The Marriage Gamble

by Meredith Webber

  Though why he’d think of family with Jacinta…

  ‘You can’t solve the problems of the entire inner city,’ he told her, but when the dark eyes turned his way, and the twin arcs of her eyebrows rose, he found himself adding, ‘Well, not overnight.’

  She smiled, conceding his point—and starting an argument in his head about why he shouldn’t want her.

  Because she’s not your type, and she’s been trouble from the word go, and—

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘No!’

  The reply was automatic, given the way he was thinking, so he had to amend it.

  ‘Actually, yes. Do we have a policy for patients who want prescriptions for strong pain relief?’

  ‘The ones that say, “Doctor, I’m in agony from my back. It happened ages ago and a doctor gave me a tablet called something forte.” That kind of thing?’

  Jacinta had repeated almost word for word what Mike’s first patient had said, then shrugged as if this was one problem she hadn’t yet solved.

  ‘We don’t have a policy, but most GPs are aware there are addicted patients who go from doctor to doctor with the same story. I usually tell those patients it could be something worse, like severe kidney disease, which a high codeine concentration could exacerbate. Then I send them off for X-rays and suggest they might need an ultrasound as well. Usually they take the X-ray form but never have it done.’

  ‘And what if they’re genuinely in severe pain from a back problem?’ Mike asked, secretly impressed by this very practical strategy.

  ‘Then they’ll be only too happy to have the X-ray, which they can do within an hour at the radiology clinic just up the road. They can bring the X-ray and the report back, then I see them straight away, and if there is a problem, I prescribe.’

  She sighed.

  ‘And I know I can still be conned. I know they can go to another doctor in a couple of days and do exactly the same thing and get more codeine to feed their habit. But at least I’ve seen an actual problem.’

  Jacinta frowned at him.

  ‘Have you someone waiting in your consulting room, while Bobby’s been throwing trucks and I’ve been prattling on?’

  Mike smiled at her concern.

  ‘No. I actually thought of the X-ray thing for myself and sent him off, but I checked his file and saw he came in to see Rohan for prescriptions regularly.’

  ‘Some patients do,’ she said, and again he read her commitment to her work in the way she frowned as she said it, as if this was one more problem she’d like to solve. Though whether it was the doctor who prescribed the drugs or the possibly addicted patient she was frowning over, Mike couldn’t guess.

  She walked to the door and took up a new card from the box outside, and Mike heard Carmel call instructions to the next patient.

  He took Jacinta’s movement as dismissal, but as he returned to his temporary consulting room he was more confused than ever.

  The number thing would have to go—that much was clear. It was downright impersonal.

  And maybe he’d have to figure some way to check on the performance of the doctors in his practices. If someone was over-prescribing, would it show up somewhere in Trent Clinics’ records, or would the firm only find out when a law suit hit them?

  While as for Jacinta Ford…

  He set that question aside—after all, what he felt for Jacinta was only a passing attraction. But getting back to basics as far as the clinics were concerned, maybe that was something he should have done some time ago.

  He lifted the phone, got an outside line and phoned Chris. He could explain Mike’s decision to the other executives because he’d be less shocked by it. Chris tried to spend a month doing hands-on work in one of the clinics each year, because, he said, he wanted to know the kind of workload the doctors he employed had to handle.

  Though if he’d worked with someone as feisty as Jacinta, surely he’d have mentioned her…

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘DO YOU examine all your patients?’

  Jacinta looked up from the paperwork she was trying to finish before leaving clinic. It was Thursday and she was still trying to come to terms with having Mike working in the room alongside hers at the clinic.

  And trying to hold at bay the attraction towards him that had flared within her body from the moment she’d first heard his voice.

  ‘Of course I do. What kind of question is that?’

  She dropped her pen, realising it made the trembling in her fingers more obvious.

  Trembling caused by surprise, she told herself, not the man himself.

  ‘Even if they’re repeat patients you’ve seen before and who only require a script?’

  She frowned at his persistence. He’d come into the room now and had propped himself across the desk from her, his hands on the back of one of her patient chairs.

  ‘I have to, don’t I? Otherwise I wouldn’t know if whatever I’ve prescribed is doing any good.’

  ‘So, if a patient comes in and asks for more of his cream, and you know he suffers from piles, you’d still examine him?’

  ‘Piles can often be cured by a very simple day-surgery operation. I’d have suggested that before cream.’

  She cocked her head to one side, reminding him of an inquisitive little bird.

  ‘Are you asking for some reason? If not, I’ve a heap of work to do before I can get away, and as I’ve dumped Fizzy on my mother for the next few weeks, and the boys are visiting tonight, I really should get home some time this evening.’

  Mike felt a nudge of disappointment in his chest and realised that subconsciously he must have been considering asking her to dinner. Something he’d also considered on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

  It had to stop.

  He was about to explain the reason for his question when a loud banging on the clinic’s front door stopped all further questions.

  ‘Is someone still there? Please, be there! Open up, please?’

  Jacinta reacted almost immediately, but Mike had been closer to the consulting-room door and was out first, disarming the alarm and opening the door without a second thought.

  ‘There is a spy hole. You’re supposed to check,’ she murmured, as he grabbed the hysterical man by the shoulders and tried to calm him.

  ‘No, it’s not me, it’s my father—he’s collapsed. Up in the mall. Someone’s called an ambulance, but I knew there was a clinic here. You have to help.’

  ‘You go with him,’ Jacinta said to Mike. ‘I’ll lock up and join you as soon as possible. If necessary three quick breaths then chest compression. I’ll do the air as soon as I get there.’

  Mike went with the young man, his own heart racing as he considered such a thing happening to his own father. The man lay only fifteen metres from the clinic entrance, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, mostly shop and office staff heading home after a day’s work.

  Apart from the fact that someone had put a jacket over the man’s legs, no one was doing anything.

  Mike knelt beside him, felt for a pulse beneath his chin and, finding nothing, bent to clasp the man’s nose, open his mouth, clear his airway, then blow three quick breaths into his lungs.

  ‘OK, I’m here,’ he heard Jacinta say. ‘You know the drill—you’re happy to do the compressions? You’d have more strength, you see.’

  She knelt beside him and they worked in unison, Mike compressing the thick chest with enough strength to cause bruised ribs while Jacinta blew brain-saving oxygen into the man’s lungs, stopping to let his body release the unwanted gases, then breathing life into him again.

  But there was still no pulse when the ambulance arrived, and Jacinta quietly moved the crowd on so the ambulancemen could try electric shock to resuscitate him.

  With the efficiency born of dealing with emergencies, the attendants nodded to Mike to keep up the compressions while they hooked the patient up to a monitor and prepared to use shock to restart his heart.

  No response but they slid
him onto a stretcher then tried again, and Mike knew they’d continue their efforts on the way to the hospital. But in his heart he knew they’d failed, and the thought of his own father losing his life in a similar situation filled him with a dark despair.

  They waited until the ambulance had departed, then returned to the clinic. Jacinta, all senses on full alert whenever she was near Mike, was aware of a heaviness in the way he moved, as if the failure to revive the man was his alone.

  ‘He may still live,’ she said, but though Mike cast her a surprised look, he didn’t respond. When she unlocked the door and they entered the still lit waiting room, he slumped into a chair and motioned her to take another one.

  ‘Sit!’

  It was an order, and while on other days she might have objected to the way he spoke—as part of her keeping her attraction to him at bay—tonight she sat.

  And waited.

  Mike frowned at her. He’d come to learn such immediate compliance wasn’t in Jacinta’s nature—come to learn a lot about the woman who’d embroiled him in this ridiculous ‘back to his beginnings’ idea. But tonight there was more on his mind than Jacinta Ford—for which, he decided, he should be thankful.

  ‘There must have been twenty-five people all standing around that man for ten minutes or more while his son went for help. I thought CPR was widely taught these days. Damn it all, it isn’t hard to do, and could have saved that man’s life if someone had started it immediately.’

  ‘It’s taught in schools, but kids probably don’t take a lot of notice, then they forget.’ Jacinta looked doubtful. ‘I think people can opt to learn it. Most hospitals run courses from time to time.’

  ‘Which people won’t attend because it’s out of their way. What about this clinic? Couldn’t we do it? Time them so people could attend in their lunch hours? Or after work? We could shift the chairs, get a couple of dummies, educate at least a percentage of inner city workers.’

  He was thinking of whether the scheme could be effective in his other clinics, and how lessons could be incorporated into the internet site, when he realised his colleague hadn’t responded to his suggestion.

  He glanced her way and caught a smile hovering on her lips and laughter glinting in the dark eyes.

  ‘And here was I thinking we couldn’t solve the problems of the entire inner city,’ she teased. ‘Well, not overnight.’

  There was something so unsettling about being teased by Jacinta that Mike bit back an answering smile.

  ‘It would hardly solve the problems of the entire inner city,’ he said, as coolly as his heated blood would allow. ‘And now the drama’s over, I’d better be off. Getting back to basics in medical practice doesn’t mean the rest of my business has come to a standstill.’

  It was a reminder to himself, as well as her, that he had responsibilities ranging way beyond this clinic. And he’d needed the reminder, because what he’d wanted to say had been, How about dinner? Even though he’d come to realise his employee’s worth as a doctor and contributing member of his staff, he certainly didn’t want to get involved with her.

  From the way she’d spoken about relationships and her parents marriage, she certainly wasn’t the kind of woman you could take out for a while—one with whom you could perhaps enjoy a mutually satisfactory sexual relationship—then move on from without hesitation or guilt.

  Particularly guilt.

  Jacinta tried to remember what they’d been discussing before the young man had summoned them to help his father. Mike had asked a question, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it had been. Her brain too concerned with convincing her that his show of concern and compassion for the stricken man didn’t make any difference to the fact he wasn’t for her, no matter how her body felt about him.

  She looked at him, wondering about chemistry and why one man could have such a physical effect on her body when she saw and worked with men every day of her life without the slightest physical reaction to them. Then her mind went beyond personal problems because, though he’d said he had to be going, he was still sitting in the waiting room. Something in the stillness of his body and the lines of tiredness in his face reached out to touch her heart.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  He swung towards her, frowning now as if shocked by the question.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he snapped, and Jacinta straightened in her chair and told him.

  ‘Because you look exhausted, and it’s no wonder if you’re working here all day then going back to your office and trying to do a full day’s work there each night. Surely you’ve got executives who can handle most of that. You really don’t need to be here. I wanted you to see the place, not kill yourself trying to do two jobs at once.’

  ‘Trying to get rid of me, Jacinta?’ The slight smile accompanying the words made her realise that was exactly what she should be doing, but she stuck to her guns.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m just being sensible. You can’t go on like this—and it’s not necessary anyway. You’ve seen the place—you must realise what’s needed. That’s all I wanted.’

  Mike’s smile faded.

  ‘Is it?’ he said softly, and when she didn’t answer, he sighed and shook his head.

  ‘Anyway, I won’t be here tomorrow,’ he said, rising to his feet. I’ve a business trip I can’t put off, but I get back Monday. Having said I’d do a week, I’ll do a week. So I’ll see you Tuesday.’

  He stopped, as if waiting for a reaction from her, and though Jacinta’s heart had plummeted at the ‘won’t be here tomorrow’ scenario and had then gone into a dance of delight at ‘I’ll see you Tuesday’, she didn’t think she’d share either of these reactions with him.

  So she nodded, as if it were of no consequence whatever when he came and went.

  ‘And I’ve remembered what it was we were discussing. I’ve learnt how busy you are during the day, so perhaps we could have dinner Tuesday evening and talk it over then.’

  ‘Dinner? Tuesday evening? With you?’

  Obviously she was as startled by the question as Mike had been when he’d heard himself asking it, but did she have to sound quite so incredulous?

  ‘A purely business arrangement—convenient really,’ he said, hopefully projecting cool, professional control. ‘And you have eaten with me before. I didn’t bite or display revolting table manners, did I?’

  ‘But Tuesday? There’s a meeting here.’

  The lack of regret—or any kind of emotion—in her voice made him persist.

  ‘Great!’ He could do hearty as well as the next man, when the need arose. ‘I’d like to sit in on the meeting, see what goes on, then we can eat afterwards. If I remember rightly, Marco’s stays open later on weeknights.’

  Sure he’d sewn her up this time, he smiled, nodded his head, then said, ‘See you Tuesday.’ And whisked out the door before she could find another objection.

  Jacinta saw the door close behind him but, like the Cheshire cat in Alice, his smile seemed to remain.

  She knew it was as natural to him as breathing—flashing that charming grin—but knowing he did it so easily didn’t affect its potency in any way. Only this time it was her toes tingling while her stomach was twisting into the kind of knot she doubted common sense would unravel.

  Anyway, there was one consolation. On Tuesdays she always bought pizza for everyone and they ate during the meeting, so there’d be no need to go out to dinner afterwards.

  Work seemed dull and flat on Friday and Monday, so by Tuesday Jacinta wasn’t certain whether to be glad or sorry the day had finally arrived. She’d slept badly, haunted by dreams of a man with black, silver-flecked hair, a handsomely craggy face and changeable eyes. He’d been holding her in his arms, tucking her tightly against his body, his kisses arousing feelings she’d only dreamed of—but she had been dreaming. Again and again she’d forced herself awake, only to slide back into the same scenario, but always at the beginning so she never learnt the end…

  And though
she tried to tell herself the attraction was purely physical, she knew from seeing Mike at work the previous week—seeing him with patients, with the man who’d had the heart attack—there was more to Mike Trent than her research had led her to believe. So it was hard not to be impressed by the man she’d begun to know.

  She dressed for work, reluctant for once to leave the security of her home yet choosing what to wear as carefully as if the dinner after the meeting was to be a real date.

  Mike, early for reasons he didn’t want to consider, saw her walk in. She was wearing a slim-fitting, creamy-coloured dress that buttoned down the front with the buttons from knee to the hem at mid-calf undone, so he caught flashes of suntanned legs as she strode purposefully into the waiting room.

  ‘Morning, all,’ she said, her eyes carefully avoiding Mike’s as she nodded her greeting to the staff—himself, Carmel and one office worker. The fact that she showed absolutely no interest in him as a man was both irritating, given how she affected him, and intriguing—could she be so totally unaffected by an attraction so strong he found it hard to believe it could be one-sided?

  He manoeuvred himself into a position where she’d have to pass close by him as she went to her consulting room, and pretended to read her bulletin board.

  ‘Meeting tonight?’ he murmured, as she drew close.

  She flashed a glance towards Carmel, which told him the clinic manager had no idea of this particular doctor’s extracurricular activities.

  ‘It could go late,’ she said, and he guessed she was trying to squirm out of the dinner arrangement.

  ‘Oh, I rarely eat early,’ Mike said, enjoying the colour creeping into her cheeks and delighting in the way she lifted her eyes to study his face, as if trying to read exactly what was going on in his mind.

  Just as well she couldn’t.

  ‘We don’t have to go to dinner, you know. We could discuss whatever it is you want to discuss right here.’