Once Upon a Christmas (22 page)

Helen laughed. ‘But how will you get any work done with all those women throwing themselves at you?’

‘It’s a killer,’ he admitted ruefully, ‘but I’ll work it out somehow. I’m sure if I concentrate I can fit them into my busy schedule.’

Helen shook her head, still laughing. She loved his sense of humour. ‘It’s kind of you, but you’ve already done too much. I can’t steal your car as well.’

He shrugged. ‘Macho though I am, even I can’t drive two cars at the same time.’

‘But, Oliver—’

‘Just say yes.’

‘But—’

‘Do all townies argue as much as you?’ he growled, checking in his rearview mirror before pulling out. ‘Just say yes.’

She smiled. ‘Yes. Are all country guys as much of a bully as you are?’

‘We know how to treat our women.’ He grinned wickedly and it occurred to her that this man most certainly didn’t need a flashy car to pull women. He just had to smile.

‘So where are we going next?’

‘Into town. I want to check on a baby.’ He pulled onto the main road and drove towards town. ‘She had a febrile convulsion on Thursday. The mother was pretty shocked by it all.’

‘I’m not surprised. Did you admit the child?’

He nodded. ‘First febrile convulsion, so yes. We always admit any child under two who has a febrile fit, those with serious infections and those where we can’t find a cause for the fever. Otherwise, after the first one, we teach the parents to give rectal diazepam so that they can manage it themselves if the child has further febrile fits.’

He parked in the street and switched off the engine.

‘It says “No parking.”‘ Helen peered up at the sign doubtfully, but Oliver just smiled as he pulled his bag from the back seat.

‘That’s for tourists, sweetheart.’

As if to prove his point, at that moment a female traffic warden wandered down the street and gave them a cheerful nod.

‘Good morning, Dr Hunter.’

‘Morning, Tracey,’ Oliver returned, locking his car. ‘How’s that ankle doing?’

‘Much better since I did those exercises.’ She looked at his car. ‘I’ll keep my eye on that for you, Dr Hunter. We’ve had some problems along this road in the last few months. Just kids, I suppose, but, still, you can’t be too careful.’

‘Thanks, Tracey. We’re just popping in to see little Pippa Dawson.’

The traffic warden tutted sympathetically. ‘I heard that the poor mite was in hospital. Give them my love.’

She gave them a cheery wave and walked on down the street, leaving Helen staring after her open-mouthed.

‘She’s a
traffic warden?’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘In London they have horns and tails. Scary.’

‘Oh, Tracey can be scary.’ Oliver laughed as they crossed the road and walked along the snowy pavement. ‘You should see her in the summer. The cars are festooned with tickets.’

‘So why do you deserve special treatment, Dr Hunter?’

He winked at her. ‘That would be telling.’ He paused outside a small terraced house and rang the bell. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’

But Helen noticed that he didn’t seem at all resentful to be seeing patients at a weekend. The GPs she’d worked with in London had all grumbled on the rare occasions they’d been on call on a Sunday, but Oliver seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

‘Hello there, Lauren.’ He greeted the young mother with his usual smile. ‘Just popped in to see how little Pippa is.’

‘Oh, Dr Hunter, I wasn’t expecting you to call.’ Visibly flustered, Lauren tried to smooth her hair. ‘The house isn’t very tidy.’

‘I haven’t come to make an offer on your house, Lauren,’ Oliver said gently, ‘and if you think your house is in a mess, you should come and look at mine. And I don’t have a sick baby to use as an excuse.’

Lauren relaxed and gave him a wide smile. ‘Well, it would be great if you could look at her. We were up all night with her again. She’s a lot better, of course, but she’s still not right.’

‘You poor thing—you must be totally knackered. This is Helen, by the way.’ Oliver waved a hand to indicate Helen as they walked into the house. ‘She’s acting as my practice nurse while Maggie has a well-earned break.’

‘Oh, have you finally persuaded her that you can survive without her for five minutes?’ Lauren led them into a tiny sitting room. ‘Pippa’s in here. I put her in her bouncy chair for a change of scene. She was crying so much I didn’t know what to do with her.’

‘Did the hospital give you a letter for me?’

Lauren nodded and lifted a brown envelope from the top of the television. ‘They did all sorts of tests but in the end they just said it must be a virus.’

Oliver smiled sympathetically. ‘Irritating isn’t it? We train for all these years just to say it’s a virus that we can’t identify. But those tests will have excluded some worrying infections, Lauren, so in a way that’s good news.’ He
put his bag down and strolled over to the baby who was kicking her legs in her chair.

‘I left her in just a vest and nappy because of her temperature,’ Lauren said anxiously. ‘I’m so terrified she might have another one of those fits. It was awful. I keep worrying about it in case it means she’s an epileptic.’

‘It doesn’t mean that, Lauren,’ Oliver said firmly. ‘Very young children can’t control their temperatures the way you and I can, and that’s why they fit. Only a minute percentage go on to develop epilepsy in later life, and although there are no guarantees I’m sure Pippa isn’t going to be one of those.’

Lauren bit her lip and shifted a pile of laundry from the sofa. ‘But she might be.’

‘Well, let’s put it like this.’ Oliver tilted his head to one side, his expression thoughtful. ‘If you buy a lottery ticket tomorrow and I tell you that you have a one in a hundred chance of winning, are you going to go out on a mad spending spree before you hear the numbers?’

Lauren laughed. ‘No, of course not. If the odds were one in a hundred then I know for sure that it wouldn’t be me.’

‘Well, those are the odds,’ Oliver said firmly, ‘so let’s treat it like the lottery, shall we? It’s so unlikely to happen that there is no point in planning for it. Now, can I take a look at her?’

Considerably reassured, Lauren bent down and undid the straps that held the baby in the seat while Oliver scanned the letter from the hospital.

‘It looks as though they were pretty thorough. Now, then.’ He tucked the letter into the pocket of his jeans and dropped to his haunches in front of the baby. ‘Hello, sweetheart,
you’re looking a lot better than you did when Uncle Oliver last saw you.’

Smiling and pulling faces at the baby, he slid large hands around her tiny body and gently lifted her up.

Helen watched, transfixed, intrigued by how comfortable Oliver was with the baby.

‘She’s so gorgeous, Lauren,’ he murmured, holding the baby against his shoulder, running a hand over the downy head, feeling her fontanelle. ‘She doesn’t feel so hot now. When did she last have Calpol?’

‘Not since last night,’ Lauren said. ‘Her temperature seems to go up in the evenings.’

Oliver nodded. ‘That often happens. I’m just going to lay her on the sofa so that I can examine her.’

Helen watched while he worked, noticing how skilled and gentle he was with the baby.

‘Stop smiling at me, madam,’ he murmured as he undid her nappy. ‘It’s no good. You are so gorgeous I’m going to have to take you home with me.’

‘Well, you’re welcome to her at night,’ Lauren said dryly. ‘I’d give anything for an undisturbed night.’

‘What about your mum?’ Oliver finished his examination and redid the nappy deftly. ‘Can’t she have her for a night? I know you’re still breast-feeding but you could always express. Do you good to have a night off.’

‘I just can’t get her to take a bottle.’ Lauren gave a helpless shrug. ‘I know she’s using me as a comforter but it’s easier to let her do that than have a screaming battle.’

Oliver pulled a face. ‘It’s a tough one. Who’s your health visitor?’

‘Jenny Stevens.’

‘Give her a ring,’ Oliver suggested, lifting Pippa confidently and giving the little girl a last cuddle. ‘Jenny has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve. She might be able to suggest something.’

‘I don’t want to be a bother.’

Oliver handed the baby back to her. ‘You’re not a bother, Lauren. You’re a tired mum. I think Pippa’s on the mend but if you’re at all worried you can take her straight back to the hospital. Or you can call me. You’ve got my mobile number.’

‘Stuck by my phone,’ Lauren confessed ruefully. ‘Thanks, Dr Hunter.’

They walked back to the car and Helen looked at him in amazement. ‘You gave her your mobile phone number?’

‘That’s right.’ Oliver slung his bag in the car. ‘It saves her having to call several numbers before getting through to me. It’s scary seeing your own baby fit. I didn’t want her to feel she was alone.’

‘None of the doctors I worked for would have given out their phone number,’ Helen muttered, and he lifted an eyebrow, clearly puzzled.

‘Why not?’

‘They would have been too afraid that someone might use it,’ Helen said dryly, and he laughed.

‘I would have thought that was the general idea, but I’m willing to believe that it’s different in London. I suppose, to be honest, I wouldn’t give it to any patient I wasn’t sure of, but they’re pretty good around here and I’ve known most of them for years.’

She looked at him curiously. ‘Did you always want to be a GP?’

‘Always. And so did Bryony. We used to play doctors’ surgeries when we were little.’

‘Not doctors and nurses?’

‘Doctor and doctor.’ Oliver glanced sideways and gave her a sexy wink. ‘But any time you want to play doctors and nurses, let me know. I’m a quick learner and it definitely sounds like my sort of game.’

Helen laughed. He was so open it was impossible to be offended. ‘You’re going to get yourself in trouble one day, Dr Hunter.’

‘Oh, I do seriously hope so.’ He chuckled and she rolled her eyes and changed the subject hurriedly.

The more she saw of Oliver Hunter, the more she liked him.

And she was starting to like him a lot.

‘Where now?’

‘Back home for some lunch and then to the mountain rescue base to check on some new equipment that was due to arrive yesterday.’ He drove steadily, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘Then we’ll create something amazing in the kitchen for our dinner.’

‘But you’re on call.’

‘No I’m not. Time off for good behaviour.’ He flashed her a smile. ‘Ally is on call this weekend.’

Helen stared at him. ‘But you’ve been seeing patients.’

‘Not really. I just saw Hilda because I was worried about her, and I wanted to check up on Pippa because I knew Lauren would be worrying herself sick about her. They weren’t emergencies and I certainly wouldn’t expect either of my partners to make those calls. Now I’m going back to the Sunday papers.’

He cared enough to check on patients on his day off.

And now he felt he had to entertain her.

‘You could just drop me back at the cottage,’ she suggested, ‘and then you could do whatever it is you usually do on a Sunday.’

‘I’m doing what I usually do on a Sunday,’ he said easily, ‘only this time I have company.’

‘I can’t imagine you’re short of company,’ she said, with a wry smile in his direction. Women probably flattened each other in the race to get to him. Why he was wasting time with her was beyond her comprehension. Or maybe it wasn’t.

Oliver Hunter obviously had a thing about anything injured or hurting, and at the moment she came under that heading.

She didn’t kid herself that he was being anything other than kind.

She was just someone that he had to heal, like his patients.

They were just pulling up outside the cottage when his mobile phone rang. He switched off the engine and answered it.

Even with her limited experience, it was obvious to Helen that someone was in trouble on the mountains.

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Oliver said tersely, and snapped the phone shut, starting the engine again immediately. He turned to Helen with a frown. ‘I’m really sorry, I’m going to have to leave you—someone has been reported overdue. They should have returned from their walk by now but there’s no sign of them and the mountain rescue team has been called out.’

‘Don’t worry about me.’ Helen jumped down from the vehicle, conscious that she was slowing him down.

But he didn’t immediately drive away. His hard jaw was tense and his eyes searched hers.

‘I don’t like leaving you.’

She was unbelievably touched. ‘Oliver, I’ll be fine. I don’t need watching. I’ll have a quiet afternoon.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I don’t want you to have a quiet afternoon. You’ll brood.’

‘I won’t brood.’ She gave a lopsided smile. ‘I’m not that pathetic. I’ll make something for our dinner.’

Oliver sighed, visibly torn, and then he muttered something under his breath and raked long fingers through his cropped hair. ‘All right, although I’ve no idea what time I’ll be home. Don’t wait up for me. Call me if you need to. My mobile number is stuck on Bry’s notice-board in the kitchen.’

Oliver didn’t arrive home until nine o’clock and by then Helen was chewing her nails and staring out of the window, looking for his headlights.

When he finally walked through the door she flew to meet him. ‘I was so worried about you …’

Oliver unzipped his jacket and gave her a curious look. ‘That’s nice.’ His voice was soft. ‘No one usually worries about me, apart from my mother.’ His eyes settled on hers for a long moment and she flushed, wondering what the matter was with her. She’d known him for less than twenty-four hours and here she was, acting like a clingy wife.

But she’d been scared that something had happened to him—

‘Sorry, I—I just thought you’d be back hours ago,’ she muttered, suddenly embarrassed, and he stepped towards her and took her face in his hands.

‘Don’t apologise,’ he said gruffly, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. ‘It’s nice that someone missed me.’

His gaze was warm and assessing and suddenly Helen felt seriously flustered. He dominated the narrow hallway of Bryony’s cottage, his shoulders almost filling the space. His jaw was dark with stubble, his cropped hair was damp from the snow and there was no escaping the fact that he was incredibly good-looking.