Claimed: One Wife

by Meredith Webber

  'You make it sound like feeding time at the zoo.'

  The smile returned.

  'You've got the picture!' she said, fumbling in her handbag, presumably for keys.

  And, having found them, she hesitated, looking at Grant, her brown eyes studying him with an indefinable uncertainty. Then she gave a little nod—decision made—and said, 'I've enjoyed this morning, although it was nothing more than shop-talk. Exciting, really—projecting the future.'

  Sally nodded again, and the shiny brown cap of hair moved slightly, so a stray ray of sun caught the red-gold gleams among the soft strands.

  'It was fun!'

  She was so serious, he had to smile.

  'You sound surprised that talking shop, as you call it, could be fun!'

  She gave a little huff of laughter, and the smile grew warmer.

  'I guess I was. Perhaps because most of our discussions at work are, necessarily, patient orientated, rather than work orientated. Or—'

  She stopped abruptly and Grant saw a faint wash of colour in her cheeks.

  Or what? Grant wondered, as he followed her hasty move towards the front door.

  Had she been about to add something personal?

  Something to do with the company making the discussion more pleasant?

  Don't kid yourself, buster! He escorted her to the lift, summoned it and waited until it arrived, intrigued by this woman of whom he knew so little.

  Intrigued by and attracted to?

  No way. Bad enough to have Tom imagining himself in love with a woman he'd known less than a week. And women on the team were off limits, remember!

  But when the lift arrived to whisk her downwards he found himself joining her in the metal cubicle.

  'I'll see you to your car,' he said, responding to her glance of surprised enquiry.

  Then, in case it sounded too intrusive, he added, 'Check my mail.'

  'Of course,' she said, lips twitching with amusement.

  Duh! It was Saturday. No mail. Was he ever making a fool of himself.

  And it wasn't even spring.

  Could it be Tom's fault? Could they now be doing the twin thing with hormonal urges?

  Surely not. Attraction wasn't like pain. Not something he was likely to feel because Tom was suffering, like the headache and bad ankle which had plagued him for days when Tom had been missing.

  But seeing Sally to her car gave him new food for thought. A distraction.

  The vehicle looked more like a fifth-hand student-mobile than something a well-paid fourth-year resident should be driving.

  Not that it was any of his business, he reminded himself, listening to the missing beat in the engine and the grumble of an exhaust in need of more than patching.

  He watched it trundle through the security bar at the entrance to the car park, and for some reason one of Miss Flintock's more obscure remarks now echoed in his head.

  Sex, drugs and rock and roll. A phrase used in conjunction with Sally Cochrane's brothers.

  And they woke up ravenously hungry.

  Wasn't ravenous hunger a by-product of drug-taking?

  He found himself more puzzled than intrigued—more uncomfortable, in fact—as he made his way back to his apartment. No! No one in their right mind could associate someone as vibrantly, obviously, shiningly healthy as Sally Cochrane with drugs.

  Not that he was in his right mind, he'd decided by Monday, when the drive to work was enlivened by the thought of seeing Sally again, and his heart was coming menacingly close to skittering with excitement.

  'You don't get involved with women on your team,' he reminded himself.

  Especially not women who attracted trouble like a magnet attracted iron filings, he amended later, walking into the neuro ward tearoom to find his registrar and fourth-year resident arguing loudly.

  'Your voices are carrying through to the ward,' he said, hoping the cold sobriety of his voice might cool them both down.

  But while Daniel stopped immediately, and walked away, heading for the urn and messing with coffee-mugs, Sally, her cheeks flushed red with fury, was too wound up to listen to common sense. She swung towards Grant to continue the attack.

  'You said we could keep her. Said to run non-expensive tests. I've listed her in another three nursing homes in the area where she's always lived, and what does he do? Sends her home.'

  She flung her arms in the air and spun away, as if her fury demanded the release of movement.

  Grant struggled for a moment. The conversation was certainly ringing bells. But which bells?

  'Miss Wingate?' he asked Daniel, as Sally had stomped to the far end of the room and was glaring out the window.

  Daniel nodded.

  'A neighbour called in to see her this morning and found her unconscious. An assortment of tablets was scattered across her bedside table. She's down in A and E and has had her stomach pumped but there'll be questions asked.'

  'The ambulance-bearers brought the tablets in.' Sally left the window to offer this further information. 'From the lack of packaging—no empty blister packs, no bottles—in her house, it's possible she was secreting tablets while she was in here,' she added, and Grant could hear the distress of responsibility in her voice—see it in her eyes.

  'Sally's off on this blame thing,' Daniel interjected. 'But there's no proof Miss Wingate didn't take the drugs she was prescribed while she was a patient, and even if she didn't, is it our problem?'

  'Of course it's our problem but that's not the point,' Sally snapped at him. 'We knew she dreaded going home and yet we sent her back there.'

  'We can't keep patients indefinitely,' Grant said, playing arbiter, although the woman's act of desperation both saddened and angered him.

  'I'm not talking about "patients" plural, but one woman.

  A person, not the aneurysm in bed eight or the neuralgia in bed twelve.'

  He understood exactly what she was saying, and how she felt, but Daniel had done nothing wrong—according to hospital protocol. And as he was in the right, he should be backed up in his decision.

  'She's one patient, Dr Cochrane, one of many on our books,' Grant reminded the resident. 'We can't take ongoing responsibility for each and every individual we treat.'

  'No?' Sally shot the word at him then flung out of the room.

  'Has Miss Wingate been readmitted?' Grant asked Daniel.

  The resident shrugged.

  'I've no idea. As far as I know, we haven't been connected with it at all. And wouldn't have been only Sally came in early and found Miss Wingate had been discharged, phoned the house and got no answer so she phoned the neighbour, who was listed as a contact on the patient files.'

  He glanced towards the door through which Sally had fled and added, 'Seems to me, if she'd let well alone, the woman might have got her wish to die.'

  The seemingly callous words jolted Grant.

  'You're saying Sally shouldn't have worried? That if Miss Wingate chose to suicide, she should have been allowed that choice?'

  He must have sounded startled, for Daniel responded with an ingratiating smile.

  'I don't disagree with voluntary euthanasia,' he said. 'In certain cases. Where a person makes an informed decision. Miss Wingate wasn't stupid or senile, and if she collected those tablets here, it was a predetermined act.'

  'Of desperation!' Sally, who'd returned in time to hear this statement, said. 'She didn't want to die, she just didn't want to live alone!'

  She shoved a slim file into Grant's hands.

  'Anyway, she's not your worry now, Daniel. She's been admitted to the psych ward and maybe they'll be able to do more for her than we could.'

  She turned to Grant and nodded at the file.

  'That's a list of the drugs she was prescribed while she was our patient. In case someone asks.'

  And with that she was gone again.

  But meeting her later that night, up in the foyer to the psych ward, didn't surprise him. She was a tenacious little thing, this Sally Coch
rane.

  'How is she?' he asked, surmising Sally was on her way from a visit to Miss Wingate.

  'Very upset at causing so much fuss.'

  Grant looked for the golden lights in the eyes turned towards his, but her sadness over the woman's plight must have dimmed them.

  'I was going to visit her. What do you think?'

  She flashed him a smile—small lights returning.

  'She's sleeping again now, but I think tomorrow she'd appreciate it.'

  She glanced at her watch and added, 'But if you're just knocking off for the day, perhaps I could convey your greetings tomorrow. Ex-patient visits must be difficult to fit into your schedule.'

  'And you're not still here?' he asked, enjoying an opportunity to tease her. 'What about your schedule?'

  She flashed a smile.

  'Residents don't have schedules,' she reminded him. 'Just waking hours and sleeping hours. Actually, I was on my way to the library and thought I'd call in to say hello. Rather a long hello!'

  Grant checked his watch. Nine o'clock.

  'Was she very distressed? Is that why you stayed so long?'

  Slim shoulders rose and fell.

  'Embarrassed more than distressed, but I told her it didn't matter. That at least her actions had alerted people to the fact she needed help, and I assured her that being in the psych ward would prod the social work department into doing something for her.'

  Grant found himself smiling.

  'A rather extreme example of the squeaky wheel getting the oil?' he suggested.

  Sally grinned at him.

  'Exactly! In fact, when I spoke to the charge nurse, he said they'd already been advised that someone from the social work department will be here to take Miss Wingate on a tour of possible nursing homes. She has enough money, even without selling her house, to buy into hostel-type accommodation within a nursing home complex, but she hadn't known where to start organising it for herself.'

  'You have been busy,' Grant said and saw from the way her eyes avoided his that he'd hit the nail on the head. Far from listening to his advice about not being responsible for the ongoing welfare of all their patients, Sally had gone right ahead, arranging things for the elderly woman.

  He admired her for it but knew the pitfalls.

  'You'll suffer burn-out far more quickly if you take on too much,' he warned her. 'I know it's hard, but if you can avoid getting emotionally involved with patients, your life will be easier.'

  She looked directly at him now, and the gold lights were back, dancing in her eyes as she said, 'Yes, sure! This from a man who spent an hour last night working with Craig Greenway on the exercises the physio had suggested might improve the slight movement in his left hand.'

  Grant tried desperately to ignore those dancing lights, but in the end he had to smile.

  'OK, you've got me there. But that's no reason for you not to take my advice. Haven't you heard of "do what I say. not do what I do"?'

  She smiled back at him.

  'Personally, I'd rather it was the other way around. In fact, it was the one thing that warmed me to your appointment. Everything I heard about you suggested you were a hands-on administrator, a department head who actually liked being part of the department, not some figurehead and administrator way above it.'

  He should have been pleased by this faint praise from his critical resident but something early in the words had jarred.

  'The one thing that warmed you, Dr Cochrane? Did I have so many strikes against me?'

  She shifted uncomfortably, looked at him and then away. Not at all good for his ego, this woman!

  So why the attraction?

  'No! That was wrong of me to say that. And Ted was a hands-on department head a long time ago, so I shouldn't have implied he wasn't.'

  She looked back, directly into his eyes, as if she'd decided honesty was best. Grant braced himself for a few home truths.

  'Patrick Miller applied as well. I worked under Patrick when he was neuro registrar and I was a first-year resident. Before that, in fact, during my internship.'

  'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't?' Grant suggested, and won a smile. He felt strangely relieved her interest in the appointment had been for another applicant, not against him in particular.

  'Exactly,' she said. 'I knew he wanted the job very badly, so I guess I was hoping he'd be appointed for his sake as well.' Her brow furrowed, and then, perhaps prompted by a need to have it all said, she added, 'But deep down I was pleased when your appointment was announced.'

  'Yes?' Hope springs eternal! Surely now she'd say something nice.

  'Of course,' she told him cheerfully. 'Think how much better my CV will read with your name there as my department head. You're far better known in neuro circles.'

  'Well, I'm glad I'm useful to you in some way!' he grumbled. 'Perhaps I can be helpful in other ways. Co-sign papers you're publishing or presenting, autograph your degree? Why stop at having me listed as department head on your CV? We might be able to go into business, selling positions through influence.'

  She held up her hands.

  'OK! It was a tactless thing to say, but you did ask,' she told him crossly. 'I'm sure I'll learn plenty from you as well. I was pleased for that reason as well.'

  'But you'd rather have had Patrick Miller,' Grant muttered, although he had no idea why her attitude should be bugging him so much.

  Sally scowled at the infuriating man. OK, so she'd started it, but why was he going on and on about the damn appointment?

  'I didn't say I'd rather have Patrick Miller,' she reminded him, 'and this stupid conversation has gone on quite long enough. I don't know about you, but I'm starving. I'm going to forget the library and, as the boys will have eaten by now, I'm heading for The Courtyard at Auchenflower for some pumpkin and ricotta ravioli which I intend washing down with a glass of good red.'

  She'd thrown in her immediate plans as a gesture of defiance, not as an indication of where she'd be eating, so to see him walk into the casual eatery not ten minutes after she'd arrived was something of a shock.

  'Someone in my apartment block had told me it was good,' he said by way of explanation. 'When you mentioned it, I realised how long it was since I'd eaten, and as the food fairies haven't restocked my cupboards since Tom left, it seemed the ideal time to try it.'

  He gestured to the empty chair at her table.

  'Keeping it for someone? May I join you? Or would you prefer to pretend we don't know each other and I'll sit across the other side of the room?'

  'You're the man who made the no-fraternisation rule,' she reminded him. 'Actually, I was wrong when I said there was only one thing in your favour. That was another. The grapevine had it you didn't encourage personal relationships among your staff, and although that's a fairly antiquated notion in this day and age, I thought it might keep—make things easier.'

  Grant listened to the words with disbelief.

  'All I'm suggesting is sharing a table at a restaurant which is close to both our homes. That's hardly fraternisation, Dr Cochrane.'

  'Well, in that case, you'd better sit down. Carole's waiting to take your order.'

  She gestured towards a young waitress who was hovering uncertainly behind him.

  He sat, and immediately regretted it. Regretted coming here in the first place. He bent his head over the menu and pretended to study it while he tried to sort through a mishmash of thoughts and emotions.

  For a start, Sally's 'you'd better sit down' couldn't have been less welcoming, and, secondly, there was now another point she'd raised that was causing him inner concern. Her approval of the no-fraternisation rule.

  There had been times, recently, when it had seemed to him as antiquated as she'd said it was, but that's because...

  Well, it just was!

  But unless he was mistaken, Sally's approval stemmed from something else.

  Carole's cough reminded him of what he was supposed to be doing and he ordered a dish of seared sa
lmon on mustard mash.

  'Great choice,' Sally said, and for a moment Grant wondered if they should stick to food as a topic of conversation. Food, wine, restaurants in the area—there were any number of innocuous subjects. They could get through the meal without mentioning the hospital.

  But would his brain let that happen?

  No way!

  Out popped the question he hadn't wanted to ask.

  'It was a suggestion rather than a rule,' he pointed out, softening the approach. 'But tell me, why the Sally Cochrane endorsement of no fraternisation?'

  She hesitated and he guessed. Guessed someone on the team had been bothering her.

  Daniel?

  Surely not. He was married. Not that a wedding ring stopped him flirting with the nurses. Someone bothering her would make the 'suggestion' appealing, Grant mused, and Daniel certainly had the ability to ruffle Sally's feathers.

  Good thing the man wasn't here as Grant felt a sudden urge to punch his registrar on the nose.

  'You're usually not so reticent,' he prompted, dousing the spurt of anger, but wanting to know more.

  She grinned at him.

  'It must be hunger. At the moment, that's taking precedent over all else, including the functioning of my brain. I can operate hungry—forget totally about food when I'm concentrating on what I'm doing—but think? Make decisions?' She shook her head. 'Never!'

  He hid a smile. Sally did it well, this evasion or distraction tactic, and he guessed no matter how he worded the question, or how many times he asked, she'd avoid a direct answer.

  And badly though he wanted to know, he admired her loyalty.

  Yes, she had many admirable qualities, this woman with whom he was definitely not going to get involved!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Though perhaps this time he wouldn't let Sally get away with the diversion! Grant waited until the food arrived and they'd eaten sufficient for hunger to be allayed. Then he resumed the conversation.

  'So, now you've eaten, and can't use starvation as a diversionary tactic, are you going to expand on the subject of fraternisation? On why the suggestion earned me a tick of approval from you?' He tried a half-smile as he reminded her of her earlier words, hoping she'd take it as a casual remark, not the probe he intended it to be. 'Are you anti-fraternisation yourself?'