Playing the Joker

Playing the Joker
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘EXCUSE me a moment.’

The man seated behind the desk stretched out a hand and picked up the phone, his manner briskly professional as he dealt with the caller.

‘Davie—yes, Jo. Ah, right—can you fill me in?’ There was a pencil-tapping pause. ‘I see—how many weeks is she?’

The other man stood up and walked over to the window, his warm brown eyes scanning the view with interest. The office—soon to be his office—was at the rear of the building on the third floor of what was apparently known affectionately as the Stork’s Nest, the six-storey maternity block that overlooked the rest of the hospital and the woodland beyond.

The trees were rich and green, but it would soon be September and then, as the nights drew in, the leaves would blaze with colour, giving way in time to the stark beauty of winter and then the bright, soft fullness of spring.

God knew he was ready for some beauty and fullness in his life.

‘Right, that’s that. Shall we go down for coffee and meet the team?’

Alexander Carter straightened his tie, drew back his shoulders and gave Davie a brief nod.

Thank you.’

He followed the man through the door, down the stairs and along a wide, busy hospital corridor to the staff canteen and coffee lounge.

There is a consultants’ dining-room, but in practice very few of us use it—the food’s the same, but it lacks the ambience.’

‘I can imagine.’ He glanced around him at the laughing crowd that seemed to shift and flow with a life of its own. ‘It’s popular.’

Owen Davie laughed. ‘It’s eleven o’clock—everyone’s come for their fix of caffeine. Ah, here’s part of the team. Allow me to introduce you. Dr Anne Gabriel, your SHO, and Dr Maggie Wells, paediatric SHO. You’ll be seeing a lot of each other, I imagine. Ladies, this is Alexander Carter, who’ll be taking over from me from Monday.’

As his mouth made the usual and accepted noises, Alex’s eyes registered and catalogued the two women—Anne Gabriel, his SHO, a little brown mouse of a woman, her face remarkable only for its guarded expression and a certain wistfulness in the wide hazel eyes, and Maggie Wells, the paediatrician, her long red-blonde hair tied over one shoulder, her deep blue eyes in her fragile-seeming face bright and alert, assessing him with interest. They were both slightly on the small side of average, but, where Maggie was full of coiled energy and youthful enthusiasm, Anne, although slimmer, was somehow fuller, more mature—a woman to Maggie’s girl. He glanced at her ring finger and saw it was empty—not that that necessarily meant anything these days, but he was curious. She would, after all, be working very closely with him over the next few months at least.

They chatted for a few minutes, but first Maggie’s bleep and then Anne’s called them away, and he was left alone with Owen Davie. The man turned to him.

‘Your senior registrar won’t be here for a few minutes; she’s admitting a patient from one of the antenatal clinics at the moment. Perhaps I should warn you about her. She’s a very good doctor, but given to rather radical tendencies. We’ve had a few minor barneys over procedure on occasion, but nothing drastic. I think you should know, though, that she applied for my job. Her age and lack of experience went against her, but given time and the moderation of maturity she should be an excellent consultant one day. In fact, if it hadn’t been for you, she might well have been given the post.’

Alex frowned. He really didn’t want to start with staffing difficulties. ‘Do you think she’ll work for me, or do you think she’ll look for another job?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’m almost certain she’ll stay. I’m only telling you this because you might find her a little resentful, but she’s very professional in a rather off-the-wall kind of way, and she knows she’ll get promotion soon enough. She’s just a bit of a wild card—the joker in the pack, you might say. Ah, here she is now—Dr Harding!’

Alex looked across the room towards the doorway, and saw a tall, elegant woman with flaming dark red hair tumbling down her shoulders. Her back was towards them, her white coat flung over her arm, her body clad in a figure-hugging bottle-green linen dress that was belted in to her narrow waist with a broad cinch of scarlet. Her body was slender but lush, her curves full of promise, but it was that unbelievable hair that drew him.

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking that made her seem familiar—achingly, intimately familiar—but then she threw back her head and laughed, and, as she did so, she turned away from her companions and strode towards them on impossibly high heels.

Alex felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. His heart crashed against his ribs, his tongue felt so thick that he thought he would choke on it, and a heavy surge of desire tautened his body with recognition.

As she met his eyes, her impossibly long legs faltered, but then she was there at his side, those fascinating aquamarine eyes wide with wariness and something else—regret?—but 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 for want of trying,’ she retorted sharply before she could stop herself.

One eyebrow rose. ‘I’m flattered that I was so memorable.’

‘Don’t be,’ she snapped. ‘I wasn’t trying to flatter you. You left my life in chaos——’

He groaned softly. ‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.’

‘You left without even saying goodbye!’ She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice, but it was there anyway.

His face was expressionless, only his eyes reflecting her anguish.

‘I had my reasons,’ he said quietly. ‘I went back to your flat three weeks later, but you’d gone.’

She nodded. ‘I was here.’

‘I wanted to know—if there had been any repercussions.’

Her heart jerked with the force of the pain. ‘No,’ she said numbly. ‘No repercussions.’ None that was visible to the naked eye, at least.

Her hand slid to her lap and clenched against the taut wall of her abdomen. Trying to act calmly, she got to her feet and picked up her white coat.

‘I have to get back to my clinic. Why don’t you go up to the ward and make yourself at home? I’ll come up there when I’ve finished my clinic and take you to lunch, and then you can come into Theatre this afternoon with me if you like.’

‘Fine.’ He stood up, and for a second their eyes met, almost on a level, before she turned away.

‘Come on, then, I’ll tell you where to go.’

‘I thought you already had,’ he said softly behind her, and she stifled the chuckle. It wasn’t hard. She really had very little to laugh about.

Her clinic took all her concentration. Not that any of the cases were complicated, but she found herself missing the answers to her questions, and collecting a lot of strange looks from her nursing staff as well as the patients.

In the end she excused her behaviour on the grounds of a headache and somehow finished off without any major hiccups.

She was later than she had intended, though, and by the time she reached the ward Alex had been taken to lunch by Owen Davie.

She found them in the staff canteen and he looked up and waved to her immediately, as if he had been looking out for her. She waved back, collected a salad and fruit juice and made her way over to the table, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart.

He stood as she approached and held her chair for her in an entirely natural display of good manners that sat easily with his quiet reticence.

Nevertheless it irritated her, and she flashed him a challenging look that he met with steady confidence.

‘Such gallantry!’ she quipped lightly, with just the merest touch of acid.

‘Such feminist rebellion!’ he murmured as he returned to his seat. ‘Successful morning?’

‘Not bad. Did you see Mary Jenkins, Owen?’

The consultant nodded. ‘I did. She’s settled into the ward and we’ll watch her over the weekend. If her blood-pressure doesn’t come down by Monday then I think we’ll have to induce her. She’s almost at term.’ He turned to Alex. ‘Of course she’ll be your patient then, and it’ll be up to you how you deal with it, but I’ll leave her notes fully written up for you. I expect to be in and out over the weekend.’

‘Can you fill me in?’ Alex asked.

Owen shrugged and waved to Jo. ‘Your patient.’

She nodded. ‘OK. She’s twenty-nine, and it’s her first visit to us. She’s thirty-seven weeks pregnant. Her community midwife saw her in the street, took one look at her face and told her she needed to see the doctor for antenatal treatment. He referred her to us as a matter of urgency yesterday afternoon.

‘She’s very severely oedematous, and her blood-pressure this morning was 210 over 130. She’s also showing signs of severe proteinuria, and generally she’s thoroughly pre-eclamptic. However, the ultrasound scan showed the baby to be a good size and moving well, so I didn’t think there was any urgency to induce her until her blood-pressure had a chance to come down. I imagine she’s been put on a diuretic and a hypotensive——’ Owen nodded ‘—and we’ll watch her closely for any deterioration.’

‘First baby?’ Alex asked.

‘Yes. She’s unmarried and not the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. I imagine she thought the bloating was all part of pregnancy.’

She prodded her fork into her salad and moved it round the plate. Alex’s hand lay distractingly on the table just on the periphery of her vision, and she could see the fine dark hairs over the prominent bones of his wrist. His fingers were long and supple, the skin soft and smooth in deference to his patients, but the hands themselves were strong, sensitive and very, very clever.

She felt her skin heat and turned her head slightly so that her hair fell forward and screened her face.

‘So what’s the list this afternoon?’ he asked her.

‘Gynae,’ she replied shortly. ‘Three D and Cs, a hysterectomy and a prolapse repair.’

‘On a Friday afternoon?’ He sounded surprised.

‘The D and C patients can go home tomorrow morning and have someone to look after them over the weekend. Otherwise they tend just to get up and carry on, and then they feel lousy. The hysterectomy is an emergency following a very heavy bleed due to fibroids—we’ve finally got her blood count up enough to tackle it—and the prolapse lady cancelled three months ago and finally had to come back to us because she’d deteriorated so badly she’s desperate.’

‘Why not leave her till Monday?’

‘Because she’ll have all weekend to fret and she’ll probably run away again. Anyway, we can’t do all our operations on a Monday; we have to share Theatre time with the other gynae teams.’

‘Do you have a theatre problem?’

‘Doesn’t everybody these days?’ Owen asked drily. ‘And anyway, one of the reasons for getting these cases out of the way is to give you the easiest possible lead-in until you’re used to the set-up, so don’t tell her off for being helpful, there’s a good chap.’

Alex shot her an apologetic glance. ‘Was I? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Are you going to eat that or just shove it round the plate?’

Jo looked down at her mangled salad and sighed. She really didn’t fancy it, but she needed something before she went up to Theatre——

‘Can I get you a piece of cake or something? You ought to eat.’

She tried to smile. If it weren’t for him she wouldn’t have had any trouble eating!

‘Thanks—fruit cake would be nice.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Tea—please. Thanks, Alex.’

She watched him walk away, and then turned back to find Owen regarding her seriously.

‘Did you know him—er—very well?’

She grinned ruefully. ‘Better than I should have done, and really not at all.’

‘I don’t understand——’

‘Neither did I.’

He shook his head slowly, then raised it again and looked searchingly at her, realisation dawning. ‘Was it him?’

‘Yes.’ She gave a sad little smile. ‘Don’t worry, Owen, I’ll be OK. Just—don’t say anything, please?’

‘Joanna!’

‘Don’t be offended. I just can’t afford to take the risk that he’ll find out.’

The older man covered her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. ‘He’ll find out nothing from me, my dear. About the job——’

Her smile slipped.

‘I want you to know I recommended you for it. I know we haven’t always agreed, but I think you’ll make a damn fine consultant one day. I’m just sorry that it couldn’t be now.’

Thank you, Owen. I’m glad you told me—you’ve taught me such a lot in the last four years.’

He grinned reluctantly. ‘I’ve learnt a lot from you, as well. You’ve been very interesting to work with——’

That’s not what you said about the aromatherapy!’

They laughed, a new warmth between them, and Jo felt a sharp twist of sorrow that her old mentor was moving on to pastures new.

‘I’ll miss you, you know. It’ll be strange without you.’

‘Carter’ll soon make his mark. I expect you’ll see some changes in the next few weeks.’

Jo was sure they would—and most of them in her blood-pressure!

‘Her cervix is very elongated so I’m going to do a Manchester repair,’ Jo explained to the theatre staff later that afternoon.

The patient was lying on the table with her feet suspended in stirrups, and as she settled herself on the stool ready to begin Jo was very conscious of Alex’s presence just behind her shoulder. In theatre boots she lost the advantage of her high heels, and he seemed to tower over her. In fact, of course, he was only about four inches taller than her at most, but, as she herself was five feet ten, she wasn’t used to many people being taller.

She had taken a hated disadvantage and turned it into a frank asset as she had matured and forged her career, but, as she swivelled round on the stool and tipped back her head to meet Alex’s eyes far above her, she was suddenly all the more aware of how big he was. He made her feel small and dainty and—dear God, now was not the time to think of how he made her feel!

It was a tricky repair and required all her concentration, and gradually she forgot about Alex’s presence behind her and focused on her patient.

At one point the heat of the theatre was almost overwhelming, and she could feel the moisture pooling in droplets on her brow and in the cleft between her breasts.

Before she could speak Alex’s hand appeared and swabbed her brow.

‘Better?’ he murmured, and she nodded.

‘Thank you. Right, I just want to attach these ligaments here and I can close her up. Can I have some sutures, please?’

As they left the operating theatre a short while later, he said quietly for her ears only, ‘Well done. That was a tricky one—you did it very neatly. I don’t think I could have done it better myself.’

She was warmed and yet irritated by his words of praise, and he was quick to pick up on it.

‘Have I patronised you?’

She gave a reluctant laugh. ‘Only a tiny bit.’

He smiled slightly. ‘About tonight——’

‘I can’t—even if I wanted to, I’ve promised to babysit for Anne Gabriel.’

‘I could bring a take-away and join you.’

‘I——’

For the life of her she couldn’t think of a single reason why he couldn’t, but all her senses were screaming ‘No!’. All except her treacherous heart.

‘You’ll have the children to chaperon you,’ he said reasonably.

‘Child. Beth. She’s six and a half.’

He waited patiently, while all the theatre staff milled around them, and she chewed her lip and doubted the intelligence she was born with.

‘I’m vegetarian,’ she warned him.

He shrugged. ‘I can live with that.’

Her heart thumped at the thought of living with this disturbing man.

‘OK. Meet me there at eight.’ She scribbled the address on a pad and ripped off the sheet. ‘Here. It’s easy to find—Reception will direct you; they’re hospital houses.’

‘Chinese or Indian?’

‘Either. I must go.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll see you later.’

As she went through to Recovery to check on her patients, she thought she must finally have lost her marbles.

Beth met her at the door, a bright-eyed, lively little girl with coltish limbs and a delicate face surrounded by thick dark brown tresses.

‘Hi, Auntie Jo!’

‘Hi, sweetheart. Is Mummy ready yet?’

‘Nearly. Come and see what I did at my babysitter’s today!’

Jo allowed herself to be dragged into the dingy little sitting-room at the back of the house and sat on the old sofa while Beth proudly showed her a mutilated piece of paper with coloured splodges on it. Stuck to the splodges were lumps of raw pasta.

‘It’s a pasta picture,’ Beth told her unnecessarily.

‘I can see that,’ Jo said. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘It’s meant to be ducks in the park. Mummy said it looked like a fight in an Italian restaurant. Sometimes she’s mean.’

Jo suppressed the urge to laugh. ‘I’m sure she was only teasing you, darling.’

Beth’s lip wobbled. ‘I didn’t want to be teased,’ she said unsteadily.

Jo sighed and ruffled Beth’s soft hair. ‘She didn’t mean to upset you, treasure. I think she’s very tired, Beth, and just needs time to herself sometimes. She works awfully hard, you know, darling.’

‘I know.’ Beth’s little face was resigned. ‘Can I have a cuddle, Auntie Jo?’

Jo hugged her quickly. ‘In a minute. I just want to tell Mummy something. Why don’t you find a nice book for me to read you?’

Leaving the child sorting through the bookcase in the sitting-room, Jo ran lightly up the stairs and tapped on the door of the larger bedroom.

‘Come in!’

She pushed open the door and went in, sighing at the chaos. Anne was sitting at the dressing-table, carefully concealing the dark shadows under her eyes. Clothes were strewn all over the bed.

‘Heavy date?’ she asked with irony.

‘Oh, don’t! I don’t know what to say to him, Jo. I wish he hadn’t proposed—I was just getting all ready to end it and he went and popped the question!’

‘He’ was Colin Bradley, a charming and delightful solicitor, widowed, with two young daughters a little older than Beth, and his interest in Anne was so blatantly as a mother substitute that they had found his declaration of love almost laughable. Laughable, that was, until Anne had realised that he meant it.

‘He’s a dear man, but——’ Anne shuddered slightly. ‘Jo, I could never sleep with him! Not after … I just couldn’t.’

Jo shoved the clothes out of the way and sat on the end of the bed.

‘Are you quite sure you’ve considered all the benefits of marriage to him sufficiently? OK, so you don’t find him all that attractive, but there’s not that much wrong with him, and he’d be a good father to Beth. And God knows you could do with a little company. Is having to sleep with him such a huge price to pay?’

Anne turned to face her friend. ‘I’ve known you for twelve years, Jo. Could you do it?’

Jo thought of Alex, of the searing ecstasy of that one night in his arms, and then thought of spending the rest of her life going through a pale imitation of that night with another man.

‘No—no, I couldn’t,’ she said softly. ‘You’re right—and both you and Beth deserve far more than that. I think Colin does, too. Yes, you’re right—tell him this evening.’

Anne sighed. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. Oh, life’s always so complicated!’

Jo thought again of Alex.

‘Annie, I have a confession. Someone’s coming round to keep me company this evening. I hope you don’t mind.’

Her friend paused in the act of hanging up the clothes again. ‘A man?’

Jo nodded.

‘Great—about time. Anyone I know?’

She nodded again. ‘Our new consultant.’

Anne whistled. ‘Blimey, that was quick!’

‘Not really. Our last date was four years ago.’ Anne dropped the dress she was holding, and stared at Jo in horror. ‘What …?’

Jo nodded slowly.

‘My God. And I thought I had problems.’