Page 27 of Reasons Of the Heart

'But I taught all my sons domestic chores,' Mrs Tarrant protested, 'Ross, what have you been doing to poor Francesca?'

'What indeed?' murmured Ross, humour twitching at his mouth again as he met Francesca's demure gaze. 'Stirrer,' he muttered, for her ears only.

'I must admit that he does more than his share of the cooking, though,' she said quickly, conscious of the threat of the long, hard thigh suddenly pressed against hers. She shifted her legs. He followed, tangling his feet with hers. Above the table their eyes duelled. 'He's a great cook, but he's useless anywhere else but the kitchen.'

'Oh, really?' Jason gave a shout of laughter. 'Poor Ross. Bedside manner slipping, is it, doctor?'

'Now, Jason,' his mother admonished him mildly.

'Sorry, Francesca,' Jason's apology was unabashed. 'It's just that you must be the first nurse Ross has ever met who hasn't instantly succumbed to the great healer's charm. Told you it was just the white coat, Ross.'

Fran's slightly bewildered smile froze on her lips. She felt Ross's hand come down warningly on her knee.

'You should have let me explain when I wanted to, Princess,' he breathed in a singsong manner out of the corner of his mouth.

Her puzzlement, however, was misinterpreted by everyone else. 'I can see by your blank expression that you haven't worked at National Women's Hospital, Francesca,' Beth giggled. 'After the Dream Consultant has made his rounds there they have to sweep 'em up from the hall ways...swooning nurses and patients alike!'

Consultant? Doctor? Ross was a doctor?

Fran's head swivelled stiffly to her right. The deep azure eyes were filled with rueful apology, and an unholy amusement that was almost her undoing.

He was a doctor! Ross...that lazy, teenage intellec­tual sloven, had trained to be a doctorl When? How? She went icy with embarrassment when she recalled some of the things she had said to him, and then sizzled hot with fury. How he must have enjoyed watching her make an arrant fool of herself! The only redeeming feature of his wretched joke was that he didn't appear to have told anyone else of her misconception... the misconception he had deliberately fostered!

CHAPTER SEVEN

'Francesca?' She came out of her fierce trance to meet Mrs Tarrant's concern. 'Are you all right? You've gone quite pale. Ross, perhaps you should have kept her in bed.'

'I tried, believe me, Mum, I tried.' Ross's smirk sent the colour flooding back into Francesca's face. She placed her hand on his under the table and dug in her nails. He jerked back in his seat with a strangled cough. Nursing his branded hand in his lap, he had the gall to send Fran a reproachful look. 'I...er...think she's re­covered now. Perhaps it was a momentary swoon...'

'It takes more than just a pretty face to set Auckland Hospital nurses swooning.' Francesca gave him a sweet, murderous smile.

'No, it takes a good slug or two of brandy to do that,' Ross agreed, equally sweetly.

Francesca wanted to sink through the floor. Even the ravenous, leather-jacketed trio at the other end of the table stopped eating their way through third helpings in order to follow the intriguing conversation.

'Now, Frankie, you said you wouldn't get mad,' Ross teased, his eyes glinting with provocative triumph, knowing that she could say little without revealing what a gullible idiot she had been. Why hadn't she suspected? The way he'd talked about his injuries, the intelligent questions he had asked when she'd talked about her work—they should have given her clues. But she had been blinded by other things, not the least of which had been the instant, unwelcome attraction she had felt for him.

He was enjoying this, damn him, and she could tell from his disgustingly smug expression that he thought that just because he had now proved how utterly re­spectable he was that everything would go his way... that she would fall gratefully into his manly arms!

She managed a creditable laugh. 'I'm not mad. I was just thinking that whatever we do we seem to end up diametrically opposed.' She dazzled Ross with a brilliant smile that made the amused blue eyes narrow with sus­picion. Brace yourself, Doctor, Fran thought with grim satisfaction, one good bombshell deserves another! 'Here you are, local boy made

good... a doctor, no less, and here / am, always the goody-two-shoes at school, going sadly to the dogs, according to my friends.'

She savoured the laughing protests and enquiries, not taking her eyes off the still and silent Ross, seeing his suspicion harden into scepticism. He thought she was just coat-trailing.

'But you're a nurse. That's as good as a doctor in my book!' Beth was saying. 'Ross says that nurses are the backbone of the Health Service.'

'They are. But I'm not a nurse any more.'

Ross didn't change colour and not a muscle moved in his face, but the sheer blue shock of his eyes was worth the price of baring her life to a bunch of virtual strangers. Francesca raised her eyebrows mockingly.

'Shall I loosen your collar, Doctor? Some hot, sweet tea, perhaps?' A brief storm darkened the blue eyes and she grinned delightedly, a wicked mischief dancing across her wide mouth. And he thought that he had the mon­opoly on provocation!

'My dear.' Florence Tarrant tugged her attention away from her helpless victim so that Francesca didn't see the storm clear as swiftly as it had come, to be replaced by a sultry gleam of admiration, and a determination which would have disturbed her greatly had she seen it. 'Surely you haven't had to give up your career permanently be­cause of your illness? After all your training!'

'Oh, no,' Francesca told her hostess, touched by her evident sympathy, and guilty because she didn't really deserve it. 'I resigned just before I came up here, but I never actually intended nursing to be a life-long vo­cation when I started out. It was as much a way to escape home as a desire to help people.' Florence Tarrant smiled understandingly, without a hint of the disapproval that Fran had faced from others about 'wasting her training', and she was encouraged to expand. 'I've enjoyed myself, and learned a lot but... well... now I have a chance to do what I always wanted. I'm going into business with a friend.'

'Really? What kind of business?'

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