Guilty Secret

by Josie Metcalfe

  ‘I’ve decided that the only thing to do is call off the engagement.’

  ‘No, Nick! You can’t! Just because you and I…gave in to temptation…If neither of us says any thing…and if we make certain to keep away from each other…’

  ‘I don’t know if we can put that sort of distance between us,’ he pointed out finally. ‘We have to work together…Anyway, who says I want this…“whatever-it-is” between us to die a natural death? Perhaps I want to see if it can survive and grow.’

  She covered her face with her hands. ‘But this isn’t about you and me. You can’t let a couple of one-night stands knock your life off course.’

  ‘Can you really dismiss them as meaningless roll in the hay?’

  ‘I have to. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never known anything like it and probably never will again. I’ve got to find some way of parcelling this episode in my life out of sight before it causes a disaster. Otherwise, I’d never be able to live with the guilt.’

  Dear Reader

  A while ago I was lucky enough to spend a week in Cumbria. While I was revisiting places I first came to know when our children were small, I found I was looking at them in a completely different way.

  Suddenly the quaint little market town I’d once known so well was growing and turning into the background for a whole new cast of characters working in and around Denison Memorial Hospital. This book is the second in a series of stories about those characters and I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoy creating them.

  Perhaps along the way I can give you a taste of what it was like to live surrounded by such magnificent scenery and the inimitable Cumbrian people. I will certainly be going back again.

  Happy reading.

  GUILTY SECRET

  BY

  JOSIE METCALFE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘HOME, sweet home,’ Nick muttered with a strange flutter of disquiet.

  He reversed his new pride and joy into a parking space designated STAFF ONLY and switched the engine off as he glanced at his surroundings.

  He’d slotted himself into a line of vehicles and suddenly realised that they all belonged to his new colleagues.

  New colleagues, new job, new life.

  His stomach tightened at the thought of the giant leap sideways he’d just made in his career and, in spite of the winter chill beginning to seep into the vehicle, he felt the prickle of nervous sweat.

  Nicholas Johnson, General Practitioner. He drew in a shaky breath, wondering whether he would be able to live up to the enormous responsibilities the job involved.

  He wasn’t even certain whether he’d made the right choice or whether it had been made for him. Had he leapt at the idea too hastily?

  His life and his mind had been in such turmoil that Jack’s unexpected visit had assumed the power to start an avalanche of consequences. A year later, they were still rumbling on and he wasn’t certain that he’d come up for air yet.

  The tick of the four-by-four’s cooling engine broke the silence as he stared out at the view, the distant vista of wide valley floor and sere winter hillsides beginning to work their magic on him. Slowly, the knots inside him started to unravel and he relaxed against the headrest.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, firmly, casting his mind briefly back to the bitter tensions that had surrounded him before he’d made his decision. ‘I have made the right move. It might have taken me thirty-two years to get there, but my life is on track now.’

  He reached across for his painfully new medical bag and climbed out of the car, unable to stop himself taking one last look at it sitting there in all its gleaming cranberry-red splendour. ‘A far cry from the sports car you wanted, but eminently more practical around here,’ he muttered as he finally turned away.

  He paused in front of the entrance and looked up at the neatly incised words. DENISON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.

  It had been two months since he’d first seen them, when he’d come up for his interview. Two months since Jack had taken him on a lightning tour around the small Cumbrian town of Edenthwaite and the surrounding countryside that the hospital served. His old friend had mournfully pointed out all the entertaining possibilities there might have been for the two of them to have fun together further afield, if only Nick hadn’t turned so staid.

  Staid? Perhaps he had, he thought with a shrug.

  Such testosterone-laden roistering had been attractive during their training years but life had moved on since then. He’d made choices, the same as Jack had, but in his case, not all of them had been good and some of them had even threatened his very career.

  When he’d finally had his eyes opened to his perilous position it had been time to make some hard decisions, and the realisation that Jack’s baby sister, Vicky, had completed her nursing training had suddenly assumed a fortuitous significance. He could still hardly believe that now he’d moved to Edenthwaite they would be starting to organise their wedding.

  He shivered as the icy January wind found its way between the open edges of his thickly insulated jacket and he stepped through the automatic doors into the welcome warmth of the main reception area.

  ‘Can I help you?’ offered the smiling young woman at the desk, her pale coffee skin flawless and her long dark hair in an immaculate plait that must surely have reached all the way to her waist. He flicked a glance at the badge that gave her name as Farah.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said with an answering smile. ‘Could you direct me to the GP unit? I’m looking for Jack Lawrence.’

  ‘Ah. And you are?’ Her glance had dropped to something just out of his sight, probably a computer screen, he thought, and silently applauded their security measures.

  ‘Nick Johnson. I’m the new—’

  ‘GP,’ she finished for him with a beaming smile. ‘Welcome to Denison Memorial, Dr Johnson.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ His heart lifted. If this was a sample of the way he was going to be accepted by the rest of the staff, he had definitely made the right choice in moving here.

  ‘I’ve had a message left here for you,’ Farah continued. ‘Dr Lawrence had to go out on an emergency call, but he suggested that you might like to drive over to Dr Long’s house to introduce yourself and to pick up the spare mobile phone. Dr Faraday’s still doing his afternoon of minor surgery and the rest of the doctors are either out on home visits or off duty. Oh…’ She leafed through several papers and handed them over. ‘Dr Lawrence also left you a copy of the roster for the next couple of days and said if you haven’t organised yourself a bed for the night, you’re welcome to turn up at his place.’

  Nick grinned. That was typical of Jack. He was the sort of person who would leave such things as accommodation to the last minute. That wasn’t how Nick liked to live his life. Not any more. Everything was going to be meticulously planned and smooth-running from now on.

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ he told the beautiful young woman. ‘I’ve already got a place and dropped my things off.’ He shared a smile with her that told him that they both knew what Jack was like. ‘Is there a map I could borrow to find my way to Dr Long’s?’

  ‘He’s drawn one for you.’ She pointed to the small sheaf in his hands and he separated out the page with a sketch and some accompanying directions. ‘Said to tell you he’ll see you here at eight tomorrow morning if he doesn’t see you sooner, and not to worry because it’ll be an orientation day. They won’t be throwing you in at the deep
end. Oh, and could you possibly deliver these?’ She handed over a plastic carrier bag filled with rolls of wallpaper. ‘They were delivered here after Dr Long went off duty.’

  As he made his way back out into the icy wind Nick wondered whether Vicky was on duty somewhere in the hospital. Was she expecting him to call on her to announce his arrival? For a moment he contemplated the idea of going up to her ward, but he was uncomfortably aware of a nagging sense of reluctance.

  ‘Tomorrow will be soon enough,’ he muttered, uncomfortably trying to subdue the feeling that he was dragging his feet.

  This wasn’t like him, he argued silently as he set off again in search of Dr Long. Once he’d settled on a course of action, he always saw it through, even if doing the right thing jeopardised both his heart and his career. He wouldn’t even have been in Edenthwaite if he hadn’t stuck to his guns when he’d discovered what one of his most trusted colleagues had been doing; would still have been working in a high-pressure city A and E department instead of beginning a new life as a GP in Cumbria.

  So why was he feeling so reluctant to see Vicky? It was nearly two months since they’d last seen each other, and that had only been for a few hours while they’d chosen her ring and celebrated with a meal. Surely he should be eager?

  But he wasn’t, and that was making him feel guilty and he didn’t like the feeling.

  The fact that he was also lying awake at night wondering if he was making the most monumental mistake of his life was another thing that was grating on his conscience. Vicky would never understand, not after twelve years of waiting, so there was no way he could even mention his doubts to her.

  ‘What on earth…!’

  The directions had said that he wouldn’t be able to miss the house because it was the only one on this side of the road for at least a mile once he left Edenthwaite. They hadn’t warned him what he’d find in the driveway.

  The startling sight of a scantily clad woman wielding a hose to wash her car on a bitterly cold January day was enough to drag him out of his dark thoughts with a jerk.

  The tracksuit bottoms were decent enough, even though they were obviously soaked through and clinging to every inch they covered. It was the wet T-shirt that was making his eyes stand out on stalks, revealing a body that could easily win a competition. She wasn’t a straight-up-and-down stick insect like those that graced the fashion pages but an honest-to-goodness woman with lush curves in all the right places.

  Nick swore softly as every hormone in his body leapt to attention in a way that hadn’t happened for a very long time, then swore again when he realised that this was the address he was looking for.

  ‘Down, boy!’ he muttered repressively as he applied the brakes, realising with a flash of guilt that he’d never had this sort of reaction to Vicky. Just his luck that he should finally realise what had been missing from his life, and discover at the same time that she must be the wife of one of his new colleagues.

  He paused a moment to gather up the ungainly bag. of wallpaper, hoping that it would be time enough for the more obvious signs of his appreciation to subside, but as he couldn’t take his eyes off her, it didn’t work.

  There was something utterly fascinating about the way she was soaping and hosing the vehicle to within an inch of its existence without a care for the fact that the bitter wind had tightened her nipples for all to see.

  ‘Control, man,’ he muttered, and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Self-control.’ He drew in a deep breath and held it for the count of ten, but it made not a scrap of difference.

  ‘OK, no self-control, so fall back on self-defence.’ He groaned as he slid out of his seat with the ungainly carrier bag and tried fruitlessly to adjust his clothing. Oh, well, if nothing else he could hold the wallpaper in front of himself to disguise the effect she was having on him.

  ‘Get it over with,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘You just need to drop this off and pick up the stuff Long’s left waiting for you. Thirty seconds, max, and then you can go home for a cold shower.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Frankie swore between her teeth as she wielded the soapy sponge over the roof of the car. ‘Seven years! Seven years I’ve had to cope by myself and then he does this to me!’

  She squeezed the trigger on the hose and released a high-pressure jet of water to wash the soap away, totally uncaring of the fact that she was already completely drenched by the resulting spray. It was just one more in a long list of much-hated jobs she’d been doing since her precious daughters had waved her goodbye for their once-a-month weekends with their father. Well, until recently it had been once a month if he didn’t have anything more exciting going on. The only thing she could be proud of was the fact that she hadn’t screamed like a fishwife when the weasel had waited until the very last second to dump his time bomb in her lap.

  ‘For seven years he’s been late with every support cheque, probably just so he can have the pleasure of hearing me beg,’ she muttered viciously. ‘And now that they’re old enough to be interesting—old enough to be able to hold a conversation or take out for a meal—now that he’s married his perfect trophy wife, he’s realised that he doesn’t have to ruin her perfect figure to satisfy her urge to play mummy. Oh, no! One saggy overweight wife is enough for him so he’s just going to go to court to take possession of the family he’s already fathered.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a deep male voice, and she shrieked in shock, whirling to face the unexpected interloper with the hose firing at maximum pressure.

  ‘Oh…my…God,’ she breathed in horror, completely forgetting to release her grip on the trigger as the water hit her visitor squarely in the middle of his chest. The spray bounced off in every direction and in less than a second he was completely soaked from head to foot.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ She swung the hose away from him and finally remembered to release the trigger. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’

  ‘That water’s warm!’ he exclaimed in evident surprise, raking one hand through his hair to stop the water running down his face. The strands were as sleek and dark as mink and threw the lean planes and angles of his face into stark prominence.

  ‘Of course it is!’ Frankie retorted distractedly, watching him blink the drops off sinfully long lashes. ‘I might be mad but I’m not suicidal.’

  To her surprise he laughed, the sound rich and melodious and totally unexpected when the poor man had just been drenched by a lunatic. If it had been Martin…

  She shook her head, dismissing her double-dealing ex-husband from her thoughts.

  ‘I really am so sorry. I just didn’t hear you arrive,’ she explained with a grimace as she flicked the hose aside and dropped the nozzle onto the edge of the tatty patch of grass that passed for a lawn. ‘Usually I can hear the sound of the gate, but over the noise of the water…Look, you really must come inside and get dry.’ She turned to lead the way towards the back door into the house. The water starts off warm but it doesn’t stay that way very long in this wind.’

  ‘Actually, I only came to deliver this.’ He indicated the water-spotted plastic bag, hesitating on the doormat as though not wanting to drip all over her floor. ‘And to collect—’

  ‘Oh, is that my wallpaper at last?’ She grabbed hold of his elbow to pull him into the warmth of the kitchen, and suddenly appreciated just how cold her hands had become when she realised how warm he was. The contrast was almost as potent as an electric shock and she was so startled that she jerked her hand away in a hurry.

  She concentrated on heeling off her disreputable old trainers and her feet squelched audibly as she went across to put the kettle on the hob.

  ‘Could you keep an eye on that while I go and get you something to dry off?’ she said hurriedly, having to drag her eyes away from him yet again. ‘A towel…or something…’

  What was it about this man and his broad shoulders?

  She was almost mesmerised by the shadowy glimpses of dark hair showing through the wet fabric of his shirt, fascinated by the broad wedge stretc
hing from nipple to nipple and tapering towards the waistband of his trousers.

  Before her gaze could sink any lower he had casually changed to a two-handed grip on the plastic bag and she blinked.

  Had the manoeuvre been deliberate? Had he noticed the direction her eyes were going and positioned it strategically to prevent her examining any more intimate regions?

  Her face was flaming by the time she hurried up the stairs. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t taken this much interest in a man’s body in years. It would have been all right if she’d been ogling one of the idols displayed on her daughters’ poster-strewn bedroom walls, but to do it to a strange man standing in her kitchen…

  The fact that he was soaking wet made the situation both worse and better. Worse, because the state of his clothing was all her fault, but better, because that sodden clothing was now displaying all those lean muscles almost as clearly as if he’d been naked.

  ‘I can certainly see the attraction of wet T-shirt competitions,’ she muttered under her breath as she entered the bathroom in search of one of her larger towels, and came to a halt with an agonised squeak as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  And she’d thought his body had been on display…

  She covered her face with her hands and groaned in mortification as heat poured over her again. She didn’t need to peer between her fingers to confirm the fact that, in honour of the hated task, she was not only wearing one of her oldest and thinnest T-shirts, but that she hadn’t bothered wearing a bra underneath it in anticipation of getting soaked. Her wet bra straps had rubbed her raw the last time she’d tried it.

  What she hadn’t realised in the course of her cathartic car-washing session had been quite how much detail was visible through the semi-transparent fabric, right down to the colour of her areolae and the fact that her nipples were shamelessly erect.

  Frankie groaned again, desperately wishing that she didn’t have to face the man, but she could hardly leave him dripping in her kitchen, especially when he had been kind enough to deliver her wallpaper. Anyway, she had more important things to worry about, like the fact that her ratfink of a lawyer ex-husband was going to try to take her children away from her.