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up and gone. I wanted to talk to you,' she said through a mouthful of pins. 'It doesn't matter about lunch.'
    'Don't be so stupid!' he admonished. 'How can you expect to care for your patients if you neglect yourself? It's one of the first basics of nursing.' He glared at her. 'What happens if you don't eat?'
    She bit her lip. 'The blood sugar level is lowered,' she answered meekly.
    'And what effect does that have?'
    'It—it slows up the reactions.' Her temper was rising again. Why was he behaving like a Dickensian schoolmaster this morning? And why was she letting him get away with it? 'Well—that's the answer you were looking for isn't it?' she demanded. 'You seem to have forgotten that I'm giving up nursing. You can forget the lectures now, you know!' Her eyes flashed at him dangerously but his own dark ones glared back relentlessly.
    'While you're looking after my patients you're still a nurse as far as I am concerned and you will have something to eat—and as many lectures as I think you need—Nurse Lang.' He got to his feet. 'I can recommend the egg, sausage and chips—and I don't want to hear that it's fattening! Tea or coffee?'
    She sniffed. 'Coffee.'
    She watched as he went across to the counter. What was the matter with everyone today? If only he could have been in the mood he had shown her when he gave her a lift home. What she had to ask him would be doubly difficult now.
    As she tucked into the sausage, egg and chips she realised for the first time how hungry she was. He watched her in silence for a while, then asked:
    'Well, what was it you wanted to speak to me about?'
    She swallowed, then looked at him, one eyebrow raised perversely. 'Don't you know that it's very bad for the digestion to talk and eat at the same time?'
    He began to get up. 'I've more to do with my time than sit here listening to your impertinence!'
    Panic rose in her throat, almost choking her. 'Oh, please—I didn't mean to be rude. Don't go!' Several people looked round in amusement at her crimson-faced confusion and Sean looked more annoyed than ever. She took a deep breath. 'Look—I do have something to say—something important—and—and difficult.'
    He sat down again, his face as dark as thunder. 'Well for heaven's sake say it before you have half the hospital gossiping about us!'
    She laid down her knife and fork. 'That job you told me about—in Yorkshire. Have you filled it yet?'
    He looked at her for a long moment. 'Are you trying to tell me that you've changed your mind?' he asked.
    She shrugged. 'I might have.'
    He stood up. 'Well, I'll give you until this evening to make up your mind about it,' he told her tersely. 'I'll be at your flat this evening at eight. If you've managed to decide what you want to do we'll talk about it then.' And without another word or a backward glance he was gone.
    Katy knew she would have the flat to herself when she got home that evening. Tracy had gone up North for an interview and Sonia had a date with a new boyfriend. She showered and changed though Sean hadn't said he was taking her out. Maybe he would only stay long enough to tell her the details about the job. After some consideration she put on her new stretch jeans and a fluffy cream sweater, tying up her unruly hair in a ponytail.
    He was prompt, ringing the doorbell dead on eight o'clock. She had found half a bottle of sherry at the back of the kitchen cupboard, left over from the party, and had put it out on the sideboard with two glasses so that she could offer him a drink. He accepted.
    'Thanks, I will. It's been quite a day one way and another. Tell me, how have you got along with Peter?'
    She smiled as she poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to him. 'Fine. He's a super little boy. It's a pity he's so hung up about playing with the other children though.'
    He nodded. 'I've been looking through the notes his GP sent through, I also rang him this afternoon for a chat. It seems Peter's parents are divorced and he and his