The Doctor's Destiny Read online

  ‘I really need a meal—am I sitting in the wrong place?’

  He could hear voices and the noise of cutlery coming from the far side of the horseshoe-shaped bar.

  ‘You can order here, and I’ll find you somewhere to sit when the meal’s ready,’ Mickey said, slapping a menu on the bar. ‘Do you want a drink while you decide?’

  Settling on a half-Scotch and soda, Rory picked up the menu, but his mind was more on the blonde at the other end of the bar.

  She’d nodded acknowledgement of his presence, then turned back to her friend.

  Was he just a friend?

  Or had Gabi Graham been wrong, and Alana was seeing this man seriously?

  It’s none of your business, he told himself, but the protest was unbelievably weak. He couldn’t see Alana without being aware that he very much wanted to make her his business, one way or another.

  Just not right now!

  He glanced through the menu and ordered a veal dish with prawns and avocado—going for something fancy as he and Jason existed on steak, potato, carrots and peas, or pizza. Though now Drusilla had installed herself in the kitchen, there was more variety, and for when she left, thanks to Gabi, he had the phone number of a Chinese restaurant which delivered to the building.

  ‘Hi, there.’ Gabi appeared, right on cue. ‘Alex and I are eating over the other side of the bar—mainly to protect Alana from an axe murderer. Won’t you join us?’

  ‘Axe murderer?’ Rory repeated, wondering if maybe living in this building did something to people’s brains.

  Gabi laughed.

  ‘Not really—Jeremy’s probably just the harmless accountant he claims he is, but Alana chose Mickey’s for a first meeting with him because she felt safe here, particularly with friends around for back-up.’

  Not a lot of this explanation made sense, so Rory started with the most unbelievable bit of it.

  ‘That fellow with Alana is an accountant?’

  ‘Well, so he said,’ Gabi murmured, turning towards the couple as if to study the stud more closely. ‘He’s certainly not everyone’s idea of a number-cruncher, is he?’

  ‘No!’ Rory muttered, then remembered the other thing that hadn’t made sense.

  ‘You said this was their first meeting—is it a blind date, or what?’

  Gabi laughed, then put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Come and sit with us around the other side. Alana has extra-sensory perception when people are discussing her, and she’d kill me if she thought I was talking about it, but it’s been so amazing—her and Jeremy meeting.’

  This he had to hear! Rory followed Gabi around the bar and through tables dotted with diners to where Alex sat.

  Rory shook his hand, but found himself wishing Alex wasn’t there—surely Gabi wouldn’t indulge in gossip in front of her husband.

  ‘I was about to tell Rory about how Alana and Jeremy met,’ Gabi said brightly, showing Rory how little he knew about women. ‘You know the first part, Alex, so you tell it.’

  ‘Rory doesn’t want to know,’ Alex protested, and Rory, who very much did want to know but didn’t know how to say so without sounding as if he did, slumped into a chair and decided it was all too much for him anyway, and the sooner he got Alana out of his mind, the better.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell him,’ Gabi declared.

  She flashed a smile at Rory and he wondered if she’d read his mind—or maybe his body language—because she certainly knew he wanted to know.

  ‘When Alex flew back from Scotland towards the end of last year, he sat next to this woman who ran a computer dating service—well, not so much a dating service as a cyber meeting place for singles. Then when Alana was looking for a man for Kirsten, she remembered this and enrolled Kirsten and herself with the service, and suddenly there’s Jeremy, talking to her in a chat room. Up to tonight, she’d never met him, though they’ve been emailing each other for ages.’

  Gabi beamed at Rory as if all this conversation made perfect sense, but—who the hell was Kirsten and why did she need a man?

  ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ she demanded. ‘I think it’s so exciting. It’s almost like the old days of mail-order brides.’

  Alex laughed.

  ‘According to Beth, the woman on the plane, it’s nothing like the old mail-order brides. Those women didn’t have a clue about the man to whom they were travelling. Oh, they might have exchanged a couple of letters, but anyone can make themselves sound good on paper.’

  ‘Even axe murderers?’ Rory suggested, and Gabi and Alex both laughed.

  ‘Maybe there is a similarity,’ Alex conceded, then he went on to ask Rory how he was settling in at Royal Westside, and did he have any first impressions he’d like to share?

  Shop-talk took over, and Rory, as he later said goodnight to the couple in the foyer—they were going for a walk before turning in—was surprised to realise how much he’d enjoyed it.

  And said as much.

  ‘You’ve probably not had a lot of adult company lately,’ Gabi said to him. ‘I imagine helping Jason through the loss of his mother, while coping with your own loss, has taken up most of your free time.’ She smiled warmly at him.

  ‘Feel free to join us any time, or if you need someone over the age of thirteen to talk to, give us a call. I’m cutting back to part-time work from the end of next week, and Alex is back on day shift so he’ll usually be home for dinner.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rory said, and found he meant it.

  But spending a pleasant evening with the Grahams hadn’t entirely taken his mind off Alana. He’d tried to see if she was still in the bar as they’d walked out, but the place had been crowded and, without being obvious about it, he hadn’t been able to see as far as the back corner.

  He glanced that way now, but curtains hid the patrons from people in the foyer, though he could always go in for a nightcap…

  Telling himself it was none of his business where Alana was—or how long she stayed out with her muscle-bound accountant-slash-axe murderer, he took the stairs up to the third floor, thinking the exercise would not only do him good but might help him stop thinking about cascading blonde hair falling seductively over a severe black suit.

  Once upstairs, he sat down on the sofa bed he’d bought to replace the couch, but although it made up into a more comfortable sleeping arrangement, as a place to sit it was terrible. For a moment he thought longingly of his old recliner, but because he’d been concerned about shifting Jason away from his home and friends, he’d brought furniture from Alison’s house rather than his own so Jason would at least have familiar things around him.

  Jason! Was he OK? He seemed cheerful enough, thanks mainly to having found a friend in Alana, but Monday would bring another hurdle when he started school. However, since reading that St Peter’s did indeed include a variety of martial arts in their sports curriculum, the school issue had become less volatile.

  More thanks to Alana…

  His groin tightened just thinking about her, but that was probably because of the lengthy period of celibacy—thinking about any attractive woman would cause groin-tightening.

  ‘Hi, we’re back!’

  Drusilla led the way through the door, and Rory amended his thought. Not quite any, though Drusilla, an extremely attractive brunette, had made it plain she wanted him.

  He turned to Jason, asking about the movie and, now he knew him so well, reading the body language behind the words.

  ‘The movie was great!’ But the company! A roll of eyes in Drusilla’s direction conveyed this last phrase. ‘We went to a restaurant after.’

  More eye-rolling—but Rory pretended he didn’t see. The lad had to get used to eating out at places other than fast food outlets.

  ‘And I’m taking him shopping tomorrow. His clothes are a disgrace,’ Drusilla announced. Eye-rolling gave way to a mutinous tightening of lips, and though Rory privately agreed that too-long jeans trailing down over untied joggers and shorts with the crutch down near the kne
es looked appallingly untidy, he knew it was a kind of youth uniform and accepted it as such.

  ‘Didn’t you have a tennis game lined up tomorrow?’ he said, offering Jason a way out.

  ‘Tennis games don’t last all day,’ Drusilla pointed out, and Jason, who’d grabbed Rory’s lifeline with a grateful smile, looked gloomy again.

  ‘No, but we have to discuss a coach for him, and do the final shopping for school.’

  Drusilla, realising she wasn’t about to get her way, frowned at Rory.

  ‘He’s my nephew, too,’ she said. ‘I’m entitled to spend some time with him.’

  Like you have over the past thirteen years? Rory would have liked to have said, but he bit his tongue. Though her brother had defected totally from the family, Drusilla had kept in touch with Alison and had sent Jason cards for his birthday and Christmas. And Alison, especially conscious of family in the way children who’d lost their own can be, had invited Drusilla over quite frequently.

  Though Drusilla had only come when it had suited her.

  But antagonising Drusilla wasn’t in the game plan. If she decided to side with her brother in the battle for custody of Jason, she could be a powerful force.

  ‘And you can,’ Rory said. ‘After the tennis, we’ll all go shopping for the final things for school, then have lunch somewhere. I was reading about a restaurant on the river that had a special weekend smorgasbord.’

  Jason did his eye-rolling again, but Rory ignored it. Drusilla was right—she was entitled to spend some time with him.

  Placated, their visitor headed for the kitchen, announcing she’d make hot chocolate for all of them.

  ‘None for me,’ Rory said quickly, aware of how he’d puffed climbing the stairs and determined to get fitter.

  ‘Or me,’ Jason said. ‘I’m off to bed. I want to get up early in the morning, swim some lengths to warm up before tennis.’ He grinned at Rory. ‘No way I’m letting a woman beat me again!’

  He called goodnight to Drusilla and headed for his bedroom, and Rory, concerned he’d given Jason the impression there really was a tennis game on, followed him.

  ‘I made up the tennis-game thing,’ he said, when they were safely inside the bedroom. ‘To get you out of shopping with Drusilla.’

  Jason grinned at him.

  ‘I know, but I saw Alana as we came in—boy, is her boyfriend built—and she said to give her a call if I wanted a game over the weekend. I just didn’t think fast enough to use it as an excuse.’

  Rory, who’d been feeling guilty about the pretence, watched Jason lift the receiver of the phone on his desk.

  ‘You’re phoning Alana now?’

  Jason shrugged.

  ‘Sure. She was going up to her flat at the same time we came in, so she and Muscles wouldn’t have had time to be doing anything yet.’

  Rory flinched at the ‘doing anything’ phrase and wondered just how much Jason knew of the facts of life. Most things, probably.

  Jason was talking to her now and smiling, so she’d obviously agreed to a game, but it took all Rory’s self-control not to snatch the phone out of his nephew’s hand to demand to know why she’d invited a stranger back to her flat.

  Alana put down the phone and turned back to where Jeremy had lifted a corner of the blanket over the bird cage and was viewing her bald parrot with something approaching horror.

  ‘It’s got no feathers,’ he said, and she grinned at him.

  ‘No. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘But why do you keep it?’ he asked, and she knew this relationship wasn’t going to go any further. Jeremy was a gorgeous-looking man, and she’d known from their email correspondence that they shared many interests, but nothing had sparked between them.

  Now she made the coffee she’d offered, while explaining how she’d come to adopt Rosie the parrot. But her mind was on relationships and she was, reluctantly, admitting to herself that though, for some people, her theory of love growing slowly out of friendship and mutual respect might work, it certainly wasn’t going to happen between herself and Jeremy.

  She’d realised that when they’d been sitting in the bar downstairs and Rory had walked in. A tingle down her spine had prepared her, even before she’d glanced around, but it had been the stab of pain in her chest when he’d moved into the light near the bar and she’d seen how tired he’d looked that had been the real give-away.

  She and Jeremy chatted over coffee, and in the end it was he who said, ‘Well, how do you think it went? Are you interested in meeting again?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You’re a really nice man but, no, I don’t think so.’

  He accepted her decision with a smile.

  ‘You’ve no idea how many women have said that to me, yet there’s a typist in my office who’s madly in love with me—or so she keeps telling me—so I can’t be totally unattractive to women.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with the typist? Doesn’t she attract you at all?’

  To her surprise, the manly Jeremy blushed a deep scarlet.

  ‘Well, she does,’ he said, ‘but she’s so blatant about it I’m worried what people might think. I mean, the whole office knows how she feels.’

  Alana considered this, imagining the situation, going hot herself at the thought of everyone on her ward talking about some infatuation she might have. Not that there was one.

  ‘I can see it might have some of your office staff cracking up and making jokes, but surely, if you find you both like each other, you’ll survive that—and it’ll soon become stale news for them.’

  Jeremy stared at her in much the same way that patients who’d come in for tests for cancer looked when told they were all clear. Hope, joy and disbelief all muddled up together.

  ‘Do you think—?’

  ‘I do,’ Alana said firmly, removing his empty coffee-cup from his hand so he’d get the message it was time to go.

  ‘But if she goes out with me and gets to know me, she might find she doesn’t like me after all,’ he protested, and Alana sighed.

  ‘That’s the risk you have to take, but I don’t think that will happen. You’re a very likable man.’

  Jeremy beamed at her and stood up, towering above her.

  ‘Thanks, Alana. I will ask her out, and I’ll let you know how it goes.’

  She showed him to the door, said goodnight and, after checking all the animals, headed for the bathroom. A quick shower then bed.

  She hadn’t got as far as the shower when a knock sounded on the door. She grabbed her bathrobe, pleased, this time she was dry. Peered through the peep-hole and saw Jeremy standing there.

  ‘May I use your phone?’ he asked, when she let him in. ‘Someone’s smashed the windscreen of my car and pinched my mobile. I left it in there because I think it’s rude to have phones ringing when I’m out on a date.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Then, just for good measure, they punctured two tyres.’

  She let him in and showed him where the phone was, waiting while he phoned the automobile association and explained his predicament.

  A long silence followed, presumably while an equally lengthy explanation was being offered.

  ‘There’s been a spate of minor accidents and all trucks are out. It could be a couple of hours before anyone gets here. I’ll wait outside.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Wait in here. You’ll see the truck pull up outside when it comes—they have flashing yellow lights that will flicker in the windows. Is it too late for another coffee? Or would you like tea this time?’

  Jeremy refused both, but accepted the offer to wait in a comfortable armchair rather than on the street.

  ‘You go to bed,’ he suggested. ‘There’s no reason I should be keeping you up as well.’

  ‘It’s no bother. Tomorrow’s a day off so I can sleep in. Tell me more about your typist.’

  Jeremy smiled.

  ‘My typist?’ he teased, but he did begin to talk, describing the young woman, Marcy, in such glowing terms it was obvi
ous he was attracted to her.

  ‘Why haven’t you asked her out?’ she finally demanded.

  ‘Well…’ Jeremy hesitated. ‘She’s kind of scatty. Not in her work—it’s excellent—but her looks and her behaviour—young, you know. And I like that, but she’s not what you’d have in mind as an accountant’s girlfriend.’ He paused again. ‘She wears very short skirts.’

  ‘And her legs are hideous?’

  Jeremy blushed again.

  ‘No, no, she’s got great legs.’

  ‘Well?’

  Alana knew exactly what he was saying—or not saying. It was shades of Josh Phillips’s reservations about Kirsten, who was the trendiest dresser at the hospital. But part of love was accepting people the way they were, not expecting them to change, and Josh had finally realised that.

  Perhaps Jeremy would, too.

  She asked more questions, gathering more information than she’d ever needed to know about Marcy while, she hoped, Jeremy came to the realisation that he cared for the woman more than he’d let himself believe.

  True to the warning, it was more than three hours before the flashing lights beyond her window told them the rescuers had arrived.

  ‘I won’t come down. You’ll be OK?’

  Jeremy assured her he could manage now and when she opened the door to see him out he dropped a light kiss on her cheek.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and his smile told her he meant it.

  I could almost take over Daisy’s job, Alana thought as she waited for the lift to arrive so she could wave goodbye.

  The lift pinged to announce its arrival, and the doors slid open, but even before Jeremy stepped inside, Alana saw the passenger already in it. A man coming down from the floor above. And as a senior physician at the hospital, he’d undoubtedly been called in to an emergency.

  From the scowl on his face, he wasn’t happy about it.

  She waved again, including him in the gesture, but as the lift doors slid closed, she could have sworn his scowl had grown grimmer.

  So much for cheery waves!

  CHAPTER SEVEN