A Family Of Their Own

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5e8f6221-0377-506c-af21-54d30971c78a)

‘IF YOU could just wait a moment…’

Leanne bit back a sigh when she saw the lack of comprehension on the young woman’s face. So far all she had managed to establish was that the patient’s name was Chantal Dupré and that she was from Paris. Why Chantal needed to see a doctor was something she still had to find out.

Dredging her mind, Leanne summoned up a few words of school French. ‘Un moment, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle.’

Leaving the young woman sitting in Reception, she hurried off in search of Melanie, hoping that she might be able to help her solve the problem. After Nick Slater had finished giving her a tour of the clinic, he had asked her if she would take over the reception duties.

She’d been a little surprised by the request until he had explained that it helped to have someone medically trained greeting the patients on their arrival, to act as triage nurse. Minor ailments could be passed to one of the nursing staff, more serious matters referred to a doctor and any urgent cases could be rushed straight through.

It had been a gentle introduction to the work carried out at the clinic and she’d rather enjoyed it until she had encountered the problem of a patient who spoke no English. She spotted Melanie coming out of one of the treatment rooms and greeted her with relief.

‘How’s your French? I’ve got a woman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English and I’m stuck.’

‘Nick’s your man. He speaks French, Spanish, Italian, plus a smattering of umpteen other languages,’ Melanie told her cheerfully. ‘He’s in his office so give him a shout.’

‘Thanks,’ Leanne murmured as Melanie escorted her patient out. She made her way to Nick’s office and knocked on the door, refusing to think about what had happened a couple of hours earlier. Actually getting down to some work had helped enormously to calm her nerves, although she had to confess to a sudden attack of the jitters when she heard Nick inviting her in. She bit back a sigh. Whichever way she looked at it, her reaction to Nick Slater was very strange.

It was hardly the most comforting of thoughts so she did her best to put it out of her mind as she entered the room. Nick was at his desk and he looked up with an abstracted smile.

‘Problems?’

‘Kind of. I have a Frenchwoman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English. Melanie said that you speak French…’

‘So you want me to translate for you?’ He took off the rimless glasses he was wearing and tossed them on the desk then grinned at her. ‘It will be a pleasure. Anything to get away from this wretched paperwork!’

Leanne laughed softly but she couldn’t deny that her heart had given an uncomfortable little thump when he had smiled at her. ‘You’d think things would have got easier since computers came on the scene, but it hasn’t made much difference, I’ve found.’

‘You and me both,’ he agreed, easing himself out of the chair and groaning. ‘I’ve only been working on this wretched report for a couple of hours but it feels like a lifetime. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being stuck behind a desk.’

‘One of the hazards of the job, I would have thought,’ she observed. ‘Most GPs end up spending a lot of their time desk-bound.’

‘Which is yet another reason why I’m glad that I decided not to join the family firm,’ he responded, making for the door.

Leanne frowned as she followed him into the corridor. ‘Family firm? What do you mean?’

‘My mother and father are both GPs, although Mum only works a couple of days a week now, covering the post- and antenatal clinics. My older brother Patrick works with them and my sister Helen was the practice nurse at the surgery until she had her youngest child and found it was too much for her. Benjie is her fourth,’ he explained dryly. ‘So I think she deserves a bit of time off, don’t you?’

‘I most certainly do,’ she exclaimed. ‘Four children are a lot to cope with. But it’s amazing that your whole family works together like that. It must be marvellous for them.’

‘Depends on what you want from life, I suppose,’ he said shortly.

Leanne looked at him curiously. ‘Meaning that it isn’t what you want?’

‘No. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life stuck in Sussex. There’s too much of the world I haven’t seen yet.’

‘You’ll have to settle down one day,’ she protested.

‘Why? There’s no rule that says you have to stay put in one place.’

His tone was harsh and she had the feeling that he was annoyed, but why? Because of what she’d said or because of something that had happened in his past?

She had no time to work it out, however, because they had arrived at Reception by then. Nick went straight to the young Frenchwoman and briefly conferred with her then drew Leanne forward.

‘Mademoiselle Dupré needs emergency contraception. Can you deal with it?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed at once. ‘How long ago was it that she had unprotected sex?’

‘Last night so there shouldn’t be a problem. As you know, the tablets need to be taken within seventy-two hours of intercourse taking place.’

He glanced round when the door opened and another patient came in. ‘Why don’t you take Mademoiselle Dupré into one of the treatment rooms and fill in all the details on her card? I’ll leave it to you to administer the drugs. You can sign for them at the pharmacy.

‘I’ll have another word with her before she leaves and make sure that she understands what she has to do. Melanie can take over the desk again now that she’s finished with her patient.’

‘Fine,’ Leanne agreed immediately. She smiled at the young Frenchwoman, signalling that she should follow her. Opening the door to one of the immaculately furnished treatment rooms, she indicated that Chantal should wait there while she fetched the medication.

Emergency contraception—commonly called the morning-after pill—consisted of two high-dose oral contraceptive pills taken as soon as possible after intercourse. They were followed twelve hours later by a further two pills. Although the treatment wasn’t one hundred per cent guaranteed to work, it was effective in most cases.

Nick would explain to Chantal Dupré that, if she missed her next period, she would need to take a pregnancy test in a month’s time, just to be certain, Leanne thought as she signed for the tablets. The poor woman obviously wouldn’t be pleased to discover that she was pregnant after she had taken steps to avoid it.

She sighed as she made her way back to the treatment room. Had her own birth mother been dismayed when she had found out that she was pregnant? She must have been otherwise she would never have given her daughter up for adoption.

It made Leanne wonder if her friends had been right and if she was making a mistake by trying to track down the woman who had given her away. After all, her adoptive parents had given her all the love she could possibly have needed, so was it wise to go raking up the past when she might be disappointed by what she discovered? Maybe she had always longed for brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, but there was no guarantee that she would have much in common with them if she did find them. Nick had obviously made a conscious decision to escape the ties of his family.

That thought made her frown. Maybe she was reading too much into the situation, but she had a feeling that there was a reason why he had cut himself off like that and that it hadn’t been just a desire to travel either. What had happened to make Nick decide to leave his family?

For some reason it seemed important that she find out.

‘Merci, mademoiselle. Au revoir.’

Nick closed the door after Chantal Dupré finally left then glanced at his watch. The woman had been so delighted to find someone who could understand her that she had kept him talking. He was very aware that the report he needed to submit was lying on his desk, half-finished. Even though he loathed paperwork, he usually got down to it, but it seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time that day. The trouble was that his mind kept skipping off at tangents all the time.

He squared his shoulders, refusing to let himself be sidetracked again. He had spent enough time thinking about Leanne Russell for one day. He hurried back to his office but he had barely sat down when there was a knock on the door and Robert Ashford, one of the duty doctors, poked his head into the room.

‘Sorry to bother you, Nick, but I’ve got a guy with me I’d like you to take a look at.’

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, immediately getting up.

Robert was from Tennessee and he was spending six months in the UK before he took up a residency at a hospital in his home town. Nick had found him to be extremely competent and didn’t doubt that there was a genuine problem if Robert had seen fit to ask for his opinion.

‘It’s very vague—fever, lassitude, quite noticeable enlargement of the glands in his neck.’ Robert shrugged. ‘He’s obviously unwell, there’s no doubt about that, but I can’t put my finger on the problem.’

‘Have you ordered blood tests?’ Nick asked, accompanying him from the room.

‘Yessiree. I’m waiting on the lab. They’ve promised to get back to me a.s.a.p. I just thought it might help if you had a look in case I’ve missed something,’ Robert replied laconically.

Nick nodded. ‘Fine by me.’