Second Chance For Love

Stupid, she scolded herself crossly. The last thing she needed at the moment was to start fancying she was attracted to some total stranger, who had crossed her path by complete chance. And yet…he was very attractive, she conceded, slanting him a covert glance from beneath her lashes. Six feet plus of rangy, well-built male, the kind that no woman could ignore.

And his hands…They were beautiful, with long, sensitive fingers, and strong wrists. She found herself remembering the gentle way those hands had examined her, and a shimmer of heat ran through her…

No—it was all just reaction. The shock of Colin’s announcement, followed by the accident, had left her off balance. And he was so very different from Colin—Colin with his immaculately combed hair, his designer suits, his decaffeinated coffee. She couldn’t imagine this man drinking decaffeinated coffee. He wouldn’t need to fuss with such things, not with the healthy, active life he must lead. So very different…

It was pleasant, this feeling of being close to him, cocooned in the warmth of the car—like some comfortable dream from which she never wanted to wake up…

‘Here we are.’

She opened her eyes quickly to find that he had brought the car to a halt beside a wide porch, with a pair of battered plastic swing doors of the type used so much in hospitals. A sign above the entrance said ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY. A young nurse had come out to the car, bringing a wheelchair.

‘I don’t need a chair,’ Josey mumbled, feeling guilty for causing such a lot of fuss.

‘Better if you do,’ Tom insisted firmly, climbing out of the Land Rover and coming round to help her out.

And indeed she found that she did. During the short drive her body seemed to have stiffened; she could hardly move, and as he helped her gently to her feet her head swam sickeningly. She dropped heavily into the chair, and half closed her eyes again.

With part of her mind she was conscious of the nurse flirting with him somewhere above her head, but she was past caring. They wheeled her into a small reception area, and straight over to a narrow cubicle, curtained with some ancient flowered cotton.

‘Could you just pop up on the trolley?’ asked the nurse, gratingly bright.

She looked round for Tom, but he had gone—and he hadn’t even said goodbye. But then she heard his voice on the other side of the curtain. ‘Hello, Andy.’

‘Well, hello, Tom. What’s going on? You don’t have enough of your own kind of patients, so you’ve had to start poaching mine?’

Tom laughed; he had a nice laugh, Josey decided-low and sort of husky, from spending so much time out in the raw Norfolk air. ‘No—just some woman who ran her car into a ditch.’ His tone was casually dismissive. ‘I don’t think it’s too serious—fortunately she had her seatbelt on. I think you’ll find she’s broken a bone in her wrist, but apart from that she’s just generally a bit bruised and battered.’

‘Any sign of concussion?’

‘No, just shock.’

‘Fine. Well, I’d better take a look at her.’

The curtain was brushed briskly aside, and the doctor came in. ‘Well, now, what have you done to yourself?’ he asked pleasantly, bending over the trolley.

‘It’s…just my wrist,’ she managed to respond. She could just see Tom, through the half-open curtain, chatting to the nurse again. A stab of stupid jealousy shot through her. The girl was pretty, with a mass of sexily luxuriant ash-blonde hair, tucked up neatly beneath her white cap, and an expression of sweet feminine kindliness. It was a combination that most men would find devastating.

Was he married? Maybe not, after all—maybe the nurse was his girlfriend. In fact, she wouldn’t mind betting that every unattached female in the district under the age of sixty was after him. Forget it, she advised herself despondently. Maybe once, a few years ago, she could have stood a chance of competing, but not now—he wouldn’t even look twice.

Wearily she closed her eyes, hardly interested in what was happening to her as the doctor examined her. His touch was light, but not quite as gentle as Tom’s had been, and Josey found herself wishing that it were he who was examining her instead.

‘Well, I don’t think you’ve done yourself any serious injury, apart from your wrist,’ the doctor was saying. ‘I’ll send you down for an X-ray on that, and then we’d better see about putting it in plaster for you.’

She nodded apathetically. Tom had gone, and she just wished they would let her go to sleep. But first the nurse had a form to fill in, with all her personal details, and then a porter came—the irritatingly cheerful sort—and wheeled her through deserted corridors to the X-ray department. Then at last it was back to Casualty, where someone put a warm plastic splint on her wrist, and tied it up in a sling.

She was back in her cubicle, half-dozing in the wheelchair, when she heard Tom’s voice outside again. ‘I thought I’d just drop by on my way home and see how she is.’

‘She seems fine,’ the doctor responded, a note of constraint in his voice. ‘There’s no sign of concussion. The wrist is fractured, but it’s been set. Apart from a bit of shock, there are no other problems.’

‘So what’s wrong?’

She heard the doctor sigh. ‘I really can’t justify keeping her in, Tom—not on medical grounds. You know the situation we’re in for beds—I’ve got a threatened miscarriage in cubicle three, and I’ve already had to send a coronary over to the Norwich.’

‘You’re going to discharge her?’ He sounded surprised.

‘I don’t really have much choice. At the most, I suppose I could stretch a point and keep her here until the morning. But all she needs is a couple of days’ rest, with someone to keep an eye on her, and she’ll be perfectly all right. Did she mention to you where she was planning to stay? Does she have friends or relatives up here?’

Josey heard Tom laugh drily. ‘She was old Miss Calder’s niece—remember that old stone cottage out by Breck’s Coppice?’

‘She wasn’t planning to stay there?’ The doctor sounded incredulous. ‘But it’s been empty for years—it must be practically falling down!’

‘Oh, the structure’s basically quite sound, but it’ll need a lot doing to it to make it habitable. Though she looks as if she’s got the money,’ he added, a sardonic inflexion in his voice. ‘Anyone who can afford to write off a Porsche can’t be short of a bob or two.’

There was a distinct note of contempt in his voice, and Josey felt herself wishing she could crawl into a corner. Of course those who eavesdropped never heard good of themselves, she reflected bitterly, but what else could she do but listen?

‘But in the meantime, that doesn’t solve my problem of what to do with her, does it?’ the doctor pointed out grimly. ‘Of course, I could ring her husband and get him to come and fetch her.’

‘No!’ The sharp protest broke involuntarily from Josey’s lips, and she tried to stand up.

The curtain was drawn back, and the doctor hurried in, frowning as he saw her struggling to her feet. ‘Now, now! You shouldn’t be trying to get up on your own,’ he chided, pushing her back with a gentle pressure that Josey didn’t have the strength to resist.

‘There’s…no need to ring my husband,’ she insisted weakly. ‘I’ll find myself a hotel or something.’

Tom had come in behind the doctor, and he laughed mockingly at her words. ‘Where do you think you are, South Kensington?’ he enquired drily. ‘We don’t have too many hotels around here, and those there are will be full for the tourist season.’

‘Besides, I wouldn’t be very happy just to let you go to a hotel,’ the doctor put in seriously. ‘Don’t you have anyone up here you could go to for a few days? A relative, or a friend?’

‘No,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘It’s years since I’ve been up here. It…it was just an impulse that I came, really.’

The doctor sighed. ‘Well, where are you going to go…?’ He hesitated, glancing round at Tom. ‘I don’t suppose…?’

Tom looked faintly alarmed. ‘What…?’

‘It would only be for a day or two,’ the doctor assured him persuasively. ‘She won’t need any special care—just lots of rest. By Monday she should be as right as rain.’

Josey gasped in shock as she realised what the doctor was suggesting. ‘Oh, no! I couldn’t possibly…!’

‘It would really be an enormous help, Tom,’ the doctor persisted. ‘Besides, if I knew it was you keeping an eye on her, I’d know she was all right.’

Tom hesitated, then smiled wryly. ‘OK,’ he conceded with no great deal of enthusiasm. ‘It looks as if that’s the only option.’

The doctor looked relieved. ‘I’ll give you a prescription for some diazepam for her—the pharmacy will be able to make it up for you tomorrow. Where have you parked your car? Nurse, get the porter to bring a chair, will you?’

He bustled away without waiting for an answer, leaving Josey looking up at Tom in some embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured awkwardly. ‘I’ve put you to so much inconvenience already.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ But his unsmiling expression did nothing to reassure her.

‘I’ll find a hotel as…as soon as I can.’