Читать книгу A Family Of Their Own - Jennifer Taylor, Jennifer Taylor - Страница 7

‘IF YOU could just wait a moment…’

Leanne bit back a sigh when she saw the lack of comprehension on the young woman’s face. So far all she had managed to establish was that the patient’s name was Chantal Dupré and that she was from Paris. Why Chantal needed to see a doctor was something she still had to find out.

Dredging her mind, Leanne summoned up a few words of school French. ‘Un moment, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle.’

Leaving the young woman sitting in Reception, she hurried off in search of Melanie, hoping that she might be able to help her solve the problem. After Nick Slater had finished giving her a tour of the clinic, he had asked her if she would take over the reception duties.

She’d been a little surprised by the request until he had explained that it helped to have someone medically trained greeting the patients on their arrival, to act as triage nurse. Minor ailments could be passed to one of the nursing staff, more serious matters referred to a doctor and any urgent cases could be rushed straight through.

It had been a gentle introduction to the work carried out at the clinic and she’d rather enjoyed it until she had encountered the problem of a patient who spoke no English. She spotted Melanie coming out of one of the treatment rooms and greeted her with relief.

‘How’s your French? I’ve got a woman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English and I’m stuck.’

‘Nick’s your man. He speaks French, Spanish, Italian, plus a smattering of umpteen other languages,’ Melanie told her cheerfully. ‘He’s in his office so give him a shout.’

‘Thanks,’ Leanne murmured as Melanie escorted her patient out. She made her way to Nick’s office and knocked on the door, refusing to think about what had happened a couple of hours earlier. Actually getting down to some work had helped enormously to calm her nerves, although she had to confess to a sudden attack of the jitters when she heard Nick inviting her in. She bit back a sigh. Whichever way she looked at it, her reaction to Nick Slater was very strange.

It was hardly the most comforting of thoughts so she did her best to put it out of her mind as she entered the room. Nick was at his desk and he looked up with an abstracted smile.

‘Problems?’

‘Kind of. I have a Frenchwoman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English. Melanie said that you speak French…’

‘So you want me to translate for you?’ He took off the rimless glasses he was wearing and tossed them on the desk then grinned at her. ‘It will be a pleasure. Anything to get away from this wretched paperwork!’

Leanne laughed softly but she couldn’t deny that her heart had given an uncomfortable little thump when he had smiled at her. ‘You’d think things would have got easier since computers came on the scene, but it hasn’t made much difference, I’ve found.’

‘You and me both,’ he agreed, easing himself out of the chair and groaning. ‘I’ve only been working on this wretched report for a couple of hours but it feels like a lifetime. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being stuck behind a desk.’

‘One of the hazards of the job, I would have thought,’ she observed. ‘Most GPs end up spending a lot of their time desk-bound.’

‘Which is yet another reason why I’m glad that I decided not to join the family firm,’ he responded, making for the door.

Leanne frowned as she followed him into the corridor. ‘Family firm? What do you mean?’

‘My mother and father are both GPs, although Mum only works a couple of days a week now, covering the post- and antenatal clinics. My older brother Patrick works with them and my sister Helen was the practice nurse at the surgery until she had her youngest child and found it was too much for her. Benjie is her fourth,’ he explained dryly. ‘So I think she deserves a bit of time off, don’t you?’

‘I most certainly do,’ she exclaimed. ‘Four children are a lot to cope with. But it’s amazing that your whole family works together like that. It must be marvellous for them.’

‘Depends on what you want from life, I suppose,’ he said shortly.

Leanne looked at him curiously. ‘Meaning that it isn’t what you want?’

‘No. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life stuck in Sussex. There’s too much of the world I haven’t seen yet.’

‘You’ll have to settle down one day,’ she protested.

‘Why? There’s no rule that says you have to stay put in one place.’

His tone was harsh and she had the feeling that he was annoyed, but why? Because of what she’d said or because of something that had happened in his past?

She had no time to work it out, however, because they had arrived at Reception by then. Nick went straight to the young Frenchwoman and briefly conferred with her then drew Leanne forward.

‘Mademoiselle Dupré needs emergency contraception. Can you deal with it?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed at once. ‘How long ago was it that she had unprotected sex?’

‘Last night so there shouldn’t be a problem. As you know, the tablets need to be taken within seventy-two hours of intercourse taking place.’

He glanced round when the door opened and another patient came in. ‘Why don’t you take Mademoiselle Dupré into one of the treatment rooms and fill in all the details on her card? I’ll leave it to you to administer the drugs. You can sign for them at the pharmacy.

‘I’ll have another word with her before she leaves and make sure that she understands what she has to do. Melanie can take over the desk again now that she’s finished with her patient.’

‘Fine,’ Leanne agreed immediately. She smiled at the young Frenchwoman, signalling that she should follow her. Opening the door to one of the immaculately furnished treatment rooms, she indicated that Chantal should wait there while she fetched the medication.

Emergency contraception—commonly called the morning-after pill—consisted of two high-dose oral contraceptive pills taken as soon as possible after intercourse. They were followed twelve hours later by a further two pills. Although the treatment wasn’t one hundred per cent guaranteed to work, it was effective in most cases.

Nick would explain to Chantal Dupré that, if she missed her next period, she would need to take a pregnancy test in a month’s time, just to be certain, Leanne thought as she signed for the tablets. The poor woman obviously wouldn’t be pleased to discover that she was pregnant after she had taken steps to avoid it.

She sighed as she made her way back to the treatment room. Had her own birth mother been dismayed when she had found out that she was pregnant? She must have been otherwise she would never have given her daughter up for adoption.

It made Leanne wonder if her friends had been right and if she was making a mistake by trying to track down the woman who had given her away. After all, her adoptive parents had given her all the love she could possibly have needed, so was it wise to go raking up the past when she might be disappointed by what she discovered? Maybe she had always longed for brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, but there was no guarantee that she would have much in common with them if she did find them. Nick had obviously made a conscious decision to escape the ties of his family.

That thought made her frown. Maybe she was reading too much into the situation, but she had a feeling that there was a reason why he had cut himself off like that and that it hadn’t been just a desire to travel either. What had happened to make Nick decide to leave his family?

For some reason it seemed important that she find out.

‘Merci, mademoiselle. Au revoir.’

Nick closed the door after Chantal Dupré finally left then glanced at his watch. The woman had been so delighted to find someone who could understand her that she had kept him talking. He was very aware that the report he needed to submit was lying on his desk, half-finished. Even though he loathed paperwork, he usually got down to it, but it seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time that day. The trouble was that his mind kept skipping off at tangents all the time.

He squared his shoulders, refusing to let himself be sidetracked again. He had spent enough time thinking about Leanne Russell for one day. He hurried back to his office but he had barely sat down when there was a knock on the door and Robert Ashford, one of the duty doctors, poked his head into the room.

‘Sorry to bother you, Nick, but I’ve got a guy with me I’d like you to take a look at.’

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, immediately getting up.

Robert was from Tennessee and he was spending six months in the UK before he took up a residency at a hospital in his home town. Nick had found him to be extremely competent and didn’t doubt that there was a genuine problem if Robert had seen fit to ask for his opinion.

‘It’s very vague—fever, lassitude, quite noticeable enlargement of the glands in his neck.’ Robert shrugged. ‘He’s obviously unwell, there’s no doubt about that, but I can’t put my finger on the problem.’

‘Have you ordered blood tests?’ Nick asked, accompanying him from the room.

‘Yessiree. I’m waiting on the lab. They’ve promised to get back to me a.s.a.p. I just thought it might help if you had a look in case I’ve missed something,’ Robert replied laconically.

Nick nodded. ‘Fine by me.’

He followed the younger man into one of the treatment rooms and introduced himself to the patient. ‘I’m Nick Slater, acting head of the clinic. Dr Ashford has asked me to take a look at you.’

‘Take as many as you like,’ the middle-aged man replied, making an obvious effort to sound cheerful. ‘If you can work out what’s wrong with me, I’ll be eternally grateful. I’ve felt like hell these past few days, I can tell you.’

Nick smiled as he picked up the chart Robert had filled in. ‘We shall give it our best shot. It’s Mr Jacobs, is it, and you work for the Foreign Office?’

‘That’s right. Been with them for twenty years now. I’ve been working on overseas aid and development for the past three,’ Ian Jacobs replied.

‘Really? That must be interesting. Do you get to go overseas a lot, or is it mainly a desk job?’ Nick carefully checked the man’s neck. He nodded to Robert when he felt how enlarged the glands were.

‘A bit of both, actually. I’ve been to quite a lot of places in the past few years—India, Africa, places like that.’

‘And were you ever ill when you were away on any of these trips?’ Nick asked, trying to get a full picture of what might be wrong with the man.

‘Not that I can remember…’ Ian Jacobs frowned. ‘A bit of a tummy upset in India, but several members of the party suffered with it, as I recall. The sanitation where we were staying left a lot to be desired.’

‘That’s the problem with so many of these Third World countries,’ he observed lightly. ‘Anything else? Were you bitten by a dog, scratched by a cat, made a meal of by mosquitoes?’

Ian laughed ruefully. ‘The mosquitoes had a field day with me! I was covered in bites most of the time. But I was very careful about taking precautions, Dr Slater. I was on anti-malarial tablets throughout each trip and continued using them after I came home as per instructions. Do you think it’s possible that I might have contracted malaria?’

Nick shook his head when he heard the worry in the man’s voice. ‘Not if you took the medication exactly as you were advised to do. Most modern antimalaria treatment is effective. I assume that you used the ones best suited to the countries you were visiting? There are different strains of malaria so any preventative medicine must take account of that.’

‘Oh, yes. We were given the most up-to-date information before we travelled. One thing the Foreign Office is good at is looking after their employees when they are in the field,’ Ian Jacobs assured him.

‘That’s good to hear. Now, just to recap. Dr Ashford told me that you’ve been suffering from bouts of fever; is that right?’

‘Yes. I can’t recall ever experiencing anything like it, not even when I came down with flu several years ago. And I feel so worn out all the time, as though I can barely make the effort to do anything,’ the man confessed.

‘I see. And there’s nothing else at all that you can add? Something quite insignificant, perhaps.’ Nick smiled reassuringly but he was as puzzled as Robert was about the case. ‘We work a bit like Sherlock Holmes—if we eliminate the possible and find ourselves left with the improbable, then it is quite often the answer.’

‘Well, there’s an insect bite which has been a bit of a nuisance…But I really can’t see that it’s the cause of how ill I’ve been feeling.’

‘Let’s take a look. It would be silly not to check it out, wouldn’t it?’ Nick bit back a sigh. It never failed to amaze him how reluctant people were to impart information.

‘It’s here on my hip.’ Ian pulled down his underwear so that Nick could see the small lump on his hip. ‘It’s quite painful, actually. So much so that I find myself lying on my other side at night in bed.’

Nick gently probed the nodule, murmuring an apology when he felt Ian wince. He glanced at Robert and raised his brows. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look like any mosquito bite that I’ve ever seen,’ the younger doctor told him doubtfully.

‘Exactly what I thought. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a tsetse fly bite.’ He glanced at the patient again. ‘Which part of Africa did you visit and how long ago were you there?’

‘We were on the west coast about a month ago. Doesn’t the tsetse fly carry sleeping sickness?’

‘That’s right.’ He patted Ian Jacobs’s shoulder when he heard the alarm in his voice. ‘However, even if I’m right—and we’ll need the results of the blood tests to confirm that—then sleeping sickness is curable if you catch it early enough. As soon as we can establish if that is what’s wrong with you, you will be started on a course of drugs to kill the parasites that have got into your bloodstream.’

He paused as a thought occurred to him. Leanne had worked on the tropical diseases ward of the Sydney hospital so maybe she could help to confirm his diagnosis? Obviously, his sole reason for involving her was the patient’s welfare, he told himself quickly when alarm bells started to ring inside his head. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he wanted to see her again.

‘We have a new nurse working here who was a sister on the tropical diseases ward at the Royal Free Hospital in Sydney,’ he explained before he thought better of it. ‘Would you mind if I asked her to take a look, Mr Jacobs?’

‘Not at all,’ the man said quickly. ‘The sooner you establish what this is, then the faster I can be treated.’

‘Exactly.’ Nick excused himself and left the room. He made his way to Reception but Melanie was behind the desk. She looked up when he appeared.

‘Did you want me, Nick?’

‘I was looking for Leanne, actually,’ he explained, trying to quell the shiver that ran through him when he said her name. It was so ridiculous for a grown man of thirty-five to be acting that way that his mouth compressed and he saw Melanie frown in concern.

‘There’s nothing wrong, is there? Leanne hasn’t done anything to upset you?’

‘Of course not.’ He fixed a smile to his mouth but it was an effort to hold it in place. Get a grip, Slater! he told himself sternly. Stop acting like a moron and start acting like a doctor.

It was good advice but as he made his way to the supply room, where Leanne was checking in a delivery, he knew how difficult it was going to be to follow it. Leanne and being sensible were two concepts his mind had difficulty putting together. He didn’t want to act like a doctor when she was around. He wanted to act like a man in the company of a woman whom he found overwhelmingly attractive.

Leanne ticked off the last item on the list and slipped the delivery note into her pocket. She took a quick look around the small room to make sure that everything was where it was meant to be. Her eyes alighted on half a dozen boxes of hypodermic syringes which she had put on the floor while she’d unpacked the rest of the delivery and she sighed. They needed putting away before she finished.

She quickly pulled over the ladder so that she could put the boxes in their rightful place on the top shelf. She was halfway up the steps when she heard someone coming into the room and automatically glanced round to see who it was. Her foot missed the rung she had been aiming for when she found herself looking into a familiar pair of hazel-green eyes.

‘Careful!’ Nick made a grab for her as she swayed perilously, his hands clamping firmly on her hips while he steadied her.

Leanne sucked in a little breath through lips that felt as though they had turned to rubber all of a sudden. She could feel the warmth of his palms against her hip bones, feel his fingers curving around the lower part of her abdomen, and the sensations that were flowing through her at that moment weren’t ones she should have been feeling about a man she had known barely three hours. All of a sudden, she was awash with desire to feel his hands on other parts of her body, to feel them caressing her and bringing alive the passion that was simmering inside her…

‘Are you OK? Do you want me to help you down if you’re feeling dizzy?’

She blinked when he spoke, feeling her face suffuse with heat when she realised that she had been standing there, daydreaming about Nick making love to her. Frankly, it was a scenario guaranteed to give her sleepless nights for weeks to come, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that right then.

‘No, I’m fine.’

She swiftly deposited the boxes on the shelf, murmuring her thanks like an obedient child when he handed her the rest of them. He stepped back as she began to descend and she had to physically stop herself flinching when he put a steadying hand under her elbow as she stepped off the bottom rung.

‘You need to be careful in here,’ he said in a tone that made her heart bump. ‘It would be easy to fall and hurt yourself.’

‘Especially when you aren’t watching what you’re doing,’ she replied, trying to inject a little levity into her voice.

She shot him a wary glance as they left the room, but it was hard to decide why he had sounded so edgy. Maybe he’d been worried about what would have happened if she’d fallen off the ladder? After all, it wouldn’t reflect well on him if a new employee ended up injuring herself on her first day in the job.

Funnily enough that idea stung, but she forced herself to ignore it when he turned to her. ‘I wonder if you would mind taking a look at a patient for me?’

‘Me?’ she exclaimed, not attempting to hide her surprise.

‘Yes, you.’ Nick grinned. ‘Don’t be so modest. You wouldn’t have been hired for this job if you weren’t good at what you do.’

‘Why, thank you, Dr Slater. I’m completely overwhelmed.’ She smiled back, unable to resist the warm amusement in his eyes.

‘So you should be. I don’t hand out compliments like that every day of the week,’ he retorted, leading the way along the corridor.

‘In other words, you’re soft-soaping me because you want a favour?’

‘Something like that.’ He gave her a last smile then made an obvious effort to concentrate on what he needed to tell her. And it was the fact that it was such an effort that made Leanne’s heart race.

She wasn’t a complete innocent and knew that men found her attractive. She had dated her fair share back home in Australia before she’d met Michael. She had believed at first that what she’d felt for Michael had been the embodiment of everything she’d ever wanted, but she’d been wrong. She knew that now when she looked at Nick, because he made her feel things no other man had made her feel.

All of a sudden she was overcome by sadness that she should have met him when her life was in such a state of flux. Until she found out about the mother who had abandoned her, she wasn’t in a position to start a relationship, not that Nick would be interested, of course. She had heard what he’d said that morning about not wanting a woman cluttering up his life, so it would be silly to imagine that he was looking for commitment.

It should have made it easier to know that he felt the same way she did, but it didn’t. It felt as though there was a big gap in her life, one that might never be filled. Knowing that you couldn’t have something, it didn’t stop you wanting it. It didn’t stop her wanting Nick.

‘This is Leanne Russell. Would you mind if she takes a look at that lump on your hip, Mr Jacobs?’

Nick moved aside as the patient readily gave his permission. It was rather crowded in the room with three of them gathered around the bed. He felt Leanne’s arm brush his as she stepped forward, and gritted his teeth when a spasm shot through him.

He had just about managed to damp down the desire he’d felt when he’d steadied her on that ladder. However, once again he felt his body surge to life and had to swallow a groan of dismay. What was it about her that seemed to push all the right buttons or, rather, all the wrong ones?

He wasn’t interested in commitment, he couldn’t be. How could he commit himself to a woman when he had nothing to offer her? It had been hard to accept that he should remain single all his life, but it had been the right decision. He couldn’t take the risk of letting himself fall in love, wouldn’t take the risk of breaking anyone’s heart. Love, marriage and commitment led to children, and children were the one thing he couldn’t have.

He knew how he had to live his life, but it made not a scrap of difference in this instance. When he looked at Leanne, when he touched her, common sense deserted him. All he could think about was how much he wanted her…

‘I’ve seen this type of insect bite on a number of occasions.’

Nick jolted back to the present, feeling a little colour run up his cheeks when he found her watching him. He could only pray that he wasn’t quite so open about his feelings as she was because he’d had a pretty good idea what she’d been thinking in the supply room.

‘You have?’ He cleared his throat when he heard how rough his voice sounded. He couldn’t afford to think about that now, but it was hard not to. Knowing that Leanne had wanted him as well gave him hot and cold chills. ‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Quite sure. It’s a tsetse fly bite.’ She turned to the patient and smiled. ‘I take it that you didn’t get this in London, Mr Jacobs?’

‘I most certainly didn’t,’ Ian Jacobs replied with a laugh.

Nick held himself rigid when he saw the appreciation in the older man’s eyes as he looked at Leanne. There was no way that he would allow himself to feel jealous! But telling himself that didn’t seem to make a scrap of difference.

‘So you were in Africa, I take it? Which part?’ she continued.

‘On the west coast.’ Ian Jacobs frowned. ‘Why did you both ask me that? Isn’t the disease prevalent all over the continent?’

‘Yes, it is, but there are two different forms of trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness as it’s more commonly called,’ she explained. ‘The strain which is found in the east of the continent mainly affects cattle, although it can be transmitted to people. It’s a far more aggressive strain and develops in weeks rather than months. You may find this hard to believe, but if it is sleeping sickness, you’re lucky that you caught it in the west.’

‘Really?’ Ian sounded shocked. ‘Exactly how much damage can it cause? I’ve heard about it, of course, but I’m rather vague as to the details.’

Nick took over then when Leanne glanced at him. He guessed that she wanted him to decide how much to tell the man. They weren’t in the business of lying to people, but it would be wrong to scare him.

‘The west and central strain of the disease is fairly slow running. Once the parasites have got into your bloodstream then it can take months or even years for the disease to develop fully. Fortunately, you will be receiving treatment immediately so that won’t be a problem. The heart and the brain are both severely affected if sleeping sickness is allowed to run its course, but it can be cured with the right combination of drugs.’

‘There’s no chance of it having affected my heart and brain, is there?’ Ian demanded, anxiously.

‘It’s most unlikely at this early stage,’ Nick assured him. He glanced at Leanne. ‘How did the patients you treated fare?’

‘They made full recoveries,’ she said immediately, but he could tell that she was glossing over the facts. Although it was true that a cure could be effected with the right drugs, they were known to have unpleasant side-effects. Obviously, Leanne knew that but didn’t want to worry the patient by telling him so.

He sighed because it brought it home to him once again how aware of her he was. Robert didn’t appear to have noticed that she’d been somewhat economical with the truth and neither had Ian.

She excused herself soon afterwards and Nick concentrated on explaining to Ian what would happen next. The man would be referred to a specialist at a nearby hospital, who would be able to start him on the most appropriate form of treatment.

Ian was eager to make the appointment that day so Nick went to his office and put through a call. It all took some time, plus a little gentle persuasion on his part, but eventually everything was arranged. Ian was despatched by taxi to the hospital.

It was lunchtime by then, but Nick didn’t bother going out for anything to eat. He still had the report to finish and he would be hard-pressed to get it done on time. He looked up when he heard footsteps pausing outside his door and felt his heart perform the strangest manoeuvre when he saw Leanne in the doorway. It was an effort to act as though there was nothing wrong when it felt as though his pulse was trying for a new Olympic record.

‘Are you off now?’

‘Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She started to leave, stopped, glanced back then shrugged. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye,’ he repeated, because it was easier than thinking up anything more witty.

He took a deep breath as she hurried away and held it for a count of ten. It didn’t help. His pulse was still hammering at high speed. Whichever way he looked at it, working with Leanne was going to be a challenge.