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'That's what you told me on my first day at the Royal.'

'Nursing is a very feminine thing,' he observed, watching for her reaction.

'Then why are so many men taking it up nowadays?' she asked smartly, before going back to the kitchen.

When she returned with the coffee-tray he said, 'Self-defence.'

'What is?'

'Men taking up nursing now that so many women are taking up medicine.'

Putting down the tray on the low table in front of the couch meant that their eyes were more or less level. 'You don't believe in sex equality, do you?' she challenged with a steady look.

'That is not a question which can be answered with a simple yes or no,' he was saying as the outside door slammed, startling them both.

Next moment, a small, pale-skinned young woman burst into the room. She was wearing a neat dark tweed suit and her straight brown hair was held back, childlike, with an Alice band. Her eager expression crumpled with disappointment as she took in the cosy spectacle of Mike loung
ing on the couch, with Yona kneeling beside him and holding the cafetiere, ready to pour out.

Mike didn't help things by reminding the girl, 'You said you were going straight home after your evening class, Fran.'

'After we heard about your foot, Clare offered to sit with Father so that I could come and see you,' she replied, her eyes fixed suspiciously on Yona.

'Dr MacFarlane called round to, er, sympathise, and stayed to cook supper,' Mike said evenly. 'Yona, meet a very old friend of mine, Fran Melling.'

'How do you do?' both girls said together and Fran sent Mike a wounded glance for the way he'd described her.

Potty about him, decided Yona as Fran asked, 'Are you new to the Royal, Dr MacFarlane? Mike's never mentioned you.'

'Fairly new,' said Yona. 'I'm barely halfway through my second month,' she added with a slight feeling of surprise. So much had happened in that time.

'I see. Well, it was very kind of you to cook Mike's supper tonight—I'm very grateful.' Then she turned to Mike. 'Clare will come round and cook for you on the evenings I'm teaching next week.'

'There's no need to involve your sister—or put yourself out, come to that,' said Mike with a touch of impatience. 'Besides, I'll be back at work in a day or two.'

'Oh, but you mustn't, dear—really. You said yourself that these things need time to knit together.'

Fractures, thought Yona, feeling guilty again.

'But perfectly well protected in plaster,' he insisted. 'I'm going to work on Monday.'

'If you can go to work then you can come with me to Lucy's engagement party tomorrow,' said Fran with a sudden show of spirit.

'Perhaps—we'll see,' said Mike, sounding like a man who's been outmanoeuvred.

Yona decided that she'd better leave before she got caught up in the lovers' quarrel that was obviously brewing. 'You're in good hands now, Mike,' she said briskly, 'so I'll be off now.' She looked straight at him and added, 'I really am desperately sorry about all this—and I hope you believe that.'

'Please—think no more about it,' he said firmly.

'Easier said than done,' insisted Yona. 'Goodbye, then,' she said to Fran. 'I can see you know how to look after him.'

'Why is that woman so upset about your foot?' Fran asked suspiciously as Yona shut the living-room door. Yona would have liked to have opened it again to hear Mike's reply, but how would that have looked? As it was, his answer was too muffled to be heard.

Before she headed for her own part of the building, Yona stood in the hallway, thinking hard. There had been something slightly unreal about the whole evening. Getting up the courage to go there in the first place. Mike's unexpected restraint. The meal, the conversation and the feeling that what they were saying didn't quite match the unspoken communication going on below the surface.

She thought again about his reaction to her apology. He'd been generosity itself, leaving her feeling sure that he wouldn't be making any trouble for her. That being so, why wasn't she feeling more relieved? And I wonder how we'd have gone on if Fran hadn't come when she did? Now, there was a question!

When
Yona pulled back her bedroom curtains next morning, the first thing she noticed was Fran, parking her cycle. She knew it was Fran because the girl was wearing the same suit as the night before and her Alice band was glinting in the early morning sunlight. Yona watched her trot eagerly towards the main door and thought, At least she didn't stay the night.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, eating toast and marmalade and reading the
Scotsman,
when the phone rang. Gil, she supposed, going reluctantly to answer it. But it was Mike, and the sound of his deep voice so close to her ear disturbed her more than she liked. 'I've just been on to the rheumatic unit to ask a favour, but they told me you're off this weekend,' he was saying.

'Yes, I— Yes.'

'Is anything wrong?' he asked carefully.

'No... Why?'

'You sounded odd. As though you'd had some—unwelcome news.'

'Oh, no, nothing like that.' Unless, of course, you counted the realisation that he attracted her more than was good for her.

'You're sure?'

Why was he persisting with this? 'I'm quite sure. There was no mail this morning and I've spoken to nobody since leaving your flat last night.' And then, because he'd already mentioned a favour, she asked, 'Was there something you wanted me to do for you?'

'You're very perceptive,' he told her, sounding much less wary now. 'It occurred to me this morning that this enforced idleness provides me with a good chance to work on a textbook I'm updating. Only I'm completely out of scrap paper, so if you happen to be going anywhere near a stationer's today...'

She owed him and she couldn't forget that, but why her and not his faithful slave Fran? 'Yes, I am going shopping later on this morning, so it'd be no trouble to get you some rough notebooks—or anything else you need.'

'That's very obliging of you, Yona, but I only need the notebooks. Thank you—very much.'

'I don't know what you think you have to thank
me
for,' she returned, overcome anew by his forbearance.

'Call it squaring the account,' he said, without clarifying things much. 'Will I see you later, then?'

'Say twelvish—if that's all right with you.'

'Absolutely. I'm not going anywhere,' he said, making her feel guilty again.

As well as the notebooks, Yona stood on Mike's doormat clutching her own laptop word processor and a bottle of the same kind of wine they'd drunk the night before. The wine had been an impulse buy at the supermarket, but now she was here she felt almost shy about bringing it.

Mike answered the door and accepted her gift with obvious pleasure before she thought to pretend it wasn't for him.

'This is very kind of you—and enough notebooks to write a novel. But what's this?'

'My little laptop—just in case you don't have one at home.'

'I haven't, but won't you be needing it yourself?'

'I've not used it since I came down south, so I just popped into Outpatients for it and—'

'The devil you did!' he exclaimed. 'That is, you shouldn't have bothered. Did you... ? Were there many staff about? With it being Saturday... ?'

Yona couldn't think why he wanted to know that but she answered, 'Only one or two I knew. Though I did bump into your registrar on the way out.'

That produced another smothered exclamation before he asked, 'Did he have—anything much to say?'

'No, he just asked me if I'd heard about your accident, which I must say I found ironic in the circumstances.'

'And what did you say?' he asked quickly.

'Only that I had—and then we both agreed it was a great pity, which it is.' Yona backed away, saying, 'Well, if there's nothing else...' He obviously wasn't going to ask her in this time.

'Hang on!' he said. 'The least I can do is give you lunch. I mean, you wouldn't want me to get drunk alone, would you? And I might—with nobody to help me drink this.' He held up her present.

Alone, he'd said. So the Fran girl wasn't there... 'I suppose, in the circumstances, it's my duty to keep any eye on you,' said Yona, following him into the flat.

He had a lunch of various cold meats, salad and fruit ready in the kitchen. 'You eat very healthily,' said Yona approvingly when she saw that.

He scratched the side of his nose and grinned at her boyishly. 'If you want the truth, I was trying to impress you,' he admitted, 'though I'll probably go and spoil it all with a large slice of apple pie.'

Made by the devoted Fran, no doubt! 'Apple pie just like Mother used to make,' she observed dryly.

The grin disappeared. 'If my mother ever made an apple pie, I never saw it,' he said curtly. 'She was always much too busy out and about, making money.'

Yona supposed that meant a dead, absent or unemployed father. 'I'm sorry,' she muttered. 'It sounds as though I spoke out of turn.'

'No—I did,' he said hurriedly. 'And we were getting on so well, too. I'd better open the wine before we fall out again.'

'Let me do it,' she offered at once. 'You told me last night how your foot throbs when you stand on it for too long.'

'It does, too,' he agreed, 'though I'd almost forgotten. I wonder why?' He had the cork out of the bottle by then.

'I'd not be surprised if you were fairly drunk already,' Yona suggested slyly. 'You're certainly most unlike yourself today.' Last night, too...

'So, what am I usually like, then?'

'Very nice to everybody but me. Yet when I really give you cause to hate me suddenly you're nice to me as well. I wonder why?'

He thrust a glass into her hand. 'Drink that and stop asking questions I'm not ready to answer,' he ordered.

Being Yona, she couldn't leave it there. 'Try this for size,' she began. 'You've got a friend who badly wants a particular job, but he loses it to an upstart foreigner—and a woman, what's more. So you're ready to hate the sight of her, even before the poor thing puts in an appearance. What are you laughing at?' she demanded as he sat across the kitchen table, grinning at her—and showing as fine a set of even white teeth as she'd ever seen.

'The idea of you as a "poor thing". Anybody less like a "poor thing" I never saw.'

'Never mind that,' said Yona. 'Am I right?'

'But he wasn't to be drawn. 'First impressions aren't always the right ones. It's just that I believe it's better to get to know people a bit before making up my mind about them.'

'And have you made up your mind about me yet?'

Mike pulled out a third chair and stuck his foot up on it. 'This foot is giving me hell,' he said soulfully.

Perhaps it was and perhaps it wasn't. Hadn't he already told her there were questions he wasn't prepared to answer? And he couldn't have found a better way of reminding her why she was there. 'Have you got anything you can take for the pain?' she asked, falling into line.

'I'd have to be a lot worse than this before I started guzzling pills—especially after half a bottle of wine.'

'Will I fetch you a cushion, then?' She had to be allowed to do something.

'No, it's easing off now I've got it elevated,' he claimed. 'Being a patient is very instructive,' he added.

'Yes—it must be. Oh, God, I feel really terrible about this!' she burst out remorsefully.

'Please, don't,' he said. 'Besides, it's an ill wind that does no good—or however the saying goes.'

'I'm not sure I know what you mean by that...'

He fixed her with a questing look. 'You wouldn't be here and we'd not be talking like this but for the accident, would we?'

'And that's good, is it?' she asked, feeling a little thrill of excitement.

'Supposing you tell me,' he invited.

'Well, obviously it's better than it was before—but I wish it had come about some other way.'

'There are those who claim that the end justifies the means,' he returned obscurely. 'Shall we have coffee now?'

Yona gave up trying to decide what he'd meant by that and told him that she would make it. 'And you'd better go
through and put your foot up on the sofa while I sort this mess.'

'Sort— What exactly are you going to do? I'm not familiar with the Scots vernacular.'

Scots vernacular, indeed! 'To sort is to tidy, or mend or straighten out—to put to rights.'

'Thank you,' said Mike. 'I'd no idea that "sort" was such a useful four-letter word.'

'And a sight less vulgar than some,' Yona called after him as he limped away to do as she'd told him and rest his foot.

He turned round, grinning, to say, 'All that stuff about the dour Scot is just a rumour.'

When Yona joined Mike in his spacious and comfortable living room, he was playing with her little word processor. 'I can't seem to get the hang of this,' he said. 'Is there a handbook to go with it?'

'Yes—in my flat. Would you like me to fetch it?'

'Not now, thanks. To tell you the truth, I don't really feel like working at the moment.'

'Your foot is still sore,' she surmised with another of those little twinges of guilt. She poured the coffee, conscious of his eyes upon her, but when she looked up suddenly his face gave nothing away.

She handed him his coffee. 'You must have been lonely down here at first,' he said as he took it.

'Yes, I was,' she admitted, 'and if it hadn't been for Meg and Ted... But, fortunately, ours is a job that doesn't give us much free time.'

Sounding almost unwilling, he said, 'Tell me something about yourself.'

Didn't he know quite a lot about her already? 'What sort of something?' she asked cagily.

'Let's start with that curious name of yours.'

That was easy enough. 'I was given the old Celtic name of Catriona, but it was too much of a mouthful for my three-year-old brother so he shortened it to Yona—and it stuck.'

'It suits you,' he declared.

'Oh, dear!' exclaimed Yona in mock horror. 'Now
you
have got me worried! Say it quickly and it sounds terribly like the Gaelic for eagle.'