Page 45 of Doc Hollywood

Clara tried so hard, but another snort of laughter bubbled out of her, and she smothered it to say, “Is that why you kept your mask on all day?”

She finally looked at his face properly to see the beard peeking out the corner of his mask.

“Yeah. I figured I was taking you out for dinner and might as well keep the beard on so we didn’t get bothered.” He lifted his hand and scratched at the side of it.

Without thinking, Clara reached out and tugged on some of the stray strands of beard peeking out from the corner of his mask.

He caught her fingers, murmuring, “Don’t tug on it. Its glue is a little precarious. And we don’t want the ferret falling off onto my dinner plate.”

Clara tried to pull her hand back, but he kept hold of it, and she swore he brushed his thumb over her palm.

For a moment, she forgot she was in a hospital corridor as she gazed at the man standing before her. The first man in a long time who had paid her any attention. Who had looked at her with eyes that seemed to suggest something other than friendship.

“Hi, Doctor Upford,” said Jane, one of the Junior doctors, as she walked behind Taylor.

Clara yanked her hand back from Taylor’s and stepped away from him, glad she was still wearing her mask.

From the heat she could feel in her cheeks, she knew she was flushing a fire engine shade of red, and her voice came out a little squeaky. “Hi, Jane. Have a good evening.”

“You too,” Jane replied.

Despite the theatre cap still on Jane’s head, Clara was sure that she could see the junior doctor’s eyebrows waggling suggestively before she pushed open the changing room door.

“Where shall we go?” Taylor queried when the young doctor was gone.

“For what?” Clara was flustered and had lost her train of thought, only able to think about the feel of his hand on hers.

“For dinner. What’s good in town?”

“Oh yeah. Dinner. Um, to be honest, everywhere’s a bit shit.” She laughed apologetically.

Taylor snorted with laughter at her blunt statement.

“Okay then,” he chuckled. “Which one is the least shit?”

“Hang on, let me check the weather.”

Clara and Taylor had spent the whole day in a windowless box; there could have been a tornado outside, and they wouldn’t have a clue.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the weather app.

“It’s supposed to be twenty-five degrees. No sign of rain. The food is very blah, but let’s go and sit in the pub beer garden. The chairs are comfy, and it’s lovely on a warm evening.”

Taylor pulled out his phone. “I’ll book a table.”

Clara laughed and reached out, pushing his phone down. “Yeah. You don’t need to make a reservation at the pub. How long since you went to a normal pub?”

“Not long,” he hedged.

“Yesterday doesn’t count.” She sputtered with laughter.

“In that case. A long time. I don’t get to go to normal bars,” he confirmed, his eyes turning down.

“Why not?” Clara asked with real interest, forgetting they were still standing in the corridor.

He shrugged. “I go to the places my agent, manager or publicist sends me to.”

“Not the pub?”

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