The Surgeon's Marriage Demand. Maggie Kingsley
as target practice.
‘Yes, I’m in charge of the department,’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’
‘There is no trouble,’ Tony insisted. ‘I’m just trying to convince Mr Carter that his wife has a bad cold—’
‘My wife does not have a cold,’ Mr Carter interrupted. ‘My wife is ill—very ill—and I want a second opinion.’
Out of the corner of her eye Olivia could see that Seth was no longer talking to the nurse but staring intently at the whiteboard. He didn’t fool her for a second. He was eavesdropping, listening to find out how she was going to handle the situation. Well, let him listen. She didn’t need his help. If she could deal with a fruit-throwing alcoholic, she could deal with an irate husband.
She beckoned to Babs. ‘Sister, could you take Mr Carter—?’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ the man exclaimed, his eyes angry, his colour high. ‘I’m staying right here until you find out what’s wrong with my wife.’
He would, too, unless she found some way to placate him, and Olivia summoned up one of her best trust-me-I’m-a-doctor smiles. ‘I’m afraid it’s against hospital policy for us to examine a patient while a relative is present.’
‘He didn’t say that,’ Mr Carter protested, gesturing at Tony. ‘In fact, he—’
‘It’s written into my contract,’ Olivia declared, and saw Seth’s lips twitch. OK, so it was a feeble excuse but if Tony’s diagnosis was wrong, the last thing she wanted was Mr Carter present when she discovered it. ‘I’ll be as fast as I can, Mr Carter,’ she continued, upping her smile a notch. ‘And the second I’ve made my diagnosis you’ll be the first to know.’
That Mr Carter didn’t want to go was plain, but Olivia kept on smiling, kept on radiating confidence, and eventually he reluctantly followed Babs out of the examination room.
‘OK, what have we got?’ Olivia said, turning to Tony.
‘Mrs Carter’s shivering, she’s slightly feverish and she has a headache. She has all the classic symptoms of a cold.’
She also had all the classic symptoms of something else, Olivia realised when she’d finished examining the woman.
‘Malaria?’ the junior doctor gasped. ‘You think she has malaria?’
‘Didn’t you notice how brown she was?’ Olivia said. ‘We might have had a good summer, but there’s no way she could have got that suntan in Glasgow. My guess is she’s been to Africa or Asia, and that’s where she contracted the disease.’
The junior doctor stared unhappily at her. ‘I feel like an idiot.’
‘Don’t,’ Olivia protested. ‘Good grief, it’s not as though malaria’s so rampant in Glasgow that even our janitor would have recognised it. And we don’t even know for certain yet that she has malaria,’ she continued when Tony didn’t cheer up, ‘so why don’t you take some blood samples and get them checked by the lab?’
With a nod and a worried frown Tony hurried back into the cubicle, and as Olivia pulled off her examination gloves Jerry stared at her thoughtfully.
‘That was a very kind thing to do. A lot of consultants would have nailed him to the wall for a mistake like that.’
‘I’ve seen a couple of cases of malaria before,’ Olivia replied dismissively. ‘He hasn’t.’
‘It was still a kind thing to do,’ Jerry insisted, and Olivia’s eyes flicked across the examination room to where Seth was still hovering by the whiteboard.
‘Believe it or not, I’m actually quite a nice person. And now I’d better find out how Mr Taylor’s doing,’ she continued, ‘before some people accuse me of not pulling my weight.’
She’d gone before Jerry could reply and the specialist registrar shook his head as Seth walked across to him. ‘You asked for that.’
‘What makes you think she meant me?’ Seth demanded.
Jerry gave him a hard stare. ‘Seth, I’d have to be blind and deaf not to see you’re never off her back. She’s smart, on the ball and more than pulls her weight in the department, so what’s your problem?’
Seth opened his mouth, clearly thought the better of what he’d been about to say and muttered grimly, ‘She said I was sweet. I am not sweet.’
Jerry laughed. ‘Yes, you are. You’re nothing but a big pussy cat at heart, so stop riling her.’
‘Me rile her?’ Seth choked. ‘Listen, Jerry—’
‘I like her.’
‘Fine. Feel free to have a mad, passionate affair with her, and when Carol slices off your reproductive organs with a scalpel, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Carol knows I wouldn’t cheat on her, and I won’t.’ The specialist registrar glanced down the examination room to where Olivia was talking to Fiona. ‘She is pretty, though, isn’t she?’
She was, Seth thought as he followed the direction of the specialist registrar’s gaze. Not beautiful—her nose was too small and her chin was too pointed for beauty—but she was pretty in a gentle, homespun sort of way, and when she smiled… ‘She’s OK.’
‘You thought she was a lot better than OK when you first saw her.’
He had, but that had been before he’d discovered who she was. ‘She’s too skinny.’
Jerry tilted his head and surveyed Olivia critically. ‘Slender. Not skinny—slender. And she’s got great legs.’
She had. Long legs. Endless legs. The kind of legs a man could fantasise about. The kind of legs guaranteed to give a man wet dreams.
‘I’ve never been a leg man myself,’ Seth lied. ‘And even if I was,’ he added quickly as Jerry’s eyebrows rose, ‘she’s already in a relationship.’
‘Says who?’
‘She did last week. Some guy called George.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Jerry’s eyes drifted down the examination room again. ‘Pity.’
‘I doubt if Carol would think so,’ Seth said testily, and Jerry grinned.
‘I’m not thinking of me, you dummy. I was thinking of you.’
‘Hey, who are you calling a dummy?’ Seth protested, but the specialist registrar was already hurrying away in answer to Babs’s call.
He wasn’t a dummy. He just had a healthy sense of self-preservation. OK, so Olivia had a pair of incredible legs and nice eyes, but dating your boss was asking for trouble. Dating your boss on a strictly let’s-have-fun-for-a-few-dates-and-then-it’s-over basis was career suicide.
Not that she’d ever go out with him, he thought ruefully as he watched all laughter disappear from her face when she noticed him staring at her. She thought he was a jerk, and he was. All the crap he’d given her about how it ought to have been a man appointed clinical director. He didn’t give a damn that she was a woman. What really bugged him was she’d got the job, and he hadn’t.
‘Childish,’ he muttered out loud. ‘No, not you, Tony,’ he added quickly, seeing the startled look on the junior doctor’s face as he emerged from Mrs Carter’s cubicle clutching a blood sample. ‘Me.’
And he was being childish, he thought as the junior doctor scurried away.
Jerry was right. Olivia more than pulled her weight in the department, and she was spunky, too. Lord, just thinking about her tackling Brian Taylor was enough to make him shudder. The man was unpredictable enough when he was sober, but when he was drunk…
And she’d been terrific with