Claire looked around the table as all of them, with the exception of Campbell, nodded in agreement.
He remained silent. His stare seemed to be weighing her up. She had known that this meeting wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d also been sure she’d be able to sway at least one of St Jude’s six obstetricians. It was a board initiative. It had been funded and set up—they couldn’t refuse. But they had.
Claire felt the heat of her anger flare and rage inside her. ‘Well, thank you, gentlemen,’ she said with icy sarcasm, gathering her papers, ‘for nothing. I don’t have time to stand here and beat my head against a brick wall. I guess we all know where we stand.’
Quelling the urge to glance Campbell Deane’s way one last time, Claire turned on her heel and marched out of the room. She knew it was childish but she slammed the door after her for good measure.
* * *
‘Wow.’ Campbell expelled a long whistle, stopping about the same time as the windows stopped rattling. She had been magnificent. Obviously passionate about her cause and ready to do what it took, take on whoever it took to see her plans come to fruition.
Not that he’d actually heard a lot of what she’d been saying. It had been difficult to concentrate when so much of the blood that usually dwelt in his brain had found its way to another part of his anatomy. He hadn’t had such an instantaneous response since that time when his eighth-grade maths teacher had bent over to help him and he’d had a glimpse of her lacy bra.
If anything, this time was worse. She hadn’t had to flash any underwear, just one impassioned diatribe, and he was almost dizzy from the lack of oxygenated blood to his brain. He noted the other men’s laughter and was secretly amused by their relieved expressions. Sister Claire West has left the building!
‘She married?’ he asked. They laughed again, louder this time. Yep—definitely more relaxed now.
‘I don’t think you’re her type.’
‘Too old? Too young? Too obstetrician-like?’
‘Too male,’ said Martin, and the group laughed again.
The answer confused him momentarily. Campbell felt his hackles rise as realisation dawned.
‘It seems she likes to wear comfortable shoes,’ someone else said with a snigger, amused at his little joke.
‘Oh, I get it.’ Campbell’s icy voice cut through their little-boy laughter. ‘Because she doesn’t fall at our feet and fawn all over us, she’s a lesbian?’
‘So the rumour goes,’ agreed another, and grinned conspiratorially.
Campbell thought of his sister Wendy and how rumour and innuendo had dogged her because of her sexual preference. Such archaic attitudes made him angry. It flared in his eyes as the other men laughed, oblivious.
‘Knocked back every available doctor in the hospital. A couple of not so available ones, too.’ Martin laughed. ‘She was involved with a guy years ago but I know for a fact that she lives with a woman now—Mary. I think that’s her name anyway. Shame really. Beautiful girl. Damn good midwife, too. Just doesn’t know her place.’
‘Well, now, that won’t do, will it?’ Campbell’s voice was caustic.
‘I say, old chap,’ blustered Martin, the mirth slipping from his face. ‘Just a bit of harmless fun.’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Campbell said politely. He pushed back his chair and grasped it firmly in case the growing urge to wipe the superior looks off their faces suddenly overwhelmed him. ‘I have other business.’
* * *
Claire steamed into the deserted staff dining room and made herself a cup of coffee. It was too early for afternoon tea so she had the large room to herself. Good. At least she’d be able to hear as she silently berated herself. In half an hour the noise level in the room wouldn’t allow for mental self-flagellation.
She flicked impatiently through her notes as she sipped the hot drink. Neat, concise, calm, reasoned. Absolutely nothing like her performance in the boardroom. She shut the folder in disgust. Try insulting and inciting. She’d blown it! Her agenda had been to flatter a few egos and gently persuade. Instead, she’d gone in with a caustic tongue and a sledgehammer.
Where they would go from here, she really had no idea. It would have to go back to the board and they would have to apply pressure. Claire had no doubt that eventually the obstetricians would have to back down. The board could be an immovable force when it wanted something badly enough. Fortunately, it believed in the birth centre.
But it all meant more time. As if the process hadn’t been slow enough already. This latest development delayed things further. Damn them, Claire thought as she stared into the murky depths of her coffee. Her eyes were a matching colour as she worried her bottom lip.
Unbidden, Campbell Deane’s face entered her mind—again. His red-blonde hair, his green eyes, the intensity of his stare. The way he said her name.
‘Claire.’
His voice startled her, causing the remainder of her coffee to swish perilously close to spilling into her lap.
‘May I sit down?’ He gestured to the seat opposite.
Still smarting from what had happened in the boardroom and irked by the way her hands were trembling, Claire wasn’t feeling very charitable.
‘Something wrong with all the other tables in this joint?’
Despite her deliberate rudeness, he threw back his head and laughed, and Claire was reminded how he had laughed at her golf faux pas. She felt her scalp tingle.
‘You’re not sitting at them.’ His laughter sobered to serious contemplation.
Claire felt her breath stop in her throat as their eyes locked and held. Cinnamon brown drowning in sea green. She pulled her gaze away with difficulty.
‘It’s a free country.’ Claire shrugged her slim shoulders. She had to be nonchalant, cool. She couldn’t let him see that somehow he’d created a chink in her defences. He mustn’t find out.
‘I’ll do it,’ he stated, pulling out the chair and sitting down.
‘What?’ She eyed him dubiously.
‘I’ll be the admitting obstetrician.’
Claire’s first reaction was to reach over and kiss him. But her ever-present sensible side cautioned her against wild impulses.
‘Why?’ she asked, trying to keep her bewilderment at this sudden turn of events in check.
‘Because the birth centre philosophy is everything I believe in. I’d love to be part of it.’
‘Didn’t sound that way in the boardroom.’
‘I was playing Devil’s advocate.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to test your conviction. See how passionate you were about your cause. Very, as it turns out.’
Claire blushed. She’d certainly left nobody in that boardroom in any doubt about how passionate she was about the centre. She regarded him seriously. Dared she hope? Could Campbell Deane be trusted?
‘You won’t be popular,’ she stated.
‘I’ve never really cared for what other people think.’
He shot her such a dazzling smile Claire wanted to reach for her sunglasses. He was flirting, she realised with dismay. Claire had been flirted with enough to recognise the signs. Oh, dear. This wouldn’t do at all.
‘You’re not doing this to … be popular with me?’ she asked.
‘Would