Bramble and made a huge fuss of her. Though Dragan could see that she was having one of her ‘off’ days—she was definitely struggling to get out of the chair, despite the fact the legs had been raised, and by the end of every sentence her voice was so soft that he could barely hear her. She listened intently to what he had to say about the consultant’s report and the changes in her medication to help with the stiffness in her gait and her memory lapses, but Stella, like Lizzie, completely rejected the idea of day care.
‘I’m not spending my days stuck in a home with a load of daft old bats. This is where I live, and this is where I’m staying,’ Stella said, lifting her chin.
‘You won’t be stuck anywhere. It’s a…’ He struggled to think of something that might entice Stella. ‘A bit like a coffee morning where you sit and chat, or you have someone to give a demonstration of something and you all have a go afterwards.’
‘I don’t want to sit and chat with people I don’t know,’ Stella insisted.
Time to back off. ‘It’s just a suggestion. Nobody’s going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Dragan reassured her.
‘Good. Because I’m not going.’
Maybe he’d talk to Melinda, Dragan thought. Not about Stella’s condition—he would never break patient confidentiality—but she was good with people. She’d got Tina to open up to her, confide her dreams of becoming a vet, and had then talked to George about giving the teenager some work experience at the practice. Perhaps Melinda would have some ideas about how to persuade Stella and Lizzie that a weekly session of day care could help them both. Because, the way things were going here, he could see Lizzie ending up having a breakdown.
‘Remember, call me any time you need to,’ he said to Lizzie as he lifted Bramble back into the car. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘I will.’
Though he knew she wouldn’t. She’d straighten her backbone and just carry on.
He took his leave, then headed out to see his next patient.
CHAPTER TWO
DRAGAN had been home half an hour when the doorbell rang. Bramble barked—just in case he’d missed the fact someone was on the doorstep—and pattered behind him as he opened the door.
‘Dinner will be approximately thirty minutes,’ Melinda announced, holding up two brown paper bags.
Not take-away food either, Dragan knew as he followed her into his kitchen. Melinda liked to cook from scratch.
‘First of all, this needs to go into the freezer.’ She retrieved a tub of ice cream from one of the bags and put it in the coldest part of the freezer. ‘And next, for you, because you’re beautiful.’ She bent down and made a fuss of the dog, then took a handful of treats from her pocket and fed them to Bramble one by one.
From the blur of her wagging tail, Dragan knew that the dog loved having Melinda around as much as he did. ‘You spoil that dog,’ he remarked.
‘And you don’t?’ she teased.
‘Never,’ he deadpanned. ‘So where’s my treat, then?’
She grinned, reached up and slid her arms round his neck, then kissed him thoroughly. ‘Better?’
He smiled. ‘Much better. Want a hand making dinner?’
‘Absolutely not.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s wonderful being able to work in a proper kitchen. The one in the flat over the surgery isn’t even big enough for a hamster wheel.’
And she looked good in his kitchen, he thought. At home. So much so that she didn’t hesitate to switch on his iPod and pick out some of the tracks she liked, by an opera-pop crossover artist that she’d downloaded for him the previous week. He’d never heard of the singer before, but he liked it, especially when she was singing along to it, half humming and half singing the lyrics. She was as good with the Spanish lyrics as she was with the Italian ones, and he loved the sweetness of her voice.
It wasn’t just the music. He loved having her around, full stop.
Because she made his house feel like home. She had done ever since her second visit to the cottage, when she’d brought him the iPod, complete with a set of speakers for his kitchen, and insisted that he accepted the gift. ‘You can’t cook properly without music, Dragan. You can’t live without music.’
Melinda was always singing. And she always took over the CD player in his car. Since she’d been around, there had been a lot more music in his life.
A lot more everything.
Maybe he’d ask her tonight. Maybe he’d take her for a walk on the beach and kiss her under the stars and ask her to stay. For always.
He enjoyed just watching her as she chopped and stirred and tasted and stirred a bit more.
Then she looked over at him and the corners of her eyes crinkled. ‘You can lay the table, if you like.’
The small bistro table was set in front of the French doors that overlooked the garden; although it wasn’t like the huge rambling garden he’d grown up with, he enjoyed his little patch of green. Right now it was full of spring flowers, with a carpet of blue squill underneath the apple tree. He set the table, took a bottle of white wine from the fridge, poured two glasses, and sat down as she brought over two plates.
Bramble immediately settled on the floor between the two of them, and Melinda laughed. ‘Ah, no, you can’t have any of this, bellissima. The chilli sauce won’t be kind to your stomach.’
‘And she’s already wolfed down half a dozen prawns while you were preparing this,’ Dragan pointed out.
‘Of course. She’s my official tester.’ Melinda waited until he’d taken his first mouthful of the avocado with prawns and chilli sauce. ‘So do you like it?’
‘It’s fabulous,’ he said honestly. Trust Melinda to come up with a combination he would never have thought of.
The lemon chicken with broccoli, carrots and new potatoes was equally good. And although he didn’t have a sweet tooth, he was content to watch her eat the hazelnut meringue ice cream that was a speciality of the Trevellyans’ farm shop and which she absolutely adored.
‘So you admit now that food is not just fuel?’ Melinda demanded when they cleared the table together.
‘Yes, I admit it. You are right and I am wrong, carissima.’
She laughed. ‘And therefore you owe me a forfeit.’
He laughed back. ‘Indeed. It’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.’ He never ate chocolate, but Melinda loved it, so he’d taken to buying some just for her. Rich, dark chocolate flavoured with spices and a hint of orange.
She found the bar of chocolate within seconds. ‘For someone who never touches the stuff, you have amazingly good taste, Dr Lovak.’
Her little ‘oh’ of pleasure as she snapped off the first square and slid it into her mouth sent desire
