Resisting Her Rebel Doc by Joanna Neil

emotions were all churned up inside her, though it wasn’t only the forthcoming nuptials that bothered her. A fortnight had gone by since her mother had first come into hospital and after a brief spell at home she had been readmitted. It was distressing.
    ‘Your aunt’s desperate for everything to go off smoothly. She’s been stressed about one thing and another for some time now.’ Her mother’s grey-blue eyes were troubled. She winced again, moving carefully as she tried to get comfortable. Small beads of perspiration had formed on her brow. ‘She keeps saying how you and Jenny used to be so close.’ She frowned. ‘I wish I could be there to give you some support.’
    Caitlin nodded, acknowledging her anxieties. ‘I know.’ Soothingly, she dabbed her mother’s brow with a damp cloth. There was no way she could leave hospital, let alone go to her niece’s wedding.
    Instead of making good progress in the last couple of weeks, a nasty infection had set in around the site of the surgical incision, causing her mother a lot of pain and discomfort. Caitlin was worried about her. The consultant had inserted tubes in the wound to try to drain away the infected matter but it was turning out to be a slow process. No one knew how the infection had started but Caitlin suspected it had crept in when the dressing was changed.
    ‘I’m pretty sure Jenny hasn’t told her family that Matt and I were already a couple when they met,’ she commented softly.
    Her mother’s brows rose in startled disbelief. ‘Oh, you don’t think so? Heavens, that hadn’t occurred to me. It’s probably the general stress of the wedding that’s getting to her.’
    Of course, if Caitlin didn’t turn up for the celebrations this afternoon, her aunt would soon realise something was badly amiss and would want to know what was going on, wouldn’t she? Caitlin felt more despondent than ever. Even more reason why she should go along to the event—yet all her instincts were clamouring for her to stay away.
    She pushed her own problems to one side and sent her mother a quick, sympathetic look. ‘It’s rotten for you to be stuck in hospital today of all days. I know you were looking forward to seeing Aunty Anne and having a good chat—but she did say she would come and see you as soon as she could get away.’
    ‘Yes, I’ll look forward to that.’ Distracted momentarily, her mother patted the magazines that littered the bed. ‘At least I have plenty of reading material to keep me occupied in the meantime. Thank you for these.’ She smiled. ‘So how’s the new job going? It was good of Brodie to set you on, wasn’t it?’
    ‘It was...’ He’d been nothing but kind and helpful so far, but Caitlin couldn’t help but think he had an ulterior motive. Hadn’t he more or less said so that afternoon in his garden? He wanted to change her mind about men—and about him in particular. Could he do that? A tingle of alarm ran through her at the prospect. Of course he couldn’t. That would be unthinkable. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. When he’d left the village years ago, she’d tried to forget about him, put him from her mind. It had been far too upsetting to dwell on what might have been.
    ‘It’s going all right so far, I think,’ she said. ‘The unit runs very smoothly—everyone knows their job and we all seem to work well together. I’m sure a lot of it’s down to Brodie being in charge. He’s very organised and efficient, and extremely good with people. Somehow, he always manages to get them to do what he wants.’ It was remarkable how people responded to his innate charm.
    Her mother nodded agreement. ‘I’m amazed how well he’s doing. Whoever would have guessed he’d turn his life around like that? I mean, I always liked him, but when he went so completely off the rails as a teenager it was upsetting. His poor mother didn’t know where to turn.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Brodie’s problems had started some