Terri stared at her helplessly. ‘Kate, I’m so sorry. I hoped there might be a chance of you and John getting back together again.’
‘He’s found somebody else,’ Kate said. ‘He told me last week. Her name’s Sandy. She weighs seven stone including her hair extensions, and she’s a fashion buyer.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Terri bit her lip, then pushed her glasses firmly up the bridge of her nose. ‘Well, at least some good might come out of this.’
‘Some good?’ Kate repeated faintly, and Terri nodded.
‘If she’s a fashion buyer maybe she’ll be able to talk him out of those God-awful black suits and button down shirts he will persist in wearing. The ones which make him resemble a third-rate undertaker.’
Kate stared speechlessly at the sister for a second, then burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Terri, what would I do without you?’ she exclaimed, and the sister grinned.
‘Be even loopier than you already are?’ she suggested. ‘Seriously, if I can help at all—if you want to scream or yell or just generally vent—I’m here for you.’
Did she want to scream and yell? Kate wondered. Did she really?
She might feel hurt, and confused, and not a little bewildered, but if she was honest with herself—and Kate fully intended to be honest—she didn’t want John back. They’d fallen out of love a long time ago.
‘I’m fine, Terri,’ she declared. ‘Truly I am.’
‘Well, the offer’s there if you should ever want it,’ Terri said. ‘Lord knows, you’ve listened to my worries about my son more times than I care to remember.’
‘Neil will be OK, Terri—I know he will,’ Kate said gently. ‘He’s only eighteen, and we all make stupid mistakes at that age, but he’s got you and Frank, and now this new job. He’s beginning to turn his life around.’
‘I hope so, but working in a bar…It’s not what I imagined for him,’ Terri said unhappily. ‘He was—is—such a clever boy, and if he hadn’t got in with the wrong crowd at school…Frank says the bar work will do him good, make him stand on his own two feet, but…’
‘Terri, he’ll be fine,’ Kate insisted. ‘He will.’
‘And so will you,’ the sister said, clearly deliberately changing the subject. ‘There’s somebody out there who’s just right for you, I know there is.’
‘I don’t want to meet anybody else,’ Kate said firmly. ‘One failed marriage is quite enough for me.’
‘Kate, you’re only thirty-four—’
‘Thirty-five at the beginning of next month,’ Kate reminded her.
‘—and just because it didn’t work out with John,’ Terri continued determinedly, ‘doesn’t mean it won’t work out with somebody else. For all you know, Mr Right could be just about to walk through that door this very minute, and change your life completely.’
Not Mr Right, but Mr Never-in-a-Million-Years, Kate thought, with a shaky inward chuckle, as Terri sped across to their receptionist to see why she was waving frantically at her and the door of the waiting room opened and two men appeared.
The younger of the two men was tall, in his early thirties, with neat blond hair and a frank, open face, but his companion…
Intimidating. That was the only word that could adequately describe him, Kate decided, and it wasn’t just because he was considerably taller and more muscular than his companion. It wasn’t even because his thick black hair brushed the neck of an ancient brown leather jacket, or his denims were faded and worn, or even that he was wearing a pair of the scruffiest trainers she’d ever seen. It was his face.
Darker skinned than the average Aberdonian, she would have guessed him to be Spanish, or Italian, if it hadn’t been for his eyes. Cobalt-blue eyes. Piercing blue eyes that stared back at her with neither warmth nor gentleness, but only a world-weary cynicism that said all too plainly, Don’t mess with me.
‘MVA on the way,’ Terri declared as she rejoined her. ‘Single car hit the crash barrier on the motorway, broken tib and fib, and suspected internal bleeding. Oh, and you’re going to love this,’ she added, her expression clearly suggesting otherwise. ‘We’ve also got a young man coming in from Aberdeen airport. He collapsed just after he came through Customs, and the security guys suspect he’s a body-packer.’
Kate groaned inwardly. That was all she needed this evening. If the young man was a body-packer then his collapse suggested that one of his packets had burst, and the only other body-packer she had ever treated had died. Swiftly, and extremely painfully.
‘OK, make sure we’ve plenty of house red for the MVA,’ she declared. ‘As for the body-packer…Let’s hope he’s simply an innocent traveller who’s had a heart attack.’
And the man in the waiting room was still staring at her, she noticed as she turned to go back into the treatment room. Staring, and smiling. Not at her, she realised, but at something his companion had said, but that smile…Just for a second it completely softened his face, making him heart-clutchingly attractive. He was still as intimidating as hell, of course, but that smile…Yup, it definitely pushed all of her buttons and, unconsciously, her fingers went up to the hair clips which were spectacularly failing to keep her shoulder-length, auburn hair back in a neat chignon.
Getting her hair restyled was on her ‘to do’ list. So was losing some weight and buying more furniture for the ground floor flat she’d moved into when she and John had separated. The flat that depressed the hell out of her every time she opened the front door, but why she should suddenly find herself thinking about that, and her hair, and losing some weight, just because an attractive—OK, make that very attractive—man was sitting in the waiting room was beyond her.
‘Kate?’
Terri was still waiting for her, and Kate squared her shoulders firmly.
The man was just a man. Someone she’d probably never see again, and that was exactly the way she wanted it. No more relationships, no more heartbreak, plus the likelihood of somebody like him ever being interested in someone like her was nil, she thought wryly, as she began to walk towards the treatment room door. No man who looked as good as he did when he smiled would ever be interested in an overweight little woman like her.
Which was just as well, she told herself, as she risked a quick glance over her shoulder and saw he was still watching her. Relationships might be fraught with uncertainty and danger at the best of times, but this man already had danger written all over him.
‘I thought he’d be here by now,’ Ralph Evanton declared, dragging his fingers impatiently through his blond hair as he sat down on one of the waiting room chairs. ‘According to our info, the ambulance picked him up ten minutes ago.’
‘It’s Saturday night,’ Mario Volante replied. ‘The traffic will be heavy.’
‘I suppose so.’ Ralph glanced round, then lowered his voice. ‘Do you reckon he’s still alive?’
‘If the ambulance comes in with its siren blaring, he’s alive. If it doesn’t…’ Mario pulled over one of the battered waiting room chairs and sat down, too. ‘Either way—alive or DOA—we’ll know soon enough.’
‘You’d think they’d realise it was a mug’s game, wouldn’t you?’ Ralph observed. ‘That what they’re buying into can all too quickly become a one-way ticket to the Big Guy upstairs.’
Mario shrugged. ‘Life’s tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.’
Ralph stared at him silently for a moment, then cleared his throat. ‘You know, you can be a complete and utter bastard at times.’
‘I prefer to call myself a realist.’