of a cruise ship ever be considered challenging?
‘Which just goes to prove that this isn’t the sort of practice for a man like you.’
He straightened and moved towards her, his voice suddenly hard. ‘What you know about me as a man—or what you know about any other man, come to that—wouldn’t cover one page of a prescription pad. So don’t prejudge me, Joanna. For the next few weeks, until George decides to come back, I’m your partner. Like it or not.’
A wave of exhaustion swamped her. Suddenly all she wanted was to go to bed and sleep. She didn’t have the energy for any more verbal sparring.
‘All right.’ She took a deep breath, hardly able to believe that she was saying the words. ‘If you’re really prepared to bury yourself in the middle of ‘‘nowhere’’, and you’re really prepared to pull your weight, I suppose I’d be foolish to refuse your offer.’
His smile was wry. ‘Your overwhelming enthusiasm for my company is so flattering.’
Joanna’s mouth tightened at his tone. ‘Life’s too short to play games, Dr Macaulay. I refuse to pretend to be pleased about something I know will never work. You know as well as I do that we’ve never seen eye to eye on anything—’
‘Probably because I’m over six feet and you’re barely five feet five. Maybe you should try standing on a box when we talk—you might be more comfortable.’
She silently and slowly counted to ten. She’d always thought of herself as an incredibly patient person, but clearly she didn’t know herself very well.
‘This is never going to work,’ she said heavily. ‘You just never take life seriously.’
‘Whereas you, on the other hand, take it much too seriously,’ he rejoined, and she bit her lip, knowing that what he’d said was true.
She did take life seriously, but there were reasons for that. Good reasons. Reasons he knew nothing about.
She straightened her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. ‘If you’re seriously planning to work here, you’re going to have to accept the way I am, Dr Macaulay. Just as I’m going to have to accept the way you are.’
‘The way I am?’ He gave an incredulous laugh as he absorbed her words. ‘You mean someone who enjoys life while he can—what’s so wrong with that? Why is it wrong to approach life with optimism and humour?’ He shook his head slightly as if he couldn’t understand her attitude. ‘There are so many awful things happening in the world that we need to grab happiness while we can. That’s what I do, Joanna.’
‘I’d noticed.’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. ‘And the chances of you and I working together for longer than a day without killing each other are so remote it’s laughable. Now, if you’ll leave me in peace, I was making myself some toast when you arrived.’
Joanna turned and walked briskly to the kitchen, hoping that he wouldn’t follow her.
He did, and she gritted her teeth as he settled himself comfortably at the scrubbed pine table which dominated the room.
Seb’s gaze followed her as she moved around the kitchen. ‘Is that all you’re eating? Toast? Is there anything else on the menu?’
‘Menu?’ She glared at him. ‘This isn’t a restaurant, Dr Macaulay.’
Not only was the man content to torment her and totally disrupt her working life, he now expected her to feed him gourmet food. She took a deep breath as she removed the toast—now stone cold—from the toaster.
She knew she wasn’t being very welcoming but she couldn’t help it. The man drove her nuts!
‘Look, let’s start again, shall we?’ Suddenly he looked tired as if he, too, was worn out by the tension between them. ‘I’ve had a long journey and I’d appreciate some food until I can go shopping myself.’
He made her feel churlish and she blushed slightly, wondering what on earth had happened to her normal warm hospitality. Alice would have been horrified if she’d been present.
Admitting defeat, she gave a sigh. ‘Please, feel free to help yourself to anything you can find, Dr Macaulay.’
As soon as the words left her mouth she wished she hadn’t spoken. A man like Seb Macaulay wouldn’t find much that would interest him in her fridge or cupboards.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Joanna, when are you going to drop the formality and call me Seb?’ Amusement vied with irritation as he got to his feet in a lithe movement. ‘All this ‘‘Dr’’ business is a bit over the top, don’t you think? We trained together. I’ve known you since you were plain Joanna Weston.’
And that was exactly was what she’d always been, of course. Plain Joanna Weston. Very plain.
She felt a shaft of pain and was suddenly hideously conscious of the crumpled skirt she’d been wearing since she’d been called out in the night and the fact that she hadn’t brushed her hair all day.
‘I like formality,’ she said briskly, telling herself firmly that she didn’t care what he thought. ‘And the patients like it. It makes them feel secure.’
‘Rubbish.’ Seb was totally dismissive of her statement. ‘People judge you on your actions and behaviour—not on your title.’
Refusing to be drawn, Joanna buttered her cold toast and took an unenthusiastic bite.
Seb watched her with an expression of disbelief. ‘Is that seriously all you’re eating?’
‘I like toast,’ she muttered, not bothering to add that she didn’t have the energy to tackle anything else.
‘Well, you at least ought to add some protein to it.’ He strolled over to the fridge, jerking open the door to examine the contents. There was a long silence and then he glanced up, visibly stunned. ‘Now I know why you’re reduced to eating toast. Don’t you ever shop?’
Joanna lifted her chin defensively. ‘I haven’t had time to shop, Dr Mac—Sebastian.’
Or change her clothes, or sleep...
‘Seb.’ He enunciated the word carefully, as if she were a toddler that he was teaching to talk. ‘My name is Seb. For goodness’ sake, practise it a few times until it feels comfortable.’ He peered back into the fridge. ‘What on earth have you been eating all week? There’s nothing in here.’ He reached into the fridge and pulled out a small piece of cheese covered in mould, which he looked at with distaste. ‘For crying out loud, Jo, there’s more bacteria in your fridge than in a path lab.’
‘I don’t like cheese.’ She glared at him. ‘And I’ve asked you before not to call me Jo.’
He ignored her, still staring into the fridge as though he expected to catch some hideous disease. ‘What did you have for lunch?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Lunch.’ He looked at her as though she were an alien from another planet. ‘You know, the food that we generally consume in the middle of the day to give us the energy to carry on with our lives. What did you have?’
Joanna looked at him blankly, wondering why her eating habits were of such interest to him. ‘I don’t know. I—Nothing.’
Suddenly he was still. ‘You didn’t eat lunch?’
‘I was busy.’
His breath hissed through his teeth. ‘You’re a doctor, Joanna. You should know better. How do you expect to be able to carry your workload without fuel? No wonder you nearly fainted earlier.’
‘I didn’t nearly faint—I just got up too quickly.’
‘Right.’ The disparaging look he gave her told her that he didn’t believe her. ‘What did you have for breakfast?’