He stared up at her, wounded to the core. ‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘Nope. There’s no way you’d be permitted to be weight-bearing yet.’
‘I can use crutches without weight-bearing. I broke my ankle when I was seven. I’m a champion at hopping.’
‘Hopping. Six days post-surgery.’
‘That’s the one.’ He beamed and she refused to be disconcerted by a beam. No matter how distracting this particular beam was.
‘Let me see your patient notes.’
‘No!’
‘I’ll ring up the orthopod. Let’s ask him if you’re supposed to be hopping.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You can’t hop if you don’t have crutches.’
Stalemate. She eyed him thoughtfully. He eyed her back.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. The leg’s really secure. The pin and plate are holding everything in place and if it wasn’t for the wound itself and the swelling I’d have a nice light fibreglass cast that would stop you worrying completely.’
‘So it’s OK for me to worry now?’
He sighed. ‘You’re like a terrier with a bone.’
‘A broken bone,’ she agreed. ‘Or two bones. Tib and fib. Let me read your notes.’
They glared at each other. And kept on glaring. And he capitulated first.
‘Read them, then,’ he said, goaded, and thrust the notes at her.
She grinned. ‘There’s a good little patient.’
‘Lizzie…’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m your boss, remember?’
‘And you’re my patient.’
‘Just go and do your clinic-my clinic. Read my notes in your own time, but in the meantime leave me be. I’ll wheel myself over to the storeroom and find some crutches.’
‘I’ll wheel you. May can bring you back. After I’ve read the notes.’ She plonked herself down at the kitchen table. ‘Talk amongst yourself,’ she told him. ‘I’m reading.’
‘Lizzie…’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t think I can live with you.’
She didn’t bother to look up at that. She couldn’t. He’d make her laugh and his laugh was altogether too dangerous. ‘Hey, are we back where we started? That’s what I was saying. And you haven’t even met Phoebe yet.’ She went back to reading.
‘So…’ He drank his coffee and stared at her bent head, baffled. ‘Where’s Phoebe?’
She still didn’t look up, forcing herself to focus on the orthopod’s close-written notes. ‘Being Phoebe-sat,’ she told him. ‘If I leave her here alone she destroys the door. Jim’s had to replace it once already. We had to use four posters to cover the damage. So now the locals have organised a roster.’ She smiled up at him briefly before burying her nose once again. “‘Weight-bearing in small bursts after the cast with plaster boot fitted”,’ she read. “‘No weight-bearing until the cast is fitted”.’
‘Thus the hopping…’
She ignored him. ‘Physiotherapy. This town doesn’t have a physio.’
‘I don’t need a physio.’
‘Yes, you do. Just lucky you have me.’ She buried her nose again.
‘What do you mean-just lucky I have you?’ he asked, and she wiggled herself further into her chair and smiled.
‘I did three years of physiotherapy before I started medicine.’
‘How old are you?’ Harry looked shaken.
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘You sound about ten.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Why did you start physio?’
‘I thought it would be good. It was good. Only halfway through I decided I wanted to do everything.’ She frowned, lifting an X-ray and holding it up to the light. ‘Heck, you were lucky, Harry. Do you realise how close you came to losing the whole leg?’
‘I know,’ he said shortly, and she finally looked at him across the table. Really looked at him.
‘You know you’ll be fine. The pins work really well and Max Carter’s the best orthopod. He’s talking about a hundred per cent recovery.’
‘I know.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m frustrated. And I don’t intend to use you for physio.’
‘Well.’ She laid the notes on the table. ‘It doesn’t hurt to see a man frustrated. There should be more of it, I reckon. And if you don’t agree to use me for physio then I’ll simply remove every crutch in the storeroom right now. What’s it to be, Dr McKay?’
‘I don’t have to-’
‘You do have to. You’re being childish.’
‘Me…childish?’
‘Most men are. I guess you can’t help it. Now, do you agree to treatment so I can organise these crutches, or am I going to ring May and tell her to move the crutches fast?’
‘You’d really…?’
‘I’d really.’
He stared up at her. Goaded. Something was working behind his eyes, she thought, but she couldn’t figure it out. He seemed totally bemused. But there was only one option he could take, and that was the sensible one. Finally he sighed and spread his hands.
‘Fine.’
‘There’s a good boy,’ she told him, and grinned. She came behind his chair and pushed him toward the door. ‘Obedience. That’s what I want. Now, let the nice doctor take you for a walk in your pushchair before she gets back to her work.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you want your ears boxed?’
‘Kinky,’ she said. ‘Very kinky. Of course I don’t want my ears boxed. You must be missing your Emily.’
Harry was reduced to stunned silence.
CHAPTER FOUR
