Patrick laughed again, his eyes creased with delight. ‘You’re a wicked woman.’
‘Only when provoked, and boy, did that man provoke me!’ She sipped her coffee, then sighed. ‘Oh, this is luxury. What a nasty shock, coming back to that after a wonderful weekend!’
‘What do you expect—gratitude? This is the great British public. We’re here to serve them, and do it on time, regardless of what might have just gone on behind the scenes.’
She stared at him. ‘You sound really bitter.’
‘Do I?’ He gave a quick grin. ‘Sorry. I’ve been in Africa for the last two years. They queue up there for days to see you, and never complain. Mostly they’re too weak, but they’re pathetically grateful for any slight kindness. It’s very humbling.’
The weary smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Sorry. Don’t let me get on my hobby-horse. I’m back here now, and I should just accept the absurd plethora of medical equipment and facilities instead of begrudging it to these miserable ingrates.’
His smile robbed his words of any offence, and Anna found herself even more curious about him. If he felt so passionately about Africa, why come home? Now was not the time to ask him, though, because he was still speaking, asking for her help.
‘Sit down for a minute,’ he suggested. ‘I could do with being filled in on procedure, names, places—that sort of thing. Who do I call, who do I avoid, who’s got a tetchy temper?—apart from you, of course.’
His smile took the criticism out of his words, and she found herself smiling back.
‘I’m normally very calm, but when someone questions a colleague’s competence, and says they’d get better treatment if they paid for it, I get very, very cross.’
‘Let him pay. It relieves the stress on the hospital’s funds. Anyway, you shouldn’t get so worked up. You’ll get ulcers.’
‘No, I won’t. Not if I haven’t got Helicobacter pylori.’
‘Smart-mouth.’
There was no malice in his remark, and they shared a smile.
‘Thanks for the coffee.’
She dropped into a chair and sighed. The weekend had been hectic, and already seemed a long way away. Flissy had been dancing in her ballet class, and Anna had had to dress her and pile her wispy hair up into a bun, and then watch the tiny little scrap trip and dither her way across the room, pretending to be a butterfly.
A virtuoso performance it wasn’t, but it had reduced Anna to a sniffling, pink-eyed heap. Pride was a ridiculous thing, she thought.
‘What are you thinking about?’
She blinked. Oh—nothing. Something that happened at the weekend, that’s all.’
‘It must have been pretty good—you were all misty-eyed.’
She laughed self-consciously, not ready to tell this stranger about her little Flissy. Men had a way of judging a single mother, and Anna wasn’t ready to be judged by this man. Not judged and found wanting.
‘It was good,’ she said, and deliberately changed the subject. ‘So, tell me about Africa. Was that where the earthquake was?’
A shadow crossed his eyes. ‘No,’ he said, effectively cutting off the conversation.
She blinked. So he, too, had things he wasn’t prepared to talk about.
She studied her cup, swirling the dregs of her coffee round and wondering why he was suddenly so remote and cut off. Had someone he loved died in the earthquake? Perhaps a wife or child? Oh, God, not a child! He’d said it was a school …
‘You didn’t lose someone—not your child?’ she asked, unable to help herself.
He met her eyes, his own revealing a flash of pain. ‘No,’ he agreed quietly. ‘Not my child.’
But someone. What was the saying about fools rushing in? Her shoulders drooped. ‘Look, I’m sorry I dragged the whole thing up—’
She jerked to her feet, almost dropping her cup back on the table, and fled.
She heard him call her name, but she didn’t stop. She went out to the front desk, glanced round, and picked up the notes for a patient who had just arrived.
‘Mrs Lucas? Would you like to come with me, please?’
He caught up with her at lunchtime, when she was just grabbing ten minutes for another coffee and a biscuit.
‘Is that all you’re having?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘I don’t eat much during the day,’ she told him, unprepared to get into discussion about it.
‘You can’t work as hard as you have been on that. Come and have some lunch with me—we never did have that conversation. I’ll offend someone mortally, and it will be your fault. Do you really want that on your conscience?’
His smile was warm and teasing. He was clearly quite unbothered about offending anyone. He wasn’t the offensive sort. He also wasn’t the sort to be thwarted.
‘Come on, while it’s quiet.’
She shook her head, reminding herself that he was married. ‘No. I really don’t want to go to the canteen.’
‘Then it will come to you. Wait here.’
He left the room, his long legs eating up the corridor. She heard the quiet swish of the door as he left the department, and, shutting her eyes, she leant her head back with a sigh. She felt like King Canute—totally helpless in the face of such stubborn determination. It would be easier to give in, but she didn’t want to. That would give him the upper hand, and absolutely the last thing she needed was to be bullied by a man, especially somebody else’s husband …
‘You sound tired.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Hello, Kath. No, I’m not tired, I’m saving my energy. Our Dr Haddon has decided I need to eat more. I think I’m about to be force-fed.’
Kath laughed, the action declaring her on Patrick’s side. ‘Good job, too,’ she retorted. ‘You’re far too skinny.’ She helped herself to coffee and dropped into a chair next to Anna, kicking off her shoes and rubbing her toes. ‘So, what do you think of him?’
Anna shrugged non-committally. ‘He seems very competent.’
Kath laughed. ‘Competent? He’s big, Anna—B-I-G. Just what we need to sit on all the drunks while we wrestle them into submission. Ben was fine, but he just didn’t have Patrick’s weight, and Jack’s not always here.’
Anna swallowed. Patrick was big, true, but size wasn’t everything. There was something else about him, a deep and intrinsic kindness that matched his bulk. He would be useful for sitting on drunks, but she could see he would have far greater uses dealing with the ordinary run-of-the-mill tragedies that passed through their department. It was the sort of intuitive, bone-deep sensitivity that would make him a wonderful lover, too, she thought, and yanked herself up hard.
No. No, no, no! Why should she think of that? She knew nothing about what made a man a lover, good or otherwise! She drank her coffee, wondering if she would have time to finish it and escape before Patrick got back. It was a long way to the canteen. If he had to queue …
She had reckoned without his long legs. She heard a door swish, a firm stride approaching, and her escape was cut off.
She sank back with a sigh, and Kath chuckled.
‘She was going to bolt—you feed her, Patrick. God knows someone needs to take care of the silly girl; she won’t do it herself.’ She stood up, slipped her feet back