The Stranger's Secret. Maggie Kingsley

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      ‘Goodbye?’ he echoed. ‘But—’

      ‘Goodbye, Dr Dunbar,’ she repeated, and before he could stop her she’d turned and hopped with as much dignity as she could along to her consulting room.

      The nerve of the man—the sheer unmitigated gall! Laughing and joking with Tracy—discussing the dance which was going to be held in the village hall on Saturday. Well, to be fair, Tracy had done most of the laughing and joking, but that didn’t alter the fact that she wouldn’t be able to do any dancing for the next three months. And whose fault was that? Ezra’s!

      Just as it was also his fault that by the end of her surgery she felt like a washed-out rag. Ten patients—that’s all she’d seen. Ten patients who’d been suffering from nothing more challenging than the usual collection of winter coughs and colds, and yet by the time they’d all gone her head was throbbing quite as badly as her leg.

      So the last person she wanted to see in the waiting room was Ezra Dunbar.

      ‘Now, before you chew my head off,’ he began, getting quickly to his feet as he saw the martial glint in her eye. ‘I’m here solely because I thought you might appreciate a lift home, rather than having to wait for a taxi.’

      ‘I don’t need—’

      ‘No, I know you don’t,’ he interrupted. ‘But just humour me this once, please, Jess, hmm?’

      And because she felt so wretched she feebly allowed him to drive her home, and made only a token protest when he insisted on helping her inside.

      But the minute he’d flicked on the sitting-room light and ushered her towards a chair, she turned to him firmly. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’

      To her surprise, he didn’t go. Instead, he stared round the room, then back at her with a frown. ‘Isn’t there anybody I can call to come over and stay with you?’

      ‘I don’t need anybody,’ she insisted. ‘You can see for yourself that my house has no stairs, and as all I want to do is go to bed—’

      ‘Your clothes—what about your clothes?’ he demanded, his eyes taking in her green sweater and the remnants of her trousers. ‘How are you going to get them off?’

      ‘The same way I put them on,’ she replied dismissively, only to see his frown increase. ‘Look, I’ll be all right.’

      ‘You won’t. Oh, I don’t mean simply tonight,’ he continued as she tried to interrupt. ‘I mean tomorrow, and the day after that. Jess, you’re going to be in plaster for a minimum of eight weeks. You might just be able to do your surgeries, but how are you going to do any home visits or night calls when you can’t drive?’

      ‘I’ll get a locum to cover the nights and home visits.’

      ‘And until he or she arrives, how are you planning on getting to your patients—by hopping or crawling?’

      Ezra was right. If she couldn’t drive there was no way she was going to be able to cope. And then suddenly it hit her. She had the answer standing right in front of her. All six feet two of him.

      ‘You could drive me about.’

      ‘I could what?’ he gasped.

      ‘You’re here on holiday,’ she continued quickly. ‘You could drive me to my home visits and out to any night calls until I get a locum.’

      ‘Jess—’

      ‘I’m not asking you to do anything medical—’

      ‘Just as well because I wouldn’t do it,’ he retorted. ‘No, Jess. No way.’

      He meant it—she could see that—but desperate situations called for desperate measures, and she drew herself up to her full five feet two inches and took a deep breath.

      ‘OK, I’ve tried asking, and now I’m telling. You’ve admitted the accident was your fault so you owe me. Either you agree to chauffeur me around or…or I go straight to PC Inglis, and accuse you of dangerous driving.’

      ‘That‘s…that’s blackmail!’ he spluttered, and she coloured.

      ‘I haven’t got any choice—can’t you see that? The people here need me, and everybody else on the island is either too young, or too old, or they’ve got full-time jobs. Only you are here on holiday.’

      He stared back at her impotently. He could tell her to go to hell. He could say he didn’t give a damn if she spoke to the chief constable of the area himself, but if she called in the police questions would be asked. Questions about where he’d come from and what he was doing here. And everything would come out. Every last, sorry detail. There was nothing he could do but agree to her suggestion, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or that he couldn’t make one last attempt to dissuade her.

      ‘And what if I am a drug dealer, like Wattie Hope said, or an axe murderer?’

      Heavens, but he looked angry enough at the moment to be either, she thought as she stared up at him. And she couldn’t really blame him. What she was doing was unforgivable.

      ‘I’ll…I’ll risk it,’ she said. He didn’t reply. He simply turned on his heel and headed for her front door, and desperately she hopped after him. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I promise I’ll phone the agency about a locum first thing tomorrow—’

      She was talking to thin air, and as she listened to the sound of his footsteps going down the gravel path she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to burst into tears. Which was crazy.

      Dammit, he owed her a favour. OK, so maybe she shouldn’t have blackmailed him into agreeing to it, but he did owe her. And just because he obviously thought she was the lowest form of pond life, that was no reason for her to get upset.

      She was home, wasn’t she? Home in the house where she’d been born. Home with all her familiar things. OK, so her leg—not to mention every other bone in her body—hurt like hell, but that didn’t explain why she should suddenly feel so lost and lonely.

      And it sure as heck didn’t explain why her heart should lift when her front door was suddenly thrown open again and Ezra reappeared.

      ‘I can’t do it,’ he announced without preamble. ‘You might be the most manipulative, stubbornly vexatious woman it’s ever been my misfortune to meet, but I can’t leave you here on your own. You could collapse in the middle of the night—’

      ‘I won’t—and if I do it’s not your problem,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Of course it’s my problem,’ he flared. ‘You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me, and if you’re too stupid and pigheaded to stay in hospital there’s only one thing I can do. I’ll have to stay.’

      ‘Stay?’ she echoed faintly.

      ‘And not just for tonight,’ he fumed. ‘If you insist on me being at your beck and call twenty-four hours a day I’m going to have to move in with you until you get a locum.’

      Jess’s mouth СКАЧАТЬ