‘The smoke alarm upstairs is yelping at me, which means it’s about to give out. And I bet the wiring in this place isn’t that great.’
‘No, probably not,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s try the drawers.’
Cutlery, dish towels, paper bags…Will reached the drawer next to the one Maggie was checking, and as he pulled it out she felt the brush of his arm on hers, like a streak of warm paint. He said ‘Aha!’ a moment later, flourishing the small, box-shaped nine-volt battery.
‘Oh, good.’ Maggie’s voice came out a little too high, and she stepped back out of the thick potency of his aura. Will had no idea he did this to her, thank goodness!
He added, ‘Now, I just need this chair again.’
He grabbed the stiff-backed wooden kitchen chair with one hand and carried it out of the room as if it weighed as much as a plastic coffee-mug. Maggie stood there, leaning helplessly against the sink as she listened to him, still bathed in the aftermath of that one tiny, accidental touch.
She heard his firm footfalls on the hardwood stairs, the scrape of chair legs, some clicks and snaps and rattles as he detached the smoke alarm, changed the battery and clicked it back into place. It was a job she’d done a few times herself since Mark’s death, but she always fumbled it, took three attempts to get the thing out and in again properly. She didn’t like it.
Tasks like that daunted her more than they should, given her capability in other areas. She was intelligent, but that didn’t mean she was good at practical household maintenance tasks. She was always glad that the whooping warning signal was so damned annoying, because it forced her to tackle the matter immediately. Even gladder, tonight, that someone else was here to do it. Someone male and strong and sure of what he was doing.
Will was back. He deposited the chair beside the table and said, ‘Done. Shall we go?’
‘Thanks, Will.’
He shrugged. ‘No problem.’
She wanted to push the point. Thanks for checking upstairs. Thanks for taking notice of that sound. Thanks for acting on it, when these aren’t your patients, and when a lot of people wouldn’t have bothered to make all those cognitive leaps. Dying alarm plus old wooden house plus slow-moving occupant equals unacceptable risk.
She let him open the front door for her—ten years ago, she would have made a clumsy point of doing it herself—and he surprised her once more by pausing just before he closed it.
‘Does she have her keys with her?’
‘Well, I know she took her purse…’
‘Should I take a quick look around, just in case?’ He did so, but came back empty-handed.
In the car once more, they were silent. Maggie’s thoughts were with Kathy and Matthew, speeding towards the hospital, and then something else began to nag at her—the two calls from Amy Pickford’s parents earlier, about her high fever.
She hadn’t been concerned at the time. Going over the baby’s symptoms in a rational way, she still wasn’t—but what if she was wrong?
‘Will, I’m sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘There’s another patient I want to take a look at. Five minutes’ drive. I’ll phone ahead now and tell the parents I’m coming. I know I’m being paranoid, but—’
‘Tell me about it,’ he invited her calmly, and when she’d sketched out the details he said, ‘You’re right.’
‘That I should check the baby out, in view of Matthew’s illness, or that I’m being paranoid?’
‘Both. In medicine, as in real life—’
‘Oh, medicine’s not real life, according to you?’ she cut in.
‘No, it’s real life concentrated until it’s four times as thick…’
Maggie laughed.
‘And in both, it’s not the likely odds of a particular outcome that count, it’s how serious the consequences are. From what you’ve said, I’m close to a hundred per cent certain this baby doesn’t have meningitis. But if she did, would you ever forgive yourself?’
‘No. Never.’
‘So go and check her out. I won’t come in this time, and for a premium of around ten minutes of your time, you’ve insured yourself against a lifetime of losing sleep.’
Maggie’s visit to the Pickford household unfolded exactly as she and Will had both predicted. The baby’s temperature had dropped significantly, she had developed a runny nose and she had no rash or neck stiffness. She was now sleeping peacefully, and when Maggie crept in to take a look, she was presented with the familiar sight of a baby with a developing cold.
‘Is the doctor feeling better now?’ Will asked when she came out of the house.
He had got out of the car for some fresh air, and was pacing up and down the steep gravel driveway.
‘Much,’ Maggie answered. ‘Since the patient is feeling better.’
‘Good.’ He flung her one of his gorgeous smiles.
‘When did you get to be this thoughtful?’ Maggie asked without thinking. Not the sort of thing you should say aloud, but somehow with Will she always had.
He stilled for a fraction of a second, then said lightly, ‘Around the same time as most guys, I guess.’
‘And when’s that?’
‘You tell me!’
‘With men like you, often it’s never!’
This time, his stillness wasn’t momentary, but it was definitely threatening. ‘If I’m supposed to regard that as a backhanded compliment, Maggie, sorry, I don’t,’ he said. ‘That’s like telling a woman that she seems surprisingly intelligent for a blonde.’
‘Now you’re a feminist, too?’
Oh, hell, what was wrong with her tonight?
‘I think what I think,’ he growled. He strode down the driveway towards the car, and the loose gravel rattled. In the neighbouring yard, a dog barked.
Apologise, Maggie.
‘Can we…uh…rewind the tape a little?’ she asked. It was inadequate, but both her tongue and her brain stubbornly announced themselves incapable of doing better.
‘To what point in the conversation?’
‘To the place where I said thanks.’
‘Oh, right, yeah, you did,’ he drawled. ‘I’d almost forgotten.’
‘Sorry, OK? I’m sorry.’
He sighed between his teeth. ‘Yeah, so am I. Look, shall we forget dessert? Obviously this joining your practice thing is a non-starter,
