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'What about Mr Ludlum?'

'Could be the same deal. Fiona heard he's been summoned to an interview on Monday.' He peered out her window. 'Want a drink?'

'OK.' Merrin followed him downstairs and they bought soft drinks from the machine in the foyer outside the library and took them outside to drink.

It was a mild day. Fine with not a lot of wind. They sat on a metal railing outside the block, Merrin swinging her feet back and forth, her face lifted to the pale winter sunshine that peeked out from behind the side of the main hospital block. They talked about things on the ward and he updated her on a couple of her patients he'd been called to see over the weekend.

She felt Neil before she saw him. Her legs prickled, then her breasts, then her face. When she opened her eyes he was thirty yards away, talking with Fiona just outside the back entrance to the hospital, watching her.

Fiona was nodding earnestly, as if acknowledging whatever he was telling her, but after a few seconds she turned, perhaps, Merrin thought, realising that she didn't have Neil's full attention, and she waved to them, beckoning her house officer across.

'Time to go,' he said wearily, lifting himself off the railing. 'Looks like more work.'

Neil and the house officer passed each other, and Merrin saw him nod a greeting to the younger doctor. He came across to where she sat, but he didn't touch her.

'You looked good together,' he said quietly. 'Two fair childlike angels perched on a fence.'

'You and I look better,' she answered, equally quietly. 'I'm so fair and you're so dark. The contrast is good.' With the sun behind him his face was in shadow and it frustrated her that she couldn't read his expression. 'I heard about Mr Sanderson. That must have been...difficult for you.'

'Harry dug his own grave.' He sounded tired.

'Will Mr Ludlum go the same way?'

'I can't talk to you about that.'

'No, of course you can't.' She didn't know what to do. 'I shouldn't have asked.' Their conversation felt stilted and horrible but he seemed so aloof suddenly that she was confused. She squinted up at him, lifting her hand to shield her gaze from the sun. 'Is something wrong?'

'I overheard Lindsay and Douglas talking before clinic Friday afternoon,' he said finally. 'You know what they say about people who eavesdrop. Douglas's decided that your career's gone down the tubes and Lindsay's fretting that I've ruined you for another man. She thinks you'll never find a husband or have children, and to her that means you're destined for a desperately unhappy future. They think I'm ruining your life/

'Does it matter what they think?'

'Not that they think it, but the point is a valid one.'

'It's too late to worry about it,' she told him. 'If I'm going to be ruined I'm ruined already.'

'Not necessarily. You're young. You'll get over it. Merrin, I'm stopping this now.'

She looked down, breathing quickly, then, finding her balance gone, she slid off the railings and leaned back against them. She hadn't ever let herself think about what it would feel like when this moment came, but now that it had she was numb. Quite numb. The sun was too bright suddenly and she thought she might be going to get a headache. 'All right,' she whispered. 'That's your decision. Fine. Um...I've left lots of things at your apartment. Clothes, my green dress, some underwear, some mascara, I think.'

'I'll bring them tomorrow.'

'Thank you.' She tried to gather herself. 'Thank you. Yes.' Her legs were trembling as if she'd just done a long downhill hike. 'OK. Bye, then.'

'Bye.' But when she thought he was going to let her walk past him, he took her shoulders and kissed her forehead hard. 'Bye.'

Merrin didn't tell the others. She knew from the way they watched them together that they thought there was still something between them but neither of them said anything and she couldn't bear to explain.

Neil was very good. He was more thoughtful than he'd been before, more approachable to all of them, and he was encouraging and generous with the time he allocated to teach her. He took care never to say or do anything that might remind her of what they'd had together but that didn't help because she couldn't forget and she still loved him utterly.

At the midpoint in her six-month attachment to the firm she had to attend a formal interview with Neil and the other senior surgeons, plus two personnel officers from the hospital's medical-staffing office. The aim of the session was to give her feedback on her performance and also to offer a chance for her to express her own feelings about the position and to suggest room for improvement if she thought there was any for the next three months and for the doctor who'd follow her into the job.

'So far an extremely rewarding attachment,' she concluded, after finishing the formalised ratings they'd asked her to complete, all of which she'd scored highly. 'I wouldn't change anything.'

'How much operating time are you getting, Merrin?' Mr Logan, the enthusiastic young surgeon who'd taken over Mr Sanderson's position, beamed at her. 'All this
^-
ward and clinic work's fine, but are you getting your hands dirty?'

'I manage to get to at least one full list a week,' she said slowly. 'Plus I see a lot of the emergency operations. I've done seven appendicectomies now, obviously with either Douglas or Lindsay assisting, and last week I did my second inguinal hernia repair.'

'Well done.' He looked impressed. 'For your stage that's exceptional. So you're a keen surgeon?'

'I love it,' she admitted. 'The technical side of it fascinates me and I like the rewarding turnover of our patients. It's more satisfying to me than medicine seems at present.'

'Is surgery going to be your career choice?'

'From where I am now, bearing in mind that this is my first job, I'd like it to be.'

'Good. Good.' His beam was approving. 'Neil, what's your opinion? Has she got what it takes?'

He'd been quiet for most of the interview but now he said coolly, 'Merrin's a highly intelligent, enthusiastic, well-read, responsible, flexible and technically accomplished junior doctor. She demonstrates a maturity beyond her years and she's popular with other staff and her patients. I'd go as far as to say that she's the best house officer to ever work for me. I'd highly recommend her for further surgical training.'

Shocked, she jerked her head up, her wide eyes meeting his frustratingly remote regard. He'd gone overboard, she thought. Too far overboard. But why? She wondered if this was in some way an atonement for guilt he was feeling about what had happened between them. The thought made her sick.

The other members of the panel were obviously equally startled because there was a brief, shaken silence before Mr Logan leaned across the table and shook her hand. 'Well, high praise indeed,' he said heartily. 'Congratulations, Merrin. Well done. Enjoy these next three months and we hope to see a lot of you in the future.'

'Thank you.' At the door she looked back towards Neil but although he'd been watching her he looked away immediately, his attention going to the notes they were holding about the doctor due to come after her.

She'd been granted a half-day because of the interview and Lindsay had her bleeper and wasn't expecting her back on the ward so she went to Neil's office to wait for him.

It seemed to her morally vital that she speak to him about the things he'd said. It was after five and his secretaries were packing up as she arrived, but they said that she was welcome to wait and that he shouldn't be long.

He was, though. She decided that he must have gone to the wards for his round before coming back because it was almost seven when he came up.

'Merrin...? What are you doing?'

She'd been sitting in the dark, looking out of the window at the traffic streaming along the road below, and when he'd switched on the lights she'd turned towards him. Now she blinked to clear her eyes. 'I wanted to talk to you about what you said.'

He looked tired. The lines around his eyes were more pronounced than usual and under the glare of the lights his skin had taken on a drained tone. He took off his white coat and slung it across his desk, raking one hand through his short hair as he came towards her. 'You mean, in the interview?'

'It wasn't ethical,' she said unevenly. 'I appreciate that you might still feel some guilt about what happened but you don't need to. I don't expect you to
sponsor
me. I don't want you to say things like that. I don't want you to exaggerate for me. You're not to protect me. I want to succeed on my own.'

'What did I exaggerate?'

'Everything.' She lifted her arms helplessly. 'I'm a competent house officer but anything else is nonsense—'

'As your consultant I'm qualified to make ah accurate assessment of your abilities, Merrin. You're more than competent. I spoke the truth. If you choose the field—and I encourage you to do so—you'll make a gifted surgeon. Your performance in bed or my...physical response to you had no bearing on my assessment.'

She looked at him searchingly but the gaze he returned was impatient but not evasive, and she suddenly felt flat. 'I've made a fool of myself,' she said slowly. 'I'm sorry. I was so sure...'

'What?' His mouth compressed. 'That I was playing God with your career again?'

'I never said that.'

'No. No, you didn't,' he conceded heavily. 'I believe Douglas came up with that little gem.'

'Douglas sees the world in black and white. Shades of grey are beyond his comprehension.'

'A perceptive little comment,' he observed. 'You are good at those.'

'I suppose that's what comes from being
mature beyond my years,'
she said wearily. 'Unfortunately lately I also
feel
a lot older than my years.' She rose from the chair in which she'd spent the past ninety minutes. 'Thank you, then, for your flattering assessment, Professor McAlister. I only hope I can live up to your expectations.'

'You exceed them every day, Merrin.'

'You're tired.' She couldn't stop one hand lifting involuntarily to stroke the lines beside his eye. 'You're working too hard again.'

His hand came up to curl around hers and take it away, but instead of letting go he held on to it. He turned it over and looked at her palm, his fingers smoothing her fingers open. 'Don't start,' he said softly. 'Not now.'

'I can't help it.' His thumb, tracing her lifeline, was turning her arm weak and heavy. 'Don't work tonight,' she whispered. 'You need to rest. Go home and sleep.'

His thumb stilled, then just as she thought he was about to release her his other hand curled around her neck and pulled her against him and his mouth came down on hers.

She melted immediately, and when he lifted his head she pursued him, kissing him, her hand guiding his to her breast.

But he pulled back. She saw that he was breathing fast but he held her away. 'You'd let me do this?' he demanded. 'After all that's happened you'd still let me?'

'Of course I'd let you.' Her heart was thudding so heavily she barely heard him. 'I want you to. I love you.'

'Merrin, how can you still say that?' he said thickly. 'It's been months.'

'I haven't stopped loving you just because you've stopped sleeping with me,' she said sharply, withdrawing further from him. 'Is that what you thought would happen?'

'Yes. No. I don't know.' The ambiguity of his words was reflected in his expression because he suddenly looked uncertain.

She caught her breath. 'Neil—'

'Not now,' he said roughly, moving away from her. 'Give me some time, Merrin. I need to think.'

'About me?' she whispered desperately, aching for it to be so.

'About me,' he muttered, his words and the abrupt, almost angry hardening of his expression telling her nothing. 'About this. About everything. Go. Leave me. I can't think when you're here.' He spoke quietly, but the tone of his dismissal, combined with the pale harshness of his expression, turned it into an order, and although she longed to stay she couldn't not have obeyed.

But she turned at the door and caught the way his hand had lifted to rub at his neck. The gesture emphasised the tiredness she saw in him and, knowing him, she hesitated again. 'You're wasting your time if you try to work when you're like this. Promise me you'll go home and rest?'

'I'm going home,' he said abruptly, going to the window. 'Go, Merrin. Just go.'

She thought he must have taken work home with him because, if anything, he looked more tired the next morning. Not that it affected his work, though, because he was fast and up to his usual decisiveness level on the round.

She spend her weekend studying. Monday was fairly quiet but Tuesday was busy. In the afternoon Neil warned her that he'd agreed to take an emergency transfer from a surgeon at another hospital, a twenty-five-year-old woman with severe ulcerative colitis.

Merrin was on the ward when the patient arrived. She took one look at her pale, drawn face and bleeped him immediately. 'Please, interrupt him,' she said quickly, when the theatre receptionist answered the call and explained that he was operating. 'He's expecting this. He asked me to call him as soon as this patient arrived. Please tell him to come quickly.'

She raced back to their new patient's side-room. The ambulance officers who'd brought her had helped to transfer her onto a hospital bed and while they and Celia fussed about, settling her in and sorting out the ambulance equipment from the hospital's, Merrin snatched away the notes and X-rays and ran them back to the office to check them.

The X-rays from the last few days confirmed the letter from the doctors who'd been looking after her, which said that the inflammation in Mrs Wesson's bowel had grown so extreme that the bowel had swollen to almost six times its normal diameter.

Merrin had never seen anyone with a dilated colon before, but she'd read about the condition. The bowel could stretch only so much before it burst and that would send their patient into overwhelming shock by releasing chemicals and infection into the peritoneum. Without surgery she would die.