A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh)

A
Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh)

Kate Gibson knew that when she took over the job of factory
doctor it would be difficult to persuade the men to accept a woman. She
certainly hadn't expected to have the same trouble with Joshua Howard, the forceful
head of the company.

‘You can't get rid of me as easily as that, Mr. Howard,’
Kate said angrily. ‘I have no intention of returning to London. I have signed a
contract with you and I'm going to fulfill it.’

It was only later on Kate wondered if, having accepted her
as a doctor, Joshua would ever see her as a woman…

CHAPTER ONE

'Do I need to come for another
prescription, Doctor?' the man asked.

'No,' Kate Gibson replied. 'Once
you have finished these pills you should be completely well.'

With a nod the man walked out and
Kate leaned back in her chair with a sigh. The waiting room was full, yet she
did not have the energy to press the buzzer that would usher in another
patient, another problem, another decision. The very thought made her tremble
and Brought dampness to hands that, until three months ago, had always been
cool and firm. 'It's only delayed shock,' she told herself. 'If I can struggle
through the next month or so I'll be fine.' Forcing herself to sit up, she pressed
the buzzer and smiled at the middle-aged woman who walked in.

‘Sorry to bother you, Doctor,
but——-'

I’m here to be bothered.' Kate
Gibson's smile was warm and reassuring. It lit up her pale triangular face and
seemed to lessen the shadows that lurked in the large, limpid grey eyes. No
one, seeing Kate away from this clinical room with its sterilised
instruments and shelves of filing cards, would have guessed her to be a member
of one of the most arduous of professions. Small and slight—barely five foot
two and under eight stone— she looked too physically frail to have coped with
seven years' training and then the physical strain of general practice. But
coped she had: admirably so until three months ago.,

'What's wrong with you, Mrs Rogers?' Kate asked hastily, unwilling-Jo let her
thoughts return to a scene that still gave her nightmares.

At once the woman launched into a
long list of symptoms and Kate listened silently, knowing that they were only
psychosomatic manifestations of her unsatisfactory marriage to a man who preferred
the company of young girls to that of his fat and untidy wife. A few months ago
Kate would have spent time trying to make the woman see this and encouraging
her to change her way of life. Now she was too tired to bother. It was this
attitude in herself which she found disquieting and she knew that if it
remained with her she would have to give up general practice and do clinical
research. Certainly a doctor who could not summon up interest in her patients
was worse than useless.

‘And how are you feeling, Doctor?' Mrs Rogers «cut into her thoughts. 'Still
suffering from the after-effects of that fire?'

'I feel fine,' Kate said, and
handed the woman a prescription for tranquillisers.

Mrs Rogers put it into her bulging handbag. 'Gave
me quite a shock when I saw your picture in the paper that morning. A
real heroine, you were. I shouldn't wonder if you don't get a medal for it.'

'It was nothing.' Kate stood up,
anxious to cut short the conversation.

The people whose lives you saved
wouldn't call it nothing! Beats me how you had the nerve to rush into a block
of flats that was on fire.'

‘I
didn't rush in,' Kate corrected. 'I was on the top floor
visiting a patient. So you see I was already there.'

‘But you didn't rush out,' Mrs Rogers said triumphantly. 'Leastways
not till you got three old ladies out with you. As
well as that young mother and her twins. You'll definitely get a medal
for that. I feel it in my bones.'

Kate opened the door to stop the
flow of words, and was on the point of closing it when the receptionist put her
head round the corridor and motioned towards Dr Frisco's room, the senior
partner in the group practice where Kate worked.

'Dr
Frisco
would like to see
you when surgery ends,', the girl murmured.

Kate nodded and returned to her
consulting room, too busy to give much thought as to why Peter Frisco should
wish to see her. It was half-past one before the last patient left and she was
free to relax; if such a thing were possible, knowing that lunch had to be
snatched before one went on a round of visits that—if her list was anything to
go by—would take her until five o'clock to complete, and by then she would have
to start thinking of returning to take evening surgery. Only as she heard a
heavy expulsion of breath did she realise she had
given a deep sigh, and she followed it with a frown. It was disquieting to be
so tired. Surely it couldn't still be reaction from the accident?

Unwilling to remain a prey to her
.thoughts, she smoothed her hair in front of the mirror, light-brown hair too
fine to do anything with except keep it cut short, when it then displayed a
tendency to curl softly round her head. It was a style that made her took
younger than her years; a fact she deplored since she believed it robbed her of
authority. Wishing for the umpteenth time that she was tall, dark and
statuesque she crossed the corridor to Peter's room and went in.

Hi, Kate, take a chair,' he smiled.
'I have something here that might be of interest to you.'

Anticipating a discussion on a
case, she was surprised when he picked up a letter written on large-sized white
paper with a business address of some sort printed on the top.

'It's from a friend of mine,' he
explained. ‘More my brother's friend actually, but I've known Joshua Howard
pretty well myself over the past five years. He owns Howard Engineering. You've
probably heard of it.'

The name rings a bell,’ she said. ‘Wasn't
there some publicity about it in the papers a few months ago? Something about not having a strike there for years.’

‘That's Joshua's firm,’ Peter
replied. 'One of the best run in the country.'

Sensing her surprise that they
should be discussing an engineering firm, Peter Frisco put down the letter and
looked at her. He was in his middle thirties with a smiling face, a gentle
manner and a questioning mind.

'I'm not merely making
conversation, Kate. This letter could be just what you want. Joshua's company
has its own doctor, but he's been taken ill and has been forced to leave. It
will be about six months before he's fit enough to come back and meantime
they're managing with the odd locum, but they would like someone to stand in
for him.'

At once Kate knew that Peter and
his partners wished her to leave. This was their way of sugaring the pill of
her dismissal. Bitterness threatened to close her throat and she swallowed
hard. Though she had been with this group practice for two years she was not a
fully fledged partner. That choice would have come up for her at the end of
this year, though now it looked as if she would never be given the opportunity
of accepting or refusing it. Yet she could not blame her colleagues for being
unhappy with her. In the last three months they had had to stand in for her on
several occasions.

'It's kind of you to bother trying
to find me another position,' she said quietly. 'But there's no shortage of
jobs for doctors, even inadequate ones like me.'

'Inadequate ones like… are you
crazy?
In consternation Peter Frisco jumped to his feet. 'If you call yourself
inadequate I'd like to meet someone whom you consider pulls their weight!
You've worked like a Trojan since you came here. As a matter of fact we weren't
going to wait until December before talking to you about joining our
partnership, and it's only because of the last, couple of months that we
haven't done so.'

‘You
don't need to make excuses. Peter. T suppose
the right thing would have been for me to have resigned and not waited for you
to find me another position.’

'Holy mackerel!' Peter exploded.
‘We
aren't trying to get rid of
you. We're concerned about your health. That
⁵
s why we thought this
temporary job with Howard Engineering was ideal. It will get you into a quiet
practice in a small country town where you will have a chance to relax in a way
you can never do in London, By Christmas you should be fighting fit again and
ready to come-back to a full partnership here.'

The tears that came into Kate's
eyes at this display of understanding showed not only her gratified
astonishment but her weak emotional state, when the merest suggestion of
kindness made her want to dissolve into tears. 'Do you really think it's
necessary for me to go away?' she asked huskily. Perhaps if I took a holiday
for a month——-'

'If we thought a month's holiday
would put you back on your feet we would have suggested it weeks ago. You need
a complete change of environment.'

'Perhaps I should get out of
private practice and take a job in industry?'

‘You would hate that. That was why
I thought Joshua's offer was ideal. You'll be able to do private practice but
without any of the pressures you're getting now. It will give you a chance to
indulge your bent for' psychology,' he added with a grin.

Tell me more about the position,'
she said. ‘Why does the company need its own doctor? Surely everyone is on, the
National Health there?'

'Joshua likes to give his work
force the best. Apparently in the bad old days when you had to pay for every
visit you made to a surgery, old Howard senior gave free medicine to every one
of his people, and now Joshua is doing the same. His factory has one of the
highest outputs per capita in Europe, and he puts it down to their good health.
His contention is that the National Health doctor is too overworked to give
full attention to every patient, so he is prepared to pay privately for them to
have it.'

‘What happens if his men have to go
to hospital? Is that done privately too?'

Tor operations and things like that
he's more than happy with the Health Service. He feels it's only in day-to-day
medicine that a patient frequently needs that extra bit of attention.'

'He's a far-seeing man,' Kate said.
'If doctors could spend more time listening to their patients' mental troubles
instead of just dealing with the physical ones, hospital attendance would be
cut by half. Mrs Rogers is a prime example. She was
in again today, the third time in a fortnight, yet there's nothing wrong with
her that four or five hours' chat wouldn't help to cure. Three months ago I
could have done it,' she said dejectedly, 'but now it's all I can do to cope
with my stint here without putting in any extra time.'

'That's why we'd like you to accept
this offer,' Peter said. 'By Christmas I'm sure you'll be a hundred per cent
fit.'

'There's no reason why I shouldn't
be fit now,' she expostulated. 'It's stupid of me to go to pieces like this.'

'It beats me why you're so
surprised at your reaction.' It was Peter's turn to expostulate. 'When I think
of what you did in that raging inferno… I doubt if I'd have had your
courage.'

'Of course you would.'

'No,' he said doubtfully. 'I don't
think I'd have gone back into the building three times, the way you did.'

'My brain wasn't working at the
time,' she smiled. 'I did it automatically.

'Not automatically,’ he disagreed.
'You must have been dead scared and you screwed yourself up to a pitch where
you stopped thinking and feeling. You're paying the penalty for it now by
delayed reaction. That's why you look as if you're ready to burst into tears if
anyone forgets to smile at you!'

'Silly, isn't it,' she said,
feeling her eyes start to water again. 'Look, I'm even crying now.' She
searched in the pocket of her white jacket for a handkerchief and Peter came
round the side of his desk to stand in front of her.

'Let's go and have a spot of lunch,
Kate, and talk over Howard's offer.’

There isn't anything to talk about.
I know you're right and I will do as you say.'

'That's great! But we can still
have lunch and I'll put you in the picture about the job. You won't regret
taking it. I'm sure of that.'

CHAPTER TWO

The train chugged steadily on .and,
sitting alone in a first class carriage, empty since the last wayside stop, Kate stared out at the green fields and hoped she had
not made a terrible mistake in coming here. But in all honesty, she knew she
had not had much option, for Peter and his partners had insisted that the post
was ideal for her.

'Someone will be meeting you off
the train at Llanduff,' Peter had said when he had
seen her off at Padding-ton, two weeks after first showing her the letter from
Joshua Howard.

‘You make it all sound so easy.'
'It is easy. Just relax and let things happen.' But with the end of her
destination in sight it was not as easy to be as sanguine as Peter had ordered,
and she patted herself apprehensively to make sure she looked tidy. She wore a
navy suit; its colour did not go well with her recent
extreme pallor, but it made her look more severe and older, and for this reason
she had chosen it. She had combed her hair firmly away from her face and tried
to keep it flat by a neat blue hat, the most serviceable one she possessed. A
plain white blouse completed the picture of efficiency which was partially
belied by the delicate features of her face to which not even a firmly set
expression could give severity.