her patients who wasn’t self-treating. She dug her hands deep into the pockets of the white coat which May had kindly taken up for her and thought, At least with Lillian I feel like a doctor.
She was here for medicine. Harry McKay was a patient.
So there was no reason at all that she should all of a sudden be suffering from goose-bumps.
He was fine. He was terrific.
The ambulance boys wheeled Harry’s chair into the hospital entrance and Lizzie had to pinch herself to believe it was the same man. His leg was stuck out on a support in front, but he was shrugging off his helpers and propelling himself forward, looking about him like a man who’d been away from home for months.
Lizzie didn’t move. Not yet. She stood where she was behind the desk in the nurses’ station, taking in the sight of him before he saw her.
He was wearing jeans cut off at the knees. A sweatshirt. Trainers. Not the ones she’d hauled off in the mud but ones that were considerably cleaner.
He wasn’t wearing a cast but a back-slab with bandages to keep it in place. He must be securely plated and pinned, then. But…not enough to be on crutches yet?
What else? She should be behaving like a doctor, concentrating on things like his leg and the fact that he looked healthy. But she was distracted.
She’d never seen his hair completely dry, she thought inconsequentially. Deeply black, it looked soft and thick and curly and…nice?
The whole package looked nice, she decided. He was laughing up at something one of the paramedics had said and his whole face was lit with his laughter. There was something about this man that had the capacity to light the darkness…
Now she was being stupid. Teenage crush stupid. She gave herself a mental slap to the right ear and stepped forward.
‘Welcome home, Dr McKay.’
His laughter faded. His wheelchair stopped dead and he stared up at her.
‘Lizzie,’ he said softly. ‘Lizzie. So I didn’t imagine…’
His voice trailed off and she frowned. He hadn’t imagined what?
Professional. She needed to be professional. Doctor receiving a patient transferring from paramedics.
Right. Another mental slap.
‘Do you have Dr McKay’s notes?’ she asked the senior of the two ambulance officers, and the uniformed paramedic shook his head.
‘I have the notes,’ Harry said. ‘They’re in my bag. I’ll show them to you later if you need to see them.’
‘Of course I need to see them. You’re my patient.’
‘I’m not a patient.’
The paramedic rolled his eyes at her and winked. ‘You’ll have your hands full with this one, I reckon. Straitjackets and enemas and bedpans, I reckon.’
‘Hmm.’ She smiled. ‘I can manage that. Meanwhile, can you take Dr McKay into Room Five?’
‘I’m not going into a ward,’ Harry snapped. ‘I’m going home.’
‘But…’ Lizzie blinked. ‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
There was only one answer to that. ‘Because I’m in your home.’
His eyes narrowed, creasing again into the beginnings of a smile. ‘So you’re in my home. You’re not in my bed, I hope?’
‘Well, no…’
‘Then what’s the problem? There are two bedrooms.’
‘All your gear’s been moved out. May said it was over at the house you share with Emily.’
‘I don’t share a house with Emily.’
‘I mean…well, after you’re married…’ She was tripping over her tongue here and the two paramedics were looking on with increasing interest.
‘After I’m married then maybe I’ll move out of my house. Not before.’
‘None of your personal things are there.’
‘Only because Emily’s brothers moved them the day before the wedding. Before I could stop them. I’ll send Jim over to bring back what I need.’
Lizzie shook her head. She was really confused.
She needed to focus.
‘I share your house with Phoebe,’ she said, desperately trying to think through reasons why he couldn’t share a house with her. Reasons that were logical and not the reasons that were filling her head with panic. ‘Phoebe would have to be the worst type of dog for a man in a wheelchair.’
‘I’m only in a wheelchair on sufferance to stop these people getting sued if I fall flat on my face. I’m weight- bearing.’
‘With sticks.’
‘With sticks,’ he conceded.
‘Phoebe eats sticks.’
‘They’re aluminium.’
‘I don’t think she’s smart enough to know the difference.’
Silence. ‘Don’t you want me to live with you?’ he asked, his voice suddenly dangerous, and she blinked.
‘Um… No?’
‘Why? Am I so dangerous?’
Dangerous, she thought wildly. Yes. The description was apt. That twinkle was definitely dangerous.
‘I’m not a threat,’ he continued, and she knew he definitely was.
But she wasn’t telling him so. ‘I didn’t say you were,’ she said with asperity. ‘Phoebe’s nearly killed you once. I’m worried that the next time she might finish you off completely.’
‘So you’ve warned me. You’ve done your best. Now let me go home.’
‘You need to stay in hospital.’
‘No. I need to stay with you.’
They had quite an audience now. May had come out of the ward behind Lizzie and was watching in appreciative silence. The ambulance officers were, frankly, enjoying themselves. Even Lillian, the wraith-like teenager who lay in her bed each day and said nothing to anyone, was peering around her door in interest.
‘Go on, love,’ the older of the ambulance officers said. ‘Let him live with you.’ He grinned at the pair of them. ‘I dare say he’s housetrained by now.’
‘And you did say you weren’t sleeping in his bed,’ the other one added. ‘That’s got to make it all right.’
‘It’d be better fun if she was,’ May offered, and Lizzie winced.
‘Will you lot just butt out?’
‘Why should they?’ For heaven’s sake, Harry looked as if he was enjoying himself. He caught sight of Lillian peeping around the door and he smiled. ‘What you reckon, Lill? Do you think Dr Darling should let me live with her?’
They all looked up. Lillian. The girl was almost pathologically shy. Lizzie had spent the last six days working to gain her confidence, but there was a long way to go. She’d retreat, Lizzie thought. She’d blush and stammer and disappear.
But amazingly Lillian held her ground.
‘I don’t think you should refuse to share a house with Dr McKay,’ she told Lizzie in a voice that was so near the tone that Lizzie had used with her that morning that she blinked in astonishment. ‘You might destroy his self- confidence if you do. Self-confidence is a very fragile thing. It’s more important even than legs.’
There. Lillian blushed to the roots of her hair but she didn’t retreat. She met Lizzie’s eyes and there was a hint of defiance-even a hint of laughter-in the girl’s face. Amazing.
And after that impressive little lecture there was nowhere for Lizzie to go at all.
So what was a girl to do? She threw her hands in the air and she surrendered.
‘Fine,’ she told them. ‘Don’t stay in the hospital, then. See if I care. I dare say those notes under your arm say
