‘Excuse me?’ What was this man like, and how self-centred could you be, weighing inconvenience with seeing a desperately ill brother? Kerry felt a slow burn of anger. If anyone should feel aggrieved, it was she, Kerry Latimer—obliged to cancel her holiday at the last minute, and then having to hold the fort at a two-handed medical practice for the foreseeable future.
Denovan’s voice sounded tetchy. ‘I’m in negotiations for a new contract and it could be rather tricky to leave at the moment.’ Then he added unenthusiastically, ‘But I will come up, of course.’
‘If you think you can spare the time,’ said Kerry sarcastically. ‘He is very poorly, you know.’
‘I’m sure he is. Sounds as if he’ll be out of commission for a while—that won’t make your job any easier, I guess,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll be up when I’ve finished the programme this morning. I should be in Braxton later this afternoon.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you when he comes round.’
There was a short mirthless laugh at the other end of the line. ‘You think?’
‘Of course he will!’ said Kerry rather indignantly. ‘I assume you’ll stay at his house?’
‘I’ll stay in the local hotel—what’s it called? The Pear Tree?’
‘Do you want me to book you a room?’
The voice softened. ‘That’s kind of you. One night will do. And it was good of you to let me know about Frank, I appreciate it. I’ll see you when I arrive.’
The phone clicked and Kerry leaned back in her chair, frowning, and tapped a pencil against her teeth. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Denovan O’Mara—known to a huge following of adoring fans as ‘TV’s Dr Medic’, helped in no small part by his good looks and knowledgeable, kindly manner.
Kerry grimaced—she felt she’d seen the real Denovan O’Mara a few seconds ago, and it revealed the flipside to his smooth public image—an impatient, irritable and arrogant side. And talk about unsympathetic. If he was as unfeeling as he seemed to be with his brother’s plight, what was his bedside manner like with patients?
She’d never actually met Denovan face-to-face, just seen him occasionally on some morning breakfast show, giving his opinion and advice on the latest medical news story or answering viewers’ concerns—every inch the glamorous and dreamy TV celebrity doctor with trademark tousled dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His strong, aquiline features regularly appeared on magazine covers, his advice was given in many newspaper articles and, in fact, he seemed to be always in the public eye, but from the conversation she’d just had with him, Kerry wasn’t sure she was in a hurry to meet him personally.
‘Talk about arrogant and selfish,’ Kerry muttered as she sorted out the mail left on her desk. ‘The guy only seems to think of the inconvenience he’s been caused, with not an ounce of sympathy for Frank.’
It was Denovan, the younger of the two brothers, who had the celebrity looks. Frank was a good, reliable doctor and Kerry had a high opinion of his work, although he had a short fuse, even worse now he was divorced—and perhaps in that respect there was a similarity between the two men! Anyway, Kerry could put up with Frank’s occasional moods because she loved working in beautiful Braxton Falls.
The brothers certainly didn’t appear to be close. As far as she knew, Denovan had never been up to Braxton since their father had died six years ago, and Frank rarely spoke of him. Now she came to think of it, the few times she had heard Frank mention his brother, it had been in slightly mocking tones, implying that Denovan thought highly of himself and his celebrity role and was rather a womaniser, never seen with the same girl twice. Having just spoken to Denovan, she thought Frank might have had a point!
Kerry flicked a look at her watch and guiltily started up her computer, clicking on to the patients she had listed for that morning. No good musing about the brothers’ relationship with each other—it was nothing to do with her. The list was a full one, reflecting the fact that she’d got some of Frank’s patients too—it was going to be a hard slog over the next few weeks, trying to cope by herself without help.
But, boy, was she in need of a holiday. She’d looked forward to being her cousin’s bridesmaid for months, and with the wedding set in such an exotic location it had been extra thrilling. It had been something to take her mind off the emotional roller-coaster she’d experienced over the past year. She closed her eyes for a second and swallowed hard, trying to blank out of her mind the heartache and loneliness she’d endured after the shock of Andy’s death—at times she wondered if she’d ever get over it. In a world that seemed to be filled with couples it was hard to force herself as a single woman to go out and socialise, and consequently her social life was pretty non-existent. She was getting used to single meals heated up in the microwave. That was why this holiday was going to be such a momentous thing, supposedly kick-starting her to a more positive future. She put all the medical magazines that had arrived to one side and quickly shuffled through the printed emails that had come through with blood-test results and hospital appointments, forcing her mind on to other things. But the incipient headache that had been threatening for some time came on more persistently and she swallowed two painkillers before putting her printouts neatly in her in-tray.
There was a tap on the door, and Daphne Clark, one of the receptionists, came in with a cup of coffee.
‘I thought you might need this,’ she said. ‘After all the excitement last night and getting Frank into hospital you must be exhausted. Have you heard how he is?’
‘He may be moved some time today to Derby for further tests, but I can tell you that it’ll be a long time before he can get back to work again. I’m on the lookout for a locum urgently, though I doubt I’ll get one.’ Kerry’s voice was gloomy. ‘The man that was going to replace me when I was away rang up only yesterday to say he couldn’t take the job on after all.’
Daphne shook her head sympathetically as she handed her the coffee. ‘It’s such a terrible shame about your holiday.’
‘If only he’d waited to have this damn accident when I was safely in Tobago!’ Kerry said, then she grinned ruefully. ‘Oh, no. Forget I said that! Of course I’m very sorry for poor old Frank. He’s in a bad way and he certainly didn’t mean to crash his car. I guess it was at the end of a long day and he wasn’t concentrating.’
‘Could you not have gone anyway on a later flight perhaps and asked the medical centre in Laystone to take over?’
‘I don’t know if they could have taken it on at such short notice, and anyway,’ she admitted candidly, ‘I couldn’t possibly have left Frank, knowing how ill he is.’ Kerry took a gulp of the coffee and smiled, raising the cup in salute. ‘Now, this is doing me more good than anything could—a large injection of caffeine is just what I needed. And talking of holidays, you might go and put that bridesmaid’s dress in its box because every time I see it I want to cry! Oh, and by the way, would you please book a room for Frank’s brother at the Pear Tree? He’s coming up this afternoon to see Frank.’
Daphne’s round face beamed. ‘Not the gorgeous Dr Medic? Certainly I will—I shall ask him to give me an autograph for my mother—she’s potty about him. Watches every single programme he’s on and says he makes her feel better just looking and listening to him.’
Kerry raised an eyebrow. ‘He didn’t sound all that charming to me. More annoyed that he had to make time to come up here. I think he’s a crusty self-centred old bachelor!’
‘Don’t say that,’ protested Daphne, as she walked out. ‘I may have been married for seventeen years and have three children, but I can still dream about impossibly handsome men and romance, can’t I?’
She unhooked the bridesmaid’s dress from the wall and folded it carefully over her arm. ‘By the way, Liz Ferris wants you to go and see old Nellie Styles if you can. She had a another fall yesterday and Liz feels she needs an assessment prior to getting