Return of the Rebel Doctor

by Joanna Neil

  Ross knocked lightly on her door a moment later, and she went to meet him, ready for the day ahead.

  ‘What’s your room like?’ he asked. ‘Are you pleased with it?’

  ‘It’s lovely—all sunshine-yellow walls and soft furnishings,’ she murmured. ‘How about yours?’

  ‘Perfect. Tartan covers and a writing table by the window. I brought my laptop with me, so that’ll come in handy.’

  They stayed together throughout the day, listening to various speakers talk of the advantages of video links for centres in remote rural areas, enabling doctors to link up with consultants in other parts of the region.

  ‘I liked the idea of a new mother being able to see her baby over a video link when she had been taken to a different hospital for surgery,’ Katie said, when they went to the banqueting hall to get some food a few hours later. ‘It must be awful to be separated from your infant when you most want to be with him.’ She surveyed the variety of dishes on offer and wondered what to choose.

  Ross nodded. ‘There are lots of advantages to video conferencing—it’s very useful to be able to exchange ideas with other professionals, without having to travel miles to meet up with them.’ He loaded his tray with steak pie and vegetables and added an apple pie for dessert. ‘I’ll get a pot of tea for both of us, if you like?’

  She nodded, and he waved a hand towards the far side of the room. ‘There’s a table over there by the window. Will that be okay with you?’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ Katie chose the soup of the day, a tempting mix of appetising vegetables, and picked out a crusty bread roll to go with it. Finally, she opted for a cool fruit salad to finish things off.

  She glanced around the hall as she tasted her soup a few minutes later. The oak-panelled walls were adorned with oil paintings, a mixture of local landscapes and portraits of the ancestors of the people who owned the castle.

  Glittering chandeliers hung down from the ornate ceiling and high up along one side of the room she noticed a minstrels’ gallery. There was no music being played at the moment, but she’d heard that in the evenings a group of musicians would gather there to provide entertainment for people who were dining.

  Ross finished pouring tea and then followed her gaze. ‘It looks as though a lot of care and attention has been put into this place. All the rooms have their own particular features—even the conference room was warm and welcoming. I’m not sure whether it was because of the décor or the plush seating...’

  ‘I think it was both of those, and the flowers and greenery added the finishing touch.’ She smiled. ‘I suppose it would be very sexist of me to say that I think a woman has had a strong part in overseeing the interior design here.’

  He grinned. ‘It would but I think you’re right.’ He tucked into the steak pie for a while and then said on a thoughtful note, ‘Did you have any particular reason for wanting to come to this conference? It’s not as though you’ll have much use for this technology in paediatric A and E, is it? Unless you’ve come across problems, of course?’

  She laid down her spoon for a moment while she answered him. ‘You’re right—so far there hasn’t been any situation where I’ve needed to have the equipment on hand. But I’m thinking of the wider issues. A job has come up that I’m really interested in. I felt coming here might be useful to me, because the work will involve administration—seeing to the needs of the region, not just the local hospital.’

  He was silent for a moment, seemingly preoccupied with his thoughts, but then he frowned and asked, ‘Are you thinking of moving away from paediatrics?’

  She shook her head, making the chestnut curls gleam in the golden light of the chandelier. ‘Not at all. It just means I’ll have extra responsibility on top of what I’m doing now. My boss has been encouraging me to go for it. It’s really important to me to get this job—I’ve worked hard these last few years, because I always wanted to become a consultant. This is the ideal opportunity for me to achieve that.’

  ‘As a registrar, you’re only one step away from that, though some people might think you’re still rather young, and maybe you could do with a bit more experience under your belt.’ His dark brows drew together. ‘Is your career that important to you? What about marriage and children? Don’t they figure in your plans?’

  ‘Of course they do...at some point,’ she said in a faintly troubled voice. ‘But right now my job is everything to me. I love what I do.’

  The truth was, there’d been boyfriends along the way, and one in particular who she’d cared about quite deeply, until she’d discovered that he’d cheated on her. That had hurt her badly, and had shaken her confidence, so that she decided to put all her energies into her work. She’d made up her mind she wasn’t ever going to allow herself to be hurt that way again.

  She’d learned a valuable lesson, and at the same time she’d realised that none of the men she’d dated had measured up to her ideal. Perhaps, subconsciously, she’d been setting them all against her first love...or should that be infatuation? Somehow, Ross had always been there in the back of her mind, right from the beginning. He was so wrong for her, and yet the dream had persisted. There was always that ‘what if’ hovering in the background.

  ‘Katie, Ross! Who’d have thought we would meet up here?’ The male voice cut into her thoughts, and Katie looked up from her seat by the window to see a tall man, immaculately dressed in a dark suit and subtly patterned silk tie, standing by their table. His dark hair had a natural wave, and his blue-grey eyes glinted with recognition.

  ‘Josh? Josh Kilburn?’ Katie smiled as she recalled the earnest young man she’d been at school with several years before. She turned to Ross, wondering if he remembered him, too.

  ‘Hi, there,’ Ross said, nodding acknowledgement. ‘Are you here for the other conference—something to do with the legal profession, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m a solicitor—we’re finding out about using video links to liaise between the courts and people in prison. One way for convicts to give testimony without having to travel to and from court.’

  Katie patted the chair beside her. ‘Why don’t you come and join us?’ she suggested with a smile. ‘I’d really like to hear what you’ve been up to these last few years.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ he said, a look of regret coming over his face, ‘but I won’t, thanks, because I’m with my colleagues. I just wanted to come over and say hello. I’ll be staying here overnight, so if you’re doing the same, perhaps we could get together at some point? I’m in room twenty-eight.’

  ‘That must be on the floor above mine. I’m in number twelve,’ Katie murmured, ‘and Ross is along the corridor from me.’

  ‘Room nine,’ Ross said. ‘Come and knock on the door if you want to meet up later on. Otherwise we’ll be round and about the place.’

  ‘It’s great to see you again,’ Katie told him. ‘Are you working on the mainland? I never ventured that far—not for any length of time.’

  ‘I was, but actually I just moved back to the village, so I guess you’ll be seeing see me around from time to time. I’m a partner of a law firm setting up there.’

  ‘That’s good to know. We’ll be able to catch up, and talk over old times.’ She ran her gaze over him briefly. Judging by the expensively tailored suit and the crisp linen shirt he was wearing, he’d done well for himself. She could see the merest hint of gold cufflinks beneath the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Will you be bringing family over with you?’

  ‘No, just myself. I’m planning on buying a house not too far from where my parents live. It’ll be good to be close to them and my brother again.’ He turned as his friends tried to catch his attention. ‘It looks as though they’re going into the annexe to eat,’ he said. ‘It seems to be filling up fast in here.’ He smiled. ‘I’d better go. It was good meeting up with both of you—maybe we’ll be abl
e to talk again later? Perhaps we could all get together for dinner this evening?’

  Katie and Ross nodded, and then, as Josh walked away, they turned their attention back to their meals.

  ‘He used to be a regular visitor to your family estate at one time, as I recall,’ Ross murmured. ‘Weren’t you and he dating at one time?’

  ‘Off and on, yes, but it was nothing serious. He was always more interested in Jessie. Anyway, I left for medical school soon after.’

  ‘How’s Jessie doing? Has she left the nest or is she still working on the family estate?’

  ‘Oh, she won’t leave. She loves that job.’ She sent him a wide-eyed glance. ‘What’s not to love—all that beautiful countryside, people wanting to be shown around the place? She’s in her element there. The house is only open at certain times, though—my parents value their privacy—but there are the gardens to see, and the woodland paths, and the horse riding. I expect you know it all fairly well.’

  He shook his head and looked at her from under his dark lashes. ‘I was never very welcome on the estate, remember?’

  She frowned, disturbed by the mixed emotions she read in his eyes. What was it she saw there? Regret? Disillusion? ‘But you must have visited—Jessie brought you back to the house a few times, didn’t she? I don’t think I was at home then, but...’

  His mouth made a wry twist. ‘Your parents usually found a way to see me to the door before too long. They didn’t want me around. Apparently I was a bad influence on their younger daughter.’

  She sent him a concerned glance. ‘I’m sorry about that. Jessie was a bit wild and headstrong in those days.’ And, of course, their worst fears had come to fruition when they’d discovered Jessie had been with him that night at the Old Brewery. Perhaps that was why Jessie didn’t want to talk about that incident. She knew she shouldn’t have been with him, and she’d let her parents down.

  His brows arced upwards. ‘Didn’t they have the same qualms about you? You’re not much older than she is, and yet you seemed to come and go as you pleased, and as I recall you were never short of young men wanting to go out with you.’

  She shrugged lightly. ‘I guess they thought I was more level headed.’

  ‘More than likely.’ His blue eyes gleamed. ‘You were always the one to look out for her and try to keep her out of trouble, like that night when we were all partying down by the stream, a group of us lads and some girls?’

  She nodded. ‘You’d set up tents. I remember being a bit shocked by that, and a tiny bit jealous. It looked such fun, but there was no way my parents would have let me join you.’

  The corners of his mouth tilted. ‘We were planning on sleeping out under the stars. Not that we managed to get much sleep, as I remember.’

  ‘No,’ Katie said, pushing her soup bowl to one side and starting on her fruit salad. ‘Because you were all busy getting drunk on lager and vodka. There was a bottle being passed round, as I recall.’

  ‘Some of them were getting drunk,’ he corrected her. ‘Not all of us. Anyway, I’d already told Jessie that she needed to go home before she got into trouble with her parents. I’d offered to walk her back to the estate.’

  ‘You had?’ She stared at him for a second or two, bemused, before focussing her thoughts once more. ‘She didn’t tell me that. All I knew was I needed to get her home before my father went on the warpath but she was having way too good a time to want to leave.’

  He smiled. ‘You read her the Riot Act, and she dug her heels in even further. I’m still not sure what you said to her to make her change her mind.’ He gave her a quizzical look.

  She coloured a little. ‘I had to do something. I was worried about what would happen if my father became too stressed—his angina was starting to cause him a lot of problems, and I was afraid for him. I didn’t want to see him in pain or struggling for breath, and that was almost bound to happen if he found out what Jessie was up to. I don’t think she realised how bad things were for him then.’

  He nodded, sympathy and understanding coming into his eyes. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I told her I would go home and dump her favourite clothes and all her make-up in the charity bins unless she saw sense.’ She pulled a face. ‘I felt terrible saying that, but I didn’t see any other way out. My dad had already been looking at his watch and making veiled comments, and I’d seen him take some of his medication.’

  ‘So it was a good thing Josh came to the rescue and offered to take her home...to take you both home,’ Ross commented. ‘I was annoyed with him. I was hoping you might stay with us for a while. After all, you were a couple of years older than Jessie, and I didn’t think that would be a problem for you.’

  She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that. For my own peace of mind I had to follow the rules of the house.’ She’d wanted to, though. More than anything, she’d wanted to stay and have Ross put his arms around her and hold her close, but she’d known she couldn’t, not while her father had been getting ready to come looking for them. ‘Anyway, you had that roguish look in your eyes, and I didn’t trust you one little bit, not with my sister, or with me.’

  Even now she remembered the wrench of leaving that party. The smell of new-mown grass had been in the air, there had been a lot of laughter and some of the gang had paired up, so there had been a few couples kissing in the moonlight, while others had been dancing to the music from a portable stereo. The temptation of spending time with Ross had been almost more than she’d been able to handle.

  ‘Mmm. So Josh and I walked you both home. I remember consoling myself with the thought that there would be other times when I might persuade you to sample forbidden fruit.’ His mouth curved as he watched her, a wicked gleam flickering in the depths of his eyes. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ she said, taking refuge in hiding behind her teacup and watching him over the rim. He was right, of course. There’d been another night, another party, when Jessie had been away on a weekend break with a friend’s family, and she had been given permission to sleep over at a friend’s house. Only the birthday celebration that had started out so naively in intent had slipped into something far more intimate, as far as she had been concerned.

  The lights had been dimmed, and she had found herself in Ross’s arms, where all thoughts of being her natural, sweet and innocent self had gone straight out of the window. She’d wanted him with an intensity that had made her whole body tremble, and it had only been when her friend’s parents had returned from their night out that sanity had returned. How close she’d come to offering up her body to him had shocked her to the core.

  He chuckled. ‘Okay. My lips are sealed. It just struck me that some other young man was after you that night, too. His loss was my gain.’

  Her emerald eyes narrowed on him, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m done. I promise.’ He closed his mouth and made a zipping motion with his fingers across his lips.

  Katie put her cup down. ‘I think it’s time we headed back to the conference room, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Or we could play truant instead,’ he suggested with a glint in his eye, and she aimed a light backhanded slap at his arm.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ she muttered. ‘Heaven help us, we’ve another day to get through after this.’

  They walked back to the conference room, and sat through the rest of the presentations. Katie tried not to be aware of Ross, sitting beside her, his thigh lightly brushing her own, but she was fighting a losing battle.

  Eventually, he stretched, easing his taut limbs as the talks came to an end and people started making their way out of the large hall. ‘Shall we meet up in, say, an hour, and take a walk in the grounds for a while before dinner?’ he suggested, as they headed back to their rooms.

  ‘Yes, that would be good. Perhaps you should
make it a couple of hours. That should give me time to shower and change.’

  ‘All right. I’ll come and call for you at seven-thirty.’ He waited as she let herself into her room, and then walked away down the corridor.

  Katie shut the door behind her and went to sit on the soft bed for a while. There was plenty of time to get ready. She would relax for a while and read the beginning of the book she had downloaded on to her e-reader. And then she must check her emails to see if the human resources department had received her application for the post of consultant/administrator. There was plenty of time to do all that.

  She switched on the small computer and idly flicked through the pages of the book. Sunlight slanted in through the leaded windowpanes and after a while the words began to shift about and blend into one another and her eyelids began to weigh heavy. It wouldn’t hurt to close them for a second or two, would it? It had been such a long day, and she’d been up late last night, helping Jessie sort out the problems she was having with the extension to her house. They would have to keep a close eye on the building work...

  She woke with a start an hour and a half later, when the alarm on the laptop started to bleep a low-battery warning. She looked around, dazed for a moment, wondering where she was, and then, as she glanced at her watch, sprang into confused action.

  A quick shower, then put on her make-up. She would have to forgo washing her hair. Would it be okay? She ran a hand through it. It was still soft and silky—it would be fine. She laid out her black dress on the bed, grabbed fresh underwear and hurried into the bathroom.

  The hot water revived her, making her feel fresh and ready for the evening ahead, though she discovered to her dismay that the steam in the bathroom had made her curls springier than ever. As she towelled herself dry, she saw her reflection in the mirror and realised there was a wild, untamed look about her. There was no way she’d be able to comb her hair into place in the time she had left.