LITMIR.BIZ

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘YOU aren’t taking this interview seriously, are you?’

      Robert blinked in astonishment. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      The girl sighed and rammed the long fingers of her right hand through once tidy mousy hair. Well, not really mousy. There were actually some rather beautiful gold lights lurking in it, he noted absently, just waiting for a stray sunbeam to bring them to life—

      ‘I’m just your statutory woman interviewee, aren’t I? Why can’t you admit it? I’m only here because you have to appear unbiased, but I can tell by your questions that you think I should be curled up somewhere behind a desk chatting to pregnant mothers and peering down children’s throats!’

      Robert shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat, embarrassed at being so easily read by the young woman in front of him.

      ‘Not at all,’ he demurred, but her fine dark brows shot up sceptically and he ‘sighed. ‘All right, perhaps a little. I’ve got nothing against women doctors; I think they’re a necessary—’

      ‘Evil?’ she supplied helpfully.

      He sighed. ‘I was going to say balance. The problem isn’t so much your gender as your physique. Orthopaedic surgery is physically demanding—’

      ‘So is general practice. The point is, I don’t want to do general practice, I want to do orthopaedics, and I want you to give me the chance.’

      Stubborn little cuss. Robert eyed her with fresh interest. ‘So what makes you think you’d be any good?’

      ‘I can spot fractures on X-ray plates that other people miss—’

      ‘So you can diagnose. But can you treat those fractures? Have you got the strength to reduce them, to realign the bones and reduce dislocations?’ He studied the slender hands lying on the edge of the desk, palms down, the long, fine fingers outspread as if she was ready to spring up and dash off. ‘Look at your hands. I doubt if you could even wring a chicken’s neck.’

      She smiled wryly. ‘I doubt if I could, but that’s probably because I’m vegetarian and nothing to do with brute force and ignorance.’

      ‘I never mentioned ignorance.’

      ‘You didn’t mention skill, either. Or patience and persistence. You need those too, and on that score I’m definitely your man—so to speak.’

      Robert was beginning to think that her patience and persistence would be the death of him. ‘What evidence have you got to support that extravagant claim?’ he asked drily.

      ‘I can do jigsaws,’ she told him.

      His jaw sagged slightly. Jigsaws? She could do jigsaws? He could play badminton, but it was hardly relevant—

      ‘You know, the double-sided baked bean variety that nobody has the patience for? I don’t give up. I persist until whatever I’m doing is done to my satisfaction. I’m a perfectionist, but I know how to compromise. I’m strong, I’m fit and I’m prepared to go to any lengths to do the job well. I won’t let you down.’

      ‘Won’t’, please note, not wouldn’t, he thought wearily. As if he’d offered her the job.

      ‘It’s physically punishing,’ he warned. ‘Long hours in Theatre, bending over shattered limbs, piecing them together—’

      ‘Like jigsaws. Exactly.’

      ‘Can you bang a nail in straight? Saw straight? Drill and screw with total accuracy?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said. Just like that, without any hesitation.

      ‘Yes?’ he pushed.

      ‘Yes. I’ve been practising. My brother’s got a Victorian house. I’ve been helping him do it up. I’m a dab hand with an electric drill, and I can hammer and chisel and paint in straight lines—’

      ‘How useful,’ he said drily.

      ‘Well, if I can paint in straight lines I can cut in straight lines, which might be relevant, I suppose?’ she replied, just as drily.

      He sighed. ‘Look, Ms—’

      ‘Bradley. Frances—Frankie, for preference—and it’s Miss but Dr will do. Please, Mr Ryder, give me a chance. I won’t let you down.’

      ‘Won’t’ again. Damn her. He rammed his own fingers through his own hair and sighed again. ‘Look, Dr Bradley, I won’t lie to you. I’ve seen another applicant who looks ideal—’

      ‘A man?’

      Robert groaned inwardly. ‘As it happens. As I was saying, I’ve seen him, he’s right for the job, and I was simply waiting until I’d interviewed you to offer it to him. He’s got more surgical experience than you—’

      ‘I can learn. I loved my time in surgery—check my references. I was good at it.’

      ‘Slow, it says. Good, but slow.’

      She swallowed, but, damn her, she didn’t give up. ‘That’s because I’m thorough. The SR I was working with missed a thrombosis in a mesenteric artery, and the patient would have died if I hadn’t pointed it out. He’d just removed her perfectly healthy appendix and said that must be the trouble, and some people didn’t know what pain was. He was so busy flirting with the scrub nurse they could have sewn up the rest of the surgical team inside the woman and not noticed. A loop of necrotic bowel was far too subtle!’

      He bent over her references again, cupping his chin in his hand and using his fingers to cover the little smile that wouldn’t be suppressed.

      ‘What if I gave you the chance and you couldn’t do the job in the end?’

      ‘You’d face that possibility with anyone,’ she said fairly. ‘I was good on fractures in my time in A and E, and God knows I saw enough of them. It frustrated me to bits not to be able to follow them up to Theatre and finish the job. What if you got someone whose only asset was his strength? What about the jigsaws?’

      He looked up at her again and her eyes trapped his, mesmerising him. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘As you haven’t met the other applicant I can’t see how you can make that judgement—’

      ‘I’m not making any judgements, just putting forward for instances.’ She leant towards him, resting on those long, elegant fingers, her energy vibrating

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