gaze down deep inside you, but anyone with half a brain should also have been able to see that he was also an unprincipled flirt. Good grief, put him in front of any female between the ages of eight and eighty—herself included—and he instantly switched on the charm.
Well, she wasn’t some naïve schoolgirl who could be impressed by a few slick words, a few finely tuned compliments, she thought with irritation as the staffroom door opened, and Mark came in, deep in conversation with Tom and Gideon. She was more interested in whether he was any good as a doctor.
‘Good news, Helen,’ Tom declared, coming over to sit beside her. ‘Gideon’s agreed to slot Rhona Scott in for surgery as quickly as possible, and we’ve got two possible dates. One for Monday the week after next, and the other for the end of May.’
‘Rhona would come in this afternoon if you asked her,’ Helen murmured, taking a bite out of her sandwich and trying very hard to ignore the fact that Mark was flirting quite outrageously with Liz.
‘You don’t think she might feel both dates are too soon?’ Tom said. ‘We’re talking major surgery here, and she’ll be in hospital for at least a week. As she’s a school-teacher she might prefer to wait until the long summer holidays.’
‘Trust me, she won’t.’
‘Female intuition?’ her husband said curiously.
‘Female heart.’ She smiled.
‘OK, that’s good enough for me. I’ll suggest the Monday when she comes in for the results of her hysterosalpingogram, and see what she says.’
Helen nodded. Annie was getting ready to go off duty, and she saw Gideon bend his head to catch something his wife had said, then laugh and press her hand briefly to his lips.
She and Tom used to do that, Helen thought wistfully. Steal kisses, hold hands simply for the pleasure of touching one another. In fact, they’d joked that there wasn’t a sluice room in the hospital they hadn’t used at one time or another for a secret rendezvous.
And I’m doing it again, she thought angrily as the couple left the staffroom. Envying them, and it’s so stupid. The love I feel for Tom is bound to have changed over the years, become less intense, more familiar, more comfortable.
Like a pair of old slippers, her mind whispered, and she shook her head. No, not like an old pair of slippers. She loved Tom, and he loved her. Their love was just…different now.
‘I’ll see you later, then.’
‘You’re going?’ she exclaimed, seeing her husband get to his feet. ‘But you haven’t had any lunch.’
‘No time. Admin wants a word with Gideon about Mark’s work permit so I’m stuck babysitting his students.’ He half started towards the door, then turned. ‘Which reminds me. Gideon was a bit worried about his afternoon ward round, so I said you’d help Mark to do it.’
Oh, brilliant, Tom, she thought vexedly as he strode away. Like you couldn’t perhaps have checked with me first—asked if it was OK? I’m still only halfway through my paperwork because I was helping you this morning, and now you’ve gone and lost me this afternoon as well.
‘He really shouldn’t have done that,’ Mark murmured, slipping into the seat Tom had vacated. ‘Just assumed you’d help me.’
She couldn’t agree more, but there was no way she was going to say so.
‘He’s the specialist registrar, I’m an SHO—it’s his job to allocate work,’ she said defensively, wishing that Liz would come over and join them, but she was busy on the phone.
‘But shouldn’t he have checked you with first, rather than simply say you’d do it?’
‘Like I said, it’s his job,’ she repeated, and his mouth turned up at the corners.
‘And as he’s also your husband you’re damned if you’re going to bad-mouth him to a semi-stranger.’
It was so exactly what she’d been thinking that Helen couldn’t prevent an involuntary chuckle springing to her lips, and his smile widened.
‘That’s better. I was beginning to think I was going to be put in the dog-house for the duration after what I said about Rhona Scott’s treatment this morning.’
She stared down at the remains of her sandwich, then sighed. ‘I know things are far from perfect at the Belfield, but—’
‘You don’t want—or need—some big-mouth newcomer like me telling you so,’ he finished for her.
She couldn’t deny it. Not when his eyes were brimming with laughter, and warmth, and something else which was making her heart race, her breathing jerky and erratic.
He’s flirting with you, she told herself, trying to look away, only to find that she couldn’t. He does it with everyone, and you’re a big girl, you can handle it.
But she couldn’t and that, she realised, was the trouble. She could tell herself—and anybody else who cared to listen—that Mark Lorimer was nothing but a womaniser, and she was more interested in his qualifications than in him, but it wasn’t true. The plain, galling truth was that she was as impressed and stunned by him as every other woman in the Belfield.
Dammit, she’d actually caught herself choosing clothes to wear to work now instead of just grabbing whatever was nearest, and yesterday she’d found herself looking at lipsticks and eye shadows in the chemist. And it was crazy.
She was married. She was happily married, and even if Mark Lorimer was the handsomest, sexiest man in the world, her knees shouldn’t be turning to water and her brain to mush whenever he smiled at her. And they were.
‘Helen?’
Oh, Lord, could he possibly know what she was thinking? There was certainly a decidedly wicked-looking gleam in his eyes, and she stood up fast. ‘I…I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. I want…I need to have a word with Liz.’
He didn’t believe her. She could tell by the way he smiled that he didn’t, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be as far away from him, and her own unsettling thoughts and feelings, as she could possibly get.
‘The agency can’t supply me with any emergency nursing cover for this afternoon,’ Liz declared, slamming down the staffroom phone. ‘Apparently I haven’t given them enough notice. Not enough notice,’ she repeated furiously. ‘Like how exactly am I supposed to know when people are going to be sick?’
And how could I have predicted I’d start behaving like a loopy schoolgirl because a handsome man keeps smiling at me? Helen thought unhappily.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked as Liz made for the door.
The sister shook her head. ‘All I can do is phone around, and see if I can sweet-talk somebody into coming in on their day off.’
Helen wished she had the day off, too, when Liz had gone and she turned to find Mark staring at her thoughtfully.
‘We’d better get going,’ she began. ‘We’re doing Gideon’s ward round, remember, and—’
‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ he observed.
Whatever else she might have been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that, and she flushed.
‘I don’t know you well enough to dislike you,’ she said, striving to sound light, dismissive, which wasn’t easy with a pair of intense green eyes fixed on her.
‘That’s what I figured.’ He nodded. ‘In fact, it might surprise you to know that I’m generally considered to be quite likable.’
It didn’t surprise her in the least. Men who were as charming and handsome as Mark Lorimer were generally well liked. In fact, if she was honest—and she had absolutely no intention of being honest—she would have admitted that she could all too easily get