Seize The Day

Jenny managed a small glimmer of a smile, and shook her head emphatically. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sonia. I’m not going anywhere.’

Sonia appeared gratified by this. ‘And you’re sure you’re up to a late duty?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jenny with more conviction than she felt. But she could think of nothing worse than retracing her steps to her small cottage, to sit alone and in silence while her mind tried to grasp the enormity of what had happened—that Harry Marlow was dead, and that Judy Collins had been driven away by his replacement. She felt as if all the carefully arranged order and calm of her life was slipping into utter chaos and disarray. She felt like a holidaymaker who saw glorious sand beckoning, and then stood in fear as she realised that it was quicksand.

She clip-clopped her way back to the ward in her neat, shiny black shoes, her slim legs in the sheer black tights. She held her head high, her neck long and elegant, the frilly cap perched neatly on top of the thick, glossy hair and she was oblivious to the admiring glances cast at her by an elderly woman who was visiting her husband.

Inside, however, she felt far from serene, and as she approached Rose Ward she hesitated very slightly. Should she have Dr Trentham bleeped and confront him now? Or better to wait until her anger had subsided and she was more in control of her feelings? And besides, wasn’t unity the most important thing at the moment? She must gather her staff around her now, show all the girls that she was still in charge, that things were going to be all right, and that they could slip back into their trusted and familiar pattern.

She would carry on as normal. She would take a report from the agency staff nurse and then send the morning staff to lunch. She would wait until they returned before giving a full report to the three staff who would be with her this evening, and in the meantime she would go round and see all the patients, check the progress of the ones she knew, and acquaint herself thoroughly with any new ones. And she would give Mrs Jessop her bag of oranges.

She could hear the murmur of voices as she approached her office, and as she drew nearer she could hear that one was most definitely masculine—gravelly and deep—a voice which stirred a vague memory. She stood in the open doorway of her office, watching for a moment. The agency staff nurse was being shown a chart by a man who was obviously a doctor, since he wore a white coat, and Jenny could see the clutter of a bleeper and a stethoscope protruding from one pocket.

All she had time to notice was how wide and powerful his shoulders looked, how tall and just how much bigger he seemed than the sprightly Dr Marlow. Her lip curled very slightly as she observed the dark hair which curled untidily on to the collar of his white coat.

She drew in a deep breath. She wanted her words to him to be biting, and cutting—she could never remember feeling such a raw kind of anger towards someone she didn’t even know. They must have heard her, for they both turned round, the pale staff nurse giving her a kind of non-committal smile again.

And it took some moments for it to register why her heart was thudding away like some primitive drum, why anger and scorn had metamorphosed into total shock.

For no wonder that the deep voice had stirred a memory, because this was no stranger. Nut-brown eyes and untidy hair. The legs were no longer encased in tight fading denim—they now wore dark cords, and these, together with the snowy-white coat he wore, had the effect of making him seem almost presentable.

Her shock was so great that she was unable to tell from his face just what his own reaction to seeing her again was.

Stupidly, she recalled his suggestive comment about stockings, and that became the final straw. The gamut of shocks which she’d had in quick succession since she’d come to work that day proved too much.

She was a fit, healthy young woman, but she knew what was about to happen to her. The strange rushing and hissing sound in her ears; the blurring and retreating of the shapes which stood before her. It had happened to her only once before in her life, and she had been fourteen then.

As her eyes stared at Leo Trentham’s name-badge, she felt her knees buckle beneath her, and, slipping to the cold floor, she fainted.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_7f47f445-1efa-5625-b7b3-921254db1379)

IT SEEMED the whole hospital had become a theatre, the floor of Rose Ward the stage. Coming round was exactly like the fainting attack in reverse. Jenny saw a blurred figure, which cleared, then retreated.

She awoke to find herself lying on the office floor, fine beads of sweat on her brow, the top buttons of her uniform dress undone—and Leo Trentham crouched down next to her, his solicitous expression clearing as he watched her eyelids flutter open.

‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve often had a dramatic effect on women, but that’s a one-off, I must say!’

‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she snapped, and tried to sit up, but couldn’t manage it, and, feeling as weak as a kitten, flopped down again.

‘Stay there!’ he commanded, and without further ado he lifted both her feet with one hand, and held them suspended in the air.

‘Take your hands off me!’ she cried, but he did no such thing, a look of amusement merely crinkling the corners of his eyes.

‘Don’t be so melodramatic, woman! Your blood-pressure has dropped into your boots; I’m merely trying to restore your equilibrium.’

The last person in the world to do that, she thought furiously, closing her eyes briefly as she felt her strength returning. When she opened them again she saw that he was staring at her curiously.

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

She could have sunk her teeth into one of the strong brown hands. ‘How dare you?’ she demanded icily. ‘I’m not married!’

He gave a low chuckle. ‘What a refreshingly innocent remark for the nineties,’ he commented. ‘It may have escaped your notice that a wedding-ring isn’t necessary for that particular act of nature to take place these days.’

‘It is—round here, anyway,’ she muttered. ‘Now, are you going to put my feet down—or am I going to have to scream for help?’

‘Scream away,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘When they come running to see what’s wrong I shall simply tell them that you’re hysterical, and they’ll believe me. I am the doctor, after all!’

‘You’re not my doctor,’ she retorted.

‘On the contrary,’ he fielded smoothly. ’You’re a member of staff who has passed out on hospital premises. As I am the resident doctor, you therefore come under my responsibility. Even if you climbed into a wheelchair and got yourself taken down to Casualty, it’s still me you’d have to see. So shut up for a minute and try sitting up, but leaning against my arm.’

What choice did she have? She had never felt more helpless or more filled with rage in her entire life. And then, as she started to feel normal again, she remembered just why he was here, and why she had passed out like an idiot. Dr Marlow was dead. She stifled a small sniff with difficulty.

‘Hey,’ he said in a ridiculously gentle voice, lifting her chin up very carefully. ‘Are you OK?’

She stared at him, the green eyes suspiciously bright, thinking that she was at a disadvantage sitting on the floor, her head against his arm, her long legs sprawled in front of her. She was in no position to give the overbearing Dr Leo Trentham a piece of her mind.

‘I would be,’ she said coldly, ‘if you’d help me up and into that chair.’

She hated having to be dependent on his strength as he half picked her up and deposited her into her chair behind the desk. She simply must snap out of this lethargy which had followed her faint. She still had a ward to run, a long shift to get through and this man to deal with.

‘I’ve sent Staff Nurse off for some iced water,’ he explained, and just then the pale blonde returned, in her hand a polystyrene cup which he took from her and handed to Jenny.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Drink it,’ he ordered, and watched until she had sipped almost half of it.

She put the cup down shakily. ‘Thank you, Staff. Would you mind telling the evening staff to carry on as normal, that I’ll be out in just a moment? And could you and the rest of the morning staff go to lunch now?’

The other girl nodded. She seemed pleased to leave. ‘Yes, Sister.’

Jenny saw the curiously pale eyes glance once in Dr Trentham’s direction before she closed the office door behind her.

Leo Trentham remained standing at the window, an expression of amusement lifting the corners of his mouth.

‘I seem to have that effect on you, don’t I?’ he remarked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s just that on the only two occasions we’ve met you’ve ended up on the ground. It gives quite a new meaning to the saying “he swept her off her feet”—don’t you think?’

It seemed that he actually expected her to join in with his laughter. She stared at him coldly, the anger she felt towards him managing mercifully to dispel the tugging at her heart which being back in this office without her late colleague had produced.

‘I can assure you that it would take someone as little like you as possible to sweep me off my feet,’ she retorted. ‘But I’m not interested in bandying around social niceties with you—if you can call your egotistical attempts at conversation that. I just want to get a few things straight.’

He seemed taken aback by her hostile tone. ‘Such as?’

She willed her voice not to have a quaver of emotion in it. Somehow she felt that for him to see her vulnerable would be a disadvantage. ‘Such as why you directed the nursing officer not to recall me from my holiday in order to attend Dr Marlow’s funeral.’