Kate Hardy - The Doctor's Rescue

‘Stop bullying the poor girl,’ a voice behind them chided. ‘Take no notice of them, love. I’m Hayley, the practice nurse. And you two can just leave her alone and get back to your patients.’

‘Yes, Aunty Hayley,’ the other doctors chorused, laughing.

Clearly Will had been talking about a shared and much-loved joke when he’d referred to the practice nurse as ‘favourite aunty’.

‘See you later, Mallory,’ Siobhan said, and she and Tom returned to their rooms.

‘Just popped along to say hello,’ Hayley said. ‘And to say thanks for looking after our Will for us.’

‘Pleasure,’ Mallory said.

‘When we heard about the accident, we couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t seem fair, after the last one. But at least he’s all right. Thanks to you.’

‘I didn’t do a lot,’ Mallory said honestly. ‘Just tried to keep him conscious while we waited for the ambulance.’ And what did Hayley mean, ‘after the last one’? Was this the second time Will had been hit by a car?

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Hayley told her with a smile. ‘I’ve got two tetanus jabs waiting, and if I leave them any longer they’ll have scared themselves into going home again.’

After such a welcome, Mallory could only do one thing. Take Renee’s advice. ‘About these questions,’ she said to Nathan.

Nathan nodded. ‘Fire away.’

‘Would you like to see my certificates and CV?’ Then she chuckled. ‘And don’t tell Will. I want to do it myself.’

‘That’s the least he deserves for pestering me!’ Nathan told her.

‘Come and sit down. Good climb?’ Will asked when Mallory put her head round the curtain of his cubicle.

‘Yes, thanks. I brought you some grapes.’ She opened the bag for him, then put the grapes on the table that swung over his bed so he could reach them. ‘Seedless. And I washed them first.’

‘Thanks. Did you go to see Nathan?’

‘Didn’t Nathan tell you?’

‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ Will complained.

She put him out of his misery. ‘Yes. I saw him.’

‘And?’

She handed him an envelope.

‘What’s this?’

‘My references,’ she said simply. ‘You’d better check me out properly if you want me to take this job.’

‘You’ll do it, then?’

She nodded. ‘Until you’re better, but I’d prefer it to be on a trial basis. Give it a week, see if we suit each other.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Once you’ve checked out my references.’

‘Have you given a copy to Nathan?’

‘Yes. Along with all the necessary papers.’

‘Then he’ll already have it in hand.’ He gave her another of those half-smiles. She’d been expecting the full wattage but, then again, he had just been hit by a car. A half-smile was probably as much as he could manage. ‘Welcome aboard Darrowthwaite Surgery. Now, can you do me another favour?’

‘Such as?’

He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Get me out of here! I can’t stand another night of noise and clattering.’

‘Will, you’ve got an internal fixation and an arm in plaster. How are you going to manage at home?’

‘The cottage has a downstairs bathroom and there’s a sofa bed in the living room. I’ll cope.’

‘What do the doctors say?’

‘Is he still on about discharging himself?’ a voice enquired. ‘Honestly, medical staff really are the worst patients. Demand to see their notes, want to know why you’re still doing their obs when they feel perfectly well, and say they’re going home well before they’re actually ready.’ The staff nurse swiftly took Will’s temperature and checked his pulse.

‘Apyrexial, pulse normal, no sign of nausea, no unusual pain, and if you check under the dressing there won’t be any signs of infection. No redness, no heat, no sign of pus.’ Will ticked the list off on the fingers of his uninjured hand. ‘Now, can I go home?’

‘You know what the doctor said,’ the nurse told him gently as she wrote up his chart. ‘Only on condition you have someone to look after you.’

‘You’re in the best place,’ Mallory added.

‘Then I’ll get a taxi and discharge myself,’ Will said.

‘Talk some sense into your boyfriend, will you? Please?’ the nurse teased.

Mallory flushed deeply as the nurse left. She wasn’t Will’s girlfriend—just his locum. But if the nursing staff thought that, no doubt Will’s partners and patients would think she was trying to come on to him…And what would his real girlfriend think?

‘What about your wife—your girlfriend?’ Mallory asked. ‘How does she feel about this?’

‘I’m single,’ Will said, his voice suddenly crisp, ‘and I like it that way.’

Ouch. She’d definitely trodden on sore toes there. It sounded as if he’d recently split up with someone. ‘Your mum?’

Will groaned. ‘Please, no. It was bad enough when I rang her earlier to tell her about the accident. Especially after—’

He stopped abruptly, and Mallory wondered what he’d been going to say.

‘Look, I can manage. Mrs Hammond’ll come in a couple of times a week to do my cleaning. If I ask her nicely, she’ll pop in to give me some food once a day and do the washing and what have you. All I need’s a garden chair or something in the bathroom and I’ll be set up perfectly.’

‘It’s still a risk,’ Mallory said.

‘I really, really can’t stay here much longer. It’s driving me bananas,’ Will said between gritted teeth. ‘Now the other patients know I’m a doctor, they’re telling me all their ills and asking what they should do—it’s worse than being at a party and having everyone demand an opinion on every little niggle!’ His half-smile took the edge off his words, but only just. He paused. ‘I know you said you were planning on being a locum for a while…have you got digs lined up?’

Uh-oh. She had a nasty feeling she knew what was coming. ‘I’m staying at The Limes.’

‘I’ve got a better solution,’ Will said. ‘My spare room. If you stay at the cottage, there’ll be a doctor on the premises if I get into trouble, so they’ll let me out.’

Yeah, right.

He grimaced. ‘Mallory, this wasn’t—isn’t—an attempt to seduce you. Sharing my cottage until I’m fit again doesn’t mean I’m expecting you to share my bed or anything like that.’

Her skin heated again. She hadn’t been thinking along those lines at all. Although now he’d mentioned it…No. He might be drop-dead gorgeous beneath the bruising and the plaster, but she wasn’t going to have an affair with Will Cooper. She was going to be sensible this time round, and make sure her working partnerships stayed that way. Work only. ‘I didn’t think you were.’

‘What, then?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You looked incredibly disapproving,’ he said.

‘Not disapproving…Just that I hope you don’t expect me to be, well, domesticated.’

‘Explain.’

‘I don’t do housework,’ she said quietly.

‘You don’t have to. Mrs Hammond does for me,’ he reminded her.

‘I don’t do cooking either.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Dare I ask what you do do?’

‘Cattle-herding and sheep-shearing—I did them both in Australia in my gap year. Mountaineering—I’m a qualified climber. But cooking and cleaning and laundry, no chance.’

‘That’s fine by me. We’ll live on fish and chips and pizza. Just get me out of here.’

She sighed. ‘OK. I’ll ask if you can go home tomorrow.’

‘Today,’ he said. ‘Please, Mallory?’

When he asked so nicely, how could she possibly resist?

‘Tomorrow,’ Mallory reported back a few minutes later.

‘Tomorrow?’ Will echoed in horror.