And Grace Sutherland, for all her blunt questions, intrigued him…
‘Oh, do come, Theo.’ Now she added her entreaty, and though he had the strangest—and strongest—feeling he was being manipulated, he agreed.
Out of curiosity, he told himself, and in part that was the truth, because there was something about Grace Sutherland that didn’t quite ring true—some mystery inside the beautiful packaging.
That she was physically attractive to him was a secondary matter, or so he assured himself. He didn’t get involved with work colleagues so the physical attraction would never be explored, but the intrigue? It wouldn’t hurt to investigate that, surely…
The group walked in a straggle of twos and threes down the road that ran alongside the park towards the restaurant. Grace walked in the lead with Phil, Theo behind them with Maggie and Aaron, and though he was listening to the conversation about titration rates of drugs during open-heart surgery in very small infants, he wasn’t taking in as much of it as he usually did.
She walked with a peculiar grace—what a stupid thing to be thinking about a woman called Grace!—but the way she strode along, her pace matching Phil’s, suggested an athleticism that wasn’t often seen in specialists of either gender, most of whom were too busy to get to the gym with any regularity or to work out in other ways.
The staff at Scoozi, seeing the mob from the hospital arrive, pushed together a number of tables, but was it chance that Grace sat next to Theo, who had taken the chair at one end?
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, answering his own query—the seating arrangement had not been chance.
‘Question?’ he parried, although he knew full well what she’d asked. But now, rather than consider the woman’s grace, he was considering her lack of it. And her lack of good manners! It was none of her business why he’d switched from surgery to perfusion.
‘Why aren’t you married?’
He’d forgotten that one! He stared at her, aware his disbelief was probably written on his face. It must have been for she looked embarrassed, but only for a moment, recovering her composure beautifully and smiling an apology.
‘I know that’s personal, but I’m only here for six months and if I want to get to know everyone in the team, then I have to ask questions.’
That kind of made sense—or did it?
‘Do you really want to get to know everyone in the team? After all, as you say, you’re only here six months, after which you’ll go back to South Africa, send emails for a few months, Christmas cards for a few years, then forget the lot of us.’
‘Probably not Christmas cards, I’m not good with them.’ She looked embarrassed, as if he’d been spot on in the reading of her character. Not that she was going to let him get away with it. She shifted slightly in her chair then continued, ‘But professionally it’s good to keep in touch with people, especially those with more experience, because you never know when something comes up you haven’t personally experienced before, and you can always ask.’
She hadn’t answered his question, but her comments made him wonder even more about this woman. In his life, women were the ones who kept the strands of friendship sewn together, his mother and aunts keeping in touch with the family’s friends, while his ex-wife had been forever on the net, talking to one friend or another, and had turned the sending out of Christmas cards into a kind of ‘who gets the most’ contest. But, then, Lena was like that…
‘You’re thinking about some woman now,’ the exasperating South African said, her clipped accent seeming to turn the remark into a rebuke.
‘You can’t know that!’ Theo growled. ‘And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s someone—usually a woman—telling me what I’m thinking.’
‘Well, you were scowling,’ Grace replied, totally unabashed. ‘The kind of scowl that suggests bad thoughts, and as you’re hardly likely to be thinking bad thoughts about your bypass machine, or the menu that’s in your hands, I guessed it must have had something to do with my question.’
He scowled some more and began to read the menu, although he knew it by heart and always ordered the Creole pizza and out of sheer politeness should have passed it to Grace, had she not annoyed him so much.
‘I’ll have the Creole pizza,’ she announced, Jasmine, on her other side, having handed her a menu. ‘Chicken, banana, sweet chilli sauce and sour cream—Italian purists must be turning over in their graves but it sounds delicious.’
Now what was he going to order? If he ordered the Creole she’d think he was copying her and probably read something into it—like he might be interested in her.
Which he was in the way a scientist was interested in a new specimen that appeared under his microscope, but no more than that, for all the unexpected tugs of attraction he was feeling.
Heaven forbid!
He ordered a steak and a glass of the pinot grigio the restaurateur, Anna, imported from Italy. Someone further down the table had ordered a plate of garlic bread and another of brushetta before anyone was seated, and these arrived as the orders were taken, the plates of bread being passed around.
‘No, thank you,’ Grace said to both.
‘Dieting?’ Jasmine asked, and Theo watched, wondering just how Grace would respond.
‘No, I never diet,’ she said, with the supreme confidence of a woman with a great metabolism.
End of conversation, although Jasmine had obviously meant it as an opening gambit.
‘Lucky you,’ Jasmine told her, not willing to let the subject go just yet. ‘I’m always dieting. I’ve tried just about every diet ever written.’
‘Oh, but surely you don’t need to diet, Jasmine.’
Other women might have said the same reassuring words without Theo even noticing, but to him it sounded as if Grace was making an effort to be nice—as if social chatter didn’t come easily to her.
Jasmine, too, must have sensed something strange for she smiled uncertainly, conveying enough apprehension for even someone as seemingly insensitive as Grace to see.
‘I didn’t mean to sound critical of diets or people who diet,’ she added quickly. ‘But research has shown that dieting fads can do more harm than good.’
For Theo it was like watching an act in a play and he waited to see if Jasmine would be mollified.
Apparently she was, for she smiled at Grace.
‘I know,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘I’ve read that too, but I think I’m addicted to diets.’
It was said as a joke, but, sensing it would go straight over Grace’s head, Theo plunged in.
‘Like I’m addicted to good pizza,’ he said, forgetting he’d just ordered steak. ‘Which is why I’m spending all my off-duty time building a wood-fired oven in my already too small courtyard.’
‘Is the pizza no good here that you didn’t order it?’
Of course Grace had picked up on his error.
‘No, the pizzas are great, I just needed a change,’ he assured her. OK, so she’d zeroed in on him again, but at least discussing food likes and dislikes was better than discussing marriage—or his lack thereof. And Jasmine was off the hook—she’d turned to talk to Aaron on her other side, so Theo took another slice of garlic bread and relaxed.
‘So, are you in a relationship?’
Had he heard correctly? He stared at the woman he thought had asked an extremely impertinent question and she gave an embarrassed shrug.
‘I told you I asked questions—I