thought caught him completely off guard. Harry found himself floundering when the nurse asked if he had a pen so she could write down her telephone number for him. He gave it to her then waited in silence while she scribbled the number on a bit of paper and tucked it in his top pocket. Mercifully, the ward sister appeared at that point and summoned her back to work so he was able to make his escape, but he couldn’t deny that he felt completely out of kilter as he made his way back to the waiting room.
Why did he keep having all these strange thoughts about Grace? Was it just the fact that she’d treated him differently that night—talked to him, laughed with him, behaved as though he wasn’t the lowest form of pond life? He wasn’t convinced that was the reason why he was behaving so strangely, but he felt unusually nervous as he went into the room.
‘Any news yet?’ he asked, striving for a measure of calm.
‘You tell me.’ Grace treated him to a smile so cold that it could have reversed the effects of global warming, and Harry frowned.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Work it out for yourself. It shouldn’t be that difficult for an intelligent man like you, Harry.’
She picked up a magazine and proceeded to ignore him as she flicked through its pages. Harry sighed because he really wasn’t in the mood to play games with her at the moment.
‘Look, Grace, I apologise if I’ve done something to upset you—’ he began, but she didn’t let him finish. Tossing the magazine onto the table, she glared at him.
‘I am not upset. If you want to chat up every single woman in this hospital then good luck to you. However, I do object to being told a pack of lies. If you wanted to go and find that nurse, why didn’t you say so? I’m hardly going to fall down in a heap because you’re chatting up some woman.’
So that was it. Harry felt a wave of relief wash over him. Grace must have seen him talking to that nurse and assumed he’d engineered the meeting. He hastened to reassure her, even though he wasn’t sure why it was so important that she knew what had really gone on.
‘I did go out for some fresh air. I just happened to bump into Cathy on my way back, that’s all.’
‘Oh, so it’s Cathy, is it? Obviously, you didn’t waste any time getting acquainted with her.’
Grace treated him to another of those icy smiles and he sighed again. It was obvious that she didn’t believe he was the innocent party.
‘Just because I know her name doesn’t mean that your allegations are true,’ he pointed out in his most reasonable tone. ‘It happened exactly as I told you. I was coming back inside when she stopped me.’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t just ignore her, could I?’
‘Of course not. I mean, it would have been unthinkable to tell her that you were far too worried about your friend to think about your…uh…other needs.’
Her voice dripped with scorn and Harry gritted his teeth. It took a massive effort of will to damp down his anger, but he really and truly didn’t want to fight with her right now.
Was that what she was trying to do? he wondered. Poke and prod at him until he retaliated? He sensed it was true yet he couldn’t understand why she would do such a thing. Unless she was afraid that if they didn’t argue, she might be forced to admit that she was jealous of the attention he’d been paying the other woman.
The thought was so mind-bogglingly complicated that he didn’t know how to handle it. He was still struggling, in fact, when the door opened and Penny appeared. Grace jumped up, ignoring him as she led Penny to a chair and sat her down.
‘How is Miles?’ she demanded, sitting beside her.
‘Much better than I feared.’ Penny gave them a wobbly smile. ‘They’re fairly sure that he suffered an angina attack rather than a full-blown myocardial infarction. The resting ECG tracing shows no sign of damage to his heart but they want to do more tests tomorrow—get Miles onto the treadmill to see how his heart responds during exercise. The consultant I spoke to seems fairly confident that it was a coronary artery spasm, though.’
‘Probably brought on by the pressure that Miles has been under recently,’ Harry observed, relieved to have something to focus on other than what Grace might or might not be thinking. ‘Let’s face it, Miles has been running himself ragged of late. It was just a matter of time before something like this happened.’
‘I know, and that’s why I’m determined that he’s going to have a complete rest.’ Penny took a deep breath then looked at him and Grace. ‘I know you two have had your differences in the past, but if you could just put them aside for now, you could actually be saving Miles’s life. He needs complete rest and the only way he’ll get it is if he knows the practice is being taken care of. I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you two could manage to work together for the next couple of weeks?’
HARRY knew that if Penny had asked him that question a couple of hours ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have told her quite emphatically that there wouldn’t be a problem. Now he was no longer sure if it was the truth. Could he really imagine himself working with Grace when just a few hours of her company had caused such an upheaval in his life?
‘I…um…well…’ he stumbled as his usual composure deserted him.
‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.’ There were tears in Penny’s eyes now as she looked up at him. ‘I just can’t bear to think of anything happening to Miles, especially now.’
She laid her hand protectively on her stomach and Harry knew he was sunk. How could he turn his back on his two oldest friends when they needed his help so desperately? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to Miles or this precious baby, so he would have to agree and simply hope that he and Grace could get through the coming weeks relatively unscathed.
He turned to Grace, praying that she couldn’t tell how uneasy he felt at the thought of their forthcoming alliance. ‘I’m willing to give it a shot if you are.’ He held out his hand. ‘So, shall we call a truce?’
An expression which looked almost like panic crossed her face before she quickly stood up. ‘All right. I’m willing to meet you halfway, if it means we’re helping Miles and Penny.’
Harry smiled wryly. It hadn’t been panic at all, but Grace being her usual cautious self. It was typical of her to qualify her agreement like that, to make sure he knew that she was accepting his offer purely for the sake of their friends. She would never admit to any sign of weakness in front of him, never acknowledge that she, too, would benefit from his help in the surgery. She would never give an inch if it meant he might gain any ground, and maybe it was that thought that made him decide to seal their agreement with more than the customary handshake. The thought of getting a little further under Grace’s skin was oddly appealing.
He took her outstretched hand but instead of shaking it, as she’d expected him to do, he pulled her towards him and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Sealed with a kiss. There’s no going back on our pact now, Grace.’
He let her go, hoping she couldn’t tell the effect the kiss had had on him. It
