a couple of days. It was incredible that he was making her such an offer in so short a time. The suggestions he’d made were like a lifeline in her present situation and even if they hadn’t been, there was a feeling of rightness about them that she couldn’t ignore.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said as they ate a leisurely meal. ‘How long have you been in nursing?’
‘Ever since I left school. My mother was a nurse and I always wanted to be the same.’
‘So you find it fulfilling.’
She was smiling and he thought how different she looked. She ought to do it more often, but he reminded himself that since they’d met she’d had very little to smile about.
‘Yes, I do. Fulfilling…and tiring,’ she told him, adding on a sudden impulse that she knew she might have cause to regret, ‘You already know quite a bit about me, but I know nothing about you, except that you’re a GP who is also involved in police work. You said that your family weren’t around. Dare I ask why?’
She watched his expression change and wished she’d contained her curiosity. It was as if a cloud had settled on his face, but his voice was pleasant enough as he told her, ‘You can ask, but I’m not sure whether I want to answer. If I do it will bring painful memories into a pleasant evening.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely. ‘I presume something awful must have happened.’
‘It did,’ he agreed heavily. ‘My wife, Anna, and our seven-year-old son, Jason, were killed in a car crash three years ago.’
‘Oh, you poor man!’ she said softly. ‘You must think I’m making a big thing out of what has happened to me. No way does it compare with that.’
‘I don’t think anything of the kind,’ he told her. ‘I’m only too sorry that you came home to what you did, but I think a change of subject is called for.’
Helena nodded her agreement and said, ‘So tell me about the practice.’
He launched into an account of a visit he’d made that afternoon to elderly twin sisters who were always ill simultaneously with the same complaint, and how, garrulous and hyperactive, they vied for his attention.
She was laughing as he described their antics and Blake thought that it was incredible that this green-eyed woman was fancy-free. Or was she? She hadn’t said so. There might be someone in Australia anxiously awaiting her return.
Though if that were the case, she wouldn’t be hesitating about going back, would she? And if she’d left some guy behind when she’d gone out there, he would have been the one she’d turned to rather than himself.
‘If you’ll excuse me for asking, how old are you, Helena?’ he asked.
‘I’m twenty-five.’
‘And commitments?’
It was one way of asking if she was unattached, though it misfired somewhat.
‘You know that I haven’t. I’ve already told you I was an only child.’
‘I was referring to relationships.’
‘Oh, I see. Would it matter if I was in one?’
‘No. Of course not,’ he said smoothly. ‘But again it’s the sort of thing you might be asked about by the other two partners.’
‘But not by you?’
‘No. Not by me. I’m offering you the job because of what’s happened.’
‘Because you’re sorry for me, you mean?’
‘Yes. Partly. And also because you came back to a raw deal. I admire your father for what he did. There are lots of folk who won’t risk life and limb in the cause of justice, but he did. Thankfully no one got to him, which is not surprising as the witness protection service allows for no margin of error. So your father died the way the rest of us hope to go…naturally.’
He wasn’t offering the job because he was attracted to her, then, she thought wryly. She’d been a fool to think he might be. Blake Pemberton, senior partner, police surgeon…and childless widower…must have them queueing up for the chance to take his dead wife’s place.
Blake had allayed her fears about going back to the house but Helena was in no hurry to return. As they lingered over coffee at the end of the meal he said, ‘So are you happy to go back to the house? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
‘No. I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘I’m not afraid any more. And, Blake, I will take the job at the practice if you’re sure you want me. And I’ll rent the house, too. You’ve solved all my problems for me.’
She meant it, but couldn’t help feeling that with the sorting of one lot of problems others might appear, focused around a one-sided attraction.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to accept. Maybe you could call at the practice some time tomorrow to meet the rest of the staff and have a chat with the practice manager. Would you be able to start the day after the funeral? That’s when the nurse employed at present wants to leave.’
‘I’d be glad to,’ she told him. ‘As then, more than ever, I will need to be occupied.’
When he pulled up outside their two houses Helena said, ‘Thanks for your time…and the meal, Blake. I can’t help but feel that I’m being something of a nuisance.’
He smiled and in the shadowed interior of the car she experienced the same feeling of familiarity that she’d felt earlier. Theirs was a very new relationship but it didn’t feel like it. She felt safe in this man’s company. Maybe it was because he knew so much about her in such a short space of time.
‘The only time you’re likely to be a nuisance is if you keep insisting that you are one,’ he was saying easily. ‘If you feel I’m being too intrusive, you have only to say so. Otherwise, I’ve promised myself that until you’re over this awful thing that has happened to you, I’m going to be around. And if you’re coming to work at the practice, we’re likely to be in each other’s company for some time to come.’
Why did her heart lift at the thought of that? she wondered. She had only to observe him and the answer was there. Blake Pemberton made every other man she’d met seem insignificant, but there was nothing to say that she was having the same effect on him. If what he’d just said was correct, she was more in the waifs-and-strays category than that of the desirable woman.
When he’d seen her safely inside the house, Blake said, ‘Shall we say midday tomorrow for you to meet the team at the Priory Practice?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, adding as the memory of cold grey eyes came to mind, ‘Are you sure they won’t object to me joining them sideways, so to speak?’
‘My partners respect my judgement and will be only too relieved that we’re not going to be without a practice nurse for any length of time,’ he assured her. ‘The only problem would be if you weren’t up to the job, and somehow I don’t see that particular difficulty arising. You have references, of course?’
‘Yes.
