As they left the building, Rosie wondered which she was more terrified of—the dogs or the prospect of being alone with Andy Templeton!
CHAPTER THREE
‘IF YOU don’t mind, we’ll go in my car,’ suggested Andy. ‘Yours looks a little snug for someone my size.’
That was true, thought Rosie, looking at his strapping frame and imagining him squeezing it into her small car. ‘OK by me,’ she agreed briefly, ‘Bert Lavin doesn’t live far away—just down the high street and third on the right—number ten.’
An unnatural silence hung between them. Neither of them said a word although they were sitting so close together. To Rosie, the embarrassment of what had happened at the weekend seemed to permeate the atmosphere like a fog. She looked at Andy’s hands on the steering-wheel—strong, tanned, long-fingered. Was it only forty-eight hours ago that those same hands had been stroking her body and she had responded as if a button had been pressed on every erogenous zone she had? She shuddered. The image of the two of them locked together in a passionate embrace seemed to loom large before her on the window like the picture on a cinema screen.
‘I’m glad to get the opportunity to speak to you alone, Rosie.’ The sudden sound of Andy’s deep voice splitting the silence was startling. ‘I’d like to explain what happened on Sunday morning…’
Rosie’s heart fluttered—she’d rather they laid that subject to rest!
‘I’ve told you…it doesn’t matter,’ she cut in quickly. ‘As I said, it was a good two days, plenty going on and very worthwhile.’
‘Ah!’ he murmured, a faint smile touching his lips. ‘You felt you got something from the weekend, then?’
‘Of course,’ she faltered. ‘I think I learnt a lot…’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention their night of love-making.
The car accelerated suddenly as he put his foot down hard on the pedal. It was as if something had snapped inside him, and he stared ahead of him, his profile stony.
‘What did you learn?’ he said harshly. ‘To get something out of your system—obliterate the memory of your husband perhaps?’
‘What?’ she gasped. A white flash of anger and shame went through her. ‘What on earth do you mean? How could you say something like that?’
‘OK. You tell me why you wanted me to make love to you!’
‘You think I was using you, do you?’
‘And weren’t you?’ The car slowed down as it came to traffic lights. Andy turned his face towards her, his voice deliberate, cold. ‘I happened to be available, a convenient male ready to fulfil your fantasies for an hour or two…’
‘How dare you?’ Rosie felt the nails dig into the palms of her hands with fury. ‘I…I wanted to make love to you—of course I did—and you weren’t entirely averse to the idea either! I…I thought that I’d met someone for the first time in many years that understood how I felt…’
Andy started the car again with a harsh jerk and shot off over the crossing. ‘I thought I understood you, too,’ he said bitingly. ‘I hadn’t realised that I was just a ship that passed in the night, as you so charmingly put it—a kind of stud to satisfy you!’
Rosie felt her face blazing with fury. What a wonderful way to start a professional relationship!
Her voice choking with emotion, she spluttered, ‘Don’t give me that, Andy Templeton. It was you that took the whole thing so casually. I turned up the next day to meet you—I waited outside the hotel for nearly an hour after the lecture! You never turned up. You couldn’t have cared less about what we’d done!’
There was a screech of brakes as Andy turned into Mr Lavin’s street and came to a skidding halt in front of his little terraced house.
‘As I tried to tell you,’ he rasped, turning towards her and raking her with cold blue eyes, ‘something happened I couldn’t ignore. I did leave a message for you—it can’t have got through.’
Rosie stared at him for a minute. Did the revelation make any difference?
‘So that was your excuse?’ she said bitterly. To her horror, tears welled up in her eyes and she turned quickly away.
‘You don’t believe me?’ His hand went under her chin and turned her face back to his, noting her distress. His expression suddenly became contrite, softer. ‘I really did want to see you again,’ he murmured, his eyes raking her face. He paused for a second, and his finger traced the line of her jaw down to the little hollow of her neck. ‘I thought that the feeling was mutual. It was rather a jolt to find out from you today that our evening together had just been a pleasant interlude, had meant nothing to you at all! To me it was more than just a casual bit of fun.’
Emotions jumbled together in Rosie’s head like colours in a kaleidoscope. She closed her eyes for a second—what was he telling her? That it had meant as much to him as it had to her—or now that coincidence had drawn them together, was he trying to make excuses for his non-appearance yesterday?
There was a pause, then he said quietly, ‘Perhaps we should see your patient—I think I can hear the dogs barking already. We must discuss this later!’
He got out of the car briskly and came round to her side, holding the door open for her.
She followed him silently up the path and knocked on the front door. She stood away from Andy, trying to calm all the emotions that followed their conversation. He had sounded sorry. Perhaps he really had intended to meet her again…A cacophony of barking came from the back regions of the house, and she jumped out of her reverie. She looked apprehensively up at Andy.
‘I imagine their bark’s worse than their bite,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let them touch you…’
She shrugged. It was time to put personal differences to one side. If they were going to work together they were going to have to maintain a professional attitude.
‘I’ll quickly brief you on my patient,’ she said briskly. ‘Bert Lavin collapsed at a football match a few weeks ago. He was admitted to Porlstone General for a day or two with bad angina and seemed to respond well to medication. He was sent home, and I’ve been seeing him regularly, but he refuses to have any home help and gives the community nurse short shrift when she comes. He only seems to want his daughter.’
‘Frightened of new faces and routines, I guess,’ Andy observed. He sniffed as they stood by the front door as the strong aroma from a pipe drifted through the open window.
‘Smells like your patient still enjoys a smoke,’ he commented wryly.
‘I don’t think he can change the habits of a lifetime,’ murmured Rosie.
They heard muffled sounds of a door being opened and a woman’s voice shouting over the noise of the dogs. ‘Get down, Prince! Oh, for heaven’s sake, come back here, Duke!’
The door was opened a fraction, and a harassed-looking woman, still with her coat on, peered through the crack.
‘I don’t know what to do, Doctor. I haven’t the strength to pull these darn dogs back and let you in. They aren’t vicious, just very strong and they’d knock you down.’
Andy stepped in front of Rosie. ‘I’m a colleague of Dr Loveday’s. I’m used to dogs and quite large myself. If I go round to the back, you could let me in so that the doctor can come in here and see Mr Lavin. I’ll distract the dogs and make sure they don’t get through.’
Andy’s voice was persuasive. Joan Duthie, Bert Lavin’s daughter, looked doubtfully at him for a moment, then nodded her head.
‘You go round to the back, then,’ she agreed. ‘They’ll quieten down after a while and then you can lock them in the kitchen and come through to the front.’
‘Wish me luck,’ he muttered as he disappeared through the side gate. Suddenly Rosie was very grateful that he was with her!
‘I’m so glad you’ve come, Doctor,’ said Joan as she reappeared to let Rosie in from the front. ‘And I’m very glad the other doctor is here to help with the dogs. I didn’t want to have to send you away again. Dad seems really off. He just sits in his chair all day, and hardly eat
s a thing—has no energy at all. When he does get up he’s so wheezy. I wish he’d come and stay with us for a while, but he won’t—stubborn old man!’ She sighed. ‘I don’t want to be selfish, but it would help me. I have to catch two buses to come across town with his shopping and to see him. It’s taken nearly three hours to get here.’
‘It is tough. Perhaps we can see if he can get some home help…’
Joan Duthie snorted. ‘If only…’ she grumbled. ‘He refuses to have anyone. He’s very suspicious of strangers—thinks they’re after his millions!’
Rosie smiled. Like many of her elderly patients, Bert was fiercely independent and trusted only his nearest and dearest to help him.
The sound of barking dogs had gradually quietened from the back regions, and Andy joined them.
‘That didn’t take you long,’ said Joan. ‘How did you quieten them?’
Andy grinned modestly. ‘They don’t call me Dr Dolittle for nothing! Actually, I found two old bones in the garden and they’re busy chewing on those!’
‘Let me introduce Dr Templeton,’ Rosie said to Joan and Bert, whose shrunken frame was ensconced in a large armchair. ‘He’s a colleague who’s come to help me with my visits. Do you mind if he listens in?’
‘He’s a lucky beggar,’ said Bert with a wheezy chuckle. ‘Dr Loveday’s a real cracker—they don’t come bonnier than her. She’s the best thing that’s happened to that practice!’
‘That’s a very good description,’ murmured Andy in agreement. He glanced at Rosie and she saw his eyes dancing with laughter.
She felt her heartbeat bound into racing gear, and turned sharply away—that wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted Andy Templeton to say! Rather breathlessly she said to Bert, ‘I’ve just come to see what you’re up to, Bert—find out how effective the medication is.’
He smiled a gap-toothed grin at her. ‘Don’t get up to anything here, gel—not much of a den of iniquity in these parts!’
Rosie laughed and lifted up Bert’s thick sweater, shirt and vest so that she could put the stethoscope to his chest. She listened carefully for a moment to the ‘flub-flub’ of his heartbeat—it sounded rather erratic and fast.
She looked up at Andy. ‘Would you have a listen, too? It would be good to have another opinion.’ She dropped her voice. ‘His heart’s labouring a bit. Probably enlarged to try and cope with the normal volume of blood.’
After a minute he handed back her stethoscope and nodded at her. ‘Sounds as if Mr Lavin could do with some vasodilator drugs—they could reduce the workload, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It might help the oedema as well.’ She flicked a glance at the old man’s neck, noting the bulging neck veins and the swollen ankles over his old slippers. Bert had certainly deteriorated since she’d last visited him. ‘I’ll take some blood and do a full test for anaemia, and a urea and electrolyte test for kidney function.’
‘You’re nothing but a blinking vampire,’ grumbled the old man, watching as she put a tourniquet on his arm and drew some blood from his vein.
Rosie put a pad of cotton wool on the puncture point and bent his arm up to hold it firm.
‘Now, you’re not smoking, are you, Bert?’ she asked mock-sternly, neatly labelling the phials of blood she’d taken and folding her stethoscope. ‘You know it’s not good for your heart or your arteries.’
He looked stubbornly at her. ‘Can’t tell you a lie, Doc. I do have the odd pipe, but it’s the only blinking pleasure I get! No women or liquor to speak of now!’
She chuckled, but looked at him with compassion. ‘I’m sorry about that—but how are you feeling?’
He shrugged. ‘Bloody awful—too tired to blow the top of me beer, and I’ve got terrible indigestion. What’s causing that, do you think?’
She sat down on a little stool beside him. ‘Your heart’s not as efficient as it was, Bert, and that can cause a few uncomfortable problems. I’m going to write out a prescription for something that should help. I know you’re on quite a few drugs at the moment, including diuretics, but there are others that could reduce the workload on your heart.’
‘I can’t keep up with all these blessed pills,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m like a flaming rattle!’
Joan sighed. ‘He’ll never get to grips with the different medicines he’s on. I don’t think he’s taking the ones he’s got properly—I’m sure he’s getting mixed up with them all.’
‘Bert,’ Rosie said gently, ‘is there no possibility that you’d go to your daughter’s house for a few days even—just until you get used to the dosages of these drugs?’
He scowled. ‘I’m not leaving here. If I do, I’ll never come back! I was born here and I’ll die here, so don’t make me go!’
The two women looked at each other. Joan was plainly upset, seeing her father deteriorating, wanting to help, but frustrated that he wouldn’t accept that help.
‘If we solemnly promise that if you’ve improved over the next few weeks and got the hang of the medicines by then, you can come back—would you try it? Joan will get you into the routine of your medicines, and you might just consider that possibility of having a home help to take the worry off Joan’s mind when you come back here.’
Rosie’s voice was gentle—she knew the struggle that was going on in Bert’s mind. He was frightened of the future and what would happen to him if he left all the familiar things behind.
The old man sighed and looked up for a second at the ceiling. Then he looked at his daughter, brushing tears from her eyes, and nodded very slowly. ‘I don’t want to be a nuisance, you know,’ he growled. ‘Joan’s got her own life to lead, and there won’t be room for an old fellow like me.’
Joan knelt by her father and put her hand on his arm. Rosie guessed that they weren’t normally a very demonstrative family, but it was an emotional situation. ‘Oh, Dad,’ she said softly, ‘you know you’re never a nuisance. Come to me for a little while, please. It would be a nice rest for you, and I’d cook all your favourite things.’
‘You promise I can come back?’
‘Whenever you want.’
Bert leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘Well…just for a while, then. And I’ll be wanting to watch all the football, don’t forget.’ He turned sharply to Andy, watching by the doorway. ‘What do you think, Doc? Should I go?’
Andy moved forward and squatted down level with the old man. ‘I think you’d be very sensible to go to your daughter’s and be spoiled for a while, Mr Lavin!’
Andy turned the key in the ignition and the car sprang into life. He let it idle for a few minutes.
‘You did well there,’ he said quietly. ‘Not easy persuading someone to leave their home—even if it is for a little while.’
Rosie sighed. ‘Poor Bert—he’s such a plucky old soldier. I’m afraid he may not get back to his little house, even so. His heart’s not good, is it?’
Andy shook his head. ‘From his symptoms I’d say he’s got congestive cardiac failure—the indigestion he’s complaining of is probably due to back pressure in the circulation. I should think his liver’s enlarged and the other symptoms are part of the knock-on effect. Perhaps in the short term, staying with his daughter will give him some more time.’ Then he gave a short laugh. ‘Is Joan taking those great animals with her, do you think?’
‘Apparently a neighbour has been mad enough to say he’ll look after them!’
Suddenly they smiled at each other. Without realising it and through discussion of a patient, the frosty atmosphere between them had risen a few degrees. Andy swung the car into the road and flicked a look across at Rosie, a slightly penitent expression on his face.
‘Perhaps I was a bit harsh on you before…I’m sorry.’
‘Perhaps.’ Rosie’s voice was neutral. She wasn’t going to capitulate too much—she still felt wounded by his reference to Tony. How could she ever ‘obliterate’ her husband’s memory? It would take more than a casual apology for her to forg
et that.
Andy caught the restrained note in her voice and ran a hand roughly through his hair. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you—hell! I didn’t mean any of it! I suppose I felt put down, my pride rather dented. To be told our evening was a mere casual fling made it all seem a little cheap…tawdry.’
‘I’m sorry you thought that,’ she said evenly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be thought cheap.’
He sighed, then said harshly, ‘It wasn’t cheap—of course it wasn’t. It was bloody wonderful.’
With an abrupt movement he flicked the steering-wheel abruptly to the left and drew into a lay-by, stopping the car and unclicking his safety belt. Suddenly his hand was under her chin and he was lifting her face to his, holding her gaze with his burning blue eyes, so close to her that she could see the dark lashes fringing them. Rosie’s heart started to bang nervously against her ribs. He was too close, far too close for comfort!
‘You see, Rosie, I can’t believe that you thought we were just having a casual fling—I know that you aren’t that sort of girl. What we did meant more than that. There was electricity and fire between us—and something more besides.’
She felt his breath on her cheek, the clean male smell of him, and heat turned her insides to liquid as he came closer, those demanding lips tantalisingly near. Her thoughts and resolve began to dissolve far too rapidly. Every instinct in her screamed that she should twine her arms around him and start again where they’d left off the other night! Then a small but insistent voice hammered in her head, Be careful, Rosie—it would be too easy to fall for this man!
Rosie swallowed hard and twisted away from Andy slightly, furious with herself at her body’s treacherous response. She mustn’t—couldn’t—let things get out of hand.
‘Look,’ she said, a hint of desperation in her voice, ‘we’ve got to get back. I…I’m so glad we’ve someone to fill in for Roddy—and I’m glad it’s you, Andy. But if we’re going to be colleagues with a happy working relationship…well, you know as well as I do that sex and work don’t mix!’
Tempting Dr. Templeton Page 5
