Free Partners by Contract by Kim Lawrence Page B

Stopping it was, she discovered, another thing entirely.
    Connor continued to study her with an infuriatingly enigmatic expression.
    ‘I don’t recall you having such a big problem with authority, Phoebe...’
    ‘I haven’t got a problem with authority, I’ve a problem with you!’ she admitted miserably.
    Trying to maintain a semblance of composure in the face of the worryingly alert expression in Connor’s spectacular eyes, Phoebe would happily have given a month’s salary to retract the revealing comment he’d provoked her into unwisely making.
    Connor’s husky voice broke the lengthening silence. ‘Now why should that be?’ There was something perilouslyclose to smugness about the almost smile that tugged at the corners of his firm lips.
    Like he didn’t know! Damn, Connor, damn his relentless persistence. Wishing madly she hadn’t injected the personal note, Phoebe tried to retrieve the situation.
    ‘Who complained?’
    ‘Lyn Proctor.’
    Phoebe sighed. That figured. She’d been angry when she’d discovered in the ambulance on the way to the hospital that Lyn Proctor hadn’t given her son any of the antibiotics Phoebe had prescribed for what had at the time been a simple chest infection. She had tried to be restrained when telling the woman that her actions had placed her son in serious danger, but maybe she’d not succeeded.
    ‘She rang me at home from the hospital and told me she’d found your behaviour threatening and rude.’
    ‘And what did you tell her?’
    ‘I made soothing noises...’
    ‘Something about my inexperience...’ she speculated bitterly.
    ‘Then I told her you were an excellent doctor, and you had my total trust.’ There was no evasion in his direct, clear-eyed gaze.
    Phoebe’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh!’ She blinked away the moisture that threatened to spill from her eyes. Connor’s good opinion meant more to her than she cared to admit.
    ‘You were always good with people, you put them at their ease...’
    ‘Except Mrs Proctor.’
    Connor smiled. ‘Except for Mrs Proctor,’ he conceded. ‘You always wanted general practice, didn’t you? I’m just surprised you’re not already a partner somewhere...’
    Phoebe, aware that she’d already had the opportunity to fill him in on what she’d been doing over the last fewyears, avoided the awkwardness of belatedly revealing the truth.
    ‘And you were always meant for great things,’ she interjected swiftly. ‘A surgeon working at the cutting edge, flying off all over the world to teach pioneering techniques. I thought they’d have named a hospital wing after you by now...’
    Connor didn’t look offended ‘People change...’
    Not me, she wanted to say. I still love you.
    ‘My grandfather died, and left his place to me.’ His contemplative glance moved over the well-equipped room, and he smiled wryly.
    ‘Not this building. We built that from scratch.’ He doubted if his father, had he been alive, would have approved of the use to which his son had put a small part of his hefty inheritance. Ken Carlyle had been an asset stripper of the most ruthless variety and he had done his best to quash any signs of altruism—or weakness as he’d viewed it—in his own child. ‘Grandad had his practice in a single-room surgery attached to his house. Pretty basic. I came up here with the intention of selling up.’
    ‘What stopped you?’
    ‘I saw the affection people held him in. He really made a difference in people’s lives, he was part of the community... It’s hard to explain...’ An articulate man, his inability to adequately express the feelings that had made him make such a dramatic change frustrated him. ‘I like the idea of being on the front line. You’ve got a chance to educate people. Prevention may not be as dramatic as cure but it’s a hell of a lot more satisfying.’
    Their eyes met and Connor realised he didn’t have to explain—Phoebe understood exactly what he was saying.
    ‘You found where you