Page 54 of Doc Hollywood

“I know. But I don’t want to. I want to—“

Clara interrupted him. “No promises.”

She felt Taylor nod and he finally released her, stepping back. He made eye contact with her one last time, a smile splitting his face while he stared at her before he turned around and walked away.

CHAPTER 14

Clara was finally home after a twelve-hour day in the operating theatre. She flopped onto her sofa, checked her phone to see if Taylor had messaged her and sighed when there was nothing new since she had left the hospital.

She tried to put her phone down but couldn’t help herself and scrolled through all the messages they had exchanged, all the way back to the first photo he had sent her, a selfie of him with a penguin. His face was mostly hidden under his warm clothing, and he was giving her a big thumbs up.

Throwing her phone down on the sofa, she grabbed the remote and switched the television on.

She needed to stop. She was obsessed with his messages, waiting for them to arrive and replying immediately. It wasn’t healthy for her to think so obsessively about a man she wouldn’t ever see again.

Despite the pep talk to herself, when a text arrived, she snatched the phone up and immediately checked it to see a message from Taylor. It was a photo of him in front of a machine, giving her a thumbs-up.

He had captioned it,‘Arrived in Australia. Having a sneaky peak at the set in the old hospital we’ll be working in.’

‘What is that?’She typed back.

‘It’s my anaesthetic machine.’

Clara zoomed in on the photo. It was hard to see much of the supposed anaesthetic machine as he blocked most of it, but it didn’t look like anything she had ever used.

‘Can you send me another photo?’Clara messaged, then put her phone down and walked into the hallway to grab her bag, which had her laptop inside.

Setting it on the table, she emailed the photo to herself for a better look. Zooming in confirmed her suspicions: That was not an anaesthetic machine.

Another photo from Taylor arrived. This time, it was just the machine, which wasn’t an anaesthetic machine; it was a dialysis machine. Not the same in any way, shape, or form.

‘Who told you that was an anaesthetic machine?’Clara sent back.

‘Our medical adviser.’

Clara opened up the medical register on her laptop before she asked,‘What’s their name?’

‘Doctor Michael Thackeray.’

She typed his, luckily unusual, name into the medical register, reading the information about him on the screen before she sent,‘What job does he say he does?’

‘He’s an anaesthetist.’

‘He’s a chiropractor,’she replied, then took a photo of the information in front of her and texted it to him.

It wasn’t even two minutes before Taylor called her on FaceTime. Clara stared at the image on the screen—she had assigned his selfie with a penguin to his contact—suddenly nervous; she hadn’t spoken to him since he had left.

Taking a few deep breaths, she pressed the button to answer. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Taylor’s smiling face filled the screen. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Clara breathed, trying to ignore the fluttering of her heart, as she had almost forgotten how handsome he was when he wasn’t wearing the face ferret.

“I only just got back from the Antarctic.”

“I know, you told me already.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Well, I’m back in Australia and came today for a sneaky peek at the hospital.”

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