Heartbeat (Medical Romance) (3 page)

He chivvied her with brusque impatience, 'Wake up, milkmaid, some of us around here have got work to do.'

The closed eyes snapped open, a flare of golden hazel tinged with alarm. They latched on to the stethoscope around the doctor's neck. 'You're not examining me! I'm perfectly all right so don’t come near me with
that
.’

Ross looked at the white knuckles gripping her dungaree straps—for all the world as if she expected him to rip her clothes off any second. He bared his teeth in a grin.

'No need for a more intimate examination.
This
time,' he added, deliberately provoking another flash of warning amber. The first good-looking woman to come his way in weeks. Pity she must be got rid of, but he hadn't come to Tanzania to play games, however spirited the opposition.

You don't look any cleaner today, Doctor!
noted Jenni in disgust, totally unaware that after her undignified nosedive she was covered in dust herself.

Warily she gave him the once-over: Aggressive stance deliberately assumed to intimidate the female. Ah yes, typical of an irritating breed of doctor—apologies,
surgeon
—who grabs any opportunity to exert his authority over the nurse-handmaiden. Arms folded to emphasise the strongly developed biceps and superior strength of the brute. Bold eyes in a suntanned face; grey eyes; astute eyes, splintered with the ice of dislike.

'I've made an enemy!' Jenni told herself with a sense of foreboding. 'I didn't imagine it. He's looking down his nose at me as if I'd crawled out from under a stone. Well, whatever I'm supposed to have done, Dr McDonnell, you ain't seen nothin’ yet.'

She returned his insolent stare with chin held high. To come all this way and be greeted with such hostility ... But
why?
... And where oh where was Paul?

Ross had changed into khaki shorts but the bush shirt looked like the one he'd been wearing last night—ugh! - and every tough hairy inch of leg above the rolled-down wool socks and the heavy laced boots was filmed with the inescapable African dust.

She had thought the stubble on his head was grey but it must have been dust because in daylight it showed up as a close-cropped lightish brown, almost the same colour as the tanned skin of his face and body.

Jenni looked down and saw the state she was in, clothes and arms filthy, feet bare, her Birkenstocks missing. 'Oh hell!’ she exclaimed, ‘I need a bath. Where’s the bathroom?’

'A bath,
' he sneered, emphasising the long vowel. 'Out here we've neither the time nor the water for
baths
.' And time was too precious to waste any more of it on this foolish creature and her selfish concerns.

'Where is Paul? He'll want to know I've arrived.’

'I daresay. But work doesn't grind to a halt for every new arrival. Paul Hume does a lot of travelling. He'll be back this evening for the communal supper.'

'Well how about taking me round the Mission and showing me where things are.'

'Ask Dr Blarney, the guy who picked you up and carted you in here.'

Jenni slid her legs over the edge of the high couch and dropped to the floor, which was covered with tacked-down coir matting. She expected Ross to take a step back as she invaded his space, but he didn't move.
Interesting.
Jenni went into automatic flirtation mode. She just couldn’t help herself. 'Ah yes, the frog prince,’ she murmured glancing up at the tall dusty doctor from under her lashes.

There was a moment's pause. Ross McDonnell almost smiled. At least his clamp of a mouth lifted at one corner. The effect, accompanied by the slow regard of those heavy-lidded eyes, was disconcerting. Jenni felt her heart skip a beat.
Foolish heart
…

She pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket and rubbed spit into the dirty scratch on her upper arm. McDonnell was one hundred per cent not her type. But his dismissive arrogance was a challenge and he was excitingly different from the smoothies of the London teaching hospitals.

'Wait here.' Ross jiggled the keys of the Land Rover as he paused to look back at her from the doorway. 'Matt can take you over to the staff quarters. But be a sensible girl, right?'

There was a patronising note to his voice that should have warned Jenni to be on her guard.

'Don't bother to unpack. Just the stuff you'll need for tonight.'

'What??'

'I'm driving you back to Dar-es-Salaam first thing in the morning.'

At the girl's sharp intake of breath his hand shot up, palm outward in warning. 'Don’t argue. We've a strong chain of personnel here with no weak links. You're not up to it, milkmaid. I'm putting in a firm recommendation for sending you home. Tomorrow. Right?'

'Hold on a minute! Who do you think you are? You—you—' Jenni spluttered in outrage. The horrible man looked amused, as if she were some kind of agitated beetle. Someone else materialised behind him. A pair of interested eyes peered over his shoulder. 'I fetched some goat's milk, boss. Thought it might do her good.'

'Keep an eye on her, Matt. Bit overwrought, you know how it is.'

'Right on, boss.'

Speechless, Jenni gripped the edge of the treatment couch. Her nails dug into the coarse sheet and her head spun with hunger and fatigue. But she was conscious that Matt Blarney was eyeing her in the way she had come to expect from men, so that was a plus. He’d be rooting for her, would this Matt, in spite of the hostility of the 'boss' man.

Anyway, wasn't Paul the boss around here? What authority did Ross McDonnell have!

Well, he is the Medical Officer, and you are supposed to be working under his guidance
, warned the voice of common sense.
If McDonnell won't keep you, then I don't suppose he can actually make you leave the country. You’d have to transfer to another mission station where they’re shortstaffed.

Ross was gone. The atmosphere in the room lost its charge of electricity.

Over his jeans and red tartan shirt, Matt was now wearing a white lab coat with the collar carefully turned up—obviously a vital part of his image. And he had exchanged his sneakers for heeled cowboy boots. They looked hot and uncomfortable, but Matt didn't seem unduly bothered. Even in the boots he was several inches shorter than McDonnell but well proportioned on a lesser scale, slim-hipped and broad-shouldered with smooth olive-toned skin. Beneath the thatch of unruly black hair, his face was pleasant and even-featured and his smile held a welcome warmth—even a trace of shyness now he and the new nurse were alone together.

Thank heaven for a normal warm-blooded male
, breathed Jenni on a sigh of relief. Matt was staring at her with that old familiar look in his admiring black eyes.
So I'm not after all totally repugnant. I was beginning to wonder if I'd grown a head of snakes!

‘Here,’ said Matt, ‘nice an' cool straight from the fridge. Don't expect you've eaten since breakfast.'

Normally Jenni wasn’t fond of the stuff, but now chilled milk had never been so welcome. She gulped it down like a thirsty child. 'When I got off that bus I thought I'd been dropped in the back of beyond. All I could see was the swirl of dust and a track leading off goodness knows where. I was trying to summon up the strength to grab my things and start walking when I just flaked out. I don't normally do that,' she added sternly as if Matt was likely to argue the point.

'No, ma'am,' he agreed civilly, 'but our truck coulda killed you. No one drives fast out here. In the bush you never know what's gonna loom up in front of your truck. But Ross musta got eyes like a hawk to pick you out in all that dust!'

Jenni didn't want to think about Ross McDonnell's eyes…

So he might have killed her! ‘Probably wishes he had,’ she muttered
sotto voce
. ‘Wouldn't that have saved him some aggro!’

She drained the plastic beaker and demanded with a frown, 'Dr Blarney. Is McDonnell some kind of a nut?’ In his white coat Matt looked far more the professional doctor than Ross McDonnell, and Jenni instinctively felt that here was someone who would take her part. ‘For some reason he’s decided he wants me out of here. I must find Paul! Where oh where is Paul?’

The hand plucking at Matt's sleeve demanded reassurance. In spite of its smallness it was a workmanlike hand, short-nailed and slightly rough-skinned. 'I'm under contract, I asked to come here, specifically. Surely Dr McDonnell hasn't the authority to order me back to the UK? I really need to see Paul!’

The young American pulled a rueful face. The girl kept asking for Father Paul like she couldn't wait another moment to see the guy... which was kinda interesting and unexpected. 'You do look, well, kinda like the sun's gonna frizzle you up,' he said kindly. 'Ross is afraid you ain't gonna cope with the climate. He said he felt sorry for you last night, you looked so washed out. So he left you to sleep in and enjoy the more leisurely bus trip.'

Jenni's jaw dropped. Did Ross really say that? Could that be true?

Some of Matt's pronunciation took a bit of getting used to.
Leesurely
... not the most obvious description of the ride.

'Dr Blarney, I'm tired and I’m confused.’ The bright curls danced in a halo as she shook her perplexed head.

'Hey babe, just call me Matt,’ he said quickly. The "doctor" bit is just a courtesy title. Back home in Alabama I'm still in med school.’

‘I thought you looked a bit young to be qualified.' Jenni hitched herself back up on the treatment couch and examined Matt Blarney with heightened interest. Here at least was someone she was going to enjoy working alongside. 'Which medical school. Matt?'

'University of Austin, Texas, yes ma'am!' he told her proudly, rocking back and forth on his cowboy heels. 'Got another eighteen months before I earn my MD.'

'And you volunteered for this?'

He nodded. 'Yup. I'm out here with the American branch of IMR.' Jenni looked blank. 'International Medical Relief,’ he explained. ‘IMR funds people interested in giving some time to medical work in Third World countries. Back in med school I'm gonna have to run to catch up, but I surely don't begrudge one second. Reckon it's the experience of a lifetime, comin' out to help Africa.'

Jenni felt a rush of warmth towards this enthusiastic young man. She thrust forward an eager hand. 'I'm very glad to know you, Matt. I'm Jennifer Westcott Registered General Nurse. RGN, that is.' Her hand was immediately grasped and pumped up and down for several minutes longer than strictly necessary. She made no attempt to withdraw her own hand from Matt's warm clasp. It was surprisingly comforting to experience friendly physical contact after McDonnell's hostile attitude.

The new nurse had a real cute habit of wrinkling her nose when she smiled, noted the intrigued young American. And good for her, she could smile! He knew a good few dames who'd have dissolved into tears at coming up against the blunt-spoken Ross McDonnell.

But it wasn’t a good start, that dramatic arrival at the Good Shepherd coupled with such an ultra-feminine appearance. She looked like the kinda chick guys'd make a fuss of and rush to protect.

Small wonder Ross had serious doubts about letting Miss Westcott loose on a remote mission station with three virile white men for company. Matt was including himself, since Charming, his African girlfriend, had gone back to Moshi to complete the midwifery course at the general hospital. Charming's father was a lawyer; the lawyer didn't know about Matt. Charming was certain he'd blow his top if he discovered she was in love with a white man.

Sure, Miss Redhead would find more comfort at one of the bigger outfits nearer the coast, but Matt reckoned the new nurse had plans of her own, and these included staying put. She surely would liven the place up!

'C'mon and I'll show you where we all hang out.' Matt beat Jenni to the big case and made a face at its weight. If this shrimp could cart a load like this halfway across the world she'd got a navvy's muscles under those dungarees.

If Ross is gonna push this chick around, contemplated Matt with a grin, then we're all in for a pretty interestin' time.

'This way, ma'am.'

Jenni gathered up the rest of her stuff, fully recovered now and ready for action. ‘I’ll show that bully I’m as strong as any other nurse. Two of them are nuns, aren’t they? Sisters from a nursing Order, Paul told us in his letters ...’

* * *

The Mbusa Wa Bwini Mission was Father Paul's 'baby'. Seven years ago, on his arrival as a missionary priest from England, he had been sent here by the diocese of Dar-es-Salaam, under instructions from the African bishop to set up a base in this remote area of bush.

But he had kept regularly in touch with the folks back home in the UK, and especially the Westcott family in whose soot-stained Victorian vicarage he had once lodged. While under their roof he had become engaged to tall serene Helen, the eldest and most tranquil of the three Westcott girls. They planned to get married when Paul had a parish and a roof of his own to shelter his beautiful blonde fiancée.

To be near Paul, Helen had left her London hospital and taken a staff nurse's post at one of the northern city's general hospitals: and there she had been swept off her sensible feet by a rakish surgeon heading the casualty team.

Within the space of months Helen and Bram Markland were married. And Paul, reacting like the gentle saint he was, gave the two of them his blessing and not one word of reproach. Helen's teenage sisters, openly adoring their father's handsome Rugby Blue assistant priest, were shocked to the core. Each secretly vowed to grab Paul for herself when his time in Africa was up. But apart from occasional visits on leave, Paul seemed devoted to his new work, and his letters never mentioned the possibility of a permanent return to England.

Hannah's stubborn heart had been captured by a doctor of her own, and in time the only sister whose heartbeat increased at the thought of Paul Hume was Jennifer ... capricious Jenni, artistic and creative like their mother whom she resembled physically. But in character Jenni was the cuckoo in the nest. Jenni the dreamer, Jenni the wilful one, the stormiest and most temperamental of the three sisters.