What did he know? He knew nothing about the island, and nothing about her. She agreed to his examination, letting him check the movement in her right leg and shoulder. Not thinking about his scent, or the way that she suddenly felt she had something to prove to him.
“Your shoulder’s improving well.” He seemed almost reluctant to say anything positive about her progress, and Fleur couldn’t help smirking when he turned his back.
“Yeah, I had a bit of trouble using the crutch with my right arm at first. But it’s a lot easier now.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. “Seems you’ve adapted well. To using crutches, I mean...”
He managed to make even that sound as if it wasn’t good enough. He reminded her of her first proper dance teacher, who had pushed her through challenge after challenge, and then on to dizzying success. Fleur didn’t want to think about that. Dance was over. Not a part of her life anymore. That kind of vivid lightning didn’t strike twice in the same lifetime.
“I’d like to see you walking. Nothing too taxing—I’d just like to observe.”
Another hoop for her to jump through. But she could walk. She could blank her mind to everything, and put one foot in front of the other. And there was always the chance that Dr. Rick Fleming might concentrate on observing and stop talking.
* * *
He was getting to her. Rick had caught Fleur in an eye-roll when she’d thought he wasn’t looking. And the weary apathy had given way to something a little more tight-lipped.
But Rick needed something more from her. If that meant he was going to have to act out the role of villain, then so be it.
“We’ll be going out of the department, so you might like to get changed.” Fleur would look wonderful in anything, even the shabby, stretched-out sweatpants and top she was wearing now.
“All right.” Her restraint was impressive. Rick hadn’t been aware that he could be quite this annoying, but Fleur was stubbornly refusing to react. If she could be persuaded to divert those energies to getting rid of her crutches and walking, then she’d make a great deal of progress.
She reached for the buzzer to summon one of the nurses and Rick leaned forward, grabbing it from the bed.
“You can get dressed on your own. The nurses aren’t here to wait on you. They have patients who really need their help to attend to.”
Actually, they didn’t. The nurse-to-patient ratio here was way better than it was at the busy hospital in London where he’d last worked, and even there the nurses would have found time to help any patient who asked. But Rick could see that his jibe had hit home. He got to his feet, putting the buzzer on the windowsill, next to a bunch of flowers and well out of Fleur’s reach.
Instead of giving him a piece of her mind, Fleur swung her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching for the elbow crutches that were propped up beside it. One fell to the floor and when Rick didn’t move, she gave a little huff of frustration, picking it up herself and making her way slowly over to the wardrobe.
She swung the doors open and Rick got to his feet, looking over her shoulder at the contents. A selection of neatly folded sweatpants and tops were stacked within reach, and on a higher shelf there was a pile of colorful, gauzy scarves, pushed right to the back.
“Want a hand? Or can you reach the scarves on the top shelf?”
She turned, a look of incredulous thunder on her face. “You’ve already made it quite clear that I can dress by myself. I think I can just about manage to decide what to wear...”
He was getting there. One more push and she’d explode.
“I’ll let you get on, then. If I give you half an hour, will that be long enough for you to do your hair and make-up?”
He threw the words over his shoulder as he made for the door. Any woman in her right mind would find his attitude outrageous, and Rick was beginning to feel very guilty about the lengths he was going to in order to provoke a reaction from her.
He realized, too late, that turning his back on her wasn’t a good idea. Rick heard one of her crutches fall to the floor and when he looked round Fleur was reaching towards the dressing table that stood next to the wardrobe.
Nice throw!
A box of tissues came whizzing through the air, aimed straight at his head. Rick dodged, and the box thudded against the wall. Fleur reached for her next missile, her movements suddenly less stiff, more fluid.
He’d done what he’d come to do. As he closed the door hurriedly behind him, he heard the hairbrush clatter against it. He could hear Fleur muttering angrily and the wardrobe doors slamming shut. Then silence.
“That’s more of a reaction that we’ve had in the last few weeks.” Alex had been reviewing case notes with one of the nurses, and he’d walked over to the door. Rick wondered whether he might have gone a little too far.
“I don’t blame her. I was just about ready to throw something at myself...” Rick mouthed the words, sotto voce.
Both men inclined their heads toward the door, listening for any indication that Fleur might be in difficulties. Rick heard her curse and his hand moved instinctively to the door handle. Then her voice sounded again, not quite muffled enough to disguise the anger in it.
“One out of five for bedside manner, Dr. Fleming. And I think you’d look particularly fetching with a crutch wrapped around your head...”
Fleur had divined that he was outside, listening at the door. Both he and Alex instinctively took a step away from it.
“I take it you’ve read the health and safety at work policy we sent you?” Alex raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, I did. But she’ll have to catch me first, if she wants to do any real damage.” Rick gave a smile, as if to insinuate that wasn’t likely to happen. The thought of Fleur, alive with anger and taking a swing at him, made his heart beat a little faster. She would undoubtedly be magnificent.
“You haven’t been talking to Maggie, have you?” Alex did him the favor of interrupting his thoughts before he got carried away.
Maggie...? Rick remembered now. Maggie was the hydrotherapist, with red corkscrew curls. They’d been introduced during the tour of the clinic and the way that Alex and Maggie had seemed to be touching, even though they’d been standing a good two yards apart, had made Rick wonder if they were more than just colleagues. The memory of how it felt to be that close to someone had unsettled him a little.
“No. Should I have?”
“If Dr. Fleming wants to know about taking it to the limit, then Maggie’s the one to ask.” The murmured observation came from the nurse that Alex had been talking to, who had followed him over, clearly wondering what the doctors were doing with her patient.
“Yes, she is.” Alex seemed to be savoring the thought and then snapped suddenly back into professional mode. “I’d better be getting on. I’ll leave you to...continue. With whatever degree of caution you think appropriate.”
Rick watched Alex walk away, wondering whether his new boss entirely approved of his approach. When he turned to the nurse, she was smiling.
“Don’t worry. We all used to call Alex ‘Dr. Protocol’. Then Maggie widened his perspective.”
“You have nicknames for all the doctors?” Rick wondered whether he’d been given one yet.
“Just the ones we like.”
He’d better not ask, then. “I’d like you to keep this room under observation for a few minutes, please.”
The nurse raised her eyebrows. “You mean you want me to take over from you and listen at the door?”
“Just in case Miss Miller falls.”
“I don’t think she will. She’s pretty steady on her feet now, she doesn’t really need the crutches.”
Persuading Fleur to get rid of the crutches was already on Rick’s mental list. One thing at a time, though. “All the same, I’d feel better if you’re keeping an eye...ear open. I’ll be back in half an hour to.
..um...”
“Annoy her a bit more?” The nurse was smiling. “Okay, Doctor. Whatever you say.”
CHAPTER TWO
FLEUR KNEW EXACTLY what he was up to. If Dr. Richard Fleming thought that he could make her care again, when everything she’d worked so hard for was lost, he had another think coming. She should be with her theater company, not here, cooling her heels and putting up with a doctor who thought he could have everything his own way.
The smile was a problem. Fleur’s plan, to do whatever she was told so she could get out of here as soon as possible and take the boat back to the mainland, hadn’t seemed in any danger, until he’d smiled. And when he’d layered frank disapproval on top of that, it had been too much for her.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got with herself. And the angrier she got with herself, the more she hated him.
That wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She’d play him at his own game, and show him that she was more than a match for him.
Rick returned to find the nurse still stationed at Fleur’s door. She nodded in response to his silent question, and Rick knocked quietly. No answer.
If that was the way she wanted to play it... Rick gestured to the nurse and she opened the door a little way, looking into the room. Then she withdrew, motioning him in. Fleur was sitting on the chair next to her bed, a pair of wireless earbuds in her ears. Rick could hear the quiet shh-shh of music.
He wondered if it was the music that had restored the glow to her face. Fleur had changed into a pair of blue sweatpants teamed with a knitted top, the wide neck falling by design from one shoulder. Her hair was caught in a loose, shiny tumble by a colored scarf and her already luminous eyes looked bluer and implausibly bigger. She was stunning.
Something told Rick that Fleur was fighting back. And the thought that he’d crawl over broken glass for one of her smiles told him that she was already winning.
She took the earbuds from her ears, leaning across to tap her phone and switch off the music. “We’re going for a walk, then?”
“Yes.” The less he said at this point, the better. He’d get over the feeling that Fleur could do whatever she liked, whenever she liked, and then he could start applying a bit more pressure.
“Good.” She flashed him a smile and his knees started to shake. “One thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I get it. Alex and Cody are playing the nice doctors. You get to play nasty doctor.”
She was onto him. Rick had expected nothing less of her, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He could still say the things that had tactfully not been mentioned so far, and he could still challenge her.
“What makes you think I’m playing nasty. Maybe that’s just how I do things.”
She reached for the crutches and got to her feet, her speculative gaze never leaving his face. “Maybe it is. I’m a big fan of old black and white horror movies, so that accent of yours is throwing me a bit.”
Rick was willing his facial muscles not to respond to her smile, but it was a losing battle. “So I sound like an old Hammer Horror movie to you, do I?”
“A little. The spooky Count Dracula, with a cut-glass accent. Living in a dark old stately home.”
She was taking him apart, piece by piece. This was much more difficult than dodging whatever she cared to throw at him. If he wanted to reach her, he’d have to give more of himself than he felt entirely comfortable with, but he was going to reach her.
“Stately homes aren’t my thing. I’m more of an inner-city kid. Let’s walk. It’s about time for afternoon coffee so we can go down to the main lounge.”
“I prefer the glass breezeway...you can see the ocean. You know where that is?”
Rick knew where that was—it led from the main clinic building to the surgical wing. Benches and planting made it a place where patients could feel connected with the outside during the winter.
They left the department, dawdling more and more slowly along the corridor together, as each matched the other’s pace.
“When are you going to start stepping out? So I have to make an effort to keep up with you?” she asked.
Right. So she already knew all those tricks. “I’m not planning on it. Clearly you can’t keep up...”
“Clearly not.” This time her obstinacy took the form of agreeing with him.
“It’s not such a bad thing. We can get to know each other a bit better on the way.”
“We could, I suppose...”
That worked. Fleur suddenly started to speed up, walking away from him. Rick hung back, studying her gait. She was tense, obviously afraid of falling, and seemed over-reliant on the crutches. But even that couldn’t conceal the straight back and graceful movements of a dancer.
He caught up with her as she reached the breezeway, and she waited while he opened the door. It seemed that Fleur found closed doors an impenetrable barrier, and he’d have to address that with her very soon. She walked across to one of the benches, which faced the sea, and Rick collected two cups of coffee from the machine in the corner, adding milk and sugar to the tray and setting it down on the bench between them.
“Since you’re new here, you can take as much time as you like to appreciate the view.”
It was clearly an invitation not to bother her for a while. The view was spectacular, snow piled on the ground with a backdrop of the iron-gray, restless sea. But somehow he couldn’t take his eyes off Fleur.
He pushed one of the cups toward her slightly. “Milk and sugar?”
“I’ll take some milk. Sugar’s all yours.”
“I don’t take sugar...”
He’d played straight into her hands, and she curled her lip. “That’s a pity, you could do with a bit of sweetening up.”
She could sweeten him up any time she liked. Rick rejected the thought, reminding himself that she was a patient. “So why did you choose the Maple Island Clinic? Since you’re obviously not overwhelmed with enthusiasm about being here.”
“I’m an islander. My parents live here and they’ve paid for my rehab.”
“You’re not giving them much value for money, though.”
She quirked her lips down. Rick had found a sore spot. “They can afford it. I wanted to go into rehab in Boston, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it, he wanted me to come here. There wasn’t much I could do about it, seeing as I wasn’t in a position to run away.”
Run away from what? Not the clinic surely? The Maple Island Clinic was proud of its reputation for being the best.
“So you come from the west side of the Island?”
She shook her head. “You’ve already noticed there’s a difference, then.”
“I’m told that the west side has a lot of very nice houses, and great views of Boston. The east side has the open sea and the harbor...”
“That’s right. We’re real islanders, not rich visitors. Both my parents were born here. They live near the harbor. My dad’s a writer.” The pride in her voice was unmistakable. It sounded as if she wasn’t running away from her parents either.
“What does he write?”
“You’ve heard of the Ava Reynolds stories?”
Crime mysteries with a twist, featuring a hard-nosed New York cop heroine. “Yes, I’ve read a few of them. I liked them a lot.”
She nodded, seeming to relax a little and obviously pleased by what he’d said. “You have his latest one?”
“No, not yet.”
“I’ll get him to sign a copy and bring it in.” She quirked the corners of her lips in a wry smile. “Ava plays good cop, bad cop. Might give you a few pointers.”
“That’s great, thanks. Maybe your dad’s thought of a permutation that I can use.”
“Aren’t you underestimating yourself? You seem to have a good selection of permutations already. Anyway, doctors don’t go in
armed.”
“No, we don’t.” But it might make him feel a little more equal to the situation if he did.
“And did you read the one where Ava seduces a confession out of her perp? You can’t do that either.” She grinned.
Yes, he was well aware of that. Rather too aware of it, as the thought didn’t usually occur to him. “I have other methods.”
Fleur picked up her coffee, taking a sip. “I look forward to seeing them.”
“You will. You’re in custody here for a couple more weeks yet.”
“Don’t I know it. As soon as you cut me loose, I’ll be on the ferry back to Boston.”
Running away again. Rick still couldn’t work out what from. “What’s so great about Boston?”
“You didn’t spend time there before you came here? If you had, that would be obvious.”
“My daughter and I spent a week there before we came here. My late wife was from Boston, and we used to visit a lot to spend time with her family, so I know the city a little.”
Suddenly the mask dropped. No more wisecracks, but instead Rick saw genuine sympathy in her eyes. “I’m sorry...”
“It’s all right. It’s been four years and...” Rick shrugged. “Time doesn’t necessarily heal, but it does make things a lot less sharp around the edges.”
“This is why you came here? To be close to where your wife grew up?”
“Great childcare and clinical excellence played a big part in my decision. But, yes, I want Ellie to know about her mother and what it’s like to live in America. And to give Lara’s parents a chance to see her a little more often.”
Fleur nodded quietly. “So you’re here for good.”
“For the foreseeable future. The island seems to be a great place for children to grow up.”
“Take it from an island kid. It’s not as great as it looks sometimes.” Fleur quirked her mouth down.
“How so?” A little tingle at the back of his neck accompanied the thought that he might be getting closer to the reason for Fleur wanting to leave so badly.
Resisting Her English Doc Page 2
