‘No,’ she told him, and rose from her desk and started to push him out the door. ‘You’re going next door. Ally’s waiting. Off you go. Right now!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY hadn’t told Ally.
Stunned, Darcy was propelled by the insistent Betty up Ally’s front steps and through her front door.
‘Here’s your first client,’ Betty called up the stairs. She grinned at Darcy, then disappeared, slamming the door after her.
Ally appeared at the head of the stairs-and stopped.
‘You.’
He couldn’t think of a thing to say. Nothing.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘It seems,’ he managed, almost apologetically, ‘that I’m your first client.’ But he was having trouble saying anything.
Until now he’d only seen Ally in jeans. She was still casually dressed, but she’d changed. She was wearing baggy, three-quarter-length trousers, an oversized sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, and bare feet. Her hair was twisted into a casual knot. Her freckles were subdued with a tiny application of make-up, and her lips were painted the same soft pink as her sweatshirt.
She looked gorgeous.
He was staring.
‘What?’ she said crossly, as she hauled herself together and came on down. ‘Have I got a blob on my nose?’
He shook himself, trying to shed this overwhelming feeling of unreality. ‘Sorry. I was staring.’
‘I know you were,’ she said cautiously, as if she might be humouring a lunatic. ‘That’s why I was asking. So if I haven’t got a blob on my nose…’ She sighed and gave up. ‘OK. Let’s not go there. But for a moment I thought you said you were my first client.’
‘I am.’
She thought about it and finally she nodded. With caution. The lunatic approach obviously still had appeal.
‘You’re supposed to be working,’ she told him.
‘It appears I’m not,’ he said, a shade grimly. ‘My patients have organised that no one’s sick for the next couple of hours.’
‘Your patients?’
‘The town,’ he told her. ‘The town has donated a massage. To me. Apparently I’m to be your first customer. What you did last night in saving Marilyn has flown round the town and everyone’s fascinated. And grateful.’
‘But…you…’
‘They’re also grateful to me,’ he said, trying not to sigh. ‘It’s the way it is in the country. I get given things.’
‘What sort of things?’
He hesitated. But the tension had to be overcome somehow. Why not try talking?
‘When Rachel died I went overseas,’ he told her. ‘One of the airlines I flew with gave away tiny bottles of some sort of blue liqueur. The bottle caught my fancy. I started looking out for miniature bottles, and when I set up here I organised a dozen or so in a wall frame.’
‘So?’ she said, still with that cautious edge.
‘So my patients knew I was interested in collecting little liqueur bottles,’ he told her, digging his hands deep into his pockets and trying not to sound stupid. ‘As of the last count I have two thousand, three hundred and twenty-five bottles, and that’s not counting the ones that have come in this week.’
She gazed at him in astonishment, and her face creased into a delighted smile of recognition.
‘They used to give Grandpa fish,’ she told him. ‘We lost count of the fishermen who couldn’t afford to pay and brought fish instead. Grandpa and I had a burial ground out the back of the hospital. One day someone will dig it up and wonder what sort of ancient tribe wasted so many fish. Grandpa sneaked heaps into the hospital kitchens, but even hospital patients get sick of fish.’
He grinned.
The tension between them dissipated. A little.
‘So they’ve given you me to massage,’ he told her. ‘Instead of liqueur. And instead of fish.’
The tension zoomed back.
‘Um…what are we going to do?’ she asked.
‘I’m booked for a massage.’
‘Do you want a massage?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever had a massage?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know you don’t want one?’
‘I guess…’
‘They’ll ask,’ she told him. ‘If you were given it as a collective present, you’ll be asked. Boy, were Grandpa and I grilled about our fish. Which one was the tastier? Do you like barracuda better than flathead? What are you going to say about my massage?’
‘It was a very nice massage?’
‘That’s pathetic. You could say that about fish.’
‘Then you tell me what to say.’
‘Nope.’ She pushed her sleeves higher with a determined little shove. ‘There’s only one thing to be done.’
‘No.’
‘If you don’t,’ she told him, ‘then I’m going to be honest. When asked, I’ll tell them that Dr Darcy Rochester was too shy to have a massage.’
‘I’m not too shy.’
‘Too chicken?’
‘And I’m not afraid.’
‘Then what? Do you disapprove of the profession so much you won’t even try?’
‘I don’t disapprove.’
‘That’s what it looks like from here.’ She tapped her foot. ‘You know, it really doesn’t hurt.’
‘I…’
‘And I’ll bet you’re tense as all get-out. I can practically see the tension from here.’
‘I’m not tense!’
‘Yeah, and I suppose you’re raising your voice because you always raise your voice.’
‘Look-’
‘The way I see it,’ she told him, ‘is that people will be watching. The locals saw you come in this door five minutes ago and they’ll expect you to leave in a little over an hour looking nicely relaxed, as if you’ve had a really good massage. So the options are that you can stalk out right now, hurting people’s feelings in the process. You can sit here like a dummy for an hour and a half-and I’m warning you I don’t even have any magazines for you to kill time with. Or you can have a massage. Why don’t you want a massage?’ she asked. ‘Are you scared I’ll jump you?’
His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘No, I…’
‘I’m a professional,’ she told him. ‘I’m a registered massage therapist. I can be struck off for behaving unethically, and jumping you is definitely unethical. Besides…’ She grinned. ‘Strange as it seems, I’m not even tempted. So are you going to accept a massage or are you going to look a gift horse in the mouth?’
‘You being a gift horse?’
‘That’s the ticket,’ she said approvingly, and tossed him a towel from the pile on the warming rack. ‘I’m going
