway, you shouldn’t get so worked up. You’ll get ulcers.’

‘No, I won’t. Not if I haven’t got Helicobacter pylori.’

‘Smart-mouth.’

There was no malice in his remark, and they shared a smile.

‘Thanks for the coffee.’

She dropped into a chair and sighed. The weekend had been hectic, and already seemed a long way away. Flissy had been dancing in her ballet class, and Anna had had to dress her and pile her wispy hair up into a bun, and then watch the tiny little scrap trip and dither her way across the room, pretending to be a butterfly.

A virtuoso performance it wasn’t, but it had reduced Anna to a sniffling, pink-eyed heap. Pride was a ridiculous thing, she thought.

‘What are you thinking about?’

She blinked. Oh—nothing. Something that happened at the weekend, that’s all.’

‘It must have been pretty good—you were all misty-eyed.’

She laughed self-consciously, not ready to tell this stranger about her little Flissy. Men had a way of judging a single mother, and Anna wasn’t ready to be judged by this man. Not judged and found wanting.

‘It was good,’ she said, and deliberately changed the subject. ‘So, tell me about Africa. Was that where the earthquake was?’

A shadow crossed his eyes. ‘No,’ he said, effectively cutting off the conversation.

She blinked. So he, too, had things he wasn’t prepared to talk about.

She studied her cup, swirling the dregs of her coffee round and wondering why he was suddenly so remote and cut off. Had someone he loved died in the earthquake? Perhaps a wife or child? Oh, God, not a child! He’d said it was a school …

‘You didn’t lose someone—not your child?’ she asked, unable to help herself.

He met her eyes, his own revealing a flash of pain. ‘No,’ he agreed quietly. ‘Not my child.’

But someone. What was the saying about fools rushing in? Her shoulders drooped. ‘Look, I’m sorry I dragged the whole thing up—’

She jerked to her feet, almost dropping her cup back on the table, and fled.

She heard him call her name, but she didn’t stop. She went out to the front desk, glanced round, and picked up the notes for a patient who had just arrived.

‘Mrs Lucas? Would you like to come with me, please?’

He caught up with her at lunchtime, when she was just grabbing ten minutes for another coffee and a biscuit.

‘Is that all you’re having?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘I don’t eat much during the day,’ she told him, unprepared to get into discussion about it.

‘You can’t work as hard as you have been on that. Come and have some lunch with me—we never did have that conversation. I’ll offend someone mortally, and it will be your fault. Do you really want that on your conscience?’

His smile was warm and teasing. He was clearly quite unbothered about offending anyone. He wasn’t the offensive sort. He also wasn’t the sort to be thwarted.

‘Come on, while it’s quiet.’

She shook her head, reminding herself that he was married. ‘No. I really don’t want to go to the canteen.’

‘Then it will come to you. Wait here.’

He left the room, his long legs eating up the corridor. She heard the quiet swish of the door as he left the department, and, shutting her eyes, she leant her head back with a sigh. She felt like King Canute—totally helpless in the face of such stubborn determination. It would be easier to give in, but she didn’t want to. That would give him the upper hand, and absolutely the last thing she needed was to be bullied by a man, especially somebody else’s husband …

‘You sound tired.’

She opened her eyes. ‘Hello, Kath. No, I’m not tired, I’m saving my energy. Our Dr Haddon has decided I need to eat more. I think I’m about to be force-fed.’

Kath laughed, the action declaring her on Patrick’s side. ‘Good job, too,’ she retorted. ‘You’re far too skinny.’ She helped herself to coffee and dropped into a chair next to Anna, kicking off her shoes and rubbing her toes. ‘So, what do you think of him?’

Anna shrugged non-committally. ‘He seems very competent.’

Kath laughed. ‘Competent? He’s big, Anna—B-I-G. Just what we need to sit on all the drunks while we wrestle them into submission. Ben was fine, but he just didn’t have Patrick’s weight, and Jack’s not always here.’

Anna swallowed. Patrick was big, true, but size wasn’t everything. There was something else about him, a deep and intrinsic kindness that matched his bulk. He would be useful for sitting on drunks, but she could see he would have far greater uses dealing with the ordinary run-of-the-mill tragedies that passed through their department. It was the sort of intuitive, bone-deep sensitivity that would make him a wonderful lover, too, she thought, and yanked herself up hard.

No. No, no, no! Why should she think of that? She knew nothing about what made a man a lover, good or otherwise! She drank her coffee, wondering if she would have time to finish it and escape before Patrick got back. It was a long way to the canteen. If he had to queue …

She had reckoned without his long legs. She heard a door swish, a firm stride approaching, and her escape was cut off.

She sank back with a sigh, and Kath chuckled.

‘She was going to bolt—you feed her, Patrick. God knows someone needs to take care of the silly girl; she won’t do it herself.’ She stood up, slipped her feet back into her shoes and stretched. ‘You two take half an hour, crises permitting, and then Jack and I will go for lunch. OK?’

She left them, and Anna had no choice but to turn her attention back to Patrick. Her eyes settled on the mountain of sandwiches, buns and fruit he was putting on the table, and widened in amazement.

‘I hope you don’t expect me to eat all that?’ she asked, her voice rising to a squeak.

He chuckled. ‘It would probably do you good, but no. I had rather hoped you’d leave me a little. Of course, if you feel that hungry, I can always go and get more—’

‘No! Heavens, no. If I get through one sandwich I’ll be doing well.’

He snorted rudely, snapping open the plastic containers and tipping the contents out on to plates.

‘Cottage cheese and tomato, ham and lettuce, egg and cress, tandoori chicken, prawn cocktail—take your pick.’

She blinked. ‘Um—prawn?’ she ventured, finding her voice. Lord, it must have cost a fortune. She ought to offer to pay for her share …

He put two sandwiches on a plate and pushed it into her hand, then took her cup and refilled it. ‘Eat—come on,’ he nagged. ‘They’ll curl up before you get to them.’

She bit obediently into the deliciously moist sandwich, and groaned.

‘All right?’

‘Gorgeous,’ she mumbled round the prawns. It was. She took another bite, and another, unaware of Patrick’s searching gaze on her as she demolished the sandwich and started on the second half. A slow smile of satisfaction touched his eyes, then he turned his attention to his own lunch, biting deeply into his sandwich but monitoring her progress over the top. She finished, and he lowered his plate.

‘Good?’

Anna stared down at her empty plate, surprised.