Partners by Contract (5 page)

Not funny, not brave, not sexy or spontaneous. He was too kind to say it, but she knew what he was thinking. She raised her chin, ashamed of the self-pitying direction of her thoughts.

‘I’ve never confused you with her.’

That was one claim too many for Phoebe, whose spine stiffened. ‘Never?’ she echoed scornfully.

His bold accusing glare finally dropped from hers. A dark tide of colour washed over his face. When he met her eyes again his expression was hard and set.

‘No, never,’ he asserted, his nostrils flared.

The delicate frown line between Phoebe’s eyes became a furrow as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.

‘That means...’ she gasped in a charged undertone.

‘I knew who I was kissing that day. Yes, I did, Phoebe. That ruins your victim image of the tragic bereaved husband, I’d say,’ he ground out with savage sarcasm.

She shook her head slowly from side to side in silent denial. The bewildering implications of what Connor was saying were too great for her to take on board. For four years she’d believed that the passion he’d displayed that day had been intended for someone else. Now he was saying... what was he saying?

She wound down the window and took several gulps of cold Cheshire air.

‘I thought I recognised the sound of your car.’

‘Rob!’ She gasped, almost falling out of the car in relief.

The tall young man put out a hand to steady her. ‘Watch your step.’ He laughed. ‘Mum’s got the kettle on if you’d like a cup of tea.’

‘I’d love to, Rob, but I’m running a bit late.’ The young man’s face fell dramatically but Phoebe, normally the most perceptive of women, failed to hear the warning bells. Her thoughts were too preoccupied by the man sitting silently in her car to see anything worrying in Rob Marlow’s obvious disappointment.

‘I’ve got that video I promised you, though,’ she said, withdrawing the video of a wildlife documentary—she and Rob had discovered a shared love of nature programmes—from the capacious pocket of the swing coat she wore over her trouser suit. Her soft red leather glove, tangled up with the video, fell towards the muddy concrete floor.

Both she and Rob bent down to retrieve it simultaneously and their heads collided with a thump that vibrated through Phoebe.

She came up clutching her head. ‘I felt that.’ She laughed shakily.

Rob caught her shoulders as she swayed and for a moment she leant her spinning head against his chest.

Watching from the car, Connor had an excellent view of the impact. The professional objectivity he prided himself in was absent as he watched the tender scene through narrowed eyes.

‘Are you all right, Phoebe?’ Rob asked, his face creased in concern as he bent over her.

Phoebe straightened up. ‘Isn’t that my line?’ she said ruefully, rubbing the swelling already detectable through her thick hair. Her glance at his hands curved over her shoulders was a gentle reminder to which Rob responded with a self-conscious blush.

‘Now you must have a cup of tea—it’s a medicinal necessity,’ he coaxed.

Brandy would have been more appropriate medicine, she thought, brooding over the amazing thing that Con had just said. Perhaps she was getting too hung up over semantics, perhaps he hadn’t meant anything by it... This possibility didn’t stand up too long to scrutiny—the Con she knew was as precise with words as he was with a scalpel, though he’d abandoned that, too, now. There were just so many questions for her brain to cope with and far too few answers!

‘I would, but I’m not alone...’ She nodded stiffly towards the car without turning her head. ‘Dr Carlyle is back. I’m giving him a lift home,’ she explained.

The young man’s expression cleared. ‘Oh, I see.’ A frown of concern creased his brow. ‘That doesn’t mean you’re leaving us, does it?’

‘I’m not sure yet...’ Phoebe responded vaguely. Her first instinct might be to put as much distance as possible between
herself and Hayfield as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t realistic or fair to leave Will in the lurch before the replacement he’d organised arrived in a fortnight’s time.

‘We’ll miss you.’

‘Thank you, Rob,’ Phoebe responded absent-mindedly as he walked her back to the car.

Rob walked round to the passenger side as Phoebe climbed back in. ‘Heard about the accident, Doc. You know how it feels to be on the receiving end of medical advice now.’

‘He knows how to ignore it,’ Phoebe muttered, before Connor could reply.

Connor dealt her a narrowed look from his expressive eyes. ‘How have you been, Rob?’

‘Can’t complain. I’ve been well looked after.’ The smile was reserved for Phoebe. ‘I’ve made arrangements to move back to my own place in town.’

Connor’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘That’s great news. What brought about the change of heart?’ This assertion of independence was also surprising news. Since Rob’s deteriorating sight meant he could no longer drive, he’d returned to his parents’ farm and, despite a few gentle nudges from his doctors, had shown every inclination of staying put. ‘Or should I say who?’ The lightness in his even tone wasn’t reflected in the look he shot an uneasy Phoebe.

Phoebe’s full lips compressed. The condemnation in his cold blue-eyed glare was totally unreasonable.

‘Phoebe’s been great.’

‘I do my job,’ she responded uncomfortably.

‘Above and beyond the call of duty.’ Rob beamed.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Connor muttered snidely under his breath.

Phoebe clamped her teeth into a fixed smile and ignored
Connor completely as she made her farewells to Rob, promising to drop by the next day. She could be developing paranoia but somehow she didn’t think so. Whatever was bothering Connor, she knew she wouldn’t have long to wait to hear about it. He never had been backward in coming forward when it came to telling her how wrong she was about something!

Connor was about to learn that when it came to professional matters Phoebe wasn’t to be patronised or preached at!

‘Take the first left after the—’

‘I know where you live,’ she snapped.

‘Ask, did you?’

‘I didn’t have to. The community takes a deep, and in my view unhealthy, interest in everything about you, from the colour scheme in your bedroom to your love life!’

‘And did you learn anything interesting?’

Phoebe despised herself for being so damned receptive to his sexy low-pitched drawl. ‘You don’t wear pyjamas!’ she returned snappily.

Oh, heavens! First bedroom and love life, now this! She could have taken a whole day to pick a retort likely to discompose and generally embarrass and not come up with one that did both so efficiently.

‘According to Mrs Sanderson, that is,’ she faltered.

‘Oh, dear Olive. What would I do without her,’ Connor drawled.

‘Very well, if she’s to be believed. I’m not sure she actually approves of men who can iron a shirt,’ Phoebe elaborated dryly.

‘Rob Marlow looked a lot more cheerful than the last time I saw him.’

Here it comes. Anyone who didn’t know Con as well as she did might have taken this statement at face value,
but Phoebe knew him too well to be lulled into a false sense of security.

‘Are you suggesting that’s not a good thing?’ she asked spikily.

‘Not at all.’

‘If you’ve got some problem with my professional judgement, Con, spit it out. It’s not like you to be so coy.’

‘I’m suggesting,’ Connor replied, his tone hardening, ‘that our resources are stretched thinly enough without including social calls on your rounds. I’m curious, Phoebe, do all your patients warrant such individual attention? I’d have thought you’d have learnt by now that it’s not a good idea to get involved with patients, especially vulnerable ones. Leaving the ethics of becoming romantically involved with a patient aside...’

Phoebe caught her breath. Con hadn’t lost any of his bluntness over the years.

‘Are you aware that you sound incredibly pompous?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Is this Connor Carlyle, senior partner, flexing his biceps?’

‘Are you aware you sound as if you’re trying to deflect the question?’ he countered annoyingly.

‘Are you implying there’s anything improper in my relationship with Rob Marlow?’ she said through gritted teeth, determined to keep up his question-for-a-question policy as long as he did.

‘I don’t know.’ An image of the younger man, his hands placed proprietorially on Phoebe’s slender shoulders, materialised in his brain and Connor felt the blood pound in his temples. ‘Is there?’

He was watching as a tide of dark colour travelled up her slender neck until her whole face was suffused in a delicious shade of delicate pink.

‘I suppose you only see a patient when you’re doling
out a prescription. Sometimes they need to talk...’ she choked scornfully.

‘Yeah...yeah, and in a perfect world we’d have time to listen, but even in that world there’s such a thing as professional distance,’ Connor bit back cynically. ‘He’s smitten, Phoebe,’ he told her bluntly. ‘It’s written all over him.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Phoebe exclaimed, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her voice. ‘I’ve been helping him come to terms with his situation...’

‘Have it your own way, Phoebe. You usually did, as I recall. A more stubborn, self-opinionated female I never did meet,’ he reflected grimly.

Phoebe’s jaw dropped. The bare-faced cheek of the man! ‘Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!’ she gasped.

Connor shrugged. ‘Don’t come running to me when things go pear-shaped.’

‘As if I would. A man who is to empathy...’ She clamped her lips over the insult that rose to her tongue.

‘Restraint, Phoebe, from you...?’

‘Let’s just say I think the likelihood of me crying on your shoulder is remote at best,’ she assured him frigidly. Been there, done that and suffered the consequences...was still suffering...

‘Fair enough, but it’ll end in tears, as my old mum would have said.’

Phoebe’s expression softened. Maureen Carlyle was a lovely woman and, if she’d read a comment Maureen had made at Penny’s wedding correctly, the only person who had suspected Phoebe’s true feelings for Connor.

‘How is Mo?’

‘Died last summer.’

Phoebe’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Connor, I’m so sorry. She was a lovely lady.’

‘She liked you, too,’ Connor said quietly.

‘Was it her heart?’ she probed gently. Maureen Carlyle had had a long history of heart disease, but a triple bypass operation some years back had given her a new lease of life.

Connor nodded. ‘A massive MI,’ he confirmed.

‘I wish I’d been around.’

‘Where were you, Phoebe?’

Her dark, spiky lashes flickered downwards. ‘Abroad.’

‘You always did want to travel,’ he recalled, allowing his head to drop wearily against the headrest. The day’s exertions were beginning to catch up on him with a vengeance. ‘I suppose rural Cheshire must seem a bit tame after all the glamorous places you’ve been to?’

A grim smile curved Phoebe’s lips as she glanced out at the green fields. ‘Restful,’ she corrected softly.

She had been to worse places than the camp on the border of the two war-ridden African countries, but it had been there she’d faced the fact she’d reached the limit of her endurance. Emotionally and physically drained from her stint with the aid agency and nursing a nagging sense of failure, she’d returned home, where she’d been a locum for the past six months.

‘You say that now, but in six months time I expect you’ll be hankering for the bright lights,’ Connor predicted cynically.

Phoebe remained silent. Connor seemed to be in danger of confusing her with Penny—and not, she thought darkly, for the first time. It had been Penny who had been the party animal. She’d often teased Phoebe, who’d preferred curling up with a box of chocolates and a nice romantic video to going out to a nightclub, about her anti-social tendencies.

The nerve-stretching silence continued for several
minutes before it finally dawned on Phoebe that Connor had fallen asleep. An ironic laugh worked its way past the emotional congestion in her raw throat as her rigid back slumped back into the seat. Here she was, primed for the most traumatic encounter in her life, and her combatant—if that was the right word under the circumstances—had fallen asleep.

He still didn’t stir when she pulled up on the cobbled drive of his home. She’d always tried to stifle her curiosity when she’d driven past before. Now she could see how attractive the three-storey building built of the mellow local stone was.

Speaking of attractive... In repose, the cynicism and tension wiped clean from his face, Con looked like the young medical student bursting with enthusiasm she’d met when she’d replied to the ad for a flatmate.

A smile played about her lips as she recalled how hard it had been for her to persuade him that a female flatmate would be just as good as, if not better than, a male counterpart. The accommodation situation in the university town had been notoriously bad, and Phoebe had been desperate.

She was seized by an overwhelming urge to brush the hank of fair hair—he wore it much shorter and neater these days—from his broad forehead. The sound of a car pulling up behind her brought her back to reality with an almost audible thump.

The slam of the car door to the rear was audible, too—audible enough to rouse Connor from a deep sleep.

He blinked in a sleepy, confused way and slowly focused on Phoebe. The smile that slowly spread across his face made Phoebe catch her breath, it warming the neglected corners of her aching heart.

Then his expression changed. It was like watching shutters
come down. The enveloping warmth was snuffed out like a candle, leaving wary caution...or possibly simply dislike...in its place.

Oh, heavens, he thought I was Penny...!

The pain rolled in, great waves of the stuff. Dumb or what, Phoebe? she mocked herself savagely.

CHAPTER THREE

T
HE
imperative tap-tap on the window provided the distraction to enable Phoebe to break eye contact. Her smile lacked its usual warmth as she identified the owner of the long scarlet-tipped nails drumming on her rain-spattered paintwork.