Page 12 of A Country Practice Christmas
‘Yes?’
‘How’s the leg?’ She said it like she was at gunpoint.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Carol tells me I ought to care about the fact that you hurt yourself on my behalf.’
Damn it, Carol. Now the prickly niece’s return visit made sense. Best to nip this lunacy in the bud right now; he knew the games Carol played, and he wasn’t interested in taking on a starring role.
‘I told you, there is nothing to care about.’
‘You have a pronounced limp.’
‘Yeah, well you have a pronounced sad and cranky look on your face,’ he said, ‘but I’m not asking you about it, am I?’
That was when she surprised him. She chuckled. Not joyously or uproariously or anything like that, but there was a definite look of good humour on her face. Briefly. It chased away the sad and brought out a dimple and suddenly she looked like the woman who’d caught his eye the other day, and not just a random two o’clock coffee drinker cluttering up his front bar when he’d rather he and his bung leg were having a lie-down on the hammock.
‘I didn’t think you knew how to smile,’ he said.
She looked at him then. Really looked, with none of the loaded silences of before. ‘It’s been a while. I just … well, people don’t normally tell me to my face how, um, sad and cranky I look.’
He should keep his mouth shut. He really should, but—‘So,areyou sad? And cranky? Or perhaps you’re afflicted with what my niece calls “resting sad face”, so you always look sad even when you’re happy.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Happy and I parted ways some time ago. Now, let’s just agree that you’ve hurt yourself, and I’m sad, and move on. Will you let me examine your leg? Carol’s likely to refuse to serve me dinner if I don’t go back and report I’ve laid my hands on you.’
He grinned. ‘You know, people don’t normally tell me to my face how much they want to lay their hands on me.’
There was that blush again. It was adorable, it really was.
‘Professional hands,’ she said, holding her hands up, fingers splayed and palms towards him, which just made her appear more vulnerable, somehow. Her hands were small and her palms held storylines that people like his sister Daisy and his dad Robbo would say told you everything you needed to know about heart, head, life and fate.
‘And I would lay them on you in a professional way,’ Jodie was saying. ‘I’m a physio. Carol informs me that since I am the reason you hurt your leg, it is my duty to check on your injury.’
‘What can you do that ibuprofen can’t?’
She leaned back on her stool. ‘More than you’d think. Come on, I’ve dragged myself in here, so you may as well get it over with. I’ll check your hamstring out, we’ll narrow down what damage you might have done to your muscles or tendons, and I won’t even make you drop your pants.’
This was certainly a change in attitude, and it would have been welcome if he hadn’t been dealing with an aversion to professional hands for the last few years. ‘As tempting as all this sounds, I’m at work.’
She looked around. Every chair, stool and window seat was empty, if you discounted the ginger cat, who’d curled himself up on an upholstered club chair under theNo Pets Allowed Insidesign.
‘You do look busy.’
Sarcasm suited her; it chased more of those shadows away. Also, he had a soft spot for people who could deliver sarcasm with such a straight face.
‘A publican’s chores are never done and, I’ll repeat myself, I am fine.’ And hewasfine. Not the leg, obviously; it hurt like a hundred-year-old red cedar tree had fallen on it. Buthewas fine. In himself. Even with her talk of damage and tendons. Even with his worry that his leg might be so bad he’d need to get over his aversion to hospital smells and doctors in scrubs.
‘Now … the bar counter’s a good solid surface, but it’s too tall. Are there any longer tables anywhere? Sturdy ones?’
She was looking at him expectantly, as though this was not at all a serious health-related endeavour, just a conundrum to be solved. A table conundrum, as opposed to a medical conundrum.
He sighed and relented. A look-see here, in the pub, where there was not a stethoscope nor a blood pressure cuff to be found, was preferable to the alternative. ‘There are picnic tables out in the beer garden,’ he said. Grudgingly.
‘Excellent. Lead the way.’
‘Let me just put a sign up,’ he said. Fergus might be upstairs in the staff quarters, but the kid was due a break. Will locked the front door, hauled down the row of casement windows on the off chance intruders were lurking in the bougainvillea out front, and checked theBeer Garden Is Opensign was visible to anyone who fronted up expecting to get a drink. Weekday afternoons were not, in general, busy.
It wasn’t until Will stood next to Jodie, staring down at one of the picnic tables and wondering if it would hold his weight, that he noticed she had a tote bag with her. She pulled out one of those trendy things that was sort of a towel and sort of a sarong and spread it over the cracked timber.
