A Consultant Beyond Compare

by Joanna Neil

  ‘You know that’s not true. She loves you.’ Even so, Katie had to acknowledge that her mother had never coped well with any form of stress, and it wasn’t hard for her to imagine what Jessica was going through.

  She washed her hands at the sink and started to prepare a light meal for the two of them, but all the time she was busy turning over all the options in her mind. It was a difficult situation, but she couldn’t help feeling that her sister needed a breathing space, time to gather up her defences and allow her to face up to the world once more.

  ‘You can stay here for a few days at least,’ she told her, ‘maybe even a couple of weeks, while we work out what we’re going to do. I’ll do what I can to square things with Mum and Dad.’

  She knew it wasn’t quite what Jessica had been hoping for, but the girl nodded and gave her a relieved smile. ‘Thanks, Katie. I’ll show you how good I can be, and then perhaps you’ll let me stay for longer.’ Her gaze was pleading and Katie hugged her once more.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you where the second bedroom is and, if you like, you can put your things away in there while I finish making supper.’

  An hour or so later, they were sitting down to eat at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. Katie frowned. ‘I can’t think who that would be,’ she murmured, getting to her feet. ‘You go on with your meal,’ she told Jessica, who stood up as though to go with her.

  ‘It wouldn’t be Mum or Dad, would it?’ Jessica’s expression was apprehensive. ‘You said they agreed to let me stay when they rang back earlier. Do you think they might have changed their minds?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if it is them, I’ll sort it out, don’t worry.’

  When she opened the front door, though, she was startled to see the man who was standing in her porch. He was gazing around at the old stonework and casting a glance over the rough stone wall that edged the property.

  ‘Alex?’ She stared at him. ‘What are you doing here? How did you find me?’ He had changed out of the business suit and now he was wearing casual clothes, dark trousers and a jacket that was open to reveal a cool cotton shirt in a shade of blue-grey that matched his eyes. She dragged her gaze away from his rangy body and looked up at him once more, trying to cover her discomfiture.

  ‘I asked Jessica for your address when we were at the café. I wanted to make sure that I was making a safe handover.’

  Katie frowned. ‘Is that why you’re here? Do you think I might be mistreating her in some way?’ Even the thought that he might doubt her in some way was enough to bring an affronted glare to her blue eyes.

  His mouth twisted in the semblance of a smile. ‘Are you always this touchy?’ He looked her over as though she might give him a resounding agreement to that statement, and her eyes narrowed on him.

  ‘Not usually.’ She sighed and stood back, waving him into the cramped hallway. ‘I’m having a bad day.’ Running a hand through the tangle of her long, chestnut curls, she indicated the far door, which led into the kitchen. ‘Come in, won’t you? I apologise for my bad manners. I’m really not myself today.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He stepped inside the house and looked around, taking in the low ceiling and the narrow passageway. Katie hoped he hadn’t noticed the spot in the far corner where the paint was peeling from the wall. Through a doorway to one side of the hall the living room was visible, and it was possible to glimpse from there the overgrown garden through the French doors. ‘This is cosy,’ he murmured. ‘Have you lived here for long?’

  ‘Um…a couple of months. I’m still decorating and trying to make the place my own, but I’ve been busy and I’ve had to make choices about where to start.’

  He nodded. ‘I guess it isn’t easy when you’re working.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘Though by all accounts that won’t be much of a problem from now on, will it?’

  Katie gave a shrug. ‘I’ve already had a quick skim through the job vacancy columns in the newspaper. Apparently they need someone in the rehab unit at the local hospital. That would be a start, I suppose.’

  ‘But it would also be a complete waste of your talents. You’re a doctor. You should be using the medical skills you acquired after all those years of training.’

  Perhaps he had a point there, but Katie wasn’t in the mood to be judged and found wanting. She stiffened. ‘I don’t see why that should concern you.’ She pushed open the kitchen door and ushered him through.

  Jessica was sitting at the table at the far end of the room, her fork poised in her hand, but she laid it down on her plate and blinked as Alex walked into the room.

  ‘Alex?’ Her face lit up in a shy smile. ‘You found me? I didn’t think we would see you again so soon.’

  ‘No, it is sooner than expected, I must agree with you there. I’m glad that you seem to have settled back in here without too much upset.’ He sent a quick glance around the room. ‘It’s homely in here, very clean and cheerful.’

  Katie had placed a bowl of roses on the worktop, and she had set out groups of fine glassware and ceramics at intervals on shelves around the room. It wasn’t much, but it made the difference between what might have been purely a functional kitchen and what she considered to be the heart of the home. What had he been expecting, something austere and unwelcoming?

  She sent him a dark, cynical glance. ‘See? She’s perfectly well. I haven’t locked her in a cupboard or banished her to bed without so much as a bowl of gruel, if that’s what you were thinking.’ Her mouth made a derisive slant. ‘Are you satisfied now that you’ve seen for yourself that she’s all right?’

  He turned, his grey-blue gaze homing in on her. ‘Actually, that isn’t the reason I’m here.’

  ‘Oh.’ Katie swallowed hard. Perhaps riling him wasn’t such a good idea after all. He had done nothing but help out today, and she was beginning to sound like an ungrateful harridan. That wasn’t at all like her, and she couldn’t for an instant fathom why he should be having this effect on her. Perhaps this awful day was beginning to get to her. She said slowly, ‘It wasn’t?’

  He shook his head and reached inside his jacket pocket. ‘When I cleared up the equipment after we had helped the man by the roadside, I must have accidentally scooped up your notebooks. I found this when I restocked my medical bag. There are some addresses and phone numbers in there, and I thought perhaps you might need it.’ He handed over the small leather case.

  ‘Oh, I…uh…Thank you.’ Katie tried to accept it with good grace. ‘It must have dropped out of my bag when I was looking for my phone. I thought I had put everything back.’ He was wrong-footing her at every turn, and she found herself wishing for all the world that she could rewind the day and start over again. Maybe she would do things differently, given the chance.

  She flicked through the pages of the small notebook. ‘I’m so glad that you brought this back to me. I would have been lost without it.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He nodded to Jessica and then turned, as though he was getting ready to leave, causing Jessica to raise her brows behind his back and gesticulate wildly to Katie as though she was wrong to let him escape. When Katie didn’t react, Jessica shook her head, and obviously thought she was a hopeless case.

  Katie frowned. Then, just in time, she recovered herself and said quickly, ‘Do you have to go right now? I think Jess would be glad of the chance to talk to you for a while, and there’s some tea in the pot. You could help yourself to some supper, too, if you like. There’s plenty left.’ She drifted a hand over the tabletop. ‘I made too much pizza, and there’s plenty of salad, if you would like some. Please, sit down and help yourself. I expect you’ve been too busy these last few hours to think about food.’

  He seemed to hesitate, but only for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I must say it’s been a while since I’ve eaten, and this does look good.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down, then frowned at the triangular segments of the pizza. ‘Did you really make this yourself?’

  Did he have to d
oubt everything about her? Katie bit back a withering retort and managed to send him a sweet smile instead. ‘Yes, I did. It isn’t all that difficult, you know.’

  He bit off a corner section, savouring the combined flavours of melted cheese, tomato and herbs, and gave her a quizzical look in return. Perhaps he had decided to ignore the underlying thread of sarcasm in her voice, because he concentrated instead on finishing off his food while parrying questions from Jessica.

  He circumvented the more personal queries, but answered others. She wanted to know what exactly he did at the hospital, and what his meeting would have been about if he had managed to get to it in time.

  ‘I’m in charge of the A and E department at South Lake,’ he told her. ‘I started off there as a registrar, but now I’ve moved up the ladder and I’m a consultant. I’d like to progress even further, and perhaps take charge of a bigger unit, but that all depends on how I get on in this post. I have to go to lots of meetings so that I can keep in touch with what’s going on in other hospitals in the area.’

  Jessica was enthralled and, considering that she had been his reluctant detainee earlier, that said something about the man’s charisma.

  Katie poured tea and handed him a cup. ‘How is the man we found at the side of the road doing? Have they managed to stabilise his condition?’ She chose her words carefully, because she didn’t want to upset Jessica in any way, and perhaps he realised that, as he answered in a fairly guarded manner.

  ‘When I left, they were taking him along to Intensive Care. They found the source of his internal injuries and he went to Theatre to have that put right. It’s going to be a question of time now more than anything. Time for him to heal, and for the swelling around his brain to ease.’

  Katie’s gaze was troubled. It didn’t sound too good, but at least she felt that they had done all they could for the man. ‘I dread to think what would have happened if we had just driven past him. It’s all because of Jessica that we stopped to investigate in the first place.’

  He nodded. ‘You did really well,’ he said, giving the young girl an encouraging smile. It was a smile that lit up his face and gave Katie a glimpse of features that she had not noticed before now. His mouth was perfectly formed, she saw, his teeth were straight and gleaming like pearls, and his eyes were pure heaven, filled with dancing lights that would have sparked any woman’s dreams to flame.

  She brought herself back to reality with a jerk. What was she thinking? How could she allow herself to even contemplate falling for any man, let alone this one? He was nothing if not sceptical of her, and here she was, slipping into a well of elusive imaginings about him. What was wrong with her? Emotions, especially those between men and women, from her experience, were fragile things, as light and insubstantial as mist. Trust in them and you could be hurt. She had to get a grip.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said, wiping his fingers on a paper serviette and unfolding himself from his chair. ‘It’s getting late and there’s still a lot I have to do before morning.’ He said goodbye to Jessica, who beamed him a smile in return.

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ Katie murmured. Her pulses were pounding and she had a fight on her hands to bring them under control. This was madness. She didn’t even like the man. She didn’t know him, for heaven’s sake, so why on earth was she getting herself into a fever over him?

  ‘Thanks for the supper. It was delicious, and exactly what I needed.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. Thank you for returning my notebook.’

  They walked out into the hallway and he stopped at the door and looked directly into her eyes. ‘Will you reconsider coming to work with me?’

  She shook her head. ‘No…I’m sorry, but I can’t. I need a break from medicine. It’s too frantic, too harrowing. I don’t want to go there.’

  He looked at her oddly. ‘I think you’re making a big mistake. Whatever it was that made you doubt yourself, you need to get back in there. Face up to your demons and stop them from getting the upper hand.’

  ‘I don’t have any demons. I just need a change.’ What did he know about it? Facing up to the traumas of the past was much easier said than done, wasn’t it? She saw him to the door. ‘Goodbye, Alex,’ she murmured.

  ‘Goodbye?’ He gave her a slight smile. ‘We’ll see.’ He inclined his head to her and then went out of the door, walking briskly along the path to where he had parked his car at the roadside.

  Katie’s brow furrowed. We’ll see? What was that supposed to mean?

  Over the week that followed, she spent time with Jessica and did what she could to help her sister forget the problems at home. She signed her up for supervised activity sessions so that she would be able to mix with people of her own age.

  Was she doing the right thing? At the back of her mind she knew that she couldn’t allow the situation to drift for ever. There were decisions to be made, and above all she had to find herself a job.

  ‘Are you going to try for the post in rehab?’ Jessica asked as they were clearing up the breakfast dishes one morning. ‘You said you were comfortable with that kind of work, didn’t you?’

  Katie nodded. ‘I have an interview lined up for later on this morning at the hospital. I’ll drop you off at the arts and crafts centre and pick you up on my way home.’

  ‘OK.’ Jessica seemed happy enough with the arrangement, and Katie was glad about that because it made her more settled in her mind about leaving her.

  At the hospital, though, the job she was applying for wasn’t exactly what she had envisaged.

  ‘We should have said in the advertisement that it was only part time,’ the woman who headed up the unit advised her. ‘Sorry, but there was a problem at the printers, and the hours weren’t stated correctly when the advert went out. It would actually be just a couple of hours a day, and it wouldn’t involve any kind of therapeutic involvement with the patients. It’s more to do with assessing the welfare of the individual and sorting out any problems they might be having during their stay with us.’

  Katie tried not to show her disappointment. It was proving more difficult than she had envisaged to find work that would be satisfying and at the same time enable her to keep up with the mortgage repayments. This was a blow, but she wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel yet. Maybe something would turn up.

  In the meantime, as she was already at the hospital, she could at least go and ask after the man from the road accident.

  ‘He’s out of Intensive Care,’ the desk clerk told her, ‘but they’ve transferred him to a side ward so that he can be monitored for a week or so.’

  Katie made her way to the ward, not knowing quite what to expect. Perhaps she would simply introduce herself, check that he was getting along all right, and then leave.

  ‘I thought you might be coming along to see our patient.’ A familiar, deep voice sounded in her ear just as she was hesitating at the door to the ward, and she turned to see Alex coming towards her from the nurses’ station. ‘He’s doing fine. There was some damage to his spleen, along with everything else, but they operated, and now he’s recovering well.’

  Katie stared at him, the breath catching in her lungs. ‘You were expecting me?’

  He nodded. ‘I knew that the rehab interviews were taking place today, and I guessed that you might come along here afterwards.’

  ‘I might not have given it a thought.’

  He shook his head. ‘You saved his life, and then you rang the hospital afterwards to see how he was doing. The nurses told me that you had been enquiring after him. I knew that you wouldn’t be satisfied until you heard that he was properly on the mend.’

  Her brows lifted. ‘You seem to know more about me than I do myself.’

  He gave a faint chuckle. ‘Not really, but I just have this feeling that your emotions run deep. There’s a lot you keep hidden, and that makes you hard to read, but I dare say I’ll get there one of these days.’

  ‘I can’t think why you would want to bother.’ She fr
owned. ‘Aren’t we simply ships that pass in the night?’

  He was thoughtful for a moment, his eyes darkening. ‘I don’t believe that. We’ve met somewhere before, you and I, I’m sure of it. I just can’t quite put my finger on the time and place. The name Sorenson doesn’t ring a bell either, but I’ve no doubt I’ll work it out at some point.’

  His glance drifted over her, taking in the neatly tailored suit she was wearing, the skirt that clung faithfully to her hips and the jacket that nipped in at her narrow waist. His gaze shimmered over her long legs and the stilettos that complemented the outfit, before coming back to her face. ‘You’d have thought it was impossible for me to forget someone who looks the way you do…beautiful copper-coloured hair, eyes like jewels, a perfect figure.’ He gave his head a shake as though to clear it. ‘It’ll come back to me.’

  Katie’s mouth had dropped open, but now she clamped it shut. Did he really think she looked good? Why did that matter to her? Even so, she couldn’t suppress the warm ripple of pleasure that ran through her at his words. Except for that last remark, because, like him, she still had the feeling that they had met somewhere before. But where?

  She cast the thought from her mind. ‘Perhaps I should get on. Were you on your way to see the patient? I don’t want to intrude in any way.’

  ‘We’ll go in and see him together, if you like.’

  She nodded. It would probably be easier with both of them visiting. They were all strangers to one another, with one common link—the accident.

  ‘I’m glad you’re both here,’ Matt Johnson said once introductions had been made. He was sitting up in bed, looking very different from how he had appeared just over a week ago. His eyes were bright and alert, and he had colour in his cheeks. ‘I wanted to thank you for everything that you did for me. They told me I might have died if it hadn’t been for you two. I’m really very grateful to you both.’