A Surgeon with a Secret Page 5

  The kitchen had instantly become her favourite room of the house and, because it was where she’d shared that dinner with Lachlan on her first night here, it was easy to feel like there was always an echo of him in the room. Having the real thing here, unexpectedly, was taking a bit of getting used to. The kitchen seemed to have suddenly come to life in such a dramatic way that colours seemed brighter. There was more warmth coming from the Aga and even the smell and taste of the food was heightened.

  Lachlan had heaped his plate with the savoury mince and its mashed potato topping. Then his chair scraped as he pushed it back on the flagstones and leapt up to stride towards the huge fridge. He had to hunt for a few seconds before coming back with a bottle of tomato sauce.

  ‘Don’t tell Tilly,’ he said. ‘She’d be horrified I still do this. She let me do it when I was a kid but told me never to do it in polite company.’

  Flick laughed. ‘Who said I was polite?’ She reached for the bottle as Lachlan put it down. ‘Might just try this myself. I always had a bucket of it to dip my chips into. Hot chips, not crisps,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Australians are like Americans and call crisps “chips” as well, don’t they?’

  ‘Mmm...’ Flick shook the bottle and then squeezed it. This was weird, but it felt as if she’d been sharing food with Lachlan McKendry all her life.

  And, maybe it was because of that feeling of being so comfortable in his company that made it seem that they would never run out of things to talk about, especially when Flick was genuinely interested in everything Lachlan was telling her about. Like the documentary that was following children and teenagers who were facing big physical challenges.

  ‘When will it be on TV?’

  ‘Not for ages, I expect. They’ll need to follow Dexter for at least six months after his surgery to see how well he learns to use the new nerves and the amazing difference it will make to his face...and his life.’

  Those last words were so quiet that it seemed that Lachlan hadn’t intended them to be heard and there was something in his expression that actually gave Flick a lump in her throat.

  ‘You know that, don’t you? It will make that much difference.’

  Lachlan’s face was still now and his gaze was steady. ‘It’s what I do,’ was all he said.

  Oh...wow...

  There was no arrogance in that statement or what it implied. None of the over-confident or superficial gloss that she had assumed went hand in hand with the charm that had put her off when she’d first met Lachlan. That kind of confidence could only come from knowing exactly how good he was at what he did and the unguarded depth Flick could see in those dark eyes made it equally obvious how much he cared about what he did. She’d already had a glimpse of the real person this man was but this...

  This was impressive enough to wake up way more than any brain cells. Enough to send a chill down her spine to trickle into every other cell in her body. It was just...incredibly sexy, that was what it was.

  And disturbing...because it was an attraction that went deeper than something purely physical.

  Flick didn’t want to be attracted to Lachlan. She especially didn’t want to recognise a soul that was even more attractive than the body that carried it. She hadn’t expected to meet someone who could stir feelings like this again. She’d had years of being convinced that her ability to even fall in love had died along with the man she’d considered to be the love of her life. The one she’d chosen to marry and be the father of her children. Any dreams of creating her own family had also been buried back then and it had been a hard-won battle to come to terms with that and find peace with what her life had to offer.

  It felt like that peace had just been broken. Like a stone thrown into a still pond, there had been an initial splash and now there were ripples forming. Tiny waves spreading that threatened to undermine the foundations of the new life Flick had created for herself in the last few years.

  She didn’t dare look directly at Lachlan as he told her that he had lectures and training sessions in the area and that he would be staying in the house for the next few days. Luckily, she had finished her dinner so she could excuse herself.

  ‘I should go upstairs and see Lady Josephine,’ she told him. ‘We’re doing more frequent BGL measurements and I want to collect her tray and see how much she’s eaten. I’m keeping a food diary, which I’ll track along with her glucose levels in the hope that we can get better control of her diabetes.’

  This was good. Even mentioning Lachlan’s mother was enough to create a very safe, professional boundary. Good grief...even acknowledging an attraction to her client’s son was just as bad as the way Lachlan had been flirting when he’d found her on his doorstep the other day.

  ‘Sounds good.’ Lachlan was reaching for another helping of the shepherd’s pie. ‘I’ve got some work I have to get done this evening before my first lecture in Cheltenham tomorrow but please tell her I’ll pop in and see her in the morning before I leave.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Flick put her plate and cutlery into the dishwasher. She was finding her own control now and it was no problem to find a smile for Lachlan as she left the kitchen. She didn’t need to worry about her peace being too disturbed. Ripples from even a boulder being thrown into calm water eventually subsided to leave stillness in their wake again.

  She just needed to wait.

  Oh...and it might be a good idea to avoid the disruption of anything else like that being thrown in her direction but if it happened again, at least it wouldn’t take her by such surprise.

  If she was alert, in fact, she might be able to deflect them before they even landed. Because she didn’t want to feel those kinds of things. Not again. They were too intense. And, no matter how seductive they might be, they carried the very real danger of being too painful to make them worthwhile.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS HE’D REMINDED Tilly when he’d come home to start sorting out the problem with his mother, this kitchen had always been the place Lachlan had found the most homely in the McKendry family’s historic manor house. The only place ever that had the magic mix of warmth and welcome and safety, despite anything else that might be happening in the world, that only a real home could provide.

  But it was also a place that Lachlan didn’t feel like he’d ever quite belonged, no matter how much he would have liked to. Maybe that was because it had never been a place he was supposed to be in. It had been for the cook, when they’d had one, and any other servants employed in the house to help Tilly. He’d never eaten anything other than a treat like a slice of cake or biscuits fresh from the oven at this kitchen table when he’d been a child and the scenario would have been even more unlikely as an adult coming back to visit his parents. The idea of his mother eating in here was unimaginable but that had nothing to do with the reason he’d started avoiding this room himself as he’d got old enough to make his own rules.

  No... As Lachlan walked towards the kitchen, having driven up from London again, he was realising that he had probably unconsciously avoided this part of the house for so many years because it tapped into that happy/sad feeling that was so disturbing. A feeling that he’d been aware of more often in the last few days—ever since Felicity Stephens had crashed into his life, come to think of it. And, yes, ‘crashed’ was an appropriate word because it felt like something had been broken. The thing that had safely contained that feeling, perhaps?

  Anyway...it occurred to him now that, if he wanted to fix whatever had been damaged enough to release unwelcome feelings, it might be necessary to find a way to identify exactly what it was, so he thought about it briefly as he passed the sweep of where the main staircase began in line with the doors to the formal drawing room. It was an unsuccessful process, however, because the feeling was too nebulous. Like a fragment of dream being chased after you’d woken up and the closest impression Lachlan could c
atch was that it felt like seeing the missing thing you’d been searching for forever at the precise moment it was vanishing from sight around a corner.

  The happy part came from whatever it was that he’d caught sight of.

  The sad part was because it vanished again, leaving a bereft certainty that it could never be captured.

  He didn’t bother turning his head to look through the door into the formal dining room as he got to the point where the hallway narrowed as it led to the service areas of the house. He’d instinctively known that a meal with Flick at one end of the mahogany table that could seat twenty people would not have helped his quest in persuading her to stay and care for his mother. Tilly’s fabulous meal in the comfort of the kitchen, along with that Australian wine, had been perfect—not only because Flick had decided to stay—and that shepherd’s pie a couple of nights ago, even though it had been only the second meal he’d ever eaten either in the kitchen or with Flick, had made him feel as if he’d been doing it for ever.

  As if...

  As if there was a new dimension to what this heart of the house had to offer in the way of being homely.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ Flick said as he entered the kitchen. ‘You have a knack of arriving when dinner is ready.’

  Her welcoming smile only deepened the thought that was still lingering in Lachlan’s head. That he’d missed something along the way. That this genuinely was home and it had been a mistake to avoid it for so long. He’d eaten out in a prestigious, local restaurant last night with some of the senior doctors from both the Cheltenham Central and Gloucester General hospitals who had invited Lachlan to lead the plastic surgery component of the postgraduate training course being offered and it had been a delicious meal, but he was actually looking forward to Tilly’s cooking tonight even more. Like her roast chicken, perhaps?

  Or...

  ‘What is that?’ He stared at the dish on the table.

  ‘Asparagus quiche.’ Flick already had a segment on her plate and she was adding some salad. ‘Your mother requested a light dinner and agreed that keeping a food diary is a good incentive to make some healthy changes here and there.’ There was a twinkle in those astonishingly blue eyes that made it impossible not to smile at her. ‘Although what she actually said was more along the lines of, “I don’t suppose I can stop you if you’re so determined to be the food and calorie police”.’ Flick was grinning back at Lachlan. ‘Grab a plate. It smells great.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Lachlan headed for the cupboard but paused to lift the lid of a crockery bread bin to release the scent of a freshly baked loaf. He was smiling as he put the breadboard, loaf, knife and a big pat of butter onto the table but then he paused again, his smile fading.

  ‘You’re...um...wearing a uniform.’

  A smart uniform, he had to admit, with what seemed to be a very stylish kind of clinically white tunic with a side fastening of buttons and a softly curved V-neck that was outlined with a dark navy blue that matched her trousers.

  ‘I always do,’ Flick told him. ‘I hadn’t brought it with me when I came here because I packed in a hurry and I wasn’t sure I was going to take the position anyway but I’ve had some of my stuff sent from London so I can look more professional. Your mother approves. I would normally get changed before dinner but I got too hungry.’

  Lachlan approved as well because it seemed to signal that Flick was settling into the position and wasn’t about to disappear. For a moment, he was tempted to say something along the lines of how much he also approved of women in uniform but he bit that back, knowing how unwelcome it would be. He, too, needed to be professional, he reminded himself as he sat down at the end of the table. He couldn’t help another glance at Flick, however, as he sliced off a thick wedge of the bread.

  She had her hair scraped back into a ponytail that was clipped up to the back of her head but there were strands of those blonde waves that were clearly determined to escape and Flick pushed one of them back and tucked it behind her ear as if she was aware of his gaze. Not that she looked up from her plate but just watching that deft movement of her fingers and the odd notion that he could feel that touch himself was enough to make Lachlan search for a distraction.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked. ‘With my mother?’

  ‘I think our plan to test her BGL more often and take precise notes of any food intake is paying off. Her levels have been steadier than they have been for a while.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘On the other side of the equation, though, I’m not making much progress in the plan to get her exercising more. She hasn’t even come downstairs in the few days I’ve been here already and Tilly tells me she hasn’t set foot outside the house in months. And, before that, it was only to take the dog out. I offered to go with her, in case it brings on her asthma or angina, but she...um...wasn’t keen on that idea.’

  ‘Bit your head off, huh?’ Lachlan shook his head. ‘Dogs and biting. It’s what I’ve been talking about all day.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I had a session at a private hospital in Gloucester and one at Cheltenham Central this afternoon. It’s postgraduate surgical training that’s intended to incorporate plastic surgery techniques into other areas of paediatrics where applicable.’

  ‘But...dogs?’

  ‘Children are the main victims of dog attacks and the injuries can be horrendous. It’s not always possible to transfer them to a specialist paediatric trauma centre like my London base at St Bethel’s Hospital and, sometimes, the wounds aren’t serious enough to warrant that so advanced techniques in debridement and suturing are something all surgeons are keen on learning.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Flick was holding his gaze now, clearly interested in what he was telling her. Because this was a professional discussion and that gave her permission to let her guard down? Thank goodness he hadn’t made some stupid, flirtatious remark about how good she looked in her uniform. As if it made any difference, anyway. Flick would still look gorgeous if she was wearing a sack.

  Or nothing at all...

  Hastily, Lachlan dropped his gaze to his meal and focused on his food, Until he could sense a growing tension in the air. At least he knew how to defuse that now.

  ‘Dog bites are very challenging injuries for plastic surgeons,’ he told Flick. ‘And more than half the cases involve the face. A dog doesn’t just bite, either—it tends to clamp its jaws and then shake its head. A puncture wound can become a combination of crush, laceration and tear injuries, sometimes with a fracture to complicate things even further.’

  Flick’s eyes had widened. ‘Maybe I won’t suggest that we get your mother a new dog, then, to encourage her to exercise.’

  Lachlan laughed. ‘Our lovely old golden retrievers wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Brie was the last one and she got to the grand old age of seventeen. I don’t imagine her walks with my mother in recent times would have been exactly strenuous exercise.’ He ate a last bite of his quiche. ‘She used to be as fit as a fiddle. She was a competitive ballroom dancer in her youth.’

  ‘Oh...that explains the dresses.’

  ‘What dresses?’

  ‘In her wardrobe. I was putting her dressing gown away and one side of the wardrobe is full of amazing-looking dresses. I thought they must be ballgowns but now that I think about it, they were too short for that and it makes sense. Wow...she must have done a lot of dancing.’

  ‘She taught it. That was how she met my father. She came here to give him private lessons in the ballroom, apparently.’

  Flick’s jaw had dropped. ‘You have a ballroom?’

  ‘Have you not gone exploring?’

  She shook her head but then one side of her mouth curled into a hint of a cheeky grin. ‘I wanted to,’ she admitted, ‘but it felt a bit like snooping. And Tilly said that most of the house is shut up because it’s never used and it’s t
oo expensive to heat.’

  The idea that he could give Flick something that she’d just admitted she wanted was enough to make Lachlan feel inordinately pleased with himself.

  ‘Shut up, maybe, but it’s not locked up. Have you had enough to eat?’

  ‘Yes, thanks...why?’

  ‘I’ll give you the grand tour.’ Lachlan got to his feet.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Well, having a look at the gardens and the bluebell woods might need to wait for daylight but we have plenty of lights in the house. Unless you’ve got something else you’d rather be doing?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I’d love to.’

  Oh...that smile... It didn’t just light up a room. It made the entire world a brighter place. It made Lachlan believe that there was joy to be found in the most unexpected places. That simply being in Felicity Stephens’ company was a delight and that she would be up for all kinds of adventure. Fun with a capital F.

  He didn’t take her upstairs because that was mainly just bedrooms and bathrooms other than his mother’s larger suite that Flick was already familiar with. Going up to the old servants’ quarters in the attics would be fun but probably too dusty and potentially badly lit. There was more than enough to show her on the ground floor, anyway, like the formal dining room not far from the kitchen and then the enormous drawing room that had the conservatory at the other end.

  There was his father’s study that looked as if it hadn’t been touched since his death, the library with its leather armchairs and walls of books that actually had the original ladders needed to get to the higher shelves, the gallery with McKendry portraits that went back several hundred years, and finally the ballroom with its magnificent parquet flooring, ornate plaster ceiling and the wall of arched windows that looked out onto the terrace and gardens like the formal drawing room. The chandeliers still glittered despite probably more than a decade of gathered dust and the look on Flick’s face was one of absolute awe.