Laurie didn’t wait for him to answer. She marched from the room, hearing the door bang behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN A TAP sounded on the door, Ross wondered if it was Laurie coming back to make peace with him, and decided it probably wasn’t. He was pretty sure that when Laurie banged anything shut behind her, it stayed shut. Then Sam popped her head around the door and he motioned for her to come in.
‘Have you decided on annoyance therapy?’
‘Um... Not sure. Ask me another.’ Whatever Sam asked him was unlikely to be as challenging as Laurie’s questions, or to ignite any flames of confused feelings.
‘How about I just saw Laurie coming out of your office, looking like thunder and clutching some patient files to her chest as if she was going to punch anyone who tried to take them away from her?’
Good. That was good. The way she’d pulled the files from his grasp had told Ross he’d made the right decision. Laurie had something to give these kids and she knew it.
‘We had a full and frank discussion.’ The upshot of which had left a nagging doubt. ‘Do I come across as smug?’
Sam had the grace to laugh at the idea. But then Sam always thought the best of everyone. ‘Did Laurie say that?’
‘She mentioned it.’ The more Ross thought about it, the more it bothered him. He could take an insult, but Laurie had got under his skin and her opinion of him mattered rather more than it should.
‘I’ve known you a long time, Ross. I remember when you were working to expand the clinic, and...dealing with other things.’
‘You can say it, you know. I was there too, I know what happened.’
He’d come back here after qualifying as a doctor, newly married and with such hope for the future. Sam had been the clinic’s first employee, taken on as the place had begun to grow, and it had been inevitable that she, Ross and Alice would all become friends.
Sam smiled. ‘I saw how much you struggled when Alice left you. It was a hard blow for you, being told you’d never be able to have a family, and you worked through that disappointment. You built the clinic up, and made that your family instead.’
‘Was it that obvious?’ Ross did see the clinic as a replacement for the wife he’d lost and the children he couldn’t have, but it still stung a bit when Sam said it.
‘I knew what was going on because I knew both you and Alice. I don’t think anyone else knew the details, but it wasn’t so very difficult to see that you were in pain.
If you seem a little...proud of yourself over the way the clinic’s turned out, it’s because there was a time when you had nothing else, and you put everything you had into it during those early years.’
Ross shot her a grin. ‘Is that your way of saying that I am smug? Give it to me straight, Sam.’
‘It’s my way of saying that you could ease off a bit on Laurie. You’re not her doctor any more and you don’t need to pretend that your past has been all plain sailing. And, no, “smug” isn’t the first word that comes to mind in describing you, Ross...’
* * *
Ross hadn’t asked whether ‘smug’ was the second word that came to mind. Sam probably wouldn’t have told him anyway as her approach generally consisted of dangling a few ideas and then allowing them to ferment. And this idea was fermenting at such speed he felt almost intoxicated by it.
He set aside the question of why this mattered to him so much. Why Laurie mattered to him. Why having her in the same room brought a tang of excitement, even if she was generally challenging him.
Ross had seen her from the window of the clinic, sitting in one of the wooden seats on the paved area outside the guest apartment, with a mess of papers on the table in front of her. He should go and make peace with her.
But there was no need. When he approached her, Laurie smiled. One of those radiant, mischievous smiles of hers, which couldn’t possibly be anything other than genuine.
‘May I sit?’
‘Of course.’ She waved him to a seat.
‘I want to apologise.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Really? I’d rather you didn’t, because then I’d have to apologise back.’
He felt the muscles across his shoulders loosen suddenly. ‘Then we’ll put this morning behind us?’
She nodded. ‘Since it’s two o’ clock, I think that goes without saying.’