A Consultant's Special Care. Joanna Neil
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upwards over her rib cage as she raised a hand to cover her mouth.
Too late, she tried to change the yawn into a cough, and his mouth twisted sardonically.
‘Nice try,’ he muttered drily, ‘but totally unconvincing. Maybe you should tell your boyfriend to go home earlier so that you can get some sleep.’
The unfairness of it made her open her mouth in protest, but he had already moved on, striding towards the light box where he stopped to view a set of X-rays and offered an opinion to the registrar who was frowning at them in worried indecision.
It wasn’t as though there was a scrap of truth in his accusation, Abby thought resentfully. She had stayed on last night after her shift should have ended to follow up on a patient that she had been admitting, and as a consequence she had only managed a couple of hours’ sleep before coming into work this morning.
Why was it that she always seemed to get the sharp end of his tongue, while the rest of her colleagues escaped with samples of his dry wit?
It was so unfair, but she wasn’t going to demean herself by explaining what had really happened, especially when he was deep in conversation with his registrar.
He crossed her path again when she was about to get in her car to drive home a couple of hours later.
‘Finished for the day?’ he enquired softly.
‘I have,’ she said, flicking a frosty glance in his direction. ‘Any objections?’
She regretted the words as soon as she had said them. Junior doctors simply didn’t talk to consultants like that—not if they wanted to get on. But it was out now, and he was giving her a brooding stare through thick, dark lashes, his eyes half-closed.
‘None at all. Enjoy your evening,’ he said.
It wasn’t what she had expected and it threw her off balance. She sent him a wary glance. ‘I will.’
She drove home and tried to shake the image of his sculpted features from her mind. He was there to vex and challenge her throughout her working day and she refused to let him disturb her off-duty time as well.
It wasn’t so easy to dismiss him from her thoughts, though, and she tried to forget about him by spending the evening with Jessica and Corinne Matthews in Jessica’s garden. They sat out on the patio and talked quietly, sipping at glasses of chilled wine until it began to get dark. Then they decided to turn in for the night and each went back to her own home.
Abby was tired, and when she finally lay down in bed, she fell asleep straight away.
She didn’t know what it was that woke her. One minute she was deep in slumber, the next she was sitting up in bed and staring around at the night shadows in confusion. The clock on her bedside table read a quarter to four, and she thought she caught a faint beam of light arcing through her bedroom curtains.
It was probably just moonlight, but for some reason her heart was pounding heavily. Then she heard a sound, like the click of a gate, and she suddenly felt fearful for Jessica and Chloe next door. Was Jessica’s ex-husband on the prowl?
She slid her feet into soft mules and pulled her fleecy wrap around herself, while she tried to decide what she should do. Jessica might need some help, and Abby was determined to protect her and Chloe from any untoward happenings.
She crept down the stairs, thankful that the dim glow from the lamp she had left on in the hall lit her way. Going out through the back door of the house, she headed for Jessica’s kitchen door. It was locked, but as she looked up, Abbey could see that the bathroom window was open.
Just then, the kitchen light came on, and Abby heard Chloe’s small voice. ‘Daddy here, Mummy?’ she was asking.
Jessica’s answer was muted, and Abby tapped on the kitchen door and said in an urgent low voice, ‘Jess—it’s Abby. Can I come in?’
Abby heard the slide of a bolt and then Jessica opened the door. She was white-faced and her hands shook a little, but Abby could see that she was trying to appear calm for Chloe’s sake.
‘Me have lem’nade, Mummy?’
‘No, Chloe. Not now.’
Abby went into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. ‘I thought I heard something and I came to see if you were all right.’
Jessica nodded, and said in an undertone, ‘I thought I heard someone prowling around outside, and got up to take a look. Then Chloe said she saw someone in her room, but she might have been dreaming.’
Abby looked at her in alarm. ‘Have you checked the house?’
‘Yes. There’s no one here now, but the bathroom window has been forced open.’ She frowned. ‘I’ll have to get that fixed as soon as I can. Perhaps I can block it up some way, just for tonight.’
‘Why I not have lem’nade?’ Chloe asked, rubbing her eyes.
‘It’s not good for you at this time of night. I’ll make you a milk drink instead. You go and curl up on the settee and I’ll bring it to you.’
Jessica settled her daughter, then fetched a saucepan from the cupboard and set about making hot chocolate.
She was trembling still, and Abby said quietly, ‘I’ll do that. You sit down. You look a bit wobbly on your feet.’ She went to the hob and watched the milk heat in the pan, then poured it into mugs and stirred the chocolate thoughtfully. ‘Do you think it was Colin?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been, but with him, trouble usually starts when he’s had too much drink. He’s not usually one to creep about.’ She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Unless he’s trying out some new way to upset me…I suppose you must think I’m feeble to let him get to me this way?’
Abby shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think that at all. I know what it’s like to deal with someone who’s unstable. I knew a man in London who could be menacing if he didn’t get his own way. He was possessive and determined to have me as his girl friend. I even had to change my phone number because of him. I tried talking to him, reasoning with him, but nothing worked, and in the end I left. It was too wearing on my nerves to have to keep on dealing with him.’
‘I think it’s a bit like that with Colin. He can’t bear to think that I don’t want him any more. That’s why he keeps coming back.’
‘Have you called the police about tonight’s break-in?’
Jessica shook her head. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much point. Whoever it was has gone now, and it would only upset Chloe to have police all over the place. Perhaps I’ll tell them in the morning, when she’s at nursery.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Abby looked at Jessica’s pale face and said, ‘Shall I stay here with you for the rest of the night?’
‘Would you? I must admit I’m feeling really wound up about all this. It’s frightening to think that someone’s been creeping about my house.’
‘I would feel exactly the same.’ Abby gave her a hug. ‘We’ll all feel safer if we stay together.’
She doubted that either of them would get much sleep after that, but at least Chloe didn’t appear to be too upset by the incident. They took the little girl up to bed a few minutes later, and she looked out of her bedroom window to satisfy herself that all was well before she climbed into bed. Then she got up again and said sleepily, ‘Me go in Mummy’s bed?’
‘All right.’ Jessica hugged her daughter close, and Abby settled down for what was left of the night in Chloe’s room. When Jessica woke her in the morning, in time to get ready for work, she felt as though she had only just fallen asleep.
In the A and E department, Jordan was his usual energetic, breezy self, and Abby looked at him sourly through bleary eyes as the morning progressed. How did he manage to be so full of life, with such endless vitality? If he said as much