could we just get on with getting this leg of mine aligned and plastered?’ she continued vexedly. ‘I don’t want to be here all evening!’
Ezra didn’t want to be there at all as he leant his head against the waiting-room window and tried to calm his fast-beating heart.
Hell, they must all think he was an idiot. One minute he’d been fine, and the next…
It had been the smell. He’d never realised that all operating theatres probably smelt the same, but they did, and when he’d seen the table…
‘Oh, hell.’
He clenched his hands tightly together and whirled round on his heel. Think of something else. Think of anything else, his mind urged, before you make an ever bigger fool of yourself than you already have done.
If only he hadn’t been driving so fast. If only he’d been paying attention. But he hadn’t, and now…
Restlessly he paced the waiting room. What the hell were they doing in there? Aligning and plastering a leg shouldn’t take very long. Unless, of course, they’d found some complication.
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he turned quickly as a door opened behind him. Fiona. And to his relief, Jess was with her.
‘She’s thrown up twice, and fainted once,’ the staff nurse stated, holding out a bottle of pills. ‘She can take two of these for the pain, but no more than eight in twenty-four hours.’
‘B-but surely you’re going to keep her in?’ Ezra stammered, and Fiona sighed with resignation.
‘She won’t stay. Maybe you can make her see sense but I doubt it.’
‘Jess, of course you’ve got to stay!’ Ezra exclaimed as Fiona walked away. ‘You could be suffering from shock—’
‘I’m not,’ she said smoothly. ‘Will’s plastered my leg, and given me some painkillers, so could we, please, leave now?’
‘But—’
‘Could you drive me down to my practice? It’s not far, but…’ she gazed wryly at the crutches Fiona had given her ‘…I don’t think I could manage it on these.’
‘You want to collect something?’ he murmured, still stunned by the knowledge that she’d actually discharged herself.
‘Not collect, no. My surgery started half an hour ago, and I don’t want to keep my patients waiting any longer than necessary.’
Ezra stared at her in disbelief, then anger flooded through him. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I happen to believe I have a duty to my patients,’ Jess replied crisply. ‘Now, if you could—’
‘Duty be damned!’ he flared. ‘You’re just being pig-headed, that’s all, and if you think I’m going to encourage you in this stupidity, you can think again!’
‘Then I’ll phone the garage and ask them to send a taxi,’ she retorted, only to suddenly remember to her chagrin that, though she’d insisted on him retrieving her medical bag from her car, she’d forgotten all about her handbag. ‘Could…could you lend me twenty pence for the pay-phone, please?’
‘No, I will not lend you twenty pence!’ he thundered. ‘For God’s sake, woman, were you born with a vacant space between your ears? You’ve been in a car crash. You’ve fractured your leg in two places, and badly bruised your forehead. OK, so maybe you don’t feel too awful at the moment, but that’s only because of the anaesthetic and the fact that your body’s producing its own endorphins. Believe me, in a little while you’re going to feel hellish—’
‘Endorphins?’ A frown pleated Jess’s forehead. ‘What do you know about endorphins?’
‘Only what everybody knows,’ he replied with irritation. ‘That they’re peptides produced in the brain which give pain-relieving effects.’
‘Everybody doesn’t know that,’ she said, her eyes fixed on him. ‘What are you—a nurse, a vet?’
‘I used to be a doctor. Jess, listen to me. You can’t possibly do this—’
‘What kind of a doctor?’
‘Does it matter?’ he retorted, exasperation plain in his voice. ‘The most important thing right now—’
‘You can’t have retired,’ she continued thoughtfully. ‘You’re much too young to have retired.’
‘I…I just don’t practise any more, OK?’ he muttered, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘People change careers, want to do something else.’
‘I can’t ever imagine not wanting to be a doctor,’ she observed. ‘It was something I wanted even when I was a little girl.’
‘Everybody’s different.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Look, if you insist on going to your surgery, let’s go,’ he interrupted grimly. ‘And I only hope to heaven that when we get there we’ll find somebody who can convince you that you’re out of your tiny mind!’
Tracy Maxwell tried. Ezra had to give the teenager credit for that. She might look a bit weird, with her heavily gelled, spiky black hair and the diamond stud in her nose, but the minute the receptionist saw Jess, she tried her level best.
‘It’s only the usual bunch of hypochondriacs anyway, Jess,’ she protested. ‘And you look shattered.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Ezra nodded. ‘So why don’t I go out to the waiting room, explain what’s happened—?’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Jess ordered. ‘OK, so I’ve fractured my leg but my brain’s still working.’
‘I’d say that was highly debatable,’ Ezra observed, and Tracy giggled.
‘His name is Dr Dunbar,’ Jess said acidly in answer to the girl’s raised eyebrows. ‘He has a big mouth, and even bigger opinions.’
‘You’re a doctor,’ the receptionist exclaimed. ‘We all thought—’
‘Yes, I know what you all thought.’ Ezra’s lips curved ruefully. ‘Sorry to be such a disappointment.’
‘Oh, not a disappointment at all,’ Tracy replied, batting her heavily mascara’d eyelashes at him. ‘In fact, it’s terrific, being able to finally put a face to a name.’
‘Is it?’ he said in surprise.
‘Oh, yes.’ Tracy beamed. ‘You know, you really ought to get out more. Living all alone at Selkie Cottage—a man could start getting weird doing that, and we’re quite a sociable crowd on Greensay, so there’s no need for you to ever feel lonely or isolated.’
‘I’m not—’
‘In fact, there’s a dance in the village hall this weekend—’
‘Look,
