‘We live within a reasonable distance of one another and we visit regularly. I was simply saying that the fact that you’ve been away from home for some time and only recently returned to the nest might have made you a little over-protective.’
Her head lifted. ‘Since you brought the matter up, I’ll tell you how it is. I moved back into my old home because it was the sensible thing to do. I needed somewhere to stay, and my father offered me a place. He and I get along well together and I care very much for him. But perhaps you find that too difficult to understand?’
Nick gave a wry smile. ‘I understand it well enough. I just don’t know what could have possessed you to up sticks and come back here when you had a perfectly good job in Lincolnshire. You were doing well at the hospital from what I heard, and you could have gone on to better things. The city had a lot to offer—good accommodation, plenty of nightlife. Why leave all that behind to come and live here in the wilds?’
‘You seem happy enough to stay here,’ she retorted. ‘Why should I be any different?’
‘I was born here. I grew up with the mountains all around, and the sound of the sea in my ears.’
‘Perhaps you don’t realise that I’ve spent most of my life here, too,’ she said tautly. ‘I went away to train as a doctor, to see what life was like in other parts of the country, but deep down I feel that I belong here more than anywhere else. And after my mother died a few years ago that feeling was even stronger. I felt that I needed to be with my father.’
She sent him a stony look. ‘Seeing what he has to put up with, I’m more than glad that I did return. I don’t know why you have to be at loggerheads with him all the time. You shouldn’t be pressurising him this way.’ She pulled in a deep breath. ‘Anyway, you’re not the consultant in charge. Why don’t you leave it to Mr Edwards to make the decisions? It’s not right that you should go over his head. You’ll be able to put your own ideas into place well enough when you’re a consultant yourself.’
‘You know as well as I do that Tom Edwards is near retirement. In the meantime, he’s content to let things meander on in the same old way that they’ve always done. Besides that, it seems to me that he’s not been well for a long time now. He won’t admit it, but it all adds to him not wanting to alter the status quo.’
He had a point, certainly. Laura had noticed that Tom Edwards had been struggling to cope recently. It had been worrying her for some time because she knew that Tom suffered from angina, but he was insistent that he could cope and that he wasn’t a danger to his patients. Up to now he had been managing, keeping his condition under control with medication, but she had a feeling that his attacks were becoming more frequent these days.
‘At least you seem able to recognise frailty in some people,’ she retorted. ‘I was beginning to wonder if that was possible. I wouldn’t put it past you to have his job in your sights already.’
Nick’s expression was drily amused. ‘You wouldn’t be too happy about that, would you?’
‘Not if it meant that you would have the opportunity to hassle my father even more than you do now. I think I would sooner you applied your energies to anything but that.’
‘I’ll do what I can to oblige,’ he murmured, ‘but I’m making no promises, you understand.’
She stared at him. There was a dancing light in his eyes that belied his words, and she sensed that he enjoyed riling her.
Turning away, she shrugged into her jacket. She wasn’t going to spend time dwelling on what he said.
Even so, as she left the room the image of his wry smile stayed with her.
CHAPTER TWO
‘ISN’T that your brother in the waiting room, Laura?’ Sarah Harris, the triage nurse, surveyed the rows of patients who were waiting to be seen. ‘Shall I send him along to see you?’
Laura quickly signed off a patient’s chart and went to look through the treatment-room door to the waiting room beyond.
‘Matthew…here? What on earth can have happened?’ Worriedly, she noticed that four-year-old Connor was with him. ‘I hope nothing’s happened to Connor.’ She filed away the chart and said quietly, ‘It’s all right, Sarah, I’ll go and have a word with him.’
Connor must have seen her already, because he came rushing towards her with a whoop of joy. ‘Aunty Lor,’ he exclaimed, putting his arms up and hugging her around her legs. ‘My daddy’s cut himself. Can you make him better?’ He looked up at her, his little face a mixture of enthusiasm and confident expectation.
‘I promise I’ll do my best, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and talk to him, shall we?’ Lightly ruffling his fair hair, she held his hand and walked back with him towards her brother.
‘Hello, Matthew,’ she said with a slight frown. ‘What are you doing here? What happened?’
Matthew gave her a quick smile. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, really. It was just one of those stupid accidents. I wanted to have a go at fixing the fence back home, and I was cutting through a fence panel when it happened.’
He lowered his voice, turning his head away slightly so that his son wouldn’t hear. ‘I didn’t realise that Connor was right behind me, and when he said something to me, the saw slipped and cut my hand. I don’t think it’s too bad, but I thought perhaps it might need a stitch or two.’ His mouth made a rueful quirk. ‘Catherine’s out on a shopping trip, so I had to bring Connor with me. I wouldn’t normally want him to be hanging around an emergency room.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after him.’ She inspected Matthew’s injured hand and winced. ‘Come on through to the treatment room, and I’ll take a proper look at it.’
Nick was already at work in the treatment room, and as Laura walked in he emerged from a cubicle where he had been examining a woman with an injured hip.
He spoke quietly to the nurse, asking for various tests to be carried out and calling for a surgical consultation. Then he walked towards Laura and said, ‘Tom’s dealing with a burns patient, and I think he might need someone standing by. Would you be able to do that?’
It was an unusual request, and Laura paused before answering. He hadn’t asked her to assist, just to stand by. ‘How urgent is it?’ she queried. ‘I can help, but this is my brother and his son, Connor. I’d like to attend to them myself, if possible.’
He nodded, glancing at dark-haired Matthew and the boy. ‘OK. I’ll get someone else to work with Tom.’
Laura frowned, sensing that there was something more going on than she was being told. ‘Is there a problem?’
He gave Matthew and Connor a fleeting glance, and then said in a low voice, ‘Probably not. It’s just a feeling. Tom was looking a bit off colour this morning.’
‘This probably won’t take me too long,’ Laura said. ‘Matthew’s had a bit of a disagreement with a saw. From the look of things, that hand will need three or four stitches.’
Connor fidgeted. He was looking around, his eyes screwed up in a frown as he took everything in. The unit was busy this morning. Several of the cubicles were occupied, and there was a smell of antiseptic about the place, which added to the austerity of the atmosphere. Laura had the feeling that her young nephew felt uncomfortable amongst all these strangers, who were all so much larger than him.
Nick must have sensed it, too, because he smiled at Connor and said, ‘Perhaps one of the nurses can find you a colouring book and some pencils, or maybe a jigsaw. Would you like that?’
Connor nodded solemnly, but still clung to Laura’s hand. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was staying firmly by her side.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Nick promised. Looking at Matthew, he studied his features carefully, and then said in a contemplative