Playing the Joker. Caroline Anderson
not before they had registered a leap of joy. She hadn’t changed, except perhaps to add the lustre of maturity to already perfect features. Her skin looked unbelievably soft, smooth and rich like pale cream under the faint scatter of freckles. But perhaps she had changed, just slightly. He sensed rather than saw a touch of sadness in her that hadn’t been there before.
‘Joanna, allow me to introduce you to my replacement, Alexander Carter. Mr Carter, this is Dr Harding, your senior registrar.’
He held out his hand. ‘It’s good to see you again, Jo.’
She was stunned. She had been miles away, her mind on her clinic, when Owen Davie had reminded her that the new man was there and she was expected to meet him for coffee. By the time she had admitted the patient she was even later, and, with her mind still half on that problem and half on the afternoon list, she had scarcely given a thought to the ‘new man’.
Alex. That was all she had had, for four years—no surname, no address, no photograph. She’d thought she had started to forget, but at the first glimpse of him her body leapt to life, her pulse thrumming, her senses alert and alive for the first time in years.
The first surge of joy was quickly dampened, both by the memory of his betrayal and the horror of what had followed, leaving her guarded and wary. Why now? she thought. Why not all those years ago when I had something to offer?
She extended her hand mechanically and took his, touching him for the first time in four years, but she had forgotten nothing. His hand was hard and warm, lean, strong, the back scattered with dark hair, but his grip, although firm, was gentle. She felt his touch like a surge of electricity right through to her bones.
He looked older but more relaxed now. The hunted look was gone, but it had left its mark in the lines around his eyes and the touch of grey at his temples. He was heavier, too, his shoulders broader, his chest deeper than before.
She met his eyes, that gentle brown that was so warm, and saw a wealth of remembrance.
‘Hello, Alex,’ she said, annoyed that her voice was husky and tinged with a distinctly unprofessional intimacy.
Owen Davie glanced from one to the other. ‘I take it you’ve met?’
‘Yes—I——’
‘We met once, briefly, several years ago in London,’ Alex explained smoothly. ‘We didn’t get as far as surnames.’
Jo extracted her hand from his, and tucked it in her pocket to disguise the sudden tremor. Was she the only one who could see the mockery lurking in his eyes? Surnames were the only thing they hadn’t got around to, she remembered with a vivid clarity that brought a soft touch of colour to her pale skin.
Then Owen’s bleep went and he excused himself.
‘I’ll leave you two to become reacquainted over coffee—perhaps you could allow him to accompany you in Theatre this afternoon, Joanna?’
And he was gone, leaving them alone in the heaving, seething crowd. They might as well have been on a desert island for all the notice they took of the others.
It had been so long—so endlessly, achingly long—since they had met and parted. He studied her face intently, as if he was searching for the secret of eternal youth. She could understand. She couldn’t take her eyes off him either, feasting hungrily on the features that were burned into her heart, memorising all the little changes.
After what seemed like an age, she dragged her eyes away and waved at the queue.
‘Shall we?’
His mouth softened imperceptibly. You couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination call it a smile, but then she’d never seen him smile, so she wasn’t surprised.
‘Good idea. I had an early start this morning, so I’m ready for it. Can I get you one?’
‘I’ll have tea.’ They joined the queue and she smiled vacantly at her colleagues and turned back to him. ‘Where have you come from?’
‘Surrey—I’ve just been tidying up loose ends at my old hospital and handing over to the new senior registrar.’
Her eyes flicked up and met his.
‘I thought you were in London?’
‘I was—until three years ago. I needed …’ He hesitated and glanced away. ‘I needed a change. How about you? Have you been here long?’
She swallowed. Tour years.’
His warm brown eyes swept over her and settled gently on her face. ‘All that time,’ he said softly.
‘Tea or coffee, dear?’
‘Oh!’ She dragged herself back to reality, collected their drinks and allowed Alex to pay for them. The crowd was thinning by this time and she led him to a low table and a group of easy-chairs by the window.
Sparrows were picking at the paving outside, and she watched them absently as she stirred her tea. She was conscious of Alex watching her, his eyes assessing, and she was glad she had worn the smart linen dress today.
‘You look very lovely,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d forgotten just how lovely you are.’
Perversely, because he seemed to have read her mind, she was cross with him. Surely he didn’t expect to go straight back and pick up where they had left off?
Her cheeks blushed a soft peach, and she looked away again.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve embarrassed you. OK, no more personal remarks, and I’ll do my best not to remember how you felt in my arms, if you could manage to wear something shapeless and put a bag over your head and not look at me with those wide and wicked eyes.’
She gave a surprised laugh, and his mouth softened again.
‘That’s better. Now, Dr Harding, perhaps you could do your bit to welcome me to the hospital and then when we’ve got that out of the way I can ask you to have dinner with me tonight.’
She fiddled with her cup. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
To welcome me to the hospital? I’m sure that was what Owen Davie intended——’
‘I meant dinner.’
‘I haven’t asked you yet.’
‘I don’t think you’d better bother——’
‘It would be no bother, Jo, and we do need to talk.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ She set her cup down firmly. ‘Look, Alex, what happened four years ago—that night was a one-off. It was totally out of character for me to do something like that——’
‘I realise that. It was out of character for me, too.’ His mouth quirked briefly into a rueful grin. ‘I wasn’t suggesting a night of wild passion, Jo—just a quiet get-together to see where we go from here.’
She looked up, startled. ‘Why should you imagine that we’ll go anywhere? We’re going to be colleagues—to be quite brutally specific, you’re going to be my boss. That’s where we’re going, Mr Carter.’
She could hear the bitterness in her voice, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was bitter. He was sitting there in his dark suit and his sober tie, looking like a Savile Row fashion plate, in her job, in her hospital. The hell of it was, she had just got him out of her system, had started to get through the nights without dreaming of him, and now here he was, back in her life, doing all sorts of things to her pulse-rate and threatening her hard-won status quo.
‘Is there someone else?’ he asked now.
Someone else? After what had happened, after all those nights reliving the short hours in his arms? ‘Not at the moment,’ she covered.
‘You hadn’t forgotten me,’ he said quietly.
‘Not