A Very Precious Gift

by Meredith Webber

  Now that he considered it, he hated seeing Phoebe unhappy.

  ‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘I’d have thought it was more like asserting yourself. Or perhaps self-preservation. It’s not as if you haven’t given Charles time to draw a line under his relationship with Anne and make a commitment to one with you.’

  Phoebe hesitated, then her lips widened into a smile.

  ‘You’re right! I’m weak, that’s all. I hate seeing him look so unhappy.’

  ‘Now, that I do understand,’ Nick told her as her words echoed his thoughts about her. Thank heavens she wouldn’t guess exactly what he meant. ‘So, let’s sit down and plan our campaign. On Friday evening—heavens, that’s the day after tomorrow—Charles and I, among others, are having dinner with a couple of skin specialists visiting from the States. Had Charles mentioned it to you?’

  Phoebe opened her mouth to say that Charles never invited her to what he termed ‘business’ dinners then decided that would be disloyal. She made do with a negative shake of her head, though as Nick seemed to think it natural to take a woman, why hadn’t Charles ever asked her?

  ‘Is that vacant look a yes?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Vacant look? What needs a yes?’

  He sighed.

  ‘My invitation to join us for dinner on Friday night. You’ll come?’

  He spoke as he did when checking through her work schedule. Which was how it should be, she reminded herself.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What time Friday and where?’

  Nick looked affronted.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at your place,’ he said. ‘Seven or seven-thirty depending on how late we get away from work. I’ve booked a table at Printemps, so it will be good casual, not dressy.’

  Phoebe smiled to herself. Trust a lady’s man like Nick to cover the essentials.

  ‘Then next week,’ he continued, obviously caught up in ‘the plan’, ‘we’ll have to try to co-ordinate our lunch hours so we can sit together. Then a week on Saturday, we’ve got the ball.’

  The confusion she’d felt when he’d first mentioned the ball returned—a hundredfold.

  ‘I don’t know about the ball,’ she began, trying to choose her words with care. After all, Nick was only doing this for her and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. ‘As far as I could gather when I did my intern year here at Southern Cross, it’s the main hospital function of the year, and any couple seen at it together are linked for ever.’

  Nick’s grin caused a slight queasiness in her stomach.

  ‘Scared of being linked to me for ever?’ he teased.

  ‘Terrified’ would have been a better word, but she didn’t utter her thoughts and he added, ‘Anyway, those assumptions don’t apply to me. In fact, I make sure of it by squiring a different beauty every year.’

  ‘Why?’

  She hadn’t meant to ask, but when the word popped out and she saw the gleams of laughter disappear from his eyes, she knew she wanted an answer.

  ‘Safety in numbers?’ he said lightly.

  ‘Or scared of commitment?’ she countered, although common sense told her not to pry.

  ‘Terrified,’ he said, standing up and touching her lightly on the shoulder, signalling an end to the conversation.

  He’d spoken the word she hadn’t used earlier and she guessed, although he’d smiled as he said it, there was an underlying truth behind it.

  ‘Strong word, Nick,’ she said, not exactly prying but interested enough to ignore his signal.

  ‘Not strong enough, if you knew my mother and her crazy beliefs about the sanctity of marriage—or perhaps the longevity of it would be a better way of putting it. Talk about putting pressure on a man! That and the demands of work make me a poor marriage prospect.’

  He moved away and she took the hint this time, guessing he wouldn’t answer any more questions.

  Not that she could probe any deeper. Any relationship between them was pretence.

  ‘So, as we’re now back on track with the plan, how about dinner?’ He shifted the conversation with the skill of a diplomat. ‘I’ve a meeting at eight, but we could grab a quick bite in the cafeteria if you’re not committed to going home. Charles will be in the cafeteria for sure. Eating there before the same meeting.’

  He’d expected support for this excellent suggestion but Phoebe was frowning again.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she said. ‘I mean, making him jealous—it was a fairly juvenile idea. I could just not see him—make it plain the relationship, if an occasional date could be called such a thing, is over.’

  Nick put out his forefinger and smoothed the worry lines away.

  ‘You should know me well enough by now to know I rarely do anything I don’t want to do. And as the making-him-jealous idea was mine, I’d like to refute the “juvenile” suggestion. He’s been taking you for granted, Phoebe, and if we have to make him a little uncomfortable in order for him to realise that, then so be it.’

  But he could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘You have to eat,’ he added persuasively, when he realised he wanted—for reasons he could not quite pin down but suspected had nothing to do with Charles—to eat with Phoebe. ‘Since they upped the budget in the catering department, the cafeteria food’s not bad.’

  Phoebe studied his face for a moment, trying to see beyond the outer image, trying to figure out his motivation in all of this.

  But the skin, a tawny gold, drawn taut over strong bones, distracted her, and the shadowy darkness where his beard would grow made her want to touch his chin, feel the roughness…

  A less intense version of the sensations she’d felt the previous afternoon skittered through her body, causing a heaviness very close to pain in her breasts.

  Why would simply looking at him do this?

  ‘I don’t bite,’ he murmured, as if he’d felt the intensity of her gaze as she sought an answer to the strange sensations.

  ‘That possibility wasn’t my concern,’ she told him, and smiled with relief because the temptation to touch had been resisted.

  ‘Dinner?’ he repeated, answering her smile with a tempting one of his own.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I guess so.’

  Nick’s smile disappeared, replaced by the beginnings of a frown.

  ‘Try not to sound too enthusiastic!’ he scolded. ‘It might go to my head!’

  She chuckled at his reaction. ‘I’ll do my best not to praise you too much,’ she promised, relieved to be bickering light-heartedly with him again.

  This Nick she could handle.

  Or could she?

  The doubt arose when he took her arm in the corridor, and his body pressed against her side as he steered them through the streams of patients, visitors and staff cluttering this main thoroughfare through the hospital.

  His touch set off quivers of new excitement along her nerves, while her body showed a dismaying tendency to press closer to his.

  ‘What’s yellow and black and very dangerous?’ she asked him as an old joke from her childhood bobbed into her head.

  He slowed their progress as they reached the cafeteria door, and looked down at her with puzzled eyes.

  ‘I give up.’

  She pulled away, and pushed through the door ahead of him.

  ‘Shark-infested custard,’ she said, flinging the answer over her shoulder, then smiling as she heard his shout of laughter.

  But she knew she shouldn’t be smiling, no matter how comfortable the arm he slipped around her shoulders felt. The dangers of shark-infested custard didn’t begin to compare with the dangers of tawny skin, dark beard shadows and blue-green eyes, all part of the package of the man whose lightest touch was sending unfamiliar tremors of sensation through her body.

  ‘Good joke, was it?’ Charles appeared from nowhere, reminding Phoebe that the arm around her shoulders was window-dressing—there to sell an idea.

  ‘A pathetic one, actually,’ she said to Charles. If Nick could put
himself out to help her in this way, the least she could do was play along. She snuggled closer to the danger and added, ‘But it got a laugh.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Nick asked the question, and Charles, who’d obviously been leaving the room as they entered, hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Actually, yes, but I’ll join you for coffee.’

  He moved closer to Phoebe, who’d decided that snuggling closer to Nick wasn’t a good idea and had extricated herself from his side.

  ‘Great,’ Nick responded, speaking to Charles but catching Phoebe’s arm before she could escape too far. ‘Why don’t you grab us a table and I’ll get your coffee? Long black?’

  Phoebe caught a flash of anger in Charles’s eyes. He knew he’d been outmanoeuvred, and he wasn’t happy about it.

  ‘Maybe we’re overdoing it?’ she suggested tentatively to Nick as he ushered her into the queue then stood protectively behind her.

  ‘Don’t start feeling sorry for him again,’ he growled, clamping a hand on her shoulder as if he wanted to shake some sense into her.

  The nerve endings in the skin beneath that hand, undeterred by several layers of fine linen, did their reacting thing again, and feeling sorry for Charles became the least of her problems.

  Nick could feel her tension—a tightness in her muscles—through her clothes. It caused knots in his own stomach and he cursed Charles for hurting her like this, and inadvertently embroiling him in the mess.

  Although his involvement was hardly Charles’s fault, Nick admitted to himself. The ‘making Charles sit up and take notice’ idea was all his own folly.

  Because it bothered him to see Phoebe so upset.

  And to see Charles take advantage of her good nature—again and again and again.

  He looked down at her as they shuffled forward towards the service counter. At what he could see of her. Glossy dark brown hair so thick a man could lose his fingers in its mass. It fascinated him—that hair. Had held his attention the day she’d come for an interview.

  Or had distracted him when he’d realised he’d been staring at her face, reminded of a painting he’d once seen of a dark-haired Madonna. The woman in the painting had been so relaxed, so calm, he’d wanted to reach out and touch her, certain such serenity could restore order to his frenetic life.

  They’d been dangerous thoughts for a man who wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship. So dangerous, in fact, he’d been relieved when she’d shown an interest in Charles.

  ‘Nick! Where have you been? I’ve been phoning you and leaving messages on your machine ever since I got back.’

  He turned to the newcomer with startled dismay. Though pleased to be diverted from disturbing thoughts and mental images of Phoebe and Madonnas, the last person he’d expected to see was Charles’s previous love interest.

  Here was an unexpected complication!

  Think about it later, he told himself as he kissed the tall, statuesque blonde warmly on the cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry if I seem dazed, but it’s as if I conjured you up. I’ve been thinking of you such a lot lately.’

  He grinned apologetically, then pulled himself sufficiently together to add, ‘My machine’s been playing up. I’ve just installed a new one, so anything you’ve left since last night will come through. How was your trip, Jess?’

  ‘Great! Just fantastic! I stole a couple of weeks’ leave and skied in the Rockies. It was unbelievable.’

  She was talking to Nick but eyeing Phoebe with more than a passing interest. Nick remembered Phoebe’s joke about shark-infested custard, but introduced them anyway.

  ‘Jessica Hunter, meet Phoebe Moreton, new to our small band since you departed. Phoebe, Jess is the computer wizard who worked with Charles and me on the original program and gave us the clues for developing the new one.’

  Jess put out her hand and explained, as Phoebe took it, ‘I’ve been in the States on a six-month course on computer skills for use in medical technology.’

  Then she looked around.

  ‘Charles not here?’

  The elaborately casual question didn’t fool Nick for an instant.

  ‘He’s finding a table for us,’ Phoebe said, blissfully unaware that Jess had played the role of comforter to Charles prior to her departure to the States—and Phoebe’s arrival on the scene.

  Or had Charles told her? Nick wondered, fancying he’d detected an element of coolness in Phoebe’s voice.

  ‘Another lovely blonde, Dr David?’ she said, as Jess crossed the room towards Charles.

  Definitely a coolness!

  ‘We all worked closely together for a long time,’ he said, telling himself it was for Charles’s sake he was explaining.

  Fortunately, they’d reached the front of the queue and Phoebe was diverted by the counter assistant.

  ‘I’ll have the roast of the day, with gravy, two potatoes, pumpkin, cauliflower and beans,’ she said, amusing Nick with the decisiveness of her order. He leaned forward and murmured in her ear.

  ‘I’m pleased to see the glitch in your love life isn’t putting you off your food.’

  She chuckled at the joke against herself, and admitted ruefully, ‘I doubt you could call it a “love” life,’ she said, emphasising the word ‘love’. ‘Although I did keep hoping it might develop that way.’ She sighed, and returned to the conversation. ‘Not that I can imagine anything putting me off my food. I’d never make a model—couldn’t hack the dieting. I’m quite resigned to being one of those women described as having a fuller figure.’

  Phoebe took her plate with a smile of thanks to the staff member and moved on, giving Nick the opportunity to study the back view of the denigrated figure.

  Not reed thin, certainly, but there was nothing wrong with a neat waist swelling out to beautifully proportioned hips. Or with a bottom sweetly curved to fit right into the palms of a man’s hands—

  ‘If you’re not eating, move along so I can serve someone else.’

  The assistant’s terse remark brought him out of thoughts he shouldn’t have been having.

  ‘I’ll have what she had,’ he said hastily, nodding towards Phoebe who was peering into the dessert cabinet with the air of a woman intent on her choice.

  ‘One of each?’ he suggested, when he had received his own filled plate and came alongside to find her still undecided.

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said, flashing him a conspiratorial grin. ‘No! I think the cheesecake. It was conscience telling me the yoghurt and fruit would be better for me, and though I admit that’s right, it’s more a chocolate cheesecake kind of evening, isn’t it?’

  Nick nodded, which was easier than speaking, given the track his wayward mind had taken. Though this teasing light-heartedness was a side of Phoebe he didn’t know. Intriguing, really. Fun…

  ‘Put them on this tray,’ he told her, as they shuffled forward again. ‘Then you can collect cutlery while I get the coffee and pay.’

  She obeyed the first command, but baulked at him paying.

  ‘Of course I’ll pay,’ he told her, forcing her forward by advancing the tray in her direction.

  ‘But Charles won’t know whether you did or didn’t, so it can’t matter,’ she pointed out, reaching into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out a crumpled note.

  ‘But I want to pay,’ Nick said, then was disconcerted by what sounded like petulance in his voice.

  ‘Tough!’ the woman he’d been pitying said bluntly. She spun around, reached the till and proffered her crumpled note, pointing back towards the tray and adding orders for three coffees.

  At least she hadn’t taken independence to the stage where she’d paid for his. He’d just registered this decidedly grumpy thought when she turned back to him.

  ‘I paid for yours as well, as you’re only doing this for me,’ she said, flashing him a smile.

  It was a reminder he didn’t need, though how a busy, level-headed man like himself had come to be embroiled in such a quixotic under
taking, he couldn’t imagine.

  Oh, yes, you can, an inner voice said sternly. It was your idea! No doubt prodded by a subconscious niggle that she’d preferred Charles right from the start.

  Phoebe collected cutlery and napkins then led the way to a table by the window where Charles and Jessica were sitting side by side, chatting like old friends. For a moment she wished that was how things had been. That Jessica had been Charles’s girlfriend, rather than Nick’s.

  The thought, fleeting though it was, alarmed her but she hid her reaction behind a cheerful smile and slid into a chair opposite Charles.

  Nick deposited the tray on the table, passed Charles his coffee, then set Phoebe’s plate in front of her, pushing the desserts to one side while they tackled their main courses.

  ‘Gosh, fancy being able to eat like that and not put on weight,’ Jess said, and Phoebe glanced up, suspecting a barb in the words. But Jess’s smile was warm and friendly, so lacking in malice that Phoebe found herself smiling back. No wonder Nick liked the woman, she thought, and was surprised by a momentary twinge of regret.

  It turned into a twinge of a different kind when Nick touched her lightly on the wrist, then let his fingers linger against her skin.

  He’s doing it as part of the plan, she reminded herself. Or perhaps he has his own agenda—making Jessica jealous. But the warmth of that touch seared through her regardless of its genesis, reminding Phoebe that she might be playing a dangerous game.

  She dragged her attention back to the conversation, which apparently concerned Mr Abrams.

  ‘Phoebe picked it up,’ Nick was telling Jess. ‘But I suspect a scam rather than a computer glitch.’

  ‘I’ll take a look at it when you’ve finished eating,’ Jess suggested. ‘I was on my way out when I saw you.’

  Nick glanced at his watch.

  ‘Charles and I have a meeting at eight.’ Phoebe imagined she heard regret in his voice. ‘I won’t have time, but Charles is finished. Maybe he and you…’

  Phoebe glanced at Charles. He looked less than delighted. In fact, he looked as if he was suffering considerable strain. She should have been pleased but something told her the strain was more likely to be because of Anne’s latest dilemma than her own play-acting with Nick.