Heartbeat (Medical Romance) (2 page)

Cautiously opening up, she discovered a filthy tramp leaning threateningly with one hand on the door frame. She knew the nuns took care of such people and gave them food and shelter: but really, you wouldn't think they'd let them wander round the building disturbing visitors. Hold on! said a warning voice in her head. This is Africa, and underneath all the dust, that's a white man.

A large and dirty boot shoved itself deliberately across her threshold. The light in the passage was directly behind him, so that the face remained in shadow. He was very tall; she had to tip her head back to look up at him.

Jenni had the impression of a harshly lined face that hadn’t seen a razorblade for days. An uncompromising head outlined in greyish stubble. And a pungent smell of heat and sweat emanating from the intruder's stained, crumpled and faded khaki fatigues.

'What do you want?' she demanded in her curtest tones. 'What can I do for you.' She wanted to take a step backwards and away from this threatening presence, but stood her ground.

The man's gaze had been levelled a good six inches higher, as if expecting the room to be occupied by a female Amazon. The girl's spirited question seemed to amuse him, and he smiled grimly: at least, his clamp of a mouth widened in some semblance of mirth. For a drawn-out moment he too stared back, with no sign that he liked what he was seeing any more than Jenni did.

'
You're
the nurse,' he said with rueful emphasis, drumming his fingers on the wooden door frame.
'Strewth!'

Even as she bridled at the clarity of the insult, Jenni was registering the twang of an Australian accent. She had a temper easily roused, but over the years she had learned to control it, tucking fists automatically clenched in anger under folded arms.

'I beg your pardon!' she snapped. 'I take it you are Dr McDonnell?' No way had he been operating! Not with that smell on his breath.

He didn't even try to be polite. Already he'd seen as much as he wanted, hooking his thumbs into his belt and turning to walk away.

'If you're not ready and out front by five-thirty, don't expect me to hang about.' The voice was curt, deep and well educated. The accent was slight; it must have been some years since he had quit his homeland for the UK.

'I shall be there.'

The shadowy head nodded, even as shrewd eyes noted that this slip of a kid was as whacked as Ross himself after that emergency call to an outpost thirty miles distant.

'Oversleep, and you'll have to get yourself down to the bus station.'

'I told you, doctor, I will be ready on time.
Thank you
,' she added, cool and firm, managing to shut the door just as he presented his long, lean and distastefully sweat-stained back, so that neither seemed to have the advantage of dismissing the other.

There was a rusting key in the lock, and with a defiant wrench Jenni turned it, leaning for a moment with upturned palm pressed against solid wood while she considered the reality of Miss Margaret's
saintly
Ross McDonnell. Unwashed, unkempt, distinctly malodorous, and so arrogantly unconcerned with his physical appearance and the impression he was making on her that it was...well, it was insulting, that was what it was!

It had never occurred to her that the Mission doctor might for some peculiar reason find her unacceptable. But it was clear as the nose on her face that Dr McDonnell hadn’t much taken to her. Brilliant start to her stay in Africa.

Jenni chewed painfully on her bottom lip. She was not accustomed to being glowered at with blatant disapproval. Professionally she was both competent and capable, with the diplomas to prove it. And as a woman—well, men generally fell over themselves to be pleasant and attentive.

The confrontation had left her with a thudding heart and an uneasy sense that perhaps she had approached this African venture with high ideals and her head in a romantic cloud. Doubts assailed Jenni Westcott for the very first time.

But not for longer than a few brooding moments, for Jenni was an incorrigible optimist and generous with it. The doctor was short-tempered and tired. She'd seen him in an uncharacteristic mood.

Yes, that was bound to be it. A cold shower and a decent night's sleep and the poor chap would be a different man by the light of day. No point getting upset over his attitude tonight. She'd win him round. A dose or two of flirtatious charm and Dr McDonnell would be eating out of her hand—just like all the rest.

Miss Margaret's description of him, though—a description so misleading it made your hair stand on end! Wiping away the last trace of mascara, Jenni did wish the bad-tempered doctor's first impression of her could have been a more positive one. Seeing his new nurse so drained and enervated by the damp heat, he'd be bound to assume she was lightweight.
Just you wait, Dr Ross!
muttered Jenni, slipping between the coarse cotton sheets and pulling the mosquito net around her.

She had been so preoccupied with the sheer thrill of seeing Paul again that her professional relationship with the doctor at the Mission had simply not concerned her. In her mind's eye he had registered as an insubstantial and shadowy figure with whom she would … well, get on like a house on fire, as for the most part had been the case with her colleagues, nursing or medical, at the Royal Hanoverian.

'Where is Miss Margaret?' demanded Jenni.

'Miss Margaret is at early Mass. Perhaps I can help you?'

'Well, I do think McDonnell might have waited, I'm only forty minutes late.'

Persuaded to eat breakfast before being escorted to the teeming bus station, she winced to see her luggage casually heaved on to the dusty roof of a cream and orange bus which looked as if it might well fall to bits on the long drive westward into the interior.

'Oh, please do take care!' she called out to the African driver, as with lazy grace he tossed a heavy bundle on top of her cheap and shabby cases. Her own things didn't concern her, but the cases contained precious vaccines wadded round with towels to protect them from damage, medicines and plastic bags filled with powdered milk, all donated by Dad's parishioners back home.

Loose-limbed and bare-armed, the driver grinned confidently down at her and nodded his head, indicating that Jenni should get inside and grab herself a front seat.

At first the curious eyes and jabber of dialects among her fellow travellers was disconcerting, a child fingering the bright curls peeping out from beneath the blue scarf Jenni had tied gipsy-style to reduce the impact of her strangeness.

True to his word, Dr McDonnell had not bothered to wait even an extra five minutes, but on the dot of five-thirty had driven off in a truck freshly loaded with medical supplies.

And all this stuff lugged out from the UK! grimaced Jenni, ruefully surveying her heap of belongings. McDonnell might at least have taken the two big cases on ahead, even if her company was unappealing.

The African day started bright and early. As the bus rattled through the city streets Jenni from her vantage point gazed down on the colourful throng, transfixed by the variety of dress: traditional African robes merging with casual Western clothes and all-concealing Moslem dress. She herself was wearing baggy pink denim dungarees with a cool white strappy top revealing the freckled skin of arms and shoulders, her hair in a ponytail and her sunglasses pushed up on her head. The early morning had been surprisingly pleasant and the outfit seemed appropriate for travelling into the bush.

Relieved to be rid of its weight, she dumped her rucksack on the empty seat beside her, ready to move it the instant anyone looked brave enough to sit next to the girl with the head of fire.

A plump black woman in a smart flowered dress clambered on to the bus with a basketful of green-whiskered heads of maize and a gorgeous baby boy clamped to her left hip. Chattering in an unrecognisable local dialect—which sounded very much like mother and baby talk the world over—the plump woman settled in the seat in front, directly behind the driver.

Jenni pulled a blue paisley bandana from her pocket and tied it round her head, just in case her strange appearance upset the baby. He watched her solemnly with unblinking liquid eyes and a mouth like a rosebud, claiming all her attention and quite distracting her from her annoyance with Ross McDonnell. But the rolling motion of the bus soon sent the child to sleep. Jenni put on her dark glasses and became lost in the wonder and excitement of seeing the African landscape unfolding all around her.
Paul's home for the past seven
years
.

In the far distance, outlined against a dark blue sky, stretched the purple outline of the Kilosa mountains. To the wide-eyed nurse they represented all her hopes and dreams now becoming reality. The red of the African soil cheered her, the pastoral beauty of the countryside surprised and gladdened her heart. How right she was to come here.

The bus rattled along at a steady twenty-eight miles an hour, grinding frequently to a halt at dusty junctions near villages and settlements to disgorge or pick up passengers.

Fewer people were boarding now. Apart from the mother and babe in front, Jenni was surrounded by empty seats.

As time passed and the sun climbed higher, the baby lolled limp in the heat and the mother plied it with water from a plastic feeding bottle. Jenni wondered how far the two were travelling. Perhaps they were from the village close by the Good Shepherd Mission!

They had left the coast far behind, penetrating ever deeper into the sparsely populated Tanzanian interior, the open landscape becoming increasingly flat and arid. Here was where Paul had chosen to spend seven long years instead of the two he had originally planned for. Here in the African bush – this landscape of tall brown elephant grasses studded with thorn bushes, and isolated baobab trees, their spongy bottle trunks bloated with conserved moisture. This mix of scrub and grass and baobob trees, crossed by dried-out river beds. This brown and arid land.

Jenni had believed he would return when she was twenty. But her sister Helen had married her surgeon.

And Paul had not come back.

Now the bus was diverting from the tarmac highway, lumbering along on impacted red dirt roads, travelling bumpily through a forested region. Progress became even slower as the roads got worse and worse. Jenni's back began to ache with cramp and she explored dry lips with a tongue that felt swollen and parched. She wished she'd packed a map in her hand luggage, but had assumed the doctor would point out the route as they drove west.

Ross in his Land Rover must have reached the Mission some hours earlier.

As her discomfort intensified, Jenni was finding it a distinct effort to feel charitable towards the inconsiderate Dr McDonnell. But looking at it sensibly, she was going to have to put a lid on her dislike and establish a working relationship with the guy. The last thing she wanted to be was the cause of any disharmony within this small outpost mission.

The sun beat down upon her, burning her face and arms through the dusty window. The mother, clutching baby and basket, got off at the next village, and Jenni felt quite regretful to see them disappear from view.

Now she was the only passenger left so hers must surely be the next stop - the Mbusa Wa Bwino Mission. It couldn't be long now—oh, please let it not be long now. And let Paul be there to meet her ...

Jenni pulled off her bandana and shook her head to loosen her ponytail.

Her stomach felt so strange and queasy. How awful if she should throw up at Paul’s feet! How
unromantic
. Not that Paul would turn a hair. He would swing her up in his strongly muscled arms and carry her off to the peace and privacy of a cool shady room. His little Jenni. The two of them alone together. At long last.

T
he solitary tear left a shiny trail down the freckled cheek.

A masculine throat cleared itself. The deeper voice spoke again.

'Go and make yourself useful. Unload the rest of those supplies before they take a walk.'

'Spoilsport,' complained the Southern drawl. 'Where d'you wannem, boss, the dispensary?'

'Uhuh. Get some of the boys to help you.'

'Right on, boss.'

There was a sigh. 'Don't keep calling me boss.'

'OK Dr Ross.'

'Clear off, Matt, will you?'

There was a click of obedient heels—and now just the one black silhouette outlined against the intense daylight streaming in through a small high window.

Ross McDonnell stared dispassionately down at his new nurse. Skin freckled like the inside of a foxglove petal. Ridiculously skimpy top. And that
pink
trouser thing. Where did she think she was going. The beach?

God help this one under the African sun—she'd fry like a chip.

The thrust of lower lip gave his face a formidable expression that discouraged argument. Ross was not a man to suffer fools gladly. And he'd got a right idiot here under his nose.

Vexed, he ran a hand across the stubble of his shorn hair. Take a look at the silly creature now. A fleeting taste of the hot stuff and she'd collapsed in a heap inches from the squealing wheels of the Red Cross Land Rover. She'd been lucky not to be killed, standing there lost in the cloud of red dust. Now if Matt had been driving ...

Dammit, what could Paul be thinking of, encouraging this wide-eyed gingernut to come tripping out here to do her dainty bit for the Third World.

You could see, mused the doctor with folded arms and heavy-lidded scrutiny, that the journey had turned out an ordeal for such a fragile flower, even though he'd left her to sleep in as long as she needed. Well, his mind was made up. A fragile flower would never flourish in scorched earth; she'd be no earthly good to him. Once this young woman was rested she'd best turn her remarkably pretty self about and get back to Sheffield, or wherever it was she was supposed to have come from.

Ross’s expression was grim as he scanned the dirty pink dungarees and the damp golden eyelashes. No room for lame ducks here at the Mission. Paul's 'little sister' or no, the lady must return whence she came. 'Little sister, my foot!' scowled the disbelieving doctor. 'This one's no
little sister
. More like Trouble with a capital T.'