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university, and how keen you are to be part of the practice that is so dear to his heart?'
    Ah, Fenella thought. Therein lies the answer to his attitude. He wants only the best and has his doubts about young clubbers who don't keep their eyes on their drinks.
    'What will you do if he offers you the position?' Ann asked.
    'I don't know,' she said flatly. 'I want to work at the village practice but not if I'm looked upon with doubt and disfavour.'
    Her mother laughed. 'If Max feels that way about you, he won't offer you the job. It's as simple as that.'
    'Yes. I suppose you're right,' Fenella agreed. 'I'll wait and see what happens.' Referring to more mundane matters she continued, 'I've made a casserole and a rhubarb tart for dinner. Is that all right?'
    'Of course it is,' she was told. 'It is pure joy to come in to food that is ready to eat. While you've been at university I've had the most deplorable meals. It seems too much trouble to cook just for one.' She put her arms around the slender figure of her daughter and said ruefully, 'I did so hope that we would be working together at the surgery, but it is more important for you to be happy in your working life, and if you've got off on the wrong foot with Max, well...'
    Fenella's father had died some years previously from a heart attack and the two women had a close, loving bond that made Fenella feel that she didn't want to leave her mother on her own again.
    'How old is he?' she asked as they cleared away after the meal.
    'Middle thirties,' her mother replied, without asking who she meant.
    'Is he married?'
    'No. Although there are those who would jump at the chance were he to ask them.'
    'He is top of the league in looks,' Fenella said begrudgingly. 'But when it comes to personality...!'
    'Give the man a break,' Ann said laughingly. 'If he was a bit sharp with you maybe you asked for it. You're no pushover yourself.'
    'Where does Max Hollister live?' she asked, not taking her mother up on that last comment.
    'He lives with his young brother in a converted barn on the outskirts of the village and it is quite something, believe me. Did you know that, as well as being a GP, Max is a police surgeon?'
    Oh, she knew all right, Fenella thought. But she wasn't going to admit it to her mother. Ann knew what had happened at the club but she was not aware that the police had called Max Hollister out to her daughter and Fenella intended it to stay that way.
    And in the meantime she was going to have to wait until the next day to know if his highness was going to offer her a place in the practice. Much as she wanted to stay near her mother, Fenella didn't know what she was going to say if he did. If he didn't there would be no decision to make. It would be his loss, she thought mutinously.
     

CHAPTER TWO
    For the rest of the day Max put thoughts of Fenella Forbes to one side. Since Simon's accident there had been little time for anything but keeping the practice running efficiently with himself as the only doctor, and it was an exhausting business. But as he drove home in the early evening after a long and tiring day she was uppermost in his mind.
    He'd caught her mother's glance on him a couple of times since he and Fenella had parted company in the lunch-hour and had known that Ann was anxious to know what he'd thought of her daughter, but wasn't going to ask.
    It was more a case of what she'd thought of him, he was thinking now. He'd been critical and overbearing. The odds were that she wouldn't take the job if he offered it to her after the way he'd acted.
    What was the matter with him? he wondered. Had it been so long since he'd been attracted to a woman that he'd forgotten how to behave? Heaven forbid that should be the case, and heaven forbid that he should be attracted to Fenella Forbes!
    On the face of it she was nothing like her mother, his pleasant and extremely efficient practice manager. But time would tell if she came to work at the practice, and suddenly he knew that