The Italian Doctor

by Jennifer Taylor

  Maggie felt a sudden tightening in her stomach and turned away, knowing that it would be dangerous to stand there and watch him any longer. It didn’t make sense yet the feeling was too strong to ignore.

  She went into her bedroom and undressed but sleep proved elusive. Her body was tired but her mind was too active to let her rest. Knowing that Luke was in her home, it made her feel on edge. It seemed to mark this new phase in their relationship but she still wasn’t sure they were doing the right thing.

  Teaming up with Luke to gain a little breathing space from their families’ interference sounded straightforward on the surface, but she wasn’t convinced that it would turn out to be quite so simple. Yet what complications could there possibly be?

  She rolled over and buried her hot face in the pillow, not needing to hear the tiny voice of warning that was whispering in her ear. She had no intention whatsoever of falling under Luke’s spell for real!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MAGGIE was fast asleep when the sound of the telephone ringing woke her the next morning. She staggered out of bed, wondering who could be calling at such an hour. It was barely seven and her alarm hadn’t even gone off.

  She hurried to the sitting room then paused when the phone was abruptly silenced. She heard the rumble of a deep, male voice and only then did she remember that she’d had an unexpected house guest the previous night. Sadly, it was already too late to reassess the situation.

  ‘Oh, hi, there. I was just coming to get you. I didn’t know if you’d heard the phone or not.’ Luke came into the hall and stopped when he saw her. His eyes made a lightning-fast survey of what she was wearing before he discreetly looked away. However, Maggie knew what he must have seen and her face flamed with embarrassment.

  Why, oh, why hadn’t she stopped to put on a robe over her nightshirt? she thought with the anguished wisdom of hindsight. All right, so maybe she was decently covered but that wasn’t the point!

  ‘I… I’d better see who it is,’ she muttered, sidling past him and silently cursing her brothers for buying her the garment in the first place. It was a standing joke in her family how bad she was at getting up in the morning and her brothers had bought the nightshirt for her as a gift one Christmas.

  She had accepted it in the spirit it had been given and had never had any qualms about wearing it before. Now she stifled a groan as she mentally pictured what was printed on the front of the shirt—I HATE MORNINGS BUT I’M GREAT IN BED! Frankly, she didn’t dare speculate what Luke must be thinking!

  She snatched up the receiver, glad to have something to take her mind off how mortified she felt. However, her relief was short-lived when she recognised her mother’s voice coming down the line. Frankly, she didn’t need a crystal ball to guess what must have passed through Sofia Carr’s mind when a man had answered her daughter’s phone at that hour of the morning.

  Ten minutes later, Maggie hung up, feeling as though she’d just been run over by a steamroller. It had been sheer self-defence that had made her blurt out what she had and she was already regretting it.

  ‘Problems?’ Luke came into the room, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. He handed her one with a quizzical smile. ‘I take it that was your mother on the phone?’

  ‘How did you guess?’ She sank onto a chair and took a despondent sip of her drink. She had a nasty feeling that she hadn’t so much backed herself into a corner but had run into it willingly out of desperation.

  ‘Would I be right to assume that she wanted to know who I was?’ he continued, perching on the arm of the sofa while he drank his coffee.

  ‘Naturally,’ she replied shortly. Of course her mother had wanted to know that—what mother wouldn’t have? Unless he believed that it was commonplace for her to have men staying overnight. Maybe he’d taken the motto on her nightshirt as some sort of a reference?

  ‘And you told her?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ she snapped, stung by that thought. She wasn’t a prude but she’d never indulged in a string of casual affairs like many of her friends. Apart from one brief relationship during her training, she had preferred to keep any man she’d dated as a friend rather than a lover. A couple had wanted more than that but she’d refused to be pushed into doing something that hadn’t felt right. However, how she lived her life had absolutely nothing to do with Luke so let him think what he liked.

  ‘My mother must have heard about you from Nonna,’ she said sweetly. ‘Obviously, it was a favourable report because she was delighted when she discovered that it was you staying here and not some other man.’

  His eyes narrowed at that but his tone was bland. ‘I’m relieved to hear it. I’m afraid that I answered the phone automatically, without really thinking what I was doing. But so long as I haven’t caused you any problems then that’s all right.’

  Meaning that it might have been another man on the phone and not her mother? Maggie guessed that was what he’d meant, even though he didn’t elaborate.

  Just how many men did he think phoned her at this hour of the day? she wondered sourly. Maybe he thought that she had a great long list of them, queuing up to spend the night with her? It would certainly explain her mother’s eagerness to see her safely married, wouldn’t it?

  Her teeth snapped together with an audible click. The desire to set him straight was strong but she had no intention of explaining her love life, or rather lack of one, to him. She wasn’t accountable to Luke for her actions…

  Not even after what she’d told her mother? that same irritating voice which had plagued her the night before whispered.

  Maggie’s heart plummeted as she realised that she hadn’t told Luke everything that had been said. She shot him a wary look, wondering how he would take the news. He had seemed keen enough on the idea last night but he might be having second thoughts this morning if he believed that she was the sort of girl who slept around.

  ‘You didn’t create any problems for me, but I may have created some for you,’ she said as calmly as she could, because the thought that he might harbour such a poor opinion of her had hurt. Funnily enough, she realised that she wanted him to think well of her even though she didn’t understand why it should matter.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugged, refusing to dwell on the thought when there were more pressing matters to deal with. ‘Just that once my mother had established who you were…well, everything seemed to snowball. She’d rung up early so that she could pin me down about Sunday, you see. I’m not sure how it happened but it ended up with me promising to take you round for lunch. I hope that was all right?’

  ‘All right? It’s perfect!’ His face broke into a huge smile. ‘It’s just what we wanted, isn’t it? I expect your mother is on the phone right this very minute, passing on the good news to your grandmother. Give it a couple of hours and it should have reached my parents, too!’

  He raised his coffee-cup and clinked it against hers. ‘Here’s to us, Maggie, and to six months of freedom from family interference. We’re two of a kind, you and me, and that means we’re not the marrying kind!’

  Maggie took a sip of her coffee but it tasted so bitter all of a sudden that she had difficulty swallowing it. She made some excuse about needing to get dressed and hurried from the room. Going into her bedroom, she sat on the bed while she thought about what had happened.

  Luke was right, of course he was. They both needed a breathing space to get on with their lives and this was the perfect solution to their problems. Yet no matter how many times she told herself that they were doing the right thing, she wasn’t convinced. There was still that tiny voice shouting Mistake, mistake loudly in her ear.

  ‘These are for you and the other nurses. You’ve all been great. Thanks a bunch for everything you’ve done.’

  Maggie smiled as David Garner thrust an enormous box of chocolates into her hands. David had been discharged that morning and he was making his farewells.

  ‘Thank you. We’ll really enjoy them, I promis
e you,’ she told him, putting a steadying hand under his elbow when he almost overbalanced. His knee was in a plaster cast so he was having to get around with the aid of crutches, and he wasn’t finding it easy to balance on one leg.

  ‘Take your time,’ she warned as he set off down the ward at an uncoordinated lope. ‘We don’t want you breaking anything else.’

  ‘Definitely not!’ He grinned ruefully. ‘Much as I’ve enjoyed your company, I don’t want to find myself back here in the foreseeable future.’

  They had reached the doors by then and he paused to look over to Lauren’s bed. Mrs Atkins was visiting her daughter that morning and it was obvious that David didn’t want to risk a rebuff by going over to speak to the girl.

  ‘Would you tell Lauren that I’ll see her as we arranged?’ he asked urgently as a porter arrived with a wheelchair to take him downstairs. ‘You won’t forget, will you?’

  ‘I won’t. Don’t worry.’ Maggie waved goodbye as he was pushed towards the lift. She couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that the young couple felt it necessary to resort to subterfuge…

  She sighed as it struck her that she was doing much the same thing herself, even though it was for a different reason. Parents certainly didn’t make life easy at times, even though they only did what they thought was best.

  When she had children, she would never try to run their lives, she decided as she went back inside the ward. For some reason that thought conjured up an immediate image of a small boy with jet black hair and navy blue eyes before she briskly erased it. She certainly wasn’t going to start thinking along those lines!

  Lunchtime arrived and Maggie set off on the daily trek to the canteen. She was on her own that day because Angela was meeting Robin and they had decided to buy sandwiches and eat them in the park. They seemed to have been getting on famously since the night of the party and she couldn’t help wondering if there was a hint of romance in the air.

  They were both very young but if that was what they wanted then good luck to them, she decided, exiting the lift when it reached the basement. She wasn’t against romance and looked forward to the time when she would meet the man of her dreams. However, it wasn’t something she was planning on just yet when there was so much else she wanted to do…

  ‘Maggie! Wait up there.’

  She spun round when she heard Luke calling her, feeling her heart give an unexpected surge of pleasure as she saw him hurrying towards her. It surprised her that she should react that way because it had never happened before. It was just Luke who seemed to generate all these strangely unfamiliar feelings…

  ‘Hello!’ she greeted him brightly, chasing away the thought because it was so unsettling. ‘Are you going for lunch, too?’

  ‘I’ve been already. The afternoon list is a nightmare so I decided that I’d better snatch a bite to eat as soon as I got a chance. I’d hate to disgrace myself by passing out in the middle of Theatre!’

  She laughed at the droll comment. ‘Not quite the image a dashing young surgeon would want to project, is it?’

  ‘Certainly not. One has to maintain one’s image at all times.’

  The laughter in his eyes made a mockery of the pedantic statement. It pleased her that he could laugh at himself like that. She would never have believed him capable of that in the past, but that was because she’d completely misjudged him. It struck her then just how much she liked him, although maybe liking wasn’t the best way to describe how she felt about him. There seemed to be more to it than that…

  ‘What? You’re staring at me as though I’ve suddenly sprouted an extra head.’ He pulled a comical face and she smiled self-consciously, shaken by the way that thought had slid so easily into her mind.

  ‘Sorry. I was wool-gathering. Anyway, did you want me for something?’

  ‘I thought you’d like to know that the landlord from the pub is out of danger. His name’s Ted Roberts, by the way. We never got round to swopping names, did we? Anyway, he should be transferred to the ward later this afternoon after Morgan’s given him the all-clear.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great news!’ She didn’t try to hide her delight and he smiled.

  ‘Isn’t it just? Shows what a great team we make, Maggie.’ He shot a glance over his shoulder as the lift arrived and disgorged some more hungry staff. ‘I’d better go. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  He gave her a quick wave then hurried away. Maggie smiled to herself as she went into the canteen. It was good to know that Ted Roberts would pull through, although her part in his recovery had been a very minor one in her opinion. It was Luke’s input that had made all the difference.

  ‘I would ask what that smug smile is all about but I’ve heard the rumours.’ Rachel Hart had been in the lift and she followed Maggie into the canteen.

  ‘What rumours?’ she demanded, wondering what her friend was talking about.

  ‘About you and Luke being out on a date last night, of course.’ Rachel treated her to an old-fashioned look. ‘You didn’t honestly think that you could keep it quiet, did you?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘I should have known there would be spies out all over the place, reporting back!’

  Rachel chuckled. ‘I’m not sure if Jenny Partridge fits the bill as an MI5 agent, but that could be why she’s so successful at it! Anyway, she happened to mention about seeing you and Luke at the pub when she and Joe were called there last night.’

  ‘It was quite a night, I can tell you.’ Maggie quickly recounted what had happened as they queued to be served. ‘The landlord was lucky. If Luke hadn’t been there then there’s no knowing what might have happened. He had a tension pneumothorax and could have died because of that, let alone his other injuries.’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious that Luke has won you round at last,’ Rachel observed, picking up a plate of rather solid-looking lasagne.

  ‘What do you mean—won me round?’ Maggie queried, choosing the same for herself because nothing else took her fancy.

  ‘Oh, Doreen told me that there was a definite atmosphere whenever Luke was around. I must admit that I was surprised because it isn’t like you, Maggie. Still, you two seemed to have ironed out your differences and that’s the main thing.’ Rachel’s tone was bland. ‘Some of the best relationships get off to a rocky start, I believe.’

  Maggie didn’t reply. Frankly, it seemed wiser not to say too much. However, she couldn’t help thinking how awkward it could get if rumours started flying around the hospital. It was something she and Luke hadn’t really discussed but maybe they should think about it. At the end of the day, he was going to return to Boston and she was going to remain here. She didn’t want people thinking that she was broken-hearted because they’d split up.

  She didn’t let herself dwell on the thought that she would be upset when he left. That was just too silly to waste time on!

  Ted Roberts arrived at the ward just before four o’clock. Maggie got him settled then it was time for a late afternoon ward round. Morgan Gray was leading the team that day and he had Luke, Robin and Cheryl Rothwell, the junior registrar, with him. Maggie accompanied them as they went around the ward. Her job was to give a verbal update on each patient’s progress to supplement their notes.

  Alice Bradshaw was the first patient they saw and Maggie swiftly added her comments to those written on the old lady’s chart. ‘Mrs Bradshaw is doing extremely well. She’s been up and walking around since the day after her operation and seems to be managing quite well so long as she has a little bit of help.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Morgan smiled at the old lady. Despite his rather austere appearance, he had a genuine interest in the patients and Maggie liked him enormously. ‘Dr Fabrizzi says that you are his star patient, Mrs Bradshaw, and I can understand why.’

  ‘Oh, get away with you,’ Alice chided, although she looked pleased. ‘If it weren’t for these nurses, I doubt I’d be able to get out of this chair!’

  ‘I think you’d have a good try, Mrs Bradshaw, and t
hat’s the main thing.’ Luke added his own endorsement of the old lady’s bravery. ‘It’s your determination that will get you back on your feet at the end of the day.’

  ‘My determination wouldn’t be worth a brass farthing if it weren’t for your skill,’ Alice declared. ‘The physiotherapy lady told me that if you hadn’t been so good at your job my chances of ever walking again would have been next to nothing. You don’t know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done, Doctor.’

  ‘It was my pleasure.’ Luke patted her hand before they moved to the next bed. Once again Maggie gave a brief outline of the patient’s progress but she couldn’t suppress the small glow of pride she felt. Alice was right—it had been Luke’s skill that had made all the difference. It warmed her heart to know that, even though she wasn’t sure why it should mean so much to her.

  She sighed as she studied the back of his head as he bent down and examined the patient. Luke had appeared so straightforward when she’d first met him. She had summed him up—and found him lacking—in a very short time. However, it was becoming increasingly obvious that she would need a lot longer to get to know him properly. Still she had the next six months.

  She shivered as a chill raced through her. Six months didn’t seem nearly long enough all of a sudden.

  The week came to an end and Sunday arrived. Maggie was as nervous as a kitten as she waited for Luke to arrive. She kept running through what would happen when they reached her parents’ house, but it was impossible to foretell what questions her mother might ask. Should they gloss over their relationship or should they hype it up? She wasn’t sure what to do for the best and the uncertainty was making her feel sick with nerves.

  A horn sounded and she saw Luke’s car parked outside when she went to the window. She picked up her bag then paused to shoot a last anxious look in the mirror on her way out. She had decided to wear a new summer dress that day, needing the reassurance of knowing that she was looking her best to bolster her confidence. Made from a crisp grey and white printed cotton, it had a scooped neckline and cap sleeves. Its slim lines just hinted at her curves, while the calf-length skirt modestly covered her bare legs.