‘Annie, what’s wrong?’ Liz asked, looking even more worried. ‘You’re not going to faint, are you? Look, maybe you should sit down in the staffroom…’
The staffroom sounded good. The store cupboard sounded even better. Preferably for the next three months.
Oh, get a grip, Annie. You can hardly spend the next three months hiding in the store cupboard whenever Gideon Caldwell does his rounds. No, but she could hide in there today, and by tomorrow—OK, so it was a very long shot—by tomorrow he might have calmed down.
‘I think you’re right, Liz,’ she said, beginning to back her way up the ward. ‘I think I might just sit down for a couple of minutes.’
‘OK, but—Annie, be careful.’
‘It’s probably just something I ate…’
‘No, I mean—Annie, watch out!’
Too late Annie saw what the sister had been trying to tell her—that the afternoon tea trolley was right behind her. Too late she felt her hip catch it and whirled round quickly, but the damage was done. The trolley toppled over, sending its cups and saucers tumbling to the floor with a resounding crash.
For a second she stared in horror at the devastation she’d created, then turned to find Dr Dunwoody glaring at her furiously, Liz looking dumbfounded and Gideon Caldwell…Was he trying very hard not to laugh? It looked as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.
And suddenly it was all too much. The whole awful, rotten day was too much, and to her utter mortification she burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry—so sorry,’ she sobbed, scrabbling wildly in her pocket for a handkerchief. ‘I’ll get a brush and pan—clean it up…’
She didn’t get a chance to. Before she could move a firm hand had grasped her by the elbow and Gideon Caldwell was propelling her out of the ward and down the corridor.
‘Sir, I have to clean it up,’ she protested as he steered her into his consulting room and towards a chair. ‘I can’t just leave—’
‘One of the cleaners will do it.’
‘But it was my fault,’ she said, dashing a hand across her wet cheeks. ‘I should—’
‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked, opening a cupboard and pulling out two mugs.
‘Neither—I can’t. Dr Dunwoody—’
‘Tea or coffee—black or white—with sugar or without?’
He clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He equally clearly wasn’t used to being refused. ‘Coffee, please,’ she said miserably. ‘Black, no sugar.’
‘Good,’ he said with a nod, switching on the kettle. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
Or merely postponing the inevitable, she thought, miserably blowing her nose. The moment when he told her his ward couldn’t afford a clumsy idiot like her. The moment when he fired her. And she couldn’t afford to be fired. Simply couldn’t.
‘Please, I know I should have been watching where I was going—but, please, won’t you give me another chance? I’m not normally so clumsy, and I don’t make a habit of bursting into tears—’
‘I know you don’t,’ he interrupted, spooning some coffee into the mugs. ‘The woman I met on the stairs didn’t strike me as a wimp. A little strange, perhaps, but certainly not a wimp.’
Oh, cripes, he was bypassing that nightmare on the ward and going straight to her even bigger disaster on the stairs. ‘Mr Caldwell—’
‘The name’s Gideon. I’m only Mr Caldwell in front of patients.’
She would have preferred to call him Mr Caldwell. After what she’d said to him earlier, she’d infinitely have preferred to call him Mr Caldwell.
‘What I said to you on the stairs…’ she said, opting out of calling him anything at all. ‘I can only apologise. I made a mistake—’
‘You thought I was hitting on you, didn’t you?’ he observed. ‘You saw my wedding ring, decided my offer to help was actually a thinly disguised invitation to a future affair, and that’s why you chewed my head off.’
Lord, but it sounded dreadful when he put it like that, but she couldn’t deny it, much as she longed to.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What interests me more is why you should jump to that conclusion,’ he said, holding out a mug of coffee to her, then sitting down. ‘I’ve been racking my brains off and on all day but I can’t for the life of me remember saying anything which might have suggested I was some sort of sexual predator.’
Scarlet colour darkened her cheeks. ‘You didn’t—truly, you didn’t. It was me. I was stupid—overreacted.’
Yes, but why? he wanted to ask. OK, so she was a very pretty girl, but surely married men weren’t constantly harassing her?
Or maybe it wasn’t married men, he suddenly thought. Maybe it was one particular married man who had put those dark shadows under her eyes, made her so thin and pale. To his surprise, the thought angered him. A lot.
Well, of course it did, he told himself. He was the head of a very busy department and if a member of his staff was having problems it was up to him to investigate before the problem affected their work. And it didn’t make a blind bit of difference if the member of staff in question possessed a pair of the largest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and short curly hair the colour of sunripened corn. It didn’t.
‘And I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, but if you could just give me another chance.’
The blue eyes were fixed on him, unhappy, pleading, and he gazed at her blankly. What on earth was she talking about? What second chance? And then the penny dropped.
‘Good grief, Annie, I’m not going to fire you.’
‘You’re not?’ she said faintly, and he shook his head.
‘For one thing, Woody says you’re an excellent doctor.’
‘She does?’
‘Mind you, that was before the tea trolley went west so she’s probably revised her opinion by now.’ He’d hoped for a chuckle. He’d hoped at the very least for a small smile, but she simply gazed at him miserably, and he frowned. ‘Annie, I clearly said something to you earlier that deeply upset you, and I do wish you’d tell me what it was.’
What could she say? That it wasn’t what he’d said, but the fact that she’d thought he was married that had made her so angry? He wanted her to explain, and she didn’t want to explain. Her private life was just that. Private.
‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you, and I’m sorry about the tea trolley,’ she muttered. ‘I promise it won’t happen again.’
‘Annie—’
‘Can I go now, please?’
He stared at her in frustration. He couldn’t force her to stay and drink her coffee. Couldn’t hold her hostage until she told him what—or who—had caused those deep shadows under her deep blue eyes. With a sigh, he nodded.
‘Just remember I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to,’ he called after her as she hurried out of his consulting room. ‘No strings—no hidden agenda.’
She didn’t answer him—couldn’t. He’d been a lot kinder to her than she deserved, but she didn’t want him to be kind. She didn’t want him to see her at all. She wanted anonymity. Anonymity was safe. Being noticed wasn’t. She had her son, and now this job. She didn’t want anything or