A Medical Liaison

As if in protest at her thoughts, her stomach gave a loud rumble. Lunch had been a hurried sandwich and a coffee in a motorway service station. Naturally slim, never having to diet, she could not, however, imagine surviving without anything more to eat until the morning.

So she had but two options—she could either wander around this unfamiliar hospital in the dark in search of a meal which she could not even guarantee being able to get at this time of night. Or she could be sensible and* ask Adam Forrester to loan her something until the morning.

So why did she recoil from the most sensible option? Was it because Dr Forrester had already had the most strange effect on her normally unruffable composure?

She stood up, stretching slowly. It was of no matter—she would do the most practical thing and go and ask him.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she clicked off the desk lamp. She had stupidly sat down to study in her grey suit, and the narrow skirt looked crumpled. It would need pressing before she could wear it for work.

She pulled the jacket and the skirt off, and the white silky shirt which she wore underneath—and pulled a pair of old jeans from out of the drawer. Some colours were difficult to wear with her pale skin, but the jade-green angora sweater she pulled over the dark red hair suited her perfectly, while the casual clothes had the effect of making her appear even younger, and much softer.

She let herself quietly out of her room, listening out for him, but the sitting-room and the kitchen were empty. She could see light shining from the crack underneath his door and so, rather reluctantly, she raised her fist and tapped twice.

There was no reply and it occurred to her that he might actually be ignoring her—but surely he wouldn’t be so childish? She raised her hand to knock for the last time when the door was flung open and he stood there, staring down at her with what looked like his habitual impatient expression.

He too had changed into jeans, and had removed the thick jumper he’d been wearing—instead he had on a thin shirt, unbuttoned at the neck and showing a great deal of very dark hair on his chest. And his feet were bare. She found herself staring at them.

‘Yes? What is it?’ he demanded perfunctorily.

There was nothing of his earlier manner about him now, his attitude was brisk and businesslike, almost as if they had never spoken before.

‘I’m afraid I’ve been working and didn’t realise it had got so late,’ she began, attempting to give him a pleasant smile.

‘Get to the point, will you?’

She bit back an angry retort to his rudeness—she was, after all, asking him a favour!

‘I’m very hungry, and think I must have missed the canteen—and wondered if you’d lend me something to eat? I could repay you tomorrow.’

There was something so very un-English about asking for favours, particularly from a comparative stranger, she thought, interpreting his frown as one of irritation at her request.

He looked at his watch. ‘Yes, you will have missed supper.’

Behind him she could see into his room—a replica of her own—but it shared none of the untidiness of the sitting-room she had seen earlier. She wondered who he had been sharing a meal with.

She could see everything neatly arranged, the bed smooth, books in neat lines on the shelves, and, judging from the light at his desk and the open books, he too had been studying.

‘There isn’t anything very much,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I was planning to make myself an omelette—you’re welcome to share that if you like.’

She had definitely not anticipated dining with him, but she couldn’t really insist on taking his food and then eating it in the privacy of her own room!

Instead she nodded. ‘An omelette will be fine, thanks.’

She stood there for a moment hesitantly, and he must have taken the hint because he closed his door and led the way through into the kitchen.

‘Do you want me to do anything?’ she asked.

‘I think I can just about manage an omelette,’ he said sarcastically.

What a bad-tempered man he was, she thought as she sat down at the kitchen table, tucking her slim legs underneath. She would much rather he had given her the eggs and she could have cooked for herself after he had finished. It seemed a bit of a farce to eat a meal together when he obviously couldn’t stand the sight of her.

She watched as he cracked the eggs into a glass bowl, and beat them with milk and salt and pepper.

‘Cheese OK for you?’

She nodded. ‘Thanks.’

He was certainly very organised—he melted butter in the pan and swirled the mixture on to it like a past master of the art, even browning the omelette under the grill so that it puffed up to twice its size.

When he placed the plate before her she smiled up at him—however crotchety he was, her stomach was certainly grateful!

He reached down into the bottom shelf of the fridge.

‘Do you want a beer?’

In fact she rarely drank much at all, but the hassle of requesting a cup of coffee from someone so unforthcoming was too much to contemplate.

‘Yes, please.’

He poured her out a glass of lager, and sitting down at the table opposite her, drank his own straight from the can. She sipped thirstily in between mouthfuls of omelette and brown bread.

She finished her meal to find that his own was scarcely touched, and he was regarding her with almost a glint of amusement in his eyes.

‘Why, you’ve hardly eaten any of yours!’ she exclaimed. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

He actually smiled at her! ‘Not as hungry as you were, obviously! Do you want something else? Yoghurt? Fruit?’

She finished off the last of her beer. ‘No, thanks—that was plenty. I might just make a cup of coffee in the morning—if that’s all right?’

He indicated a cupboard by the cooker. ‘Sure. It’s all in there. Help yourself.’

She stood up a little unsteadily; the glass of unaccustomed alcohol on a virtually empty stomach had affected her more than it should have done.

She cleared her throat, and the icy turquoise eyes glanced at her questioningly.

‘I’m sorry there’s been this mix-up,’ she babbled. ‘I’ll come and collect my things tomorrow, when they find me somewhere else.’

He gave her the faintest of smiles and she could have kicked herself—she hadn’t meant it to sound as if she was apologising for being here. She paused in the doorway, the beer seeming to have given her an uncontrollable urge to talk.

‘I don’t expect you are very hungry.’ She smiled, remembering the dishes she had washed up on her arrival. ‘It looked a delicious bolognese sauce!’

What had she said to offend him? He looked absolutely furious. He stood up suddenly and stared at her as witheringly as if she had been some small mollusc on the floor in front of him.

‘How like a woman,’ he muttered in disgust. ‘Even when there’s nothing to say, she’ll always come out with some meaningless babble. What is it they say about empty vessels?’

She stared at him, speechless for a moment. She had never in her life been spoken to in such a rude, dismissive manner by a virtual stranger. What God-given right did this man have to behave in such an unpleasant way?

She regarded him coldly, suddenly completely sober again.