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A COUNTRY PRACTICE

Abigail Gordon

Considering that her first meeting with police surgeon and GP Max Hollister took place when she was in a police cell, Fenella Forbes is pretty certain he’s not going to give her the job as trainee GP in his village practice. But he does - it’s obvious to him that she’s a victim, not an offender.

And it’s not long before Fenella finds herself falling for her charismatic employer. Max, however takes his personal and professional responsibilities very seriously, and seems determined to fight their mutual attraction. Fenella knows she can win his professional respect - but can she also win his love?

Max Hollister opened
one eye to look at the clock and groaned. The phone was ringing at three o'clock in the mornings and he didn't have to make two guesses as to why. Some of Friday night's carousing around the city would have ended up at the police station and his presence would be required for the protection of those who had been brought in for some kind of lawlessness
and
for the officers who were having to deal with them.

If there was a health problem with someone who had been arrested and they were in no fit state to look after themselves due to alcohol or injury, he or another police surgeon would be sent for, and as he picked up the phone it seemed that tonight it could be his turn.

'What's the problem?' he asked the desk sergeant at the other end, after verifying that it was indeed the police disturbing him at such an hour.

'We brought in two young women who'd been drinking,' he said. 'And before we could do anything, one of them collapsed. We're not sure if it's the drink or something else, but she don't look good.'

'I'll be right there,' Max told him, 'and in the meantime don't leave her unattended for any reason.'

Throwing on a shirt and trousers over the boxer shorts he'd been sleeping in, Max hurried outside. It was quiet out in the stillness of the countryside, with only an owl hooting somewhere nearby to break the silence. Yet just a couple of miles away was the city and noise, lots of it, contrasting sharply with the peace of the village where he and his staff provided medical care for its inhabitants.

His car was in the drive of the converted barn where he lived and within seconds Max was driving off into the night and to whatever awaited him at the police station.

'She's in one of the cells,' the desk sergeant told him when he went striding into its dismal confines. 'I've got a young WPC keeping an eye on her.'

'And where's the other girl?' he asked.

'In the next cell.
She's
all right. Or will be in the morning, except for a headache. It's blondie that we're not happy about. We weren't originally bringing her in, but she started interfering when we were dealing with her friend, so we ended up fetching her in too, an' the minute we got here she keeled over.'

The policeman was opening the door of the cell, and before he'd even got the key out of the lock Max was beside the still figure of the girl in question. She was lying on her side dressed in jeans and a low-cut T-shirt with a sequined pattern on it. He could see her breasts rising and falling beneath the neckline and thought grimly that at least she was alive. Those he was called out to didn't always survive the abuse they, or someone else, had inflicted on their bodies.

He took a slender, ringless hand in his and checked her pulse. It was a bit erratic, but when he checked her heartbeat it seemed steady enough. As he looked down at her, it seemed more as if she was in a deep sleep rather than having had too much to drink. She didn't smell of alcohol. So if she hadn't been drinking, what had she been up to, he wondered, and why had she got herself arrested?

Overdosing on some sort of substance maybe. Whatever it was, she needed to be in hospital. It was a pity that her friend wasn't in a fit state to tell him what she'd taken, if that
was
the case.

She was wearing a fine gold chain and he lifted it gently from where it was dragging across the smooth flesh of her throat. Her hair was short and shiny, a blonde mop in a fashionable cut, but it was dishevelled now, due, no doubt, to her scuffles with the police. He couldn't see her eyes. They were closed, with golden lashes sweeping down onto her cheeks, but he imagined they would be blue.

Why didn't these girls take better care of themselves? he thought grimly as he turned to find the desk sergeant, the WPC and an elderly constable hovering behind him. He knew what they were thinking. That they didn't want any of this washing off onto them. The city in the early hours of Saturday morning when the clubs were emptying was a hazardous place to be for public and police alike.

'Ambulance needed without delay,' he told them crisply. 'This one hasn't been drinking. Her condition is due to something else, and I don't know what. I've checked and there are no injuries on her.'

At that moment the girl on the bed groaned and moved restlessly, but she didn't surface from whatever it was that had her in its grip. She mumbled something and as Max bent to catch what it was, he thought she said, 'Drink.' Yet from all appearances she hadn't been drinking, not alcohol anyway.

In view of what was going on outside on the streets, the ambulance wasn't long in coming and as the paramedics examined her Max relayed his findings, adding, 'I don't think she has been drinking alcohol, there is no smell of it, but someone might have spiked whatever she
was
drinking. I would suggest that she is checked for Rohypnol.'

When they'd gone racing off to A and E at the nearest hospital he examined the other girl to make sure that she was all right and concluded that this one
had
been drinking. She was sleeping noisily but otherwise showing no problems, and after sharing a mug of tea with the desk sergeant he left, just as a June dawn was breaking.

When Max got home he saw that Will's car was in the drive and wondered what had brought his young brother home unexpectedly. There was no sign of him when he went inside, but proof that he was in residence was lying around in the form of a bin liner full of dirty washing and a mug and a plate that he'd used.

Will was at college, studying law, and turned up at the strangest times, which didn't bother Max unduly as he was always happy to see him, and tonight the thought of him being asleep upstairs was a relief. He'd seen enough of the effects of the city's night life for the time being and if Will had arrived earlier he would most likely have been out there with the rest of them.

* * *

When Fenella Forbes woke up she gazed around her in drowsy dismay. She was in hospital, she thought unbelievingly. Why? What for? And then it all began to come back.

The club that her friend Julie had persuaded her to go to. Julie drinking too much, and the two guys who had latched onto them. When the four of them were leaving Julie had been all over the place and she, Fenella, had started to feel strange. Her legs had felt like jelly, her speech hadn't been coming out right, and she had felt very tired.

She'd seen the two men exchange glances and had gone sick with fear as it had occurred to her that the reason she was feeling so odd could be connected with them. Afraid that she wouldn't be able to fend them off if she began to feel any more peculiar, she'd got herself arrested, with the thought that she would be out of their clutches in the police station. That was the last thing she remembered.

When a doctor came to see her she knew that her fears hadn't been unfounded. Traces of the sleep-inducing drug had been found in her system and as she got dressed to leave the hospital Fenella was telling herself that in future she would drink straight from the bottle and that she'd had a lucky escape. She had her career to think of. It came first in her life. As for the opposite sex, she had yet to meet a man who made her heart beat faster. From now on Julie could go clubbing with someone else.

Putting the night's dramas to the back of his mind, Max took a shower to take away the smell of the police station and then made himself some breakfast before going round to the practice to open up for the Saturday morning surgery.

When he got back he found Will reading the morning paper and tucking into a fry-up at the same time.

He was a tall, gangling, twenty-year-old, with spiked up brown locks and a strange dress sense, and as Max ruffled his hair playfully he asked, 'So where have
you
sprung from? When I left the house at three o'clock this morning you were nowhere to be seen.'

Will grinned up at him.

'When I was on the point of going to bed at college last night I had a sudden yearning to come home, so I threw some things into a bag and drove through the night. Are you pleased to see me?'

'Of course I am,' Max told him. Looking down at his hands, he went on, 'Even though I
have
got myself covered in your hair gel.'

They were close, these two, even though there was a big age gap. They'd lost both their parents when Will had been only thirteen, and Max had put his own life on hold to take care of his young brother. That, and a general practice to run in a village within easy reach of the city had been enough to keep him fully occupied.. .and unattached.

'So where were you when I arrived?' Will asked. 'Coping with Friday night fever?'

'Something like that,' Max told him. 'A young woman who I think might have had her drink spiked had been taken to the police station and was completely out of it.'

'How come she was taken there?' Will asked curiously. 'Surely she was the victim rather than the perpetrator.'

'Yes, on the face of it, but from what the police said she seemed intent on getting herself arrested.'

A vision came to mind of how defenceless the girl had looked as he'd eased the gold chain from around her throat. It was difficult to imagine her getting in trouble, but that was not his concern. He'd been there because she'd been just another person he'd had to protect from themselves. Consoling himself with that thought, he went and made himself a coffee.

It was Monday and Max had an appointment. He'd arranged it so that it would fit into the short gap between morning surgery and house calls and had no intention of letting that detract from its importance.

With himself as senior partner, there had been two doctors in the practice until a couple of weeks ago when Simon Wells, his partner, had been involved in a car crash that was going to put him out of action for some time, so Max had decided to do what he'd been considering for some time, take on a trainee GP.

He'd mentioned it to Ann Forbes, the practice manager and she'd been quick to inform him that her daughter, who had recently got a degree in medicine, was on the lookout for such a position and would he consider her?

He'd been taken aback at such a prompt solution offering itself but, not having met the young woman in question, he'd suggested that she call in for a chat with a view to being interviewed for the position, which would give him a get-out if he thought she wasn't suitable. Today she was coming to see him.

Will had gone back after his brief visit and his next appearance would be for the long summer break that would take him into September before he returned to college. It always pleased Max to know that Will enjoyed coming home, as he never pressurised him to do so. If ever he found time to get married, the converted barn where he lived would still be home to his young brother for as long as he wanted it to be.

When he'd seen off his last patient from the morning surgery he rang Ann Forbes and asked if her daughter had arrived.

'Yes,' was the reply. 'She is here with me now.'

'Then will you ask her to come into my consulting room?' he said, and waited.

He was glancing through the morning's mail when he heard the door open and shut in quick succession, and when he looked up his jaw went slack with surprise.

She was still wearing the gold chain. If he hadn't recognised it and the neck from which it hung, the short blonde cut, now without a hair out of place, would have been familiar, and the golden lashes that had swept down from closed eyelids...