Like Doctor, Like Son Read online

  Obviously, he was already lining up the various scenarios that could have caused a woman of Constance Adamson’s age to collapse, preparing himself to deal with those he could treat and organise help for those he couldn’t. At the same time, he was marvelling at the fact that he was actually going to be walking in through the front door when the last time he’d approached it, it had been firmly closed in his face.

  ‘What a difference sixteen years makes,’ he muttered, as he grabbed his bag and crunched his way across the neatly raked gravel. The ornate wooden door yawned widely at the top of the shallow steps. ‘From persona non grata to command performance.’

  He stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him, deliberately blocking the memories of the last time he’d caught a glimpse inside this cavernous entrance hall. He certainly wasn’t going to allow himself to wonder if Faith was here.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, glancing towards the grand staircase curving up towards the bedrooms. ‘Molly? Where are you?’

  ‘In here, Doctor.’ The familiar silvery grey head appeared around the corner at the end of the hall. ‘She’s in the drawing room.’

  Quickly, he followed her, only realising which room he was entering when the memories burst over him like an avalanche.

  This was the room with the French doors that opened out onto the balustraded terrace and gardens with the stunning views over half a county; the room with the polished wooden floor, sumptuous draperies and luxurious furniture where a beautiful grand piano took pride of place; the room where Faith had written her first composition after the first time the two of them had—

  ‘I came in to tell her that her lunch was ready,’ Molly said, interrupting a memory that he’d never been able to forget, no matter how hard he’d tried over the years. ‘I could tell she was in a lot of pain, so I rang the surgery straight away.’

  ‘Who is her usual doctor? Do you know?’ Quinn bent over the woman he’d only ever spoken to once in his life—the day she’d told him that Faith didn’t want to see him again—and deliberately switched off his emotions.

  Had she had a heart attack, too? What were the chances that he’d have to deal with two of them in a week in a relatively rural practice, let alone two in the space of a morning?

  ‘She sees some high and mighty chap in Harley Street,’ Molly said, confirming what Joan had told him. ‘I don’t know his name, but I could find it in her desk. Is it important?’

  She was slumped into the corner of the high-backed chair and she looked dreadful…barely alive. Her skin was pale and waxen and her eyes, the dark blue eyes that she’d bequeathed to her daughter, were sunken and shadowed, hidden behind tissue-thin lids.

  ‘Mrs Adamson? Can you hear me? I’m just going to check you over to see if I can find out what’s the matter.’ Her pulse was faint and thready and felt as if it would hardly be strong enough to keep a mouse alive. Her breathing was shallow and irregular, as if it was just too much effort for her to cope with.

  ‘Molly, could you ask someone to get the oxygen cylinder from my car?’ He held out the keys. At least he could help her body with its fight for life. ‘It’s in the—’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ the autocratic voice rasped, a mere shadow of its former self. ‘I won’t be here long enough to need it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Quinn demanded sharply, several scenarios jostling in his head. It seemed unlikely that Constance Adamson would have deliberately taken an overdose of drugs—she just wasn’t the sort. Did she take digitalis for a heart problem? Had she delayed too long before she’d slipped the tablet under her tongue? Was it some sort of interaction between two different drugs, accidentally taken together?

  ‘I’m dying,’ she said flatly, as though disdaining wasting any breath on beating about the bush.

  ‘No!’ Molly exclaimed, clearly shocked. ‘It’s just a bug. You must have picked up a bug when you went away to see Faith’s concert. I noticed you were looking poorly when you came home. You’ll soon be better when the doctor gives you some antibiotics and then—’

  ‘Molly…No…’ The words were barely above a hoarse whisper but they silenced the frantic babble of the housekeeper’s attempt at denial. ‘It’s cancer.’

  She finally opened her eyes and focused intently on Quinn.

  He shivered in spite of the warmth of the room. There was something very strange about the way she was looking at him, lingering over each feature almost as if she was deliberately committing his dark hair, green eyes and stubborn jaw to memory—as if she didn’t want to forget what he looked like.

  ‘Inoperable?’ he asked, hardly needing her answering nod.

  Behind him he could hear Molly trying to stifle her sobs but all his concentration was on the woman in front of him, indomitable even when she had less strength than a newborn kitten.

  ‘How long have they given you?’ he asked, and was jolted by the flash of spirit in her eyes.

  ‘They gave me a month or two…six months ago,’ she said with a touch of pride. ‘But I’d just discovered…that there were things I still had to do…Things I had to put right…if I could.’

  ‘And have you done them?’ he challenged, shocked to discover that he could admire the woman he’d disliked for so many years. How could he not when she’d fought death for a stay of execution and won so much extra time?

  ‘As much as I can,’ she wheezed. ‘The rest of it is out of my hands…and, anyway, I’ve run out of time.’ She coughed weakly and he found himself sliding a supporting arm around her shoulders to see if that would ease her breathing a little.

  It took several minutes before she opened her eyes again, this time to look across at Molly.

  ‘I’m sorry…old friend…’ she whispered. ‘I wanted to spare you…but I couldn’t stay in the hospice…I wanted…I needed to come home…to die at the Barton.’

  By the time she’d finished speaking she was visibly struggling for her next breath and he was convinced that each would be her last. Then she opened her eyes again and he could see that she was still fighting the inevitable.

  ‘Do something…for me…’ she breathed weakly, her blue gaze fierce in her colourless face.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked quietly, wondering if she was finally going to give in and allow him to administer pain relief and running a mental checklist of the relative merits of what he carried in his bag. This near to her, he could already smell death hovering close by. If it weren’t for her fierce determination, she would already be gone. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Promise me…’ She was fading fast, now, her words all but inaudible even though he leaned as near as possible. ‘Promise…you won’t take no for an answer…this time.’

  ‘What…?’ Before he could complete the question, she glared at him.

  ‘Promise!’ she hissed with the last of her strength.

  ‘I promise,’ he said, and she slumped against him, her body under the elegant clothes so thin that she was little more than skin and bones.

  He had no idea what he’d given his word to, and he had no chance to ask her. It was almost as if his promise had been the last thing she’d wanted to fight for because as soon as he’d given it, she’d lapsed into unconsciousness.

  Even though it was unlikely that she knew he was there, he sat beside her, holding her hand for the little time that remained of her life. He knew he had other places he needed to be and sleep he needed to catch up on, but somehow they faded into insignificance against the strange need he had to be with the woman who’d helped to break his heart so long ago.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he murmured, when her heart finally beat for the last time, wishing strangely that he could have known her better. Gutsy was far too earthy a word to describe such an elegant woman, but it certainly suited her spirit and he couldn’t help but admire her.

  He sighed heavily as his exhaustion descended on him with a vengeance. There was so much he had to do, not least contact the coroner to notify him of Constance Adamson�
��s death. Thank goodness Joan had been able to contact Andrew to take over his home visits this afternoon. At least none of his other patients had been neglected while he’d been at the Barton.

  ‘Oh, Doctor, I didn’t know,’ Molly sobbed. ‘I promise you, I had no idea that she was so sick or I would have—’

  ‘Shh, Molly. Shh!’ he soothed, wrapping a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘There was nothing you could have done. This was obviously the way she wanted things…and she always wanted things to be done her way, didn’t she?’

  ‘You’re right there.’ Molly gave a watery chuckle that soon dissolved into tears again. ‘Oh, Doctor, what am I going to tell Faith? How am I going to tell her that her mother was dying and I didn’t know?’

  ‘You’ll tell her exactly that,’ he said firmly. ‘If Herself had wanted everyone to know, she’d have told them, wouldn’t she?’ He fought a silent battle with himself, subduing the strange mixture of antipathy and excitement at the thought of speaking to Faith after so many years to add, ‘I could tell her, if you want me to.’

  ‘Oh, no, Doctor, I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ she objected, visibly drawing herself together as she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘I know you used to live around here, and you’ve done very well for yourself, being a doctor and all, but I couldn’t let a stranger tell Faith about her mother. It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘A stranger…’ he muttered aloud into the seclusion of his car as he drove away a short while later, following the ambulance down the driveway. ‘I hadn’t realised just how successful she’d been at keeping her relationship with one of the lower orders a secret.’ The year they’d had together, working towards the exams that would take them both to medical school, had been so special to him that he’d barely noticed the rest of the world. Nothing had existed outside his studies and spending time with Faith. Even his father’s deepening depression and drunken rages had paled into insignificance against the way he’d felt when they’d been together.

  And yet, in essence, wasn’t that what they were to each other these days…strangers?

  Granted, they hadn’t seen each other in sixteen years, but once upon a time they’d thought they’d known each other well enough to make plans to marry and spend the rest of their lives together. Then, just weeks before they had been due to take up their coveted places, Faith had walked away without a backward glance, so he obviously hadn’t known her as well as he’d thought. The girl he’d thought he’d been in love with and who had seemed to return his love every bit as passionately would never have done such a thing.

  He reversed into his reserved parking space and just sat there for a moment, trying to get his thoughts in order. He still had several hours of paperwork to do after this morning’s surgery and he needed to catch up on what Andrew had found when he’d covered the home visits this afternoon. And he wouldn’t be able to do any of that effectively if his thoughts were taken up with old memories of Faith.

  She was part of his past—one of the more painful parts of his past—and that was where she would stay. He’d gone on with his life, he reminded himself doggedly. He was successful and busy and fulfilled, and if he sometimes delayed going home at night because he couldn’t face the emptiness of staring at four blank walls…well, even that was something he’d become accustomed to over the years.

  The thing he’d never become accustomed to was the dreams.

  Sometimes he would go months, even years, without one. Then out of the blue he’d wake up in the darkness drenched in sweat while his heart pounded with the effort of racing after something he could never catch; something that was always just out of his sight in the surrounding darkness, but something so precious that his sleeping self was willing to pursue until he finally caught it.

  In the light of day he would never admit that it was probably Faith and the love he’d thought they’d shared that he was trying to find. If he were to admit it, he would also have to admit that it was something he was never going to achieve, and that would mean that he was condemned to dream of her for ever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ON HER way out of the classroom Faith paused in front of his desk and Quinn’s heart began to beat heavily in his chest, almost stopping him from breathing. He should be used to it by now—it had been happening ever since the first time he’d seen her on that first day, when she’d stopped to help the new boy who had obviously been late and lost.

  It was that smile that did it. It told him that she was shy but there was also mischief in it. There was a sparkle in clear blue eyes that were too honest to hide what she was thinking, even when it was that hint of something that made his hands shake and his thoughts dive inexorably south. Well, he hoped he was reading her right, because it seemed as if she was thinking that she kind of liked him and maybe wanted to spend more time with him. He knew all about those feelings, only there wasn’t any ‘kind of’ or ‘maybe’ about the way he felt.

  It was probably all wishful thinking on his part, anyway. Faith lived up at the Barton, for heaven’s sake, and as the daughter of local queen bee Constance Adamson was practically royalty in comparison with his peasant abode in the run-down shack he shared with his father. She couldn’t be interested in spending time with him.

  ‘See you in the library, later?’ she asked, and if he’d been into self-delusion he could almost persuade himself that the tilt of her head was flirtatious. He had to swallow before he could answer, certain that his voice would squeak back into the falsetto he’d left behind at least five years ago.

  ‘Coffee first?’ he suggested, hoping to sound worldly wise and nonchalant but hoping more that she would agree. If she did, it would be their first meeting outside classes that had taken place anywhere other than in the library. There, it was impossible to talk about anything other than their studies, with the librarian glaring over her bifocals at anything above a whisper.

  She hesitated for so long that he was certain she was trying to find a polite way to turn him down. Well, why wouldn’t she? There had already been time for his father to be sacked from his first job in town for poor time-keeping, and the word was probably out that Quinn Jamison was a loser’s son.

  He had that sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and was on the point of apologising for the invitation when she spoke.

  ‘I prefer tea,’ she said with a suddenly impish grin and turned to lead the way, the ends of her long dark hair flipping saucily in her wake.

  ‘No!’ wailed the youngster, pulling her hand out of Quinn’s reach and burrowing into her mother’s protective arms. ‘I don’t want a needle. I don’t like needles.’

  ‘She’s frightened of needles,’ her mother said unnecessarily, gazing up at him out of heavily made-up eyes. ‘It’s a family weakness—even when the doctor is as gentle as you are.’

  I don’t have time for this, Quinn groaned silently, and wondered for one brief moment if he was going to lose his patience. Sometimes, the parents were worse than the children, he thought, stifling another groan as she redoubled her efforts when he refused to take any notice of her blatant flirting. If only the wretched mother would help, instead of alternately winding her daughter up or trying to hook his attention with her all-too-blatant charms, the whole thing could have been over fifteen minutes ago.

  As it was, he was probably going to be late arriving at Constance Adamson’s funeral. Not that he was obliged to go, but he’d been telling himself that Molly Beech would probably be pleased to see him there as a mark of respect to her employer, especially as the two of them had shared her last hours. He wouldn’t allow himself to think that the reason why he didn’t want to be late—or even miss the funeral altogether—was that he wanted…needed…to see Faith just one last time.

  ‘This isn’t a needle, Melanie. It’s a pair of tweezers. Look,’ he said, forcing himself to speak patiently. ‘I can use them to pick things up.’ He demonstrated by burying the tips of the tweezers into a ball of cotton wool and lift
ing it towards the spoiled youngster. ‘Here you are…you can hold that for me in your other hand while I have a look at your splinter.’

  It was the sort of minor childish trauma that any ordinary mother would have coped with at home without a moment’s drama. But, then, he thought in a grim aside, over the last six months, he’d come to realise that Mrs Copthorne wasn’t any ordinary mother. She’d registered with the practice when she’d moved into the luxury home her husband had signed over to her when they’d divorced. Ever since he’d started work at Rookmere Medical Centre she seemed to find an excuse to visit at least once a week. Thank goodness, Melanie was usually in tow.

  Finally, he managed to distract the youngster long enough to remove the offending splinter and, much to her mother’s disappointment, quickly sent her on her way with a cartoon dressing over the tiny wound.

  ‘Joan, I’m going out now,’ he announced to his receptionist as he shrugged his way into his suit jacket. ‘I’ve got my pager with me, so if anything happens you can call me…’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Quinn!’ she exclaimed with a scowl on her motherly face. ‘I will not call you. You were up all night, running from one to another. You deserve a couple of hours’ breathing space in a day. And besides, young Andrew’s supposed to be on call today, remember?’

  ‘I know he is, but he hasn’t been here long enough to know all the patients and—’

  ‘Quinn! Andrew’s a fully qualified doctor who wouldn’t be working here in the first place if you didn’t think he was up to the job,’ she interrupted stubbornly. ‘Anyway, he’s got me here to tell him what he needs to know about anyone who calls. Remember, I’ve known them longer than you have, for all that you lived here when you were growing up. Now, get along with you and make sure that coffin is properly planted. We don’t want Herself coming back to haunt Rookmere.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked in a stage whisper, leaning forward so that his voice didn’t carry too far. Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever manage if he didn’t have her working with him. He could rely on her to keep his feet on the ground and she still managed to look after him like a hen with one chick.