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'I may well ask you that, Dr Sotheby,' she said in a strangled voice. 'I would have said this sort of thing wasn't your bag.'

'Ditto,' he said. 'I don't remember seeing your photograph among those displayed in this rather ridiculous game, if one can call it that.'

'It wasn't,' she said shortly, doing little to hide the dismay on her face. 'I'm standing in for a friend of mine who suddenly got sick. She has infectious mononucleosis.' They were glaring at each other across the narrow expanse of the table.

'Well, thank God for small mercies,' Clay said. 'That's something I can do without.'

Sophie swallowed convulsively. 'You don't have to be rude,' she said. 'I don't want to be here with you any more than you, very apparently, want to be here with me.'

Very obviously she was thinking, as he was, that the last time they'd been alone together he'd told her that he wanted to make love to her. That knowledge was calculated to produce a certain minimum of awkwardness, at least initially, even in the most sophisticated of professional men and women...and Clay thought of himself as at least average in that category, without being conceited. While complimentary, perhaps—depending on who it was coming from—such a remark invariably heightened the emotional stakes.

During a few seconds of painful silence, Clay thought he saw the faint shimmer of tears in Sophie's eyes, and his surprise at seeing her—which had been exacerbated by his underlying annoyance at having to go through with this charade—gave way to a surprising wash of tenderness of which he hadn't known he was capable with a woman.

Impulsively he reached across the table and captured one of her nervous hands in his, looking as he did so into her vulnerable face where two spots of hectic colour on her cheeks betrayed still further her lack of ease with him. Yes, her enormous eyes were strangely dark and glittery, he could see as he leaned closer.

'Sophie,' he said, keeping his voice down, 'I was merely taken aback by the sight of you, that's all. I didn't mean to sound rude. And your greeting was less than complimentary.'

'You never seem to mean it, but you
are
that way,' she said, also keeping her voice low, but none the less vitriolic.

She pulled at her hand, but he clung on. Guido appeared again at their table so she was forced to relax her hand in his firm grip, where it remained like a small, fluttering bird in a trap.

'You would like a drink, sir, before you order?'

'I'll have a whiskey and soda, please,' Clay said, 'and the lovely lady will have the same. I could certainly use a drink.' When he raised his eyebrows at Sophie, as though daring her to contradict him, she nodded, not trusting her voice. When Guido was out of earshot, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. 'We may as well make the most of this. I get the impression that service isn't speedy here.'

'I don't like being referred to as "the lovely lady". It's patronizing and horribly old-fashioned,' Sophie said. Not wanting to openly wrench her hand from his grasp, she suffered him to keep it. 'And I would guess that my need of a drink is considerably greater than yours.'

Clay found himself grinning. 'Ah, Sophie, Sophie...I'm sorry,' he muttered, nuzzling the tips of her fingers, gazing at her steadily under lowered brows. 'Perhaps you would prefer "lady love"? Also old-fashioned, but it perhaps has a nicer ring to it. Yes?'

She seemed to be unbending a little, he thought.

'That isn't exactly true. Just don't be too smarmy,' she said. 'I couldn't bear it.'

'Am I ever smarmy?' he said huskily.

'Well...no. Certainly not at work,' she had to admit. 'But I suspect that you could be, in a situation like this.'

'You do have a way with your compliments, Sophie,' he murmured.

'In any verbal exchange outside work I think I could give as good as I get,' she said.

'You look very lovely, Sophie. I know that's old-fashioned, too, maybe, to say it, but it's true.'

'Thank you.' Her eyes went over him as though she wanted to return the compliment, but decided not to.

As he looked at her he sensed that she was still thinking of the night he'd driven her home. It was certainly in the forefront of his mind. Maybe she was thinking that tonight he would ask her again, put the pressure on. But that wasn't his
modus operandi,
and he would have to find some way of telling her. He didn't know what had possessed him to jump the gun like that. It must have had something to do with the case they'd just both worked on in the operating room, the sense of the fragility of life, a sense of wanting to grasp life with both hands while one had the chance...

When the drinks came, they both sipped in a determined fashion. In truth, Clay wasn't displeased to have been confronted by this woman. His feelings for her were ambiguous, to say the least, yet he didn't try to delude himself that he didn't find her very attractive and somewhat disturbing, intriguing even.

'May I have my hand?' Sophie said at last.

Giving the hand a final kiss, he released it. 'It's been a hard day,' he said with a sigh, a statement which he knew from experience excused him much.

'It's been hard for me, too,' she shot back, her eyes fiery, reminding him that they'd spent the day working together. For the most part it had gone well. 'I don't really want to spend my free time with someone I've been working with all day, any more than you do. However, as you say, we may as well make the most of it.'

Clay cleared his throat and took a generous gulp of whiskey, feeling the liquid very gradually bringing relaxation. He seldom drank hard liquor. 'I didn't say I didn't want to be with you,' he said. 'We won't talk about work. The idea is to forget about it,' What the hell was he going to talk to her about? After all, his whole life revolved around work, and she knew it. Maybe he could tell her about his art collection of modern Canadian painters.

'You implied,' she said, 'that you would rather not be with me.'

'You're wrong there, Dunhill,' he said.

'For God's sake, don't call me Dunhill,' she said. 'It's like the army!'

'All right, Sophie. That's agreed, if you'll call me Clay.'

'All right,' she said grudgingly, 'Clay.'

There was a tension between them that came from the opposing needs of maintaining a quasi-professional distance and relaxing enough to have what was commonly known as a good time.

'Great,' he said, relieved when a waiter came to take their orders for food. Clay ordered the first acceptable thing that caught his eye on the menu.

'Did you drive here?' he asked Sophie later.

'No, I came by taxi,' she said.

'I'll take you home,' he said.

'Are you already anticipating saying goodbye to me?' At last she smiled a little, if rather tightly.

'No...' he said.

The food proved to be superb. Eating it, and drinking the excellent wine that went with it, proved a relaxing experience. As did the soft music in the background. 'It's odd that we should be doing this, isn't it, because we want to donate some money to the hospital fund,' Sophie said. 'Perhaps we should use it as a good opportunity to get to know each other so that we can work together with more understanding...while we're both under the influence of alcohol.'

Clay laughed. 'Mmm...' he said. 'You took the words right out of my mouth. But I hope we can like each other without the aid of alcohol.' From that moment on, he made a determined effort. They talked about politics, art, theatre, travel, literature, until the coffee was served.

'I see you really enjoy yourself,' Guido said enthusiastically, as he stood by their table. 'May I suggest a glass of Grand Marnier with your coffee?'

'Please.' Sophie said.

Clay nodded. 'Thank you,' he said.

'Do you think he was being sarcastic?' Sophie said, when Guido had moved away.

'No, he was deadly serious.' He captured her hand again and kissed it. 'Anyway, I
am
enjoying myself. Are you?'

'Yes. This is a wonderful restaurant.'

When the meal was over, Sophie looked at Clay and said, 'We're both slightly drunk, aren't we?'

'I fear so,' he agreed, on his second cup of coffee.

'I expect it was mutually intentional.'

'Sad but true, and sad that we should be so uptight with each other. We'll have to go for a long, brisk walk in the rain before I get behind the wheel of my car.'

'I like walking in the rain,' she said, pouring them both a third cup of coffee.

Fifteen minutes later they found themselves outside on the sidewalk, where a light rain was falling. Clay put up his large black umbrella, almost as large as a golfing umbrella, and they squeezed together under it.

'This has been great fun after all,' he admitted. 'Thank you, Sophie.'

'Thank you,' she said sombrely.

'Which, way for the walk?' he asked, aware that he needed to give the alcohol a chance to wear off and the caffeine to take over.

'This way.' As they set off up a quiet, tree-lined street where there were no pedestrians, Clay put his arm around Sophie's waist and drew her to him so that they could share the shelter of the umbrella comfortably. Streetlamps shed a soft glow.

Arriving at a small park, they sat down on a dry bench under a tree. 'Do you frequently go on blind dates?' he asked.

'No...not since my teens,' she said dreamily.

'I like you, Sophie Dunhill,' he said. 'I now know that. I wasn't entirely sure before.'

'I'm sort of glad you like me. It makes things easier at work,' she said. 'But I wouldn't go into a decline if you didn't.'

He found himself laughing, feeling at ease with her now, relaxed in a way that he hadn't felt relaxed for some time. 'That remark is a perfect example of paying a dubious compliment, then taking it back immediately.'

'Well, that's really what you do,' she said, 'so I can do it, too.'

'Ouch! You really do think badly of me, don't you? I'll have to see what I can do to dispel that misapprehension. I, um, I assume that you don't have a regular man in your life, otherwise you wouldn't be here with me,' he said, his arm still draped casually around her.

'Better not to assume,' she said, looking at him shrewdly. 'I could assume the same about you, but then you have Dawn Renton.'

'Ouch again!' he said. 'Dawn and I aren't serious. I'm a convenience for her, that's all, and I guess she is for me sometimes.' He hoped he sounded brutally honest, because that was what he intended to be. That was his reading of the situation between himself and Dawn.

'Oh?' she said. 'The tom-toms say that if you become Chief, you and Dawn will marry. The gossip has it that she's very, very socially ambitious.'

Clay was genuinely taken aback, shocked even. 'You shouldn't listen to tom-toms, Sophie,' he admonished her. 'And my social circuit isn't great.'

'The beat is loud,' she said, amusement in her voice.

Clay digested that bit of information in silence for a while, then decided to dismiss it. Other questions were more pressing.

'Do you have someone?' he persisted.

'No.'

'I suppose you must still miss your husband,' he added carefully, his hand ruffling her soft hair at the back of her head. Her answer pleased him, strangely.

'I certainly wouldn't want to get serious about anyone right now,' she said. 'Once was enough.'

'When you've loved someone, I guess it would take a long time to want to get involved with someone else.' Clay wasn't quite sure why he was talking in this way, peculiarly introspective for him—sort of introspection by proxy. 'Not that I can speak from personal experience. I don't think I've been in love with anyone. It's always just been a strong physical attraction.'

'Always indulged?' she asked, with apparent innocence.

'You could say that...in a discriminating way,' Clay said, noting that she was smiling. 'Now, you, having loved—'

'That's where you're wrong,' Sophie said. 'I didn't love Peter...not in the way you mean...not in the right way, as a wife should love a husband. So, you see, things aren't always what they seem.'

'Why not?' She had his attention fully.

'Before we married,' she said softly, gazing into the near distance as the rain spattered gently on the umbrella that he still held over them, even though they were somewhat sheltered by the tree, 'we lived together for a year, and at the end of that time I decided that I didn't want to marry him, that I wanted to move out, whereas he wanted to marry me.'

'Go on,' he encouraged.

'Well, to cut a long story short, when I finally got up the courage to decide that I had to tell him, he announced first that he'd been diagnosed with cancer,' she said. 'He hadn't been feeling well for some time, very tired, so he'd been to see someone about it. We were both absolutely shattered. I was so glad that I hadn't actually told him.'

Clay stroked her hair and her cheek. She hardly seemed to notice.

'Of course,' she went on, 'I couldn't possibly tell him then that I didn't want to stay with him.'

'No...'

'I won't bore you with all the details. I felt guilty because I didn't love him in the right way when he was suffering so much. I lived in fear that he would find out that I didn't love him...' She bent her head so that, looking at her delicate profile, Clay wanted to draw her into his arms and comfort her. 'I tried so hard not to let it show.'

Clay eased her head against his shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

'We decided to marry, then for me to become pregnant before he had to have the chemotherapy. He died two years later. End of story.' There was a touch of bitterness in her voice, a regret. 'Of course, I did love Peter in a certain way—of course I did. He was a sweet boy. But that was exactly what he was—a boy.'

'A very sad story, and a great dilemma for you,' Clay said, moved more deeply than he would have admitted. 'You did right to stay with him. I think it was right for both of you. If you hadn't stayed, I guess you would have felt pretty awful later on.'

'Yes, I know I would have,' she admitted pensively. 'He depended on me so much, and wanted me with him.'

Clay cradled her head against his shoulder, as though he could belatedly ease the burdens of her past.