Her Consultant Boss
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Joanna Neil
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Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
‘JENNY, have you seen my medical bag? I can’t find it anywhere, but I was sure I put it down somewhere in here.’ Megan looked around the room distractedly, harassed and in a hurry. ‘I’m running late, but I know I’m going to need it, and the last thing I want to do is to start off badly today of all days.’
On her first morning in a new job she couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong, could she? Things were going to be difficult enough for her as it was, starting work in a hospital that was strange to her, and with a boss she had never met before, without her turning up late as well on her first day.
Jenny had been buttering toast, but now she frowned and wiped her hands on a teatowel, looking around the breakfast chaos of the small, usually neat kitchen. ‘I thought I saw it on the Welsh dresser just a moment ago.’ Her brows met in a tiny furrowed line, and she turned to look at her small son, Ben. ‘Have you seen Megan’s medical bag, Ben?’
Three-year-old Ben didn’t answer. He was sitting at the table, preoccupied with his breakfast, taking no notice of anything that was going on around him. His set of toy dinosaurs was lined up on the breakfast table, nose to tail, but he wasn’t playing with them. He was engrossed with eating toast fingers and he didn’t even look up when his mother spoke to him. That was a little bit odd, Megan thought, but that was the way Ben was, and perhaps he was simply absorbed in what he was doing.
‘Gone.’ Josh, just two years old, eighteen months younger than his brother, his mouth smeared with strawberry jam, looked up and pointed a sticky, chubby finger towards the dresser. ‘Ben hided it.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Jenny shook her head and sighed. ‘I might have guessed. I can see that it’s going to be one of those days.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ll go and look in the cupboard—that’s where I usually find things that have strangely disappeared.’
Megan went and sat down at the table opposite Ben. She smiled at him, watching the way he lined up the toast soldiers across his plate. He was totally absorbed in what he was doing, the tip of his tongue protruding slightly from his pink lips as he concentrated.
‘Are you making a pattern?’ Megan asked. ‘Perhaps we could make something together when I get home from work. I’ll show you how to cut bits of coloured paper and how to make patterns with them if you like.’
She wasn’t sure that Ben had heard her. He didn’t look up at her and he didn’t answer, and just then Jenny came back, holding the briefcase.
‘Here you are. I found it in the cupboard, just as we thought. I’m sorry about that, Megan. I don’t know what gets into his head sometimes, but he’s always hiding things away. I’ve no idea why he does it.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Megan said, relieved that it had been found. ‘I’m sure he was just playing.’
She gave her sister a quick, concerned look. Jenny was thinner than she ought to be, the strain of the last few weeks showing on her delicate features. Her chestnut-coloured hair tumbled in dark, wispy strands around her face, making her look more than usually pale this morning. Her blue eyes were troubled, giving her a haunted look, and that worried Megan.
Mindful of her need to get to work on time, she still hesitated, wondering if there was anything she could do to make Jenny feel better.
‘Will you be all right today?’ she asked. ‘You look weary this morning. Have you still not had a good night’s sleep?’
‘Not really.’ Jenny didn’t say any more, and Megan searched her face for clues as to what she was thinking.
‘I wish I could stay and keep you company, or do something to help. We could meet up at lunchtime, if you like, and spend some time together.’ She felt sure that it would help if Jenny was able to talk her problems through, but instead she mostly kept things bottled up inside and tried to stoically get on with her life.
‘No, there’s no need for you to do that,’ she said now. ‘I’ll be fine. Josh had a difficult night, that’s all, wanting to come into my bed again, and that always makes me feel tired in the morning. You’d think he had eight legs the way he wriggles about. Anyway, you have enough things on your mind.’
She began to gather up the breakfast dishes from the table. ‘The first day in your new job, you don’t want be thinking about us. You have your own problems to concentrate on. Anyway, you’ve done so much for us, as it is, just being here and helping out, and I know it hasn’t been easy for you, with everything being so cramped here. We’ll manage. I’m just glad that you were able to move up here to be near to us. It’s been a great comfort to me, just knowing that you are close by.’
Megan squeezed her hand. ‘I’m glad about that—that’s why I’m here after all. And as to it being cramped here, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy with me moving in. It was never going to be for more than a few weeks, and it won’t be long before I find a place of my own.’
Jenny’s face clouded, perhaps because she had mentioned moving out. Jenny had needed her, still needed her, and Megan wanted to do what she could to help. That was the main reason why she had left the Midlands and come to Wales—apart from wanting to get back to her roots.
‘I know things have been difficult for you lately, with Tom taking off suddenly, but I’m sure he’ll come back. He probably just needs time to himself to think things through. And in the meantime, I shall be here for you. Even when I move out, I’ll still be close by and I’ll be able to help you get through this. I’m here for a six-month placing at the hospital, and after that finishes, I’ll look for something local. Things will get better, you know.’
‘Maybe.’ Jenny tried a weak smile and then made an effort to pull herself together, starting to pile crockery into the sink.
Megan blinked at the clatter and glanced at her watch. ‘Heavens, I must get a move on. I have no idea what this new boss is going to be like, but he won’t think very much of me if I arrive half an hour after everyone else.’
‘Good luck, Megan,’ Jenny said. ‘I hope everything goes well for you.’
‘Thanks.’ With a sudden quiver of uncertainty, she asked, ‘Do I look all right? Will I do?’
Jenny gave her a swift, appraising look. ‘You look wonderful. I like your hair done up like that. I just wish I had your figure and your sense of style. Whatever you wear looks good on you, and I’ve always thought that colour suited you. It’s a lovely soft peach, and the skirt fits you like a glove.’
Megan absently brushed a hand over her skirt. She hoped the length was about right. It just skimmed her knees, and she worried a little in case it showed off too much of her long legs. Still, she did feel good in this colour, it was gentle and cheerful, and the skirt, she thought, teamed well with the soft cashmere sweater.
She pulled in a quick breath. ‘I’d better go.’
She bent down to kiss Ben and received a jammy hug from Josh, and then she waved a quick goodbye to Jenny. ‘I’ll see you later. Give me a ring if you change your mind about lunch.’
‘I shan’t. I’ll take the children to the park. Off you go, and stop worrying about me. I’ll be just fine.’
Megan doubted that, but she went out and started up her car. It was a ten-minute or so drive to the hospital in the centre of town, provided that there were no traffic problems.
She tried to relax and drink in the scenery of rolling green hills and distant mountains along the way. Jenny lived in a pretty little fishing village fairly close to a small harbour, a peaceful and picturesque landscape that added to her feeling that it had been a good move, coming to work in this place.
Megan arrived at the hospital a few minutes later and parked the car in the nearest available spot in the car park. Looking up at the sprawling red-brick building, she pulled in a deep breath to calm herself in preparation for the day ahead, then walked in through the main entrance.
She had been here just once before, on the day of her interview, and now, as then, she was overwhelmed by the alarming wealth of passageways and the confusing maze of clinical buildings and wards and operating theatres and administrative offices. She floundered for a while, taking a couple of wrong turnings, before she finally found her way to the annexe where she was to be working for the next few months.
The unit was housed on the third floor of the building, an impressively clean and bright part of the hospital where patients were welcomed into a room furnished cheerfully with attractively upholstered seating, and low tables filled with magazines and decorated with the occasional potted plant. There was a television in the corner of the room and one or two patients were watching an episode of a talk show as they waited to see a doctor. At the far side of the room there was a fish tank, carefully set out with coloured gravel, a diving bell and an assortment of rocks and green underwater ferns.
She looked around her, wondering where to go next. A corridor led away from the waiting room, and there were half a dozen doors, which presumably opened up into surgeries along the way.
‘Are you new around here?’ A young man—DR WILL SANDERSON, REGISTRAR, she gathered from the label on his white coat—was looking at her quizzically. ‘I guess you’re not a patient, or you would have gone to Reception.’ He glanced over at the desk where nurses and clerks were talking amiably.
‘No, you’re quite right,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Dr Sam Benedict’s room. I’m supposed to be at a meeting, but I got lost.’
‘Ah.’ Dr Sanderson smiled knowingly. ‘You must be one of the new members of his team. You’ll find him along the corridor, just straight ahead. You can’t miss it—his name’s on the door.’
‘Thank you.’ Megan gave him a grateful smile and sped along the corridor.
Pausing to get herself together, she knocked briefly on the door and heard a murmured voice telling her to come in.
Pushing open the door, she looked into the room. Four people were in there—three men and a woman—seated around a table. They all turned to look at her as she walked in, the woman, an attractive blonde, assessing her with cool green eyes.
It was one of the men who held Megan’s attention, though. Even seated, as he was, she guessed that he would be tall. He was at least a head higher than the others, with broad shoulders outlined by the expensive cut of his grey suit. His jet-black hair was cut short to frame a face that was strong-boned, and his features were well defined, his nose straight, the jaw firm and his mouth pleasingly moulded.
His glance flicked over her, taking in her appearance from head to toe.
She couldn’t tell whether he approved or not. He said in a deep, gravelly voice, ‘You must be Dr Llewellyn.’
Megan nodded, all too conscious of several pairs of eyes watching her. ‘That’s right. I’m so sorry that I’m late, but I got a little lost.’
The slant of his mouth didn’t soften by a fraction. ‘I’m relieved that you managed to join us in the end.’
He waved a hand to one side of the table. ‘Take a seat. We’ve already made a start, so I’ll update you when the meeting finishes.’
She attempted a weak smile, but said nothing, fearful of disturbing the proceedings any further. She edged her way into the vacant chair.
Dr Benedict continued as if there had been no disruption. ‘You will each have your own quota of patients,’ he told them, ‘and you will report back to me at some point during each day. If there are any queries that you want to raise at that time, just let me know and we’ll discuss any problems that you have.’
‘How will the patients be allocated?’ the blonde woman doctor enquired in a lilting voice. ‘Are we allowed to choose which ones will be on our list?’
‘To some extent,’ Dr Benedict agreed. ‘For the moment, though, I think it might work out for the best if you start with patients that I have chosen for you. After a week or so you’ll have some say in which cases you want to handle, although I may decide that certain patients would benefit from being with a particular doctor. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave that to my judgement for the time being.’
The woman gave him a beautiful smile. ‘Of course.’
Megan watched as Dr Benedict responded with a brief curve of his mouth. His whole face changed, lightened. He was a very good-looking man, and younger than she had expected. She guessed he was in his mid-thirties, and if that was the case, he had done very well to reach the position of consultant at such an early age.
He clearly got on well with the young woman seated next to him. From what she had observed so far, he listened to her and appeared to respect her point of view.
It wasn’t very likely that he would give her the same treatment, Megan mused dully. His manner had been polite enough on the surface, but there had been a hint of censure in his tone and she had the unhappy feeling that she had well and truly blotted her copybook. Turning up late, albeit only by a few minutes, had definitely been a bad move.
The meeting continued, with Sam Benedict outlining the way the psychiatric unit operated. Patients were referred here by their GPs for initial assessment, and the team, working with Dr Benedict, would decide what treatment would help them best.
‘We deal with people who might sometimes have what appear to be obscure symptoms,’ he said, ‘but it’s vital that you always take a full medical history—and try to remember that one of your best diagnostic tools is simply to listen.’
That was very much what Megan had always believed. So much could be missed by not giving the patient a chance to talk. She had come across examples herself, several times, when she had been working through her six-month house officer placings.
There had been the woman who had complained of an odd assortment of aches and pains and headaches, and she might have been treated for a simple viral infection until she’d happened to add that she worked with chemical substances. It had turned out that it had been those that had been affecting her.
Then there was the man who—
A sardonic, dark-edged voice broke into her errant thoughts. ‘Are we boring you, Dr Llewellyn?’
Megan came back to the present with a start. She stared wide-eyed at Dr Benedict and said in a flustered tone, ‘I—I’m sorry… Did I miss something?’
‘I was asking,’ he said in a low drawl, ‘whether there were any questions you wanted to ask.’
‘Er—um…none that I can think of at the moment,’ she managed weakly. She didn’t doubt there were bound to be a whole load of things she wanted to know once she got her brain back together again, by which time it would be way too late.
His mouth made a taut line. He turned back to the group. ‘Then I think that’s all I want say for the moment,’ he said briskly. ‘I suggest that you take the next hour or so to glance through your patients’ files and familiarise yourself with them. This afternoon we’ll do a ward round and you can help each other out with possible diagnoses. Tomorrow we shall be running a clinic and you will be assigned to work with either myself or Dr Sanderson.’
He gave a brief smile. ‘Thank you, everyone, for your time and your…attention.’ He flicked a glance towards Megan. ‘Perhaps you’ll be good enough to stay behind for a few moments, Dr Llewellyn.’
‘Of course.’ She winced inwardly. Was she in trouble? She hadn’t exactly made a good start.
The others filed slowly out of the room, picking up folders of case notes that had been allocated to them as they went.
Megan waited until the room was empty before she said in a halting tone, ‘I must apologise again for arriving late. It’s just that I’ve only been here once before and everything seemed so strange. It’s such a huge building and the signs aren’t all that easy to follow.’
His grey eyes narrowed. ‘Lucky for us, then, that the patients seem to know where to come,’ he remarked dismissively, and instantly Megan felt chastened.
She cleared her throat. ‘You said that you wanted to see me?’ she queried, lifting her chin and deciding that she had done enough apologising for one day. Flyaway strands of her hair, defying her attempts to tame it with pins, drifted with the movement, and he shot her a dark glance. Perhaps the sun, filtering in through the window blinds, had caught the tawny strands and condemned her even more in his eyes. That auburn, fiery tint often reflected the underlying obstinacy of her nature that could one day be her undoing.
‘That’s right. I do.’ He came to half sit, half lean on the table by her side, and his proximity alarmed her momentarily. She felt dwarfed by him. He was tall, just as she’d expected. His legs were long, and as he stretched them out beside her she could see the fabric of his trousers stretching against taut thighs. She blinked and tried to clear the sudden heat haze that fogged her mind. Get a grip, Megan, she told herself. He already thinks you’re an idiot, without you giving him any more cause for complaint.
‘We haven’t had a chance to meet before today,’ he was saying, ‘because, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to interview you myself.’
She noted that he put a faint emphasis on the word ‘unfortunately’. He was obviously regretting that omission already.
‘I had to go to an emergency meeting that afternoon,’ he went on, ‘and I had to ask a colleague to take my place. As I recall, you weren’t able to make the journey a second time.’ He studied her. ‘All of which means, of course, that I know very little about you except what is in your references and my colleague’s report.’
‘What is it that you want to know?’ Megan asked.
His eyes lanced into her, but revealed nothing of what he was thinking. They were as dark and unfathomable as the North Sea. ‘You were doing a house officer job in the Midlands—what was it that made you want come up here? And why did you choose psychiatry? As far as I can gather, you haven’t had any experience in that field up to now.’
‘My last house officer stint was in paediatrics, which I love,’ she explained, ‘but I wanted to widen my experience. I wanted to know more about psychiatry, and I thought there might also be the possibility of my working with children, here in Wales.’
‘We do have a paediatric unit, that’s true, and I’m sure you’ll find yourself working with children some of the time. I must say, though, that I’m not altogether sure that you will be suited to this kind of work. I’ve seen nothing in your background that suggests that you have any interest in it. You’ve studied accident and emergency, obstetrics, general medicine, but nothing so far that points to a leaning towards psychiatry. Is it possible that you are thinking of changing course at some point and training as a GP?’
‘Up to now,’ Megan said huskily, brushing an invisible speck from her skirt, ‘I have concentrated on becoming a hospital doctor. I don’t know whether I would change my mind and want to work in general practice.’
His glance followed the movement of her hand and slid down to dwell on the shapely curve of her legs. He looked away and then stood up abruptly. ‘You might find it better to think ahead and come to a decision about which branch of medicine you want to specialise in. It won’t do your career any good if you flit about.’
She cleared her throat. ‘You’re right, of course, but at the moment I see nothing wrong in widening my areas of expertise. That way, when I finally decide what I want to do, I’ll know that I’ve made the right choice in the end.’
‘Perhaps.’ He looked at her thoughtfully, and then walked over to the coffee-machine that stood on a shelf in a corner of the room and started to fill a mug. He glanced across at her. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? The others had some earlier.’
‘Thank you, yes, I would.’ She realised suddenly that she was parched. Nervous anxiety was drying her throat and perhaps it showed in her voice. Maybe that was why he had made the offer.
‘Do you have family here in Wales?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. I have a sister who lives not far from here. I’ve been staying with her for a week or so while I look for a place of my own.’
‘What about the rest of your family? Do your parents live around here?’
‘My mother lives in central Wales, so I should be able to see her on a fairly regular basis.’
She was too far away to be able to help Jenny as much as she would have liked, and Megan knew that her mother was relying on her to do what she could for her younger daughter while she was going through trying times.
He handed her a cup of coffee. ‘Help yourself to cream and sugar.’ He stirred his own coffee carefully, with deliberation. ‘You say that you’re looking for a place of your own—haven’t your arrangements with your sister worked out?’
‘They’ve worked perfectly well,’ she answered coolly. Was he determined to look for faults? ‘It’s just that she only has a small house and things are rather crowded, since she has two children, my nephews, living there as well, and I don’t want to be under her feet for any longer than necessary. That’s why I’m looking for a place of my own, one that is fairly close by. It would have to be near to the hospital as well, of course.’
‘Of course—if only to ensure that you get here on time,’ he murmured.
Megan felt a flush of pink colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Well, yes, that too, it goes without saying. I’ve made enquiries at various agencies, but so far they haven’t come up with anything that fits the bill.’
He was thoughtful for a moment, and then said, ‘It depends what you’re looking for, of course, but I do know of a place that might suit you. It’s about half a mile from here, a one-bedroomed flat, in a house that has been split into four self-contained units. Some work was being done on it, but I think it might be available soon if you want to go and have a look at it.’
She nodded. ‘I would, yes.’ She was surprised that he was taking an interest, but, then, he had pointed out an ulterior motive, hadn’t he? It wasn’t far from the hospital and that would ensure her being on time. ‘Who do I have to see about keys?’
‘Go down to the hospital’s accommodation office, and Mrs Carter will sort things out for you. She’s the one who sees to arrangements of that sort.’
‘Thank you. I will.’
He looked at her sharply. ‘Don’t thank me. I simply want to be sure that you have no excuse not to do your job properly. I already have misgivings about accepting my colleague’s judgement where you’re concerned. It was only that your qualifications and your references seemed to justify his faith in you. Make sure that you don’t let him down.’
Sparks flared in her blue eyes. ‘I won’t.’ The insinuation that she might do less than her best annoyed her. ‘I always work to the best of my ability.’
‘Let’s hope so. I shall be watching you, Dr Llewellyn.’
She had no doubts about that, and she winced inwardly once more at the prospect. He’d made it plain enough that he would be a thorn in her side for the next six months!
