A Family To Come Home To. Josie Metcalfe

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      ‘Ben,’ she echoed, conscious that it felt strangely intimate to use a diminutive of his name so soon after meeting him. ‘How much do you know about the situation here at Ditchling?’

      ‘If you mean, have I seen any adverts, then, no, I haven’t because I wasn’t really looking for a job,’ he admitted bluntly. ‘I heard that you were looking for help through a friend…of your husband’s?’ he ended on a questioning note.

      ‘It could be,’ she said quietly, quelling the stab of pain that came with the memories. ‘Richard died of leukaemia almost a year ago, just three weeks after he was diagnosed. He never went into remission.’

      She wondered at the flash of agony she glimpsed in those extraordinary eyes before he shuttered them behind a screen of thick dark lashes.

      ‘I take it the two of you were partners in the practice?’ he asked, his voice huskier than ever. ‘Have you been trying to cope by yourself since then?’

      Trying and failing, said a morose voice inside her head, but she refused to pay it any attention.

      ‘With the help of one arrogant potential partner and subsequent intermittent locums,’ she admitted, then, when she saw his frown, explained a little further. ‘The potential partner had just finished his GP training in a big city practice and, in spite of the fact that he was still as green as grass, thought that he was going to take over as the principle partner purely on the basis that he was a member of the superior sex.’

      Ben winced and she almost allowed herself to smile.

      ‘Since then, I’ve found it a problem to interest anyone wanting a partnership to work the hours I need. Most of them complain that it would be too restrictive for either their family life, if they were married, or their social life, if they were single.’

      ‘And the locums?’ he prompted.

      ‘Are expensive,’ she returned immediately. ‘Sometimes I just don’t have any option, but…’ Kat shrugged, remembering the most recent spell of essential cover with an inward wince. It would be months before she could afford to take any time off at that sort of rate. But if Ben looked even halfway interested…

      ‘So,’ she began briskly, suddenly remembering that it was her responsibility to conduct the interview, and that meant asking questions, ‘what made you decide to move to the West Country? Have you got family in the region, or are you bringing your family with you to settle down here?’

      ‘No family joining me,’ he said crisply, the topic clearly not up for discussion. ‘And it’s a part of the country I haven’t visited before.’

      Kat’s heart sank at the realisation that he was unlikely to want to stay in the practice long—what single man would? There really weren’t very many options for meeting women in this quiet little backwater. But even as she silently berated herself for getting her hopes up, she was telling herself to look on the bright side. If she could persuade him to stay a while, on an associate’s salary, it would give her some time to recoup and look for someone permanent.

      She bit the bullet.

      ‘So, if your references are acceptable, how long were you thinking of staying?’ she asked, her fingers crossed out of sight as she wagered with herself. Even a month would be a help. More than that would be a bonus.

      ‘If we say a fortnight,’ he began, and she was hard-pressed not to moan aloud. It was hardly worth going to the effort of all the form-filling for that. ‘In that time, we would each be able to decide whether we work together well,’ he continued calmly. ‘If not, I would leave at the end of the fortnight.’

      ‘And if we did?’ She was actually holding her breath as she waited for his answer, surprised just how much it suddenly meant to her.

      ‘If we work well together, I would definitely stay for three months and perhaps extend it to six,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t usually stay much longer than that.’

      She almost asked why, but the closed expression on his face didn’t invite personal questions. Anyway, the last thing she wanted to do was put him off before he’d even accepted the job by sounding nosy. There would be plenty of time to find out more about him if he decided to stay on.

      The phone on her desk rang, startling her.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said with a distracted smile as she reached for it. ‘Yes, Rose?’

      ‘Josh and Sam are here,’ the motherly woman announced. ‘They came home on the bus. Something about Sam forgetting his kit for sports club tonight.’

      Kat glanced at her watch and groaned. The boys were supposed to have stayed on at school that day, allowing her to schedule a longer clinic and tack on the interview with Dr…with Ben at the end. Instead, they’d come straight home at the end of classes to collect the kit needed for the after-school club and now she’d have to drive them all the way back.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said as she began a frantic tidying of her desk, quickly shutting down the computer and stowing everything movable into her desk or the top drawer of the filing cabinet and locking both. ‘This is one of the problems that keeps sending everything pear-shaped. Forgetful children.’

      ‘Rose’s or yours?’ Ben had risen to his feet as soon as she had but it had been so long since anyone had shown her that old-fashioned politeness that it made her feel flustered.

      ‘Oh, definitely mine,’ she grumbled as she retrieved her handbag from the bottom drawer.

      ‘Who’s he?’ demanded Josh with all the disdain that an eleven-year-old could manage when they emerged into the reception area.

      ‘Manners, Joshua,’ Kat reminded him softly, her heart aching for the turmoil her elder son was going through with the loss of his precious father. Unfortunately, those who told her it would get easier with time were wrong. Josh seemed to be getting worse by the week.

      ‘Well, who is he?’ Josh reiterated belligerently, somehow recognising that Ben was something more than just another patient. At least he couldn’t possibly know how conscious she was of the man’s quiet presence behind her.

      ‘These are my two sons, Josh and Sam,’ Kat said, holding on to her temper by a thread, sure that it would be an easier task if only she’d had more than five hours’ sleep a night for the past year. ‘And this gentleman has come here for an interview.’

      ‘An interview to work here?’ Sam clarified, her formerly happy-go-lucky eight-year-old asked, now needing everything to be precise and ordered in his mind. ‘So you’re a doctor, like Dad was.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Ben responded, with the first real smile Kat had seen, albeit a small one. ‘Your mother wants to be able to spend more time with the two of you, so she needs me to take over some of the practice duties.’

      Josh’s scowl had grown even darker at the mention of his father and Kat knew he wasn’t in any mood to give Ben the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, before she could even draw breath to head him off, he was issuing the challenge.

      ‘But you wouldn’t want to work here because there’s nowhere interesting to go and nothing exciting to do. You could work in a hospital.’

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