Алисон Робертс – Hot Single Docs: Happily Ever After: St Piran's: The Brooding Heart Surgeon / St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday / St Piran's: Tiny Miracle Twins (страница 10)
‘She is indeed.’ The glance Luke received held a hint of relief. Any awkward subjects were being left well behind. ‘So things are working out, then? You two going to be able to work as a team?’
Luke couldn’t detect even a hint that the CEO might be fishing for any confessions regarding a bumpy start. Maybe he should say something about it himself but if Anna had chosen not to, perhaps he should respect her decision. Albert didn’t seem to notice that his silence was covering a moment of confusion.
‘Not that I expected any problems, but it was good to hear Anna singing your praises the other day. A pericardectomy, I hear?’
‘Urn … yes. First case. What did she say?’
‘That you did the entire procedure off bypass. That she was delighted to have the opportunity to learn something new.’
About the procedure? Or about him?
This meeting was nothing more than touching base. A welcome home.
‘Come and have dinner some time soon. Joan would love to catch up.’
‘Sure. Maybe when I’ve had time to find my feet properly.’ Luke hoped his vague acceptance would not seem rude but he wasn’t ready to get drawn into a segment of the St Piran’s community that knew his family so well. He wasn’t here because of the family connection. He was here because he’d had nowhere else to go.
Besides, he was getting into a routine now. An icy swim in the ocean at daybreak to chase away the night’s demons. As many hours as possible focused entirely on his job and then exercise and work-related reading until he was hopefully exhausted enough to sleep for more than a few hours. He didn’t want to tamper with what seemed to be working. Or remind himself of the past, which would only emphasise too clearly how different life was now. Control was paramount.
Control could be undermined by confusion, however. Anna had had a whole week to decide how to present her concerns about his skills but she hadn’t done so.
Why not?
Not that Luke wasn’t grateful but he was definitely puzzled. She’d agreed that the matter should be reported. That sloppy performance wasn’t acceptable. And yet she had apparently accepted his.
Why?
He would have spoken to her about it before leaving work that day but it was late and she had already gone. It wasn’t hard to use his influence to find her contact details but Luke discovered that she was living well along the windy coast road that led to Penhally.
A phone call to thank her for making his first week back smoother than it might have otherwise been seemed too impersonal. What he said might even be taken the wrong way—tacit approval for not reporting the incident perhaps. Taking a fifteen-or twenty-minute drive to what was quite possibly only a small collection of dwellings and knocking on her door after dark was a long way too far towards the other end of the spectrum, however. Far too personal. Why was he even considering it?
It didn’t seem nearly as inappropriate on Saturday morning. Especially as the world in general seemed a brighter place. Days and days of grey skies and intermittent rain had been blown inland by a stiff sea breeze and the sun was making a determined effort to raise the temperature by at least a degree or two. The surf had been high enough that morning to make his swim an adrenaline rush, and his leg hadn’t collapsed under him when he’d attempted a slow jog on the softer sand.
Yes. For the first time since arriving back, Luke felt that things were a little less bleak. Some time out on a day like this to drive up to Penhally and revisit old haunts was an attractive idea. He might have intended to wait until Monday to give Anna the excellent article on restrictive cardiomyopathy he’d come across in one of the journals he’d been reading until the early hours of that morning but if it was in the car, he’d have the perfect excuse to drop in at her house on his way past if he chose to.
He did choose to.
Maybe because the signpost to the lane she lived on was so easy to spot. Or perhaps because the house he found at her address was so unlike what he might have expected. Not even a house. More like a cottage with its latticed windows and some kind of evergreen creeper scrambling along the faded shingles of its roof. The small garden was overgrown and … it had a picket fence, for heaven’s sake!
If someone had asked him where he thought Dr Bartlett would be living, he would have imagined a modern apartment. Streamlined and minimalist. Devoid of personality—hers or its own. This cottage probably had tourists stopping to take its picture and a name somewhere under the tangled, prickly branches obscuring half the fence. Bay View Cottage perhaps, given the glorious sweep of Penhally Bay on display. It was only a short walk down the hill to get to a beach and, given the rocky coves he had noticed just before turning off the main road, the coastline was due to provide one of those gems that surfers searched for.
Sure enough, when he left the car and went a little further uphill towards the front door of the cottage, he could see a stretch of white sand beyond the boulders. This cottage might be rundown but it was sitting on valuable land. Any closer to Penhally or St Piran and it would be worth an absolute fortune. Was that why Anna had chosen it? As an investment?
That made far more sense than a desire to inhabit what had to feel like an alien space. Having come to terms with the apparent contradiction, Luke was now hesitant in knocking on her door. Had he passed a letterbox? He could leave the article in there and then explain it on Monday.
He might have done exactly that if it hadn’t been for the sudden loud noise from inside the cottage. A crashing sound not dissimilar to the one he’d heard in the canteen earlier in the week.
No scream followed the sound but he could hear the dismay in Anna’s voice.
‘Oh … no!’
‘ANNA?’ Luke didn’t bother knocking. He tried the doorhandle and found it turned, so he shoved the door open. ‘Are you all right?’
There was no response. Cautiously, Luke advanced along the narrow hallway. He could hear Anna’s voice again. It was much quieter now. Soft and soothing.
‘It’s all right,’ she was saying. ‘Poor baby, you gave yourself a big fright that time, didn’t you?’
Maybe he was in the wrong house.
‘Anna?’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Me,’ Luke said as he stepped into a doorway on his right.
‘Luke? Good grief! What on earth are you doing here?’
She sounded surprised. No, more like appalled. Luke opened his mouth but no words emerged. This was Anna?
She was sprawled on the floor, her arms around a large dog that was virtually in her lap and making enthusiastic attempts to lick her face. There were newspapers spread around them both, a collection of paintpots and an aluminium stepladder lying on its side.
‘I was just on my way to Penhally. I heard the crash.’
‘From the road?’
‘No … I … er … had an article I wanted to give you.’ It was weirdly hard to string a coherent sentence together so Luke gave up. He stared at Anna instead, trying to take in the faded, ripped denim jeans she was wearing. The paint-stained jumper. The soft waves of her loose hair that reached her shoulders. Those amazing green eyes that were staring at him in utter bewilderment right now.
Luke dropped his gaze. The dog was staring at him too. Warily. Pressing itself further into Anna’s arms and visibly shaking.
‘What’s wrong with the dog?’
‘He’s scared.’
‘Of what?’
‘You.’
She should probably be scared herself, Anna thought. A large man she hardly knew had just come into her house uninvited. Into her bedroom. Well, it would be her bedroom again when she’d finished renovating it. Right now it was just a mess.
Like her head.
Luke was wearing some jeans that were probably as old as her own. He had a black woollen jumper on with the sleeves pushed up to reveal bare forearms. His hair looked windswept and there was a tension about him that suggested he could leap into action at any moment. To save a life or rescue a damsel in distress.
He’d thought she was in distress.
He’d come into her house to rescue her.
And here he was, looking rugged and grim and … and … gorgeous.
Thank goodness she had her arms full of warm, shivery puppy. She hugged him more closely.
‘He’s a rescue puppy,’ she told Luke. ‘I’ve only had him a couple of weeks. My neighbours, Doug and June Gallagher, own a farm and they found him in the creek. In a sack. They would have kept him but they’ve already got a lot of dogs and he was terrified of Doug. June reckons he’s been badly treated by a man.’
‘So you took him? You’re going to keep him?’
He sounded as though she’d just informed him that she intended to fly to the moon. Anna almost laughed but she felt absurdly close to tears. This wasn’t supposed to happen and the earth had just tilted beneath her feet.
Dr Bartlett didn’t do feminine or personal. She didn’t do attraction to her colleagues.
Mr Davenport wasn’t supposed to meet Anna. And there were no rules about Anna feeling attracted to a man. There hadn’t needed to be for too long to remember.
This was threatening to do her head in completely so she dragged her gaze away from the towering figure by the doorway and buried her face in the expanse of woolly hair in her arms.