The Perfect Treatment. Rebecca Lang

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      No such luck, Abby thought resignedly as she entered the room just as one of the window blinds was being let up so that brilliant spring sunshine entered the room at the same time, as though to highlight her late appearance. A slide presentation was obviously just over, indicating that the first case had already been presented. There would probably be one or two more.

      Quite a lot of people were present, juniors and seniors alike. Some turned to look at her as she came in. She moved to the back of the room to try to blend in with the small crowd around the coffee urn that was set up on a table.

      Moments later she was sipping hot coffee thankfully, holding her bag and books awkwardly with one arm, her mind soberly on Will Ryles. By now they would have the life-saving drugs dripping into his veins via an intravenous line. Would he be relieved, knowing he was out of it for a while, out of the workforce, even though he had a serious condition? Or would he constantly fret about the work he was missing? He was probably one of those guys who pushed himself too hard, not wanting to admit that he needed a break.

      Several of her close colleagues were there, those who were in the same training program, and she made her way towards them. It was then that a firm hand grasped her arm from behind, halting her progress.

      ‘Dr Abigail Gibson, I presume?’ a masculine voice said. It wasn’t, it seemed to her, a warm voice. It held a sardonic note, a note of censure, and Abby cringed inwardly as she turned to look at the owner of the voice.

      As she turned, the heavy books once again slipped from her grasp and landed with a thump at the feet of the speaker, partly covering his shoes. Then, as she stared down at them, a few splatters of coffee from the Styrofoam cup she was holding dotted the cover of the uppermost book.

      Feeling clumsy and disconcerted, her mind elsewhere, she found herself stammering. ‘Y-yes, I’m Dr Gibson,’ she confirmed, raising her eyes to the man who stood looking down at her.

      With a sense of shock she looked into cool blue eyes, intelligent eyes that were regarding her with undisguised perceptiveness and not a little exasperation, tinged with surprise…perhaps from the weight of the books on his toes? Abby swallowed convulsively.

      ‘S-sorry,’ she added.

      He had an attractive, very masculine face, with a fine chiselled bone structure. Instantly she thought of a racehorse, a thoroughbred, with its fine aristocratic frame, perfectly formed for its function. The face was not smiling.

      So this must be Dr Blake Contini. Abby felt slightly breathless, rather as though she had been punched in the solar plexus, not least because he was now frowning at her in a way that did not seem justified by her lateness or by the fact that she was a junior doctor in a training position or by the weight on his feet. After all, she was not even in his department as such. It brought an odd feeling, this astute appraisal, coming as it did on top of a sense of mourning that she had for the plight of Will Ryles.

      ‘Sorry,’ she muttered again, unable to think of anything else. As she bent carefully at the knees to retrieve her books, a few more drops of coffee escaped from her cup.

      ‘Let me do it, Dr Gibson,’ he said, putting out a restraining hand. Abby flushed, feeling as though the entire room had gone silent, that she was the focus of attention. Keeping her gaze lowered, she watched his lean hands wipe the coffee off her books with a handkerchief and pick them up.

      ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting the books at her and helping her to tuck them under her arm. ‘Better get yourself another cup of coffee.’

      ‘Th-thanks.’ For a couple of seconds she thought she detected a touch of humour in his eyes as he looked at her when their hands touched warmly for a moment.

      He took a sheet of paper, a computer printout, from the pocket of his lab coat, holding it so that she could see it. For a few seconds she gazed at it blankly.

      ‘This is the summary of the first case we’ve reviewed today, which you’ve managed to miss entirely,’ he said. ‘We’re about to start on the second case.’ He tucked the paper between the pages of one of her books. Abruptly he turned away.

      ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, recovering something of her habitual confidence and composure. ‘And you are? I didn’t get your name.’ He hadn’t given his name—that had been a bit boorish, she considered belatedly.

      It was almost certain that he was who she supposed him to be, as he had been avidly described to her by several of her women co-workers, yet he could not make the assumption that she would automatically know who he was. The thought of such an assumption fuelled niggles of annoyance.

      He turned back to her slowly, an expression of muted surprise on his face. Fixing her with a look that might have quelled a lesser mortal, he held out a hand to her. With his other hand he deftly plucked the coffee-cup from her. ‘Don’t want any more accidents, do we?’ he said sardonically, while Abby was only too aware that other people nearby were staring at them curiously. ‘I’m Dr Contini,’ he added dryly, gripping her vacant hand firmly. ‘Blake Contini—Acting Head of the department of internal medicine.’

      ‘Oh…I see,’ Abby said thoughtfully, as though she had had no idea. ‘That explains it.’

      ‘I’ll talk to you at the end of the session, Dr Gibson. Wait for me,’ Blake Contini said, turning away from her.

      ‘Yes, Dr Contini.’

      When Abby caught sight of her colleagues in the family practice program looking at her commiseratingly, grinning, she felt her face flush anew. That guy was something else! As soon as these rounds were over she would give him a piece of her mind if he was high-handed with her when she explained about Dr Ryles. As it was, he hadn’t even given her an opening to apologize out of politeness. Some of the other staff men would have turned a blind eye to her lateness. Maybe because some of them didn’t care, she had to admit in all honesty. Some were good teachers, some were mediocre, some were downright bad.

      ‘What was that all about?’ Her colleague and friend Cheryl Clinton approached her. ‘Was he mad at you for missing the case?’

      ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Abby shrugged. ‘What a high-handed guy. And what a nerve, in front of the whole room.’

      ‘I wouldn’t mind getting that sort of attention from him,’ Cheryl said, her eyes searching the room for the object of their discussion.

      ‘At least he’s got a firm handshake.’ Abby tried to laugh it off. ‘I can’t stand guys whose hands feel like a slab of cheese or the proverbial dead fish. He wants to see me after…I can’t wait to give him an earful.’

      Cheryl laughed. ‘Attagirl!’ she said delightedly. ‘Put him in his place.’ Then she added, sotto voce, ‘Pretty dishy, though, eh?’

      Cheryl’s head turned again towards the tall figure who was now across the room talking to the medical residents who had presented the case Abby had just missed.

      ‘Mmm,’ Abby said absently as she turned to follow Cheryl’s line of vision, looking at the aquiline profile of Dr Contini. Her thoughts were returning sharply to Dr Will Ryles, wondering what was going on right now with him in the emergency department, whether the staff had informed his wife yet, whether she was at this very moment driving to the hospital with a terrible fear in her heart of what she might find there. As soon as possible she would get down there herself and find out.

      ‘I’m sorry I missed СКАЧАТЬ