Role Play. Caroline Anderson

      Leo, not even trying to disguise his mirth, explained cheerfully that a PC4 was a course of four tablets taken as post-coital contraception — hence the name.

      Peggy Taylor, the practice manager, took pity on her and told the others off, but it did little to dilute Abbie’s humiliation.

      It wasn’t that she minded being teased — lord, she was used to that. She had two brothers who had taken it as their filial duty to torment the life out of her in her childhood, until, in her teens, she’d suddenly changed into the object of their friends’ lascivious attention. Then they’d closed ranks protectively, but even so they still teased her gently to this day.

      So it wasn’t being teased that troubled her, rather the glaring gaps in her knowledge that the teasing had exposed.

      Leo found her later sitting in her surgery surrounded by a heap of textbooks, and came and hitched a lean hip up on to the corner of her desk.

      ‘Boning up on methods of contraception, Abbie?’ he teased.

      She ignored him huffily.

      ‘Tut-tut,’ he admonished. ‘Wallowing in self-pity?’

      ‘Oh, go to hell,’ she muttered, her voice clogged.

      He stuck a finger under her chin and tipped her head up, studying her face intently. She turned away, embarrassed that he should see the traces of tears on her cheeks.

      ‘Leave me alone.’

      He stood up, but instead of walking away he came round her desk, pulled her to her feet and wrapped his long arms round her.

      At first she was stunned into immobility, but after a few seconds she gave in to the luxury of his undemanding embrace, dropping her head forward into the hollow of his shoulder and sighing shakily.

      His hand came up and smoothed her hair.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sure Jackie didn’t.’

      ‘It’s not that,’ she mumbled into his shirt. ‘I just feel so inadequate. I should have known what a PC4 was.’

      ‘Probably,’ he agreed, ‘but nobody’s perfect. Stop torturing yourself.’

      She lifted her head and looked up into his eyes. ‘But what if it’s something important? Something life-threatening, and I don’t know about it? I could kill someone!’

      ‘Do you really think you’re that bad?’ he asked quietly. ‘Do you really think you would have got so far in medicine if you were a danger to your patients?’

      She gave a shaky laugh. ‘Perhaps I just scraped through — perhaps it was all a fluke. Maybe I just got the examiners on a good day. Who knows?’

      Leo sighed. ‘You really don’t have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?’

      Numbly, she shook her head. ‘There’s so much to know, and I always feel I’m fumbling in the dark. It terrifies me, Leo, knowing I’m responsible for whether somebody lives or dies.’

      He chuckled. ‘In general practice? In the average week the most drastic thing you’re likely to come across is a nasty case of piles.’

      She giggled despite herself. ‘You know what I mean. What if I miss something? What if someone dies because of my ignorance?’

      ‘You can always ask,’ he assured her. ‘Peter or Ravi or me — any of us. Don’t feel you have to cope alone.’

      ‘What about when you’ve all gone and I’m still here trying to get to grips with this stupid machine?’ She flicked a contemptuous glance at the computer, and Leo laughed.

      ‘Does it still hate you?’

      ‘Does it ever,’ she grumbled.

      ‘You need a break — have supper with me tonight.’

      She realised she was still standing in his arms, although she wasn’t crushed up against him any more, but she might just as well have been because she could feel the warmth of his body, could remember the feel of it, long and hard and lean, all sleek, solid muscle and sinew, terrifyingly, overwhelming male.

      She stepped back a little further. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she said as firmly as she could manage.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I — I just don’t …’ she floundered.

      His grin was wicked. ‘Not good enough. Come on, you’ve finished here for the night.’

      He flicked off her terminal, stacked her books back on to the shelf and held out his hand. ‘Come.’

      ‘What if I don’t want to?’ she said defensively.

      He sighed. ‘You’re lying again, Abbie,’ he teased in a soft, sing-song voice.

      Her mouth firmed in defiance. ‘I have to study.’

      ‘Cobblers,’ he said rudely. ‘Come on. We’ll pick up a take-away.’

      Her stomach rumbled loudly at the thought, and he chuckled. ‘Co-operation at last!’

      ‘Only from my involuntary muscles —— ’

      ‘That’ll do for a start. I realise that aggravating mouth of yours will take a little longer to tame. Come on — and say, Yes, Leo.’

      She sighed. ‘Yes, Leo.’

      ‘Better. Now come on.’

      She assumed they’d have fish and chips, or a Chinese at the outside, but the little town surprised her. Tucked away in a narrow alley off the main street was a tiny but immaculate kebab house owned and run by a Greek Cypriot who, Leo said, had come over from Cyprus at the time of the Turkish invasion in the early seventies and stayed ever since.

      The shop, predictably, was called Spiro’s, and Spiro himself was almost circular, balding and grumbled constantly about the price of lamb and the rubbish at the market.

      Leo, commiserating, bought shish kebabs in pitta pockets groaning with salad, and they ate them in the car looking out over a field because they were both too hungry to wait any longer. Despite Spiro’s complaints the quality was superb, and Abbie ate every last bit and even pinched a bit of Leo’s second one.

      Then he drove her back to his house, a cottage on a quiet lane about two miles from the town centre, and the evening sun gleamed on the windows and on the glowing banks of perennials that flanked the path, the magenta of the crane’s bill, the green and white of the lady’s-mantle, the tall spires of the hollyhocks nodding at the back behind the white and yellow daisies.

      ‘Oh, how pretty!’ Abbie said, enchanted, and Leo let them in, retrieved a bottle of wine and two glasses and took her for a stroll round the garden.

      The evening was much cooler than the day had been, and she was able to enjoy the mellow air and the sweetly scented roses that graced the soft pink walls.

      ‘How do you manage it all?’ she asked, incredulous, after he had finished his guided tour.

      He laughed softly. ‘Me? I wouldn’t know a dandelion from a primula! I have a gardener who comes in twice a week and cuts the grass and keeps the beds in order.’

      ‘He does a wonderful job,’ she said admiringly, glancing round again at the riot of colour that filled every corner.

      ‘She. Yes, she’s excellent, I have to say. When I moved here the garden was a mess, but she’s worked wonders.’

      ‘She?’ Abbie said with a teasing grin. ‘I might have known.’

      ‘Of course. She’s tall, blonde and very, very lovely.’ He grinned back. ‘She’s also in her late forties and a grandmother. I swear she’s stronger than I am, and she’s definitely no competition to you, Abigail, my love,