The Perfect Treatment. Rebecca Lang
feet of the speaker, partly covering his shoes. Then, as she stared down at them, a few splatters of coffee from the Styrofoam cup she was holding dotted the cover of the uppermost book.
Feeling clumsy and disconcerted, her mind elsewhere, she found herself stammering. ‘Y-yes, I’m Dr Gibson,’ she confirmed, raising her eyes to the man who stood looking down at her.
With a sense of shock she looked into cool blue eyes, intelligent eyes that were regarding her with undisguised perceptiveness and not a little exasperation, tinged with surprise…perhaps from the weight of the books on his toes? Abby swallowed convulsively.
‘S-sorry,’ she added.
He had an attractive, very masculine face, with a fine chiselled bone structure. Instantly she thought of a racehorse, a thoroughbred, with its fine aristocratic frame, perfectly formed for its function. The face was not smiling.
So this must be Dr Blake Contini. Abby felt slightly breathless, rather as though she had been punched in the solar plexus, not least because he was now frowning at her in a way that did not seem justified by her lateness or by the fact that she was a junior doctor in a training position or by the weight on his feet. After all, she was not even in his department as such. It brought an odd feeling, this astute appraisal, coming as it did on top of a sense of mourning that she had for the plight of Will Ryles.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered again, unable to think of anything else. As she bent carefully at the knees to retrieve her books, a few more drops of coffee escaped from her cup.
‘Let me do it, Dr Gibson,’ he said, putting out a restraining hand. Abby flushed, feeling as though the entire room had gone silent, that she was the focus of attention. Keeping her gaze lowered, she watched his lean hands wipe the coffee off her books with a handkerchief and pick them up.
‘Here,’ he said, thrusting the books at her and helping her to tuck them under her arm. ‘Better get yourself another cup of coffee.’
‘Th-thanks.’ For a couple of seconds she thought she detected a touch of humour in his eyes as he looked at her when their hands touched warmly for a moment.
He took a sheet of paper, a computer printout, from the pocket of his lab coat, holding it so that she could see it. For a few seconds she gazed at it blankly.
‘This is the summary of the first case we’ve reviewed today, which you’ve managed to miss entirely,’ he said. ‘We’re about to start on the second case.’ He tucked the paper between the pages of one of her books. Abruptly he turned away.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said, recovering something of her habitual confidence and composure. ‘And you are? I didn’t get your name.’ He hadn’t given his name—that had been a bit boorish, she considered belatedly.
It was almost certain that he was who she supposed him to be, as he had been avidly described to her by several of her women co-workers, yet he could not make the assumption that she would automatically know who he was. The thought of such an assumption fuelled niggles of annoyance.
He turned back to her slowly, an expression of muted surprise on his face. Fixing her with a look that might have quelled a lesser mortal, he held out a hand to her. With his other hand he deftly plucked the coffee-cup from her. ‘Don’t want any more accidents, do we?’ he said sardonically, while Abby was only too aware that other people nearby were staring at them curiously. ‘I’m Dr Contini,’ he added dryly, gripping her vacant hand firmly. ‘Blake Contini—Acting Head of the department of internal medicine.’
‘Oh…I see,’ Abby said thoughtfully, as though she had had no idea. ‘That explains it.’
‘I’ll talk to you at the end of the session, Dr Gibson. Wait for me,’ Blake Contini said, turning away from her.
‘Yes, Dr Contini.’
When Abby caught sight of her colleagues in the family practice program looking at her commiseratingly, grinning, she felt her face flush anew. That guy was something else! As soon as these rounds were over she would give him a piece of her mind if he was high-handed with her when she explained about Dr Ryles. As it was, he hadn’t even given her an opening to apologize out of politeness. Some of the other staff men would have turned a blind eye to her lateness. Maybe because some of them didn’t care, she had to admit in all honesty. Some were good teachers, some were mediocre, some were downright bad.
‘What was that all about?’ Her colleague and friend Cheryl Clinton approached her. ‘Was he mad at you for missing the case?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Abby shrugged. ‘What a high-handed guy. And what a nerve, in front of the whole room.’
‘I wouldn’t mind getting that sort of attention from him,’ Cheryl said, her eyes searching the room for the object of their discussion.
‘At least he’s got a firm handshake.’ Abby tried to laugh it off. ‘I can’t stand guys whose hands feel like a slab of cheese or the proverbial dead fish. He wants to see me after…I can’t wait to give him an earful.’
Cheryl laughed. ‘Attagirl!’ she said delightedly. ‘Put him in his place.’ Then she added, sotto voce, ‘Pretty dishy, though, eh?’
Cheryl’s head turned again towards the tall figure who was now across the room talking to the medical residents who had presented the case Abby had just missed.
‘Mmm,’ Abby said absently as she turned to follow Cheryl’s line of vision, looking at the aquiline profile of Dr Contini. Her thoughts were returning sharply to Dr Will Ryles, wondering what was going on right now with him in the emergency department, whether the staff had informed his wife yet, whether she was at this very moment driving to the hospital with a terrible fear in her heart of what she might find there. As soon as possible she would get down there herself and find out.
‘I’m sorry I missed the first case,’ she murmured. ‘Something happened. I’ll tell you about it later, Cheryl.’
The next case was about to be presented. Maybe by the time she got out of this room Dr Ryles would have already been transferred to the coronary care unit.
Dr Contini, as though sensing her eyes on him, turned sharply to look at her over the heads of his new colleagues. His eyebrows rose slightly, questioningly, as their eyes met. Probably, he didn’t even know Will Ryles, she told herself angrily.
Refusing to be the first to look away, Abby held his gaze. There was no way that she was going to be intimidated by him. For the second time in the space of a few minutes she felt a sense of shock, a sudden unwelcome stab of acute sexual attraction. Then all attention was focused on two young residents who stood up at the front of the room to present the second case of the rounds.
When the rounds were finally over and the others had gone, Abby lingered in the room, waiting. All the others had left abruptly, having to resume their normal working day. She watched as Dr Contini walked over to the door and closed it, shutting out the sounds of chatter from the retreating staff.
‘Well, Dr Gibson,’ he said, coming over to her, ‘why were you late? And am I right that you’re in the second year of the family practice training program?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed, looking at him but trying not to stare. ‘I’ve just started the second year.’
Blake Contini had thick, dark hair, cut fairly short, which contrasted dramatically with a pale skin that had only a very faint tan. From a winter holiday, perhaps? Although Abby was quite tall herself, five feet eight inches, he was considerably taller, forcing her to look up at him as she stood there in her sensible flat shoes.
‘Are you planning to work as a general practitioner when you’ve finished training?’ he asked, not waiting for her to answer his other question.
‘Of course, Dr Contini,’ she said, surprised. ‘Why else would I be doing it?’
‘Plenty of young women doctors get married shortly after training,’ he said dryly, ‘and don’t actually do much practice.’