The grin faded, showing her for the first time just how bad he really felt. His face was etched deeply with lines of pain that added years to his true age, and as he turned his head towards the light a little, she could see the fading greenish-purple remains of some startling bruises round his eyes, shot through with a truly colourful yellow.
‘I was going out of my mind,’ he corrected. ‘What I need now is rest, that’s all, but I’m not so suicidal that I want to go home on my own, and the last thing on God’s earth I need is my mother fluttering around me like a demented hen.’
‘Maybe that’s exactly what you need,’ Fran suggested, suppressing a smile. ‘A bit of home cooking, a little motherly love, all from someone who knows you inside out—’
She was interrupted by a rude snort. ‘You’ve never met my mother,’ he said bluntly. ‘She doesn’t do home cooking, and she certainly doesn’t know me inside out. I’m not even sure about the motherly love, but I do know she’d drive me even crazier than being in hospital. And if I don’t have a nurse, she’ll insist on coming to look after me, and I might just have to kill her.’
The grin surfaced again. ‘You could always look on it as your moral duty as a law-abiding citizen, preventing a murder.’
The eyes twinkled in his bruised and battered face, and she crumpled. Let’s face it, she thought to herself, he certainly needs help, and you aren’t in a position to be fussy. Looking after him might even turn out to be fun.
‘This is a live-in post, I take it?’ she asked him, but her eyes were on Jackie, sitting back and watching the byplay between her newest recruit and her even newer client with avid interest.
‘Jackie?’ Fran prompted, wanting her input. It was her nursing agency, after all, and she was the one in charge of who went to which client and under what terms and conditions.
Jackie collected herself visibly and nodded. ‘Oh, yes, it would have to be, wouldn’t it, Mr Nicholson?’
He nodded agreement. ‘Absolutely. The slightest loophole and my mother will be in there quicker than a sniper’s bullet.’
Fran suppressed another smile. ‘And the hours?’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever. Minimal. However long it takes to go to the supermarket and buy some instant food and whack it in the microwave—oh, and I suppose the pins in my leg will need looking at from time to time. The rest of the time you can do what you like, so long as you’re around to take me anywhere I need to go. I take it you can drive?’
‘I can drive,’ she confirmed.
‘Well, that’s fine, then. I just need a token nurse in self-defence.’
Compared to the hell on wheels of her previous job in a busy London A and E department, it sounded like a positive doddle. Her only worry was that it would be so light on the nursing that she’d get bored to death, but maybe it was exactly what she needed. She certainly didn’t feel emotionally strong enough yet to deal with anything more front line.
She glanced at Jackie, who raised an eyebrow in question. ‘May be possible,’ she said quietly.
Jackie smiled bracingly at both of them. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’ She turned to the man. ‘If you could just give us a few moments to sort out the paperwork, Fran’ll be all yours,’ she assured him, and then fixing Fran with a meaningful look, she led her into the office at the back. The door closed with a definite click and Jackie sagged against it, clutching her chest and sighing theatrically.
‘Oh, my God, he is so gorgeous!’ she said under her breath. ‘I can’t believe you know him. You are going to take this job, aren’t you? You’re not going to be silly?’
Fran shook her head. ‘No. I’m going to see Dr Giraud at eleven, and I’m probably going to take his job—if he offers it to me. And I don’t know Josh, I’ve only met him once.’
‘Well, surely you know who he is? Good grief, he’s famous—’
‘Yes, they talked about him at work. I’d never heard of him,’ Fran confessed. ‘I gather he’s got a bit of money.’
‘A bit? I think the expression is “fabulously wealthy”,’ Jackie said with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, what about the job? He needs looking after. It was a high-speed crash on the A12—something about a horse on the road. It was one of those really dark nights. Judging by the sound of it, he was very lucky to escape with his life. I’d forgotten all about it. Fran, it’s the chance of a lifetime. You have to take the job!’
‘It’s a thought. At least I wouldn’t be slumming it,’ Fran said with a weak attempt at humour, ‘and it might be quite interesting to see how the other half live. I feel a bit guilty about Xavier Giraud, though. I told him on the phone just before Josh came in that I’d go back and see him, and I was thinking about taking the job if he offered it.’
‘So think about it. Do you want to work part time as a practice nurse and look after Xavier’s disabled daughter in the afternoon, or do you want to work for Josh Nicholson? I know which I’d do in your situation.’
She hovered, just for a moment, haunted by the memory of Dr Giraud’s rich, mellow voice with its merest suggestion of a French accent. Then she thought of the sadness in his house—the loss of his wife, the crippling injury his daughter had sustained in the accident—and wondered if she had enough caring left inside her to do the job properly. Probably not.
She shook her head. ‘No. I can’t do him and his daughter justice. I need a rest, Jackie. I’ve had enough.’
And that was it. Five minutes of paperwork, and they were off. She followed his taxi as it wove through the streets of Woodbridge, then they left the town, crossed the river and turned down a track that led through the trees. From time to time she could glimpse the river on her right, then suddenly the trees opened up to reveal his house, and her jaw dropped.
She certainly wouldn’t be slumming it! The house was nestled in amongst the trees, a long, low curve, single storey except at the end nearest them, where the garage and a few rooms beyond it were tucked underneath, taking advantage of the natural slope. The path rose from the drive, curving round towards the front door in a long, graded sweep, and she pulled up beside the taxi and got out, awestruck.
It was huge, and yet oddly it blended in, cut into the landscape by the hand of a genius, and below it the river stretched out into the distance towards the sea. Slightly upstream she could see the distinctive shape of the tide mill on the opposite bank, with all the houses and shops of the old town clustered together around it and up the hill beyond.
Downstream all the little boats bobbed at their moorings, sunlight gleaming off their masts and sparkling on the wind-ruffled water, and she could almost hear the clink of halliards against the masts.
What a fabulous spot! And she was going to be living here for a while, steeped in the silence of the woodland around them. Amazing.
She pulled herself together and helped the taxi driver extract the wheelchair from the boot and ease her patient into it. Josh thanked him and paid him what seemed like an extortionate amount of money, and then suddenly they were alone.
Totally alone. Fran was suddenly aware of how isolated his house was, and how difficult it would be to get help if anything went wrong, but she suppressed the panic.
She was being silly. Nothing was going to go wrong. He wasn’t going to bleed to death, or he would have done it already. He’d be fine, and so would she. He was well on the way to recovery. All she had to do was get him into bed for a rest.
‘Got the keys?’ she asked him, and was met with a blank stare.
He swore softly under