Christmas in Bluebell Cove

by Abigail Gordon

  The first thing Ethan did was to look around him for any signs of his wife, and Jenna said, ‘Francine is already installed in the consulting room at the end of the passage, Ethan. What a nice surprise.’

  ‘Yes, it is, Jenna,’ he agreed. ‘We are desperately short of doctors.’ He smiled at Millie on Reception. ‘It’s just on half past you’d better open up, Millie.’ And with only one thing in mind he strode briskly down the passage to the small room at the end.

  ‘What kept you?’ Francine asked from behind the desk when he was framed in the doorway. ‘You aren’t usually late.’

  ‘True,’ he replied, ‘but having been awake most of the night, then dozing off just as I was due to get up—’ he pointed to a gash on his chin ‘—plus doing this while I was shaving, it meant that I was on the last minute. Did you sleep all right after last night’s misunderstanding?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said dryly. ‘Like a top.’

  It wasn’t true, of course. She’d spent the night tossing and turning and the last thing she’d felt like doing in the spring dawn had been getting up to go and help at the surgery. But a promise was a promise and in spite of Ethan being around most of the time, it would help take her mind off the disillusion of the night before.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ she asked.

  ‘How about forgive me for upsetting you?’

  ‘I was referring to this place,’ she told him levelly.

  ‘Yes, of course you were,’ he agreed flatly. ‘I want us to share the morning surgery with you seeing as many patients as you feel possible. Obviously they will all have appointments with me as I’ve been the only doctor available of late, but I’m going to tell Millie to inform them when they arrive that they can see you if they wish and we’ll play it from there.

  ‘By having you to share the workload here, I’ll be able to start the house calls sooner and have a short break before afternoon surgery starts. At present there isn’t a moment to spare between the two.

  ‘It’s going to be a bit chaotic at first as Millie won’t be able to provide us with the patient’s notes until she knows which of us they want to see, but hopefully it will gradually sort itself out.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s quite a while since I was here the last time. Is there anything different I need to know, apart from the fact that this place is ruling our lives?’

  It was said without animosity, just as a statement of fact, because after last night’s discussion she’d finally given up the dream of them living in France. The cloud she’d been on since they’d made love had disappeared, leaving her in her usual state of limbo.

  After observing the children’s pleasure at being with their French friends again she was convinced that their comments about not liking it there had been more of a youthful ruse to get Ethan and herself as near to each other as possible, instead of a dislike of life in France, and that knowledge, along with what had happened between him and her, had given her the confidence to start hoping again, only to be brought back down to earth once they were back on English soil.

  She’d decided as she’d sat unmoving for hours after leaving him the night before that she wasn’t going to change anything with regard to Kirstie and Ben. They were settled back in the village, obviously felt secure regarding their home life, and liked the idea of Thimble Cottage. As for herself, she still had her lonely weekends in Paris to look forward to.

  His reply to her comment about the practice ruling their lives had seemed to come from far away, so absorbed had she been in her own thoughts, but it registered just the same as Ethan said in a low voice. ‘It isn’t the time or the place to continue last night’s discussion, Francine. Can I leave you to start your first day back in another part of Bluebell Cove where you are needed badly?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m ready and waiting.’

  They were filtering through, mostly women patients, some of whom she knew from before, others were new.

  Mary Carradine was someone she hadn’t seen before and the smart elderly woman said on entering, ‘I’m so pleased to have the chance to speak to a doctor of my own sex. I don’t get embarrassed easily, I’ve been around too long for that, but I have got a little problem that I would rather discuss with you than a male doctor, basically because men don’t have my kind of problem as they haven’t got a cervix.’

  ‘I had a hysteroscopy a few weeks ago and though the gynaecologist at the hospital said the tissue around the cervix was amazingly healthy for my age, when I got a copy of the report that he’d sent here it said that I’d got chronic cervicitis, which seemed odd after what he’d previously told me.’

  ‘When I questioned it with the hospital I was informed that they would want to see me again in case they decided that a biopsy was needed with a view to cauterising the cervix. I’m due at the gynaecology clinic on Wednesday and felt I’d like to speak to someone here before I go.’

  ‘I can understand your concern,’ Francine told her. ‘Our copy of the letter you received is in your file and I read it before I called you in, Mrs Carradine. First of all may I explain that of the two descriptions, acute and chronic, that might be used to describe your problem, chronic is the least serious.’

  ‘In your case it means merely that the entrance to the cervix might need a gentle scrape. Maybe it requires a little tidying up. A scrape is more or less what it sounds like, it’s a brief scraping movement to remove any infection in the easiest possible way. So try not to worry too much. Hunter’s Hill Hospital has an excellent gynaecology department. You couldn’t be in better hands. I shall look forward to hearing from you shortly that you are all sorted and seen to,’ she said with a smile.

  The patient got to her feet. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s over,’ she said wryly, ‘but you’ve taken a lot of the worry from me now that I know what is involved. Thank you.’ And off she went, a sprightly eighty-year-old who had been worrying about something she didn’t understand.

  After that Francine was kept busy for most of the morning, only stopping briefly when Jenna brought her a mug of coffee for elevenses. Ethan appeared just before midday and said, ‘I’ve seen all my patients and am off on the home visits. There’s just one person waiting to see you and then feel free to go. Thanks, Francine, having you here has made all the difference.’

  As he went to his car on the practice forecourt he was thinking that it really had made all the difference, not only with the workload. Having her back in the building that she’d been absent from for so long was pure joy, or at least it would be if there was a chance that it would stay that way.

  He wished he knew what the future held for them. Of one thing he was sure—he could not bear to lose her. Yet he doubted she felt the same way about him, especially after the way he’d allowed her to misunderstand his motive when he’d followed her to Paris and they’d slept together.

  Sadly it hadn’t been because he was ready to move to France. The opportunity to do that just wasn’t going to present itself. He’d followed her there for the reason he’d given her, because of those moments on the beach on Friday night.

  It had been like it used to be, the chemistry they’d created had been like an electric current moulding them into one. Because she’d felt it too, Francine had prevented what might have happened if they’d stayed down there with the comment about the divorce, and she couldn’t have chosen a better dampener to put out the fire than that!

  Yet he’d known that the spark was still there, and all he’d been able to think about had been how much he wanted to be near her again to prove to himself that he hadn’t imagined it.

  What had happened when they’d shared a room had been proof positive that he hadn’t, but he’d made a mess of it by giving her the impression he’d gone over to her way of thinking about living in France and it had turned sour.

  Francine left the surgery at one o’clock. Ethan had phoned to say that he would be back shortly and for her to go whenever she wanted. Feeling the need of some time to her
self away from her problems and those of others all morning at the surgery, she went across to the baker’s and bought a sandwich and a cold drink, and in the sunshine of the spring afternoon decided to walk to the woods that lay behind the village for a quiet lunch.

  As she was leaving the road to take the path that would lead her to them she didn’t see Ethan’s car approaching in the distance because she was too taken up with the bluebells all around her, but he’d caught a flash of white from the blouse she was wearing with a smart suit and pulled up on the grass verge at the entrance to the woods.

  When she heard a twig break somewhere behind her she turned quickly, startled at the sound, and he called, ‘Hi, Francine, it’s me. I caught a glimpse of you as I was coming up the road. What are you doing here? It’s a beautiful spot but a bit off the beaten track.’

  ‘I wanted some peace, some quiet time, so I’ve brought my lunch with me,’ she told him. ‘It’s such a beautiful day, too special to be inside when one doesn’t have to be. Are you going to have time to eat?’

  ‘Just about. I picked up a slice of fruit cake at one of the farm restaurants and a carton of soup. A lot of farms are going into catering these days, and very successfully too.’

  She was moving towards the shade of an old oak tree that was a mass of fresh greenery and settling herself on a wooden bench nearby waited to see what he would do.

  The memory of how they’d made love in the master bedroom of the house that he wouldn’t agree to make his home was bitter-sweet. She would never come alive in any other man’s arms as she did in his, but she’d been misled, hadn’t she? Or maybe been too eager to believe what she’d wanted to believe.

  It was an opportunity not to be missed, Ethan reflected. He had half an hour to spare before the afternoon surgery commenced so why not join her for lunch?

  As if reading his mind, she said, ‘Won’t your soup be getting cold?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s in a special container that keeps it warm so I’m going to join you.’ He felt her stiffen beside him and said reassuringly, ‘To give you the chance to report on what you thought of the surgery this morning. I noticed that quite a few of our women patients drifted in your direction when they were told they had a choice.’

  ‘It was good,’ she told him as she munched on the sandwich. ‘The time went very quickly for one thing, which it hasn’t been doing of late, and being back on the job got the adrenaline going. Why don’t you let me do some of the house calls when I’ve got settled in properly?’

  He was smiling. The bright blue of his gaze warmed her cold heart, yet those same eyes had been wary and unapproachable the night before when they’d had yet another of their fruitless discussions about moving to France.

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’ he said laughingly, quite unaware of the direction of her thoughts, and after that they ate in silence, as if the brief sharing of interest in the practice was all they had to talk about.

  It was quiet in the woods, with only birdsong breaking the silence, and Francine wished she could stay there for ever, but Ethan was checking the time and saying he would have to get back, and when she would have stayed he said firmly, ‘I’ll drop you off at Thimble Cottage. It isn’t a good idea to stay here on your own.’

  She sighed. ‘All right, but there is no one to fuss over me when I’m alone in Paris, is there?’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, and now the children aren’t with you when you’re there I don’t have a moment’s peace of mind. Can’t we keep the house just for holidays, and have you back here with us all the time? Surely you don’t enjoy spending every weekend on your own in that empty place.’

  ‘No, I don’t enjoy it as a matter of fact,’ she said soberly, ‘but as I’ve already given up most of my dream by living here during the week for the children’s sake, and now am helping you out at the surgery, which is a far cry from what I thought I would be doing when I inherited my parents’ house, I am not going to deny myself the short time that I spend there.’

  ‘Point taken,’ he said flatly. ‘And now, if you’ll please get in the car, I’ll drive you back.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AS THE weeks went by and a golden summer took its course, life fell into a routine that Francine was grateful for in a strange sort of way, with the surgery in the mornings, swimming down in the cove in the afternoons, or driving out into the countryside for a cream tea, and always being back in time for Kirstie and Ben being dropped off from the school bus.

  Concerned after watching Ethan arrive home late from the surgery night after night, she’d suggested that he dine with them to save him having to start cooking when he got in, and he hadn’t needed to be asked twice as it created the family feeling that there was so little of between Francine and him in the bleak summer of their estrangement. The four of them sitting around the dining table, chatting about what the day had held for each of them, were times to be cherished.

  There had been no further meetings like the one they’d had in the woods that day, or passionate nights that only led to further pain and uncertainty. They were both aware they had lawyers working in the background towards a divorce, and neither of them was on the point of changing their mind in spite of the fantastic chemistry between them that night in Paris.

  After they’d eaten they would separate and wouldn’t see each other until the next morning at the practice, and Ethan would console himself with the thought that at least they’d all been together for a short time.

  Kirstie and Ben were on holiday in Austria with the school for the first two weeks of the long summer break and Thimble Cottage felt empty without their lively chatter and constant music in the background.

  Ethan still came across each weekday evening to eat at her invitation, an invitation that she was having cause to regret as she was feeling low in body and spirit—body especially.

  He’d asked her a couple of times if she was all right and concealing her listlessness she’d assured him that she was fine, but the moment he’d gone she’d been curled up on the sofa asleep.

  It wasn’t affecting her work at the surgery thankfully, but it occurred to her that it might have done if she’d been there to work a full day instead of just the morning. She put her lethargy down to her sadness and anxiety. It was so hard pretending to be indifferent to Ethan, watching him walk away from her every night when in reality all she wanted to do was give in to the temptation of curling up in his arms.

  When Tom Appleby, the vicar’s teenage son, was passed on to her one morning when Ethan had been called out on an emergency, she was at her most competent in dealing with a serious chest and lung infection that required an immediate X-ray and strong antibiotics to avert pneumonia.

  His mother had been with him, anxious and caring, intending to waste no time in taking her son to Hunter’s Hill to be treated when Francine had explained what was needed.

  When they’d gone she’d thought supposing it had been Ben in that state and she’d been far away across the Channel? All right, Ethan would have been there for him, but they were equally responsible for their children and living separate lives wasn’t the ideal way of achieving that.

  Her parents had always been there in togetherness for her, a united loving presence in her life. Would they want her to fall short of their example?

  When Ethan returned from the callout she was in thoughtful mood but when she told him about young Tom Appleby, he put it down to that as she’d known him since he was a toddler.

  It was on the day that Kirstie and Ben were due back from Austria that Francine faced up to the fact that she was pregnant. She’d begun to suspect she might be for a while. The signs had been lining up in front of her like soldiers on parade, a couple of missed periods, tiredness, tender breasts, and when nausea was absent, ravenous hunger, none of which could easily be described as symptoms of her underlying sadness over the state of her marriage!

  They were all indications to a woman who had been pregnant before that she had conceived, and an
early-morning urine sample had confirmed it.

  When she’d discovered she was pregnant with Kirstie and Ben they had been moments of pure joy for Ethan and herself, but now it was going to be too complicated and upsetting for that kind of bliss. This precious child was going to be born into a shattered marriage because its mother had mistaken its father’s intentions and in her aching need for his love had given in to it on a balmy spring night in Paris.

  Today was Saturday and she was giving her trip to France a miss because she hadn’t seen the children for two weeks. Ethan had suggested they all go out for a meal in the evening to celebrate their return and she’d agreed.

  It would have been ungracious to refuse, but at the back of her mind would be the uncomfortable thought that she might start him thinking if she couldn’t face the food. As a doctor he would soon pick up on any physical changes in her if she wasn’t careful, and she didn’t want the pregnancy brought out into the open until she had adjusted to the new development in her life.

  She couldn’t see there being any joyful celebrations this time and felt that if no one else in her family wanted to live in the Paris house with her, this new little one was going to, and Ethan was going to find out she’d fallen pregnant only when her condition was so obvious that she couldn’t deny it.

  Ben and Kirstie were home and talking non-stop about the holiday. Ethan had been to meet them at the airport and having them home safe and well and their mother staying in Bluebell Cove for once over the weekend he would have been on top form if it hadn’t been for observing Francine’s listlessness when she thought no one was looking.

  Surely she wasn’t missing her weekend in France so much? he thought hollowly. She’d been delighted to have the children back and had a smile for him when he’d arrived with them, so what was the reason for the lethargy?