Resisting Her English Doc

She turned, a look of incredulous thunder on her face. “You’ve already made it quite clear that I can dress by myself. I think I can just about manage to decide what to wear...”

He was getting there. One more push and she’d explode.

“I’ll let you get on, then. If I give you half an hour, will that be long enough for you to do your hair and make-up?”

He threw the words over his shoulder as he made for the door. Any woman in her right mind would find his attitude outrageous, and Rick was beginning to feel very guilty about the lengths he was going to in order to provoke a reaction from her.

He realized, too late, that turning his back on her wasn’t a good idea. Rick heard one of her crutches fall to the floor and when he looked round Fleur was reaching towards the dressing table that stood next to the wardrobe.

Nice throw!

A box of tissues came whizzing through the air, aimed straight at his head. Rick dodged, and the box thudded against the wall. Fleur reached for her next missile, her movements suddenly less stiff, more fluid.

He’d done what he’d come to do. As he closed the door hurriedly behind him, he heard the hairbrush clatter against it. He could hear Fleur muttering angrily and the wardrobe doors slamming shut. Then silence.

“That’s more of a reaction that we’ve had in the last few weeks.” Alex had been reviewing case notes with one of the nurses, and he’d walked over to the door. Rick wondered whether he might have gone a little too far.

“I don’t blame her. I was just about ready to throw something at myself...” Rick mouthed the words, sotto voce.

Both men inclined their heads toward the door, listening for any indication that Fleur might be in difficulties. Rick heard her curse and his hand moved instinctively to the door handle. Then her voice sounded again, not quite muffled enough to disguise the anger in it.

“One out of five for bedside manner, Dr. Fleming. And I think you’d look particularly fetching with a crutch wrapped around your head...”

Fleur had divined that he was outside, listening at the door. Both he and Alex instinctively took a step away from it.

“I take it you’ve read the health and safety at work policy we sent you?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I did. But she’ll have to catch me first, if she wants to do any real damage.” Rick gave a smile, as if to insinuate that wasn’t likely to happen. The thought of Fleur, alive with anger and taking a swing at him, made his heart beat a little faster. She would undoubtedly be magnificent.

“You haven’t been talking to Maggie, have you?” Alex did him the favor of interrupting his thoughts before he got carried away.

Maggie...? Rick remembered now. Maggie was the hydrotherapist, with red corkscrew curls. They’d been introduced during the tour of the clinic and the way that Alex and Maggie had seemed to be touching, even though they’d been standing a good two yards apart, had made Rick wonder if they were more than just colleagues. The memory of how it felt to be that close to someone had unsettled him a little.

“No. Should I have?”

“If Dr. Fleming wants to know about taking it to the limit, then Maggie’s the one to ask.” The murmured observation came from the nurse that Alex had been talking to, who had followed him over, clearly wondering what the doctors were doing with her patient.

“Yes, she is.” Alex seemed to be savoring the thought and then snapped suddenly back into professional mode. “I’d better be getting on. I’ll leave you to...continue. With whatever degree of caution you think appropriate.”

Rick watched Alex walk away, wondering whether his new boss entirely approved of his approach. When he turned to the nurse, she was smiling.

“Don’t worry. We all used to call Alex ‘Dr. Protocol’. Then Maggie widened his perspective.”

“You have nicknames for all the doctors?” Rick wondered whether he’d been given one yet.

“Just the ones we like.”

He’d better not ask, then. “I’d like you to keep this room under observation for a few minutes, please.”

The nurse raised her eyebrows. “You mean you want me to take over from you and listen at the door?”

“Just in case Miss Miller falls.”

“I don’t think she will. She’s pretty steady on her feet now, she doesn’t really need the crutches.”

Persuading Fleur to get rid of the crutches was already on Rick’s mental list. One thing at a time, though. “All the same, I’d feel better if you’re keeping an eye...ear open. I’ll be back in half an hour to...um...”

“Annoy her a bit more?” The nurse was smiling. “Okay, Doctor. Whatever you say.”

CHAPTER TWO (#u51b0865f-2d0c-52ad-8fad-da88745a9bfe)

FLEUR KNEW EXACTLY what he was up to. If Dr. Richard Fleming thought that he could make her care again, when everything she’d worked so hard for was lost, he had another think coming. She should be with her theater company, not here, cooling her heels and putting up with a doctor who thought he could have everything his own way.

The smile was a problem. Fleur’s plan, to do whatever she was told so she could get out of here as soon as possible and take the boat back to the mainland, hadn’t seemed in any danger, until he’d smiled. And when he’d layered frank disapproval on top of that, it had been too much for her.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got with herself. And the angrier she got with herself, the more she hated him.

That wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She’d play him at his own game, and show him that she was more than a match for him.

Rick returned to find the nurse still stationed at Fleur’s door. She nodded in response to his silent question, and Rick knocked quietly. No answer.

If that was the way she wanted to play it... Rick gestured to the nurse and she opened the door a little way, looking into the room. Then she withdrew, motioning him in. Fleur was sitting on the chair next to her bed, a pair of wireless earbuds in her ears. Rick could hear the quiet shh-shh of music.

He wondered if it was the music that had restored the glow to her face. Fleur had changed into a pair of blue sweatpants teamed with a knitted top, the wide neck falling by design from one shoulder. Her hair was caught in a loose, shiny tumble by a colored scarf and her already luminous eyes looked bluer and implausibly bigger. She was stunning.

Something told Rick that Fleur was fighting back. And the thought that he’d crawl over broken glass for one of her smiles told him that she was already winning.

She took the earbuds from her ears, leaning across to tap her phone and switch off the music. “We’re going for a walk, then?”

“Yes.” The less he said at this point, the better. He’d get over the feeling that Fleur could do whatever she liked, whenever she liked, and then he could start applying a bit more pressure.

“Good.” She flashed him a smile and his knees started to shake. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I get it. Alex and Cody are playing the nice doctors. You get to play nasty doctor.”

She was onto him. Rick had expected nothing less of her, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He could still say the things that had tactfully not been mentioned so far, and he could still challenge her.

“What makes you think I’m playing nasty. Maybe that’s just how I do things.”

She reached for the crutches and got to her feet, her speculative gaze never leaving his face. “Maybe it is. I’m a big fan of old black and white horror movies, so that accent of yours is throwing me a bit.”

Rick was willing his facial muscles not to respond to her smile, but it was a losing battle. “So I sound like an old Hammer Horror movie to you, do I?”

“A little. The spooky Count Dracula, with a cut-glass accent. Living in a dark old stately home.”

She was taking him apart, piece by piece. This was much more difficult than dodging whatever she cared to throw at him. If he wanted to reach her, he’d have to give more of himself than he felt entirely comfortable with, but he was going to reach her.