Cherry waved her hand. ‘Easy enough to drop in at the Kmart.’ She hitched her bag over her shoulder. ‘So, you’re all set then.’
‘Yep. I’ll just shut down in here and be on my way. You get out of here and be sure to have a wonderful night.’ They’d been rushed off their feet since opening the doors of the new clinic a month ago. She’d managed to get a part-time receptionist, but she was going to have to do something about getting a second nurse, another receptionist and looking into a locum service to give her some time off. ‘You deserve the break.’
‘So do you.’ The phone started ringing out in the office and Cherry put her hand out, stopping her from picking up the phone. ‘The answering service will get it.’
‘It might be the heavy breather.’ It was the time of day when those calls tended to come through.
‘No. He’s already called.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I’m pretty sure it’s Bob.’
‘How can you tell?’ The voice didn’t quite sound right.
‘There’s just something about the breathing that smacks of pretentious weasel.’
Prita burst out laughing then on a snort, covered her mouth. ‘Sorry, I really shouldn’t be laughing.’ She hadn’t called the police after that first call—after what happened on the day of the party, she’d kind of forgotten. But after the second one came in the next day, she’d called immediately. However, there wasn’t much for them to go on as he mostly just did heavy breathing with the occasional ‘bitch’ or ‘slut’ or ‘I won’t let you take it.’ The police had gone and spoken to Bob and Doc Simpson—as they seemed the likeliest suspects for trying to unnerve her—but of course, they denied knowing anything about the calls and ramped up their campaign against her with snide comments and seeding her last women’s health talk with men she knew they’d hired—but couldn’t prove—to heckle her during her presentation. The police had spoken to Bob and Doc Simpson again, but she didn’t expect the harassment to stop until she proved they weren’t getting to her.
She wasn’t going to let them get to her. This was her home now and she was staying. They and their misogyny could go jump.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Cherry said, touching her arm. ‘I’m not bothered by the calls.’ Cherry’s lips twitched. ‘I actually joined him today.’
‘You what?’
‘I was like all, “ooh and ahh and give me some more of that breathing, bad boy. Ooh, that’s just how I like it. Would you like some?” And then I was all with the sexy breathing right back at him. Bastard cut me off though right when I was getting to the good bit.’
She knew she should tell Cherry not to antagonise the caller, but that would be like telling a tech geek not to speak tech geek. Cherry had decided it was funny and there was no talking her out of that. Lips twitching in an effort not to laugh at her outrageous behaviour, she said, ‘Ah, so that’s what that noise was. I thought you were lifting some of the heavy O2 tanks in the storeroom.’
‘Nope. I was doing my best When Harry Met Sally impersonation. I should be getting my Oscar any day now.’
Prita couldn’t help it. She snort-laughed again, shaking her head at her irrepressible nurse. ‘You are so bad.’
Cherry waggled her eyebrows. ‘That’s just the way Frank likes me.’
Prita chuckled and then realised the phone was still ringing. ‘Didn’t you say you flicked it to the answering service?’
‘Shit, I mean, shivers. I must have forgotten to flick the switch. I’ll just go get it. It could be about an appointment tomorrow.’
‘It’s fine, I’ll get it, you’ve got someplace to be.’
Cherry’s brows rose and she shook her head, turning to the door, poodle skirt swinging around her legs. ‘No way, Jose. You are not touching my appointment system again. How you messed it up last time, I’ve got no idea.’
‘Just talented with technology,’ Prita yelled out as the older woman disappeared up the hallway.
Smiling, Prita returned to her desk and had just closed down the computer when the intercom squawked. She pressed the intercom button. ‘Ready to go, Cherry?’
‘Doctor Prita. That was a call come in from CoalCliff.’
CoalCliff. Bugger. She’d managed to avoid Flynn for the last month ever since Kissmaggedon, even though she’d been called out multiple times, not to mention the picnic ride that Carter had forced her to go on. Thankfully, Flynn seemed to be avoiding her too, having been absent each time she’d gone to deal with the usual array of injuries that came up at a horse stud-slash-bush-riding-slash-rock climbing-slash-adventure camp farm. He hadn’t even come down to watch her go through her paces on Sherlock in the gymkhana circuit they’d set up for her a year ago. He or Reid had taken to giving her lessons, but in the last month only Reid had ever come down with her.
It had been such a relief, but her luck in avoiding Flynn was unlikely to continue. She was going to bump into him on one of her next visits. She just knew it. Grimacing, she asked, ‘Who is it this time?’ Please don’t be Aaron. The bundle of mischief was well overdue for some feat of daredevilry that usually ended up with him bruising or cutting or spraining something. And if Aaron had hurt himself, Flynn would be there. So please don’t be Aaron. Please don’t—
‘It’s Aaron.’
Crap.
‘It looks like he might have dislocated his shoulder.’
‘How did he do that?’
‘I don’t know, but Barb said it looked bad.’
Okay. She could do this. ‘Tell them I’ll be right there.’ She picked up her bag, already planning in her head what she needed to do so the plans with Carter could still go ahead. She was not letting her little boy down. He was with Lisa at the moment because it had been a student free day at school. That meant she could pick him up on the way—she’d
