To Break A Doctor's Heart. Sharon Kendrick

she sat there, hopelessly dazed.

      Presently the door opened and he was standing there, looking down at her and smiling.

      ‘You!’ he said.

      So he wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t recognise her, she thought with relief. Instinctively, she felt that this man would always be honest with her.

      Under his white coat she could see that he was wearing a checked cotton shirt and olive green cords. Again she was struck by the physical presence of him. He looked so alive, and strong and dependable.

      He walked over to her and saw the tea-cup.

      ‘You haven’t touched your tea,’ he remarked.

      Claire shook her head. ‘Will he . . . Will Mr Phillips be all right?’ she asked, her face chalky white.

      ‘Well, the next twenty-four hours will be crucial, but he’s in the best place possible,’ he answered noncommittally but kindly. He looked at his wristwatch. ‘Look, I can’t possibly let you go home in that condition, and I’d like you to tell me what happened. My SHO is putting a drip up on him just now. Let me take you over to the canteen—I need my lunch before this afternoon’s ward round, and I might be able to rustle you up a hot cup of tea. By the way, my name’s Luke Hayward.’

      She looked up and gave him a watery smile. ‘Claire Scott,’ she said politely. ‘Thank you very much, I’d like that.’

      She had never been in a hospital canteen before, and was slightly taken aback at the level of noise and activity which greeted her. Luke Hayward led her over to a small, quiet table, well away from the counter, and sat her down.

      ‘I’ll just go and find you some tea. Do you want any lunch?’

      She shook her head.

      While he joined the queue, she looked around at all the crowded tables. There were groups of chattering nurses, in a huge variety of different coloured uniform dresses and belts. Some sat with doctors. Other tables seated young women and men with short white coats, who Claire supposed must be the medical students.

      Perhaps it was a naïve impression, she thought, but everyone looked so animated. She was used to spending lunch-breaks on a shoot with other models who sipped at mineral water, and filed their nails and looked bored.

      Luke came back with a tray and placed a cup in front of her. For himself he unloaded an enormous plate full of food with masses of vegetables and potatoes, with fruit to follow. Claire’s eyes widened slightly. Surely he wasn’t going to eat all that! It was more the sort of meal you expected a labourer to eat. The men she usually mixed with picked at a chef’s salad and then consumed a bottle of wine!

      Luke must have seen her expression, because his eyes twinkled.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her, ‘I haven’t usually got quite such a gargantuan appetite, but I was called to coronary care first thing and missed breakfast, and only had a scratch supper last evening. Drink some of your tea now.’

      She took a sip. It was the colour of treacle and tasted as though it were composed of treacle too, but she had never enjoyed a cup of tea so much.

      Luke ate his meal quickly, like a man used to hurrying, then pushed his plate away and turned the full force of his grey-green eyes on her.

      ‘Feel better?’ he asked, and she nodded.

      ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’

      She recited the events of earlier that day as succinctly as possible. ‘But I felt so useless,’ she told him. ‘So impotent, because I wasn’t able to help him in any way.’

      ‘And just what did you do, exactly?’ he questioned.

      ‘After I’d told that young boy to call for the ambulance, I loosened Mr Phillips’ collar, wiped his face and sat there holding his hand until help arrived. That’s all,’ she finished glumly.

      ‘Claire,’ he said, quite seriously, ‘if you’d been a State Registered Nurse, you couldn’t have done any more for him. You did all the right things, and by instinct. Most important of all, he knew that someone was there, caring for him.’

      ‘Did I? Did I really?’ She looked anxiously into his eyes, but she could only see the truth reflected there.

      He nodded, and she drank the last mouthful of her tea, and gave him an enormous smile.

      ‘You didn’t look very happy at dinner the other evening,’ he observed. ‘Why was that?’

      Claire looked at his strong, firm features, the broad set of his shoulders and the penetrating eyes. Suddenly she found herself telling him everything. Telling him about feelings which she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself. And about those she had—about her general dissatisfaction with her life, and her job as a model. And how most of the people she mixed with cared for nothing more than money, and image.

      Luke let her talk and talk. She hadn’t spoken to anyone like that for years, not since her father had died. And all the time he listened intently, occasionally nodding.

      Eventually she stopped and looked at him, a rueful smile on her lips. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her blue eyes shining brilliantly, ‘I didn’t mean to place you in the role of father confessor over lunch!’

      He ignored the joke and sat there studying her for a minute longer, noting her ice-blue sweater and the glossy abundance of copper curls which fell around her shoulders. Then he leaned over towards her and spoke very softly.

      ‘Claire,’ he said, ‘forgive me if this sounds like a ludicrous suggestion, but—have you ever thought of becoming a nurse?’

      She had not known that he had stood there for almost five minutes on the top step of the main entrance, lost in thought as he watched the tail lights of her taxi disappear into the traffic, wondering what on earth had possessed him to make such a suggestion to her, advising her to come and train at St Anthony’s. He had seen her eyes light up eagerly and she had looked up at him like a little lost puppy.

      Was it because she too came from a divorced home, a family in splinters? He had found all the commitment and unity a family provided from hospital life. Could it fulfil her in the same way?

      Damn and blast, why the hell hadn’t he just asked her for a date?

      Because she was too young. Because a girl like that was probably sick of being asked for a date by every man she met.

      Luke had been a doctor long enough to realise that the fleeting gift of beauty was inconsequential without substance. Beneath the sophisticated veneer he had seen the silent appeal in Claire’s lonely eyes. She needed a friend, not a lover. But if she arrived as his protégée, it could make life difficult.

      Still, was she really likely to give up modelling—to don a uniform and work all the hours that God sent, as a nurse? If the idea appealed for even half a day, it would be no more than the capricious whim of a very young and impressionable girl, soon to be forgotten when her tall boyfriend reappeared.

      The slender young staff nurse from Casualty had appeared at Luke’s elbow, her brown eyes seductive beneath the pert blonde fringe.

      ‘Excuse me, Dr Hayward,’ she said, smiling, ‘but Switchboard says your bleep isn’t working, and the lab have some urgent results for you, and must speak to you personally.’

      He nodded and re-entered the building, his hands deep in the pockets of his cords, his white coat flapping as he strode down the corridor in search of a phone, his ludicrous suggestion already forgotten.

CHAPTER THREE

      SEEING Luke standing there outside the cubicle had made Claire’s heart start hammering loudly in her chest, and as she walked briskly alongside Anna Hunter she tried to behave as normally as she could—attempting, without much success, to subdue her rapid breathing.

      His