Sharon Kendrik - Seize The Day

She awoke to find herself lying on the office floor, fine beads of sweat on her brow, the top buttons of her uniform dress undone—and Leo Trentham crouched down next to her, his solicitous expression clearing as he watched her eyelids flutter open.

‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve often had a dramatic effect on women, but that’s a one-off, I must say!’

‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she snapped, and tried to sit up, but couldn’t manage it, and, feeling as weak as a kitten, flopped down again.

‘Stay there!’ he commanded, and without further ado he lifted both her feet with one hand, and held them suspended in the air.

‘Take your hands off me!’ she cried, but he did no such thing, a look of amusement merely crinkling the corners of his eyes.

‘Don’t be so melodramatic, woman! Your blood-pressure has dropped into your boots; I’m merely trying to restore your equilibrium.’

The last person in the world to do that, she thought furiously, closing her eyes briefly as she felt her strength returning. When she opened them again she saw that he was staring at her curiously.

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

She could have sunk her teeth into one of the strong brown hands. ‘How dare you?’ she demanded icily. ‘I’m not married!’

He gave a low chuckle. ‘What a refreshingly innocent remark for the nineties,’ he commented. ‘It may have escaped your notice that a wedding-ring isn’t necessary for that particular act of nature to take place these days.’

‘It is—round here, anyway,’ she muttered. ‘Now, are you going to put my feet down—or am I going to have to scream for help?’

‘Scream away,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘When they come running to see what’s wrong I shall simply tell them that you’re hysterical, and they’ll believe me. I am the doctor, after all!’

‘You’re not my doctor,’ she retorted.

‘On the contrary,’ he fielded smoothly. ’You’re a member of staff who has passed out on hospital premises. As I am the resident doctor, you therefore come under my responsibility. Even if you climbed into a wheelchair and got yourself taken down to Casualty, it’s still me you’d have to see. So shut up for a minute and try sitting up, but leaning against my arm.’

What choice did she have? She had never felt more helpless or more filled with rage in her entire life. And then, as she started to feel normal again, she remembered just why he was here, and why she had passed out like an idiot. Dr Marlow was dead. She stifled a small sniff with difficulty.

‘Hey,’ he said in a ridiculously gentle voice, lifting her chin up very carefully. ‘Are you OK?’

She stared at him, the green eyes suspiciously bright, thinking that she was at a disadvantage sitting on the floor, her head against his arm, her long legs sprawled in front of her. She was in no position to give the overbearing Dr Leo Trentham a piece of her mind.

‘I would be,’ she said coldly, ‘if you’d help me up and into that chair.’

She hated having to be dependent on his strength as he half picked her up and deposited her into her chair behind the desk. She simply must snap out of this lethargy which had followed her faint. She still had a ward to run, a long shift to get through and this man to deal with.

‘I’ve sent Staff Nurse off for some iced water,’ he explained, and just then the pale blonde returned, in her hand a polystyrene cup which he took from her and handed to Jenny.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Drink it,’ he ordered, and watched until she had sipped almost half of it.

She put the cup down shakily. ‘Thank you, Staff. Would you mind telling the evening staff to carry on as normal, that I’ll be out in just a moment? And could you and the rest of the morning staff go to lunch now?’

The other girl nodded. She seemed pleased to leave. ‘Yes, Sister.’

Jenny saw the curiously pale eyes glance once in Dr Trentham’s direction before she closed the office door behind her.

Leo Trentham remained standing at the window, an expression of amusement lifting the corners of his mouth.

‘I seem to have that effect on you, don’t I?’ he remarked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s just that on the only two occasions we’ve met you’ve ended up on the ground. It gives quite a new meaning to the saying “he swept her off her feet”—don’t you think?’

It seemed that he actually expected her to join in with his laughter. She stared at him coldly, the anger she felt towards him managing mercifully to dispel the tugging at her heart which being back in this office without her late colleague had produced.

‘I can assure you that it would take someone as little like you as possible to sweep me off my feet,’ she retorted. ‘But I’m not interested in bandying around social niceties with you—if you can call your egotistical attempts at conversation that. I just want to get a few things straight.’

He seemed taken aback by her hostile tone. ‘Such as?’

She willed her voice not to have a quaver of emotion in it. Somehow she felt that for him to see her vulnerable would be a disadvantage. ‘Such as why you directed the nursing officer not to recall me from my holiday in order to attend Dr Marlow’s funeral.’

He looked surprised. ‘She asked my opinion, and I gave it. You weren’t related, were you? And you’d only just gone away.’

‘I’d worked closely with him for years!’ She spoke in an unnaturally high voice.

He chose to ignore that. ‘I’d already spoken to some of your staff. They told me how devoted you were to your work, how you worked unpaid overtime if the ward was short-staffed, which it frequently was. One doesn’t meet with that kind of dedication much these days, and I rather liked the sound of you. And I certainly didn’t imagine that you’d look the way you do.’

There was a murmur of appreciativeness in his voice and she was furious. ‘Just stick to the point,’ she hissed at him.

He shrugged. ‘You may or may not agree with me, but I’ve always tended to think that all nurses need their hard-earned holidays. They feel better and then they do their jobs better. Weighing everything up, we thought it better for you to continue with your holiday. I can’t see what the problem is, unless you’re one of these super-women who feel that the ward simply can’t run without their presence. Indispensable is the word, I think.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

He remained unperturbed. ‘Oh, I dare all right. You asked me a question, and I’m giving you an honest answer. I’m just sorry you don’t agree with me. You may be sister of the ward—but I certainly don’t come under your professional jurisdiction.’

She bit her lip. ‘And Staff Nurse Collins? What did she say? She knows me almost better than anyone. Did she recommend that I continue on my holiday, blithely unaware that the man who was almost—like a father to me——’ her voice broke a little at this ‘—was dead?’ she finished in a whisper.

He moved over to her side then, his face soft with sympathy. ‘Hey—I certainly didn’t mean to cause you this much pain. I’m sorry if you think the wrong decision was made. But you know yourself that attending a funeral doesn’t change anything. You still have to grieve. Don’t you think that perhaps you might be misdirecting your grief, and it’s coming out as anger against me?’

‘You can keep your cheap psychoanalysis,’ she said bitterly. ‘And please answer the question—did Staff Nurse Collins agree with you?’

‘Yes,’ he answered quietly. ‘She did.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

‘Then ask her.’

‘Oh, believe me—I shall. And I shall also ask her why she felt she had to leave so suddenly, but that will be academic, since I feel pretty sure I already know the answer to that one.’