Resisting Her English Doc

by Annie Claydon

SO RICK WAS giving up on her already. Maybe he was just smart.

  Fleur had got up early and by the time his morning rounds brought him to her room, she’d completed the new exercise program he’d left with Heidi, one of the clinic’s physiotherapists. He’d examined her, asked her how she felt and then left, telling her that she could rest for the remainder of the day.

  It was another loss, to add to what seemed like an ever-growing list. Rick had clearly decided that he could expect no more from her, and he was going to stop pushing her now. And, despite herself, Fleur missed him.

  If she could have mustered up the energy to really care one way or another, she might have cried. But, on balance, staring at the TV seemed like a less fruitless exercise.

  * * *

  Rick had thought a lot about Fleur in the last couple of days. How his heart beat a little faster every time he saw her. How she reminded him just how much he missed caring about a woman.

  He’d decided to back off for a little while. Let her get to grips with the new physiotherapy regime, and see whether the extra exercise improved her state of mind. Taking her back to town seemed like a bad idea, until he’d got to the bottom of the incident in Brady’s bakery.

  But the smile she gave him when he walked into her room, two days after their visit to town, was no less vacant than the one she’d given him yesterday. It served only to register the fact that he was in the room, and owed nothing to how she might be feeling. Fleur seemed to have slipped back into her ennui.

  He sat down in the chair next to her bed, and she regarded him steadily. All the life seemed to have drained from her lovely eyes.

  “I’d like to apologize.”

  One eyebrow arched a little. “Would you? What for?”

  “The...incident in the bakery.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.” Clearly, Fleur had ruled out the possibility of either forgiving him or not, in favor of considering him not important enough to matter. Rick swallowed down the temptation to make her notice him.

  “Would you like to tell me about it? Is that why you want to leave the island so badly?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What’s this? You’re my therapist now?”

  “I’m your doctor. My job is to address your physical issues, but if there are emotional issues getting in the way of your recovery, then I’m qualified to address them as well. Most people who’ve experienced life-changing injuries like yours have a combination of obstacles to face.”

  “Okay. So my career is finished. It’s been nearly four months, and I still wake up in the night, feeling that I’m falling. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Rick shook his head. “That’s too easy, Fleur. There’s something you won’t admit to and it’s eating away at you. More to the point, it’s stopping you from getting the best out of the rehabilitation therapies that are available to you here.”

  She thought for a moment. “Aren’t you meant to listen to what I have to say, and take it from there? Help me to work it out for myself.”

  “Yes, that’s the general idea. But it also helps if you’re honest with me.”

  She didn’t answer. Rick leaned back in his seat.

  “I can wait.”

  She let him sit there for a couple of minutes and then glared at him. “Don’t you have any other patients to go and bother?”

  “Yes. If you can hold out all morning, you might be doing them a favor.” He didn’t move.

  Another two minutes of silence. Then Fleur reached for the TV remote and turned the sound back on.

  Rick was just getting into the plot of the morning soap opera when she spoke again. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

  “What made you think I wouldn’t?”

  She puffed out a breath, rolling her eyes. Something prickled at the back of Rick’s neck.

  “Okay...” She grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. “Okay. What do I have to do to get you to leave?”

  “Just tell me why you’re so dead set on waiting your time out and getting back to Boston as soon as you possibly can. You have family and friends here, and the clinic’s the best there is. Is there something in Boston...?”

  Someone? The thought hadn’t occurred to Rick before, and he should have considered it. Why did it make his stomach churn with disappointment?

  Fleur shook her head slowly. “You haven’t asked around? I’m sure you could find plenty of different opinions to choose from.”

  “I’m asking you. I don’t care what anyone else says.”

  That seemed to be the right answer. Fleur had been pulling at the edge of the patchwork quilt that covered her legs, and suddenly she looked up, meeting his gaze.

  “When I was fourteen, there was an...incident.”

  “Can you tell me what kind?” It was almost as if a mild current was flowing across Rick’s skin. If he rolled up his sleeve, he was sure he’d find goose-bumps running up his arm.

  “It was stupid. I went down to the beach with two other girls. We had a bottle of wine and we made a fire. I was telling my friends about this boy—Evan. His family had a holiday home on the west side of the island, and we all thought he was really handsome. He’d talked to me at the harbor that afternoon.”

  Rick nodded her on. It seemed like a pretty standard boy-meets-girl story so far, but those kinds of stories had all kinds of potential to go wrong. Particularly for three young girls on their own on a beach.

  “We didn’t see Evan and his friends, walking down the beach. They must have seen our fire, though, and they had a crate of beer with them. They were older than us, and there were six of them...”

  The voltage stepped up. It was almost painful now. “What happened?”

  “They sat down with us, and cracked open the beer. They were coming on a bit strong, and my friends made themselves scarce but I was with Evan and I thought he was okay.” Fleur was suddenly wide-eyed, staring at him as if she defied him to understand. “But he grabbed at me while all the other boys were watching. I told him no, but he didn’t listen. I managed to kick and punch him and somehow I got away. I used one of the paths that the tourists don’t know about up to the harbor. I was heading for home, but I saw the lights on in the sheriff’s office...”

  “So you went there?”

  “Yes. I was frightened they’d catch up with me, and I just wanted to be safe. I told Sheriff Taylor, the old sheriff, what had happened.”

  “And you knew who these boys were?”

  “I knew who Evan was. The others were his friends, and they were staying with his family for the summer. But Sheriff Taylor said he couldn’t do anything because there was no proof. I had a cut on my lip and my eye felt swollen, but he said that wouldn’t hold up in court, they’d say that I could have just fallen on the cliff path...” Fleur shrugged.

  “But...the other girls...? Your friends.”

  “We were fourteen, and we had a bottle of wine. The others would have got into such trouble with their parents, so I wouldn’t give their names.” She shrugged. “It was just my word against Evan’s and that wasn’t enough. There was nothing he could do.”

  “What about your parents? Didn’t Sheriff Taylor call them?”

  “Yeah, he took my statement and then he called my dad and asked him to come and get me.”

  “What? A fourteen-year-old girl, who’d been assaulted, and he didn’t call your parents straight away, before he took your statement?” Rage rose in Rick’s chest and he felt his fingers clench on the arms of the chair. This was tantamount to abuse.

  “I guess he should have. But I’d known Sheriff Taylor all my life. And he said that it wasn’t really an official statement because he couldn’t take things any further.”

  There was more. There had to be more to it than this.

  * * *

  Fleur liked it that Rick looked as if he was about
to explode. He was angry for her. She hadn’t realized just how much that might mean to her until she saw it.

  “Didn’t...?” He was making a clear effort to keep it together. “Didn’t the sheriff do anything to investigate? Even talk to these boys?”

  “Not as far as I know. My dad was furious, but I felt I’d done the wrong thing and I just wanted to forget all about it, so I refused to talk about it anymore. A few people had seen me running through the harbor, and the whole thing got out. Everyone knew and they all had their own opinions about what had happened and who was to blame.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and Rick almost leapt for the box of tissues, putting them on the bed next to her. One corner of the box was dented, from where she’d thrown it at him before. Fleur turned the corners of her mouth down, pulling out a tissue and wiping her eyes.

  “I don’t see that there was more than one opinion to have.” His voice was gentle now. “You hadn’t done anything wrong, you’d been assaulted.”

  At least he believed her. That meant a lot too.

  “Some people thought that Evan had rejected me and I’d made it all up. I’d been drinking and I’d asked for it. Maybe they were right and I did give out all the wrong signals. I’ve been over it so many times in my head...”

  “No. You told him no, Fleur. That’s the only signal he should have needed. No one’s allowed to touch you if you tell them not to. Please, tell me that you understand that.”

  She understood. Rick did too. His murmured “May I...?” followed by a short pause before he examined her, sounded a little old-school and formal, but she liked that he did it. And she liked that his hand had just formed a fist on the arm of his chair, as if somehow he could defend her.

  “I understand it, of course I do, but it doesn’t make any difference. No one likes any trouble with the visitors, the island depends on them for its income in the summer.”

  “Didn’t anyone support you?”

  “Yes, Pam’s a good friend of the family and she was great. And the Bradys all flew to my defense.” Fleur allowed herself a smile. “You don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Bradys when they do anything en masse. Dad was so mad he went down to the sheriff’s office and almost got himself arrested, bawling Sheriff Taylor out. He only let it go because I begged him to, and Mom said that he was making things worse.”

  Rick leaned back in his chair, looking at her thoughtfully. “And dancing was a way to forget.”

  He’d realized what everyone else had failed to notice. She’d give him his due, Rick was good at this. A little too good for comfort.

  “This is between you and me, right?”

  “Of course. Anything you tell me is entirely confidential.”

  She’d trusted him this far. Rick might be infuriating but he was straight down the line infuriating. “I’d always taken dance lessons, and they made me feel strong. I threw myself into my practice sessions, because that blotted everything else out. When I told Mom and Dad at fifteen that I wanted to go to theater school, they were just happy that I’d found something that I loved... And I did love it.”

  “But you hadn’t forgotten what happened. Like everyone thought.”

  “No. Theater school was a way of getting off the island.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand...” Rick’s brow was furrowed, as if somehow he was straining under the weight of this. Trying to take it from her shoulders. “Why is everyone still talking about this now, after all this time? And who’s Mollie?”

  So he’d heard what the women in the bakery had said. Fleur had been wondering about that. “Mollie Gardener. Her father worked for Evan’s father, he looked after the house and the boat while the family was off the island, which was most of the time. Evan’s family left after what happened and they never came back. The house was sold and so Mollie’s father lost his job.”

  “But... In what universe is that your fault?”

  “In Mollie’s universe. She was an only child and her father was a widower. He went to Boston to get work, and met someone. She was a good bit younger than him, and they married and had more children together. He had a lovely house on the island, overlooking the harbor, and Mollie always thought that he’d pass it on to her when he retired. But when he left for Boston and got married again, he sold it, and Mollie’s never forgiven me for it.”

  Rick was finally lost for words. But that was okay, because the outrage in his face said it all. It warmed Fleur, in a way that she couldn’t have thought possible. He got to his feet slowly, his brow furrowed.

  “I think you need to get out of bed now, Fleur.”

  “I’ve already done my physio...” Disappointment curled around her, like the black fog that had been dogging her ever since she’d arrived here. “Don’t you get it?”

  He planted his hands on the rail at the end of the bed, leaning toward her.

  “I get it. What happened to you was horrible, and terrifying. It destroyed your belief in this place as a safe haven. For anyone to suggest that you were at fault is despicable. But if you let that get in the way of your recovery, then you’ve let them beat you. I know you’ve got it in you to fight.”

  “I’m tired of fighting. I just want to leave again and get on with my life.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not going to work, Fleur. You can run away to the mainland if you want, that’s your business. You can keep all the hurt over not being believed a secret if you want. But if you let it break you, that takes away your best chance at making a good recovery. Then we’ve both failed.”

  “No... It’s...” Fleur felt herself flush. Nothing stung like the truth. “Damn you, Rick.”

  That slow smile of his spread across his face. “That’s the spirit. Get out of bed.”

  * * *

  The assault had been bad enough. But the thing that seemed to be eating away at Fleur was that the very person whose job it had been to protect her had thought that her word wasn’t enough. It was nothing short of criminal to treat someone who had just been attacked that way.

  He’d taken one hell of a risk. He knew now how difficult it was for Fleur to get out of bed and start putting her life back together again. But he also knew how important it was that she do it. Giving up had thrown his own life into a downward spiral, and if Fleur made the same mistake his heart would break for her.

  And she’d come through it. Not without a few choice words flung in his direction as she eased herself off the bed. Not without batting away his hand as he stretched it out to help her. But that was what he liked about Fleur. She gave as good as she got.

  “I suppose it was you who left that leaflet in my room, about the library’s Fright Night?”

  “Yes.” He put his hands into his pockets. Now that Fleur was back up and fighting, all he needed to do was roll with it.

  “It’s behind the chest of drawers...” She pointed with her crutch in an obvious indication that he should retrieve it. Rick leaned across, peering down the gap between the furniture and the wall, and then shifted the chest of drawers out of the way. The paper dart slid down onto the floor and he picked it up and unfolded it.

  When he turned, Fleur was right behind him, and she grabbed the leaflet from his hand. “It’s really soon—there’s not much time.”

  Give her a bucket and spade, and Rick suspected that Fleur could move a mountain in whatever time she had available to her. “You want me to call Pamela?”

  “I’ve got her number. I dare say I’ll have to get down there and see her too. And I’ll need a drawing pad and some paper for notes...”

  “I’ll get you whatever you want.” He glanced at the leaflet, which showed the closing times for the library at the bottom. “The library’s open until six tonight. I finish work at five, I can take you to see Pamela then if you like.”

  The whirlwind paused suddenly, leaving the room quiet and a
lmost peaceful. Maybe this was just the center of the storm.

  “You’re sure about that? You’re the new guy on the island, and you don’t want to get a reputation by being seen hanging around with me...”

  If that was a warning, she could forget it. Supporting someone who’d been abused and gossiped about was just the kind of reputation he wanted.

  “I’ll go and fetch Ellie from the daycare center, and we’ll both be here at ten past five. Be ready.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ELLIE WAS A BRIGHT, enquiring little girl, who ran into Fleur’s room ahead of her father, stopping suddenly to look around.

  “Hi, Ellie.” Fleur wondered if Ellie knew that her presence here was Rick’s way of saying that he didn’t care what anyone said. That she had his support, and he’d prove it by bringing along the one person he cared about most. Probably not, the concept was too complex for a four-year-old to comprehend.

  “Hello.” Ellie was looking her up and down unashamedly. “You’ve got pencils...”

  Fleur smiled, proffering the packet of colored pencils that had arrived in her room at lunchtime, along with drawing paper, a pen and a notepad. Rick had been as good as his word.

  “There are lots of different colors. And paper...” Perhaps Ellie would like to draw something before they left.

  “No time for drawing, Ellie. We’re going to the library.” Rick was smiling at his daughter as she capered up and down.

  “Yes! The library!” Ellie was still again suddenly. “My dad says you can’t walk. I’ll help carry you.”

  “Fleur can’t walk very fast, Ellie. We have to wait for her, not carry her.”

  Ellie nodded. “I’ll hold your hand, then.”

  There was no mistaking where Ellie got her frank outspokenness from, even if she didn’t look much like her father. She must have inherited her dark curls and brown eyes from her mother, but her forthright manner was very like Rick’s. Fleur glanced at Rick, waiting for him to tell Ellie yes or no.

  “Excellent idea, Ellie. Give me one of your crutches, Fleur. I’ll bring it along in case you need it.”