Fated Attraction. Carole Mortimer

you’re here?’ the nurse suggested briskly, not giving either of them chance to answer her as she swished out of the room.

      Jane had always wondered how silence could possibly be deafening, but the silence that descended over the room once the door had closed, leaving her alone with Raff Quinlan, was definitely of that kind!

      She dared a glance at Raff under her lashes, not fooled for a moment by his innocently concerned expression, knowing that his anger towards her had faded to be replaced by mocking amusement.

      ‘Well, Mrs Smith?’ he finally drawled, his humour somehow making him appear younger. ‘Would you like me to help you take your clothes——?’

      ‘Out!’ she ordered firmly.

      ‘But——’

      ‘Out!’ she repeated with finality, her level gaze brooking no argument.

      ‘If you’re sure …?’ He grinned at her discomfort, taking his time about leaving the room, pausing at the door. ‘I’ll come back after a suitable period,’ he taunted. ‘The nurse already has her doubts about my husbandly concern: if I just disappear she’ll think I don’t give a damn … What was that?’ he prompted at her mumbled remark. ‘Did you say something, darling? I couldn’t quite hear you, my love.’ He raised dark brows as her mutterings continued.

      ‘Everyone in this department will hear me if you don’t leave soon,’ she warned audibly.

      His husky laugh echoed down the corridor, and Jane knew her own teasing had been more than successfully turned back on her. Jordan wasn’t capable of understanding her humour, let alone returning it; to be honest, this bantering made a pleasant change. Not that she was about to let Raff Quinlan know that—he was altogether too arrogant already.

      Actually, she almost instantly regretted his having left the room, quickly discovering that the bruising to her body was so bad now every movement was an agony. Any help easing off the bulky sweater and denims would have been welcome, even Raff Quinlan’s, by the time she had struggled out of her clothes and slipped beneath the sheet on top of the examination-couch, tears wetting her cheeks in painful silence.

      On top of everything else, she felt sick.

      Raff took one look at her when he came into the room, and picked up the kidney-shaped dish that stood on the side-table, reaching her side just in time for her to empty the contents of her stomach into it.

      She fell back against the pillow once the retching had stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she groaned self-consciously.

      ‘Don’t be,’ he dismissed easily, crossing the room as she closed her eyes weakly.

      Jane didn’t blame him for walking out in disgust; she couldn’t bear to see anyone being sick, herself. She must have been more shaken by the fall than she had realised.

      Her eyes opened in surprise as she felt a damp cloth against her forehead and down over the heat of her cheeks. Blue eyes looked straight into grey, so close she could see the long length of Raff Quinlan’s lashes.

      ‘I thought you had gone,’ she told him huskily.

      ‘No, I—God, you look awful!’ He shook his head, frowning darkly.

      She closed her eyes again, smiling faintly. ‘Thanks!’ she grimaced.

      ‘I just hadn’t realised——’

      ‘Mrs Smith?’ A young man with hair almost as red as Jane’s came into the room, followed by the nurse. ‘I’m Dr Young,’ he introduced himself confidently.

      Jane had already guessed that; possibly because of the badge attached to the white coat he wore that bore the name ‘Dr P Young’ upon it!

      ‘I’m not Mrs Smith!’ She was tired of that game now.

      ‘Ah,’ the doctor nodded. ‘Then the two of you aren’t married?’

      Obviously! She was being impossible, and she knew it. If only she didn’t feel so sick.

      ‘No,’ she sighed.

      ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ the doctor dismissed briskly. ‘The point is, you want Mr …? He looked enquiringly at Raff.

      ‘Quinlan,’ he instantly supplied.

      ‘Right,’ the younger man said before turning back to smile reassuringly at Jane. ‘All that matters is that you want Mr Quinlan in with you during the examination.’

      ‘But I——’

      ‘I’m going to be here,’ Raff cut in firmly, his steady gaze meeting hers with determination.

      To be quite truthful, the nausea, and its subsequent result, had tired her to the point where she really didn’t care any more. She very much doubted she would be the first—or the last!—woman Raff would see in her bra and briefs. She tried to remember the colour of the underwear she was wearing today, but for the moment it eluded her; she did know it would match in colour, whatever that colour was. It was one of her foibles … And extravagances, Jordan would have said. Oh, damn Jordan and his preaching! It was doing little to ease the pain as the doctor examined her ankle!

      ‘Hm.’ He frowned a little. ‘Just badly bruised, I think. Although we’ll X-ray it anyway,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘Just to be on the safe side. Your hip was the other place injured, I believe?’ He briskly pulled the sheet down to examine the injured area.

      Jane heard Raff’s sharply indrawn breath, wondering if she could have been wrong about his having seen a woman in her underclothes before.

      She looked across at him curiously, but his gaze was fixed on the area being examined by the doctor. A glance down at that spot herself told her why!

      She knew her hip was extremely painful; in fact the nausea had begun in the car on the drive here from the pain of it. But she had just been concentrating on getting her outer clothing off earlier without fainting, and hadn’t had the strength to actually look at her hip. She wished she hadn’t bothered now either!

      Her side was black and blue with bruising already, not just on the hip-bone but across her stomach and down her thigh too. It looked ghastly. No wonder Raff was staring.

      Just when she thought she couldn’t stand the poking and prodding into her flesh any longer the doctor straightened.

      ‘Well, it looks as if you’ve been quite lucky, young lady.’ His smile had gone now to be replaced by a reproving frown. ‘I don’t think any bones have been broken here either. You sustained the injuries in a fall, I think you said?’

      ‘Yes,’ she nodded distractedly. ‘I tripped and fell over the pavement.’

      The doctor continued to frown. ‘The injuries seem rather—severe, for a fall of that nature.’

      ‘Well, I——’ Colour flooded her cheeks as she sensed concern behind the question. She glanced at Raff, his mouth tight now as he too sensed the scepticism. My God, the doctor didn’t really think that …! She respected his concern, realised that he probably often had reason for it, but it really was unfair to Raff in the circumstances.

      ‘I fell in the street and Mr Quinlan very kindly helped me by driving me here,’ she told the doctor firmly. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with the police over what had, after all, just been an accident.

      The doctor still didn’t look convinced, but there was really very little he could do about the situation in the face of her insistence. ‘We’ll X-ray the ankle and hip just to be sure,’ he told her gently. ‘And decide what to do with you once we have the result of those.’

      That sounded rather ominous. What did he mean, ‘decide what to do with her’?

      She wasn’t given the chance to ask either the nurse or the doctor that question before they bustled out of the room in deep conversation together, the doctor presumably on his way to treat another patient, the nurse