A light rain was falling as Kate headed home to her flat in Notting Hill. She'd counted herself lucky that she'd found something reasonably close to the hospital and at a price she was willing to pay. What she'd liked about the flat when she first saw it was that it had lots of natural light; it was neat, had modern appliances and it was close to the tube and bus routes.
She unlocked the street door and heard it snick shut behind her. After checking her post box she went upstairs to her flat on the second floor. It wasn't a big space, the building having been a large Victorian townhouse at one time. Now each of the three floors had been turned into separate flats but it was comfortable and she didn't feel cramped at all.
Inside she hung up her jacket in the little hallway and walked into the sitting room, switching on lights as she went. The room looked a little bleak as her furniture was still on its way up from Truro where she'd lived for the past three years. Her time at Truro Hospital had been wonderful but the surgery they undertook there had been limited as far as specialist procedures were concerned.
Kate ran a bath and sighed with pleasure as she lay back in the fragrant bubbles. Her thoughts were all about the new hospital and the people she'd met and especially about Martin Ellingham. There was something about him that intrigued her. Apart from seeing him almost in the buff and noticing his nice physique, it was his demeanour that made her curious – it was defensive as if he wanted people to keep their distance. Her interaction with him had been limited and less than ideal so far, but it made her wonder who this man was – what made him tick. By all accounts he was rude, abrupt, had no bedside manner, could not abide incompetence, which wasn't a bad thing, she thought because neither could she, and he was reputed to have, as her friend Jen had put it, a block of ice where his heart should be. So lying in the bath thinking about him seemed a bit of an odd thing to be doing.
Kate wrapped herself in one of her big fluffy towels and padded through to her bedroom. She'd indulged herself and bought a brand new double bed to stretch out in and it dwarfed the room. The pastel greens and cream coloured linen and curtains helped to make the room look a little bigger though.
Dropping the towel, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her body was firm but curvy in the right places. She was thirty three now and cognitive of the fact that any extra kilos would attach themselves with a vengeance. She'd never been a gym person but she did a short yoga routine every day, walked everywhere and used the stairs instead of lifts whenever she could. That and a reasonably good diet, except for her occasional craving for chocolate and the odd glass of wine, had maintained her good figure.
She dressed in warm pyjamas and brushed her long hair until it shone. Most of her female colleagues had long since given in to the rigours of theatre life and had had their hair styled much shorter as it saved them loads of time every day. Kate couldn't take that step. She loved her hair long; it was just part of who she was.
After a light supper of chicken salad and fresh fruit for afters, she read for a while and when her eyes began to droop, she cuddled down under the warm duvet. She could hear the rain pattering on her bedroom window as she lay waiting for sleep to carry her off. Her last thoughts were disconcertingly of piercing grey-blue eyes under frowning brows.
ooooOOOOoooo