heard a deep voice say in surprise, ‘So what have we here?’
It didn’t have her mother’s lighter tones, and with eyes bright and cheeks burning with a temperature that was still rising she sat upright and found herself gazing up into the dark hazel eyes of a man dressed in a smart suit, with shirt and tie to match.
‘Who are you?’ she croaked. ‘Where is my mother?’
He gave a quirky smile. ‘One thing I am not is the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, so there’s no need to look so alarmed. Your mother is fine. That is presuming that you are the prodigal daughter. I’m Daniel Dreyfus and I’m staying here for the time being.’
‘As a guest or a lodger?’
‘I’m lodging here.’
‘But why? Mum isn’t in the habit of taking in lodgers.’
‘So I believe, but she took pity on me. I’ve recently moved into this area and am having a house built. I needed somewhere to stay until it’s ready to move into and there was nowhere available, so your mother made her kind offer.’
This was all she needed, Kate thought from her sitting position on the carpet. She was in no fit state to be coping with strangers. She’d come home seeking solace and had arrived with a virus of some sort. Her mother wasn’t there and this stranger was living in the house.
‘Where is my mother?’ she asked.
‘She’s been called away because of an urgent message yesterday afternoon to say that your grandma has been taken ill. She set off immediately and wasn’t here when you left your message last night. I only picked it up myself this morning, but you were already on your way when I tried to get in touch.’
‘What’s wrong with my gran?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Her heart, I think. Don’t worry, she is recovering well. Your mother and I didn’t have much time to talk. She phoned me at the surgery and asked me to hold the fort at this end. She had no idea that you were on your way.’
‘What were you doing at the surgery?’ she questioned, irritable now she was reassured that her mother and grandmother were OK. ‘Are you sick? I’m fighting off some sort of bug of my own, so I can do without any other germs coming my way.’
The quirky smile was back. ‘I work there. I’m the village doctor. Peter Swain, who was there before me, has retired. I took over the practice three months ago after a stint in the Middle East.’
What next? Kate thought wretchedly. Everything was going wrong. The really big catastrophe being Craig breaking off their engagement because he’d said he didn’t want to be tied down, and then her finding out he was having an affair with her flatmate. She supposed she’d been too trusting and should have seen it coming, but it didn’t hurt any less.
Then she’d picked up this virus thing. She who was never ill from one year’s end to the next. Her gran was poorly too. It seemed as if it was her heart again. And to cap it all, this lodger person who was acting as if he owned the place was a doctor. She could do without that.
‘I hope you’re not using my room,’ she said ungraciously, and began to get unsteadily to her feet.
‘Of course not,’ she heard him say smoothly, and that was the last thing she remembered.
Daniel caught Kate as she crumpled and was immediately aware of the fever in her. When he swept her up into his arms she lay limp and unresisting and he thought that with her short, spiky blonde hair and over-bright blue eyes, which were now closed, Kate looked nothing like her mother.
He carried her upstairs and opened the door of a bedroom that had been shut ever since he’d moved in. Pushing it back with his foot, he walked across to the bed and laid her gently on top of the covers. Then he went to forage in the top of the wardrobe for a blanket to put over her.
Kate was coming out of her faint and found herself in the same situation as before, looking up at him from a horizontal position. ‘What happened?’ she asked weakly.
‘You fainted. So I carried you up here and laid you on the bed.’
She groaned. How embarrassing! What next?
‘I want to check you over as you are certainly far from well. I’m going to get my bag out of the car so don’t move,’ he ordered.
If she hadn’t felt so ghastly Kate would have argued. As it was she just lay there limply and waited for him to come back.
‘How long since you’ve eaten?’ he asked as he took her temperature.
‘Er…yesterday.’
‘No wonder you’re feeling weak.’
‘I kept vomiting.’
‘Mmm. I see. Have you had this sort of thing before?’
‘No. Never.’
‘All right. So if you can manage to get undressed and slide under the covers, I’ll go and sort out a hot-water bottle, a cup of tea and some toast. We’ll see if you can keep that down, and then we’ll try some paracetamol to bring your temperature under control.’
When he came back upstairs Kate was under the covers and shivering. She hugged the hot-water bottle to her thankfully. As she was sipping the tea and nibbling on the toast the phone in the hall downstairs rang and as he went to answer it she called after him, ‘If it’s my mother, don’t tell her that I’m sick. She will have enough to cope with, looking after my gran.’
It wasn’t her mother. The call was from Jenny Barnes, the mainstay of the reception desk at the surgery.
‘Is everything all right, Dr Dreyfus?’ she wanted to know. ‘The waiting room is full and Dr Platt keeps sighing.’
‘I’ll be there in a few minutes,’ he told her. ‘I came back to get a medical book and found someone here who is not at all well.’
‘You don’t mean Ruth?’
‘No. It’s her daughter, who’s arrived home unexpectedly and has a virus of some sort.’
‘You mean Kate is back?’ she exclaimed. ‘She was a locum here for twelve months before she moved into hospital work. She’s a sweetie.’
‘Not at the moment she isn’t,’ he told her dryly as it registered that they were both in the same profession and she hadn’t thought to mention it. In fact, she’d looked more put out than ever when he’d told her that he was in charge of the village practice.
‘I’m needed at the surgery,’ he told Kate when he went back upstairs and found her dozing after managing to get the tea and toast down. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can and in the meantime stay put. I’ve brought your mobile up and have put it on the bedside table so that you won’t have to get out of bed if your mother does ring.’
He paused in the doorway. ‘Have you taken the paracetamol?’
‘Yes,’ she said meekly, and wished he wouldn’t be so doctorish. Her heart was bruised and hurting. She didn’t want to be taken over and organised.
