Caroline Anderson - Raw Deal

Rhoda went to scout out the sunbeds, and Maggie, glad of a little peace, explored the ship until lunch.

The afternoon found her under a sunshade with a book, enjoying the feel of the light breeze over her skin as the little ship cruised steadily down towards the equator. Despite the lazy day she felt ready for bed, a fact enhanced by the change in the time. Of course, it was in reality long past her normal bedtime, but before she could make her escape there was dinner to get through, and she found to her confusion that there was to be no escape. Her company was requested at the captain’s table.

When the ting-tong of the PA called them for dinner, Maggie looked at the two formal dresses she had brought, eenie-meenie-minie-moed and ended up with the midnight silk jersey.

She piled her hair into a loose heap on her head, teased out a few tendrils and twirled in front of the mirror.

What she saw was enough to send her scurrying back to the wardrobe, but bearing in mind that she would have to wear both dresses in the end there seemed little point in changing. It was just that, in the shop and with Jo and Annie egging her on, it hadn’t seemed quite so … Oh, well. Who was going to see, anyway? After all, she’d already seen the captain, and he was a widower in his late fifties with grey, thinning hair and undoubtedly a wallet full of family snaps he would pull out at the first opportunity! Perhaps she’d misjudged her grandmother after all?

She was the last but one to arrive at the captain’s table, and apologised slightly breathlessly for her lateness.

‘Nonsense, my dear,’ Captain Rodrigues said jovially. ‘We’re still waiting for one member of the party—ah, here he is. Ben, come and join us!’

‘I do apologise for being late,’ a deep, rich voice murmured from behind her. ‘One of the penalties of the medical profession.’

As he slid gracefully into the seat beside her, Maggie caught a glimpse of fair hair, blue eyes and a boyish grin above a crisp white dress uniform with gold braid and a red cross on the breast pocket before she lowered her eyes.

Bingo. The ship’s doctor. And that explained the siting of her cabin next to the medical centre.

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

‘Now you’re all here, let me introduce you,’ the captain was saying, but the only name Maggie heard was that of the ship’s doctor—and he was called Bradshaw, not Palmer, which blew her newly formed theory that he might be Gerald’s son! Perhaps it was just coincidence that such an eligible man had suddenly appeared at her side?

Her mind fell over laughing at the very idea. Where Lucinda was involved, coincidences simply didn’t happen—they were ruthlessly arranged. And anyway, there was still the question of the strategic positioning of her cabin.

Stifling the urge to laugh, Maggie looked up and encountered a boyish grin under a straight, slightly aquiline nose. She wondered if he was in on the conspiracy. He bowed slightly towards her.

‘Miss Wells,’ he murmured. ‘Welcome to the Island Pearl. What do you think of the old bucket so far?’

Maggie smiled. So what if it was all set up? She might as well have some fun. ‘She’s lovely—I think I’m really going to enjoy it.’

‘We shall see that you do,’ Captain Rodrigues interrupted. ‘I’m sure Dr Bradshaw would be delighted to keep you company—Miss Wells’s grandmother was to have accompanied her, Ben, but at the last minute she became unwell.’

‘How unfortunate,’ the doctor said smoothly. ‘I’ll have to see if I can’t step into her shoes, at least for part of the time.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Maggie told him with a laugh. ‘She’s forever trying to marry me off!’

One eyebrow quirked above his extraordinary grey-blue eyes. ‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought that would be very difficult.’ His eyes travelled lazily over the contours of Maggie’s figure, lovingly revealed by the sensuous drape of the midnight-blue silk jersey.

She shifted uncomfortably, forced a bright smile and met his eyes challengingly. ‘I’m extremely picky,’ she told him frankly.

A slow smile lit his eyes. ‘You can afford to be. After all, you’ve got plenty of time—how old are you? Twenty-one? Twenty-two, maybe?’

‘I’m twenty-eight—not that it’s any of your business,’ she retorted, irritated that she should feel flattered by his implication of immaturity. Perhaps Lucinda’s constant exhortation not to do or think anything ageing was rubbing off on her?

‘You must move in exclusively female circles,’ he said, and his lids lowered as he reappraised her.

She decided to turn the tables on him, and, leaning back in her chair, she turned half towards him and studied him openly.

‘How old are you, Dr Bradshaw?’

‘Ben. I’m thirty-one.’

‘Single?’

‘So far.’

‘Any—er—commitments?’

His lips twitched. ‘Not at the moment.’

She let her eyes trail slowly over his body. ‘You must move in exclusively male circles,’ she murmured.

He gave a short, appreciative laugh.

‘Touché.’ He raised his glass to her in a silent toast, and sipped the smooth red wine before setting the glass down and turning his attention back to her. ‘So, Miss Wells——’

‘Maggie.’

‘Maggie. What do you do to occupy your time when you aren’t gallivanting around the world with or without your matchmaking grandparent?’

She chuckled. ‘I work with children,’ she told him, half truthfully.

‘A teacher?’

‘No—I work in a hospital, actually.’

‘A nurse?’

‘No—I——’

‘Occupational therapist? Physio?’

She thought of the endless hours on duty, sometimes as many as a hundred and twenty hours a week. ‘Dogsbody, really,’ she replied with a tinge of bitter irony.

‘I’m sure they love you,’ he said, and she was surprised at the sincerity in his voice. ‘You have an openness, a frank honesty; kids like that.’

She thought of some of the painful procedures it was often her duty to perform, and shook her head. ‘I don’t know if they love me, but I do my best for them. It isn’t always enough.’

She glanced up and surprised a look of pain that twisted his features briefly.

‘No,’ he replied quietly. ‘It isn’t always enough, and sometimes it’s too much.’

She was saved from an inane reply by the arrival of the first course, a delicious hors-d’oeuvre.

She made her selection and nibbled the smoked salmon trout thoughtfully. So, her lightweight, playboy doctor had hidden depths, did he? Even more important, then, that she should keep a distance from him, because, while she could easily talk herself out of falling for an emotional lightweight, she had the uneasy feeling that for all his flirting Ben Bradshaw was anything but, and if they found too much common ground—well, it could be a disaster. She speared a king prawn with more force than was strictly necessary.

Maggie was no fool. She knew she was ripe for picking, but, having escaped the somewhat fumbled clutches of her generation of medical students, she was in no hurry now to hurl herself at the first half-decent man who came along—especially not one who was apparently in hiding from some demon in his past.

A hundred years ago, she mused, he might have joined the Foreign Legion. Now he was condemned to dishing out Kwells to pampered old ladies and bandaging the occasional twisted ankle resulting from an over-enthusiastic game of deck quoits!

And yet, despite her determination to keep her distance, as the food came and went and conversation ebbed and flowed around her, she found her glance straying to his face, and her thoughts straying to his words. She wondered what might have happened when his best had obviously been too much, and thought again of little Samuel Grainger whose fight had been so brief, and for whom her best had fallen a long way short of the mark.