Summer Season on the Seafront. Katie Ginger

shouldn’t make her leg twitch and get her all hot and bothered, but something about Finn MacDonald’s voice did that to her. She swallowed. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll do it first thing.’

      ‘Thanks. I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a cup of tea in return.’ He picked up her cup emblazoned with the phrase, ‘There’s a fairly good chance this is gin’, and disappeared. It took every fibre of her being not to turn around and watch him go. Mandy teased her enough already.

      In fact, Mandy was already holding her cup in the air, waving it madly and saying, ‘Oi, what about me?’ to which Finn came back and grabbed it.

      ‘How could I forget you, Mandy, hey?’

      When he’d gone to the kitchen, Mandy looked over and gave Sarah a wink. ‘He likes you.’

      ‘Only as his receptionist,’ Sarah replied with an ache in her chest. Finn was the perfect man as far as she was concerned. She’d known him for a year so if anything happened it wouldn’t be a whirlwind romance. She wasn’t making that mistake again. People always said the best relationships begin at work but there wasn’t much chance of anything happening as far as she could see. ‘I don’t think he sees me as anything more. He’s been here for a year and hasn’t made a move yet.’

      ‘Well, he never flirts with me like that.’

      ‘He wasn’t flirting!’Was he? ‘He was making tea and asking for MRI results.’

      Mandy shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s not sure how you feel about him?’

      ‘How can he not be?’ As much as Sarah hated to admit it, she knew she sometimes went bright pink when Finn spoke to her, and he must know, from the way she looked at him. But it wasn’t just his body she was attracted to. He was kind, caring, charismatic, and good with kids. You only had to see him with the young ones who were scared that something was really wrong with them. He always had them laughing and joking before they even entered his consulting room.

      Oh, this was ridiculous. She could pretty much feel herself ovulating at the thought of having kids with Finn. They’d be bloody gorgeous.

      Mandy gave her a knowing smile. ‘You wait,’ she said sagely. ‘Just you wait.’

      Finn delivered them both cups of tea, pausing by Sarah’s desk. ‘It’s not gin, I’m afraid.’

      ‘That’s okay,’ Sarah replied. ‘I’ve got a hip flask in my top drawer.’

      Much to her delight, Finn laughed at her joke. Making him laugh was one of the highlights of Sarah’s day. The way he lifted his head and tipped it backwards did something to Sarah’s heart. And the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down made her want to reach up and kiss him. She felt her cheeks grow hot.

      ‘I know where to come when I need a drop then,’ Finn replied. For a moment their eyes stayed on each other, as the gentlest of smiles played on his lips. If Helen’s face launched a thousand ships, then Finn MacDonald’s launched a thousand twitches, all filling Sarah’s body with such an intense heat she was actually relieved when he went back to his room. Goodness, she was worse than the menopausal posse.

      ***

      Every day the surgery closed for an hour during lunch and once the last patient had gone, all the staff had lunch together in the staffroom. They were lucky that it was quite modern and airy with comfortable seats. Sarah had worked in some places where the staffroom was more like a dungeon designed to torture the good humour out of you. Mandy was always ready to start a conversation with whoever was near her and today she’d turned her attention to Finn.

      Meanwhile, Sarah flicked through the weekly gossip mag that someone had left on the table. The front page was full of the Nathaniel Hardy scandal. Sarah still couldn’t quite believe he was in town, staying with Gregory and Cecil. The picture in the magazine had been taken as Nathaniel had left the theatre after his disastrous last performance. The poor man looked completely shell-shocked and Sarah wondered what she would say if she ever met him. There was no excuse for cheating in her book. The memory of the night she’d decided to surprise her ex, Vince, at his house, only to find him in bed with someone else, flitted through her mind before she could stop it. Could this be why she was struggling with playing Miranda in The Tempest, perhaps? Miranda fell in love for the first time in the play, and when Sarah had fallen for Vince she’d fallen hard, thinking it was the real deal. Remembering his betrayal still stung her heart.

      To distract herself from the memory, Sarah tuned back in to Mandy’s conversation with Finn.

      ‘So, Dr Mac, who were these friends you met up with, hey? Was it a naughty weekend away?’ Sarah felt a slight flush at the innuendo and hoped it hadn’t been.

      ‘Just some guys I knew at medical school,’ Finn answered and smiled at the memory.

      Maybe it had been a dirty weekend away. The way he was smiling, it seemed he was remembering something nice, but then he’d said, ‘guys’. Not girls, or women, or ladies.

      ‘They work in Nottingham so I went up to see them on Saturday, came back yesterday. Good thing, really. I needed yesterday to recover.’ Finn turned to Sarah, clearly eager to head off Mandy’s line of questioning. ‘How are rehearsals going, Sarah?’

      ‘Urgh, rubbish,’ Sarah replied, resting her sandwich in her lap. ‘I’m really struggling with The Tempest. I just can’t seem to get the hang of Miranda’s speech and I find it all a bit confusing.’ She felt a bit silly saying it, but at least if they knew now how much she hated it, they might excuse a bad performance later, which was undoubtedly what she’d give unless she could crack it. Finn chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of crisps.

      ‘The Tempest is the one on an island isn’t it, with Caliban and Prospero?’

      She nodded. ‘Do you remember it?’

      ‘Vaguely.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not great on Shakespeare and I know nothing about acting. I wish I could help.’

      Sarah smiled. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a while to go yet. I’m sure I’ll get it eventually.’ Though it might mean facing up to feelings about Vince that she’d hoped had faded.

      ‘Of course you will,’ Mandy reassured her. ‘I’m sure you’ll be brilliant. Better than that Mrs Andrews, she’s a right old handful, isn’t she?’

      ‘She definitely has her moments,’ said Sarah, remembering the first time she’d met the MP’s terrifying wife. Mrs Andrews had wanted to play Beatrice in the Greenley Players’ first attempt at Shakespeare last year. They’d performed Much Ado About Nothing and it had been so bad it had nearly spelt the end of the Greenley Players and the theatre. It was only thanks to Lottie that things had kept going. A sudden hard knock on the door out in the reception area caught their attention. ‘Who can that be?’ said Sarah, checking her watch. ‘The guy who collects all the gross stuff doesn’t normally come till three and the town know we close for lunch. I hope it isn’t an emergency.’

      The knocking continued.

      ‘If it’s a patient demanding to be seen,’ said Mandy, adjusting her posture as if she was readying for a fight, ‘I’ll be giving them what-for. We’ve got another fifteen minutes till we re-open. Everyone knows we close from one till two. Not a moment before or less.’ Three more decisive knocks echoed through the empty surgery. ‘Are they actually trying to break the bloody door down?’ Mandy asked.

      They all made their way out of the staffroom, down the corridor and into the reception area. Everyone knew that the surgery closed for lunch; no one would bang on the door like this unless it was an emergency. Images flashed through Sarah’s mind of someone holding a child in desperate need of a doctor, or of someone bent double having run to get help for a road accident, but there’d been no sirens, no sign of trouble. When Sarah saw the figure outside the glass door, fist raised, ready to knock again, her heart stopped beating. Every muscle paused. No air filled her lungs, and she didn’t dare breathe. In that instant she knew that everything