by Joanna Neil
‘Do you feel better now, in yourself?’
Sophie smiled. ‘I’m getting there. I’m just relieved to be back and to have Becky with me once more.’
Craig came to join her on the sofa, putting an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘I wish you had told me what you were going through. I’d have done whatever I could to help you.’
Sophie gave him a wavering smile, and he hugged her close. Ruby stood up, leaving them to talk for a while. She went to chat with the farmer and Mary, letting them know how much she appreciated their help.
‘It was really good to know that you were there when I needed you,’ she told them. She looked at Sam. ‘You, too, Sam. You were marvellous.’
‘You should have told me what was happening, back at the hospital,’ he said. ‘There’s no way I would have let you deal with this on your own.’
The farmer drank his tea and put his cup down on the table. ‘Any time you need me,’ he told her, ‘you only have to call. I’m glad you decided you wanted to stay on here. It’ll be great having you as a neighbour. You always had a soft spot for this place, didn’t you?’ He nodded to Mary. ‘Thanks for the tea, but I must be going. I’ve a field of corn waiting to be harvested.’
‘I’ll see you out,’ Mary said. ‘Then I’m going to stay for a while and talk to Sophie…’ she glanced at Ruby ‘…if that’s all right with you?’
‘You know you don’t need to ask, Mary. Stay as long as you like.’
Sophie and Craig were deep in conversation, with Becky sitting contentedly on her mother’s knee. Ruby turned to Sam and said, ‘Shall we walk outside for a while? I want to know how you gave up on the meeting so easily. I would never have expected you to do that.’
They walked down to the paddock, where the two Shetland ponies were grazing contentedly. Ruby stopped for a moment or two, going into the barn to find oat cakes, and when she came out, Sam was answering a call on his mobile phone.
‘You’re joking?’ she heard him say. ‘And what did they make of that?’ He listened. ‘Good heavens. I wasn’t expecting anything quite so dramatic.’ He gave a short laugh and then sobered. ‘Is there any news of the boy with meningitis?’ He nodded. ‘Thanks, James. You did a fantastic job.’
He cut the call, and Ruby sent him an enquiring glance. ‘What was all that about?’
She handed him an oat cake, and he looked at it doubtfully, asking, ‘What am I supposed to do with this? Do I eat it?’
‘Not unless you’re hoping to live like a Shetland pony,’ she said in a dry tone. The ponies began to trot towards them, tossing their heads in gentle expectation. ‘You feed it to them.’
‘Oh, I see.’ His mouth curved. ‘I was just kidding. We feed these to the horses back at home.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘So, I guess that was a call from the hospital. Is Nathan’s condition still the same?’
‘He’s a little better, if anything. His heart and respiration rate have improved slightly, and there are signs that the corticosteroids have reduced the inflammation around his brain. It will take a while for the antibiotics to do their job, of course, but there’s no sign of a rash, and in general he appears to be responding to treatment.’
She gave a long sigh. ‘That’s such a relief.’
‘Yes, it is.’
Ruby stroked both of the ponies for a moment or two and then said, ‘Shall we walk over to the summer house? I don’t think you’ve seen that part of the farm, have you? It’s at the far side of the pond, hidden from view by a pergola.’
They set off, arriving at a landscaped clearing. ‘It looks like a beautiful sunny position here,’ Sam said as they reached the cedar-wood building.
‘That’s what we thought. My grandparents chose this aspect specifically. We all like to come and sit out here sometimes…especially when the ducklings have hatched and they come waddling after their parents. They often trek from the pond to the stream across this stretch of land.’
She stepped onto the veranda of the summer house and opened up the glazed doors to reveal a cushioned hammock inside. The veranda was bordered by wooden rails, and to each side was a tub planted with trailing fuchsias and colourful surfinias.
‘I love being out here,’ she murmured, taking a seat on the hammock and inviting him to sit beside her. ‘It’s so peaceful, with just the sound of birdsong to keep me company. If I have things on my mind, I can sit here and think them through. It always helps.’
He sat down beside her. ‘You’re a very peaceful person, aren’t you?’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s what I like about you. I see things in straight lines, in black and white, and you’re soft pastels and undulating patterns. You manage somehow to blur the edges for me and show me where I’m going wrong.’
She let her glance trail over him. ‘But you don’t go wrong, do you? You have a focus, and it’s what you need to keep you on track. There’s nothing to say that you can’t follow a line, but sometimes the line might bend a little and take you along a more leisurely path.’ She hesitated. ‘Like the way you handled the restructuring of the A&E unit. You knew where you wanted to be, but to get there you had to meander a little in order to bring everyone on board. You managed it in the end, even if the executives threw a spanner in the works. You set out to streamline the unit, and you achieved your objective.’
‘There is one area where I went badly wrong.’ He frowned, his gaze watching her subdued expression. ‘I let you believe that your summary of my character was way off beam, but that wasn’t true. I just didn’t want to admit that you’d found my Achilles heel. That would leave me vulnerable, and you, of all people, by simply rejecting me, would have the power to reduce me to nothing. Then I realised that without you, I am nothing.’
He smiled, lifting his hand so that his fingers could trace the line of her cheek. ‘I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. I said I didn’t believe in commitment, and that was true enough, but only in so far as I’ve never met anyone I loved before this. I never had any reason to make a commitment to a woman.’
She gazed at him, her heart making a frantic little leap inside her chest. ‘You love me?’ she echoed.
He reached for her hand and cupped it between his palms. ‘I do love you,’ he murmured. ‘I love everything about you, and it grieves me that I’ve been fighting it for so long. I knew, almost the first time I saw you, that you were unique, special, the one woman who could take my heart, and, if you chose to, you could wring everything from me. I didn’t want to open myself to that kind of hurt…but in the end I’ve come to realise that life would be so much more painful without you.’
He looked into her eyes. ‘I love you, Ruby. You’re my soulmate, everything I’ve ever wanted, and you alone could make me into a whole person once again…because up to now I’ve been fragmented, missing that one special ingredient that would hold me together.’
She leaned towards him and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘I love you, Sam. I feel as though together we can move mountains, but all I really want to do is have you and hold you and share my life with you.’
He released a long, pent-up sigh. ‘You don’t know how good it is for me to hear you say that.’ He hesitated. ‘Will you marry me, Ruby?’
‘Yes, Sam, I will.’
They smiled into each other’s eyes for a long time, simply holding one another, leaning back in the hammock and feeling the gentle, soothing motion as it rocked to and fro.
Then Sam said quietly, ‘Would it be all right with you if we bought this house and farm together? You said you wanted to live here, and that’s what I want, too.’
‘Of course we can do that. I just never thought you’d take to somewhere as haphazard as this.’
‘I love this place. It’s so much like you. Natural, relaxed, peaceful and great fun.’ His mouth tilted at the corners. ‘We could even ask Craig if that puppy’s for sale…the one that stole your heart and filled me with jealousy.’
She laughed. �
�Is that why you said it was romantic mush? I was very upset about that, you know.’
He gave a shrug. ‘I admit, I’m not perfect.’ He had the grace to look sheepish. ‘But it occurred to me that if you wanted to work part-time, you’d be able to take care of him…and maybe Sophie and Becky would like to play a part in that, too, especially if they decide to live nearby.’
‘That sounds like a wonderful plan…except that I probably won’t have a job at all, will I? Didn’t the trust board decide to close us down? You didn’t go to the meeting, so I imagine it all fell through.’
He sent her a considering look. ‘Actually, I think we may have won after all.’
She raised her brows at that. ‘What makes you think so?’
‘I asked James to step in for me at the meeting. It was a lot to ask of him, I know, because he’s only an SHO, but he’s turning out to be a very capable young man. I gave him your file, and I also handed him my analysis of how we’d made savings and obtained more funding.’
‘So James went in and managed to sway them?’
‘Not exactly. Apparently a whole load of protesters marched on the Heritage, where the meeting was taking place, and demonstrated their feelings about the threatened closure. The press were there, too, and the executives were more than a little taken aback.’
Ruby was puzzled. ‘Who organised the protest? It was very sudden, wasn’t it? Did it have anything to do with you?’
‘Only indirectly. Partly, it was a reaction from a lot of people who came to the open day. I think some of the staff at the hospital let it be known that this morning’s meeting had a negative outcome.’ He leaned back in the hammock, twisting around to face her more squarely. ‘The rest of it might have had something to do with my brother.’
Ruby frowned. ‘I don’t think I follow.’
‘I took your advice the other day,’ Sam explained, ‘and phoned my brother to see if he wanted to come down here for the fund-raiser. He couldn’t manage it, but he was really interested in what was going on. My parents have always funded the local hospitals, you see, because they were so appreciative of the way I was looked after when I was taken ill. My brother was considering setting up a trust fund himself along the same lines, and he asked me if I would think about joining him in that. I said I would, provided that the A&E unit remained safe.’
‘So…let me get this straight…was your brother the one who notified the press?’
He nodded. ‘I believe so. I rang Robert this morning when I came out of the meeting with the hospital chiefs and told him what had happened. He must have phoned a few friends and passed the word around. Then he talked to my parents and explained the situation to them. According to James, who was at the second meeting this afternoon, the trust board were taken aback by the strength of feeling at the demonstration. Then they received a phone call from my parents, who said that they would consider increasing the level of funding if the A&E unit was saved. After that, it didn’t take much for them to reconsider their decision.’
‘Wow.’ Ruby stared at him. ‘It pays to have family in high places, doesn’t it?’ She leaned towards him and nestled into the circle of his arms. ‘So you phoned your brother about coming to stay at the house…that was a step in the right direction towards getting your family together, wasn’t it?’
His mouth curved. ‘More than a step. Robert said he was thinking about setting up a base nearer to London. He loves Scotland, but the children are of an age where they’ll be starting secondary school soon, and he and his wife want to bring them back here. They’ll keep the house in Scotland as a holiday home and live for a while on our family estate. He said he wants to keep in touch with me on a regular basis.’
‘I’m really pleased for you, Sam. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Robert also wants to meet this wonderful woman who’s been my inspiration over these last few months.’
‘Hmm. I can’t wait to meet your family. I wonder how the boys will take to the Shetland ponies? Most children love them on sight.’
He studied her, his blue-grey eyes gleaming with love and desire. ‘More to the point, perhaps we ought to start issuing wedding invitations right away. They’ll need as much notice as they can get if we’re to be married this side of Christmas.’
Her lips parted in a soft smile as she gazed up at him. ‘Before Christmas? Is that what you want?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said on a positive note. ‘I want to make you my bride, and I don’t want to wait a minute longer than I have to.’
‘I think we’re talking commitment with a capital C,’ she said on a husky laugh. ‘Are you quite sure you’re ready for that?’
‘Quite sure,’ he murmured, folding her into his arms and kissing her soundly. ‘Let me show you exactly how committed I am.’
Ruby snuggled into his embrace. She was exactly where she wanted to be…for a lifetime.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Joanna Neil 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4089-1789-3
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
About The Author
Other Books By
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Copyright