from her skin and sending shivers down her spine. She gave a wordless little cry, and he brought his mouth back to hers, cradling her willing body against his and drinking deeply from her lips.
Then he lifted his head slowly, laying feather-light kisses on her eyelids, and, placing his hands on her shoulders, he eased her gently away from him.
‘I’m really very sorry,’ he said gruffly.
Lydia shook her head. She couldn’t for the life of her see why he needed to apologise for kissing her so tenderly and beautifully. ‘Don’t be sorry. It was—just one of those things. Anyway, I liked it——’
‘Not the kiss. The awful things I said to you, the way I spoke to you. I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I never meant to. Can we start again?’
She was having difficulty thinking of anything but the feel of his lips on hers, the urgent need of his body pressed so close against her own, and his thumbs were tracing circles on her shoulders, turning her bones to water. She dragged her mind into focus. Maybe all was not yet lost.
‘Does that mean you’ll consider finding another practice?’ she asked quietly.
His hands fell abruptly to his sides, and he stepped back sharply, his face twisted with disdain. ‘I might have known,’ he said bitterly. ‘Women always use sex as a pawn, one way or another.’
She was stunned, hurt beyond belief that he could think that of her, so she snapped, ‘I could just as easily accuse you of doing that!’
‘Why should I?’
‘Why should you?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Because we both want the practice, and you’re trying to persuade me to give in!’
He gave a tired, humourless little laugh. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ he asked wearily. ‘I already have the practice. And possession, as they say, is nine-tenths of the law. In fact, the way things stand, you don’t even have a tenth in your favour.’
Lydia watched open-mouthed as he turned on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen, then she snapped her jaws shut so hard that she nearly broke her teeth.
She mopped and blotted until her rage had subsided, then she sagged against the cupboards and closed her eyes.
Oh, Gramps,’ she whispered, ‘I can see why you were taken in. He’s very convincing, and so, so smooth! Just like a diamond—hard as rock, and when the light’s right you can see straight through him.’
She called a plumber, cleaned out the fridge and put away the food, and then wrote out a cheque for Sam, dropping it through the surgery letter-box.
As she turned away he opened the door and emerged.
Did you want me?’ he asked, and she felt a hot tide rise up her throat and flood her face.
Of course not,’ she said abruptly, and he paused for a second, and then laughed softly.
‘Funny, I was sure you did,’ he teased, and the flush deepened.
‘You flatter yourself,’ she muttered crossly, and turned away, but not before she saw his face crease into a smile.
‘Are you going to be in?’ he asked a second later, and she shrugged.
‘Maybe. Why?’
‘I’m going out on a call. Maggie Ryder’s in labour and may need me before I’m back, and I’m supposed to be covering for George Hastings as well. The answer-phone’s on, and it gives them the cell-phone number to contact, but it can be useful having someone here.’
To act as receptionist? Sorry, Dr Davenport, if you want a receptionist you’ll have to pay one. I’m afraid I have rather too much to do.’
She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him tight-lipped on the drive.
‘Forget it,’ he called after her. ‘I thought perhaps I could appeal to your compassionate nature, but I was obviously wrong.’
She turned back to face him, hands on hips. ‘And what,’ she asked icily, ‘gives you the impression that I feel compassionate towards you?’
One eyebrow quirked mockingly at her. ‘Who said anything about me? I meant the patients. Why should you feel anything towards me?’
‘Apart from dislike? Search me!’
His lips twitched. ‘Later, if you don’t mind. I’m a bit busy at the moment.’
He ignored her outraged gasp and swung himself behind the wheel of his car, a new BMW.
‘I might have known he’d have a flash set of wheels,’ she grumbled to herself, and marched back to the house, head held high, back ramrod-straight.
He roared round behind her, and tooted the horn just as he pulled level with her, making her jump nearly out of her skin.
His laugh rippled back down the drive as he roared away, and it just served to fuel the temper that had been building all day.
“I’ll fix you!’ she muttered, and, going round to the back garden, she found the old wheelbarrow and filled it with bricks from the crumbling shed at the end.
Slowly, systematically, she constructed a barrier that divided her half of the in-and-out drive from his, so that it was no longer possible for him to drive across the front of the house. Then she found some whitewash and slopped it on the makeshift wall so that he would see it, and stood back to examine her efforts. A bit crooked, but it would serve its purpose.
‘Well, if it’s not young Lydia!’ she heard from behind her, and, turning, she recognised Mrs Pritchard from the village shop.
Oh! Hello, Mrs P. Just building a wall,’ she said lamely. Suddenly feeling rather foolish, she rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans and attempted to explain that, since the surgery was no longer part of the house, it was sensible to separate it completely to avoid any problems over maintenance of the drive.
‘Seem a bit daft to me, dear. Never mind, I expect you young things know best, but I hope that nice Dr Davenport doesn’t mind.’
‘Hmm,’ she mumbled. She was actually hoping that he would mind very much indeed—in fact, she was counting on it!
She eventually excused herself on the grounds that the phone was ringing and, having gone in, despite her refusal to Sam, she felt obliged to answer it.
The caller was a young woman whom Lydia remembered from her childhood, who was going frantic because her baby wouldn’t stop crying.
‘Lydia, I don’t know what to do! He just won’t stop—it’s been going on for six hours! I must be doing something awfully wrong——’
‘How old is he?’ she asked, and established through careful questioning that the baby was four weeks old, had no history of colic, was apparently quite well, not suffering from constipation or diarrhoea, and had a normal temperature.
‘Where are you, Lucy?’ she asked, and when she found out that the woman was only three or four hundred yards down the road she
