Innocent Secret

It wasn’t far to the place where he’d had his painful run-in with the escaped bullocks and, just past it, the fork in the road that demanded a decision.

One way led to the renovated farm labourer’s cottage she’d told him about when she’d been trying to distract him from the pain of his dislocated shoulder; the other led to the small stone-built farmhouse which was more a refuge than a home to him.

The thought of inviting anyone into his safe haven made him uncomfortable, but the thought of delivering Vicky to a solitary evening felt equally wrong.

Anyway, he temporised as he accelerated away from her turning, she needed to eat and he had no idea what she’d have in her kitchen. At least he knew his fridge could supply the essentials, thanks to Vicky’s persistence. And there was a wry, pleasing irony that he would be feeding her with the food she’d chosen and bought for him.

‘We’re here, Vicky,’ he said as he pulled into the small enclosed yard to one side of the house.

He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t comment but his understanding turned to concern when she didn’t react when he opened the door beside her.

The harsh brilliance of the safety light, activated by their arrival, flooded the interior of the car and painted its silent inmate with unforgiving accuracy.

She looked as perfect as a marble statue, but when had marble statues ever had silvery tears trickling down their cheeks?

‘Come on, Vicky. Out you get,’ he encouraged as he reached across her to release her seat belt. He had to stretch his shoulder some way beyond what was comfortable to reach it, but that hardly mattered when Vicky was in such misery.

She didn’t even seem to realise that she was crying as he let them into the house through the back door which took them straight into the kitchen.

It wasn’t the first time that he’d been grateful for the enveloping warmth of the Aga cooker. He didn’t even bother taking her coat off as he grabbed a chair and settled her in it as close as possible to the warmth.

For just a moment he stood there looking at her, feeling completely at a loss.

He hardly knew the woman, for heaven’s sake. What on earth was he supposed to do or say to help her, to bring her out of this?

‘Tea,’ he muttered, reaching for the kettle and putting it on the hob to boil. ‘If in doubt make a pot of tea.’

He was out of his depth here, and didn’t mind admitting it. The psychiatry he’d learned during his training was enough to tell him that Vicky’s mental state was no steadier than her physical one. All he could think to do was bury himself in the familiar ritual of pouring milk into the waiting mugs while he waited for the tea to steep.

Did she take sugar? He didn’t even know her well enough for that small detail, had never bothered to notice such a thing when they’d been in the same room. Whether she did or not, she was having some. She was borderline shocky and the sugar boost would give her body something to fight with.

‘Here.’ He crouched beside her chair and wrapped her icy hand around the chunky handle. ‘It’s hot, but see if you can sip it.’

She barely acknowledged him and the way those silent tears continued to slide down her cheeks, one after another, caused something unfamiliar to tighten inside his chest.

‘Please, Vicky.’ Joe reached up to cup one damp cheek in his hand and turned her to face him. ‘Please, drink some of the tea. You need it.’

As though waking from a nightmare, she focused on his face and blinked, almost as if surprised to see him there.

‘Joe?’

He’d never heard her voice sounding so lost and alone. He might not join in with the banter that usually characterised any gathering of staff at Denison Memorial, but he couldn’t help having noticed that this strikingly beautiful young woman had a bright bubbly personality to match. It almost hurt to see her looking so…so defeated.

‘Drink,’ he urged, cupping one hand around hers where she held the steaming mug in a white-knuckled grip and lifting it towards her mouth.

‘Don’t.’ With a shake of her head she resisted, her brows drawing into a frown as she tried to pass the mug to him. ‘I don’t need that. I need to know…’

She had to pause when her lips began to quiver uncontrollably. He saw her press them firmly together and heard the deep breath she drew and held as she fought for control.

‘What do you need?’ he asked gently. ‘Is it something I can get for you? Something to eat?’ He wasn’t a brilliant cook but anything short of cordon bleu and he’d give it a go if it would take that expression out of her eyes.

She shook her head. ‘Oh, Joe, it’s nothing like that,’ she said with a hitch in her voice. ‘I just need to know why.’

‘Why?’ And he’d thought he’d been all at sea before. She’d completely lost him now. ‘You mean, why did Nick marry Frankie? But you know—’

‘Not that,’ she broke in almost impatiently. ‘I know he married her because they fell in love. Because he loved her more than he ever loved me…’

‘Ah, Vicky, don’t do this to yourself,’ he begged, feeling panic-induced sweat prickling between his shoulder-blades.

He really didn’t want to be having this conversation. What did he know about what she was going through? He and Celia had met in their teens and there had never been anyone else for either of them, right up to the day she’d died.

‘No, Joe, I need to know,’ she insisted with a spark of her former energy. ‘I know we both did the right thing to call off our wedding and I really hope they’re happy but…but I need to know what’s wrong with me.’

‘Wrong with you?’ he said, more lost than ever. Would he ever unravel the Gordian knot of a woman’s thought processes? ‘But there’s nothing wrong with you.’

‘There must be,’ she said adamantly, with a sad droop to a mouth now bare of any lipstick. ‘Otherwise I’d be the one expecting his baby rather than Frankie.’

‘You…’ He gave up. Did she want to be pregnant? Surely not, without a marriage in her near future. With her engagement so recently broken she wouldn’t even have a close relationship to rely on.

‘He’s only known Frankie for a matter of weeks, Joe,’ she barrelled on suddenly, as though the words and the emotions behind them wouldn’t be contained any longer. ‘They’re married now, but they obviously didn’t bother to wait before they went to bed because she’s already expecting his baby. So what was wrong with me? He was engaged to me for nearly six months and he never gave me anything more than a kiss and a hug.’

CHAPTER TWO

TWO days later Vicky still couldn’t believe what she’d said, and to have said it to Joe!

Just thinking about the embarrassment of it made her go hot and cold, but at the time her thought processes had been so scrambled that she’d had no idea that she was going to make such a momentous revelation.

She groaned silently, her thoughts still scurrying around in her head in spite of the fact that she’d been trying to keep busy to switch the thoughts off. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she must be the only twenty-six-year-old virgin in Edenthwaite, she had to go and tell Joe, the one man whose opinion of her really mattered.

How was she going to face him again? It had been difficult enough putting up with all the sympathetic murmurs of her colleagues when they’d found out about Nick and Frankie. If they discovered that her adolescent crush on Nick had prevented her from indulging in the flings her colleagues seemed to flit in and out of, she’d probably never live it down.

Could she trust Joe not to say anything?

She could hardly bring herself to think about it, let alone hold a conversation begging for his discretion.

‘Vicky. Phone call for you,’ called one of the juniors, beckoning her from the other side of the ward, and she hurried across to the desk. There were several sets of lab results she’d been chasing up ever since she’d come on duty and they’d promised to phone them through as soon as they were ready.

‘Hello. Vicky Lawrence speaking,’ she said crisply, but when she waited for a reply all she could hear was the faint crackle of an open line. ‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’

When there was still no answer she shrugged and put the phone down. ‘Who was it, Sue? Did they say what they wanted?’

‘Sorry, Vicky.’ Sue shook her head. ‘It was a man and he wanted to speak to you. I don’t know any more than that.’

‘A man?’ The person she was waiting to speak to was definitely not a man, so perhaps it hadn’t been the lab results. ‘Oh, well. They’ll just have to try again.’

‘They will, if it’s important,’ Sue agreed. ‘Let’s hope it isn’t anything complicated and that they don’t phone back in the middle of the patients’ lunch.’

Vicky groaned. It wasn’t often that they had so many who needed individual help with their meals, but the last few days had been dreadful. For some reason there had been an overflow from the geriatric ward into her general one. Now she was trying to cope with one gentleman who was flat on his back with both legs in traction and a woman in her sixties whose years of a strict vegan diet had left her with multiple fractures in a collapsed spine, rendering her all but immobile.

Apart from them, there was a man in his late fifties who had been born with Down’s syndrome. Although Owen was physically capable of feeding himself, he still required constant supervision if the food was actually going to be consumed while it was hot. At least his broken leg was keeping him in one place at the moment. His elderly carers had warned that once he was mobile again he was quite likely to go wandering off at any time.

‘And won’t that be just what I need to brighten my day,’ Vicky muttered as she tried to juggle the number of patients requiring individual attention against the staff available for the task. ‘And some time during all that, the staff have to go for their lunch-breaks, too!’

Her calculations were interrupted by the phone and she reached out to lift the receiver without taking her eyes off her little chart.

‘Hello. Sister Lawrence, General Ward,’ she said automatically, more than half of her mind on possible permutations that would get the job done. Would she need to ring around for some temporary help, just until the older patients were able to move into their proper domain?

It was several seconds before she realised that no one had spoken since she’d answered the phone.

‘Hello?’ she prompted, but once again there was just that faint crackle of an open line. ‘Is there someone there?’

Although there wasn’t a sound from the other end, for some reason she just knew that there was someone there, someone listening to her.

The hairs on the back of her neck felt as if they were standing on end, almost as if a cold draught had blown across her, but she knew that was nonsense in a modern building like this.

‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t got time to waste,’ she said, firmly squashing the sneaking feeling of unease. ‘If you’re not going to speak I’ll have to put the phone down.’

She started counting silently, determined to carry out her threat on the count of five. She’d only got as far as four when she heard a single whispered word before the connection was abruptly broken.

She was sitting there, staring at the receiver still clasped in her shaking hand, when a familiar baritone voice nearly had her jumping out of her skin.

‘Vicky? What on earth’s wrong with you?’ Joe demanded when she’d shrieked and dropped the phone. He picked it up from the floor and put it to his ear before he deposited it where it belonged.

Whether he was checking to see if there was someone still on the line or whether the thing was still working, she didn’t know.

She was trembling all over now, and it wasn’t because Joe had startled her.

‘Are you all right?’ he demanded, so she knew she must be looking as shaky as she felt. ‘Is there something I can do or would you rather I came back later?’

‘No!’ she said hurriedly, suddenly far more worried that he might leave than that his presence might be an embarrassment. She’d been dreading this first meeting, after her blurted revelation, but that phone call had really given her the creeps. ‘No, Joe, please, don’t go.’

‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?’ He perched one hip on the corner of the desk, bringing those changeable hazel eyes almost down to her level. The clear concern in them was like a balm to her jangling nerves.

‘I’m all right, except…except for that weird phone call. And I don’t think it was the first one.’ Now that she thought about it, there had been something similar yesterday, too.

‘Weird? How was it weird? Who was calling?’

‘I don’t know who it was.’

‘So, what did they want?’ He was patience itself but that didn’t do anything for her agitation.

‘I don’t know what he wanted,’ she retorted snappishly. ‘The first couple of times he didn’t say anything at all but this time—’

‘Whoa! What do you mean, the first couple of times?’ he interrupted sharply. ‘What’s going on here? It can hardly be a disappointed suitor—there hasn’t been time since your engagement to Nick. Wait a minute! You’re not telling me you’re being stalked, are you? How long has this been going on?’

‘No! Of course I’m not being stalked,’ she countered dismissively, then paused, feeling sick.

It was crazy to even think about it in a place like Edenthwaite, but suddenly she found herself wondering if the idea made sense. Had there been too many ‘silent’ calls over the last few days for it to be an accident?

‘Oh, Joe, I don’t know,’ she admitted in a small voice. ‘Perhaps I am.’

‘Hey, Vicky, take it easy.’ He reached for her hand, and when he tucked it warmly and firmly between his she suddenly had the crazy feeling that Joe was going to keep her safe. ‘Now, take a deep breath and tell me what’s been going on.’

‘There hasn’t really been anything going on except for a few phone calls, and they could have been anything. I didn’t even know it was a man calling until this last time, when he spoke.’

‘So, where were the calls coming from? Inside the hospital through the internal switchboard or from outside? What was the reception like? Could the caller have been using a mobile perhaps? And his voice—did you recognise it? Did it sound local or did it have a different accent?’

‘He only said one word. My name.’ She shuddered at the memory of the strangely menacing whisper, or was her imagination working overtime to make it sound menacing?

‘Your name?’ he prompted keenly. ‘Did he say Vicky or Sister Lawrence?’

‘Neither. He said Victoria. And could you let me answer one set of questions before you ask another? Were you Sherlock Holmes in another life?’

He chuckled ruefully and gave her hands a squeeze. ‘Sorry, but one idea leads to another. Can you remember what you said when you answered the phone? Did you give the caller your name, or just the name of the ward?’

The way he’d kept hold of her hand and the gentle smile that softened the usual sombreness of his face made her feel warm inside, but Vicky fought off the distraction to replay that last phone call in her mind.

‘I think it was an outside line,’ she said slowly, mentally sorting through her impressions. ‘There was a sort of hollow crackle that you don’t get with the hospital lines, so I would automatically say, “Sister Lawrence, General Ward.”’

‘And he said…?’

‘Nothing at first. It was only when I told the caller that I was too busy to waste time and I was going to put the phone down that he spoke, and then he hung up.’

‘And the other times?’

‘I hadn’t really noticed them,’ she confessed. ‘It was only this time that made me realise that the other “nobody there” phone calls could have been from the same person.’

‘Did he say anything else or make any noises?’

‘Just my name,’ she said with a renewed shiver.

‘And how did he say it? What tone of voice did he use? Was it normal volume or whispered?’

‘Not exactly a whisper, more like…Victoria.’ She tried to give it exactly the same stress that he had, in the same singsong way. ‘But I didn’t recognise his voice and I couldn’t really say whether he had a local accent or not.’

Those changeable hazel eyes of Joe’s were dark with concentration and she could tell that he was going over everything she had told him. She knew it was stupid but she really wanted him to be able work it all out, to be able to come up with a simple answer to what was going on.

‘Has anyone else taken one of these calls for you?’ he asked suddenly, his gaze almost too analytical for comfort.

‘Anyone else?’ She frowned as she tried to work out the significance of the question. When it struck her she was devastated at the implication and dragged her hand away from him to leap up from her seat. She refused to let herself dwell on the pang of loss she felt when the contact was broken between them. What was the point of physical contact when there was suspicion between them?

‘You mean, can anyone corroborate my story or am I making the whole thing up?’ she glared down at him, lounging so nonchalantly on the corner of the desk as though he hadn’t just accused her of fabricating a stupid lie. What on earth would be the point? It wasn’t as if she lacked a social life, in spite of the fact that her wedding hadn’t taken place. ‘Do you think I’m inventing it to get the sympathy vote now that I’ve been left on the shelf? What kind of misfit do you think I am?’

‘Calm down, Vicky,’ Joe ordered, grabbing for her hand as she stomped past him for the second time, trying to control her rising temper by striding up and down in the restricted space. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. I was only wondering if he’d said more than your name so another person might have picked up on an accent or something.’

‘Oh.’ She hung her head and blew out an exasperated breath while she gathered up the courage to meet his gaze. ‘I’m sorry, Joe. That was unfair of me, especially when you’re only trying to help. It’s all probably a lot of fuss about absolutely nothing but…but I’ve got to admit it’s got me a bit spooked.’

‘With good reason. By all accounts this sort of thing is happening far too frequently these days. The statistics probably don’t show the full extent of the problem because most women are afraid to say anything for fear of being ridiculed.’

‘And then I turn on you,’ she said apologetically. ‘Will you forgive me?’

‘Of course. Or should I say, provided you promise to let me know if it happens again?’

Vicky’s independent streak made her want to insist that she could deal with the problem herself, and that if the incidents didn’t escalate from the present level, she would probably be able to. But that wasn’t what Joe wanted to hear.

Anyway, could this be an excuse for her to keep in contact with the elusive man?

‘I promise, Joe, on condition that you let me cook you a meal to say thank you.’

‘Thank me for what? You already did more than your share after I had that argument with the bullock. All I’ve done is promise to listen.’ He seemed quite uncomfortable with her suggestion, his cheeks going an endearing shade darker.

‘And you took care of me when I fell apart after the wedding,’ she reminded him, determined that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook even if it meant bringing up that embarrassing loss of control again. ‘Now, where’s it going to be? Your place or mine?’

The sound of a throat being cleared startled both of them. Joe was the only one who seemed relieved by the interruption. Vicky was cross, especially as she was certain he’d been about to agree.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked crisply when she turned to face the man standing in the doorway to the office.

For just a second there was something unsettling in his expression as he looked at Joe but then he slid into a pleasant smile as he held out his hand.

‘I came to show my face. Grant Naismith, locum,’ he said. ‘I sent a patient into the hospital last night and thought I’d combine a visit to check up on her with a look around. Actually, I think we might have met before,’ he said when he turned to Vicky. ‘I believe we trained at the same hospital.’

Vicky conceded that they must have been there at the same time, but silently she couldn’t say she remembered him particularly. But, then, she hadn’t been interested in anyone else but Nick in those days.

He held Vicky’s hand just a little longer than he should have and his pale grey eyes were leaving her in no doubt that he liked what he was seeing. It was a shame she didn’t feel the same way about him and just seeing him standing beside Joe was enough to tell her why.

He might be nearly the same height as Joe—about six inches taller than her own five feet six—and his face might be prettier than Joe’s rugged taciturnity, but there wasn’t the same instinctive attraction towards the man of absolute integrity and hidden strength that she knew Joe to be.

‘Which patient did you send in?’ She used the pretence of needing to check the screen on the computer to put a little more distance between them. She had to behave in a professional manner towards him even though she was exasperated with him. If he hadn’t arrived at that precise moment she was sure she could have persuaded Joe to let them spend the evening together.

‘Mrs Frawley.’ He mentioned the name of the nearby practice for which he’d been standing in as locum.

‘No. We haven’t got her here. What was wrong with her?’

‘She’s an elderly lady and she was in a lot of distress when I saw her. According to her notes she’s got a history of heart problems.’

‘If she’s elderly, she’s probably gone to Geriatric,’ Vicky pointed out. She was hoping to hurry him on his way before Joe decided to leave without agreeing to her suggestion.

‘I tried there first but they said you were taking their overflow at the moment.’

Vicky tapped in another code to cross-check and couldn’t find any reference to a Mrs Frawley, until she checked the last option.

‘I’m sorry, Dr Naismith, but Mrs Frawley didn’t survive the journey to hospital. She’s listed as dead on arrival.’

There was a brief flash of emotion in his pale grey eyes before it was swiftly hidden behind lowered lids.

‘Not a good start,’ she heard him say under his breath, and found herself sympathising. It couldn’t be easy, feeling you’d let down a colleague when taking care of his patients. ‘Are there any formalities I need to comply with, as I was called out to her, or will the hospital have done the certification? I haven’t been in this position before.’

‘If you like, I’ll take you down to Records and show you how our system works,’ Joe offered, and Vicky had to stifle a growl of frustration.

Now she wasn’t going to get the chance to speak to him alone, and who knew how long it would be before they had the chance to spend any time together? She certainly wouldn’t sink to using this telephone pest as an excuse, no matter what the temptation.

Joe ushered Grant Naismith out into the corridor but at the last second looked back over his shoulder to murmur, ‘Seven o’clock at my place, but you’ll have to bring the ingredients.’

The couple of hours Vicky spent preparing the meal with Joe and then sharing it in the informality of the warm farmhouse kitchen were everything she could have wished.

They had worked together as seamlessly as though they’d done the same thing dozens of times before. Even their conversation had felt comfortable, with topics ranging from music to art and books before finally degenerating to the perennial topic of the Denison Memorial.

It’s almost as if we’re an old married couple, she thought as she began to pile their plates together. Then he passed her a handful of cutlery and when his fingers brushed hers she could have sworn that she heard the crackle of electricity in the air.

The knives and forks fell onto the plate with a noisy clatter and she hastily grabbed them and turned towards the sink to hide her flaming cheeks.