Caroline Anderson, Sara Morgan, Josie Metcalfe, Jennifer Taylor

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 01 (lit)

  ‘No!’ His voice was sharp. ‘I knew this was going to be difficult because I knew you would make that association, but it isn’t true. This isn’t about our relationship. I’m a doctor, Amy, and I’m looking at your symptoms.’

  ‘Well, you obviously haven’t looked very closely because there’s no way I…’ Her voice tailed off and she looked at him. ‘I can’t be. You know I can’t be.’

  ‘I don’t know that. I do know that fertility is an unpredictable thing. I know that we’ve been making love for almost a month now with no contraception.’

  ‘I can’t be pregnant!’

  ‘Then do the test and we will know. Don’t cry, please, don’t cry.’ He cursed softly and pulled her into his arms. ‘Mi dispiace, tesoro. Don’t cry.’

  Amy pulled away from him and wiped her hand over her face, furious with herself for being so emotional. What was happening to her? She’d never been the hysterical, weepy type. ‘All right. I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it if that’s what you want me to do.’ She sniffed and held out her hand. ‘Do you have it?’

  He hesitated and then reached into his jacket and pulled out the test. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  She stared at the test in her hand. ‘Would you mind if I did it on my own?’ Her voice shook and he gave a sigh.

  ‘Don’t push me away, Amy. Don’t push me away, tesoro. Not now when we are just learning how to share.’

  Amy hesitated. She wasn’t sure that she could actually do a pregnancy test in company, even when that company was Marco. ‘The thing is,’ she said honestly, ‘even though I know it can’t be positive, I want it to be, so badly. I—I just need a few moments…’

  ‘I understand that.’ Marco hugged her tightly. ‘We’ll compromise. Do the test and then call me.’

  So that he could offer comfort.

  And she was going to need comfort, she knew she was.

  Amy closed the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the bath, the packet in her hand unopened. Why was she even hesitating? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the answer, because she did. So why was she treating the test as if it were a bomb that was going to blow her life apart?

  She didn’t really think she was going to be pregnant, did she? Surely she wasn’t really that stupid? That delusional? Had she really, somehow, allowed a tiny flicker of hope to creep in and contaminate her common sense?

  With an impatient sound she stood up and unwrapped the test.

  A few minutes later she was still staring at the stick, tears trickling unnoticed down her cheeks. The tiled bathroom floor was cold under her bare feet but she didn’t notice that either.

  ‘Amy?’ His tone impatient and concerned by equal degrees, Marco pushed open the door without waiting for an invitation. ‘Talk to me, amore. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even suggested that you do that test. It was thoughtless of me and—’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’ Her voice was a hoarse whisper and she felt suddenly dizzy. ‘Marco, I’m pregnant. I’m having our baby.’

  She heard him swear softly and then felt his arms slide around her and support her as her legs gave way.

  ‘So now I believe in happy endings.’ Nick glanced between them and smiled. ‘I’m pleased for you both. Really.’

  Marco laughed in disbelief. ‘I just told you that I want to leave the practice and return to Italy. It’s not exactly a happy ending for you.’

  Nick looked at him for a long moment and Amy saw something pass between the two men. An understanding. They’d shared so much. Loss. Pain. Pride at the way the practice had developed.

  ‘Life moves on. Things change and we have to change with them.’ Nick shrugged. ‘We set this place up together and a lot of the success is down to you, Marco. The practice will go on without you. Grow. Change. I can understand that you and Amy want to go back to Italy.’

  ‘Penhally will always remind Amy of her past.’ Marco slid a protective arm around her and Amy looked up at him.

  ‘And you miss Italy.’

  ‘Sì. That is true.’ He smiled at her. ‘I miss Italy. I feel like the Maserati. In this weather, my engine suffers.’

  ‘Well.’ Nick cleared his throat. ‘On a practical note, Adam Donnelly is due to start tomorrow, as you know, so we won’t be left high and dry.’

  ‘We can stay for a few months if that would help.’

  Nick shook his head. ‘I don’t want you to do that. You’ve managed to sort things out and I’m pleased about that. You’ve no idea how pleased. Now I want you to go and get on with your lives. Get ready for that baby.’

  ‘You’re very generous.’ Marco’s voice was gruff. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Prego. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?’

  ‘And what about you, my friend?’

  A shadow flickered in Nick’s eyes. ‘I carry on building the practice. Supporting the community. Kate’s resigned.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Despite the conversation they’d had, Amy couldn’t help feeling shocked. She hadn’t actually believed that Kate would do it.

  ‘And you accepted her resignation?’ Marco’s gaze was steady and Amy held her breath. It was the nearest any of them had come to asking Nick directly about his relationship with Kate.

  ‘It’s disappointing for the practice but she wants to take a new direction in her career. It would be wrong of me to talk her out of it.’

  Work. He only talked about work. Nothing personal.

  Nothing about missing Kate or feeling anything for Kate.

  For a moment Amy was tempted to step forward and shake him. Didn’t he know how Kate felt about him? And was he really pretending that he felt nothing for Kate? She knew that wasn’t true. Not after the scene she’d witnessed on New Year’s Eve.

  ‘Nick—’

  ‘People are complicated,’ Marco said quietly, closing his hand over Amy’s to silence her. ‘Relationships are complicated. And not all the obstacles to happiness come from outside and can be solved. Sometimes they are inside us and only time can shift them.’

  For a moment Nick didn’t respond. ‘And sometimes time just isn’t enough. Good luck, the two of you. Stay in touch. I look forward to holidays in Italy.’

  They walked away from the surgery and Marco turned to look back.

  ‘You’re going to miss it, aren’t you?’ Amy slid her hand into his and he turned and smiled at her.

  ‘I’m ready to move on. Do something else. I suppose I feel a little guilty about leaving Nick, especially as Kate is leaving, too. Whatever is going on between them, she has been a big part of the Penhally Bay Surgery for a long time.’

  ‘She would have stayed if he’d told her that he loved her.’

  ‘Nick has far too many issues after Annabel’s death. He isn’t ready to think about another relationship. Perhaps he never will be.’

  Amy sighed. ‘Why didn’t you make him admit that he is in love with Kate?’

  ‘I’m not sure that he knows it himself. And I’m not a doctor of relationships.’

  Amy slipped her arm into his. ‘I think you are. You cured ours. I can’t believe this has happened. I arrived in Penhally a month ago to ask you to give me a divorce and now here I am back with you and pregnant. It’s like a dream.’

  ‘But a good dream.’

  ‘Of course.’ She reached up and kissed him. ‘It’s like being given a second chance. When I first met you I was so in love and then it all went so wrong. I didn’t believe our relationship could work if I was infertile because I’d seen what it did to my parents.’

  ‘It isn’t about fertility, it’s about love. Your parents didn’t share the love that we have for each other.’

  ‘No. I think you’re right about that.’

  ‘You know I’m right.’ He slid his arms around her waist. ‘I’m always right.’

  ‘And so modest. So what happens now?’

  ‘We make our home in Italy. The sun will put some colour in your cheeks and you will grow so accustomed to being loved that there will be no room fo
r doubt in your mind. And you will speak Italian and learn how to make pasta from scratch.’

  Amy laughed. ‘And Penhally?’

  He glanced around him, his eyes warm. ‘This place has been a part of our lives. But it’s time to move on.’ His gaze moved back to hers. ‘Will you move on with me, tesoro? Build a new life? Do you trust me enough to give up everything you know?’

  ‘Yes.’ She answered without hesitation. ‘The only thing I don’t want to give up is you. You’re all that matters.’

  Marco gave a slow smile of satisfaction. ‘Finally, we agree on something.’

  And he bent his head and kissed her.

  THE DOCTOR’S BRIDE BY SUNRISE

  BY JOSIE METCALFE

  Josie Metcalfe lives in Cornwall with her longsuffering husband. They have four children. When she was an army brat, frequently on the move, books became the only friends that came with her wherever she went. Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends, and hates saying goodbye at the end of a book—but there are always more characters in her head, clamouring for attention until she can’t wait to tell their stories.

  Recent titles by the same author:

  TWINS FOR A CHRISTMAS BRIDE

  A MARRIAGE MEANT TO BE

  SHEIKH SURGEON, SURPRISE BRIDE

  A FAMILY TO COME HOME TO

  A VERY SPECIAL PROPOSAL

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘PULL over, Mike…fast! I’ve lost him,’ Maggie said tersely as the monitor shrilled a warning.

  Automatically, she braced herself as the ambulance veered off the road and onto a rutted verge then jerked to a halt, but her concentration was focused entirely on Walter Dinnis and the fact that he no longer had a pulse.

  With the ease of too much practice she delivered a precordial thump to the centre of his chest and began the compressions that would keep oxygenated blood circulating around his brain and vital organs, knowing that Mike would be joining her at any moment.

  The back doors swung open and her fellow ambulance officer leapt in to join her, positioning himself to take over cardiac thrusts on their elderly patient without needing to be asked. That left her free to peel the gel off the backing strips and position them on the retired fisherman’s skinny chest, ready for the electrodes.

  ‘Prepare to shock,’ bleated the automated voice, and Mike held both hands clear while the machine discharged 200 joules through the uselessly quivering heart.

  ‘Damn! Back into v-fib. No viable rhythm,’ Maggie muttered under her breath. ‘Come on, Walter. You can do it,’ she said encouragingly as the machine charged up again, the high-pitched whine still audible over the sound of Mike’s rhythmic counting as he performed the lifesaving thrusts. ‘Two hundred again, Mike. Clear!’

  The jagged trace returned again without any semblance of order, telling them both that there was no blood being pumped into any of the elderly man’s vital organs.

  ‘No! Don’t do this!’ she said fiercely, an image in her head of the white face of his terror-stricken wife watching them take her husband away. Betty would be following them at any moment in their daughter’s car and the last thing she needed was to come up the hill out of Penhally and find the ambulance pulled up at the side of the road. The man had survived working his whole life in one of the most dangerous professions in the world…he’d been a familiar figure around Penhally all her life…and it all came down to this moment.

  ‘You’re not going to die on me!’ she told him fiercely. ‘Charging to 360 and…clear!’

  The wiry body arched up alarmingly as the jolt of electricity was discharged into his heart, but this time, after several seconds of ominous silence, the blessed sound of sinus rhythm was restored.

  ‘And make sure it stays that way, Walter, or Betty will never forgive me,’ Maggie muttered sternly to her patient as Mike closed the doors again and made his way back to the driving seat. She folded the printout strip detailing the successful attempt at cardioversion into Walter’s file. ‘Let’s get him to St Piran’s…asap!’ she suggested with a swift glance towards her colleague.

  Out of the corner of the windscreen she caught sight of a jumble of bright colours behind some gorse bushes and turned her focus on them with a frown. It wasn’t until Mike was pulling back onto the road that she suddenly realised what it was she’d been looking at.

  ‘A kid’s bicycle…that’s what it was,’ she whispered under her breath, then smiled when she turned back to check Walter’s oxygen perfusion, glad to see that it was once more above ninety per cent and he was conscious again.

  The expression in his eyes was dazed and confused and she quickly set about reassuring him, but at the same time the image of that brightly painted bike against the sere winter grass stayed with her.

  In fact, now that she thought about it, there had been more than one of them in the field behind the high stone wall, and she wondered idly what they were doing this far out of Penhally. The road was steep and winding and the riders would definitely have had to walk their bikes for most of the distance—no mean feat for a youngster.

  By the size of the bikes, the children they belonged to weren’t very old but, then, this was half-term week for all the local schools and the whole group of them was probably exploring or building some sort of den in the corner of one of the fields or under one of the familiar trees that had been permanently deformed by the sharp bite of winter gales and the prevailing winds.

  At that age, the youngsters were unlikely to be up to anything dangerous, but they could definitely be up to mischief if the traditional holiday-time rise in callouts was anything to go by. In spite of the fact that it was still mid-February, they’d already had to transport one lad injured in a fall on the rocks below the lighthouse and another rescued from an unplanned swim off the harbour wall at half-tide.

  Walter’s heart behaved itself for the rest of their journey and as they did a speedy handover at St Piran’s A and E, Maggie marvelled at the way a brain could function on so many levels at once. Especially a female brain, they’d been told during one set of lectures during her paramedic training. The males in the room had jeered, but she’d proved it time and again when a male colleague had been concentrating on monitoring one set of injuries, only to completely lose track of other emerging symptoms.

  She had certainly tried to make sure that she kept her standards up, trying not to miss anything significant, no matter how small, but that didn’t stop her brain from cataloguing something extraneous…such as those bicycles…and filing it away.

  Now they were on the return journey, providing unofficial transport back to Penhally for Maureen, another ambulance service worker, who’d been released after day-case surgery for the repair of an inguinal hernia.

  And there were those bikes again, still there behind the gorse bushes, even though it was getting dark.

  ‘Some kids are going to be in trouble with their mums when they get back late tonight,’ she murmured under her breath, while Mike and Maureen chatted with the ease of long-time colleagues.

  She could easily understand how the time could get away from the youngsters while they were enjoying themselves, with the February nights still drawing in far too fast, but she could all too easily sympathise with the mothers who would be worrying about them. These narrow roads weren’t ideal for cycling at any time of the day, but after dark they could be lethal, few of them having any street lighting once you left the town itself.

  ‘Door to door, ladies,’ Mike announced as he drew up in a parking space outside the surgery and hopped out to unlock the double doors at the back of the ambulance with a flourish before dropping the steps. ‘Come on, gorgeous. Time to get home and put your feet up while the old man makes you some tea.’ He leant a little closer and added, ‘And you tell him the surgeon said he’s not allowed to get fruity until you’ve had your check-up.’

  ‘You watch it, Mike Barber, or I’ll tell Brian what you said,’ Maureen warned, but there was a gleam of humour in her eyes. Her years
in the service, first as a technician, like Mike, then as office staff, when the children had started arriving, had obviously taught her not to take any nonsense. ‘My Brian’ll soon sort your cheek out.’

  ‘You know he would, too,’ Maggie commented, when the older woman had walked gingerly across the car park to where her husband was waiting next door outside the front of Althorp’s with a car full of children. ‘And you wouldn’t want to be messing with someone Brian’s size. Have you seen the muscles on him? It must be something to do with all that physical labour in the boatyard.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of muscles of my own,’ Mike pointed out, flexing his biceps inside his grass-green uniform, stung by what he obviously saw as a slight on his manhood.

  ‘Yeah.’ She hid her grin when he rose to the bait, the way he always did, ‘But you buy those sorts of muscles with a few months of gym membership. His are the real thing, built up over a lifetime of use.’

  She continued tidying the last few items away before they locked up and set off back to the depot for the end of their shift. With any luck they wouldn’t have another callout before it was time to clean out their vehicle and hand over for the night.

  ‘Hey, Maggie! Mike!’ called a voice just as the two of them were walking forward to the cab.

  ‘Mrs Furse…hello,’ Maggie called back, then walked towards the motherly figure when she beckoned, pleased to see someone who had been one of her own mother’s dearest friends.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you to call me Hazel now that you’re all grown up?’ she chided, giving Maggie a swift hug. ‘I haven’t seen the two of you for weeks, except for fleeting glimpses as you’ve been on the road somewhere, so I’m glad I caught you. Have you got to leave straight away or have you got time to come in for a drink? You really ought to meet our new locum. He’s—’

  ‘A drink, Hazel?’ Mike interrupted gleefully. ‘You wicked woman. What are you suggesting?’