A Family Of Their Own. Jennifer Taylor
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only lasted a week. She had got it into her head that life would be easier working in a place where the patients didn’t have their treatment provided by the NHS, with all its attendant problems.’
He gave a deep laugh and Leanne held herself rigid when she felt a spasm shoot through her again. ‘Unfortunately, it has just the opposite effect. Because people pay for their treatment they expect a much better service. Woe betide you if you don’t come up to their expectations!’
‘It’s only natural, I suppose.’
She cleared her throat when she heard how husky her voice had sounded. She had to stop this, she told herself sternly. Had to stop reacting to everything Nick Slater said or did. He was just someone she would be working with for the next three months so maybe she should slot him into that category right away.
‘People expect value for money,’ she continued in a more normal tone. ‘It doesn’t matter if they’re buying a new car, groceries from the supermarket or medical care, they expect the very best for their hard-earned money.’
‘Exactly. And that’s what we aim to give them when they come to HealthFirst,’ Nick assured her. ‘Our aim is to provide a comprehensive, value-for-money service to all our patients.’
‘Do you deal mainly with minor ailments?’ she asked curiously.
‘Not at all. We provide the full range of services that any general practitioner would offer. If we see a patient and decide that he needs a hospital referral—we arrange it. We also offer a complete range of diagnostic tests—blood, urine, cholesterol, electrocardiograph, and so on. And we refer any which are beyond our scope to a specialist provider.’
‘Are the people you treat usually holidaymakers?’ she said, a little surprised by the extent of the services on offer at the clinic.
‘No, again.’ He paused and she steeled herself when she realised that he was looking at her. She knew that she couldn’t keep avoiding making eye contact with him, but it was difficult to make herself turn and face him.
It was a relief when she felt nothing but the tiniest tremor as their eyes met, and that could easily be attributed to first-day nerves. Maybe that also helped to explain what had happened before? she mused. After all, it wasn’t as though Nick Slater was the best-looking man she had ever seen, was he? She made herself take stock, bit by bit, hoping that it would help to work this glitch out of her system if she saw him simply as the person he was.
His hair was dark brown and cut very short because she guessed that it had a tendency to curl if he let it grow. His eyes were hazel rather than the pure green she had first thought them to be, heavily lashed with thick, straight, black lashes. His nose had a definite crook in it, as though it might have been broken on more than one occasion, possibly playing some kind of sport. He definitely had an athlete’s physique with those broad shoulders and that well-muscled chest, the trim waist and narrow hips…
Leanne paused when she realised that she’d allowed herself to be sidetracked and had skipped a bit. Her gaze backtracked while she took note of a mobile mouth that naturally curved up at the corners, a strong chin with just the hint of a dimple in it, a pair of well-shaped ears.
All in all, Nick Slater was a nice-looking man in his thirties, not exactly heart-throb material but verging on it, she decided. She could understand a woman being attracted to him and it was a comfort to realise that. But was it really enough to help explain how she had reacted to him?
She tried to tell herself that it was possible—probable even if it was added to the understandable nervousness of starting a new job—but she wasn’t convinced. The way she had responded to Nick Slater wasn’t going to be explained away that easily.
Nick cleared his throat purely and simply because he wasn’t sure what else to do. Leanne was staring at him and it made him feel very odd to be on the receiving end of such an intent scrutiny. ‘Over half of the people whom we see at HealthFirst are UK citizens.’
He coughed again, wondering what was wrong with his vocal cords. His voice had the quavery cadence of a teenage boy. In fact, now that he thought about it, he felt rather like he had done as a teenager when he’d developed a crush on the school’s gym mistress…
This time his cough was genuine and he saw Leanne look at him in concern. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’ He managed to suck some air into his lungs but it was an effort to act as though there was nothing wrong. How in the name of all that was holy had he developed a crush on Leanne Russell in the space of ten minutes?
‘Just a tickle in my throat. What was I saying…? Oh, yes, most of the patients we treat here are business people who can’t get to see their own GPs because the surgeries’ hours don’t correspond with their busy schedules. They appreciate the fact that they can call into the clinic and be seen virtually straight away.’
‘And they are prepared to pay for this service?’ she queried, frowning.
‘Yes.’ Nick shrugged, striving for a nonchalance he wished he felt. Of course he hadn’t developed a crush on Leanne—the idea was ridiculous. But, try as he may, he couldn’t dismiss it.
‘You know the old saying that time is money? Well, it applies in this instance. People don’t have the time to hang around a GP’s surgery when they should be at work. We aim never to have any patient wait longer than fifteen minutes even during our busiest periods, which are the morning and evening rush hours. And most are seen well before then.’
‘You must have a big staff working here with targets like that?’
‘We have thirty people employed here at the present time and we are currently advertising five more vacancies.’ He smiled when he saw her surprise then found himself wondering if she realised how expressive her face was. Everything she thought showed. He’d noticed that before when she’d been staring at him…
He shut off the rest of that thought. To recall the bewilderment he had seen in Leanne’s expressive grey eyes certainly wouldn’t help. Maybe she was having trouble understanding this awareness they both seemed to feel, but letting himself get hung up on the idea would cause even more problems.
‘We’re open from eight in the morning to eight at night, seven days a week,’ he explained, steadfastly confining his thoughts to work. ‘That’s a lot of hours to cover, especially when a number of the staff working here are only employed on a part-time basis.’
‘Like me. I decided that full-time work would be too constricting which is why I opted to do twenty-five hours a week when I accepted the job. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough free time if I did more than that.’
Nick frowned because he wasn’t sure what she had meant. ‘Enough time to go sightseeing, you mean?’
‘No. I didn’t come to London to go sightseeing. I…well, I had another reason for coming.’
She didn’t elaborate, leaving him with the distinct impression that she didn’t want him to question her further. All of a sudden that conversation he’d had with Dennis came flooding back, but with a new twist.
Had Leanne come to London on her own, as they had assumed, or was she here with someone else, maybe her boyfriend? She had said that she wasn’t suffering from a broken heart or looking for a relationship so it seemed to fit. And maybe she had chosen to work part time so that she could spend more time with him.
Nick took a deep breath. He knew that he really should stop all this speculating. Leanne’s reasons for coming to London had nothing whatsoever to do with him. His only concern was making sure that she did her job properly, yet he knew in his heart how difficult it was going to be to stick to that. The thought of Leanne and some unknown man spending their time together made him feel all knotted up inside. Although he hated to admit it, he knew why.
He was jealous at the thought of her being with another man, at the idea of her spending time with someone who wasn’t him.
Hell and damnation! That was something he certainly