Chapter Two
Valentine’s Night
One Month Later – February
‘DAMN,’ I UTTERED WHEN I finally looked up from my computer to check the clock on the wall. There was a permanent reminder of the time on my Mac, but it never seemed to register, I always looked up at the clock on the wall. And, as usual, I was running late. We were having a singletons’ Valentine’s Day commiseration meal at Abbie’s tonight. I was really touched at how quickly the tight-knit threesome had welcomed me into their group.
I scurried over to my bedroom, grateful I’d laid my outfit out in advance, only to curse when I found Mrs. Tibbles curled up on top of it, kneading it with her claws as she purred.
‘Seriously, Tibbs? You can pick a sleeping spot anywhere in the house and you choose my favourite little black dress?’ I huffed. She barely opened her eyes to fix me with a disapproving look before closing them again. ‘Come on, off, I need to wear that. Seriously, Tibbs, shift it,’ I warned her. I ended up risking my hands, which I really ought to insure when I had to carry out dangerous pastimes like moving a sleeping Mrs. Tibbles, and quickly slid her off the dress and onto my duvet, only just retracting my hands as a warning swipe came at me. Why wasn’t there a “let sleeping cats lie” adage?” They were far more vicious than dogs when disturbed.
I dressed and put on some eyeliner, a touch of blusher, and lip-gloss in record time, then ran out of the bedroom, pulling on my high heels as I headed to the stairs. I should have known that wasn’t the greatest of plans with my luck. I winced as my ankle turned and I felt myself toppling forwards.
‘No,’ I shrieked, desperately trying to stop my descent by thrusting my hands out.
I landed with a thud and an “oomph,” a sharp pain radiating through my right wrist and cheekbone, before I slid head first down the stairs to the half landing and did an odd roly-poly onto my side. My entire body was trembling from the shock as dizziness and nausea hit me. Somehow, I managed to stand on my one foot that wasn’t throbbing, clutching my painful wrist to my chest. My vision swimming slightly, I stepped forwards, but missed the top step of the next flight and fell backwards, this time bouncing all the way to the bottom of the stairs, various expletives leaving my lips as my bottom and back took the brunt of each blow. I landed in a puddled heap in the hallway and lay there for a few minutes, slightly dazed, closing my eyes as I tried to work out which part of my body hurt the most. A meow and whiff of fishy cat breath forced me to open my eyes to find Mrs. Tibbles had come to check on me, and was currently licking all of the blusher off my right cheek.
‘Thanks, Tibbs,’ I uttered. I managed to get myself up to a seated position, and knowing I was still too dizzy to even attempt standing, I did a slow bum shuffle across the hall to reach for the phone. I needed medical attention. I had a horrible feeling I’d broken my wrist, and my ankle wasn’t feeling too great either, not to mention all of the bruises I was going to have. I called for an ambulance, not wanting to ruin any of my friends’ evening, and just sat with my back against the front door as Mrs. Tibbles rubbed herself against me, leaving a trail of cat hair all over my dress. ‘Now you’re in a loving mood,’ I sighed, as I used my good hand to tickle under her chin, wondering why she always picked the worst moments to show her affection for me. I closed my eyes to focus on anything but the pain I was in and to stop the room from spinning.
I felt like I’d been waiting forever for the ambulance to come when the shrill ring of my home phone sitting in my lap roused me from my attempts at meditating the pain away. Turns out I needed to add sucking at meditation to my sucking list, which sounded a lot ruder than it actually was when I said it to myself. To date, it had only ever had cooking on it, but now it had a companion.
I picked up the phone and winced as I answered it, my shoulder blades screaming at me to stop moving.
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger,’ I moaned.
‘Well, that’s a new way to answer the phone,’ Abbie said with a laugh. ‘Is that how you used to do it down in the Cotswolds?’
‘Sorry, Abbie, I’m in pain. I stupidly decided to try and ski down the stairs, and now I’m waiting for an ambulance. My wrist is killing me.’
‘You skied down the stairs? My God. In salopettes, goggles, and everything? Eddie the Eagle style?’
‘No,’ I laughed, the movement making me wince again. ‘I was being sarcastic. I was rushing, as usual, and slid down them rather ungracefully, with language that Daphne would probably have given me one of her stern headmistress stares for.’
‘And you rang an ambulance? You could have just called me.’
‘You’re busy cooking for Daphne and Georgie, I didn’t want to bother you. I was going to call you before the ambulance got here.’
‘Actually, neither of them are coming for dinner now, they had better offers, but Heath’s here.’
‘Oooh, the sexy gardener I’ve yet to meet?’ That perked up my spirits. I’d heard nothing but good reports about him. Maybe I’d be back from the hospital in time to check him out and have a late dinner.
‘The one and only, and I was thinking it would be a great night to set the two of you up.’
‘I thought he liked you?’
‘Once maybe, but that was ages ago. Are you really ok? I can come and wait with you.’
‘I’ll be fine, trust me. I’ve yet to fill you in on my list of medical disasters. This is nothing.’
‘The ambulance has just gone past. I’ll come to the hospital to sit with you.’
‘Abbie, honestly, I’ll be fine. Enjoy your night with Heath. Don’t ruin his evening just because I’m a klutz.’
‘Will you message me later, let me know how you’re getting on then?’
‘As soon as I can, I’ll send you an update. Sorry to let you down,’ I grimaced.
‘Take care, Charlie.’
‘You too, have fun with Heath!’ I called before hanging up. Typical. My timing just sucked.
‘Charlie Faulkner?’ The deep male voice saying my name soothed me. It felt like I’d been sitting there for hours, and for once my imagination actually matched reality. As I took a frustrated look at the clock above the accident and emergency reception desk, I noticed I’d been sitting here in agony on a hard, plastic chair for over five hours. Last time I’d checked, it was one a.m. and I was surrounded by drunks and people with an array of gross injuries that they seemed only too willing to share with me in graphic detail, complete with visuals. I obviously had a “come share with me” face tonight, hence the reason for closing my eyes in the hope they’d leave me in peace. ‘Charlie Faulkner, please,’ the voice repeated with a hint of frustration.
‘Here,’ I called as I raised my left hand, an automatic reflex to the school register name calling, and snapped my eyes open when it dawned on me that it might finally be my turn.
‘Follow me, please.’
‘Hmmm,’ I murmured, as I drank in the exceedingly handsome man in scrubs standing at the entrance to the assessment bays with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. Wow. Now there was a man I’d get whiplash from ogling if he walked past me in the street. With his mocha brown hair, sparkling green eyes, and utterly kissable lips, combined with a dark and broody aura, he reminded me of my go-to muse for the heroes in my novels, Brazilian model Pedro Soltz. I licked my lower lip as my eyelashes automatically started to flirt with him. I had no control over them when a hot guy was around. Automatic batting.
‘Are you coming?’ he asked.
‘If only,’ I sighed, images of us frantically tearing at each other’s clothes under the X-ray machine playing in my mind while I forced myself up and tried to sexily slink my way over to him. It didn’t really work with a gammy foot and no high heels. At a mere five-foot-four, I needed my heels with a tall, swoon-worthy doctor. Instead, I hobbled over, my usual sassy and sexy sway more a limp akin to the hunchback of Notre Dame.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked as he blinked a few times, his annoying “immune to Charlie’s sex appeal” shield up and deflecting my charm offensive.
‘I said “very slowly,”’ I replied with a smile, forgetting about my bruised cheek and ending the smile with a stretched-out, high-pitched “argh” as the pain kicked in. Jesus, I sounded like Mrs. Tibbles in the moments before she coughed and vomited a fur ball onto the floor.
‘Do you need a wheelchair?’
‘Not unless you’re planning on giving me a good workout,’ I replied, seeing the name Dr. Guy Fitton on his name badge.
‘Workout?’ he asked, his handsome face still deadly serious.
‘That corridor looks like it goes on for miles, so it depends on how far you plan on making me walk as to whether I need a wheelchair.’
‘Oh right, just in this first bay please,’ he said flatly. Hmmm, hotness factor ten, sense of humour zero. That ruined his appeal a bit, regardless of him ranking up there in my all-time hot fantasy list. Who didn’t have dreams about romance blossoming with a sexy and obviously intelligent doctor? He just exuded alpha-male as he stood there in his scrubs with that serious face.
‘Do doctors normally perform triage?’ I asked as I headed inside and he followed.
‘Not normally, no,’ he replied, sounding surprised that I knew the term. Sadly, it wasn’t my first visit to the A&E department. I was fairly confident I could accurately assess most patients’ injuries, my medical knowledge was so extensive. ‘We’re short-handed tonight. The paramedics noted on your file that you weren’t in need of critical care, with no open wounds, so I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting a long time. I see your main concern is your right wrist and right ankle. Please take a seat and tell me what happened, then describe your pain for me.’ He spoke quickly, like most A&E personnel did due to having too many people to attend to, which in my experience often led to a less-than-desirable bedside manner, regardless of great physical care.
I kept my gaze on his face as I spoke and talked him through what had happened, but he kept those gorgeous eyes out of view as he made notes and nodded from time to time, interrupting me with the odd question. I gasped as he gently started touching and examining my hand. I’d written about it so many times, but I’d never experienced that elusive crackle when you supposedly touched your soul mate. It happened again when he crouched in front of me and lifted my foot up, placing it on his knee as he checked it. My mouth drained of saliva, a wave of sexual need flooding my body as I willed him to look up at me and say something in that posh public schoolboy accent of his. Damn, did I have the hots for Dr. Fitton.
‘… so I think that would be best,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, what was that? I was distracted.’ By your firm thighs and that dark hair on your forearm, nicely set off by a masculine watch. Men’s hands and a nice watch always did it for me.
‘I’m sending you for X-rays, in case of any breaks. I’ll go and call for a porter and a wheelchair as it’s a long walk.’ He spun on his heel and headed out of the bay, bumping into another hot male doctor with blond hair and the most stunning blue eyes.
‘Wow, it’s like I’m in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy right now. Do they employ any non-sexy doctors?’ I murmured as I watched them talk, and Dr. Fitton’s serious face relaxed as he laughed and slapped the other doctor on the back. I cocked my head to scan him from head to toe, more than liking what I was seeing. I blushed as his friend caught me staring and smiled at me, before making his excuses and disappearing in one direction, Dr. Fitton the other.
Another hour and a half later, I was back in a room with him as he brought up my X-rays on the wall-mounted computer screen.
‘Hmmm,’ he nodded as he studied them.
‘Hmmm?’ I questioned, as I checked out his high and tight backside.
‘No sign of any break or fracture on your ankle, likely a bad sprain. We’ll get it strapped up and give you some crutches until you can put weight on it. Now the wrist, I can’t be one hundred percent sure due to the extensive swelling, so I’ll have you put in a cast to be on the safe side.’
‘A cast?’ I gasped in horror. ‘But I’m an author, I need my hands.’
‘You might still be able to type and write, but it will hamper your efforts, I’m afraid. Right, I’ll send someone in to sort you out, but I’m discharging you as soon as you’re done. You’ll get a letter to come back to the clinic when it’s time to remove the cast and re-check your X-ray in around four weeks, and we’ll decide if we need to do anything else then.’
Before I had a chance to ask him any more questions, he was gone, leaving a waft of seductive aftershave in his wake, and me with a newly awakened sense of longing for a man. I sighed at both my predicament and the sudden loss of my new sexual fantasy.
‘Just up here,’ I told the driver of the ambulance, pointing to where Church Lane branched off to the right to run down past Abbie, Daphne, and Georgie’s cottages to mine.
In my haste to leave the house when the ambulance arrived, I’d forgotten my wallet and phone, which made calling someone for a lift or arranging a taxi all the more awkward. I was in luck that the ambulance crew who brought me in were about to head out on a non-emergency call to a house the next village over and were able to give me a lift home.
‘For the love of God,’ exclaimed the driver as he slammed on the brakes, all of us jerking forwards and my muscles screaming their protest. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Ermmm, that would be my neighbour Georgie, in an embarrassing Dalmatian onesie.’ I giggled as I looked up to see her standing in the lane with her paws in the air. For a woman who took as much pride in her appearance as Georgie did, always looking immaculately groomed, I could only imagine how embarrassing it was for her to be seen in that outfit without her staple mascara on.
I thanked the paramedics for the lift and for helping me out of the ambulance, and tried to hop on my good foot and single crutch up to Abbie’s gate to find out why Georgie was out here at this time in the morning. We all loved our lie-ins.
‘My God, what have you done?’ Georgie asked, her impossibly blue, Indian Ocean-hued eyes wide with surprise.
‘Being my usual accident-prone self. Sprained ankle and a possible fractured wrist. What on earth are you doing up at this time?’ I asked.
‘You’ve missed all of the drama. Abbie and Heath got drunk and he slept on the sofa, but answered the door in just his boxers when Miller turned up. Miller got the wrong end of the stick, punched him, had an argument with Abbie, and left,’ she told me, gesticulating wildly as she did. ‘Come on in. Daphne’s inside and Abbie’s going to cook breakfast for us all.’
‘That sounds so good,’ I groaned. I was starving, having missed my meal last night.
‘Here, link arms with me, you don’t look too stable teetering on that one leg like a new-born flamingo.’
We made it into Abbie’s kitchen in one piece, and Daphne and Georgie helped me into a chair, then sat down to grill me further when Abbie walked in and gasped.
‘Charlie, are you ok?’
‘You should see the other guy!’ I teased her with a wink.
‘Is it broken?’
‘It was too swollen to be sure if it was fractured, so I’ll have to wear this for a while, but enough of the injury talk. I think I’m in love,’ I stated with a happy grin as I thought of Dr. Fitton. ‘I met the hottest doctor ever at accident and emergency.’
‘Tyler Jackson,’ Georgie and Abbie sighed in unison.
‘Who’s Tyler Jackson?’ I asked. ‘This was Dr. Fitton, and my God, he really was a fit one. If I hadn’t got my hand in this damn cast, I’d be tapping out a whole new “sexy ER doctor” novel about him on my MacBook right now!’
‘Damn it,’ Abbie moaned, as she pulled some mugs off the shelf and put them on the kitchen island. ‘I was going to set you up with Heath, Daphne’s nephew.’
‘Oh, Charlie, he’s looking super hot today, all buff and toned,’ Georgie nodded, making her little Dalmatian ears waggle. ‘Sorry, Daphne, is this grossing you out?’
‘No, but that is,’ she retorted, pulling a face as she pointed at the kitchen doorway. Everyone’s jaws went slack as we looked over. Standing in a black t-shirt, so small that it exposed his toned stomach and nearly cut off the circulation in his arms as it tried to stretch around his biceps, was who I could only assume to be Heath. Even with the silver words “Textually Active” on his extremely unmanly top, there was no denying he was hot, but it was far too late for me to even think about finding him attractive. My head was already full of Dr. Fitton.
‘I swear, if you breathe a word of this, I’ll make up gossip about you all and feed it to Sheila Vickers.’ Everyone burst out laughing as he pointed at us and gave us a warning scowl. I’d already had the honour of meeting the local shopkeeper, who was definitely a few biscuits short of a packet.
Abbie handed over the coffees and started rummaging in the fridge for breakfast supplies as Heath joined us at the table and we were introduced. Even at this ridiculous hour, everyone was on fine form, the laughter around the table warming my heart. This was what I’d been missing by being so insular back in Cheltenham. No one spoke to each other there. I had no idea what my neighbours were called, what they did, or any of their life story. Dilbury was the complete opposite and I liked it. No, like was too tame a word for how settled and at home I felt here. I loved it.
A loud fart rang out an impending stench warning. I gagged and hauled my top up to cover the lower part of my face, Georgie and Daphne doing the same, while Heath smothered his nose with his hands.
‘Sumo!’ everyone moaned, then started laughing. Abbie’s old bulldog was known for his flatulence. Thank goodness Mrs. Tibbles didn’t have that problem.
By the time Heath helped me into my house, and insisted on feeding Mrs. Tibbles before seeing me upstairs to my bedroom, I was exhausted.
I curled up in bed, a hot water bottle comforting my bruised lower back, and smiled as Mrs. Tibbles came to curl up next to me, pulling a face of distaste as she licked my plaster cast. I gave her a scratch behind the ears with my good hand and finally closed my eyes.
I planned on sleeping the day away and ringing Kitt for another pizza delivery. I was traumatised and had a cast that restricted my cooking ability, after all.
My dreams were filled with the hot doctor, giving me lots of material for a sexy new book, which I planned to start tapping out as soon as this cast was off.