the idea of the man in front of her having any kind of sexual problem at all was just absurd in the extreme.
He met her eyes, his own reproving. ‘Tut-tut. You aren’t supposed to laugh, you’re supposed to ask me when it started, how many times it’s happened, if it’s always the same pattern, if it’s only when I’m with a partner or ——’
‘All right, all right!’ She threw her hands up in the air in an attitude of surrender, and tried to school her expression. ‘You just caught me unprepared.’
‘And would you be prepared if someone came up to you and said something like that in a supermarket, or in a restaurant?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! They wouldn’t ——’
‘Oh no?’ He leant back and shook his head. ‘Don’t be too sure. I was in the bar at the squash club last winter and someone came up to me — total stranger — and asked me what he should do about his genital warts. I told him to see his GP, and he said I was his GP, and what should he do?’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Come and see me at the surgery. What else? If you give advice when you can’t make an examination, then you could be in deep legal trouble. Once you’ve started to give any advice at all, you’ve assumed responsibility for the treatment and the repercussions could be phenomenal. Now, about my sexual problems ——’
She laughed again.
He gave her a reproachful look. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Dr Pearce. I thought you might have some new perspective on it that might help me.’
‘You’re ridiculous,’ she told him bluntly, trying hard not to blush. ‘The only sexual problem you’ve got is finding time for all those opportunities in your hectic schedule, I have no doubt.’
He grinned. ‘I’m flattered.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be a compliment,’ she said severely, squashing the urge to laugh.
The grin widened. ‘Listen, little lady, with my problem I’ll take what I can get.’
‘Yes, well, just make sure it isn’t something nasty.’
‘Like Ravinda Patel?’
Her head flew up and their eyes clashed in the sudden silence. ‘I thought …’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Ravi’s interested in me, but that’s as far as it goes. I’ve never given her the slightest encouragement.’
‘That’s not how it looks.’
He shrugged. ‘Ravi’s got expressive eyes. You’ll have to trust me.’
Abbie wasn’t sure she dared. Instead, she changed tack. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because the internal politics of any closely knit working community are very sensitive — I just wanted you to know the truth.’
‘How do I know it’s the truth? How do I know you aren’t the world’s most monumental flirt who’s seen a new toy to play with?’
‘Me?’ His expression of injured innocence had to be seen to be believed. Only the wicked twinkling of his extraordinary blue-gold eyes gave him away.
‘You, Leo Chandler,’ she said firmly, and quelled the urge to laugh. ‘Anyway, all that besides, what good is role play going to do? We just end up making fools of ourselves and learning nothing we couldn’t learn by any other more conventional means.’
‘Does that worry you? Making a fool of yourself?’
She shifted awkwardly. How did he know that? ‘I like to be in control of a situation,’ she compromised.
He laughed. ‘In general practice? No way. You want pathology if you want control. Dead people don’t do anything unexpected. Live people, now …’ He shot her a sideways look. ‘I have to go out on some calls — come with me. Part of your education.’
‘Only if we can go in my car,’ she said quickly.
He grinned. ‘Mine not good enough for you?’ he teased.
She felt herself flush, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that, but it is a little — well — unconventional?’ she tried.
He grinned. ‘So she is. I’m only using her while my incredibly boring and middle-of-the-road Volvo is being serviced. Topsy usually only comes out on high days and holidays.’
‘Topsy?’ she said incredulously. Not since her brothers’ youth had she heard of a car with a name. ‘Why Topsy?’
He shrugged expressively. ‘Because of the servicing and repair bills, which, like Topsy, just grow’d and grow’d.’
She laughed softly. ‘I’ll bet. Look, I’m sorry if I was rude. It’s nothing personal, I’m just not into retro-motoring.’
He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Most women think she’s wonderful.’
‘Yes, well, I’m not most women,’ she told him repressively.
He shot her an odd look. ‘No, you’re not, are you?’ he said, his voice quiet. ‘Pity, it could have been fun. Ah, well …’ He uncoiled his legs and stood up, suddenly almost oppressively large in the small room, and ambled towards the door, whistling softly.
She glared at his departing back, and was treated to the disturbing sight of his neat little bottom and long, lean legs striding casually down the corridor, the soft cotton of his trousers tugging and easing, outlining his firm, muscular thighs with every stride.
He turned at the end and caught her watching him, smiling knowingly at her blush.
‘Coming?’
She went — against her better judgement — in Topsy. The car was in distinctly average condition, and she handled, as he put it, ‘like a bitch’, which did nothing for Abbie’s nerves. Nor, frankly, did his proximity in the little car. It was, quite simply, nothing like big enough to keep her as far away from his long, rangy body as she would have liked to be, and every time he changed gear her leg muscles contracted to pull herself further away from him.
Predictably, he noticed. ‘Why are you trying to climb out of the door?’ he asked casually.
She forced herself to appear relaxed. ‘I wasn’t — I was just trying to keep out of your way.’
He shot her an evil grin. ‘Don’t worry on my account,’ he told her, and she gave him a dirty look and turned away to stare fixedly out of the side-window, anchoring her hair firmly with one hand to stop it from flying in her eyes.
It was a mercifully short drive, thankfully, through the leafy little Suffolk town of Brocklingford to the house of his first patient.
She was a girl of twelve who suffered from autism, a disorder of behaviour affecting the ability to communicate, where everything said was taken literally — not only words, but tone and movements. Nothing emphatic, nor over-demonstrative,
