Partners By Contract

‘Hello, Con.’ No needy tremor—thank goodness—just a slight huskiness.

He didn’t respond and, very conscious of the watching eyes, Phoebe moved forward with a firm, confident tread that belied her inner turmoil. She thought about extending her hand, but had second thoughts. It would be too embarrassing if he refused to accept the gesture of friendship. She thrust it instead into the pocket of her fitted trousers.

She forced herself to look directly at him, the experience about as soothing as plugging herself directly into the national grid.

What changes there had been were subtle—a more pronounced suggestion of muscularity about his broad shoulders and chest, and possibly the fine lines that radiated from spectacular eyes and bracketed his firm sensual mouth were more deeply engrained than they had been four years ago—but essentially he was still the same Con that Phoebe recalled.

Not a person prone to self-deception, Phoebe didn’t have the luxury of pretending even to herself that it was only shock that had sent her nervous system spiralling out of control. She’d often wondered how she’d cope if she saw him again. Now she knew—she wouldn’t! This wasn’t information she felt any desire to share.

‘You two know one another...?’ Will looked from one to the other, a perplexed expression on his pleasant face.

‘You could say that. We lived together for three years.’ This casual bombshell was delivered totally straight-faced. Not unnaturally, it caused jaws to drop. ‘How are you, Phoebe?’

If that had been a deliberate attempt to unsettle her, he needn’t have bothered—she was already semi-catatonic. Against a backdrop of thunderous heart-pounding Phoebe gave a brittle smile.

‘I’m fine...just fine.’ She prayed she wouldn’t prove herself a liar by falling in a heap on the floor. ‘Such a surprise...’ she gulped. No lie this time!

She’d spent the last four years filling the gap this man had left in her life. Now she knew how spectacularly unsuccessful she’d been.

‘For me, too.’ Their gazes meshed. Phoebe flinched. Connor’s expression didn’t suggest that the surprise had been a pleasant one. She’d anticipated some residual hostility, maybe even a dollop of cringing embarrassment if and when they eventually met up again, but not this level of cold, savage fury.

‘We shared a flat as students, though Con was a couple of years ahead of me.’

If Con wasn’t going to go into details, neither was she. Their audience heard her hasty explanation with a disappointed air.

‘This is quite a coincidence, Con.’

‘Is that what it is?’

Her chin went up. ‘You always were the sharp one,’ she responded tensely. ‘The truth is out, folks,’ she announced flippantly. ‘I’ve been stalking the man for years—on account of his magnetic personality and startling good looks, you understand.’

Her words were greeted with general laughter. Phoebe hoped that the person her words had been aimed at had received the message. All she needed now was for Con to run away with the idea she had in some way contrived this situation.

‘That’s our leader all right,’ Grace agreed, blowing a kiss in his direction before heading off with her student in tow. Connor’s eyes stayed on Phoebe’s face as Fran hugged him, then his gaze drifted reluctantly away.

‘You should have said you knew Con, Phoebe,’ Will said, a puzzled frown knitting his brow.

‘Oh, we lost touch years ago.’ She glanced at her watch and murmured a realistic-sounding squeal of horror. ‘Is that the time already?’

‘I expect she didn’t think I’d recognise her,’ Connor drawled.

How could he joke about it? Talk about bad taste! Phoebe shot him a reproachful look and discovered that his expression wasn’t nearly as careless as his tone. His brooding examination sent an electrical surge through her tense frame.

‘Heavens, I’m running late! I must dash,’ she babbled. No longer caring if Will thought her behaviour odd, she did just that, as fast as her long legs would carry her.

Her heart was thumping, only not from the burst of speed, by the time she inserted the key shakily in the lock of the car door. This is all my fault, she thought. Why didn’t I turn and run the moment I realised that Connor worked here? Oh, she’d spent plenty of time rationalising the decision, but the bottom line was that she’d known all along it had been crazy and self-indulgent to stay.

She stood still for a few moments, waiting for waves of nausea to pass. When they did she hastily slid into the driver’s seat, glancing nervously over her shoulder as she did so. A showdown was inevitable but she wanted to choose the time and place. She was about to drive away when Will thumped the roof of her car. She let out a cry and jumped a mile.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ Will said as the window slid down.

‘Well you did!’ she barked. ‘Sorry, Will, I’m just...I hate being late,’ she ended lamely.

Easygoing Will brushed aside her stumbling apology. ‘I was wondering, Phoebe, are you calling in on Rob Marlow this morning?’

‘I thought I would, yes.’

Phoebe was relieved the conversation had turned to more professional matters. Here at least she felt in control. Rob Marlow had been the first patient she’d seen at Hayfield. It had taken Phoebe about two seconds to see beyond his outward aggressive behaviour to the fearful young man beneath.

‘We’ve been discussing the idea of him getting used to using a long stick now while his sight is still reasonable.’

The young computer programmer had been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital inherited degenerative eye condition, some years before, but up until recently he’d been able to lead a normal life as night blindness had been the only manifestation of the disease. Over the previous months, however, Rob had lost a significant degree of peripheral vision, leaving him with tunnel vision.

Will looked impressed. ‘When I suggested a white stick, he told me in no uncertain terms what I could do with it.’

‘I think the counselling is helping him come to terms with things,’ Phoebe responded modestly.

‘Bad timing, the fiancée walking out on him like she did. Hardly surprising the poor bloke went into denial.’

Phoebe nodded. ‘I’m sure she had her reasons,’ she agreed diplomatically. From things Rob had let slip, she suspected that ‘pushed’ rather than ‘walked’ would have been a more accurate description. ‘But,’ she continued on a genuinely upbeat note, ‘Rob’s one of life’s survivors. He seems determined to make the most of what sight he eventually retains.’

‘Good, good!’ Will approved benignly. ‘And if you’re heading out that way, would you mind dropping Con off at his place? It’s only a mile or so past the Marlows’ farm. I wouldn’t ask but I’ve got a clinic, and the idiot came straight here from the airport. And if you know Con, you’ll know he must be feeling pretty hellish if he admits to feeling off-colour. Here he is now...’

Phoebe’s smile became fixed as the tall, achingly familiar figure appeared, making his way towards them. The way he moved was as firmly lodged in her brain as the sound of his voice, the gold tips of the ends of his long eyelashes or the shape of his elegant hands. Right now his loose-limbed elegance was severely hampered by his injury, but it didn’t stop a stab of pure sexual longing from jolting through her with the force of a lightning bolt.

Nothing had changed! It wasn’t the best moment to discover that she’d been successfully in denial for the last four years. Her first instinct was to drive away and leave them both standing there—such a shame she couldn’t follow it.

‘Fine, Will,’ she responded, a little wild-eyed.

Connor endured his partner’s fussing with growing impatience and a noticeable lack of gratitude. His temper snapped when Will readjusted the passenger seat yet again.

‘I’ve plenty of room for my damned leg!’

‘He was only trying to help,’ Phoebe remonstrated, sparing her passenger a disapproving glare before she started the engine.

‘He’s an old woman!’ Connor grouched.

‘He’s a warm and caring person, and very dedicated—a perfect GP,’ Phoebe corrected in a shaky voice. Will brought out the maternal instinct in most women and Phoebe was no exception.

‘Since when,’ she asked, an antagonistic note creeping into her strained voice, ‘did you want to be a GP anyhow?’ Four years ago he’d just been made a senior registrar in one of the top neurological units in the country. If he’d stayed on that course he would undoubtedly have been a consultant now and, more importantly, he wouldn’t be here in her car, filling it with a warm, sexy Con smell.

‘Perhaps I was inspired by Will. Of course, I can’t aspire to his level of dedication but, despite my lack of warmth, some people think I’m quite good at the job,’ he drawled sarcastically.

Phoebe had never doubted it, and if she had, a day of treating his patients would have put her straight. They’d all made it quite clear that Connor wasn’t just a hard act to follow—he was an impossible act to follow!

‘You’re good at everything, Con,’ she observed with a resigned little sigh. Especially kissing...he was excellent at kissing. Don’t go there Phoebe. Don’t think about his mouth...don’t think about anything!

‘Except being a husband.’

CHAPTER TWO

PHOEBE’S stomach churned with self-disgust. Connor’s bleak pronouncement was confirmation of all her worst nightmares.

This was all her fault!

You did it, you fix it, Phoebe. Nice in theory, but in reality she was swamped by a wave of inadequacy. If this had been a heart with an irregular beat or a broken limb, she’d have known what to do, but it wasn’t—this was something they didn’t teach you how to fix in medical school!

It had been bad enough to lose the closest friend she’d ever had because of a moment of weakness, but to learn that he was so guilt-ridden about what they’d done that he considered himself a failure as a husband was just too awful to contemplate. Just when she’d thought she’d finally come to terms with her own guilt, she had his to sort out.

‘Don’t you think you’re being just a tad over-dramatic, Con?’ she began tentatively.

She heard the anger in his hissing intake of breath. Good, anger was infinitely preferable to that terrible desolation she had seen in his face moments before. ‘I have to admit I’m surprised to hear you speaking like that.’

‘Truthfully you mean?’

‘You know perfectly well you’re talking a load of rubbish!’ she countered, a sliver of desperation creeping into her tense tone.

‘Do I?’

‘Sure you do. If it wasn’t so silly, I’d laugh,’ she claimed.

‘You’ve got a nice laugh.’

The sheer unexpectedness of this comment and the strange driven note in his voice made her involuntarily stiffen.

‘Just an observation,’ he added in a much less alarming tone.

Phoebe’s hands relaxed slightly on the steering-wheel.

‘But you’re completely wrong about me being a good husband.’ His lips twisted in an expression of sour distaste. ‘I was actually a disaster from beginning to end.’

Phoebe caught her lower lip between her teeth. She was so embarrassed she could hardly get her words out, but she supposed it needed to be said.

‘I suppose you’re thinking about...’ She shook her head, unable to say it.

‘No, I’m not thinking about the unmentionable.’ Actually, there had been very few days over the past four years when he hadn’t thought about it, thought about Phoebe...

His mocking drawl hurt. ‘It’s not funny,’ she reproached gruffly. Perhaps making light of it was part of his coping mechanism.

‘I’m not laughing.’

A brief sideways peek revealed this to be true. His spectacular eyes were burning in his rigid countenance. Phoebe hurriedly looked away, deeply relieved she had a legitimate excuse to do so.

‘Are you?’ he challenged huskily, directing a diamond-hard searching glance at her clear-cut profile.

‘Am I what?’

‘Thinking about it?’

‘Why would I?’ she blustered. ‘It’s not as if anything actually happened.’ Her laugh sounded almost authentic.

‘In fact, you hardly remember,’ he drawled sarcastically.

Phoebe felt the heat rise up her neck. ‘I remember, but let’s keep this in proportion, shall we?’

‘By all means,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I’m assuming your version of keeping things in proportion involves skipping the country?’

Sarcastic beast! ‘It was just a...a kiss...’ The fine muscles in her pale throat quivered. ‘Penny would have understood.’ She wished she really believed that.

‘She did.’

His cryptic comment only served to deepen Phoebe’s confusion, and it showed in her wildly fluctuating colour.

‘What a day!’ he sighed, rotating his neck from side to side to alleviate the knots of tension that were tying his spine in knots. ‘I pop in to catch up on my paperwork...’ He yawned.

‘You shouldn’t be doing paperwork,’ she responded automatically. She was relieved he’d changed the subject.

‘And I find our brilliant new locum is none other than my elusive sister-in-law.’

Her relief seemed a bit premature. ‘I didn’t set this up, Con,’ she told him urgently.

‘And here’s me thinking you missed me,’ he drawled.

Only about as much as she’d have missed her right arm.

‘Bad luck about the knee,’ she heard herself babble brightly. Wasn’t that the sort of things that casual acquaintances said when they bumped into one another? ‘Was it the anterior cruciate ligament? Isn’t that usually the most common skiing—?’ Now I sound like a medical textbook!

‘To hell with my knee!’ he blasted.

‘I’m trying, Con.’ He didn’t seem to appreciate how hard.

‘Trying to do what?’

Now she knew he was being deliberately obtuse.

‘You could at least make an effort!’ she burst out, keeping a wary eye on a stray sheep that had wandered into the road. ‘It’s very uncomfortable, of course.’

‘My knee?’

His flippancy exasperated her. ‘That, too,’ she agreed, refusing to get angry. Anger made you say things you regretted later and she needed to keep a careful guard on her tongue.

Connor’s lips curled into a derisive smile. ‘Uncomfortable. You always were good at understatement, Phoebe.’

‘By the time you’re fit to come back to work I’ll be gone. When I applied for the job,’ she continued doggedly, ‘I had no idea that you were the partner I was standing in for.’

‘And when you did?’

That was a question she’d been asking herself a lot. The truth was, some masochistic part of her hadn’t been able to resist a glimpse of the new life Con had built for himself. The temptation of seeing where he worked, the people he knew, had been too great for her to resist. Phoebe refused to acknowledge the possibility that subconsciously a little part of her had hoped that this would happen, that deep down she’d wanted to see Connor again.

‘Fair question,’ she admitted with a beleaguered shrug.

‘An honest answer to a fair question seems reasonable.’

‘You wouldn’t recognise reasonable if you fell over it,’ she snapped, forgetting for the moment about keeping her temper. She took a deep steadying breath. ‘I’ve already explained. I thought I’d be long gone before you came back, and when Will asked me to stay a little longer after your accident I couldn’t refuse. With hindsight, of course, I can see—’

‘I tried to write to you,’ he interrupted abruptly. The crack in his resonant voice made her startled eyes swivel in his direction. In profile she could see a maverick pulse thumping like crazy in his lean cheek. Her eyes slid as if preconditioned to the firm sensual outline of his lips and her tummy muscles did a lot of squirming.

With a tiny snort of denial she managed to tear her eyes away and nodded.

‘I know.’ She trained her eyes with glassy fixed concentration on the road ahead.

Connor raked a hand through his blond hair. ‘You must know that I never intended that we lose touch completely...or at all...’

Aware his eyes were on her face, Phoebe kept her facial muscles still, presenting a bland mask to his searching scrutiny.

‘The letters kept being returned unopened. Then you left with no forwarding address.’

‘It seemed easier that way.’ Her composed tone didn’t even hint at the hours she’d spent agonising over the decision not to open his letters. ‘You’re the one who said you didn’t want to see me again.’ The bitterness crept, unintended, into her voice and she knew it was unrealistic to suppose he hadn’t heard it, too. ‘And I gave you every justification,’ she added with painful honesty. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to shift the blame.

‘You gave me...!’ he snarled. Connor closed his eyes, his chest heaving with the effort to control his feelings. ‘Stop the car, will you?’

‘I can’t. I’m already running late.’ If she stopped the car she’d have to look at him.

‘What happened was...’ A deep sigh reverberated through his powerful frame. ‘It was in the heat of the moment, Phoebe,’ he rasped.

The moment was long gone, but the heat remained. A lot of heat! Phoebe, her eyes locked in forward position, didn’t see the colour seeping slowly across the high contours of his cheekbones.

It had been a few days after Penny’s funeral when Connor had come across her curled up in a foetal ball on a sofa. The room had been dimly lit. She’d stopped crying just long enough to plead with him not to turn on the light.

If only I hadn’t kissed him!

A kiss—even an innocent, well-intentioned one—in those circumstances, when emotions were running high, when the people involved were both hurting like hell and feeling empty, was always going to be liable to go horribly wrong.

When you added the fact that one person, namely herself, had been nursing a forbidden passion for the other for some years then the odds on something going horribly wrong became a lot shorter. The horribly wrong part became almost inevitable when the person instigating the kiss happened to possess a face and body identical to the wife the grieving husband had just lost.

‘Sorry about that, Con,’ she’d said huskily when the storm of weeping had at last abated. She’d slipped out of his light, comforting embrace.

‘There’s no point keeping it locked in, Phoebe,’ Con had replied gently, levering himself onto the arm of the sofa and looking compassionately down into her tear-stained face. ‘And there’s no need to apologise for crying—not to me.’

The kindness in his voice had made the tears well afresh. ‘Oh, God!’ she gasped shakily, grabbing the loose hem of his blue denim Oxford shirt and mopping her face. ‘S-sorry.’

Connor had produced a tissue from somewhere on his person and Phoebe had blown her nose noisily on it.

‘Before, I couldn’t cry, now I can’t stop. How about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Have you cried, Con?’

He didn’t answer, she hadn’t really expected him to. Con wasn’t a sharing, caring, sort of bloke. Even in the semi-lit room where his features were reduced to a series of hard planes and complementary brooding shadows, she could tell his control had stepped up a notch, the tension emanating from his lean frame was almost tangible.

‘Let’s throw a bit of light on the subject, shall we?’ she said thickly, reaching for the table lamp.

Her painfully tear-swollen eyes narrowed against the sudden light.

‘We all have our own ways of coping, Phoebe.’

‘In other words, butt out and mind my own business.’ It was desperately hard to keep her tone light. The empty expression in his eyes made her want to cry all over again.

‘I wouldn’t be so rude...’

‘Yes, you would.’ She was comforted to see the faint amused quiver of his wide sensitive lips. The humour didn’t extend to his eyes, but it was a start.

‘I’m making allowances for your fragile emotional state, but—’

‘I think you’d be better off to make allowances for your own fragile emotional state,’ she told him bluntly. She could almost see him visibly withdrawing further from her. ‘All right.’ She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I won’t mention empathy,’ she promised.

Dark eyes meshed with navy blue. The colour of Connor’s eyes always was a fair barometer of his mood—the more intense his feelings, the deeper the shade.

‘A deal,’ Connor agreed, extending his hand to her.

Phoebe’s fingers were enclosed in his as, still seated, he hoisted her to her feet. ‘I just can’t believe she’s gone...’ The tears started flowing once more as the extent of her loss hit her—as it did many times a day—all over again.

‘I know...’

‘I know you know,’ she gulped with a watery smile.

His strong fingers tightened around hers so vigorously that she actually cried out.

‘Sorry,’ Connor said as she rubbed her crushed hand against her shoulder.

She brushed aside his concern with an impatient gesture. ‘It would have been better if it had been me. I wouldn’t have been missed nearly as much,’ she cried, bitterness quivering in her broken voice.

Connor was on his feet before the hissing sigh of anger had passed between his tightly clamped lips. Phoebe gave a startled bleat as she was grabbed unceremoniously by the shoulders. He just stopped short of shaking her, but it was obvious from the expression of blistering fury on his face that it had been a close thing.

‘If I ever hear any more of that self-pitying garbage, Phoebe, I’ll...’ The sound of disgust seemed to emerge from deep in his chest as he scanned her tear-stained features with controlled contempt. ‘You don’t really think that.’

Actually, she did. Penny had had so much more to live for than she did—a husband who loved her, a growing reputation as one of the most talented botanical artists in this, or any other, country, the prospect of a family at some point in the future. Penny had had it all, but as it seemed to matter so much to Connor she obligingly shook her head.

Abruptly the grip on her shoulders loosened and the fury drained from his face, leaving behind white-faced tension.

‘Oh, Con!’ Phoebe instinctively reached up and pressed her hands either side of his lean face. The stubble along his strong jaw rasped against her open palms as she gazed tearily up at him. ‘It’ll get better...won’t it?’ she appealed miserably to him. It had to, didn’t it?

‘I sure as hell hope so.’ His big hands came up to cover hers where they lay against his skin.

During the moment of total empathy their fingers interlocked. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Phoebe stretched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do.

They drew apart almost immediately, but were still close enough for her to feel the warmth of his quick shallow breaths against her cheek. She looked anywhere but into his eyes, terrified of revealing the shameful pulse of pure sexual longing which had surged through her body at the brief contact.

It was wrong—wrong time, wrong place and most definitely wrong person!

If Connor even suspected, he’d despise and loathe her for ever. She already despised and loathed herself.

She cleared her throat, hardly able to hear herself think beyond the heavy thud of her heart. ‘How about a nice cup of tea?’ Who needed therapy when they had tea...? She swallowed a bubble of hysteria that rose in her throat.

‘I don’t want tea, nice or otherwise. Phoebe...’

Her eyes were instantly drawn from the safe perspective of his left ear by the unfamiliar hoarse note in his voice. Don’t let him know, please, don’t let him know, she prayed, fearful that he’d picked up on her guilty lust.

‘What’s wrong, Con?’ Of all the inane... The man’s just lost his wife—will that do you? She was braced for his scorn but not what actually came.

His fair head inclined towards her too quickly for her to focus on his face. Phoebe’s eyes stayed wide open and shocked all the way through the kiss.