‘Good idea. He’s in between patients at the moment and your next one hasn’t turned up so you’ve been blessed with time to breathe.’
‘Thanks, Pam.’
Wondering how it was that she could feel so at home in a practice after only a week, Helen walked across the corridor to Oliver’s consulting room and tapped on the door.
She heard his deep voice tell her to enter but her hand paused on the door handle as she braced herself to face him. For the whole weekend all she’d been able to think about had been that kiss.
What if she’d lost the ability to work with him professionally?
Just as she was plucking up the courage to open the door, it was tugged open from the inside and Oliver stood there, his blue eyes questioning as they rested on her face.
‘Is something wrong?’
Her eyes dropped to his firm mouth and she forced herself to lift her gaze and look him in the eyes. Something flickered deep in his eyes and then he stood to one side to let her in.
‘I wanted to talk about a patient,’ she said quickly, just in case he thought she’d knocked on his door with something more personal in mind. ‘Someone called Howard Marks has asked to see me. Apparently he saw you last week. I just wondered if you could give me a bit of background.’
Oliver frowned and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Howard has asked to see you? I can’t imagine what for…’ He was silent for a moment and then shook his head. ‘No idea. He’s a very heavy smoker and he suffers from emphysema. He developed a chest infection over Christmas so I gave him antibiotics. I checked his chest last week and it was free of infection. End of story.’
‘That’s fine. I just wanted to check that there wasn’t anything I should know before I saw him.’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Howard is a great guy. He was a friend of my father’s—I’ve known him since I was tiny.’
‘Have you?’ Helen tilted her head to one side and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I wonder whether that’s why he wants to see me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’ She smiled and walked towards the door. ‘Just a thought, and I’m probably wrong anyway so it’s stupid to voice it. I’ll catch you later, Oliver.’
Suddenly she was breathlessly aware of his broad shoulders and the hard muscle of his thighs outlined by the soft fabric of his trousers. He had a powerful, very masculine physique and without too much effort on her part she could remember just how it had felt to be pressed close to his body.
And she needed to get herself away from his body as fast as possible so that she could somehow regain control of her mind.
Not daring to analyse what was happening to her, she hurried back to the sanctuary of her room and closed the door firmly behind her.
To begin with work had provided a distraction from David. Now it seemed to be providing a distraction from Oliver as well.
She pressed the buzzer to call her next patient and then smiled as a tall, pale-looking man walked into her room.
‘Mr Marks? I’m Helen Forrester. Please, have a seat.’
He closed the door carefully and sat down opposite her, his fingers playing nervously in his lap.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Marks?’
He shifted awkwardly in his chair and then ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘I have this thing called e
mphysema…’
Helen nodded. ‘Yes. I read your notes. How are you getting on?’
‘Well, not great, to be honest.’ He pulled a face. ‘I have to breathe in that blessed oxygen sixteen hours a day and then at Christmas I managed to catch something horrible and I was back in bed, coughing my guts up.’
‘But the antibiotics that Dr Hunter gave you cleared that up?’
‘Oh, ay.’ He nodded and glanced at her briefly before looking away again. ‘He’s a good doctor is young Oliver.’
Helen looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And you’ve known him all your life.’