Miss Russell. Obviously, you weren’t meant to overhear what Dennis and I were saying just now, but that is no excuse. It was extremely remiss of us to have been speculating about you that way.’
Nick Slater’s deep voice cut through the silence and made her start nervously. Leanne raised startled eyes to his face then quickly looked away because she didn’t want to risk making eye contact with him again.
‘So long as you both understand that I would take an extremely dim view of you repeating what you said to anyone else, I think we can let the matter drop,’ she said, striving for calmness.
‘You have my word on it, Miss Russell. Thank you for being so understanding.’
He turned to Dennis McNally and she breathed a sigh of relief at no longer being the object of his interest. ‘If you could let me have those figures, Dennis, I can work them into my report. I need to get it faxed to the office this afternoon, so I would appreciate it if you could get straight onto it.’
It was a dismissal and Dennis wasn’t slow to see it as such. ‘No problem. I’ll let you have them before lunch. Nice to meet you, Miss Russell, and, as Nick said, sorry and all that.’
Leanne inclined her head, although she didn’t say anything as he hurriedly left the room. She was far too busy worrying about being alone with Nick Slater to think about anything else. It stunned her that she should be so aware of him because it had never happened before, not even when she had met Michael.
That thought was less than comforting so it was a relief when Nick briskly stood up and walked to the door. ‘I’ll give you a quick tour of the place first. I’m afraid that you’re getting thrown in at the deep end because we are short-staffed at the moment.’
‘Show me any medical facility that isn’t short of staff,’ she said lightly, following him into the corridor.
She took a steadying breath as he locked his office door. If she focused solely on the job and stopped her mind from running off at tangents, it would help tremendously.
‘You’re obviously a realist. Good. The last nurse we hired only lasted a week. She had got it into her head that life would be easier working in a place where the patients didn’t have their treatment provided by the NHS, with all its attendant problems.’
He gave a deep laugh and Leanne held herself rigid when she felt a spasm shoot through her again. ‘Unfortunately, it has just the opposite effect. Because people pay for their treatment they expect a much better service. Woe betide you if you don’t come up to their expectations!’
‘It’s only natural, I suppose.’
She cleared her throat when she heard how husky her voice had sounded. She had to stop this, she told herself sternly. Had to stop reacting to everything Nick Slater said or did. He was just someone she would be working with for the next three months so maybe she should slot him into that category right away.
‘People expect value for money,’ she continued in a more normal tone. ‘It doesn’t matter if they’re buying a new car, groceries from the supermarket or medical care, they expect the very best for their hard-earned money.’
‘Exactly. And that’s what we aim to give them when they come to HealthFirst,’ Nick assured her. ‘Our aim is to provide a comprehensive, value-for-money service to all our patients.’
‘Do you deal mainly with minor ailments?’ she asked curiously.
‘Not at all. We provide the full range of services that any general practitioner would offer. If we see a patient and decide that he needs a hospital referral—we arrange it. We also offer a complete range of diagnostic tests—blood, urine, cholesterol, electrocardiograph, and so on. And we refer any which are beyond our scope to a specialist provider.’
‘Are the people you treat usually holidaymakers?’ she said, a little surprised by the extent of the services on offer at the clinic.
‘No, again.’ He paused and she steeled herself when she realised that he was looking at her. She knew that she couldn’t keep avoiding making eye contact with him, but it was difficult to make herself turn and face him.
It was a relief when she felt nothing but the tiniest tremor as their eyes met, and that could easily be attributed to first-day nerves. Maybe that also helped to explain what had happened before? she mused. After all, it wasn’t as though Nick Slater was the best-looking man she had ever seen, was he? She made herself take stock, bit by bit, hoping that it would help to work this glitch out of her system if she saw him simply as the person he was.
His hair was dark brown and cut very short because she guessed that it had a tendency to curl if he let it grow. His eyes were hazel rather than the pure green she had first thought them to be, heavily lashed with thick, straight, black lashes. His nose had a definite crook in it, as though it might have been broken on more than one occasion, possibly playing some kind of sport. He definitely had an athlete’s physique with those broad shoulders and that well-muscled chest, the trim waist and narrow hips…
Leanne paused when she realised that she’d allowed herself to be sidetracked and had skipped a bit. Her gaze backtracked while she took note of a mobile mouth that naturally curved up at the corners, a strong chin with just the hint of a dimple in it, a pair of well-shaped ears.
All in all, Nick Slater was a nice-looking man in his thirties, not exactly heart-throb material but verging on it, she decided. She could understand a woman being attracted to him and it was a comfort to realise that. But was it really enough to help explain how she had reacted to him?
She tried to tell herself that it was possible—probable even if it was added to the understandable nervousness of starting a new job—but she wasn’t convinced. The way she had responded to Nick Slater wasn’t going to be explained away that easily.
Nick cleared his throat purely and simply because he wasn’t sure what else to do. Leanne was staring at him and it made him feel very odd to be on the receiving end of such an intent scrutiny. ‘Over half of the people whom we see at HealthFirst are UK citizens.’
He coughed again, wondering what was wrong with his vocal cords. His voice had the quavery cadence of a teenage boy. In fact, now that he thought about it, he felt rather like he had done as a teenager when he’d developed a crush on the school’s gym mistress…
This time his cough was genuine and he saw Leanne look at him in concern. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’ He managed to suck some air into his lungs but it was an effort to act as though there was nothing wrong. How in the name of all that was holy had he developed a crush on Leanne Russell in the space of ten minutes?
‘Just a tickle in my throat. What was I saying…? Oh, yes, most of the patients we treat here are business people who can’t get to see their own GPs because the surgeries’ hours don’t correspond with their busy schedules. They appreciate the fact that they can call into the clinic and be seen virtually straight away.’
‘And they are prepared to pay for this service?’ she queried, frowning.
‘Yes.’ Nick shrugged, striving for a nonchalance he wished he felt. Of course he hadn’t developed a crush on Leanne—the idea was ridiculous. But, try as he may, he couldn’t dismiss it.
‘You know the old saying that time is money? Well, it applies in this instance. People don’t have the time to hang around a
